The Departed (11 page)

Taylor reached into his pocket with one hand, nudging Dez into the room with the other. Flashing the FBI credentials always distracted people. Whether he was here officially or not, he could run interference for five minutes. His gut told him that Dez could help the girl. As one of the cops moved as if to stop Dez, Blake subtly stepped in next to him. Taylor caught his gaze and smiled.

* * *

EVEN before the girl turned her head, even before their gazes locked, the scream of pain hit Dez’s shields. It was a discordant, cacophonous wave, one that made her gut ache, her head pound, and her heart bleed.

But she didn’t let it show. She showed nothing but a reassuring smile, knowing anything else would only make it worse. Although, hell, how much
worse
could it get? The pain…it shrieked and screamed, worse than any demon from hell, it seemed.

As the girl sensed her presence, she jolted, a half sob catching in her throat. She cowered in the bed, as though she expected Dez to jump her and drag her back to that watery hellhole and finish the job. She trembled so hard, the bed started to rattle.

Dez stopped in her tracks. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m not going to hurt you.” She held out her hands, showed they were empty, even though that didn’t mean much. The boys who’d hurt her, Dez didn’t think they’d used weapons either—just their hands and their words and their minds. So evil. So vile. So wrong. “You’re safe here, sweetheart. Nobody can get to you in here. Nobody will hurt you now.”

Big, pale eyes locked on Dez’s face and the crack in Dez’s heart widened even more. Fuck. This…this was killing her.

And Taylor said she’d
saved
this kid. Had she saved her or just helped break her even more?

“You want me to leave?” she asked softly. She glanced over her shoulder at the door. She knew Taylor thought she could help, but she didn’t think there was a damn thing she could do that would ease this girl’s pain. How could she do anything that would help? How could anybody? “I can go. You don’t need to talk to anybody if you don’t want to, you know. You can wait until you’re ready.”

There wasn’t an answer. The girl, maybe sixteen, just stared at her through her long hair. Her face, soft and a little too round for modern society’s strict standards, was pale. She had a round body as well, with the generous curves a girl like her would probably hate. Staring into those pale eyes, seeing the scratches, the scrapes, and the bruises, knowing what those boys had been willing to do, what they’d
wanted
to do, Dez had to fight the urge to scream.

“I’ll go,” she said, her voice husky. She was going to cry if she didn’t get out of there. Cry and beg the girl to forgive her. But how could she?

She was almost to the door when the girl spoke. “You…were there.”

Dez paused and looked back. “Where?”

“At…there.” She looked away, her gaze bouncing around the room like she couldn’t stand to look at anybody or anything. “Where they found me. Where you found me.” She swallowed and then looked at Dez again. “It was you. You found me. Didn’t you?”

Dez nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

The girl started to sob.

Unsure if it was welcome, uncertain if she should just leave and call for one of the nurses, Dez made her way to the bedside. She reached out and laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder. But the moment she touched her, the girl reached for her and then, just like that, she was wrapped in a desperate, clinging embrace. “Oh, God…I was scared…”

“Shhh.” Dez stroked a hand down pale, soft blonde hair, staring out the darkened windows into the night. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re safe, I swear.”

T HERE are strange things happening around here—a terrible thing happened yesterday. I can’t even discuss it with you,
it’s
so awful. Perhaps it’s best that you aren’t here, my angel.

The pen paused, trembling over the paper. A heavy sigh filled the air as the days were counted out. Not that it was necessary. Only a few remained. The flowers were on order, the dress had arrived. Everything was set. And the world was in chaos.

It’s not good for a young lady to see this sort of thing. Not good at all. I hope it all settles down soon. I want peace for our day together.

My pretty, perfect angel.

My only.

* * *

“DO you know her?”

“I dunno.” Brendan shrugged and gave the detective what he figured was a tired but polite smile. He wanted to look frustrated and aggravated, without looking too pissed off—he was his dad’s son, after all, and they were politicians to the bone.

“You can’t give me any more details than that?” Detective George Stahley stared at him, his brown eyes resting on Brendan’s face in a way that left Brendan wanting to fidget. He had a serious face, serious eyes, and he didn’t seem too inclined to hurry up, either. Brendan wanted
out
of there. “You work there—hang out there. You and your boys are all over that place. But you’ve never seen that girl?”

As he spoke, he nudged the picture forward.

Brendan glanced at it and then back at the detective. “No. At least I don’t think so. But you have no idea how many people come in and out of that place, man…um…Officer, or do I call you Detective?” He wrinkled his brow and shot a look at his dad—
I’m nervous, I’m tired…Dad, help me out
…

His father laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Brendan looked back at the detective as his dad said softly, “Detective Stahley, it’s a hotel. A popular one, with a lot of people. Surely you can’t expect Brendan to remember every girl that’s passed through there.”

Stahley gave his father a polite smile and then looked back at Brendan, tapping the picture with his finger. “Look again.” Then he reached inside the folder before him and pulled out a different picture, laid it alongside the shitty one he’d been pushing at Brendan for the past twenty minutes. “Here’s a different one. We’ve got her name now, have a better picture.”

This
one Brendan recognized.

It hit low in the gut, almost like he’d been punched. He bit the inside of his lip hard to keep from saying anything, to keep from showing any reaction.

Shit
.

She was looking down, like she’d been too nervous to look at the camera. She’d been like that when he met her, too. The one and only time they’d met in person. He liked the picture of her. It was why he’d chosen her. Something about that picture made her tits look huge and he’d had a whole lot of fun squeezing those big tits when they’d been getting things arranged. She’d stared at him over the gag, her eyes big and terrified, her skin pale. They had worn masks, all of them, except for when he’d grabbed her. Then he’d worn a hat, glasses. Could she identify him? Fuck. What if she could…His heart started to slam against his ribs as he realized just how fucked up things were. If she could identify him, it wouldn’t matter if the guys didn’t decide to talk. Why wouldn’t
she
? The fucking bitch.

“Well?”

Brendan glanced up and shook his head, swallowed around the knot in his throat and gave him a game smile. He needed to relax. He had barely recognized himself when he looked in the mirror right before he picked her up. She couldn’t place him. There was no way. “No. I don’t think I know her, Detective.”

* * *

BEHIND the one-way glass, Taylor stood next to Blake Hensley and watched as the boy lied.

Oh, he wasn’t bad at it. He might be fooling his dad.

But Taylor wasn’t fooled.

“He’s lying,” Blake said, his voice grim and sad.

Arching a brow, Taylor glanced over at him. “What makes you think that?”

“Shit, FBI man. I got eyes, the same as you. I see the same things you do.” He reached into his pocket and tugged out a mangled pack of gum. “That boy is lying or I’m missing my left nut.”

Then he flashed Taylor a wide grin. “And I’m pretty sure it’s still there—was this morning. At least I think it was this morning.” He sighed and checked his watch, then rubbed a hand back over his head. “Yeah. This morning. This has been one hell of a day. We don’t get shit around here like this, you know.”

“Well, it’s good you don’t see many things like this.” He focused on the boy again, watching the way his eyes would occasionally dart to the one-way glass, the way he had his arms folded over his chest—it should have looked casual…probably even passed for casual to the untrained eye. But he kept digging his fingers into his arms, every now and then, like he was fighting the urge to fidget.

And his eyes were just a little too wide—the pupils dilated.

He was still scared.

But more than the fear, he was
pissed
. It was an ugly anger, too. The kind of anger that Taylor had seen turn deadly in the blink of an eye. He hoped that detective in there had good eyes, because this boy, he was a time bomb.

Oh, he hid it. Hid it very well under a smooth layer of manners—his father had raised him well, but Taylor wouldn’t have expected any less of the Moore family. They’d been the sort of family his mother had loved—a nice, well-established family…they’d been in the area for years; they had money. They had history.

And about ten years back, Joshua Moore had run for mayor and won. Taylor remembered him—the guy had been a schmuck in school and was probably still a schmuck now, but he was a smart one. He was raising another smart schmuck, it seemed.

Studying Brendan, he asked softly, “You know who he hangs out with?”

“Yeah. There’s about five other guys.” He sighed. “There used to be six, but one of them…the best of the bunch, actually, died about two months ago.”

The hair on the back of Taylor’s neck stood up. “Really? What happened?”

“Killed himself.” Blake shook his head. “Got to tell you, doesn’t make sense—Tristan was a good kid. Level, you know? And I can’t see him, of all kids, being involved in something like this.”

Tristan
.

A piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

The boy’s ghost had found Dez somehow—led her here. Yeah, that was it. Taylor knew it as well as he knew his own name.

Something else he knew…Dez was holding back on him. In a major way.

“The other kids—you going to talk to all of them, too?”

Blake started to answer, but out in the hallway, there was a commotion. Loud. Very loud. “Damn it, I got a right to be in there with my grandson!”

Taylor’s brows arched.

Blake swore and turned around, heading out of the room. Curious, Taylor fell into step behind him. The man out in the hallway looked vaguely familiar, although it took a few minutes to place him.

Beard, he thought. Leon Beard. The only reason he even remembered was because he could vaguely recall the man’s daughter had married Moore, the mayor. Grandson—

Shit. Taylor rubbed the back of his neck and watched as Blake went to deal with the older man. “Now, come on, Leon. You know that’s not exactly true. You don’t have a right to be in there with him and it’s not like he’s in trouble. We just need to piece things together so we can help that girl…”

He was good, Taylor decided, keeping his voice low and easy, not getting pushy or anything.

Leon still wasn’t pleased. “You trying to say my grandson had something to do with it?” the old man blustered.

“Not at all. I’m just saying he works at the hotel where she was hurt. Maybe he saw something that could help her. He’s a good kid, right? If he could help her, he’d want to.” Blake rested a hand on Leon’s shoulder and gently guided him away from the room. “Why don’t we go get you some coffee?”

As they disappeared, Taylor slipped back into the observation room, this time closing the door tightly behind him. He took up his former position at the window, staring at Brendan Moore, brooding.

Brooding…and wondering.

* * *

GETTING Leon Beard out of the station was about as easy as pulling a tick off, Blake thought once he finally got the asshole out the door. He wasn’t overly surprised to see the old man show up, although he knew for a fact the mayor wouldn’t have been happy.

There was no love lost between the mayor and his father-in-law. It had gotten public a time or two—thanks to Leon. Moore had handled it well enough and he did what he could to keep things civil, even though his wife—the kid, too—didn’t seem to want to have much to do with the old man.

Nobody knew why, and Blake didn’t much care as long as Beard stayed out of his way and didn’t cause any problems. Today he’d almost caused problems. And damn it, Blake had wanted to watch the interviews—all of them. Muttering under his breath, he headed back down the long hallway, figuring he’d ask Jones to catch him up. Maybe they could grab a bite to eat.

Blake wouldn’t mind needling the man about the FBI and shit. Had to be more exciting than working here in French Lick. It might be home, but it got damn boring sometimes.

But he came back to a mostly empty room. Two other cops were in there.

Jones, though, was gone.

* * *

DREAMS, so dark and ugly, haunted her sleep. Twisting on the bed, still clothed, Dez groaned as the images assaulted her. The girl, her name was Ivy, and she was crying…crying, even though her lifeless body was stretched out on a slab, cold and naked and dead.

Her eyes, empty and accusatory, stared at Dez. “You were supposed to save me,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you?”

“I tried.” Dez wrapped her arms around her middle and shook her head. “I tried.” Then she stopped, closed her eyes. “I
did
. You’re alive. This is just a dream…”

When she opened her eyes and looked back, Ivy was gone. But there was another girl. Younger, so much younger—six? Perhaps seven? She had soft, buttery yellow hair, straight and wispy thin, framing a cute, elfin face. Her skin was bluish white in death and she looked at Dez sadly.

“You can’t save me, either. I’ve been dead too long.”

“I don’t save the dead,” Dez said, shaking her head. “I just try to help you move on. I can’t save
anybody…”

And the few times I’ve tried, I’ve failed…

The little girl continued to stare at her solemnly.
“Can’t you? What about him?”

Dez blinked. “Who, Tristan? Sweetie, he’s already gone. He’s passed on. I can’t do anything more for him but keep my promise.”

The little girl stared at her. Then she sighed and faded away.

Dez reached out a hand. “Wait!”

She took a step forward and in that way of dreams, everything shifted, faded.

Changed.

And she was in the cemetery, the one where she’d found Tristan. Standing at his grave. But when she reached out to touch the stone, the dream shifted. Changed. And she was in a field. It was empty, or so it seemed. When she looked down, she saw…a hole? What was that?

She knelt to look, but found herself falling. Hurtling hard and fast. And then she hit. The breath was gone from her body and it was awful, because she wanted, so badly, to scream.
Needed
to scream, because what she was looking at…

A broken doll.

She resembled nothing so much as a broken doll.

Except this doll had once been a living, breathing child…and as Dez stared at her, the girl’s eyes opened and life flooded them. She stared at Dez and whispered,
“Find me…”

As the girl’s presence wrapped around Dez, as Dez recognized the presence of one of the departed, some of the terror faded, replaced by rage and misery. Swallowing the scream, she opened her mouth, wondered if she could speak. But this was just a dream and she could do whatever she chose. Swallowing the tears, she said softly, “Tell me what you need me to do.”

The girl’s eyes closed and tears of blood rolled down her cheeks.

“Find me,”
she whispered plaintively. Then she reached out a hand, thin and frail and streaked with blood.
“Just find me…I don’t want to stay lost.”

Dez reached out. As her fingers brushed the girl’s, the girl’s body began to crumble, first to skeleton, then to dust.

Then the dream shattered…fell away.

With a gasp lodged in her throat, Dez jerked awake in the bed. Staring straight ahead, she pressed her fisted hand to her racing heart. “Shit,” she wheezed. “Shit, shit,
shit
.”

She wanted to tell herself it was just a dream, one brought on by the day from hell. Who wouldn’t have a nightmare?…Who wouldn’t have a bad dream? And if it had only been about Ivy, she could have even accepted that.

There was more to it, though.

A lot more. It just had that feel to it. “Damn it,” she whispered as she huddled under the blankets. “
Damn
it.”

She wouldn’t be leaving French Lick anytime soon, she didn’t think.

* * *

“SOMEBODY fucking talked,” Beau growled.

Brendan glanced at him from the corner of his eye and muttered, “Shut the fuck up. We don’t talk about this here.”

Not here.

Beau grumbled but went quiet as they jogged down the steps and headed toward Beau’s ’73 Mustang. Once they were inside, though, Beau’s silence shattered and he snarled, “Who in the hell fucking talked?”

Sitting in the back, Mark and Kyle both said the same crap—it wasn’t them. They didn’t know. Fucking assholes. Somebody had talked, he knew it. He’d figure it out. Brendan leaned back against the leather, his eyes staring out the window. Inside the car, he felt a little less exposed, so he knew he could probably relax a little. But he wasn’t going to—as of now, he trusted nobody but himself. Not Mark, not Kyle. Not even Beau, and normally he’d trust Beau with just about everything. “What did you tell the cops?” he asked.

“Jack shit. Told them I didn’t know the girl, had no fucking clue what was going on.” Beau started the Mustang and pulled away from Brendan’s house. For a few minutes, silence fell. “What do we do, Brendan? We got to figure it out and figure out what we’re going to do.”

Brendan knew that, hadn’t slept worth a shit the past night, trying to play things out in his head already. He even had a plan sketched out. But it would take a few days to get it in motion. A few days, some time.

“Right now, we just shut the fuck up and wait. Nobody talks, you got that?” He shot Kyle and Mark a quick look and then shifted his attention back to the front, staring out the windshield. “See if we can figure out how that bitch figured things out.”

“Yeah.” Beau frowned. “Where in the hell did she come from, anyway? She’s not from around here.”

Brendan shook his head. He didn’t know. But she wasn’t the one who had him all that concerned. He was more worried about the blond guy—the one with the cold blue eyes. He’d gotten a name on that one. His name was Jones. As in Taylor Jones—owned the big manor just outside town. Not to mention half the fucking property in the area.

Brendan knew enough about the Jones family to be worried once he’d heard that name. He wasn’t worried because the family was loaded—his own family wasn’t hurting for money. Wasn’t worried because of the freaky shit that had happened to the family years back.

No, what had him worried was the rumors that had floated around about the sole surviving Jones. Taylor Jones—he’d joined the FBI out of college, Brendan remembered hearing. The FBI…did a lot of shit with missing children. Runaways, kidnapped kids. That sort of shit.

And now he was here.

The bitch didn’t worry him. But Taylor Jones…shit.

“Kyle. You light up in here and I’m kicking your ass.” Beau glared at Kyle in the mirror as the other boy rolled a joint between his fingers. “I don’t want that shit stinking up my Mustang. That smell won’t ever come out and my folks will kill me if they smell it.”

“Oh, kiss my ass,” Kyle snapped. “Like they’d ever notice. They’re too busy fucking everybody else in town to notice anything.”

A dark, ugly look entered Beau’s eyes and his hands tightened on the wheel. “If you don’t want me to pound you into the fucking ground, you’ll just shut up, Kyle.”

Kyle opened his mouth, but apparently something he saw in Beau’s face made him take those words seriously. Slumping in his seat, he mumbled, “Whatever.”

“Fuck you.” Then Beau shot Brendan another look, his anger at Kyle bleeding back into nerves. His pupils were so huge, they all but swallowed his irises. “Nothing to worry about. You’re sure?”

“Shit, you need to relax,” Kyle said from the backseat. He closed his eyes and tucked away his joint. “We’ve got to play it cool, remember? And would you quit being such a damn pussy? You got any idea what water will do to evidence? Any evidence there
might
have been? It’s gone now.”

Mark was quiet, staring out the window.

Casually, Brendan flipped the visor down, checked his hair, then shot Mark a look, noticed the sweat beading on the other guy’s brow, the signs of a sleepless night. Yeah, it was entirely possible Mark was just stressed, the way all of them were. But he wasn’t so sure.

Out of all of them, Mark was the one he could see breaking the easiest. “What do you think, Mark? Any way they can link this back to us? Video shit, evidence? Anything?”

Mark glanced at him in the visor’s mirror and then looked away. “I dunno. There’s no way I could recover anything and I got better equipment than anybody around here for miles, including the cops.” He shrugged. “But I’m not the forensics freak—that’s Kyle.”

“Yeah.” Narrowing his eyes, he said, “You say you can’t recover anything. What about the feds? Like FBI or CIA shit?”

Kyle sniggered. “This isn’t CIA territory, Brendan. FBI, maybe—
kidnapping and shit. But CIA? Not unless you been spying and shit on top of kidnapping girls and groping their tits.”

Brendan looked back over his shoulder. Softly, he said, “I wasn’t the only one who took her, man. Remember that.”

“You were the only one getting his rocks off groping her.” Kyle stared at him, smirking. “Hey, she’s got nice tits, what do I care?” He went back to staring out the window.

Brendan decided he’d ignore the fucker for now. Ignore him, because Mark was a bigger problem. Looking into the mirror, he studied the pale, sweating prick.

Mark stared right back.