Dawson nodded slowly. “You did. Absolutely.”
* * *
“It’s all very strange,” said Dawson, “but it doesn’t really point to Slater at all, does it?”
She and Liam were sitting in the corner booth in a little restaurant down the road from Trina Manning’s house. They had decided to sit down and have a meal and talk over what she’d told them.
“He’s orchestrating it somehow,” said Liam. “It’s like what you said about brainwashing. Maybe he found some girl and got her under his thrall. He made her call herself Lola, and then she lured women to these bonfires to be served up to him. If there weren’t any men there, no one could ever trace it to him.”
“Yes, I think so, too,” said Dawson. “It’s only that it’s all so strange, when you compare it to his other killings.”
“Well, as you pointed out, he did keep me in a dog crate, and he did have an elaborate plan to frame me. He was also trying to manipulate the FBI officers that came for him. So, I think it’s all just permutations of the same thing.”
Dawson toyed with the straw in her drink. “Do you think the other women in this group knew that he was killing girls?”
“I don’t know. It almost sounds like it from what Trina said, doesn’t it?”
“That seems insane to me,” said Dawson. “I can believe that he convinced one woman, but a whole group of them? Sure, he’s charismatic and attractive, but how does he manage that?”
“How does he manage half the things he manages?” Liam looked down at the table. “I don’t understand it myself.”
They were interrupted as a waitress came to give them their food. She set down their plates and whisked off to get Dawson a refill on her drink. Dawson had noted that Liam hadn’t ordered anything alcoholic, which surprised her. But she was glad. Maybe things were getting better for Liam, after all.
Liam cut into his chicken, which was covered in a creamy spinach and bacon sauce. “You think Trina knows where this bonfire was held?”
“I would imagine she does,” said Dawson. “Why?”
“Well, if we could find some evidence of what she’s talking about, then maybe that would be helpful to understand it all,” he said.
“I guess until we find Harlow Walker’s body, we can’t prove she’s one of his victims. But if the body was burned—”
“I’m telling you, there’s no way they burned a body in a bonfire while they were all drunk. There’s no way that happened,” he said. “Look into it. Burning a body is no joke. It’s not an easy thing to accomplish.”
“Okay,” she said, sighing. “Then, maybe we luck out and she’s buried out there, near wherever the bonfire happened.”
“That’s lucky?” He put a piece of chicken in his mouth and chewed, raising his eyebrows.
She laughed. “Well, you know what I mean. It’s lucky if they didn’t destroy the evidence.” She put a forkful of rice in her mouth. After she swallowed, she said, “I’m really just here treading water. I’m a failure at this case, and I’m trying to do something, because I can’t catch this bastard.”
Liam pointed his fork at her. “No, you said you couldn’t get this stuff about Lola Gem out of your head, right?”
“I did, but that’s because it’s weird,” she said.
“It’s your subconscious trying to tell you something.” He went back to cutting his chicken.
“Well, I guess that’s a nice thought, but—”
“No, I’m serious,” he said. “When I’m in the planning stage, drafting out the scripts for my videos, sometimes something starts bothering me, niggling me at the back of my head, and I’ve learned to follow those instincts, because it’s always something that my conscious mind hasn’t fully registered as an issue, but when I figure out what it’s about, it always strengthens my work. There’s something to this. We need to be here.”
She sipped at her straw. “If you say so.”
“Contact Trina. See if she can tell us where that place is.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Liam slid back into the booth, having just come from the bathroom. Their plates were piled in the middle of the table, covered in napkins. Dawson was waiting for the CCPD credit card to come back and to sign to the receipt.
“Well?” he said. “Did Trina agree, or do you want me to call her?”
“She says she doesn’t know the address, but she thinks she could take us out there,” said Dawson.
“Wait, near Branwen College? That’s got to be, what? Three hours away by car?”
“Four and a half,” said Dawson. “She agreed to come with us, though, but she wants to leave in the morning, and she wants to take her own car.”
“Oh,” said Liam. “So, we’re going to be here overnight?”
“Looks like,” she said. “There’s that hotel we passed. We’ll have to go back there for rooms.”
“Okay,” said Liam.
The waitress came back with the receipt. Dawson signed it and tucked her copy away so that it could be turned in to the department, and they left the restaurant.
When they got to the hotel, the woman behind the desk was apologetic. “There’s a dental convention in town, and we’re practically full-up. There’s one room left, if you want it. Two queens.”
Liam and Dawson turned to each other, both with wide eyes. They held each other’s gaze for too long and then Dawson cleared her throat and turned back to the woman.
“Are there other hotels near by?” said Dawson.
“There’s a Holiday Inn down the road,” said the woman. “But I know for a fact they’re pretty full too. I don’t know if they have any vacancy at all. You want to call and check?”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” said Dawson.
Liam waited while she called the other hotel, but it turned out to be a similar situation there. They had only one room there, but that room only had one king-sized bed.
Liam had looked up nearby hotels on his phone, but the next-closest would probably take them twenty minutes to drive out to. It might be worth it, he supposed, but it was getting late, and it would add to their driving tomorrow, which was already going to be a long day in the car.
“Hey, it’ll be fine,” he said. “We can be adults about this.”
“Of course,” said Dawson. “It’ll definitely be fine.”
They booked the room and checked in.
The hotel room had navy blue pillows over cream colored comforters with striped pillows for accents. Dawson stood in the doorway, looking the place over. “You have a bed preference?”
“Nah,” he said.
“I’ll take the one next to the window,” she said.
“Okay,” he said.
She went to that bed and perched on the end of it. “I didn’t know we were going to be staying overnight. I didn’t bring any other clothes.”
“Neither did I,” he said.
“I also didn’t bring anything to sleep in,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip.
Hmm. Liam hadn’t thought about that. He often slept in his boxer shorts and nothing else, but that would probably be a bad idea with Dawson here.
“I don’t want to wear this to bed.” She looked down ruefully at her ensemble—a collared shirt with a matching suit jacket and dress pants.
“No,” he said. “You shouldn’t. We’ll just… we’ll turn out the lights and promise not to peek at each other. It’ll be fine.”
She stripped off her suit jacket and hung it over the back of the chair that was tucked into the desk in the hotel room. She flopped back on the bed.
He sat down on his bed.
It was quiet.
Seconds ticked by.
He licked his lips. “Should we watch TV?”
“Okay,” she said.
So, he picked up the remote and started flipping through channels. “Stop me if you see anything you like.”
He went through all the channels twice, but she never stopped him.
He settled on some sitcom
that had been off the air for over twenty years on Nick at Nite.
They watched the canned laugh track and he tried not to look at her.
His preoccupation didn’t make any sense. He’d spent the entire day with Dawson, and they’d been in close quarters for most of it. He hadn’t given much thought to her presence, and yet, now, it was as if the spot that she occupied was burnt into his perception. Even when he wasn’t looking at her, he was aware of her.
He kept thinking about unbuttoning the buttons on her blouse, even though he kept telling himself to not think about it. It was the last thing he wanted to think about. Of course, the harder he tried to push the thought away, the worse it persisted.
His mouth went dry, and he felt antsy, as though he’d like to get up and go for a walk around the hotel.
On the TV, the sitcom ended and a different one came on, this one also very dated.
He wasn’t paying any attention to it, to be honest. He kept stealing glances at Dawson, who was leaning against the headboard, hugging herself. She didn’t look comfortable.
Abruptly, he picked up the remote control and turned the television off.
She turned to look at him, startled.
“I’m not going to jump you or something, Haysle.” Damn, why had his voice come out all scratchy like that. “You don’t have to worry about me. I promise.”
“I wasn’t… I didn’t accuse you of…” She sighed. “Maybe I’m more worried that I’m going to do the jumping.”
“Well, you don’t want that,” he said. “So, if you try it, I’ll shut you down.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
He nodded.
She sniffed. “I’m not sure whether or not to be offended by that or not.”
He furrowed his brow. “Why would that offend you?”
“You did say that you’d never been as attracted to anyone as you are to me,” she said.
His gaze flitted over her, lingering here and there… on her long, elegant fingers and her shapely legs. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. “That may be true, but it doesn’t mean I can’t control myself.”
“You’re a paragon of self-control, Liam,” she said dryly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You went to Slater willingly.”
“I wouldn’t call it willingly exactly. It was just…” How to explain this? “It felt inevitable.”
“Maybe that’s how I feel about jumping you,” she said. She sank down on the bed, groaning. “Sometimes, I feel like my life is spiraling out of control. I think about when I was Hayes, and everything was decided. I was in a long-term relationship with the love of my life, and I had a career, and there was no crazy, dangerous risk waiting around every corner…”
“That’s how you think of me? Crazy, dangerous risk?”
She didn’t answer.
“I scare you.” The bottom had fallen out of his voice.
“Liam…”
“I get it.” He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. “I get how danger can be exciting.”
“You’ve said you’d be bad for me more than once.”
“Yes,” he breathed.
“But I’m not afraid, not really. I feel as though I should be afraid, but all I feel is…”
Her unfinished sentence hung there between them.
And then, too much time had passed for him to say anything about it.
The seconds passed, one after the other, and the silence between them got bigger and bigger.
He tried to swallow again. Managed it. Sat up in the bed. Let out a harsh breath. “Maybe we should go to sleep.”
“Yeah,” she said.
He got up off the bed and started for the bathroom. At the door, he paused and turned to look at her. “I would never hurt you, not on purpose.”
“I know,” she said.
He took a shower, and when he was finished, the lights were off in the room, and she was under the covers, lying on her side, her back to him. He had dressed again, the fabric sticking to his wet skin. He got under his blankets and wriggled out of his corduroys and his shirt.
He thought about saying her name, asking if she was still awake.
He didn’t.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dawson was trying to keep up with Trina’s car, which was barreling down the narrow, dirt road ahead of them. They were in the woods, just outside the town where Branwen College was located. It had been a long drive, but she thought they must be close by now.
Keeping up with Trina’s driving had been quite the challenge. She drove way too fast.
I’m a cop, Dawson thought. Maybe I’m not a traffic cop, but come on, Trina. Who goes this fast with a cop?
Suddenly, Trina’s car pulled over to the side of the road, veering to a stop, kicking up dust behind her.
Dawson barely managed to pull over as well. The shoulder here was very narrow, and both cars had to drive a bit up onto the bank beside the road. They were inches from the tree trunks that made up the forest.
There was a driveway, also a dirt road, but Dawson didn’t understand why Trina hadn’t driven up it until she got out of the car.
There was a chain across the road, a faded metal sign attached to it proclaiming, No Trespassing.
“This is it,” said Trina, already climbing over the chain. “It was down this road.”
Dawson went after her, and Liam came behind her.
This driveway was very narrow, only wide enough for one car to pass. It was full of ruts and potholes, having been washed out by rain on more than one occasion. There was also signs of growth over the road, though the vegetation was all brown and dead in the winter air.
They rounded a bend and a house came into view, tall with two stories and black-stained siding. Ivy climbed up the sides, obscuring a huge window that overwhelmed the front of the house. Other windows were boarded over.
“I didn’t know there was a house,” said Dawson.
“Yeah,” said Trina. “We hung out in there, and the bonfire was in the back.”
Someone owned this property, Dawson thought. Of course, even if there hadn’t been a house, someone would have still owned the property. But it did raise concerns about warrants and the like. Even so, the house seemed abandoned. It would be a long rigmarole looking up information about the owners.
But if they were going to dig up the place, looking for bodies, it was something they’d have to obtain.
Well, it wouldn’t hurt to look around, she supposed. They’d get a lay of the land, and then they’d find out whatever they could and make sure they had all their ducks in a row before they did anything else.
That would probably mean coordinating with the local department, but that wouldn’t be too difficult, she didn’t think. They’d already worked together on this, when she and Liam had been here six weeks ago.
Trina led them around the house.
The bonfire area was difficult to miss. There was a circle of logs all sitting around a circle of stones. It almost looked as if someone’d had a fire out here recently, what with the blackened, charred pieces of wood in the stone circle.
Trina turned around. She gave them a tight smile. “Well, here you go. This is what you wanted, right?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Dawson.
“I need to go,” said Trina.
“Already?” said Dawson. “We just got here. Can I ask you some questions about—”
“I have to go.” Trina took off running, pushing past them, hurrying past the house and running back towards the road.
Dawson turned to watch her.
“Should we go after her?” said Liam.
“And try to force her to stay?” said Dawson. “We don’t have a warrant to be here or anything. We probably can’t stay for long as it is.”
“Of course,” said Liam.
In the distance, they heard the sound of Trina’s car starting. She peeled off, backing into the driveway and squealing back
onto the road. She roared away, leaving the house and the bonfire behind.
Dawson stood there, gazing into her wake for several moments before turning back to the bonfire area. “It’s weird. This house seems abandoned, but I’d bet money there’s been a fire here recently.”
“Yeah,” said Liam. “That is weird.”
“Did this house belong to someone who was part of the group years ago?”
“Or was it always abandoned, and they were just squatting here?” said Liam.
“Slater seems to like to take over abandoned spaces,” said Dawson. “The bunker, the house in Destiny Worth’s name, Renwick Hall…”
“It’s true,” said Liam, looking around.
Dawson walked up to the bonfire. She squatted down next to it. “If we were going to look for bodies, I guess we’d need to dig in the woods.” She looked out at the woods, which was vast, surrounding the house. “I can’t even imagine where we’d start.”
There was a noise, a sort of muffled banging sound.
Dawson stood up, turning in the direction of it. “Did you hear that?”
Liam nodded.
“It came from over there.” She started in that direction, drawing her gun. “Stay behind me.”
He did.
Slowly, she crept around the side of the house.
The noise happened again, and she realized it was a door. It was getting caught by the wind and being slammed up against the side of the house. The door appeared to go into the basement of the house. Inside the door was gaping blackness.
“We can’t go in without a warrant, right?” said Liam.
“Well… it’s open,” said Dawson, moving closer.
“It’s probably nothing. That door doesn’t look like it latches anymore.”
She kept moving closer.
As she did, she heard a humming sound, and she knew what it was. It was a radon mitigation fan. She’d had one in the house that she shared with Carter. “The electricity is on,” she said.
“Do you think someone is here?” said Liam. “No one could live in that house, right?”
“Someone’s paying an electric bill.” They were very close to the doorway now. She didn’t hesitate. She stepped over the threshold, into the darkness.
The Temptation of Silence Page 13