Wren Delacroix Series Box Set

by V. J. Chambers

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  She twisted, getting ready to fight. He was naked, and she had hand-to-hand combat training in the FBI Academy. He might be stronger than her, but she was pretty sure that she could take him.

  “You found the card,” he said.

  “Let go of me,” she said.

  He did. “You think…” He nodded. “Of course you think that. Of course you do.”

  “I’m leaving, Hawk.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Don’t go off half-cocked, all right? Talk to me for a minute?”

  “What is there to talk about?”

  “I found it at Major’s,” he said.

  Her lips parted.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “It’s awfully convenient is all.”

  “Can I put on some pants? Can I at least do that while we talk about this?”

  She hesitated. Finally, she folded her arms over her chest. “Fine.”

  He trotted over to the couch and snatched up the ID card. Then he disappeared out of the room. When he came back, moments later, he was wearing jeans and tugging a t-shirt over his head. His gray eyes were hard.

  “If it’s Major’s, why is it at your place, hidden in your couch?” she said.

  “I just… I wanted it to disappear,” said Hawk. “I found it, and I didn’t want to find it. I couldn’t handle it, and I didn’t know what to do, so I stuck it in there until I could figure it out.”

  “Figure what out?”

  Hawk ran both of his hands through his hair. “He’s like a brother to me. You don’t understand. I’m all he has.”

  “If you find incriminating evidence, you turn it over to the authorities.”

  “I…” He shook his head. “Look, I just… I couldn’t. Not to Major.”

  She shook her head.

  “Listen, I don’t know a lot about serial killers, but is that what they usually do with trophies from their victims? Shove them under couch cushions?”

  “Well, they don’t leave them out on display,” she said. But he was right. It was all wrong. There should be some place of honor, all the trophies together, someplace organized and reverent. She relented. “So, where did you find it at Major’s?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I can show you. I guess I can show you.” But his voice was breaking. “I just… if I show you, I’m betraying him.”

  “Hawk, if he’s doing this, he’s killing little girls.”

  Hawk clenched his hands into fists.

  “Why?” She said, lifting her chin. “There’s no special reason that Major would latch onto initiates—”

  “It’s you,” said Hawk in a low voice.

  “What?”

  He raised his gaze. “Major, he always… You two were closer in age. He thought that when it was time to announce your pairing, it should have been him, not me. He always… and lately, he’s been pissed at me, because you and I were, you know…”

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “He never acted like he had feelings for me.”

  “No?” said Hawk, raising his eyebrows.

  She thought back on it, thought back on Major and she couldn’t think of anything specific, anything special, but he had always been nice to her, really nice. But no, there was nothing that would have ever made her think that he had a crush. “No,” she repeated.

  “Fine,” said Hawk. “Then blame me. Maybe it’s better if you blame me. Maybe I’ll take the fall for it, and then that’ll scare him, and he’ll stop, and—”

  “How long have you known it was him?” she said.

  He hung his head.

  “Did you know when we went to the hardware store?”

  Hawk toyed with the edge of his shirt.

  “Did you?”

  “I went looking for her,” said Hawk. “Anyplace he could have had her, I looked. But I guess I just didn’t look hard enough.”

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “How could you—”

  “I confronted him. He denied it,” said Hawk. “I don’t even know if he knows what he’s doing. Maybe he blacks out or something.”

  The covering of the face, the dressing of the victims, the difference between the killing and the presentation of the bodies. All of it pointed to some kind of psychological break like that. It made sense.

  “If you arrest him,” said Hawk, “does that mean he has to go to jail? Because he won’t last in a place like that. He needs, like, some kind of facility or something. You know?”

  “That’s not really up to me,” said Wren. “And I can’t arrest him. I’ll have to call in Reilly.” She held out her hand. “Give me the ID card.”

  Hawk put his hand in his pocket. He hesitated.

  “Hawk, give it to me.”

  He flinched. “Damn it.” He handed it over.

  “I’m calling Reilly, and then you’re going to show us where you found this,” she said.

  “I don’t know, Wren,” said Hawk. “I just don’t know.” He looked at the door.

  “Are you thinking of going somewhere?”

  He took a step toward the door.

  “Are you going to warn him?” she said.

  “He’s family, Wren,” said Hawk, and darted out of the door.

  She went after him, yelling. But she was barefoot, and Hawk had boots on. He went into the woods, and she had to stop to pull on her own shoes before she followed him. When she did, he’d been swallowed up by the trees and undergrowth.

  * * *

  Wren stood with Reilly, outside Major’s cabin. Reilly had his gun drawn, but he was pointing at the ground. Wren knocked.

  They both waited.

  “Major?” called Wren. “It’s me, Wren. Can I come in?”

  No answer from within, but then Wren wasn’t expecting to find him there. She didn’t know what Hawk had done. She’d come by Major’s house earlier, hoping to find Hawk, but she’d been too late. She hadn’t gone in, afraid to mess with procedure for finding evidence. She’d looked in the windows, and no one was there.

  While she and Reilly waited for a search warrant to come through, she called Hawk over and over again, and he never picked up. She called Kimora and asked if she’d seen Hawk or Major. She hadn’t. She asked Kimora to call around for her, ask if anyone knew what was going on. But she hadn’t heard anything back from Kimora.

  “Mr. Hill, Tri-state Task Force,” called Reilly. “We have a warrant. We’re coming in.” He nodded at Wren.

  She tried the doorknob. It turned.

  They stepped inside the house.

  Major’s house was cleaner than Hawk’s, everything tidy and put away. His furniture was shabby and threadbare, but it was clean. “Yeah, this fits the profile better,” she said.

  “Huh?” said Reilly, who was going first, making sure there was no one in the house. He had his gun out, pointing ahead of him.

  “Neat freak,” she said. “Control.”

  “Right,” said Reilly, disappearing down the hallway.

  She followed him. “I bet we find trophies in the bedroom. He’d want them close to where he slept.”

  Reilly nudged open a door to the bathroom. He poked inside, pulling aside the shower curtain. It was empty.

  The only other room back here was the bedroom. It was sparse, just a bed and a dresser.

  Wren pulled on a pair of gloves.

  She lifted the mattress from the box springs beneath. She pulled out a small, thin wooden box.

  Reilly was stowing his gun in its holster. “What’s that?”

  She opened the box. Two more ID cards. Austyn Campbell and Kailin Wilson, the first two victims. An envelope. A braided thread bracelet—blue and purple.

  “Vada’s,” said Reilly, touching it with gloved hands. “I saw it in a picture of her.”

  Wren opened the envelope. It had a lock of blond hair in it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “So, where do you think Hawk would have taken him?” Reilly was saying.

  Wren shook her head. “If I k
new, we’d already be there, finding them.” She and Reilly were back at headquarters now. They’d spend the better part of the morning with a team combing every inch of Major’s place, bagging and tagging as much evidence as they could. It didn’t look like the cabin was the kill site. He must have been doing that elsewhere, but they didn’t know where. Still, if they could find trace DNA of any of the girls in the house, it would be a big help. “The thing is, they don’t leave the compound ever. Either of them. And we’ve been all over the compound. If Hawk’s there, we would have found him.”

  “Doesn’t the FCL own acres and acres of woods out behind the settlement?”

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “But we can’t search out there. I mean, we don’t have the manpower.”

  “At some point, if he’s at large for too long, we’re going to have to get the manpower,” said Reilly. “But here’s the thing. Should we be searching the woods behind the compound or should we be having people look at diners off the interstate? Is there any place he’d go? Any place at all? You know him, right? Where would he take Major?”

  “I…” She shook her head. “When he was really young, before all the stuff with the murders, he talked about going to an art school in Pennsylvania, but then he dropped that and he’s never picked it back up again. He has no ties to anyone out in the world.”

  “So, he’s in the woods.”

  “They can’t hide in the woods forever,” she said. “That seems like a dumb place to go.”

  He sighed.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Okay, look, we’ve been going over this and over it, and we’re getting nowhere. We’re just going to have to try to do both things.”

  “What? Look in the woods and the diners?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, figure out how far they could have gone by now—”

  “In any direction?”

  She sighed.

  They were quiet.

  He massaged the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. That’s what we gotta do. I’ll get BOLOs out, get the word for people to be looking for them. Meanwhile, you figure out the best way into those woods.” BOLO stood for ‘be on the look-out.’

  “We’re going out there?” she said.

  “I have to do something,” said Reilly. “I can’t sit around waiting for something to happen.”

  “Right,” she said. “Okay, well, that makes sense.”

  Reilly left the room and went back to his office.

  She went to her office and pulled up Google maps to look at the woods out there. It wasn’t very helpful. She knew there was one path out there, and it went pretty deep into the woods before curving around coming out next to the fire pit. It might be worth it to try that path.

  Her phone rang.

  It was Hawk calling.

  She picked it up. “Hawk, you called me, thank God.”

  “Actually, it’s me,” said Major.

  “Major?”

  “Hi,” said Major. “Sorry I’m using Hawk’s phone, but I don’t have your phone number. You never gave me your phone number, Wren. Maybe I should have asked. It’s all fine and good to say that I should have asked, but I always knew there was no point. I always saw the way you looked at him, like the sun and rose and set in his eyes. You always wanted him. Too bad it turns out he’s got no loyalty at all.”

  “Major,” she said, a sudden thrill of worry going through her, “where is Hawk?”

  “See, right off,” said Major. “You ask about him. I haven’t talked to you for two minutes and you’re asking about him.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said right away. “You’re right. You called me, not Hawk. How are you, Major? Where are you?”

  “Hawk isn’t a very good friend,” said Major. “He always treated me like I didn’t matter. Like he was superior to me. When I was a kid, I thought it was just because he was older, but then I got to realize he never thought that I was very smart.”

  “Well, I would never think that, Major. I know you’re smart.”

  Major barked out a laugh. “Don’t patronize me, Wren. Hawk tried to talk to me like that. He thought he could convince me to run away. He told the police that I was a murderer, and then he thought that I was going to forgive him for that? No.” Major laughed again. “No way.”

  “Did you do something to Hawk?”

  Another laugh from Major, but this one almost sounded like a sob. “Anything I did, he deserved. You wouldn’t believe the way he is with me. He forced me to do all those drugs. He’d put it in my beer. I never knew. Sometimes there would be acid, sometimes not. He made me.”

  “Hawk drugged you?” What?

  “And then it always got confusing,” said Major. “So confusing. I tried to talk to Hawk about it, but he always acted like I was crazy or something. I’m not crazy.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re not crazy. I would never say that about you.”

  “Good,” said Major. “Hawk told me that we could run and that I could get away and that I could start some other life somewhere, but I don’t want another life, and I don’t want to go anywhere with him. You know what I want, Wren, is what I’ve always wanted. You.”

  “Me,” she said softly.

  “You come to me,” said Major. “Come to me, and come alone, because if I see that Detective Reiner guy or anyone else, anyone at all, I will slit Hawk’s throat and let him bleed out, because the Crimson Ram doesn’t care whose blood it is. He just wants blood.”

  “Of course,” said Wren right away. “Fine. You tell me where you are, and I will be there.” It would be stupid to go alone. She should tell Reilly and bring the whole police force with her.

  “By yourself,” said Major. “I just want you. And if you think that I can’t kill Hawk, you’re wrong. I can kill anyone I want. I’m good at it now. The girls, I never cut their throats because it would have ruined them, but I don’t care about Hawk. He betrayed me. He said I was crazy. He said he was my friend, but he was never my friend.”

  She swallowed. “By myself.”

  But this time, she meant it.

  Maybe she hadn’t felt anything when she’d killed Kyler Morris, maybe she’d even liked it a little, but she couldn’t be responsible for Hawk’s death.

  Not Hawk.

  * * *

  Wren stood at the mouth of the path into the woods. At her back was the fire pit where Vivian had stirred her army into a murderous frenzy. In front was the woods. It was dusk, and everything was dark autumnal shadows.

  So, Reilly had been right, that was the hell of it. They were in the woods.

  She hadn’t said anything to Reilly. She’d just left. That would make him realize something was off. And she’d left the Google map of the forest up on her computer screen. She did want him to come, but not right away. She didn’t want him to startle Major and she didn’t want Hawk to get hurt. So, she tried to leave enough clues that he could put it together but not so many that he would put it together right away. She needed a little time.

  The woods were dark and fireflies were flitting around between the trunks of the trees. It should have been pretty, but the fireflies seemed wrong somehow, as if they were moving too quickly, demented little insects burning out in the abyss.

  There was a prickle at the back of her neck, as if someone was watching.

  Of course, Major could be watching. He could easily have sent her out on this little excursion for his enjoyment. Maybe he had something planned for her.

  What that might be, she didn’t even want to imagine.

  No, focus, she told herself. Find Hawk. Stall Major. Wait for Reilly to show up.

  She stepped into the woods.

  She didn’t have a weapon. She wasn’t going to do that again. She couldn’t do that again. Besides, Reilly didn’t have a gun lying around in a locker for her to take anymore. She couldn’t have brought one even if she wanted to.

  Except now, as she crept under the branches and between the gnarled trunks of the trees, she felt l
ike prey. Like a scared rabbit being toyed with by a cunning wolf. It was stupid to come without a gun.

  She wasn’t stupid, so why had she done it?

  Well, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have her phone. Of course, she realized it would be pointless to call 911 if she had a problem. Whoever worked for the local department wasn’t going to help her. She would have to call Reilly.

  She could call Reilly now. She could call him, and tell him where she was, and all of the sudden, she would be less stupid. She could leave the woods and stand out in the open and wait for him to arrive. And when he arrived, he would do it with an army of flashing lights behind him, men in uniforms with guns.

  And Major would be spooked, and he would disappear, and they would never catch him.

  And Hawk?

  Well, hell, Hawk might already be dead.

  She didn’t call anyone. She trudged into the woods, clenching and unclenching her fists, watching the creepy fireflies.

  After she walked for maybe fifteen feet, the fireflies disappeared.

  She wasn’t sure what that was about. She stopped to look behind her, and there they were, at the mouth of the path into the forest, lighting up the yellowing leaves of the trees there.

  Didn’t fireflies like to come deep into the forest?

  She couldn’t remember if they did or not. She couldn’t see why the fireflies wouldn’t go into the deep woods, but maybe they didn’t. Maybe it was simply the natural behavior of fireflies to stay at the perimeter.

  Or maybe…

  Maybe the fireflies sensed something in the woods that she couldn’t, something otherworldly.

  Behind her, a noise.

  She whirled, heart galloping in her chest.

  A squirrel darted up a tree trunk. It had rustled a branch. Nothing more than that.

  She squared her shoulders and kept going. The Horned Lord isn’t real, she told herself. He was never real.

  The wind picked up, tossing the branches above her head.

  She looked up and she could see the first few stars in the night sky.

  The wind tunneled down in front of her, picking up leaves on the forest floor, making them whirl into the air.

  She huddled inside her leather jacket, wishing again for a gun.