Blood Indulgence: a serial killer thriller (Phineas and Liam Book 3)

by V. J. Chambers

  She spent time trying to find someone who was specially trained in speaking to individuals with special needs, but when she and the woman appeared in Persephone’s room, Persephone threw a fit, saying that only Haysie (this was her name for Dawson) could stay, and that she didn’t want any more strange people around.

  Dawson and the special investigator left the room and the other woman quickly instructed Dawson not to ask any leading questions. “Nothing yes or no. Don’t say, ‘Were you afraid of Destiny Worth?’ for instance. She’ll just agree with you, with anything you say.”

  Dawson had been concerned about this. “I thought that might be a problem. I can’t do this. I need you to do it.”

  “You’ve obviously formed a connection with her. That means you’ll be more effective than I will,” said the special investigator. “But don’t push. If she gives you nothing, let it be. You’ll be no worse off than you are now.”

  Dawson wasn’t pleased, but she went back into the room again, on her own. Maybe if this didn’t work, they could try again with the special investigator, have her come back and try to work her way up to talking with Persephone.

  Persephone was huddled on her bed, wrapped in her weighted blanket. She was carefully making even pleats in the coverlet beneath, a row of them each the same size and equidistant from each other.

  “Persephone?” said Dawson. “Can I ask you some questions?” Shit, that was a yes or no question, wasn’t it?

  “Yes,” said Persephone.

  “How do you feel about talking to me?” Dawson said.

  Persephone didn’t look at her. She continued making pleats. “Good. I like you.”

  Dawson smiled. “How do you feel about talking about Uncle Quentin?”

  Persephone hunched her shoulders. “Not good.”

  Dawson wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m going to ask you some questions, okay? If you don’t want to answer them, you don’t have to.”

  Persephone looked up at her. There was no expression on her face. She was waiting.

  “Okay,” said Dawson, “well, let’s see.” She had to be careful how she worded things. “Who hurt Uncle Quentin?”

  Persephone quickly looked away.

  A desire within Dawson welled up to ask, Was it Jeannie? Was it Aunt Destiny, whose name made you cry? But she wasn’t supposed to ask leading, yes or no questions. So she said nothing. She was quiet, and she waited.

  “Lola, all for Lola,” said Persephone. “Jeannie loves Lola. Jeannie says Lola knows best. Jeannie is going to bang-bang Persephone.” The girl lifted her hands and mimed a gun when she said bang-bang.

  Dawson’s lips parted.

  Persephone looked at Dawson again. “Lola says it was my time. Jeannie says I will go to sleep, a nice nap.”

  Dawson swallowed hard.

  “Uncle Quentin bang-bang Jeanie.” Persephone’s voice broke. “Jeanie never gets up.”

  So, Quentin had protected his niece against the order from her mother to kill her. And Jeannie, Persephone’s beloved caregiver, had been ordered to do it. It was all very disgusting, and Dawson was horrified.

  “But Jeanie bang-bang Uncle Quentin while she is screaming,” said Persephone.

  Dawson nodded.

  “Bad,” said Persephone. “Bad, bad, sad.”

  “I’m sure it was,” said Dawson. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  Persephone’s lower lip trembled. “Run before Lola finds out. Run, run, drive, drive. Leave everything. Leave the hug blanket.” A sob escaped her lips. “Leave Jeannie. Leave home.”

  “Where is home?” said Dawson. “What’s your address? Someone must have taught you your address.”

  Tears spilled out onto Persephone’s cheeks. “No more questions. Questions bad. Sad, sad Persephone.”

  “Okay,” Dawson whispered. “Okay, no more questions, Persephone.”

  She couldn’t push at this girl.

  She had much more than she’d had when she started.

  It would have to be enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A week had passed.

  Gowncraft was in touch, saying he had to meet with Slater, that he couldn’t put him off any longer. Liam would have gone to see Slater again, Dawson was sure of it, if Slater would agree to see them, but Slater was done with them both, wanting only to communicate through Gowncraft.

  Hernandez was out there and time was ticking.

  Dawson didn’t know what to do.

  Whatever she’d found out from Persephone, whatever progress she’d made with Rachel, she was still getting nowhere. She couldn’t find Destiny Worth, though she thought it was very likely that if Persephone had known an address, it would be where Worth was located.

  The way Dawson figured it, Worth would have kept Persephone hidden away in the last of her fortresses, the one the least likely to be penetrated. The fact that she’d wanted Persephone dead meant that she’d needed use of that fortress, wherever it was. She’d come and cleaned the place out, planning to dispose of her daughter and settle in.

  If Persephone could recall an address, they could find Destiny Worth. Dawson was almost sure of it.

  However, Persephone couldn’t recall, and so that was no help.

  The DNA had come back, and Persephone was not the daughter of Quentin, so that meant it was highly likely she was the daughter of Robert Worth—who was either holed up somewhere, a recluse, or was dead, or was being held captive by the daughter he’d abused.

  Dawson decided that she didn’t much care about Robert Worth, who seemed like a bastard, and she hoped Worth had killed him.

  Dawson took a pregnancy test.

  It was negative.

  She didn’t say anything to Liam about it, though, because she was still days before her period was due, and it might be too soon to know anything.

  Besides, she felt disappointed when it was negative, and she realized she’d somehow gotten attached to this idea of being pregnant, even though it was demonstrably better if she wasn’t.

  At this point in her cycle, it no longer mattered whether or not they were using condoms, so they didn’t, and they spent every night together, either at her place or his.

  One night, they were lying in her loft, and the sweat of their lovemaking was cooling on their skin. She had air conditioning in here, but it didn’t always reach to the loft so well. A ceiling fan whirred overhead in the darkness.

  Dawson stared at it and, suddenly, as if it had dropped down from the ceiling fan like a gift from the ceiling-fan gods, she had an idea.

  “She’s crazy,” she said.

  Liam grunted, sounding sleepy. “What are we talking about?”

  “Worth.” Dawson turned onto her side.

  Liam yawned. “Um, yeah, she’s crazy.”

  “She actually thinks that we’ll make her a sex tape.”

  Liam rolled onto his side too. “What brought this on?”

  Dawson reached out and touched his face. “But she’d like to see you two together in person more, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. You’re not changing your mind about making the video, right?”

  “No, but what if we tell her that we need more time because we can’t do it at the prison? What if we tell her that we have to get away from the cameras and from everyone there? What if we say that we’re using Finn’s body location trip as a cover to make the video for her?”

  Liam scooted up in bed, propping himself up against her headboard. “How does that help anything?”

  “Well, she might come to watch,” said Dawson.

  “No, she can’t be that stupid,” said Liam. “Besides, Finn’s whole reason for the trip hinges on his not being able to tell us where the bodies are and needing to show us.”

  “Right,” said Dawson. “But he’s got to be able to give us an area, you know, something general at least.”

  “Sure,” said Liam. “I guess so.”

  “But if we just tell her that informat
ion, out of nowhere… she’d be suspicious.”

  “Definitely,” said Liam.

  “What if…?” Dawson sat up too, leaning against the headboard. “What if I send an email to someone else in the department, and I just happen to accidentally-on-purpose include her address in the CC box? She’d think, I don’t know, that maybe because we’re emailing back and forth, I made a mistake. Or would she suspect?”

  “I don’t know.” Liam rubbed his chin, thinking about it. “Okay, well, we can’t tell her when we’re going to make the video. We have to tell her that we’ve got it set up and that we’ll have it for her the day after Finn’s little trip. Then we leak the email to her with the date of the trip, and we make her put it together.”

  “Yes,” said Dawson. “Yes, that could work. Then, she shows up, and we get her.”

  “What if she comes and stays out of sight? What if we never see her?”

  “We’ll need stealth operatives,” said Dawson. “Officers everywhere, hiding in bushes.”

  “She couldn’t be so stupid as to approach us.”

  “If she thinks that we’re making a sex tape,” said Dawson, “then we would have gotten everyone else away.”

  “Point,” said Liam. “That’s a good point.”

  “She’s cocky,” said Dawson. “She thinks she’s invincible. She just ordered the death of her daughter. She’s just had tons of people shoot themselves for her. The fact that she even contacted me and tried to manipulate me shows just how out of touch she is. Slater’s weakness—that he thinks he’s invincible—it’s her weakness, too.”

  “It might work,” said Liam. “It’s crazy, of course, but… well, we’re out of time, and we don’t have any other ideas, do we?”

  “No,” she said. “No, we do not.”

  “THIS is insane,” said Captain Moore. “You realize how difficult this is going to be to pull off?”

  “Yes,” said Dawson. “I know. We need a lot of manpower. We need meticulous planning. And none of it’s even guaranteed. I mean, we drop this hook, we don’t even know if our fish is going to bite.”

  “Not only that,” said Captain Moore, “you want me to bait the hook with a serial killer who’s escaped once. And you want me to let him out?”

  “I think we tell him what we’re up to,” said Dawson. “He’s angry with Worth, and he wants to get back at her. I promised a chance to confront her. I’ll tell him that this is me making good on that offer. Since there really aren’t any bodies, and we know that, he’s going to know that we know that, we’ll tell him that we can set this up wherever we like. And there’s a nice big stretch of beach on state park land where there’s nothing except an old lookout building. I think it would do quite nicely.”

  “Oh, you got an answer for everything, don’t you?” Moore shook his head. “All right, well, if you can bring all this to the table, I will authorize the manpower you need. But if there’s even a hint that Slater is not cooperating, then we’re pulling the plug. Also, you tell him this. If anyone gets a whiff of an idea that he’s attempting to escape, they will shoot him in the head. Tell him I’m going to have snipers.”

  “Are you really going to have snipers?”

  “No,” said Moore. “But he doesn’t need to know that. He plays by the rules or he dies. Make sure he understands.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SLATER was not inclined to see Dawson or Liam until she brought up the bit about the promise and how she wanted to explain how she’d fulfill it.

  Even then, he wouldn’t consent to being brought to an interrogation room. He insisted that Dawson and Liam come to his cell and be locked in with him.

  The room was very small. It had two bunks, but Slater had the cell to himself for security purposes. There was a small desk built in and a toilet and sink on the other side of the room. The place was mostly stark except for a picture of Liam and Slater together. They must have been nineteen, both grinning at the camera. Liam’s arm was slung around Slater’s neck and Slater was rubbing the top of Liam’s head.

  Liam saw the picture and Dawson saw him go stiff.

  Slater liked it, she could see, having them here in his domain, in the place where he slept. “What’s this about the promise?” he said, by way of greeting.

  “Let’s get something straight first,” said Dawson. “We know there are no other bodies.”

  Slater laughed. “What?”

  “We’re going to grant your wish for the day trip,” she said. “But you’re not going to take us where you want to take us. We’re going to determine the location. And we’re not going to find bodies. We’re going to try to lure Destiny Worth out, because she’s very interested in the idea of seeing you and Liam together again.”

  Slater got off his bunk, where he’d been lounging. “Wait, together, as in—”

  “Not going to happen,” Dawson cut him off. “But we’re going to try to convince Worth that it is.”

  Slater considered this.

  “You wanted to confront her,” said Dawson. “This will be your chance.”

  Slater swallowed. “I get out for a day. I can be outside, in the sun?”

  “You get time in the yard,” said Liam. “Don’t act as though you’ve been cut off from the world.”

  “The yard is not a yard. It’s made of concrete, and there’s a roof over top to catch the rain, and you can only see a sliver of the sky out there.” Slater glared at him. “I have been cut off, tiger. Didn’t you make it clear to me last time that I’m not even a human being?”

  “We think you’re a human being, Phineas,” said Dawson. “Hell, I even feel sympathy towards you.”

  Slater laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “I do,” she said. “But I guess it doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. What matters is whether or not you’ll help us.”

  “And I should do it just for this?” said Slater. “For a day in the sun? For the chance to confront Destiny?”

  “Yes,” said Dawson, holding his gaze.

  It was quiet. Slater looked at Liam and then back at Dawson.

  They waited.

  Slater bowed his head. “Fine.”

  “Fine?” she repeated.

  “Yes, Haysle, fine,” he said. “I’m in.”

  AFTER that, things moved quickly.

  Dawson sent the first feeler email to Worth, asking if they could have more time, saying that she was working to get things in place to make the video. She gave a possible date.

  Hours later, she sent out the “accident” email, which was set up to look like a day-trip request for Slater from her to the warden of his prison. She had CC-ed a number of other email addresses besides Worth’s, a long list that made the email get lost among them.

  Then, they held their breaths and waited.

  When Worth did get back in touch, saying that she agreed to the extension, they all hoped this meant that she was taking the bait. But they couldn’t be sure.

  The following days were filled with preparations, getting the site ready as best as they could. They would have a police escort take them out to the abandoned area on the beach, and then they would make a loud show of Finn being crowded and needing to see the area without anyone on it and have them back up.

  It would look as though no one was there, but there would already be a contingent of officers in place, ready and waiting for Worth to show up.

  They had to hope that she would and that they could nab her.

  The night before it was all going down, Dawson realized that her period was late. It should have been there days ago, so she took another pregnancy test.

  It was negative.

  She stood in the bathroom, gazing down on it, trying to make sense of it.

  Liam was there. He was in her living room, scrolling through his phone. “Hey, you all right?” he called. “You fall in?”

  She pushed the door open and came out, clutching the test. She slapped it down on the coffee table in front of the couch where he was sitting.


  He leaned forward. “Is that…?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does one line mean?”

  “Negative,” she said, throwing herself down in a chair next to him. “And it’s the second negative test I’ve gotten.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Well, that’s probably good. And you did say that you didn’t think you were pregnant, and you aren’t, so…” He picked up the test and scrutinized it. “Okay.”

  “My period is late.”

  He turned to look at her.

  She snatched the test from him. “I wonder if it’s a false negative.”

  “Does that happen?”

  “Apparently it can, but it’s rare,” she said. “It’s more likely than a false positive. There are almost never false positives.”

  “Well, so… you should go to a doctor or something?”

  “It might just be stress,” she said. “I mean, stress can mess with your cycle, and I’m crazy stressed right now.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure, so we wait, then.”

  “Right,” she said. She nodded. She peered down at the test. Moments passed.

  “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she said. She got up and went to the kitchen. She tossed the test in the trash.

  “You don’t seem fine,” he said.

  “It’s nerve-racking not knowing,” she said. “If it was definitely negative or definitely positive, either way, then I’d know what to do.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” he said. “But, I mean, the overwhelming evidence here is in favor of it being negative.”

  A lump rose in her throat. “Yeah.” Her voice cracked.

  “Hey,” he said, getting up and coming into the kitchen with her. “You’re not okay.”

  “I just… I don’t want it to be negative.” Now, she was going to cry. “I should want that, but I don’t.”