Dying for Love (A Slaughter Creek Novel)

by Herron, Rita

  “Let it go, Amelia. You’re just opening up old wounds.”

  Amelia stood and slammed her hand on the table. “Tell me, dammit. I have to know. What happened to my baby?”

  “Lord help me, child, I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I don’t care what you want,” Amelia said. “I need to know.”

  Ms. Lettie heaved a breath. “I hoped you would never remember.” She waited another minute under Amelia’s scrutiny, her breathing heavy in the silence. “It was six years ago. You tried to escape when you went into labor.”

  Relief mingled with anger and a deeper sense of betrayal as she sank back against the chair. “What day was my son born?”

  A hesitant pause. “July fourth. The Commander wanted to terminate the pregnancy, but I convinced him not to. Looking back, that was a mistake.”

  Her child had not been a mistake. “Did you drug me while I was pregnant?” Please, dear God, no . . .

  “No, we eliminated the drugs for months. But once they were out of your system, you started having memories, figuring out what had happened to you and the others. That’s when the Commander realized the experiment was unsuccessful, that the effects weren’t permanent.”

  “Because without the drugs, there was a chance I’d be normal.”

  Ms. Lettie murmured yes.

  “You held me hostage anyway?”

  “It was too dangerous for the Commander. If you’d gotten free and revealed details of the project, it would have ruined all of us.”

  Rage at the injustice balled in Amelia’s stomach. “I didn’t remember the pregnancy until now because you started drugging me again after the birth?”

  “Yes, the Commander ordered a combination of drugs and brainwashing techniques to erase your memory.”

  Amelia leaned forward, pinning Ms. Lettie with a glare. “You believe it was okay to ruin my life and my baby’s?”

  “We didn’t think you’d ever learn the truth.”

  “That doesn’t make it right. He stole my life.”

  Ms. Lettie rubbed at a spot on the back of her neck, then stood. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “The truth,” Amelia cried.

  Ms. Lettie turned to leave, but Amelia shouted, “What happened to my baby? Was he okay?”

  Ms. Lettie hesitated a little too long.

  “Tell me, dammit. You owe me that.”

  “After the birth, I left the room. Then Blackwood came out and said the infant didn’t make it, that he’d bury him beside his own daughter’s grave.”

  Zack looked out the window again, straining to see in the dark. Shouts. Angry voices and grunts.

  Then a shovel hitting stone.

  His hand shook as he lifted it to the freezing glass. Ice crystals were woven in a pattern like a spiderweb.

  He hadn’t seen the boy after the guard had picked him up.

  But he knew his name.

  Devon.

  A noise sounded. A shovel. They were digging again. Making a big hole out in the woods. Flashlights shined across the dirt. Rocks and dirt crunched. An animal howled.

  Terror clogged his throat. They were digging Devon’s grave.

  That’s what happened when you tried to run.

  Chapter Five

  Amelia stumbled from the prison, anguish eating at her.

  Learning she’d had a child and that the baby had died was almost too much to bear.

  Snow flurries dotted the air, her shoes crunching the icy particles as she pulled her coat around her and rushed to her car.

  Freezing, she flipped on the defroster and heater, giving them a minute to warm up as she tried to absorb the shock. A prison bus left, hauling a group away just as she pulled from the parking lot.

  The desolate wilderness of the mountains passed by in a blur. By the time she reached the outskirts of Slaughter Creek, she’d hoped to be calmer, but her emotions were on a roller coaster. She spotted the pond where children and families gathered to skate.

  Still reeling from her encounter with Ms. Lettie, she parked in front of the pond and sat hunched inside her coat. Two mothers helped their little girls tie their skates, then led them out onto the pond and stopped to show them how to balance.

  A little boy of about five raced across the ice like a pro, his bigger brother chasing him. Their mother waved, laughing at their antics.

  Her son would have been about that boy’s age.

  If he’d lived.

  But he hadn’t survived.

  She choked on a sob. Finding out she’d had a son and that she’d lost him was almost more than she could bear.

  If he’d survived and she’d gotten to keep him, what kind of mother would she have been? Would she have had the patience to teach him simple tasks? To reprimand him without being harsh? To soothe his worries at night?

  Or would her own neurosis have kept her from giving him the love he should have had?

  Another thought made her insides chill. Who was the baby’s father?

  She had no idea . . . She’d been drugged, locked away. Was he someone who worked at the hospital? One of the Commander’s men?

  Sickened at the thought, she swallowed back bile. How would she ever know?

  Maybe she could try hypnosis again . . .

  Or . . . the answers might be in her journals. But the alters had destroyed those . . .

  Hands shaking, she started the engine and drove to the graveyard where Ms. Lettie said her son was buried. It was the same cemetery where her parents, Papaw, and Gran had been laid to rest.

  Sadie had told her about Jake and Nick exhuming their sister’s grave there, that she’d supposedly been buried by their mother. But when they’d opened the casket, their sister hadn’t been inside.

  The Commander had made everyone think she was dead so he could put her in his experiment.

  Discovering that empty coffin, Jake and Nick decided to exhume their mother’s grave to verify that she had died, that the Commander hadn’t locked her away somewhere. Her body was in the grave, but they discovered she hadn’t died in childbirth like the Commander had claimed. The Commander had killed her and lied about that, too.

  Dead flowers littered the snowy ground, plastic ones swaying and fading in the weather, as she searched the tombstones for Mrs. Blackwood’s name. Fallen, dried leaves looked like ashes on the graves.

  She paused at the monument. It was obvious the grave had been disturbed.

  Arthur Blackwood had lied about his daughter Seven being buried just as he’d lied about so many other things.

  What if he’d lied about her son? Was he in that grave?

  John looked up from his desk at the TBI office, his eyes narrowing as Amelia Nettleton walked inside.

  The receptionist had alerted him that Amelia had requested to see him. Meanwhile, he’d done his research on her.

  Not that he didn’t recognize the name. Her face and story had been all over the news. Hell, he even had those pictures and files at home.

  But what was she doing at the office?

  He stood, his pulse kicking up as his gaze rested on her face. He’d seen her picture from Brenda Banks’s profile, and before that, when she’d been arrested for allegedly killing her grandfather.

  But he wasn’t prepared for the bolt of awareness that shot through him when he looked into her eyes. Mesmerizing, haunted eyes that reflected the strain of the horrific torture she’d endured.

  Eyes filled with pain and sadness as if she’d lost herself along the way.

  An artist’s eyes.

  He knew that from her profile as well. Had seen a few of the canvases she’d painted depicting the trauma. A dark bleak painting of Alcatraz. A portrait of herself chained inside a cell. A canvas of psychedelic colors reminiscent of the hallucinogens she’d been given.

>   For a brief second he felt connected to her. Both had lost parts of their past, had empty voids of time and memories.

  But he didn’t share anything about himself with anyone. Sharing meant opening yourself up to caring.

  Caring meant being vulnerable.

  Besides, this woman was trouble.

  “Miss Nettleton.” He extended his hand, and she stared at it for a moment as if afraid to touch him.

  Then her gaze flew to his, and something akin to attraction sparked in his gut.

  Good God, no. This woman had emotional problems. She was strictly off-limits.

  “Agent Strong.”

  Her voice sounded soft and lyrical, seductive, another distraction he didn’t need.

  “Sit down and tell me what I can do for you.”

  Her hands clenched the folds of her peasant skirt as she sank into the chair. “I saw you on the news, when you rescued that little boy Darby Wesley.”

  John claimed his own seat, dragging his gaze away from her so he could focus. “Yes, we caught a break on that one.”

  “The little boy is okay?”

  “Other than being emotionally traumatized, he wasn’t harmed.” He leaned forward, sensing she hadn’t come to congratulate him on an arrest. “But you didn’t come to me about that case, did you?”

  “No.” Those mesmerizing eyes met his. “You know who I am?”

  He nodded. Hell, who didn’t? She was famous in Tennessee. “I followed the Slaughter Creek story. I’ve worked with Agents Hood and Blackwood as well. In fact, isn’t Nick Blackwood’s brother married to your sister?”

  Uncertainty flared in her eyes. “Yes. But . . . I wanted to talk to you.”

  He arched a brow. “Why me?”

  She fidgeted. “Because I don’t want to bother my family right now. My sister just had a baby, and Nick is working that suicide bomber case.”

  “Go on.”

  Amelia ran her fingers through her long auburn hair, hair that curled around her face and made her look delicate and sweet. But he’d heard she had different sides. Alters, they called them.

  One of them, a teenage boy, was supposed to be violent. Police had suspected Amelia of her grandfather’s murder, but later learned the Commander had committed the crime.

  She was supposedly in therapy to deal with her disorder, but he had no idea if she was making progress.

  “Just tell me what’s on your mind,” he said, ignoring the pull of attraction tugging at him. Pretty women in trouble had a way of turning him into an alpha dog, stirring his protective instincts.

  And getting him entangled in their lives.

  He had his own mess to deal with.

  She drew a deep breath. “I just learned that I gave birth to a baby boy six years ago. It was during the time I was hospitalized at the sanitarium.”

  Not what he was expecting to hear. “You know this how?”

  “I’ve had recurring dreams about the birth. At first I thought it was just that—a dream. But I underwent hypnosis, and apparently I’ve been reliving a memory from my past instead.”

  So she was still in therapy. “And?”

  “I spoke to Ms. Lettie, the nurse who cared for me years ago, and she confirmed that I had delivered a child. But she told me Arthur Blackwood buried him beside his daughter. We know he lied about burying his daughter, so he might have lied about my baby.”

  John shifted, his interest piqued.

  “Will you help me?”

  God, he had his hands full with this kidnapping case. “Why not go to Sheriff Blackwood?”

  She wet her lips with her tongue and started to say something, then bit her lip. “I told you that I don’t want to bother him now. Besides, I did some research. Finding missing children is your specialty.”

  John grimaced. What else had she learned about him? That he’d lost years of his life? “We don’t know that your child is missing, though.”

  Amelia stood, anger radiating from her. “Is that a no?”

  He leaned his hands on the desk. Dammit, after all she’d been through, how could he tell her no? Because she was right.

  Arthur Blackwood had lied and used innocents for his own purposes for years. He could have taken her baby and started another damn project in another city. Or another state.

  Amelia wanted to tell John the rest, that she’d seen him in her dreams. But he obviously knew of her mental problems, and she didn’t want him to run like most men did from her.

  She needed his help.

  “I have to ask you something,” he said. “What if you gave the baby up yourself, Amelia? You were young, troubled. Confused. Maybe you thought it would be best for the child to go to a loving two-parent home.”

  His words mimicked the deep fear in her heart. But she didn’t believe it. That child would have given her a reason to fight.

  “Because I remember begging the doctor to let me hold him,” she said. “But they took him away, then drugged me again.”

  John folded his arms. “So what will you do if you find this little boy alive? What if he’s happy in a loving home? Will you uproot him from the only life he’s known?”

  Uncertainty engulfed her. “I don’t know,” she said. “You obviously think he’s better off without me.”

  “That’s not what I said,” John replied. “I’m just cautioning you to think about the little boy.”

  “Just exhume that grave so I’ll know the truth,” Amelia said. “You have the power to do that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” John said with a frown. “After all, if this matter is related to Arthur Blackwood in any way, a judge will readily agree.”

  True. The man had faked deaths before. And he’d kept secrets regarding highly classified government projects.

  Secrets he’d taken with him to his grave.

  “You said he’s allegedly buried beside where Blackwood’s daughter was supposed to be?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll make the phone call now,” John said.

  Amelia extended her hand, and when he clasped it, a warm tingle spread through her. An awareness that sparked familiarity inside her.

  And the feeling they’d been lovers.

  But that was ridiculous. Unless . . . Viola had met him somewhere.

  But John didn’t seem to know her.

  It didn’t matter. He was the best at what he did, at tracking down missing children.

  And that was all she needed from him.

  It took John twenty-four hours to set up the exhumation. Against his advice, Amelia insisted on being present, so they met in the cemetery at noon. The snowstorm had temporarily eased, but the ground was still four inches deep in snow and ice.

  And the temperature was dropping. Hell, he could see his breath puffing out in front of him.

  Ice crackled below his boots as he made his way to the gravesite. If they found the remains of an infant in the grave, it would be difficult for her. But hopefully she could accept the loss and move on.

  If not . . .

  He’d investigated enough cases to know that kidnappings and illegal adoptions occurred. If the child had survived and Arthur Blackwood had given him to someone else, the child could be anywhere.

  That family would be attached and vice versa.

  Ripping apart a family was always painful.

  The crew had already arrived and set up privacy tarps. A heavy fog fell over the graveyard, adding a dismal feel as John approached. Amelia had beat him there and stood by the small grave, her face pale in the gray light, her body shivering inside her long black coat.

  She looked so fragile that for a moment he was tempted to pull her up against him and comfort her.

  But he had a strict policy against getting personally involved with anyone. Getting involved meant opening yourself up. And how coul
d he do that when he had no idea who he’d been before? When he sensed he’d blocked out his past because there were things he didn’t want to remember? Things he was ashamed of.

  Besides, something from his past might come back to haunt him any day.

  There were times he had flashes of incidents . . . incidents that made him question if he’d been a criminal himself.

  Other times he had the horrible sense he’d hurt someone, that he’d done something wrong that he couldn’t take back.

  That no one could love him if they knew the truth about him.

  Maybe that was the reason he’d joined the Bureau. He was making an effort to atone for his transgressions.

  “Thank you for doing this, John,” Amelia said as he approached her.

  He gave a clipped nod. “You don’t want a friend or family member with you?”

  “I don’t exactly have a lot of friends,” she admitted. “The only family I have left is Sadie, and I don’t intend to upset her with my problems.”

  Her love for her sister stirred his admiration. Not that he understood family dynamics.

  He didn’t even remember if he had a family. Where were his parents? Were they alive? How had he grown up? In a happy home?

  No . . . somehow he knew he hadn’t . . .

  Neither had Amelia. Although, even with her dissociative identity disorder, she still had a sister who cared for her.

  Somehow he knew he didn’t. That he was alone in the world. That he deserved to be alone.

  Shovels sounded as they hit dirt. The wind tossed dried flowers from another grave across his feet. Twigs snapped and broke, raining down across the tombstones. The wind whistled a ghostly sound as if to say the dead below did not like to be disturbed.

  The hearse was waiting to transfer the remains to the morgue for an autopsy. They would have to confirm the identity of the infant inside, whether or not it was Amelia’s child, and the cause of death.

  If there was foul play, a full-fledged investigation would be ordered. Amelia would want answers.

  Hell, she deserved answers.