Wren Delacroix Series Box Set

by V. J. Chambers

  “Oh, right, I know this,” said Reilly. “Like Major Hill was an organized killer. He planned stuff out and posed the bodies, and this is disorganized.”

  “Right,” she said. “A disorganized killer kills and runs. He leaves the victim where he killed her, and he doesn’t take any time to present the body. He’s impulsive and sloppy. He usually leaves behind lots of evidence. Sperm, DNA, skin under the victim’s fingernails, you name it. This presents like a disorganized killer, but there’s no evidence, and he’s cleaning up after himself. And the YouTube video, it’s all wrong.”

  “Why is the video wrong?”

  “It’s just not the sort of thing a killer like this would do,” she said.

  “It’s not unheard of for serial killers to use the media to taunt law enforcement,” said Reilly.

  “Right, but that would be something an organized serial killer would do.”

  “Gotcha,” said Reilly.

  Wren rubbed her forehead. “So, basically, what we have here? Either I’m missing something, or this is a serial killer that’s going to revolutionize the textbooks.”

  Reilly considered. “You think it’s possible, what with all the emphasis on evidence like DNA out there in the media today that killers are just smarter than they used to be? Maybe he’s a disorganized killer who cleans up a little.”

  “And wears gloves,” she said. “And uses a gun.”

  “The gun thing is weird?”

  “Well, it’s not unheard of,” she said. “But only about a quarter of serial killers kill with guns. And the gun, it’s an impersonal way of murdering someone. This killer shot her from behind. He didn’t want to look in her eyes while she died, which suggests a certain amount of remorse or trepidation about the act. But then after she’s dead, he molests her body both anally and vaginally. And that’s pretty personal.”

  “Yeah,” said Reilly.

  “So, it’s crazy,” she said.

  “What you’re saying is that you got nothing?” he said.

  “I’m not saying that at all.”

  “You know, the first time I met you, you took one look at a body and you had a profile all worked up in, like, twenty minutes. But not this time, huh?”

  She glared at him. “What? Don’t you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth from the discretionary funds you divert to pay my salary?”

  He chuckled. “Ooh, I must have touched a nerve.”

  She walked faster. “I’d say he’s anywhere from sixteen to thirty years old. I’d guess he never went to college, maybe never graduated high school. I’d say he probably doesn’t have a steady job, he’s possibly got a substance abuse problem. He’s…” She let out a sigh. “Okay, fine. I got nothing.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wren sat on her porch. It was getting chillier in the evenings as autumn crept up on them, but she still liked to be outside when she could, instead of cooped up inside. She’d spent the day in buildings and cars, going here and there and talking to various people about the body of Bristol Cannon. She wanted to be outside right now.

  She was trying to do some research on the internet on disorganized killers so that she could get a handle on what was going on with this case, but she kept getting distracted by thoughts that would flit through her brain. One was that victims of serial murders became depersonalized to her as she worked on a case. She didn’t mean for it to happen, but it started when she tried to profile the killer. The killer thought of his victims as less than human, and she started to think of them that way too. She had to remind herself that Bristol had parents and a little brother and friends and a boyfriend, and that all those people were devastated right now.

  She had to solve this murder for those people, and for Bristol’s memory. That was what all of this was about.

  Not about this weird disorganized/organized killer who she was finding extremely intriguing. She was frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t get a handle on the guy, but she liked the puzzle. She wanted to solve it.

  Not for the first time, she wondered if this ability she had to disconnect from everything was hereditary. Had she gotten it from her mother, who had ordered the deaths of more than fifteen people?

  Wren didn’t like to think about Vivian Delacroix if she didn’t have to.

  And, of course, she didn’t know who her biological father was, so she couldn’t be sure if that side of her made things worse or better.

  Sometimes, she wondered if she were a very bad person, deep down.

  She heard a noise, something rustling in the woods near her house and she stood up straight, going to the edge of the porch to peer out into the woods. It wasn’t yet dark outside, but the shadows had grown very long, and dusk wasn’t far off.

  It was probably some animal or something. There were deer out here in the woods. Smaller things too—rabbits, squirrels, even some foxes and sometimes coyotes.

  But it was a person who was coming out of the woods.

  Hawk Marner.

  He strode across her lawn in a flannel shirt, carrying a six pack of beer. He looked up at her, shoulder-length dark hair falling into his light gray eyes. He was an attractive man, even if he was sort of white-trash hot. She wasn’t sure why he was here, exactly. They hadn’t been speaking much lately.

  “Hey, little bird,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I’m bowled over by how happy you are to see me.” He smirked. He reached her porch and climbed up the steps. He set the beer down on the railing and got one out. He offered it to her.

  She hesitated, and then she took it. “I’m not not happy to see you. It’s just… I don’t know… things with us are weird.”

  “They don’t have to be,” he said.

  “I’m still not sure I’m over the fact that you knew that Major was killing those girls and you didn’t say anything.”

  “Major is like a brother to me,” said Hawk. “I couldn’t turn him over to the police.”

  “But you might have been able to save one of the lives of those girls.”

  “Might. Maybe. Probably not.” Hawk took out another beer and popped off the top with his lighter. “I didn’t come here to talk about Major.”

  She reached out for his lighter. “What’d you come to talk about?”

  He handed her the lighter. “I didn’t come to talk.”

  “No?” She popped the top off her beer and then gave him back the lighter. “Then, what? It’s a booty call?” She wrinkled up her nose. “Booty visit? For it to be a call, you’d have to, you know, call.”

  “I thought you might hang up on me if I called.”

  “You’re not denying it. Is that why you’re here?”

  He took a long swig of beer. “Well, you make it sound crass.”

  She snorted. “Because it is.”

  “So, you’re kicking me out?”

  She sighed.

  “Look, little bird, you’re a hard one to read. If I thought I could wine and dine you—”

  “On burgers from bait and tackle places?”

  “They’re really good burgers.”

  “No, you’re right. They are really good burgers.” She drank more beer. “I thought we decided not to, you know, do this.”

  “You said you didn’t want things to be formal,” he said. “I’m not here in a formal capacity.”

  “But you want something?”

  He thought about it. “Need something. Isn’t that what you said? If either of us needed it, we’d just… be.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “What do you need?”

  “Company,” he said. “Yours. Drink beer with me, hang out.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “And that’s it.” He grinned. “If there were… how did you put it? Booty? If there were that, I wouldn’t complain.”

  She eyed him, drinking more beer. “Oh, I guess you wouldn’t.”

  “But whatever you want, little bird. If you really want me to leave…” He stood up, reaching
for his six pack.

  She stopped him, putting her hand on his before he could pick up the beer. “You don’t have to go.”

  He leaned against the porch railing.

  She put a finger in his face. “But whatever happens, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Yeah, you won’t let me forget how meaningless it all is between us.” He shook his head, chuckling softly. “I get it. I promise.”

  * * *

  Wren woke up to Hawk’s mouth on her shoulder.

  She giggled a little, rolling over and stretching and somehow ending up in his arms.

  He covered her in kisses. Her neck, her jaw, her earlobe.

  She groaned.

  He rolled over onto her, pinning her beneath him, and he kissed her mouth.

  She shut her eyes, enjoying it. It was nice not to wake up alone. It was nice to wake up to his firm body next to her, and he was a good kisser, and she was happy.

  Then her alarm started blaring.

  Her eyes snapped open.

  Hawk sat up, looking around. “What the flying fuck is that?”

  “It’s my alarm.” She felt around on the side table until she found her phone and turned it off.

  “Thank God,” said Hawk. “That was making my head pound. Why would you do that to yourself?”

  She sat up, leaning back against the headboard of the bed. “We have a new case, and I need to be in early to get cracking on it.”

  “What? More murders? Another serial killer? Already?”

  “Well, he’s claiming he’s a serial killer. On YouTube. He made a video and said he was going to keep killing. But so far, there’s only one body.”

  Hawk made a face like something smelled bad. “Already.” He shook his head.

  She stretched again, arching her back.

  Hawk pounced on her, cupping one of her breasts while he kissed her again.

  “Mmmnph,” she said into his mouth, pushing him off. “I have to go to work.”

  “Do you really?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How about breakfast?” said Hawk.

  “No. No time.” She climbed out of bed. “Besides, breakfast together is a thing that couples do, and we are not a couple.”

  “What are we?” said Hawk.

  “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  He pointed back and forth between them. “This is not nothing.”

  “This is sex,” she said. “It’s just sex. It’s good sex, but that’s all.”

  Hawk flopped backwards on the bed. “You’re killing me here, Wren.”

  “You’re the one who came over for a booty call.” She searched around in her hamper and pulled out a pair of jeans. She had three different pairs of jeans that she wore basically nonstop. She washed them occasionally, but she didn’t like to, because after they were washed, they were stiff and uncomfortable, and it took days of wearing them to get them worked back in.

  He sat up. “Coffee, then. Let’s get coffee.”

  She shook her head. “No. That’s a couple thing, too.”

  “I know for a fact you’re going down to that coffee shop. You go there every morning. So, I’ll come with you.”

  “Hawk.”

  “You can’t stop me from going to the coffee shop,” he said.

  “Why are you being like this?” she said. “What do you think is going to happen? We’re going to have a big June wedding and invite our families? Oh, wait. My mother’s in jail, yours left you here to go find herself when you were a kid, and neither of us know our fathers.”

  “You have a dad, Wren,” he said, getting out of bed. He seemed subdued now. Maybe it was the mention of his mother. She remembered it had been a sore subject when he was younger. Apparently, it still was.

  “Right, okay,” she said. “We’ll invite him, then, and his boyfriend.” Hayes Delacroix was the man who had raised her, but he wasn’t her biological father. She was close to him, though. “But Dad probably doesn’t approve of you, just so you know.”

  Hawk’s laugh was a little caustic. He was getting dressed too. “Did I get down on one knee or something? I didn’t. All I asked for was coffee.”

  She glared at him.

  “Maybe you have issues with intimacy, little bird.”

  “Fine,” she said, seizing a t-shirt from the hamper as well. “Fine. We’ll get coffee.”

  * * *

  Reilly’d had his son Timmy overnight the night before. He usually only had him every other weekend, but Timmy’s mother, Janessa, had asked him if Timmy could stay over, and Reilly had agreed. He wasn’t sure what Janessa had been up to, and he hadn’t asked. Maybe she had gone with her friends or something. Maybe it had been a date. She was his ex-wife, and it wasn’t his business. He didn’t even have any emotional reaction to the prospect of her with another man.

  Not that he would have any right to a reaction, considering their marriage had broken up because he’d been unfaithful to her.

  Well, that was oversimplifying things. The marriage had broken up for a lot of reasons, not least the strain that raising a severely developmentally delayed child had on them both. The cheating had been a symptom, not a cause, in Reilly’s mind. But it had been the last straw for Janessa.

  Honestly, being apart was good for both of them, Reilly thought. Now, he only had to feel guilty about one thing—Timmy. Janessa was no longer his responsibility, and he was relieved. Timmy, on the other hand, that was always tough.

  When he dropped his son off at school that morning, he tried to give the little guy a hug, but Timmy wasn’t having it. He shoved him off and said, “The island of Sodor is surrounded by water an all sides.”

  That was obviously something that Timmy had heard on a Thomas the Tank Engine cartoon. Thomas and his friends lived on the island of Sodor.

  Reilly watched the kid go, thinking too much about what he’d said. Islands were surrounded by water, and Timmy hadn’t wanted a hug, and maybe he was trying to tell him…

  But no, that was wishful thinking on Reilly’s part. Timmy couldn’t communicate. Though he could talk, he never said anything original. He just repeated things that he had heard. It was called echolalia, and Reilly hated it. Sometimes he wondered if there was anything going on in there, or if his son was little more than a human robot.

  He longed for some kind of relationship with the boy, but relationships were hard without communication, and Timmy couldn’t do much more than the bare minimum. Still, Reilly felt guilty. He couldn’t not. He knew that he had run from Timmy and Janessa. He’d buried himself in his work. Maybe if he’d paid more attention to his son in his formative years, he could have made a difference. Maybe if they’d refused to let him watch those damned Thomas cartoons, he would have learned to talk.

  Reilly didn’t know. He wasn’t sure what failing it was within him that had caused his child to be the way that he was, but he was sure it was something.

  What was hell, though, real hell, was seeing kids of awful parents be totally normal and bright. In those moments, he knew it wasn’t really his fault. But when he let go of blaming himself, he let go of any hope, because then he knew that he had no effect on Timmy, and that Timmy would never get better.

  Which, hell, he was having a hard time accepting.

  He got to the coffee shop, the Daily Bean, later than he usually did. He would still ask Angela if Wren had been in yet, because Wren was hell for sleeping in, and he might have beaten her there. Whoever got there first usually bought the other a drink. That was him probably seventy percent of the time.

  When he walked into the coffee shop, Wren was there, however, and she was with Hawk Marner, who was shaking his head and saying, “… buy his own coffee.”

  “It’s just a thing we do,” said Wren, who was clutching two cardboard coffee cups. She looked up. “Reilly!”

  “Morning,” said Reilly.

  Hawk looked Reilly over.

  Wren crossed the store and handed Reilly one of her coffee cups. “I got your ginge
r latte. Triple shot. Just how you like it.”

  “Thanks,” said Reilly, taking the cup. He was eyeing Hawk too.

  Wren glanced at Hawk and then glanced at Reilly. “Okay,” she said. “Well, I’m going to work now. Bye, you two.”

  Reilly broke his gaze with Hawk and went after her. “You have any brainwaves on your profile yet?”

  “Nope,” she said, heading for her car.

  Hawk went around to the passenger side of the car.

  She glared at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Give me a ride back to my place,” said Hawk.

  “It’s out of my way,” she said.

  “By two minutes,” said Hawk. “Come on.”

  Reilly cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you at work, Wren.”

  “Yep,” she said, getting into her car, looking furious.

  Reilly took his coffee and got in his own car. He watched Wren and Hawk argue a little longer before Wren caved and let him get in the car. Then she peeled out of the parking lot.

  Reilly wasn’t sure what to make of that. He contemplated it as he drove to the task force headquarters.

  Hawk had once told him that when Wren was only ten years old, she’d been paired with Hawk by the leader of the Fellowship, the cult the two had grown up in. David Song was a prick who’d exercised his power by sexualizing young girls. But Hawk had claimed that he’d kept Wren safe. It was this connection to the cult that had made Wren think Hawk was most likely their serial killer.

  Now, they were getting coffee together?

  Reilly just… didn’t like it for some reason.

  When Wren arrived at work a few minutes later, he spoke before he could think.

  “So,” he said, “you and Hawk Marner?”

  “No,” she said, putting a finger in Reilly’s face. “No, it’s nothing. It means nothing. It’s just…” She chugged coffee. “It’s none of your business. And you have no right to talk. I mean, what with you and Maliah.”

  Reilly looked down at his shoes, feeling acutely embarrassed. Maliah was the woman he’d had an affair with. That affair had ended his marriage.

  “Everyone knows about that,” Wren muttered to herself. “Does that mean everyone’s going to be all up in my business too?”