by Anne Malcom
Jaclyn let out a snort.
Orion was with her on that. Safe meant fucking nothing to them.
Maddox continued, “We’ll be over bright and early to take you to the sheriff’s office, if that’s alright. We won’t bother you today about anything, wanna give you some time to readjust. To sleep. But we’ve got one of these guys on the run. And we need to know everything. To make sure this cockroach, when he’s caught, is given the maximum sentence he deserves.”
Shelby stiffened beside Orion. “Are we in trouble . . . for the other guy?”
Orion knew Shelby was thinking about the body in The Cell.
Maddox’s features softened immediately at Shelby’s tone. The broken, scared tone. “No, not one bit,” he said, voice gentle. Calm.
He was good at this, Orion noted.
“We don’t give a fuck about him, if I’m being honest.”
Eric shook his head in agreement.
“We’re glad you did what you did. Now we need to get the other one. And we need to find the others.” Maddox’s eyes met the tiled floor, his bottom lip slipping between his teeth. “And get closure for their families.”
“You know about them?” Orion asked, cocking her head.
“They, uh . . . they had snuff photos. Of a few different girls. More than needs to be talked about right now.” Maddox took a deep breath, and a solemn look crossed Eric’s face. “Unfortunately, tomorrow’s gonna be a long day, so you ladies make sure you get some rest tonight.”
“Why are we staying all the way out in Edwardsville?” Jaclyn asked the question that Orion had been wondering since he said the location of the hotel. Not that she was all that excited to see her parents again. Maybe a little part of her. But she cringed at the thought of her parents soaking up the notoriety.
“What about our families?” Shelby asked, as if reading Orion’s mind. She had spoken often about her parents, longed for them. Neither Orion nor Jaclyn did that. Jaclyn.
Orion wondered if her family would even bother turning up to claim her.
“Due to the circumstances surrounding everything, local media is already outside waiting,” Maddox explained.
Circumstances, Orion thought. Nice euphemisms there. Half cop, half politician.
“It’s only a matter of time before national news gets down here,” he continued. “And all hell breaks loose.” He glanced to his partner. Orion noted that he was taking great pains to avoid her gaze. She wondered if it was because he didn’t trust himself not to lose his police mask, as he had when he walked in. Or maybe she disgusted him now. A memory of where he’d failed.
Maddox looked toward Shelby. “As for family, Ms. O’Reilly, your parents have been notified, of course, and as long as you approve it, they will be meeting you at the hotel. They wanted to be here, but we managed to convince them it was best if they stayed away from the media.”
Tears leaked out of Shelby’s eyes and her hand covered her mouth. A muffled sob escaped.
Maddox turned to Jaclyn. “Ms. Murphy, I’m sorry, we couldn’t locate your mother or your father.”
Jaclyn rolled her eyes, but Orion saw the slight glassiness in them. “No surprise there,” Jaclyn muttered.
“We were, however, able to reach your grandmother. A Mrs. . . .” Maddox trailed off, again looking at Eric.
“Deborah Connor,” Eric finished for him.
Jaclyn straightened her spine and narrowed her eyes, exactly as Orion had expected her to. She’d heard stories of the parents who had abandoned her, the grandmother who had beaten her, and the grandfather who did whatever he damn well pleased.
“Oh no!” Jaclyn snapped. “Fuck that evil bitch. I don’t want to see her. Not today. Not ever. I’ll leave our reunion for when I meet her in fuckin’ hell.”
The corner of Orion’s mouth quirked ever so slightly.
Maddox nodded once, not smiling. “Understood.” Then, as if he were moving through sludge, he turned to look at the space above Orion’s head. His cop mask slipped again. He rubbed the back of his neck. Another nervous tic. “Ri-Orion, I, uh . . .” His brow furrowed as he stumbled over his words.
“Oh, just spit it out,” she snapped. “I think I can handle it. You know, considering what I’ve already been through.”
Another flinch. Another score for Orion. She didn’t know why she wanted to hurt him, but it felt good to see him squirm.
“I’m so sorry, Orion. They’re gone,” Maddox finally said, his eyes avoiding hers at all costs.
Orion could only guess as to whether he had to deliver such information before. He was a cop in a big county with a lot of crime. Surely he’d had dozens of experiences like this. But he sucked at it.
Orion didn’t change her expression, even as a chasm opened inside her, a reaction she hadn’t expected and hated herself for having. “How?” she asked, voice flat, and he finally looked at her then.
“Your, um, dad . . . he got in a bad wreck a few years after . . .”
Orion almost smiled at the cliché. “Drunk?”
Maddox nodded. “Took two people with him.”
“Of course he did.” She shook her head. It wouldn’t be enough just to end his miserable life after ruining hers, her brother’s, her mother’s . . . he had to go out with a bang.
“Your mom, she kind of lost it after that,” Maddox continued. “Then she got sick. Cancer. She passed about a year ago.” He paused, swallowing visibly. Then, it seemed, he found a bit of gusto, and he stood a little straighter.
Orion hated that she reacted to that more than she did at the news she was an orphan.
“And my little brother?”
Adam crossed her mind then. Her sweet, empathetic, kind-hearted little brother. Her only other friend outside of April growing up. He wasn’t here, fighting his way past orderlies or doctors, demanding to see his sister. That told her everything she needed to know about how much he missed her, thought about her, unlike her own constant thoughts and daydreams about the little brother who acted so tough for her when they were kids, even if they wanted to kill each other sometimes.
She wanted to be wrong. She wanted him to be living in Europe, in some mansion, or trekking through the Himalayas, living the kind of life he deserved. He was trying to get a private jet, transportation right to the hospital door. That’s it.
“Maybe we should speak outside,” Maddox said, as if he could see the desperation in her eyes. He had known how close she was to her brother. There was a reason he couldn’t look her in the eyes then, couldn’t say what needed to be said.
Her insides turned to liquid.
“No,” she gritted out. “Just tell me what happened to my little brother.” She sounded strong from here, hopefully hiding the fact she knew her legs wouldn’t hold her up if she tried to move.
Maddox looked uncomfortable, in pain. She wanted to feel sorry for him, but she couldn’t, since discomfort and pain weren’t anything remarkable.
“Spit it out,” she snapped when he was silent a beat too long.
“I tried to help him,” Maddox said, voice a blade, tearing at her skin. “I tried to get him away from the . . . bad influences. Even told him if he straightened up and passed the academy, he could work for the department.” His voice broke. He cleared his throat. His eyes watered.
Hers did not.
“For a while, I thought he was going to make it,” Maddox continued. “But he was just . . . out of control. He stopped checking in. Stopped hanging out. We lost touch.”
Orion’s fingers cut into her palms with the force she was using to keep herself still.
“Is he dead?” she demanded. She didn’t need the fucking narrated version of his descent into the gutter.
Maddox stiffened. “Yeah, Orion . . . he is.”
Orion nodded once, her entire body tingling, then turning blissfully numb. She shouldn’t have let herself hope.
Jaclyn’s hand went to Orion’s, squeezed once before letting go. She had spoken to them about Adam. They
had all fantasized about where he might be now. At least she knew where he was. Nowhere. Rotting.
“I’m so sorry, Ri. I really am,” Maddox said, voice almost a whisper.
She stiffened. “Orion.”
He flinched again. Another small score for Orion. “I’m sorry, Orion. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear. I wish I had better news.”
What else could she expect? Her parents to campaign for her safe return? Post on cereal boxes, devote their lives to their missing daughter? Their lives had always been devoted to their own destruction.
And Adam.
Even thinking his name nearly caused her to black out from grief, from not ever getting to say goodbye.
Interrupting the terrible silence, a small woman in a police uniform sporting a mom haircut shuffled in with three bags. Both men turned at her approach, and the three women on the bed stiffened.
“Got everything you asked for,” the woman addressed Maddox as she tossed the bags to the floor and let out a heavy sigh. “Jake’s got the van waiting out back, some undercovers with him. No media out there yet.”
“Great. What about out front?” Maddox asked, retrieving the bags from the floor.
The woman grinned at Maddox as he handed each girl a bag. “What do you think?” she asked in a dry tone.
Maddox smiled, nodded, and then his eyes shifted toward Orion as he handed her the last bag.
“Orion . . .” He trailed off. His eyes turned glassy. The hand holding the bag trembled.
Orion gritted her teeth, taking the bag, and she replied, “It’s alright. I know.”
“You ladies take your time getting dressed and cleaned up, we’ll be down the hall by the main elevators,” Eric said, a safe and practiced smile on his face. It was obvious he was experienced at making victims comfortable. Knew how to make himself smaller. Nonthreatening.
Or at least he appeared so. Orion knew there was no such thing as a nonthreatening creature when cornered. When given the opportunity to play out their darkest fantasies when they thought no one was watching.
Jaclyn was already digging through her bag, the rustling of paper bringing Orion back to the present.
Shelby nodded to Eric, clutching the bag in her small hands. Her eyes were watery, body shaking.
“Sure thing, Big E,” Orion replied.
He chuckled. It was easy. Would’ve been a pleasant sound in another life.
But Orion didn’t have another life.
Only this one.
There was no room for pleasant chuckles, or reunions with the boy she used to love, the boy she pined over for the length of her captivity.
There was only revenge.
Four
Maddox walked calmly out of the hospital room and all the way down the hall. His steps were purposeful. Strong. His chin jutted up and he nodded to the doctors and nurses who looked familiar.
He certainly looked familiar to them. He’d made plenty of walks through these halls throughout the years. Interviewing victims. Perps. Visiting colleagues. Friends. And this time he was meant to do the same. Ensure the safety of these three women. These victims. To set up an interview, learn their story. A sad story, to be sure. It had rattled him too. It always did when rape kits were necessary.
But it was supposed to be business as usual.
Until he hit the room. Until those eyes hit him.
Ri’s eyes in the body of a woman. A beautiful woman, of course, because she was always going to grow up to be beautiful, even if she was raised in ugly. He’d noticed that years ago. The way she was blossoming. The way that little girl his sister brought home one day when he was in fourth grade became a woman before his very eyes. He knew she hadn’t finished, when he was sixteen and she was fourteen. Knew she’d grow taller, her features sharper. Her womanhood would cut through every boy at school, right to the dick. He’d wanted none of that. He wanted her to himself, to be the man she deserved, to spend homecomings together, and proms, and one day, a great big wedding.
Of course, he never told his friends these things, these thoughts of future days with the girl who was supposed to be like a sister to him, but he reveled in the thoughts, nonetheless. He remembered the party. The sudden and visceral need for her to be his and no one else’s. The realization that she wasn’t like a sister to him, and she never had been. He had always wanted her, even when he was a mischievous young punk pinching her and running away or telling her how gross she was. Cooties, and all that.
That’s what had followed him throughout those years. How he’d never have that chance to see things through with her. If he had just been a gentleman, if he’d been a real man and biked home with her, she wouldn’t have disappeared. If he’d been there to protect her, life would be different, and she never would have endured that hell.
He was to blame, alright, and he never let himself forget it.
When she’d first gone missing—when he and April had spent all their time looking for her, searching those derelict buildings along the way, calling out her name as if she were a dog that ran away from home—he envisioned finding her, saving her, and her jumping into his arms in blissful relief.
But she’d gone and found herself. Saved herself.
Ri was like that.
Orion, he corrected mentally.
A small difference to some. Many girls grew up and shed their nicknames to sound more mature. But it wasn’t that. She had shed the skin of her childhood like a snake might’ve. Everything about her was . . . lost, changed, different. He didn’t blame her, but he worried about her, and how those ten years of abuse had left their mark.
He didn’t even realize he’d punched through the wall until Eric’s hand caught his wrist going in for another. It wasn’t the first time he took his frustration and anger out on a wall. Over the years, pictures had been added to cover some holes in his house, rough spackling patches on others.
Blood covered his knuckles. Not enough to drip, but if he’d kept going, he would’ve painted the wall before he even noticed. Probably broken his knuckles too.
An orderly hurried past, averting his eyes, and a wave of embarrassment washed over him. It wasn’t often he let his anger problem seep into the public sector. No, he would bottle it up, and hold it in until he got home. Then, the alcohol would start flowing. Then, the violence.
But now he had exposed himself to the public, disgracing the badge hanging around his neck. He swallowed thickly and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Eric’s gaze was steady, controlled, as it always was. His grip was firm on Maddox’s shoulder, since the fucker was strong. Though he’d never say it, Eric was stronger than he was, if it came down to it. But right now, with the acid running through his veins, Maddox could’ve beat him.
Eric saw it. He didn’t trust Maddox when the anger was at its apex. Not that he thought Maddox would hurt anybody. More so, he was worried about what Maddox would do to himself. But now that she was alive, Eric had lingering suspicions that if they were to catch the second perp, Maddox should be kept as far as hell away from him.
“Brother, you need to lock this shit down,” Eric said. Calm still.
He never changed that tone, not when a gangbanger waved a gun in his face, not when he was trying to talk someone off a ledge, not when the girl in his arms took her last breath, her blood coating his hands from the shotgun wound in her stomach. A gift, or a curse, he couldn’t decide. He wasn’t comfortable with how easily he was able to turn off his disgust, and hatred, and vengeance, but he knew, for the sake of the badge, for the sake of the victims, for the sake of civilized society, it was best he dealt with things without any feelings involved. His partner, not so much.
“I’m sorry, man,” Maddox muttered, not looking Eric in the eyes. He seemed like he wanted to disappear.
Eric waited a beat before releasing his grip. “It’s all good, partner . . . but you’re explaining that shit to the sheriff.”
Maddox wiped his bloodied knuckles on his jeans, and then he
continued on down the long hall. Eric took one last look at the hole in the wall and shook his head, before following his partner.
“Not that I’m trying to suggest you take yourself off this case or anything, because I know that isn’t going to happen,” Eric said. “But maybe consider it.”
Maddox snapped his head up. “Like fuck.”
Eric nodded. “As I said, not gonna happen. This is personal to you, I get it. This shit is hitting me in parts that haven’t been touched in years, not since I was a rookie and realized this shit is real. This is ugly, vile shit. This is the stuff that’s gonna haunt us, and would’ve haunted us even if all of those girls’ eyes were strangers to us. But the fact it’s this girl, this girl you haven’t stopped talking about in ten damn years, that’s gonna cut to the bone, brother. Nothing is gonna stop that. But if you’re not gonna remove yourself from this case, you’ve gotta hold on to your shit. For her, if nothing else. For the other girls.” Eric took a deep breath, waited for Maddox to look at him. “For the ones who didn’t make it back.”
Maddox took a deep breath. “Just let me talk to the hospital administration about getting the hole fixed. I don’t want the sheriff knowing about it.”
Eric narrowed his eyes at him.
“Please, man,” Maddox said.
“Alright, but I don’t wanna be hearing about it from the sheriff in a week, so make sure it gets fixed.” Eric hunkered over like an old man, doing his best impression of the sheriff’s thick drawl. “God fuckin’ damnit, Baptiste, why in the goddamn hell are ya letting Novak punch goddamn holes in goddamn hospital walls?”
Maddox chuckled. “Your impression of him is spot on, you know?”
Eric straightened, smirking. “Just take care of it.”
The girls exited the hospital room and headed down the hall toward Maddox and Eric, who stood idly by the main elevators. They wore large, unflattering gray sweatshirts and matching pants. They were ugly, cheap, and the fabric itched slightly, but Orion loved it nonetheless, anything that wasn’t a fucking gown. If she ever even had to look at a children’s nightgown again, she’d likely vomit.
