by Kylie Brant
Turning to her other side in the bed, Alexa let the past crash over her. With the insight of adulthood, she could appreciate how difficult it had been for a single mother to raise a child on her own. There had never been a father in the picture. Their homes had been a series of apartments, each indistinguishable from the other. Cracked linoleum and counter tops. Uncertain heating systems. Refrigerators that only sporadically chilled the food. But her mom had made them home. There’d been laughter in those days, songs and games that had kept Alexa entertained and close to her mother’s side. The few pictures she had from then showed the weariness behind Rebecca Sellers’s smiles, but they were genuine enough.
That had all changed with Thomas Reisman.
Alexa shifted to her back again, tension creeping into her limbs. He’d been a deacon at their church when he’d begun paying attention to her mother, and Alexa had experienced a child’s level of resentment. The man had started coming to their apartment and soon there was less time for games and songs and more focus on their “spiritual growth.” Slowly, the man infiltrated every moment of her time with her mother. And one night when Rebecca sat Alexa down to explain, with a light of excitement in her expression, that she and Thomas had gotten married, that they were all moving to Nova Scotia where he’d have a church of his own, a knife of dread had twisted through Alexa.
In a couple of weeks, her mother had quit her job, packed up their meager belongings and they’d moved to Yarmouth. Then New Glasgow. Digby. None of the churches had been a good fit. The other pastors were jealous of Thomas. The churches were too liberal. Not focused enough on biblical teachings. The next would be better. When she was fourteen, they’d gone to Truro where Thomas had started his own church. With each successive move, life had gotten more restrictive for Alexa. Everything about her past had slowly been chipped away by the stranger her mother had married. Even her name.
Deep breathing calmed the worst of the tightness in her chest. It’d been Reisman’s idea to start calling her by her middle name. Grace. A solid, biblical name to live by. Her mother had agreed. She almost always agreed with Thomas, which had infuriated Alexa at the time. But she realized now that he’d been molding his wife as surely as he was her daughter. Slowly, day by day, Thomas Reisman erased the best part of Alexa’s childhood.
There would be no more public schools. Her mother would homeschool her with true Christian values. Punishments became more frequent. More severe for the tiniest infraction. They were most often directed at her mother, but Alexa had felt the brunt of Reisman’s belt, too.
Turn away from sin! Turn or burn! She could still hear the snap of the belt, the slicing agony as it had whipped against her skin, his words keeping pace with the rain of blows. And the worst had been her mother’s betrayal, sitting in the corner of the kitchen, head bowed during the beating, reading a jumble of passages aloud from the Bible.
The back of her eyes burned, but there were no tears. She’d forgiven her mother long ago. Rebecca had been a victim, too. She’d never made it past the tenth grade, and Alexa knew now that abusers preyed on those weaker than themselves. More malleable.
When Rebecca had proved no match for her daughter’s insatiable appetite for learning, Reisman had grudgingly agreed to allow Alexa to use the public library in the afternoons. It had become her escape, a tiny crack in the window to the world. Soon she was staying there until closing time most days. And that’s where she’d met Ethan.
A sliver of the tension slipped away. When he’d teased her name from her the first day they’d met, she’d never know what had compelled her to blurt out Alexa instead of Grace. Just hearing her first name spoken aloud had brought twin spears of relief and defiance. The door to her life before Reisman had been opened and she’d taken her first tiny step out of the shroud of darkness that had dropped over her life. There was no way she could have known then the brilliant joy Ethan would bring to her life.
Or that together they’d hurtle headlong toward unimaginable heartbreak.
Chapter Four
Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. —Proverbs 28:13
Ignoring the tearing agony in his back, Anis Tera sat in front of his laptop and tracked the movements of his next victim. She’d arrived in Halifax yesterday. Right now, she was ensconced in the hotel’s VIP suite, no doubt lounging in the cushy surroundings preparing for her next interview. Despite her less savory and little known pastimes, Jeanette Lawler was the popular host on the seamy Exposé show on WBCT. Her guests were plucked from the headlines: a man accused of breaking his wife’s neck and dropping her from a three-story window; a woman claiming post-partum depression who’d smothered her twin sons; a grandmotherly ex-nurse charged with an Angel of Death case. The more sensational the situation, the more doggedly she pursued her potential guests, who, while given a public forum for pleading their cases, could also expect to have her turn on them midway through the show with a titillating revelation she claimed to have uncovered about them.
Given the personal history Lawler kept hidden, her hypocrisy was astounding. Her ambition had made her remarkably easy to fool. She’d flown here from Vancouver because she thought she was getting an exclusive with Armand Vance, a Toronto-based financier who was battling multiple indictments for security law violations.
Anis made it his business to learn everything there was to discover about Simard, so he knew the man had lost a bundle because of Vance. Like a chess master, Anis had made sure the supposed meeting between Lawler and Vance had reached Simard’s trusted advisors. He hadn’t made the mistake of contacting Simard directly; he’d learned his lesson last time, and it had nearly cost him his life.
The financier was nowhere close to Nova Scotia. But the elaborate ruse had brought both of Anis Tera’s prey to one place. Simard had been dispatched. Lawler would be, soon.
Not bothering to check the hour, Anis punched in a familiar number.
“H’lo.” The word was slurred by sleep.
“Your chores better have been completed before you turned in for the night.”
Fear creeping into his voice, the kid said, “They were. All of them. We had a bad storm this afternoon. Stuff was hitting the roof and the side of the shed. There might be damage outside.”
Anis’s reaction was sharp. “Did the electricity go off?” He had a backup generator for that eventuality, but it was a struggle for the boy to start it alone. Desperation would have fueled his eventual success, though. He knew the price of failure.
“It just flickered a couple of times. I checked all the enclosures. The temperature is fine. It didn’t affect the carcass count of the dragonflies.”
“And the prey enclosures?” Anis felt a burst of impatience at the long hesitation that followed his words. He’d had the boy over two years after saving him from a flash flood that had swelled the stream in the woods near his property. The kid would have drowned if he hadn’t been pulled out. For that, he owed Anis his life.
He was extracting full payment.
“I…think they’re fine.”
Lips pressed tightly together, he silently counted to ten. Just when he thought the boy’s training was complete, the kid proved otherwise. The midges and mosquito populations needed to be monitored, because they were the dragonflies’ food source. A daily allotment was entrapped in mesh containers and released into the dragonflies’ enclosure. The life cycle was intricately woven.
“Check on them now.”
He waited as the boy went to do his bidding, visualizing the scene unfurling on the other end of the phone. The shed’s interior would be dimmed during night, so he’d have to flip on the overhead light above the enclosure, or use the lone flashlight from the supplies Anis left when he was away. The boy’s thin bedroll would be in the corner next to the small refrigerator containing the sandwiches and bottled water. The boy had learned to eat and drink sparingly, because Anis’s return date was always uncertain. Just as the kid had lear
ned to stop talking about his former home and family and stupid dog. His life had been given a higher purpose as surely as Anis’s had.
“Yes, it’s all okay.”
He blew out a breath. “Good. Make sure everything stays that way.” He disconnected and set the phone aside, the boy already fading from his mind. Anis had seen to the shed’s security himself. It was well-insulated. There were no windows from which to escape. The Firefly cell left there for the kid to communicate with him was programmed to only accept or dial out only one number. The kid would be there when he got back. And his prized possessions would be alive. Thriving.
The hour was late, but Anis spent another hour prowling the Internet, trolling for future clients. The information people put online always amazed him. Credit card statements and banks were a treasure trove, and he eased in and out of their servers at will. He dealt in secrets. Everyone had them, a shameful part of their life that they would pay dearly to avoid having exposed. His was a lucrative occupation, and while the cost of avoiding exposure was costly, the opportunity also afforded his victims the chance to mend their ways.
He stretched, then stopped, grimacing, when the bruised and broken skin on his back ached and bled. With care, he rose, took off the burlap garment he wore and folded it before treating his wounds as best he could with antiseptic. The self-inflicted flaying had been punishment for the glow of satisfaction he’d felt after Simard’s death. Anis’s purpose was to exact impartial justice from those who refused to repent for their sins, not to sit in judgment or revel in his work. To do so would lower his actions to that of a simple murderer. He was so much more than that.
People thought they could hide their most shameful secrets from prying eyes. It was his sacred duty to ferret out the worst of the wickedness and exact the Lord’s vengeance. Sins could only be forgiven once a penance had been exacted. But the most evil sinners who turned down that chance…their sins would be buried with them.
As deep as the dead.
Chapter Five
Ethan welcomed the morning bleary-eyed and surly-tempered. Sleep had been difficult to summon. Enough so that he’d finally given up at one point and gone back to work for a few hours, poring over the earliest homicides attributed to The Tailor, looking for ways the offender had evolved until his eyes burned and his brain could no longer process information. And even then, when he’d tried sleep again, it’d been a long time coming. And he knew the blame for his fitful slumber was the woman across the hall.
It had been the glasses that did it. When she opened the door, tendrils of hair spilling from the knot she’d put it in, reading glasses perched on her perfect nose, he’d had a technicolor image of the first time he’d seen her in the Truro library. When he’d spoken to her then, she’d taken off the glasses self-consciously, fiddling with the bows during the whole conversation. She’d since lost that self-consciousness. The glasses were different. But she was still gut wrenchingly sexy in them, and his response pissed him off.
His second marriage had been as ill-fated as the first. In the four years since it’d ended, there’d been women. Nothing serious, because his batting average in that area wasn’t exactly stellar. But it wasn’t lack of female companionship that made him hyperaware of Alexa Hayden.
Hayden. The unfamiliar name meant she’d remarried. Which was yet another reason there shouldn’t be even a hint of the personal between them. They’d both moved on. A chance meeting decades after they’d parted wouldn’t change that.
An icy shower did nothing to improve his mood. Neither did his first glimpse of Alexa, when she slipped into the room they used for their conference area. The slight shadows under her eyes were probably due to her late night the last two evenings. He didn’t flatter himself that she’d spent the hours she could have been sleeping last night tossing in the bed, her mind returning again and again to memories that should have been long forgotten.
Nyle had obviously risen earlier and purchased Danishes and coffee. Ethan set his laptop on the table, booted it up and set the briefing agenda next to it before making a beeline for the caffeine to grab a cup. The first scalding taste was much-needed fortification. The unexpected addition of Alexa Hayden to the team was a distraction he could ill-afford. And he was damn well not going to waste any more time delving into memories that had been locked away long ago.
He took another long gulp and decided to cut himself a break. It’d been less than twenty-four hours since he’d come face to face with the biggest regret of his life. A response was normal. But they had a killer to catch, and like it or not, Alexa was a member of his personnel-strapped task force. From now on, that was all she was.
Ethan turned to the laptop and opened the group video conference software. One by one, the rest of the task force appeared on the screen. Captain Campbell, based in Ottawa, his expression stoic as he waited for the newest update. Ian McManus, Steve Friedrich and Jonah Bannon, the team members left behind in New Brunswick. Steve, the youngest of the three, was unshaven and chugged from a water bottle like a dying man in a desert. Ian and Jonah were RCMP veterans ten and fifteen years Ethan’s senior. Jonah held a coffee cup in a death grip, his bald dome glistening in the overhead lighting. They were using the conference room in New Brunswick’s J Division RCMP Headquarters in Fredericton. Ian sat next to him, one foot bouncing in a show of nervous energy.
Captain Campbell spoke first. “Commissioner Gagnon wants another national news conference, Ethan. The press won’t be put off indefinitely with daily written updates on the investigation. We need regular face time with the investigators to convey a forward progression in the case.”
A dull throb started in Ethan’s left temple. “I’ll assist in that with all the information at my disposal.”
“No, Gagnon also wants you in front of the cameras this time.” Campbell’s wiry gray hair always looked like he’d just run a frustrated hand through it. This morning was no exception. “You’re the face of the investigation. Not that he expects you to fly back to Ottawa, of course. But you’ll do a remote segment during the interview, once we get it set up. We’ll work on what to release beforehand, of course.”
The pain in Ethan’s head increased. This likely meant dropping everything on a moment’s notice and wasting a couple of hours in a news station. But he couldn’t fault the commissioner’s decision. The media was a fanged beast that had to be fed regularly during a high-profile case. The Tailor’s return had made national headlines. It was good PR for them to shape the narrative as much as they could, calm the fears of a jittery public and convince the press that they had the matter well in hand. Based on the UNSUB’s long criminal career so far, that would be an uphill battle.
“And we’ll want Dr. Hayden at your side, of course,” Campbell added.
“Of course.” Ethan managed to keep the irony from his voice. Forward progression meant a show of all the resources the Force was throwing at the investigation; in this case, a fancy consultant from the States. Far better to have the media talking about those extra efforts than having them speculate that not enough was being done.
“That’s all I have. I’ll contact you when we have a date and time set up.”
“I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce our consultant, Dr. Alexa Hayden.” Ethan motioned Alexa over to sit next to him so they could more easily share the screen. “She’s already identified the insects left with the last three victims and has developed a theory about the UNSUB’s use of them and how they tie into the torture. I’ll let her lay it out for you.” He nudged the computer screen toward her.
“Good morning. I’ve written up my initial notes and they’ll be added to the updated case file Officer Samuels will be uploading shortly. I’ll give you a brief summary, however.” Alexa appeared poised, despite being thrust into the spotlight without warning. She launched into a succinct account of her findings, and her conjecture about the offender’s reasoning for both the insect and victim selection.
Ethan found himself focusing
more on her impact on the other men than on her words. Steve stopped fidgeting with the water bottle, sitting up straighter. Ian, who invariably chose the most butt-ugly tie he could find as in silent protest for having to wear suits, smoothed a big paw over his eye-popping neon green and red tie and buttoned his suit jacket. Even the normally stoic Bannon appeared enrapt. Given the fact that the team members had been as unimpressed with Gagnon’s decision for a consultant as Ethan, it wasn’t hard to understand where their newfound interest stemmed from.
Alexa was clad in a tailored blue blouse and black slacks, her hair pulled back into a knot at her nape. She didn’t have to try to capture male attention. She never had. Her unawareness of the impression she made on the opposite sex was genuine. Which was probably what made it so irresistible.
But resist was exactly what he was going to do, he reminded himself, shifting uncomfortably in the chair beside her. Her value to the team was the only thing that mattered. They’d done perfectly well going their own separate ways for twenty years. After the case was over, as far as he was concerned they could go twenty more.
“Interesting theory,” Jonah put in, after she finished. “Especially in light of the fact that we got an alert from CPIC this morning about a missing person in New Brunswick. Details match our John Doe.” He consulted a sheet in front of him. “Henry Paulus from Edmonton. According to a co-worker, he took a two-week vacation to go backpacking and camping in Fundy National Park. He never returned to work and no one has reported seeing him since.”
“His co-worker reported it? Where does he work?”
“That’s the thing.” Jonah Bannon looked up at Ethan’s question. “He’s a firefighter for the city. He was part of a group that traveled to British Columbia to help battle the forest fire in the Kamloops region recently. I just faxed a photo of John Doe to Edmonton’s police headquarters. Waiting to hear on the tentative ID.”