Serial Escape

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  Why couldn’t he just come out and say it? Why couldn’t he just tell her how he felt? How he’d always felt? He opened his mouth, hoping something close would make its way into the world. Instead, it was a groan. Not from him, but from the man lying beside him.

  He turned his attention down to Jim, whose eyes were open, but far too glassy. “Help’s almost here, Mr. Rickson.” As if on cue, authoritative voices overhead announced the arrival of an emergency crew. “See? That’s them now.”

  “Juanita...” said the other man.

  It pained him to realize the even with the lack of lucidity, Jim Rickson could express more with one word than Lucien could muster up at all.

  Chapter 13

  There was a part of Raven that wanted to holler at the emergency responders to wait. To please just stand outside the door for five more minutes before they came in and did their thing. She made herself stow the desire to do it, and instead called out so that they’d be found more easily. But even after the three men—two firefighters and an off-duty cop, it turned out—had stepped in, gathered her quick version of events, then started discussing a retrieval plan, Raven couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d finally been about to get an answer for the question that she couldn’t let go.

  Three years, she thought, moving out of the way as the three men settled on a course of action and got to work.

  It’d been a permanent part of her heart for that long. Since the moment Hanes was sentenced, and Lucien turned down those courtroom steps and walked away. A scene remembered far better than she liked. It’d been like the ending to a movie. Only a sad one. Because if the scriptwriter had had any kind of conscience or decency, she or he would’ve made sure Lucien turned around, ran back and scooped her into his arms. Which never happened.

  For the first while, she’d assumed he’d call. She’d given him space, because she’d thought maybe he needed it. Time to process the ending of the nightmare that was the Kitsilano Killer. Paperwork. But days went by. Then a week. And she wanted to call him. But doubt had crept in. She’d told herself that maybe there was a good reason he wasn’t calling. That she should wait. There’d been a follow-up—several, actually—with a family-liaison officer. Her subtle probes hadn’t yielded a thing. Neither had her too-casual walks by the station, nor the one time she’d dared to sit in her car outside Lucien’s apartment. It was that evening that had really been her wake-up call. She remembered it almost as well as she remembered what Lucien’s shoulders looked like as he disappeared from sight.

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds, recalling the humiliating moment.

  It’d been evening and almost dark. The sky was overcast, but the rain hadn’t started yet. The tall structure that Lucien called home had been cold and lifeless, and Raven had thought it hadn’t suited him at all. She was wondering if the inside was different—what personal touches he might’ve added—when the sharp tap on her window had interrupted her imaginings. She’d looked up to find a uniformed officer standing outside. The woman had informed Raven in a crisp tone that a neighbor had called in a “concern.” And Raven had taken off as fast as she could, vowing not to reduce herself to that level ever again. Yet no matter how much time passed, she’d never quite been able to let it go.

  A throat clear made her drag her eyes open, and she saw that Lucien was out of the hole now, his mouth slightly curved up, but eyes pinched just enough to give away his worry.

  “Holding up okay?” he asked. “Didn’t want to wake you if you needed some beauty rest.”

  She let out a shaky laugh. “If only it were that easy. I’m not asleep, and I’m holding up okay.” It wasn’t a lie; physically, she was completely sound. “What about Jim?”

  He nodded toward the hole. In the few minutes that Raven had been lost in her own thoughts, the small emergency crew had rigged up a retrieval system that consisted of a stretcher and a lot more rope. They were just lowering it into the ground now.

  “Only room enough in there for two people,” Lucien added. “They had to get me up and out before one of them could get down to assess him.”

  “But you think he’s going to be okay?” she asked.

  Some undefinable emotion passed so quickly over his face that Raven almost thought she’d imagined it. But when he spoke, his voice had a hint of roughness to it, and she knew it wasn’t just in her head.

  “I think he’ll be fine,” he stated. “Holt—the firefighter who went down first and took my place—already relayed up that Jim was lucky. Suspected concussion and dehydration. The hospital will confirm that it’s nothing worse, but Holt was pretty confident. Said he was a nurse before getting on with the fire department.”

  Raven breathed out. “That’s good news.”

  “Yeah. Not bad, all things considered.” He paused, shifted from one foot to the other, then sighed. “There’s something else.”

  She automatically tensed. “What?”

  “Another message.”

  “But we were expecting that, weren’t we?”

  “We were.” He shifted again.

  She narrowed her eyes. “But you don’t want to tell me, because you think I’ll run off again.”

  “I know you will, if you think you can save Juanita. I’m just trying to think of the best way to slow you down while still keeping my promise to listen to you.”

  A laugh burst out of Raven’s lips before she could stop it. She saw the off-duty cop swing a curious look her direction, and she covered her mouth to try to contain herself. The laughter still made its way out, but at least it was muffled.

  “I’m serious,” Lucien said.

  “I know you are,” she replied.

  “And it’s funny?” He sounded so genuinely puzzled that she had to stifle another laugh.

  “It’s—” she cut herself off with a blush.

  “It’s what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, seriously. You can’t laugh at a man, then not tell him what makes it so funny. We have sensitive egos.”

  Her face warmed even more, and she tossed a quick look at the rescue crew before dropping her voice and saying, “It’s funny because it’s cute.”

  Lucien’s mouth twitched. “Not a word I’ve heard used in conjunction with my name.”

  “Trust me. It applies.”

  “All right. Fine. I’ll be cute, you be stubborn, and we’ll both take it as compliment?”

  “Ha-ha. Very funny.”

  Raven’s lightened mood lasted for about ten more seconds, and then an increased commotion near the pit drew her attention and sobered her again. The two men at the top of the hole were straining with the makeshift pulley system, and the man below—Holt—was yelling up instructions. Even though she knew they were doing everything carefully, it still made her worry. And it reminded her that no matter what momentary amusements there were, the situation was as grave as ever.

  She swallowed and turned back to Lucien. “What did the message say?”

  “‘Pretty yellow flowers, all in a row. I’d go back, if they’d let me,’” he told her. “I asked Holt to send me a picture of the message, and he said he would. But my phone’s still in the car, so why don’t we get out of here so we can take a better look?”

  “What about Jim?”

  “We’ll check in on him once they get him out. They’ve already put in a call for an air ambulance. Right now, we’re more in the way than anything else, and it’ll be even worse when the chopper and EMTs get here.”

  Raven took a breath. She wanted to protest. But as much as she felt compelled to stay and help Jim, there wasn’t a lot she and Lucien could do as far as medical care was concerned. They would really be doing more for him if they focused on the next steps. On where Hanes was directing them now, with the new clue.

  On Juanita.

  “Okay,” she said. “Should we let them know w
e’re going?”

  “Yeah. Give me one second, okay?”

  He paused after her said it, and something in his stance gave her the feeling that he was about to lean over and give her a kiss. As if it were a daily thing. A habit. But as quickly as it came, the sensation was gone. He turned and stepped toward the men on the other side of the room, already speaking to them as he moved.

  Raven stared after him. It wasn’t the first time she’d tensed with anticipation of a brief meeting of their lips. And she knew it wasn’t just because of their earlier moment of intimacy, either. It was something she’d experienced with Lucien a hundred times. One of those things that contributed to her belief that there was more to their relationship than professional obligation.

  Can I really go through that again?

  The thought sent a stab so sharp through her chest that she almost couldn’t catch her breath. It worsened when Lucien spun her way and smiled.

  Can I? she thought again. Can I have my heart broken all over again?

  “You ready?” he said, completely oblivious to the turmoil in her head as he closed the gap between them.

  She nodded, because she didn’t really trust herself not to say anything related the pain in her rib cage. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Good,” Lucien replied. “Let’s get back to the house and work on that clue.”

  Right. Focus on that, she ordered silently. What did it say? Pretty yellow flowers, all in a row. I’d go back, if they let me.

  She frowned. It was typically vague, just how Hanes liked things. But what did it mean? Something to do with gardening? She thought of the flowers that Hanes had left on her family’s gravesites, then moved to her house. Was it related? She let the questions and possible answers roll through her head for the entirety of the short walk back to the SUV. And it wasn’t until they were already buckled in that Raven remembered something important. It wasn’t the message itself that mattered. It was what the note had been written in that was key. She opened her mouth to ask, but Lucien answered before she could say it aloud.

  “Chalk,” he said as he turned the engine over, then put the SUV into Reverse. “Hanes wrote it in chalk.”

  * * *

  They both stayed quiet for the duration of the ride, and while Lucien wouldn’t have called it a companionable silence, it wasn’t an uncomfortable one, either. He was sure that Raven’s mind was doing the same thing his was—searching for some connection between Hanes and Juanita and a chalk-related past. He didn’t have much personal information about Juanita, but he’d already decided to go for the most obvious choice.

  A school.

  Even if chalk was used less and less, and the blackboards had been traded in for whiteboards and dry-erase markers—or even digital Smart Boards, in some cases—Hanes was the right age to remember the strokes of pale color and the calcium dust in the air. Seeing it on the wall had thrown Lucien back about thirty years, too.

  So it’s a place to start, anyway, he thought.

  And as they pulled into the driveway, Raven voiced a question that matched up with his unspoken conclusion.

  “Where did Hanes go to school?” she wanted to know.

  “Officially? At least ten or eleven of them, from what I remember.” Lucien cut the engine, did an automatic visual sweep of the area, found no sign of disturbance, then reached for the door.

  “Because he was kicked out?” Raven asked.

  He paused with his fingers on the handle. “Not of the schools. The foster homes.”

  “Right. His parents died in a fire when he was a baby.”

  “Yes. Or so he claimed.”

  Raven’s forehead creased. “What do you mean?”

  “Hang on,” he replied. “Let’s go inside first.”

  He pushed the door open and hopped to the ground. By the time he reached her side of the SUV, she’d climbed out, too and was waiting for him. Side by side, they walked up the path to the house, and he explained what he knew. Or to be more accurate, what he didn’t know.

  “About 90 percent of what Hanes shared with the VPD about his life was suspected to be a lie,” he told her. “A lot of it was unverifiable. His identification was valid. Ish. Or somewhat legally obtained, anyway. That’s how we were able to get such extensive employment records. Good, tax-paying citizen that he was.” He paused to unlock the door, then started up again as he’d dragged his feet out of his shoes. “The stuff before he started working is spottier. There are records of a Georges Fredrique Hanes in the system. But our Hanes’s middle name is most definitely David. And the fire—wherever it happened—was never tracked down.”

  “But none of that was brought up at trial,” Raven said, following him to the living room.

  “No. It wouldn’t have been helpful to either party. What Hanes might’ve gained in sympathy, he would’ve lost in credibility. We would’ve seemed like we were struggling to pin him down.”

  “But you still think we should start with his schools?”

  “Definitely. It seems logical, if not likely.”

  She sighed. “But it’s Hanes. So logical doesn’t necessarily equate with likely.”

  “True enough.” He settled onto the couch, pulled the earlier-abandoned laptop closer, then gestured to the spot beside him. “Let’s look at the schools anyway. It’s still our best lead.”

  It pained him to see the way Raven eyed the ample space hesitantly, then bit her lip before joining him. It made him want to toss aside the laptop and pull her into his arms. There’d never been a hint of awkwardness between them before. He was sure it’d been caused by the kisses and the touches and the half-spoken declarations. He could feel the questions and uncertainty in the air, and he was afraid it would become a rift if it went on much longer. Without meaning to, he started to lift his hand from the keyboard to reach for her. He only moved half an inch, though, before the computer chimed a notification.

  This is exactly why you need to get this case closed, he thought. No stopping and starting. No interruptions.

  He forced his hands to stay on the computer, and tried to be grateful that it was more cooperative in booting up now than it had been before.

  He cleared his throat, clicked to the file folder, then keyed in a search for the list of schools. It popped up right away, and Lucien clicked again. The list appeared. Staring at age eight, it was shorter than Hanes’s record of employment, but still longer than any child ought to have.

  “Any of these look familiar to you?” he asked, tipping the computer toward Raven.

  She scanned the files, then shook her head, her face despondent. “They’re all here, in BC.”

  “Yes?”

  “Juanita grew up in rural Saskatchewan. Her family owned a farm there. And she didn’t move here until she was twenty.”

  “So I guess that’ll rule out a childhood school connection. Unless it was kindergarten for Hanes.”

  Raven nodded, her face drooping even more, her attention flicking back to the screen.

  “Fifteen elementary schools,” she said softly. “Six high schools.”

  “Nine of the twenty-one are verified,” he replied.

  “It’s...”

  “What?”

  “I don’t feel sorry for him.” Her voice was thick. “I don’t. At all. The man’s a monster.”

  “But psychologically, you see what might have led him down this path?” Lucien filled in.

  “I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to think there’s a reason.” Now her voice wasn’t thick; it was one gasp shy of a sob.

  Lucien had no choice. He pushed the computer away, turned then pulled her into an embrace. She didn’t resist. She buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking. He pressed the side of his face to the top of her head and ran his fingers over the small of her back in a slow circle.

  “Listen to me,�
� he said. “You don’t have to understand. You don’t have to be sympathetic and you don’t have to accept that lives can play out this way. That’s not our role here. There are plenty of people who get a rough start—a tragic start—and they rise above it. We’re not Hanes’s advocates or counselors or his anything. There are people for that. And that’s okay. It doesn’t make us less human.”

  She lifted her head and met his gaze, her eyes shining with tears that quickly made their way out to join the streaks already on her cheeks. “I hate him.”

  Lucien’s hand slid up her spine, then came to rest on the back of her neck. “So do I.”

  “I can’t stop hating him.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “But I know it’s unhealthy.”

  “This isn’t a forgive-and-forget situation.”

  “But—” Her voice broke, and she tried again. “But something has to give. Somewhere.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers and moved his fingers around to cup her face. His thumb stroked gently back and forth over cheekbone. He ached to ease her obvious pain. He ached for her.

  “Raven...”

  Her mouth was so close.

  Too close. Your eye is on a different prize.

  He inhaled, pulled back and dropped his hand. “I won’t let Hanes get away. I promise. I’ll make sure he’s locked up in the deepest, darkest hole that the prison system has, and I’ll personally throw away the key.”

  Her gaze flicked to his mouth for the briefest second before she leaned back, too. “I thought cops didn’t make promises.”

  “I’m not making the promise as Detective Match.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. I’m making it as Lucien Match.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  He frowned a little, wondering if the question was more weighted than it ought to have been. He shook off the worry. Their already-short timespan wasn’t growing any longer.

  “Detective Match answers to the VPD,” he told her. “And Lucien—I—would rather answer to you.”

  Raven studied him for a long second, her now-dry eyes boring into him like she was trying to read his thoughts. Maybe trying to find out if there was any jest to his words. He didn’t look away.