The Bones of Others

by Vickie McKeehan

  The place looked exactly as it had in Skye’s dream.

  “How long have you been in here by yourself, Erin? Try to think now, tell me how long he’s been gone?”

  A trembling Erin began to stir and try to sit up. “I…I don’t know…maybe ten minutes, I guess. He…took my…clothes. He said…I…I couldn’t run without my…clothes.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Skye slipped off her coat and put it around Erin’s shoulders. “Stick your arms through here. Listen, here’s what we’re going to do. Can you walk?”

  Teeth chattering, Erin replied, “I can run…if it will get me…out…of here.”

  “Good girl. I want you to stay behind me the entire time. No matter what happens, stay behind me. Understand?”

  “I…I…don’t have any…shoes.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll get you some. You follow me, okay?”

  “Okay. What if he sees us?”

  “I’ll kick his ass.” Skye took Erin by the arm and dragged her along past the nasty room and into a hallway. In the lead, Skye listened for any sound of movement. When she heard nothing but an empty shell of a building, she tugged Erin further away from that room.

  “Do you have a gun? He has a gun.”

  “Good to know.” Skye didn’t want Erin to think about that right now. Half of her wanted to run into the son of a bitch, the other, wanted to get Erin out of there as quickly as she could and away from that room. But either way, Erin needed some reassurance.

  Skye reached inside the coat Erin now wore and pulled out her baton just in case. She withdrew a knife from her boot and handed it to Erin. “Listen to me. I know you’re scared but I won’t let him anywhere near you, Erin. Do you understand? He’ll have to come through me to get to you. I guarantee you the man’s a chicken shit bastard when it comes to taking on an adult, even a female grown-up will scare the crap out of him. I won’t let him anywhere near you. If the worst happens and he gets past me though, use the knife. Go for the gut when you slash out. For some reason it seems to hurt the most. Okay?”

  When Erin nodded in agreement, for the first time, Skye grinned at the shorter girl. “But he won’t get past me. You ready? Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Skye found a back staircase and led Erin down one floor to ground level. When she spotted an exit door she pushed it open a fraction, peered out into the misty night. Seeing no one in the alley, she pulled Erin through the doorway and out into the darkness.

  Skye spotted the wolf almost immediately. Their eyes met again. Get us out of here, Kiya.

  The wolf looked away, sniffed the ground and took off.

  It wasn’t easy to maneuver in the dark. The nearest streetlight was a half a mile back. Did she dare turn on the penlight in case Erin’s abductor came back and spotted the light? Remembering the rocky condition of the parking lot, Skye decided to hell with it. She took out the penlight. She deliberately kept them next to the building for cover until they were out of the alleyway.

  She glanced up ahead, made sure she kept Kiya in view until the wolf picked up her pace.

  Skye did the same as she and Erin broke into a run across the dilapidated asphalt, filled with potholes and crumbling blacktop.

  They stopped only once when Erin stumbled and cut her foot, but Skye dragged the girl upright, making sure they kept up the dash to freedom. She continued pulling Erin away from the area heading in the opposite direction from the nearest grocery store, or at least the only grocery store Skye knew anything about that was open this time of night.

  At the sound of a car engine, Skye ushered Erin behind a row of hedges where they waited and listened. When Skye determined that the car was headed away from them, she tugged Erin back onto the pavement. Rock strewn as it was, moving across the stretch of concrete was better than staying in one place and risking that the asshole might come back at any moment.

  For what seemed like an eternity, they continued to sprint, cold and wet with Skye in the lead and encouraging Erin to keep pace behind her. It was a good two more blocks before Kiya stopped and Skye heard the sounds of boats in the harbor and felt they were far enough away to rest and make the call for help.

  Even then, Skye knew that in Erin’s mind they had not gone far enough to put distance from that nasty room and what had happened there with the goddamned pervert.

  It would never be enough distance.

  By the time the two stopped near another abandoned building, Erin’s feet were bleeding and freezing and she was out of breath. Up to now they had not exchanged a word between them, not since they’d left the confines of Erin’s prison as if they were both afraid to utter a sound.

  But now, Skye looked around for an address, some identifiable landmark to give the cops. When she spotted a restaurant in the distance, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Harry’s home phone number, a number she’d dialed many times in the past but never more urgent than this moment.

  While she waited for an answer, she pushed Erin down on what was left of a concrete loading dock and said, “Rest. You’ll be home before you know it.”

  Even wearing Skye’s coat, a shivering Erin never let go of Skye’s hand. “Don’t…don’t leave me, okay?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Did this same thing really happen to you?”

  “Oh yeah. And I survived. If I survived, you will, too.”

  “Th…thank you.”

  As Skye kept Erin’s hand clutched in an ironclad grip, the minute Harry answered his phone, Skye’s words tumbled out in a flurry so fast she hoped he got it all.

  She needn’t have worried.

  Harry Drummond had known Skye Cree for more than a dozen years. And never had he moved as fast as he did now.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the ER, Harry sat in the waiting room with Skye while the doctors worked on and examined Erin Prescott. Her condition was good. Her spirits better now that she’d gotten out of that miserable place and away from her captor.

  The police had informed the Prescotts that Erin had been found alive and even now were en route to the hospital to be reunited with their daughter.

  While Harry waited for the girl’s parents to show up, he held on to Skye’s hand in a death grip.

  “If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never understand how the hell it is you do what you do. This is the third girl in as many years. You are an amazing young woman, Skye Cree, absolutely amazing. Have I told you that lately?”

  “That’s not what you said when I was eighteen,” Skye grumbled as she sipped from a Styrofoam cup half-full of bad-tasting vending machine coffee.

  “Yeah? Well, sue me. It was my attempt at fatherly concern. I didn’t want to see you patrolling the streets in the dark of night with no hope of ever rescuing anyone let alone ever stumbling upon Ronny Whitfield’s whereabouts. Shows you what I know. I still want you to tell me how it is you find them…when—”

  Skye decided she needed to do a little tap-dancing to get Harry off that subject. “Back then you thought I was in need of a team of psychiatrists,” Skye said, reaching up to pat his cheek. “And maybe I was, still am. It was appreciated, Harry.”

  When Harry scoffed at that, she added, “Okay, maybe appreciate is stretching it but I was only eighteen, too young to realize you were worried about me. I didn’t care. I didn’t think I had anything to lose. You were such a pain in the ass back then anyway, worse than you are now.”

  There were reasons she cared for this man like she did, but there was only so much she was willing to share, even with him. A police officer tended to ask way too many questions. “I know what you thought back then and how troubled you were that I couldn’t take care of myself. But, Harry, now you know I can.” She squeezed his hand. “Is there any word?”

  He shook his head. “He must have heard the sirens and hightailed it out of the area. The place was empty when my men got there. They waited for him to come back. So far, he hasn’t.”

  “Look, I tried to get her as far
away from the building as I could before I called you. We must’ve walked a half mile. She was scared to death. So you don’t know yet if it was Whitfield or not?”

  “Prints are all over that place. It’s just a matter of time. And we have her exam with the perp’s DNA. I’ll know by morning if it was Whitfield. You didn’t ask her?”

  “Come on, Harry, give me some credit. No, I didn’t whip out a picture of Whitfield from my back pocket and ask her right then and there before I got her out of that goddamned filthy hellhole.”

  Harry stood up. “Well, I can and will. I’m just waiting for the docs to give me the go ahead to talk to her. I’ve got patrolmen crawling all over that area right now within a twenty block radius. Got uniforms off-shift volunteering to go door-to-door for another twenty-four hours to cover the neighborhood. If he’s anywhere near there, we’ll find him. And if it was Whitfield, we’ll know it.”

  Skye sighed. “I’ll bet a twenty he’s gone, Harry.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. But thanks to you, Erin is safe and I’ve got men combing the area. We might get lucky.”

  At that moment, an anxious couple in their mid-forties walked up to the nurses’ station. Skye stood up and crossed to Harry. “I guess there’s no way of you keeping me out of this. Maybe you could just say you found her.”

  Harry shook his head. “No way, kiddo. It doesn’t work that way. Besides, the media was on the story five minutes after the police scanners went nuts. And one of them brought you into the picture not long after. Just like before.”

  As Harry watched Susan and Jay Prescott’s approach, he leaned over and whispered, “Buck up. You’ve been through this in the past. Because of you Ali Crandon and Hailey Strickland are somewhere safe and sound tonight with their parents. Think of that. And now, you can add Erin Prescott to that list.”

  Skye mentally braced for the harried couple who rushed over in three quick strides. It was the woman who asked, “Are you the one who found our baby?”

  Harry rocked on his heels and nodded. “This is Skye Cree. She’s the one who found your daughter.”

  Skye stuck out her hand but before she knew what was happening, Susan Prescott had wrapped her up in a huge bear hug. “Thank you. We’re so grateful. How can we ever repay you?”

  Next, Jay Prescott took his turn giving her another bear hug in gratitude but Erin’s father was all questions. “How? How did you ever find her? Are you undercover? Are you a cop?”

  Skye shook her head and smiled. “Right place. Right time. Look, I need to get going. It was nice meeting both of you. Right now, the important thing is to go take care of your daughter. And remember, she can put this behind her. She just needs to know that both of you are in her corner.”

  “We are. We will be.”

  As she headed to the elevators though, a nurse walked up about that time and announced, “The doctor is still in with Erin, but she keeps asking to see the woman who rescued her.” The nurse’s eyes landed on Skye. “From the way she described her rescuer that must be you. The doctor suggested I come and get you.”

  “But her parents—”

  “Will get to see her in a minute. Right now, Erin’s asking for you. Come on, this way.”

  Reluctantly Skye followed. On the walk down the corridor, memories flooded past Skye. She did her best to shut them down and focus on the veteran nurse because the nurse kept up a steady line of chatter. “I’ve seen hundreds of rape victims, but the young ones tug at my heartstrings. It’s something I never get used to. And this one…Erin refuses to settle down and let us sedate her for the exam until she’s talked to you, seen her parents. Also, I recognized your name when Erin mentioned it. The girl didn’t but I did. I remember what happened to you. And I know this isn’t the first girl you’ve found.” The nurse finally took a deep breath and reached out for Skye’s hand. “I just want to say how strong I think you are. You’re an amazing young woman. That fifteen-year-old is lucky you found her and she knows it.”

  “Um…thank you,” Skye muttered. Why the hell hadn’t she left sooner? Fifteen seconds more and she’d have been out of this place. She hated hospitals. They brought back a slice of her life that covered surgeries and painful recoveries.

  Inside Erin’s exam room, Skye’s self-consciousness didn’t get any better. Skye stood back as the doctor made notes in a chart. But the moment the girl spotted her and reached out a hand in her direction, Skye couldn’t get to Erin’s side fast enough.

  “It’s okay. I told you it would be okay.”

  “Please let me have a minute with Skye.” At Erin’s insistent plea, the fresh-faced doctor turned to Skye and smiled widely. “You’re a remarkable woman, Ms. Cree. I’d like to give you a hug but I’ll settle for a handshake instead.”

  After shaking hands, the doctor and the much older nurse left the two of them alone. The minute the door shut behind them, Erin said, “Thank you for getting me out of there. I’ll never be able to repay you. I was scared to death of him.” When Skye started to speak, Erin went right on, “Tell me again how it won’t matter, that I can get past what he did, what he took from me.”

  “You can either let it destroy you or kick it in the nuts. The girl I saw emerge from that stinking room wouldn’t stop at that though. Nope, she’d likely jump any hurdle that got in her way. Look at what you did. You ran through the freezing cold, into the night, cut up your feet to get away from him, to get out of there. You remember that when you feel like giving up. I won’t tell you it’ll be a walk in the park because it won’t be. But you’ll talk to a therapist and you’ll win.”

  “Can we talk again, maybe when I get back home?”

  “Sure. We’re survivors you and I. And survivors stick together.”

  When the door opened behind them and Erin’s eyes landed on her parents, she started crying.

  “Thank you,” Susan Prescott said to Skye as Susan wrapped her arms around her daughter.

  “You need anything Ms. Cree, you have only to ask,” Jay Prescott offered as he patted Skye on the back. “We owe you.”

  Once out in the hallway, Skye had to lean up against the wall for support. She’d known exactly what to say to Erin. She just hoped the fifteen-year-old would be one of the lucky ones and be able to cope with her ordeal. After all, she’d been standing right here before with two other young victims. When she saw Harry approaching, she pushed off the wall, ran a trembling hand through her hair.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “About like you’d expect.”

  “Go home, Skye. Get some rest. If anyone’s earned a breather, it’s you.”

  “A breather? How many others are out there, Harry, out there in seedy rooms at the mercy of degenerates, scared to death, afraid to make a move?”

  “Skye, it takes a toll, I know. But get some rest. Okay?” Harry put his arms around her. “I’ll have an officer take you home,” Harry offered. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “You’ll call though, right? You’ll let me know if it was him?”

  “You know I will.”

  By nine a.m. Sunday morning it was all over the news.

  Josh drank his first cup of coffee standing in front of the flat-screen TV listening as the local news anchor described how Saturday night, Skye Cree had found and rescued Erin Prescott, the girl who had spent twenty-four plus hours with her kidnapper in an abandoned warehouse near the harbor.

  If Josh were in awe of that news, he only had to wait for another reporter on a different channel standing outside the hospital to explain how this had been the third time in as many years that Skye Cree had found and rescued a young, abducted girl.

  The first had been ten-year-old Ali Crandon, who had been kidnapped during an outdoor birthday party, snatched right out of her mother’s front yard in broad daylight.

  In that case, police had issued an AMBER Alert because they’d had a description of the girl’s abductor. Three hours later, Skye Cree had spotted the girl in the company of a known pedophile walki
ng down Western Avenue where she had approached a suspicious man with his arms locked tightly around a very frightened little girl.

  Witnesses later described, a brief altercation had taken place and Skye Cree had rescued the little girl from her kidnapper.

  Josh shook his head at that assessment of the event. If it had been anything like the exchange in the alley, the one he’d personally witnessed, the pervert hadn’t stood a chance.

  Ten months ago, Hailey Strickland had been the second girl Skye had saved. After snatching Hailey at a bus stop, her abductor had thrown her into his car and headed south to his apartment in Kent. It wasn’t clear how Skye had found the thirteen-year-old or what Skye Cree had been doing in Kent.

  Right now the details weren’t all that important to Josh. What he wanted to know and what the reporters weren’t saying was whether or not they’d caught the guy who took Erin Prescott. Had Skye been right? Had Erin’s abductor been Whitfield?

  When his buzzer sounded telling him someone was at the front door of the building, he pushed the button on the intercom. A familiar voice came back.

  “It’s me, Josh. It’s Michelle.”

  At those words, Josh saw red. He couldn’t help it. Enough was enough. This had to stop and there was no better time than right now to let her know how he felt. “I’m coming down to the lobby, Michelle. I’ll be there in a sec.”

  “Josh, wait…”

  But he was already pushing the Down button for the elevator, fuming all the way to the first floor.

  The minute he stepped outside the car, he made his way to the front door. He didn’t intend to let Michelle get inside the building. His body blocked her entrance as he stepped farther outside forcing her to take a step backward.

  Under overcast skies they stood facing each other on the awning-covered portico.

  “You disappeared last night from the pub. I brought your raincoat. You left it. I told the others I’d see you got it.”

  “That’s nice of you but…”