The Sullivan Gray Series Box Set

by H. P. Bayne

  Sully knew the terror all too well, the feeling of dirt and debris showering down, the rumble and scrape of rock, the realization that no matter where you ran, there really wasn’t anywhere to go. When he’d been caught in that cave-in, he’d lucked out, managed to make it through a small passage just before the whole chamber went—passage included. As with Carter, there had been a fruitless search. But in Sully’s case, there hadn’t been a body to find. That was one major difference between the two.

  Another was the fact there was more to Carter’s death than a simple cave collapse.

  “You’re sure he was alone?” Sully asked.

  “Yeah,” Evan said. “Of course I’m sure. He told me he was going alone, and apparently I was the last person he talked to. At least, that’s what the police figured. Why?”

  Another awkward question, another uncomfortable pause.

  Another save by Bulldog. “Seems weird, is all. Guy sounds like he was pretty experienced in caving. He woulda known not to go alone, right?”

  Roanna glanced up sharply at the perceived criticism.

  “Look,” Evan said. “I don’t know why he took off by himself, but he did, all right? I wish I could go back, try to talk him out of it. But life doesn’t give you do-overs.”

  That was true. But it did give some people a shot at making things right—even dead people. Sully was proof of that.

  One thing had been made clear from this conversation: there were a lot more questions about Carter’s death than there were answers.

  The only real answer Sully had was the one he couldn’t voice. Not yet, anyway.

  Carter hadn’t been in that cave alone.

  His killer had been there too.

  6

  Tessa Montague liked to shop.

  She liked to shop a lot.

  In the two hours since Tessa left her job at the PR firm Best Foot Forward, Dez had been to two malls and three boutique shops, phone in hand and ready to grab any compromising shots. So far, there’d been nothing to grab, not unless the judge was concerned about his wife’s over-the-top spending habits.

  Dez was now back in Emily’s car, hoping the old clunker was up to the challenge of tailing Tessa’s sports car—brand new, of course—once she hit the freeway. Naturally, he was in the process of trying to accelerate when his phone rang.

  In his SUV, his voice would have rung through the vehicle’s Bluetooth system, and it took a couple seconds before Dez clued in that wasn’t happening here. He snagged the phone before the call rang to voicemail and spotted the initial “S” on the screen—Sully’s cheap burner phone.

  Hoping there were no police vehicles around—holding or using a cellphone while driving was a ticket waiting to happen—Dez tapped the talk button and then the speaker icon on the screen, allowing him to use the device hands-free.

  “What’s up?”

  “You’re not going to like it,” Sully said.

  Dez’s reply came out around a groan. “Why is it half our conversations start with you saying that to me? Please tell me you didn’t fall down a hole.”

  “I didn’t fall down a hole.”

  “Okay.” Dez waited, figuring further explanation had to be on its way. After a few moments’ wait, he decided he’d figured wrong. “And?”

  “And, uh, I kind of met Carter Devereaux’s best friend.”

  “Is Carter Devereaux’s friend dead?”

  “No. He’s definitely alive.”

  Blood filled the tiny veins in Dez’s face, was working its way into his scalp. He knew the feeling, the sensation of rising blood pressure. His brother was a pro at causing it. “Damn it, Sully. What the hell’s the matter with you, huh? Jesus, man, you’re supposed to be playing dead, not making new acquaintances.”

  “I was trying to find Carter. I just happened to find them at the same time—this friend and his girlfriend, I mean. They were at the place where the cave entrance used to be.”

  “Oh, hell. A girlfriend too? Please tell me you didn’t give them your real name.”

  “Of course I didn’t.” Sully’s tone, while patient, held a hint of annoyance. That was just fine with Dez. As far as he was concerned, his brother had earned it.

  “So what did they tell you? They better have told you something.”

  “The girl, Roanna, she didn’t say much of anything,” Sully said. “She’s quiet. Like, really quiet. The guy—his name’s Evan Radich—he said he, Roanna and Carter were in this science club together, and their teacher had been taking them spelunking. The day it happened, Carter wanted Evan to go with him, but Evan couldn’t. He said Carter was alone when it happened.”

  “Only he clearly wasn’t, or you wouldn’t be seeing him, right?”

  “Right. So what should we do?”

  “We are not going to do anything right now, because one-half of the ‘we’ is currently stuck following a shopaholic around town. With any luck, she’s headed home, and I can send Montague a message asking him to let me know if she leaves again. Head home. I’ll meet you there—hopefully, very soon.”

  “What about Lachlan?” Sully asked. “Could be he’s got the police file by now.”

  “Hey, if you want to go over and deal with the jerk, more power to you. Just drop Bulldog off first, though, huh?”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve got a bit of a history, I’m told.”

  “What kind of history? Did Lachlan arrest Bulldog before?”

  “Nope,” Dez said with a growing grin. “Worse. Bulldog saved his life. Lachlan’s pride took quite the hit, needing to be rescued from a wrestling match with a woman. Granted, it was Rosie Dalton, and she was built like Andre the Giant, but Lachlan was enough of a chauvinist to let it get to him.”

  “Didn’t they call her ‘Rasslin’ Rose’? She used to come into the Black Fox sometimes.”

  “Yep. Haven’t seen her in years. I’m thinking she might have died. Had quite a problem with the booze, that one.”

  “I’ll make sure not to mention her or Bulldog to Lachlan,” Sully said. “Anything else?”

  Only one other thing came to mind. “Just promise me you won’t head off on your own without checking in with me first, okay?”

  “I’m supposed to be dead, Dez. How far am I going to get on my own?”

  With no small measure of relief, Dez watched as Tessa Montague pulled her car past the gates of the home she shared with her husband.

  Dez paused long enough to send the judge a quick text with a rundown of the boring surveillance detail before turning around and heading back in the direction of the freeway. From there, he drove to the North Bank district where Lachlan Fields lived and worked.

  Sully had to travel a fair distance out of his way to drop off Bulldog in Riverview before making the return trip across the river. When Dez arrived at his new boss’s Victorian-era two-storey, he found his brother had only just settled in with the file Lachlan had procured.

  Lachlan had already reviewed it in some detail. “Police investigated, but didn’t say anything about the possibility of there being anyone else in the caves with the Devereaux kid. The Coroner’s Office deemed it an accidental death, and decided an inquest was unnecessary. I remember that, now I’ve had another look at the matter. Caused a bit of a stink at the time. Parents blamed the school and eventually filed a lawsuit against the school division and the teacher. I don’t know what came of it, but there were a number of stories on the news about it back then.” Lachlan met Sully’s eye. “How sure are we the kid was murdered? Seems weird the police didn’t twig to anything at the time.”

  “I’m sure,” Sully said. “It might not end up being murder in the legal sense, but it’s definitely got someone else’s hand in it. I don’t see the dead otherwise.”

  Lachlan nodded, pushing his lips out as he considered that information. “Huh. Interesting. Something tells me you’re going to come in real handy to me down the road. Anyway, the usual route with jobs like this is to talk to family and close friends
first, work out from there. Most homicides are committed by someone who knows the victim.”

  “No problem there,” Dez said. “Sully’s already started the process for us. He talked to the kid’s BFF today.”

  Dez’s comment had been rife with snark, and Lachlan caught the reason for it quickly. “You talked to someone? Someone alive?”

  Sully turned from Lachlan to Dez back to Lachlan. “I used a fake name.”

  “What name?”

  “Oliver Chadwell.”

  Dez peered at his brother. “Who the hell’s Oliver Chadwell?”

  “No idea. The name just came to me a couple years ago, and I’ve been using it whenever necessary. Look, I know I’m not supposed to exist, but these people don’t know me from a hole in the ground. They don’t know my real name, or the fact I’ve been pretending to be dead.”

  “That’s not the point,” Lachlan said. “The more people who see you, the better the chances it will get around to the wrong person eventually. You need to be careful.”

  “I also need to do what I’ve apparently been put on this earth to do. I can’t help the ghosts if I can’t talk to the people close to them.”

  Lachlan studied Sully a long moment, long enough Dez could see the gears spinning. “There’s the conundrum. A fine mess you’ve landed yourself in, kid. Very few people can do what you do, and it seems now even you can’t do it. I get what you’re saying, though. There might not always be a workaround.”

  Lachlan turned to Dez. “You said the judge’s wife is back home?”

  “For the time being, yeah.”

  “And you have an arrangement that he’ll notify you when she leaves again?”

  “Yeah, I gave my cellphone number to the jerk. He can reach me day or night.”

  “Good. Then you can spend your downtime talking to people on your brother’s behalf. Maybe we can figure out a better solution down the road but, for now, I think it’s best to keep Sullivan out of public view as much as possible. The obvious place to start is with the parents.”

  “Carter’s parents? Why do we have to go there now? They’ll be wrecked if I start dredging everything up again.”

  “Newsflash, sunshine. Your third-eye brother has already dredged this up. Their kid’s not at rest. They may not know it now, but they’ll have a reason to be thankful later if you can bring some closure to this. If he was murdered, they have a right to know, and they have the right to some justice. And as a former cop, you know the investigation into any kid’s death starts with the immediate family.”

  Dez kept his groan in check. The last thing he wanted was to earn himself more flak from his new boss. “Okay. Got it.”

  “Good. One caveat, though. The Devereaux case isn’t paying, so if the judge calls, I don’t care what you’re in the middle of. You drop it and run. You’re at Justice Prescott Montague’s beck and call until you’ve sorted his mess out.”

  Hal and Lana Devereaux lived in a bungalow in the city’s Jasmine Park neighbourhood, an area that sounded more exotic than reality granted.

  While it wasn’t as run-down as the Riverview neighbourhood, it wasn’t what it once was, thanks to the economic decline and the fact the city’s funds were still by and large earmarked for ongoing repairs to the most flood-damaged areas.

  Streets here were in need of fixing, with cracks that made for bumpy drives and potholes many quipped were large enough to swallow unwary cyclists.

  Hal and Lana’s place was similar to others on this block, all well-tended lawns, flowerbeds and houses that had seen their share of facelifts over their forty-plus years of existence. It was known as a neighbourhood for young families with smaller budgets, or for seniors who had already been through the family-rearing stage of life.

  Dez liked the neighbourhood, and he and Eva had looked for their first home here before deciding on a new build in the farther-removed Gladstone area. Jasmine Park might be what some would call nondescript or even boring, but it was made vibrant by the kids who frequented the area’s schools, playgrounds and pools.

  Like Dez and Eva, the Devereauxs had raised just one child, and Dez couldn’t imagine the pain and emptiness that had to have become their constant companion since Carter’s death.

  That he was about to add to the pain had his stomach in knots.

  Sully had offered to come along, to take the lead on what was going to be a difficult conversation. But Dez had insisted on going this alone; Sully had already revealed himself once more than was safe.

  He’d given in more easily than expected, but now wasn’t the time to question what his brother might have up his sleeve. Dez had plenty to keep his attention right here, as he unpacked himself from his SUV and shuffled up a cracked driveway to the house’s side door.

  No one responded to Dez’s knock, and the doorbell didn’t produce any better results. A newer-model sedan was parked in the driveway, though, so Dez opted to make his way toward the backyard. A gate divided the driveway from a well-maintained yard where Dez spotted a woman kneeling in a flowerbed, one gloved hand clutching a variety of weeds while she worked on uprooting another. A set of earbud cords ran from the front pocket of a gardening apron until they disappeared behind the swinging curtain of a bleach-blonde shoulder-length style, and Dez suspected she wouldn’t hear him if he called from here.

  Taking the chance, he unlatched the gate and entered the yard, careful to close it again in case the couple had a pet. Not wanting to startle her, he took a circuitous route through the yard, staying wide until he figured he would be within her peripheral vision.

  Despite his best intentions, she still jumped, her mouth forming a similar shape to her widened eyes as she spotted the unexpected visitor.

  Dez smiled a friendly greeting as she yanked the earbuds from her ears and stood.

  “Sorry to startle you,” he said. “No one came to the door, and I noticed you back here.”

  She took a couple steps toward him, the smile hanging on her lips an uncertain one that demanded his explanation.

  “My name’s Dez Braddock. I’m doing some work for a private investigator named Lachlan Fields. Are you Lana Devereux?”

  Lana pulled off her gloves, her lips turning up far enough to cause a slight wrinkle at the outer corners of her eyes. Dez took that as a win. “Yes, that’s me. What can I help you with?”

  “Is your husband around? I’d hoped to talk to both of you.”

  “He had to work late. He’ll be home within the hour.”

  It wasn’t likely Lana would put up with entertaining a private investigator for forty-five minutes while awaiting her spouse. Nor was Dez eager to stick around here all that long. At any moment, he could be called back to the cheating spouse case, forcing him to leave Carter’s parents high and dry.

  Dez scanned the yard, and his eyes settled on a plush patio set on the back deck. “Maybe we could sit down somewhere? There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  The woman’s expression suggested she had questions, but she held back until the two of them were sitting on the deck, Dez back to sorting through how best to go about this. He couldn’t tell her the full truth, no good way to inform a parent their child—believed to have been accidentally killed—was actually the victim of a homicide. At least, not when the sole proof rested with a man who saw ghosts.

  “What is it you’re looking for?”

  Dez’s gaze shot up to her face at the question. Lana still wore a polite smile, but it was fading to reveal a face made haggard and lifeless by pain. Dez had met far too many people in his life who had endured the loss of a child, and many of them shared this look, one that appeared to him as an attempt at a normal they no longer knew. It was like they sought to give the impression of life while none of it remained inside them.

  “I don’t know quite how to bring this up.”

  Parents who had endured loss had often also lost their sense of naivety. “Is this about Carter?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

 
Lana sighed. “Are you working for the school division?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The lawsuit? Did they ask you to speak with me? Everything is supposed to be going through our lawyers.”

  “That’s not why I’m here. This isn’t about the lawsuit you filed over your son. It’s something else.”

  “Oh.” Lana’s brow furrowed while Dez went back to searching for the words. He thought he’d had them prior to sitting down with her, but damned if he could remember what they were.

  Lana, bless her heart, took the lead. “I can tell you’re uncomfortable. No one likes mentioning Carter to us anymore. It’s like they think we’re going to break. I can assure you, Mr. Braddock, we’re already broken. Just say what you came here to say. We can’t be hurt any worse than we already have been.”

  Have I got news for you. Out loud, all he said at first was, “Call me Dez.”

  “All right. Call me Lana.”

  “Can I ask about the last time you saw Carter? What did he tell you he was going to do?”

  “He was going spelunking. He said he was going to pick up his friend Evan and go to the caves.”

  “But Evan didn’t go.”

  “As it turned out, he didn’t. He had other plans that day.”

  “But Carter didn’t change his. Did you know ahead of time he’d gone alone?”

  “If his dad or I had known, we would have gone down there ourselves to drag him back with us. I’d expect that’s why he didn’t tell us.”

  “So he knew it wasn’t safe to go alone, but he did anyway. I’m not meaning to offend, Lana, but if he knew, why sue the school division and the teacher?”

  “I thought you said you weren’t working for them.”

  “I’m not,” Dez said, quickly. “I’m just trying to understand. I haven’t seen the lawsuit, so I don’t know the reasoning behind it.”