Alace transferred her gaze to Owen, staring into his face. He was telling her she mattered here, inside this family he was building from scratch, including her in his hard-won refuge. She let the muscles around her mouth and eyes soften and gave him a single slow blink. “Let’s get busy.”
“Yah, boss.” His chuckle cut through the sting of that title, the humor reminding her he didn’t see her in the role as an impediment to his own, but an accoutrement instead.
Her current position wasn’t anything she’d ever aimed for, but Alace had fearlessly taken the opportunity when things in her own history went sideways. An image of a smoke column rising in the rearview mirror of a car surfaced and reminded her what not to do. Daily, she touched on the flaws and faults rampant in her previous handler/hunter relationship. Determined not to repeat the past, Alace would push towards a better solution. Always.
She looked past him at Kelly, who had an arm around Shiloh’s shoulders and a hand on the blanket covering Lila. Two steps later, she quietly dropped the diaper bag to the floor at the end of the couch, then leaned over and touched Kelly’s head, slipping her fingers around the base of his neck protectively. “We’ll be in the kitchen. Come get me when she wakes up.” He looked up and nodded, then returned his attention to the show on the TV. On impulse she bent farther and tucked a strand of Shiloh’s hair behind her ear. “Enjoy the cartoons, pretty girl.” The bright eyes and quick smile received in return were more than enough payment for her efforts. Alace understood Owen more in that instant, his reasons for keeping the kids brought to life in the flesh and bone beauty before her.
This might be the first time she’d actually been inside this house, but the real estate agent’s video tour had been professionally done. So, able to move confidently, she angled towards the back of the house, coming to a stop inside the archway to the kitchen when she saw Doc standing next to the refrigerator, a glass of what looked like lemonade in one hand.
“Hello.” She remained in place, allowing Owen to pass her, startled to realize there had been no prickle of unease as a result of having him at her back. Her initial meeting of Darren “Doc” Marchant had gone well, even better than she’d hoped. He’d proven himself nearly immune to unease, not falling into the typical pattern of men in her presence where they took either a tactic of trying to out-intimidate her or were dismissive of her in some way. Doc had ridden a different line, one of comfortable acceptance of everything he’d known about her and the few things she exposed during their conversation. Owen had taken the two older kids into the backyard to run off some energy for a few minutes, giving Alace an opportunity she’d capitalized on to ensure Doc understood his place in the grand scheme of things.
He’d surprised her in a number of ways.
“Few things matter more to me than making a difference in a child’s life. I believe you and Owen will provide me with unique opportunities to turn those desires into a tangible reality.” Doc popped a freshly washed grape into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, lips curved into a slight smile as if he had zero cares in the world. “Without compromising my morals.”
“Care to elaborate on your perception of this opportunity?” Alace tore her gaze from him, glancing to the side to compulsively check the volume on the baby monitor for the third time since Owen had gone outside.
“As Owen has explained it, you both feel your responsibility lies chiefly in stopping the perpetrators. With my assistance, as a team we can expand to include initial care for the victims. Giving you ample time to deal with your piece of the initiative, without conceding the criticality of rapid triage and first aid.” One of the kids shrieked outside, the loud sound filled with trilling laughter, accentuated by the roaring of whatever monster Owen was pretending to be. “That’s a win-win, no matter which way you look at it.”
Doc casually offered the remainder of the drink to Owen, who took it, upending the glass and draining it. Alace blinked, careful to keep her features smooth. Their unconscious interaction wasn’t the behavior of two people who scarcely knew each other. The behavior verged on couple territory, something she might do with Eric.
“When did you say you actually met Doc, Owen?” He was standing at the sink to rinse the glass and glanced up at her, then back down as he worked.
“I’d scouted him before I went up to the cabin but placed the first call only after getting home with the kids. He came over right away.” Upside-down glass draining in the strainer, he gave her an openly puzzled look. “I told you already. Why are you asking again now?”
“Just curious.” She took another step into the room, quickly marking all known camera and security locations. “You have to change anything since you guys moved in?” There was a tiny pinhole camera beside the back door she hadn’t installed, and what looked like a laser trip sensor on this side of the archway, set at about knee height. “Was everything like you wanted?”
“We’ve had these conversations, too, Alace. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” Without breaking their stare, with a bare movement, he flicked a finger at the two locations she’d identified and then pointed out two more. What he didn’t do was call them out blatantly to Doc.
Even more interesting.
Either Doc didn’t know about any of the security measures Alace had installed—and after the massive argument during the men’s drive from New Jersey to Colorado, she didn’t believe it would be the case—or Owen hadn’t told him about his additional after-market enhancements. Not that she blamed Owen for stepping things up. Frankly, she was embarrassed her research into the neighborhood hadn’t uncovered the two festering boils they had to deal with now.
When she’d moved in with Eric, there had been only one individual she’d found who had to be relocated for her peace of mind. He’d been part of an organized crime mail scam, one where they recruited unwitting twentysomethings on the Internet to be so-called quality inspectors. Any blowback from his activity would likely have been restricted to his home, which was half a block down from Eric’s, but Alace hadn’t wanted to take that chance at all.
So she’d called an acquaintance, who called an acquaintance, who called a family friend—two days later, there’d been a moving van in front of the address. Having connections is a good thing, regardless of acquisition costs.
It struck her suddenly that for all she knew, her method of investigating had blind spots. Once upon a time admitting such knowledge would have felt like a weakness, back when she couldn’t lean on anyone to get her gigs done. Except Regg, her brain was quick to remind her. Owen isn’t Regg. He’d been nothing but a true partner thus far, bringing her in on everything as soon as circumstances allowed. Time to return the favor. “I want you to check out the neighborhood where I live when this is all over.” Owen ticked his head to one side at the same instant Doc tocked his head, and she had to stifle a laugh at their unconscious synchronization. “If we’re going to be in each other’s space, I want you to be comfortable” was the semi-lie she gave them. “With Lila at home, I’d also feel better to have an additional set of eyes on the information.” Ending with the full truth felt better, and Alace suppressed the desire to laugh aloud. “And now, about your neighbors.”
Wisely, Owen chose to ignore her odd request, unlocked a drawer behind him, and pulled a folder from it. He opened the folder and spread paperwork out over the counter, setting the stage for them to dive directly into the matter at hand.
“Ashworth first.” He shuffled papers quietly, surfacing a copy of the inspection report from yesterday. “Not yet stamped and filed, but filled out via their portal, so I’ve got this. The structural review went fine, with one exception.” He pointed at a spot on the form and flipped it to face Alace, who stepped closer to the island countertop. “He found an inconsistency in the previous construction he wants to review, a section of cement that’s settled oddly, separating from the base of the wall. Wanna bet if they put radar to it, they’ll find the remains of a male prostitute under there?”
&n
bsp; “Is Ashworth still in residence, or did he vacate? He’s got the money to disappear anywhere if he so desired.” She held out a hand. “Give me the tablet you’ve got in here.” Owen opened a different drawer, also locked, and she stifled a chuckle. “You restricting screen time for the kids?” He glared at her as he handed it over. “Doesn’t matter, just funny given the amount of time you spend on a computer.”
“I work out too.” His defensiveness made Doc grin, and Owen turned to face him. “You know I do. I run and hit the gym. Maybe not all the time, but that’s because of work.” Frowning, he glanced between Doc and Alace, realized they were ribbing him, and he broke into a smile. “Shut up, both of you.”
“Neither of us said a word, Owen.” Doc pointed out the obvious, and Alace liked that he could spar with Owen fearlessly, showing the friendship the men were building.
Kind of like Owen and me. “Here’s what I was looking for.” She handed it over. “What he researched online after the inspector left. Check it out.”
“Shouldn’t he know searches like that leave traces? ‘Will organic material buried in cement decay?’ Okay, first, shouldn’t he know cement is an ingredient of concrete, making the question wrong from the outset? He’s supposed to be a smart guy.” Owen’s scorn had his upper lip lifted, and she saw his hands clenching tightly around the tablet. His anger was out of scope with their investment in this gig, and she watched as Doc lifted a hand to Owen’s shoulder, gripping loosely but pressing down, anchoring him physically. “He’s been good enough to get away with this for years, Doc. He should be smarter. I shouldn’t have been the first person to pay attention.”
“You weren’t. The reporter was.” Alace pulled his attention back to her, and she watched as he visibly relaxed, leaning sideways into Doc’s grip. “But we’re the ones who are going to put a stop to what he’s been doing. I know you offered up a contact for this gig, but I went ahead and re-rerouted August. He should be in town tonight. Gives us enough time by the narrowest of margins. We have to go through what we have and provide him the preferred method so the other deaths are called into question, as well as give investigators something to go on for what we think happened to his test runs.” She pointed at the tablet. “Here’s one. What else do we have? At least Ashworth isn’t looking for island nations that don’t extradite.” She shrugged. “So we got that goin’ for us.” Her bad imitation of one of Owen’s favorite lines had him smiling, finally. “So to speak.”
“So to speak.” Doc’s echo made her look at him, seeing the somber tone he’d adopted was matched by his expression, vastly different from hers and Owen’s. “Will there be a reckoning for all his victims or only those that can be readily identified?”
“As many as we can safely draw attention to.” Alace stared at him, not sure what he meant by his question. “I won’t have Owen put at risk, and living this close the only thing going for him—and by extension, me—is that your household is new to the neighborhood.”
“And the others? They’re no more than a footnote to the story? The man is a serial killer, Alace.” He swept his hand out over the papers, gaze glancing across the information laid out. “Will they even be a footnote? Or will they be forgotten?” For an instant, she imagined he was talking about her history, something she hadn’t fully shared with this new addition to their team. Owen had urged easing the doctor in, and Alace suddenly understood his reasoning. “Will they be like my sister? Never found? Families left mourning without closure?”
His words struck her dumb, and she turned slightly, aiming her gaze out the window into the backyard, still empty of toys or the other trappings of childhood. An unaccustomed heat filled her cheeks, warming her throat and chest.
She’d been standing here making his statements about her, centering herself in his accusations, and he’d not been aiming at her. Not at all. He’d been baring his own pain, and she’d blindly converted it to her version. Lack of empathy is one of the signs of a sociopath. Eric had caught her watching a video online, an interview with a psychiatrist who specialized in dangerous sociopaths. He’d been explaining all the things Alace already knew from her own research: psychopaths were a wholly different entity. She hunted psychopaths. She knew intimately what they were like, what they were capable of. She wasn’t and had never considered herself a psychopath.
A sociopath, however, hadn’t occurred to her until that moment watching a medical pundit whose main focus had been peddling his upcoming book. Eric had shown up beside her chair and leaned over to punch the shutdown button on the computer. He’d cupped her cheeks in his hands and lifted her face so her mouth met his, lips grazing sideways until he had whispered in her ear, “All you are is mine.”
“Alace?” Owen’s questioning use of her name sounded far away, as if through a tunnel, and Alace fought to bring her attention back to the kitchen. He was leaned against his side of the island, hips pressed tight so he could stretch across, his hand hovering over her arm. She watched it slowly descend, then latch on, fingers curling around and squeezing gently. “Alace, you okay?”
“What’s that reporter’s name?” She shook off his hand, spinning to look down at the printed reports on the countertop. “How much of this is truly public knowledge? How much did she know back at wife number three, when she first raised suspicions about him?”
“Everything I have is public. You have the report, not yet filed. Whenever it hits the county’s website, it’ll be public, too.” He traced along the edges of his teeth as he studied her. “What are you thinking?”
“She’s thinking the author could do an interview with a reporter and mention the prostitute angle, giving enough dates to prod the reporter’s brain about her interview with our good neighbor.” Doc nodded once, the gratitude on his face enough to express his feelings. “She’s going to make sure everyone is found.”
“The old blood at the scene of two of the wives’ deaths, those would be public too. Maybe not type, but if she pressured the officials, they could make a circumstantial case about that evidence.” Owen straightened, standing upright, his shoulders firming into rigid angles. “How can you drag all this information into it? And how can we do this knowing we’re on an awfully tight deadline to make sure current wifey doesn’t get dead?”
“I can present two distinct potential book outlines. One surrounding the male prostitute disappearances, and one built on anecdotal stories about a local man who’s survived multiple wives. I can point to Ashworth without pointing to him, and hopefully she’s smart enough to draw all correlations on her own.” Alace glanced over her shoulder to where the three children sat in front of the couch. “And I can do it without speaking about the neighborhood or any new residents, so you’ll be covered.”
“When would you do the interview?”
Alace smiled and brought out her day-to-day phone, the one that had Eric’s and his mother’s phone numbers, her fake-kind-of-real agent, and a couple of businesses she and Eric frequented. She pressed a button and lifted it to her ear, a moment later hearing the expected “Beloved” greeting.
“Eric, do you still have Grundella’s phone number?” Silence followed, and she had to fight to keep her amusement from her voice when she said, “Her sister’s a reporter, and I think my next book could use a boost.”
“I have Jessica’s phone number. In a moment, I’ll have her sister’s number, too. I’ll text both to you.” She listened to him breathe for the span of three inhalations before her phone pinged softly. “What are you doing, Alace?”
“Looking for a little good press.”
Eric’s soft hum highlighted his unease, but then he gave her everything, as if he knew she needed to hear it. “You’ll be brilliant, Alace. You always are.”
“I love you.” The stutter in his breathing was her reward.
She disconnected and looked at the screen. Eric texted almost immediately, and she tapped the second number he indicated was the sister, not letting herself consider the possible consequences of
engaging with the press like this. Willingly. It rang twice, and a woman answered with a brusque, “Hello?”
“You have a sister named Jessica. She was my nurse recently. I’m calling to see if you’d be interested in an interview with me.”
Silence stretched for long enough Alace wondered if the call had dropped. A husky chuckle slipped through the speaker, and the reporter showed she was exactly as intelligent and able to connect the dots as Alace had hoped. “Alace Sweets, bestselling murder mystery author. Why are you calling me and not the entertainment coordinator?”
“Knowing Jessica as I do, I hoped I’d have a more personal connection with you.” Alace mimed a shrug, sighing in disappointment. “Sorry if I miscalculated.”
“Jessica said you were a righteous bitch.”
“Yeah, well, so was she.”
Laughter flooded the call, and Alace gripped the phone tighter, waiting. “You aren’t wrong. How’s your baby?”
“My child is doing well.” She and Eric hadn’t published any announcement about Lila’s birth, not allowing the hospital to include Lila’s name in their public messaging even anonymously.
“Oh, don’t worry, Ms. Sweets. Jessica is a stickler for privacy. She scarcely mentioned you to me, but I know she’s an OB/GYN nurse, so it stands to reason you’ve had a child recently. Girl or boy?”
“We could include the information in the article, if you wanted.” Alace bartered, knowing if Eric had a problem with the idea, she’d willingly renege on any verbal agreement surrounding their family.
“At least it would make it more of a human-interest story than simply a promo for your novels.” Paper rustled in the background, and Alace imagined her at an enormous desk, paging through a social calendar. “When were you thinking?”
“Now, actually.” She put the call on speaker and texted Eric, providing enough details for him to give her approval or not. “I could meet you downtown in twenty minutes.” A thumbs-up emoji came through, followed by a more verbose, I will be there. “My husband will be attending.”
An Embarrassment of Monsters: A Dark Romantic Suspense Novel (Alace Sweets Book 3) Page 20
