Faces of Evil [4] Rage (33 page)

“It helps to know you’ve got my back on this one.”

“Jess.” He reached out, caressed her cheek. “I’ll always have your back.”

It was all he could do not to kiss her. She didn’t turn away or try to evade his touch. But she had asked him not to go there until the case was done.

For her, he could wait.

He dropped his hand away. “You and Sylvia seem to be hitting it off.”

“She’s not so bad. She just likes making everyone think she is.”

“That’s Sylvia.” He finished his wine.

“One of these days you’ll have to tell me about your marriage to her sister. Feels like there’s a story there.”

“One of these days,” he promised. “Speaking of sisters, how’s Lil?”

“The doctor’s doing more tests. I spoke to her tonight and she sounds tired. So not like herself. I’m really worried, Dan. This could be bad.”

“Lily is a very strong woman. Just like you. She’ll get through this.” He wished he knew something more original to say but what he said was true. Frankly he didn’t know any one stronger than Jess and Lily.

“Tomorrow is going to be a long one,” Jess murmured, almost too softly for him to hear.

He worried that she was more right than she knew.

Putting a fellow cop’s head on the chopping block was a bold, unpopular move.

Dan would lay odds on Jess’s instincts every time.

Her cell rang. She fished it out of her pocket and checked the screen. She sat up. The glider swung askew. “Leslie, is everything all right?”

The Chambers girl? Tension cranked up inside him.

“We’ll be right there.”

Jess ended the call and shot to her feet. “It’s Devon.”

Ice trickled in his veins. “Has he been found?”
God almighty let him be alive
.

“He just showed up at the door of his own house.”

Whispering Stream Drive, Friday,

August 6, 1:30 a.m.

D
evon Chambers was dirty and he had tape burns around his mouth, his wrists, and his ankles. He was starving and possibly a little dehydrated, but otherwise he appeared to be fine.

At the moment he was at the kitchen table gobbling down a second bowl of his favorite cereal and milk. Jess and Leslie stood at the far end of the room in the doorway leading to the living room.

“That was the first thing he said to me,” Leslie said without taking her eyes off her brother.
“Fruity Pebbles, please.”
She swiped at a lone tear. “I was so glad to see him I just grabbed him up and hugged him to death.” She turned to Jess. “Then I called you.”

The boy had sneaked through the fence that separated the Grayson property from his own yard and then he’d climbed up the trellis and into his room. The officer on surveillance duty out front never spotted him. Devon had stealth down to a science.

“He told you that the angel put him under the dead mommy’s house?” Jess kept her voice down for fear of spooking him. “And that he kept pulling and tugging until he got the tape loose on his hands and that’s how he freed himself?”

Leslie nodded. “He said he’d been trying to get loose since the angel took him.” She shrugged. “Maybe it took all this time to get the tape loose enough.”

Possible. “But he couldn’t tell you where he’d been before the angel moved him to the Graysons’ home?”

“Under the screaming mommy’s house was all he could tell me.”

Jess mulled over the answer. “You think he’ll talk to me now?”

“Maybe I can ask him stuff and you can listen,” Leslie suggested.

That would work. “I’ll make you a list.”

While Devon finished his cereal, Jess quickly scribbled a list of questions for the boy.

Leslie placed a small can of potted meat and crackers next to her brother’s empty bowl. “I thought you might like this, too.”

“Yummy!” He snapped the lid off the can of meat and, using the crackers like dipping chips, had a bite.

Leslie made a face at Jess. “He loves the stuff.”

Jess sat down at the other end of the table. Devon paused in his eating, but he didn’t look at her. Leslie picked up the list Jess had made and sat down close to her brother.

“Devon, when you were under the screaming mommy’s house, did you hear any other people? Like a daddy or kids?”

Devon licked a cracker and nodded. “A mean daddy. Two crying kids.”

Leslie stole a glance at Jess. “Did the angel give you any food or water while you were there?”

He nodded again. “Sometimes.”

“Did you see the angel?”

“The light was shining in my eyes. I couldn’t see nothing.”

Shit! Jess needed to add a question. She couldn’t exactly write it down and pass it to Leslie without risking Devon shutting down. It was a miracle he’d spoken at all in front of her.

Leslie’s cell phone lay on the table. Maybe there was a way. Jess retrieved her phone and sent Leslie a text with the next question.

The girl’s phone signaled she had received the text and Leslie checked the screen. She set the phone aside and asked the questions. “What kind of kids were crying, Dev? Boys or girls?”

He shrugged.

Leslie waited a second then asked, “Big kids or little kids?”

He ate the last cracker and turned to his sister. “Baby kids.”

Adrenaline had Jess’s heart thundering in her ears. Sounded like the Riley family to her. Their neighbor had said they screamed at each other all the time and that the kids cried frequently.

“What kind of light shined in your face, Dev?”

He frowned. “A flashlight, silly. Like I keep in my secret hiding place. Angels have flashlights, too.”

Leslie had told Jess that his secret hiding place was under the house. He’d been trying to get away from the angel so he’d hidden under his house. That, Jess presumed, had given this so-called angel, who she suspected was either Sarah or Jack Riley, the idea for hiding him under the floor of their own home. It was the perfect solution until one or both decided what to do with him. Killing a child likely wasn’t as palatable as having murdered a grown woman. Case in point, they’d left the Grayson baby sleeping in his crib the night they murdered and mutilated his mother.

“This angel wasn’t too smart.”

Jess’s attention snapped back to Devon.

“What do you mean, Devon?” Leslie asked.

“The angel put me under the wrong house.” He made a face. “
This
is my house.”

Jess had a bad feeling the angel had hoped Devon would die under the Graysons’ house. The Rileys weren’t fools. They knew Jess was on to them. Clearly they’d moved Devon to prevent his being found under their own home. With Gabrielle’s murder still too fresh, Lieutenant Grayson would be in no hurry to move back into his home. There was no telling when anyone would have gone under the floor over there for any reason. If Devon hadn’t worked his way loose while he still had the strength, he would have fallen victim to their evil plan.

Leslie glanced at the list Jess had made once more. “How did you know this was an angel? Did you see wings?”

Devon shook his head. “No silly! I smelled the flowers. Angels smell like flowers.”

“Who told you that, Devon?” Leslie asked, going down the list.

“My teacher told me. When our mommy went to heaven. He said people gave flowers to her because heaven smells like flowers and that way the angels knew where to find her.”

Leslie looked to Jess again. She didn’t know what else to say or do. She’d asked all the questions.

Jess could see how he’d made the leap. If heaven smelled like flowers, then the angels who lived there were bound to smell like flowers, too. Harper’s comment about the shampoo in the Graysons’ shower… Gardenias… elbowed its way into her thoughts. Even though they hadn’t gotten any clear prints off the bottle, they knew the killer had washed off in the shower since some of Gabrielle’s blood had been found in the drain. If the killer used the shampoo that might be why Devon smelled flowers while he was hiding in the closet in the baby’s room.

“I don’t want that angel to come to get me again.”

Fear made his voice sound smaller. The happy-go-lucky little boy was gone now. Devon was scared. He had a right to be scared; he’d been traumatized.

“Why would the angel come back again?” Jess heard herself ask.

Devon blinked. Stared at her. She held her breath. Prayed he wouldn’t go into his shell.

He held up his arm. “I got the angel scratch. I think that’s bad.”

Going for broke, Jess dug around in her bag and retrieved her shield. She slid it down the table toward Devon. “You keep this with you at all times, Devon, and the angel won’t bother you.”

Hesitant at first, he reached out and picked up the shield. He studied it closely, then he looked at Jess. “You sure that’ll work?”

“Absolutely,” Jess promised. “You can clip it on your shirt”—she tugged at the collar of her blouse—“right there.”

Leslie helped her brother clip the shield on the neck of his T-shirt.

“Now. The angel will know you’re untouchable.”

Devon frowned, then he held up his arm. “What about this?”

Jess beamed a smile at him. “If you and your sister will come with me, I can take you to see a doctor who knows all about angel scratches.”

Cooper Green, 2:58 a.m.

Dan thought he had seen it all.

Obviously he had been wrong.

Jess and Sylvia were smiling and fussing over the kid as if they had been doing that sort of thing their whole lives. Two women who swore they didn’t have time for children.

He watched Jess smile as Devon drew pictures of what he saw that night. Sylvia had attended to his scratches and checked him over thoroughly. The kid was safe and that was what mattered. He hadn’t given them much to go on. The angel smelled like flowers. Jess had connected the idea to the shampoo she’d had logged into evidence.

Jess glanced at Dan and he straightened away from the door frame. As she and Sylvia started his way, leaving Leslie to entertain Devon, Dan stepped out into the corridor.

Sylvia closed the door to the exam room.

“Leslie’s going to help Devon change into clean clothes,” Jess explained.

“I’ll test samples of the dirt and other trace elements on his clothes,” Sylvia picked up where Jess left off. “If he was held in the Rileys’ crawlspace you might be able to use those test results for confirmation.”

“I sent a text to Cook,” Jess went from there. “He’s arranging for an evidence tech to accompany him to the Grayson home, where they’ll attempt to find the tape Devon removed when he freed himself.”

The so-called angel had felt confident taking the kid there, since the crime scene had been released. Bastard.

Leslie opened the door. “We’re ready in here.”

Sylvia looked from Dan to Jess. “I’m going to get on those tests.”

“Thank you, Dr. Baron,” Jess said.

Sylvia nodded and disappeared into the exam room.

Those two had made friends, Dan decided. “Where’s Harper?”

“I’ve got him watching the Rileys.” She glanced at Devon and his sister. “We need these two tucked away in a safe place until this is over.”

“Agreed.” Dan dug for his phone. “I’ll make the arrangements. We’ll drop them off and then I’m taking you home.”

Jess sagged against the wall. “You won’t get any argument from me.”

Conroy Road, 7:30 a.m.

T
wo hours of sleep had hardly been worth the trouble. Jess lugged her bag onto her shoulder and descended the stairs. Two cups of dark roast had not done the trick. She still felt hungover. She glanced at her landlord’s house as she shuffled to her car. He hadn’t complained about her random comings and goings so far. She hoped he continued to be a good sport about it.

She held up her keys and started to punch the fob to unlock the Audi. The driver’s side door—her door—was ajar. Moving with caution, Jess eased closer. The door had definitely been opened.

“Well, damn.”

She backed up a few steps just in case and put in a call to Lori for a ride. Then she called Burnett to have whoever was working the investigation into the Taurus tampering to come pick up her Audi.

This shit was getting old.