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

by V. J. Chambers

  “Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” said Reilly.

  “I’ll call Jenny Queen and see if she can help us get in touch with the people we need to talk to there,” said Wren. “I have this file that Lovelorn made about her, and he’s highlighted some key players.”

  “I’ll see about booking a flight,” said Reilly.

  MALIAH woke from a deep sleep to the sound of someone banging on her door.

  “Maliah!” came Trevon’s voice.

  Well, there he was. This was the first night they’d spent apart since they had started sleeping together, and she’d been a little concerned that after the news about Mischa, he had wanted to be alone.

  But now, he was here.

  She got out of bed and went to the door.

  “I fucked up,” he said. His eyes were red-rimmed, as though he might have been crying.

  She tugged him inside the house. “Are you okay?”

  He pushed past her and into her kitchen, where he sat down on a stool at her breakfast bar and pressed his forehead down against its surface. “I fucked up so bad.”

  “Trevon, what’s going on?” This is it, she thought. He went out and set up one of his hookups online, because you weren’t enough for him, and this is when the other shoe drops, and this thing with us stops being so easy.

  “I went to see Mischa,” he said, still not lifting his head.

  “Okay,” she said, sitting down next to him. He had sex with Mischa? Mischa didn’t even seem to want to talk with him.

  “I was worried about her. Maybe it’s dumb, because even if he is a serial killer, she’s been living out there with him for months and months now. But I just… I don’t know, I felt like I had to warn her.” He lifted his head to look at her. “I made her come out on the porch to talk to me, and I made her promise not to say anything to him, but he saw us. He heard me.”

  “Oh,” said Maliah. “This is how you fucked up.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “The case.” She let out a relieved laugh. “You fucked up the case.”

  “Why do you sound happy about it?”

  “I thought you… I thought it was something with us.” She rubbed her forehead. “I’m relieved that you and I are still… whatever we even are.”

  “Of course we are,” he said. “I mean, if you’re not really pissed at me. If Delacroix and Reilly find this out—”

  “Kayden has been warned, and if he’s the killer, he knows we’re onto him,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Trevon. “The only good news is that Mischa was freaked, and she let me take her to a hotel for the night.”

  “Seriously?” said Maliah. “That’s amazing news. Even if he’s not a serial killer, he’s still abusive, so her making any moves to get away from him is awesome.”

  “Yeah,” said Trevon. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “But Kayden knowing this isn’t good. He might run. We might not be able to find him.”

  “If he runs, we know he’s guilty,” said Trevon.

  “We need to call Delacroix and Reilly in the morning,” said Maliah.

  “Not right at this second?”

  “Nah,” she said. “Delacroix is pregnant and doesn’t need to have her sleep disturbed. Besides, you and me, we’re going to be too busy to call anyone.”

  His mouth quirked into a smile. “Oh, we are?”

  She grabbed a handful of his shirt and tugged him off the stool. “We are,” she breathed.

  “WELL,” said Detective Jenny Queen, gesturing with a half-eaten donut, “I didn’t realize that she was staying with PLL people. How was your flight, by the way? I’m being rude.”

  “You’re not being rude,” said Wren around a bite of donut. It was her second one. “You gave us donuts.”

  “Yeah, you took one this time,” said Queen. “I thought maybe you were a health food nut or something.”

  “Nah, I was just in the first trimester of pregnancy,” said Wren, “and food made me feel weird things back then. I got sick a lot.”

  “I didn’t know you were pregnant,” said Queen. “Congrats.”

  “Thanks,” said Wren.

  “Thanks,” said Reilly.

  “Oh, are you two, like, together?”

  They nodded.

  “That’s adorable,” said Queen.

  “Um, thanks, I think,” said Wren.

  “It’s a compliment to be called adorable,” said Reilly, picking up a donut.

  “Is it, though?” said Wren.

  “What was I saying about PLL?” said Queen. “She was staying with them. I knew that her first victim was a member, but I didn’t know that she was part of the group. I mean, I guess I should have figured, because you can’t marry into PLL if you’re not in PLL. But this was around the time when Keith Hughes was being arrested, and everything was kind of up in the air, so I didn’t know how strict everything was anymore.”

  “You seem to know a lot about PLL?”

  “Oh, yeah, I worked undercover as part of a task force associated with the ATF, because there was thought that they were doing some illegal gun… stuff. But we never found any evidence of that. So, I would go there and act as though I was really interested in the whole thing, and I made a lot of friends, and I now realize that they sometimes talked about a person named Indigo. So, Indigo and Poppy—same person.”

  “Yes,” said Wren.

  “Well,” said Queen, “I don’t personally know the family that Indigo stayed with years ago when she was a teenager and came to live here, but I know someone who knows her, and I sent her a message to ask if she can see if they’ll meet with you. If the mother of the family will meet with you, that is. Her name is Maggie Jones.”

  “Excellent,” said Wren. “That’s going to be such a help.”

  “I hope so,” said Queen. “PLL can be really private, so I don’t know if they’ll meet with you or not.”

  “We know a little bit about PLL,” said Reilly, “but I don’t think we’ve ever talked too much about their beliefs and that sort of thing.”

  “Right, well, it’s, like, all based on this idea that your body is a temple, and that you have to keep your body healthy,” said Queen. “So, you buy into it, and they’ll sell you these cleanses, which are these frozen juice things, and you just drink them for two weeks or something. And during that time, you go to intensives where they talk to you about spiritual stuff. All the while, you’re basically starving to death, so your defenses are really broken down, and it’s easy for them to get into your head. I did it, and it was, you know, intense.”

  “Crazy stuff,” said Reilly. “But some people are brought up in it. Indigo apparently was.”

  “Yes, so if you’re a kid, you’ve been brought up with it being common to be on a strange, restrictive diet. And they don’t necessarily follow, say, vegetarianism or keto or anything like that, but they’ll do these questionnaires on you and determine what sort of diet you individually should be having. So some people should eat meat and others shouldn’t and that kind of thing. But they basically will cut an entire food group out of your diet and give you an exercise regimen and trying to fit all that into your life while also, you know, having a life, not easy. So, if you’re raised in it, it’s been the focus of your entire life, and if you join, it becomes your life.”

  “Sounds pretty insane,” said Reilly.

  “Yeah, it is,” said Queen.

  “It’s weird that she keeps coming back here,” said Reilly. “It seemed like she wanted to escape PLL. She left her family in Louisiana, and she left the cult behind. But then she keeps coming back to New York.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Wren. “I wonder why she’d do that.” She was thinking about how she’d tried to leave Cardinal Falls behind her, but how it hadn’t worked, how she now owned property there. She was stuck in Cardinal Falls. And when she went home, Hawk was waiting for her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I’M just thinking that since we’ve got this meeting set up
with Everly Green, we might as well go and talk to her before we call anyone,” said Trevon. He was lying on his side in Maliah’s bed. It was morning.

  She yawned. She’d missed some sleep the night before. She stretched. “You’re just trying to put it off because they are going to be angry with you.”

  “No, I’m being practical,” said Trevon. “Look, what we said yesterday is still true. If she says it’s not him, then we don’t even need to bother them. And if it’s not him, the fact that I blabbed to Mischa is fine, because he’s not our guy. He’s just a girlfriend-abusing dick. I know for a fact that he’s emotionally abusive, but I don’t know if he’s ever raised a hand to her, you know? Mischa says no, so…?”

  “You’re terrified of Delacroix.”

  “Maybe it’s Reilly I’m scared of,” said Trevon. “He seems edgier now that she’s pregnant. I feel like he could just snap.”

  “Edgier how?” She hadn’t noticed this.

  “I don’t know. Just a feeling I get, I guess,” said Trevon. “I think the pressure is on, and I think he’s freaked out.”

  “He’s not. He’s just happy as fuck to have knocked her up,” said Maliah, rolling over onto her back. “This is his do-over. His last marriage imploded, and he was a shitty dad to his son, at least that’s what he thinks—I know, because he used to tell me this—”

  “Right, when you guys were fucking,” said Trevon.

  She rolled back to face him. “Ooh, are you jealous?”

  “Well, I don’t know if that’s the word,” said Trevon. “I somehow don’t have a feeling that I’m going to come out well if you start comparing us, though.”

  “Oh, your dick is totally bigger than his,” she snickered.

  “You don’t have to lie,” said Trevon.

  She threw her head back and laughed harder.

  He pounced on her, pressing his body into his. “Is it really?”

  She could not stop laughing.

  And then they were kissing.

  Somehow, the conversation of calling Wren and Reilly didn’t come back up.

  So, later on, mid-morning, they found themselves waiting outside the coffee shop in Shepherdstown for Everly Green.

  They waited a half hour past the time when she had asked them to come.

  She never showed up.

  Finally, Maliah said that they should call her. Trevon had her number in his phone from the last time he called her, so he called her again.

  He sat down on a bench on the sidewalk and held the phone to his ear. “Hello?… Miss Green, it’s Trevon Aronsen from yesterday…. No, it’s okay…. Yeah, that happens to all of us…. Look, maybe I can just send you the pictures?… Okay…. No, I get it…. That’s very understandable…. Sure…. You know what? We’ll be in touch with you about it…. Yeah, talk to you soon. Bye.” He hung up.

  “She forgot?”

  “That’s what she says,” said Trevon. “I just don’t think she wants to look at the pictures, really. I think she’s trying to avoid it. She said maybe we could set something up where she comes to the Cardinal Falls Police Department.”

  “Well, how are we going to do that?” said Maliah. “We have to call Reilly.”

  “Yeah,” said Trevon, shoulders slumping.

  She sat down next to him on the bench.

  “Look, let me go back over the body again, test some more samples. If we find more DNA—”

  “You’re lying to me about why you think it’s transference,” she said, sitting up straight and looking at him.

  “What?” He furrowed his brow. “How do you figure that?”

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense that you want to keep denying the DNA as transference,” she said. “You had direct contact with him before you went into the lab, didn’t you?”

  He sucked in a noisy breath.

  “Trevon?”

  “He came to see me after the thing with Mischa,” he said.

  “To your house?”

  “No, to the parking lot at work,” said Trevon. “It was just a two-second thing, and he was like, ‘Leave her alone,’ and I was like, ‘Keep threatening me, because it’ll help my case when I press charges this time,’ and… I didn’t touch him or anything, but...”

  “But he was there.”

  “Yeah.” He hung his head. “And then I handled the samples.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “I don’t know. I’m embarrassed about all of it. Like, he just scares me.” Trevon bowed his head. “I’m scared shitless of him, and that’s why I didn’t press charges, and I don’t want you to know that I’m so… weak.”

  “You’re not weak,” said Maliah. “And you definitely cannot hide information that has bearing on a case because you’re trying to impress me. Newsflash, Trevon: I like you.”

  He lifted his gaze. “I’m an idiot.”

  “You are,” she said.

  “I’m really dumb about this mushy, pair-bondy shit,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re just… you’re young.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “And I’m too young for you. I bet Reilly isn’t the least bit frightened of guys and doesn’t get beaten up and isn’t—”

  “I’m with you.” She shrugged. “When I was with Reilly, he was married to another woman. And I was also married. So, there is no need to act as though that shit show was anything other than a… shit show.”

  He smirked.

  She smirked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s actually kind of flattering, that you want to impress me.” She drew in a breath. “Okay. So, more samples, more tests. You’re going to do that, and we’re going to see if we find anything else.”

  MAGGIE Jones didn’t want them to come to her home but agreed to meet at a local diner.

  They got there just as the lunch rush was leaving, and they ordered dessert and coffee. Well, Maggie and Reilly did, but Wren had used up her two cups of coffee for the day, and she was all right without drinking anymore. She felt quite adequately caffeinated.

  “Thanks for meeting me here,” said Maggie. “There’s a lot of distrust amongst the members of PLL when it comes to law enforcement. We’ve been taught to distrust the establishment, you see, so it’s easier not to get involved with all of it.”

  “No problem at all,” said Wren. “We just wanted to ask you some questions about Poppy—Indigo is what you called her?”

  “Yes,” said Maggie.

  “And she stayed with you when she came to live at the community here years ago?” said Reilly.

  “She did,” said Maggie.

  “We understand she was ordered there by Keith Hughes,” said Wren.

  Maggie nodded. “Yeah, I got a call from Marlena Evans about her daughter. She said that her daughter had fallen into a bad situation, and that she was pregnant. But Indigo was only thirteen.”

  “Pregnant?” whispered Wren. This shocked her. Without meaning to, her hand went to her own stomach.

  “At the time, we didn’t ask questions,” said Maggie, “and we were removed from the Louisiana community, so we didn’t have the same knowledge of Keith’s, um, indiscretions, but it’s pretty obvious what happened to her. Marlena wanted Indigo to come and have her baby here, and then there were people within the PLL community who were foster parents and registered with the state, and they would take the baby and… that was the way it was done. Um, Indigo was not the only girl for whom this sort of thing was done, and I think that all of them were Keith’s victims.”

  Wren was speechless. Her heart was breaking for this thirteen-year-old girl, whose mother had not protected her and who had been sent to live with strangers to deal with the consequences of the abuse that had been perpetrated on her.

  “It’s why she comes back here,” said Reilly softly.

  Wren turned to him sharply.

  “Her child is still with the community?” said Reilly.

  “Yes,”
said Maggie. “She had a little boy. His name is Connor, and he’s still with a foster family in the community here. He’s twelve years old. He doesn’t know that Indigo is his birth mother, but she does visit him and, I don’t know, he might suspect something.”

  “So, she comes back to see her son,” said Reilly.

  “But she can’t stop herself from killing,” said Wren. “She could never be his mother, not really.”

  “You’re assuming that she’s being noble about it,” said Reilly.

  “Right,” said Wren. “Maybe she’s just not interested.” She swallowed. “Um, Ms. Jones, did you know Indigo’s first husband, Stephen?”

  “I did,” said Maggie.

  “What kind of man would you say he was?”

  Maggie blinked. “I don’t really know how to answer that question. He was… well, he wasn’t the most devout follower of PLL. He liked to cheat on the diet and he wasn’t much for hitting his exercise goals. Um, I think maybe Indigo liked him. They were never going to be poster children for the movement, if you know what I mean. But, um, apparently she didn’t like him after all, since she… she did what she did to him. I still don’t understand that. I will admit that I didn’t like her when she lived with us. I had my own children to deal with, and she was thrust upon me, and I had to do it because it was the orders of Keith Hughes. So, I took her in, but I wasn’t particularly pleased about it, and she wasn’t either. She was sullen and sad and I was cold to her. But all things considered, I never thought she would kill someone.”

  “Do you think that there’s any possibility that Stephen was hitting her?” said Wren.

  “No way,” said Maggie. “I can’t think that. He wasn’t that sort of man.” She shrugged. “But they say you can’t tell about that, don’t they? So, I guess anything’s possible.”

  LATER that night, Wren lay in the circle of Reilly’s arms in their hotel room. She felt safe there, close to him, surrounded by him. She liked the way their bare skin felt when they touched each other, and she especially liked the way his hand was resting on her belly, warm and protective.