A Caress of Bones: a serial killer thriller (Wren Delacroix Book 9)

by V. J. Chambers

  “Were?” He tilted his head. “But not anymore?”

  She hesitated.

  He leaned forward. “See, I really care about your opinion of me. That’s new for me. I don’t usually care. But you’re… I want you to like me.”

  “I do like you.”

  “Even if I’m stupid about this? Even if I’m… I don’t know, maybe missing important emotional components of humanity?”

  “I don’t think you’re missing—”

  “Do you remember how I said that I was probably on the spectrum but too high-functioning to ever be diagnosed?” he said. “I mean, I’m, like, emotionally idiotic. And I want you to like me, but I’m afraid that if you really knew what I was like—”

  “I do know what you’re like,” she said. “You’re a little quirky, Trevon, but you’re not emotionally idiotic.”

  He swallowed.

  “Maybe this is too much pressure,” she said. “We haven’t eaten anything. Let’s go out and get food, because we can’t make out heavily in public, and it’ll just reset everything.”

  “You still want to hang out with me?”

  “Of course I do,” she said.

  He ducked his head down. “Do you still want to kiss me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He looked up at her.

  She tried a smile. “I’m not exactly normal either, Trevon. It’s different for women, and maybe it’s even more different for black women, because I don’t know what a stereotypical black female nerd is even supposed to look like. That’s not something that anybody ever bothered to put together on screen, because it doesn’t even exist, right? But it does exist. I’m a hacker. When I was sitting around in high school painting my nails with my friends, I was always smudging them because I was too eager to get back to the computer. I was the only black girl the coding class they offered at school, and the only one in my major in the entire community college. So… I know what that is, that feeling of being around people and not fitting in. That feeling of thinking of things and trying to talk to other people and having them stare at you like you’re speaking Greek. I know what that is.”

  “But you’re…” He hesitated. “You’re good at talking to people.”

  She shrugged. “I fake it.”

  “Really?”

  “Maybe you never felt like you had to fake it, but I did. So, I figured it out.”

  He made a face. “That’s like one of those shitty privilege things, like people will make allowances for me because I’m male and white, and not for you. I hate that shit.”

  “Everyone hates that shit,” she said. “But maybe it’s good. Maybe I have it easier than you because I had to learn to fake it. Maybe I can help you.”

  “That’s just it, you do.” He sat up straight. “You keep me in line. Most people, I say weird things, and they just stare at me, but you break it down for me, and I appreciate that.” He looked away again. “But maybe that means I’m taking advantage of you in that way.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re, like, the least threatening person I know, Trevon. You could never take advantage of me. I would not let you.”

  He grinned. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  She grinned. “So, you feel better. You feel accepted for what you are and everything?”

  “I feel like an idiot,” he said. “I think I stopped us because, like, I’m nervous about it.”

  “You did not seem nervous.”

  “I could have had sex with you last night,” he said. “You would have let me.”

  “I don’t think it would have been like that,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been letting you. I would have been participating.”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed the side of his neck. “That came out wrong.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I knew what you meant. Continue.”

  “All right, well, we could be doing it now,” he said. “I’m the one who’s stopping it, and it’s not because I don’t want to do it, it’s because I’m nervous.”

  “You’re just nervous about us getting it on, then.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Because I like you, and I’ve never been with someone when I liked them before, and I don’t know, it seems like there’s pressure.”

  “Well, let’s wait, then.”

  “Just like that? You’re cool with it?”

  “Sure,” she said. “The mood’s kind of weird now, anyway. Let’s go to Billy’s and get burgers and beer and clear the air. No pressure, I swear.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Sounds good.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “IT’S within walking distance from here,” Maliah was saying. “You can go through a trail up behind the bar, and you’ll end up at the compound.”

  “Whoa.” Trevon clutched his beer, looking out the window. “How far of a walk?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Maliah. “I’ve never walked it myself. But it used to be that Delacroix would walk down here from whatever cabin she was staying in here, and then Reilly used to live in these townhouses just over that way.” She pointed. “So, they would be here all the time, and one or the other of them would be in some existential crisis and drinking it away. From time to time, it was about each other. And the number of times one or both of them came to work smelling like stale beer… too many to count.”

  “Wow, so it was really intense.” He pulled back, lowering his voice. “And what’s up with Delacroix and Hawk Marner?”

  “Yeah, they had a thing before she knew that he was a killer,” said Maliah. “But at the time, I was with Cai, and—”

  “You with with Reilly?”

  “Oh, you don’t know this.” She laughed softly. “Well, buckle up, Trevon, this is probably more than you asked for, rolling yourself into our soap-opera lives. Because, yes, we’ve all slept together.”

  “You and Delacroix?”

  “Well, no,” said Maliah.

  “You and Hawk Marner?”

  “No!” She glared at him. “Just me and Cai.”

  He nodded.

  “Sorry, does that bother you?”

  “No,” he said, shrugging. “I mean, he and Delacroix are obviously really, really together, so it’s not like I feel jealous or something. Of course, I bet he was not the least bit shy about fucking you.” He cringed. “Sorry, I meant a better word.”

  “It was not… healthy,” she said. “We were both just looking for some way to get out of our marriages, and infidelity was handy.”

  “Right,” he said. “You don’t like your ex-husband very much. You don’t talk about him often, but when you do, I can tell.”

  “Nobody likes their ex-husbands. That’s why they’re exes,” she said. “Anyway, we don’t have to do this. You have no relationship baggage, and I apparently have a lot.”

  “I kind of want to walk that path into the compound,” he said.

  “What?” She gaped at him. “No, you don’t. The FCL moved back in. Hawk is there.”

  “I could maybe pick up some soil samples, anything to check against Asha Forrester’s remains. If we could tie her to the compound—”

  “The woods in the compound and the woods down the road where she was found are essentially the same,” said Maliah.

  “They might not be,” he said. “We wouldn’t know until we got that under a microscope.”

  “That’s not really why you want to go,” she said.

  “No, I guess not. I want to see it.”

  “You know, to be honest, I’ve never been up there,” said Maliah. “I’m not really a field operative.”

  “It’s dark,” he said. “I bet no one even sees us.”

  “It’s a stupid thing to do,” she said.

  “I know.” He grinned. “You want to do it anyway?”

  She shook her head slowly at him. “What is it about you?”

  “That a yes?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Fine, I’ll sneak around in the woods with you, Trevon Aronsen. But this is crazy, and I wan
t to go on the record as saying that it’s crazy.”

  THE trail didn’t seem to have been walked on in a very long time. It was overgrown with weeds and thorns, and they had to fight their way through it. Trevon went first, and he trampled the underbrush to make a path for her.

  After some time, they began to pass various cabins, but they were all empty and dark. Most seemed to be in a state of disrepair, windows boarded up, saplings growing through rotting porches, rusted-out appliances sitting on the front lawns.

  But in the distance, they saw the glow of a fire, smoke rising into the air, and the sound of music and laughter.

  Trevon reached back and clutched her hand, and she burrowed against him. The air was warm. It was September, but it was still summer, and she was wearing a thin coat against the scant night chill. Even so, it felt good to be close. It felt transgressive and exciting.

  He put his arm around her. He was tall, even if he was wiry, and she’d had the chance to explore the feeling of his body lately. She liked the sinuous feel of his long, lean limbs.

  They crept up on the bonfire, staying behind trees and bushes, keeping to the shadows.

  As they got closer, they could see that the music was live, that several people were strumming guitars and pounding on drums. Others were singing, but there didn’t seem to be any lyrics to the music. It was some kind of free-form acoustic jam session, and one woman was swaying and crooning out a nearly mournful flood of sound. It wound through the guitars, swelling and ebbing out—a haunting noise.

  People were dancing. They were scattered through the area, some swaying together in couples, others moving on their own. Most had their eyes closed, and most were moving in time to the mournful sound, their movements liquid and loose as the moonlight shown down on them.

  Sitting in front of the fire, the flames dancing against his face, was Hawk Marner. He had his head tilted back, and his eyes were closed. Deborah Nielson was perched in his lap, and she had her mouth on his neck. His fingers were tangled into her hair, absently caressing her face as she writhed against him.

  One of the dancing women twirled around the fire and came behind Hawk. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. He reached out, and she bent over him, kissing his mouth and then his chin, and then his throat.

  Deborah Nielson looked up.

  Maliah heard the rumble of Hawk’s voice, coaxing.

  The two women started to kiss.

  And this was when Maliah started to realize that some of the dancing couples were doing very indecent things. She started to see which places hands had been thrust, and she started to realize that some of them were half-undressed.

  She was seized with two warring emotions—extreme discomfort and a feeling of arousal. It didn’t help that she and Trevon were so close.

  She turned against him, putting her hands on his chest. His chest wasn’t broad, but it was firm, and she liked the feeling of it. She couldn’t deny that. “I want to get out of here,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, this is weird,” Trevon murmured, his mouth against her temple.

  They started to back away from the bonfire.

  And then Hawk’s voice carried through the night air. The sound of it chilled Maliah’s blood. “He wants in,” he said, low and musical. “The Crimson Ram wants in.”

  Maliah pulled away from Trevon, tugging on his hand, running back for the path.

  “Let him in!” thundered Hawk’s voice, behind her, behind both of them, chasing them as they rushed into the underbrush, following them back down the path, scraping against them with its pointed claws even as they escaped.

  When they emerged in the parking lot of Billy’s, out of breath, she didn’t want to let go of Trevon. She held onto him as she went back to her car, and she blasted music in her car, wanting to wash away the sensation of those words, of the sound of Hawk’s voice, but it seemed to have burrowed into her.

  She felt cold.

  She felt frightened.

  At her house, they got out of her car, and Trevon’s car was parked there.

  He got his keys out of his pocket.

  “Don’t go,” she blurted.

  He looked up at her.

  “I don’t want to be alone right now,” she said. “Maybe it’s stupid, but I’m kind of freaked out.”

  “Are you?” He was surprised.

  “That bonfire was creepy,” she said.

  “It’s fine. We’re not there anymore.” He stepped closer, reaching out for her.

  “I know you said you were nervous,” she said. “We don’t have to do anything.”

  “Okay,” he said, and he let her lead him into her house.

  But once inside, they started kissing again, and this time, he didn’t seem the least bit nervous. He put his hands on her breasts right away. He undid the zipper of her jeans and slid his fingers down, down, down between her thighs, stroking her until she moaned.

  She took him down the hallway to her bedroom, and they tangled together in her bed, and it was good and sweet and warm—warm enough to chase away all thoughts of bonfires or music or horned vengeful gods.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CLOVER Birch was easily found after a few phone calls, and Wren set up a meeting with her the following morning. She didn’t have transportation, so they would come to her home. She did indeed live on PLL land.

  She seemed surprised that they wanted to talk about Indigo Evans, but she said she didn’t have anything to hide, and she seemed intrigued about their job with the FBI.

  In fact, the first ten minutes of their meeting were taken up with her talking about how she liked to watch a show called Mindhunter, but that it had been cancelled, and how she really liked it a lot and wondered how accurate it was to their actual jobs.

  But neither Wren nor Reilly had watched the show, neither finding procedurals particularly entertaining, considering they got everything wrong, and because when they did get it right, it was just like being at work on their down time.

  This disappointed her, but she bore it up well enough.

  “I would have never thought it about Indigo, though,” said Clover. “I mean, obviously, I heard what she did to Travis, but I figured he must have had it coming.”

  “Did he abuse her?” said Wren.

  Clover shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. I think most men around these parts get handsy when they’re pissed off and drunk, and Travis was always one or the other or both.”

  “So, Indigo has never gotten in touch with you in the past six years?”

  “No,” said Clover. “Honestly, sometimes I wondered if he killed her.”

  “Travis?”

  “Yeah, I mean maybe he was stabbing her, and she got the knife, got some licks in before he finished her off,” said Clover. “But you’re saying she’s alive, and that she’s killing men, so maybe not.”

  “What about family members?” said Wren. “Does she have any family members around?”

  “Only her mom,” said Clover.

  “Oh? Her mother?” said Wren. “Does she live close by?”

  “Yeah.” Clover pointed. “That’s her trailer right there. She’s all sad and pathetic these days. Back when Indigo and I left, Marlena was hot shit, because she was Keith’s girl, but now he’s in jail, and she’s nobody again.”

  “We heard that her mother was involved with Keith Hughes,” said Wren.

  “Marlena would have done anything for Keith,” said Clover.

  “Did she know that he was abusing young girls?” said Wren.

  “Oh, hell yeah, she knew,” said Clover. “I mean, she helped set it up. She gave him her own freaking daughter, so…” She shrugged.

  “Indigo was abused by Keith,” said Wren. She’d figured that was likely, but here it was, being confirmed.

  “Everyone was,” said Clover, snorting. She got out a cigarette and a lighter. “You mind if I smoke?”

  “No,” said Wren, at the same time as Reilly said, “Actually, she’s pregnant.”

 
Wren glared at Reilly. “I’m fine,” she said.

  Reilly ignored her. “Thanks, we appreciate it,” he said to Clover.

  Clover put the cigarette away. “Keith would do this thing where he would make you ask for it, like this made it okay or something. I mean, I knew that I was not consenting to this bullshit, but I don’t know if Indigo always did. She would ask me weird questions sometimes, like if I ever thought I liked it or something.” Clover shrugged again. “I did not, for the record.”

  Wren knew that sexual abuse was a very confusing experience for victims, especially children, who might indeed feel a certain amount of pleasure, or who might even enjoy the special attention of an adult, but who were ultimately too immature to be able to handle the experience and were scarred by it.

  Reilly was speaking in a low voice. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry that you had to go through that. If it’s hard to talk about—”

  “It’s better, actually,” said Clover. “To talk about it? It helps somehow. The more I talk about it, the more I just lay it right out there, the less power it has over me.”

  “I get that,” said Reilly.

  “Me too,” said Wren.

  Clover lifted her chin, looking at them.

  A moment passed between the three of them, some wordless bit of solidarity, and then she nodded, acknowledging it. She drew in a breath. “So, he made it real clear what would happen if we talked about it. He threatened us with violence. He showed us photographs of mutilated women, and he said he would do that to us. No one’s ever figured out where he got them, not even the FBI. So, it wasn’t consensual. Nothing about it was even remotely consensual, and I told her, I said, ‘Indigo, even if you did like it, you were twelve fucking years old, and he was thirty-fucking-five or whatever, like, there’s no way that you’re responsible for any of that shit.”

  “Of course not,” said Wren.

  “That’s not even a question,” said Reilly.

  “Exactly,” said Clover, sighing. “But I don’t know, I fucked up with her. I scared her off. It was after I made this pass at her that the thing happened with Travis and she disappeared.”