****
“Mom’s gone to New York for a lingerie show.” The sulky face, oily complexion of the teen in front of Alex had him gritting his teeth. “She made me take her to airport myself on Sunday.”
“You watched her get on the plane?” Alex said. Damn these gut feelings of mine…
Another killer, trapped in the body of a child. Jeremy Archer was a bright, sharp kid, who hated authority figures, hated his mother, hated just about everybody.
Not a nice kid, all in all.
“Yeah. Stupid, why in the hell I had to go and kiss her bye, I dunno,” he groused, shrugging his thickly muscled shoulders. “Mothers are the stupidest damn creatures. I hate ‘em.”
Normally Alex could overlook that as regular teenaged angst. But something in this boy’s speech—was well, more, real genuine hatred. Lowering his brows over his eyes, he asked, “Mind if I get your mother’s hotel number? I really would like to have a word with her.”
“Lost it.”
“Well, then, you’ll just have to come with me to the station. You’re only sixteen. Seventeen is the age you need to be to stay alone,” Alex said easily, stepping aside and waiting for him to step out. “We’ll have somebody from juvenile services with you until we can contact your nearest relative.”
The boy sneered, and Alex could see he looked ready to bolt. Arching a brow, he laid one hand on his gun and said softly, “Think long and hard before you do that, kid. Real long and hard. I’ll run ya down, kid. And you’ll still end up in the same place, down at the jail while we wait for your mother to come home. Come nice like, and we can get a hold of an aunt or uncle, whoever your relatives are and you can home with them.”
He saw the flicker in the boy’s eyes. Knew there were all sorts of uncles and aunts around, even though the dad had hightailed it years ago. Watched as the boy made the decision not to bolt. And Alex fought not to laugh. Like taking candy from a baby.
****
Dylan eyed the boy from behind the one-way glass. His eyes were the cold, merciless murky depth he had seen before as he faced down the Sheriff. He wasn’t the least bit sorry for what he had done.
In fact, as Alex laid out the pictures before him, Dylan watched a flicker light through his eyes. The flicker of pride. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t horrified. He was pleased.
Oh, he hadn’t been happy about being caught. He had fought bloody hell, and when the child’s advocate was brought in, he’d told them to go fuck themselves.
The advocate still sat there, but he was silent, cold faced and still. This child wasn’t a child and the advocate knew it. And right now, as he studied the bloodied, battered body of his mother’s body he was smiling a grim, pleased smile.
Whether he admitted it or not was moot, but the boy had done it.
Lifting his eyes, Dylan felt their gazes meet through the one-way glass. There was no soul in those eyes. None.
“You say you saw your mother get on a plane two days ago, Jeremy. She’s been dead for two and a half. Can you explain that to me?”
In a bored voice, the advocate said, “I’d advise you not to answer that.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Jeremy said with a sneer. Then he turned his muddy brown eyes to Alex and laughed. “She was supposed to go to New York more than a week ago. She’s been in the basement, in a hole I dug for her a year ago. She screamed herself hoarse, and when I started to beating her, she had hardly any voice to cry with. I wished I’d gagged her so she had been able to scream at the end.”
His voice had gotten rather dreamy there at the end. Dylan’s mouth twisted in a snarl. Sick little bastard.
The advocate closed his eyes. “Jeremy, I would advise, again, that you not speak.”
“Shut up, you fucking maggot. Stupid whore, she deserved it.” Jeremy’s eyes gleamed manically. “Always telling me how and what not to do. When to do it. Parading around the house in that fucking lingerie she buys, like I couldn’t see her. I hated it, and she always did it. Never stopped it. Chased Dad away. Always yammering about her business, the website, the store, her books. Gonna be a best seller, and she couldn’t write tripe.
“I finally shut her up,” he whispered, his eyes narrowed down to slits. “Finally.”
The advocate, Mike Farrell, slid his eyes over to Alex and shook his head.
Dylan saw the message in those eyes. Crazy. Maybe, a little. But it was just plain evil in those eyes. Too many people thought mental problems could be fixed in a few years. This boy’s problems went straight through. Through and through to the core, and a few years away wasn’t going to solve it. Not at all.
“Jeremy, how long have you been wanting her dead?” Alex asked, leaning back in his chair.
Dylan imagined he wanted away from that evil. Dylan certainly did.
Jeremy lifted his eyes to the glass again, and Dylan had the odd feeling he could see him. Moving closer, he stared at the angry boy through the glass, with narrowed, disgusted eyes. All your life, boy, haven’t you?
“All my life,” Jeremy whispered as he started to rock.
“All my life.”
****
Kris listened with horror as Dylan repeated what he could. She heard the exhaustion and the fury in his voice and she wished she could hold him. Kacie was watching her closely, and Kris folded her hand around her friend’s thankfully “Dylan, that was evil you were looking at.”
“Yeah, it was. Hearing your voice helps,” he said on the other end of the line.
“Where is he now?”
“Isolation in the county jail. They won’t put him into juvenile. This isn’t a child’s crime.”
She heard his sigh through the phone, and his exhaustion in it. He never sounded that tired. “No. Definitely not. I knew Ann, vaguely. She…ahh…was rather persistent a few weeks ago about having me get her some inside help, as she called it with B&M. I told I wasn’t an employee there, and if she wanted to get pubbed there, she needed get an agent. It’s awful, thinking her own son would kill her. And nobody deserves to die like that.”
“Except maybe those who kill like that,” Dylan said darkly.
“Not even them,” Kris said softly. “Because whoever had to kill them, their madness would infect you. Don’t let his madness infect you, baby, not even in thought.”
Kacie said loudly, “Dunno what you are talking about, yet, but that is good advice, Dylan.”
Dylan’s laughter drifted through the phone. “Tell that weird boss of yours to hush to so I can talk to my girlfriend. I was planning on phone sex. How can I have phone sex with your boss in the room?”
“Oh, that is easy,” Kris replied. “We can go ahead and have phone sex. I don’t mind her witnessing my moans. And she could probably give me some really good suggestions. You wouldn’t believe what a freak Kacie is. I know for a fact she likes sex, a lot of it.”
Kacie giggled and Dylan said, “Oh, really...why don’t you give me some details? You’re not involved in any of this lot of sex, are you? Are there pictures? Can I have copies?”
“You’re just as weird as she is,” Kris said, smiling as some of the tension dissolved from his voice.
“I didn’t hear a no,” he said. “And you haven’t kicked her out. I guess you don’t mind me getting started on the phone sex, mind if I go ahead and tell you how much I wish I was there with you, stripping your clothes off, kissing your pretty breasts, before I go down on you? I love your taste…”
Kris’s eyes fluttered closed, her breath caught in her chest, and her cheeks flushed. “Oh, man.”
“Oh, please,” Kacie snorted as she rose from the couch, fluttering her lashes at Kris and giggling when Kris glared at her.
Dylan laughed. “We’ll wait. And when I get my hands on you in a few days, I will just do it, instead of talking about it.” Then his voice dropped huskily and Kris’s body quivered as he whispered, “But you’ll dream sweet dreams of me tonight, won’t you?”
****
Kris woke with a smile on
her face. Dylan lifted his head and looked at her with slitted eyes and she pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Go back to sleep, hot shot,” she murmured. “I can’t sleep any more.”
He grunted and buried his face in the pillow after passing his hand down the front of her body, setting after every last nerve ending to sizzling. Her eyes widened and she was tempted to climb atop him and take him for another test drive.
But—
Kris had an antsy, nervy itch in the pit of her belly that had nothing to do with lust. So she rolled out of bed and grabbed the t-shirt he had discarded the night before and tugged it on over her head, smiling with an odd satisfaction as his scent settled around her.
Padding out of the bedroom, she slid a hand through her tangled hair.
Coffee.
She needed coffee.
Within five minutes, the smell of it was drifting through the cozy little house and she was starting to feel much more human.
But something was calling her.
It like she had forgotten to do something.
But she had yet discovered what it was she was supposed to be doing, so how could she have forgotten it?
Coffee in hand, she opened the door and shivered as the cold morning air struck her flesh. Damn. November in the Ohio Valley was much better than November in New York, but damn that wind off the river was cold. She waved absently to Raintree who was already in place, drinking from a Styrofoam cup, which he tipped at her before returning to just…watching.
How long would he watch?
Dylan had said until Max was either dead or they caught him.
She knelt to pick up the paper that Dylan had bribed the delivery guy into actually bringing up to the house. It cost him an extra ten bucks a month, but it saved him from having to walk or drive a half a mile to get his paper. Of course, he did that more for her on the weekends than for himself.
He’d just as soon walk or not bother reading the paper.
No sooner had she touched the paper then it happened—a child, shaking in the cold, flashed before her eyes.
Kris froze. Her lashes lowered and she whispered, “Not again.”
She didn’t want to be haunted by faces of a child she couldn’t help.
But this one was familiar.
She had seen her before. Months ago.
With a scowl, she closed her hand over the paper and stood up, closing the door. Leaning back against it, she mumbled, “I’m losing my mind. Drugs. Lots of drugs and a trip to a shrink will help this problem.”
But ten minutes later, she stared at the paper spread out before her and it was only worse. Because there, on the front page of the small hometown paper was a wide-eyed, grinning child, blonde, young, and innocent, smiling out at her, her expression as carefree and loving as could. She was angelic looking and lovable, and her face made Kris’ heart stop.
She was also missing.
****
Dylan lifted his head groggily.
Kris stood beside his bed, her eyes wide, the pupils so dilated, just a thin rim of green shown around them. In her hand she held the morning paper, and her entire body was trembling.
Slowly, he sat up, his voice gentle and soothing. “What’s wrong, rich girl?” He reached out and caught her other hand, bringing her into his lap. “What’s got you so spooked?”
She licked her lips. “It’s happening again,” she whispered, her voice fragile.
Dylan frowned. Reaching over, he took the paper from her, lifting it so he could the picture. A pretty little faerie of a child stared out at him. Another kidnapped kid, he thought, sighing. He could see why it bothered her so bad, after what happened to her. He didn’t exactly know how to approach it, because he’d never told her that Nikki had told him about it.
But she couldn’t take every missing child like this. It would tear her apart. “Kris, sweet, you can’t—”
He heard her swallow, felt the shudders wracking her body. “I dreamed about her. Months ago. For weeks. And I searched the web, every day, and never saw her. Until now. She was kidnapped two days ago,” Kris said, her voice breaking.
Dylan felt his blood run cold as he studied her face. “Are you sure about that?”
Tears streamed down her face as she said, “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life. And I hate it.”
Snagging the discarded jeans from the night before, he tugged them up over his hips and zipped them before getting out of bed. He took the paper from Kris’ hands and read the article thoroughly before he turned back to her, staring at her.
Shit.
This was a little more than he was used to handling. Dally had been prone to odd little feelings, like when a mission was going to go badly or if they should pull out. Sometimes a contact they had trusted for ages had suddenly just changed, and Dally was the only way they had known that.
But this…this was a hell of lot more than that.
This had crossed the realm of unusual and gone straight into the extraordinary. If it was for real.
“Tell me about the dream, Kris,” Dylan said quietly, rubbing the back of his neck, watching her as she rocked back and forth on the bed.
She lifted her eyes to his and blinked, just staring at him. He swore as a fine shudder started to wrack her body. Her eyes were glassy and wide and when he moved over to the bed, lifted her on his lap, her skin was cold. “Damn it,” he muttered, holding her up against him. “Kris, are you okay?” he asked gruffly, rubbing his cheek back and forth against hers.
“She’s four, and blonde…and there’s a scar on her back from when she fell while visiting her dad’s. He was an alcoholic, and had been drinking. Went to take a nap, and left the back door open. She fell down the steps, a nail gouged her back,” Kris murmured.
Dylan frowned. That wasn’t in the paper. “How do you know that?” he asked.
“She remembers,” Kris said. She whimpered, pressing her face against her knee. “It just happened last year. She remembers the smell of his breath when he came running outside when she screamed, and how he yelled at her. She hasn’t seen him since then.”
Dylan felt his skin crawl. This was just a little too eerie. “Can you tell me anything else about the girl? Who she is?”
“Her name is Codi Marie,” Kris said.
“I read that in the paper,” Dylan said gently. “But something more. Why are you having dreams about her?”
Kris licked her lips. Softly, she said, “I…I uh, I think I’m supposed to make you find her.”
****
Dylan repeated the story in a low voice to Ethan before he brought the ex-Ranger inside. The Native American studied Kris through the window and shook his head. “Well, it would explain how in the hell she saved your sorry ass,” Raintree decided. “What you are going to do about it?”
Dylan blew out a pent up breath of air and admitted, “I’m going out to talk to the kid’s mom. I don’t see what choice I have.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“You realize they may think you did it.”
“Yes. I thought of that,” Dylan said, shaking his head. “What kind of dumb ass do you think I am? But what choice have I got? She’s just a kid.”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers as he followed Dylan inside the house. Kids were also a weak spot, for almost anybody. Somebody who couldn’t be bothered to help a child just wasn’t worth bothering with, he reckoned. “Just be careful how you walk, buddy, okay?”
Kris caught sight of Raintree over Dylan’s shoulder and she scowled. “What in the hell is he doing in here?” she asked, lifting her eyes skyward.
“He’s here because I’d rather you not be alone when you look so spooked,” Dylan said. “He’s harmless.”
Ethan stood there, trying to look harmless, while Kris laughed and rolled her eyes.
He was about as successful at looking harmless as Kris was at looking plain, Dylan decided. But at least Ethan wasn’t as imposing as Luciano was.
Dylan lea
ned down over her, nuzzling the soft skin behind her ear and whispering, “Get some more sleep. I’ll be back when I can.”
****
When Dylan knocked on the door, he was surprised when a cop didn’t answer. Even more surprised when he cautiously said, “I may know something about your daughter. But I’m not exactly sure yet. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”
And the mom replied, “We already know who has her. We just need to know where they are. But you can come in.”
Her mom’s name was Alyssa Morgan. She was a young state trooper, divorced for a little over two years, and the child’s dad had relinquished custody of Codi after the little girl had gotten hurt at his house one day last year.
“Her name is Codi. Codi Marie. She’s four. She was best friends with our next-door neighbor’s daughters, Bethany Hart. I didn’t care for the parents much, they were too…intense. Focused too much on being the perfect parent. Never let the poor kid have so much as a candy bar, wouldn’t let her watch cartoons, she was always dressed so damn perfectly…” Alyssa Martin’s eyes filled with tears as she spoke, though her voice never wavered.
“Our daughters looked amazingly alike. We even had pictures of them in similar outfits, her idea, not mine, though they looked so sweet. People even asked from time to time if they were twins.”
Taking a deep breath, Alyssa said, “About four months ago, Bethany took sick. Very suddenly. Fever, sore throat, coughing. She caught pneumonia and the doctors treated her with antibiotics but it didn’t help. She took nearly a month to start feeling better.
“About a month after that it started all over again and her fever skyrocketed. She started having seizures and they had to hospitalize her. They couldn’t break the fever and they couldn’t stop the seizures. Nearly a week of them, and then they just stopped, like it had never happened. Bethany was smiling and acting like she had never been sick. The doctor wanted to keep her a few more days to monitor her, but her parents insisted on taking her home and took her out against doctor’s orders.
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