Sin and Swoon

by Tara Brown

  I’d gotten away. I had to run for it.

  I’d thought the vehicle was him, the one I’d heard coming up the hill. But it wasn’t. When I snuck down the hill and stole a truck, he was waiting at the bottom of the hill for me.

  At the turnoff to Granger Mountain.

  I just made it to the road when he rammed me with the Jeep, flipping the truck down a small ravine. The last thing I remember was rolling down the ravine and then waking here, hands bound and hanging over his shoulders. He was carrying me down the staircase. I passed my old door, my eyes half open and my heart completely broken. It was the strangest sensation. I wanted to go back in that cell. It was a safe place for me.

  Now I hang here, waiting to be freed like Jane has promised, but certain that even death will not free me from here.

  My eyelids grow heavy, too heavy. Maybe the loss of blood, maybe the exhaustion, maybe the torture. I don’t know which, but one of them claims me, and my eyes close.

  Cold surrounds me, opening my eyes, but I don’t see. Jane is there. She cups my face, saying something, but my ears don’t hear. Everything is blocked and plugged and bursting. She lifts my face, and instantly in the light that’s above us, I see him. He’s covered in blood, but he’s not clear. He’s fuzzy, no . . . blurry. He washes his hands in the water above my face, looking directly at me. A sick smile crosses his face, his face that I can’t make any clearer than it is—even though now I see him for exactly who he is.

  It’s then that my lungs try to explode inside of my chest and I realize I’m in the water. He’s washing his hands and watching me sink.

  I start to thrash, kicking and screaming for the surface. Jane helps, I swear it. She pulls me to her, pressing her lips against my panicked mouth, and offering up air. The current catches me, dragging me away from him.

  The sick smile vanishes as he watches me sail away, away to a freedom he doesn’t know I will find. He doesn’t know she has stayed behind to help me.

  Jane—no, Bethany—presses her lips to mine again, filling my mouth with air.

  The world goes dark and then light, and it flashes so many times I don’t know if it’s day or night.

  But suddenly there’s sand and a man, and he tells me it’s going to be okay. I close my eyes, and see Bethany who called herself Jane one last time. Everything swirls and vanishes. I open my eyes to a sky filled with clouds shaped like horses. I blink three times but they remain, so I whisper to them, “Tell me about the swans, the way the swans circle the stars and shoot across the sky.”

  I gasp my way out of Ashley, sputtering and coughing and choking from the river. Anger has built right up inside of me. The poor girl has relived every minute of that horror, and I don’t have a clue as to who the man is.

  Before I get a handle on myself I quickly blurt out in a croak, “Granger Mountain. The cabin’s at Granger Mountain. The cabin with the huge detached garage off the side. Really fancy. The other girls are there still.” Then I cough again and sputter a few more times as my body realizes it’s not in pain and it’s not drowning. The girl’s monitors start going crazy. I turn my head, opening my eyes, and watch as a smile curls upon her lips, and the heart monitor stops completely, just flatlining.

  A tear slips down my cheek as I watch her go.

  “You all right?”

  I blink, shocked to see Dash, but grateful. He wraps himself around me, lifting me off the table. “You’re shaking. Last time, Jane. You can’t do a mind run again after this one.”

  I hold tight to him. He tries to kiss me, but I bury my face in his chest. I can’t do affection just yet. Not after the last moments of her life being what they were.

  Angie comes barreling in, grabbing me and giving me a hard stare. “They need ya to debrief fast. She’s gone, we’ve been keeping her alive, and I was scared shitless she’d die with ya in there. Lord suffering, you look rough. They want answers, Jane.”

  “I don’t have any.” The anger comes back fast. I lift my face, giving Dash a look. “You screwed with the results. She saw you and Rory as the bad guys the entire time. I never got a clear look at him.”

  Dash’s eyes narrow. “Impossible.”

  “And yet not. She never gave up a single clue. The story started with you as the bad professor and moved into Rory, and his being a naughty spy.” I choke a bit on the words. “My story got too mingled up in hers. I need to go with the team.” Dash opens his mouth to argue but I snarl, “If you hadn’t touched the recording—”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened. We have the local uniforms on their way. The team’s been dispatched.”

  I glance about the room. “Where’s Rory?”

  “He’s headed there with them. They’re leaving in a minute.”

  I pluck the monitors off me and jump from the bed, struggling for a second before my legs remember who they belong to. I blast through the door with Angie and Dash shouting at me, but I don’t listen. I hurry out the front of the building where the helicopter is, waving at them when I get close. They look ready to take off, but wait for me. Rory gives me a wide grin. It’s sarcastic and shitty.

  I glare, hating Dash just a little for screwing with the system. My system was perfect. My plan was perfect. I went in first to get a clue of how to add myself into her life and memory. Once I saw the cells and the other girls, I knew I could be one of them. I had a plan. Damned Dash!

  I hurry to the chopper, keeping my head low, and jump into the back. Rory grins. “Thought you needed a little rest. How’d ya get past Angie? Did they debrief you yet?”

  I roll my eyes. “Angie’s still dealing with the aftermath. The girl died on the table. She has to clean that up and do the paperwork. I’ll e-mail my report as we fly and they can debrief me later.” I drag my phone out and start drafting an e-mail as we fly to the airport to board our private jet.

  “How was it? What are we looking for? Did you see anything?”

  “I’ll know the house when we get to the road. He made the mistake of taking her there once in the light of day.” I cringe, hearing his voice. My transfer to the military criminal and terrorist profiling section can’t come quick enough.

  I have always liked being his partner, and I always imagined I’d be sad to see either of us go. I have always liked Rory and his magical accent. Now, I can’t wait for this file to be closed. It’s going to take me a while to get past the whole thing. It’s the reason I always take Dash in as the bad guy—I can look past anything he says or does or any evil he commits. I love him. It’s also the reason I never take strangers or people like Rory into a mind run—I can’t forgive everything they do in there. There is no love between us, and I don’t have feelings that are stronger than the mind run. Not for him.

  The flight from DC to Washington is long enough to finish a detailed report and e-mail the higher-ups about my situation. I don’t tell them that Rory and Dash ruined the run, but I do mention that the original recording malfunctioned, and the new ones weren’t adequate.

  We land in Washington and run to the next chopper, the one that will take us to Granger Mountain.

  “What’s he like, our boy?” Rory asks as he buckles in and pulls on his headset.

  I shake my head, sending the last of the details. “Not a clue. Dash and you screwing with my recording messed the entire thing up.”

  He winces. “Right, sorry about that. He was a bit miffed when he saw how many times good old Dr. Derek Russo appeared in your scenarios. Don’t suppose you can blame the old chap for being a bit worried. You’ve pretty much made him the worst monster a man can be, over and over. I think he supposed you might be into things he wasn’t completely comfortable with.”

  I lift my middle finger, refusing to tell him why I chose Dash to be my Mr. X in every scenario. That is going to remain a private matter if my life depends on it.

  I press “send” just as the helicopter pilot gives me a look. “We have local uniforms on the ground, speeding to Granger Mountain as we speak. They should be
about ten minutes behind us.”

  I nod, putting my phone away and ignoring the texts I’m getting from the guy responsible for the fact I don’t know who our perp is.

  Rory looks worried when the helicopter lowers over the highway, weaving around at the base of a mountain. “You sure you’re all right? You look pissed.”

  I shake my head. “No, I’m not all right. And yes, I am pissed.”

  He nods. “Excellent. Hopefully our guy is there then, so you can take out some rage on him!”

  I give him my grimmest smile. “Let’s pray for that.” The feeling of the ropes around her wrist, and the blood dripping down her arms, still haunts me. I plan on killing this guy a couple of different ways.

  As we pass several mountains, I tingle with anxiety of recognition when I see the crashed truck at the base of the hill by the ravine. “We’re on the right path. There’s the truck.” I point and let my eyes trail up the road. The pilot lowers as much as he can and follows it exactly.

  We fly by several beautiful homes, all truly stunning and like nothing I have ever been in. Not in my real mind anyway. Riding other people’s minds has afforded me houses and lifestyles like I could never even imagine. It’s also put me in hell like I have never imagined either. I’ll take my mediocre lifestyle and my shallow problems over this shit any day.

  As we climb, my insides tighten.

  I see the house that was four houses down, the one she hid behind. My mouth dries and my heart rate increases as we pass the third house. Then the second one. As we round the corner, I point. “This is it.” I point to the place with the garage next to it. It’s exactly as she recalled.

  The chopper lowers with the three military personnel dropping out, guns and eyes at the ready. They start to storm the house, kicking the door in and clearing before we come out. But I don’t wait. I grab a gun from the racks and jump down too, running past the house and into the garage. Rory follows me. His footsteps don’t make me worried; he’s my partner. He has my back. Even if he is still sort of the creepy man of my dreams and nightmares.

  And this is why I choose Dash.

  He can be the man of my nightmares, but in the end it doesn’t stay. Not like with Rory. I’ve always incorporated Rory. Just never as the bad guy.

  I grab the door handle of the barn, my whole journey inside of her mind flashing before my eyes. The word barn is even hers. In my mind I use the word garage.

  The door’s locked, so I nudge it with my shoulder.

  “Wait!” One of the soldiers comes barreling out of the house, kicking the front door off its hinges and brandishing his gun as he clears past the snowmobiles and ATVs. He creeps about, listening and making hand signals I haven’t seen in a while. I walk straight for the hatch, pressing the button on the wall that matches the one below. As it lifts the soldier gives me a look. “Oh, wow.”

  I nod. “It’s bad down there, so let’s not be hasty. Clear every closet. I don’t know the entirety of the floor plan, but it’s mostly cells.”

  Rory gives me a dubious stare. “Cells?”

  I lift a hand, shaking my head. “You are gonna barf when you read that report.” He has a serious issue with women who are tortured and raped.

  “Great.” He nods, following the soldier down the stairs into the dark. I go last, my skin crawling and my stomach aching.

  As I get halfway down the stairs the soldier cries, “One dead in a cell so far.” I know whom he means, and I am sorry for the girl whose life I took on. She is perhaps the bravest person I have ever seen, even if she was long dead after I saw her.

  The whole place reeks of death and human waste. I had never noticed the smell, inside of Ashley’s mind. The smell was nothing compared to the other horrors, I suppose.

  But to us it’s almost unbearable. We cover our faces as we clear the areas, kicking in cells.

  Rory opens a door, but I stop him. “That’s just the bedroom and bathroom where he played out his fantasies with them. It’s not a cell. The injured women are in the cells here—we need to help them.”

  He gives me another awkward look, but closes the door. I know he just doesn’t want to go farther in. He doesn’t want to see the girls. But he doesn’t realize I’m trying to help him; seeing the room where they were assaulted isn’t going to be better for him. Sexual assault is his kryptonite. For all his joking, he’s not a fan of the scenes where it’s going on.

  A soldier comes in behind me, gun up. I nod at the room. “You go clear up there, and we’ll check it after.”

  “Clear. We got another deceased,” one soldier cries out.

  The other soldier responds, sounding a little upset, “Yeah, and another here!”

  Rory gives me a look, one that suggests he might get sick. “Looks like he was ready for us.”

  “Open the doors!” I hurry to the rooms where the voices had become almost like friends. A soldier comes, smashing the door open. The redhead lies on the floor, staring up at us. Her eyes have glazed over, and I know she hasn’t been dead long. Her thick, ropey hair is strewn about the floor around her, like a newly deceased Rapunzel.

  Each room is the same. When I reach the room with the girl whose life I took, Jane, I drop to my knees. Her name isn’t Jane in the real world. I pretended I was her in Ashley’s mind, making Ashley see this brave young woman as me so she would trust me even more. The girl is cold as ice and her skin is gray, and I can tell she’s been dead for days. The rigor is gone.

  I cup her hand in mine, and for a moment I feel like we might have been sisters, even if it was just for a second.

  “They’re all dead, and it’s clear,” Rory says blankly.

  “He left them, just like he knew we would find them,” I mutter. “He didn’t even dispose of them—bury them.”

  Rory places a hand on my shoulder. “I gotta go back up. I can’t do this. You were right.”

  I would have smiled had it been any normal case, maybe even made fun of him for his weak stomach. But this time I understand. It’s the fucking sickest thing we have yet to encounter. The other perps we have come across murdered after they tortured or raped, but these girls have been years in the process of slow and painful destruction. To find each one dead is a blow I wasn’t prepared for. We never released any information about finding the girl on the shores of the river. He shouldn’t have known she survived.

  I don’t get a chance to digest what we have found. Forensics and the local uniforms arrive, and my instincts kick in, take over.

  We catalogue, we ID, we photograph everything, and we spend twenty-four straight hours living in their world. It isn’t even scratching the surface, but it is getting rid of the bodies, bagging and tagging so the morgue can start their work.

  At the end of it all I am standing in the kitchen, admiring the view as the sun begins to set, just as I did when Ashley was here. I remember the view, but I had seen it from her eyes.

  “You all right?”

  I look at Rory as he walks into the house, and shake my head.

  “I wish we’d found even one alive. I can’t believe he poisoned them all.”

  “Apart from the one with the stab wounds in her back. She definitely didn’t get poisoned, right?”

  That makes me lower my gaze. “No. She died a few days before the others. She was the reason our girl got out. Ashley escaped because that girl saved her.”

  His right eye twitches. “I can’t talk about this in here, Jane. I don’t mean to flake on you, but this place—it’s freaking me out. Can we talk about it away from here where it’ll be more of a file and less of a reality? Those girls, their life here—I can’t.” He shakes his head and turns, waving a hand. “I’ll take spies and terrorism and hostages any day of the week over this shit. Let’s get the hell out of here. They have an address on the owner. We’re going to Seattle to check him out.”

  I walk behind him, feeling the same vibe he is. I just want to be away from this.

  12. Little Orphan Janey

  The
ring on my finger feels like it weighs a ton.

  “Hey, did you talk to Rory today?”

  I shake my head at Dash, not really into the conversation. There’s a pit in the bottom of my stomach. I stare out the window, finding horses in the clouds. I can’t help but wonder what Ashley or Bethany found in the clouds.

  “I did. He says the address turned out to be another fiasco. The owner of the Granger Mountain home died in a tragic car accident two years ago. The mountain getaway and his place in the city are under contest, with several relatives warring over it all. It belonged to him and his wife. She died of cancer five years ago. They had a son and daughter and an adopted daughter.” Dash wrinkles his nose, tapping his fingers along the steering wheel. “Anyway, the biological son and daughter tried to screw the adopted daughter out of everything. Got the dad to sign everything over to them and leave the adopted girl out completely.” He shakes his head. “She was adopted when she was three years old. She’s been their little sister for thirty-something years, and they still tried to screw her over. I can’t even imagine people like that existing.” His voice fades off as he drives into a suburb that I’m starting to get scared his parents live in. Perfect homes for perfect families made of perfect people.

  I twist the ring on my finger and nod, half listening.

  “I guess we all know worse people exist, don’t we?” He gives me a look when we pause at a stop sign. “You okay?”

  I look behind us, checking for other cars since he’s sitting at the sign. We have hardly seen any cars since we got into the suburbs. “I will be when we solve it. You know how I like to mull over details until we get it right? Are you going to go?” I ask.

  “Not until you tell me you’re going to be with it and not obsessed with the case.”

  I lean in, feeling myself stuck in the mind ride and the facts and the missing information. This distracted zombie act is one reason he hates that I do this job. I place the softest of kisses on his lips, resting there for a breath. “I can forget about it for the Thanksgiving weekend of doom you have planned for me. So long as you tell me you don’t live in this bullshit neighborhood with the perfect families everywhere?”