“You mean abandon his own special place, his own dumping ground for high visibility, start leaving his victims where he wants them found? He wants his numbers to go up.”
“Exactly.”
The banter went on. As everyone in the room picked up on the dialogue, between Skye and Josh that showed an unmistakable intuitive insight into the killer, almost paranormal.
“Will all this unconventional stuff help catch this guy?” Hennings wondered to Harry.
“Sometimes with no crime scenes it all comes down to this. Law enforcement has to rely on the unconventional. And these two are about as unconventional as you could get.”
Chapter 6 Book 3
That weekend the unconventional pair contacted a realtor and went looking for a house.
Behind the wheel of his Ford Fusion, Josh angled his way in and out of traffic on the I-5 under foggy conditions. So far the heavy pea soup prevented any real buildup of speed. That’s why they sat back and made the most of their morning together and the prospect of going on the hunt for the perfect house.
“I’m not sure I want out of the city. I like the loft,” Skye admitted. When she noted the beginnings of a smile form at the corner of his mouth, she added, “Believe it or not, it’s grown on me, although I do draw the line at liking that French provincial crap in the lobby.”
He picked up her hand, turned it over to kiss the palm. “I knew it would if I gave you enough time. Think of it this way, if we find a new place we both like, I guarantee you won’t have to put up with that French provincial crap at all.”
“Hmm, not having to look at those marble-topped tables with the ornate gold legs might be worth it.”
“So no furniture with cabriole legs? Got it.”
“I don’t mind the look of country French but all that gold crap is just ugly.”
“Somewhere I’m sure Louis the Fourteenth is heartbroken to hear that.”
Skye put her hand over her mouth to muffle the snicker.
Josh cut his eyes to hers in an amused look while watching the Dodge truck in front of him. “A place in a nice wooded area similar to what Travis owns would be great, something with an acre or two of land to go with it. That way you’d get to putter in a real garden of your own.”
“The idea of replanting my little garden balcony into a real plot of ground is…tempting. But I don’t really spend that much time ‘puttering’ as you so aptly put it. In case you haven’t noticed I usually stay busy with Foundation stuff. Your fault,” she reminded. “And now with this butcher roaming around our little enclave snatching women at will, I’ll be hard pressed to find any time to putter.”
“Protest all you want, but going on the hunt for a child creates tremendous tension. You do it every single night. Even cops are sometimes forced to take downtime. Face it. You need a place to unwind when things get stressful. Tending to your herbs and flowers is a big part of what you do to relax.”
When he said it like that, it did make sense. “Josh, what I do isn’t a formal job but more like a—”
“Don’t you dare compare what you do to a hobby. It’s much more than that. As it is, you don’t get paid for Foundation stuff because you refuse to take any of the money. But that doesn’t make it a hobby. The very least you should do is get to putter and dig in the dirt whenever you want.”
“Taking money doesn’t feel right to me, Josh. Besides, it leaves more in the bank to go for more important things like essential state-of-the-art equipment I can use to track predators better. Cracking databases make it a tad easier if I have the right software, the right hardware, and the right access. That all takes major bucks.”
“Does Harry know you have military-grade, night-vision goggles?”
“No. And Harry doesn’t need to know my complete inventory list. In fact, no one needs to.” She looked east toward the Cascade Mountains in the distance. “Where are we going? Any particular reason we’re headed south instead of north?”
“I thought we’d use today to do some exploring, take a little time to see some different neighborhoods from those we already know about.”
“Ah, so we’re researching our options? Great idea.”
They came out of the Rainier Valley, passed Sea-Tac Airport to the right and watched for the first time since they’d left the loft as the marine layer began to burn off. Streams of sunlight burst through the low-hanging clouds, enough that she could almost see across the choppy waters of Puget Sound to the tips of Quartermaster Harbor. The scenery changed from inlets and islands to the distinct area around Commencement Bay and the Port of Tacoma.
Josh drove past commercial docks, past downtown in the distance, and the busy railroad yards.
By the time they reached the turnoff for Lakewold Gardens with its Georgian-style mansion and stately Japanese maples, Skye began to feel ill.
She suddenly felt a chill move down her spine. Looking to the left, she spotted the line of vehicles waiting to get into what was now, Joint Base Lewis-McChord. A sense of déjà vu hit her so strong it caused her breath to hitch, her pulse to race. Her heart seemed as if it stuttered in her chest.
“I know this area around Fort Lewis,” she blurted out.
From the driver’s seat, Josh’s instincts kicked in. He could hear her heartbeat quicken, picked up on the fear emanating from her body. “What’s the matter, Skye? You look pale. Are you okay?”
“No. This is the same way I felt every time I’d come out here to look for Ronny Whitfield in Tacoma.” She flipped down the visor, studied her reflection in the mirror, felt her own forehead. “Just look at me. My face is white as a sheet. All of a sudden I’m perspiring like I ran up four flights of stairs. My palms are even clammy.”
“Skye, there’s no reason to be alarmed, nothing to be afraid of. Ronny Whitfield’s dead. He can’t hurt you,” Josh reminded her.
“I know that. I’m not a child,” she snapped. “But she had to admit she was reacting like one—more specifically, a five-year-old scared of the dark. “There’s something here, Josh, something malevolent maybe. Don’t you feel it, too? It’s a feeling of old souls and they’re pissed off about—not being around anymore.”
Josh frowned and shook his head. “Most of this land used to belong to the Nisqually Indian tribe. Eminent domain confiscated more than three thousand acres in 1917 for the military installation, which turned into Fort Lewis. Over the years the place has seen a lot of soldiers come through its gates. It has a lot of history, which I’m sure includes violent deaths over the years. So yeah, I guess it could feel like old souls wanting a few answers.”
She wasn’t sure the way she felt now could be attributed to anything that took place a hundred years in the past. “My father spent years working here as a civilian contractor. He had an apartment near here. I used to go there to visit him on weekends. Sometimes there was a woman with him. They might’ve been living together.”
“You act as though you just thought of that, like a childhood memory or something.”
“It’s so vivid. The picture of the apartment, the two of them like a couple. A childhood memory, huh? Yes, that’s exactly what it seems like. Strange.”
“How so?”
“That I would feel this strongly about something so insignificant from that time of my life when I’d never thought of it before today. Why do I remember it in such detail?”
“You want to talk about it?”
“She was the woman my father spent time with after he and my mother separated, after he found out about her affair with Travis.”
“Why would you remember that now, today?”
“I have no idea. Now you tell me something. Why are we really out here driving around the military base? We didn’t drive all this way past Tacoma to look for the perfect home in the country.”
“I keep getting pulled here, Skye. Since the day you received that box of bones I keep getting images from right here. Since this is the only base in the area, and since you’re getting weird vibes from
the past, too, we might have a link to this place—you and I. Put it all together—I think there’s a chance you might have a connection to this guy. What exactly it is, I don’t know, could be nothing.”
“Interesting. What kinds of images? What kind of connection?”
“Images of soldiers on maneuvers, typical training exercises that sort of thing. They may not mean much at all. As to the link, I’m picking up on ties through your father.”
“So the way I’m feeling right now might be an indication I sense this tie to our killer. Is that what you’re saying?”
“There is one thing about the images.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re from a long time ago. Circa early nineties.”
“The same timeframe as our killer,” Skye determined. As they passed the base, she studied the terrain, the barracks, even the chapel, trying to pick up on anything else. But when she tried, she got a blank.
“Exactly. I’m not sure what I thought I’d accomplish coming out here today. We can’t even get on base. How about we try this another day? Go look at those houses.”
“You said it yourself. This area has a colorful history, soldiers passed through here in droves. Next time, how about we do our research first before we decide to storm the gates?”
Josh found a place to turn the car around to head north again as Skye’s phone dinged with a text message. “Is that from Harry?”
“Yes and it’s just as we guessed, the guy used a phony name to place the delivery order. But I doubt the killer takes a chance like that again. Even though I don’t think he’s particularly tech savvy.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He printed the address on the packages in his own hand.”
“Or got someone to do it for him.”
Skye frowned. “Anything’s possible. Anyway, my point is that while the address might be handwritten, the note itself was typed. Apparently he used an old Optima typewriter so the note was not computer generated. Harry told me that much.”
“So they have a starting point.”
“Only if we find this guy and end up comparing the note to the typewriter.”
“What’s troubling you then?”
“Other than the obvious murderer we have on the loose?” She sighed into her hands then rubbed at her temple. “Do you realize how many people go missing without a trace every single year? Just up and vanish?”
“No, but hopefully you’re planning to tell me.”
She grinned. “Sure. I won’t even make you guess. It’s in the neighborhood of six-hundred-and-seventy-thousand who go missing each year.”
Josh’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. The majority of that number is resolved, of course. But of those that haven’t ended with a resolution, the number is staggering. It still leaves about three thousand cases across the country.”
“A huge chunk.”
“You bet. One is too many, especially when they’re here one day and…gone the next. I won’t lie. Those are the cases that drive me crazy. They still can’t locate all the victims of the Green River killer.”
“And what about all the remains that are found but aren’t identified?”
“Those are tough because there are probably forty thousand remains that no one is able to put a name to.”
“Sad but true. That’s a lot of families without answers.”
“Look, you okay with having dinner at Lena’s tonight?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason. Unless you count the crush Zoe has on you.”
“Not me. Not anymore. Zoe’s transferred whatever she felt for me and is now fully locked into the hero worship stage. Haven’t you heard? She wants to be just like Skye Cree.”
The look on Skye’s face said it all. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “When did that happen?”
“I don’t know. Could be after you kicked Frank De Palo’s ass. Could be after we tied the knot and she saw how beautiful you looked at the wedding. Either way, Zoe’s moved on from me and that’s a relief.”
Hearing Josh was uncomfortable as Zoe’s heartthrob made her laugh. “She’s waiting for you to make that job in testing a reality. Teenagers and games, they just seem to go together.”
“And she’ll get her chance come summer. I want to see how she does in her first full year of eighth grade first with no distractions. I told her that at the reception because she had some major catching up to do in school.”
“That she did. But she seems to be doing so much better living with Lena than we ever thought possible.”
“No question Lena’s provided the stability Zoe needed. Taking in a kid like that, Lena Bowers is my hero.”
“Yeah. Mine, too.”
In her fifty years Lena Bowers had known loss. Ten years earlier her husband of eighteen years had succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Upon high school graduation, her oldest son, Jason, had joined the military and was promptly shipped to Afghanistan to serve his country. He never made it back.
Her youngest son, Jarod, had his own life in California attending San Jose State—which meant she rarely saw him mostly during holidays—the last time, four days at Christmas. At the time, Jarod hadn’t been overjoyed about his mother taking on a former runaway, a street kid by the name of Zoe Hollister. But Zoe had filled a void in Lena’s life. And now that the courts had let Lena become Zoe’s foster mother, the bond between the two had only gotten stronger.
She had experience raising boys. Zoe, however, came with a different zeal for life that made Lena grateful she’d offered her home to the young teen.
For one thing, despite the girl’s protests about going to school, the fourteen-year-old eighth grader had discovered she actually enjoyed learning. Zoe especially loved English class. Her love for reading rivaled Lena’s. They spent hours discussing the suspense of Hunger Games, all the while dealing with the knowledge District 13 hadn’t been destroyed in the first rebellion—or rehashing Harry Potter plot lines in detail.
For months now, Zoe had settled comfortably into Lena’s life, at home in the Victorian near Capitol Hill. Tonight the two of them looked forward to welcoming the honeymooners, Josh and Skye, back from St. Kitts. Zoe couldn’t wait to hear all about the trip from the source.
Lena already knew her charge had a major case of hero worship when it came to Skye. The girl had even written a composition for English class about who she most admired. The subject, Skye Cree. Zoe hadn’t even considered calling her Ander yet. When Zoe had mentioned that very topic to Skye, the woman had assured Zoe that she had no intentions of changing her name. That was all right by Zoe.
Zoe had already decided she wanted to be exactly like Skye, Native American to boot. That’s why she’d dyed her hair to match Skye’s. She’d even taken to using feathered earrings as accessories and wearing faux black leather.
But lately Lena had been concerned more about Zoe preparing for college than how she accessorized her wardrobe. Getting the girl to keep her grades up had become a priority.
“It’s never too early to start thinking about getting into a good school.”
“But Skye didn’t,” Zoe tossed back. “She’s done fine.”
“That’s not the point,” Lena argued.
“Yeah, well, the newspapers write stories about how she catches the bad guys. I want to do that.”
“If you want to catch the bad guys like Skye, then go to college, get an education, to do it.”
The teen’s response was a big harrumph.
“If you want your opinion to be taken seriously, lose the attitude,” Lena said.
“Okay, okay.”
When the doorbell chimed, Zoe took off to answer it.
“Look through the peephole, Zoe,” Lena warned, her voice rising to the teenager’s back. “Just in case it might not be Skye.”
Zoe skidded on the hardwood floor all the way across the entryway. At the last minute she decided to heed Lena’s
advice. “It’s them,” Zoe shouted staring through the security slit.
“Lena and I baked double fudge brownies for dessert,” Zoe announced, stepping back to let Skye and Josh inside.
“Good, I haven’t had my chocolate fix today,” Josh replied, noticing Zoe was all but bouncing on her toes. “As if you needed any more sugar in your system,” he teased.
“Oh that, I’m just excited to see you guys.”
“Did you find a house?” Lena asked from the doorway, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Not yet. But we did take the tour on a couple of open houses. We even went all the way over to Bainbridge Island for one.” Skye went to wrap her arms around her friend and sensed tension in Lena. Eyeing the two, she finally turned to Lena. “This one giving you much trouble?”
“Just the usual stubborn streak a fourteen-year-old tends to have, a lot like someone else I know. Maybe you two could emphasize the importance of a college education to Zoe while you’re here.”
“Never got one of those myself, but I hear they come in handy for things like, oh I don’t know, getting a terrific job.”
Zoe rolled her eyes at the two women and flashed her eyes on the only man in the room. “Josh didn’t get one of those and he runs his own company.”
“Yeah, but a lot of days I wish I’d bothered, especially in negotiations.”
“You guys are ganging up on me. Not fair,” Zoe whined. “I’m still young. I’ve got four years yet to decide about stupid college.”
“And getting ready to turn fifteen in two months,” Skye pointed out as she tousled the girl’s hair. She eyed Zoe’s recent dye job. “What’s with the all-black look?”
“That’s easy,” Lena said. “She’s emulating her hero. You. Ask her about the composition she wrote for English class. It was five pages of Skye Cree this, Skye Cree that, the person she admires the most.”
“Me? Really? I don’t believe anyone’s ever done that before.”
“Sure they have,” Zoe said. “They write about you on the Internet all the time. They say you make a difference. I should know. You got me off the streets.”
Skye Cree Boxed Set Books 1 - 3 Page 60