Devils Among Us (Devin Dushane Series Book 1)

by Chastity Harris

  Where did she need to go? Where was she being called?

  Suddenly she knew where to go. She turned back to the hall side table and pulled her pistol from the drawer, checked the chamber, and the slid the holster onto her waistband at the small of her back. Then she was out the door. Within minutes she was listening to the engine of her mustang purr as she headed east out of town towards the Summit.

  At its prime the Summit had been a popular teen hang out that would have drawn a huge crowd on an evening like this, but Devin found it deserted at seven-thirty in the evening. This was how she liked to look at a crime scene, when it was quiet she could absorb the surroundings, hear the whisperings of what it had to tell her.

  With that in mind Devin started into the woods where Laney’s body had been found. This particular patch of forest was darker than the rest and lay silent as if in solemn memorial to the life lost here. It was as if this patch of ground was a blank void that blemished the vibrant park like surrounding of the lake.

  After finding nothing unusual about the crime scene other than its proximity to the pavilion, Devin kept to the tree line working her way down to the lake. Her plan was to walk out on the dock overlooking the water, but when she reached the sandy beach, she was compelled to stop where she was and turn around.

  She felt it. The knowing sensation swept down her spine like a finger of ice. Looking up the gradual incline of the lawn, she had a clear view of the pavilion, parking area and the woods that curled around them where Laney’s body had been found. Something about this view was screaming at Devin, but what was it? What was she supposed to see?

  Had Laney come down to the lake and then been forced into the woods? That would literally have been an uphill battle, and that kind of struggle would have drawn attention. More than likely she was pulled from the pavilion into the dense woods that were just a few yards away. But did she go willingly with a friend, or was she grabbed when no one was looking? Had the killer watched Laney from this spot, planning his attack? Too many questions and no answers.

  Frustrated with what she wasn’t seeing, Devin made her way down the dock. The evening light reflected off the lake like liquid candlelight. The pressing heat of the day had finally faded into caressing warmth. She flopped down on the end of the dock and dangled one foot above the water. Wishing she could be content to enjoy the beautiful landscape and the cooling mountain breeze rolling across the lake, but relaxing that much meant letting your guard down and leaving your mind open. There were some memories she didn’t want to turn loose. But even now, a pair of wide, frightened dark eyes was burning into her consciousness, the same eyes that had tortured her in her nightmares for years. Devin quickly snapped her eyes shut and shook her head. Now was not the time, it was never the time. When she opened her eyes again, her gaze found the tattoo on her wrist. Her whisper barely broke the silence of the lake. “Redemption.”

  She wondered if she could ever save enough lives to redeem her from the one.

  She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, but was surprised when she shivered in a particularly cool gust and finally looked up at the sky. It was getting close to sunset, and she hadn’t even been in the pavilion yet. Devin sighed as she pushed herself up. Less moping and more working, that’s what she needed. She had taken exactly one step back up the dock when she froze. Adrenaline pounded through her veins as she scanned the tree line and eased her hand behind her back to grasp the pistol handle. Call it being psychic or just the gut of a cop, but she knew she was not alone. She hesitated to pull her weapon; it could be hikers, stargazers or just teenagers looking for a spot to get drunk, in which case she would hate to look like a crazy person brandishing a firearm. Devin stayed frozen for thirty seconds, then sixty. There was nothing, no sound, no movement. Gradually her adrenaline faded, and she knew she was once again alone. Someone just passing through? Or someone that had been caught watching?

  Devin first circled the pavilion from the outside and then made her way into its musty shadows. Studying, absorbing, imagining until she could hear the bouncing rock and roll tune blaring from the juke box, smell the cheep cigarette smoke hanging in the air and see Laney full of enthusiasm and smiles with a crowd gathered around her. What she couldn’t see was vivacious Laney walking away from the fun of the party into dark and menacing woods. And no one could have grabbed her out of the crowd. She had walked away with someone she knew. Devin also couldn’t see how someone didn’t notice Laney was missing earlier in the evening. She was someone you noticed or noticed the absence of. Someone—or several someones—were not telling the truth about that night.

  Chapter 12

  Friday morning Devin was pacing long before the sunrise. At 5:00am she gave up the confines of the house and hit the street in her running gear. Thanks to six solid weeks of running along the James River, she could run for miles. She settled for six miles around the scenic little town. Much farther than that, and she would have to start heading out of town into the cornfields.

  She showered and dressed carefully because she wanted to make an impact. With any luck Dean hadn’t been back in town long enough for anyone to tell him about her. She was hoping for the element of surprise. Her father kept a padlock on the door to Laney’s room, and Devin toyed with the idea of busting the lock off so she could wear something of Laney’s. She didn’t entertain the idea long—not only did Devin have a much more athletic build then Laney, but wearing the clothes of the dead girl that looked just like you seemed a bit macabre.

  She decided instead on a white tank top and cut off jean shorts that would have qualified her for a Nair short shorts commercial. Her biggest challenge was shoes. She had been living in flip flops and running shoes. She rummaged into the depths of her suitcase and found a pair of strappy straw-wedged espadrilles she’d brought in case she wore a sundress anywhere. Devin stood in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom with her hands on her hips to assess her look. Usually in this summer heat, she went with very little make-up and let her hair air dry, but today she needed to work the look so she took the time to blow her hair out and add a little extra emphasis to her eye make-up. The hard acidic stare she had patented could usually stop someone in their tracks. Who knew your eyes could be a whole different kind of weapon.

  Devin had timed her arrival perfectly, 8:15a.m. The garage was open, and all the employees were there but they weren’t busy yet. Without fail, mechanics are car guys. No matter if they drive rusted Chevy Novas or jacked up pick-ups, they’d rather be driving snarling Detroit muscle instead. So the growl of the Mach 1 had their attention before Devin even pulled into the parking lot. She took her time getting out of the car and unfolded her tall frame ever so slowly. The first cat call went out before her feet touched the ground. Devin had to grit teeth, normally she’d put a punk on the ground for something like that. Sauntering across the parking lot like she had all day to do it, and right into the garage bay as if she owned the place. It wasn’t hard to pick out Dean. He still had the greased-backed pompadour from the sixties; it was just streaked with gray now. He also looked a little green right about now. When Devin got about a foot from him she stopped to stare up at him with wide brown eyes.

  “Dean Delluca?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t look as if he could answer.

  “I’d wager you know who I am…or at least, who I’m related to.” She paused, but he only continued to stare. “I’m Bobby’s daughter, Devin,” she leaned a little closer to whisper. “And I think we should take this somewhere more private.”

  He finally nodded in agreement. “Boss! I gotta take care of something I’ll be back in a while.” He then took Devin’s elbow and directed her quickly and none too gently to the back door of the garage. There under some pine trees was a dilapidated picnic table that had seen better days. He shoved Devin in the general direction of the table and then reached into his pocket for his cigarettes and lighter. She leaned up against the end of the table and crossed her arms and ankles an
d watched him benignly as he struggled to get his cigarette lit and take the first drag. The desperation for a smoke disgusted her. It was exactly why she was trying to cut that weakness from her life. After he pinched the bridge of his nose and took a few more drags he was finally able to look at her.

  “What the hell is this? Are you here for money? Cuz girlie, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t work here to stay busy in my retirement.” He punctuated this little speech with a long drag.

  “Now that’s an interesting reaction.” Devin cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why would your first thought be that I’m here for money?” She gingerly tested her weight on the table top and when she thought it would hold she sat down and swung her feet around to the bench.

  “Isn’t everybody after money? Nobody from your family has been in town for years, and you just show up out of the blue?” He looked at the ground shaking his head. “That spells trouble, and trouble is always expensive.”

  She had to grin at his words. “You know, truer words have never been spoken. I’m not here for money, but what I am here for could cost you dearly.” He was instantly suspicious, as she knew he would be. She leaned forward to pull the worn leather folder out of her back pocket and flipped it open to show him her I.D. and badge. “I’m here for the truth about the night Laney Bennett was murdered.”

  Dean squinted into the distance as he flicked the ashes off his cigarette and shook his head again.

  “You got a warrant or whatever?” It was Devin’s turn to shake her head.

  “Nope. I’m a detective with the Richmond P.D. I have no authority here whatsoever. I’m just looking for answers. I need to know what happened to her.”

  His voice was rough with emotion.

  “I knew this day would come, I had just hoped I would be dead before anybody came looking.” He rubbed his chin, probably thinking about what he did or did not want to tell her. She waited patiently, studying him under hooded lids and she leaned back on the table, absorbing the warm kiss of the morning sun. He hadn’t aged nearly as well as Henry, probably the result of hard living, but she could see the draw. As a young man he’d probably made those faded blue Dickies look good, with his name stitched on the shirt and his sleeves rolled up. He broke into her meandering thoughts.

  “Why reopen this wound now? Just leave it alone.”

  Her head snapped up, and so did her voice. “Are you kidding? This wound never healed, and it never will until our family is brought some peace. My grandmother spent twenty years in a mental hospital because she never recovered from Laney’s murder. She died there. My father was a train wreck of a drunk my whole life, still is, as far as I know. I can’t leave this alone; we haven’t even begun to heal.” It was very unlike Devin to reveal that much of herself to anyone, let alone a complete stranger, but it worked. Dean sighed in resignation and came to sit beside her on the picnic table. She was concerned about it supporting them both, but the creaking wood held.

  “What do you want to know?” With the barriers lowered Devin didn’t hesitate, she jumped right into the direct questions.

  “What were you and Laney arguing about at the Summit the night she was killed?” He turned to look at her with wide eyes.

  “How did you know…boy, you don’t pull any punches, do you, kid?” He took another drag off his cigarette—there wasn’t much left by now. Devin kept her gaze steady, waiting. “I needed money, badly. I was trying to support a wife, and we had a baby on the way— a mechanic’s pay wasn’t cutting it. I was planning to rob a gas station to make ends meet.” He said it like most people said they were going to clip coupons or cut back on eating out to save money. She raised her eyebrows, but he was so caught up in his story he didn’t notice. “Me and a buddy had it all planned out, there was a station about an hour from here, and back then it was in kind of a remote area. It was right off the interstate, and the only stop for gas and sodas for miles, they raked it in.” Dean’s eyes had gotten brighter as he explained the heist. Devin had seen it a thousand times. He was a career criminal and would never be reformed. The thrill of the job, the adrenaline rush of breaking the law was an addiction for him. She interrupted his sweet remembrances.

  “Dean! Focus. How does this involve Laney?”

  He became a little clearer. “Right, I’m getting to that. It was an easy two-man job to pull off, but being on the wide-open interstate, it could be easy to get caught. We needed to map out a good getaway route, and we needed a good driver. Laney was the best driver I knew.” She was skeptical but grinning when she interrupted him this time.

  “You asked the prom queen to be your getaway driver?” He shrugged his shoulders and splayed his hands out in front of him. “Hey, you never saw her drag race! She could drive like nobody’s business.” He grinned at the memory and finally ground the remains of his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe. “I had been asking her for about two weeks, but that night at the Summit was sink or swim. I had to get her in on the deal. I told her that I needed the money that I wasn’t going to be able to feed my kid, but she refused to help me. Things got pretty heated. I was basically begging her for help, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Said I was an idiot for even considering it.” He tried to smile again, but it never reached his eyes. “I guess she was right, we tried it without her and ended up going away for armed robbery.”

  Devin watched him carefully for his reaction. “So maybe you were so enraged that she wouldn’t help you that you snapped. You were under a lot of stress, and the one person you thought you could count on turned her back on you, so you killed her.” Dean’s denial was on his lips before she had five words out and his eyes had brightened with a different kind of passion.

  “No. No way. I was upset she wasn’t going to help, but deep down I knew she wouldn’t go all along. Laney was a little wild, not stupid. It was more of an excuse to talk to her again anyway. Angie was a real shrew when she was pregnant, and Laney was always a lot of fun, you know what I mean? I missed the old days. I would never cut off my only chance to have a taste of that, even if it was just in arguments.” Devin sized him up for a moment. He looked sincere, and she was very hard to fool, but that was far from a guarantee.

  “Where were you when she went missing?” It was best with this type of suspect to keep the questions rapid-fire so he didn’t have time to think about his story, you could gather more truth that way.

  “Geez, you’re direct, aren’t you? Laney would have loved you, hardcore, cool and unshakable. She would have been very impressed.” She gave him a sideways smile and laid the eyes on him again.

  “Alibi?”

  It took a few seconds, but he was finally able to breathe again. “Right, I left as soon as Laney stormed off from me and I drove into town to pick up Ricky Dennison. I got a speeding ticket at nine o’clock on Water Street two blocks from his house, so I was cleared.” He clapped his hands down on his knees and started to get up off the table, when she put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Wait, nine o’clock? You could have easily gotten back there in time to have killed her and slipped out again. That ticket doesn’t alibi you at all.”

  Dean chuckled. “Trust me. You could hear that engine two miles out. There is no way I could get in or out of the Summit without getting noticed, it was a car that stood out. Flames shot out of the tail pipes, for Pete’s sake. Plus it was about ten o’clock that Laney’s pansy boyfriend called the Sheriff on us for driving by the school ‘harassing’ him.” He stood up fully now and tucked a fresh cigarette behind his ear for later. “My alibi was solid. It was Henry that never had any alibi at all. He’s the one you ought to be talking too. If you ask me, that level of obsession is never healthy.” He held his hands up innocently expressing his opinion of Henry. “Well, princess, memory lane has been real fun this morning, but I’ve got to get to work. So if there’s nothing else…” He was already backing towards the building. She jumped off the table and followed him a few steps, cocking her head sidew
ays to look up at him.

  “Just one more thing, what were you doing to harass Laney’s boyfriend that night?”

  Dean snickered like the punk kid he had been. “We eased the car up next to the shop on the backside of the school where he was working that night, and right when we got under the open windows behind where his car was parked, I wound the engine up till the flames were flying and then peeled out of there. The little twerp probably peed in his pants.”

  “Nice.” Juvenile male behavior was always beyond her. “Get to work, Dean. I’ve taken enough of your time. Thanks for indulging me this morning.”

  He gave her the smile that Laney had probably liked.

  “I owed it to Laney. You come find me if you need anything else.” He was holding the back door of the garage for her as she slid her sunglasses on.

  “I think I’ll go around the side so some work actually gets done in there this morning.”

  Dean was still laughing when the door swung shut.

  There were several large holes now in the story of the night of Laney’s murder. Not only were different accounts not matching up, but the case file was not matching up. The timeline for the night of the murder in the case file did not add up. What happened during those missing minutes? Henry was supposed to have been the lead suspect, but the file on him was practically barren. Was there never anything there, or had the file been cleaned out? Devin wanted to take another look at the files before she had dinner with Henry, because she had some hard questions planned for him. It wasn’t that she believed he was guilty, more that she believed he was hiding something. All of the holes kept bringing her back to him. Even though she was only a few blocks from the Sheriff’s department, there was no way she was going to show up there in cut-off jean shorts and a tank top, Shane might actually fall out of his chair, so it was back to the house to change.