by H. P. Bayne
“There’s always a way. You know that better than I do, given the section you work in.”
Forbes didn’t say anything, but he didn’t lower the gun either. Dez checked the distance, figured he was within reach of the revolver if he took a quick step forward. Of course, bullets moved a lot faster.
The best approach seemed to be continuing the conversation, and Dez took a moment to gauge Forbes’s mind. If he could grasp his reasoning, he could try to deconstruct it, pull it out from under Forbes before this got to the point where there were no take-backs. It wasn’t enough that Forbes disliked him, hated him even. Dez thought he found a clue in what Forbes had said a few minutes ago about his wife, about loving her when she didn’t love him back.
And then Dez saw it. The woman who’d helped Brennan kidnap Sully had been described as blonde and attractive with a large bust—all apt descriptors for Greta Raynor.
“Is she putting you up to this?” Dez asked. “Because this isn’t you.”
“How the hell would you know what I am? You don’t even know me.”
“I know you’re a cop. A good one, right?”
“Don’t try it, Braddock. We both know what you think of me as an investigator. Anyway, I’m a husband first.”
“I’ve only ever tried to help her.”
“Yeah? Well, she tells me you’re the one who’s been stalking her.”
“But you don’t believe her,” Dez said. “If you did, I’d be dead already. Face it, she’s got some pretty significant problems, Forbes.”
“Her problems are none of your goddamn business.”
“Really? ‘Cuz I’m being held at gunpoint right now by her estranged husband, apparently under her say-so. I’d say her problems have pretty much become mine.”
Forbes appeared even more uncertain than before, and that was saying something. Dez dared to take a step forward, but stopped when Forbes looked up and solidified his stance, turning it into an unwavering two-handed grip as the file dropped unheeded to the grass.
“Back the fuck up, Braddock!” But Forbes followed up the command by taking a backward step of his own.
Dez stopped walking but not talking. The conversation, he realized, might be the only thing saving him right now.
“There’s a reason she sent you to kill me, and it’s not that I’ve done anything wrong, is it? It’s that I’ve done too much right. I’m too close to something she doesn’t want revealed.”
Someone she doesn’t want revealed.
Forbes’s already fragile surface cracked further, china on display in a shop Dez’s bull was trying to bust into. “I need you to tell me what you know, Braddock. I need to know what’s going on with her, and I need to find out where she is, if she’s safe. So who is this Lucienne Dule, and what does she have to do with Greta?”
Dez had a decision to make. Keeping quiet about Sully, Lucienne and the whole business might protect his brother, but only until Forbes dug deeper into Greta’s activities—and he would, no question. Then there was Brennan’s warning that Sully was running out of time.
The alternative was to tell Forbes the truth and expose Sully to a man Dez didn’t trust to shine his shoes. But, at least in that version of reality, Dez had a chance of getting his brother out alive if they played their cards right.
Dez decided on option two, with a catch. “I don’t know everything, all right? Not by any stretch. But what I’ve come to believe is that Greta and Brennan Wakeman were involved in the kidnapping of a man yesterday, and it has something to do with Lucienne Dule. I think the man is family to Lucienne, but I honestly have no idea why they would have taken him, or where. I’m hoping that file will tell me something I haven’t been able to figure out yet.”
“So the attack on Lachlan and then on you, those were both Brennan trying to keep this thing quiet?”
“Yeah, I think so. Only problem was, Brennan was getting cold feet. He wanted out. But he was in too deep, and someone took him out before he could say anything useful.”
Dez expected Forbes to say something about Greta, about how she might well have found herself in the same terrible predicament as her accomplice. But no such statement followed, and the reason became clear as Dez stood there, watching for emotions on Forbes’s face that never appeared.
“Does Greta work at a vet clinic?”
There was emotion there now. Not fear or worry, but shame.
“Forbes?”
“She volunteers at a few places in the community. One of them’s a vet clinic. She can’t really hold down a proper job right now, but she loves being busy. Takes her mind off things, she says.”
“She also volunteers at Lockwood.”
“With the seniors, yeah.”
“How long?”
“A few years,” Forbes said. “Why?”
“Did she ever mention a resident by the name of Lorinda?”
“No. Who’s that?”
“Lucienne’s mother.”
“And why should that matter? Who are either of them to Greta?”
“Search me,” Dez said. And he meant it, although he was hoping to have an answer shortly. “I need to see that file.”
“Why? It’s ancient. It can’t have anything in it that’s going to help us.”
“Look, just trust me on this, okay?”
“I don’t trust you on anything.” But Forbes took a few steps back nonetheless, enough to allow Dez a free run at the file.
Taking the chance Forbes wouldn’t shoot him in the head, Dez knelt to pick up the folder and its contents, which had partially spilled out from between their cardboard cover. Standing with file in hand, he flipped through the papers inside.
There were the usual scene and autopsy photos, which Dez did his best to ignore, the image of a drowned child the last thing he needed to add to the already horrific contents of his brain. There were a coroner’s report, notes and reports from the officers who’d handled the case at various points and in various ways, and the final report from the lead investigator Forbes had already mentioned.
There was a lot to read, a task not made easier by the gun hovering within Dez’s peripheral vision.
“You know, I’d really appreciate it if you’d put that thing away if you’re not going to use it,” Dez said.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Dez met Forbes’s eye and managed a smile. “Bullshit. You made up your mind before you walked in here. You just didn’t know it.”
Forbes had returned to an uncommitted one-handed grip, which wavered as he considered. “Don’t try anything.”
“I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
At last the gun dropped completely, and Forbes tucked it safely back into the back of his pants.
“I’d put the safety back on if I were you,” Dez said. “One wrong move, you’ll blow a second hole in your ass.”
Forbes’s reply was mumbled but Dez made it out easily enough, anyway. “I never took the safety off in the first place.”
Threat subsided, Dez’s focus shifted entirely to his task of reading through the lead investigator’s report. It quickly became clear that, while this report contained a few additional details, there wasn’t much Dez hadn’t already known thanks to Lachlan’s own accumulation of material.
“Damn it.”
“What?” Forbes asked.
“Nothing. I mean, there’s nothing else here.”
“Let me see.”
Dez handed over the file, and moved in next to the older man, scanning the pages as Forbes turned them. Once again, Dez averted his gaze for the photos.
But Forbes didn’t. And, finally, he stopped flipping the pages altogether.
Dez’s need to see what had caught Forbes’s attention outweighed his fear of catching a glimpse of the little boy in the bathroom. He was grateful all he saw was a photo of the front of the large house, its numbered address of 752 displayed on a flowered arch that stood where two sides of a front yard picket fence met.
Th
ere wasn’t much else to see, no people within the photo, so Dez found himself repeating Forbes’s earlier query. “What?”
Forbes looked to be shaking himself out of memory as he lifted his face toward Dez. “Huh?”
“This house. You know it.”
Forbes returned his gaze to the photo and nodded slowly. “Greta took me there once, back when we were still dating. It was deserted by then. Said she’d spent some time there as a child.”
There was a connection there somewhere—had to be—between Greta and the Dule family, but this wasn’t the time to figure it out. Right now, Greta’s connection to the house, however tenuous, was enough to merit a drive there to check, particularly given it was empty. It could make the perfect place, after all, to keep a captive.
“What’s the address?” Dez asked, leaning in and reaching to flip back through the file.
Forbes spoke before Dez could get his hands on the file, speaking from memory. “752 Dark Ridge Lane.”
The words—or one of them anyway—hit Dez’s brain like a slap. His mind caught on the word “Dark”—only it was no longer Forbes’s voice he heard speaking it. It was Brennan’s.
Brennan had been trying to give him a location, after all.
“Come on,” Dez said. “We need to get there. Now.”
But Forbes wasn’t looking as gung-ho about the idea. “Hang on, Braddock. You do know that Dark Ridge Lane is in The Forks, right?”
The Forks. Once the site of many of the city’s most genteel homes and businesses, now the perfect setting for a zombie flick—provided you could round up and safely pen all the criminals that had moved in since the flood had left the place deserted.
“You don’t just walk into The Forks,” Forbes said. “We’d be robbed, beaten and left for dead as soon as we crossed that bridge.”
A fair point. And yet not one Dez was prepared to concede.
“I know we’d be taking a chance. A big one.”
“Damn straight, it’s a big one. The KRPD and every other emergency service has sworn the place off. It’s no man’s land. We go in there, we’re going without backup.”
“You love Greta, right? Well, I think she’s closing in on doing something bad. Really bad. Something that will land her in prison for the rest of her life. Now, I’m going in there to stop her. Are you coming or not?”
Put like that, Forbes didn’t waste time giving it much thought. “Let’s go.”
The two of them ran back to the SUV. Dust billowed from behind the tires as Dez accelerated away.
31
Sully hadn’t heard the key in the lock, or the door open.
But as he awoke from a fitful sleep, he discovered he wasn’t alone.
A sharp intake of breath passed his lips as he focused on Brennan’s face, hovering just above his in the dim room.
Sully’s first thought was that his worst fears had become reality, that Dez was dead. But as his exhaustion-addled mind cleared, Sully looked at Brennan. Really looked. He was there. And yet he wasn’t. And as Sully stared up at him, he realized he could see the edge of the lightbulb through Brennan’s right shoulder.
“Who did this to you?” Sully asked. Then, hopefully, “Dez?”
Brennan shook his head. He tried to speak but Sully couldn’t make anything out.
“I can’t hear you, Brennan.”
The other man once more opened his mouth, trying again to form the words. The image of him wasn’t clear enough for Sully to make out; Brennan’s lips and the message they struggled to convey were impossible to read. But his eyes and his expression said plenty where his voice could not, and there was no question what Brennan meant to say. I’m sorry.
Sully’s thoughts dove into the blackest pit they could find. “Dez? Please tell me he’s okay, man.”
This time, Brennan nodded yes.
Sully closed his eyes and let the tension out in one long exhale. Relief proved short-lived. Now awake, he heard the lock turning and, given Brennan was already with him—and dead—he worried who was about to come through that door.
He’d been expecting another male, so was surprised to see a woman. She was blonde and attractive, probably in her late thirties or early forties; slim and shorter than Sully’s six feet. And there was something else about her. Something familiar.
Something that had him focusing on her face despite the gun in her hand. “Who are you?”
The woman’s answering smile supplied the appearance of warmth, belying the fact he was still here, confined in this small cell as she positioned herself in front of the door.
He supposed he should have been more surprised by her reply. “I’m your Aunt Rhona. I can’t imagine you’ve heard of me.”
Lucky’s journal had told him about Rhona, revealing just enough about her and the Dule family tree that Sully wished the Braddocks were his blood.
But the journal and its contents—once his mother’s secret—were now his, so he shook his head and waited for whatever explanation she planned on offering.
“I hope you weren’t hurt too badly,” she said. “I know Brennan could be a little rough, and I’m sorry about that. There really wasn’t any other way.”
“Any other way for what?”
“To ensure you were kept safe here until we could be certain about you,” she said. “Now we’re out of time. Dez is a lovely guy; he cares a lot about you. But he’s looking for you, and he’s getting too close.”
“So you sent Brennan after him.”
“We didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“Not this time. This is too important. You’re too important.”
“What does that mean?”
“I know you have questions. So do we. I’d hoped the investigator I hired might answer some of them, but there are some things only you can tell us. Maybe we can give you some answers in return.”
Sully had been about to ask who she meant by “we” when Rhona turned and stepped back into the hall. Sully thought about rushing her before sober second thought held him back. She was armed, after all, and there was the added threat of the unknown, the fact he had no idea who else might be standing on the other side of that door.
And there was no denying the other reason keeping him rooted here: curiosity. He’d spent his life questioning who he was, where he’d come from, why he was born with this ability. Now, for the first time, he was on the verge of receiving answers and, even if they did nothing to help him, they might be enough to allow him to help Lucky.
Rhona reappeared, pushing before her a stick-thin figure in a wheelchair with a stare as cold as death.
“This is your grandmother, Lorinda Usher,” Rhona said.
“Hold your tongue, girl.” The woman leaned forward in her chair, eyes narrowing as they fixed Sully in a glare that dared him to look away. “Step into the light, boy.”
Sully fought for a defiant sneer he wasn’t sure he had the immediate strength to back. “What light?”
His jibe drew no verbal reply, so he provided the response she’d sought in the first place, taking one step forward to stand below the low-watt bulb.
“Pull your hair back.”
Rhona’s gun was fixed as firmly on him as Lorinda’s dissecting gaze, so Sully obeyed, raking fingers through knotted strands of hair and drawing it behind his ears.
Rhona’s eyes shifted from Sully to the top of the older woman’s head, as if looking for confirmation. From her angle, there would be no way to see what Sully did: the shine of recognition upon the older woman’s face, the lift of a brow, the upturn of one corner of a tight-lipped mouth.
“Oh, yes,” Lorinda said. “That’s him, all right. I would know those eyes anywhere. Those are Lucienne’s eyes.” She sat forward another few inches, might have toppled but for her white-knuckled grip on the chair’s armrests. “And her lips, I believe. Hard to tell under the beard. But your nose, boy. That’s my father’s nose.” She tapped her own as an offering of proof, and Su
lly recognized a bump along the bridge that matched the one he saw when he looked in a mirror.
“She named you Sullivan,” Lorinda said. “That was my father’s name, you know.”
Sully said nothing, and the woman read the silence.
“You did know. How? You couldn’t have known any more about us than we knew of you.” She was awaiting a reply. Sully held his tongue. Lucky’s journal was rolled within an inside pocket where, were it a living creature, it would feel the staccato rhythm of his heart.
Once again, his silence had formed a response, revealing more than he’d hoped.
The other side of Lorinda’s mouth turned up, a self-satisfied and knowing leer. “Of course. You see them too. You’ve probably seen her, haven’t you? Tell me, is she here now?”
Lorinda had unwittingly provided some quid pro quo: Sully’s ability to see the dead was not shared by his biological grandmother.
Mara Braddock had taught her foster son chess. Sully wasn’t about to enter any competitions, but the lessons had instilled in him an ability to think a few moves ahead. In holding his tongue, there was a chance he could draw out the answers he needed without revealing more of himself than necessary.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lorinda’s sneer told him she was playing her queen. “There’s no need to hide from us, boy. We know. I know. The male line in the Dule family is cursed with evil. Once we learned of your existence, we knew you had to be dealt with. I don’t need you to admit anything to me. The very fact I know you are Lucienne’s son is all the proof I need. We managed to gather plenty of evidence, but this is what I needed, a chance to see you for myself. So I’m going to ask again. Can you see her?”
“What do you mean, I need to be ‘dealt with’?”
“I think you know. There’s a reason, after all, Lucienne concealed your birth from us. Is she here?”
“You said the male line is cursed. How?”
Lorinda Usher looked frail, but the voice that boomed from her chest told him there was plenty enough fight left in her. “Tell me the truth, boy, or suffer the consequences! Do you see her?”