Wren Delacroix Series Box Set

by V. J. Chambers

  * * *

  Wren pushed open the door to Cook Hardware. A little bell rang.

  There were three people in the store. One was Tanner Cook, who was Ellis’s nephew. He’d gone to high school with Wren. Like most of the townie guys, he had treated all the girls from the compound like they were nothing unless he decided to brag that he’d convinced one of them to perform sexual favors for him.

  For the girls who grew up in the Fellowship, sex wasn’t a big deal. Everyone there was sleeping with everyone else. They hadn’t been taught that they should wait until they were ready to or to treat their virginity like a precious gift. They had been taught to give in to their feelings and do what felt good. It was something that the boys in town both exploited and vilified.

  Wren hated the double standard. She’d never personally been involved with Tanner.

  Which was good, since he might be her cousin.

  Yuck.

  Anyway, she’d never been involved with him, but she’d had her share of heartbreaking experiences when she was young, enough to learn that everything she’d been taught by the Children about freedom and expression and sex was wrong. The world wanted women repressed and buttoned-up, and she had resolved to be that from there on out.

  Mostly, she was.

  Of course, there was Hawk…

  Damn Hawk.

  He was the reason she was even here. She didn’t want to be here in the hardware store, with Tanner Ellis gaping at them from behind the counter, and the two lone customers turning away from their hammers and duct tape to be similarly stunned at the sight of them.

  Hawk’s mouth twisted into a satisfied grin. He was enjoying this.

  Wren wanted to disappear. She looked at the door, thought about making a run for it, didn’t.

  Tanner came out from behind the counter and strode across the store to intercept them.

  Hawk’s grin widened. He headed for Tanner, as if the two of them were meeting in the middle of the town square at high noon.

  Oh, this wasn’t good.

  The two men stopped right in between the nails and washers, and they sized each other up.

  “What are you two doing in here?” said Tanner.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me if you can help me find anything?” said Hawk.

  “Are you here to buy something?” Tanner folded his arms over his chest. “I never seen you buy anything besides cigarettes and booze, Hawk Marner. Got a big construction project up there on Satanic Mountain? Hey, by the way, you guys seen Jenny Smith? You got that little girl tied up in one of your damned cabins up there? Why’d don’t you just give her back? Why you gotta kill those girls?”

  Hawk started to say something, but Wren wedged her way in between Hawk and Tanner. “Who’s Jenny Smith?”

  Tanner looked her over. “Well, well. Wren Delacroix.”

  “Jenny Smith is missing?”

  “Benjamin Smith’s little granddaughter.”

  Benjamin Smith was one of the first of Vivian’s victims, one of the community members who was planning to file suit against the FCL. Except he and Adrian Campbell were killed before they could do it.

  Tanner was still talking. “She never came home from school Friday. No one’s seen her since.”

  “Did you report this to the task force?” said Wren.

  “What? That man from out of town whose always poking his nose—”

  “Reilly?” said Wren. “He lives in town. He lives right in town. He’s trying to stop this killer, but if no one’s willing to share information with us, how the hell are we supposed to do that?”

  “What the fuck are you are talking about? Share information with the devil cult up there?” said Tanner.

  “With the task force,” said Wren. “I work for the task force.” She turned to Hawk. “I need to call Reilly.”

  “What about Ellis Cook?” said Hawk.

  “Well, he’s not here,” said Wren.

  “What do you want with my uncle?” said Tanner.

  “Just call him,” said Hawk. “Tell him to get his ass down here.”

  “I’m not doing anything you tell me to do,” said Tanner.

  Wren didn’t hear the rest, though, because she was pushing back through the bell on the door and onto the street. She dialed Reilly.

  He picked up. His voice boomed in her ear. “Hello?”

  “Did you know there was a missing girl?”

  “Jenny Smith?” said Reilly. “Yeah, went missing Friday, and I just got word from the local department.”

  “Why did it take so long?” She was livid.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Those local boys, maybe they’re getting the impression that the task force would take over, and they don’t want that? I’m going to call them tomorrow—”

  “It’s me,” she said. “If they know I’m working with you, they won’t share anything. Everyone in this goddamned town hates me.”

  Reilly was quiet for a minute. “Um, you doing all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m peachy,” she snapped.

  “Look, I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with you,” he said.

  “Another girl goes missing, we should know,” she said. “We should have spent the entire weekend looking for this guy. We might have saved her.”

  Another long pause from Reilly. “Yeah,” he said softly.

  “But by now…”

  “Don’t say it,” said Reilly. “Maybe she’s still alive.”

  “It’s too soon,” she said. “The killer has been cooling off between the murders. There should be months of cool-off time. He’s accelerating. He’s evolving.”

  “Yeah, seems that way.”

  “So, what can I do? Should I come back in? Should we work through the night trying to—”

  “No, it’s okay,” said Reilly. “You stay by the phone, though, in case I need you.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  She tightened her grip on her phone.

  “Hey, uh, Wren?”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you should have a beer or two and relax. You sound like you’re wound a little tight.”

  She hung up on Reilly.

  He sent a text saying he was sorry if he had crossed a line.

  She told him to have a fucking beer himself. She was going to go to her car and drive off, but then she remembered Hawk. Stupid Hawk. She was here because of Hawk. Which meant that she was going to have to go back into that stupid hardware store. But just as she got to the door, it burst open, and Hawk came through.

  “Oh, go and fuck yourself!” Hawk yelled over his shoulder.

  She shut her eyes and then opened them again, trying to find some semblance of calm.

  Hawk focused on her. “Hey.”

  “What did you say to Tanner?” she said.

  “Nothing that I haven’t said before,” said Hawk.

  That was when they noticed that Ellis Cook was coming down the street to meet them.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ellis stopped. He raised a tentative hand. “Hi there. I’m so sorry about Tanner.”

  Wren and Hawk both looked at him in surprise.

  “I just got a call he was harassing the both of you when you came into the store,” said Ellis. “I’m going to have a talk with him. Nothing like that’ll happen again. If you ever have problems in my store, you just call me.”

  Wren licked her lips. “You’re, um, being very kind about this.”

  “Yeah, I don’t suppose you heard the things that I said to him,” said Hawk.

  “Whatever the friction between various groups of people in this town,” said Ellis, “it should never be played out in a public place of business. We can all attempt to be civil.” He cleared his throat. “Now, all that being said, it is odd to see members of the FCL in town like this.”

  “Right,” said Hawk. “We usually stick to our own places of business? You’re not used to serving our kind here?”

  “I didn’t mean it
like that,” said Ellis.

  “You’re just not sure how to handle your hypocrisy, are you?” said Hawk. “Pretending to be so concerned about the influence of the Children on your family, and all the while screwing Vivian Delacroix.”

  Ellis flinched.

  Wren flinched.

  No one said anything.

  Then Ellis smoothed the front of his shirt and started to walk past them.

  “Wait,” said Wren softly. “Is it true? You and my mother?”

  Ellis glanced at her and then became interested in his knuckles. “It was a long time ago.”

  “But if you were doing that, how could you continue to give those speeches about running the Fellowship out of town?” said Wren.

  “I think…” Ellis looked up at her. “I think she targeted me because of the speeches. Maybe she thought that if she could change my mind, I would change everyone else’s. But I don’t know. I don’t think the process was as easy as she thought it might be. It was only a few weeks, and then she was done with me.”

  Wren let out a little noise. “Which only made you hate her more?”

  Ellis shook his head. “It was a long time ago. I’d rather you didn’t say anything. My wife, it would hurt her, and she hasn’t done anything wrong. If you want to hurt me, then hurt me, but don’t tell her, don’t hurt her.”

  “We’re not after you,” said Wren. “A few weeks is all? Hawk sneaked you in and out of the compound?”

  “I…” Ellis looked at Hawk. “Oh, it is you. You were just a boy then.”

  “And that was all?” said Wren. “Never before? Never again?”

  “Never,” said Ellis.

  Wren nodded. “Thank you. That’s all we wanted to know.”

  * * *

  Hawk leaned against the counter in her kitchen. “I shouldn’t have stirred it up. I should have let it go. We went down there, talked to him, didn’t find out anything. It was for nothing.”

  “Why did you stir it up?” she said. She was kneeling down, going through the cabinets, looking around. She had gone through all the gin in the house, and she wondered if there was any more liquor hidden away here.

  “You wanted to know about your father,” said Hawk. “I wanted to help. You helped me the other night, so I wanted to return the favor.”

  “Right,” she said. She pushed aside a few ancient boxes of cereal, which she was surprised hadn’t been chewed into by mice, and there it was. A bottle. Triumphant, she pulled it out and set it on the counter. “I helped you the other night.”

  “You did.” He eyed the bottle. “What’s that?”

  “Whiskey, by the looks of it,” she said. “Never been opened. When you go treasure hunting in these old cabinets, you never know what you’re going to find.”

  “Well, does this mean you’re asking me to have a drink with you?”

  “Sure,” she said. She got down two glasses and filled them with ice. She poured the whiskey over the ice and handed one glass to Hawk.

  They each took a sip.

  “Anyway,” said Hawk. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I had you go down there at all.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Maybe he’s lying?” said Hawk.

  “I hope not,” she said. “I don’t want that to be my father. If Ellis Cook is my father, I’d rather live my life out in ignorance. I already have a father, anyway.”

  “Hayes always did take care of you.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “He wants me to come home. He calls me every so often, begs me to leave.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Oh, didn’t you know? I’m here to save you all. I thought you saw a vision of it in the flames.”

  He laughed a little. He took a sip of his whiskey. “Look, you can’t take what I said that night to mean anything.”

  “I don’t.” She drank some whiskey herself, enjoying the way it burned down into her belly. “I don’t take any of that night to mean anything.”

  He scuffed his foot against the kitchen linoleum. “Right. I forgot it was all meaningless.”

  “I’m only saying…” But she didn’t finish her sentence, just let it dangle there.

  He downed the rest of his whiskey and went over to pour himself more. “You got out of here, little bird. You were free. Why’d you come back, really?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hell, if I had gotten out of this place, I would have run as far away as I could, and I wouldn’t have ever come back. No way.”

  She felt a twinge. “Oh, Hawk, I… you could still go.”

  “Nah,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  She remembered that when they were young, he used to draw pictures. He liked to read comic books. He would draw superheroes with long, flowing capes. “Do you still draw?”

  He turned back to her, whiskey in hand. “Oh, no, not in a long time. I forgot all about that.”

  “You would talk about going to that art school, the one in Pennsylvania where they find you a job after you graduate.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I do remember that.”

  “I would always stop you from talking like that, though,” she said. “I didn’t like it, because you would never include me in the plans. I always thought that you’d leave me and I’d never see you again, and I didn’t want that.”

  “You were just scared,” he said. “You did fine without me. Anyway, I was all talk. I never went anywhere. I never even applied to that school. Hell, when all that shit went down with your mother, I pretty much gave up on school in general.”

  “You could still leave this place.”

  “No, I couldn’t.” He held up his glass. “To regrets.”

  “Oh, please, I’m not drinking to that.”

  He laughed. “Come on, bottoms up. To regrets.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she downed the rest of her whiskey.

  He poured her some more. “We should keep drinking this and make some more regrets.”

  She snorted. “You said something like that before, but—”

  “I came after you and said that stuff about your father, because I wanted to stop you from running away from me. I know you should run away from me. I mean, always, that’s been the right move when it comes to me.”

  Her lips parted.

  He crossed the kitchen to her, moving through the air with an intent look on her face.

  “Don’t,” she said, her voice barely audible.

  He stopped, but he was only inches away from her.

  “You could have had… I mean, I used to want you, all those years ago, but you didn’t want me.”

  “No, I wanted you,” he said. “Of course I did.”

  “But you let me go.”

  “I had to.”

  “You didn’t. They would have understood. They would have honored the pairing, because I was older—”

  “Because they would have thought that I was screwing you when you were ten,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No. They wouldn’t—”

  “People will probably think it now,” he said, and he stepped even closer. “The difference now is that I just don’t care anymore. I don’t care about doing the right thing, and I don’t care about what people think of me. Fuck all of it.”

  She was trembling. “This is… you and me, it’s not…”

  “Healthy? Smart?” He took one step closer, and now he was practically touching her. He set his whiskey glass down next to her on the counter. He rested his hands there, one on each side of her. “You think I’d be bad for you?”

  Her breath hitched in her throat.

  “I was always going to be bad for you, little bird.”

  She shut her eyes.

  “You say that you used to want me, but you never stopped wanting me.”

  She opened her eyes. She tried to contradict him, make herself tell him that she didn’t want this, because she couldn’t actually want….

  “Can I kiss you again now, or are you going to need more whiskey?”<
br />
  She still couldn’t form words.

  He pressed his body into hers, and he was warm and firm through his clothes.

  She reached up and put her hands on his chest.

  He gazed into her eyes.

  “We shouldn’t,” she breathed.

  “No,” he said, “definitely not.”

  She dragged her fingers over his chest, feeling his firm muscle under her hands. She found the edge of his shirt, seized it, tugged it.

  He helped her pull it over his head and then he crushed her against him.

  * * *

  Wren woke up in the circle of Hawk’s arms. They were both in her bed, their bodies tangled together, and it felt good.

  She wasn’t sure if it was only the closeness that felt good, if any warm body would have done, if she shouldn’t have just gotten herself a big shaggy dog to cuddle with, or if there was something significant about it being Hawk. Maybe it was only the completionist in her, but there was something deeply satisfying about finally having him after having wanted him for half her life.

  Of course, there were all sorts of other feelings about it too, not all of them so positive, but she wasn’t going to have them just yet. She was even going to ignore the fact that her head was pounding with this awful hangover from drinking too much whiskey. It was still dark outside. She didn’t have to face reality yet. She could huddle here in the darkness, carve out a place before the dawn in which it was a fantasy come to life and all her dreams had come true.

  That was when she noticed the figure standing over her bed.

  She sat up right away, heart in her throat, and then realized she wasn’t wearing clothes. She fumbled for covers, pulling them tight like armor, and as she did so, she recognized the figure.

  “Major?” she whispered.

  “I thought I’d find him here if he wasn’t at home,” said Major.

  Hawk stirred next to her. He saw Major and did the same startle and then calm as she had done. “What the hell, Major?”

  “I was looking for you,” said Major to Hawk. “I need you.”

  “Can it wait until morning?” said Hawk.

  “No,” said Major. “I looked everywhere for you. I didn’t know where you were. You always tell me if you’re leaving the compound, and you didn’t tell me anything, and I couldn’t find you, and—”