Sins (Vance Davis Dossier #2)

S
INS

T
HE
V
ANCE
D
AVIS
D
OSSIER

B
OOK
T
WO

H
EATHER
H
UFFMAN

Booktrope Editions

Seattle WA

2015

COPYRIGHT 2015 HEATHER HUFFMAN

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Attribution
— You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Noncommercial
— You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

No Derivative Works
— You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Inquiries about additional permissions

should be directed to:
[email protected]

Edited by Mary Menke

Cover Design by Loretta Matson

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

EPUB ISBN
978-1-62015-929-3

DISCOUNTS OR CUSTOMIZED EDITIONS MAY BE AVAILABLE FOR EDUCATIONAL AND OTHER GROUPS BASED ON BULK PURCHASE.

For further information please contact
[email protected]

For Shelley and J.R.
You brightened my life with your presence,
and you are dearly missed

Ten Years Ago

THE LIGHTS OF THE CITY BECKONED,
stirring a yearning deep within Vance’s 18-year-old spirit. His need for adventure, for more, pulled him ever closer to the glittering promise those lights offered. He navigated his fully-restored 1967 Camaro through the unfamiliar streets before finding a public parking lot along the riverfront.

Since all of his worldly belongings were crammed into his backseat and trunk, he checked twice to be sure his car was locked before wandering towards the excitement of Laclede’s Landing. A thrill shot through him. For so many years he’d longed for adventure, and now his adventure had begun. He wanted to drink it all in—to taste and smell and feel every last bit of it.

The Arch, a landmark so distinctly St. Louis, towered over the scene playing out in front of him. Lights reflected off the river as it chugged steadily on by. Vance walked along the cobblestone streets, stepping out of the way for a horse-drawn carriage. Drunken college students stumbled in and out of old brick buildings with neon signs. The few remaining tourists with families ushered their children back to minivans, yielding the streets to the party crowd. Vance took it all in, relishing, reveling in it, in his new home. And he would make it his home. Tomorrow, he’d find a job. Tomorrow, he’d find an apartment. Tonight, he was going to treat himself to dinner and a night in a real hotel.

When Allie Walker’s family had taken their trip to St. Louis to see the arch, they’d eaten at the Old Spaghetti Factory and toured the wax museum. So in honor of Allie, and as if to somehow amend for breaking her heart by leaving, he began his night where she would have wanted him to: with a dinner of spaghetti followed by a tour of kinda creepy people made of wax. He wasn’t old enough to get into any of the bars and didn’t want to spend his first night in the big city tangling with cops, so he mostly just ambled up and down the streets, soaking it all in.

As it got later, the party got wilder, and he became conspicuously aware of being on the outside looking in. He made his way back to his car so he could find a hotel. After a good night’s sleep, he’d start his job hunt first thing.

The further he got from the revelry, the darker the streets got. By the time he arrived at the lot where he’d left his car, his nerves were a jumble. It hadn’t seemed quite so dark or remote before. He got to the row where he expected to see his car only to find the space empty. He walked up a few rows then back down, but to no avail. He tried to fight the encroaching panic as he walked all the way up the lot and back down. Still no car.

He moved on to the next lot, thinking that maybe he’d just taken a wrong turn or remembered something wrong. He tried to play it cool when a group of frat brothers clamored past. He tried not to let on that he could taste the bile of fear in the back of his throat.

After an hour of searching, he had to admit what he’d known all along: His car was gone, along with all of his worldly possessions. He had nothing. He had nowhere to go and no way to get there. With that realization sitting like a rock in his stomach, Vance couldn’t hold it back any longer. He threw up right there in the parking lot.

Present Day

VANCE PARKED
in the exact parking spot he’d chosen on his first visit to St. Louis, as if to defy fate. He stepped out of his truck and looked around, the harsh light of day and experience giving him a very different view of the town he’d once been so in awe of. He surveyed the crumbling parking lot, his mind’s eye seeing things as they were that fateful night so long ago. When he’d made his big plans back then, he hadn’t taken into account the fact that at 18 with no credit card he wouldn’t be able to find a decent room to rent. It might not have been so bad if his car hadn’t been stolen. He still missed that car.

Vance couldn’t help smiling a little at how naive he’d been at the time. He’d bemoan where those choices had taken him, the dark roads he’d traveled, but it seemed a waste of time. And some of those dark roads were getting ready to come in pretty handy.

With no car and no place to stay, and being entirely too stubborn to buy a bus ticket home, Vance had spent his first weeks in St. Louis on the streets. It hadn’t taken long to figure out which overpasses were a safe place to get in out of the rain, which abandoned buildings were good for a windbreak, and how to spot trouble coming—from either side of the law.

It was this knowledge that led him down the right alleys to find a friendly-looking group of homeless people who would be willing to chat over sandwiches and warm drinks. Vance knew that if he was going to get anywhere with this investigation, he had to get his fingers on the pulse of the city again. The surest way to do that was by getting to know those who knew the streets best, and the city’s invisible residents heard and saw what the rest of the world missed.

Vance found just the group he was looking for, coming to a stop right in the middle of them. He swung a backpack off his shoulders even as he greeted them with an easy smile. “I have sandwiches and thermoses of coffee if anyone’s interested.”

They cast a glance at each other. A woman with shoulder-length brown hair and deep brown eyes was the first to speak. Her sweatshirt looked like it would swallow her whole; her arms disappeared in the cloth even as she wrapped them about her waist protectively. “What’s your game, mister?”

“No game. Just brought you a bite to eat.”

“What do you want?” the lean, earnest looking man standing with the woman asked.

Another older man quickly added, “Do you want to preach at us?”

Vance smiled. He remembered the preachers. He never minded them much as long as they brought a meal with their words. “Nah. I used to live here. Figured while I was back in the area, I’d see if anybody needed a bite.”

“Cool.” Vance’s explanation was good enough for the younger man. Hunger shone brightly in his eyes as he accepted the food being offered.

Vance watched as the man savored that first bite, memories of his own hungry days bubbling to the surface. He turned to the woman, extending a sandwich as he introduced himself. “My name’s Vance.”

Her eyes locked with his, as if she was deciding whether or not she could trust him. “Susannah,” she conceded. “My man here is Emmett.”

“It’s nice to meet you both.” He graced them with a genuine smile.

The older gentleman moved towards Vance, his eyes lingering on the roast beef on a hoagie roll that Vance now held in his hand. “My name’s Otis.”

“It’s good to meet you, Otis.” Vance handed him the sandwich before pulling the coffees out of his bag, followed by brownies baked by Martha Barnett, the closest thing he had to a mother, that very morning.

Otis had wise eyes and a gentle nature about him. His hair and beard were gray, though the beard had a streak of white down the middle of it. He was easy to talk to, and Vance could picture him standing around a bonfire chatting at one of the Barnett’s parties. In fact, that seemed more likely than his current setting.

Emmett was long and lanky with quick hands and nervous eyes that flitted from person to person. His smile was easy, though, and something about him seemed eager to please now that he’d warmed up to Vance.

As had been the case for most of the conversation, Vance found himself chuckling at the combination of Emmett’s hyper antics balanced by Otis’s deadpan replies. His eyes sought out Susannah, who’d largely kept to herself, her luminous brown eyes studying his every nuance. “What about you, Susannah? What do you think about Emmett’s theory? Are the cops getting more violent?”

Her brow furrowed and she straightened a bit, pulling her shoulders back and jutting her chin forward. From the look on her face, Vance guessed she wasn’t thrilled with Emmett so freely offering his opinion to a stranger.