Josh wasn’t exactly sure what time they finally fell asleep, but that night he dreamed. He ran through a forest lush in its emerald greens and cool jades, over hills peppered in yellow flowers and vines laden with ripe berries. He felt his own heart thud as he ran as fast as the wind and as light as air.
Abruptly, he was no longer running and no longer on earth. Standing between two worlds, one foot in this universe, the other in another sphere entirely, he was able to look down from a great height. He detected hurt…pain…suffering…and ultimately evil.
He’d left his life behind as he knew it for another path, one that he hadn’t counted on taking. Instead of unease there was elation at the prospect of following something new with someone new.
Suddenly he took off in a sprint again but this time he wasn’t alone. A silver wolf ran at his side. Behind him there were several more of various colors and sizes. By his count, a half a dozen trailed after him, but it was he and Kiya together who led the pack.
They were chasing a scent unfamiliar to Josh. The foul odor left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. The farther into the thicket of woods they got, the more the timber and surrounding area turned barren with decay and disease. No longer brilliant in colors of spring, the land became a dull brown in various stages of dying off. Even the undergrowth stank of rotting earth.
Whatever they were pursuing led them to the opening of a cave. The smell here was overwhelming.
This is your path now. This is your pack. You must not deviate from it. You have only begun your quest. Open your mind to all that is new. What’s inside the cave represents the evil you have yet to find. Now when you cross paths with it, you will be able to recognize how it smells and how it feels when you are near it.
As the dream lifted, Josh blinked awake—and realized he was outside—and naked. He glanced to his right and found a fully dressed Skye standing over him, staring, holding a blanket.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked as she knelt down to wrap the quilt around his shoulders.
He huddled under the wool and said, “I’d ask you the same.”
“I woke up and you weren’t in bed. I looked over at the sliding glass door in time to see you step outside. I tried to stop you. But it was like you were sleepwalking, naked as the day you were born. No matter what I said or did or how loud I shouted, you were determined to get out into the night. By the time I threw some clothes on and followed you, you had already crossed over into the pastureland. You were heading toward the coast into the woods. I had a helluva time keeping up with you, since you were running as though the devil himself was after you.”
Josh got to his feet and looked around. It was pitch dark except for a slice of full moon that tried to peek out past lazy clouds. A sliver of moonlight speared down onto both of them as the sound of the waves crashed up against the cliffs in the distance. Even though the scene should have been serene, there was something not right. Off. Everything felt surreal. He spotted the cave entrance from his dream. “Kiya’s spirit was here with me,” he mumbled in a low voice. “She was showing me the way to the darkness and how it would feel to find it.”
As trees swayed and bent in the shadows, Skye realized Josh was still in a bit of a daze. She tugged on his arm to get him moving. “Josh, we need to go. You have to be freezing cold.”
But while a patch of stars glittered as a backdrop, he stubbornly stood rooted to the same spot. “There’s evil still out there, Skye.”
“I know. Tell me what happened in your vision.”
He told her about the dream and then added, “I knew what it was, that it wasn’t really happening. But I could hear Kiya’s voice as if it were real. I understood all the symbolism the wolf used to show me the whole thing about being in two worlds, the decaying forest representing the evil. I was the hunter, like you. And still the thing that got to me the most was the realization at how powerful and strong the evil is and how it can build if you don’t take a stand to stop it.”
Skye glanced up at the strip of stars overhead. “I go out every night and walk the streets, hoping to be able to make a difference, to somehow stop that evil from touching so many others. But you know what, Josh? Evil doesn’t wait for the midnight hour to strike. It can happen in broad daylight on the walk to school. It can happen at anytime of day. It can happen in the blink of an eye by trusting the wrong someone and getting into a car you know you shouldn’t have. But not everything happens in the dark of night. It’s like not being able to grasp that the face of a monster can have blond hair and blue eyes instead of fangs and horns.”
“That’s exactly why we’ll keep at it. My vision just reinforces what we said earlier. We walk our paths together, side by side. And we start by finding those missing girls.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Still chained to the cot bolted into the concrete, Heather woke to muffled voices coming from outside her door. She heard crying, a string of moans, and then the sounds of a hand meeting flesh—firm. The slaps caused more grunts and groans. Someone in the room next to hers was either praying or babbling incoherently, she couldn’t tell which.
She’d been held in this place for more than a week, at least she thought it was more than a week. She’d been here so long she doubted she’d ever see the light of day again.
Just then, the male voices grew louder, angrier, took exception to the girl who wouldn’t stop chanting. A string of swear words let loose, the likes of which Heather had never heard uttered even by the football players at school.
She rested her head on the wall next to the bed to listen, to get a better handle on what the men were saying. From what she could make out there was some delay in the boat docking that had screwed everything up and kept them here longer than ever before. One was sure it was a bad omen. But what really had them worried was that someone had died, some person of importance, someone in charge of the entire operation that caused the men some anxious moments along with having second thoughts and cold feet.
“They’ve detained Renaldi for some reason.”
“Yeah? Well, they probably caught him smuggling the drugs. It’s only a matter of time before this thing might be falling apart before our very eyes. We need a backup plan, a way to get out of here in case this whole thing implodes.”
“I can’t believe you’re running this scared?”
“Damn right, I’m scared. I’m not serving time again.”
“Come on, use common sense. We pay off Talbot to look the other way, always have, everything will work out, you’ll see. Boss says so.”
“When did he say that? Before he got his throat ripped out, killed by some animal? Not a likely story if you ask me. Now Renaldi’s been picked up as soon as the ship docked this morning. I’m telling you something’s going on. This doesn’t feel right to me, not anymore. Maybe Talbot didn’t get enough money this time, or maybe he had a change of heart, got cold feet. Without a captain and a boat how the hell do we get these girls to fucking South America?”
“It looks bad I know, but have a little faith. Talbot hasn’t let us down yet. And he’s one of us. What we do is wait for the signal, the all-clear, like always. Then we load these bitches into the vans, head to the docks as soon as we get the word. Soon as we get our money, you’ll feel a lot better. Trust me.”
But at the moment he didn’t feel much like trusting anyone. Something didn’t feel right. And he’d learned a long time ago to listen to his instincts. The only time he hadn’t, he’d ended up spending eight years in the penitentiary. He sure as hell didn’t want to go back.
Harry couldn’t help it, he worried. He fretted. It had been almost a week since he’d last talked to Skye Cree. It wasn’t like her to completely disappear like this. In fact, he couldn’t remember her ever having done so before. And yet, wherever she was, she’d even turned off her cell phone.
He’d tried talking to her friends—Travis, Velma, Lena—and each one of them, for whatever reason, had shut him down, closed ranks. It didn’t ge
t past Harry they were purposely not giving up anything about their friend.
Probably with that damn Josh Ander, Harry supposed. The two had been like Siamese twins ever since she’d met the guy.
Didn’t the arrogant jerk know Skye wasn’t like other women? She hadn’t exactly had a standard to live by for a dozen years now. He knew he was being unreasonable in his worry. Not only was Skye a grown adult woman, Josh Ander was a wealthy business owner, a stand-up guy. Even Harry knew it was time Skye experienced all those things other single women took for granted. If that meant losing her heart to the likes of Josh Ander, so be it.
Harry wasn’t her father, not even an uncle. But he was her friend. Or so he’d thought. Although he had been pretty hard on Skye after she’d found the Prescott girl. Damn it, he was a cop. He had to question how she’d found Erin. Anyone would’ve done the same.
But where was she anyway? It couldn’t be a coincidence that Josh Ander couldn’t be found either. When he’d questioned Josh’s staff at Ander All Games about the man’s whereabouts, they had all told him the same story. Josh had simply called in with the excuse he’d be taking time off. No further explanation. Nothing.
Harry had already run Josh Ander through a background check. It didn’t matter that the guy had come up whistle clean. If Skye didn’t surface within the next twenty-four hours, he’d put out a BOLO on both of them.
Had Skye known Harry was so suspicious and on the verge of putting out an all-points bulletin, she would gladly have picked up the phone and called in. Checking in would have meant she could avoid leaving their little retreat, a quaint cottage hidden from the rest of the world, or so it seemed to her.
It might’ve been the first time she’d visited Orcas Island, but she wondered why she hadn’t made coming here a priority until now. The place was like a picture postcard.
They had their own little wooden pier with a boat that bobbed up and down in the water. They could have taken it out to fish. They could have explored the beach, or hiked a dozen nearby trails.
But they’d done none of that.
Since they’d left The Painted Crow Josh had packed her up and brought her here to his family’s cabin in the rural rolling hills of Olga, a tiny hamlet tucked away amid old barns that doubled as artist hangouts and forest land meant for backpacking.
It might not have been tropical. It might not have been the ideal spring break destination for lovers. But the place offered seclusion, isolation, and a chance to recharge and ponder Josh’s emerging persona, one that neither of them were far from being comfortable with yet.
Since their arrival on the island, they’d slept late, talked until the wee hours of the night, danced to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, relaxed to Every Minute in Paris by David Cohen, and made love while Mozart concertos or Chopin sonatas drifted in the background.
Sitting on the back deck with a perfect view of their own little inlet bay, Skye glanced over at Josh stretched out in a deck chair, his eyes closed, his feet dangling over the end. Solitude had given them what the city couldn’t over the past few days. Peace.
Just looking at all that black hair curling around his collar, those gray piercing eyes when awake, his lean body, something moved inside her. More than attraction, more than lust. Love. He’d killed—for her—killed the man she detested more than any other on earth. Josh had ended Whitfield without a thought, or a backward glance.
With Whitfield’s death something inside her had lifted.
But because they’d both been under so much stress since the man’s demise, the setting here at the cabin helped to soothe her.
As Skye looked out at the San Juan Islands, she realized a chapter of her life had come to an end, over—done with—while another was just beginning.
That pain she’d carried around for more than a dozen years, the hurt she’d closed off, she could set that free now. She no longer needed her anger or the pain of it all for motivation, not anymore. The drive would have to come from something else. Or rather someone else, maybe more than one someone else. All the Jenna Donofrios, the Erin Prescotts, all those missing that had yet to be accounted for would have to make up for her own rage as the impetus as she moved forward. But it was enough. The Jennas and Erins and Haileys and Alis were more than enough.
After the shock of it all had passed the realization that Ronny Wayne Whitfield would never again be able to put his hands on another child seemed to be settling in.
Josh and Kiya had seen to that.
She glanced back over at Josh only to find him wide awake and staring at her.
“You went off to that place you sometimes go where I’m not allowed.” The frown he saw cross her face, prompted him to add, “It’s okay. Everyone’s entitled to have someplace special of their very own. We aren’t joined at the hip, Skye.”
That’s what she loved about the guy. He seemed to let her be Skye Cree without trying to change all her bad habits and quirks, which were many. “Hmm, you play your cards right, we could be joined some other way.” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down.
Since the merge there were certain urges that had gotten stronger for him. Sex was one of those. He found that no matter how many times they made love, he couldn’t get enough of Skye. “Come here you saucy wench.”
Her lower belly fluttered as if butterflies were trying to escape a nest of spiders. As much as she wanted to act on her urges there were things they needed to discuss.
“The entire time you were sleeping you were giving off this aura. Are you aware of that?”
He shot her a look. “How do you pick up on that? Sure, I’ve been aware of it—for days now. I just didn’t think you were.”
“You have part of Kiya inside you. Don’t forget, I’ve had her spirit inside me my entire life. This whole thing is my fault that it happened in the first place. I’m responsible.”
“Skye…”
She held up a hand. “No, hear me out. I should never have let you get involved in any of this. It was never your fight. I got caught up in having a lover, a man interested in me and I dragged you into this mess that’s my life. You never would’ve confronted Whitfield if not for me.” Tears came into her eyes. “You were dead, Josh. I thought I’d lost you. I won’t lie, the idea of losing you weakened me, almost brought me to my knees while at the same time made me fight like I’ve never fought before. Yet, I was losing. He was so much stronger. If you hadn’t gotten Whitfield off me when you did—”
“You’d be dead. You think I don’t know that? You think I’ll ever get that picture out of my head? I won’t. Not ever.”
“Same here. Then you know?”
“First of all, you didn’t drag me there forcibly. I went because I wanted to go. If I hadn’t gotten sloppy, if I hadn’t been talking a mile a minute like we were taking a walk in the park, I’d never have let him sneak up on us…he never would have hit me with that damn metal pipe.”
Losing patience with him, she shouted, “That’s just it, we should never have been there in the first place. You aren’t paying attention to what I’m trying to tell you. I’ve been obsessed with that man and it got you killed.”
“Do I look dead to you?”
“You aren’t thickheaded. You know exactly what I mean.” She rubbed her forehead feeling a headache building. “You’ve changed and you know it. Plus, you killed a man. Josh Ander, the gamer, the geek, the business owner. You had a fabulous life any man would envy before I came into it that night in the alley. And now…you killed a man because of me. Do you think I can live with that?”
“I see we’ll be having this discussion for the fifth time in as many days. You’ll have to live with it, Skye. I killed scum. I took out a very bad man. I can live with that. I thought you could, too.”
“Are you deliberately misunderstanding what I’m trying to tell you?” She tried again. “I would’ve taken that man down if I could have without a backward glance. I can live with the fact he’s dead. But you did it for me. Now this aura surrounding
you is sending off wolf vibes. I can feel it.” When she saw his eyes narrow, she added, “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve lived with Kiya’s vibes my entire life. You think I don’t recognize how strong it is in you. Because I do. It’s stronger in you than it ever was in me.”
“I don’t doubt that. And I’m telling you it’s all right. That aura you picked up is because I…was…reliving the Donofrio abduction, like seeing it on video, watching it play out. It was disturbing. There’s something else…tell me straight, Skye. You’re plagued by the same kinds of dreams, by voices from the victims. How long? Since your own abduction?”
“How…? Do you…know that?” When he just stared at her, she said flatly, “I guess…there’s no denying it.” She smoothed back her hair and prepared to tell him all of it. “About six weeks after my parents died I started having these dreams, all kinds of them from other victims of abuse. The pictures were almost intolerable…unbearable.”
“Especially after what you’d gone through yourself.”
“That too. But I’d just completed a year of therapy when my parents…were killed. By this time I was stuck in Yakima with my aunt and uncle, no access to my counselor, or anyone else really to talk to. For a while I thought I might be having some kind of a mental breakdown. But Kiya began appearing to me each night to sort of talk me through what I saw in the dreams. She told me the victims were communicating with me because I could relate, because I was destined to find them. I was the hunter…the person they looked to for help.”
“That’s a heavy burden for a thirteen-year-old child.” When she just glowered at him, he added, “You were still a child, Skye. You’d been through the trauma of rape, add to that, the death of your parents was a lot to deal with for one so young.”
“I know. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it anyway unless I left Yakima and ran away from Ginny and Bob’s. During this time Kiya made it possible for me to accept the dreams, the voices. There were a lot of victims, Josh. The visions of what they were dealing with seem to flood me, especially at night. I took to calling in tips to the cops from what I’d seen in the dreams, especially if I could identify the girls and connect them to a story I’d read online.”
The Bones of Others Page 27