by Alex Gates
“Eat it, you jerk.”
He passed me the bread. I took his hand instead.
The words came easy. It was speaking them that was hard. “Do you know that I love you?”
He hesitated, gauging my reaction. Granted, it wasn’t a pleasant declaration. I spat the question as if interrogating him about my own feelings.
Not very romantic.
I’d never been romantic before.
“Yeah.” James took a bite of his dinner. Casual. No pressure. As always. “It’s nice to hear.”
“I don’t say it often.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But if I had died—”
Now the fork dropped. So did his smile. “You didn’t, London.”
“If I had…if I had gotten blown to bits in that chapel or buried in that bunker tomb…would you have known that I love you?”
“Yes.”
“How?” Suddenly, I didn’t want the food. “I don’t hug you or kiss you unless we’re in bed. I don’t say the words. I’m awkward on the phone. More awkward when we go out. We don’t cuddle. We don’t do couple things. And when I need you—”
“I’m there. I’m always there.” He poured another glass of wine and took a long sip. “You want to know what I think?”
“Depends. Is this my boyfriend talking, or is it a professional opinion?”
“Both.”
I’d probably never separate them. “Fine.”
James pushed the plate away, but he didn’t reach for me. This sort of talk was hard enough under the warmth of his stare. I couldn’t take a touch too.
“Every night when we talk…you tell me about your cases. You share the details. Talk about the victims. Ask me about the perps.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know why you do that?”
It wasn’t because I needed help with my work, and, usually, it wasn’t because James was consulting for the station. I did it because…
He listened.
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s because you trust me.”
I laughed. “Of course, I trust you.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “You don’t trust anyone, London. Not yourself. Not your family. Not the police department. It took years for you to even consider opening yourself to me. I hate that for you, London, but I love that I’m the lucky one you let near. That’s my own selfish desires talking.”
“I trust people. I have to. It’s my job.”
That amused him. “You don’t let the ones who know you get close. Your family, your colleagues, old friends. But a victim who comes to the police?” He paused. “You will always trust them.”
I pushed my plate away, losing my appetite. “And look how good that turned out. Louisa played me.”
“You wanted to help her. Any cop would have done the same.”
“But she’s crazy.”
James always hated that word, but he tended to enjoy untangling the crossed-wires in people’s heads. “She’s unstable.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“But because of her, you saved her sister.”
“Did I? I handed Anna off from one lunatic to the other.”
And that was my fault.
Louisa made bail and was already home. All she needed was a sympathetic judge who’d sentence her light after learning about her trials for her sister.
And Anna had been thrilled to be reunited with Louisa. She, Mariam, and Rebecca had gone to stay with her. Home for the first time in fifteen years.
“I should have realized something was wrong,” I said. “I should have known. I should have been more careful. I just…I don’t know why I acted how I did.”
James was quiet for a long moment. He waited for me to speak, but I’d been with him for too long to fall for that trick.
“London,” he said. “What’s really bothering you?”
Did he want the truth or the crazy bottled up in me? Most days, they felt like the same thing.
“It’s about you.” I apologized with a shrug. “And me. And my job. And everything.”
I gripped my napkin, tearing off small chunks in my lap. It made a mess, but it distracted me from his golden eyes, the curl of his lips, the strength of his jaw.
How much he knew about me.
“I’m not sure I can do this job,” I said.
James didn’t buy it. “You have to.”
“No, I don’t. I could walk away.”
“You couldn’t.”
“I spend day after day looking for lost kids. Rescuing children from abusive families. Saving them from assaults—sexual and physical. And every single time…I put myself in their place. I imagine their pain and suffering. I’m there, with them, through every single horror.”
“You’ve always done that.”
The spaghetti smelled delicious, but I couldn’t stand looking at the plate. Too damn wholesome and normal and perfect for what shadowed me.
“This is when you tell me that it’s dangerous to do my job,” I said. “That it’s unhealthy. That it’s become an obsession. That I’ll hurt myself or a victim because I’m acting too impetuous.”
“So what is it?” He swirled the spaghetti on his fork and took a bite. “Are you too careless…or too dedicated?”
“Maybe both.” I shook my head. “I thought this was what I was supposed to do.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Anna Prescott.”
James nodded. “Tell me about her.”
“You know everything. You’ve seen her. You’ve seen how she acts.”
“How does she act?”
“Like…” Was it wrong to be jealous of a victim? What if I simply envied her resilience? “Anna’s survived what happened to her with a smile. She’s not scarred. She’s not showing any signs of torment or PTSD. She’s…fine. She’s healthy. She’s not…”
“You?”
“Anna endured fifteen years of captivity. I spent three weeks in a basement. She’s fine. I’m not.”
So what was wrong with me?
“I’ve just…poured myself into my job,” I said. “That’s all I can do. And it’s not healthy. It’s not good. It’s a shield. I’m trying to protect myself by protecting others.”
“Do you want to quit?”
Yes. No.
I hated the cold uncertainty. “I can’t stop now.”
“Why?”
“Because this is my life. I take the work home with me. I can’t sleep when I’m working a case. I can’t eat. I can’t see anything except the picture of the missing person I’m trying to find.”
“And you find them,” he said.
“Not always.”
“Not everyone can be saved, London. But they have a hell of a good chance if you’re working the case.”
“What if I’m not doing it for them?” I asked.
“Are you still trying to save yourself? That college girl, grabbed off the street?”
Why lie? “Am I?”
“Of course, you are.” James took my hand. I let him hold it for a few seconds longer than I usually did. “Your kidnapping will be with you forever, London. As long as he’s out there and free, you will always fear that unknown. The question is…does that make you a bad cop?”
“I don’t know.”
“You found Anna Prescott. Saved twenty-six other women and children because you didn’t give up. You wanted to save them and give them some justice for their suffering. Why do you fear having a unique perspective on this sort of crime?”
“James, it’s not perspective. It’s scars.” I guzzled my wine. “Scars only you have seen.”
“Because you trust me.”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever wondered how many people trust you?”
No.
Well, now I did.
And that was some hardcore guilt.
“I don’t want to let anyone down,” I said.
“You won’t.” He took another bite
of the dinner. “You’ll work to exhaustion before you let an innocent person get hurt.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Are you asking if you’re a workaholic? Absolutely.”
“Pot, kettle.”
He smiled. I loved his smile. “Guilty as charged. It’s why we’re good together.”
“You think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“I think it’s unfair.”
“What is?”
“That you’ve learned everything about me, James Novak. You know more than anyone else in the world. The things I’ve told you, the things he made me do. I will never repeat it again to anyone as long as I live.”
He listened, his expression just as patient as always. “And I’ll never break that confidence.”
“But I don’t know the same about you. Your secrets. Your life. Those things you’d never dare tell anyone—worse than shame, worse than humiliation. Things you’d die before revealing. I don’t know them.”
“All you have to do is ask.”
“It’s that easy?”
He poured me another glass of wine. “We’ve done the hard part, London. Said the words. There’s no one I’d rather share those secrets with.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“I’ll make it even easier.” He brought my hand to his lips. “Move in with me.”
Jesus.
This was one hell of a dinner.
My mouth dried. A familiar panic returned. I swallowed, but fortunately my cell rang.
I forced a quick smile and darted to answer it. “Just a second…”
“Take all the time you need.” He helped himself to more of the spaghetti. “Thirty seconds or another six months. I’m not going anywhere.”
And that was good.
And that was bad.
And it was all I’d come to expect.
And need.
My phone was still ringing. I cursed it, swiping to answer.
“McKenna.”
Adamski wasted no time, his voice low. “Patrol just got an emergency call from Louisa Prescott’s neighbors. Officers are on the way.”
Good thing I hadn’t eaten. My stomach roiled, and the wine threatened to come back up.
“What happened?”
“Louisa’s been murdered. We can’t find Anna.”
30
You look better when you’re helpless.
-Him
Two patrol cars parked in front of Louisa’s house, but I’d beaten the ambulance.
Unfortunately, we needed the medical examiner.
I took the porch steps two at a time, but a patrol officer caught my arm.
“Detective…” He spat bile into the shrubs growing around her porch. “This is a bad one. Wait for homicide—they’re only a couple blocks away.”
I didn’t need to be babysat by Homicide. “What did that animal do to her?”
“What didn’t he do to her? There’s not much left.”
No. No, no, no.
“And Anna?”
He stayed quiet, offering me a pair of latex gloves. I couldn’t fit them on my trembling hands.
“What about the kids? Mariam? The baby?”
Don’t be dead.
He shook his head. “Not here. Not in the house at least.”
Maybe Jacob let them live?
I surveyed the porch once more, my eyes on the driveway.
Empty.
Shit.
“Where’s the car?” I asked. “Louisa drives a silver Honda. Where is it?”
“There wasn’t a car when I arrived. You think…”
I didn’t think. I knew.
“He’s kidnapped them.” I ripped off the uncooperative glove and pointed at him. “Call dispatch. Tell them we have three people kidnapped—a thirty-year-old woman, a ten-year-old girl, and an eight-month-old baby girl. Contact Sergeant Adamski—he’ll get them photos.”
I rushed into the dark house, grateful the lights hadn’t been turned on in the kitchen. The layout wasn’t so different from Louisa’s parents’ home, though it had been reduced to timbers and ash. The home was too small for a family of four, but for two weeks, they’d made it work. The court hadn’t ruled on what to do with the kids yet, but Louisa insisted on taking in both children and Anna.
Our ADA argued with the family court to remove Rebecca and Mariam.
I’d argued against it. Despite the circumstances, the girls were comfortable with Anna. They’d been through enough without splitting the family any more. Even if it meant staying with Louisa.
I wasn’t too fond of her or the pending criminal case, but she wouldn’t hurt the girls.
She only wanted to protect her sister.
Was I getting everything wrong about this case?
Nothing made sense. Not the farm. Not the men. Not the murders.
And not the newest body in the string of horrific murders.
I entered the living room. My foot immediately sunk into a sopping puddle in the carpet. Blood. I stepped back, but the stain led directly to me. And why not? Everything I’d touched lately had ended up broken and bloody.
But it wasn’t supposed to be Louisa.
I’d never worked homicide. Of course, I’d responded to scenes. Encountered murders. Saw bodies. But this was something else.
Even Detectives Falconi and Riley gagged as they arrived.
The monster had shredded Louisa, neck to legs. Blood streaked the furniture, the floors, the carpets. Jagged blotches of crimson stained the once cozy cream walls.
The body was almost unrecognizable.
“Holy shit.” Falconi stepped away from the scene, pretending to analyze the blood spray patterns. “She’s been butchered.”
“Diced is more like it…” I couldn’t get close to the body without stepping in more blood. I stayed still instead, staring at the once vibrant, frustratingly stubborn, absolutely infuriating Louisa Prescott. “He didn’t show mercy.”
“He?” Riley went to work, walking through the scene as if it were just another murder, just another body. “A Goodman?”
“Jacob,” I said. “Had to be.”
Falconi steadied himself before kneeling at Louisa’s side. “Do you think he killed the girls?”
I answered with absolute certainty. “No. They’re too valuable to him. A wife, child, and a baby? They’re his property. He’ll never hurt them.”
Falconi’s phone rang. He took the call, waving to me as he listened with a growing frown.
“Good news,” he said as he hung up. “Maybe. A lead came in from the state’s fugitive recovery team. They got a bead on a campground in Westmoreland County. Group of a dozen men camping in a remote area—little cold to be out on a nature walk.”
My pulse jumped. “Is it the Goodmans?”
“Who else could it be?” Riley continued to walk the scene, piecing it together. “These guys know how to live off the land. Goodman comes to get his girls. Louisa puts up a fight. He takes her out. Gets his wife and the girl and they’re gone. They go to the campground while they think they’re safe.”
I stared at the body, hating myself for hardly recognizing the woman who had fought so hard just to end up slashed and destroyed in her own home.
“No one does this and expects a quick escape,” I said.
Riley agreed with me, a first time for everything. “He spent some time with this one. Probably kept stabbing after she was dead.”
“Asshole’s unstable,” Falconi said. “Christ only knows what he’ll do to the girls.”
He wouldn’t hurt them. But the scene kept a secret I couldn’t breach.
Louisa didn’t give me any answers, and the rest of the house was silent too. Hell, if the walls could talk, they’d probably go mute in the panic too.
Jacob killed Louisa. Grabbed Anna and the kids.
And then what?
He was a bastard and murderer, but he wasn’t putting his family in any more danger.
I wished
I could cover Louisa, but what was done was done. She didn’t care anymore. I’d only be protecting myself.
“After doing this, there’s no way Jacob would take the girls to the camp ground,” I said.
Falconi didn’t look up from his notes, avoiding the carnage. “Why?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“He just murdered this lady in cold blood.”
“It’s not cold blood. He knew Louisa. She’d been trying to get Anna back for years. This was personal, and it was a mistake. The first one he made.”
“How do you figure?” Riley asked.
“He murdered Louisa, and that puts the us on his trail. Too close to him. He’s eluded the fugitive unit by staying far from Anna and the others. Now we know he was here, we know the car he’s driving, we know how long he’s been gone. He’s outed himself.”
“What’s that got to do with Anna?”
“This bastard isn’t getting away again. He’s killed SWAT officers. Hurt me and the state troopers. That fugitive team isn’t taking chances. They’re shooting to kill. He knows it. Anna knows it. There’s no way they’d put the children in that danger.”
Riley didn’t believe me. “Why not?”
The answer was obvious, and that was the reason the Goodmans were a step ahead of me, always.
“Because he loves them.”
They weren’t property.
They weren’t the product of an unbridled fetish.
The Goodmans believed in their farm. And their wives. And their children.
They thought they were right.
And that’s why I was failing. I could offer the women safety and promises of freedom, but no Goodman would ever take it. They thought they’d already found their paradise.
The bloody scene was too much for me. I’d search the rest of the house. Falconi took the steps behind me, scratching at his beard as I slipped through the upstairs to Anna’s room.
“We’ve got the Amber Alerts out,” Falconi said. “And I radioed dispatch the make and model of Louisa’s car.”
“It won’t do any good,” I said. “Jacob doesn’t have the girls.”
A bassinet rocked in the corner. Mechanical, plugged into the wall to keep the baby moving. Two slept-in beds were pushed into the corner of the room, only partially made, the quilt pulled over the mattress. Neat and tidy. Just like Anna.