“I’m going to try that Turbo Lemon Sour thing I saw on the specials board,” she said.
“Lemon and coffee? That doesn’t sound good.”
“Says the man who drinks ginger lattes.”
“What? Ginger goes with coffee.”
“Does it?”
“You had one. Didn’t you like it?”
“Sure, I guess. It was kind of like pumpkin spice.”
“Oh!” He made a sound of disgust. “Take that back.”
“Pumpkin spice is good,” said Wren.
“Ginger lattes are not in the same class as pumpkin spice.”
“Ginger is part of pumpkin pie seasoning, though.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the amount of ginger that’s in the latte, it’s really strong, so it’s kind of an intense drink. And pumpkin spice is, you know…”
“What?”
“Not intense.”
“Girly?”
“I didn’t say that. I never said that. I wouldn’t say that.”
Wren smirked.
“Seriously, don’t make it a gender thing. It’s not a gender thing.”
“Are you sure, Detective? Because I’m getting the feeling I’ve challenged your male prowess here, and I don’t think you’re handling it very well. I mean, real men are secure enough in their masculinity to drink pumpkin spice lattes, and I admire that about you.”
He spread his hands. “What can I say? I’m man enough for ginger.”
* * *
Later, Wren was still sipping her lemon sour coffee, which was a little bit of a strange combination, she had to admit. She had found the morning excursion a welcome distraction from her weekend, which had been weird primarily because of Hawk and that kiss, and the fact that she kept thinking about it.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to be thinking about it.
Typically, when she was testing the waters for a new romantic entanglement, a kiss might make her feel giddy and good— a sort of pink, tingling excitement that would travel throughout all her limbs.
This stuff with Hawk, it wasn’t that way. She kept thinking about it, but it wasn’t carefree or sweet or tingly. It was heavy, like a deep red robe that had been draped over her shoulders, that she now had to carry everywhere.
She had stayed until he fell asleep, and she’d been tired too, and she hadn’t particularly wanted to be alone either, so then she had curled up on his couch and slept there.
But in the morning, when she woke up, Hawk was gone. He wasn’t in his bed, and she didn’t see him anywhere. So, she left too.
She hadn’t seen him since.
She wished she could stop thinking about him, because the longer that she thought about him and about kissing him, the harder it was to avoid thinking about the fact that Hawk was the perfect suspect for this case. She wondered if she’d stretched to make Kyler Morris fit the profile so that she could have an alternative to Hawk.
In an attempt to come up with someone else who might possibly be a suspect, she decided to go looking for Devon Green, the woman who had left Roger a shell of himself in his dirty apartment.
She spent the rest of the morning and into the late afternoon searching through records in all three states.
Finally, she found a recent car registration in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Armed with Devon’s physical address, she headed out of headquarters.
“Hey,” Reilly called after her. “Where are you headed?”
“I’m chasing down a lead on Devon Green,” she called back.
He came out of his office, leaning up against the doorway. “Who’s Devon Green?”
“Roger’s wife.”
He looked at her blankly.
“The guy in Baltimore in the bathtub.”
“Ah, right.” He nodded. “Why? Haven’t we established that the perpetrator of the murders is male? You don’t suspect Devon, do you?”
“No, but I want to see if I can get some more information on Roger.”
“Are we really liking Roger for this, though?”
“I don’t know. Just covering bases, trying to be thorough. You don’t want me to go?”
“No, you’re right. Good call. See you later.” He waved her out the door.
It didn’t take long to get to the address for Devon. Harpers Ferry was only about twenty minutes away from Cardinal Falls. When Wren arrived, it was a mint-green trailer set up on concrete blocks. There were big ruts in the driveway. Wren didn’t take her car all the way up to the door for fear she’d bottom out and rip up the underside of her car.
Instead, she hiked up to the door and knocked on the door.
The door opened and a woman that Wren didn’t recognize was there. She was a little overweight, wearing a t-shirt with unicorns on it. She was smoking a cigarette. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Devon Green,” said Wren.
“Okay,” said the woman. “Why would you look here?”
“She used this address for her car registration,” said Wren.
“Oh!” said the woman, holding up a finger. “Oh, Devon. Right. She and I worked together. She didn’t have an address to use for her car stuff. I think because she was staying at the shelter. And you need a place of residence for that stuff. I let her use this address.”
“But she doesn’t live here?”
“Nah. I let her get some bills sent here, too,” she said, sucking on the cigarette. “Cell phone, I think. Something else, too. I don’t remember what. But she doesn’t live here.”
“You know, it’s against the law to do what you did,” said Wren.
“You the cops or something?’
Wren’s lips parted.
“Well, shit,” said the woman. “Aren’t you supposed to show your badge or something? What the hell?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Wren. “Where is Devon now?”
“Oh, she transferred to the Waffle House in Hagerstown, last I heard.”
“And are you still getting her cell phone bills?”
“Nope. I think she found a real place to live.”
Wren sighed. “Thank you for your time.”
* * *
“Look, you can just seat yourself,” said the woman behind the counter at Waffle House in Hagerstown.
“Actually, I’m looking for an employee named Devon Green,” said Wren. “I was told she worked here.”
“Devon, yeah, she works here,” said the woman. “Actually, she’s supposed to come in for her shift in about five minutes.” She pointed out the window. “There she is right now, getting out of her car.”
Wren turned to see a very pregnant woman hauling herself up out of her car. Was that Devon?
When the pregnant woman straightened, Wren recognized her.
She hurried out into the parking lot and intercepted Devon. “Devon!” she called. “Can I talk to you?”
When Devon saw her, her eyes widened in recognition. “Wren Delacroix? What are you doing here?”
Wren fell into step with her. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Devon stopped walking. “Wow, you are all grown up, aren’t you?”
Wren felt self-conscious. “Yeah, I guess I couldn’t help that.”
Devon barked out a laugh. “No, I guess not.” She rubbed her swollen belly. “What the heck are you doing here?”
“It’s, um, about Roger.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Devon, making a face. “What’s he done?”
“I don’t know, nothing maybe. Someone’s done something, but I don’t know that it’s Roger. Have you heard about the girls being in killed in Cardinal Falls?”
“You don’t think Roger would do that?”
“I… when we went to see him, he was in a bad way. He seemed pretty out of it. I don’t know if he’d even be capable—”
“He got weird,” said Devon. “I mean, maybe he was always weird. Or maybe we were all weird. Maybe being in that place made us weird. I know that it screwed w
ith my head. Roger and I ran away so that we wouldn’t have to deal with all that shit anymore. But it was like it followed us. He couldn’t let it go.”
“Let what go?”
“He’d have these nightmares about Vivian, those bonfires.” Devon lowered her voice. “About… you know, the Horned Lord.”
Wren nodded.
“He’d wake up all sweaty, his shirt tangled around his armpits, and he would wake me up, and I would try to calm him down, but he would say these things to me, like that we were marked in crimson, and that it was only a matter of time before we’d be gathered back up into the number of the holy and that everything was going to be purified with fire. I didn’t like it.”
“Sounds kind of awful,” said Wren, thinking about making out with Hawk after he said things that sounded batshit insane.
“If it was only talk, I wouldn’t have worried about it, but then he started setting fires.”
“What?”
“In the sink. He didn’t burn anything. But he would stare into the fire and he would get all weird. Finally, I found out I was pregnant, and that was the last straw. When it was just me and him, I felt like I had to stay and take care of him. But then there was a baby, and I had to take care of the baby first, and I didn’t think he’d be a very good father, you know? Sometimes when we would go to those bonfires, he’d take, like, ten hits of acid. I never took that much. I was afraid to take that much. I think it fried his brain right out, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” said Wren. “I think I do.”
“Anyway… well, I couldn’t say for sure. I wanted to keep him away from the baby, but not because I thought he was dangerous or something, just… not responsible enough for fatherhood. Not a good influence on my kid. That kind of stuff. But who knows? I mean, I guess it’s possible that he’s really lost it.”
“Did you…” Wren twisted her fingers together. “Did Roger or you ever go out on one of those nights when my mother ordered people to… you know, commit murder?”
“No,” said Devon. “No, never. I think she knew I wouldn’t have done it. You could have put a knife or a gun in my hand, but I would have dropped it and run. It’s hard to be violent when you’re on acid, anyway. It just makes you feel at one with everything else. Killing something would be like killing yourself, cutting yourself off from the energy that flows between everything? Who could do that?” She shuddered.
Wren furrowed her brow. Well, there went her idea that acid made it easier to kill.
Devon was still talking. “Do you have any evidence that it was him?”
“No,” said Wren. “Nothing like that. I’m really just covering all my bases by being here.” She tried a smile. “You take care of yourself, huh? Take care of that baby of yours.”
“If you arrest him, can you let me know?” said Devon. “He won’t be able to call me. I made it so he couldn’t get in touch with me. Can you do that? I’ll give you my phone number.”
Wren hesitated. And then she nodded. “Yeah, okay. Sure. I can do that.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wren swung by Billy’s on the way home. She figured if she got in a few shots before it got too late, she could get home before the bar got crowded. She didn’t want to run into anyone tonight.
But when she walked into the bar, there was Hawk, sitting on one of the stools, leaning on the bar, laughing at something that the bartender had said.
He saw that she’d come in and he leaped to his feet.
Wren turned and walked right back out.
Hawk came after her. “Hey, Wren, where are you going?”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t know how to respond. She wasn’t sure what do to about Hawk, not anymore. It was hard to keep him out of her mind, but it was easier when he wasn’t around.
He caught up to her, touched her shoulder. “Don’t ignore me.”
She whipped around to face him. “It should be obvious I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Why not?”
“Do you even remember Saturday night?”
“Sure,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. But now he wouldn’t look her in the eye.
She groped for something else to say. Couldn’t think of anything. And then, suddenly, blurted, “Where were you when I woke up?”
“Major called me. He needed me. I saw you on the couch there. You looked comfortable. I didn’t want to wake you up. Should I have woken you up?”
She didn’t say anything.
“We should, uh… you got a phone number?” He grinned at her. His gray eyes twinkled.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
“Just…” She ran a hand through her hair and turned her back on him. She started for her car again.
“Hey, come on!” he said. “Isaac said you were asking questions about your mother. Hayes isn’t your real dad?”
She turned back. “Isaac has a big freaking mouth.”
“I mean, I guess it should have been obvious.”
She shrugged. “I guess. It wasn’t, though. Not to me. I guess, when you’re a kid, you don’t think of these things.”
“No, you don’t.” He ran his thumb across his bottom lip. “Listen, your mother used to have me sneak Ellis Cook in and out of her cabin.”
“Ellis Cook? From town? The Cooks hate the Fellowship.”
“It was after you were born. I mean, it doesn’t mean that—”
“Wait. You’re saying that you think Ellis Cook is my father?” She shook her head. “That’s… that’s…”
“Hey, I wasn’t going to blurt it out like that, but you’re running away, and I didn’t know how else to get you to stay and hear me out, so I did.” He rubbed his chin. “If it was him, you’d want to know, right?”
“It can’t be him,” she said. “You have to be confused. When did you do this?”
“I was a kid,” he said. “I think she figured I wouldn’t understand. Vivian didn’t always seem to recognize that other people could be as smart as she was. She definitely underestimated children. But there was something going on with her and Ellis, and she didn’t want anyone to know about it.”
“Well, of course she wouldn’t want anyone to know. The Cooks were the enemy. Hell, I could more easily believe she sent people to kill the Cooks—”
“No,” said Hawk. “You want to go talk to him?”
She didn’t answer. She was still reeling, trying to put all of this together. It wasn’t that Vivian was above sleeping around, because she wasn’t, but Ellis Cook was one of the pillars of the community. He owned a hardware store in town. Back when the town had been founded, hundreds of years ago, it had been a general store, and there were elements of the place that had been lovingly restored. If there was anything the Cook family stood for, it was tradition. They had always seen the FCL as interlopers.
If Ellis Cook was her father…
No.
It didn’t make any sense at all.
Hawk went around to the passenger side of her car and opened the door.
“What are you doing?” she said.
He got in the car and pulled the door closed after him.
She opened the door and peered in on him. “Did I say you could get in my car?”
He chuckled. “You drive, little bird. Let’s go see Ellis Cook.”
She shook her head. She rubbed her forehead. She sat down in the car and tugged the door closed.
They sat there.
She toyed with the keys.
“You want me to drive instead?”
She looked at him. “Listen, just because I sort of kissed you back, it doesn’t mean anything, you know?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Meaningless. Got it.”
She jammed the keys into the ignition of the car and started it. “Never fucking mind.”
He put his hand on hers. “Little bird, I was out of my head on Saturday—”
“Stop.” She put the car in gear and tore out of Billy’s pa
rking lot.
Hawk was thrown back across the car by the force of it all.
She gritted her teeth. “Better put on your seatbelt.”
* * *
Wren pushed open the door to Cook Hardware. A little bell rang.
There were three people in the store. One was Tanner Cook, who was Ellis’s nephew. He’d gone to high school with Wren. Like most of the townie guys, he had treated all the girls from the compound like they were nothing unless he decided to brag that he’d convinced one of them to perform sexual favors for him.
For the girls who grew up in the Fellowship, sex wasn’t a big deal. Everyone there was sleeping with everyone else. They hadn’t been taught that they should wait until they were ready to or to treat their virginity like a precious gift. They had been taught to give in to their feelings and do what felt good. It was something that the boys in town both exploited and vilified.
Wren hated the double standard. She’d never personally been involved with Tanner.
Which was good, since he might be her cousin.
Yuck.
Anyway, she’d never been involved with him, but she’d had her share of heartbreaking experiences when she was young, enough to learn that everything she’d been taught by the Children about freedom and expression and sex was wrong. The world wanted women repressed and buttoned-up, and she had resolved to be that from there on out.
Mostly, she was.
Of course, there was Hawk…
Damn Hawk.
He was the reason she was even here. She didn’t want to be here in the hardware store, with Tanner Ellis gaping at them from behind the counter, and the two lone customers turning away from their hammers and duct tape to be similarly stunned at the sight of them.
Hawk’s mouth twisted into a satisfied grin. He was enjoying this.
Wren wanted to disappear. She looked at the door, thought about making a run for it, didn’t.
Tanner came out from behind the counter and strode across the store to intercept them.
Hawk’s grin widened. He headed for Tanner, as if the two of them were meeting in the middle of the town square at high noon.
Oh, this wasn’t good.
The two men stopped right in between the nails and washers, and they sized each other up.
“What are you two doing in here?” said Tanner.
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