Diabolical (Shaye Archer Series Book 3) (8 page)

“If you feel strongly about it then you’re probably right. I don’t pretend to know stuff about the brain like Eleonore does, but what you’re describing sounds reasonable to me.”

He frowned. But where did the dress and candles come in? And what did they have to do with her dreams? He wanted to ask, but he knew how much weight Shaye was already toting with her biological mother being found and her name in the Clancy journals. She was the strongest woman he’d ever met, but everyone had a breaking point. The last thing he wanted to do was be the final straw—the one statement or question that pushed her back into the shadows.

But he couldn’t help her if he didn’t understand what was going on.

“The candles and dress,” he said. “Are they part of the dreams?”

“Yeah. In the worst of the dreams, I’m wearing a red dress and surrounded by a bunch of black candles. I’m tied down on a stone altar and a man approaches and other people are huddled in the background. In the dreams, all their faces are blurred. The man steps up to the altar and pulls out a knife. He cuts my chest with the knife and licks the blood off of it.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Sometimes I wake up then. Sometimes I don’t wake up until he pulls the dress up.” She looked directly at Jackson. “I never wear red and just the sight of candles is enough to send my pulse racing. I have flashlights and kerosene lamps in my house in case of a power outage. So does Corrine. I won’t eat dinner at certain restaurants because I know they light the dining area completely with candles at night. I’ve been known to leave charity events that do the same, pretending I’m ill.”

Jackson’s chest constricted as she talked, empathy and anger warring inside him. No one should have to live with such things. No child should have to endure them.

“I wouldn’t call that pretending,” he said.

She relaxed a little. “No. I guess it’s not.”

Now that Jackson knew about the dreams, he could make an educated guess as to what Shaye had been doing and why she said it was stupid.

“So you put on a red dress,” he said, “lit the candles, and lay down on the floor, hoping you’d remember.”

She nodded. “Stupid, right?”

“I was going to say brave.”

A flush crept up her neck and she looked down. “I’m not brave. I’m broken.”

Jackson reached over and put his hand on her arm. “We’re all broken. Some of us are just in more pieces. It’s how we handle it that makes us brave, and from where I’m sitting, you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

She looked at him again and he could see the disbelief in her eyes, but finally she managed a small smile. “You believe that,” she said. “You have a lot of positive attributes, Jackson Lamotte, but the thing I love about you the most is your sincerity. It’s rare that someone can always tell exactly where they stand with another person, but you don’t have an ounce of guile in you, do you?”

“When it comes to police work, yes. But when it comes to relationships, no.”

Especially when it comes to you.

He didn’t say it, but it was right there at the forefront of his thoughts.

“Did you remember?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice barely a whisper. “It was just like my dreams, except this time, I saw his face.”

His pulse quickened. “You can identify him?”

She shook her head. “He wore a mask. A horned goat.”

No way in hell would he ever admit it, but the image in his mind creeped Jackson out. No wonder she’d screamed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t imagine how horrifying that was.”

“I suspected something along those lines. Eleonore isn’t willing to jump completely on board with my theory yet, but I think I’m right.”

“Right about what?”

“It was ritualistic abuse.” She held up a hand before he could reply. “I’ve read the FBI study and I know all the facts of other cases, but that doesn’t change the facts here. Black candles, a red dress, a stone altar, and all the cuts on my body. The brand—”

“Wait,” Jackson interrupted. “What brand?”

He’d been through all the medical records in her file and none of them had made mention of a brand.

She frowned. “I thought you read my file.”

“I did. There’s nothing about a brand in there.”

“That’s strange. I know it was documented in my medical records. I have a copy of the records myself.”

“Maybe it wasn’t scanned in when the department converted everything to digital.”

“Maybe not.” She rose from the couch and turned around with her back facing him. She pulled the gown up over her hips and up her back.

Jackson took one look at the pentagram on her midback and felt his stomach roll.

“It’s been treated with lasers more times than I can count,” Shaye said as she dropped the gown and sat back down. “But they can’t remove it. It used to be worse. I had the protruding skin surgically removed. It’s better now. At least I can’t feel it when I lean back.”

“I am so sorry.” He struggled for words but couldn’t think of any that would properly express everything he felt. “I…I can’t even imagine, but I see why you feel it’s ritualistic.”

“You think I could be onto something?”

“Do I think there’s a satanic cult operating in New Orleans—I suppose anything is possible, but it’s more likely it’s one insane person.”

“Except there are other people in my dreams. I didn’t see them today but if we assume my dreams have been recall, then there were other people involved.”

Jackson shook his head. It was bad enough to assume one demented, evil individual was still loose on society, but if he had coconspirators, that opened things up to a whole different level of horror.

“If I hadn’t screamed,” Shaye said, “I might have remembered more. I should have been better prepared. I knew what might come out of this, and I rushed into it without preparation. I think I was afraid if I took time to think it through, I’d change my mind.”

“I can see that, but even if you’d waited, what possible preparations could you have made for something like this?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. Video, for one. At least if I said something during the recall, it would be recorded.”

“Do you think you said something that you don’t remember?”

“No. I didn’t have any lapses in recall. I’m sure I didn’t say anything.”

“Then it wouldn’t have made a difference,” he pointed out. “Look, I’m sure you could have done yoga or had a stiff drink or any of a dozen things to try to calm down, but I don’t think they would have done a bit of good once you were on the floor. I can’t imagine what would have, so stop chiding yourself. You did it to get answers and you got some. Not everything you were looking for, but it’s an important start.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” But she didn’t sound convinced.

“You remembered something from your past. Have you even thought about how huge that is?”

She stared at him for several seconds, then he saw a tiny flicker of excitement. “I guess I hadn’t thought it out. What if this opened the door for my mind to release all those things it’s been holding back? If I could remember how I escaped that night, I might remember where I escaped from. We could find him. We could find the man who bought me.”

It was hard to contain his emotions at what this breakthrough might mean to Shaye and to the investigation, but Jackson knew that the return of Shaye’s memory probably came at a huge cost. Her medical records told part of the story that her mind couldn’t, and it was dark and evil. If seven years of torture and abuse flooded back into her memory, could she handle it? Corrine’s love and Eleonore’s expertise still had their limits, although Jackson had zero doubt as to their commitment to Shaye.

“I think you need to take things slowly,” Jackson said. “You only got a quick glimpse of the past and it was bad. If it all comes racing back in…”

“I can handle it,” she said. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but this was a wake-up call. I’ll be prepared for it next time.”

Next time? He should have known her experiment wouldn’t end here. Shaye had spent years deciding whether or not she wanted to pursue remembering, but now that she’d made up her mind, there was no putting on the brakes. The discovery of her biological mother and Clancy’s records had only upped the ante.

And she didn’t even know about her captor’s recent purchase.

Jackson knew he had to tell her. If she heard it from Corrine, she’d be mad at him for withholding the information, and the last thing he wanted was for Shaye to get angry with him and cut him out of her life. She needed people around her she trusted. People who would have her back no matter where the chips fell, and he was one of those people. But he wouldn’t be for long if she felt she could no longer trust him.

Still, now wasn’t the right time. She needed to calm down. To clear her head of the thing she’d just done. To get back into private investigator mode, thinking logically and impartially about information. As impartially as a victim could be, anyway.

“Promise me,” he said, “that you won’t do this again unless I’m here.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea.

“I just want to see you in your nightgown,” he said, “although skimpier and blue is more to my taste.”

She smiled. “The only blue I sleep in is a blue T-shirt. It is shorter, though.” She rose from the couch. “And now that you’ve mentioned clothes, I think I’ll go put on something normal. This makes me feel…I can’t even describe it.”

“I recommend a hot shower and a change of clothes.”

She nodded and started to say something, then hesitated. Finally, she said, “Will you stay for a while? I mean, unless you’re working or already had plans. I don’t want to hold you up, but we haven’t talked in some time, so I thought we could catch up.”

“Unless I get a phone call, I’m officially off the clock, and my only plans were dinner. Are you hungry? Because I’m starving.”

“Always. There’s a great Chinese place that delivers. The menu is in the drawer next to the sink. Get me crab Rangoon and chicken fried rice. You like Chinese food, right?”

“You had me at crab Rangoon.”

She headed for the hall, then stopped and turned around. “Thanks, Jackson.”

He nodded and she slipped through the doorway and disappeared down the hall. A couple seconds later, he heard a shower turn on and he rose from the couch and headed into the kitchen to find the menu. He placed the food order and opened the refrigerator, figuring Shaye wouldn’t mind if he helped himself to something to drink. He pulled out a cold beer and then noticed a Tupperware container on the cabinet that held round items that looked suspiciously like cookies. He pulled the lid back and sighed when he saw the same cookies he’d had earlier at Corrine’s. Unable to help himself, he grabbed a couple out of the container and headed back to the couch with the beer and cookies. He located the remote and turned on the television, determined to find something to watch that didn’t have any news coverage. The day had been grim enough already. He didn’t need to be depressed even further with all the evil in the world.

As he flipped through the channels, he thought about what Shaye had done. It was definitely outside the box, but he had a keen appreciation for creative solutions. Most importantly, it had worked. Not only had she determined that her dreams were most likely glimpses of her past, she’d forced her memory to give up one of its closely guarded secrets—the mask.

It might just be the tip of the iceberg.

He only hoped she was ready for the meltdown.

R
eagan stiffened
when she heard the door creak open. It was at the top of a set of narrow stone steps and was solid wood. She’d tried pounding on it but it barely moved, and no matter how much she shouted, no one ever heard her. Wherever this hole was, it wasn’t near people, or it was so well insulated that sound didn’t carry far enough for others to hear. The bottom line was, the door offered no way out, and it was the only way into the room.

The man’s footsteps sounded on the steps and she backed into the corner. It was a reflexive action that did no good. The man locked the door after entering. Even if she could run past him, she didn’t have the key to get out. And despite the fact that she was in good shape and fairly strong for a girl, there was no way her ninety pounds was any match for his six-two, two-hundred-pound frame. She’d tried kicking him once, a really good shot right in his crotch, but he’d laughed at her and said she was turning him on. She never tried it again.

Light from the lamp he always carried trickled down the stairs and into the room. A couple seconds later, she saw his blue jean–clad legs as he descended. She flattened against the wall even more, hoping this was one of those times he left food and went away. It was worse when he spoke to her. He paused at the bottom of the steps and she sucked in a breath. No matter how many times she saw the mask, it chilled her to the bone. She’d never seen anything so horrific in her life. She’d never been so frightened of an inanimate object.

The mask turned slowly and his eyes locked on hers. Immediately, she dropped her gaze, unable to take his dead-eyed stare through the demon mask. He laughed and despite the heat and humidity, a chill ran through her and she shivered. His laugh was almost as bad as the mask. Mocking her fear. Excited by it.

He reached out with his left hand and dropped a paper bag on the floor. The scent of cooked ground meat wafted over to her and her mouth watered. He only brought food once a day, sometimes less, and it was never enough. Sometimes one hamburger, sometimes two. Once a small pizza, but never enough food to keep her strength up. Every day she grew a little weaker, and she assumed that was exactly what he wanted.

He stared at her several more seconds, then turned and headed back up the steps. She waited until she heard him lock the door before moving to the center of the room to feel for the food. She located the bag and sank onto the ground beside it, digging inside to see what he’d left.

Two hamburgers today.

That meant he either was being generous or wasn’t planning on coming at all the next day. He’d done that before. She pulled out one of the burgers and took a huge bite, washing it down with the soda he’d put in with the burgers. She barely chewed before swallowing and started to take another bite but hesitated. If she was ever going to get out of here, there was only one way, and that was catching him by surprise.

Locked in this dungeon, the one thing she did have was plenty of time to think, but no matter how many ideas she’d rolled around in her mind, only one was viable. She had to get the jump on him to steal the key and get out the door. She’d found a piece of stone that had broken off at the end of the wall where the steps entered the room. It was a little longer than her hand, and she’d been sharpening it against the stone wall for a day now. The edge was getting sharp. She just needed to get the end more pointed and it would be ready. Kicking him in the crotch might not have inflicted enough pain but surely stabbing him there would.

The hard part was faking being unconscious. That meant figuring out when the food was drugged and not eating it, which meant taking a single bite and waiting to see if she felt any aftereffects. Taking a single bite and waiting, even though she was starving.

As the aroma of the burger filled her nostrils, her stomach growled and clenched, begging her to take another bite and ease its discomfort. But she couldn’t do it. Not if she was going to escape. If she could escape, she’d find another way to live. Maybe call that social services lady.

And she’d never, ever go hungry again.

* * *

S
haye stood
under the stream of hot water, letting it run over her shoulders and down her back and chest. She’d already scrubbed every inch of her body with exfoliating gel and no longer felt the slick red fabric on her skin. The overwhelming urge to burn the gown as soon as she got out of the shower dominated her thoughts for a while, but ultimately, she convinced herself that the garment might be needed in the future. The last thing she wanted to do was have another shopping trip over that particular item, so she’d find someplace to lock it up, along with the candles, until she was ready to use them again or until this was over for good.

Her relief at seeing Jackson at her door was huge. She’d dreaded looking through the crack because her first thought was that it was her mother outside. If Corrine knew what Shaye had done and had seen the direct effect it had on her, Shaye would never have another moment’s peace again. Corrine would have badgered her to move back in with her, and when Shaye refused, she would have insisted on the bodyguards Pierce kept threatening her with.

Shaye knew she was extraordinarily lucky to have Corrine, Pierce, and Eleonore taking care of her, but sometimes it made her feel claustrophobic. She worked hard to control her aggravation when it felt as if they were pushing her too hard toward what they wanted rather than listening to what she wanted. Meeting Hustle had made her even more aware of what it was like to care about someone and feel hopeless to help them, so it wasn’t as though she couldn’t empathize. But lately, everyone had gotten more intense. The Clancy journals and her biological mother’s turning up had put an enormous strain on everyone, and she was feeling the pressure.

Jackson was a safe island in a stormy sea. She knew he didn’t necessarily like or agree with the risks she took, but he never once suggested that she stop. Instead, he requested only that she be well prepared for the undertaking and ask him to help when the risk was too great. She’d scared him today. That had been apparent. His asking her to never attempt a repeat performance unless he was present was indicative of his fear, even if his expression hadn’t been a dead giveaway.

In the past, and with anyone else, she would have been annoyed by the request, but Jackson never made her feel as though he was intruding. His presence always felt like assistance and sometimes guidance, but never control.

Admit it. You like him.

Fine. So she liked him. What wasn’t to like?

You like him as more than a friend.

She turned off the shower and reached for a towel. Her feelings for Jackson had moved beyond just friendship a while back. Or maybe they’d been that way from the beginning. Certainly, she’d never felt so comfortable with a man, especially so soon. But right from the start, she’d known that Jackson was different. The question was what she intended to do about it.

Her life, which was always complicated at best, was in a huge state of turmoil right now. It probably wasn’t possible to find a worse time to pursue a romantic relationship, and yet every day that passed that she had avoided seeing Jackson in person, the more she’d missed him. The more she’d thought about him.

She dried off and pulled on yoga pants and a tee, then headed back into the living room. Jackson was sitting on the couch, watching car racing and eating a cookie. He looked up when she walked in.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I helped myself to a beer and cookies. You mom is a dangerous woman in a kitchen. Does she bake like this all the time? These are the best cookies I’ve ever eaten.”

“When she’s stressed, she takes it up a notch. Right now, she’s taken her notch up a notch. I’ll be on a treadmill for the rest of the year working those things off. But how were you so sure I didn’t make them?”

She meant it as a joke, but the flash of guilt on Jackson’s face told an entirely different story. He stared at her for several seconds, like he was assessing her.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“You came here to tell me something, didn’t you? My mother baked those particular cookies this morning, but you wouldn’t know that unless you’d been to see her. Why?”

“A lot has happened today,” Jackson said. “We have some time before the food gets here. Maybe you should sit down.”

She chided herself for not seeing this coming. Jackson wouldn’t stop by just because. Their relationship wasn’t so close that drop-bys were the norm, but she’d been so relieved to see him when she’d opened the door that she hadn’t taken that thought a step further and wondered why he was there. She sank onto the couch and waited.

When nothing was forthcoming, she said, “Look, I know it can’t be good or you wouldn’t be here. So lay it on me. I promise my head is clear and I’m ready for whatever you have to say.”

“This is confidential information, but as it concerns you, I have permission to let you know,” he said finally. “The team reviewing Clancy’s logbooks have made some headway in breaking the code on parts of them. One of the names they decoded was the man who bought you.”

She jumped up from the couch, staring at Jackson as if he’d lost his mind. “You know who he is and you’re sitting there? Why aren’t you mounting a cavalry? Why aren’t you busting down doors?”

“Because it’s not a formal name. It looks like Clancy listed all the buyers by nicknames.”

“Which was?”

“Diabolique.”

Shaye blew out a breath. “Diabolical. Jesus. How appropriate.”

Jackson nodded. “His actions were enough to warrant it, but now that you remembered the mask, it’s downright creepy.”

She sank back down onto the couch. “So you still don’t know anything about him. Not really.”

His expression turned grim. “We know one thing. He purchased another girl last month.”

The blood rushed out of her face and her stomach rolled. “Oh my God. You’re sure?”

“It’s the same nickname. I can’t imagine that Clancy would reuse one.”

“What about Reaper—Clancy’s son? He wasn’t working with Clancy when he sold me, but he was last month. He has to know something. I know he’s refused to help decode the journals unless he gets to walk, but I’m beyond caring about his rights. Go to the jail and force it out of him or let me.”

“It was the first thing the lead detective thought to do. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option. Reaper hung himself with his bedsheet last night. The story hasn’t been released to the press yet, but it will probably hit tomorrow.”

The momentary hope she’d felt dissipated completely. “Coward.”

“Definitely.”

“Have you started the search for the girl?” Shaye asked. “Do you know who she is?”

“We’ve started a search to identify her. That’s where your mother came in. The database for missing and exploited children didn’t turn up anything.”

“So you thought my mother might be able to find a match in one of the case files.” Jackson’s visit to her mother’s house made sense now.

He nodded. “It’s a long shot, but we have to start somewhere.”

“What do you know about her?”

“Only the date of purchase and her age—fifteen years old.”

“The same age I was when I got away.”

“Yeah. I have this theory about that,” he said, and explained what he’d shared with Grayson and her mother and Eleonore.

She leaned toward him, focusing on every single word, her mind processing the facts and the theory. When he finished she sat back. “You think he’s picking up where he left off? Nine years later?”

“Maybe. God knows, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing we’ve seen lately, especially given what you remembered tonight.”

“That’s true enough, but…” She blew out a breath. “What can I do?”

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do except what you’re already doing—trying to remember.” He ran one hand through his hair. “Look, I told you all of this because I knew you’d hear it from Corrine anyway, and I didn’t want you to think I was giving her information concerning you behind your back, but I didn’t know you were going to do something like you did today.”

“What difference does that make?”

“It was risky. It took a hell of a lot out of you. I don’t want you to feel additional pressure to remember. If anything, putting more pressure on yourself will make it even harder to unlock your memory. And I don’t want you taking even bigger risks. You have your own health to consider.”

Irritation coursed through her. “Do you think I’m that fragile? That I’ll break?”

“I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. And I think everyone can break.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, but it was an honest one. So far, she’d managed to maintain control of her emotions, with only a few lapses, like today. But she knew better than most that everyone had a breaking point. Sooner or later, the brain turned off to protect itself. Like with her memory loss. She had no doubt her missing memory was self-preservation, and believed that it was only returning now because she was emotionally healthy enough to handle it.

Maybe she’d been wrong.