She thought of something: his gift. “I don’t think any of the structures from the prison camp are still there.” Hopefully that meant there’d be no ghosts of any of the soldiers for him to stumble across. She wasn’t sure exactly how his ability worked, but hopefully, with nothing left to haunt, any spirits lingering in the area would not be the emaciated, limb-torn ruins from the Civil War.
“Probably not.”
“The office and classroom buildings have been completely renovated and look modern and upscale for the parents and media. But there are a lot of dark pockets on the grounds. Locked sheds, outbuildings untouched for years. I didn’t get more than a hundred yards in before I was caught, and in that time I found three spots that could have come right out of a horror movie.”
“Yeah. Some of that’s mentioned in here.” He handed her the pages spitting out of the printer.
“It will be bad at night,” she added, already thinking about the high boots she was going to need to buy before she walked through the marshy, swampy grounds.
“I have a feeling the place would feel evil in broad daylight.”
Especially for inmates locked inside it.
Derek began to jot more notes on a yellow pad. Not speaking while they ate, he surfed, and she read. Several such silences had filled the time between them this evening, but they weren’t uncomfortable. She liked his focus; it gave her confidence that he was the right one for the job, despite the fact that he was way too dark-and-dangerous, not to mention sexy, for her peace of mind.
Derek Monahan epitomized the type of guy she’d been attracted to when she was a teenager out to shock and anger her parents. The type she now avoided, having been burnt a few times when she reached too deeply into the fire.
Safe men don’t break hearts. Nor did they turn into violent psychos…well, not usually, though there had been one who’d stalked her for a while in New York.
Derek was a former soldier with a chip on his shoulder and steamy good looks that screamed Hell, yes! and No way! to a woman without him ever having to say a word.
Having sat here with him while he worked magic doing research, however, she knew she was lucky to have him on Isaac’s case. The facts he had already uncovered about the hellhole to which her brother had been sentenced stunned her. He knew his business and did it thoroughly. Knowing he was the one she was going to be wandering around with in the pitch black night, in a place she considered completely evil, made her feel better about the expedition. One thing was sure—he put off protective vibes like nobody she had ever met. She didn’t actually need protection, and never had since she’d been thrown into adulthood at a young age, but it was nice to know it was there if they ran into trouble.
“Apparently the school’s not flying completely under the radar.” He handed her a copy of a newspaper article from about a year ago. “They compare the place to a prison.”
“I found this article too. The fact that there are no fences or obvious guards and many wealthy families of former students stood up for it calmed things down.”
“Money talks.”
“But abused boys don’t.” She rubbed a hand over her weary eyes. They ached from reading so much tiny print. “If the reporter had been allowed to see the way those boys are guarded, he might not have questioned the lack of fences.”
He raised a curious brow.
“They’re treated like condemned murderers. Nonstop supervision even when they’re not in class. Almost no free time, little sleep, constant reminders of why they’re there.”
“Which probably trains away any resistance.”
Exactly. They were subdued, crushed into submission. “If that doesn’t work, and a boy is too rebellious, he gets the Building 13 treatment, a night in the swamp, extreme exercise, and finally paddling.”
“Is that even legal?”
“Their parents must sign forms allowing it as a condition of admission.”
The families who sent their children to Fenton were rich, and wanted the disobedience hammered out of their sons. Despite all the negative press, they kept the place in business. Just like her parents. God, how she hated that she shared their genes.
She shook off the thoughts. They hadn’t even tried to contact her in months, not since the academy had informed them Kate was snooping around, and they’d called to insist she stop. She had told them that even if they didn’t give a damn what had happened to Isaac, she did.
They hadn’t called since, expecting her to crawl back. She never would.
Some things she might be able to forgive. Maybe even what they’d done to her and to Isaac when they were kids. Locking him up in Fenton, however, was completely unforgivable. Kate truly didn’t care if she never saw them again.
“So what time are we going tomorrow night?”
“Let’s meet here at nine. You’ll have to drive. My bike is pretty loud.”
Of course he drove a motorcycle. Probably a Harley. What else?
He was looking at a grainy black-and-white picture of a dark haired woman with a vacant, broken expression. “This history on this place….” He swiped a hand through his jet black hair in visible frustration. “There have been lots of deaths.”
“I’m sure there have been.” There shouldn’t have been any recent ones, since the site had been turned into a school. But she knew there had. She’d bet her own life on it. She only wished Isaac hadn’t been forced to bet his. “Is it going to be a major problem for you?”
She knew he saw ghosts. Maybe such a place would attract more than its fair share. That didn’t mean every person who died there had remained in spirit form, or that they would reveal themselves to Derek. She hoped.
“I can handle it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Years of practice. I’ve been to a few places just as bad. There was this planation house…we worked a case over in Granville that blew all our minds.”
“The Granville Ghoul.”
He jerked his head. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Taylor Kirby is the one who told me about your agency.”
It took him a second to place the name. “The twin? The one who was kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
“Aidan’s girlfriend, Lexie, is still in touch with the family.”
Realizing she should have told him about Taylor’s connection to the case sooner, she explained. “She and her roommate came to see me a month or so ago.”
“Let me guess. A girl named Vonnie?”
She nodded, not asking how he knew. She’d learned enough about the girls’ story to know they were inseparable. “I didn’t know them, but Taylor found me after I moved here. She knew Isaac. They met last fall when the academy let a group of seniors go for a campus visit. Taylor and Vonnie were student tour guides, and I guess they hit it off with my brother. He and Taylor stayed in touch.”
“Those girls went through hell. Good to know they’re still together and doing okay.”
Having heard about what had happened to them, not to mention to Taylor Kirby’s twin, she could only imagine how painful such memories were to the college freshmen. Well, no, actually, she didn’t have to imagine it. She had lost her only sibling; the grief had been indescribable at first. Although it had been half a year, like a badly healed wound, the pain still sometimes caught her off guard.
“Taylor seems to like school, and she looks happy and energetic. A typical co-ed.”
“And Vonnie?”
She considered it. “Similar, but not exactly. She’s a quieter, more studious girl.”
“Taylor’s always been bright and sunny,” Derek said. “Vonnie’s the moon…like Jenny was.”
“How eloquent.”
“Aidan explained it that way once. Made sense to me.”
“Yes, it does. They’re different, but incredibly close. They finish each other’s sentences.”
“Like twins.”
“Yes, exactly.”
He mumbled, “Battle brothers,” obviously
thinking of his own experiences.
“Sisters.” Although not technically related, the girls were sisters born out of a nightmare, from what she’d heard about their kidnapping.
“So, a college visit, huh?”
“Isaac had planned to go to school in New York when he came to live with me. But I guess any boy would grab an excuse to get away from Fenton.”
“I’m surprised the prison allows field trips.”
“I guess they have to at least maintain the appearance of being an academic institution.”
“You said they stayed in touch. Did they see each other again?”
“No. Isaac’s phone was confiscated when he arrived, and he didn’t have much access to the Internet, but they emailed whenever he had the chance. There was a little flirtation going on between him and Taylor, even though she was a year older.”
She couldn’t believe he hadn’t told her about his brief romance, which had perhaps provided a small light in the darkness of his day-to-day. Maybe he’d been uncomfortable talking about it from so far away. Maybe he’d been waiting for it to develop into something more before he shared the details. How she wished he’d had time to fall in love.
“Is there any reason you didn’t lead with this when you hired us?” He didn’t sound angry, merely curious. “It might have been helpful to know, and to have copies of those emails.”
“I’m sorry.” She was kicking herself about it. “Taylor doesn’t know anything about his disappearance, but she really liked him. They’d planned to try to see each other this summer after he graduated. Then he stopped communicating with her.”
“And she found out he’d disappeared?”
“Yes. After I moved here, she tracked me down and suggested I hire your agency to look into it.”
He smirked. “Bet you were skeptical at first.”
Skeptical didn’t come close to describing it. “I was also desperate.”
“Desperate enough to put your faith in spook-central?”
“Aside from what Taylor said, I saw the publicity about the Granville case. There was a lot to read between the lines about how involved your company was in solving it.”
“Then there’s your own ability. You can’t be entirely unconvinced about what we do.”
“I’m not entirely sure what you all do. But I’m willing to try anything.”
“We each have our unique ways of approaching a case.”
He didn’t elaborate. Although she was curious to learn more about past cases, there was still too much work to do before tomorrow night. She knew he wanted to be completely prepared when they searched the place.
The more they uncovered, the angrier she became. He merely grew quieter, if that was possible for a man who was already more taciturn than any she’d met before. She couldn’t help casting glances at him, seeing the way his dark hair fell forward when he got closer to the screen to peer at something he’d found. His soft grunts of disgust warned her whenever she was about to read something else sure to make her skin crawl.
“Umm,” she finally said, suddenly remembering her last visit to the academy, “you know you’re probably going to have to not only shave, but buzz cut your hair before Monday.”
He looked up, a silky strand falling in front of his eye. “What? Why?”
“You don’t look like a boot camp instructor.” More like a biker gang leader.
“I’ll sling it back.”
He sounded disgruntled, like he didn’t really want to get the buzz cut most military-type instructors would have. It seemed unusual coming from so self-confident a guy, and she had to needle him a bit. “What, are you Samson? Is your power in your ponytail?”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ha! You are vain about your hair.”
The frown became a glower. “Bullshit.”
“So why are you so scared to get it cut?”
“This isn’t exactly easy to hide.” He yanked up a handful of hair, revealing a bare patch of scalp crossed with a jagged red scar. “I don’t particularly like getting grilled about my past while sitting in a barber chair.”
Kate froze, feeling cruel for teasing him about scars he still carried, both inside and out.
“That must have been a close one,” she whispered, unable to stop herself from lifting a hand and reaching toward him.
He stiffened, but didn’t pull away. She placed the tips of her fingers on the front of the red scar, and traced its bumpy outline until it disappeared into the hair he wasn’t holding up. The wound must have been at least six inches long. It wasn’t thin and straight, as one from a hairs-breadth-away, careening bullet might have been. Something broad and jagged had taken a sharp trip around his helmetless head.
“Shrapnel?” she whispered, slowly lowering her hand.
“Yeah. Proxy car bomb.”
She knew by what he didn’t say—no added story about the experience—that it had been a bad day. Maybe his worst one. Not just because of his own injury, but because others probably hadn’t escaped from the blast. She’d worked with plenty of soldiers and knew the drill. It was an all too frequent tale—someone is forced to drive a car laden with explosives into a military checkpoint. Everybody dies.
Except him. Thank God.
She didn’t offer sympathy; he wouldn’t want it. Rather than dwelling on the problem, she moved to the solution. “I don’t think you’ll have to do anything too drastic.” Getting up, she went to his desk, and picked up a sharp pair of scissors. “Let me take care of it for you.”
His glower faded. “I think I’m beyond plastic surgery, Doc. Besides, scar removal isn’t exactly your specialty, is it?”
“I meant your hair, Monahan.” She pushed his rolling chair forward and moved behind him, smoothing his hair with her fingers. “I used to trim Isaac’s.” A memory stabbed her in the heart. “He wanted to grow it a little long as a teenager. Our father got angry at seeing it fall into his face. So he took him to a barber and had his head shaved.”
“Talk about humiliation. What a guy.”
“Given what you mentioned a while ago, I suspect humiliation was behind a lot of what my father did to my brother over the years.” She couldn’t stop thinking Derek might have hit the nail on the head about Isaac’s real paternity. Maybe one day she’d begin talking to her parents again and could ask them. That would probably cement the estrangement forever. No big loss.
She tested the scissors.
“I’ve never trusted a woman enough to sit still while she wielded sharp implements against my neck.”
“First time for everything.”
She didn’t proceed, waiting for permission, and finally he nodded his assent.
Going to work with the admittedly too-large scissors, she trimmed as best she could. Her heart broke a little every time a soft, black curl hit the floor. God, the man had hair any woman would envy. But she knew from her many visits to the academy he would never fit in amongst the rigid-asshole set if he didn’t look more conventional. Richard Fenton wouldn’t let him anywhere near his military-precise students, especially not in a boot-camp-themed final round of torment.
As she cut, she couldn’t help watching for the appearance of his scar, wondering about the bombing that gave it to him. What had been packed into the explosive device to cause this ugly wound? Had it been a nail? A shard of glass? A piece of a once benign can? Or a hunk of metal shaved to a point to cause the utmost destruction when coming up against soft human flesh?
Her fingertips frequently brushed against the jagged outline, and each time she quivered. She inwardly imagined what might have happened if it had gone a bit deeper, or a bit to the right where it could have flown into his eye socket and directly into his brain.
She hated the people who had done this. Hated them. It wasn’t professional, and it wasn’t at all impersonal the way she had been trained to be. Still, she couldn’t help the reaction. Derek was, without a doubt, a unique man. Special. Kate knew that, though
he was nearly a stranger. She wanted to physically injure the people who had been so callous and careless with his life…and who’d left scars, both physical and emotional, that affected him to this day.
The silence grew long, just the snick of the scissors interrupting it. Feeling strange in the thickness of it, she asked, “So, in this research of the school have you seen any mention of ghost sightings? Isaac told me some of the boys whispered about a haunted shack.” She wouldn’t see anything, but he certainly would if any spirits were lingering.
The realization that she was even having these thoughts startled her. God, how far she’d come in a week!
“I didn’t see anything in my web search. That’s surprising, considering how ugly the entire place has been throughout its history. It oughta open up to scare-seekers on Halloween.”
Knowing something about that ugliness, Kate gritted her teeth. She fought to keep her hand steady as she attempted to evenly cut the hair at the nape of his neck. “My brother told me horror stories about some of the buildings there, and their uses. Isaac was especially terrified of one called Building 13. He was locked in there overnight once.” Her voice lowered to a growl. “With his history, it could have badly damaged him.”
“Is that the one they think is haunted?”
“No. That one is supposedly somewhere much deeper in the swamp. The boys claim there are spooky noises and lights out there at night.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
“You think there are really ghosts in it?”
“It’s possible. But no matter what, those rumors would help someone keep secrets and prevent any curious teenagers from sniffing around.”
“I suppose.” Kate stepped away, looking over her work, and lowered the scissors to the desk. He wouldn’t pass military muster, but he didn’t look so much the biker-guy. “Okay.”
“Done?”
“I think so.”
He looked up at her. “Thanks, Doc.”
“You’re welcome.”
He didn’t touch his hair, didn’t try to glance at his reflection in the screen of his laptop. It was as if he already trusted her, something she found unusual in a veteran who’d experienced what she knew he had. The realization warmed her.
Cold Image (Extrasensory Agents Book 4) Page 6
