Reaching up, she curled her fingers into his T-shirt and battled the urge to cry, to scream. Anything. The emotion building inside her had no outlet and she felt as though she might explode. “Elliot, this is killing me,” she whispered.
“You’ll be okay,” he murmured, wrapping her in his arms. “And I’ll be right here. I swear, I’ll be right here, no matter what.”
Shuddering, she rested her head against his chest and tried to think past the anger, the guilt. The horror. My brother—
Stop it, she told herself. Swallowing the knot in her throat, she eased back away from him, lifting her head to stare at the gravestones. Her mother and her brother, people she’d never known.
“Shay, no matter how you’re feeling, none of this is on you,” Hilliard said quietly. Then he heaved out a tired, ragged sigh. “You know, I should have known it wouldn’t be a simple thing when I realized you were here. This isn’t just because you needed to find your brother. It’s not just because you’re looking for closure … is it?”
“No.”
He nodded and stroked his jaw. “The wisest thing you could do is go home. I’ve already got a weird twist in my gut, just listening to the weird shit you’ve had going on. You can go home and I can start making some calls, see what I can turn up.”
She stared at him.
“And that’s not going to happen, is it?”
“I didn’t come all the way down here just to get sent back home, Captain,” she said quietly.
He turned away, hands planted on his hips. “She could be dangerous. If this is a matter for the police, you’ll have to step back, let the police handle it.” Shooting her a look over his shoulder, he added, “My gut tells me that if Leslie Hall is involved, you have to be careful.”
Shay grimaced. “I already figured that much out,” she said. “She killed my little brother. I think she killed my friend. I’m dealing with a monster …”
A monster …
She had a monster in her.
Such evil in her soul …
That was what Selena Campbell had said about her. Shay hadn’t realized who she was speaking about at the time. But now she knew it had been Leslie. She’d been speaking about Shay’s sister.
We left Arizona, but she found us …
“There was a family. They may have been her foster parents,” Shay said quietly, looking up to find both Elliot and Hilliard staring at her. “The Campbells—the woman’s name is Selena. They would have lived in Arizona at some point and they took care of Leslie for a while. I think she might have done something to them, or maybe another child they took care of.”
Hilliard pulled out a notebook and started jotting things down.
Elliot just studied her face. “Campbell … Michigan?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah. I … ah, I called her when you left for a little while. I just hoped she’d tell me something. It wasn’t much, but …” Shay shrugged. “Elliot, her voice. She was so terrified. Just even talking to me.”
“How old would she have been when she lived with them?” With a scowl, he looked at Hilliard.
“She was six years older than Shay, so it just depends on when they had her.”
Six years older … She’d been four when they took her out of hell. So her sister had been ten when she killed their little brother. Bile rose in her throat; she swallowed it, fighting the urge to start retching all over again. Deal with it now—fall apart later, she reminded herself.
“A ten-year-old killer. What would they have done with her?” she murmured, also studying Hilliard.
“It depends,” he said, sighing. He looked so damn tired. “Therapy, counseling—back then, they wouldn’t have done too much with a kid that young. These days, they sometimes try, but it all depends on the trial. Those records are sealed, so the best I can assume is that they had her get help. Then she was fostered out.”
“I’m going to assume the help wasn’t much help,” Shay said caustically, looking back at the grave of her brother. How could you help a child-killer? “I wonder what she did that had a grown woman so afraid of her.”
Hilliard stared at her, his face grim. “You should just go back home, Shay. Keep away from this—from her. I’ll start asking questions and doing what I can—if there’s something going on, we’ll find it. But it doesn’t need to involve you. You found the answers you said you needed—go home. File a restraining order. Hell, if you need to, hire a bodyguard for a while.” Shrewd eyes shifted Elliot’s way and he added, “Although that may not be necessary considering the shadow you’ve got.”
“Shit.” Shay turned around, staring back at him. “A bodyguard—do you really think she’s going to care about that? She killed a baby—her own brother. And I don’t think she wants to hurt me. She wants to freak me out, and she seems to want to control my life, but she doesn’t want to hurt me.”
Elliot reached up and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Shay … we don’t know that.”
Yes, I do. But she didn’t bother arguing. She couldn’t just go home and hide under her bed and pretend this would all go away.
She felt as if she was about to come out of her skin. Her brain all but buzzed with all the stimuli dancing through it. Go home?
With a smile that she hoped looked more real than it felt, she said, “I don’t know, Captain. I think I should sleep on it.”
“You don’t lie well.” Elliot noticed that the cop waited until they drove off before he left the cemetery and he gave them a tail for a few miles before getting lost in the Mesa traffic.
“Hmm. You know, it’s very pretty out here. I didn’t think I’d be able to say that, but … well, I can. Not that I want to come back and visit or anything. But it’s pretty.”
Sourly, he muttered, “You’re not very subtle with your subject changes, either.”
“I wasn’t trying to be subtle.”
“You’re not just going to give up and go home, are you?”
“Do you think I should?” she asked quietly, resting her head on the back of her seat and rolling it over to look at him. In the pale, wan circle of her face, her eyes looked darker than normal and that frail appearance was disturbing.
“She’s not going to quit.” That much was certain. Although things had been oddly quiet. Scowling, he shot Shay’s lap a glance. “Where is your phone? I haven’t heard it ring lately.”
“I turned it off.” With a weary sigh, she reached into her purse and pulled it out, rubbing her thumb over the surface, staring at the dark, blank face for a long moment before turning it on. “I was a little tired of all the phone calls and texts …”
A few seconds later, she started to swear. “Although I’ll pay for it now. Guess how many emails I have?”
“How long have you had it off?”
“Since before we left Michigan.”
“I dunno.” He shrugged and made a guess. “Two hundred.”
“You’re off by about three hundred fifty-four.” Sighing, she started to tap the screen. “And some of them are from her … as Darcy, of course.” Her throat spasmed and she pressed her lips together. “Just looking at that makes me ill, you know.”
“You shouldn’t delete them.” He reached over and caught her hand in his, lifting it to his lips. “The cops may need them now that we know something screwed up is going on. Just file them away or something so you don’t need to see them, but keep everything you can.”
She nodded but instead of doing anything about the emails, she put the phone facedown in her lap and twined her fingers with his. “It’s insane that you’re here with me through all of this, you know. You don’t have to be.”
“I’m right where I need to be.” He flicked a glance at her.
A knot of emotion lodged in her throat, but for once, it wasn’t the horrified kind. As something warm and soft settled in her chest, she smiled at him. “You’re messed up, Elliot. But I’m glad you’re here.”
Sighing, she squeezed his hand, then tugged her hand free, picking
her phone back up. “Don’t delete the emails from insane sister. Check.” She started skimming the messages and the silence stretched out. “She’s asking what I’m up to. What’s going on. Like there’s no damn problem at all.”
It made her gut hurt, just to sit there and scroll through the emails, tapping them to archive. She didn’t put them in the folder labeled Darcy. She just couldn’t. She used her personal folder. She’d need to move them later, but for now, this was enough, getting them out of her …
The bottom of her gut dropped out as the subject of the most recent email caught her attention.
I’m going to slay your dragon …
“What are you doing now?” she whispered.
Elliot said, “What?”
But she didn’t even hear him. Her hand shook as she opened the message, and she ended up having to put the phone in her lap just to keep it steady enough to read it.
Not that there was much to read …
I’m off to slay your dragon, sweetie. We need to talk and I’m not going to let you keep ignoring me, either. But we’ll deal with that after I take care of this. Once I do, you’ll understand just how important you are to me and just what I’ll do to take care of you.
“Shay.”
His voice sounded as if it were coming to her through a tunnel. Blinking, she turned toward him. He was watching her, his face stark, eyes burning—locked on her face. And not the road. Dazed, she looked around and realized he’d pulled onto the shoulder. In a reed-thin voice, she said, “I need air.”
Grabbing the handle, she all but ripped it off the door in her hurry to get out. Her legs felt awkward, stiff, as if somebody had gone and replaced her knees with rusted metal. Stumbling away from the car, she walked aimlessly until Elliot’s hand closed around her arm, drawing her to a stop.
A monster of a saguaro towered over them and she found herself staring at it. Its surface was brown, cracked … it looked half dead. “It looks broken,” she murmured. “What can break a cactus?”
“Fuck the cactus,” Elliot growled.
Forcing a smile, she glanced over at him. “Even though it’s half dead, it’s still a cactus … if you fuck it, it’s going to hurt.”
“Shay, damn it, what’s wrong?”
“She’s making another move … we can’t keep this up, Elliot. I think I need to call her,” she said quietly. She debated about telling him what was in the message, although it was so hard, so fucking hard to think. Should she tell him?
No. In the end, she knew she couldn’t. Because he’d talk her out of what she had to do and it would be so easy to let him. She had to do this, face both Leslie and the dragon from her nightmares. Elliot would try to shield her. She’d rather he just be there with her.
“There’s something I need to do,” she said quietly. “I want you there with me. Sooner or later, I have to face her. And when I do, I’d rather have you with me.”
“You heard what Hilliard said—what you should do is stay the hell away.”
“How can I do that, Elliot?” She thought about what her sister had just emailed her and shook her head. She’d gone after her nightmare this time. But she’d already targeted Darcy. Who was next? Turning to face him, she lifted her hands.
“What am I to do? Live in fear until she decides to do … whatever she’s planning? Elliot, that’s no life, and I’m finally realizing just how little I’ve let myself live. I know I kept myself closed off, but …” The words trailed off and she just stood there, staring at him and trying to figure out what she wanted to say, what she needed to say. “If I let her chase me back into the hole I’ve spent so much of my life in, she wins. I lose. I’m tired of living in fear, Elliot. Even if I’ve got a right to be scared, I don’t need to let fear control my life.”
“Showing common sense and staying away from a crazy bitch isn’t the same as being chased into a hole,” Elliot growled. The look in his eyes made her heart skip a beat. Caught between heat and fury and desperation, he was focused on her, as if he saw nothing else. Just her. Only her.
Lifting a hand, she touched his cheek. She felt the rough rasp of stubble against her palm. “Elliot, I don’t even know what she looks like,” Shay said. “What am I supposed to do, never answer the door, never go to the store, never drive down the highway because I don’t know when she’ll decide to try to find me?”
“I can tell you what she looks like.” He skimmed a look over her from head to toe and then met her gaze. “Your height, black hair, her eyes are lighter blue, and you can tell something is off if you look in her eyes. She probably weighs a good thirty pounds more than you do, if I’m guessing right. I only saw her the one time in my store, but there ya go. There might be a resemblance, but between the crazy in her eyes, the weight, and the fact that I wasn’t looking for a resemblance, it’s hard to say.”
She glared at him. “So now I stay away from women my height with black hair, who weigh thirty pounds more than I do and look crazy? Damn it, Elliot, this is insane. I’m not going to cower for the rest of my life. I’m tired of being afraid—it’s like I’m trapped in that closet all over again.”
For long, tense moments, the silence stretched out between them. His golden eyes were snapping in fury, and she felt as though she would shatter if another word were said.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
She managed not to flinch, but as he turned away, she covered her face and sucked in a desperate gulp of air. This was so damn hard. So hard. Even thinking about facing her sister made her gut hurt. And what she meant …
Slay your dragon—
Her dragon.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
“WHY ARE WE HERE?” ELLIOT STARED AT THE DISMALLY small, dank house.
There was a ramp that looked as though it had been put together with cardboard, Popsicle sticks, and maybe some spit. The windows weren’t much more than a foot across and they were so grimy, he doubted the sun could penetrate them.
“Dragons,” Shay whispered. She lifted a hand to knock on the door.
It echoed through the night, and long seconds passed before she knocked again.
This time there was a response, but it came from next door.
A woman, graying and gaunt, jerked up a window and stuck her head out. “Abernathy ain’t there—and if you find the asshole, tell him his boss called. His ass is fired if he misses another shift at work.”
Shay winced as she felt the weight of Elliot’s stare drill into the back of her neck. Without bothering to wave at the oh-so-helpful neighbor, she turned back toward the car.
“Abernathy,” he snarled, stalking along at her side. “You came here to face him and don’t even bother to inform me.”
“I did better.” Swallowing the knot in her throat, she slanted him a look and spoke the basic truth. “I brought you along. Yeah, I did it without warning you, but if I had, you would have tried to talk me out of this and I couldn’t let you. It would have been too easy to let you be strong for me.”
“Shay—”
Shaking her head, she said, “I had to do this. I had to at least try. Nobody slays my dragons for me … oh, fuck.”
“Shay, what in the hell is going on?”
She didn’t answer him in words, and maybe he wasn’t expecting her to.
But when Shay pushed her phone into his hands, the email message already pulled up, Elliot had to admit he was confused.
“I dream of dragons,” she whispered, her voice raw and ravaged. She was staring at the house again, as if it were made of her very worst nightmare. “Not the kind of dragon you see these days—those noble, elegant creatures—but these nightmare things. The kind that long to eat you, to tear you apart … the kind that just want to hurt you.”
Already, he’d focused on the line in the email … slay your dragons …
Now he looked up and stared at Shay.
“My dragon has always had a name; my dragon is Jethro Abernathy,” she said, her voice raw. “And now my
sister is out to kill my dragon.”
Elliot’s gut response was … let her.
Judging by the look in Shay’s eyes, though, he suspected that wasn’t what she had in mind.
“You think I should just let her,” Shay said, echoing his thoughts with eerie precision.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
The thick black fringe of her lashes swept down, shielding her eyes. “Maybe I should. After all, that’s what I want …” Her voice hitched and she averted her gaze, staring off into the distance. “It’s what I want, almost desperately. But I can’t find strength by letting somebody else face my dragons, Elliot. I’ve spent the past fifteen years of my life in hiding. If I can’t face those fears now, I’ll never do it.”
“This isn’t about facing your fucking fears,” he growled. He closed the distance between them and caught her arm. Staring into her tortured eyes, he had to face his own demons. Hatred, thick and vicious, clawed at him. “Damn it, he deserves to die. For what he did? For what he put you through? He ought to be dead.”
“I don’t disagree,” she whispered. “But I can’t find myself, I can’t find my own strength, by letting my dragons kill themselves. I have to face them, Elliot. I have to do it. And if I let her do this? And then she slips away? What’s next? She got pissed off at my agent once because she didn’t like that I didn’t get a book deal I wanted. Is my agent the next dragon? One of my editors? A reviewer? She’s gone on rants about them, too. Not to mention my friend, who’d never harmed me. It has to stop, and it won’t … not until I face her.” Carefully, she brushed his hand aside and then, without looking at him, turned away.
Barely able to breathe for the helpless fury, he watched as she took one step toward the car, and another step toward facing those dragons. Then another. It was almost as if she had to force herself to take each and every single step. And each and every single step was almost painful to watch.
Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense Page 30