SINS
THE VANCE DAVIS DOSSIER
BOOK TWO
HEATHER HUFFMAN
Booktrope Editions
Seattle WA
2015
COPYRIGHT 2015 HEATHER HUFFMAN
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Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
EPILOGUE
WANT MORE VANCE?
MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE
For Shelley and J.R.
You brightened my life with your presence,
and you are dearly missed
PROLOGUE
Ten Years Ago
THE LIGHTS OF THE CITY BECKONED, stirring a yearning deep within Vance’s 18-year-old spirit. His need for adventure, for more, pulled him ever closer to the glittering promise those lights offered. He navigated his fully-restored 1967 Camaro through the unfamiliar streets before finding a public parking lot along the riverfront.
Since all of his worldly belongings were crammed into his backseat and trunk, he checked twice to be sure his car was locked before wandering towards the excitement of Laclede’s Landing. A thrill shot through him. For so many years he’d longed for adventure, and now his adventure had begun. He wanted to drink it all in—to taste and smell and feel every last bit of it.
The Arch, a landmark so distinctly St. Louis, towered over the scene playing out in front of him. Lights reflected off the river as it chugged steadily on by. Vance walked along the cobblestone streets, stepping out of the way for a horse-drawn carriage. Drunken college students stumbled in and out of old brick buildings with neon signs. The few remaining tourists with families ushered their children back to minivans, yielding the streets to the party crowd. Vance took it all in, relishing, reveling in it, in his new home. And he would make it his home. Tomorrow, he’d find a job. Tomorrow, he’d find an apartment. Tonight, he was going to treat himself to dinner and a night in a real hotel.
When Allie Walker’s family had taken their trip to St. Louis to see the arch, they’d eaten at the Old Spaghetti Factory and toured the wax museum. So in honor of Allie, and as if to somehow amend for breaking her heart by leaving, he began his night where she would have wanted him to: with a dinner of spaghetti followed by a tour of kinda creepy people made of wax. He wasn’t old enough to get into any of the bars and didn’t want to spend his first night in the big city tangling with cops, so he mostly just ambled up and down the streets, soaking it all in.
As it got later, the party got wilder, and he became conspicuously aware of being on the outside looking in. He made his way back to his car so he could find a hotel. After a good night’s sleep, he’d start his job hunt first thing.
The further he got from the revelry, the darker the streets got. By the time he arrived at the lot where he’d left his car, his nerves were a jumble. It hadn’t seemed quite so dark or remote before. He got to the row where he expected to see his car only to find the space empty. He walked up a few rows then back down, but to no avail. He tried to fight the encroaching panic as he walked all the way up the lot and back down. Still no car.
He moved on to the next lot, thinking that maybe he’d just taken a wrong turn or remembered something wrong. He tried to play it cool when a group of frat brothers clamored past. He tried not to let on that he could taste the bile of fear in the back of his throat.
After an hour of searching, he had to admit what he’d known all along: His car was gone, along with all of his worldly possessions. He had nothing. He had nowhere to go and no way to get there. With that realization sitting like a rock in his stomach, Vance couldn’t hold it back any longer. He threw up right there in the parking lot.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
VANCE PARKED in the exact parking spot he’d chosen on his first visit to St. Louis, as if to defy fate. He stepped out of his truck and looked around, the harsh light of day and experience giving him a very different view of the town he’d once been so in awe of. He surveyed the crumbling parking lot, his mind’s eye seeing things as they were that fateful night so long ago. When he’d made his big plans back then, he hadn’t taken into account the fact that at 18 with no credit card he wouldn’t be able to find a decent room to rent. It might not have been so bad if his car hadn’t been stolen. He still missed that car.
Vance couldn’t help smiling a little at how naive he’d been at the time. He’d bemoan where those choices had taken him, the dark roads he’d traveled, but it seemed a waste of time. And some of those dark roads were getting ready to come in pretty handy.
With no car and no place to stay, and being entirely too stubborn to buy a bus ticket home, Vance had spent his first weeks in St. Louis on the streets. It hadn’t taken long to figure out which overpasses were a safe place to get in out of the rain, which abandoned buildings were good for a windbreak, and how to spot trouble coming—from either side of the law.
It was this knowledge that led him down the right alleys to find a friendly-looking group of homeless people who would be willing to chat over sandwiches and warm drinks. Vance knew that if he was going to get anywhere with this investigation, he had to get his fingers on the pulse of the city again. The surest way to do that was by getting to know those who knew the streets best, and the city’s invisible residents heard and saw what the rest of the world missed.
Vance found just the group he was looking for, coming to a stop right in the middle of them. He swung a backpack off his shoulders even as he greeted them with an easy smile. “I have sandwiches and thermoses of coffee if anyone’s interested.”
They cast a glance at each other. A woman with shoulder-length brown hair and deep brown eyes was the first to speak. Her sweatshirt looked like it would swallow her whole; her arms disappeared in the cloth even as she wrapped them about her waist protectively. “What’s your game, mister?”
“No game. Just brought you a bite to eat.”
“What do you want?” the lean, earnest looking man standing with the woman asked.
Another older man quickly added, “Do you want to preach at us?”
Vance smiled. He remembered the preachers. He never minded them much as long as they brought a meal with their words. “Nah. I used to live here. Figured while I was back in the area, I’d see if anybody needed a bite.”
“Cool.” Vance’s explanati
on was good enough for the younger man. Hunger shone brightly in his eyes as he accepted the food being offered.
Vance watched as the man savored that first bite, memories of his own hungry days bubbling to the surface. He turned to the woman, extending a sandwich as he introduced himself. “My name’s Vance.”
Her eyes locked with his, as if she was deciding whether or not she could trust him. “Susannah,” she conceded. “My man here is Emmett.”
“It’s nice to meet you both.” He graced them with a genuine smile.
The older gentleman moved towards Vance, his eyes lingering on the roast beef on a hoagie roll that Vance now held in his hand. “My name’s Otis.”
“It’s good to meet you, Otis.” Vance handed him the sandwich before pulling the coffees out of his bag, followed by brownies baked by Martha Barnett, the closest thing he had to a mother, that very morning.
Otis had wise eyes and a gentle nature about him. His hair and beard were gray, though the beard had a streak of white down the middle of it. He was easy to talk to, and Vance could picture him standing around a bonfire chatting at one of the Barnett’s parties. In fact, that seemed more likely than his current setting.
Emmett was long and lanky with quick hands and nervous eyes that flitted from person to person. His smile was easy, though, and something about him seemed eager to please now that he’d warmed up to Vance.
As had been the case for most of the conversation, Vance found himself chuckling at the combination of Emmett’s hyper antics balanced by Otis’s deadpan replies. His eyes sought out Susannah, who’d largely kept to herself, her luminous brown eyes studying his every nuance. “What about you, Susannah? What do you think about Emmett’s theory? Are the cops getting more violent?”
Her brow furrowed and she straightened a bit, pulling her shoulders back and jutting her chin forward. From the look on her face, Vance guessed she wasn’t thrilled with Emmett so freely offering his opinion to a stranger.
“You can call her Susie,” Emmett offered.
Vance looked at her for confirmation.
“Oh, call me whatever the hell you want.” She waved her hand. “And don’t listen to Emmett. Cops are cops. Nothing new there.”
Emmett rubbed his jaw ruefully and squinted one eye at her. “Felt like something when they beat the crap outta me and left me for dead on the East side.”
It was Vance’s turn to rub his jaw ruefully, memories resurfacing at Emmett’s words. “Actually, they’ve been doing that one for a while. That happened to me my first month in St. Louis. The polo-shirt crowd was harassing a homeless cripple. I shot my mouth off at them, and a nervous bar owner called the cops because he saw a fight brewing on his sidewalk. Cops sided with the money and didn’t want to deal with the paperwork of arresting me.”
Otis and Emmett nodded sympathetically. Susie wrapped her arms around herself a little tighter, her frown deepening as she muttered. “Told you, Emmett. Hell’s hell, and we found it.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Vance’s tone was gentle. He wondered what happened to the woman, what journey had brought her to this point. The conversation moved on, but Vance’s mind wandered back to it later that night as he lie in his bed, sleep eluding him.
That beating wound up setting him on a path that would change his life. In the darkest of night, as his mind danced between dreaming and waking, Vance could remember the event quite vividly. He’d been lying on the cracked blacktop thinking he was going to die in the filth with no one to see or care. He might have been able to muster the strength to crawl or even get up if he had the will, but with nowhere to go it seemed the better option to lie there and die.
As the minutes had ticked by, he’d had time to bemoan every choice he’d made, every injustice piled on him. By the time a pair of high-heeled feet came into view, he’d begun to feel properly sorry for himself. So much so, he was hoping his end would be swift. But then the woman attached to those high-heeled feet knelt gingerly beside him, reaching two delicate fingers out to check his pulse.
“I’m alive,” he’d croaked, his embarrassment mounting as he realized just how pretty the woman was. Her blond hair was pulled into a messy pile on her head, tendrils escaping to tumble about her bare shoulders. She studied him with her big, blue eyes. He squinted up at her through his own swollen lids.
“Just barely from the looks of you, sweetie.” She ran her fingers down his cheek in something that felt like a caress before taking his chin in her hand and tipping his head up so she could better assess his injuries. “How’d you get yourself into this mess?”
Vance’s sharp laugh was cut off by the blinding pain it sent through his ribs. “That’s a long story.”
“What’s the short version?”
“Pissed off a cop.”
The woman regarded him a moment more before giving a slight nod. “You’re coming with me.”
Vance hadn’t had time to process her words before a second set of heels came into view. That woman also leaned down, her face bearing less kindness as she took him in. “Jessie, leave him. We’re going to be late.”
“You go on without me, Marie. Tell Spence I’ll be there soon.”
“I’m not taking a hit for you,” Marie retorted.
“Then tell him you don’t know where I am. I’ll deal with him later.”
Marie scrunched her face unattractively. “Just because you’re his favorite doesn’t mean he’s going to let this fly. You’re gonna push him too far someday.”
Jessie’s eyes didn’t leave Vance’s face. “Something tells me this one’s worth the risk.”
Vance opened his mouth to tell her he didn’t want her to get in trouble for him when she interrupted.
“Don’t bother arguing with me. I’m helping you whether you want it or not.”
“You’re nuts,” Marie decided. “And I’m out.”
Jessie waved her off without a glance. Vance had gotten the impression there was no love lost between the women.
“I’m Jessie. What’s your name?”
“Vance. It’s nice to meet you, Jessie.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Vance. Now let’s get you patched up.”
With no small effort, Jessie had helped him to his feet, paying no attention to the mess he made of her clothes. To this day, he wasn’t entirely sure how she’d managed to get him to a motel room, but she had—and then she’d paid for his room for a week and brought him a meal before telling him to take his shirt off.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Vance had asked.
“I’m already late. Might as well see this through. Now can you take your shirt off, or do you need help? I need to see if you’ve broken any ribs or if I can patch you up.”
“Do you have much experience patching up broken people?” He’d meant it as a joke.
The look on her face had squeezed at his heart when she answered. “Lots. Now off with the shirt.”
He’d felt like he was being beaten all over again as he maneuvered his way out of the cotton material, but he’d managed to get if off by himself.
“I bet you’re a good-looking guy when you’re not all busted up,” she’d commented.
“Thanks. I think.”
“You’re welcome.” Her fingers didn’t hesitate as she ran them along his ribs. For the first time, he really paid attention to her clothes, her makeup. He put it together with what part of town she was in and the time of night.
“You’re a hooker,” he’d blurted. “Crap. I’m sorry.”
A grin tugged at the edge of Jessie’s mouth. “It’s okay. It is what it is.”
“So Spence is your pimp. And he’s going to be mad at you for helping me. You should go; don’t get into any more trouble for me.”
“Spence also has it in his head that he and I are a thing. He’ll bluster but he’ll forgive me.” There was a tremor in her voice that made Vance think she wasn’t quite as confident of that as she professed to be. “I don’t think they’re broken. Your
ribs, that is. I think you’ll be okay if you take it easy for a while.”
Vance accepted the bag of ice she handed him, wincing as he held it to his ribs. “What can I ever do to repay you?”
“Do you have a home to go back to? If so, go there.”
“I can’t do that.” Vance’s last words to his foster father weighed heavy on his mind.
Jessie sighed and patted his hand. “We’ll figure out something to do with you, then. You can’t just keep wandering the streets. You’re too young and fit to be living like a stray dog.”
“Thanks. I think,” he repeated, not sure if he found her straightforward manner refreshing or offensive.
“Sorry. But the story doesn’t end well for guys like you. Can’t get a proper job without a place, can’t get a place without a proper job. Shelters are full. As big as you are, I’m surprised you haven’t been recruited to a gang yet.”
“Is that another failing on my part?” Vance’s tone was wry.
“You don’t want to be one of those guys. Last week, one of the gangs jumped Harry and Leila. Beat them to death with bricks just for the fun of it.”
Vance’s stomach tightened, and he wondered what kind of terrifying world he’d stumbled into. Outwardly, his face was granite. “What about your boss? Does he need help?”
“Are you applying to be a hooker?” she teased.
“No! I just meant…” Vance paused, embarrassed. He didn’t really know what he thought he could do for a pimp.
Her smile was sad this time. “You don’t want any part of my world.”
“I’ve got to do something.”
“Right now I want you to get better.” She stood and walked to the door, resting her fingers on the handle as she turned to look back at him. “Stay here. I’ll come check on you tomorrow and bring you some food.”
Sins (Vance Davis Dossier #2) Page 1
