"Brianna hurt me. She told my father about Paul Gossard."
"That's barely worth a murder," she says. "And you know it. She wasn't purposely trying to hurt you. Our plan was to go after other predators…and Brianna didn't have any claws. Mason, on the other hand, wanted her dead because she testified against him. He's a self-serving asshole who still thinks of you as his dumb half sister. You know you're going to have to kill him eventually, don't you?"
"He probably wants me to kill him—he hates prison that much. And it's a stupid move. I'd get myself locked up for the rest of my life since I'm eighteen now, and we don't have the death penalty."
"And they'd call you the Cheerleader Killer."
I make a face at her. She chuckles.
For the rest of the drive, she's silent except for cursing at a driver who cuts us off. She seems to be contemplating our next move, but I'm already confident our plan is perfect and every kill after it'll feel just as good.
A loud buzzing fills the truck.
"Well, that would be great if the truck broke down while you have a rifle in the back and clothes in a plastic bag," Debbie says.
"It's my burner phone," I mutter. "It must be Nick. He's the only one who has the number. At least I've got a legitimate excuse to ignore the text until I'm in The Charcoal Grill's parking lot."
"Why do you keep that jerk-off around? He's a liability."
"He's also in constant contact with the acting chief of police," I say. "And willing to tell me what Chief Grant is up to. I'm going to need that more than ever now."
"It's a good thing men can only think with their dicks," she mutters. "Or he would have seen right through your act by now."
When I stop in front of The Charcoal Grill, I take the phone out of my glove compartment.
Nick: How did your appt. with Dr. Walsh go?
Me: Sorry I didn't answer right away. I was driving. It went well. We talked about Mason and my dad. What's going on over there?
Nick: Aaron is at Teresa's. It's Teresa's birthday, so Aaron probably won't be coming back until tomorrow morning. He might even go straight to work like he usually does when he stays over at her apartment.
"Somebody is feeling horny," Debbie says. "I'm pretty sure that's his version of my parents are out of town."
I ignore her and send Nick a reply.
Cool.
Nick: Can you get away tonight at all?
Me: It's my first night back at work after cheerleading practice. I might be tired.
Nick: Oh, okay. I might come by and grab a burger for dinner. We could have fun pretending we don't know each other.
"Somebody is desperate." Debbie yawns.
As I begin to answer Nick, I glance over to find Debbie has disappeared. That's getting really annoying.
Me: Sounds fun.
I throw the phone back into the glove compartment, get out of the truck and lock it, and head into The Charcoal Grill. The smell of french fries assaults my nostrils, and the red-and-white checkered pattern of the walls and floors fill my vision. The restaurant has eighteen white melamine tables and a red take-out counter at the back. I think the owner, Patrick Duff, was trying to make it feel like a "classic" burger restaurant, but it just looks like red and white were the cheapest colors available for him to buy.
I walk up to the take-out counter. "Hey, Birdie."
Birdie is a senior at Wyatt High School like me. Her real name is Yellow Bird, but in elementary school, teachers shortened it to Yellow, which she hated, so she told everyone to call her Birdie. I guess her parents are half-Swedish and half-Inuit hippies, and Birdie inherited the more conventionally beautiful sides of both heritages—she has the dark hair and eyes of the Inuits, but the fine bone structure of her Swedish side. She has a hundred nervous tics, which could be because she's always juggling high school with taking care of her younger siblings, or because her mother was doing drugs while she was pregnant.
"Hey, um, Sarah," she says, drying her hands on a rag. "What's up? You're not supposed to be working yet, right?
Birdie took over for me when I was recovering in the hospital after my kidnapping. I know she's paranoid about losing her job once I'm back to working my normal shifts. I wonder if her first reaction to hearing that Brianna is dead will be relief since she will get to keep her job. It would be amusing if it were so obvious that Birdie would become suspect number one, even though she's probably got a solid alibi. Birdie doesn't do anything, but work and take care of her younger brothers and sisters, because her parents are stoners who don't give a shit how they're hurting their kids, so she was likely there or here during the time frame the police come up with.
"Could I get ten small milkshakes?" I ask her. I smile as she nods, getting out her pad of paper. I take out my phone because I have all of the squad's favorite flavors jotted down on a note on my phone—my regular phone, not the burner that's solely to keep in contact with Nick or whatever else I may need it for in the future. "I need three vanillas, four chocolates, and three strawberries."
"No problem," Birdie says. "It will be out in a minute."
She disappears into the kitchen. She's such a nice girl who was dealt a shitty hand in life—like me. Maybe I should help her out by killing her parents.
"Or not," Debbie says. I turn to see her sitting on the counter, her legs swaying over the edge. "You already have a plan in place and you wouldn't gain anything by killing her parents. Stick to the plan. Don't be nice unless it gets you something. Remember, the only threat to a predator—"
"—is arrogance," I finish for her.
A little boy turns in his chair, his forehead furrowed in confusion, wondering whom I'm talking to. I flash him a smile. His cheeks turn bright red and he turns back around to finish eating his burger. And a predator's greatest asset is camouflage. Nothing makes prey feel safer than thinking there isn't a single predator in sight.
Chapter Six
Aaron, 2015 (Late Monday afternoon)
THE ONLY PLACE I can think of that has a large selection of pictures frames is Pier 1. I buy all of their stainless steel and chrome picture frames, and then I stop at a hardware store for picture wire. I make one last stop—a rare moment of impulse for me—at Vital Meadows, a local florist, to get a bouquet of calla lilies.
When I get back to Teresa's apartment, I frame the pictures, spend an inordinate amount of time figuring exactly where each photograph should go, and hang them up. As I reach through to the bottom of the box, I find one photograph that has been folded over. I unfold it
It's a recent photograph of Teresa.
She looks amazing in the picture, wearing a red sleeveless cocktail dress with a slit all the way up the leg. And she looks happy, as if she's about to burst out in a laugh. Her black braided hair is pulled up into a bun and her brown skin seems to radiate a sense of warmth. I stare at the picture for a little while, and I kind of want to stick it in my jacket and take it home. We've never been the type to take photos with each other—mostly because we're usually having sex or talking about crimes—but it would be nice to have something to gaze at when I miss her.
I flip the photo over, trying to see if a date or place is written on the back. Instead, I find a note that was written on the folded side.
I saw you mentioned on AP this morning and I remembered that I found this when I was packing up the house. I hope you are smiling these days and that all your dreams came true. I'm sorry for not giving you the love you deserved. Call me sometime? -Nathan
Nathan Pritchard? Her ex-husband? How many other Nathans could she possibly know? And she was mentioned in the AP a month ago, right around the time Sarah's kidnapping case was wrapped up.
Why was the photograph on the very bottom of the box, even though it's much newer than the other photographs? Teresa must have been hiding it. Could she have been hiding it from me? Because it's a secret, new memento from her ex-husband? Was she thinking of getting back together with him? In two months, she could have called him a dozen time
s. Maybe that's why she isn't home yet—maybe she's spending the day with him and they're remembering all her other birthdays they have spent together.
My police brain continues to spiral into suspicion overdrive. I barely hear my phone ring until my ringtone of some hip-hop song Nick loves is winding down. I grab my phone before it goes to voicemail.
"Hello?" I answer.
Nick is an eighteen-year-old kid who I first met when he was involved in a drug case three years ago. He was helping his father sell cocaine because he looked innocent enough that nobody would ever think he would be doing something illegal. I kept tabs on him for a year after the incident while he bounced between a number of foster homes since his parents went to prison, but then my wife and daughter died, and everything else in my life became pointless and insignificant. He came crashing back into my mind when Teresa mentioned being in foster care. In the past two months, I used multiple resources to locate him.
Nick seemed to distrust me when I first got ahold of him. He made it clear that he wasn't happy I stopped contacting him for two years, but I think we're starting to make progress in rebuilding our relationship. I've become his foster parent, which seems to help him trust me more, and it's nice to have another body in the house since Dad moved out a couple months ago to retire in California.
"Hey," Nick says. "So, this is my afternoon check in you insist I do. I'm home. You don't have to worry. Shut off your paranoid detective thoughts."
"I wish I could," I mutter.
"I thought I would have gone straight to voicemail." Nick continues as if I hadn't said anything. "I figured you and Teresa would be out doing the whole romance thing."
"I'm not expecting her until five," I say, my voice coming out more terse sounding than I had wanted it to.
"…Um, is something wrong? Are you mad that I took ten minutes to call? I was starving. I had to make myself a sandwich."
"No, no, Nick, I'm not mad. Everything is fine."
Except, I'm not sure that it is.
"Why don't you take a nap?" Nick suggests. "You've been spending a lot of time being awake lately, and, well, you might need your energy later for some, ahem, adult activities. You're the one who always tells me to use my time productively and since you're going to be there alone until five…"
"You're right." I admit. "Speaking of being productive, have you done your homework?"
"Yeah, I did it during lunch. I might go grab something to eat for dinner later, if I don't order pizza."
"Good plan. I've sucked at grocery shopping lately."
"Hey now, the jar of pickles with the fungi growing on top of it thinks you've been doing great at groceries." Nick jokes. "Really, Aaron. I could take care of it if you want."
I exhale, some of my frustration leaving me. Life with Nick's been going smoother than I could have dreamed. For being stuck in the system, he turned out to be a perfectly good kid.
"Thanks for the offer, Nick. Just grab my checkbook from the desk drawer in the living room. If Maitland's Market has a problem with you writing a check, just have them call me. I know the owner and he owes me for letting him off with a warning for speeding."
"Well, isn't it good to be acting chief of police?" Nick mutters. "Thanks, Aaron. I'll see you later."
I hear Nick hang up and I set my phone onto the coffee table. I drop the photograph—which I want to crumple and toss, but I don't—back into the box, and decide to take Nick's advice and take a nap on the couch. I set the alarm on my phone to wake me at five o'clock.
Chapter Seven
Aaron, 2015 (1 month ago)
TERESA WAS BORN on the South Side of Chicago. She never knew her biological father, and her biological mother was frequently absent. When she was three years old, the county figured out that she, her two brothers, and sister were being taken care by their twelve-year-old sister. Teresa's mother didn't contest her children being taken into protective custody, nor did she show up at the hearings terminating her parental rights.
The adoption policies in the 1970s didn't care as much about keeping siblings together as they do today, so Teresa bounced between a few foster homes while having little idea of where her siblings were. Her first foster home, her foster mother's sister became sick with cancer, so the woman could no longer take care of her. The second foster home she lived in, she was there for six days. She never told me exactly what happened there. Most of what I've gathered was after we had sex and she was open to talking about her past, but this part she has stayed silent about except for telling me that her foster parents were "creepy" and "not worthy of a single memory." But I know something bad enough happened that she was put into another foster family, which she stayed in for about half a year before she was adopted by the Daniels—a large family in a small town that's quite different from the South Side of Chicago.
All of these talks about her childhood and seeing the way it still hurts her today made me remember Nick Arkelian, the boy I had left to foster care after I had arrested his parents for dealing drugs. I talked to Wendy Norris, a defense lawyer who "scratched her reproductive itch" by being a foster parent for the Alaska Department of Children's Services. She has always been a passionate advocate for children and hopeless cases, which is why she's almost universally loved by Wyatt. She managed to get me the name of the family that became Nick's foster family—the Jorgensens on the west side of Anchorage—which is how I ended up in their living room, drinking green tea.
"Nick will be home at any moment," Alicia Jorgensen, a petite brunette with shoulder length hair and a curvy figure, said, "I told him to come straight home, so I'm not sure what's taking him so long."
"It's fine." I glanced around the room. Their house, a mixture of the seventies—with beaded curtains, tie-dye blankets, and brightly colored walls—was every environmentalist's dream—plants everywhere, furniture that looked like it was formed from bamboo, and enough windows that they didn't need any lights inside the house during the day. When I first walked in, there was even a plant that looked a lot like cannabis, but I wasn't about to look too closely.
The front door swung open and Nick stormed in. He was almost exactly how I remembered him—thin, pale-skinned, messy black hair, and dark eyes. He's wearing sweatpants, which seem to barely cling to his waist and a pullover that was made for somebody twice his size.
"Nick," Brian Jorgensen, a rather short man with dark, receding hair said. "Chief Aaron Grant came to see you."
"It's actually just acting chief," I said, standing up. I offered to shake Nick's hand, but he ignored it. He dropped his backpack next to a bamboo plant.
"Yeah, I got your text. I'm not really interested. I thought he would be gone by now."
"Come on, Nick," Brian said. "He drove all of the way from Wyatt to see you. Do you remember hearing about that forest fire Wyatt had? It's about half an hour from here."
"I'm not a moron, Brian," Nick drawled. "You don't need to talk like I'm one."
Brian stood up, his face turning red. I stepped in-between the two of them, feeling protective over Nick. Who could blame him if he had a bit of an attitude problem? His parents were addicts who used him to sell drugs.
"You know what? I'd love to see your room, Nick," I said. "Your foster mom told me you share one with two of your foster siblings?"
He snorted. "Yeah. It's not that great. It's mostly just their shit cluttering everything."
"Nick!" Brian snapped.
"Nick, why don't you and I go outside?" I asked. "I think everyone could use some fresh air."
He shrugged, but turned around then opened the door. He held it open for me until I reached it, and then he stepped outside. I followed, closing the door behind me. He walked over to a tree stump and sat down.
"You remember me, don't you, Nick?" I asked. "We used to see each other all of the time."
"Of course I remember you. You locked up my parents and got me thrown into foster care. Thanks for that. It's fantastic here, where these assholes just keep picking up
foster kids so that they can feel good about themselves."
"I'm sorry. Last time I saw you, you were living with the Preedoms, and you seemed pretty happy."
He shook his head. "They were all right. Old. Boring. Mr. Preedom had to move to Texas for his job, so since they weren't close to the foster care agency anymore, I was placed here."
"I'm sorry."
"You can say that as many times as you want," he said. "They're just words and they mean nothing to me. You left me. Without warning, without a single phone call. You're less predictable than these hippy, tree-hugging freaks here…and they eat tofu at three in the morning."
"I—" There's another apology on my lips, but I knew he's right. I could apologize as much as I wanted. It wouldn't change anything. "I just came here to see how you were doing. I was hoping that you were well."
"So you could feel less guilty?"
"So I could see if there was anything to make it better."
"Get me out of here," he said. "Tell the foster care place that I can live on my own now. I turn eighteen soon. I know how to survive. I can do it."
"I can't let you live on your own." I shoved my hands in my pockets. "What if you came to live with me?"
"What?" he blurted. "Why would I do that? Are you even registered as a foster parent?"
"No, but I can arrange it. If you don't like it here, you shouldn't have to stay."
"Are you just doing this because you feel guilty? Because I don't want your pity."
"Trust me…I don't pity you. After what you've been through, I'm sure you can make it through anything. I just want to make it easier for you."
He narrowed his eyes at me and then glanced over at the Jorgensens' house.
"When can I move out?"
Chapter Eight
Sarah, 2015 (Late Monday afternoon)
WHEN CHEERLEADING practice is done, I can't wait to get out of my uniform. While I hate working at The Charcoal Grill since I was kidnapped, cheerleading feels like I'm rushing into the middle of a football field and putting myself into the crosshairs. Everyone stares at cheerleaders with judgment, with hate, with lust that twirls around me like gymnastic streamers until it coils around my neck and throttles me. At work, there's still judgment, hate, and lust, but at least I don't have to reverberate with so much positive energy that I'm certain my rage will break through and everyone will see me for the monster I truly am.
Devil's Dawn (A Grant & Daniels Trilogy Book 2) Page 3
