by Julie Miller
An intense pain pierced her brain like a hot knife. She buried her face in her hands and groaned. Frosty’s warm tongue licked at her wrist and T gathered her up against his chest. “I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered. “I have to rest.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. You did great.” T helped her up out of the chair, picking up Frosty’s leash and guiding them both out the door. “There are some cots in the locker room. You can rest there while we sort out everything we know.”
“I know why Sergeant Watkins said Jezebel would talk to me.” She stopped moving in an effort to get T to listen. He caught her when she stumbled, held her up when her feet refused to work. “She was a psychic, too.”
“What?”
“That’s why her impression was so strong. Even after all these years. That’s why her husband threw her out.” She latched on to his jacket, reliving Jezebel’s shame. “He called her a freak. Like that word in the snow. Like m—”
“Dammit, Kelsey, don’t even say it.”
T palmed the back of her head and pulled her close to his chest. He was so strong in his defense of her, so angry on her behalf. Maybe she’d been wrong to doubt him. Wrong to think he saw her as a tool instead of a person. Wrong to think she was a substitute for the woman he couldn’t have.
“I have to help her, T. That could have been me.” Her words sounded drowsy, even to her own ears. She pushed at his chest, but she didn’t feel any budging. “I have to help her.”
“You have already.”
“But—”
“No buts.”
“I can do more.” She tapped at her temples. “There’s more here. I just need a little time to recover.”
“No.” The word was kind but firm. She wasn’t going to win this argument. “You need to rest. We’ll handle it from here.”
Her led her and the dog inside the locker room to an even smaller room with a pair of bunk beds along each wall. She was embarrassed by how weak and vulnerable she felt. Even though it didn’t take much urging for her to lie down and let T remove his coat and cover her with a blanket, her tongue still worked.
“Okay,” she agreed, her eyes drifting shut. T set Frosty on the lower bunk with her, and she rolled onto her side and curled the dog into her arms. “But just for a few minutes. Then I’ll be back. I want you to tell me everything you figure out. Everything, T…” She yawned. “I have to help those women myself. I need to so I…get them out…my head.”
As her voice trailed off into slumber, she heard his answer. “I’ll fill you in on everything, I promise. Your bag’s on the floor beside you. Rest for a bit, then freshen up and come back in when you’re ready.”
As she drifted into deeper sleep, Kelsey was aware of two things: T’s gentle kiss at her temple, and the fact she’d left her turquoise gloves back in the room with the doll.
T UNBUTTONED HIS COLLAR and leaned back in the chair at the end of the conference table. He studied the charts he’d drawn on the dry-erase board and the pictures and reports on the table, willing his logical mind to click it all into place.
The Taylors and A. J. had taken off a few minutes ago, but he’d wanted to stay behind to take care of Kelsey. Beyond the skeleton crew manning the office and the redhead sleeping away in the staff locker room, T was alone with his thoughts. He replayed snippets of the brainstorming session in his head.
“Does Siegel have an alibi for the time of Jezebel’s death?” Captain Taylor had asked.
Ginny answered. “He says he was attending Christmas morning service at the mission with Reverend Wingate.”
“Can he verify that? Is there a way to track which guests were there at the service eleven years ago?” The captain had been playing devil’s advocate, making sure every piece was in place before they ran with this theory. “If we could find any of them, would they speak out against the doctor who provides them with the only health care they ever see?”
“Reverend Wingate would be a reliable source.” Ginny thumbed through the original case file. “Sergeant Watkins’s report says Siegel’s the one he talked to to vouch for the reverend’s whereabouts that morning.” She glanced up at T. “It’s entirely possible he said that to establish his own alibi.”
“Nobody followed up?” T asked.
“Siegel wasn’t a suspect then.”
He was at the top of T’s list now.
A woman would trust a doctor, expect him to help her.
Kelsey’s impression of Delilah’s murder was that it had taken place in Siegel’s clinic.
Siegel had been at the mission when every one of the victims had checked in.
The doctor would know Latin. Matrona. Abi in malam rem.
Records showed that he’d turned to the bottle twelve years ago, shortly after his divorce. Was it grief or guilt that kept him in that alcohol-fogged state?
Ginny’s investigation into the doll’s history revealed that an M. Siegel had pawned the doll at The Underground shortly after the holidays a year ago. Probably for booze. Possibly to fund his clinic. Perhaps to finally rid himself of the rejected gift.
“It’s too much.” The clues were too pat, too convenient. After eleven years of searching for the truth, this was too easy.
He scratched behind the ears of the poodle camped beside him. His fingers stilled as he looked down into those dark, round eyes. There was one piece of irrefutable proof that would convince him Siegel was his man.
A dog bite.
“Who’d you sink your teeth into, buddy?” he asked.
Of course, the dog didn’t answer. But he did turn his head, reminding T that nearly an hour had passed since tucking in Kelsey, and she still hadn’t awakened from her nap.
“Think we better check on her?”
Frosty responded as if he understood the words, hopping to his feet and trotting out of the conference room. T grinned and followed the little dog, who wound through the maze of desks as if he was some big police dog who owned the place.
That unquestioning devotion to his mistress sparked an answering chord inside him. Kelsey had had so little reason to trust people’s motives throughout her life. Maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised—or hurt—that she’d doubted his motives for getting closer to her.
She’d sensed his feelings for Ginny, his reluctance to give his heart to a woman who was anything less than his ideal. Though he’d opened his mind over the past few days, his skepticism of her talents had been obvious when they’d first met. Why had he expected her to accept him and love him and trust him, when he hadn’t been completely willing to do the same for her?
It was a guilty admission that burdened his heart and quickened his steps. Proving himself took on a whole different meaning when it came to Kelsey. This wasn’t about pride or respect, this was about love.
And if she’d give him the chance to prove the depth of everything she’d awakened in his heart, everything she’d healed in his soul, everything she’d added to his life—he was going to take it.
He’d protect her. Listen to her. Love her. Make love to her… “Kels?”
T pushed open the door to the bunk room. The tapping of Frosty’s claws against the tile floor made the only sound in the empty room.
“Kelsey?”
Good feelings, hopes, resolutions—all plummeted through his system, leaving dread in their wake. Alarm buzzed along every nerve, putting him instantly on hyperalert. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. “Oh, no, sweetheart. No, no.”
He picked up the dog, backed out of the room and hurried to the front desk. T didn’t for one minute think she’d ducked out to go to the ladies’ room. She’d taken her coat and her purse.
But she hadn’t come back to see him or pick up her gloves.
She’d snuck out. Despite his reassurance that she’d done more than enough to help those murdered women, she’d snuck out to handle some damn dumb thing all on her own. Putting herself at risk. Putting his heart at risk.
“Maggie.” He set Frosty on top of the
sergeant’s desk and grabbed his coat from the coatrack.
“Hey, poochie.” The tall blond Amazon cooed and cuddled the silver dog. “Whatcha doin—?”
“Have you seen Ms. Ryan?” He didn’t give Maggie time to get acquainted or answer his question. “Did you see her leave? Did she say where she was headed?”
Maggie nodded. “She got on the elevator about half an hour ago. She said she had an errand to run. You and the captain were still in your meeting.” She reached for something beneath the desk. “Here. She said to give you this when you were done.”
T snatched the folded note from Maggie’s hand and opened it. “Hell.” He crammed the paper into his pocket. “Can you dog-sit for a while?”
“I—”
“—I owe you one.”
“Sure.”
He was already at the elevator. T didn’t waste much time speculating where Kelsey might have gone.
Though their approaches to solving a case were decidedly different, her determination to uncover the murderer’s identity was as strong as his. Maybe even more so, since she’d been inside the victims’ heads and had been victimized herself.
T entered the parking garage and ran to his Jeep. He could call the cab companies or check the city bus routes to see if anyone had picked up a sexy redhead with rock-star hair. But he knew where she was going already.
T—If you want my help on this case, you have to let me do what I do best. Sgt. Watkins was right. Jezebel is telling me what happened. But I need to find something else that belonged to her, something else she touched. As a cop, you’d need a search warrant for what I intend to do. I’m not a cop. I’ll call as soon as I know anything. K
Once behind the wheel of his Jeep, he started the engine and jerked it into gear. The wheels spun for a moment as he gunned it up the ramp out of the parking garage.
And turned toward the Wingate Mission.
THE FIRST THING she noticed was the smell.
Damp and rotting. Like winter and death.
Kelsey swallowed hard, curling her toes inside her boots to keep from running back down the stairs to the bustle and crowd of the dining room.
Reverend Wingate had been delighted to see her. Volunteers were in short supply on the holiday. He’d given her a big hug, pointed her toward the kitchen, then gone back to greeting and blessing his guests off the street. Lines in the hallway led to bed check-in’s, Doc Siegel’s office and the dining room. Everyone—staff and guest alike—was busily occupied, giving her the opportunity she needed to slip up the stairs unseen.
Kelsey pulled the flashlight from her bag and squinted into the dusty air of the mission’s attic. The air was almost as cold up here as it was outside, thanks to the unfinished walls and crumbling insulation. Without her coat or gloves to warm her, she hugged her arms around her waist to ward off the shivers that had as much to do with atmosphere as they did temperature.
“Ho, boy.” She twisted her fingers around Lucy Belle’s pendant and walked over the threshold. “Let’s do this.”
T needed facts. She intended to find a few, then get the hell out of this creepy place.
The floorboards creaked beneath her footsteps and she paused and held her breath, wondering if anyone could hear her. She was three stories up, with the empty residence floor between her and the people down below. She trained her ear to the distant mumble of voices, and finally decided that if she could barely detect the sounds of over a hundred people, then none of them could hear one lone woman sneaking around in the attic.
Kelsey breathed in, trying to calm herself, but the moldy scents in the air tickled her nose. She covered her mouth to stifle a sound that was half sneeze, half startled yelp as she stumbled into a small, white wooden stool.
“Calm down, girl.” She looked around, verifying that she was alone with her imagination and the rotten air. “Might as well start now.”
With one last anxious glance over her shoulder toward the empty doorway and dark hall beyond, she reached down and flattened her palm against the stool’s flat top. The painted wood was clammy to the touch, and sticky with dust and age. But, using the warmth of her grandmother’s crystal to center her, she sorted through the images attached to the stool.
A man sitting. Nothing helpful there.
Kelsey tilted the beam to the sloping ceiling and traced it all the way down to the far wall. Her light was too dim to make out the bulky shapes in the distance. She wished she could turn on the light switch, but with two windows and no curtains, she didn’t dare, for fear someone outside would see and either phone the police or warn the mission staff they had an intruder.
With no choice but to feel her way through the dim, damp air, Kelsey slowly moved forward. At the far end, she stopped, feeling a chill so cold it felt as if an unseen hand had dropped an ice cube down her back. Instinctively, she reached for the pendant and clung tightly to the warmth of her grandmother’s spirit.
“You’re here, Mary,” she whispered. “I can feel you. Talk to me.”
She inched closer, shining the light so that the bulky objects took shape. This far corner was designed like a little bedroom—with a chipped, white dresser and row of empty hooks lining one wall. A tattered throw rug covered a small section of floor beside a bed. A bed she’d seen before in her mind. A white metal hospital cot, just like the one down in Doc Siegel’s office. But this one had a bare ticking mattress.
Solid walls and a coat of paint might have turned the furniture into a cozy alcove. But in this sparse, unadorned condition, it bore closer resemblance to a prison cell.
Kelsey walked over and poked the mattress, wanting answers yet not wanting to touch it. After a few shaky moments, she gritted her teeth and laid her hand in the center of the mattress. Tears welled up almost instantly. Such degradation. Such confusion. Such fear. She sank to her knees as the past revealed itself in a barrage of images.
A naked woman.
“Isn’t this what you want?”
“You filthy slut. Haven’t you learned anything? Can’t you remember a thing I’ve tried to teach you? You’re supposed to be a wife and mother. That’s what a lady would do.”
He tossed a blanket at her. It was itchy, grubby against her skin. She quickly scrambled onto her knees and wrapped herself inside its abrasive cover. “I can be a lady. I was a lady. Until Patrick threw me out. He left me no choice. I have to survive.”
The man sat beside her. He stroked her hair and gentled his voice. This was the kind man she knew. The man she could turn to for comfort. “I want to help you.”
“I don’t want to live like this.”
His soft caress became a clinical grasp of her chin. He turned her face from side to side, shaking his head.
“I can save you from this life.”
This is wrong. This feels wrong!
“I can cure your problem.”
“What?”
Soft gentle words became damning lectures. Damning lectures became unnerving silence.
“I thought your gift—I thought this was how I was supposed to pay you back.”
“Shut up, you crazy freak!”
Get up. Move. Go. Get out.
“Abi in malam rem. Abi in malam rem.”
The man slapped her. Hard across the face.
Kelsey flinched, her head ringing with the memory of Jeb’s final good-bye. She jerked her hand off the mattress and tumbled back onto her bottom.
Her heart raced in her chest. Her lungs couldn’t seem to find enough oxygen in the stale air.
Mary had been punished the same way she had. Ridiculed for being different. Singled out.
But Jeb had merely mocked and abused.
This man cleansed, purified, killed.
“Oh, God, Mary.” Kelsey picked up her flashlight and scrambled to her feet. “Oh, God.”
Mary had died in this room. It wasn’t a crime of passion. Or a business transaction gone horribly wrong.
It was an exorcism.
Kelsey lurched across
the room to the far wall. She swept the light back and forth across the rough slats of rotting wood, searching for something too tiny to find by vision alone. Shaking so hard that the batteries rattled inside the flashlight, she squeezed her eyes shut and turned around.
Slowly, ever so slowly, dreading the coming sensation the way she’d dread a knife to the heart, she pressed her back into the wall. “Oh, God.” Matrona. Abi in malam rem. “Mary!”
Kelsey clutched at her throat. Scratches flayed open as he shoved her brutally against the wall. Kelsey forced her eyes open. Her hair tangled in the wood’s coarse texture and ripped from her scalp. Black and white.
Not a metaphor of fading vision.
Not a liquor bottle.
Not a police car.
A collar.
Kelsey spun around. She shone her light on the rotting remnants of wood. There. Facts.
A handful of hairs, torn from a woman’s scalp.
The rush of relief and triumph almost made her giddy.
If T needed facts…
A hard, bruising hand muffled her mouth and dragged her back against a stout, unyielding chest.
“I knew you were one of those freaks the second I laid eyes on you.” The hate-filled voice spit the condemnation against her ear. “I’ll teach you how to be a good woman. Or you’ll die trying.”
The pungent cloth he held over her mouth and nose muffled her screams until she passed out.
Chapter Twelve
T ignored the pain in his knee and took the steps two at a time. He pushed his way through the crowded hallway and prayed to God he wasn’t too late.
“Excuse me,” he said to the last startled man waiting in line for the clinic.
He burst in on Doc Siegel, sitting in front of a patient on the bed, administering some kind of shot. “What the…?”
“Where is she?”
The skinny son of a bitch shot to his feet. “You can’t barge in here—”
T got right in his face, articulating every word with a biting threat. “Where is she?”
