One by one, they slipped around the corner, Donovan the last to go, still aimed backward, waiting for Grace and Faith Aroya to take advantage of his momentary solo status. They didn’t show, and he quickly joined the others on the side of the building, trying not to whoosh out his breath in relief that he was still whole. He wasn’t safe yet.
At the back corner, the smoke had billowed and eddied. The wind was blowing the other direction and Eleri turned the corner again, one hand, one gun, one eye. Only this time she pulled back.
“Smoke’s too thick. We’ll have to cut it wide to go around to the other side.” She stepped around again, this time scanning far and wide, then stepping out into space. The others followed faster, Wade and Christina in between, Donovan only a step behind.
It was mare dangerous back here. The brick couldn’t conceal a person, but Grace or Faith Aroya could be hidden in the smoke. Could Grace control it? He tapped at Christina, never taking his eyes off the path behind them.
“Could Grace control the smoke so they could breathe clean air in the middle of it?” He tipped his head toward the dark shadows they walked around. He had no doubt that Faith could conceal them there. He scanned again for shadows and shimmers, but saw nothing he could discern. He inhaled, checking for scent, but caught only a lungful of smoke.
“Yes.” Christina answered him matter-of-factly after a hesitant thought. “She kept a clear area for herself in Bonnie Kellogg’s house. So I would expect it.”
“Shit.”
Christina nodded in response to his swear word but he heard Wade muttering. Though the others probably couldn’t hear it, Donovan picked it up clearly.
“If I get out of here, I’m going to tell Randall everything. If I get out of here . . .” He repeated it like a mantra, and for a moment, Donovan found a smile. It made him think of Lucy, his quasi-girlfriend. She was ex-special forces, this was probably a Sunday at church for her, but he was about to shit his pants.
The smoke forced them to take a wide berth around the third corner, but it cleared out a bit after that. Despite the acrid air, Eleri had them hugging the building again.
He wondered if he only thought he was hugging the building. He tried a trick he knew for anxiety—three things I see, three things I can touch, three things I smell. He even tasted the air. It all matched. All he could do was conclude that he was really here, really hugging the too-warm brick and watching as his partner, the very best friend he’d ever had, was being her bad-ass self and lining up to take the last corner.
47
Eleri took a deep breath. Just like each time she did it, she regretted it. The smoke was searing her lungs, probably causing permanent damage. But not breathing caused much more permanent damage, much faster.
Dana.
If flitted in and out of her head with traces of irritation and her own irreverence, anger that Dana was gone, and fear that it had been too easy for two girls to kill Dana.
Holding her arms straight, she used the corner of the building as a pivot point and carefully traced a small arc with her feet. First the road came into view.
Clear.
Then the SUV. She lingered, looking for anything obvious—huge bomb under the carriage? Faith and Grace Aroya inside the car?
Nothing.
She took another step, and another, until she was out in front of the squat building, having come full circle. Eleri wanted to drop her gun to her side and cry. No one was here. No one but the two dead agents on the ground, their blood soaking into the dry dirt, their families unaware. Was it even safe to send a team out to clean this up? Probably not yet. But if they didn’t animals might get to the bodies. There was no good answer here.
She didn’t drop her gun or her stance. There was no room for error, and Faith and Grace Aroya might get the better of them even if they didn’t screw anything up. Dana hadn’t. And now Eleri was in charge. This sucked.
Turning to Donovan and Wade, she asked, “Are they still here?”
“I didn’t smell anything.” Her partner said it and her old friend confirmed it.
She still didn’t sigh. “Let’s get out of here.”
It was as much of an operation to get into the car as it was to circle the building. Though the girls had never used radio trackers nor built bombs—that they knew of—Eleri would feel stupid if she got in the car, turned the key, and felt it blow up around her.
They looked into the back seat. Then they touched it. They looked into the trunk space, then touched it, too. Then the engine, the undercarriage. Nothing went unchecked. At last, they all felt confident enough to climb in and head home. Eleri clutched the steering wheel, unsure if she’d rather be in the back where she could relax more or if she was better off in control.
The road was a worn path through the dark, dry silt out here. It wound between plants and what might be creosote, Eleri wasn’t sure. She didn’t have the mental energy to figure it out. She just knew they were twiggy and rough-looking and she didn’t want to hit or even scrape one with the car.
Without taking her eyes off the path, she opened the conversation she didn’t really want to have. She wanted to avoid it, but she couldn’t. “We have to figure out where they’ll be next.”
“At their next target,” Wade offered up as he looked out the window. Eleri wondered if he was enjoying the scenery, or if he thought the girls would fly up beside the window like super-villains.
“What’s their next Target?” Eleri asked as she stopped at the edge of the dirt before turning onto real road.
“We are.” Christina said it from the back. She said it with no emotion, no inflection at all. It was hard to argue Christina’s correctness. They had hurt the girls more than Bonnie Kellogg’s family had. Eleri was sure the bullseye had shifted squarely onto her own back.
Despite all the tension, they made it back to the city, back to the hotel, hearts heavy. They didn’t speak as they headed inside. They touched each other, Donovan and Wade sniffed, they asked odd questions standing there in the hallway. It was all a strange attempt to confirm they were all who they appeared to be.
Donovan and Wade had already run into Faith Aroya once. And they’d believed she was Eleri. They’d captured Grace Aroya, and Faith had freed her sister. The team needed both girls. Caught. Together. Without a kill order from Westerfield, it was their only chance of ending this. But it was hard to know if the person in front of them was really who you thought they were.
She let herself into the room, closing the door and bolting it, feeling her brain start to shut down with the small sense of peace that offered.
They were ten stories up. The bolt was activated from the inside. She flipped the metal stopper—much more effective than the old chain-style lock. The windows were made of a thick plexi, to stop people from committing suicide out of them. But it would keep angry teenage girls out as well.
Before she fell onto the bed and into a long overdue oblivion, Eleri showered. If she didn’t do it now, then when? Though she could turn the water off and on, she couldn’t do the same with her thoughts. Her group was falling apart. They were united between them; Dana’s death had solidified that. But within each of them they were cracking. They were tired—four days straight with very little sleep. They were grieving—no matter how well they knew or liked Dana, she was gone, and it was hard to take. They were failing—Dana’s death was a personal failure for each of them. They were broken, battered, and outgunned.
With everything they had, they were still not the superior creatures in this battle. That scared the shit out of Eleri.
In the past, she’d felt that she had control of at least of part of it. If she played her cards right, she could come out the victor. Now? She thought she might play all her cards right and still lose. She could lose her friends. She could die a painful, fiery death. There was no reason to believe she would win, and little reason to believe she even could.
She only knew she had to keep going. It was who she was.
Wrappin
g the hotel towel around her and appreciating its softness as only a person contemplating a painful death could, she grabbed her phone.
Quickly, she shot off a text to Avery.
—Sorry about the other day. We lost a team member. I haven’t slept. Terrible case. I don’t know what I am, so I can’t hide what I don’t know.
She hit send. Was that enough? Was it right? Partly she wanted to apologize for being so short with him. Partly she wanted him to understand that she’d told him she wasn’t available to be a “real girlfriend” when she was on a case. She started onto the next message.
—You’ll have to decide if you still think you can deal with all this.
She left it at that, set the phone aside, and started to crawl into bed in the towel.
With her knee on the mattress, Eleri reconsidered. She wanted to turn off the phone so she could avoid a reply from Avery. She didn’t have the energy to deal with the case, let alone the boyfriend. She wanted to curl into the bed and sleep. But that wasn’t an option either. Not yet.
She got dressed: pants, socks, bra, shirt, she even put sunscreen on her face. Everything but shoes. She would be ready to get up and go if she needed to. Somehow, she didn’t doubt it would happen.
Only then did she lay down.
She felt her head hit the pillow and watched the world go black.
In moments, her feet hit the soft padding of leaves that littered the forest floor. The air was fresh and clean and she walked along the path as her shoulders released the tension of the day. She couldn’t remember what had made her so uptight.
“Eleri.” Her name floated on whispers of a voice she knew well though it had never existed in her reality.
Emmaline, arrested for years at age seventeen, stood in front of her. “Come with me.”
Eleri nodded and followed.
“It’s close,” her sister said, her smile sad. Eleri couldn’t tell why Emmaline would be sad that things were close, but she didn’t say anything. She only nodded and followed the path her sister cut for them.
Expecting the square house with the corner door—the one she always found in these woods—Eleri was surprised when Emmaline turned on to busy streets. Though it was night, strings of lights hung above them. People walked on covered sidewalks, keeping off the streets, though only the occasional car went by. Music filtered from some of the houses, and while it was upbeat and down home bluesy, it soothed Eleri and she smiled.
Emmaline turned a corner, her hand trailing along the building as she walked. Following, Eleri did the same. She watched as rough brick passed under her fingers, the colors were each different, yet somehow all the same. Then, when she blinked, the brick became black bars. Wrought iron fencing marked the side of the cement walk now, and as Eleri looked through it she saw mausoleums, raised tombs, headstones, angels and more. The sea of white, gray, and black-faded marble was beautiful, repeating and changing as she looked out across it.
Only when she stopped, when she held the fence in front of her, did she feel the cold seep in.
Gasping, she turned to find her little sister had gotten far ahead of her.
“Eleri.”
She moved to catch up, the chill coming after her in tendrils and wisps. She passed a building with blue siding and bright shutters, and another with white and black paint before she was confident she’d left whatever stalked the graveyard behind.
Emmaline stood in front of her, at another wrought iron fence. Eleri peeked cautiously through, only this time the fencing led into courtyard. The floor was dirt, shrubs and even trees had been planted between pavers. Roses grew in the gaps, climbing wildly up the walls. In the back, a large tree with a gnarled trunk provided shade.
“You have to enter. It’s coming soon.” Emmaline said as the gate opened.
Eleri put one foot inside and felt the chill coming again. When she turned to look at her sister, she saw for the first time the blood dripping from Emmaline’s fingertips. Only Emmaline didn’t seem to notice. “You have to go in.”
Eleri stepped backward and followed instructions, turning to look once more over the beautiful secret garden her sister had led her to. Only this time—up close—she saw that the pavers were edged with pieces of dull white. Through the dirt, bones pushed up, pieces peeking here and there. Eleri knew them all. Recognized instantly that they were human. Saw hands, pelvic bones, sacra, and under the tree, facing almost sideways, a skull.
Backing away, she made it all the way to the fence, only to find that it had closed and locked behind her. Emmaline was gone. She was stuck and her heart began to race.
Not afraid of bone, Eleri looked again. This bone was bad. The chill that was seeping inside her came from these remains. They changed each time she looked, each time more confusing, each time more frightening.
“Eleri!” The whisper came from the back of the garden.
From behind a climbing rose, Emmaline had opened an old-fashioned, arched wooden door. Her sister beckoned as Eleri picked her way through, careful not to step on human remains. Once out the back, she was in the forest again. As Emmaline closed and locked the door behind them, the cold receded and the heat of the summer woods began to wrap her in safety.
In no time, they were at the house Eleri had originally expected. This time Emmaline followed her inside. They walked to the back room but did not find Aida Weddo stitching spells in her rocker. Instead, a bed, draped in white netting awaited.
“Sleep,” Emmaline told her and Eleri complied. She climbed in, crawling under sun-warmed covers as her sister sat in the rocker to watch over her. The feeling of safety and love and hope was something she wanted to hold onto, but it slipped through her grasp as exhaustion set in.
She slept for hours in the white bed.
Luckily, she was rested when Emmaline touched her shoulder. “Eleri, you have to wake up now.”
From beyond her sister, Eleri heard a new voice. Another young woman.
“Echo, did she really sleep through all that?”
48
Eleri breathed slowly, her muscles as relaxed as she could force them to be. It had seemed silly, training to appear to be asleep. It had been years ago, when she’d gone through Quantico and she hoped she not only remembered all the tricks, but that she could pull them off.
“Look at this. She hung her stuff up in the closet. It’s cute.”
She let out her breath and offered a twitch of her shoulder as her head lolled to the side. Shifting a little, she heard the two girls still as she did it, but then she settled in with a sigh.
“Where’s her gun, Ember?”
Eleri couldn’t distinguish their voices—not one from the other. But she could hear the voice in her own head. Under my pillow, bitch.
She almost hadn’t done it. Almost crawled in without checking, she’d been so tired. But she had done it, and with the recent shifting she’d done in her so-called sleep, her right hand was creeping up under her head, getting close enough to grab it.
Her hips were squared and so were her shoulders, making her a smaller target. Because she now faced the edge of the bed, it also gave her the easiest position to spring from. She tried not to tense.
They’d been here for approximately ten minutes, going through her things. Or at least that’s how long she thought it was. One, she’d woken up and they were already here, so it seemed they’d arrived not too long before that. Two, she couldn’t tell for sure because she couldn’t open her eyes and check any time pieces. There was nothing that ticked to count off, nothing that beeped or buzzed on any regular basis to give her a sense of passing time other than her own internal clock.
While pretending to sleep, she’d learned that the two girls called each other “Echo” and “Ember,” names that made a surprising amount of sense. They seemed to think it was James-Bond-like in some way.
In that same time, she’d figured that she was an idiot. Sure, she’d made certain that she was ten stories up, but there were stairs and elevators. Sure, s
he’d made certain that the bolts were all thrown, but the hotel managers had to have a way in. And these two girls could get the managers to do anything they wanted, such as giving them the master keys, or just coming up here, opening all the bolts, and then promptly forgetting they’d ever been here.
No one knew they were here. Anyone who’d seen them would forget.
She wasn’t sure what time it was, though she suspected it was very early morning. Unfortunately, no one would miss her for a while. She was the team leader, she was the one who would call the meetings, so no one would call it and must check on her for being late. She was on her own.
In the time the two had been in her room, she’d been listening to them as they went through her things. She’d come to a conclusion, one she didn’t doubt now. They were psychopaths.
The way they spoke of the people they’d killed, these two young women didn’t think of them as human at all. Even those who’d picked up two hitchhiking young women and helped them on their way were discarded as easily as a fast food wrapper. Eleri had given them the benefit of the doubt—she’d harbored a concern that Leroy Arvad had picked them up and made a move on them. They were young, attractive, and hitchhiking. It was an easy conclusion to come to. Revenge for his poor behavior.
Eleri was shocked how hard it was to keep to herself, to steady her breathing into the long, slow slides of sleep when they discussed what he’d done. He’d done nothing bad. He’d helped them. Fed them. Offered them a place to stay.
“I think she’s the bitch that figured out that truck driver gave us a ride,” one of them stated. The girl was behind her, which made Eleri even more nervous, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.
“Should’ve killed the wife, too.” The tone was that of someone lamenting a missed opportunity. “Should have made it look like a murder-suicide.”
Eleri fought the overwhelming desire to vomit.
She didn’t have time to wonder if they’d been abused, if maybe that was why they’d killed their mother and their sister. Or if maybe Mena and Peter Aroya had found themselves in same situation as other parents of sociopaths—with a kid that couldn’t be reached and couldn’t understand that other people were living things with feelings and needs that mattered.
The NightShade Forensic Files: Echo and Ember (Book 4) Page 32
