Ben sighed into the static. “I can’t do that. You know I would if I could but—”
“Bullshit.” Laughter, harsh and horse, barked out of him. “You’re Benjamin Shaw. Making things go away is what you do.”
“Under normal circumstances, you’d be right,” Ben said. “But these circumstances are anything but normal.”
“I don’t believe you. I think you’re bored without us to push around like chess pieces.” Even as he said it, Michael knew he was being unfair—cruel even—to the one person in his life besides Sabrina who’d ever been willing to risk his life for him.
Now it was Ben’s turn to laugh. “You have no idea what pulling off your disappearance has cost me so don’t—just don’t.” He didn’t sound uneasy anymore. He sounded pissed.
“Like what? Did Daddy take your Lear away?”
“You know what? Fuck you, O’Shea.” Silence, charged with anger hissed between them and for second, Michael was sure he’d killed the transmission. Ben cleared his throat. “Look, it doesn’t matter. That’s not what this is about,” he said, sounding resigned. “I’ve got my father handled. What’s going on has nothing to do with him.”
Handled. No one handled Livingston Shaw—and if they did, it wasn’t for long. Michael was suddenly sure whatever Ben had given to placate his father, it had been far more than his friend could afford to give.
“I still owe you one, you know.”
“Bro, you owe me about fifty…” Ben said and Michael was relieved to hear the smile in his voice. “I miss you guys.”
Michael could hear the truth in his admission. The loneliness. The isolation. He was surrounded by people—people who would follow any order he gave without a moment’s hesitation—and he didn’t trust any of them. Didn’t count a single one of them among his friends.
“Will you be there with her?” He said, suddenly realizing had no idea where Sabrina was going. What was being asked of her or why. “Can I count on that, at least?” They both knew Sabrina was leaving, that she would allow herself to be drawn into whatever mess Ben had laid at her feet. That even if he could, he wouldn’t try to stop her. It would be pointless to pretend otherwise.
More silence before Ben cleared his throat again. “No. My days of playing guardian angel are over. Been over for a while now… but I’ll do what I can for her. I promise.”
Before Michael could ask what he meant, Ben switched off, leaving nothing but dead air in his place.
8
She’d known what they were, even before she’d reached inside but that didn’t stop her fingers from jerking against the envelope. Instantly rejecting the cool, slick paper as soon as she touched it.
Photographs.
Sabrina forced herself to pull the stack free and spread them across the kitchen table. Forced herself to look at what Ben wanted her to see. Blood and death—so much of both that for a moment, she felt dizzy.
She closed her eyes, splayed her hand across the pictures in front of her. In the neighboring room, she could hear the movie Christina and Alex had chosen for the evening. Pacific Rim—one of her favorites. Under normal circumstances, she’d pop some popcorn on the stovetop and join them while waiting for Michael to come back in from the barn.
Her current circumstances were anything but normal. But they used to be. Once upon a time, what laid on the table had been as normal as breathing to her…
Just another case. Just another body.
Her old mantra came back to her. Pulled her in and calmed her. She opened her eyes and looked at the photos beneath her hand.
Four victims in the space of twelve months. All showing signs of dehydration. Malnourishment. Rape. Torture. They’d been kept before they’d been killed. Ligature marks and antemortem injuries suggested for several days, one for as long as a month, before being executed.
Victimology was all over the place. The first victim, Danielle Watson, was forty years old. The second victim, Maria Pena, had been nearly ninety years old. The latest victim, Isla Talbert—found two weeks ago—had been only twelve. She’d disappeared while on a bike ride to a convenience store, two blocks from her house. Found two weeks later inside a roadside shrine, naked—bound with baling wire and posed as if she were praying. Like the rest, cause of death had been a quarter-sized hole punched into the base of her skull.
She pushed the photos to the side, concentrating on the ME and investigation reports that accompanied them. Mixed in with official reports were full backgrounds on each of the victims. Scattered throughout the reports were highlighted portions that wove the victims together.
Still, she couldn’t find a reason Ben would feel the need to drop this case in her lap. It took her nearly an hour of combing before she found it—to anyone else the notation would mean nothing. Less than nothing. A few sentences at the end of a lab report marked STEPHANIE ADAMS. An oddity chalked up to an almost crippling backlog and not enough manpower.
For Sabrina, it changed everything.
She’d gone to bed alone, though she’d waited for what felt like hours for Michael to come back inside. It’d been long enough for the movie to run its course and the kids to put themselves to bed before she finally gave up and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep.
He’d come in sometime afterward, felt the weight of him sink into the bed beside her. He reached for her, whispered her name against the nape of her neck and she’d turned toward him. Let him pull her under—his mouth and hands on her skin—letting herself believe, at least for a while, that none of it had happened. That the pictures and reports she’d been pouring over just a few hours before had been nothing more than a bad dream.
She woke just before dawn to find him sitting in the chair he kept by the window, staring out into the dense gray beyond it. It was nothing new. More often than not, she’d wake to find him like this, half-dressed, watching the night sky like he was waiting. Like he knew it was only a matter of time before someone came and took it all away.
The manila envelope Maddox brought her rested almost casually on his knee.
“Can we talk about it now?”
He’d known she was awake and he nodded at her like he’d been waiting for her to ask. “Yeah, we can talk about it.” He swiped a hand over his face, nodding his head. “When are you leaving?”
The question, the finality in his voice scared her. Sent panic clawing up her spine. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m not leaving. I’m staying right here.”
“There’s an active serial killer in Yuma, Sabrina,” he said with a look that told he thought she was being ridiculous and stubborn. “He’s killed four women in the past year.”
“So what?” she said. Sitting up, she fumbled for her tank, searching for it in the tangle of sheet and blankets. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Okay, let’s ignore the obvious—that the killing started less than a month after your very public and very tragic demise.” He tossed the envelope onto the bed where it landed less than a foot from her hand. “We’ll focus on the fact that the third victim was found with traces of Melissa Walker’s DNA under her fingernails. That means it has everything to do with you.”
Melissa Walker. The girl she used to be. The girl who’d fled to Yuma when she was just sixteen, her twin siblings in tow. She’d left Jessup, the small Texas town where she’d grown up, in a desperate attempt to start her life over. To protect her grandmother. Tommy, the boy she’d been in love with… in the end all she’d done was manage to get herself killed. She’d been abducted. Tortured and raped for eighty-three days before being left for dead in a churchyard. When she woke up, Melissa Walker was gone—the person she was now was all that was left of her.
That’d been nearly twenty years ago and DNA evidence had been in its adolescences. And like most adolescents, it’d been unreliable and fickle. Most cops back then had been too old-school, too skeptical to trust it. Relying rather on what they considered real police work. Will Santos, the detective assigned to
her case, had not been one of them.
He’d insisted on collecting and cataloging every scraping and swab they’d taken from her and entering them into the system in hopes of finding the man who raped and tortured her someday. But not even Santos could have predicted her DNA profile would somehow wind up in the results of a report generated almost twenty years later.
“Like you said, I’m dead.” She found her tank and pulled it on. It’d been too much to hope for that he’d miss the notation buried in the stack of reports. Michael was too meticulous. To exact to miss something like that. “And thanks to Croft everyone knows it.” Jaxon Croft, the reporter who’d taken her whole sordid story public, made it national news. A few years ago, his constant hounding had been a nightmare, but when Ben had faked her death and Michael’s it had been a Godsend. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t—”
“Sure you could,” he said, still watching her. Appraising her. “You’ve gained a good twenty pounds. You’re softer. Fuller. You’d definitely need colored contacts. Different hair color. Maybe a cut. But with Ben clearing the way, you could slip back into the world without even a ripple.”
He was right. She knew he was right. Instead of admitting it she just shook her head. “Why are you pushing this?”
“Because,” he said, cutting his gaze back to the window. “I think you’re staying here because you’re afraid.”
“Afraid?” Laughter scraped against her throat, erupting from her mouth, rusty and cold. “Afraid of what?”
“Not what,” he said without looking at her, his hands fisted against his knees. “Who.”
Wade.
Neither one of them had said his name out loud in what felt like forever. Not since she’d told him the truth—that after she’d killed him, Wade started talking to her. That the only thing that made him go away was Michael. In the year they’d been together, Wade had faded away into nothing more than a vague and unpleasant memory. Leaving Michael would change that. It would open a door. The panic that’d clawed up her spine started chewing into her throat, making it hard to breathe.
“I’m not afraid of him and fuck you for thinking otherwise.” Fishing her underwear from the foot of the bed she swung her legs over the side, yanking them up before she stood. “And the only place I’m going is the bathroom.”
“We both know how this ends, Sabrina,” he said quietly. “We both know you were never meant to stay here forever.”
The words nailed her feet to the floor. Stopped her in her tracks. Stole her breath, had her pressing her fist into her sternum, trying to find it.
We both know how this ends…
She turned toward the window to find him standing in front of it, arms loose, shoulders slumped. The manila folder was on the floor between them. “Marry me.” The words tumbled out, rash and impulsive but she meant them. As soon as she said them, she knew. Rushing forward, she closed the space between them. “Marry me.”
Michael sighed, shaking his head. “Sabrina—”
“Do you want me to leave?” Even though saying it out loud made her voice shake, she had to know. “Are you trying to end it?”
“What?” He jerked back, looked at her as if she’d hit him. “No, I’m—” He shook his head, suddenly frustrated. “I’m just trying to do the right thing here,” he said, swiping a rough hand over his face. “Why won’t you ever let me just do the right goddamned thing by you?”
“Why do you always think you’re to only one who knows what the right thing for me is?” she nearly shouted, tempering her voice at the last minute so she didn’t wake the kids. “You? This—this is the only forever I want,” she said, her tone sharp-edged and hot. He was frowning down at her and she lifted her hand to skim her fingers across his brow. She took a deep breath in an effort to cool the heat in her words. “Marry me.”
Instead of answering her he reached up and caught her hand. “You’ve never allowed fear to control you. Sooner or later, you’ll remember that and you’ll leave,” he said, pressing her hand against his jaw. She could feel it, how hard he was fighting for control. “The right thing for me to do is to let you, maybe even encourage you … but I love you too much.” His voice sounded tight, like he had to push the words out. “I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to do the right thing—I want you to stay here with me…with us.” His hand dropped away from hers. “But you’ll end up hating me and yourself if you do.”
“You’re right about one thing.” She said it quietly, letting her hand fall away from him face. “I am worried Wade will find his way inside my head again if I leave here.” She backed away from him until the back of her knees hit the edge of the bed and she let herself sink onto it. “But what absolutely terrifies me is the possibility of leaving and not being able to find my way back... but if you marry me, that’s a promise.”
Michael sat on the bed next to her, lifting her hand from her lap to hold it between his own. “The kind we’d both have to keep,” he said softly, understanding perfectly. It would be an assurance that in each other, no matter where they went or how long they were apart, they would always have a home to come back to.
“Exactly…” She pressed her lips to his shoulder before perching her chin on top of it. “Will you marry me, Michael?”
His hand tightened around hers for a moment before he lifted it to his mouth, kissing each of her fingertips before pressing his lips to the center of her palm and whispering, “Yes.”
9
Yuma, Arizona
The woman finally stopped screaming. What had been left in place of the noise—a shrill, terrified keening—was a silence as deafening as the sound that preceded it.
Maggie leaned forward in the dark, toward the cracks of light that reached for her around the edges of the door. Listening. Waiting.
He would come for her next.
From down the hall another noise. Like a chair being dragged across a linoleum floor. Familiar. Almost comforting. She’d made that sound plenty of times. Like when she dragged a barstool from her countertop to the fridge to look for her car keys. She had a habit of tossing them on top of it and forgetting about them. Come to think of it, she had a history of thoughtless behavior. Keys tossed on top of the fridge. Wet laundry left in the washer for days. Driving off with her purse on the roof of her car.
Agreeing to meet a complete stranger for dinner.
She’d met him on one of those free dating websites. The kind most people used for casual hook-ups or harmless flirting. She’d been curious and admittedly, lonely, so when he messaged her, she’d responded.
They’d private messaged for weeks before she’d felt comfortable enough to give him her number and she hadn’t agreed to meet him for dinner until they’d spoken several times over the phone. He’d been a perfect gentleman. Handsome. Well-spoken. A dream come true.
After dinner, she’d actually been disappointed when he’d insisted on walking her to her car. She hadn’t wanted the evening to end.
“I’ve had a lovely time,” he said to her back while she worked the car fob, unlocking the driver’s side door.
“Me too,” she said, turning to find him standing so close it stole her breath.
He was going to kiss her… he was actually going to kiss her.
He lifted his hand, his fingertips grazing her neck, this thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “Can I ask you something, Margaret?” he said to her and she nodded stupidly even though she’d insisted numerous times he call her Maggie.
He leaned into her, pressing his lips to her cheek before he whispered into her ear, each word, brushing his mouth against her lobe. “Do you believe in miracles?”
The question was followed by what felt like a bee sting, quick and sharp, that led to a feeling of warmth and melting. Like she was made of butter, left out in the sun…
The next thing she remembered was waking up to the sound of a woman screaming. It’d seemed to go on for hours. Days even. So long she ceased to register it as sound.
Anot
her noise. This one softer. Almost a whisper. Growing louder and louder as it grew closer—shhhhh—its approach measured by footsteps. Long, confident strides she recognized immediately as belonging to the man who’d taken her to dinner. He’d told her his name was Gabriel but she was almost certain that was a lie.
Suddenly, the light that reached for her was interrupted. The whispering shhhhh was as loud as a shout. Something was being dragged past her door. It sounded wet. Sloppy. Like a mop that hadn’t be wrung out before being slapped against the floor.
Maggie jerked herself back, away from the sound, pressing her shoulders into the rough block wall she huddled against. She renewed her efforts, twisting and jerking at the wire that bound her wrists together.
She had to get out of here. She had to find a way. If she could just get her hands free, maybe she could—
A scraping sound. Metal on metal as a key was inserted into the lock and turned. The door swung open and he was suddenly there. Bright light from the hallway pinched into her eyes and she squinted up, into the long, dark shadow he cast over her.
He held something in his hand. Something long and cylindrical. Heavy, like the kind of flashlight a police officer carried. He held it casually at his side while something dripped from the end of it, thick like syrup, splattering on the floor at his feet.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t a flashlight. She jerked her eyes away from what he held in his hand, aiming them instead at his shoulder. His answering chuckle sounded both pleased and indulgent.
“Margaret, do you believe in miracles?”
The question pulled her gaze upward. From his shoulder to his face. He wasn’t laughing anymore. “Why do you keep calling me that?” she said. “My name isn’t Margaret. It’s Maggie—Maggie Travers. My name is Maggie… Maggie.” She shook her head, hysteria pushing her. Making her ramble. “Please let me go,” she begged, each word caught on a hitching sob as she buried her face in bound hands. “Please let me go—I won’t say anything to anyone. I swear, I just want to go—”
The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 2 Page 38