Wren Delacroix Series Box Set

by V. J. Chambers

  “I want us to keep having sex sometimes,” she said, just throwing it out there, as bald as it was. “I mean, I know that’s the kind of thing that women aren’t supposed to say and aren’t supposed to want. I know that out in the regular world, I’m supposed to be repressed and happy about it, but I was brought up here, and I’m not like that, and I like having sex with you. So, there.”

  The side of his mouth quirked up.

  She laughed a little. “I don’t know about anything more than that, though. If that’s not okay with you—”

  “It’s okay with me.”

  “Then, fine, why do things have to change? Why do you have to say you’re going to stay away, and that you’re not going to come by anymore?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “It’s because you want me to commit to you. You want something more than sex, and you’re not satisfied—”

  “No,” he said.

  She waited.

  He looked away. “That detective of yours thinks that I took advantage of you when you were little girl.”

  “What?” She was horrified. “How does he even know that about us?” Of course, Reilly did know about the pairings, and she had said that she was an initiate, and maybe it wasn’t hard to figure out that it had been Hawk, but—

  “I told him,” said Hawk. “When he questioned me, I talked about the pairings.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t know it was a secret,” he said.

  She fidgeted with the zipper on her jacket, unsure of why she was so uncomfortable with Reilly knowing.

  “He point-blank asked me what happened back then,” said Hawk.

  “Shit,” she said. “I can talk to him.” But even as she said it, she thought the subject was too horrible to broach with Reilly. And she didn’t like that he was talking about it with Hawk either. Reilly didn’t need to be concerned with her past, not in that way.

  “No,” said Hawk. “No, he’ll think I put you up to it. I don’t fucking care what he thinks anyway.”

  “You obviously do if it’s making you say these things to me.”

  “I care what you think,” said Hawk. “I mean, even if nothing happened when we were kids, it doesn’t mean that it didn’t fuck you up somehow, and I’m part of that.”

  “If it fucked me up, it fucked you up too.”

  “Had to be worse for you.”

  “I don’t know, it wasn’t so bad. You were, you know, older and… and hot, and I got to see you wearing pajamas and talk to you in whispers after the lights were off.”

  He hung his head.

  “Hawk…” She sighed. “You should come to the wedding. With me. As my plus one.”

  He raised his gaze to hers. “What?”

  “Just say you’ll come.”

  “It’s not about that,” he said.

  “But you will come. Right?”

  “Okay, if you want me to.”

  “I do,” she said. “I want you come along.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Her hand darted out and she snagged one of his. She squeezed his fingers. “We don’t ever have to talk about the pairings ever again. We were sleeping in the same bed for what? A month? Not even, I don’t think. Three weeks maybe and the arrests happened.”

  He squeezed her fingers back. “Yeah.”

  “And I’m fine,” she said. “So, let’s just forget about it, okay? Let’s never, ever bring it up ever again.”

  His lips parted.

  “Okay?” she whispered.

  He hesitated. “Okay,” he said.

  “Good,” she said. “Now come inside my cabin with me, and let’s talk about something else. Or better yet, let’s not talk at all.” She tugged on his arm.

  He resisted for a moment, but then he came along, letting her lead him back towards the cabin, back to the light and warmth of her home.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Reilly looked up from his desk to see that Wren was standing there. She was holding her cup of coffee. “This was on my desk.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I got it for you because Angela said that you hadn’t come in to the Daily Bean yet.”

  “And you just left it for me? Didn’t give it to me face to face?”

  “Are you mad?” He leaned back in his office chair. “You seem mad.”

  She took a drink of her coffee. “Were you embarrassed to face me after you spent all of last night trying to discover some childhood trauma you imagined for me?”

  He winced. “You talked to Hawk.”

  She yanked a chair over in front of his desk and sat down. “I didn’t think you liked Hawk.”

  “I don’t.”

  “But you were so chummy with him. You had a whole conversation where you told him all about my father’s wedding and accused him of being child rapist.”

  He looked down at his desk. “I… I had kind of a shitty day yesterday. Hawk showed up, and I… you’re right, I shouldn’t have said anything to him.”

  “Seriously, Reilly, I don’t see why you would think there was any call to talk about me like that.”

  He raised his gaze to meet hers. “There wasn’t. I had no right. I’m sorry.”

  She took another drink of coffee. “You should be.”

  “I am.”

  She squared her shoulders. “Okay, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  He nodded. But then he couldn’t seem to keep it in. “I talked to him about it because I was worried about you.” He held up both hands. “Which doesn’t excuse what I did or anything. I get that it’s crossing lines.”

  “Am I giving you a reason to be worried? Is it because of the profile thing?”

  “No.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but she said, “Fine. Next time, if you’re worried, talk to me.”

  “That’s the thing, I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring it up to you. It wasn’t fair to you to trap you in that conversation, you know? If something did happen to you when you were a little girl, then my asking about it would be like forcing you to relive it.”

  She thought about this for a minute. “Maybe I get that. Maybe.”

  “And if there was some way I could get to the bottom of it and decide if I needed to act—”

  “You didn’t. I don’t need you to take care of me.”

  “We all need taken care of sometimes,” said Reilly. “I get that I overstepped into your personal business, but if you were being abused or taken advantage of, I couldn’t stand by and watch that. I became a cop to stop that shit.”

  She sighed. “Look, I’m not being abused. And I wasn’t. Well… not by Hawk.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Not like that, not ever,” she said. “No one molested me as a child, but growing up in that place, with Vivian… well, I’m not going to say it was a healthy childhood.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I understand that. I promise I will leave it alone from now on.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She turned and started out of his office. Then she turned back around. “Why did you have a shitty day yesterday?”

  He looked down at his desk. He didn’t want to share this. Not with her, not with anyone. He didn’t even want to think about it.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “You delve into my personal life, but you won’t share?”

  “My ex-wife is getting married because she is pregnant,” said Reilly.

  Wren didn’t say anything.

  “I know,” he said. “It shouldn’t bother me. I don’t even know why it does. I don’t want to talk about it, or think about it, so let’s move on. I got stuff for us to do today, anyway.”

  “Stuff?”

  “We’re going to go find Seth Harrison,” said Reilly.

  “That teacher Tobias Harrison’s brother? The one he has to take care of?”

  “Yeah,” said Reilly. “I had Maliah do some digging and she found out that he’s autistic, and he’s pretty much confined to his home. He has someone who stays with him while To
bias works. At one point in time, back when their parents were still alive, Seth had a job doing something with computers at a dance studio for girls.”

  “Huh,” said Wren. “Like this was a dance studio.”

  “Yeah, I don’t even know how they fit in here,” said Reilly.

  “So, what happened with his job?”

  “He was asked to leave because of inappropriate behavior. Apparently, from what Maliah can gather, he was flashing people, like dropping his pants at them. I don’t know. Probably harmless, but sometimes that kind of behavior escalates.”

  “Right,” said Wren. “Sometimes serial killers start out doing those kinds of anti-social actions. It would really depend on whether he was doing it in order to antagonize people—if he was getting a charge out of other people’s discomfort, or if he was just confused about social norms.”

  “Right,” said Reilly.

  “Also,” said Wren, “if he really is autistic, it’s very unlikely he’s a serial killer. On the other hand, sometimes the lack of empathy in psychopathy gets misdiagnosed as autism when a kid is young. If a psychopath is smart enough, he apes autistic behavior in the same way he might ape empathetic behaviors.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that we don’t know,” said Reilly.

  “We need to talk to him,” she said.

  * * *

  “Um, I’m not sure,” said the woman at the door. “I don’t know if I should let you in to talk to Seth. Maybe I should call his brother.”

  “We’re not here to do anything except ask a few questions,” said Reilly. “We promise, nothing more than that.”

  “And we’ve already spoken to Tobias,” put in Wren, although she didn’t mention that he hadn’t given explicit permission for them to talk to Seth.

  “Oh,” said the woman. “Well, all right, I guess. I’m the homemaker, Mindy. I come in mostly to be here in case Seth gets in any trouble, but he’s fairly independent.” She opened the door wider for them to come in.

  Reilly went in first and Wren followed him.

  Mindy continued, “He’s actually probably on the computer right now. He spends a lot of time on the computer. I might have trouble getting him to leave and come out to talk in the living room.”

  “That’s fine. We can go to him,” said Reilly. “Or do you think that would upset him? The new people?”

  “I really couldn’t say,” said Mindy. “Let’s try it. I’ll take you up to his room.”

  They crossed a nondescript living room to a set of carpeted steps and ascended to the upper level of the house. At the first door they came to, Mindy stopped outside a door which was open a few feet.

  She gently rapped on the door. “Seth? There’s some people here to talk to you.”

  “We’ll be right back after these messages,” called a cheery voice from within.

  Mindy smiled. “Hey, Seth, can we come in?”

  “Do what you have to. I can’t stop you,” came the response.

  Mindy grinned at them. “Sometimes, he does that. When he talks, he just quotes things. Sometimes they relate, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes he gets on a kick, and he’ll wander around the house doing the entire script of a movie. He knows all the words to The Princess Bride.”

  Wren noticed Reilly stiffen at this. Maybe he didn’t like The Princess Bride. Blasphemy.

  Mindy pushed open the door and they entered an office that had been decorated with big bright posters on the wall of kittens and puppies. Seth was sitting at a table that had quite a setup. There were three wide monitors spread across the desk and lots of electronic towers that beeped and blinked. He twirled around on his swivel chair and clapped his hands.

  “Hi, Seth,” said Mindy.

  “Hi,” said Seth. He grinned too, but his word came out flat, monotone.

  “These people want to talk to you. Would that be all right?”

  Seth ticked his head to the side a few times. “Okay,” he said in his flat voice.

  “Okay,” said Mindy. She raised her eyebrows at Wren and Reilly.

  Wren waited for Reilly to take the lead. She wasn’t good at interrogations under the best of circumstances, let alone when dealing with a guy with special needs.

  Reilly ran a hand over his face. “Hi, Seth, my name is Detective Reilly.”

  “Detective?” said Seth. “Really?”

  “Really,” said Reilly, getting out his badge and showing it to Seth.

  Seth’s eyes got very wide. “Oh!” he said. “Oh, oh, that’s a badge. Alert the media! Alert the media!”

  “You want to see it?” said Reilly, smiling.

  “Can I?” Seth grinned a huge, huge grin.

  Reilly handed it over.

  “Oh,” said Seth. “Oh, wow.” He inspected the badge for several moments. “Do I have to give it back now?”

  “Yeah, give it back,” Reilly said gently.

  Seth handed it back.

  “I wonder if I can ask you about someone,” said Reilly. He got his phone out and tapped and scrolled on his screen for a minute. When he turned the phone to Seth, he had a picture up of Bristol Cannon. “Have you ever seen this girl before?”

  Seth looked at the picture. “I think so.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I think so.” Seth began to tick his head to the side again. This time he didn’t stop.

  “Where did you see her?”

  “On TV maybe,” said Seth.

  “Okay,” said Reilly. “What was she doing on TV?”

  “It was just a picture. She wasn’t doing anything,” said Seth.

  Maybe the news, Wren thought. They would have had pictures of Bristol on the news. “Did you ever see her in real life?” she spoke up.

  Seth looked at Wren. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, think about it,” said Wren. “Maybe at your brother’s school?”

  “Maybe,” said Seth agreeably, nodding.

  Reilly shook his head at her.

  Wren nodded. She realized right away that it would be easy to lead this man to say anything she wanted.

  “Did you see her at the high school?” said Reilly.

  “Maybe,” said Seth.

  “Yes or no,” said Reilly.

  Seth looked worried. “Yes?”

  Reilly put his phone back in his jacket. “You know what, Seth, I think that’s all we need from you. Why don’t you go back to your computer, huh?”

  “Okay.” Seth shrugged and swiveled his chair around.

  * * *

  Wren was sitting in the car while Reilly was on the phone with his captain Lopez. She listened to Reilly’s side of the conversation, trying to follow, but Reilly was mostly making hmm-ing noises and saying yes or no.

  Finally, Reilly hung up. He put the key into the ignition of his car and started it. “Lopez doesn’t know of anyone who’d be qualified to question him, but he’ll ask around.”

  “Well, we could try, I guess,” said Wren, “but I can’t help but feel that he’d agree to anything if you pushed him.”

  “Yeah, questioning him could be extremely difficult,” said Reilly. “And if he’s lying, we might never know. If it’s a situation as you said, where he’s aping autistic behavior, then he could be playing all of us for a fool.”

  “Wow,” said Wren. “That would be truly devious. He really didn’t strike me that way. I got no sense of malice from him at all. He just seemed like a little boy, you know?”

  “Yeah,” said Reilly, pulling the car out of the driveway and onto the road.

  After a moment, she asked, “Are you all right?” And then wondered if she should. When she’d pushed at him earlier, he’d been pretty adamant that he didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  “Did I ever tell you about my son?” said Reilly.

  “What?” she said. “No.”

  “He’s, um… well, he’s very probably autistic, but Janessa has resisted the diagnosis his whole life. Which… hell, it’s a thing sometimes I wonder about. Like, th
ey say early intervention is really key, and we did get him all kinds of help when he was small, and we still do, but she was real sensitive about it being called autism. I think she thought if we didn’t say it, it wouldn’t be true?”

  “Oh, geez,” said Wren. “I had no idea. I’m, um…” She had been about to apologize, but then caught herself. You didn’t apologize for something like this. Man, she felt awful.

  Reilly kept talking, as if he hadn’t noticed. “Anyway, he’s verbal, but he’s echolalic. He doesn’t say anything except other things he’s heard.”

  “Seth did that,” said Wren. “He was quoting stuff.” She remembered Reilly’s reaction. It made sense now. He had been thinking about his son.

  “Yeah,” said Reilly. “When I think about how excited I would be if Timmy could be as functional as Seth is, it kind of kills me. Because I think, deep down, some part of me still hopes that he’ll snap out of it and become a normal kid and have a normal life.”

  “Oh, Reilly,” said Wren. “Wow.”

  “You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “That’s not what I’m doing. I just… I can’t even imagine having a child, and the fact that you’ve been dealing with this all this time and I didn’t know…” It changed her entire picture of Reilly, she realized.

  “I don’t deal with it much,” he said. “I just run from it. That’s why my marriage broke up.”

  “I’m sure you deal with it,” she said. “You’ve talked about having your kid for the weekend.” Of course, now that she thought about it, he was always vague about the details.

  “I’m not saying I do nothing, but Janessa has him all the time. She’s the primary caregiver, and I’m just… I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Someday, he won’t be a little kid anymore, and it’ll be like Tobias and Seth. Someone’s going to have to take care of Timmy. Always take care of him. He can’t even ask for a drink if he’s thirsty, you know? He’s trapped in another world, and I can’t even reach him.”

  On impulse, Wren reached across the car and put her hand on his arm.

  He looked at her when she did it.

  She patted him once, and then removed her hand.

  “Anyway,” said Reilly, “I don’t know, but I’m with you. I don’t think Seth did it. Maybe it’s because I see my son in him, or what I someday hope my son could be. I don’t know if that’s naive or what.”