Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate)

by Dore, Deirdre

  “Martha killed him,” Chris said, remembering in vivid detail.

  “The girls told us,” Ryan confirmed. “We matched surveillance we had of her and the DNA we found on her dog, so we knew she might be involved. Tavey and Raquel confirmed that she’d been working as a groomer at the pet salon. We’d already narrowed our search to include the paper mill, but one of the agents went through her belongings at the salon and found a map with the mill circled.”

  “She seemed pretty broken,” Chris murmured, and Ryan nodded.

  “The ME has already found evidence of extensive torture, though Sherman kept it focused on places that wouldn’t show.”

  Chris wasn’t surprised and she certainly didn’t want the details. She hoped that Martha had found a measure of peace.

  “So . . .” She pulled his hand forward so she could kiss his knuckles. “What else?”

  He rested his head on the edge of her bed and she stroked his hair.

  “The girls told us that Sherman bragged that he’d dumped bodies in the millpond. We’re dragging it now, but they’ve already pulled out three young women.”

  He looked up at her. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but it’s possible—”

  Chris stopped him by putting a finger over his lips. “I trust you,” she whispered. “If she’s there, you’ll find her.”

  39

  CHRIS KNEW WHEN she heard Ryan’s knock on the door that they hadn’t found Summer. It wasn’t his usual knock, solid and urgent, but a hesitant one, as if he didn’t want to knock at all. Chris could picture him, standing on her ridiculous doormat, frustration drawing down the corners of that gorgeous mouth.

  She opened the door and saw she was right. His hair was mussed, and the light from the setting sun highlighted the red in it. Behind his glasses, his gray eyes were solemn in a pale face. He regarded her silently, hands on his hips, head slightly down.

  “We didn’t find her,” he told her simply, and she nodded, holding out her hand to pull him inside. He came willingly enough, or at least too tired to argue, which was close enough to willing for Chris.

  She started leading him toward her bedroom, but he stopped. “Wait.”

  “Come on, Ryan. I want to show you something.”

  “I want to show you something, too.” He held up a folder, removing a photograph of a small leather-bound book. It looked mildewed and rotten.

  “What’s this?” Chris studied it, figuring it must have been taken from the paper mill where she’d been held with the girls.

  “We think it might have belonged to Summer.”

  Chris’s head snapped up. “Summer? Why?”

  “It’s been there awhile and it has her name in it.”

  “Her name,” Chris repeated stupidly, her heart leaping and shuddering at the same time. What did it mean? The book had been there for a while, but they hadn’t found her body. Maybe she’d dropped it; maybe someone had kidnapped her and taken her somewhere else.

  “There’s also a quote inside.” He flipped to another photograph in the file. There was a picture of the inside pages. Summer’s name was written in red crayon in big awkward letters. The quote was written in tight, elegant cursive.

  “But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.”

  “What’s it from?” Chris whispered.

  “This book The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, about the Vietnam War. The quote is from a story in it called ‘The Lives of the Dead.’ ”

  Chris thought about that, wondering what it meant. The old man who lived on the strip of land next to Tavey, between her property and the witch family’s, had fought in the Vietnam War.

  “We can go back to the office this afternoon. I’ve requested the old files on Summer’s disappearance be sent there, as well as the records on the paper mill. We should be able to get a good start on finding out where this piece fits.”

  Chris didn’t want to wait; she wanted to get the file she kept about Summer’s disappearance, wanted to call Tavey and tell her that her suspicions about Old Abraham may have been correct all these years. She was practically vibrating with the need to do something.

  “Chris?”

  Chris blinked. He’d said they’d look into it this afternoon. That wasn’t so long, and there was a part of her that thought the events of the past few weeks had been a kind of warning to her—a hint into how little she’d been connecting with others.

  “That sounds good. We can eat lunch in that café again. I liked their roast beef.”

  He looked at her suspiciously, like he knew exactly how much she wanted to start digging for more information.

  “You know what I like,” he said, and pulled her in the direction of the living room.

  “Do I?” She wiggled her eyebrows at him, wanting to lighten the mood a little.

  “In a minute, I want to tell you something.”

  Chris winced. His tone was really serious. Damn. This wasn’t good. He was going to break up with her. He was probably being offered some huge promotion for catching Joe the string-obsessed psychopath, Martin the sick fuck, and recovering the bodies of over two decades’ worth of murders, and was planning to leave for Washington, D.C. Bye-bye. Nice screwing you. Have a nice life.

  He sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to him.

  She sat down and folded her arms across her chest, ready for whatever bullshit line he wanted to deliver.

  He met her eyes, his serious, but when he took in her mulish expression, a smile kicked up the corner of his mouth. “God, you’re beautiful. Maddening, but beautiful.”

  Chris unfolded her arms. This didn’t sound too bad, really. And he said the cutest things. What man today used the word maddening?

  “I wanted to tell you that I was wrong. Yesterday, when I told you that you were stupid, I’m sorry for that. Now I know how you felt in that moment . . . shit, how you must feel every day. When I realized you were missing, I would have done anything . . . anything to find you.”

  He was stroking her arm while he spoke, looking away from her, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

  “You’re amazing,” he blurted, turning suddenly to look at her. “That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re amazing. And knowing that man had you—” He stopped as if he couldn’t continue.

  “Don’t think of it.” She caught his hand and held it tight. “It’s over. It’s done.”

  She deliberately didn’t glance down. The deep cut on her arm and the ones on her feet were healing, along with her emotional scars, and the girls had called to say that they loved her and that they would be in class as soon as she was better.

  Chris hadn’t gone into a great deal of detail about the girls’ role in the death of Joe Sherman, not wanting them to be the subject of any additional scrutiny. She’d merely explained what she understood about Joe’s obsession with strings, and relayed what he’d asked her to do. The FBI called him a psychotic, which was actually fairly uncommon for serial killers, but Chris wasn’t convinced that he was completely crazy. The Triplets certainly hadn’t seemed to think so—but then, they believed in these string-things, believed they were as real as he did. Chris hadn’t felt comfortable telling that to anyone. As far as she was concerned, the girls had a right to their secrets. The idea of the string they’d taken from her head—Summer’s gift—actually made a weird kind of sense to Chris. Summer had been special and her love had stayed with Chris all these years.

  Ryan squeezed her fingers in return, holding her in his strong grip. “It’ll never be entirely over, not for me. Besides, I’m sure you’ll find all manner of other trouble to get into in the coming years.” He finished with a half smile and a head shake, as if he could already imagine her escapades.

  Chris blinked. Had he just said what she thought he’d said? Years. As in, he
would be around for years . . . with her . . . together. She couldn’t help but match his grin.

  “So, we’re together?” She bounced a little on the sofa.

  He held his arms up in a calm-down gesture, but she threw herself in his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. He supported her, looking down into her face, his fingers playing in her hair.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, and his eyes were a little hot, a little distracted, and trained on her cleavage, which was pushed up nearly under his chin.

  “Well, that’s good news. I’d hate to think I spent all day taking down my wall for nothing.”

  It took him a second, but he blinked and focused in on her face. “You took down the wall for me?”

  “No.” Chris shook her head. “I took it down for me. I moved it to the small office inside the yoga studio until I can find a place with a proper office, but I realized you were right—my whole life was focused on that wall, on those missing, and Summer would never have wanted that for me.” She shrugged. “And I’ve discovered that I don’t want it for myself, or at least, I want more, anyway. I want you.”

  His eyes dropped to her cleavage again. “Not to make light of the situation”—he leaned down to nuzzle her—“but speaking of want . . .”

  She let out a giggle that ended on a sigh as he pressed a gentle, openmouthed kiss on the inner curve of her right breast.

  He stood, adjusting his grip on her so that he was carrying her. “I think I better check out your room for myself,” he said, mock-seriously, “make sure you weren’t making things up.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” she told him, wide-eyed with innocence.

  “And since there’s a bed in there—”

  “You want to take a nap?”

  He grinned. “Maybe afterwards.”

  Chris smiled and thought that if there was a way to see the threads that bound people together, golden strings of light would be wrapping themselves around her and Ryan, joining them in bonds of friendship, lust, admiration, and love.

  He stepped into her bedroom, swinging her so they were looking at what used to be her wall of the missing. She’d moved all but her laptop downstairs to the yoga studio along with the majority of the posters, flyers, and tips that she’d received about her various investigations. In the space where they’d been, she’d set up a small desk, an oversized chair, and a potted plant.

  The only thing that hadn’t changed was the picture of Summer. She remained, smiling, only now she was surrounded by other pictures in quirky, colorful frames: Raquel smiling when she completed her training to join the police, Tavey with her dogs, the three of them together at high school graduation, an extra cap in hand in honor of Summer, and a picture of the four of them holding ice-cream cones and smiling, their heads together, enjoying their last summer together.

  Chris didn’t intend to stop looking for her friend, and neither would Tavey or Raquel, but now she would look for her own life as well.

  Ryan hugged her against his chest. “I like this wall better. Think I’m going to make it up there?” He tossed her on the bed, coming down on top of her, making room between her legs, which she obligingly hitched up in her best lotus pose.

  “I know you are,” she told him with a grin, her heart as full and warm as it had been when she was sitting under an oak tree with her three best friends, joy spilling from her like a thousand balloons released into the air, their strings trailing happily into the heavens.

  Look for

  whispers

  of

  Fate

  Book Two in the

  Mistresses of Fate Series

  by Deirdre Dore

  Coming Spring 2014 from Pocket Star

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Deirdre Dore

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  ISBN 978-1-4767-2770-7