My Fallen Saint

by J. Kenner

  “Yes. Yes. It’s hard. But it gets easier.” She draws in a breath, her shoulders rising and falling. “And people should know, right?”

  I think about what Devlin said earlier. “Yes. People should know.”

  “She used to be so happy. Friends at school. In our neighborhood. She rode her bike, played. Danced. Alexis, too,” she added. “Her sister. Used to be straight A’s and in drama. Then Myers came along.”

  She shudders and goes silent.

  “What about you?” I ask. “Did you stay at home with the girls? Is their father in the picture?”

  “I used to work part-time from home as a copyeditor,” she says. “Ben was a store manager. He was—he was keeping an eye on Sue one day while she rode her bike in the driveway. He went to get a soda, and when he came out, she was gone. Just gone.” Her voice cracks, and she pulls her hand free of Devlin’s, then holds them together, tight in her lap.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “I was at the grocery store. I got home. The world didn’t make sense. I couldn’t process what happened. And then—and then when we couldn’t find her—when we didn’t get her back and the police said she was another victim of some maniac who’d been abducting kids—Ben, well, Ben…”

  She stops, shaking her head.

  “Ben hung himself,” Devlin tells me, his voice factual but soothing.

  “Six months,” she said. “I never gave up hope, but at the same time I was certain it was over. It’s a horrible feeling, to hope when you’re sure there’s nothing to hope for. And then—then the police raided that bastard’s house.”

  Devlin takes her hand, squeezes it. “Twenty-three kids had been abducted over the course of two years. Seven survived. Sue was one of them. I won’t tell you what he did, and I won’t let Laura. That part’s been publicized enough.”

  I nod. I’ve read the articles, felt queasy from the descriptions. And right now, I can’t imagine how Laura survived those horrible, long months.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “The thing is, happy endings aren’t like they tell you. All those other children. And my Susie. My family. There’s so much healing to do. I’m not complaining,” she continued, “but it’s different than the movies. There’s a hard part after, too. Before, you’re lost and scared. After, you’re scared and fighting.”

  “But you’ll win,” Devlin tells her, and she nods.

  “Yeah, we’re going to win. If nothing else, I owe that to my girls. To show them how to be strong.”

  “This is what the DSF does,” Devlin tells me. “Part of what we do, anyway. We provide services to families like Laura’s. They have a long road ahead, but they’re willing to work and accept help, and they’re going to make it.”

  “Yes,” I say. “You will.” I draw a breath, fearing that I don’t have the skill as a writer to do this story justice. All I can do is put my heart and my pain into the words and hope that someone reading it feels some tiny percentage of the grief and loss that seems to seep out of the pores of this woman.

  “We’ll survive,” Laura says. “It gets better each day. We took Sue to the park yesterday. She even went on the swings. At least for a few minutes, before she saw the dads standing nearby. They scare her, men. If Alexis or I aren’t with her, men terrify her.” Her smile is watery as she looks at Devlin. “You’re the only one who doesn’t scare her.”

  “I did,” he said. “In those first days, I definitely did.”

  She wipes away a tear as she nods. “Not anymore.”

  “No,” he says gently. “Not anymore. Give her this for me.” He reaches into the pocket of his sport coat and pulls out the ugliest little stuffed rabbit I’ve ever seen, making Laura burst into laughter through her tears.

  “She’ll love it.”

  “Private joke,” he tells me. “From the first day Sue talked to me.”

  I nod, my eyes held wide open, as I will myself not to cry.

  “I didn’t realize you were so involved in the DSF’s charities,” I say, after Laura’s gone inside the station to collect her daughters.

  “I keep a hand in all of them. Some feel more personal than others.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I get that.”

  He doesn’t ask me how I feel about the shooter now, and I’m glad. But as I sit in the spot that Laura vacated, I can’t help but think that even though I don’t approve of someone taking it on themselves to rid the world of Terrance Myers, I can’t deny that I’m very, very glad that he’s gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’d like to hear more about the DSF’s role,” I tell Devlin. “Maybe details about the other kids—non-identifying, of course. And how the foundation operates. For this article, but also for the main profile. I have a feeling the philosophy behind what you’re doing for those poor kids is similar to the work helping victims of that Nevada trafficking ring.”

  “In a lot of respects, it is.” He hesitates, and I watch his face, frustrated that I can’t read it the way I once could. “The Myers article is due tonight?”

  I nod.

  “We’re scheduled to talk on Monday, but that won’t do you much good. Did you drive?”

  I blink at the non sequitur. “Yeah. Why?”

  “We can talk on the drive back.”

  “You don’t have a car here?”

  He glances toward the door to the station. “I was going to catch a lift with Ronan,” he says, and I wonder how he got here in the first place. I don’t ask, though, as he’s pulled out his phone and is tapping out a text. He looks up before sending it. “Is that okay?”

  I start to say that it is absolutely not okay, because I’m not sure I can handle over an hour in the car with him.

  I must hesitate too long, because he sighs as he drags his fingers through his hair, which hangs like a wild mane around his face today. “You want information for your article. I want to spread the word about the work the DSF is doing. And, as I hope I’ve made clear, I want you to finish your work and head back to New York sooner rather than later. This is pragmatism, not a plot to torture either one of us. But if you’d rather drive by yourself, I can meet you at my office in a few hours.”

  “How will you get back?”

  “I’m sure I can manage.”

  I almost tell him to do that, but I stop myself. It’s been ten years. He was my first love—my only love—and he broke my heart. But I’m an adult now. More than that, I’m a journalist. And he’s offering me a rare opportunity for a long and in-depth interview.

  “Fine,” I say before I can change my mind. “I found a spot on the street about a block away. You ready?”

  He sends the text, then meets my eyes. “Let’s go,” he says, and I hope to hell I haven’t made a huge mistake.

  “You have a rental?” he asks as we pause at a crosswalk.

  I can’t help the grin that tugs at my mouth. “Nope. I’m in Shelby.”

  His eyes widen with his smile, and for a moment, he’s Alex. “You still have her?”

  Something like happiness floods me, a reaction to his own delight. After all, he was the one who taught me to drive her.

  My dad loved classic cars, and even though he always had one or two in various stages of disrepair in the garage, the only car he ever managed to completely rebuild was a deep blue 1965 Shelby Cobra.

  He worked on her for years, stealing hours when he wasn’t at the station. I’d sit at the worktable that filled the second half of our two-car garage—the actual car parked on the street—and either do my homework or hand him parts, picking up on the tricks and tips for keeping a classic car humming.

  When he was killed and I moved in with Uncle Peter, I didn’t think about Shelby for months. I never asked about her. I was only thirteen and assumed that she’d been sold in the estate sale that had witnessed the disposal of so many of my childhood memories.

  I didn’t care then. I’d been too lost in grief.

  But on the first day of school the year I turn
ed sixteen, I’d come home to find Shelby in the driveway, a big pink bow on her curvaceous hood.

  I’d burst into tears. Happy, melancholy, giddy. I don’t even know. All I knew was the flood of emotion that had filled me, erasing some of the lingering loss and reminding me that, even though Uncle Peter was mostly an absentee guardian, he really did love me.

  What he didn’t do was teach me how to drive the present parked in the driveway. He’d left on business the night before, so I could only assume that one of his employees had left it in the drive. Neither Brandy nor Alex was around, and so I’d simply sat in my present, pretending I had a clue how to drive a stick, and imagining myself tooling around town with my hair tied back in a scarf, like Grace Kelly in one of my dad’s favorite old movies.

  That amusement had worn thin, though, and I’d eventually abandoned my new car to walk to the tide pools. That was where Alex had found me, and as the memory washes over me, I look up at him now, ten years later.

  “You remember that day?”

  “Of course.”

  He’d walked me back to the house, and his joy on seeing the car in the drive had rivaled my own.

  “You were her first driver after Daddy,” I remind him. I let him take her out that afternoon, and the way he’d zipped around curves had delighted me. More, the way the thrum of the engine rumbled through me had messed with my senses in ways that even now makes me wonder how we’d been satisfied only with stolen kisses that night, though I knew we both wanted to ravage each other.

  Except I do know how—Alex was too much of a gentleman, and I was still too shy and unsure to push him. But God, how I’d wanted him.

  We’d gone driving the next day after school and every day after that until he left. He taught me how to drive a stick, and we’d take turns whipping through the canyons, enjoying both the speed and our long, drawn-out conversations. Then, on weekends, we’d find secluded places where we knew we’d stay hidden and only Shelby would know when our lips met and our hands brushed and our bodies ached for more.

  “I wonder if she’ll remember me.”

  “I’m sure she will.” I grin. “Cars are like dogs. They never forget a friend.”

  He glances at me, and I know he’s responding to the word. I shrug. “You could always put your hand down in front of her grill and let her sniff you before you make any sudden moves.”

  He pauses on the sidewalk. “Is that what I should have done with you?”

  I slide my hands into the pockets of my slacks, a bit undone by the low timbre of the question. “I don’t hate you. Or maybe I do. It doesn’t matter. You damn sure seem to hate me.”

  His shoulders stiffen. “It’s not hate.”

  I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t. “Fine. It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re grown-ups now. Water under the bridge, right?”

  I start walking again.

  He catches up to me, but I don’t look up until we pass a massive SUV and Shelby comes into view. That’s when I hear his intake of breath, and without thinking about it, I hand him the key. “Go on.”

  He captures me with a questioning glance, and I nod.

  “You earned it. You named her.”

  His lips twitch. “Not the most original name, though, was it?”

  “Maybe not, but it’s perfect.” I’d been running through a catalogue of mythological goddesses. He’d looked at Shelby herself, and seen exactly who she was. That’s always been his gift. He sees people.

  At least, I know that he always saw me. Or he used to.

  As I settle into the passenger seat, he slides in behind the wheel.

  “Are we going to the foundation?” I ask. “Or your house?”

  “Brandy’s is fine. I’m sure you want to get to work. I’ll catch a ride share from there.”

  “That’s silly. You don’t have to—” I stop talking as reality dawns. “That was you outside Brandy’s house that first night. How did you know where I was staying?”

  “I know about a lot of things in Laguna Cortez. Besides, where else would you have been? Your rental house is occupied.”

  I open my mouth, intending to ask how he knows that I still own my childhood home, but he continues before I can get the words out.

  “And you didn’t inherit Peter’s place.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I frown, for the first time realizing why that is. Peter arranged for my dad’s house to be held in trust for me, with the rental income going to pay the mortgage and invest in a college fund. But he’d left all of his assets—money, property, even personal effects—to one of his cousin’s I’d never heard of.

  “He was protecting you,” Devlin says, apparently reading my thoughts. “He left you nothing in his will because he knew that if you owned anything of his when he owed money to The Wolf it would have been—”

  “Dangerous,” I say, my voice a whisper as a band that’s lingered around my heart for years loosens just a little. I swallow, then look over at him. “Have you always known that?”

  “No. I looked into what ties you had to Laguna Cortez once I came back. The will was probated, so it was easy enough to find.”

  “You looked into my property. Why?”

  He doesn’t flinch. “I was assessing the odds of you coming back. I thought they were low, even with the rental. Apparently, I miscalculated.”

  “Dammit, Alex—”

  “Devlin.”

  “Fine. Devlin. Why? Why did it matter so much that I not be here?”

  “Things are different now. And you make them complicated. I’m not a big fan of complications.”

  “That isn’t even close to an answer.”

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  I swallow. “Yeah, well, so sorry for gumming up the works.” I wave a hand. “Can we just get out of here?”

  His lips move as if he’s going to speak, but then he moves the key to the ignition.

  “Wait!” I grab his hand—and a sizzle of connection ricochets through me. I yank my hand back, feeling not only like a fool but hyperaware of this man. “I’m sorry. I just realized—Brandy.”

  He turns to me, his face impassive, and I wonder if he felt anything at all except pressure from my touch “What about her?”

  “She won a ticket to the gala.”

  “Did she? I hope she had a nice time.”

  I cock my head. “A prize ticket at the very last minute? Seems pretty disorganized for a place like the DSF that runs like clockwork.”

  “I’ll be sure to get my people on that.”

  “Come on, Saint. Own up to it.”

  He almost smiles. “Your inner cop is showing.”

  For a second, I have no idea what he means. “Devlin, I say. And you’re right.” Raised by a cop, a cop myself, and now a reporter. Yeah, I default to last names all the time. “You’re also avoiding the point. Why did you give Brandy a ticket?”

  He shifts enough in his seat to face me square on, and though his expression is bland, I think I see just a hint of sadness in his face. “I thought you could use a friend. Of course, that was before I knew you had a date.”

  “Oh.” I lean back in my seat, more pleased than I should be and not bothering to correct him about Lamar. I’ve done that dance already. “Well, okay, we should probably get going.”

  He starts Shelby, but before he can pull out into the street, I twist in my seat once more. “Devlin?”

  He looks at me, his brows raised.

  “Thank you.”

  We share a smile. And for a moment—just a tiny fleeting moment—it feels a bit like Alex and El again.

  But I’m damn sure not going to get used to it.

  It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, but I’m inside the DSF following Tamra into the hushed room that takes up most of the third floor. Filled with long tables topped with boxes, rows of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and walls lined with filing cabinets, the DSF Research Room rivals any library I’ve ever been in.

  I’m surprised to see someone already at
one of the tables. A lean-faced man of about thirty, with broad shoulders, golden hair, and a friendly smile. He’s completely surrounded by file boxes and stacks of folders.

  “Are you having any luck?” Tamra asks him.

  “It’s a gold mine,” he says, tapping the tip of his pen on a yellow pad. “I’ve filled up three of these already.”

  I look between the two of them. “I’m sorry. I thought this room was closed on the weekends.”

  During yesterday’s drive, Devlin had offered to give me access to the room today. He’d also given me a much better understanding of the foundation’s core mission of protecting, rescuing, and rehabilitating victims, especially children.

  “You can draw a circle around the suffering of a victim,” Devlin told me early in the conversation. “Whatever is inside that circle—be it therapy or stuffed animals, access to work-at-home, a stipend to cover lost wages, research, or assistance with law enforcement—we’re there.”

  Then he went on to explain how the foundation organized its resources and identified beneficiaries.

  I heard the passion in his voice as he spoke about the foundation and its work, and for most of the drive, I forgot about our past and got lost in the familiar back and forth of asking questions, following up on details, and working out the structure of my article as I processed his words.

  Between Devlin’s information, meeting Laura and Sue, and the details of the raid I hope to get from Ronan Thorne, I knew I’d have more than enough for a unique spin on the Myers story. I told Roger as much when I texted him an update of what I’d learned so far in Laguna Cortez.

  He’d been concerned about my reaction to Peter’s connection to The Wolf, but I’d assured him I was okay. And, right now at least, I am, though I know it might get rougher the more I learn.

  Roger had also been impressed with the direction I was heading on the Myers article, and gave me until Sunday evening to file, especially since Ronan had to reschedule our talk. He told me that he’d be giving it a featured spot on the website later that week. Score one for impressing my boss.

  After the call, Devlin assured me that he’d give me access to the Research Room Sunday morning so I could double-down on both Myers and the profile. Even better, he promised to arrange for Thorne to come by early enough that I had time to work his interview into the article.