The Sullivan Gray Series Box Set

by H. P. Bayne

  Sully wasn’t sure the other man would be satisfied with a solution that required him to simply accept his lot in life and find a way to work within it. And giving the wrong advice, he knew, could prove devastating for both of them.

  “Stay there,” Brennan said, then motioned to the mattress. “Sit down.”

  “I’d rather stand.”

  The gathering tension on Brennan’s face convinced Sully otherwise, and he lowered himself onto the mattress, back to the wall, keeping his eyes fixed on the other man. Once Sully was sitting, Brennan eased the door open further, leaned back into the hall and pulled a folding chair into the room, placing it so he could sit directly opposite Sully while maintaining a guard on the only escape route.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked. “Food? Water?”

  Sully hadn’t thought much about food or water until now, his thoughts otherwise occupied. The words acted as a reminder, his brain suddenly recognizing the twinges in his belly and the dry mouth as something other than anxiety. “That would be good, yeah.”

  “We’ll get you something.”

  Another reminder. “Who’s ‘we’? Who was with you earlier, in the park?”

  He’d spoken loudly enough but Brennan carried on as if the questions hadn’t been asked. “I know you’re wondering why you’re here. I would be, too, in your shoes.”

  Brennan paused, and Sully waited him out. The answer to this one was even more crucial than the “who,” and would hopefully provide something he could work with. He thought he had a pretty good idea, of course, but it meant something more hearing it from Brennan. Anyway, the larger man was clearly unstable and, until Sully got a better handle on that, it was better to avoid any triggers for another violent outburst.

  Brennan didn’t look directly at Sully when he finally answered, choosing to focus on a spot just to Sully’s left. No fear was in Brennan’s eyes, so Sully guessed he wasn’t looking at someone else, but rather avoiding looking at someone else. It was easier that way, confessing, making uncomfortable admissions without the eye contact.

  “I remember, you know,” Brennan said. “When we were kids, I mean. You were something like six or seven years younger than me, but it was like you were an old man in a kid’s body. I could see you were scared of something, especially at night, but foster kids always were in that house, weren’t we? You never said anything, so it took me until the night of the fire to really figure it out, that you could see what I did. Only you couldn’t always, could you? You didn’t see the old woman.”

  “What old woman?”

  “The one who died in that house. She was crazy. She used to go around yelling at night. I think she was related to the Blakes somehow, probably a mother or grandmother. I used to sleep with cotton balls stuck in my ears to drown her out. But sometimes … sometimes she would come into our room at night. She’d lean over us, one at a time like, and she’d say some godawful things. ‘The devil’s going to take you.’ ‘Never too young to die.’ ‘No one will help you.’ And her face. She was laughing when she said those things, but in a cold way. It was like some of those people at Lockwood, the way they’d sit there and—”

  The name was a slap of icy water, drawing the question from Sully before he could stop himself. “You were at Lockwood?’

  “So were you.”

  “When were you there? How long?”

  “Too long. I spent more than ten years there. So long I lost track.”

  “God, man. Did it … did they help you somehow? Or did they ….” He didn’t finish the statement. If Brennan had shared his experience, he’d know what Sully meant.

  Brennan’s gaze dropped to his lap and he nodded slowly, providing the confirmation Sully didn’t really need.

  “I’m sorry, Brennan.”

  For the first time since initially entering the room, Brennan met his eye. “You too?”

  “Yeah. And the empty unit? The blue room?”

  “The one with no electricity or water? The one where no one else went? They took you there too, huh?”

  “Yeah. Always at night, probably so no one else would know.”

  “Gerhardt?”

  “And Hackman,” Sully said. “And this other guy. I never saw his face or learned his name. He just stood there in a fright mask, never said a word.”

  “I remember Gerhardt and Hackman. I don’t remember a third man.”

  “They used to drug me up pretty good before taking me there, to keep me quiet. It took me a while to realize the third man was real, and not a ghost or some sort of drug-induced hallucination. He wore this mask, a Halloween mask, this zombie thing with black mesh where the eyes were supposed to have been gouged out. I couldn’t see any of his face at all.”

  “And you’re sure he was real? He wasn’t like the kind of people we see?”

  “He was flesh and blood,” Sully said. “He helped hold me down a couple times when things got really bad. Most of the time, no one laid a finger on me.”

  “But it didn’t feel that way.”

  “No. It didn’t.”

  “Did you ever figure out what the drug was, what they gave us?”

  “They never said,” Sully said. “I don’t think they cared much about filling us in. It was some sort of mind opener, the stuff I’d experience. It was so real, but no one else seemed to be reacting to it. It was weird, like I was still alert in the room, but I was somewhere else too.”

  “Someone else.”

  Sully didn’t answer, mind back in that room, body strapped to the table, the others watching him, coolly observing and taking notes as he screamed and writhed within the forced visions. Somehow—and he’d never found an explanation for this in his own mind—he’d become someone else, as if something had possessed him temporarily. And each time, he’d feel the pain and the panic of what he knew to be their deaths. He'd been beaten, raped, drowned, stabbed, shot and strangled—and no one had ever laid a physical hand on him. Sometimes it was more than the feeling of dying; sometimes he saw the face of his killer, hazy and largely unrecognizable, but very much present as it hovered mere inches from his own face. Save Lowell’s, he’d never be able to sketch their features with any accuracy, but he’d known—at least in that heightened state of drug-induced awareness—that if he ever encountered any of those people, he would know it. Know them.

  His awareness shifted from one dark room to another as Brennan’s voice cut through the memory, Sully’s captor, oddly enough, providing the lifeline he needed to escape an impending flashback.

  “How many times did they do it to you?”

  Sully had thought about that sometimes too, wondering. His time at Lockwood had been largely spent on one drug or another, making his ability to quantify days or events virtually non-existent.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It probably wasn’t a lot, but it felt like it. I’m aware of at least eight different times, but nothing much about back then is clear, you know? What about you?”

  Brennan’s gaze had moved off again, only this time, it didn’t seem to focus on anything.

  His answer left Sully cold.

  “Hundreds.”

  There was nothing Sully could say, nothing he dared verbalize. A range of emotions flitted across Brennan’s face, none of them good, and Sully didn’t want to cut in until he saw some sign of stability. That Brennan had become a minefield was no surprise, was perfectly understandable. But he was a minefield nonetheless, and Sully knew better than to take a single step without having first been handed a map of the area.

  Unfortunately, the Brennan who emerged was a different character from the one who had just been talking calmly to Sully. This Brennan brought to an end his trip inward by standing and hurling his chair against the wall.

  Sully was back on his feet before the sound of metal on cement stopped echoing in his ears.

  Brennan turned on him, teeth gritted, a vein in his forehead dangerously close to exploding. He raised one large arm, extending his index finger at Sully.r />
  “Sit down!”

  Sully stood next to the mattress, deciding whether it would be more dangerous to disobey or to place himself in a position in which he would be less able to react to a physical attack.

  Brennan made the decision for him, crossing the room and shoving Sully back onto the mattress.

  “I said, sit down!”

  Brennan towered over Sully with fists clenched and breaths coming in hard and fast, his large form blocking the meagre light coming from the bulb and casting Sully in shadow.

  Sully tilted his chin to seek out Brennan’s eyes, but the uncontrolled rage there had him looking away quickly. Sully flashed back to a class in school that predated a field trip to Winteredge National Park. The teacher had provided instructions on what to do if they happened upon a large wild animal, and Sully remembered something about not looking it directly in the eye. The animal might take the eye contact as a challenge, she’d told them.

  Whether or not that was true, Sully had no idea. But with no surefire way to get Brennan to back down, Sully was prepared to try anything.

  He kept his eyes down, focusing them on Brennan’s fists, balling and unballing, knuckles alternately white and red.

  “Come on, Brennan,” he said. “I’m not the enemy, here, okay? We’ve both been through the same thing.”

  The fists clenched tight and this time stayed that way, blood squeezed from knuckles, and Sully was left to wonder what he’d said to turn the conversation even further against him.

  He didn’t have long to think about it. He shrank back against the wall as Brennan leaned down, seizing large handfuls of Sully’s hoodie. But just as suddenly as he’d moved in, Brennan released him and stepped away, head whipping around the room as if looking for something. He seemed to have found it in the chair, which he picked up and hammered against the wall. Once, twice, three times. Four, five, six.

  Sully struggled against the instinct to run and stayed seated, Brennan’s form still blocking the door. Instead, Sully watched the scene play out before him with mounting horror. The chair had broken now, screws forced from holes and welds releasing as Brennan continued to release his rage. The seat came loose, and the metal back danced wildly back and forth in its destruction, hanging on by only a few loosening welds.

  The question formed in Sully’s mind, kicking at him relentlessly: what would happen once there was nothing left of that chair, once there was nothing breakable in the room besides Sully?

  The chair was in pieces when Brennan at last stopped. His chest heaved and, as Sully listened, he realized sobs were mingling with the gasps.

  He hoped Brennan would leave, would refuse to be seen crying in front of another guy. He didn’t, turning instead to his prisoner.

  Sully released the breath he had been holding. Brennan’s deadened face revealed he was as destroyed as the chair he’d demolished.

  “I’m sorry,” Brennan said, voice barely above a whisper. “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry.”

  And Sully, despite everything, actually found some pity for the man. But for the Braddocks, but for Dez having ensured his escape from Lockwood, that broken man standing in front of him might be nothing more than an image glimpsed in a mirror.

  “I don’t know how to help you,” Sully said. “But I'll try if you tell me how.”

  “That’s just it,” Brennan said. “I don’t know how. I don’t think anyone can.”

  Brennan picked up the pieces of the chair and left the room. Sully waited until he heard the key turn in the lock before allowing himself to lie back on the mattress, his entire body shaking now that the immediate danger had passed.

  He raked trembling hands through his hair, combing it back from his face as he sought out something, anything to take his mind off what had just happened. His gaze found the spiderweb in the shadows. The black spot in the middle of the web was larger now, and the buzzing had stopped. But there was movement there.

  Enough to tell Sully the fly’s time of waiting and worrying was over.

  16

  Dez sat at the park, trying to psyche himself up to the idea of returning home—or, more specifically, to Lucienne—when his phone rang.

  “Who’s that?” Bulldog’s voice was a little slurred, which was no surprise given the amount of alcohol he’d taken in so far tonight. A few guys had turned up with a bottle apiece and, as often happened around here, generosity won the day, with everyone taking turns swigging the alcohol straight. Kindness and love for one’s fellow man would continue for a while, at least until the booze really took hold, and someone was deemed to have drunk more than his fair share. That’s when the fighting would start and the police would be summoned.

  Dez had taken a couple sips to be sociable but stopped after that. A good part of his drinking had been to do with depression over the loss of his loved ones and, later, boredom at finding himself with nothing productive to do. Sully’s return last night had changed all of that—at least to a large extent—and he discovered he wasn’t having much trouble resisting the urge to get plastered tonight.

  So when his phone rang, Eva’s face showing on the screen, he found he had nothing to feel guilty about.

  “Eva,” he told Bulldog, pushing himself off the legless couch with some difficulty.

  “Don’t say anything stupid,” Bulldog advised as Dez moved away from the crowd to answer his phone.

  “Where are you?” Eva asked, and Dez realized he hadn't moved quite far enough. “Are you at a bar?”

  “No, not a bar,” he said. “I promise.”

  “So where are you?”

  “Riverview Park.”

  “By yourself?”

  “No. Bulldog’s here too.”

  “Hi, Eva!” Bulldog hollered from the couch, the effort causing him to topple over in a giggling heap.

  “Dez, are you drunk?” Eva asked.

  “No,” he said. “I’ve had two swigs, just to be polite. That’s all, I swear.”

  “So you’re at the park hanging out with Bulldog’s crew? Do you do this regularly?”

  “I just needed to get out for a bit.” He debated telling her about Lucienne, but decided it probably wasn’t the best idea, telling his wife he had an attractive older woman at home in his bed.

  “You know I hate it when you go there,” Eva said.

  “I’m not going to get drunk, okay? You have my word on that.”

  “I meant I don’t like you being there, period. It’s not safe. You know that.”

  He did know that. What he hadn’t been so sure of was that she still cared, and he found himself smiling down into his phone. “I’m okay, Evie. I’m like a mountain troll compared to most of these guys.”

  “You know how that works, Dez. Some guys get a few drinks in them and think they’re tougher than they are. They go looking for a challenge. How many times did you have to get into it with guys you busted on patrol because of your size?”

  “Okay, point taken. I’ll leave.”

  “Good. Anyway, I called you for a reason. I’m heading out your way to pick you up. Lachlan Fields made it through surgery. He’s still pretty out of it on pain meds, but apparently was able to talk to investigators anyway. Thing is, he’s holding back on them.”

  “About what?”

  As soon as the question had left his mouth, he could almost hear her rolling her eyes. “If anyone knew that, I wouldn’t be coming to get you now, would I? Lachlan’s refusing to talk to anyone about what he was working on. Anyone, apparently, except you.”

  Eva arrived within a few minutes, stopping at the sidewalk next to the park to allow Dez to drop into the passenger seat of her compact car.

  It was a tight squeeze, his knees approaching his chest even with the seat pushed back as far as it would go, leaving less room for Pax to move freely in the backseat. Eva had bought the car after their separation, having insisted he take their SUV. Her car was small, but it was economical, and it wasn’t like she and Kayleigh took up a whole lot of room bet
ween them.

  “Where’s Kayleigh?” Dez asked.

  “I took her to your mom’s. I didn’t think she needed to be along to visit a man who was nearly bludgeoned and stabbed to death.”

  “Good call. So how is it you’re the one phoning me about this? Why didn’t someone from Major Crimes contact me directly?”

  “Consider yourself lucky Forbes called me and not you. He didn’t bother checking the old records for your personal cell number, so I said I’d get ahold of you and bring you down there.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  “So what’s the plan here, exactly? They’re going to want to know what Lachlan tells you. Not only that, but they’ll want to know about Lucienne Dule.”

  “Well, they can add me to that list. I’d like to know about her too.”

  Dez had been hoping for Sgt. Clark Davies. Naturally, what he got was Sgt. Forbes Raynor.

  Forbes was waiting for them in the hallway outside the private room Lachlan had been moved into after surgery, a bored-looking uniformed officer posted next to the door on guard duty. Forbes didn’t look happy about Dez’s presence. But then, the uniform didn’t look happy about Forbes.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” Forbes asked by way of greeting.

  “Sure,” Dez said. “Sperm meets egg, cells reproduce—”

  “Dez,” Eva muttered.

  Forbes’s eyes narrowed, lines showing at the outer edges and between his brows. While he was only in his late thirties, Forbes had established a fine set of frown lines and, in Dez’s experience, the man took to exercising them regularly to keep them in peak form. “Don’t be a smart ass. You know damn well what I’m asking.”

  “I’m as much in the dark as you are,” Dez said. “Let me talk to the guy and get back to you, all right?”