Wicked

by Jana DeLeon

  “Because my guess is, whoever is targeting them is the only connection they share.”

  “Oh, so if you find out what they have in common, you know who took Ethan.”

  “That’s the idea.” Shaye looked down at the phone. “I also need to figure out this code.”

  “Do you think it will really lead to Ethan?”

  “Maybe. Or it could send someone walking into a trap. But it’s still important that I figure it out. It could help me identify the killer.”

  Tara pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, a sudden chill passing through her.

  “That’s what he is, right?” Tara asked quietly. “He killed Amber.”

  “I don’t know that for sure yet, but I’m leaning strongly toward yes.”

  Tara looked down at the floor, then back at Shaye. “Do you think he’s planning to do the same thing to me? Is that why he chased me?”

  Shaye shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  11

  Wednesday, October 28, 2015

  * * *

  Jackson rolled out of bed at 6:00 a.m. and trudged into the kitchen for coffee. He’d remembered to set the automatic timer the night before, so the fragrant scent already permeated the room, giving him a lift with just the smell. He grabbed a cup and filled it up before reaching for his cell phone. He frowned when he saw a text from Shaye.

  Call me as soon as you can.

  Five a.m. There was being a morning person and there was alert and working at 5:00 a.m. He assumed she’d sent the message so early because she wanted to speak to him before he got to work. Was it personal or was she working a new case? He shook his head. She’d just gotten back a day ago. Even if she’d wanted to start back to work, she had to have a client. And since only a handful of people knew she was back in town, that seemed rather a long shot.

  But what else could it be? Shaye was hardly the type to text him at that hour if it wasn’t important. Maybe the media had found out about their return. Maybe it was a zoo over at Corrine’s home and they needed help. He sat down at his kitchen table and dialed her number, slightly surprised when she answered on the first ring.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. Her voice sounded normal. Maybe a tiny bit strained, but nothing screamed “I’m in the middle of a breakdown” to him.

  “I’m fine, but I need to talk to you. Can I swing by before you go to work?”

  “Yeah. I leave here at seven thirty. Come by any time before then.”

  “Great. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  She disconnected the call and he stared at the phone in dismay. Ten minutes? Corrine’s house was a good twenty minutes away with traffic, and even if Shaye was at her apartment, she’d be pressed to make the drive in that amount of time.

  Where the hell was she? And why was she already out this early in the morning?

  He took another sip of the coffee, then headed into the bedroom to throw on some clothes. The one thing he was certain of was that Shaye would never waste his time. Whatever was going on was big, and the only thing he could think of that she’d come to him for at this hour was police help. He pulled on a pair of jeans and blew out a breath.

  The acting chief had made it crystal clear that he didn’t want Jackson spending time with Shaye. Granted, the man had admitted that he couldn’t force Jackson to end any personal relationship, but he could hold his feet to the fire if he felt Jackson was sharing confidential information with her about ongoing investigations, or if he felt Shaye had accessed information through Jackson in order to solve a case for a client.

  The long and short of it was that people were watching, and Jackson’s relationship with Shaye had to be 100 percent aboveboard because his job was on the line. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t help Shaye if she needed it and he was able, but it meant he had to be extremely careful about the manner and method of any help he gave.

  Shaye was a reasonable person. She would understand.

  At least, he hoped she’d understand.

  He managed to finish a full cup of coffee and start on another before the doorbell rang. He opened it to let Shaye in and took a couple seconds to take in her appearance. It was clear that she hadn’t slept much. Her eyes had dark circles underneath them and the lightness in her step was missing as she moved into the kitchen and reached for the extra coffee mug he’d placed on the counter.

  Her clothes were an odd choice as well. Shaye was not one of those women who refused to leave the house unless she was fully made up, every hair in place, and garbed in designer wear, but wrinkled sweatpants and a T-shirt were more of an exercise thing than a work thing. Nothing about her expression or demeanor led him to believe she’d been out jogging and suddenly needed to speak to him, so he was anxious to hear what was going on.

  She took a sip of the coffee and closed her eyes for a couple seconds, then took another sip. “I almost feel human again,” she said.

  He waved her to the table and she sat down, clutching the mug with both hands. He waited for her to talk, but she took another drink of the coffee and sat in silence.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked. “You look a little…uh, ruffled.”

  “Ha. That’s a polite way to put it. I look like something the cat dragged in.”

  “Did something happen to Corrine?”

  “She’s fine. She’s not overly happy with recent decisions of mine and I expect an earful when I get home, but that’s to be expected. It’s been a long time since she could yell at me for staying out all night.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “I was sitting guard in a dorm room on the Lafitte University campus.”

  Jackson frowned. If anything she’d just said was supposed to make sense, then he might need another cup of coffee himself. “I’m sorry, but I’m completely lost.”

  “I know. I want to explain, but I’m trying to figure out the best place to start. I guess I’ll start with my client.”

  “Client? You’re working a case? How can that be? You just got back here.”

  “And the client just happened to show up at my apartment when I was there yesterday. She told me a story I couldn’t refuse.”

  Shaye began to tell Jackson about her case, starting with Tara’s story and ending with the reason Shaye had spent a sleepless night in a college dorm room. When she finished, he leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

  “Just when you think you’ve heard everything,” he said, “now we have pre-obituaries being dealt out by text.”

  “When I got home last night Corrine told me about your visit as a landscaping professional. I would have paid money to see Grayson dressed down, by the way.”

  Jackson smiled. “He was less than enthusiastic about the wardrobe requirements.”

  “She also told me why you were there. I hope that doesn’t get her a black mark.”

  “I’m not worried about you repeating what you were told.”

  “I won’t, but I can’t push it out of my mind either. When Corrine was telling me about the case, I got a bad feeling. That kind that makes you itchy?”

  Jackson frowned. “You think your missing boy and Ross St. Claire are somehow related?”

  Shaye nodded. “And the girl in the coffin, Amber Olivier.”

  “What are you basing the connection on?”

  “Nothing concrete, and that’s the problem. They’re all college students, but none of them were friends that I’m aware of. I’m going to look into that more today. I know Amber’s death is an open investigation, and I know she died horribly of suffocation fighting to get out of that coffin.”

  “And you know that how?”

  Shaye smiled. “I have my sources.”

  “Clara Mandeville.”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny. Can you tell me if Amber’s death has been declared a homicide?”

  Jackson knew he shouldn’t tell her anything at all, but that was the politics talking. Shaye was hardly going to walk out of his apartment
and sell the information to the highest-bidding news channel. The reason the police played things close to the vest was to make it easier to catch perpetrators. As soon as details of a case surfaced, it gave people an exact idea of which tracks to cover.

  “It’s a suspicious death given the circumstances,” he said, “but it hasn’t been ruled a homicide yet.”

  “They think it might be a sorority prank gone wrong,” Shaye said. “She had Rohypnol in her system.”

  He nodded. “Unfortunately, not exactly uncommon among the college-age crowd.”

  “I have to ask—how did Ross St. Claire die? If you can’t tell me, I understand.”

  He knew he shouldn’t tell her. If the acting chief found out, Jackson would be kissing his detective career good-bye, but then he thought about the possibility that Shaye presented—that one person had targeted three kids—and he thought “to hell with it.”

  “He was tied to a tree and a plastic bag was duct-taped over his head,” Jackson said.

  “He suffocated.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t make the connection on cause of death to the Olivier case,” he said, feeling frustrated.

  “No one did because the police are still assuming Amber’s death could have been an accident. And since the fabulous and always consistent Vincent blew off my client, no one knew that yet another college student was missing and he might have had information about Amber’s death. Where was Ross’s body found?”

  “A hiking trail.”

  “Doesn’t sound like an easy task—carting an unconscious man down a hiking trail.”

  “It was near the beginning and fairly flat. Our guess is he used a cart of some sort, maybe a wheelbarrow, but it rained that night, so any tracks were long gone by the time we got there.”

  Shaye pulled out her cell phone and showed him the text that Brenda had received. “That’s Ethan Campbell, the boy who received the text with what he believed was Amber’s picture. He had no idea who she was, but now he’s missing. Brenda, the girl who received this text about Ethan, has never even spoken to him before.”

  “So if we knew why they were targeted—”

  “We’d know who was targeting them. That’s what I believe, anyway. I need Tara to report this to the police. I’ll keep working things from my end, but there’s too much I don’t have access to. You need to officially have all the information I have so you can connect these cases and work them as one.”

  He blew out a breath. Nothing about Shaye’s theory could be proven but damn it if he didn’t believe she was onto something. “Bring Tara in. I’ll have Grayson talk to her.”

  “What will Chief Rhinehart say?”

  “Not a damned thing. You’re bringing a frightened girl to the station to report a crime. Her friend is missing and she was stalked. If anything, he should be apologizing for Vincent, but there’s nothing he can fault you for just for bringing her in.”

  “Okay,” she said, and rose from the table. “As far as I’m concerned, we never had this conversation. If Chief Rhinehart asks, tell him I asked you to set up an interview between my client and Grayson. You need to make the connections after the interview if Grayson doesn’t.”

  He nodded. “I don’t have to tell you to be careful.”

  “No. But it’s nice to hear.”

  Silas checked up and down the block before he slipped behind the hedges and headed to the back of the abandoned house. All the windows had been boarded up but he’d removed the plywood from one on the back—the one that none of the neighbors could see from upstairs in their own homes. At a glance, it looked like the plywood was still in place, but all he had to do was lift it up a bit and it slid right off the nails that were propping it up.

  He couldn’t remember exactly how long he’d been homeless. Living on the streets tended to blur one’s focus on time. Everything moved slowly when you had no job or money, unless you had a fix. Then days could be lost in a drug-induced haze. It might be three years. That sounded about right but he’d have to know the date to be sure.

  Anyway, the last couple months had been different from the rest. He’d finally kicked the drug habit, which is what had put him on the street to begin with. Family and friends had tried to help, but attempting to get in between a dedicated junkie and drugs was a waste of everyone’s time and eventually, people wised up and cut their losses. Then he’d found the girl behind the Dumpster.

  She’d been young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, most likely a runaway. The needle was still sticking out of her arm. Her final pose on this earth. But the girl wasn’t what disturbed him. He’d seen plenty of overdoses. It wasn’t exactly uncommon with people in his situation. No, what had sent him straight for a priest and NA was the dead baby on her chest.

  Probably, the baby had been born addicted and the poor thing never stood a chance, but something about that tiny pale infant, who would never cry again, pierced Silas straight to the core. He’d been clean for fifty-eight days now and employed for two weeks. It was a night shift at the docks, loading and unloading, with low pay and no benefits, but it was the first legitimate work he’d had in years.

  Another couple months of squatting and he’d have enough saved to get his own place. It would be small and rundown, but the apartments he had in mind were close to the dock. Once he got an address and some clean clothes, he might be able to find something that paid better. Or he might be able to pick up something part time to make some more.

  But until then, this abandoned property was what he called home.

  He slid the plywood off the nails and leaned it against the wall, then climbed in the window. He reached back and picked the plywood up, pulling it back into place using the two screws he’d attached to the back of it. With the window covered, the house was pitch black, but one of Silas’s first purchases had been a flashlight. He didn’t use it much because he didn’t want to run down the batteries, but he kept it next to the window to help get him to the room he was using as a bedroom.

  He reached down and felt around, trying to locate the flashlight, which was usually against the wall and just to the right of the window ledge. But his hand passed through open air, not connecting with anything. Frowning, he bent down and used both hands this time, wondering if the flashlight had tipped over, maybe even rolled. The floors weren’t level, so it was a possibility. When his extended search yielded nothing, he rose back up and removed the plywood from the window, allowing the moonlight inside. If the flashlight had rolled somewhere, he’d never find it in the dark.

  He turned around to scan the room that used to be a kitchen and realized something large and covered with a blanket was in the corner. Something that wasn’t there before today.

  Someone had found his hideaway.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his hunting knife. They may not have real homes, but the homeless were highly protective of the spot they’d chosen to stay. Invaders were often violent and needed persuading to move on.

  He crept toward the corner, silently cursing every time the floorboards let out a shriek, but the lump in the corner never stirred, not even a tiny bit. Probably stoned. He hoped that meant it was one of the milder drugs. He’d made the mistake once of taking on a girl on PCP and despite the fact that he had a good fifty pounds and four inches on her, it had taken three men to get her off of him. After that, he’d learned the signs of a PCP high and had avoided those people like the plague. You never knew what might set them off.

  When he reached the lump, he paused, not sure how to handle it. Finally, he decided an attack was the best way to scare the intruder into finding a different place to squat. He clutched the knife in his right hand, ready to jab if the intruder jumped up to fight, and reached out with his left hand and pinched the top of the blanket. He blew out a breath and started counting.

  One. Two. Three.

  He yanked the blanket off in a single tug and threw it behind him, jumping back at the same time in case the intruder charged.

  It only took a second to
determine the girl under the blanket couldn’t attack anyone.

  She was propped up in the corner, slumped against the wall, her legs and arms bound together and then tied to each other. Duct tape covered her mouth and nose and wrapped around the back of her head over and over again. He took a step closer and saw plastic peeking out of the top of the duct tape.

  Her eyes were wide open with fright, probably struggling to free herself before she suffocated, but with her hands and feet bound together and to each other, she’d had no way of ripping the tape from her face. Silas’s stomach rolled and for the first time in his life, he was glad he didn’t have a lot of money for food. This was worse than just death. This was evil.

  A piece of paper with writing on it was pinned to her shirt and he leaned over to make out the single word in the dim light.

  Cheater.

  Silas headed back for the window. He’d already seen more than he wanted to see.

  12

  Shaye drove straight to her apartment after she left Jackson’s place. She’d already texted Corrine that she was fine but wouldn’t be back until later. Right now, she wanted a shower and a change of clothes, but she wanted them both in peace. If she went back to her mother’s house, Corrine would have a million questions that Shaye didn’t have the energy or desire to answer.

  She parked one block over and walked to the corner, scanning the street before she crossed it and let herself into her apartment. None of the cars parked on the street looked like they belonged to a news crew, but then it was early. Things could change once people got up and headed out for the job.

  In her bedroom, she paused next to the bed and gave it a wistful look. Between the horribly uncomfortable dorm bed and Tara waking up every hour and tossing and turning in between, Shaye probably hadn’t gotten a single stretch of sleep more than thirty minutes long. Around 4:00 a.m., she’d finally given up and started making notes on her laptop, then sent Jackson the text an hour later. By the time 6:00 a.m. rolled around, Tara had finally fallen into a deep sleep.