“She didn’t.”
“Look, I know fuck-all about where the woman is. She said she was gonna call, so why don’t you stop pounding the door down and get on back to your side of town?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry I disturbed you, but Ms. Jackson’s daughter is missing.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “Everybody knows Vonnie’s gone.”
“I want to help find her.”
“You wanna help? Get that pussy chief to pay attention to what’s goin’ on down here.”
A familiar refrain. She’d heard the same thing a month before when researching the original story. Dunston had few fans south of Woodsboro Avenue.
“I think he’ll have to, given what happened last night at the football game,” Lexie said. She briefly explained, concluding, “Believe me, ma’am, he’s not going to be able to ignore this any longer. The rest of this town won’t let him.”
The door may have eased open another inch. But that could have been her imagination.
“So if you have any idea where I can look for Vonnie’s mother. . . .”
“She said last night she was goin’ to confront the cops,” the woman admitted, begrudging every word. “Gonna handcuff herself to the flagpole to get them to pay attention.”
Lexie frowned. “How much had she had to drink when she said that?”
The other woman’s lip quirked up on one side in jaded amusement. “Just enough to think it sounded like a good idea, but not enough for her to pass out and forget the whole thing.”
“Not good,” she muttered.
“Nope. So I’d prob’ly start by lookin’ in the closest jail cell. And while you’re there, you can ask Dunston ’bout what else is goin’ on down here.”
“Are you talking about the other missing girls?”
“Yeah, well, missing ones ain’t all I’m talkin’ about. Lot more happening in this town that nobody gives a damn about, least of all the po-lice.”
The dog barked again, and the woman froze. As if realizing she’d been about to say something she shouldn’t, she stepped back into her dark apartment, her eyes wide with fear.
Lexie followed, crossing the hall to the other door. “What are you talking about?”
The woman shook her head. “Go on, now,” she urged. “Get outta here.”
“Please, I just want to help!” she said, keeping her voice low.
“Tina?” a male voice bellowed from somewhere inside. “Who you talkin’ to?”
Her mouth fell open, her bottom lip quivering. Lexie recognized that tone, and the terror it brought to Tina’s face. “I’m sorry.” Lexie stepped back, holding her hands out in supplication, not begging for more answers. Not if it was going to land this woman in trouble with that man.
Tina watched her closely, as if waiting for Lexie to push her, demand more. When she realized that wasn’t going to happen, her compressed lips softened a bit. She glanced to the right again, starting to ease the door closed, whispering, “Talk to the fresh fish on the corner.”
“What?”
“The underage hookers,” the woman hissed.
Then the door slid closed with a decisive click. From within came another male bellow. Lexie bit her lip, appreciating the woman’s help, wishing she could come to her aid. But the best thing she could do for her was to get out of here and never let her husband or boyfriend know she’d been talking to a reporter about things he would say were none of her business.
She might not have been raised in a building like this, but she knew how things went here. And once again, as she left the shabby hallway, the shouting voices, the barking dog behind, she could only think about Vonnie.
Just how hard would the girl fight to stay alive if this was all she had to return to?
Saturday, 11:05 a.m.
Aidan wasn’t surprised when Julia Harrington knocked on his door a little after eleven a.m. He’d called her last night to fill her in on what had been going on in Granville and to see if she was interested in helping out. She’d asked a few questions, then said he’d see her today, promising to spread the word and find out if any of the others minded working on a Saturday.
Apparently, they hadn’t minded. Because as soon as he answered the door, two of her three employees walked in behind the energetic, dark-haired woman. Barging into his house, they acted as if they’d all worked together every day for the past year. They tossed their jackets on the coatrack by the door, making themselves at home like they’d been here dozens of times.
“I see you rallied the troops,” he said, knowing how persuasive his former boss could be.
She shrugged, a twinkle appearing in her soft brown eyes. “Most of them.”
“Where’s Morgan?” he asked, lifting one brow, knowing she had to hear the overly innocent note in his voice as he inquired about her mysterious “silent” partner in the agency.
She waved a hand in the air. “Out getting the lay of the land. And Derek sends his apologies—he had another obligation today, but said he’d come tomorrow if we need him.”
They would need him, though probably not by tomorrow. Aidan felt sure several murders had been committed in Granville, but finding out where they had occurred would be tough. Not something that could be accomplished in just twenty-four hours. There was no point in bringing Derek Monahan down until they had a crime scene, where he could do what he did best.
“As for the rest of us,” Julia added, “it’s not like we have real lives or anything better to do on the weekends. Now, do I have to say it, or is it simply understood?”
He knew what was coming and sighed. “You might as well get it over with.”
“Okay. I told you so.”
“So you did.”
“Crime solving is in your blood, and doing it from a thousand miles away was never going to be enough for you. You live for this.”
Maybe, though he wasn’t ready to jump back in with both feet. Now he just wanted to get through this one case, find this missing girl. Then he could do a big Zen self-evaluation on all the choices he’d made in recent months and decide if he wanted to make any changes.
“Are we done now?”
“Not quite.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m really glad you’ve taken off the hair shirt. If only you hadn’t bought this white elephant and could move back to Savannah.”
He took no offense, knowing she had decided that his getting involved with this case meant he was ready to go back to everything about his old life. He wasn’t there yet and didn’t know if he ever would be. Going backward seemed a little pointless. Since last night, during those charged moments in the car with Lexie, he’d begun to think a lot about going forward.
“I appreciate your coming,” he said. “
Now
are you done?”
“Yep,” she said with a cheerful smile.
The others had been exploring inside. Liv had been here once, Mick not at all. Seeing them, hearing them talk as he walked through his usually silent home, he felt a little like the winter warlock from that old kid’s Christmas show. Crowded—but at least part of a group again.
“Hey, man, long time, no see!” said Mick Tanner, who had been the last person to come to work for Julia before Aidan’s departure last year.
They didn’t know each other well. Mick hadn’t come with the others a few weeks ago for their dinner at Ranger Joe’s—the one that had turned out to be so important in linking him to Vonnie Jackson. He wasn’t even entirely sure whether Mick’s abilities had been of help in any of eXtreme Investigations’ cases. But Aidan had thought from day one that he could like the guy, whose unusual background had left him with a great sense of humor and a lot of cool stories.
“Good to see you, Mick. Thanks for coming down.” Aidan extended his hand in greeting, realizing it was the first time, both of them cautious in the past, both having their reasons. It was as if a simple handshake meant they’d passed each other’s test.
He didn’t for one second worry he wouldn’t be able to control his ability to stay out of Mick’s thoughts—or anyone else’s. Even Vonnie’s terror couldn’t permeate and catch him unaware because of that mental wall he’d rebuilt. He had to open himself up to it—as he had this morning when he’d again tried to find the girl, with no luck. Lexie’s thoughts and fantasies were the only ones that seemed able to invade his psyche whether he was ready for them or not. And that was because he wanted her as much as she wanted him. He knew it.
“Lots of old stuff around here,” Mick murmured, eyeing the room. He studied the antiques, the art, the period furniture—mostly things Aidan had bought off the previous owner because he didn’t want to deal with shopping once he moved in.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
Mick shrugged, used to these situations, especially in the South where tradition meant holding on to remnants of the past until nobody remembered what they’d once been used for. Not that Mick ever wondered. Once he touched something, he knew. The older the object, the deeper the history. Which was why the other man would have to be careful here.
Judging by the way Mick reached into his pockets, withdrew a pair of thin leather gloves, and pulled them onto his hands, he already knew that, too.
“Hello, Aidan,” a woman said, the voice warm, yet reserved. That described Olivia Wainwright very well. Of all of them, she had the most reason to be cautious, to protect herself emotionally from what they did for a living.
Hers was a talent he did not envy, an ability that seemed straight out of a horror movie. He wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to use her dark gift had he been cursed with it. That she was still working for Julia after two years said a lot about how well she was able to handle it.
“Hi, Olivia.”
The redhead kissed his cheek. “I’m so glad you called. We’ve missed you a great deal.”
He smiled his thanks, realizing he’d missed them, too. More than he’d been willing to admit as recently as a few weeks ago. Funny, he had to wonder whether it was spending so many hours yesterday in the company of someone as vibrant and alive as Lexie that had made him realize how much he had once enjoyed the energy of interacting with other people.
“Make yourself at home,” Aidan said. “Julia filled you in on what’s going on here?”
Mick dropped a pile of printed pages onto the coffee table. “After she called last night, I did some digging on missing persons statistics in Granville.” He whistled and shook his head. “Talk about an anomaly. It’s crazy that nobody has noticed and tried to get to the bottom of this.”
“Someone has,” Aidan replied, sitting in a chair opposite the other man.
“The reporter?” Olivia lowered herself to the arm of a chair, poised and graceful, almost like a perched bird. That was pretty appropriate. She had always seemed a little fragile to him, as well as often giving the impression of being ready to take flight. Considering the things she had seen and felt, he couldn’t blame her. He probably would have run away screaming long ago.
“She’s the one who brought you in, right?” Olivia added.
“Yes,” he said. “Lexie Nolan. She came over yesterday to enlist my help.”
Mick pointed a gloved finger at a few pages of printouts—Lexie’s articles. “She really got the shaft . . .”
“I know.”
“Kinda like you,” the man added, sounding more matter-of-fact than sympathetic.
Aidan appreciated the sentiment, but didn’t feel the need to dwell on that mess just now. If he decided to return to work after this investigation, maybe he’d be ready to revisit the Remington case, do a play-by-play of what had happened and his culpability in it. But not now.
“After I read this stuff,” Mick said, “I did what any detective with half a brain would have done. I looked all over the country for every missing girl named in this article and got the hits on the same two that the dimwit local police chief did.”
“Unlike him, you didn’t decide that was enough and stop there,” Aidan said.
“Right.”
“And you discovered?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nada. Not an arrest, not a single bank account, not a speeding ticket, not a credit card application, not an unemployment claim. The paper trail ends here in Granville. It’s like they were just scooped up by aliens and removed from existence.”
Not aliens. A human monster. But the result was the same. “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
“So tell us about this reporter,” said Julia, who had been nosing around the room, flipping open magazines and peeking unrepentantly into cupboards. The woman had a lot of energy and was always on the move. He sensed she was enjoying getting out from behind her desk, away from the administrative stuff, back into an active case. “Why’d she let herself get shut out?”
He told them what he knew, everything Lexie had shared, including her boss’s problems. Right up through last night’s drama on the football field, and in the high school parking lot.
He didn’t mention the ride home. Or those moments they’d sat in the car, just breathing the same air and connecting in ways he couldn’t yet define. And God knows, nothing about the shared dream. None of that was relevant to the case. Besides which, it was way too personal.
As he spoke, he found himself thinking again how tough this must have been on Lexie. He’d gone through his own trial by fire, but at least he’d had friends and colleagues ready to stand by his side if he asked them to. From the sound of it, she’d had no one. Her one ally, Walter, had been distracted, dealing with his own family crisis, so she’d been on her own. One woman trying to do battle with both a corrupt system and, Aidan greatly feared, a serial killer.
“Sounds like she made quite an impression,” Julia said, eyeing him closely.
Olivia was just as bad. “
Quite
an impression.”
Mick seemed oblivious to the undertones. Probably because he didn’t have that know-it-all gene most women had when they sensed a guy might be interested in a female.
“Ms. Nolan is coming over at around noon,” he said, glancing at his watch, ignoring the smirk on Julia’s face as he suddenly called Lexie by her proper name. Damn, she was like a bloodhound. “She wanted to go back over to try to talk to the girl’s mother today.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Julia said. “She sounds tough.”
“Tough, yeah.” His lips widening, he couldn’t help adding, “Just don’t call her perky.”