by RJ Scott
“And Adam Gray as well?” Logan asked.
I scribbled a question mark on the final Post-it and stuck it above the pictures of Peter Sandoval, Mayor Gerald Stokes, and bank owner Joe Dwyer.
“Adam’s throat had been cut by a heavy-duty knife, so deep that it left marks on the bone. The similarities between that and the mayor and the victims in the sinkhole means we need to find out who this is. Before anyone else dies.”
“What about what Sandoval said about the boys? This is the first we’ve heard about boys. Does he mean his own children?” He pointed to photos at the end. “Or is it the boys in the photos of the youth club? Joe Dwyer’s boys? Casey?”
I wish I could give answers because I felt like this was getting out of control. Were we searching for one person or more? Were the murders related? What about these boys?
“We should widen our search to include missing boys.” I stopped and shook my head. “We have no idea of age range, location, possible motive, or if Sandoval made that part of his admission up. Whoever this is could be responsible for not only these three deaths but a minimum of five missing women, plus the boys Sandoval mentioned.”
“The names in Adam’s shed, Connor, Damien, Mitchell, you think those are the boys?”
“And Casey?” Drew said tentatively. “Was he one of these boys? Held somewhere, escaped?”
“Does Casey’s disappearance fit any profile you’re working here?” Sawyer sounded so damned hopeful.
Profile? We were just as likely to play connect the freaking dots in this case.
Bryan had been joining in through Skype. Avery was watching me work with her arms over her chest. We exchanged glances, and for a few brief moments, I knew none of us would be able to profile anything here.
“There is no profile,” Bryan said. “The closest we can get, if we assume this is one person, is that they are chaotic. It’s horrific, and there’s no cohesion, but it could be stages in their life that made them murder a certain demographic, or we could have a copycat, not someone copying MO, but just with a thirst to kill, who feels justified in doing so because someone they look to as a mentor is encouraging them. If this is one serial killer responsible for all this, then his profile is irrational, pointless, murdering for the enjoyment of killing. Providing justice where he thinks it is needed.”
Sawyer nodded. “And that is what scares me the most.”
I headed back to the hotel with Avery when there was nothing else we could do for the night. Avery went into the office, but I went straight to Josh, who was waiting in the kitchen doorway after hearing us come in. We met in the middle, and he held me as gently as he might have held fragile glass. It was obvious to me that I hadn’t broken any ribs, but I ached like a motherfucker, and I was so grateful he didn’t pin me to the wall and kiss the hell out of me.
Although if he had pinned me to the wall, then I wouldn’t have pushed him away. Right now I wanted a kiss more than my pain level allowed.
“Do you want to talk about this morning?” he asked.
“We did that. It’s done.”
“Then let’s go to bed. You look beat. Have you taken pain meds—?”
“Lucas?” Avery called from behind us. “We have another ID on the final remains in the sinkhole. They tested it against what you sent them.” Her tone was soft, regretful, and I knew what she was going to say before she even said it. Grandpa Toby would be devastated if he understood what was happening in one of his lucid moments.
“It’s Carmen?”
“Yeah, they’re sure they’ve identified the remains of Carmen Kreuger.”
Twenty-Two
Josh
Lucas hadn’t been the same since that fateful day when we’d talked about the information I’d dragged up or the name Carmen Kreuger. He’d gone pale and vanished into his room. I hadn’t seen him that night, and he was gone before I got up the next morning. That became the pattern for a week.
I found him in the kitchen with local history books strewn around him, and for a moment, I thought he would tell me to leave, but then I made hot chocolate, and as he piled up the books, he talked.
“I wish I knew what was happening here.”
He was spending a lot of time at the PD, and over there, they had a whole timeline of the missing women and their links to the clinic outside Attica.
I shuffled a few books to one side so I could put his chocolate down. He didn’t stop me from pushing them. Instead, he moved his chair back and tugged me close, burying his face in my belly and resting his hands on my hips.
“Hey,” he said and nuzzled the material up so he could kiss my skin.
“Missed you,” I said and carded my hands through his hair.
He sighed against me and then shifted me again so I ended up straddling him on the chair, thanking whoever would listen that it was solid and could hold our combined weight. I leaned forward awkwardly. He was attempting to kiss me, and when none of it was happening, he smiled up at me. I missed his smile so much.
“There’s not much more I can do here. Can I come to your room?”
“You never have to ask.” Truly, he never had to ask.
We stood, him gripping me so I could balance, and managed to get one kiss in as he cleared up the books, a whole heap of maps new and old that he rolled and secured with a band.
“What are you looking for?” I asked as I held one end of the roll for him as he slid on a cover and zipped it.
“Something that Peter Sandoval said to me, that Adam found something. I was looking for anywhere that could have held Casey and potentially others.”
“Others?”
He appeared to hesitate a moment, and then with a sigh, he tucked the maps under his arm. “Other boys. I’ll show you.” He unlocked the poker room door, ushering me in, and unlocked the case where everything was being kept tucked away. I noticed immediate changes. The boards had been rearranged radically. Pictures of the six women, each neatly labeled, and every single one of them connected in red to the clinic. I paused at the photo of Carmen Kreuger and read the labels: aged 40, vanished in 1982, pregnant.
“The baby was Grandpa Toby’s,” Lucas murmured. “They argued. He said he didn’t want other children, that she wasn’t his wife, that she was nothing but a liar and the baby… we think she went to Belmont Pines, and then he doesn’t recall anything else. At least, not anymore. Whoever killed her and put her in that sinkhole did the same to the other victims, including Olivia Matthews, who’d come to the area, searching for her friend Jessica. And then there’s this.”
I followed to where he was pointing: four boys, none of them much older than Harry. Ice flooded my veins, and my breath stopped. Their names and the fact that they had vanished between 2002 and 2009 were in pen, but that was where the information stopped, and on the right, a face that haunted me and the oldest in age on the list. Casey McGuire.
“Is it the same person who did all this?”
“These names were scratched into a wall at Adam Gray’s place. It’s the only way we think we know who the boys are. The ones that Sandoval talked about, I mean. Whether it was Adam Gray killing boys, who the hell knows? Was Adam Gray a killer? In which case, how do we explain Stokes, Dwyer, and Sandoval because they all died after Adam? Did one of them kill Adam?”
“This scares me. I mean, it scares me. Apart from Casey, these kids are the same age as Harry.”
“These boys were all born at Belmont Pines, aside from Casey of course, then fostered out or adopted. That place is our connection. We added Casey as possible because it could be his name on the scratched list that Adam had.”
“Was Adam connected to Belmont Pines?”
“No. We’ve tried every avenue, gone through logbooks, tracked his movements as much as we can, but his army record means we have a good handle on where he was at particular times, and none of it adds up.”
“Have you looked at the staff? Visitors?”
Lucas sighed. “We have a pool of thousands.” He smoothe
d out a huge spread of paper that filled the dining table, so many names. “There is a dedicated task force working out of Corning, but we have nothing, except photos going back a long way, each one vetted, each one accounted for.”
“And the maps?”
“Examining historical against modern, maybe we’re overlooking something obvious. Why were the women in the sinkhole? Where are the boys, if they’re even part of this?”
Frustration had given way to exhaustion, and he slumped.
“You need to sleep.”
He tried to kiss me but missed the mark, and I chuckled as I made sure everything was locked up tight, then headed to my apartment. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. It took a visit to Harry’s room, poking my head around the corner of his door and watching the rhythmic movement of his breathing, and then checking all doors were locked, then texting my sister to make sure Calabresi’s was secure, until I could settle.
For the first time ever, Chloe didn’t reply with sarcasm, just a simple “done.”
And even then, it was only after I pushed a chair against Harry’s door so I would hear when he got up, and then pulled a sleepy Lucas into my arms and held him close, that I slept.
When I woke up, Lucas was gone, but the note on the pillow, on a page torn from the pad in the kitchen, said “thank you for last night” and was signed off with “speak later, love, Lucas.”
Avery was in the poker room, staring at photos and maps, a phone tucked under her ear, talking to someone about roads or directions. I went into the room, and she didn’t stop me, and for the longest time, I stared at Casey’s image. Losing him had been devastating for Drew and the beginning of the end for me, him and Sawyer and also for this town. I followed the board around, a whole montage of photos from newspapers, some with red circles over people’s faces. I peered at them closely, a lot of them real seventies shots complete with scraggly beards, wide-collared shirts, and flares. This Belmont Pines had its share of good and bad news stories. A child saved against the tragic death of a mother or a protest that had gotten out of hand.
Something stood out in one of the photos, a photo of a group with the headline “open day for potential adopting opportunities.” I kept looking back at it but wasn’t sure what it was that made me take a second look. Familiarity in all this madness was exactly what I didn’t need.
“Lucas is at the PD with Sawyer, and I need to meet Bryan up in Corning and lock up,” Avery announced, and committing the photo to memory, I went out with her and headed out to find breakfast for everyone, but when I took coffees and pastries, there was no sign of either of them or indeed anyone aside from Tate.
“They’re all out at Adam Gray’s place. I’ll have those here for when they get back if it helps?” He gave me those puppy dog eyes that inevitably won me over because I knew they’d be gone with the various people that spent time shooting the shit with Tate at reception. Taking one for myself, I passed over the tray of coffees and the bag of pastries, and then there was nothing to do but go back to the hotel and contact the investor who’d been interested in buying the place. I wasn’t sure if he’d still be interested. After all, this was a town with storm clouds hovering overhead, literally and figuratively. I should talk to Harry first, and he was over with Marco, so maybe for now, I’d leave the hotel on the back burner. I certainly couldn’t do anything with the FBI taking up all the rooms and the poker room.
“Joshua!”
I’d so nearly made it to the hotel, just a few more steps and I would have been safe inside. I groaned. Only one person called me by my full name with that imperious tone, and it was Grandma Garton and her insatiable need to interfere in everyone’s love life. I wished that Logan hadn’t found Drew, because at least then the heat had been off me. Not that I really wished that, because they were so damn happy together, but yeah, some days I didn’t want to hear about how I was messing up by not finding the right woman, or man, or how Harry was a little out of control.
And I really didn’t want her to start delivering her trademark casseroles and cakes to me instead of Logan.
“Mrs. Garton.” I was polite as I turned to face her and wondered why it was that she was still so invested in matchmaking when she was having her own romance with a grinning Doc. Asshole knew I was about to get an earful of words from the woman on his arm, and he winked at me.
Grandma Garton went straight for the jugular. “Did you know your young man and that Marco child are down at the reservoir?”
My heart beat faster; my chest tightened. No, I didn’t. That was too far from home, and with a murderer hanging around town, I’d told him not to go down there. He’d promised he wouldn’t. He was so grounded when he got back home. The chill of what I’d seen last night, all those photos on the wall and Casey’s image as well, and all I wanted to do was get Harry to stay in his room. Hell, I’d watched him go into Calabresi’s from my front door.
“Yes, ma’am,” I lied.
She turned up her nose at that at that, and it was clear she didn’t believe my carefully crafted lie, even if I held her gaze steady.
“You think that is wise, with everything that is going on?”
“I have reinforced that to him—”
Grandma Garton patted my arm. “I have a lot of affection for that poor motherless child. You must find it so hard.”
That got my back up immediately, but it wasn’t the first time I’d been reminded that Harry’s mom wasn’t here in town, and all I did was smile.
“He has a mom,” I said.
She sniffed. “You need to find someone and make a real family.”
“The two of us are a real family, and Harry is a good kid.”
“Still, best that he stays at home like the other children in town.”
“Have a good afternoon.” I wanted this conversation to end, but after all these years, I was still that same polite young man who’d been brought up to respect his elders.
“How is Sadie? Do you hear from her often? I think it’s so neglectful that she—”
“Harry and Sadie speak often. Everything is fine there, Mrs. Garton. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
I caught Doc’s gaze, and he grimaced at me with sympathy. When I made it inside, door closed behind me, I watched as she continued chatting and Doc nodding in that vacant way a person has when they’re not really listening. She was probably talking about poor motherless Harry and how shit I was as a parent, and how unhappy he must be.
Well, she could fuck right off because I was a good father, and I would be coming down on Harry like a ton of bricks. I waited until they moved away, then strode across to the street to Calabresi’s. Nonna was behind the counter, Luca was brewing coffee, and Chloe was wiping glasses.
“Do you know where Marco is?” I demanded, and Chloe peered up at me over the rims of her glasses.
“With Harry.” She was confused. “At the hotel with you.”
“Grandma Garton has just informed me that the two of them are down at the reservoir.” I was angry and frustrated and a bit pissed by being told by a third party that my son and my nephew were putting themselves in harm’s way. “I’m going to get them—”
“I’m coming with you,” Chloe snapped.
“No, I will,” Luca interjected and vaulted the counter so he could get to the door before his wife. Chloe was angry, but I held up a hand to stop the inevitable argument about how she was just as capable of going out as Luca was.
“We got this,” I announced.
We left the restaurant and headed down toward Iron Lake. I even broke into a jog despite my damn knee. There were barriers there, but no one paid them any attention, certainly not the journalists who had parked themselves there for the murders of Stokes and Dwyer. No doubt they’d be back for more at some point today, but if this person they’d labeled the Hell’s Gate Serial Killer got hold of one of them, then it was their own idiocy which led them to their fate. My son and nephew, on the other hand, shouldn’t have b
een down here.
We found them easily enough, sitting on the branch of a tree that had twisted and become deformed. They were staring out at the lake, which was filling with the run-off from the rivers in the mountains, as it had rained almost every day.
“What the hell!” I shouted as soon as we were within distance for them to hear us. Marco fell off the log. All Harry did was stiffen and then get down and turn to face us, holding up his hands.
“Dad—”
“I said you weren’t to come down here—”
“You said I should stay with Marco—”
“Don’t. You. Dare. At the restaurant, not down here with serial killers, and in places that are clearly posted as off-limits.”
“The lady was here from FEMA, and she said—”
“I don’t give a—I don’t care what some stranger from FEMA says—Get back to the hotel now.”
“Marco. Restaurant. Now,” Luca added.
Marco scurried past his dad, and Luca followed, while Harry was stiff with frustration, eyes front. Did he even understand what it would have done to me if anything had happened to him? Luca and Marco were well ahead of us now, but I reached for Harry’s arm and tugged him back to me, pulling him into a hug. For a second, he fought it, and then he hugged me back.
“I want you safe,” I murmured into his hair.
“I wanted to see the lake.”
“Then ask me, and we’ll all see it together.”
“Can we watch it now?”
Fear gripped me. Out there was someone who killed, and I wanted to keep my son safe, but would I be enough if we were attacked? Maybe if we had Lucas down here with us, and he was armed and…