Seeking Worthy Pursuits: A Dark Romantic Suspense Novel (Alace Sweets Book 2)

by MariaLisa deMora

  “I do know, Todd. I know the draw of that feeling of not having any responsibilities beyond what I choose to take on. This is me helping you put things behind you. You aren’t responsible for what happened to those women. You also aren’t responsible for the crazy things they did. You were Maddy’s last anchor to reality. So Mackie took you away.” Alace’s breathing changed; then he heard the light tapping of keys in the background. “You should turn the car around now and drive away.”

  “What? I don’t understand—”

  Flames licked into view behind the windows a moment before the front of the building blew out in a gigantic ball of fire. The resulting concussion rocked the car, and when he lifted from where he’d ducked behind the dash, he saw a few windows of houses closer to the blast had shattered.

  “Drive away now, Todd.” The sound on the call changed, as if Alace were inside an enclosed space like a barrel. Or a cage. Sweat trickled from his hairline down his temple. “You can’t be there.”

  He pushed the button to start the car’s engine, put it into gear, and drove away from the curb, putting the call on the Bluetooth speakers. He turned at the next street and drove steadily, even as his hands shook.

  “Alace?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That house…” Trailing off, he wasn’t sure what he’d meant to say. That the house had exploded? “It housed more than one set of nightmares.”

  “I know.” The pain in her voice had his teeth grinding together. “You didn’t deserve anything he did, Todd. None of you did.” Silence fell between them, and he blinked back tears.

  His voice cracked when he whispered, “Thank you.” Her simple acknowledgement of something he’d never voiced made his spirit lighter somehow.

  “Now, Todd, I have one final instruction for you.” With an upbeat tone, she asked, “Ready?”

  “Yes. Anything.”

  “Lose this number.”

  The speakers spat static and hummed; then the dash screen indicated the call had been terminated.

  Fuck, she’s scary.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Alace

  In the end, it was Todd who had decided how to handle his abduction and subsequent release. Of course, all he knew at the time was that the two sisters had a secret concentration camp in the basement of their grandparents’ old home. A location where his sometime girlfriend’s sister had imprisoned him inside one holding pen while the body of the women’s mother was in another and their completely insane grandfather in yet another.

  And that’s all he needed to know.

  The official story was Mackie had drugged and abducted him—there would be security footage from inside his house to back that up—before taking him to the family stronghold. There, he’d been held against his will until he saw an opportunity to overpower Mackie as she passed him food. Then he’d managed to also incapacitate Maddy and secure her before immediately calling the authorities.

  Now that the house was gone—such an unfortunate explosion from a leaky furnace—the only evidence was what the police had been able to extract in the first few hours. Alace had expedited an order to lock the house for a federal investigative team in order to get the scene shut down, and then Owen had taken care of the rest. All footage from inside the holding pens was gone as if the cameras had never been networked into their system. Any irregularities with the alarm logs would be written off due to the mental state of the sisters.

  The older Temple had been returned to the state’s custody, heading first to the local hospital, after which he undoubtedly would be placed in a different facility from the one he had supposedly died within. That was definitely going to stir a corruption investigation, but since the ownership of the prison had changed hands in the meantime, it would be difficult—if not impossible—to track down the guilty parties.

  Alace had already decided Temple wouldn’t have long to enjoy the state’s hospitality. Insane or not, he didn’t deserve to keep breathing. The image of the tiny doll’s hand kept intruding into her thoughts.

  There had been quite a bit of confusion about Mackie’s presence, since she had officially been a missing person, but Eric said he expected it to die down fast. No matter the stink her own sister had made about Mackie being the victim of an abduction, her simply being there played even more into the growing theory that both sisters were as nutter as their grandfather.

  Alace had her own ideas about all of that. The timeline of construction would tell the authorities a lot, but she’d bet money the dungeon and original holding pen had been constructed especially for the grandfather’s imprisonment after he’d been freed from official custody. Owen had reported from his very brief review of the mother’s body that she likely had died from natural causes, no obvious trauma inflicted on her person.

  Imagine being so small and abused by someone you trusted, then your whole family is torn apart until suddenly Grandpa’s home again but Mommy’s mad. The Temple girls’ mother had certainly exacted her revenge, and Alace was itching to get into their heads. She had an idea how to secure an interview with them, something she and Owen would have to discuss. Being a writer has some perks.

  Alace leaned against the kitchen counter on a stiffened arm, slowly stirring the spaghetti sauce. Eric had done the actual cooking, which was their norm, since she still struggled with all but the simplest of meals. He was upstairs showering, and her job was to not allow the sauce to burn. As low as the heat under the pot was, she thought the assignment of stirring was more busywork than actual saving the meal—but if Eric asked it, she’d move heaven and earth to make it happen.

  Owen was coming over for dinner.

  Hence the need for busywork, because she was absolutely antsy with nerves.

  It was what she wanted, no doubts about that at all. She liked how they’d worked together yesterday, at the end of the Temple gig, which had turned into more of a collective effort and less of the handler and hunter relationship they’d had up to that point.

  She straightened and cradled the tiny bump low on her stomach. The pregnancy had made her promise to Eric of leaving behind her active roles in the retaliation aspect of her gigs far more real. Just saying the words hadn’t been enough. Nearly losing the child had worked better than any rational discussion could ever have. Alace knew that without the promise of the baby, she would have found a hundred different and valid reasons to reenter the field with every gig—just as she had on this one. Being the boots-on-the-ground agent was what she knew and was most familiar. Being the person behind the keyboard wasn’t going to be easy to adapt to, but it would help to have a partner like Owen. Partner. Handler. Ground control. She snorted at that last one, his latest contribution to their ongoing text discussion. She owed it to him to be the best possible whatever-they-were-going-to-call-it that she could be. No matter how uncomfortable it was right now.

  The sauce bubbled and spat hot droplets of red on her arm, and she realized she’d stopped stirring at some point. Shit. Grabbing potholders lying nearby, she moved the pot to an empty burner on the stovetop, then stirred vigorously, thankfully not encountering any resistance that would indicate burning on the bottom. Stovetop off, lid askew on the pot, she set aside the spoon for now and checked the clock. Again.

  Definitely nervous.

  Her phone pinged and she dug it out of her pocket, scowling when she saw the incoming message. She unlocked it and navigated to her text exchange with Todd.

  He’d written, Why do I feel like there’s more I don’t know?

  Alace sighed. Because he didn’t need to know about the murders, at least not yet. Not until she and Owen had decided how best to handle things.

  Lose this number, Todd.

  Nothing in response, but she didn’t expect anything. Not for a couple of hours. If he stuck with his current schedule, he’d wait for a time and then send a different version of the same question. And he’d get the same response. They hadn’t been texting buddies before his problem became hers to solve, and th
ey wouldn’t be now.

  But she wouldn’t block his number, just on the off chance she might need him.

  It didn’t hurt to know a judge who owed favors.

  Her phone buzzed again as the doorbell rang, and as she stalked to the door, she unlocked the device to see a news alert about the Temple sisters. She scanned it quickly, then flipped to a different utility to see Owen’s face as he stood in front of the door.

  Identification verified via the security app, she opened the door and motioned Owen in. He had his phone out and was studying it in much the same way she was, and Alace laughed. She asked, “Did you see what they’re calling you now?”

  “No, what?” She let him keep reading as she closed the door behind him. He’d stopped walking two steps into the room and now was distractedly running a hand over the top of his head, apparently in search of the beanie he held in his hand. “Motherfucker. Seriously?”

  “Yeap.” She passed him and motioned him to follow her into the kitchen. “You’re now a delusion caused by a psychotic break from reality. Both women, same time. Same delusion, same psychoses. The twinsie freaks are going to go nuts about this.” It was Owen who had showed her the forums online where people venerated the more notorious identical twin pairings. “Would you like something to drink, Mr. Delusion?”

  “Water, with a little whiskey. Maybe a tad more whiskey than water. Tell ya what, save the environment and hold the water.” He pulled up the neck of his shirt and hid his mouth behind it as he continued reading. Alace wondered what the tell would expose, if she were to dig. It was a youthful pose, which meant the mannerism was a holdover from his childhood. “I can’t believe the crazy chicks haven’t said anything about the bodies. Neither of them, which makes me wonder if I got it wrong. For which sister did what, I mean.”

  “For what it’s worth, I believe we got it right.”

  He glanced up at her and seemed to realize what he was doing, straightening his collar with one hand while he gripped his phone tightly in the other. He opened his mouth, then closed it before looking towards the stairs. She turned and saw Eric walking down them, a towel draped around his shoulders. His entirely bare shoulders. Alace grinned. She’d told him a hundred times that the partnership with Owen was never, ever going to go beyond friends, but here he was, making a very male gesture of staking his claim.

  “You’re ridiculous.” Alace tipped her chin up as he got close, lashes dipping to her cheeks when he dropped his mouth to touch against hers. She cupped his smooth cheek in her hand, thumb sweeping over the freshly shaved skin. “Absurdly handsome, but ridiculous.”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he turned them to face Owen. Who was standing there with his trademark broad grin, eyes sparkling at the domestic scene he no doubt imagined this becoming.

  “Eric Ward, this is Owen Marcus.” She gestured between the two men. “Owen, meet my husbutt, Eric.” Two heads swiveled to look at her, and she laughed. Leaning close, she pressed a kiss to Eric’s bicep and felt the touch of his lips against her temple. “Put on a shirt.”

  Thirty minutes later, polite conversation had withered on the vine, leaving them sitting in awkward silence only broken by the scraping of tines across plates as final bites of food were chased down.

  “Jesus.” Alace threw her fork at her plate. “This is weird.”

  “So weird.” Owen’s head bob agreed with her. “You weren’t this quiet walking through the woods.”

  “Take that back.” Alace stared at him. “I have skills.” She laughed through her nose. “Unlike you, focused as you were on becoming the spider whisperer.”

  “That first web you walked into—” He broke off, laughing aloud. “Inventive cussing at its best.”

  “You’re a jerk.” The feeling that coiled through her chest wasn’t the same as what she held for Eric. Not love, but she recognized it as a deep fondness. “But at this point, you’re my jerk, because I’m keeping you. We work well together.”

  “Hell yeah.” He offered up a fist pump, looking chagrined in the middle when he realized what he was doing. “I mean, yes, we do. I—” He shook his head. “I don’t say this lightly, and you’ve gotta know it. I trust you, Alace. I trust you.”

  “What a tangled gig this one has been, yeah?” She pushed her plate and cutlery aside, absently thanking Eric when he stacked it on his. “From the time Worthson approached me for help finding his girlfriend’s sister, to leaving him behind to make the call for the cops, it was filled with twists.”

  “Which one do you really think was the active killer?”

  “Depends on which one we believe took Worthson.” Alace lifted a finger. “The nails were a giveaway to tell one from the other, but they’re identical, so unless I care enough to get into the local cop shop’s database to get their fingerprints or see if there are CODIS matches, we only have their word for who they are. Historical images show Mackie’d been a nail biter way back when, so I think it was her who took him, but I have a theory that Maddy wasn’t as stable as she’d portrayed herself through the years.”

  “Do tell?” Owen leaned back, arm slung across the top rail of his chair. “Let’s share theories, shall we?”

  “You remember the debrief on their childhood trauma?” Owen nodded. “There was something that bugged me about the police report from the day Maddy found out what their grandfather was doing to Mackie. She grabbed a baseball bat, sprinted the blocks to his house, and attacked him. Not very effectively, because he disarmed her before she could do any damage, but the cop who followed her reported she had shouted ‘something that sounded like I’m your girl,’ end quote. I think she was less upset about the ordeal her sister had been through and more concerned with losing her standing with their grandfather.”

  “So you think he was molesting both girls?” Alace nodded. “Makes sense. I mean, what little girl tries to kill a man like that? A crazy one, that’s what. If she was supposed to be Grandpa’s special girl, it’d piss her off to find out he was doing Mackie on the side.” Lifting his beer, he swirled the last two inches of liquid round and round as he considered her theory. “Why was Grandpa in the house?”

  “Mom. Eric called it when we were looking through photos, because the girls were too young at the time. They didn’t organize shit at that age, certainly not something as complex as a prison payoff to extricate a prisoner in a way that officially killed him.” Alace picked up her glass, glaring at the plain water for a moment. “Second theory is he didn’t necessarily start with the girls. Maybe he waited until his son was dead, maybe he didn’t. I’m planning on looking into that death, but we’ll have to take it at face value for now. Mom had to be impacted by what happened to her daughter, even if she only knew about Mackie’s abuse and not Maddy’s. I don’t think that’s enough to fuel the kind of rage necessary to create a dungeon, break the old man out of jail, and keep him for more than twenty-five years. He never had a moment of freedom, going from prison to dungeon. Personally, I think he started his extracurriculars with Mom, then branched out later.”

  “But wasn’t Mom kept in one of the cells?” Eric’s question had both Alace and Owen shaking their heads. She gestured to Owen to go ahead and he grinned, offering her a tiny genuflection in response that made her smile back.

  “Mom didn’t die in the holding pen. She was laid out in state, the circulation fan turned off so it was as airless as it could be without sealing the structure. But with the viewing ports, the girls could still see Mommy.” He lifted the bottle to his lips, draining the final swallows. “She became a relic, holy. Mom might have been batshit crazy, but the girls revered her. You couldn’t hear what they were shouting after they both woke up.” Alace shook her head. Damn mics. “They were most concerned with which pen each of them was in, neither wanting to be the one who woke up Mommy. Crazy talk, and it unsettled Worthson pretty good.”

  “Then who killed all the women in the woods?” Eric leaned forwards, elbows to the table, clasped hands in front of hi
s mouth. “And what will you do about telling authorities where the fields are?”

  “We may never know for sure—” Owen stopped and looked at Alace. “What do you know that I don’t? Because from that face?” He made a stirring motion aimed her way. “You know something.”

  “The forestry service keeps good records.” His ah-ha expression was amusing, and she laughed at the round “O” created by the surprise. “Seems Maddy had been volunteering for years. First during a sorority push for diversity. Not sure what working in the woods has to do with that, but maybe they were looking to bolster their ranks with girls who had activities other than cheerleading?” Alace shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, except the first trip Maddy took, one of the girls didn’t make it back. Her body was never found, and it was assumed she’d run off with an unsavory boyfriend who disappeared at the same time.”

  “You think that was her first kill? A male/female couple? That’s a dicey setup even for someone with lots of experience. A twofer isn’t something to just dive into.” Owen shook his head. “I could buy tragic accident for one and opportunity for Maddy with the other one.”

  “Maybe. Until you or I want to voluntarily head into lockup and pick her brain, it’s not likely we’ll know. But I do think that weekend’s missing couple had everything to do with Maddy.” Alace looked at Eric. His brows were drawn into a deep frown, tiny lines appearing between. “She would have been eighteen.” She left it at that, hoping he would draw the correlating lines without her having to speak them. Just about the same age as me when I started. “We won’t know if there were any kills between that and the bodies in the pens up north, but I suspect there would have been if something fell into her lap in terms of opportunity. The first abductions, however, line up with Mom’s probable death. One abduction, then two in quick succession, and we know she kept them alive for a time.”

  “Alive and tortured.” Owen tapped a fingertip against the table in a slow cadence. “Who knows what she used with the early victims, but she’d refined her activities by the time we found her caches. Napalm for food or water denial, and the staging for whatever her fantasy was.”