Wren Delacroix Series Box Set

by V. J. Chambers

  But Reilly was already going further into the apartment.

  She swallowed, and then she went after him.

  Reilly took out his gun, just like he had at David Song’s house.

  They entered a tiny living room, which had an old couch stuffed into it and a TV mounted on the wall crookedly. The coffee table was covered in dirty plates, discarded food wrappers, and overflowing ashtrays. The smell in here was just as bad as in the kitchen, maybe worse.

  They walked through the living room and into a small hallway.

  On one side, there was a bathroom.

  Reilly stepped inside. He pulled back the curtain of the shower, and there was someone in the bathtub.

  A male someone, face down, clad in a dirty tank top and a pair of jeans. He wasn’t moving.

  “Hello?” said Reilly in a soft voice.

  Wren licked her lips. That man was dead. She just knew he was. He was dead, and when Reilly rolled him over, it was going to be bad. Some kind of grotesque wounds, probably so old that they’d been infested by those flies in the kitchen, maggots squirming in the man’s sockets and orifices—

  The man moved.

  Wren screamed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The man sat up in the bathtub, rubbing his eyes. He was dirty and unkempt and he didn’t smell good, but he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even hurt. “Who the fuck are you?” he said.

  Reilly was surprised too. He was trying to put his gun back in his holster, but he was having trouble lining it up. “I’m, uh, Detective Caius Reilly. This is my associate, Wren Delacroix. We’re—”

  “Little Wren Delacroix?” The man got to his feet, wobbling a little, his voice eager.

  Wren recognized him now. She knew him from the bonfires. It had been a long time ago, though. He had changed. “Hi, Roger,” she said.

  “Well, what the hell are you doing here?” said Roger, grinning widely at her. He was missing one of his teeth.

  “I, uh, we’re just doing some routine investigation,” said Wren. “It’s about the murders back in Cardinal Falls. You’ve heard? There’s someone killing little girls.”

  “Ohhh,” said Roger, nodding. “Yeah, sure. I heard about that.”

  “Do you think you can account for your time on some specific dates?” said Reilly.

  Roger shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t been too with-it lately. See, Devon, she up and left me. She said I wasn’t the man she fell in love with all those years ago. Since she’s been gone, everything’s gone to hell. I can’t muster any energy to clean or to do anything. I keep passing out in the strangest places.” He looked down at the bathtub. “Anyway, everything’s been a bit of a blur lately.”

  “How long ago did Devon leave?” said Reilly, and Wren could almost see the wheels turning in his head. Maybe the girlfriend leaving had caused Roger to break down and start killing.

  “About three months ago,” said Roger.

  Reilly deflated. That didn’t match the time line. It was too recent. The murders had started before that.

  “Do you ever get back to the compound?” said Wren.

  “Why would I go back there?” said Roger. “That place is evil. Every time I think of it, I get this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. No, I hate that place.”

  * * *

  “Well, it could have been him,” said Reilly, standing in the doorway of Wren’s office. “Nothing Roger said eliminated him.”

  “True,” said Wren. “But I didn’t get the impression he had ready access to transportation. It’s not as if he could take a bus out here, you know. If he doesn’t have a car, he couldn’t have come.”

  Speaking of cars, Reilly’s had been just fine when they came out of Roger’s apartment, much to his relief.

  “Yeah, I think he’d be a bit of a stretch,” said Reilly. “He didn’t seem to match your profile either. The control you talked about. He didn’t seem to have that.”

  “I don’t think so either,” said Wren.

  “Could have been an act.”

  “Except he didn’t know we were coming,” said Wren.

  “Good point,” said Reilly. He held up a folder. “So, you remember when I was telling you about the tracks that we found near the Walker place?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “Have you matched them to anything?”

  “Yeah.” He stepped forward and opened the folder, spreading it out on her desk. “These were definitely made by Michelin Defender tires.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Flip over to the next page,” he said.

  She did. It was a receipt, printed off the internet. “What’s this?”

  “That’s a receipt proving that Kyler Morris bought a set of those tires for his SUV.”

  “And Kyler Morris is?”

  “The man who owns that website we were looking at this morning,” said Reilly.

  “Oh!” She looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “Well, that’s promising.”

  “Right?” said Reilly. “I say we go pay him a visit.”

  “Definitely,” she said. She tapped the receipt with one finger. “Wow, it could really be him, couldn’t it?”

  “You sound hopeful.”

  She looked up at him.

  “That’s because you don’t want it to be Hawk Marner.”

  Her lips parted.

  “I went to talk to him, like you said.” Reilly shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “What did he say?”

  “I don’t think he likes me much,” said Reilly. “I don’t think I like him either, though.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What did he say?” she repeated.

  “He said that anyone who was honing in on the age of the initiate girls could be the killer,” said Reilly.

  She blinked, thinking about it. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

  Reilly looked away. “He said other things. We don’t have to get into it.”

  Wren gave him a puzzled look.

  “I got a feeling from him,” said Reilly. “A bad feeling. I know that doesn’t mean anything, or it shouldn’t, but… I think you’re right. He’s the best suspect we’ve got.”

  She looked back at the receipt. “This guy, Kyler, he talked about initiates. I don’t know how he knows so much about the inner workings of the Fellowship, but he could be the one.”

  Reilly reached over and shut the folder, picking it back up. “That’s true. He could be.”

  * * *

  “Listen, the pairings were never about anything as base and fleshly as sex,” Isaac Scott was saying. He was standing in front of the main hall, leaning on a rake. He had gloves on his hands. “That’s not what David was trying to do. He never intended for the men that were paired with the young girls to take advantage of them.”

  “Um, I beg to differ,” said Wren, who was feeling annoyed. She wasn’t even sure how the conversation had taken this turn. She had been trying to get Isaac to establish an alibi for her. She thought maybe she could eliminate him. Isaac had never had any contact with the initiates, so she didn’t think he was her killer. She wanted to cross him off the list. It seemed like lately, what with Roger and Kyler Morris, the suspect list was only growing more bloated. She wanted to shrink it. “I was an initiate. I was very well aware of what was going to happen to me after the pairing.”

  “No,” said Isaac. “Did anything like that happen to you?”

  “Well, no, but that was only because Hawk—”

  “That was because it was never about such things,” said Isaac. “The men were meant to protect the girls until they were old enough to become their wives.”

  “Then why not just leave the little girls in their parents’ households?” said Wren. “Why force them apart? I’ll tell you why. It’s a form of brainwashing. You subject parents to the trauma of losing their children and tell them it’s the will of God, and you force children to be subjugated and molested by older men—”

  “That is not true.” Isaac picked up the
rake and wagged it at Wren. “Have any of those girls ever come back and registered a complaint against any of those men? Has there been one single lawsuit?”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Sure it does. In this litigious day and age, it does. Why, I’m surprised there hasn’t been one lawsuit even though the claims are groundless. But the fact that there hasn’t been, it proves that nothing ever happened.”

  “It doesn’t prove anything,” said Wren. “And besides, even if the girls weren’t being molested at twelve, they were sexualized young. There were teen mothers all over the place.”

  “That’s the natural time for girls to be mothers,” said Isaac. “Isn’t that what David always said?”

  “Well, David was a disgusting, dirty old man.”

  “Don’t say that,” said Isaac.

  Wren took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.

  “He was not a fleshly sort of man,” said Isaac. “I’m telling you, I don’t think he ever had any sexual relations with anyone the entire time he was here in the compound. He was practically a monk.”

  “That’s bullshit,” said Wren. “Hell, he and Vivian were probably—”

  “No,” said Isaac firmly. “I assure you, that would never have happened.”

  “Vivian would have done it,” said Wren.

  “Well, that’s true,” said Isaac, sighing. “Your mother was, er, fleshly. Why, sometimes, during her little bonfires, it was quite a free-for-all.”

  “Eww,” said Wren. “Can we not talk about this?” Then she paused. “Actually, do you remember names?” A horrifying thought occurred to her. “You and Vivian never—”

  “Oh, no, of course not.” Isaac curled his lip in disgust. “Why do you want names?”

  “Maybe I’m trying to find out who my father is,” said Wren. “Because it wasn’t Hayes Delacroix, that’s for sure.”

  Isaac nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose I can see that. I’m sorry, Wren, I don’t have names. If I did, it would probably encompass half the compound. Most of those men aren’t even here anymore.”

  “You know what?” she said. “Forget it. Look, what I really want to know from you is if you can account for your whereabouts on the following dates.” She listed them.

  “I went on vacation with the Daramonds,” he said. “I was in Virginia Beach that entire week.”

  “Okay,” said Wren. “That’s good.” Maybe she could eliminate him after all. Isaac was an insufferable, holier-than-thou know-it-all, but he didn’t strike her as a killer.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Reilly got back to his townhouse, his ex’s car was in the driveway, and he swore under his breath. How the hell had he completely forgotten that it was his weekend with Timmy?

  He looked up to see that his son was standing at the doorway of the townhouse, hugging his pillow tightly. He was wearing a Thomas the Tank Engine t-shirt that was too small for him, since boys his age had usually grown out of Thomas. Timmy loved the show so much that he wouldn’t stop wearing the shirt. Reilly well knew the struggles with Timmy. He would throw tantrums over the smallest things. It was easier to let him wear the tiny shirt than it was to fight him on it sometimes.

  He imagined it had been a tough day for Janessa. Timmy didn’t take well to changes in his routine. She had probably been prepping him for it for two days now, telling him exactly what would happen, and how the entire day would play out. First we’ll get our shoes on and then we’ll get in the car and then we’ll drive to Daddy’s house. And when we get there, Daddy will let us in, and he’ll have pizza for you for dinner.

  Because that was the way things were supposed to go. That was the routine. That was what Timmy expected.

  But here Reilly was, late, and without pizza.

  He parked his car and got out. He trudged across the parking lot. “Sorry!” he called.

  Janessa intercepted him. Her voice was low and furious. She didn’t want Timmy to hear. “He is two seconds away from a breakdown, Caius. What the hell?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Something came up. We had to drive to Baltimore to interrogate a suspect—”

  “I don’t want your excuses. You never change. You always put your work ahead of your son.”

  “Janessa…” He wanted to defend himself. Instead, he just bowed his head and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I should have been here.”

  “Where’s the pizza?” said Janessa.

  “I’m going to have to take him to go and get it,” he said. “I just… I didn’t have time—”

  “You forgot, didn’t you?” she said.

  “No, I didn’t—’

  “You did, you forgot, because it’s always out of sight and out of mind for you with him. All these years, and you don’t even have a relationship with him.”

  “I do,” he said, even though a horrible thought surfaced in his brain. There’s nothing to have a relationship with. And he shoved that away, because it wasn’t true. Sure, his kid was delayed and he was developmentally far behind his peers. Sure, it was hard to connect with Timmy, because he lived in his own little world. But there was something there. Of course there was. And Reilly loved Timmy more than life. He felt tears sting the back of his eyes, and he swallowed them away. “I would never forget him. I’m sorry I screwed up. I’m really sorry.”

  Janessa sighed. “Look, if you can’t handle him—”

  “I can handle him.”

  “If you can’t make it through the whole weekend, you can call me and I’ll pick him up.” She gave him a disgusted look.

  “Have I ever done that?” he demanded. “That’s not fair.”

  From the porch, Timmy let out a thin wail.

  Janessa looked up at him.

  Reilly pushed past her, heading toward his son. “Hey, buddy! It’s Daddy.”

  Timmy looked up at his father. “You’re a really useful engine, Thomas.”

  Reilly closed the distance between them. “You want pizza, buddy?”

  “Bust my buffers! He’s going around the bend,” said Timmy.

  Timmy didn’t talk.

  Well, he talked, but he didn’t say much that actually came from his own head. He could say, “yes,” and “no,” and use them meaningfully, but he wouldn’t always be up for answering questions. He preferred to run the scripts of any number of his favorite Thomas episodes, which he had memorized word for word. He would sometimes start one up and go through the whole thing. Other times, he used mixed and matched phrases.

  It wasn’t always Thomas.

  He also knew things from Toy Story, Peter Pan, Aladdin, and Paw Patrol. But whatever he was saying, it was all either part of Timmy’s play-pretend world and no one else could intrude on it, or it was part of some kind of verbal stimulation to entertain himself.

  Timmy was ten years old, and he wasn’t completely potty trained. He still had to wear a diaper at night, and he was only fifty-fifty about getting bowel movements into the actual toilet. He was a two-year-old in an older boy’s body. No, he was a shell of a little boy. As if someone hadn’t seen fit to fill him all the way up with things like personality and communication.

  Hell, Reilly didn’t mean that either.

  It was only… it was hard. It was hard having a kid like Timmy. It was painful, and Reilly never felt as if he was a successful parent. He always felt as though he was failing. He couldn’t reach his son.

  “Let’s get in Daddy’s car and go pick up a pizza,” said Reilly. “Come on.” He took Timmy’s hand.

  Timmy shoved his hand away. “No!” He erupted into tears.

  Janessa hurried forward, wrapping her arms around Timmy. “I’m sorry, baby,” she murmured.

  Timmy pushed her off too. “No, no, no.”

  Janessa stood up, glaring at Reilly.

  “I got this,” he said to her.

  “Oh, you could have fooled me,” she said.

  “Let’s just go have some peanut butter, then,” said Reilly in a s
oft voice to Timmy.

  “No!” wailed Timmy.

  “Look,” said Reilly, “just go, and let me distract him, okay? He’ll calm down in a bit.”

  Janessa shook her head disapprovingly. This was an old argument between them. He thought that catering to Timmy’s tantrums only made them worse, but Janessa couldn’t bear for him to cry at all. If it were up to Reilly, he would have simply strapped him into the car, kept up a steady stream of calming talk about pizza and how Timmy was going to be okay, and gone to get the pizza as normal. He would bet even money that by the time they had pulled onto the main road, Timmy would be done crying. He needed a change of scenery, that was all. But by rocking him and holding him and soothing him, Janessa kept him trapped in the tantrum.

  But she was the primary caregiver. He had to do as she wished. At least he did while they were married. Now, if she would just go, he could do things his way for once.

  “How can I leave?” said Janessa. “How are you even going to get him inside?”

  Reilly walked over to Timmy and picked him up.

  Janessa’s face twitched. Timmy was too big for her to pick up anymore.

  Reilly struggled with the door and with Timmy, who was squirming in his arms, still screaming. Timmy wasn’t crazy about being touched, especially when he was in full-on panic mode.

  Reilly deposited Timmy on the couch in the living room, where he began to thrash and scream.

  Janessa came to the doorway. “Oh, great, Caius. This is perfect.”

  Reilly switched on the TV. He had purchased every single episode of Thomas on Amazon. Within seconds, he had one playing.

  Timmy sat up straight at the familiar sound. He hiccuped and sniffed. He stopped crying. He curled up into the couch and gazed at the screen.

  “Oh, excellent,” said Janessa sarcastically. “Just park him in front of the TV.”

  “To calm him down, Janessa,” said Reilly.

  She lifted her chin. “Listen—”

  “Let’s not argue,” said Reilly. “Didn’t we go through this divorce so we didn’t have to do that anymore?”