by James Tate
She blinked rapidly, like she was fighting tears. "I can imagine."
"Bree, you mentioned he had a wife. Can you tell us anything about her? We'd like to inform her first, but his employment records never listed a spouse." Kody was a smooth liar, I'd give him that. I was in a weirdly quiet state of shock now that my suspicion had been confirmed, and any bullshit I tried to spin would have fallen all kinds of flat.
Bree shook her head. "I, um, no he wouldn't tell me anything about her. But I know his home address, if that helps?"
Kody arched a brow at her. "He wouldn't tell you his wife's name or let you take his photo, but you have his home address?"
Bree flushed pink. "It was after I told him I was pregnant. He started acting so weird, like a totally different person. It freaked me out. So... I sort of followed him home. I wanted to confront his wife and tell her I was carrying his baby."
"But you couldn't do it," I guessed, my voice gentle and understanding.
She shook her head. "I couldn't be responsible for ruining her life. She'd find out he was a cheating fuck sooner or later, but I didn't need to be that girl. I just... I couldn't do it."
Kody passed her phone back to her. "Can you text me the address? I'll go over there today and, uh, break the news to his widow."
She nodded, her thumb flying over the screen as she typed the address into a message and sent it to him.
"Did everything... I mean, I'm guessing you guys caught the stalker last night?" She gave me a hopeful look, and I nodded.
"Yeah." I sighed. "Yeah, we got him. He's gone."
Her smile was relieved and genuine. "I'm really glad to hear it, MK. You didn't deserve that stress in your life."
My answering smile was weak at best. "Thanks, girl. We should probably go and meet David's wife." I awkwardly stood up from my chair and dropped a quick kiss on my friend’s cheek. "I'll come back and see you later, okay?"
She bid us farewell, and I made a quick exit out of her room before I could totally lose my shit about the whole damn situation.
I managed to hold it together all the way to the elevators, tossing my half-drunk coffee in the trash on the way. But the moment we stepped inside, my knees buckled, and I slid to the floor.
"Holy fuck," I whispered aloud. "Holy fuck."
"You can say that again." Kody crouched down and wrapped his arm around me. "Come on, babe, let's get back to Archer's room before we talk." He half-carried me when I stood up once more, and I wrapped my good arm tight around him as we walked back through the halls.
James was still in the waiting room reading his romance novel, and his brows hitched as we passed.
I made a snap decision to trust him and jerked my head for him to join us. He tossed his book down on the table.
The three of us entered Archer's private room silently and found him awake but groggy, laughing at something Steele was saying. That laughter cut short when his eyes met mine, though. No doubt my shock showed clearly all over my face.
"What's happened?" he demanded, wincing with pain as he sat up.
"Settle the fuck down," Kody growled. "You're going to split your stitches being all dramatic like that."
Archer just glowered at his friend in fury. "What the fuck has happened to make Kate look like she's seen a damn ghost?"
James closed the door firmly, pulled the blind down over its little window, then leaned his body against it to literally prevent anyone from entering while we spoke. I was liking him more by the minute.
"I went to see Bree," I explained, licking my lips. "Last night when I recognized Dave... I don't even know. I just had this uneasy feeling that I was missing something. Then when we arrived at the hospital, I remembered Bree."
Steele's brows shot up; he seemed to follow my line of reasoning faster than Archer. "Her secret boyfriend from last year?"
I jerked a nod. "I remembered his name was David. That, plus the fact that he insisted on her keeping their affair secret, and, well, you know we don't believe in coincidences, right?" I said that to Archer, and his smile of acknowledgement was grim.
"I take it Bree just confirmed David and Dave were, in fact, one and the same?" Steele correctly guessed. "Does she know?"
I shook my head firmly. "No. And I'd rather it stay that way because it's so much worse than you guys already know." I swallowed the lump of revulsion in my throat. "Remember when Demi gave us all that info on my mom's family? About Wittenberg and about how Katerina left Pretoria when my mom was a kid?"
They both nodded. Archer still looked like he wanted to leap from his hospital bed and Hulk-smash everything around him, but Steele was dissecting what I was telling him carefully. Kody was slightly behind me. I couldn't see his reaction, but I could guess he was just as curious and confused.
"Right," I continued, breathing a sigh. "Katerina had two children when she arrived here and changed their names."
"Deb and her twin brother, Declan," Steele said, nodding his understanding. "But Declan was killed in a home invasion when they were seventeen, leaving Deb as Katerina's sole heir."
I gave him a weak smile. "But was he? I don't remember what the file said about his death. Was there a body? Or did they just assume he was dead?"
Kody sucked in a sharp breath, and Archer's brows shot up.
"I never looked into it any further," Steele admitted, looking shell-shocked. "You think Dave was actually Declan? He faked his own death or something?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea. I don't have any good explanation for him faking his death, but I know Dave was Declan. That's what he told me before he died. And... he had my eyes. My mom's eyes." I shook my head, still partly in disbelief, despite seeing it with my own eyes. "He had to have been wearing contacts the rest of the time. I bet his hair was dyed too."
James murmured a curse, and Kody breathed a muttered comment of disbelief himself.
"How?" Steele exploded out of his chair, throwing his hands up. "How could this happen? How did he evade all our background checks? Hell, he even passed Leon's check, and he's the best fucking hacker in the mercenary guild. How the fuck did this bastard lurk under our noses so long without raising suspicion?"
I fucking wish I knew the answers to that. "It gets better," I muttered, my throat aching with tension from all the stress. "Bree mentioned he used to be a cop."
Archer scowled. "That we knew. Loads of private security come from police."
"Right." I nodded. "But here's the thing. How many crime scenes did SGPD attend back in those early days? Every time a doll was delivered, when Steele's car was blown up..." I rubbed my forehead, feeling the thumping ache of a headache building. But the guys were following my line of thought.
"The police were involved in the first security system set up," Archer murmured. "He had access then. Kate, on Riot Night, do you remember if he was one of the cops that arrested you?"
My jaw dropped; I hadn't even thought that far back. "I have no idea," I admitted in a whisper. "I don't remember. I wasn't really paying that much attention."
Kody snorted a soft laugh. "Genuinely shocked, babe."
I swiveled around to glare at him in outrage, but he just shrugged and smiled. Fucker. He was right too. I had been particularly oblivious to everyone around me back then. Hell, I'd thought Anna's name was Karen for at least three years, and no one had corrected me. I’d only realized my mistake when I heard Steele call her Anna.
"How does this connect with Scott?" Steele asked. "Why frame him?"
I heaved a sigh and shrugged. "I guess we might find out more when we meet Dave's wife. Bree gave us his home address, and I'd put money on it that it's not the address listed in his employment file."
Archer looked genuinely sickened at this development. "He had a wife? You're not fucking going there without me."
Kody scoffed. "Pretty sure we are, big man. You don't have medical clearance to leave the hospital, and we're not waiting on this."
"Fuck clearance," Archer barked, reaching for his IV
drip as though he wanted to yank it straight out of his arm.
Alarmed I shot forward and slapped his hand away before he could complete the motion. "Don't you fucking dare, Archer D'Ath," I snarled. "You're not leaving this bed until a medical professional clears you."
His cool blue eyes met mine with a challenge shining clearly. "Or what?"
"Or I promise you'll regret it, Sunshine." I wasn't backing down on this subject. Not in a million years. Not when his wellbeing was at stake. "Don't fucking test me."
He held my gaze for a long moment. But I didn't flinch or soften, and he was the first to retreat.
"Fine," he growled, like a grouchy bear woken from hibernation too soon. "But you're staying here with me."
I scoffed. "Fat chance. You're not sidelining me on this just because you're sulking. James will stay here and look after you, right?" I turned to arch a brow at my newly discovered father, and he jerked a quick nod back.
"Okay, sorted," Kody announced, clapping his hands. "We'll call you later, Arch." He nudged James out of the way so he could open the door, and I dodged as Archer tried to grab my arm. He had his bad arm strapped up in a sling, though, so he wasn't quick enough.
"Kate!" he shouted as I headed for the door and Kody exited.
I just shot him a grin and blew a kiss. "Love you, Arch."
His face froze, then his scowl softened. "I love you too, Kate."
Steele gave me a nudge, and I hurried out of the room before Archer could reel me back in again. James pulled the door closed after us, and the three of us made our way out of the hospital in silence.
One question kept gnawing at my mind the whole way out to Steele's car, and it was knotting me up with anxiety.
Had she helped him? We could well be walking into the viper’s nest with a live snake lying in wait. God, I hoped not.
Please, please, please, let my uncle's wife just be a normal, clueless housewife. Please.
41
The universe, it seemed, wasn't playing fair. Or it had a seriously fucked up way of cutting me some breaks. But one thing we quickly realized on breaking into Dave's house was that he had no wife.
What we found instead was a thousand times worse.
The house itself seemed so innocent, just a normal suburban home in a nice neighborhood. But none of the pictures on the walls had Dave in them. They were all of a pretty blonde woman with her husband, who was very definitely not Dave.
At first, we thought Bree had been wrong. She'd given us the wrong address, or he'd moved since then. But then we found the heavily bolted door to the basement, and chills raced down my spine.
"I don't even want to know what we're going to find down there," I confessed to the boys in a whisper. They both had their guns at the ready, but I was unarmed. My plastered wrist made it too difficult to hold a gun in my right hand, and I wasn't competent enough with my left.
"Same," Kody agreed, grimacing.
Steele holstered his gun and went to work picking the locks on the door. There were seven of them total, and nothing good could come from a basement with seven locks on it. Everyone knew that.
"Just stay back, Hellcat," he murmured as the last lock clicked open. "Stay behind us, okay?"
I agreed quickly, not in any mood to throw myself at whatever monster lurked in the basement. In fact, I was surprised they hadn't made me wait in the car or something. Then again, maybe they were just smart enough to know I'd never actually do that and decided not to even try.
The boys exchanged a look, both adjusting their grips on their weapons, then Steele pulled the door open.
The first thing to hit us was the smell. Holy shit. The smell was enough to make us all gag and my eyes water. Something was seriously dead down there.
"Fuck me," Kody muttered in a strangled voice. "We should have left this for Archer to do."
I snorted a laugh, despite the situation, and Steele rolled his eyes.
"It's not that bad. Just block your nose." He still grimaced, though, and tried to flick the light on. Nothing happened, so he sighed and started down the stairs slowly with his phone light on. He kept his gun up and ready for anything jumping out of the darkness.
Kody followed him after a beat, and I took up the rear. As we descended into the darkness. I glanced down at the stairs and shuddered. They were the open kind, and I couldn't stop imagining a clawed hand reaching through and grabbing my ankles.
Steele reached the bottom step, using his mobile phone light to find another set of light switches. He flipped them all down, and this time the fluorescent tube lights lining the ceiling all flickered to life.
I'd never in my life wished for darkness more.
"Oh fuck," I breathed, bile rising in my throat and making me swallow heavily.
"This... is going to give me nightmares," Kody groaned, his face taking on an ashen pallor.
Steele made a gagging noise and covered his mouth with his hand, then turned to look at us in horror. "I think I might throw up," he admitted.
"Try not to," Kody replied with a grimace. "We really don't need to add to the smell."
The basement was huge. Several cages lined the wall under the stairs, like the type that would hold big dogs or feral animals. Lumpy shapes inside each cage suggested whatever Dave had kept in there hadn't been cared for in a while, though.
The worst part, the part that was going to be imprinted in my mind, was the serial-killer setup in front of us. A medical gurney sat in the middle, crusted with old blood and hanging with leather straps that he must have used to hold his victims in place. The work bench was scattered with dirty tools, a variety of both medical instruments and construction tools that he'd used to torture people. None of it was clean, but I guessed he hadn't been overly concerned about infection.
The entire wall above his workbench was plastered with images of me. Every available inch of wall space was covered in photographs, newspaper clippings, and information like my class schedules or my medical records... Literally my entire life was stuck to this sick fuck's wall.
To the side, there was a craft station set up, scattered with piles and piles of fabrics and a commercial-grade sewing machine. Somehow, I had a hard time imagining Dave sitting there and creating miniature doll clothes, though.
"Do we even want to open that freezer?" Kody asked, reluctantly pointing to the huge chest freezer against the wall.
Steele shuddered. "Fifty bucks says we find the guy who actually owns this house."
Kody snorted. "I'm not taking that bet; it's a sure fucking thing. Question is, will he be whole or cut up?"
"You two are fucked up," I whispered, brushing past them. I gripped the freezer lid. Then I paused, glancing around at the sheer volume of dried and still-sticky blood coating the floor around the makeshift operating table. "In pieces, I'll bet."
Before I could talk myself out of it, I lifted the lid and swallowed back the scream of fright that tried to escape. Sure enough, the man from the photos upstairs stared up at me with dead eyes from a decapitated head.
"I think I'm going to need therapy after this," I admitted in a soft voice. After the boys had taken a look, I dropped the lid back down, then wiped my hands off on my jeans. Like I could somehow wipe away the crawling sensation all over my skin.
"Steele, go check the cages," Kody prompted his friend, nudging him towards the area in question. The one closest to us seemed to be the source of the smell, and a small horde of flies were circling the lumpy contents of it. Yeah, that was on the boys. I’d opened the freezer; my part was done.
"No fucking way," Steele replied. "You check the damn cages."
I rolled my eyes. "Both of you do it," I told them with a thread of impatience. "I wanna get the fuck out of here. Fast. Let's just get this over with and then... I don't even know what we do with this mess. Call the cops? Or clean it up ourselves?"
Steele wrinkled his nose, his mouth twisting in disgust. "Cops are a waste of fucking time. We need to just set fire to this whole fu
cking house and scrub it of evidence."
Kody nodded his agreement. "We can do that. Easily done."
"Just make sure the neighbors are out of their houses," I warned them. "I don't want any collateral damage."
"Any more collateral damage, you mean." Kody nodded to the freezer, and I cringed. I was going to guess the decaying corpse in the cage would turn out to be that man's pretty, blonde wife.
I heaved a sigh. "Stop stalling. Check the damn cages."
The two of them smirked at my authoritative tone, but reluctantly did as they were told. Steele checked the first cage, the one with the flies, and gagged again.
"Yep. Dead body," he confirmed. "No idea who; her face is all messed up. But... she's got pink hair."
What the fuck?
Just when I thought it couldn't possibly get more fucked up, Dave proved me wrong from the damn grave.
"Guys!" Kody exclaimed, a sharp note of panic in his voice. "Guys, this one's alive!"
"What?" I squeaked, rushing over to where he crouched in front of an open cage.
The woman inside was barely alive, but he was right. Her eyelids fluttered, and her chest moved as she breathed shallow, gasping breaths.
Steele was already on the phone calling for an ambulance, and Kody ever so carefully lifted the emaciated woman from the cage. Her hair was stringy and dirty, but clearly dyed pink.
Fucking hell.
I could do nothing but watch in abject horror as Kody carried the woman up the stairs in long strides, and Steele nudged me to follow. He was speaking to the EMTs on the phone in low tones, detailing the woman's condition from what we could see. I heard him mention starvation and lack of water for countless days, and I wanted to break down and cry.
What kind of sick bastard could do this to another human being? And how many people had he tortured, abused, or killed before her? Before the dead woman still in the cages or the decapitated man in the freezer?
Kody carried the woman all the way out to the front lawn, holding onto her for a few minutes until an ambulance came tearing down the street and into the driveway.