Bed of Bones (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Five) (16 page)

“Can you tell if any of them fought back?”

“Melody Sinclair did. She has a few defensive wounds on her hands. They’ve been wiped clean though. There’s nothing under the nails.”

“Have we arrived at the interesting part yet?”

“Brynn Rowland.”

“What about her?” I asked.

“She was pregnant.”

“When he killed her?”

“No, she’d had an abortion. My guess, a few weeks ago. There’s inflammation in the lining of her uterus as well as scarring in her cervical canal from where the fetus and placenta were scraped out.”

I thought about the words on Brynn’s grave marker: SHEDDER OF BLOOD and the scripture reference sent through text, also about shedding blood. In the verses I read to Butch at the museum it mentioned the same, the shedding of innocent blood. Innocent being the unborn child.

He knew.

The killer knew she was pregnant, which meant somehow, in some way, he either knew her or had been around her, watching, waiting.

I could think of one person who knew she was pregnant. The same person most likely to be the baby’s daddy—Ronnie.

“Sloane, are you still there?”

“I’m here. Maddie, I’m sorry, I need to go.”

I hung up, redialed. “I need to talk to Ronnie.”

“You can’t,” Carlo said. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“Please, it’s important.”

“You can’t, Sloane.”

“Not even if he’s either the killer or may know who the killer is?”

He sighed, loud and irritated. “Let’s hear it.”

I told him what Maddie had just told me.

“I need to know who else knew about the pregnancy,” I said, when I’d finished. “Who he told, who she told, how many people knew about it. If he acts like it’s news to him, I’d say he’s either lying, or he has more to do with what’s happening than we thought. The person who murdered Brynn knew she’d aborted the baby.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“But I was hoping I could—”

“It’s the only way,” he said. “Get some rest.”

Click.

CHAPTER 33

I’d lost my appetite by the time Cade and Shelby arrived, plastic bags in hand. They were engaged in a conversation that made me hopeful things were on the right track between father and daughter again. I’d fiddled with my phone at least a dozen times over the last several minutes, waiting and hoping Carlo would call me back. What if he didn’t call me at all? I set it to the side. I needed to stop obsessing. Then I snatched it up again. Who was I kidding?

“It doesn’t look like you made it into the bath,” Cade pointed out.

“I was on the phone with Maddie.”

“How’s she doin’ these days?”

“I think she’s about to disown me as a friend. Otherwise, she’s good.”

Along with dinner, Cade presented me with a colorful array of wildflowers, carefully preserved in grocery-store plastic. It was his way of saying thank you, he said. I tried not to focus on the giant, fushia-colored, plastic heart bursting with pride from the center of the arrangement when I took them out, placing them in a vase that had once belonged to my sister. I used the flowers as an excuse to return to my room, where, in a fit of urgency I texted Carlo. If he didn’t respond soon, I’d upgrade my status to stalker. I waited one minute, then two. Nothing. Any longer and Cade would wonder what was really going on, and I didn’t want to worry him.

When I walked back to the kitchen, one part of the McCoy family was noticeably absent. “Where’s Shelby?”

“She went to get her soda. She left it in the truck.”

“How long has she been out there?”

“A few minutes maybe. I’m guessing she left it out there on purpose so she could call her boyfriend. She says she’ll end it with him when we get back. We’ll see.”

I panicked. Something didn’t feel right. I’d been jumpy all day; I needed to relax.

“What’s wrong?” Cade asked.

“Nothing.” I drew the curtain back with my hand, but it was too dark outside. I’d hoped if she was in the truck she’d have an interior light on. She didn’t.

“What are you doing?”

“Cade…there’s something I should tell you. The killer, he called me earlier today. And honestly, I have no idea if he knows where I live or not. Carlo said they were sending someone to keep an eye on me. Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

“Maybe they’re not here yet.”

He looked at me as if to say:
Why didn’t you mention this before?
He bolted. I followed. When he reached the truck he practically ripped the passenger-side door open. He reached forward, clutched the soda bottle in his hand.

Shelby wasn’t in the truck.

She wasn’t near the truck.

He called out for her. I called out for her.

The only sound we heard was the faint hoot of an owl in the distance.

“You don’t think she took off again?”

I didn’t.

“Call her,” I said.

He scrambled for the phone in his pocket, dialed the number, waited.

Frantic wailing streamed through the phone. “Help me, Daddy, help me!”

“Shelby, honey. Where are you? Tell me where you are.”

The line went dead.

Cade called again.

Straight to voicemail.

Again and again and again.

My pocket vibrated. “Hello?”

Breathing, heavy, just like before.

No.

It couldn’t be.

But it was. The killer.

He was smart. He’d probably ditched Shelby’s traceable phone, called back on his own.

I dropped to my knees, the snow seeping inside my pants, soaking me.

Cade took the phone from my hand, yelled one threat after the other.

“Put the woman back on,” a scruffy male voice interrupted. “The female detective.”

Cade ignored the demand, continued his rant.

The man said, “Put her on or I hang up in five…four…three…two…”

Cade crouched down, held the phone out in front of me.

“I’m here,” I said.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Why have you taken her?” I asked. “I don’t understand. She has nothing to do with the movie.”

“I talk. You listen.”

The idea of being subservient to such a ruthless killer disgusted me. But I had no choice. Cade, on the other hand, saw it another way.

“Where’s my daughter, you sick freak?!” Cade’s voice boomed through the softness of night.

“Tell the father to simmer down,” the man said. “Tell him…or this call is over.”

I flipped on an interior light in Cade’s truck, popped open the jockey box, jerked out a pen and a semi-used napkin. I scribbled: CALL CARLO; GO FIND HER.

I shot out of the truck, raced toward the house, tore apart the dresser inside my room. I found my Bible and opened it, feverishly turning the pages. The Sundance Killer had Shelby, and if his intention was to take her life, I needed to play along, or she wouldn’t live long enough to see tomorrow.

“Her father’s gone,” I said. “It’s just me. I’m listening.”

I sounded out of breath. I’m sure he knew it.

Dead air.

“I know why you bombed the theater,” I said. “I know why you took the women. I know why you killed them.”

“Do you understand now—do you see?”

“I do.”

“Tell me what you understand.”

“They’re wicked,” I said. “All of them. They needed to die.”

“You’re lying. You’re just trying to appease me.”

“A woman who kills her unborn baby, a child with the right to life, she deserves to die.”

I was careful not to use Brynn’s name—I wanted him to believe she was no more human to me than she was to him. It pained me to speak of her in such an unfeeling way, but I had no choice.

“Tell me more.”

His voice was heightened—he was curious. What I’d said pleased him.

“She took a life so you took hers,” I said. “I believe in karma. Don’t you?”

“And the others?”

I had theories as to why Melody Sinclair died, but if I got it wrong now, I risked everything.

“She made a movie filled with lies,” I said.

“What lies did she tell?”

This was the part I feared the most. I took a deep breath.
Please be right
. “The movie. Some of it was fact, some of it was fiction. You couldn’t allow anyone to see it—not until it was right. Not until everyone could know the real truth.”

“Tell me, what is the
real truth
?”

He sounded agitated now. He was testing me. I needed to do something, say something, convince him I understood…even though I didn’t and never would.

“Chester’s wife. She didn’t know anything, did she?”

The way he laughed let me know my answer was lacking. “Dig harder. You still don’t see. You don’t get the most important part. Do you know why I took the girl?”

He’d switched subjects on me. I wanted to say: Who are the other four? When are you taking them? But I couldn’t. I had to focus on Shelby. I had to give her value. I had to make her real.

“I interrupted your process,” I said. “There are four others still living in sin. I didn’t know you weren’t finished.”

“Then why did you do it? Why stop me? If you believe, why interrupt me, Sloane Monroe? Why? Why? Why?!”

“I wasn’t trying to keep you from doing your work. I wanted to see them. I wanted to see you.”

I wanted to vomit.

“Why did you take Shelby?” I asked. “Shelby doesn’t fit your code. Shelby has nothing to do with the movie. Shelby knows nothing of the story. Shelby is different. She’s not like the others. It’s the mother you want, not her.”

Shelby, Shelby, Shelby. I would keep saying her name until she mattered to him.

“Her mother—why?”

I had his attention. Good.

“Shelby’s mother left her. She abandoned her. She gave her up.”

“Why should I care?”

“Because Shelby’s innocent. Give her back, take me instead.”

“You’d trade your life for hers? Why would I want
you
?”

“It’s me you’re trying to punish,” I said. “I’m the reason the one place you care about the most has been trampled upon. You’re angry with me. You want to teach me a lesson, so you took Shelby. I have a lesson for you too.”

“Which is…?”

“Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest her with the rod, she shall not die.”

I’d replaced the “he” for “she,” knowing he’d understand.

“Proverbs?”

“23 and 13, yes. Just tell me when and where. I’ll come alone.”

I said it with no hesitation, no reserve.

He answered with a scripture of his own. “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.”

The line went dead.

And I knew. He couldn’t take me. As much as I had pained him by seeking him out, by destroying the sickening thing he found so dear, in his own way, he respected me for it. What that meant for Shelby, I didn’t know.

For as young as she was, she had her wits about her. I bowed my head and prayed in silence.
Please let us find her alive. Please.

CHAPTER 34

Within ten minutes an overabundance of officers and agents converged, their vehicles lining both sides of my block. Given the late hour, lights came on at every neighboring house but one. At the house two doors down, a curtain was drawn back with the slightest of movements. My neighbor, a widower in his late eighties, probably assumed at such a snail’s pace, no one would ever notice. I did. He’d broken one of the cardinal rules of spying—forgetting to turn the light off in the room first. It was too dark out for me to ascertain what he was looking at, but since I was standing directly under a street lamp, I waved anyway. The curtain thrust closed.

Sleep well, Mr. Fuller.

A BOLO alert had been issued with Shelby’s description. Under the direction of Carlo, the scene surrounding my house was processed under a black sky. The elements didn’t make the job any easier, but we had one thing to be thankful for: it wasn’t snowing. Everyone was given a task. Some dusted for prints; others collected anything they considered to be viable evidence. Footprints in the snow led halfway to Cade’s truck then appeared to drag backward, meeting a set of tire marks I was sure would match the ones we’d found at the start of the road where the three bodies were located.

An hour passed, then two. One by one my street became quiet again.

Cade returned, a look of desperation on his face. He joined me in the house where I had just finished going over the phone call I’d received from the Sundance Killer. Cade leaned against a wall in my dining room, his head down, one boot crossed over the other. He hadn’t said a word since he came inside. I imagined he was torn apart. I wanted to go to him, offer some words of comfort, but I held back, giving him the space he needed.

I thought about the phone call. The first time I’d spoken to the killer, adrenaline and panic had stopped me from listening, hearing him. Not his words but his voice. This time, I detected something in his tone, something familiar, almost like I’d heard it before.

Carlo’s phone rang. He rounded the corner, entered my bedroom, and shut the door. I heard his voice, but couldn’t make out what was being said.

I couldn’t remain still any longer. I walked over to Cade, placed my hands inside his, rubbed his palms with my thumbs. “Are you all right?”

He lifted his head and looked at me, his face damp, red. We stood together, eyes locked on each other for some time before he said in a low voice, “She’s my whole life. She’s all I’ve got. I can’t lose her. I just can’t.”

I heard footsteps in the hall. Carlo glanced at my hands, seeing they were interlocked with Cade’s. I didn’t let go. He looked past me at Cade and smiled. “She’s at the station.”

A mixture of shock and relief flowed through me. “Shelby?”

Carlo nodded.

“I can’t believe it!” Cade said.

Neither could I.

“How did she get there?” Cade asked.

“He let her go.”

“He just drove into the police station, let her out, and drove away?” Cade asked.

“Chief Sheppard said she came walking through the door a few minutes ago, black pillowcase in hand. She told the chief that the man put it over her head when he took her. He released Shelby about a block away from the station, told her to count to fifty Mississippi’s and then she could remove the cover from her head. He said if she took it off early, he’d blow her head off.”