Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers)

by Ruttan, Sandra

  It’s no wonder your daddy didn’t stick around. How could anyone love a loser like you?

  He pushed the memories from his mind, pulled off his boots and tossed them on the lino near the entrance. The muscles in his back protested as he straightened up. Hot shower or bed?

  He tossed his jacket over a chair, crossed the room, turned on the small bedside lamp and put his gun and cell phone on the nightstand next to the book he’d been trying to read. From there it was a short walk around the bed to the bathroom, where he avoided his reflection in the mirror as he brushed his teeth.

  It was a safe guess that he looked as rough as he felt.

  The act of pulling off his shirt as he walked back to the bed was instinctive, and he followed it by tossing his pants over the chair nearby, the one with last night’s clothes still hanging over it.

  Back to the bathroom to shower. The cold would wake him up, and he didn’t want to spend another night looking at the ceiling, counting sheep. Or, if he was being honest with himself, counting bottles. Followed by counting mistakes. His attempts to try to forget coming full circle with the laundry list of sins he carried with him, the things he couldn’t let go.

  His weapons of choice for beating himself up over and over again.

  He turned the tap to hot and watched the steam cloud his image from the mirror. If only it could cloud his memories as easily.

  When he returned to the main room, he paused beside the bed. He pulled back the comforter and sat on the clean sheets as he stared at the nightstand.

  The drawer slid open silently, and he reached inside and lifted the bottle. There was still about a third of the whiskey left, and he held the neck for a moment, watching the light shimmer on the liquid as it sloshed inside.

  He set the bottle on the nightstand, turned off the light and lay down. The cushion of the mattress should have signaled the opportunity for desired rest, but although he closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind of the memories bubbling just beneath the surface, sleep denied him. He lingered in the semiconscious state, with a heightened awareness of the room around him, despite the dark. One thing about this motel he hated; it was in a wind tunnel, and when the gusts gained strength it sounded the way he imagined a thousand screaming banshees would, and yet it wasn’t enough to drown out the other noises.

  Every creak as someone shifted in the bed in the room above him, every time someone in the room beside him flicked channels during the commercial breaks, every beat of his heart…It all echoed in his ears, despite the way the wind wailed.

  Until replaced by a deafening quiet.

  The stillness was unnatural and unsettling. Craig’s consciousness began to pull itself through the fog as his muscles tensed.

  Sweat trickled down his back as he sat up and threw the covers off, fighting the cloud that still hovered over his brain. Where was he? What was he doing here?

  As he connected with the answers, his breathing slowed and the muscles in his shoulders relaxed, but he still felt the twisting in his gut, the way the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

  Even through the thick motel curtains he could tell it was unusually dark outside his room. At some point over the past few months he’d grown accustomed to the dim glow of motel lights slipping under the door or sometimes through the far side of the window if the drape wasn’t pulled over all the way. This night, there was nothing but blackness, and he blinked a few times to reassure himself that he really did have his eyes open, despite feeling the familiar burning from fatigue.

  He reached for his gun, fingers finding the recognizable metal in the darkness as he swung his legs out of the bed.

  That was when his brain figured out what was wrong with this picture, and he glanced back toward the television.

  The lights that stayed on twenty-four seven were off, on all the electronic appliances.

  Craig set the gun back down, picked up his cell phone and flipped it open.

  4:49 a.m.

  He groaned as he shut the phone and tossed it back down beside his gun. How was it possible to feel as though his head had barely hit the pillow when it was almost time to get up?

  The wind had knocked out the power, to the motel at least. If the outage was more widespread, it could make for a busy day, with the possibility of getting pulled off the investigation to direct traffic if the lights were out.

  Not something Craig usually had to do, but like Sergeant Yeager had said only hours before, they were stretched pretty thin.

  He thought about the bone-chilling cold of the night before and wondered if the sound he’d attributed to heartbeats had really been the distant drumming of rain against the roof two floors above him.

  Rain that could have turned to ice, taking down power lines, causing days of disruption as crews tried to clear roads, make repairs and the police were needed to follow up on stranded motorists or recluses without power or supplies who might need to be dug out. Chaos disrupting the order of their investigations.

  Craig scratched his head as he swung his legs back up on top of the bed, lay down and forced his eyes shut.

  It was wishful thinking, and he knew it.

  The low moan of the wind returned, and with it he felt himself drifting into a restless sleep.

  Part of his brain still wondered how he was going to handle the problem with Mac and part tried not to think about Ashlyn’s silhouette in the moonlight or the feeling of her breath on his skin.

  Tain sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. It was almost five a.m., and the team could only afford a few hours of sleep before they met at the station.

  He lay down against the comforter, knowing he should take the time to get undressed, but not daring to let his body fully relax into a sound sleep. This was another part of working a case that nobody could train you for, how to sleep when your mind was still processing the details, turning over all the information, trying to home in on the things that didn’t sit right and figure out why they were bothering you.

  Usually for the first day or two, the adrenaline compensated for the exhaustion, but this day had taken an emotional toll.

  He felt the burst of anger when he thought about what had happened in Steve’s office. There weren’t many people Tain claimed to trust, but Steve had earned his respect over time. Tain could speak freely without fear of unreasonable rebuke, and he’d been able to tell himself that as an RCMP officer, he might still be able to do some good.

  Lately he’d found himself thinking he couldn’t, that he’d be better off walking away. The politics, the bureaucracy that contaminated the process…

  What he couldn’t walk away from was Ashlyn. In the past few months, she’d had to deal with the reality of being a victim herself. First she’d had a physical confrontation with Byron Smythe, a shady lawyer who put profits ahead of people and threatened to jeopardize a murder investigation. It wasn’t a stretch to hold him responsible for the deaths of three more people; Smythe may not have pulled the trigger, but his interference kept critical information from them. Tain knew Ashlyn blamed Smythe, at least in part.

  The other person she blamed was Officer Parker, a cop from the Port Moody Police Department who’d seemed to feel the job was about power instead of about serving the public, the kind of guy who liked to throw his weight around when it suited him and fell down on the job when it really mattered. When Ashlyn had been assaulted in the home she’d shared with Craig and Officer Parker had been charged it hadn’t come as a surprise to Tain, but the evidence was thin. Ashlyn had never gotten a good look at the person who put her in the hospital.

  Who caused her miscarriage.

  Parker had been suspended, and there were rumors that even if he was cleared he wouldn’t get his job back. Port Moody had brought in the RCMP because they needed their resources on a high-profile murder of a four-year-old boy just days before Christmas, and they’d ended up on the wrong end of a scandal when it was revealed that one victim was murdered while police officers who were supposed t
o be watching him slept in their car outside. Ashlyn had filed complaints about Parker during the investigation, and when the ax fell Parker had blamed her.

  They’d had to go to court to testify, and they were still waiting for a verdict. Ashlyn didn’t need to say anything. Every time her phone rang he could see it in her eyes. She needed closure, but he feared she might not get it, and in recent weeks both Smythe and Parker had tried to smear Ashlyn in the press.

  Smythe being so generous he’d offered to defend Parker pro bono.

  So generous, or just hell-bent on getting even with Ashlyn after the confrontation they’d had at the mall, a confrontation that had gotten physical.

  He wondered how Ashlyn would cope if Parker got off, about the timing of facing the forthcoming verdict while working the murder of a girl they knew. A girl they knew from the first case they’d worked together, a case they’d both rather forget. Had it been harder to see Millie’s body in the Dumpster, or to see Ashlyn trying to pretend everything was okay?

  It wasn’t a hard question to answer.

  In the months since her attack, Ashlyn had closed herself off, had buried her pain and her grief and tried to shield it from everyone, including him, and as much as he wanted to offer her the dignity of respect, of confidence that she’d pull through, the more time passed, the more he worried.

  Perhaps the end of the trial would allow her to begin the healing process, even if Parker got off.

  Not if. When. He’d seen the evidence himself, and it was purely circumstantial. Smythe had even thrown himself in as another potential suspect with as much motive as Parker for hurting Ashlyn, casting more doubt on a case that was dubious at best.

  He tried to push his concerns about Ashlyn from the forefront of his mind and forced himself to think about the case. Although the manner and timing was a shock, if he thought about it, Millie’s death wasn’t much of a surprise. Victims often had a hard time pulling their lives together.

  And he didn’t know many people who’d survived what Millie had and gone on to lead a normal life.

  The truth was that the greater tragedy might lie in the fact that their investigation would prove Millie had made something of herself. Possibly found peace.

  Happiness seemed too much to hope for.

  He was glad they’d surveyed the body and made observations before they knew it was her. They’d both said the body was too clean for a working girl, didn’t feel right for a pro.

  Which meant maybe Millie hadn’t been on the streets. Maybe she hadn’t deserved this.

  No. Nobody deserved to be murdered and discarded in a Dumpster. What he meant was that maybe Millie hadn’t been involved in something that led to her death. An innocent victim who’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, not someone leading a high-risk lifestyle that would increase the chances something bad would happen to her.

  Tain rubbed his forehead. That was what was really hard to take. In the coming days, they’d pull Millie’s life apart again and either face the heartache of knowing the hell of everything she’d suffered since they’d seen her last, or knowing she’d been strong enough to pull herself through it and come out on the other side, only to fall victim to some other lunatic.

  Some other lunatic.

  Campbell was dead, and Hobbs was still in prison. He’d made the call when Ashlyn went to get food, waiting until the second she disappeared down the hall before he picked up the phone.

  Making sure this didn’t connect to the first case he’d worked with Ashlyn.

  Making sure it couldn’t.

  He knew nobody deserved to be murdered and discarded in a Dumpster, but thinking about Hobbs, thinking about the feeling of bone crushing beneath his bare hands…

  It was almost enough to make him smile.

  PART TWO

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Three years earlier

  Jenny staggered back from the force of the blow, tasted the blood in her mouth, felt the edge of the dresser digging into her lower back as she hit it and reached out with her hands to steady herself. She’d worked her way up to a small room, in the old house across from the Inn. Bobby liked having her accessible but not in the same space, which was why she had the basement suite. Thin slats of light slipped in through the small windows, and her door led out to a basement exit. The only times the door to the stairs that went to the upper levels of the house was open was when Bobby was busy with her downstairs.

  At night, she could hear the scratching sounds of rodents scurrying across the concrete floor on the other side of the wall, which was really just a sheet of paneling. The drafty basement smelled of mold and damp, and in the winter it was never warm, but it was a step up from the place in the woods, the shack where she hid out so that she didn’t have to sell herself on her mother’s terms.

  “B-but I thought—”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and laughed as he stuck one leg into his jeans, followed by the other. Once his feet were through, he stood. “You thought what? This would make me happy?” He pulled the jeans up and yanked on the zipper.

  “It’s…it’s…”

  “Scruffy, ya think it worked for your ma when she got knocked up with you? Who’s your dad, anyway? You even know?”

  Jenny felt the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, but she fought to hold them back as she sank to her knees, hands clasped in front of her chest. “That’s not…that’s not…I didn’t…It just happened. Honest.”

  Begging him to change his mind. Begging him to believe her.

  “Whatever. I’m done with this. Ain’t no way I want some screamin’ brat around. You’ll love it more than you love me, and I always told ya I don’t want kids, didn’t I?”

  “Don’t go. Please don’t go. Please.” She could hear the whine in her voice and hated herself for it, but just the thought of him leaving made her feel like a trunk had been dropped on her chest. What would she do without Bobby? She wouldn’t even have a job.

  A job. She looked down at her stomach, which in time would swell. She wouldn’t be able to fit into the places she currently could, wouldn’t be able to thieve for Bobby or spy on drops or anything. Shit. If he was cutting her loose she had…nothing. Jenny choked the words out through the sobs that shook her body. “Please, I’ll never love anyone more than you, I swear. I promise you, Bobby, I promise. I’ll prove it to you. I’ll do anything.”

  He stopped with his hand on the door and turned back to look at her.

  “Anything, Scruffy-love?”

  She nodded as the tears streamed down her face, and he took a step back toward her, tilted her chin up so that her neck was bent almost all the way back. He looked down into her eyes.

  “Okay, Scruffy-love. There might just be a way for you to prove it to me.” He smiled down at her, and it was a cold smile. She could see that, and inside she felt her heart sinking as the fear of what he’d demand started to rise within her, but instead of backing away she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his legs and held him there.

  “I’ll do anything. Anything you want.”

  He’d had her body, and ever since she’d started working for him on his side businesses, he’d owned her soul. What more could he possibly ask of her? Whatever he wanted, it couldn’t be that bad, she told herself over and over again, until she almost believed it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Eighteen months ago

  When Constable Ashlyn Hart had thought about introducing herself to her new colleagues, she’d tried to work out a number of possible scenarios in her mind. Every attempt to anticipate all possible responses had been made, down to quizzing friends and talking to her mentor from The Depot, the training academy for Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers. She couldn’t gain much personal information from anyone who’d worked in the area or might know her new colleagues because she’d been ordered not to disclose the details of her transfer until after she’d joined the team, a fact that piqued her curiosity even more,
but she knew she needed to hit the ground running and integrating into the team successfully would be crucial. She’d done what she could to prepare by trying to plan for the various responses she might face when she arrived for her new assignment.

  Sidestepping any issues quickly would be critical, so sleep had been exchanged for considering what it would be like working with a new partner, speculating what the Interior of British Columbia was like in the fall, whether her partner would have a family.

  The other thing she’d found herself worrying about was how well they’d get along. She’d done one short stint in plainclothes, more by default than anything, because the local people had an issue with strict regulations and the uniform served as an obstacle when it came to building trust. The assignment was at a detachment so far in the sticks that she’d found herself handling nuisance complaints about property lines and curbside parking on the small stretch of dirt road that they called a main street. The weeks she’d spent there in the spring had basically amounted to clerical duty and refereeing. In truth, she was a rookie, and as a rookie plainclothes officer, the only thing she expected was to be paired up with someone older, with a lot more experience. Playing the statistics, it was likely she’d be working with a male partner, and if she had a male partner who was married, it could cause some tension for them in their personal life. It was even possible she’d find herself working with someone who had a problem with women on the force.

  It was also possible that she’d be working with someone who would assume she was just a young kid, pushed up the ladder because of her gender, that she wasn’t up to the job.

  She’d devoured all the newspaper articles about the team that she could find, but there wasn’t much information, and she was working off the assumption that she wasn’t the only new person being transferred in.