Seeking Worthy Pursuits: A Dark Romantic Suspense Novel (Alace Sweets Book 2)

by MariaLisa deMora

  The moment he decided to be truthful was marked by a soundless sigh, a minuscule lowering of his shoulders, hands relaxing their grip on the wooden cudgel she’d willingly put in his reach. She’d picked up another piece of wood along the way, and if he chose to use the one he possessed as a whirling bludgeon, she’d match him move for move.

  “Habit, to create the illusion of a lower level of skill.” Owen blinked, the movement as fraught with intent as if he’d shrugged. “Upper hand stuff.”

  “You pretend to be a stumbling babe in the woods, and if they’d bought the act, when needed you can easily shift to the true skilled huntsman and would succeed in catching any adversary off guard.” She let the top of her head tip oh so slightly to the side, knowing he’d read it as loud as any flashing billboard. “I get it, probably more than you know. But why now, with me?” He opened his mouth and she flung up a hand, stop-signing his lie. “Not a habit. That is a deliberately activated skill. Why, Owen?”

  “Trust doesn’t happen easily.” A bird cried a short distance away, the echoing ritak-ritak bleeding through the air. “I could talk to you every day on the phone, on the computer, and truly believe that you’d have my back when I’m out on an op. But in person, I still can’t trust you when we’re walking side by side. Not completely. And that is more than habit, you’re right. It’s a trained reaction based on personal experience. Give me time, Alace. If we work together often enough, or have enough success, maybe you’ll retrain my instincts.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest.” She shuffled her feet, then used the end of her impromptu walking stick to point at the trail stretching out ahead of them. “Let’s keep going. We’re within a mile of the clearing.” Owen nodded, and she bit back a laugh at how relieved he looked. “And Owen?” He glanced at her, a little of that ease leaving him when he nodded in acknowledgement of her silent question. “Stop pretending to be a bull in a china shop, would ya?”

  “I’ll try, boss lady.” He moved a dozen soundless strides up the trail, nimbly ducking under a hanging branch instead of walking through it. “I’ll try.”

  She had gained to only a few steps behind him when she hit the first spiderweb.

  “Asshole.”

  Chapter Nine

  Owen

  Setting up camp that night was a revelation in how competitive Owen's boss was in real life. During their many remotely conducted conversations, he’d gotten the impression that she was firmly secure in her skills without being at all arrogant. Even their single face-to-face had been extremely collegial. Belatedly, he realized that was because, at the time, they’d been discussing projects and missions that he’d be working, and she’d likely been subtly evaluating his abilities. Not disclosing hers. Not at all, really.

  Alace Sweets was a master at their craft.

  Earlier in the day, he’d felt clumsy as a toddler when she’d called him on his instinctive reaction to hide his skills. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her it was a trust thing, had probably given her more truth today than any single person had garnered from him in half a decade. Having her at his back on the trail had been nerve-wracking—an unsettling creepy-crawly sensation slithering up his spine every instant she wasn’t in view, hidden behind his shoulders. So he’d constructed dozens of opportunities to catch glimpses of her, even from the corner of his eye, to put his nerves to rest for the span of a breath at the most.

  By the time they'd found the first clearing, he'd given up any pretense of hiding his unease, Alace's knowing gaze on him every time he wrenched his head around to look at her.

  It wasn’t until they’d walked directly into the broad clearing that he’d breathed deeply. Then that capability had been stripped away as he’d watched her work the area, stunned by her rapid assessment and ability to pinpoint things the drone hadn’t come close to revealing.

  “Look.” Alace didn’t indicate which direction she meant, or at what, but since she was crouched and bent sideways, her cheek perpendicular to the ground, it wasn’t hard to discern. “I count six depressions that might be something.”

  Owen crouched where he stood, not wanting to get close to her again. The hair on the back of his neck had barely lain down from their time on the trail. Allowing his eyes to slightly unfocus and drifting his gaze from left to right across the clearing, he saw what she meant. There were many more dips and contours to the earth than the six she’d pointed out, but those six had a regularity, a symmetry that confounded natural origin.

  He held his breath and then allowed it to seep from his lungs so gradually it didn’t disturb a blade of grass, exactly as he would if he were perched in a high-hide, scope trained on a target a thousand yards away. And he let himself see.

  “There’s an access next to each of them.” Without standing, without shifting, even if his calf muscles were starting to twitch with the sudden and strained stillness after so many hours of activity, he counted what he saw again. “Maybe one access that doesn’t have a paired holding area.” Keeping his eyes on the spot, he pushed off the ground, and without sparing a glance for Alace, something he wouldn’t have believed possible even minutes ago, he strode across the clearing to the small, square patch of prairie grass and weeds that had captured his attention.

  Alace hit the ground with a knee at the same time as Owen, and he darted his gaze up at her, finding a ferocious expression on her face. He pointed along the side just in front of her, finger a scant inch away from the shorter grasses edging the square. “Just there,” he said, and bent close, using all his senses to try to suss out any kind of trap. “No wires, no smell, organic or chemical.”

  Her hand appeared just in front of his face, and Owen jerked back as her fingers dug into the dirt. “Overgrowth says it’s not been disturbed in a while. Maybe weeks, with the lack of rain in the area.” Alace bent over, half her hand disappearing into what had looked like solid soil a moment ago. “Still loose enough to feel—” She cut off and he watched her as, with eyes closed in concentration, she grunted and strained, the muscles in her arms bunching. “It’s not budging. There’s a wooden platform.”

  “Hinge side? If it’s not a set-in-place cover, it might be rigged to swing?” He crouch-walked along one edge to the far corner and delved into the loosened earth there. “Let me see if I can do any better on this end.”

  She rocked back on a heel, elbow to her bent knee as she stared at his hands. “Go, go, he-man.”

  “Not a he-man.” He got a solid grip and adjusted his stance, grunting as he heaved with as little luck as Alace had found. But it felt like the resistance was uneven, so he shifted farther around and dug in again, feeling his way along the sawn edges of the wooden platform covered with inches of dirt and foliage. “But I might have found—” Much as Alace had, he cut off and heaved, grunting when his end of the square lifted a couple of inches. “Maybe.”

  Before he could ask for help, Alace was beside him, working her way along the edge to the other corner. “On three.”

  “One,” he counted them down until they made their joint effort, the platform rising with startling ease once the matting of roots was torn free. He gave another shove, and the entire thing went over backwards, settling at an angle as whatever held on the other end stayed firm. Owen glanced into the hole and startled backwards, certain for an instant they’d found a body. “Holy shit.”

  “That’s interesting.” Alace’s words were muttered under her breath, tone wry.

  “The fact we found something I can’t describe?” His gaze jittered, uncertain where to come to a rest. A yellow wig, clothing, landscaping half barrel, buckets stacked inside each other and resting on their sides, a box that looked to contain canned meat. Phone in hand, he snapped a series of photos, stepping around the opening so he could document each side. “What the fuck is this?”

  “More interesting that you can’t describe it. Reinforces my assumptions that your past roles have been more solution than investigative.” The movement in the corner of his eye resolv
ed to Alace reaching down with the stick he hadn’t realized she still had. She stirred the clothing, using the wooden tip to flip folds back until a button-down shirt and pair of overalls could be recognized. “Not a bad thing, but this?” She sat up and he looked at her, shocked to find a smile he could only call joyous stretching her lips. “This is a gold mine to me. It’s a stash, which means it’s personal, and the contents will tell us so much about our mark you won’t believe. I’m going to dissect this, and it’ll be a while. Since none of the others are freshly disturbed, let’s leave them alone for now, give me a chance to see what I can find from what our killer left behind.”

  He stood and took a step back, ceding her the scene in a way she couldn’t miss. Glancing up at the sky, he noted the angle of the sun and nodded. “I’ll find a camp spot adjacent to the clearing.”

  “Coffee would be welcome. Makes me somewhat less murdery.” She angled her neck to stare up at him, the flat gaze back again, reminding him of exactly who this woman was. Unable to determine if she was joking, he felt a sudden relief when Alace looked back down into the pit, head tilted to one side. “I’ve got a hammock, so I don’t need flat or open.”

  “Roger that.” He thumbed towards their backpacks, left at the opening to the clearing. “You want me to leave your pack, or am I good to haul it to where we camp?”

  The return of that dispassionate regard hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. “Don’t open it.”

  “No, ma’am. Wouldn’t think of it.” He sketched a salute and turned to walk towards the wall of trees, scanning as he went.

  “Owen.” Twisting back to look at her, he was surprised to see a grin back on her face, those eyes that had been so cold only moments before now shining with amusement. She reminded him of her earlier demand. “Don’t ma’am me.”

  “Yes, Alace.”

  As he prepared their dinner, a freeze-dried meal of meat and pasta rehydrated in a pan of boiling water over a lightweight camp stove, she’d first busied herself with one of the tablets, and then with gathering deadfall branches to lay wood for a small fire, and stacked some to the side.

  She’d brought the contents of the pit back to the camp with her, which told him exactly how this was going down. Up until then, he hadn’t been certain she wouldn’t involve the local law, which in this case would be the rangers, but her casual disturbing of the scene said the gleaning of clues was all up to them.

  If she’d let him get a look, it’d be up to them.

  Right now, it appeared it was entirely up to her.

  By the time the meal was finished and cleanup complete, light rays speared through the canopy at steep angles, slanting sideways in long shoots of light. Like Alace, he had brought a hammock in his pack, and he levered himself into the strung fabric, the slight sway as he settled not unwelcome. Easy and comfortable. If he shut out the sounds of his companion, this could be any hunting or camping trip.

  Except it wasn’t.

  The newly missing victims they were looking for had to be here, in this forest. He felt it in his gut. The timing they’d discovered, the victims already located, the new killing field they’d been to today—it all stacked up in his mind. Can’t go on gut alone. Certainly not with Alace dogging his heels. He’d not heard her theories on the field yet, she’d been so immersed in the contents of that damn pit. After setting up the basics of camp, he’d returned and walked the area, using a system of markers to identify the holding pens and their access hatches. While he hadn’t opened any of them without her express approval, he’d used a bladed tool to slice through the interwoven matting of roots holding the access hatches closed. Each of the larger depressions had a strange artifact, a round impression as if something heavy had sat in one place for a long time. The circumference of the circle was approximately the same as the half barrel they’d found. But why? Why would the killer have risked notice from casual hikers passing by with something that would stand out in the wilderness? What had been the purpose of placing the tub on top of the holding pen? He shook his head. Not knowing the why was something he’d had to come to grips with a long time ago, because every mission had those kinds of questions. The why was insanity at work, nothing more and nothing less.

  Movement across the campsite had him opening his eyes and glancing towards Alace. She was stringing her hammock now, having spent the past two hours hunched over on the ground.

  “Your turn.” With Alace’s back to him, the meaning of her words wasn’t immediately clear. When he didn’t move or respond, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “See what you can figure out from what we’ve got.”

  “Gonna let me put my brain to work? Cool, boss lady.” Owen rolled out of the hammock at the same time she sat back in hers. Immediately she paled, lips pressing into a hard slash, and he saw the muscles of her throat working as she swallowed several times. All symptoms of nausea. Wonder what she found in the pit of treasures that would cause that kind of reaction. He didn’t mention his observations, instead going to his backpack to gather what he needed before walking to where she had the items laid out on a lightweight tarp.

  He studied the layout, then pulled out his phone and consulted the photos he’d taken of the undisturbed pit. After first taking pictures of how Alace had left the cache, he quickly moved things around to how the killer had left them. Donning earbuds, he searched for an appropriate playlist before settling on the ground beside the tarp.

  Snapping a fresh set of nitrile gloves on each hand, Owen acknowledged to himself it was not to preserve the evidence so much as he didn’t want any of that crazy fucker’s DNA attaching itself to him. Serial killer cooties, he thought with a quiet snort of amusement. He quickly went through the clothing, finding multiple versions of identical shirts and leggings, some more stretched and worn than the others. The flannel shirt and single pair of overalls were both larger sizes than the fitness wear, so maybe that was for the killer while the lighter-weight items were for the victims. He pulled up the reports on the known victims. Quickly annoyed by the small screen, he jackknifed to his feet and retrieved his tablet, folding back down into the same impression in the dirt, minimizing the footprint of his involvement here. Another thing he and Alace had in common, he saw, because she had just the single impression on the other side of the tarp, no matter the number of times she’d gotten to her feet in the time she’d spent delving through the items.

  None of the previous victims had been discovered in anything resembling the stretchy fabric. While each of them had at least one article of clothing on or near them, those items could be tracked back to their own closet. So maybe the tights and shirts were for something else. Maybe the killer had the victims perform somehow, forcing them to don a costume. Not enough data. He moved on, not allowing himself to dwell on the contradictory items. Obsessing on the clothing wouldn’t help him learn anything more than he already had.

  The wig gave him the heebie-jeebies, but he’d never tell Alace that fact. Homemade in the extreme, it held uneven clumps of hair pulled through a hairnet and held in place with tiny twists of wire. The hair wasn’t synthetic; he could see skin tags on the ends of some strands, and as he carefully turned the net inside out, he found larger chunks of scalp on the longer, thicker locks of hair. The edges of that tissue had been excised, straight edges revealed even through the curled and wavy dried pieces of flesh. The killer had scalped some of his victims, but not wholesale. In pieces. Owen swallowed hard, thinking that Alace’s nausea was understandable. Except she’s a serial killer, too. He shook off the thoughts, focusing again on the items in front of him. A quick review of the incident reports for the previous victims showed no mention of scalping. Except…

  He switched reports, looking at the very first statements. One. One of the victims had been too decomposed for the authorities to say it had been mechanical rather than rodent activity, not with the lesser tools at their disposal, but they definitely mentioned damage to the scalp of at least one of the women.

  With tha
t knowledge bolstering him, Owen reviewed each article in detail again, finding two more mentions of damage to the skin and scalp. Each of the three women had been blonde, with hair of varying lengths when they disappeared.

  He laid the tablet down, picking the wig back up and studying each hank of hair individually. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could easily see the different colors, variances in shading, even as faded as some of the hair looked to be. Creepy as hell.

  Setting the wig aside, he stared at the rest of the cache. There was a length of leather under the overalls, a crude lacing through holes punched on either end. A garrote? The whole thing was awkward if so. He knew from personal experience. Owen had always preferred a simple thin wire with handles that gave room to loop through and pull tight. Easy to use, disguise, and discard. A piece of leather like this, the length spoke to a distance maintained between the killer and target. Erotic asphyxiation? He shook his head. Another area where he’d never know exactly. Each item allowed an educated guess at best. Idly running the leather through his fingers, he found two areas where the edges curled in, as if from a constant pressure. He knew that pattern of wear, the tantalizing thought just out of reach until he shifted in place, the cinching of his belt pulling tight at his sides helping identify the random thought. Ah. He set it aside, resting it on top of the overalls, remembering that Alace had it placed by itself in her layout. Belt. Gotcha.

  Nothing else was of much interest. The preserved meat hadn’t expired, and without a key for the manufacturer information stamped into the container, he couldn’t know if it had been purchased locally or from farther away and transported. The wooden half barrel was a garden-variety yard adornment. Treated wood to protect against rot, circled by a dull metal band near the top, staves held in place with screws. The bottom wasn’t any different, nothing of note there. Except…