She turned to look at him, her pretty face still marked with the tracks of her tears. “Says the man who moved here just to escape?”
“True enough,” he admitted, “which is how I’ve come to realize it doesn’t matter where you are. Humans will be humans. As capable of brutality as they are of love, and it really doesn’t make any difference where they go to sleep at night.”
“Does that mean you’re actually going to stay here?”
“Fuck no,” he snapped, the words flying out of his mouth. “I hate this town.” He’d always hated it; he had just thought hating his home was fine when he had spent the past year pretty much hating himself.
Lexie laughed briefly, though the sound quickly died, humor unable to be sustained on a day this bleak.
“Ditto.”
“You’ll have to be sure to leave me your forwarding address when you go,” he said, trying to keep his tone light, though the thought bothered him. A lot.
But after knowing her such a short time, he had absolutely no claim on her. She could go wherever she wanted; the fact that they’d had sex this morning didn’t change anything.
“You planning to come visit me?”
“Would you want me to?”
She didn’t respond right away, instead shifting a little and reaching for his hand. He took it, lifting her cold, trembling fingers to his mouth and brushing a kiss on her knuckles.
“Actually,” she admitted, “I’m counting on it, Aidan. When this is all over, no matter where I go, or where you go, I’m depending on you still being around, even if you live in the next state.” She brushed her fingertips against his jaw, adding, “I think you could be someone I want in my life for a long time.”
He hesitated, realizing she was admitting she had feelings for him that went beyond this week, this story, this immediate sexual attraction.
That admission scared the hell out of him. He had a hard enough time maintaining his own sanity without bearing the burden of someone else’s emotions, which is why he’d never let himself really care about anyone beyond the most basic friendships.
Funny, though. He had the feeling it had happened anyway.
He and Lexie had known each other only a few days, but they were already far beyond anything he’d let himself feel before. Basic friendship would not have filled him with the driving desire he felt for her. Nor with the tenderness he’d felt when watching her sleep in his arms. It wouldn’t have him ready to rip someone apart for putting his beefy hands on her in that alley, or made him feel helpless against those tears in her eyes. It wouldn’t have landed him in a room with a set of grieving parents who he knew wanted him to be their child’s savior. He most definitely wouldn’t have already begun to trust her—especially given her profession, if he felt only the most simple, casual friendship for the woman.
She’d worked her way in. Quietly, quickly. Thoroughly.
She’d inserted herself into his life.
Lexie changed the subject before he could come up with any kind of a reply. “There it is,” she said, pointing to a pretty, three-story brick structure that dominated the square at the center of downtown Granville. Few cars were parked on the nearby street, with most of the shops closed on Sunday, so he was easily able to find a spot at the side of the building.
He had already decided to walk her inside, not about to let her out of his sight given what was going on in Granville, when he realized he was probably going to end up sticking around a little longer, anyway. Because pulling into the parking space directly behind him was a squad car. And behind the wheel of that car was just the man he wanted to see.
“Think that’s a coincidence?” he asked, eyeing the chief in his rearview mirror.
Lexie turned around in her seat and raised a speculative brow. “I somehow doubt it.”
They got out of the SUV just as Dunston reached the driver’s-side door.
“Chief Dunston,” Aidan said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get over to see you sooner. We got tied up at the hospital.”
“I heard,” the man said, his tone hard, but his expression at least a bit interested. “You tellin’ me some friend of yours really knows for sure which Kirby girl is lying in that morgue?”
Lexie joined in the conversation from the sidewalk. “There’s no doubt about it, Chief. I’ve never been much of a believer in this stuff, and I know Walter and Ann-Marie haven’t, either. But we were all entirely convinced.”
That was true. When Olivia had related how she knew it was Jenny who had died last night, including repeating the words she’d heard between the girls, Lexie, Walter, and his wife had all started crying all over again. Lexie had told him afterward that it was because Olivia, who had never met either of the twins, had relayed exactly the kind of conversation they would normally have, nailing each girl’s personality, right down to the cadence, the words they’d used and the way they’d spoken to each other.
“So, did you just happen to see us pull up?” Aidan asked, suspecting that wasn’t the case.
Dunston shook his head. “Got a call from Frank. He wanted to know if it was true, what Ms. Nolan here told him.”
Raising a questioning brow, he asked, “Frank?”
“The county clerk,” Lexie explained.
“He seems to think you are on the trail of some important clue,” Dunston said, staring hard at Lexie. “You aren’t running around trying to play detective, are you?”
She lifted a shoulder and responded, “Old habits. You’ve got to give me a chance to get used to the idea that you might be on my side all of a sudden.”
The man pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head, his gaze clear and unwavering. Any blinders he’d been wearing up until now had definitely been torn off. “I am on the side of this town,” he told her, “and every person who lives here, both north of Woodsboro Avenue and south of it.”
“Fair enough.” Lexie stuck out her hand to the man, and Dunston took it. “Let’s go talk inside. Aidan can fill you in on what we know and I’ll tell you exactly what we’re looking for here.”
The chief nodded his agreement, and the three of them walked together up the tree lined sidewalk. A thin, nervous-looking man of around sixty stood outside a door marked “Employees Only.” As they approached, he saw Lexie and the chief together, and suddenly appeared worried.
“It’s all right, Frank,” said Lexie, waving a hand, letting him know she wasn’t angry that he’d called the chief on her. “We’re all in this together.”
“I was so sorry to hear about Walter’s daughters.” The man’s voice wavered, as if he’d done some crying himself today. “Anything I can do to help, I’ll do it.”
“That’s good,” said the chief, clapping the other man on the shoulder. “Actually, I’m waiting to find out what we’re doing here, too.”
Once they got inside, the clerk led them to a conference room. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll go get the information you asked for, Lexie. I already started looking for the file on that property and should have it within a couple of minutes.”
“Thank you,” she said, leaning against the large block table that dominated the room. She didn’t sit down, looking too keyed up, desperate for this to work, for them to find something.
As soon as they were alone again, Aidan began to explain everything to Chief Dunston. He did it as quickly and concisely as he could, and Lexie jumped in to add details he neglected to mention, including the fact that they’d first heard about the mysterious Hellfire Club from some teen prostitutes.
“Out in the country, according to these girls,” the man said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “And what led you to decide that meant Terrytown Road?”
When Lexie fixed a pointed stare at him, Dunston’s face reddened. “I turned those bone fragments over to the medical examiner this morning,” he said. “Didn’t fully believe it myself, but he confirmed they’re human soon’s he saw ’em.”
“Jessie Leonard,” Lexie murmured.
“The first girl? How do you know it’s her?”
Telling the man what the prostitutes had said, about how Jessie had gone to one of those club parties and had never been seen or heard from again, Lexie made a pretty convincing case.
They might get even further confirmation soon. Derek, Julia, and Mick were still out at the plantation, and if they found the actual spot where Jessie died, Derek would probably know it. At least, as long as the death had been a violent one. Peaceful passings didn’t usually leave an imprint on this world—but he didn’t imagine any death that took place at that club could ever be assumed to be nonviolent.
God, did he hope it played out that way, and they didn’t have to ask Olivia to touch the remains Dunston had turned over to the ME. He didn’t know if the woman would be up to going through that twice in one day, especially since she usually resisted doing it at all.
Dunston, who listened to Lexie’s explanation about what had led them to that house without interrupting, hesitated when she finished. Then he made a surprising admission of his own. “I was out on Old Terrytown Road myself last night. Following a van full of local men. Guess you didn’t hear that part of my conversation with the mayor.”
“No, we didn’t. Why were you out there?” asked Lexie.
He told them what he’d been up to, and Aidan and Lexie could only exchange looks of shock as they realized they had seriously underestimated this “local yokel” police chief.
Aidan had a hard time believing it, but it sounded as though they had come close to running into the members of the club last night. “What time was this?”
“About seven thirty or so.”
“Right around the same time we were there.” As the truth suddenly hit him, Aidan smacked his hand on his own forehead, wanting to hit himself again for having been too stupid to see it. “Damn it, that van!”
Lexie sucked in a shocked breath, understanding, too.
“A white passenger van flew by us when we were leaving the estate,” Aidan admitted. His muscles tensed and his hands fisted. “I heard them. Sons of bitches, I
heard
their sick, twisted voices and attributed it to moving the log back into place.”
Dunston appeared dubious. “Heard them, from inside the van?”
Lexie crossed the room and put a hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “Considering how that place affected you, you couldn’t possibly have realized they were passing by us at exactly that minute.” She glanced at the chief. “You know who Mr. McConnell is, so you must have some idea of what he does. The feelings he got off that house confirmed every one of our theories, and the girls’ stories. Some local men—the ones in that van you were following, I suspect—have been doing some pretty sick things to young women from this community.”
Dunston’s jaw thrust out and he hunched forward. “Killing?”
She shook her head, telling him the rest, everything they hadn’t shared thus far. Including Aidan’s own certainty that Vonnie Jackson had been to that club, but that she wasn’t there now.
When she was finished, Dunston shook his head, appearing confused. “So if you already know she’s not there, why are we here, trying to find out who owns the place?”
Aidan explained. “We know two of the missing girls were at that house, both wrapped up with that club. A lot of other girls—girls whose backgrounds and descriptions fit the type these men like—are also missing. Right now it’s the only solid link we can find between them, and it has to mean something. We need to find out who the members are and what else they know.”
Dunston rolled his eyes and shook his head, “Well, I can tell ya who the members are. I watched most of them from across the street last night.”
“We didn’t exactly know that that before we came down here,” Lexie replied, her eyes narrowing.
Sensing the rising tension between them, Aidan interjected. “We’re here. We’re close to getting the property records. Let’s find out who owns it and see if we can use that information to get one of those men to start talking.”
“Good point,” Dunston said with a nod. “If one of ’em thinks he might take the fall for all of it, he might start spilling his guts a little faster. Just depends on who it is.”
“What about getting a warrant?” Lexie asked.
“You mean the document your friends think they don’t need to have in order to trespass on private property?” Dunston asked, visibly irritated. “Yes, I do need one before I can set foot on that place. But I won’t get it now, not with what I have—the say-so of a psychic who practically got run out of his last town.” He looked at Aidan. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
Lexie wasn’t giving up. “What about the bone fragments?”
“Think a judge is going to give me a warrant to search every house on that road? There are dozens of ’em, some occupied, some not. I still don’t know how you found the right one.”
Neither of them answered that question. The chief probably wasn’t quite ready to hear about Morgan.
As if knowing they weren’t going to explain, Dunston continued. “Nah, we need more before I even try it.” The man’s lip curled up on one side. “Especially because I saw a judge climbing onboard that van last night.”
“Good Lord,” Lexie groaned, rubbing at her temples.
Frank, the clerk, suddenly returned, pushing into the conference room, his arms loaded with photocopied documents. “Here we go, everything I’ve got. This has to be the place, Lexie. I looked up all the survey maps based on the mile markers you told me about.” He put the files and loose pages on the table—lien records, property transfers, wills. It looked like he’d gone all the way back to the construction of the house in the early eighteen hundreds.
But the piece of paper they were looking for was much more recent than that. And Lexie, with her cold, researcher’s eye, found it first, within just a minute or two.
“Here!” she exclaimed, holding up a sheet of paper he recognized as a recent tax bill. She read it, sucked in a surprised breath, then mumbled, “Oh boy.”
Dunston plucked it out of her fingers and read it. “Ahh.”
“What?” Aidan asked, not caring so much about the name—since he knew barely anybody in this town—but why the others were so surprised by it.
“The man who owns that place is pretty well known around these parts,” Dunston explained. He cast a look at Lexie that could have been apologetic, or at the very least sheepish. “I think I can see what happened last month a little more clearly now.”