1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  “Really, Pam?” Elijah says, in disbelief.

  “Look, just because I don't like the results doesn't mean I can't see good work. I admire professionals and whoever this was they were a professional. If they hadn’t been, they wouldn't have come in with silencers. They wouldn't have come in and killed methodically. They knew exactly what they wanted.” “And what's that?” I ask quietly.

  “Her,” Pamela points to the girl who was beaten to death. The body—remains?— I’ve been avoiding looking at because it’s hard to see something like this. Even here.

  Even in a clinical setting instead of the pale carpet and bright walls of her private home.

  “They beat her to death,” Pam says, softly. “Before that, they worked her over with a blade. She’s got over a dozen wounds that I can say come from a knife and not the barbell. And the beating probably obscured some of them.” She takes a breath and then,

  “And there was sexual assault.” Fuck.

  They wanted her to suffer, whoever the hell was behind this.

  The question is—why?

  When we leave Pam and the dead bodies, we head back to the station. Elijah is staring at the small file Pam handed us before we left. It lists all of the victims. Ages. Cause of death.

  It’s very little to go on.

  I swallow down my irritation.

  “Where to?” Elijah asks.

  “We need to check in with the Chief,” I say.

  And then the next of kin needed to be interviewed. Fuck. How the hell did I sit down with the parents of a college girl who spent the night studying with her best friend and never left?

  How do I explain that, wrong place, wrong time stole their living, breathing heart?

  This is the part of being a cop that I loathe. That I’ve never been able to shake.

  I want, suddenly and fiercely, Hazel. Not sex.

  Hazel. The sharp smile and sarcasm that cover her softness and concern. Her, a steady presence that made me steady just because I couldn’t help but want to match her, when she was so calm.

  I want to wrap up in the quiet of her house, on her couch, and sleep until the grief and shock and nauseous slips away.

  Until Green County goes back to what it should be, something familiar and comforting, and safe.

  Where my biggest problem is my stupid little brother toeing the line of off the reservation.

  “Archer?” Elijah says, and I blink out of my thoughts, and realize we’re at the station. The Roadrunner is ticking slightly, the motor cooling—I make a mental note to deal with that when I get some time off—and I’m staring into space.

  Blank.

  I shiver and shake the feeling and nod. “Right. Let’s go.” I shove out of the car. What I want is not important right now. Not when there are dead bodies to deal with.

  Chapter 15

  There are a very few moments in my life that are crystalline and clear. So much passes, foggy because everything else passes in a nebulous haze, lost in time and the feelings of home and anger and loss and happiness more than actual things that happened, moments that can be held on to.

  But this.

  This is one of those memories.

  One that will stand sharp and clear and fucking devastating.

  John, his hands covered is rusty, flaking blood, with spots of it still on his pants and splattered across his chest, leaning against the door to hold me in.

  Michael, poised and perfect at the table, hands crossed and waiting, as patient as the devil himself, splattered with blood and reeking of death, gesturing me to sit across from him.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, and my voice shakes. They shouldn't be here. My brother and Archer protect me. No one would dare lift a hand against me, because no one wants a pissed off Eli and Archer gunning for them.

  They might be the law, but I'm under no delusions about my brothers playing legal when it comes to me and keeping me safe.

  So why the hell are there two men covered in blood and vibrating with barely suppressed violence sitting in my kitchen? “Eli and Archer will kill you, if you touch me.” That, at least, comes out steady and strong.

  “We don't want to hurt you,” Michael says, silky smooth and John makes a low noise in his throat behind me. Like speak-for-yourself,-brother and I roll my eyes to Michael, silently demanding.

  “No one will hurt you, if you cooperate,” he amends and I tense. “How easy this is, Hazel depends entirely on you.”

  I swallow hard and stare. “What do you want?”

  Michael smiles and it's a cruel, cold thing. “I want to tell you a story. And then I want you to tell ours.”

  “I don't understand,” I say, and that's true. Not playing him at all. I don't understand what the hell is happening here.

  I don't understand what they want.

  Michael smiled then, and it's tired but it's not threatening. It's the boy I went to school with. Bloody and dangerous but still Michael with his quick grin and aloof reserve.

  With his unnaturally close relationship to his brother and his sister.

  “Did you kill those people?” I ask, softly.

  The reaction is instant and explosive. John, almost forgotten, slams into me and I shriek as I fly forward until he jerks me back, against him, a sharp edge digging into my throat, my head yanked back by a too sharp grip on my hair.

  Smith is snarling and barking, all fury and concern and Michael.

  Michael.

  He shifts in his seat, his eyes trained on his twin over my shoulder.

  “Let her go, J,” he says, lowly.

  “She won't believe the truth. This is a fucking waste of time.”

  Fury flares in his eyes and he slaps the table, hard enough to rattle the coffee cups, “I said, stand the fuck. Down.”

  John releases me, muttering a curse under his breath as I stumble a step forward.

  Michael refocuses on me, completely ignoring his twin as he stares at me. “I did nothing more than was required of me. How far would you go to protect your brothers? How far would they go to protect you? Is there a line they would not cross if someone hurt you?”

  I smile, sharp and threatening, “Your about to find out, Mikey.”

  He shrugs. “Perhaps. That presupposes that I want to hurt you. Or that your brother and Archer will know.”

  I stiffen. “Why the hell would they not know?” I demand.

  He smiles and I shiver a little. None of the kid I went to school with is in that smile.

  “Because if you tell them, what happened at that house will happen to them. And to Nora.

  And to Gabriel.”

  I'm shaking because I know Michael. And I know that tone. John is a furious barely leashed storm of rage but he doesn't scare me. He doesn't do anything Michael doesn't sanction and he is all rage with no thought.

  Michael is precise and conniving, manipulative and deadly.

  And he terrifies me.

  He smiles and says, “Here's the deal. You listen to my story. And then you tell one. And you don't involve your brothers. Do that and you walk away from this unharmed. It's easy, Hazel.”

  I don't have a choice. So I push away from the door and John, and sit across from Michael. Take my coffee and doctor it slowly to a drinkable state.

  Sip it as I force my nerves back and slip into the role I wear best. The reporter.

  The girl who can tell amazing, unbelievable stories.

  “Ok, Mike. Tell me a story.”

  Chapter 16

  “There's a car missing.”

  I blink up at Eli but he's staring at the photos and his shoulders are rising, tight and stiff under his button down.

  “What car? The old lady’s was in the shop, Crystal’s is in the driveway. All accounted for.”

  “Beth. Look.”

  Eli slides the photo he's staring at across the small desk and I glance at it.

  Beth Griffin’s purse is emptied out and cataloged here, for later use and I frown at it. We've been looki
ng at photos and crime scene analysis for hours. Everything is blurring together. “The hell am I looking at, Eli?” I demand and he huffs a quick sigh. Leans over and taps.

  There is, on the bottom, a small key fob with two plain key on the ring, attached to the keyless entry for a Jeep.

  “Fuck,” I mutter.

  “We need to interview Beth’s parents,” Eli says. And I nod. Because yeah. Shit.

  “How the fuck did we miss this?”

  “We didn't look at her. Not the way we looked at Crystal. Wrong place, wrong time.

  Why the hell would we look at her?” Eli says, his voice laced with as much as disgust as I'm feeling.

  It's a stupid, careless mistake. I just hope it won't cost us.

  I glance at phone while I shrug into my suit coat and Eli gathers his shit. He catches my frown and pauses. “What's wrong?”

  “Hazel. I text her to check in and I haven't heard back. Just a little worried.”

  Eli frowns and grabs his phone. “I'll call Gabe,” he says, already moving and even though I know there's nothing to worry about, some of my worry unravels.

  I know she can take care of herself. I do. I know that she’ll be furious that Gabriel is hovering, and that even if he would lie to her, she would see through it. She would see the truth behind it, see me.

  She’s gonna be pissed.

  A smirk tugs at my lips, despite everything.

  Beth Griffin lived in a small house on the edge of Green County, with a neatly trimmed yard and shady trees and a silver, four door sedan in the front yard.

  There’s a sticker on the back, stick figures of a family, and I stare at it for a long moment, while Eli unfolds himself from the Roadrunner.

  Because the stick figure family will be missing someone now.

  “I hate this,” I mutter to no one, and join Eli on the front porch.

  He looks vaguely ill as we knock and I nudge his arm, just a little. Get it together, Eli. He nods, and take a deep breath as the door opens slowly.

  The girl is young. Maybe middle school, and her eyes are bloodshot and red.

  “Cops,” she says, dully. “More cops.” She pulls the door the rest of way open and gestures weakly at the living room. It’s dark and crowded, with four women sitting in various states of closeness and contact with a blond with dirty hair and a curl of stooped shoulders and hands tight fists of desperation as they cling to the toddler in her lap.

  She stares at us, Beth Griffin’s mother, her eyes blank and unseeing.

  It’s always awkward as hell, intruding on the grief that is too raw, intruding on the scant comfort that family can offer.

  I hate this. I fucking hate all of it.

  “Mrs. Griffin?” Eli asks, softly. She makes a low noise in her throat, and curls into the baby more, away from us.

  “What can I do for you?”

  It’s a red-haired woman, her eyes sharp and assessing. She’s just now entering the room, and puts a cup of coffee down in front of Christie Griffin before scooping the toddler off her lap as well. Tucks the child onto her hip and directs her attention to the girls still sitting around the room. “Go. The kitchen needs cleanin’ and there’s still the matter of pickin’ Bethie’s dress. Grace, you do that, please. I’ll be up in a few minutes to see how things are going.”

  “We don’t have to listen to you, Chasity,” one of them snipes. One, Grace probably, gives the room a wide-eyed stare before darting from the room. Chasity slowly turns to the one who snapped at her.

  “I’m sorry, Patience. Have you been takin’ care of Christian? Have you been makin’ sure the girls are still upright and the baby has been fed and that the funeral is put together? Because I’d love to let someone else do somethin’ other than sit in this damn room and hold each other’s hands. Right now, Christian needs to talk to these nice cops and you need to go do the damn dishes.”

  They glare at each other for a long minute before Patience jerks up, snarling under her breath and stalks into the kitchen. The remaining two sisters trail her, and then it’s just us. Two cops and a still, unseeing mother, and a woman holding a baby and, by all appearances, the household together.

  “Sorry about that. My sisters tend to congregate where the most drama is. And they like pretty cops.” She flashes a smile with no real interest behind it and sits down next to Christian Griffin. Adjusts the baby and produces a handful of Cheerios.

  “So, what do you want to know about Bethie?”

  Chapter 17

  Once.

  There was a little girl.

  That’s where the story starts. Really. With a little girl. Because everything that came before was forgotten when she arrived. And everything that came after revolved around her.

  She was pretty. Long red hair that curled and waved. Crystal clear blue eyes, and a smile, shy but shining.

  She was an angel.

  And her brothers, twins, older by eight months, adored her. She was frail, sick, even from the first time they brought her home. But they doted on her.

  They were happy, even.

  The little girl and her brothers grew up in a big city, but they grew up happy, in a high rise apartment where she could watch the sunrise and the moon glitter across the sky, where her brothers could sneak into her bedroom when she cried in the still silence of the night.

  Their mother was ambitious and distant.

  Their father was long dead and when it came down to it, they were alone more than they weren’t.

  Which was fine. The twins preferred to be alone to care for each other, and more importantly—their sister.

  She was twelve when their mother’s job changed. They moved from their penthouse apartment close to the stars to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

  The girl hated it there. She hid from her mother and brothers, hid in her room wrapped in blankets and stories, wrapped in paintings and pillows. And when the twins tried to come close to her, they found the way locked.

  The little girl was slipping away from her brothers.

  And that terrified them.

  It was a month after they moved that the twins made their move.

  Because the little girl loved the stars, and they could give her that.

  The older twin wrapped her up in blankets and carried her through the dark house, out across the wide field to a decrepit barn. The other brother was there, with blankets and pillows and a jug of weak hot chocolate that he made with the very last of the powder.

  There was a hole in the roof of the barn, and they positioned their sister there, with hot chocolate in her hand, and braced on either side of her, and then they gave her the stars.

  All of the wide Kansas sky, sprawled out like a black velvet and shining diamonds.

  They gave her the universe, a gift rolled out at her feet, and even though she hated the new town, and how isolated they were—she was happy.

  It didn’t last.

  She was prone to fits of anger and depression, and as the years slipped by and the girl grew up, she grew prettier and quieter, and it became harder to pull her from her moods.

  The twins grew up as well. Angry and cold, and concerned only with each other and their sister.

  Their mother was deeper than ever in her work, and some of it spilled into their home.

  The first one to touch it, was the girl.

  It was one of the nights where even the stars couldn’t sooth the panic clawing at her, even her brother’s soft presences in her barn couldn’t ease the roiling emotions. The twins were drunk, and it was easy. Too easy. To slip out of the barn and into the house, to find a small pill in the stash their mother kept, and pop it. And let the chemicals take it away.

  Sooth the pain and anxiety and everything until there was only numbness.

  The brothers were furious. And more than furious, they were terrified.

  The oldest confronted their mother, about the drugs and the job that never seemed legit, that flirted with danger and the way the cops side-eyed them, and
the girl’s depression.

  She’s slipping, he argued.

  Then hold her up, the mother ordered, and gave him a supply of drugs to keep her steady.

  The twins hated their mother. As much as they adored and doted on their sister, they hated their mother. Hated her callous disregard and the distance in her that left her children alone, with only each other to lean on.

  They hated her for letting the girl fight her demons alone, and for giving them the drugs that would numb that fight, and leave her addicted.

  But as much as they hated their mother, and the drugs. They would never hate anyone quite as much as they hated each other, for giving those drugs to their sister.

  Things changed, after that. After she started medicating. It didn’t happen often. First, it was only once a month or so.

  Then it was every month.

  Twice a month.

  Weekly.

  Until it was nightly. A routine, that left her numb and staring, into the sky and the stars and smiling, soft.

  She was the one who took the next step, too.

  The one who pushed then, gently, over the line that none had ever thought to cross.

  It was when she was high, and sweet. The twins could never resist her when she was like that. When she was dreamy-eyed and pliant and whispering the myths of the constellations, and the sister they loved more than life.

  One of them leaned over her, in the barn. Reaching for a beer. Or a pillow. God only knows what.

  He froze when she arched under him, her lips brushing, feather light against his skin, catching salty sweat against the drag of stubble.

  It was easy.

  To fall into each other, the way they always had found themselves in each other.

  Another change. But not the last one.

  There was a three-month window, when their mother disappeared. She didn’t leave enough product for the girl, and the brothers had to get inventive.