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

by V. J. Chambers

  “I don’t think…” Annabelle licked her lips and she lowered her voice. “I don’t think she was completely altruistically motivated. I feel like she was getting antsy, like she needed something, a release, you know? And then when she saw my bruises, she went after him right away.” She shook her head. “But now, she can’t ever come back here, so…”

  “Were you harboring her after she left New York state?”

  “Harboring her?” Annabelle spread her hands. “We didn’t know what trouble she was in back there. We only knew that she was using a fake name, and that she had to get work under the table. We didn’t ask questions about the legal stuff, but, well, Indigo was always going to kill something. I always knew she was.”

  “How did you know?” said Wren.

  “She could be creepy,” said Annabelle. “She got in fights. She used to carry a knife around with her and threaten people with it. Real graphic threats about how she’d carve them up.” She sighed.

  “You know where she is,” said Reilly again.

  “I don’t,” said Annabelle, but she wasn’t looking at them, and she didn’t sound believable. “But even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t do that to her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE morning that Maliah woke up with Trevon for the first time felt more comfortable than she thought it had any right to.

  Trevon was wrong in all kinds of ways. He was too young and too quirky and too already-entwined in her life. But he felt right. Not just his kisses or his hands or the way his body fit against hers, but how easy it was for them to be together.

  She felt as if it was effortless to slide from kissing to talking about work to joking. She felt at ease around him without her clothes or when she was making breakfast.

  He went home to shower, and when they met up at work, it felt normal to be together, even though she’d seen him without his pants and he’d put his mouth on the most indecent parts of her body.

  She braced herself for it to get weird.

  He had made a lot of noise about being aromantic, whatever the hell that even meant, and she was not so stupid as to think that she had somehow altered him just by existing. She was certain that men didn’t work that way anyhow. Maybe women didn’t either.

  There might be a period of time when a person thought they had changed, but more often than not, they reverted to form.

  But he didn’t. At least, he didn’t revert yet, anyway.

  Instead, they went to lunch and he was apologetic about things moving fast when he’d indicated he wasn’t sure if they should. But he said he was glad about it, and that everything was fine on his end, and as long as she was happy, he didn’t see why they should worry about it.

  So, they went home together again and did more exploring of indecent parts of each other’s body.

  Then, the next day, she went to see him in the lab before lunch.

  He wasn’t in the lab, but in the connected office, hovering over one of the computers, his brow furrowed.

  “You okay?”

  “No,” he said.

  Oh, shit. Maybe this was the point in which everything got weird. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s this DNA,” he said.

  “What DNA? I thought the trace DNA tests on those samples came back negative.”

  “Well, I wanted to be thorough, so, I sent some new samples over. I think it might have been the day we went out to Harper’s Ferry to that place where Mischa works. Maybe it was, anyway. I just… I can’t be sure. It might have been before. Do you remember what day we went out there?”

  “I…” She considered. “Um, it was Wednesday, right? Or was it Thursday? What does it matter?”

  “Because, I’m getting DNA results back for Asha Forrester, and I’m getting a match for Kayden Rush.”

  “What?” Maliah’s eyebrows shot up. She came over behind him and looked at the screen. Sure enough, there it was in black and white.

  “I don’t even know why he’s in the database,” said Trevon.

  “Well, they probably took a sample when you filed charges,” said Maliah. “Or maybe he’s been arrested for some other domestic violence shit. Mischa can’t be the first girl he’s screwed with. I feel like I would have seen that when I was pulling up information on him, though, like when I was looking into his credit score and everything else, but I can’t remember. Maybe I didn’t look at his arrest record back then.”

  “It could be transference,” said Trevon.

  “How do you figure?”

  “Well, Mischa lives with him. His DNA is in his skin cells, which could have been settled somewhere on her body, and then floated onto me, and then I contaminated the sample,” said Trevon.

  Maliah arched an eyebrow. “Really? That could happen?”

  “Well, I want it to be that,” said Trevon.

  “But the alternative is…” She sat down heavily in a chair next to him. “That he’s the killer.”

  “And that he’s living with Mischa,” said Trevon fiercely.

  “SHE was going by the name Kimberly Zin back then,” said the voice of Detective Trent George on the phone. He worked in Kansas, and he’d agreed to speak to them about the case to save them a trip out there. “We were able to match her to the cases in New York State and in New Mexico with DNA and photographs. So, after the fact, we knew that she was a serial murderer.”

  “What about her victim?” said Wren. “Is there any record of his having any domestic complaints?”

  “You mean, with Kimberly? No, none at all. Nothing like that. It doesn’t seem as if it was a fight. The crime scene didn’t indicate that. She got that belt around his neck without any pushback from him. He was either asleep or thought it was a kinky sex game. He was found nude, and he had engaged in sexual activity shortly prior to expiring. She wasn’t doing it in self-defense, that’s for sure.”

  “No, I’m not indicating that, I’m sort of…” Wren trailed off. “I guess maybe I’m wondering if it’s kind of a vigilante thing? It’s a theory I have, that she was killing men who were abusive?”

  “Ah,” said Trent. “Well, no real indication of that. Who can say what goes on behind closed doors, but he had been married once before, and his wife had died, actually in childbirth, taking the baby with her. After that, people said he was just kind of shattered until this Kimberly person came along. I do have some people saying that they thought she was awful to him, that she was abusive towards him, at least verbally. But, you know how it is. After a murder, people dig up all the bad things that they remember the person doing and try to indicate they had a feeling about the perpetrator all along.”

  “Right,” said Reilly, “but if that many people really would have had a feeling, it seems like someone would have spoken up or done something.”

  “Exactly,” said Trent. “People don’t like the idea of something evil being right under their noses all the time. It’s unsettling. They want to rewrite history so that they were wary of it.”

  “That way, they can believe they’ll be safe from it when it happens again,” said Wren.

  “Yes, definitely,” said Trent. “Anyway, it seems the motivation in this was financial. She took a significant chunk of money with her when she left. She killed him, and then she spent a good hour transferring the money into various bank accounts all across the country, which she had opened up in preparation for this. And then, she apparently went to each and every one of them personally and cleaned them out, and all that money is gone.”

  “Hmm,” said Wren. Her best thought on this killer was that the money was part of it, but that it wasn’t the most important part of it.

  “I thought they brought her in. I got word of that, that she was in custody in New York.”

  “She was,” said Wren. “She escaped. Our task force, which is affiliated with the FBI, has taken over the case, and we’re trying to bring her in.”

  “Escaped, huh? Well, she’s a wily one. Slippery too.”

  “CALM down,�
�� said Maliah, “he’s not going to kill her if he lives with her. That would be stupid, and it would draw attention to him. So, don’t worry. She’s safe.”

  “Transference,” he said, getting up from the computer and pacing. “I really want it to be transference.”

  Maliah watched him for a minute. She wasn’t jealous of Trevon’s feelings for Mischa, because Trevon had explained to her that they were platonic, but he’d also said that was because he only ever had platonic feelings for people, since he was aromantic. Now, with whatever was going on with them, there was a lot here to indicate that Trevon’s feelings for Mischa were, in fact, romantic, and Maliah wondered if she should feel jealous or threatened.

  But she didn’t, and it seemed like it would be an unpleasant thing to think about, so she pushed the thought aside.

  “That just sounds like a lot of transference,” said Maliah. “Let’s examine the evidence, okay? It kind of looks bad for Kayden, don’t you think? He and Mischa moved here right before Everly Green was found.”

  “True,” Trevon murmured. “But I moved here then, too. If that’s all we need to get a person on the suspect list—”

  “Well, if your DNA was there, you would be on the suspect list,” she said.

  He bowed his head, wrapping his hands around the back of his neck as he continued to pace. “Okay, refresh my memory on Everly Green.”

  “She was at a party in Shepherdstown, a college party,” said Maliah. “She meets a guy, who is charming and plies her with drinks. She passes out, drugged from whatever he gave her. She comes to, and she’s out in the woods. They get in a struggle. She gets away. She runs.”

  “So, she saw him?” said Trevon. “If it’s Kayden, all she has to do is look at a picture, and she can tell us one way or the other.”

  “In theory, yes,” said Maliah. “Sometimes the trauma of such an experience can make people falsely identify suspects, however.”

  Trevon stopped pacing. “But we could just go and show her the picture.”

  “Well, we can’t go,” said Maliah. “We’re not detectives. We need to call Reilly and Delacroix, and tell them to come home, that we may have a development in the case.”

  “Oh, come on, we can handle showing a girl a photo,” said Trevon, lifting his glance to hers. “She’ll probably say it isn’t him—she’ll hopefully say that—and then we’ll chalk this up to transference and move the fuck on. There’s no reason to bring Delacroix and Reilly back.”

  “There might be something we need to do in order to make sure that we don’t influence her.”

  “We just won’t say anything,” said Trevon. “We’ll show her the picture, the end. Besides, I can’t wait for them to fly back. If Mischa is in danger, I need to know that now.”

  Now, Maliah did feel a little stab of something. “What if she is in danger, what will you do?”

  “Well, then we have to get Kayden arrested,” said Trevon. “Then we turn over the DNA evidence.”

  “And Delacroix and Reilly have to come home anyway to do all that,” said Maliah.

  “True,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I don’t know.” He scratched the side of his neck. “I can’t protect her myself. You saw what happened the last time I got in a fight with Kayden.”

  She bit down on her lower lip. “You really care about her.”

  He turned to her sharply. “Whoa.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “Sorry.”

  “No, are you, like, jealous?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not—”

  “I kind of like it,” he said, letting out a breath. He closed the distance between them, and slid a hand in to cup her jaw. He kissed her.

  She shut her eyes against the sweet slipperiness of his lips.

  He pulled away. “You know it’s not like that about Mischa.”

  “What is it like?” said Maliah.

  “I don’t know.” He sat down next to her. “I really don’t.” He slumped against the back of the chair. “Maybe it… maybe it used to be something you could be jealous of, but it isn’t anymore. Maybe I was in denial about liking her? Maybe I always had some kind of feelings for her, and I couldn’t understand that’s what I was feeling?”

  Maliah sighed. “Yeah, well, maybe everyone knows that except you.”

  He groaned. “I’m an idiot.” He sat up straighter. “But I’m not into her anymore. I’m into you. You know that, right?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I think I know that.”

  “Good,” he said. “I still don’t like the idea of her out there with a killer. But… maybe I’m overreacting.”

  She chewed on her lip. “We need to call Reilly and Delacroix.”

  “Well, what if it is transference? Then they come off their big black widow case for nothing. Can’t we just call Everly Green? We can send her a text message with a picture of Kayden. She just texts back yes or no. We don’t even interview her. If it’s a yes, we call the cavalry.”

  “I don’t know,” said Maliah.

  “You can find her contact information, right? That’s in the files for the case?”

  “I can,” she said.

  “I’ll call her. I’ll be sure not to influence her. I won’t say that we have DNA or that we have any reason to think it’s him, just that we have a picture for her to look at.”

  “More than one picture,” said Maliah. “Otherwise, it puts too much significance on him.”

  “Fine,” said Trevon. “Let’s get the pictures together.”

  Twenty minutes later, they had pictures of several other men around the same age as Kayden, and Maliah was feeling nervous as she watched Trevon pace with the phone.

  “It’s ringing,” he reported.

  Maliah wasn’t sure if this was a really bad idea or not.

  “Hello?” said Trevon. “Hi there, Ms. Green. I’m with the FBI task force. I’m wondering if I could send you a few pictures to look at. You can tell me if any of them look like they might be the man who attacked you…. Oh, well, certainly, if that’s how you want it…. Sure thing…. Uh, yeah, we could do that…. See you then.” He hung up and turned around. “She wants to look at the pictures in person.”

  “What?” said Maliah. “We have to call in Reilly. We can’t go and meet her.”

  “Well, I know, but what was I supposed to say?” said Trevon. “I couldn’t insist on texting them to her. Could I?”

  “No, I guess not, but why wouldn’t she want them texted to her?”

  “I don’t know,” said Trevon. “Come on, Maliah, let’s just go meet her tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? She wants to do it tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, in Shepherdstown,” he said.

  “Reilly is going to kill me,” said Maliah. “So is Delacroix. She’s going to go into a hormonally-fueled rage and eviscerate me.”

  “It’s transference, come on,” said Trevon. “I don’t get that lucky.”

  “How do you figure it’s lucky?”

  “Oh, please,” said Trevon. “I’ve spent all this energy on Mischa, and I don’t get the means to save her and move on from her dropped into my lap just when you and I start getting serious. That’s too perfect, you know?”

  “You feel like this is serious?” She was grinning.

  “Yeah,” he said. He flinched. “I guess you don’t, though.”

  “Did I say that?” She kissed him again. “Okay, okay. We’ll go and see her in the morning.”

  He rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t even know what I hope she says.”

  “Me either,” she said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “THE vigilante thing was a long shot,” said Wren. She was leaning against the headboard in the hotel where they were staying.

  “It did kind of hit me out of left field,” said Reilly, who was sitting in an easy chair across the room, his feet propped up on the end of the bed. “I didn’t know you were leaning into that.”

  “I’m not,” said Wren. She considered. “Well, I’ve
thought of it more than once.”

  “You do have good instincts about this,” said Reilly. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Well, I guess it started when we were talking to Travis Mullany,” said Wren. “He just went on and on about how he didn’t hit her.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember thinking he was being really adamant about that,” said Reilly. “And then I noticed you asked Clover about it as well. So, your theory is what? That she’s taking revenge for scorned women?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wren. “Considering what we heard about this last victim, it doesn’t seem likely.”

  “It’s not impossible,” said Reilly. “We should see where the evidence takes us.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Wren. “Even if they are all domestic abusers, they still don’t deserve to die, and she doesn’t get to be judge, jury, and executioner. So, no matter what her motives are, I shouldn’t feel… whatever it is I feel.”

  “You said before that you identify with her,” said Reilly.

  Wren sighed. “I’m just being ridiculous.” She squared her shoulders. “It’s only… you’ve never killed anyone, Cai.”

  “Uh, Terence Freeman?”

  “Oh,” said Wren. “I-I forgot—”

  “And you know I would do it again if I had to,” he said.

  “Right,” she muttered. She sat up straight, squaring her shoulders. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “I don’t either,” he said. “I feel like we’ve talked it to death only a zillion times.”

  She licked her lips. “And last time we talked about it, about Hawk…”

  “Let’s definitely not talk about him.” Reilly’s voice dropped into a much deeper register.

  “We should go back to New York,” said Wren.

  “You think she’s still in New York?” said Reilly. “If she was still there, why did you leave at all? We should have been there all along.”

  “I don’t know if she’s there or not, but I think we need to know why she went there,” said Wren.