The Beast Within: Mended Souls #2

by Jacquie Biggar

  Scott gave him a mega-watt smile, the one that had made him into a superstar. “It’s not over, ’til it’s over. You taught me that.”

  Lucas decided not to remind him that he’d also taught him not to reach for the stars, they had a tendency to fall.

  “So what’s it like, being Master of the Universe?” Scott teased. “You’ve got some serious props there.” He nodded to the wings folded on Lucas’ back. “They’ve changed color, haven’t they?”

  Lucas glanced over his shoulder and took in the downy gray feathers. Hmm, it seemed like the shade varied depending on his actions. Do something out of anger, they turned a dark thunderous gray. Do something out of compassion, they lightened. Could that be the key? He was almost certain Mike was holding Natalya beyond the gates, but since he’d been denied access so far…

  He shrugged. “Maybe a couple of shades. I don’t know, I don’t get to use them often.”

  Climbing the stairs was like stepping back in time. The same wicker furniture he’d found Scott passed out on after the accident occupied a corner of the room, though now it was arranged to take advantage of the sun streaming in from the east. A broom for cleaning—maybe the same one Scott used to fend off their attackers?—rested against the wall near a rustic picnic table and a potbelly wood stove, both new additions.

  Change. Everything was changing. He needed to learn to accept that and move on with what the Lord had in store for him. Or be left in that no-where-land between Heaven and earth forever.

  “Any word on Nat?” Scott asked, as though reading his mind.

  He wished he had better news. “Not yet. I’ll find her though. I can’t tell you how…”

  Scott raised his hand, stopping the flow of words. “Let it go, man. It’s eating you up inside. There was nothing you could do. Don’t take this wrong, ’cause you gotta know I’d do anything to have you guys back, but I’m happy now. If it hadn’t happened I might never have met Tracy and fallen in love.” He sat on top the picnic table, long legs dangling off the side like a school kid. “She’s amazing, bro. I wish you two could meet.”

  They could, he’d just be a middle-aged cabbie when it happened.

  “Sure, one big family reunion, right?” He didn’t make any attempt to hide his bitterness. How could Scott act as if nothing had happened?

  A family entered the gazebo, an overflowing picnic basket dangling from the father’s grip. The young mother caught sight of Scott spotlighted by a shaft of sunlight as though blessed by the Gods and her eyes went wide, her grip tight on her boys’ hands.

  “Honey,” she whisper-shrieked. “Honey, that’s Scott Anderson.”

  Scott grimaced, before turning a charming smile onto the family. His worried gaze met Lucas’ over the heads of the children as they swarmed him, making it obvious he’d picked up on his friend’s discontent.

  Lucas was surprised at the lack of envy he felt. In the early days he and Scott had made a game out of counting their fans. They’d both craved the notoriety, and the escape from their early dirt-poor lives. Once they’d achieved their fame though, it hadn’t taken long to pall. There was virtually no privacy, and everyone wanted to use them for their money—including their agent who’d gone so far as to commit murder in order to cover his embezzlement of their funds. And had almost killed Scott in the process.

  He stood back, once again invisible, and watched his buddy win the family over with charm and easy laughter, no doubt turning them into fans for life.

  Yeah, he was one lucky bastard all right.

  Chapter Twenty

  Julie had been sitting at her desk for the past two hours and hadn’t achieved much in the way of words for tonight’s story. What she had found was a disturbing trail of bodies and very little to link them together.

  She sat back and stared at the computer screen, chewing the end of her pencil. Did the police realize how widespread these cases were? They had to. If this was the work of one killer, he’d been doing it for at least ten years or more. The first victim was found in a farmer’s field in Flin Flon, Manitoba, and like this case, she’d been discovered with a jagged stump where her left foot should have been. Then, there was the teenager found in a gravel pit in New Brunswick. Her only similarity to the present case came from the viciousness of the assault and the strangulation as cause of death.

  She took a sip from her cup and grimaced. Yuck, cold coffee just wasn’t the same.

  He was escalating, learning his MO. The more he killed, the more choreographed it became. He knew his moves. Knew what he had to do in order to capture them without getting noticed. And how to extend his torture until he was ready to let them die.

  She shivered and turned to grab the cardigan hanging on the back of her chair.

  And shrieked.

  Ron had his nose practically buried in her ear.

  “What the hell, Henderson? Personal space a new concept for you?” She wiped ineffectively at the splotches on her dark slacks. Thanks to him giving her a heart attack she’d spilled her coffee.

  He straightened, his gaze turning from amused to quizzical as he fixated on the reports she’d pulled up on the computer. “Whatcha got going there?” He nodded to the screen.

  Julie hurried to one-click the program closed. “Nothing that concerns you.”

  Ron smirked. “Is that any way to treat your fellow co-worker, Miss Crenshaw?”

  He reached over, picked up her coffee mug, and helped himself to a drink. Julie hid her smile, impressed that he kept a straight face, though he was quick to set the cup down.

  “Serves you right. Next time get your own,” she said.

  “You’re such a hardass, Crenshaw.” He hooked a leg around a nearby chair and pulled it up to the desk. “C’mon, we’re supposed to be a team. Your news is my news, and my news is… my news.” He grinned.

  Julie shook her head. “I’m not surprised you don’t have a girlfriend, Ron. You’re an egotistical jerk.”

  He shrugged. “Guilty as charged. Now tell me what you were looking at with such intensity.”

  The urge to keep all her findings under wraps so she could be the one to break the story and finally prove her value, vied with the guilt she’d feel if anyone else got hurt while she was attempting to climb the corporate ladder.

  Common sense won.

  She clicked the computer back to life and turned the screen so he could see it better. “You remember that foot I found at the beach a couple of weeks ago?”

  He nodded, his gaze for once sympathetic. “Yeah, that had to be pretty nasty.”

  She repressed a shudder. “It was.” Her pencil tapped the screen where she’d been struggling with her report. “I went to Sooke today. They found a body. Maybe my body.”

  Ron glanced over, his bottle-green eyes soft. “I’m sorry, kiddo. No one should ever die that way.”

  Julie swallowed hard. It was damn near impossible not to imagine the depravities this woman and all the others she’d been investigating had gone through. It made her angry and helpless and incredibly sad that anyone could do something like this to another human being.

  “I did some backdoor searches.” She met his gaze. “Don’t ask. Anyway, I’ve pieced together a trail of murders dating back almost ten years that have never been solved and have one or more similarities to our guy. Take a look at these old newspaper clippings.” She clicked one after the other, more than twenty in total.

  Ron frowned and leaned forward to read. “This could be random, Julie. There’s no way to prove it’s linked to our case.” He paused. “Even if our competitors want to jump the gun and yell serial killer.”

  She clenched her hands and gritted her teeth. “You think I don’t know how dangerous this is? We could cause mass hysteria and have the whole country in an uproar.” Too upset to sit any longer, she shoved away from the desk and stood, the casters squawking on the cement flooring. “But if I’m right and we do nothing to stop this guy, are you going to be able to sleep with yourself?”

/>   “That’s the only way I get any rest,” Ron said, ever the mouthpiece. But his attention was on her files. She was on to something. She could feel it.

  “Have you talked to your cop boyfriend about any of this?”

  His glance made her uncomfortable. She swiped her cup out from beside his elbow before he bumped it to the floor, and strode to the single cup brewer she’d treated herself to when she got the job offer.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, and no, I haven’t. Yet.”

  Ron stood and moved to her side, towering at least six inches over her head. If he were into intimidation his linebacker body, tattooed arms, and enigmatic eyes would deter most people, but she knew he wasn’t like that. For all his cynicism, Ron was a good guy.

  “You can’t, Jules.”

  She stiffened. Her nickname on another man’s lips instead of Mike’s still had the power to bring her to her knees.

  “This story could be our big break,” he carried on, unaware he’d just set off a bomb in her heart. “Look, I’m not saying we don’t tell your… friend. I’m just saying we could pick the time.”

  He wanted her to sit on what could be the story of a lifetime. But if she did, and someone else died…

  What was she going to do?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mike landed a few feet from the cave he’d found not long after the accident that had taken his life. Funny really, when he’d opened his eyes that day he’d assumed they were at the park having a picnic and he’d fallen asleep.

  Now, same as then, the sky was an impossible robin’s egg blue, so bright he had to squint to see across the waving green grass of an endless meadow. But unlike that day, his children were not playing tag, and his beautiful, pregnant wife wasn’t lying at his side.

  He was alone.

  Tired, he made his way to the mouth of the cave and entered. The light faded the further he walked, not that it mattered, his eyes were sharp as an owl’s in the dark. Just one of the many changes his body had undergone in its transition to the other side. On earth he’d fallen from a tree as a child and broken his leg in two places. It had left him with a slight limp and a cool scar to show his friends. That was gone now. He’d been gifted with the taller, stronger, healthier version in this world, but he’d take his beaten up body any day if it gave him his life back.

  As with most things in Heaven, the cave wasn’t your typical damp, cold, dirt and bats affair. This cave was the Taj Mahal of caves. Its walls were thick slabs of smooth granite, onyx black with striations of gold weaving throughout like a road map. The first time he’d entered, he’d been astounded to come across the emerald green pool off one of the passageways. A three-foot waterfall tumbled over what looked like a small landslide and fed the pool from the far end of the room. The water had beckoned. He’d stripped down and dove in, gasping at the cleansing coolness. And that’s where he’d discovered the secret room, hidden behind the waterfall.

  It became his sanctuary.

  Then the Lord, in all his wisdom, paired Mike with the very person who had caused his death and revenge led him to kidnap a young woman who had no idea what she’d done wrong. An innocent. And now, all he wanted was to set her free and maybe thereby gain a little peace. It had taken him far too long, but he could finally see that it had been an accident. No one was at fault, or if there was a guilty person, he was in jail. Mike had learned Lucas was drugged the day of the crash, his agent’s desperate bid to cover a trail full of lies and deceit.

  Greed. Was there ever a more hateful word?

  Mike dove beneath the falls and came up on the other side. He climbed onto the narrow ledge rimming what looked like a solid wall except for an oddly colored rock sticking about a quarter of an inch above the smooth surface near the edge of the water. He placed his hand palm down on the rock and pressed. There was a momentary lull, and then with a shudder that shook his body, the wall slid to the right, disappearing into the face of the hill like a pocket door.

  Natalya was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her feet tucked up under her thighs, reading one of the romance novels he’d found at the Transition House and brought for her entertainment. She jumped like a startled doe and leaped to her feet, the book tumbling to the floor.

  “Easy,” Mike said, concerned she would hurt herself. “How are you, little one?”

  She put a hand to her breast as though to still its rapid-fire beat, then bent and carefully picked up the hard-bound book and returned it to the shelf along one wall. When she turned back to him her features were wary.

  “What do you want?” Her gaze slid to the door he’d deliberately left open, before coming back to challenge him. “Unless you’re letting me go, I don’t need you here.” Her body language said get lost with stiff shoulders and clenched fists, but her eyes were vulnerable, and so lonely it ripped his guts out. He should have released her long ago. Hell, he never should have taken her to begin with.

  “That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.” He gestured toward the table and chairs. “Can we talk?”

  She shrugged, but walked across the thick carpet to take a seat. Mike frowned. Her feet were bare, he hadn’t brought her any shoes. She must have gotten chilled, but hadn’t once complained. He was an ass.

  He cleared his throat and took the other chair. “Have you been well since I was last here?” he asked, his tongue tripping awkwardly over the words.

  Natalya glared. “What do you care? That’s the whole idea of kidnapping me, isn’t it? To make me suffer?”

  He winced. Okay, she was bitter. Mike could understand that. He’d make it up to her somehow, if she’d let him.

  “It was never about you, honey. This was between me and Lucas. I’m sorry I placed you in the middle when you’ve already been through enough.”

  She eyed him like he was pond scum. “Just say it. You mean because I’m dead. We’re all dead.” Her voice climbed an octave. “I’m sick and tired of tip-toeing around the reality. You need to figure out how you’re going to deal, because there is no going back.”

  For all that she looked like an angel with long white-blond hair and sky blue eyes, she didn’t pull any punches. Not that he didn’t deserve a tongue-lashing. Stealing her away from the Transition House and locking her in this cave—even if it was homey—had been the wrong thing to do. Too bad hindsight was always twenty-twenty.

  “I realize that now,” he said. “I’ve come to return you to Lucas.”

  He hadn’t expected her to jump for joy and give him a hug—though it would have been nice—but he certainly never thought she’d throw her hands up into the air and cry “Men!” either. He sat back and stared at her, bemused. “What?”

  She stood and paced the room, mumbling words he couldn’t hear, and a few he wished he hadn’t.

  “Your mama teach you to talk that way?” If his daughter ever swore like… the pang was more the ache of an old wound now, rather than that of a fresh slice. She would have been beautiful—like her mother—and cherished.

  He sat up, a sudden thought occurring to him. If he had landed up here with Lucas and Natalya, was it possible his daughter was nearby? Maybe there was a level for innocent children, ones who had never done wrong. How could he find out? The Lord could tell him. He needed to go back to…

  Something smashed against the back of his head. He grunted and started to lift a hand to the pain when it struck again. Dazed, he stood, only to lose his balance and topple to the floor.

  Darkness closed in. An angel bent over his prone body, tears swimming in brilliant blue eyes. Then, there was nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Julie stumbled past the crowds tugging suitcases and cranky children into the international airport. She stopped near the totems towering against a brilliant blue sky, sank onto a bench, and stared blankly at the parking lot. Her babies were gone. It was for the best, and they were thrilled to be traveling on an airplane—alone—to visit their grandparents, but… her babies were gone. They’d never been apart,
not even after Mike and baby Ava died.

  The ache was an echo of that earlier pain, the one that had ripped her heart from her chest. Even though they were only away for a short while, it already seemed like forever. Mike had loved the boys and always made time for them, even after a long day at work. She was trying, but being a single parent was hard. The responsibility for their care sometimes seemed overwhelming, but there was no choice, they relied on her.

  She wiped her eyes and rose, determined to shake off her morose mood. The kids were safe, that was the important thing. As soon as Connor caught the suspect they could come home, until then she had a job to do.

  Her car was parked at the end of a seemingly endless row of fancy imports and luxury models. The old Civic stood out like a sore thumb. So did the tall, grim man leaning his mouth-watering butt against the front fender.

  Her heart stuttered. She hesitated, then strode forward. “What are you doing here?”

  He straightened and met her halfway. “I heard what you were doing and thought you might like a little support,” he said, his gray eyes soft.

  She looked down, unwilling to show her vulnerability. “I’m fine. They’ll probably get spoiled silly at my mom’s.” Then the rest of what he said sank in. She glared. “What does that mean, ‘You heard what I was doing?’ There’s no way even your lackey could have known why I was at the airport,” she said.

  Shocked, she patted her body down and searched through her purse. “Did you bug me, Detective?”

  Connor grabbed her hands, stilling her frantic movements. He lifted her chin so she had to meet his gaze. “Calm down, okay?” He waited until she gave an aggravated nod. “No, I did not have a listening device planted on your person. My lackey, as you call him, informed me that you were on the way to the airport. It was a simple matter to call the service counter and check the flights.” He squeezed her hand then released it. “I thought you might be leaving town.” He stared at her. “I had to know.”