Harlequin Superromance November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Mary Brady

  He stood for a moment, as if at a grave site, then finally, shaking his head, turned away. Some old wrongs could be righted. Some couldn’t.

  * * *

  COLIN SPOKE TO a Sergeant Fletcher in the Crook County sheriff’s department about the bones that had been found by a rock hound out past Prineville the previous year. “Nah, we never identified that kid,” Fletcher said. “Medical examiner’s best guess was that she was maybe fifteen, sixteen years old. She thought female, but you know that was a big maybe.”

  Colin made a sound of agreement.

  “Thing is, we never found the skull. Probably carried away by an animal. With no teeth to match to dental records, no fingerprints...” Probably he was shrugging. After a moment, he asked, “Have you thought about checking with other jurisdictions? I have this feeling Deschutes County had some bones, too.”

  Goddamn. If I were a serial killer, Colin thought, I’d spread the bodies around, too. Good way to avoid anybody getting too interested, in case a few of those bodies were found eventually.

  If these were related, the few that had been found almost had to be the tip of an iceberg. Think of how much empty country there was out here, with the high desert stretching to the east, the wooded, rugged mountains of the Cascade Range to the west. How many places to dump a body.

  He didn’t like this line of thinking, but couldn’t avoid it. He thanked the sergeant and asked him to call if he thought of any more details or heard of anything relevant.

  His gaze strayed to the bulletin board and Maddie Dubeau’s picture. Did this explain her disappearance? He didn’t want to think so.

  Duane called a couple of hours later. “It can’t be Maddie,” he said baldly. “We’ll check dental records, too, but...Marge says this one is male.”

  Relief was sharp, a jab to the chest rather than a gentler flood. Colin cleared his throat. “Age?”

  “Can’t pin it down. Apparently some people get wisdom teeth real early, some not until their twenties, some never. Late teens, she thinks, but she wants more bones.”

  Colin grunted. “I don’t have good news for you,” he said, starting with what the Crook County sergeant had told him. “Deschutes County had a kid, too, found four or five years ago, buried in the cinders on Lava Butte. Some teenagers were out there at night, drank a few six-packs—climbing up and sliding down, you know how it is—and they uncovered bones. A boy smashed the skull with his foot.”

  “Bet that still gives him nightmares.”

  “No shit,” Colin agreed. “That one was shot. There was an exit hole in the back of the head. Since, unlike Crook County, they had teeth, they were able to identify the victim. Another runaway, a girl from Vancouver last seen in Portland. Sixteen years old.”

  “The one here in town was about the same age, too, wasn’t she?” Duane said thoughtfully.

  “There are a hell of a lot of kids that age on the street.”

  This wasn’t a problem they had much in Angel Butte. Winters were too cold in central Oregon for anyone to sleep in doorways or alleys year-round, and the town was too small for prostitution and panhandling to hide in shadows. But in larger cities, it was another matter.

  “I called Bend, too,” Colin continued. “They didn’t have anything related. They think. A Detective—” he glanced at his notes “—Jacobs is going to do some research. He’s only been with the department for four years. Klamath County’s getting back to me.”

  “If this one is a guy and those were girls, there’s likely no tie.” A serial killer was wired to choose victims to meet a certain need, usually at least part sexual, which almost always meant they were of one gender or the other.

  “Probably not,” Colin agreed. Which didn’t mean these bones weren’t in some way connected to Maddie’s disappearance.

  Duane gave an update on the search, which so far had turned up only a few additional small bones from a hand or foot.

  The two men left it at that.

  Colin rocked back in his chair. Well, the latest bones weren’t Maddie Dubeau’s. That was something.

  She’d be twenty-seven years old now, if she were alive. Twenty-eight in a few weeks. He didn’t even have to think about it. His relationship with his sister wasn’t close, but he’d sent her a birthday card just last month. Like Cait, Maddie wouldn’t be a skinny kid anymore.

  Some people didn’t change much from their early teen years, others so much so their own parents wouldn’t recognize them if they hadn’t been there every day while the transformation happened. The plain became pretty, the beautiful, ugly...or just ordinary.

  Which way, he wondered, would Madeline Dubeau have gone?

  He shook his head at his own foolishness. She was dead. She had to be. It was past time he quit clinging to the stubborn belief that she had somehow survived. How could she have? She had been a kid. A girl, small, fine-boned, physically immature for her age. Injured, snatched late at night and never seen again.

  The very fact that she haunted him suggested that she was dead, didn’t it? The living left you alone in a way the dead didn’t. Just look at him; he didn’t give a damn about his mother, who was alive and well in San Francisco, but his father he still actively hated even though he’d been buried four years now.

  Colin swung around in his chair to look out the window at a courtyard and the brick back of the jail. Despite the calls he’d made today, this investigation wasn’t his. It was Duane Brewer’s, Jane Vahalik’s, Ronnie Orr’s.

  I’ll call Cait tonight, he thought. Arrange to get together with her when I’m in Seattle. He’d be there in two weeks, for a symposium Microsoft was holding on new technology for law enforcement personnel. Cait was his only real family. He could try harder. The fault was as much his as hers.

  And right now, he had work to do. He swung back around to his desk and computer, and didn’t let himself glance at the bulletin board again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “HEY, THE BOOK lady is here!” Aliyah cried.

  Girls jumped up from the sagging sofa and miscellaneous easy chairs and rushed to crowd around Nell Smith. The music video on the TV was forgotten.

  Katya, after barely glancing away from the television, said, “Big freaking deal.” Katya had appeared at SafeHold half a dozen times in the past two years. She never stayed for more than a week or two. She had to be nearly eighteen, and Nell worried she would soon be ineligible to stay at the shelter for homeless teens.

  “Nell! Cool,” said Savannah, a wispy, pasty-skinned fourteen-year-old boasting three eyebrow piercings, half a dozen in each ear, a lip labret and a belly button ring. If there were other piercings in unseen places, Nell didn’t want to know.

  “Did you bring me the new Vampire Academy book?” Kaylee asked eagerly.

  More titles flew.

  She grinned at their eager faces. “Yes, yes and yes.” All they wanted to read were paranormal romances, but Nell’s selections were written for teenagers, by talented authors.

  She volunteered here on a regular basis, typically spending every Sunday afternoon and one weeknight evening just hanging out and talking to the girls. Girls were housed separately from guys, although the two buildings were linked by a courtyard and a shared kitchen and dining room.

  Nell also came weekly to represent the Seattle Public Library, maintaining a shelf of books in each of the two buildings and filling special requests when she could. She’d packed other shelves with books that were weeded from the library collection, donated, or picked up at garage sales. Many of the kids who came in here weren’t readers and never would be. Others thought they weren’t but got seduced. Some laboriously studied for their high school equivalency exams, or to catch up with school—if they could be convinced to care.

  What she loved most was encouraging reading for the pure joy of it. These were kids who hadn’t
had much joy in their lives. She, like many of the other adults who worked and volunteered here, knew the bewilderment and fear and anger they felt. When she’d been where they were, books were her salvation. They’d offered her the world, filled her emptiness. Now she had a mission, one she never tried to disguise. Josef gave guitar lessons, Dex organized soccer games, Chloe taught computer skills. They all had something different to offer.

  A couple of girls poked heads out into the hall, saw who was here and retreated in disinterest. Nell had already noticed two newcomers in the living room, neither moving from their seats, both watching the excitement with confusion. One was a black girl with her head shaved. Long skinny arms wrapped herself in a hug that was painful to see. The other girl was white, overweight and suffering from acne. Nell caught a glimpse of needle tracks on the inside of one elbow.

  She smiled at both of them. “I’m Nell Smith. Otherwise known as the book lady. I bring library books regularly.”

  “DVDs, too,” one of the girls said, already delving into today’s section. Her lip curled. “Sense and Sensibility? Really?”

  “Try it. Guaranteed.”

  There were a lot of rolled eyes. She grinned.

  “Nell,” said a voice behind her. “Good. You’re here.”

  She turned with a smile to greet Roberta Charles, the director, principal fund-raiser, cook and loving arms of SafeHold. Roberta had two other people with her today, though, one of whom sent a flash of dismay through Nell. He held a giant camera on one shoulder. A TV camera. He was already assessing the room, the shabby furniture, the excited clump of girls. Nell.

  “Ah...I’ll get out of your way,” she said. “Just let me grab the books that have to go back.”

  “No, no!” Roberta said. “You’re one of my best volunteers. Linda Capshaw is here from KING-5 to do a feature on us. She’s hoping to talk to staff and volunteers as well as some of the kids.”

  Nell was okay with talking. The idea of chatting about what they accomplished here at SafeHold didn’t bother her; she’d done it before. It was the camera that spooked her. She was being idiotic; what difference would it make anymore if her face should appear somewhere? Probably none. Which didn’t keep her heart from pumping alarm through her bloodstream in quick spurts.

  “Sure,” she agreed. “Not on camera, though. I’m shy.”

  “I’m not.” Aliyah struck a pose, one skinny hip cocked. Giggling, three or four of the other girls flung arms around each other and tried to look sexy.

  These, Nell knew, were the ones who weren’t hiding from anyone. The ones with no family to care that they’d gone missing. A few of the others were melting away or ducking heads to hide behind lank hair. Nell wished she didn’t have her own hair bundled on the back of her head. She’d have hidden behind it, too.

  The camera was rolling. She turned her back and quickly put out the new books and piled the ones ready to go back into her plastic crate.

  “Requests?” she asked.

  Clarity, a shy thirteen-year-old who had arrived pregnant—too pregnant for abortion to be an option—and was awaiting foster care placement, leaned close and whispered, “Can you bring something about adoption?”

  “Of course I will.” For a moment, forgetting the visitors, Nell smiled at the girl. “A lot of what’s written is for adopters, not birth mothers, but it would still give you some guidance. I’ll see if I can find some stuff written by kids who were adopted, too.” She took the chance of giving Clarity a quick hug. Thin arms encircled her in return. Nell’s eyes stung for a moment as tenderness and pity flooded her. God. What if she’d gotten pregnant back then?

  Some flicker of movement pulled her back to the moment, and she took a suspicious look at the cameraman. He was currently half-turned away from her, sweeping the room, not seeming to pay attention. Respecting her wishes? How likely was that? But she could hope. Her fault for having left herself vulnerable for a minute.

  The KING-5 woman looked vaguely familiar to Nell. Or maybe she was just a type: blond, exquisitely groomed, wearing a royal blue suit. “Do you have time to talk right now?” she asked.

  “Just for a minute. I do have to get back to the library.” Under Roberta’s approving eye, she joined the women. It was fantastic that SafeHold was getting some publicity. Desperately needed donations always followed. But, while there were many things she’d do for these kids, appearing on air wasn’t one of them. The only picture she allowed to be snapped of her was for her driver’s license. Unavoidable, and barely resembling her anyway.

  “SafeHold,” she told Linda Capshaw, who’d asked for permission to record her voice, “offers these kids hope in so many forms. Many practical, of course.” She elaborated, concluding with, “Sometimes, all we offer is sanctuary. We have at least one girl here right now who won’t accept anything else.” She carefully avoided glancing toward Katya. “But every so often, she shows up and has a couple of weeks here, where she knows she’s safe, where she gets enough to eat, where people are kind and nonjudgmental to her. Some of these kids have been abused and simple kindness means everything to them. Others need windows opened to give them glimpses of chances they never dreamed were there for them.”

  “How did you become involved?” the blonde asked, sounding genuinely interested, although it was hard to tell for sure. Getting people to open up was, after all, her most essential job skill.

  Nell took a deep breath. This was always hard to say. “I was a teenage runaway. Not in Seattle, somewhere else. I’d rather not say where. But I lived on the streets for over two years. A local shelter was my salvation. When I moved to Seattle and read about SafeHold in the Times, I called immediately. What’s that been?” She glanced at Roberta, even though she knew to the day when she’d first walked in the door. “Five years ago?”

  The director nodded. “Just about, I think.”

  “I work for Seattle Public Library, too. As a technician, not a librarian. I don’t have a master’s degree. But because of my involvement here, I’m the one who brings books, DVDs, whatever, weekly.”

  They chatted for another ten or fifteen minutes, Nell keeping a wary eye out for the cameraman. Then she made her excuses and left, sooner than she would have liked to go. Usually she’d have made the effort to sit down and talk to the new residents, find out who, if anyone, was missing since Sunday. But she’d be back Thursday evening—soon enough.

  Yes, she told herself while she loaded the crate of books and DVDs into the back of her old Ford, she was a coward. What else was new? It was smart not to take chances, that was all. She hadn’t grown up in Seattle, she knew that much, but she had no idea how widely local stations were broadcast. And her face...well, it hadn’t changed that much since she had first found herself alone and scared, on the streets, knowing that worse than starving, worse than having to sell her body, worse than anything, was the possibility of being seen by someone who knew her.

  She was someone entirely different now. She’d created a life out of whole cloth, starting with nothing. But unless she someday had the money for plastic surgery, she couldn’t do anything about her face, and that hadn’t changed.

  Nell almost laughed as she got behind the wheel and started the windshield wipers to combat the autumn drizzle. As if she’d want to be on camera anyway! There was a lot she didn’t know about who she’d been, but she had no doubt at all that she’d always been shy. Whatever dreams she’d had, being on television wouldn’t have been one of them. No one changed that much.

  * * *

  COLIN SPRAWLED ON the king-size hotel bed and reached for the remote control. He’d like to find something mindless. His brain was on overload after a day of listening to speakers talk about new technology undergoing trials in various police departments around the world. He was glad he’d come; knowing what was out there was worthwhile, but most of this was beyond the scope of his relatively sma
ll department.

  He was to have dinner with Cait and a boyfriend who was apparently serious. Either that, or she was bringing the guy as a sort of screen, because she didn’t want to have to make conversation with her brother for two hours. Because of her work schedule they weren’t meeting until seven-thirty. Yawning as he flipped through channels, Colin realized he’d have to be careful not to nod off. He’d made the drive late last night and gotten up early to have breakfast with a group of other police chiefs and captains from agencies the size of Angel Butte, which had just over a hundred officers.

  The news caught his eye. Some damn idiot had driven the wrong way onto I-5 in the middle of the night—blood-alcohol level sky-high. Killed a forty-two-year-old woman driving home from her job at Sea-Tac Airport.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  There was a news flash: “Coming up, join Linda Capshaw for a visit to a shelter for runaway teens.” Then commercials. Colin left the station on, given that he’d been thinking about runaways a hell of a lot the past few weeks. Every major city and many minor ones had similar shelters, but he was interested in seeing what this one offered. Did they keep kids on their radar in any meaningful way? Did they see to it that the teens got dental care, which might mean X-rays?

  Duane and the two detectives had gotten nowhere in their attempts to identify the latest bones that had appeared when the tree roots were pulled up. It had turned out that Klamath County also had an unidentified teenage girl, found two years ago; the body had been too decomposed for them to lift fingerprints, and they hadn’t turned up a dental match. Given that the bodies found at Angel Butte and Deschutes County had both turned out to be teenage runaways that had likely passed through Portland, Colin wanted to check with shelters there. Just a couple of days ago, Duane’s team had found a fragment of the upper jaw, with yet another dental filling, which meant that they could identify this kid for sure, and maybe the Crook County one, if they could find dental records. It was a long shot, but worth pursuing.