She had a million more questions for the man, and she half hoped he’d call again, although the thought of it made her empty stomach turn. She wondered why he’d called her instead of another reporter for a bigger paper. The timbre of his voice had resonated in a strange way too. It wasn’t that he had an accent or anything distinguishable; it was kind of an average voice. Slightly mechanical, maybe.
Charlie Keller met her by the office door.
“I asked Josh Anderson to come up,” he said.
Serenity rolled her eyes. “Great, Charlie. He’s always hitting on me.”
Charlie lowered his voice as he led her into the conference room, “You’ll be sorry the day dirty old men don’t hit on you. But you’re too young to know that right now.”
Josh was already ensconced in the boardroom/interview room. He had a Seahawks mug of burned-on-the-bottom-of-the-pot newsroom coffee and a rolled-up copy of the Seattle Times.
“No mention of any missing girl,” he said, thumping the paper on the back of a chair.
“Maybe no one knows she’s missing,” Serenity said, taking a seat across from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office detective. He was handsome, confident. Maybe a little too cocky, she thought. Her eyes landed on his open shirt collar, and she wondered why he felt compelled to expose that tuft of slightly graying chest hair.
“Charlie says you got a nasty crank call,” he said, eyeing her.
She nodded at the understatement. The call had been nasty indeed.
“If it was a crank,” she said.
“Tell the detective what he said to you.” Charlie fished a powdered donut from a box that Serenity suspected was left over from the day before, when the ad staff had brought in the fried pastries to kick off their “Donut Make Sense to Advertise” promotion. White confectioner’s sugar drifted like snow onto his robin’s-egg-blue tie, but Charlie didn’t appear to notice.
“Look,” she said, “I’m really not comfortable relaying all of the disgusting things that creep said to me.”
“I can take it,” Josh said. His tone was breezy, almost tauntingly so.
Serenity let out a sigh. “Of course you can.”
“Tell him,” Charlie finally said, dusting the sugar from his tie.
She took out her notepad and hurled what that man had said to her across the table.
Sex toy.
Kitchen rolling pin.
Duct tape.
Wire restraints.
Slice ’n dice.
The last one caught the detective’s attention.
“Sounds like a commercial on late-night cable.”
“Yeah, if your channel is Hell TV. Seriously, Detective Anderson—”
“Call me Josh,” he said.
He was hitting on her again. Charlie winked at Serenity—at least, she thought he had.
“Okay. Josh,” she said. “The man was a freak and enjoyed every minute of the call. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was masturbating while he talked.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me, either. Get his number?”
“Do you mean did I write it down so I could call him back for more of his vile talk?”
Josh narrowed his brow. He seemed to almost enjoy making her squirm a little. “No, that’s not what I mean. On your cell phone. Did you capture his number?”
“He called my landline. And no, there was no number. ‘Private caller’ was the designation that came up.”
Serenity picked at a cinnamon twist but determined it was beyond stale. Almost petrified, she thought.
“Did you notice anything about his voice—anything that might help ID him? You know, while the conversation is fresh.”
Serenity thought for a moment while the two men looked on. “His voice was odd.”
“Odd?” Josh asked.
“Yes. Kind of bland.”
The detective pressed her for details. “Old or young?”
She studied him with a prolonged stare, in a manner that was meant to show she was doing so. “Old. About your age.”
Charlie reached for another donut, an attempt to mitigate the tension in the room—or simply because those donuts were pretty tasty. Sugar and all.
Josh’s face with a little red, but he tried not to let on that the insult had struck a nerve.
Almost immediately, Serenity amended her answer.
“I didn’t mean that he was an old man like you,” she said. “I mean mature. You know . . . someone middle-aged.”
Josh Anderson grinned. The pretty young reporter had challenged him a little, and he liked it. If she was a little sorry that she hurt his feelings, that meant that she was interested.
All the pretty girls were.
“Every time I do this, I sound like Mickey Mouse,” Melody said, setting down the voice changer while her husband impatiently looked on. “I just can’t do it.”
Sam took the device and moved the slide control, modulating timbre and pitch.
“You can. And you will,” he said. “It just takes practice. First time I did it, I thought I sounded like Darth Vader.” He pushed the headset back at her, and she took it.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll practice.” She dialed Sam’s cell number, and he answered.
“Hi,” she said.
“Slide the settings,” he said.
“Okay. Here I am.”
Her voice sounded unsure but more masculine. Not quite an automated digital tone but something less than human.
“Lower,” he said. “But just a bit—don’t overdo it, babe.”
Melody moved the control almost imperceptibly.
“How’s this?” she asked in a voice that sounded distinctly completely male.
“Love it,” he said. “Now, say what I want you to say.”
She looked down at some notes that she’d written to remind her just how she was supposed to play it.
“You’re a hot little bitch,” she said, hesitating.
“Tell her,” he said.
“I like that top you wore the other day. The one that showed off your body.”
He looked at her from across the room. One hand was in his pants; the other clamped the phone to his ear.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked.
“Because you deserve it, bitch,” she said.
“I’m going to hang up right now.”
“Hang up on me, bitch, and you die.”
He took his phone from his ear and motioned for her to come. Melody took off the headset and started toward him.
“Pull off your panties,” he said. “You’re a very good student, and you need a reward. I got something for you.”
Melody