Julia’s speculative gaze intensified. “My, oh my.”
His smile, combined with the tone of voice she’d heard probably had the woman ready to give Lexie the third degree about her love life, her marriageability, and her stance on kids. Which was ridiculous since he’d never been interested in love, marriage, or kids. Not with what he’d seen throughout his life, from his own family to every other fucked-up one he’d worked with.
God, why on earth did he decide he wanted these people back in his life and his business?
“We’ll be good,” Olivia said softly, knowing exactly what he’d been thinking.
“Okay, no clue what you guys are talking about, but can we get back to work?” Mick asked. “Aidan, what are you feeling about this missing girl?”
He wasn’t asking about Aidan’s emotional feelings. They all knew that. With these people, who understood just how capricious their abilities could be, there was no fear of building false hopes or expectations. They knew as well as he did that visions could have many meanings and didn’t always lead to the right answer in time. So he had no problem sharing what he knew.
“First,” he said, looking at the women, “you should know you’ve met the latest victim.”
They both appeared surprised, but when he reminded them of their evening out a few weeks ago, immediately remembered their pretty, friendly young waitress.
Olivia appeared stricken. “Did you touch her that night? Have you connected with her?”
“I think so.” He quickly told them what he’d experienced—the scents, the scream, the words repeating in his brain. He also told them about this morning’s utter silence, nothingness, which had left him feeling even more concerned about the teenager’s welfare.
“The king?” Mick asked doubtfully. “Are we talking an Elvis impersonator here?”
“No clue,” he said, not willing to discount anything as ridiculous or improbable.
Julia, who’d still been circling around the room like a shark, suddenly jerked her attention toward the front hall. “Will you excuse me?” she asked.
Aidan nodded, used to these types of interruptions. He didn’t direct her to the bathroom, knowing something else had caught her interest. Something only she could see or hear.
“Tell Morgan he owes me ten bucks. The Redskins lost!” Mick called after her.
Julia glanced back, wrinkled her nose at the other man, then strode out of the room.
“You been able to collect on one of those bets yet?” Aidan asked, curious and a little surprised at how easily Mick kidded his boss about a subject everyone else treated very carefully.
“Hell, no. I keep threatening Julia that she’s going to have to make good on them if she keeps letting him bet against me. For a guy with all the answers, he’s got no head for football.”
“Very funny,” Aidan said.
After less than a minute, Julia burst back into the room, reaching for her purse and tugging her keys out of her pocket. “We gotta go. You ride shotgun.”
Seeing her tension, he immediately rose, as did the others. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s your reporter friend,” Julia explained as she turned and stalked back out. Aidan’s heart skipped a beat. He stormed after her and overtook Julia at the front door, grabbing her arm, every muscle in his body snapping to attention. “What about Lexie?”
“You said she went down to talk to the victim’s mother. Is that in a bad part of town?”
The tension rose. “Yes.”
“You know how to get there?”
“I’ll figure it out,” he growled, ready to explode if she didn’t tell him what was going on.
“Okay, let’s go. Morgan says she’s about to get in some kind of trouble.”
That was all he heard, all he needed to hear. Aidan didn’t hesitate. Nor did he look back to see if anybody else was coming. He flung open the front door and stalked toward his own car.
“Let me drive!” Julia called. “So you can jump out when we get there.”
The way she said it made him realize they had no time to waste. “Fine. But go fast.”
She chuckled as she ran toward the driver’s seat. “I don’t know any other way to go.”
Chapter 9
Saturday, 11:45 a.m.
Lexie thought she had seen the worst of life in the Boro when she’d gone to Vonnie’s apartment. Now, though, as she stood at the mouth of a narrow alley thick with trash and bejeweled by flecks of broken glass, she began to know better. In the shadowy channel between two ugly brick buildings, she was trying to talk to two suspicious, hostile teenage girls wearing platform shoes, booty shorts, and push-up bras.
They were young—one sixteen or so, the other probably a bit older. But their eyes held the misery of much longer lives. One was white, one black. Both were utterly broken.
She’d definitely hit rock bottom.
Honestly, if she hadn’t gone looking for them, it wouldn’t have occurred to her that girls this age were walking the streets of Granville. Of course, every town had its pros and everyone knew the inn out by the interstate rented rooms by the hour. But she’d never envisioned a thriving climate for teenage prostitution here.
Unfortunately, once the girls had realized she wasn’t a paying customer looking for some kinky, same-sex thrills, they’d wanted nothing to do with her.
“Please, I just want to talk to you. I’m a reporter; I’m not here to cause any trouble.” She dug for her wallet. “I’ll pay you for your time.”
The teens looked at each other, then around the alley, as if suspecting a setup. Finding a couple of twenties, she shoved the money at them. They took the cash, then both crossed their arms, visibly belligerent, but no longer attempting to walk away.
“I’m trying to find out what happened to Vonnie Jackson.”
One of the girls immediately frowned. “Fuck Vonnie. Thinking she was all better’n us.”
“Chill, Ruby,” said her younger friend.
“And the others,” Lexie quickly added. “All the other missing girls.”
“Wait!” said the younger one. “You’re the one wrote them articles about the Ghoul.”
The Ghoul. Damn you, Dunston
. Gritting her teeth, she replied, “Yes.”
“He’s real, ain’t he? You had it right all along.”
“I think so.”
“And now he got Vonnie?”
She could only nod.
The older one—Ruby, whose lips were as red as her name—rolled her eyes. “Who gives a shit? Vonnie got what was coming to her, being stuck up and too good for the neighborhood.”
Though she certainly disagreed, Lexie wasn’t about to antagonize them now that they were talking. “What about the rest? Brittany and Shayna, Tracy, Jessie. . . .”
When she said that last name, the two prostitutes exchanged a quick, secretive look. Not one other word had inspired the reaction, just the mention of the first victim, Jessie Leonard.
“You knew Jessie?”
“She was . . .”
“Can it, Tyra,” said Ruby. “We don’t know jack shit, lady. Ain’t our business to know.”
Lexie wasn’t about to give up, not when Tyra looked ready to share something important. The girl’s eyes were huge, and her mouth trembled. She was completely cowed by her friend.
“Please, Ruby,” she urged, “don’t you want to get this guy off the streets before he comes after you or somebody you do care about? He’s targeting girls from the Boro, more than a dozen in the past few years. How long do you think it’ll be before this becomes your business, when it’s your sister, your cousin, your best friend?” Staring hard, she added, “Or
you
?”
Ruby’s lip curled up a sneer. She opened her mouth, as if to say something caustic, but not a word came out. Slowly, reluctantly, she closed it again. Though anger still shone clearly on her face, she had conceded the point. For all the toughness and swagger, this was still just a kid. Grunting and shaking her head, she looked away, giving tacit permission for Tyra to speak.
“What can you tell me about Jessie?” Lexie asked.
“I heard stories ’bout where she was goin’ that night. The night she disappeared.”
“What kind of stories?”
Tyra visibly swallowed, looking around again, toward the shadowy depths of the alley into which they’d ducked for their conversation. “That she was joinin’ the club.”
“At school?”
Ruby snorted. “Hell, no.” She glared at her friend. “And she wasn’t joining it, any more than any of us
join
it.”
Not following, Lexie pressed them both. “What is this club? Where?”
“Middle’a nowhere,” Tyra said. “They blindfold us on the ride out so I don’t know for sure. Big ol’ fallin’-down house out in the country—can’t even see the road from the front of it.”
“Who’s in the club?” she asked, knowing she was onto something.
“No idea,” Tyra said. “Just know girls like us is invited to come along sometimes and there’s lotsa men.”
Girls like them. “Prostitutes?”
Ruby’s mouth tilted up on one side, though her ancient smile held no humor. “Uh-uh. They like their girls sweet. But after you leave the club? Well, that’s a whole ’nother story.”
“What the hell’s goin’ on?” a harsh voice suddenly called.
Seeing the girls’ faces twist in fear, Lexie spun around and saw a man, probably in his mid-twenties, heavily pierced, wearing leather and chains. Burly and scowling, he looked less like a greasy TV pimp than a Hells Angel. But judging by the way the girls began explaining what they were doing—and how much they’d been paid for it—that’s exactly who he was.
“Get back out there,” he snarled at them, encircling Ruby’s upper arm in one beefy hand. He squeezed hard, then shoved her toward the entrance of the alleyway. Neither of them looked back, hurrying on their impossibly high heels out to their corner.
“I was just talking to them,” Lexie said, edging after the girls. She was in trouble here, serious trouble. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she could be attacked on a sunny Saturday morning on the streets of dinky little Granville, even if she was in the Boro. “I’ll be going now.”
He grabbed her arms, just as punishingly as he’d grabbed Ruby’s, and pushed her toward a brick-walled building. Lexie tried to twist away from his brutal grip. She was in pretty good shape, but her three-times-a-week-Zoomba class was no match for his bulging muscles.
“Let me go,” she insisted, knowing he was trying to scare her. “I’m working on a story.”
“ ’Bout my girls? You better keep your mouth shut.” He shoved her against the wall so hard her back screamed. Her head thunked against it, hard enough to make her vision spin.
“No,” she said, blinking away tears of pain, “not about that. I’m looking for the Ghoul.”
“You found one.” He released one arm so he could grab her throat. And squeezed.
Lexie tried to swallow, but was thwarted as he pressed harder. Her breaths were shallow. She couldn’t seem to draw a full one as he closed his hand tighter against her windpipe.
This guy wasn’t just trying to scare her off. He could really hurt her.
Though terrifying, that thought chased away any remnants of simple fear. There was no thought, no considering. Instinct just kicked in. No way was she giving in without a fight.
Leaning back against the wall and letting her eyes droop, Lexie sagged a little, as if losing consciousness. As she’d hoped, his grip on her throat loosened. When she felt him start to pull back, maybe to see if he’d actually killed her, she reacted. Jerking a knee up hard, she aimed for his groin, shoving at his chest with her free hand at the same time. She didn’t make full-on contact, but judging by the pain in her knee, got him with at least a glancing blow.
He bellowed in pain. “Bitch!”
Kicking at him, she grabbed at the hand holding her throat, but couldn’t hold it away for more than a few seconds. Her ploy hadn’t gotten her free and now his rage made him squeeze harder, as if he fully intended to kill her. His eyes bulged and his face had reddened with utter fury. She began to feel light- headed, and her legs wanted to give out, in truth this time.
Lexie couldn’t believe this was real. She was a few feet away from a major street, a block from her favorite bakery—a place she’d been to dozens of times.
Can this really be happening?
“Let go of her, you bastard!” a voice snarled.
Strange, that had sounded like Aidan’s voice. Which was crazy, since he couldn’t possibly be here, and she didn’t think he was capable of that kind of fury. Maybe she was having some kind of hallucination as she lost consciousness.
Then her attacker was violently yanked away. Bending over, Lexie heaved in several deep breaths. Her throat ached, and so did her head, but right now she could only think of how grateful she was to the strange man who had saved her life—the man who was now brutally punching her assailant.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. Because the strange man
was
Aidan.
“Lexie, are you okay?” a woman’s voice asked.
Blinking, she looked into the pretty face of a dark-haired stranger, who eyed her with worry. That made her again wonder if she was dreaming this, having one big hallucination as she dangled by the throat from some brutal psycho’s fist.
“You’re going to be fine,” another woman said, putting an arm around her. The two pulled her away from the wall, toward the end of the alley where a car waited, its doors open as if all the occupants had leapt out in a rush.
“Aidan,” she whispered, pulling away. Maybe this was real. If so, no matter how strong her dream- lover was, she seriously doubted he was a match for a thug who could be armed and almost certainly would not fight fair.
“He’s all right,” the red-haired woman said.
Turning around to see for herself, she nodded in relief when she realized Aidan wasn’t alone. Another man was with him. Together, they had wrestled the burly pimp to the ground and were whipping her assailant’s own leather belt out of his pants to bind him with.
“I’ve called 911,” one of the women said. “Let’s go sit in the car and wait for help.”
But she wasn’t moving. Now that she could breathe easily, Lexie felt much more clearheaded. She had a headache and a sore throat, but was otherwise fine. And what she most wanted right now was Aidan, who was bent, with one knee on the pimp’s back.