Serial Escape

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  Raven channeled her own inner cop, pulling from everything she’d ever heard on TV, then using the even tone she’d heard Lucien apply during official business. “I’m sure you know we can’t comment on that.”

  “Right. No. Of course not.” The nurse let out an audible sigh. “Do you have a way of getting in touch with Detective Match to let him know what’s going on?”

  Raven’s chest compressed. “Not at the moment. But I could come down myself.”

  “Could you? That would be amazing. I’ll let the other officers know that—”

  “No!”

  “What?”

  Raven bit her lip. “It’s a...uh...hierarchy thing. I don’t want anyone to feel like I’m stepping on their toes.”

  Rita laughed. “Lord knows I understand that. Why don’t I text you my personal number, and you can let me know when you’re here, and I’ll bring you up myself?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Raven tapped off Lucien’s home phone, set it on the charger and let her eyes drift to the photo on the fridge once more. Her gaze lingered for a few seconds longer, and then she pushed up off the stool and snagged the keys from the counter. She was sure she wasn’t going to find the key to solving Lucien’s whereabouts by searching his apartment. It didn’t have enough of him in it to make a difference. But Juanita might have something to contribute. It gave Raven hope as she stepped out of the condo and made her way back to the elevator. And she’d be just plain glad to see the other woman, too. It felt like a lifetime since she’d found her sitting in her husband’s office.

  And speaking of her husband...

  Raven frowned a little. Why had Juanita gotten upset after talking to Jim? She started to make a mental note to ask the question if the other woman didn’t volunteer an explanation from the get-go, then paused, midthought, as the elevator slid to a stop on the first floor. Raven tensed. But when the doors slid open, the tension turned to something else. Recognition. Because as a damp-haired woman stepped in, a folded towel in her hands, a familiar scent hit her nose.

  Chlorine.

  She knew it must’ve come from the hot tub in the condo’s gym. But what it reminded her of was Georges Hanes’s most recent message.

  * * *

  After several failed attempts and a frustrating block of time where the sheet of paper had sunk down below the surface of the water and threatened not to float up again, Lucien finally had it in his lap. And now he knew exactly what it was—the same family tree he’d spotted at Sally Rickson’s house. He squinted down at the slightly blurred words, trying to discern the significance. He was sure it had something to do with Sally’s brother. It was the only thing that made sense. As he found Jim’s and Juanita’s names, though, he saw nothing to indicate the existence of some secret love child. The couple’s names were there. Sally’s name connected the two of them. That was it.

  Frustrated, Lucien ran his eyes from the top of the page to the bottom. The tree started three generations back. Great-great grandparents. Birth years and places. Surprisingly few aunts and uncles and cousins. Sally’s family seemed to stick to one or two children per couple. His gaze and mind roamed over it together.

  Greg married Lucinda. One son, daughter. The daughter, named Wanda, had married James. James married Lisa, and they two had Jim, an only child. Jim went on to marry Juanita, and Juanita and Jim had—

  Lucien abruptly stopped cataloguing. There was something off. Not in the names. Those lined up just as they should. There was something physically off about it.

  He bent his knee to bring the paper closer, and he scanned it again, this time paying attention to how the names and boxes fit next to each other. They were tidy. Exactly right for the page. Except for the very last spot. Beside Juanita’s name, on the far right side of the page, there was a space.

  “And there shouldn’t be one,” Lucien murmured.

  If he could’ve, he would’ve run his thumb over it. His attention flicked to the other side of the paper.

  No space.

  It was like someone had deleted an entire name from under Juanita’s spot. His cop instinct reared its head. Earlier, he’d posited the idea that Jim might have a son somewhere that he didn’t know about. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. But what Lucien hadn’t considered was that Jim might not be the one with an out-of-wedlock child. He glanced down again. If his new suspicions were correct, then the brother in question wasn’t an unknown; he was a secret. Which added a new pile of questions. They reeled through Lucien’s mind.

  Did Jim know about the child? Was it his? The latter seemed unlikely, but it wasn’t impossible. If it wasn’t his, then whose was it? Sally had obviously found out. Had she told her father, if he hadn’t known before? Most important, though...what had happened to the boy? Who was he? Where was he now?

  Lucien frowned as an idea tried to worm its way into his mind. There was a candidate right in front of his face. A man with a questionable past and uncertain parenthood. A man who’d centered his existence on destroying perfect families.

  A chill slipped between Lucien’s shoulder blades, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the water was nearing his waist. He let his knees drop, and he lifted his gaze overhead. There was nothing for him to do but wait for Hanes—who probably wasn’t Hanes at all—to return so he could let the man know that he’d finally figured it out.

  Chapter 21

  Raven followed the well-curved fiftyish woman up the stairs, glad the nurse was moving at a quick pace. She was eager to get into Juanita’s room. She wanted to hear what the caretaker’s wife had to say, even if it wasn’t good news. But more than both of those things, Raven wanted to get back to the safe house. Because on the drive over to the hospital, she’d remembered something. Lucien hadn’t brought much with him for those months they’d lived together, but one thing he had packed was a memory book. And it seemed strangely important to retrieve it, even if Raven couldn’t put her finger on why.

  She remembered the story he’d told her about why he’d brought the book along. He’d explained to her that it wasn’t nostalgia that made him cart it around. It was superstition.

  Through a series of events that involved Lucien grabbing the wrong bag on the way out the door, the memory book had been with him on his first shift. To keep it hidden from his training officer, he’d tucked it under his shirt. That day, they’d unexpectedly busted a major drug dealer.

  Three months later, when Lucien was moving out of his parents’ place, he’d been called in to attend an armed robbery. With little time to spare, he’d simply gone into work with a moving box in the back of his car. The memory book was sitting on top, and it had been Lucien who brought down the shooter.

  And the book had been there on a third occasion, too. On the evening before his father’s funeral, Lucien had tossed it into the car with the intention of bringing it with him the next day. And that night, he’d been thrown into the middle of a domestic-abuse situation that had spilled over into the street. His quick reaction had saved a child’s life. And he spied a pattern. He’d started carrying the memory book in his glove box for luck. And nostalgia or superstition, it didn’t matter. If there was anywhere that held a hint as to where Lucien’s and Hanes’s lives intersected, that would be it.

  Rita Marshall stopped abruptly just then, and Raven nearly stumbled into her. The other woman didn’t seem to notice the near collision. She just gestured to the end of the hall.

  “This is it,” she whispered. “Juanita’s room is around the corner. There’re two other cops in front of the door.”

  Raven nodded, ignoring the words other cops. She was just glad that Rita wasn’t questioning the need for secrecy. And she was even gladder that the nurse hadn’t asked for ID.

  She inhaled and did her best to sound confident. “This is great, Rita. Is there any means of getting them to step away for a few seconds?”r />
  The other woman lifted an eyebrow. “You want me to create a distraction? Like in the movies?”

  Raven flushed, guessing that she probably did sound like caricature of actual police work. But Nurse Marshall just smiled and snapped her fingers.

  “Got it!” she crowed, then turned and hurried the rest of the way up the hall.

  Raven winced, and she braced herself for something big. A crash. A scream. A sudden fire alarm. Instead, there was just silence. And a moment later, Rita reappeared.

  “Come on,” said the other woman. “You’ve got at least a few minutes.”

  Raven stared at her, and she couldn’t help but ask, “What did you do?”

  “Told them there were free doughnuts in the lobby, of course.” Rita laughed. “I’m kidding. I told them I saw a petite dark-haired woman sneaking around by the elevator. But seriously...do those jokes ever stop being funny?”

  Raven bit back an urge to suggest the nurse ask an actual cop, and made herself smile. “No. At least not when they’re a lead-in to getting me what I need.”

  Rita grinned. “Okay. You do your thing. I’ll sit outside the room, and if the cops come back, I promise to let out a bird noise or something.”

  “Thank you.”

  She followed the other woman to the room, hurriedly stepped in and then just as quickly stopped. Juanita was lying in the raised bed, tubes attached to her hand, her nose and her head. Bandages obscured her face. She looked weak and small. Not lively as Rita had said. But Jim was beside her in a chair, his fingers curled over her IV-free hand, his head resting on one of her blanket-covered thighs. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, a soft snore escaping his parted lips. It was heartbreaking and sweet at the same time. Raven’s throat was immediately raw. And the going-to-cry feeling only intensified when Juanita spotted her and sent a big smile in her direction.

  “Raven,” she greeted in a pleased whisper. “Come in.”

  Raven’s gaze went to Jim, and she answered in an equally low voice. “I don’t have to.”

  The older woman shook her head. “Please. We owe you our lives. We owe you Sally’s life, from what we were just told. Don’t mind Jim. They wouldn’t let him have a bed in the room, so he forcibly discharged himself, and here he is, out like a light.” She smiled again. “But I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

  Raven swallowed. “Lucien—Detective Match—is indisposed. I came instead.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad. Well. Not the ‘you coming instead’ part.” The older woman eyed Raven with concern, taking in her expression, and her smile faded. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s...” She couldn’t quite make herself say it aloud, so she opted for something else. “I want him to be okay. That’s why I’m here. One of the nurses said you had some information for Lucien?”

  Juanita cast a quick glance down at Jim, then sighed, her face full of devastation. “It’s probably better that he’s asleep. He doesn’t know. Or I should say he didn’t know. He does now. We’ve never had many secrets from each other. But this...”

  Raven stepped closer. “What is it?”

  “I was sixteen, and I thought I was in love. His name was Lincoln. He rode a motorbike, and—sorry. I guess none of that matters at the moment. When I found out I was pregnant, he took that motorbike and he left.” The older woman met Raven’s eyes. “Jim said the police asked him about Sally having a brother. She does have one. Nine years older. He was adopted before I did more than see his face. It was the best thing for him. Or I thought it was.”

  Raven felt the air go out of her lungs. “Oh, Juanita.”

  “Sally found out. Something about a DNA database.” Juanita exhaled a regret-filled sigh, then nodded toward the night stand. “My purse is in the drawer. The police said they found it at the scene, too. They thought it was strange, but I’ve been lying here thinking about it, and I’m sure it was on purpose. Open it up and pull out my wallet?”

  Careful not to disturb a still-snoring Jim, Raven did as was requested.

  “Open the wallet, too,” Juanita said. “Then reach into the crease behind the cards.”

  Raven complied, and her fingers immediately brushed something she recognized by feel. A photograph. With her heart beating a little faster, she dragged it free. It was dog-eared and faded, but the subject was still clear. It was a shot of a little boy in swim trunks, standing in front of a pool.

  A pool. The chlorine smell.

  Blood rushed through Raven, making her so lightheaded that she nearly missed Juanita’s next statement.

  “I asked the adoption agency if they could get me a photo,” she was saying, “and that’s the one they sent.”

  Raven forced out a thick-feeling breath. Because she knew now why the memory book had sprung to mind. She’d only caught a glimpse into it once. Just inside the front cover, actually, where—tacked down to the first page—was a blue ribbon from a swim meet.

  * * *

  The water seemed to be rising quicker than it had before, and it was sloshing up past Lucien’s elbows. A deep knot of worry had taken root in his stomach, and it burned as much as his shoulders did. Since giving up on the idea of forcing himself to his feet, he’d latched on to a new idea—that he could turn to buoyancy. As tightly as he was bound, there was at least a little give. If he could stretch his arms to give himself enough space, he’d float up. The only problem with the plan was that he wouldn’t know whether or not it was going to work until it was essential that it did work. So—as much as Lucien hated to admit it—he was relieved when the scrape overhead signaled that Hanes was back. The other man still sent his gut churning and his teeth on edge, though, when he called out a too-casual, slightly condescending greeting.

  “How’re we doing down there, Detective? Any luck?”

  Lucien flexed his fingers, but it was the only bit of anger he let escape. “Oh, I think so, Hanes. Why don’t you come closer so we can talk about it?”

  Irritatingly, Hanes’s reply was a chuckle. “Why? Have you devised some clever plan to kill me using only a shoelace?”

  “If I were that clever, I wouldn’t be the one sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool.”

  “Aha. You figured that part out.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “I think you know me better than that, Lucien.”

  Bile rose up in the back of Lucien’s throat. He didn’t like the intimate tone, nor the use of his name. He wished he didn’t know a damn thing about Hanes, let alone to have the man presume—correctly—that he understood how much the other man liked his game.

  Out loud, he kept his tone measured. “Shoelace notwithstanding...why don’t you come down and find out what else I’ve figured out?”

  “You wish it were that easy,” Hanes replied. “But I’m going to need more of a hint that you’re on the right track before I discuss things face-to-face.”

  “What kind of clue would you like?” Lucien asked. “Do you want me to tell you I know about Sally Rickson’s DNA test? That she found some results she didn’t like, and that she wanted to erase them? That she realized she had a brother...but wished she didn’t know?”

  Drawn-out silence reined, and for several seconds, worry threatened. Had he gotten it wrong? Was he off the mark by a mile? He’d been sure he was right. Finally, after a few more protracted moments, Hanes’s voice carried down again.

  “Yep,” said the other man. “All that’ll do just fine.”

  Then the sound of shoes tapping on something metallic lifted from behind Lucien, and he knew the other man was descending. He just wasn’t sure what that would lead to.

  * * *

  Raven was back to cursing her own recklessness. It had subsided somewhat at the hospital. Maybe because talking to Juanita had seemed so normal, even though the subject matter was anything but. There wasn’t anything too odd about going to see an injured fr
iend in the hospital. And there wasn’t even anything that weird about that same friend confessing a secret while experiencing such a close call with death. But it was utter insanity to walk directly into the path of a serial killer. And unlike when Raven had gone after Sally, this time, she was sure she was going to encounter Georges Hanes.

  A little wave of dizziness hit as the reality came crashing properly in for the first time.

  Oh, God.

  She had to tighten her hands on the wheel to keep from yanking it to the side and pulling herself off the road.

  Am I really doing this?

  “Yes, I am,” she said aloud to Lucien’s empty SUV.

  She had no choice. As she’d left the hospital, she’d caved in and called Sergeant Gray. His phone had gone straight to voice mail twice, and a glance at the clock in the car had told Raven that Lucien’s time was running short. So she’d texted the information to Sergeant Gray instead. And she’d called Dispatch, as well. But she’d tuned out their immediate response.

  Wait, they’d told her. Sit tight. Let us do our job.

  All very reasonable. But the problem itself wasn’t in the realm of reason. Raven’s heart had no interest in waiting. If she did, and Lucien died, she didn’t know how she’d push past it. All of the tools and all of the training and all of the experience she had as a grief counselor did nothing to assuage the surety that if Hanes took this one final piece of her life away from her, she might never get over it.

  Raven stepped on the gas.

  She had no firm proof that Lucien was where she believed him to be. But she remembered what he’d told her about his instincts. How when he’d seen the guy putting up the posters about the mining museum, he’d just known. And he’d felt compelled to follow through. That was exactly where she was now. In her head. In her heart. And deep down in her gut. She was completely certain, and she didn’t dare waste time on sitting tight. And she could swear that as the miles and minutes ticked by, she could feel herself getting closer to Lucien.