Innocent Prey (A Brown and de Luca Novel)

by Maggie Shayne

  “We’re not sure anything’s happened to her,” Mason told him. “I saw your name on her outgoing calls and thought I oughta talk to you, since her father said you two ran off together a few years back. It’s that simple.”

  I turned from the window, ’cause my senses had given me a big clue. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

  “Who?” Jake knew exactly who I meant. He picked up his beer, turning his back to me as he did.

  “Stevie’s father. Judge Howie.”

  He just shrugged. “I don’t have any contact with the man.”

  “But you did. Two years ago when you and Stevie ran off together. Right? I’m sure he threw a fit about that.”

  “Threw a fit?” He frowned and turned to look at me. I totally got that he was searching for something in my face. Then he quickly schooled his expression into a mask. “I don’t have anything to do with him. And I don’t know where Stevie is. I hope she’s okay. And I really have to get ready for work now.”

  I couldn’t tell if that was sincere or not. The man had closed up tight, was keeping everything inside and showing us the door. Literally. He went to the door and opened it.

  Mason sighed, and I knew he was disappointed. “Call me if you hear from her, okay?” He handed the guy a card.

  Jake took it from him but didn’t even look at it. “Sure.”

  I didn’t believe him.

  I waited until we were back on the sidewalk in the bright afternoon sunshine to say, “Something happened between him and Judge Howie. Something big enough that he thought we already knew about it. You need to find out what it was.”

  Mason nodded. “I think the guy has a record.”

  “Really? I didn’t get that at all. How did you—”

  “You get a feel for it after a while. People who’ve done time almost carry the scent of it. I’ll run him through the system, see what pops up. Should’ve done that first, but I figured the judge would’ve told me if there was anything.” He looked at me. “What else did you get?”

  “I think he still cares about her. And he was either surprised to hear she was missing or surprised that we were there asking him about it.” We got to the car, Mason’s big black beast. I opened the passenger-side door and had to heft my bulldog out of the way to make room on the seat. Her loud snoring broke into aggravated bursts and she opened one eye, but other than that, she didn’t break nap. “When do we get to talk to the other boyfriend? The current one? What’s his name again? James Tiberius?”

  Mason got behind the wheel and started her up. “Mitchell Kirk,” he corrected, deadpan. My Star Trek reference went right over his head. He wasn’t a Trekkie like me. “Tomorrow night at the chief’s anniversary party.”

  “He knows the chief?”

  “He’s his nephew.”

  “Oh. I did not know that. The plot thickens.” I relaxed in my seat and watched the city pass by as he headed for the highway. Ten minutes and we were back on 17, heading for 81.

  “So what now?” I asked after riding in silence for a little bit longer.

  “I take you home and head back to HQ to tell Chief Sub what we’ve found so far. See if he’s ready to make this thing official yet.”

  A big sigh rushed out of me before I could prevent it, catching me by surprise. He shot me a look. “What?”

  “I don’t know.” I frowned. “I think that was me being disappointed that our day hanging out together is over. Weird, huh?”

  Mason’s grin made his dimple flash at me. It was a more potent weapon than his stupid handgun. “I enjoyed it, too. It’s like old times, huh?”

  “Old times meaning the last time a serial killer was after us? Pretty sad when I’m missing those sorts of good ol’ days.”

  “Are you?” he asked.

  I shrugged, because I didn’t want to get too deep or stupid. “I think if I wrote a book about you, the title would be Meets, Screws and Leaves.”

  “Is that literary humor or a serious complaint?” he asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Never mind.”

  He eased into the left lane, then pressed the pedal down. He had a big, loud motor in the Beast, and even I got a little thrill when he made it roar. The nose end of the thing literally rose a little as the powerful engine kicked up a notch. I had discovered that the sighted Rachel was a little bit of a motor-head. I drove a convertible T-Bird that was a modern homage to the classic 1955 model, and I loved it. I had to admit, the ’74 Monte Carlo was growing on me, too.

  A little.

  As he merged onto 81, he said, “Jeremy has a home game tonight. You should come.”

  I looked at him fast. “I wasn’t hinting around for an invitation.”

  “Shit, Rachel, you don’t hint around for anything.”

  “It’s fine, we have the party tomorrow night. Don’t overdo it or I’ll get sick of you.”

  “I was going to ask you anyway. Josh has been griping that he never gets to see your potbellied pig anymore.”

  “Hey!” I punched him in the shoulder and hoped it hurt. “Fine, my gorgeous, sweet-smelling, damn near svelte bulldog and I will be there. What time?”

  4

  “Boys’ varsity baseball is not nearly as much fun as girls’ varsity softball,” I said a few hours later from the bottom row of the bleachers at the Whitney Point High School’s baseball diamond. Mason was sitting beside me, his nephew Josh beside him, and Myrtle was lying on the ground in front of Josh’s feet. Possibly on Josh’s feet. She was the president of the eleven-year-old’s fan club. She was smiling with her bottom incisors sticking out over her upper lip, and every time the kid stopped petting her, she batted him with a forepaw.

  “And you’ve come to this conclusion based on...?” Mason asked.

  “Everything. The pitches are too fast, the hits are few and far between, the scores are too low—”

  “Baseball scores are supposed to be low.”

  “He’s right, Aunt Rache,” Misty called. She and Christy, my sixteen-going-on-twenty-five-year-old twin nieces were sitting on the top row, as far as possible from us. They only insisted on being part of our conversation if it meant an opportunity to correct their too-long-out-of-high-school-going-on-spinster aunt.

  I twisted my head around. “You’re saying this? You, when your game last week ended because your team got so many runs ahead that they had to invoke the mercy rule?”

  She shrugged, and returned to avidly watching the game, while her twin never looked up from the screen of her phone. Her thumbs were moving at the approximate speed of sound. Misty whisper-shouted, “Jeremy’s up!”

  So I turned to pay attention. Misty and Jeremy were an item, though neither had admitted it yet, and nothing was official, as far as I could tell. But it was on. I’d have known that even if I’d still been blind.

  Thank God I wasn’t, because it was one gorgeous spring evening. The sky was bluer than blue, not a cloud in sight, and Mason was beside me, a situation I liked way better than I had, up until now, admitted to myself. Admitting it to myself now gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I liked things easy and casual between us. I didn’t want to screw it up by wanting more.

  Jeremy was crouching low, elbow up, bat moving in little circles behind him as he awaited the pitch. Then it came. He swung, and crack! It was outta there.

  I shot to my feet, whooping and clapping and grinning so hard my face hurt as the ball sailed out of sight and Jeremy jogged the bases while we cheered. I glanced at Mason. He was smiling harder than I was. He met my eyes and nodded.

  Yeah, I heard him. It had been a rough year for Jere. Last August he’d lost his father. In November his baby sister had been stillborn. At Christmas his mother had gone off the deep end and now she was in a locked psych unit. On top of all that, Jeremy had shot a man dead to save Mason’s life, and mine along with it. That he was still upright and not curled in a corner, drooling, was a triumph, in my opinion.

  “Okay, maybe I spoke too soon about boys’ game
s not being as exciting as girls’,” I said as he rounded third and headed home. We sat down again as the applause died down. “That was freaking awesome.”

  “And it means ice cream sundaes,” Josh added. “You promised, Uncle Mace. If he hit a home run, we get sundaes.”

  “I guess I have to pay up, then,” Mason said.

  “Don’t let him bullshit you, Josh. He’d have paid up either way.”

  Josh grinned, probably because I’d said “bullshit.” Hell, I forgot again. I was lousy around impressionable youth. Yet another reason to keep things right where they were with Mason. He had kids now. I was not mommy material. I was eccentric aunt material. I had that gig down.

  The inning ended, and during the approximate lifetime it always took for the teams to change sides, toss balls around and warm up the pitcher, I leaned closer to Mason. “So what did you find out about Jake?”

  We’d gone our separate ways after we’d questioned Stephanie Mattheson’s ex-boyfriend. Mason had dropped me at home, where I’d played on Facebook and Twitter instead of writing my daily ten pages, changed clothes and walked Myrtle. He’d gone back to the PD to talk to the chief and run a background check on Jacob Kravitz.

  “He did eighteen months in Attica,” he said.

  “Shit, you were right.” I clapped a hand over my mouth and glanced down at Josh, but he was oblivious. On the ground now, rubbing Myrt’s belly in just the right spot to make her leg go, and laughing like a freckled hyena. “What did he do?”

  “Pissed off Judge Mattheson.”

  I frowned.

  “Turns out that when Stephanie and Jake ran off together, she wasn’t quite eighteen yet. They crossed state lines. The judge made sure Jake got the maximum.”

  “That motherf— That prick.”

  He grimaced at me. “Not much of an improvement there, Rache.”

  “It’s a slight improvement. So then Jake has good reason to hate the judge.”

  “Yeah. And to keep his distance from Stephanie. He’s also got a pretty powerful motive for wanting revenge.”

  I nodded. “You think he’s hiding her somewhere? That the two of them planned this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or that he did something to her? For payback?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t think he’d hurt her. Maybe he’s gonna hold her for ransom, only maybe she’s in on it, too, and they’re going to run off to Tahiti together once the judge pays up.”

  He stared at me like I’d sprouted a unicorn horn. “What?”

  “I’m telling you, Aunt Rache, you’ve got a novel in you.” Misty had moved three levels down and was sitting behind us, leaning her head down between ours. “Now, what’s all this about kidnapping and ransom?”

  “Hello? Private conversation here.”

  She gave me an exaggerated pout and still managed to be gorgeous. “Then have it somewhere private.”

  “She’s right,” I said to Mason. “We shouldn’t be working at a game. Baseball is way more important than work.”

  “Is that from one of your books, Rachel?”

  “No, but it should be.” I pulled out my phone, tapped the little blue birdie.

  “You’re Tweeting?” Mason asked, using the same tone he might use to say “You’re reproducing by mitosis?”

  “Amy says it’ll have a positive impact on book sales.” I keyed in Baseball is more important than work. If ur boss disagrees, he’s a jackass. Then I turned the phone to show him. “I’m even learning the lingo.”

  “Everyone’s on Snapchat now,” Misty informed me in a superior tone. “Anyway, Jere asked us over tomorrow night to help him watch Josh while you two party. That good with you?”

  I shot a look at Mason. He said, “Sure.”

  For a detective, the guy was way too easily conned. “It depends,” I said. “Who do you mean by ‘us’?”

  The big blue innocent eyes got bigger and bluer and innocenter. I knew she was up to something. “Me and Christy.”

  “Just you and Christy?”

  She nodded very firmly and said, “And Rex. I mean, you know Rex.”

  Ronald Alexander, aka Rex (because being named Ronald and surviving high school could not coexist) was Christy’s current boyfriend. I did not like him. He was hornier than a rutting billy goat, and he could not hide that from the insightful-but-don’t-you-dare-call-her-psychic aunt. Aka me. Also, he smoked weed. I’d smelled it on him. It wasn’t something I was judgmental about—unless you were dating my niece.

  “I don’t see why not,” Mason said.

  “And who else?” I asked.

  “No one.” Christy’s voice had gone an octave higher. “I mean, unless Rex brings a few friends or something, but it’s not like we’re planning it.”

  “So, Mason, what my niece is asking you is, ‘Do you care if a bunch of teenagers throw a party in your house when you’re not home?’”

  He nodded slowly. “I didn’t know I had to stay in detective mode when talking to teenagers,” he said. Then he looked up at Misty. “I’ll have to meet this Rex person first, and it’ll be just you three. You, Christy and him. No one else. And no booze. No partying.”

  Her smile was huge, her eyes sparkling. “Thanks, Mason. You’re awesome.”

  Then she skittered back up to the top bleacher to lean in and whisper to her twin, who grinned and started texting even faster.

  Shit, she was probably sending out a mass invitation to the rave at Mason’s house tomorrow night.

  * * *

  The cell door slammed, sending Stevie’s heart into her throat. She’d been sound asleep. Now she sat up, clutching the jagged bottom half of her handle-broken-to-a-sharp-point hairbrush in one hand and listening to the familiar footsteps walking away with a slightly uneven gait. “Lexi?”

  “Right here,” she said from the top bunk.

  But Stevie sensed someone else near them. “Who is it? Who’s there?” she asked, still whispering, if loudly.

  “Ain’t nobody here but you an—”

  “Shh! Listen.”

  Lexus shut up.

  The sound was muffled, but it was easy enough for Stevie to figure out why. She’d sounded a lot like that herself, trying to yell for help with duct tape over her mouth. “He’s brought the third,” Stevie whispered.

  “Shit, we missed our chance!” Lexus slid down from the bunk and padded across the cell. “Where that damn light at?”

  Stevie got off the bed and walked carefully toward the muffled sobs. “It’s all right. Just take it easy,” she told the newcomer. Then she felt the girl, even though she hadn’t bumped into her yet. She felt her nearness and crouched down, reaching out and finding the girl’s head. The girl jerked away.

  “It’s okay,” Stevie said. “I’m gonna take off the tape. Okay? Just take it easy.”

  She touched the girl’s head again, and this time she allowed it. Picking at the edge of the tape over the girl’s mouth, Stevie eventually got it loose enough to start unwrapping, and on the final time around she tried to be gentle and not pull out too much hair.

  “What’s going on? What is this? Who are you?”

  The rattle-snap sound told Stevie that Lexi had finally found the pull cord and turned on the light. “Prisoners, just like you,” she said. “I’m Lexus. Number Two. And that’s Stevie. Number One. She blind.”

  The new girl was quiet for a long moment, looking around the cell, Stevie imagined. Taking stock.

  “He got us, didn’t he, Stevie? Brought Number Three in while we were asleep.”

  “We can’t let that happen again,” Stevie said softly.

  The newcomer sniffled. “What...what are you talking about? Number Three what?”

  “There’s four of everything in this cell,” Stevie told her. “So we figure there will be four of us. Sooner or later. The only time he opens the door is when he brings in a new one. Making that the only time we can try to get out.”

  “But we just misse
d our shot,” Lexi said.

  “That’s okay. We’ll have one more.” Stevie moved behind the new girl and used her sharp hairbrush handle to saw through the partially cut zip tie on her wrists. “We’re gonna have to sleep in shifts so this doesn’t happen again. It might be even better, three against one. We’ll need to find her a weapon.”

  “We gonna break another brush?” They’d broken two of them, then sharpened the ends against the metal bunk frames to use as weapons against their captor, the man Lexi, too, referred to as the Asshole. “That means only one left for all three of us. I ain’t sharin’ a brush with strangers.”

  Stevie shook her head. “Then she and I can use the broken-off heads.” She got the girl’s hands free. “Can’t we?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Number Three rubbed her wrists. Stevie heard it.

  “You hurt anywhere, Number Three?” Lexus asked.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Tell us your name and I won’t have to.”

  The girl didn’t reply. Stevie heard her get up onto her feet. Then she seemed to be looking around the cell, turning slowly. Stevie could tell by the sound of her breathing. “What’s he going to do to us?” she asked.

  “So far, nothing,” Stevie told her. “All he’s done is bring in food. Never speaks to us, never touches us.”

  “Yeah, he workin’ for someone, that’s what. You know if he ain’t touched the pretty one here, there a reason. He got orders to keep his hands off.”

  Stevie took the compliment without comment. She couldn’t return it, because she couldn’t see. So she continued, following Lexi’s logic. “Why would anyone give him orders like that? You think we’re being held for ransom?”

  “Ransom. Right, that why he picked me. Dirt-poor and no family.” She paced back to the bed and climbed up onto her bunk, and it squeaked under her as she wriggled around, getting comfortable again. “You got some rich relative gonna pay to get you back, Stevie?”

  It was the first time Lexi had voiced this particular question. Mostly, the girl stayed silent. But Stevie could feel her anger and frustration like electricity, crackling and snapping in the empty spaces.

  Stevie didn’t see any point in lying. “Yeah. My father’s a judge. A pretty wealthy one.”