“So you came by to grill me about the how, and to insist I’m doing something illegal to find these girls? I have news for you, Harry. Accusations aren’t going to make me tell you anything,” Skye grumbled.
“Maybe so, but we’ve always had honesty between us, or at least I thought we had. You could at least come clean with me.”
“Nice try. You haven’t used that approach in a while.”
With that, as if in defeat, Harry ran a hand through his thinning, once-brown hair turning gray all over. “Skye, you try me, you really do.”
She grinned and threw an arm over his shoulder. “But you love me anyway.”
“Yeah, but I’m beginning to wonder why. This Whitfield preoccupation has to come to an end sometime. I just hope you know what you’re doing. Because damn it, I really don’t see this obsession of yours ending well.”
Chapter 9 Book 1
Brandon Randle Hiller wasn’t just a pedophile five months out of Clallam Bay Correctional; he was also a reformed meth addict. He’d had the better part of seven years to kick his habit. Even though he might’ve been forced to give up the drug behind bars—mainly because he didn’t have anyone on the outside to smuggle it into jail for him with any reliability—the blue acid had long since left its mark on his mouth and skin. His teeth were brownish and had a tendency to chip when he ate nuts or other hard food, which meant he was badly in need of a dentist most of the time. His pockmarked complexion was often a source of embarrassment and turned off a lot of people at first glance.
He’d started losing his hair during his first two years locked up which caused him to have to shave his head. A fact he wasn’t happy about. When he’d been younger he’d thought his blond hair was his best feature. Now that he’d been off the meth, he’d been doing everything he could to grow it out again. As a result it grew mostly on the sides and the back of his head but not on the top. But he discovered that if he wore a ball cap whenever he went out, it looked like he had more hair than he actually did.
Hiller’s looks were the least of his problems. Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering to little girls. Underage girls were his daily bread. A fix he couldn’t live without.
Today was no exception.
He’d found another one, cute and wandering down the street by herself. An easy mark to be sure. This time though, he intended to take care of that sticky problem of leaving a witness behind by making sure he didn’t leave anyone around who could identify him. No one could finger him using a DNA match if they couldn’t find a body. That’s why he planned to take care of this one—afterward. No more kidnapping a mouthy teenager either. He’d learned his lesson there, too. In spades.
He knew he’d made a huge mistake the night before with Erin. Leaving her alone to go get the little bitch some medicine for her puking stomach had been an attempt at being a nice guy. No more of that kind of thing, either, ever again. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
Brandon pulled the van, which also acted as his primary place of residence, to the side of the curb. He’d spotted the girl, who looked to be about twelve, some forty-five minutes earlier picking up snacks at the convenience store. He’d followed her through the blue collar neighborhood and now watched her with eagle eyes from his side mirror as the little golden-haired blonde took her sweet time walking home. At least he assumed that’s where she was headed. All he had to do was approach her, get her to talking and get close enough to jab her with the needle and pull her into his vehicle.
Brandon drummed his hands on the steering wheel while the little girl drew closer. Once she got even with his van, he crawled into the passenger seat, flipped the door handle and hopped out onto the grassy curb.
About that time a male stuck his head out of the house two doors down and bellowed in the direction of the child. “What took you so long? Did you get the can of soup? You know I have to leave for work soon and I still have to fix dinner. Come on, hurry up, I haven’t got all day.”
At the sound of the voice, Brandon slunk down like he was checking the front tire on his van. Out of the corner of his eye, he made sure he memorized the house number where the little girl disappeared through the front door.
In his warped mind, a plan took shape.
Skye worked off the mood Harry had left her in by hitting the gym, a place that was little more than a dingy basement. Even though the underground space had a locker-room feel about it and wasn’t much to look at, it sported a fancy treadmill she used for bad weather running, a decent weight bench, a state-of-the-art elliptical, and a not-so-fancy, old-fashioned punching bag that hung from the bare-bones rafters.
Well-worn indoor/outdoor carpet covered the concrete floor beneath her feet but had never been tacked down with any permanence except for the duct tape in spots. Which meant you could trip and stumble if you weren’t used to all the little indicators. Skye was familiar with every mismatched seam, with every bump and bubble.
She ought to be since she’d been coming to this little out-of the-way, hole in the wall for more than seven years.
Because she knew the proprietor, Travis Nakota, the guy who also owned the Country Kitchen where she’d once worked, Travis willingly let her use the equipment free of charge.
Over the years Travis had proved to be someone she could turn to. After all, he’d been her father’s oldest and dearest friend.
In life, Travis and Daniel Cree had grown up like brothers, both sharing shaman duties in the same tribe. Daniel’s and Jodi’s deaths had hit Travis almost as hard as they had hit Skye. He’d wanted to take her in after the accident left her without parents. But the courts said with Skye’s history, a family friend, especially a male one, would never do. So Skye packed up and went to live with her blood relatives, Ginny and Bob.
As she pummeled the bag with her gloved fists, she had to admit Travis was as close to family as she had left. Besides Harry, and one or two others, Travis was probably her dearest friend in the world and one that knew every one of her quirks.
Because quirk was one way to describe Kiya, Travis hadn’t exactly “seen” the wolf firsthand. And no, Skye hadn’t spoken to him about it, specifically. Even when she reconnected with Travis once she found her way back to Seattle, she kept her father’s decree first and foremost in her mind. She shared Kiya with no one, not even Travis. But since Travis and Daniel did share a link to the Nez Perce, Skye knew Travis believed in spirit guides. He couldn’t be shaman and not. Whether Daniel had ever discussed his daughter’s specific Native path with Travis wasn’t something she ever asked Travis about—and since he never mentioned it—she didn’t either.
That was fine with Skye. Having a spirit guide made her different. She accepted that. But having so few friends she could count on set her apart in another way entirely.
And wasn’t that fact just sad she thought now as she sent another series of jabs into the leather. Practicing kicks now, she threw out a leg, brought her foot up and into the side of the bag with a thud. She rotated, angled again, and threw out the other leg in a wide arc.
As it so often happened, Ronny Wayne’s face appeared on the bag, which had her bashing and thumping the target even harder with hands and feet.
For the next twenty minutes, Skye continued to work up a sweat. In her mind she always won the battle with Ronny Wayne. Today was no exception. She just wished that one day she’d get the chance to deliver the blows to his sneering mug up close and personal. One day, she reasoned, as she sent another round of punches to Ronny Wayne’s likeness.
She knew for a fact that monsters existed. She’d had the misfortune of crossing paths with one at the age of twelve. Yes, she’d gotten away from him. But not before the damage had taken its toll. As always, she didn’t intend to let Ronny Wayne win though. That she would never do. Not when she was twelve. Certainly not now that she was an adult. Not ever.
Seven blocks away, Josh did his best to get some work done. He replied to emails, approved another marketing campaign for a different game
they were working on still in the design phase, went over sales reports, and checked the status of other projects in the pipeline. He did all of it with the pain growing worse in his shoulder. It wasn’t easy. Hunting and pecking the keyboard gave him a headache.
He ignored several calls from his best friend and business partner, Todd Graham, asking why he hadn’t come back to the table Friday night, why he’d disappeared. Up to now, Josh hadn’t shared his involvement with Michelle with anyone else and he had no intentions of doing so at this point. He hoped like hell though, he’d finally gotten through to the woman.
When the discomfort in his shoulder became a steady throbbing pain and made him feel feverish and weak, he allowed a little self-pity to creep in—and shook his head at his own stupidity. Hadn’t that been the very reason he’d reached out to Michelle Reardon in the first place? And look how that had turned out. He wished he had never touched Michelle. No, that was regret, and a lesson learned. Now, he wished like hell he hadn’t pissed off Skye Cree.
He’d stewed about her blowup for hours. Even tried to do some sketches with her in mind as the female heroine in the game he planned to design. But when it became more difficult to concentrate he went back to brooding.
Because if she’d hung around the loft, he might’ve been able to coax her into spending some quality time with him—relaxing, maybe watch a movie, maybe have a decent conversation. It didn’t seem to him like the woman ever took the time to unwind. In Josh’s mind, no one needed to chill out more than Skye Cree.
There were all kinds of questions rattling around in his head about the woman. If he wrote them all down, he’d probably get writer’s cramp. That’s how much he wanted to know about her.
Besides that, every time he was around her, something inside him wanted to shout out a long list of praises, most of which he knew she didn’t want to hear and wouldn’t believe anyway. How did a man convince a woman she was one strong-willed, independent, beautiful super female? And that, he had to admit sounded corny—and phony.
Because he had to be burning up with fever to come up with such clichéd sentiments, he dug in his desk drawer and took out a bottle of aspirin, dumped three into his palm. After getting them down, he let his head rest on the back of his desk chair. Closing his eyes he drifted off to sleep and dreamed about a video game where his warrior goddess continued to kick serious ass in a made-up distant fantasyland.
When he heard a continuous buzzing in his head, Josh’s nap came to an abrupt end. It took him a minute but he finally realized it was the damn buzzer from downstairs. He hoped to Christ it wasn’t Michelle.
After stumbling on his own two feet to reach the intercom, once he got there, Josh yelled into the speaker, “What?”
“Hey Josh, it’s me, Tate.”
Josh rubbed his forehead. Even though he felt like crap, he couldn’t very well turn away Annabelle’s little brother, even if the guy almost matched him in height. “Come on up.”
Once the elevator doors dinged open. Tate strolled in, all smiles, wearing jeans and a purple UDub sweatshirt, wet tennis shoes on his feet, slick with rain. “Hey man, how you been? How come you don’t return phone calls anymore?”
“You know how it is with work. Oh wait. You don’t know. How come you aren’t in class?”
“You need to get out more. It’s Sunday, Josh. And spring break started Friday.”
“Ah. Right.” Still trying to wake from his nap, Josh adjusted his glasses, stared at Tate, long and hard. “You ever gonna graduate, kid?”
“Two years,” Tate answered, shaking his head. “You look like crap by the way. How about a beer?”
“Not until you turn twenty-one.”
Tate sent him a puzzled look. “Josh, my birthday was two months ago. I’m legal.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Josh scratched his chin. “I guess I must’ve missed that. You should’ve said something. I’ve been a little out of it lately,” Josh said as he walked into the kitchen to get a bottle of Steelhead out of the fridge.
“Yeah? Try a year.” Tate bent his head to get a better look at Josh. “You don’t look so good, bro.”
“I don’t feel so good,” Josh admitted as he twisted off the cap, handed the beer to the man he would always consider his brother-in-law. Even that small motion had Josh wincing in pain and Tate caught the expression on his face.
After taking a slug from the bottle, Tate asked, “What’s with you? You sick or something?”
“I had a little run-in Friday night with four muggers outside Gull’s. One of them cut me.”
“No shit. What happened?”
Josh related the incident blow-by-blow. When he was done, Tate’s eyes got wide. “Wow! The woman saved your ass from four guys? How often does that happen? Is she…you know…like a wrestler or something?”
“You’re such a schmuck, you know that? No.” The image of Skye had his fever spiking. “In fact, the woman’s hot.”
“Really? How hot?”
“Too hot for a lowly college sophomore like you. How are the grades?”
Tate ran a hand through his hair. “Oh man. They’re fine. I guess. It’s just that I’m thinking of chucking school once I get this semester over and done with and taking some time off.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I’m sick of school! Dad’s on my case about grades all the time. Since Annabelle died—” Tate blew out a frustrated breath. “Because I’m all he’s got now, he just won’t get off my back…about anything.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
Tate shook his head. “It won’t do any good. I tried to tell him you didn’t graduate and you did all right for yourself.”
Josh could relate to the kid’s dilemma. After all, his parents hadn’t exactly been overjoyed that he’d bypassed finishing college for working out of a basement on video games. “My guess is that didn’t go over very well.”
“Yeah, he was pissed. We argued. That’s all we seem to do lately.”
“Surely you can understand your dad’s stance on school, Tate? Years after the fact, I wish I had that degree hanging on my wall.”
“Why is he so mad at you anyway?”
“Short answer? His only daughter is gone and I’m still around. He’s not too happy about that.”
“Like that’s your fault.”
“In his eyes, I guess it is.”
“Look, I just wanted to come over and…I don’t know…talk, play a video game, or something.”
Josh slapped Tate on the back. “Sure. How about some beta games we’re considering marketing next year? You could try them out, tell us what you think.”
“Awesome. I was hoping you’d say that. You know, maybe I could go to work for you or something…you know…down the road…like maybe this summer.”
“I already told you, Tate, learn source code, especially 3D graphics and I’ll put you to work in development. Even if it will more than likely piss off your father so much he may never speak to me again.”
Tate pumped a fist in the air. “Yes! I’ve already been practicing with a variety of text editors. I even created an app. Here, let me show you.” Tate took out his cell phone.
Josh rubbed his forehead again. The aspirin hadn’t even put a dent in his aching head. But being the supportive and exemplary brother-in-law Tate had grown used to while Annabelle was alive, Josh simply said, “Come on, I’ll get you set up on the laptop.” And with that, Josh prepared to spend the afternoon listening to another fervent gamer extol the virtues of all the new characters he’d come up with over the last few months.
That night, alone and jumpy, Brandon Hiller had driven around the residential streets until well past dark. He’d already made sure the man of the house had left for work. Now all he had to do was make certain the little girl he’d followed home was in there alone. He circled around to the backyard, noted there was no yippy dog to deal with. From the fence line he moved to the door, trying the knob. Locked. He took out his burglar tools and set to
work cutting the glass out of the nearest window, which happened to be to the left of the back door. When the cutter scored a perfect circle, he pushed gently on the cut until it gave way. He reached his hand inside and released the catch mechanism. Lifting the window, Hiller deftly crawled over the sill and through the frame. He found himself in a small laundry room.
He opened the door and was immediately drawn to flickering lights indicating a television set was on in the front room. He drew the knife from his back pocket, something that would definitely put him back in prison if he ever got stopped, not to mention the rape kit he kept in the van.
The girl was sprawled on the sofa, mesmerized by the scene unfolding on the screen. Because of that she didn’t hear his approach. In the shadowy room, he came up behind her, stuck the blade to her throat. “Do exactly what I tell you and I won’t hurt you. Are you the only one in the house?” He already knew the answer to that because he’d been watching and waiting.
When the girl nodded, he demanded, “Get up! You’re coming with me.”
“Where?”
“We’re going for a ride.” As he led her out the back door to his van, he asked, “By the way, what’s your name?”
“Jenna. Jenna Donofrio.”
Chapter 10 Book 1
Skye moved through the cold and fog toward the Pike/Pine corridor. Even though she could see her breath in the crisp night air, it felt good to be out and about. It always did whenever she walked the streets. What might have given any other female pause as she patrolled her neighborhood at such a late time of night had the opposite effect on Skye Cree. She felt completely at ease in her element.
Perhaps it was her hunter instinct, the Kiya influence, or something else. She didn’t really know the how or why of it, only that she loved everything about the wee hours around midnight, including their contrasting sounds. She appreciated the noisy side of the streets, as well as the peaceful quiet.
Skye Cree Boxed Set Books 1 - 3 Page 11
