The NightShade Forensic Files: Under Dark Skies (Book 1)

by A. J. Scudiere

  Then she waited, watching, motioning with her hand for a return answer when none came. Again using the silence, Eleri waited longer, finally garnering one word, “Mercy.”

  Hoping it was the girl’s name, Eleri nodded and moved toward camp again. She had worried about giving Donovan enough time to change and be ready when they arrived, now she worried about making it the near mile back before sunup. Then they would have to make it to the car with this girl who moved like a glacier.

  In a few more moments, part of why she was so slow became clearer—her feet were obviously hurting her. As Eleri stepped easily over and through the brush, Mercy followed gingerly, even wincing each time she placed her right foot flat.

  Shit, Eleri sighed the word internally. The last thing this timid, God-fearing girl needed was her new wolf-repelling friend swearing into the night. She wanted to help, but she couldn’t. Even slinging the girl’s arm over her shoulder and supporting her wouldn’t work. It would make them wider on the path. They couldn’t be as silent and Eleri needed her hands free, just in case. Mercy would have to make her own way and Donovan would be more than ready when she arrived. Probably Eleri’s chocolate cookies would be gone. Which was just as well, since she didn’t need to eat them anyway.

  Their progress was slow, so Eleri used the NVGs several times as they picked their way along. But she never saw the men coming. The only warning was a series of breaking twigs, which soon gave way to the pounding of feet on the ground.

  Too close, a voice yelled out, “Merrrrrr-seeeeeeeee.”

  Anger permeated the sound: this man wanted this girl back. From the violent noises shattering the natural stillness of the woods, he wanted her back badly.

  Where she had been flush, the girl now suddenly drained of color. Her face a stark white, she froze for a moment.

  Then she did the worst thing she could possibly do.

  She dropped the dark blanket, her gown catching every stray ray and lighting up like a signal in the dark woods.

  Next she hit her knees and began praying in a harsh whisper. Her hands clasped together, her noises scaring Eleri to the bone. Whispers carried farther than low voices and Mercy was now calling out to everyone who might have missed the pristine white of her gown.

  There were plenty more than two men coming, Eleri could tell from the footsteps. Donovan had reported last time that the men were heavily armed and that everyone he’d seen at night had been carrying at least one firearm.

  Eleri’s heart beat in rapid time, pounding to the beat of the approaching steps. Trying to stay calm, she faced the girl, throwing the blanket over her and shushing her as best she could. Wide eyes looked up at her, deathly afraid.

  Eleri only caught a glimpse, but she thought they were Jennifer Cohn’s eyes.

  36

  Donovan was almost dressed—jeans and shoes but no shirt—when he heard the men hollering through the forest.

  For a brief moment, he analyzed his situation. The men were heading right toward Eleri and the girl he assumed was named Mercy. If these were the men he saw earlier, they were heavily armed and seriously paranoid. There had been nothing out there to cause them to swing their guns, but they were jumpier than they had been the last time he was out. While this could be due to the exodus of members since then, that would still mean they had their weapons ready in case they encountered the girl. That was not a pleasant realization.

  He wondered for a second if he might better help Eleri and the girl as the wolf but quickly realized a gun and opposable thumbs would be far better. Slinging his shirt over his head, he shoved his hand down into the bag where his piece was stashed. The click it made as he chambered a bullet was obscured by the onset of loudly whispered praying.

  Mercy.

  A bright splotch of white appeared in the short distance as she must have thrown off her blanket and that had to be her praying. Eleri would never sit there like a white duck and holler out her location, even if she were hollering to God.

  He was heading toward them, as stealthy as he could be on his human feet when the noise abruptly stopped and the white disappeared.

  His heart hammering, Donovan ducked behind a tree, grateful he and Eleri had worn darker colors and were ready for this. He had to stay hidden, unable to act until he figured out what was happening.

  Running scenarios rapidly in his brain, he came up with three. One, the men got Mercy, and Eleri abandoned the girl to them, though Donovan thought it unlikely that Eleri would just let them take her back, given what they knew of these people. Two, the men captured both Eleri and Mercy, and he would have to track them back to the City, call in the Feds and blow the whole thing wide open. Or three, Eleri had somehow managed to pull the girl out of the way.

  He liked that scenario best. It was also the most supported option right now, since everything had gone quiet. Either that or they had both been quickly killed or disabled. His stomach turned at the thought, but Donovan soothed himself with the lack of gunfire.

  All he could do was stay tucked in the brush, safety off and gun aimed in the general direction of the spot he’d last seen them, and wait.

  In the Academy, he’d been taught the necessity of patience and even trained on it. His heart had pounded during the exercises—but those had used nonlethal rounds, and he knew everyone would be safe at the end of the training. Here, his adrenaline-infused heart tried to escape the confines of his ribs. It pounded until he simply waited for it to give out.

  Thoughts collided in his head as the men’s feet beat out of cadence across the paths. They shook their way through the bushes and called out to one another; if they hadn’t yet captured everyone they were looking for, they wouldn’t still be looking.

  In case his heart wasn’t close enough to bursting, two of the men came right up near him. One’s leg moved so close to the bush, it almost brushed the nose of Donovan’s gun. Though they quickly moved past, they thudded all around his hiding point, calling out for the girl.

  While Donovan was relieved they didn’t yet have Mercy, it didn’t mean that they didn’t have Eleri, though there was no mention of another person, another woman, a redhead, an agent. It was hope, but it wasn’t confirmation.

  With every moment, he wondered when they would step on him, stumble across him, or just start shooting randomly.

  Shouldn’t they hear him breathing so heavily? He could hear them—hear the exertion in their voices as well as their inhalations. He could smell the sweat under the heavy camo suits they wore. The scent of gun oil came to him and the leather of gloves and boots that must be stifling on a good night and miserable on a hot one like this. And he smelled something else, but he couldn’t place it.

  His senses weren’t quite as sharp this way, his nasal cavity smaller in human form, the receptors less open.

  Though they moved away before stepping on him, they could easily stumble across the table he’d left behind. Though the tablet was face down and not producing light, one look and it was clear someone was in their woods, in the middle of the night, and that someone was tracking something. These guys wouldn’t have to be geniuses to figure any of that out.

  If they found out the equipment belonged to the FBI, all hell would break loose.

  Slowly, Donovan turned in his hiding place, trying desperately not to shake the bushes. He debated whether it was better they find him or the equipment. He prayed to whatever god was accepting new converts that the men didn’t walk that way and it didn’t become an issue.

  Some deity must have been listening, because they headed from his position, away from the small camp table and the chair. So much of the Academy, so much of that long six months of training, was for the eventualities. If operations always went as planned, the FBI could graduate new agents every two weeks. But it had taken six months to get through all the contingencies—all the mentions of things they hoped agents remembered in the field, things that would save lives. Things like shutting the lights off devices they didn’t actively need, so they woul
dn’t become beacons. Things like holding your position for much longer than you ever thought necessary.

  Which was why, when Donovan was first ready to emerge from his position, he stayed put. And why, when the men returned and said, “This was where I saw her!” he was still hidden.

  The faint light of the dawn was pushing fingers through the holes in the moonlight before he moved his cramped muscles. He’d heard nothing from Eleri or the girl, and he could only hope her training—even better and more ingrained than his own—kept them safe until the men were in the distance.

  Donovan waited until they were far enough that he could get up and safely flee if at any moment they turned and began shooting. As he slowly stood, the branches grabbing at him and trying to keep him in place, he spotted a rustle of movement in the distance.

  Eleri emerged, her strawberry blonde hair and pale cocoa skin blending into the shadows in her own personal camouflage. Mercy, on the other hand, shone white, not quite as bright now that the sun was drowning some of her reflection. But the day would only get hotter, and they had no idea when some of the City guys would come back.

  IT WAS HOURS LATER; he was showered, shaved, and fed. He was clean and upright, if not fully alert.

  Mercy—she had said that yes it was her name—was being treated at the hospital, only one room over from Grace. Neither woman knew that. Mercy should be out soon; she only had wounds on her feet, but the hospital might be the safest place to keep her.

  Guards were already posted. As far as they could tell, the news of the strange detainees had not yet leaked into the Texas groundwater. During the very brief pass through the hotel to clean up, Donovan had expressed his concern to Eleri about Mercy staying in the safehouse with Jonah and Charity. Mercy and Jonah had both seen the wolf, and Jonah had unerring accuracy in his art. They could be certain they had seen the same non-existent wolf. Just like Eleri had been.

  Driving the car and having stilted the conversation with a stop at a coffee place she found last time they stayed here, Eleri was far too perky. She’d talked him into an iced coffee, which hit the spot. The caffeine was helping hold him together, but from the way she was chattering and perfectly alert, Eleri had ordered a shot of cocaine in hers.

  Given what he’d seen in the City’s holding barracks, Donovan wasn’t so uncertain that Grounds for Thought might not be doing a little something extra to their brew.

  Eleri’s voice was too cheerful, but he tried to ignore that and focus on what she was saying. “We can’t put them together. We already let Jonah and Charity talk a bit too much. But they’re kids. Mercy is a bit older, not much, but . . . if they’re all together the prosecution will destroy the case.”

  “There is no prosecution.” He sipped at the coffee, the cold and the flavor incongruous.

  For a moment, she looked like he popped her bubble. Then she bounced right back. “Probably, but we have the right to decide, and if we don’t choose to take out Baxter, or if his offenses aren’t deadly, then we might need prosecution for less heinous crimes.”

  He nodded, marveling at her ability to use large vocabulary on four hours of sleep and that awful night in the woods. “How did you get Mercy into that bush?”

  She blushed. Donovan stared. What?

  “Triangle choke hold.”

  “What!”

  Defensive now, she gave a hard shrug even as she pulled into the hospital parking lot. “She wouldn’t shut up. She was bright white and loud as hell. So I knocked her out and dragged her into the brush.”

  “Ha!” He barked the laugh out, the thought having brought him around far better than the drink.

  “I came out when you did. I was waiting, figuring your hearing was better, you would know when they were gone.”

  She grinned at him and the smile jolted him.

  No one had ever accepted him the way she did. Apparently, the way Westerfield did, too. Not even his own father. His dad had wanted Donovan to be like him—a mechanic, traveling, hiding, staying paranoid. Donovan had tried to explain that he was, in his own way, a mechanic, but it hadn’t been enough. Yet, in the space of a few weeks, Eleri learned about him and not only tolerated his difference, she embraced it. She counted on his unique abilities. Most people would rather suffer than admit there was something out of their scope of understanding. It was a fact Donovan always saw as self-defeating. There was always more to learn, always something you didn’t know, and a good part of that knowledge would come from other people with different experiences.

  While he’d always believed that, he hadn’t gone searching for it. He’d only read the final information written in the flesh and bone of others after they died. He only learned another person’s story after the ending had been written. Eleri was a living work; in constant progress, she unfolded in front of him and allowed him to do the same.

  The epiphany was almost painful.

  Donovan imagined many people had these same thoughts around age ten or twelve, but he was only getting to them now, only now learning how to make a friend. Only now learning that there could be give and take.

  Trying to seem normal, he nodded. “I did hear them, they were pretty far away before I got up.”

  “Good.” She’d counted on him.

  And he’d delivered.

  They parked at the hospital lot and trekked the parking lot. The humidity was high enough that the car’s air-conditioning made them colder than the outside air, causing condensation on their skin. So even if they didn’t sweat, they would look like it by the time they got in.

  Snaking through corridors and up staircases they now knew relatively well, they headed to Mercy’s room first. It was a brief interview, just enough to get started before they finished up with Grace. She ran away because they wanted to marry her to Zeke, an older man who had been through several wives and was “unkind” to all of them.

  Donovan waited and let Eleri ask what Mercy meant by “unkind.”

  “He hit them. Yelled at them.” Her eyes pleaded with Donovan as though he could do something about it. “A husband is not supposed to be like that. He’s supposed to lead his wife.”

  Donovan entirely disagreed, but he nodded anyway.

  He could see Eleri getting antsy. They didn’t want to split up—two sets of eyes on the interviewee were better than one. Still they had to get back to Grace.

  His phone buzzed at the same time Eleri’s did. Something had come in.

  Since she couldn’t take it, Donovan made a motion and stepped back to check. Recon from Collier and his wife showed unusual activity: changes in gas consumption, grocery purchases, and other things. Donovan smiled at what a little hacking could bring. The recon Agent—Annie Kinnard—was much better than her sweet name suggested. She was ruthless. She subpoenaed the grocery receipts, watched the house, and concluded that another person was now living there. It took her two days, but she saw a young woman, blonde, early twenties, arriving and leaving with Mrs. Collier.

  Since Mrs. Collier didn’t know her from Adam, Annie approached them and started a friendly conversation. The younger woman was named Tabitha and was favoring her left side. Becoming more suspicious, Annie followed the two to a restaurant and made the waitress hand over the young woman’s glass. She was cross-checking fingerprints as she emailed.

  Holy shit. Two days. Annie was a recon genius.

  As he turned back, he tuned in to the conversation at hand.

  “Joseph thinks he has himself in control. He says God gives him that. But Zeke doesn’t even try. He just turns red and yells and hits.” She made frustrated motions with her hands as though she lacked the words to describe it, but from the looks of what she mimed, Zeke lost it.

  Her voice was softer. “Zeke hits the hardest. He hits so hard that he broke his finger once.”

  37

  Eleri didn’t know what to do with any of it. She watched the girl’s face the whole time, trying to see any traces of the young Jennifer Cohn. She wasn’t sure of anything except that Mercy�
�s comment about Zeke’s broken finger was both enlightening and disheartening.

  After Eleri got the girl to describe the break, it became even clearer that the fist they matched on all the victims wasn’t Baxter’s at all. Zeke was the primary source of the damage they had discovered.

  As Mercy described it, they hadn’t asked the right questions before. Where Jonah and Charity both said Joseph beat them, this new information meant that Joseph ordered the beatings and even participated, but it was Zeke who did the heavy hitting.

  “Thank you, Mercy.” Eleri stood, her legs stretching and nearly creaking after being held then released from odd positions repeatedly over the past twenty-four hours. “We’ll be back to interview you more. We’re going to keep you safe.”

  Twisting the blanket in her hands, Mercy’s actions were a sharp mimic of Grace’s but with enough vigor that Eleri was concerned for the safety of the blanket. She had to wonder what they were doing to these girls at the City of God that made them so afraid.

  “Will I have to go back?” Mercy’s eyes were wide, typical scared puppy, and Eleri only wanted to assure her, but before she could answer, Mercy spoke again. “If I go back, they’ll beat me for leaving. Then they’ll make me marry Zeke.”

  “You can stay here. You’re safe now.” Eleri took the girl’s hand in her own, watching out the corner of her eye as Donovan hung back. Mercy clutched at her like a lifeline.

  A nod, a few loose tears from Mercy, and Eleri gave a good squeeze and tried to disentangle. She needed to get back to Grace next door, and she couldn’t tell either woman that the other was there. It took three tries before she finally broke the hold Mercy had on her.

  As she walked out the door into the hallway, Eleri’s heart about broke. It was Donovan who thought to turn around and explain that there was an officer outside the door. He called the woman over, pointed out the uniform, had the two introduce themselves. Mercy’s relief was palpable, and Eleri wondered why she hadn’t thought of it.