‘That’s not the point,’ Keith insisted. ‘They revile you and mistreat you, but now that your niece needs your help, they come to you.’
Interesting
, Deacon thought. Faith had mentioned that Jordan had said he would have to fight Jeremy to keep the house if he’d inherited, and now Jeremy was saying the same. Perhaps Granny O’Bannion had left it to Faith to keep her sons from fighting.
‘What happened to Faith, Agent Novak?’ Jeremy asked. ‘Does she need my help?’
He sounded like he really cared, but in a way that sounded a little too sincere.
‘Last night a young woman was found on the road leading to the old homestead,’ Deacon said, choosing his words carefully. ‘She’d been assaulted and barely escaped with her life.’
The two men stared at him. ‘Faith was assaulted?’ Jeremy asked, quietly horrified.
‘No. Faith found the victim. She was on her way to the house when she saw the woman in the road. She swerved to avoid her, went down an embankment and hit a tree.’
Jeremy paled slightly, a curious response. ‘Is she hurt badly?’
‘No,’ Deacon said. ‘Just a few cuts. She managed to climb the embankment and call 911.’
‘Then why are you here if she’s not hurt?’ Jeremy asked.
Deacon kept his gaze glued to their faces. ‘We found evidence that the young woman had been held prisoner in the basement of your old home.’
Jeremy’s pleasant veneer disappeared to reveal something dark and angry. ‘Why are you telling
me
this? I walked away from that family and that house almost twenty-five years ago. I never looked back. I’ve made a new home and a new family.’
‘I’m telling you because someone has tried to kill your niece six times in the last month.’
‘The attacks started a week after she inherited the house,’ Bishop added. ‘The latest one was early this morning. A sniper shot at her. Missed her, but injured an innocent man in the process. So we need to know where you were between two and four this morning.’
‘Are you accusing Jeremy?’ Keith asked from behind clenched teeth.
‘No,’ Deacon said. ‘But as you so accurately put it, the house should have been Dr O’Bannion’s. If we didn’t put him on our list of suspects, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs. Dr Bannion, we’re here to get your statement, to eliminate you from the list. May we have your whereabouts?’
‘I was home, asleep in my own bed,’ Jeremy said. ‘With Keith. And no, we can’t prove it.’
The agent outside had said the same, but Jeremy and Keith didn’t need to know that.
‘We’ve also talked to your brother,’ Bishop said to Jeremy.
Jeremy clenched his jaw. ‘I can only imagine what he said.’
‘He gave us his alibi for last night,’ Bishop said. ‘And then he recommended we speak with you.’ She exaggerated a hesitation, looking up at Deacon. He played along, giving her a facial shrug and a tiny nod. ‘He suggested,’ she added, ‘that you might like young women.’
‘That is a
lie
!’ Keith cried viciously. ‘A
dirty
lie. Jeremy, call your lawyer.’
‘I certainly intend to,’ Jeremy said evenly, but his hand trembled.
Now’s the time
.
When they’re both vulnerable and shaking
. Deacon slid his sunglasses off and met Jeremy’s eyes, allowing his own to communicate the contempt he felt for the man.
Jeremy stiffened and stared, his gaze never flickering away. Beside him, Keith flinched. And then Jeremy surprised Deacon, closing his eyes, his shoulders slumping in weary despair. ‘What exactly did Faith tell you, Agent Novak?’
‘Why do you think she told me anything?’ Deacon asked, intrigued by the man’s response. It wasn’t the color of Deacon’s eyes he had flinched from, but the expression in them.
‘Because you look at me the way her father did. The way all of them did that day. No one has looked at me like that since. Not until today.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eastern Kentucky, Tuesday 4 November, 8.45
P.M.
Corinne let the pack slide to the ground and collapsed in a heap next to it. Three feet away Roza was curled into herself, her thin arms pulling her bent knees as close to her body as she could, rocking, rocking.
Roza had been so brave – but it had lasted all of ten minutes. For the next four hours Corinne had had to half drag her through the woods. Every gust of wind terrified her. Every shriek of a hawk flying overhead had her ducking, hands clamped over her ears. Every time Corinne had loosed her hold, the girl had gone all potato bug on her, rolling up into that damned ball.
Which Corinne totally understood. She’d like to curl up herself, and poor Roza had been through so much more. But there was a limit to what was humanly possible, and Corinne had hit that wall.
I’m done,
she thought.
I’m all used up. If he comes after me now, I won’t be able to fight
. She was hungry. And dehydrated.
Poor Roza must be too
.
She didn’t even know where they were. It was dark and they were in a huge forest. Miles and miles of forest. They hadn’t seen a single solitary person, or a house, or even another road. She’d steered them west, because that was the way she thought his car had gone when it left the cabin earlier. With no compass, she’d been depending on the sun. But it had set hours ago and there were no stars, so now she was afraid they’d been going in circles.
She pawed at the knot she’d tied in the blanket in which she’d packed their supplies, the joints in her fingers now too swollen to move properly. Each tug brought pain that, exhausted as she was, had become too much to bear.
‘Roza, honey, I can’t drag you any further. I need to eat and so do you. I need your help.’
There was no indication that Roza even heard. Just that horrible rocking, rocking, rocking.
‘I’m
serious
,’ Corinne snapped, letting her frustration come out. ‘I have only about five good hours that I can use my hands every day before they start to hurt. And that’s
with
my medicine. Now I can’t even untie this knot. You’re going to have to do this or we’re going to starve. Roza?’ She waited but got no response. ‘
Roza with a zed!
’
The rocking stopped and Roza lifted her head.
‘Thank you. Now come here. Please.’ Corinne held up her hand, which had locked into a claw long before. ‘I’ve helped you. Now I need
your
help.’
Slowly Roza uncurled her body, crossing the distance between them by scooting on her butt, her eyes down. ‘What’s wrong with your hand?’ she asked as she picked at the knot.
‘I have a disease. It’s not catching,’ Corinne added when Roza’s head jerked up in alarm. ‘It causes my joints to swell – like my knuckles and my knees.’
Roza went silent, working on the knot until it came loose. She spread the blanket out. ‘What do you want to eat? Give me your knife. I watched you open the last can. I can do it.’
‘The bean soup has protein,’ Corinne said as she handed over the knife, ‘so let’s eat that. And we need to drink some water. But be careful. Drink only a little and don’t spill any. I don’t know when we’ll find a stream to refill our bottles.’
Roza opened a bottle of water. ‘This is our last one.’
‘Thank you,’ Corinne said. ‘You have some too, okay?’
Roza obeyed, then picked up a can of soup, squinting at the label. ‘That says bean.’ She opened the can competently, then folded up the knife and gave it back to Corinne.
‘You’re awfully good at taking care of people,’ Corinne said softly.
A shrug of those frail shoulders. ‘I watched Mama do it. It was her job. Then it was mine.’
Corinne thought about the jars of eyes and swallowed hard. Roza and her mother had cared for the victims. How many had there been? Dozens, at least. ‘Did your mama tell you how she came to be in that . . . awful place?’
‘Home,’ Roza murmured. ‘It was home.’ She handed Corinne the can of soup. ‘I don’t have a spoon. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right. I’ve guzzled it down straight from the can before.’
Roza looked up with a slight frown. ‘Why? Didn’t you have a home?’
Corinne noted that the child’s trembling decreased as they spoke. ‘I was in the army out in the desert. Sometimes we had only a few seconds to slurp our supper down.’ She rephrased her earlier question. ‘Did your mama tell you how she came to be in your home?’
‘She said she and her sister were walking outside one night and he . . . took them.’ Roza’s dark eyes were wide. ‘You were really in the army? In the desert?’
‘Before I got sick. Yeah, I was.’ Corinne looked around at the trees, that seemed to go on for ever. ‘I hated the desert because it was hot and dry and there was sand everywhere. At least we have some shade here.’
‘Did you see a tiger?’
Corinne blinked at her, then smiled. She’d been so busy thinking of Roza as a victim that she’d forgotten she was still a child. ‘Not in the desert, no. But I did see camels.’
Roza frowned. ‘Camels?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘You’ve never seen a camel? It’s this . . . um. Well. How do you know what a tiger is?’
‘I saw it in a book. We would take them from the girls’ backpacks sometimes when he wasn’t looking. Mama would hide the books until he left and then we’d look at them together.’
‘Okay. Then do you know what a horse is?’
‘Of course,’ Roza said. ‘Does a camel look like that?’
‘Not exactly. Imagine a horse with really long legs and instead of the back dipping in, it bumps out.’ She drew the shape in the air. ‘They need very little water, which is why they can live in the desert. Because it’s really dry there. You said your mother was with her sister when they were taken? Was your aunt in the basement with you?’
‘For a while. But he killed her, then put her in a wooden box and buried her.’ Roza’s little face pinched. ‘My mama cried for a long, long time. He never let her say goodbye.’
Corinne had to swallow the lump in her throat. ‘I’m so sorry, Roza.’
The girl shrugged. ‘I don’t remember her very well. I was too little.’
‘Do you know how old you are?’
Roza looked offended. ‘Of course. I’m eleven.’
‘I thought so. What was your mama’s name?’
‘Amethyst. It’s a pretty purple rock. But he called her Amy. Did you kill anyone?’
Once again Corinne blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
‘When you were a soldier. Did you kill anybody?’
‘Yes. But I really would rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.’
‘Were they bad?’
Corinne sighed. ‘Some were very bad. All of them wanted to kill me, so I guess that made them bad enough.’
‘Will you kill
him
?’
Ah.
‘Do you want me to?’
Roza’s dark eyes flashed hatred, raw and virulent. ‘No,
I
want to.’
Corinne hesitated, not wanting to say or do the wrong thing, because she believed that Roza was capable of killing the man who’d taken her mother and her aunt, who’d held her as a slave. Who’d killed so many. ‘Did he kill your mama?’
‘Not with his knives. But she got sick and couldn’t get warm. We weren’t allowed to use the stove except to make things for him, but I did anyway. I heated some water to make her tea, just like I always did for him. But he found out.’ Her lips quivered. ‘He hit her. Again and again. She didn’t get up. I tried to make her get up. But she wouldn’t. I took her to her pallet and tried to take care of her, but she never woke up.’
‘Oh, Roza. You aren’t to blame.’
Her chin came up. ‘I know. He is. That’s why I want to kill him.’
‘We have to get out of here before we even think about that. Can you walk some more?’
A nod of brutal acceptance. ‘If I’m allowed to kill him, I will walk across the desert.’
Cincinnati, Ohio, Tuesday 4 November, 8.45
P.M.
Faith closed her laptop, having checked her email. That there was no reply from her boss to her message about her car accident made her worry.
I should have called him. I shouldn’t have emailed.
But she’d been so tired and distracted at the time. She’d been shot at, and then had seen a dead body under her grandmother’s basement floor.
No longer tired, she was now restless, edgy. Sitting cross-legged in Deacon’s bed, she wondered if he’d talked to her uncle Jeremy. What he’d found out.
She stretched out on the bed, trying to get the rest Dani had ordered, but a minute later she was up again. She should be exhausted, but she was too wired to sleep. Nerves jangling, she left the quiet of Novak’s bedroom and went downstairs to the living room, where Greg sat on a folding chair, hands gripping a game controller, his attention focused on the big-screen TV on the wall where a virtual battle was raging.
All in total silence. Greg had taken off his hearing aids and set them aside and had muted the television. She wondered if he’d done it because Dani had told him that Faith was supposed to be sleeping, or whether he preferred the silence. She edged into his peripheral vision, waiting until he spied her there.
He paused his game. ‘Am I bothering you?’ he asked politely, his speech a little thick, but understandable.
‘Not at all. Can you read my lips?’
The boy shrugged. ‘Well enough, I guess.’
‘Where is Dani?’ Faith asked.
‘She had an emergency at the shelter. I’m used to the Feds now. They’re here because of you, aren’t they?’
‘Yes. Unfortunately.’
‘Because you’re in trouble or in danger?’
‘Mostly the second one.’ She pointed to the other chair. ‘Can I join you?’
He gave her a strange look. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’d like to play.’ She moved her shoulders restlessly. ‘I’m too wired to sleep.’
He frowned, then nodded. ‘Wired,’ he repeated. ‘I thought at first you said “weird”.’
She grinned at him. The words did look very similar on the lips, she thought. ‘That too.’ She pointed to the game, a multi-player military role-playing game. ‘You on a team?’
‘Nah. I just picked these guys up. You want a different game?’
‘I like to kill zombies.’
Greg’s smile was slow, but real. ‘All right.’ He glanced guiltily toward the stairway to the bedrooms. ‘Except I’m supposed to be painting the walls. Not playing.’
‘How about I help you paint, then we’ll have more time for play?’
He shook his head. ‘Deacon won’t want you working on his house.’
‘Deacon doesn’t have to know everything. Besides, I’ve got a lot of nervous energy. I’d normally go running, but I can’t leave the house. So let’s go paint a wall.’
Greg put his controller away, then narrowed his eyes at her. They were like Dani’s, one blue and one brown. Other than that, the boy looked just like Deacon in that old picture. They were like twins, born eighteen years apart. ‘I heard that you are a therapist,’ he said.
‘I was. Now I work at a bank.’ She winced inwardly.
At least I hope so after all this
.
‘I don’t want you doing therapy on me. Or asking me any questions about my suspension.’
‘Understood and agreed.’ She gestured for him to lead the way. Once in his room, she saw that someone had already started the job. One wall was a peaceful, misty green that complemented the other colors in the house. ‘Who picked the colors?’
‘I did. We all picked our own bedroom colors, but Dani picked everything else.’
‘I like it,’ Faith said. ‘It’s peaceful without being girlie. Did you paint all this so far?’
‘Yeah. I was taking a break for a while downstairs. I’m taller than you. I can paint the top half, you do the bottom. I won’t be able to hear you if I’m not looking at you.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m not looking to talk your ear off.’
‘That’s what girls always say, but then they want to talk anyway.’
‘Not me. After the past day, I think I’m all talked out.’
Cincinnati, Ohio, Tuesday 4 November, 9.05
P.M.
Keith put his arm protectively around Jeremy’s shoulders. ‘I told you to let them go,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t let them hurt you anymore.’
‘What day are you talking about, Dr O’Bannion?’ Deacon asked.
‘That day twenty-three years ago,’ Jeremy answered, as if that explained it all.
‘The day your father died?’
Jeremy looked up, a mild frown furrowing his brow. ‘No. It was a few days later.’
Deacon felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. ‘The day Faith’s mother died.’
‘No, the day before.’ Jeremy swallowed hard. ‘I loved my sister. But she sided with them and not me. It’s the last memory I have of her face.’
‘Jeremy,’ Keith said helplessly. ‘Don’t do this to yourself.’
‘Do what?’ Bishop murmured. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
‘Neither did I,’ Jeremy said. ‘I still don’t.’
‘They treated him like a . . .’ Keith hissed out a breath through his teeth. ‘Like a pedophile. Just because he’d finally told his father what he was.’
‘What your father was?’ Deacon asked, purposely misunderstanding.
One side of Jeremy’s mouth lifted, as if Deacon’s ploy had been too terribly transparent. ‘No, Agent Novak. What
I
was. What I am.’
‘Homosexual,’ Deacon supplied neutrally. ‘Not an easy topic for Catholic families in those days.’
‘No, it wasn’t. It still isn’t for many, but it was much worse then.’ Jeremy drew a deep breath and let it out. ‘It was the day before Maggie died. When my father’s will was read.’
‘You were cut out,’ Deacon said.
‘Not just me. Everyone. Except my mother, of course, but even she was short-changed.’ His smiled bitterly. ‘My father was not a kind man. He was harsh and very much believed in “spare the rod, spoil the child”.’