Ben burrowed his head under his pillow and pretended not to hear her.
“Mr. Shaw.” This time Gail said it through clenched teeth, emphasizing the last word with a sharp smack to his bare ass with what felt like her day planner wrapped in barbed wire. “You’ve missed your morning meeting. Again.”
“Oww … so?” he mumbled, taking a swipe at her, his eyes still screwed shut. “Do your job and reschedule it.”
“I did. Again.” She sounded angrier than usual so he lifted his face from the mattress and took a peek. She glared down at him with equal parts anger and affection, the hiss of the shower running in the next room filling the silence between them. “She’s still here.”
He burrowed his head under his pillow again to hide the fact that he was just as surprised as she was. “Again, I say, so?” He turned his head to the side so she’d hear him. All he could see were her no-nonsense navy slacks and plump hands wrapped around the planner she used to try to dictate his life. Sometimes it worked. Most times it didn’t.
“So have you given any thought to what will happen to that poor girl when your father finds out the two of you are carrying on?”
The running shower meant Celine had spent the night. She was usually gone before he woke up. Overnights were an unspoken no-no. That she felt confident enough to spend the night meant she thought she could count on him to protect her if his father found out about them.
She was wrong. He’d already picked his team and she wasn’t on it.
On the upside, it also meant that after weeks of fucking her silly, his father’s personal assistant finally trusted him. Oxytocin was a wonderful thing.
He pulled his head out from under his pillow and looked up at Gail. “Carrying on?” He laughed a little, the sound of it sharpening her glare. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“I don’t know about the kids,” she said, disapproval dripping from every word, “but I call it stupid and selfish.”
Instead of answering her, Ben rolled over, stacking his hands under his head, and gave her the Full Monty. “Gail, Gail, Gail …” he said, giving her a lewd grin even though she was old enough to be his mother. “Always the Grumpy Gus.”
Gail narrowed her eyes at him, completely unfazed by his behavior. “I’m being serious, Mr. Shaw,” she said, the worry in her voice overriding the disapproval. “Your father will—”
“Never find out,” he finished the sentence for her even though he was pretty sure he was lying. “Look—it’s not a big deal. I’m just blowing off steam,” he said, gingerly setting a discarded pillow over his morning wood. “God knows I can’t have any real fun with you hanging around my neck all the time.”
Gail wasn’t buying it. “Fun?” she said, shaking her head. “There are a dozen women working for FSS who are under the age of fifty and relatively attractive—eleven of them are not your father’s personal assistant.”
He shrugged. “I have a thing for blondes.”
“What you have is a thing for is driving your father crazy,” she said, taking a step away from the bed. “It’s as immature as it is dangerous.”
“Why, Gail,” he said, shooting her a lopsided grin, “are you worried about me?”
“You?” She huffed the word while reaching over and lifting his robe off the chair to toss it at him. It was a game they played. She tried to get him to wear it and he refused. “Hardly,” she said, marching toward the door. “Who do you think is next after your father kills the two of you? Me, that’s who.” Even though she denied it, he knew she was concerned and not just for herself. That for some reason, she cared about what happened to him. It made him feel bad—mainly because she was right. Gail’s job was to make sure he kept his dick in his pants and his tie on straight. One task was proving infinitely more difficult than the other.
“Am I still on for that thing today?” he called after her, trying to make up for the fact that he made her job categorically impossible, just by being himself.
Gail stopped in the doorway. “Yes, Mr. Shaw, you’re still on for that thing,” she said, her back still turned, shoulders squared. “Your plane leaves in three hours.”
“I’ll be there in two.”
She mumbled something as she walked out the door that sounded like bullshit.
As soon as he heard the door click closed, he tossed the pillow off his johnson and stood up, scanning the room, hoping Celine hadn’t taken it into the bathroom with her.
Nope, it was exactly where she’d left it. Pausing for a moment to make sure the shower was still running, he reached for her purse, rifling through its contents until he found what he was looking for.
Celine’s keycard.
As his father’s personal assistant, Celine went where he went. Her keycard wasn’t just good for his Berlin office—her card was the equivalent to keys to the kingdom. A master card that opened every door and private elevator in every office his father kept across the world. Aside from his father, no one had that kind of unrestricted access to FSS. Not even him.
Using the scanning app on his phone, Ben scanned the coded strip on the back of it before punching out a quick text.
Thirty minutes or less.
He attached the scan to the message and hit send, receiving an answer in less than a minute.
Seriously? Do I look like the pizza guy?
Ben smirked at the screen, tapping out a response before tossing Celine’s purse back on the chair where she’d dropped it.
No. You look like my bitch. Get it done.
In the next room, the shower shut off. He imagined Celine, wet and naked, drying herself off with one of his ridiculously huge towels. Without bothering to wait for a text back, he locked his phone down and tossed it onto the bed on his way into the bathroom. He wasn’t worried.
It didn’t matter who or what it was. He was his father’s son and that meant he always got what he wanted.
Thirty-five
Yuma, Arizona
January 17th, 1998
I SAW YOU.
You carried her into the churchyard, wrapped in a blanket, and placed her on the bench just before dawn. You knelt over her and did something to her eyes.
You touched her. You touched yourself.
I knew she was dead and that you’d killed her.
I could have gone to Father Francisco, woken him, and called the police, but I didn’t. Instead I watched you. I waited until you left before I went outside. I saw what you did to her. The word you carved into her stomach.
Mine.
It didn’t scare me or make me angry. It made me feel understood. Like there is someone in the world who wants and feels the same things I do.
You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to tell anyone what you did or who you are. No one else came out until you were gone. I just wanted you to know that your secret is safe with me.
Nulo
Sabrina dropped the piece of paper into her lap. She’d been sitting here for hours, reading the letters and journals that Croft had given her. He’d organized them all in chronological order. The letters according to the date they were written, the journals according to victim. She glanced at the stack of composition books on the nightstand next to the bed. Each of them had the date Oct 1st printed across the front, followed by the year. Under the date was a name. Vicki. Susan. Taylor. Olivia …
Hers was not the first in the pile.
Jealous that you weren’t my first, darlin’? Don’t worry, I thought about you the whole time.
There’d been a girl, a waitress, in Oklahoma. Wade had met her by chance and taken her to Big Thicket National Preserve. He’d chased her through the woods. Terrorized and tortured her for hours before stabbing her to death. Afterward, he carved the word LIAR into her stomach and set her body on fire.
Because she was a liar. They all were.
Afterward, he’d gone home and calmly written down every detail of it. The way the blade of his knife slid into her soft folds of flesh. The sweet, meaty stink of that flesh when it burned. The murder had never been linked to him. She’d been an accident. An impulse brought on by unspent rage and frustration. Twenty years ago, Jenny Parsons had been brutally murdered and no one knew why or who. Until now.
She sat, surrounded by answers to the hundreds of questions that haunted her. But for all her searching, she couldn’t find the answer to the one question that needed answering now.
Who was Nulo?
He’s ours, darlin’. Yours and mine—born the moment he watched me stretch you out on that bench and saw what I’d done to you.
Sabrina imagined him, standing in the shadows, watching Wade through the cold glass of the window. Waiting until Wade left before allowing his curiosity to get the best of him and lead him outside. Had this Nulo touched her? Had he known she was still alive? That she’d been alive, at least long enough for someone to call 911? If so, why hadn’t he told Wade?
“What’s a Nulo?”
Sabrina looked up to find Church sitting in the armchair not more than five feet away, ceramic mug balanced on her knee, flipping through one of Wade’s journals. She hadn’t even heard her come in.
“What?” she said, leaning into the space between them to snatch the book from Church’s hand.
Church set her mug of tea on the nightstand. “Nulo. You keep saying it,” she said, grinning as she snatched another book from the stack. “So, what is it?”
Nulo meant nothing. Zero. What kind of person accepted that word as their name? What had to be done to you before you believed it? Instead of answering Church’s question, she asked one of her own. “What did you do to Croft?”
Church slouched back in the chair and rolled her eyes. “Nothing a few sessions with a therapist won’t cure,” she said, irritable fingers picking at the seat’s worn upholstery. “Which makes him the luckiest man alive, considering he should be rotting in some hole in the desert right about now. You’re welcome. Speaking of our fearless reporter, why is there a dead cat in the trunk of our car?”
She was right. Maybe Croft was unaware of how close he’d come to a bullet, but Sabrina wasn’t. Church had orders to kill anyone who could expose her for who she really was. Instead of thanking her, she answered her question.
“It’s not a what, it’s a he.” She said it reluctantly, her eyes glued to the journal in Church’s hand. “And I found the cat in the prayer garden at the church last night. The priest said it was mauled by a coyote.”
Church fanned herself with the journal. “I took a peek—that was no coyote. Want me to take care of it? I can have someone take a look, tell us what’s up.”
Sabrina nodded. “Sure,” she said, tracking the journal’s movements, the name printed across the front of it flickering in front of her. Frankie. Michael’s sister. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to read it yet. Every time she tried, she envisioned the Frankie she remembered—the little girl with bouncy black curls and Kerry blue eyes. She tried to reconcile her with the young woman Wade had stolen and mutilated. The body left propped against a tree alongside the highway.
She tried and couldn’t.
You ever wonder why, darlin’? How Frankie ended up on the side of the road? Why I didn’t drag her out into the woods and leave her with the rest of them?
“So that’s him?” Church said, glancing down at the journal in her hand. When she saw the name printed across the front of it, she tossed it back on the table where she’d found it. Either she’d gotten tired of the snatch and grab game they were playing or she realized whose rape and torture it chronicled. “This Nulo is the guy we’re looking for?”
“Yes.” She tucked the letter into its envelope before studying the front. The handwriting was neat. The careful, well-spaced cursive of a young man who took pride in his penmanship. There was no return address. Probably because he was afraid that Wade would use it to find him and kill him.
He was right. If he’d given me a way to find him back then, I’d have gutted him. He must’ve written me a hundred times before he finally found the balls to get a PO box …
“Holy shit.” She lunged at the box, digging through it until she found an envelope with the box number and zip code written in its corner. “He had a PO box. Maybe it’s still active,” she said, holding it up to show Church. Enlisting Santos’s help would mean turning over the box full of evidence Croft had given her. It also meant things she didn’t have time for—judges and warrants to name a few. “Call Ben. Have him—”
Church cut her off with a sharp look. “Remember the part where I told you that calling Ben wasn’t an option? That all you have is me?” She shook her head. “I didn’t say it to be an asshole. It happens to be true. Ben has done for you everything he can.”
“Which is what, exactly?” she nearly shouted, the letter crumpling in her hand as she cranked it into a fist. “Dropped this giant steaming pile of shit in my lap before disappearing into thin air?”
Church cocked her head and shrugged. “Pretty much.” She studied her for a few seconds before standing. “We don’t need Ben,” she said, making an impatient motion with her hands. “Give it.”
Sabrina hesitated before holding the letter out. “I can’t just go around tasing people and stuffing them in the trunk of my car until they answer my questions.”
Church snatched it with a smile, folding it in half before slipping it into her back pocket.
“Of course you can’t, Kitten. That’s why you have me.”
Thirty-six
Sabrina woke the next morning to find Church gone and a quick note scribbled on a hotel notepad.
The cowardly lion and I are off to see the wizard.
P.S. Took your dead cat to the lab
She twitched the curtain away from the window and looked out into the parking lot. Their car was still there. Which meant Church had hijacked Croft to play chauffeur/hostage. Hopefully, between the two of them, they’d be able to come up with some answers. Like the legal name of the person attached to the post office box used to exchange letters with Wade.
It was late August in Arizona. The sun was barely peeking over the horizon, but with it came the kind of heat you have to experience to truly appreciate. She could feel it even through the heavily lined hotel curtains. The cooler temperatures brought by yesterday’s rain were gone, leaving the air thick enough to cut and hot enough to burn. Reluctantly, she traded boy shorts and a tank for another pair of smothering dress slacks and an equally oppressive button-down before slamming a cup of bad hotel room coffee. She looped the beaded chain attached to her badge around her neck. She’d forgotten over the last year how it felt to wear one. How heavy they were. Feeling the weight of it against her chest, she realized how much she missed it.
Stepping into the corridor of their hotel, Sabrina turned to pull the door shut, jiggling the handle to make sure it was locked. It was an unnecessary precaution—the door locked automatically—but she did it anyway. Satisfied, she turned toward the stairwell just a few steps away. Pulling open the door, she collided with a broad, sturdy chest covered by a damp T-shirt. She jolted backward, instantly forcing distance between them. Her sensible shoes tangled beneath her and she pitched back, her legs giving up the fight.
A hand shot out and gripped her, keeping her upright. “Shitsorry,” he said smashing the words together as he hauled her toward him to keep her from falling.
“It’s okay,” she said, pressing a hand to his chest, pushing him away while she mentally cataloged his appearance. Gray T-shirt. Navy basketball shorts. Sandy blond hair darkened by sweat. Blue eyes. Nearly a head taller than her and built—muscular but not a total meathead. Good-looking but not too pretty. The kind of guy you’d notice but then forget about as soon as you passed him on the street. “It’s okay,” she sa
id again, forcing herself to smile. “I’ve only had one cup of coffee this morning. That means I’m only half awake.”
“I hate to tell you,” he said, smiling back, the curve of his mouth upping his pretty points by about a hundred, “but if you’re referring to that stuff they offer for free in the room, you still haven’t had any coffee this morning.” His eyes trailed downward, from her face to her chest before settling on the badge that lay against it. His demeanor changed instantly. “My apologies,” he mumbled, squeezing against the frame of the open door while he edged around her like she had some sort of contagious disease.
She laughed, moving past him to jog down the stairs. The badge was either a total turn-on or worked as a repellent. There was rarely an in between. “Have a good day,” she called up, just to twist the knife a bit. The only sound that answered her was the sound of the door above her slamming closed.
–––––
The hotel was close to the I-10, situated in a bustling pocket of fast food restaurants and strip malls. This Yuma was very different than the one she remembered. She started the car and headed east, toward Yuma’s only police station. After a year spent surrounded by nothing but silence and trees, it was disorienting—the speeding cars and tall stucco buildings slammed too close together. The noise and the heat. She welcomed the feeling. It helped her pretend she was a stranger. That the girl she’d been when she lived here all those years ago had been someone else. Like she never really existed.
When she got to the station, she parked in the employee lot, noting that it was nearly empty. None of the cars looked like any she’d seen in the dirt lot in front of Saint Rose last night. Hopefully Detective Santos wouldn’t be here yet. His absence would make what she came to do a lot smoother.
Striding across the lobby with a confidence she didn’t feel, she flashed the badge around her neck at the uniform manning the information desk on her way to Major Crimes. He was on the phone, calling her arrival up before she even hit the stairs. They’d set up a temporary office for her and “Agent Aimes” in a conference room. In it was a computer that would give her access to old case files. Tasers and ball gags might not be something she’d use to get information, but unauthorized digging through police records was right up her alley.
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