Chapter 5
“What room number?” Sloan asked, taking the master card key from my fingers.
“Five thirty-two,” I whispered without taking my eyes off the exit door.
“That’s only two doors away from where we’d planned to take our hostage,” one of the mock kidnappers said. “How in the hell did you know we were on that floor?”
Frowning, Sloan swiped the card key from my other hand. “From the one man who knows everything going on in my hotel, and I’m not talking about me. Go check it out.” Sloan gestured to the exit door.
His gang of merry men hurried away from us.
“You two come with us.” Sloan led me and the teen, along with a couple of his guys, into the same room where we’d met the game players and learned the game’s rules of engagement.
“What’s her name?” Sloan asked as he gestured for us to sit.
“How the hell should I know? I found her holding a knife in the room as if she was robbing the place. Before she could tell me what she was up to, someone else came in the room. I pulled her into the closet to hide.”
“What the hell did you walk into?” Sloan held up his hand. “Never mind. So let me get this straight. You pulled the knife-wielding kid into a closet to hide with you when a killer came in the room?”
“Hey! I’m not a kid.” Huh, the girl finally spoke.
I ignored her interruption. “Of course. I thought your kidnappers were coming in, and I didn’t want them to stop the game just because they were being robbed. I had a prize to win,” I said with a wink. “Besides, how in the hell were we supposed to know if he was the maniac who’d stuffed a dead woman on the closet shelf?”
“A dead body?” Sloan asked.
“Are you even listening to me? Where do you think this blood came from? We must have jostled the shelf, and the dead woman’s arm swung down.”
His gaze landed on my blood-stained arm. A resigned look registered on his face. “Is that the woman’s blood?”
I shrugged. I didn’t have any more answers for him. Everything had happened in a blur.
Sloan turned to one of the guards. “Get a bandage for her arm so whosever’s DNA this is won’t be contaminated.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
Sloan’s guy handed him a bandage, the paper already peeled back exposing the adhesive strips. Sloan covered the bloodied area so the blob would soak into the bandage.
“There.” He turned his gaze to the young blond. Tears were streaming down her face. His face was unreadable, like he’d flipped a switch from caring boyfriend into work mode. “What were you doing in that room?”
She raised her chin and swiped hard at her tears. “Looking for my mother, and I found her.”
“Wait, was that your mom…” My words trailed off.
“Yes,” she said as another tear fell.
Sloan’s brows dipped. “Have we met?”
“No, but you met my mother today, Georgina.”
Sloan’s lips parted and his chest rose sharply. “You’re Trinity, Georgina Morgan’s kid?”
She folded her arms over her chest as more tears streamed down her face.
“Georgina’s dead?” Anger filled the room. Sloan’s mask slipped. His face hardened as he shoved out of his chair. Grabbing his weapon, he checked the clip before shoving it back inside and heading to the door. He pointed at two of his guards. “Protect them both and don’t let them leave.”
Trinity’s despair hung in the room like a fifty-pound blanket of fog.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said. She clutched her backpack, positioning it on the table in front of her and rested her chin a top the black leather bag. She clung to it as if it were her lifeline.
“She’d told me she was coming here. We didn’t always get along, but we were all we had, so we were honest with each other. Always honest.”
“Did she tell why you why she was coming here?”
Trinity swallowed hard. “This is all my fault.”
“How?” I asked.
“She didn’t know who my father was, and I pushed her and pushed her. She always said I didn’t know when to stop. She was right. I pushed until she gave in. She told me it could be one of three different guys. She was getting DNA from each to test against mine for a definitive answer.”
“She thinks one of the men staying in the hotel could potentially be your father?”
“She’s already gotten two and was trying to get the third. The candidates are Harvey Camp, an accountant at Clarksberry International; Benjamin Richardson, an undercover cop she used to be an informant for; and Jack Sloan, whom you seem to know.”
“Jack…” His name was a whisper from my lips. No way would Jack turn his back on a kid had he known about her. “How did you know to look for your mother in that room?”
“She sent me a text telling me she met a guy in the bar and she gave me his room number. Said she’d be back at our hotel within the hour. It’s nothing as fancy as this one, but it had a bed, and it was a pay-by-the-week deal. Our week is almost up. Six hours later, she hadn’t shown up. She wasn’t answering her phone, so I came by to get her. I thought maybe she got drunk again and passed out.”
“Had she done that before?” I asked.
“Sure, plenty of times,” Trinity answered as more tears escaped down her face. “I knocked on the door, and no one answered. I thought she might be passed out inside, so I picked the lock. That was only two minutes before you showed up. When I saw you, I thought I had the wrong room, like maybe she’d goofed up the text and before I could even ask if this was your room, you hauled me into the closet and that guy came in.”
I pulled out my phone and fired off a text to Sam, getting him to turn back on the surveillance cameras and to start making copies of all of the feeds from early today.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I debating on telling Grant. Last thing he needed right now was to be concerned about me. Still, I needed some of the liquid vials used to calm my killer tendencies should the killer’s blood have touched my skin, not just the victim’s. There was no way to get it out, no way to disconnect if it was the killers. No way until one of us was dead.
I opened the text to Sam again. Can you do me a favor?
Another one? he teased with a smiley face.
Without telling Noah, can you acquire some of the calming vials you guys use on me? I think I might need them.
Noah’s an FBI Agent. He’s been tracking killers long before he brought you in. He’s going to know if some vials go missing.
Before I could respond, the dancing dots told me he was typing again. It took an entire minute before I got his one sentence answer. You’ll have them in the next two hours.
I breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how much craziness ensued, in a few hours, I’d be confident enough that I wouldn’t end up killing anyone.
Ten minutes turned into a half an hour before Sloan showed up with his men following. “Are you sure you told us the right room number?”
Trinity and I exchanged a look as we both slowly rose from our spots. “Of course.”
“There was no dead body in the closet,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets.
“I’m not crazy, Sloan. I know what I saw.” I turned my arm. “How do you explain this?”
He rested his palm on my arm. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. It was evident you thought someone was chasing you, but there wasn’t a body in the closet we checked. No one was even registered in that room.”
I grabbed the card key out of his hand, and shoved passed him with Trinity following me. We took the elevator up to the floor where Sloan’s men were stationed outside the room.
Jostling through the crowd, we burst into the empty room.
“The luggage was right there,” I said and then pointed to the bed. “A blood-stained rope was on the bed.”
I pivoted to the now closed desk drawers. “The desk drawers were left open.”
&nbs
p; The closet was empty. Even the one shoe I’d dropped when grabbing Trinity’s hand was gone.
“What did you do with her?” Trinity growled.
“Nothing. It was like this when we got here,” Sloan said.
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Sloan’s guys had found the room like this, but there hadn’t been much time to move the body since the killer had shot at us. I moved closer to the bed and leaned down to where the rope had been. I pointed to the speck of blood. “Get that tested.”
I crossed the room and shoved the master key into the door lock of the adjoining room. Sloan stopped me. “That’s someone’s room.”
“I don’t care. That’s the way we escaped, and he followed us.” The glowing red diode flashed green and I yanked the door open. A man was lying on the ground with a bullet wound in his head. The woman from the closet was lying half wrapped in a sheet on the bed.
I stepped back and made a sweeping motion with my arm. “Looks like your crime scene grew legs.”
Sloan’s sharp inhale was audible in the otherwise quiet room as he slid his phone out of his pocket. “Get the sheriff on the phone.”
I patted his arm and wrapped my arm around Trinity’s shoulder. “Make sure they get the slugs out of the stairwell too. I’m taking Trinity to my house. We’ll be there if anyone needs our statements.”
Trinity rolled my arm off her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
The last thing I needed to deal with was a temperamental teenager, but I understood what she was going through to some extent. Losing a parent was hard, and after hearing her story, I knew she didn’t have any other relatives to fall back on. At least not yet.
This poor girl reminded me of well…me. No way was I sending her to some obscure hotel, when her mom had just been killed. For all we knew, Trinity could be next. “Listen, I’m your alibi and you’re mine. So, until they get our statements, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. I’m the only one that can confirm that you weren’t covered in blood when I found you.”
“I don’t even know you.”
“Neither does anyone else in my life, so you’ll fit right in.”
Chapter 6
The search for my soon-to-be-ex would have to wait. More important matters had crept into my path, stopping me from obtaining what I needed.
I unlocked the front door and shoved it open to find a gun pointed in my face. Instinctively I took a step in front of Trinity, blocking her body with mine.
Grant sighed and lowered the weapon. “You could have warned me you were coming back and not staying with Sloan.”
My scattered and frayed thoughts were going to get me killed. Had I been paying more attention; I would have felt the emotions of determination and protection coming from the other side.
“Well hello to you too,” I said and bypassed him. “Trinity, this is my brother-in-law, Grant.” I stopped in the living room.
Where Gigi sat on the couch, a fleece throw blanket shrouding her lap drinking a glass of water. An ugly, black wheelchair was parked behind and to her left, just out of her line of sight.
I spun toward Grant even while pointing at my sister. “What the hell is she doing out of the hospital?”
Trinity stepped into the room. “You’re a twin?”
“She checked herself out, Lucy. I couldn’t stop her, and she wouldn’t come back to our house, so I brought her here.”
“I hope you don’t mind, Lucy,” my sister said, taking a sip of her wine. “I remembered your house. I don’t remember mine.”
“Why wouldn’t she remember where she lives?” Trinity asked as she moved into the living room.
The throb in my head was getting stronger. The rush of the blood in my veins made my head hurt worse. I never excelled at peopling or entertaining or, hell, even being nice for more than a few minutes. Never had a need. And now my house was full…of people.
“My sister was in a coma until today. She woke up not remembering seven years of her life, including my brother-in-law.”
Trinity’s eyebrows shot up.
“And just to catch everyone up to speed, Trinity and I were chased by a alleged killer that murdered Trinity’s mother at the hotel. We barely escaped.”
Grant paused in putting the gun away. His knuckles whitened on the grip. “A killer?”
I twisted my arm, displaying the bandage. “I may have also got some blood on my arm.”
Grant took my arm and twisted it to get a better look. “Victim or killer?”
“Why does it matter?” Gigi asked from across the room. “Lucy just needs to go to the hospital to make sure she didn’t pick up any diseases.”
Grant and I shared a knowing look before he walked off and returned with a baggie and a wash rag. He eased the bandage off my arm and slid it into the baggie before handing me the wash rag and disinfectant. That bandage was evidence. It might help us catch whoever had done this. With Gigi not remembering the last seven years, she had no idea what I was capable of. No idea what might happen next.
“You two should both sit down,” I said, walking into the kitchen. I grabbed a wine bottle from the fridge and a soda for the teen, even though she deserved something stronger. I’d probably broken enough laws for today.
I took a long hard swig of the wine and then shared my secret with them both. A government experiment, tracking killers, reading emotions, and the killer tendencies I’d get from tuning in. It was who I was; it was what I did.
Trinity was the first to speak. “So, you can find the guy who killed my mom?” she asked, her voice ripe with hope.
“I’m not sure whose blood I had on my skin. Your mother’s arm touched me. If it was her blood, I might just be able to tap into how her crime occurred. If it was his blood, then yeah, it would take some time, but I could probably find him.”
“But you’re not going to, right?” Gigi asked. “You could get hurt.”
“A lot has happened since you fell into a coma, Gigi,” I said as a way of answering.
She could read between the lines. We had that in common. She’d opened her mouth to say something when my doorbell rang.
Perfect. I sighed.
Grant jumped from his spot with his gun clutched in his hand. After checking the peephole, he lowered his weapon and stepped out of the way.
Sam stood on my threshold. His spiky hair was pink today and matched his shirt that read, Talk Nerdy to Me.
“Hi, Grant,” Sam said, pushing his way in. He stopped in the living room. “Gigi’s awake? Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
“Who is he, and how does he know my name?” Gigi yanked the bright scarlet blanket up to her neck.
Sam crossed the room and held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Sam. Your sister and I work together. We’re like best friends.”
Best friends? I raised a brow. “Did you bring the stuff?”
“Yeah,” he said and stepped back outside again. He pulled two suitcases behind him.
“What’s all that?”
“My set-up and your drugs. I thought it would be easier if I worked from here unless, of course, you want to go to the windmill and explain all of this to Noah and Hunt.”
That was the last thing I wanted. FBI Agent Noah Roth was like a thorn in my side. He ran the supernatural serial killer hunting program that I played in. And Hunt, he was an enigma. He was the actual big dog in charge of our group and only stepped out of the woodwork when we were in deep shit. Neither one liked me very much, though I hadn’t given them a reason. At the rate the overnight guests were multiplying, I was going to be sleeping my car, even if I couldn’t legally drive it.
“What’s the windmill?” Gigi asked.
I loved my sister, truly I did, but I had a major headache forming.
“It’s where our group headquarters is located. The windmill was my first excursion after leaving the psych ward.”
“Psych ward?” Gigi exclaimed.
“You know what…I’ll explain later,” I said, rubbing my tem
ples. The thought of knocking my sister over the head to see if she would regain her memories was starting to appeal more and more.
“I’ll get Sam settled,” Grant offered. “If anyone else shows up, they’ll be sleeping on the couch.”
My house wasn’t as big as the one I grew up in. When my parents died, they’d left us a ton of money, but Gigi hadn’t spent much, if any, of hers, and I hadn’t either until recently. I didn’t need a huge house. Four bedrooms had been my requirement. I wanted plenty of roaming space and rooms for nieces or nephews to sleep when they wanted to spend the night with me. I was going to be a good aunt. Scratch that. I was going to be the great crazy aunt they could use to taunt their bullies with.
I grabbed some fresh towels for Trinity’s bathroom and stocked them while she dropped her backpack on the bed.
“Do you always carry around a backpack full of clothes?”
“This isn’t clothes. This is just some of my stuff,” she said, moving it to the floor.
“I’ve got some sleep clothes you can borrow. They have drawstrings to make them fit,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll go to the hotel and get your other things.”
Trinity remained silent, watching me. “What are they going to do with me? I don’t think I have any other relatives.”
Sadness clenched my heart. “I don’t know yet, but we’ll take it one day at a time. You can stay here as long as you like if the authorities agree.”
“I won’t go into foster care.” Her words were sharp even in the quiet space.
“We’ll deal with the punches when they come.”
Trinity’s stomach growled.
“When was the last time you ate?”
She shrugged.
“I’m not sure what I have in the kitchen, but I can make you a sandwich.”
“Do you have pumpernickel bread?” she asked, hopeful.
Hunting Justice (Fractured Minds Series Book 3) Page 3
