The Children and the Blood (14 page)

Drawing a steadying breath, she worked her stiff legs around and then jumped to the gravel. Aching and tingling, her muscles nearly gave out after so long on the vibrating train, and she gripped the filthy edge of the platform to keep from collapsing.

The numbness retreated. Warily, she glanced around. The rail yard looked empty of life, and the station was quite a distance away. Her stomach grumbled, lodging its own complaint against the hours on the train. Trying to ignore the feeling, she started toward the abandoned lots, hoping to find someplace in the old boxcars to hide.

The engineer stepped from behind a train car, a man in coveralls at his side.

“Told you I saw someone hiding up there,” the man told the engineer.

Ashley spun and then came to a sharp halt as the conductor popped out behind her. Glancing between them swiftly, she darted for the open space between the two groups, but the engineer cut her off.

“Hang on there,” he said, holding up his hands.

She backed away, nearly tripping over the gravel before bumping against the filthy side of the train.

“Take it easy, kid,” the engineer said. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

She stared at them. The horrible men who shot her had felt funny. Like anyone else, except shadowed somehow. The boy who’d saved them and then died had felt like something was missing in him. And these men felt like Lily, just without her warmth and everything that’d made her wonderful.

The realizations spilled through her head, incomprehensible and insane. People didn’t feel like anything. They were just people. And while she’d never really met anyone outside her family and the farmhands, here she was thinking these men felt like nothing, yet like Lily at the same time.

She was losing her mind and wanted to cry.

“I promise you’re not in danger from us, okay?” the engineer continued, misreading her expression. “But you can’t stay here. Freight hopping’s dangerous. There’s lots of bad folks who’ll hurt you if you stay on the streets like this.”

Ashley swallowed hard, trying to keep her eyes on all of them at the same time. The engineer glanced to the other two men, appearing concerned.

“You look pretty rough, kid,” he told her gently. “Are you hungry? Can we get you some food or something?”

She shivered. The kindness, the truly genuine-seeming kindness, was almost too much. It was stupid and didn’t fit in this new nightmare world she couldn’t seem to escape. But her stomach didn’t care, and before she could stop herself, she gave him a small nod.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing toward the station.

Warily, with her eyes still trying to track all three men at once, she went with them.

“My wife volunteers at a teen shelter here in town,” the engineer said as they walked. Her brow furrowed, uncertain what he meant. “It’s okay. The people there can help you. And they won’t force you to go back to whatever you’re running from. Not if you don’t want to.”

Her gaze dropped away.

The station door swung open, and a security guard stepped into the sunshine. Squinting in the brightness, he waved to the men and then paused to hold the door.

“Who’s your friend?” the guard called.

“Oh, just a kid we found hanging out near the trains,” the engineer replied. “Gonna hook her up with the wife’s shelter.”

“That’s good of you.”

The engineer shrugged. “Just what I’d want someone to do if my girl was in a bad situation.”

Nodding peaceably, the guard gave her another cursory glance and then paused. His eyes traced her face. The friendly look in his gaze faded away.

“So you guys get stalled by that fire up north?” he asked, and though his cordial tone remained, it possessed an edge it hadn’t before. “I hear it’s stopping a lot of travel that way.”

Fear quivered through her. He didn’t feel like the horrible men from the cliff. And apparently, that meant nothing.

Deep inside, the fires started twisting.

The engineer chuckled. “Oh yeah, stopped for an hour at least. Nearly reached through the phone to strangle Nelson for not rerouting us too, didn’t I?”

He grinned at the conductor, who shook his head with a smile.

“Huh,” the guard replied.

Ashley’s heart pounded, every beat feeding the flames, and her efforts at control floundered at the look in the guard’s eyes.

She was going to kill them, and she couldn’t stop it.

The security guard studied her. Sweat dripped down her face as she tried to breathe.

His eyes narrowed. “Sorry, Frank,” he said to the engineer.

Tears burned in her eyes and fear battered her attempts to contain the heat. Frank was nice. He had a little girl.

And she was going to kill him.

“Are you going to turn yourself in, or do we have to make this difficult?”

Confusion hit her at the guard’s words.

“Your friend here is wanted for crimes in Montana,” he told the other men, and then looked back at her. “You going to come quietly?”

Shock rained down on the fires and, for an entirely different reason, she found herself unable to breathe.

“What?” she whispered, her voice rough from hours on the train.

His mouth tightened. Grabbing her arm, he spun her around and then yanked her wrists behind her back as he pulled out his handcuffs. She couldn’t resist. Couldn’t think. Numbed, she ran his words through her head again, trying to find a way in which they made sense.

The guard headed toward the station with her in tow. She stared at the ground. Crimes in Montana. Had they found out about the forest? Did they know what happened there?

She shook her head. People didn’t get arrested for blowing up forests. Not like that, anyway. Nobody got arrested for that. Because it was impossible. And insane.

“Wait a minute!” Frank called. “You sure about this? I mean, she’s just a kid.”

“She’s not a kid,” the guard replied. “She murdered her whole family last night before burning the house down.”

Ice shot through her, freezing everything.

No.

No, that wasn’t right.

That…

Her thoughts stuttered to a halt.

Beside her, the guard thumbed on his cell, calling the police and then tugging open the door. She twisted, looking back as he pulled her inside.

Frank’s baffled face met her gaze, and then the door slammed closed.

The guard took her into another room, with folding chairs lining the empty walls. Time shuddered and suddenly the police were there. Her hands hurt from the handcuffs and she couldn’t think. She was being arrested for murder, and at that, reality had stalled.

Strange words floated around her, talking of rights to attorneys and other things she didn’t understand. Outside the station, a police car waited, with railway employees and passersby watching from nearby. An officer pushed her head down as she climbed into the car, and then shut the door, leaving her propped awkwardly on her bound hands.

They felt like nothing. Not like the horrible, shadowed men or the dead boy from the cliff. They felt like Lily. And yet not at all.

Lily…

Streets passed in a blur, filled with colors and lights and people without faces. Emptily, she stared, barely noticing the city shift between the blinks of her eyes.

She was being arrested for the murder of…

Unbalanced, she rocked as the car came to a stop. The door opened and a policeman drew her out.

She shivered from the cold. Everything was so cold.

An enormous tan building waited beyond the curb, with metal letters reading Monfort Police Department swimming in and out of focus on its sides. Steps appeared beneath her feet, leading to the building and a green glass door like murky water.

Her eyes lingered on the surface, finding solace there. The world was murky now. And in it, she was drowning.

The silver frames of the glass doors swung wide, opening on a bustle that thundered in her numbed ears. People surrounded her and their noise came with them. Men chained to benches leered at her. Cops answered phones, hung up phones, talked into phones, while nearby officers shouted for information and files.

It was too much.

She couldn’t breathe.

The cops took her down a hall. Bright lights overhead and taupe walls. Posters admonishing, guiding, and instructing. Their colors swirled. A door opened. She blinked and time shifted. Paper appeared in front of her. And ink.

With one hand holding hers, the cop rolled her fingertips over the spongy surface, and then across little meaningless boxes on the page. Documenting her. Filing her. Shutting her away in a drawer.

She blinked.

They were leaving the paper behind. Her eyes dwelled on it. This wasn’t her. Not her life. This wasn’t happening anymore.

Another door. She was seated at a table. The cops chained her handcuffs down. And left.

Silence reigned.

Gradually, her eyes crept up from the metal table to the gray cement walls. A mirror covered one side of the room, and in it, the sliver of barred window behind her showed only sky.

Her gaze dropped to her reflection and then turned away. A pale ghost covered in ash and dirt, with tangled hair and stained clothes, the sight of her own condition only made everything else more real.

Time drifted.

She was being arrested for murder, and she hadn’t killed anyone.

But that wasn’t true, was it?

A clink echoed in the room. She looked over at the door, watching it swing open. Two men came inside, feeling like nothing and she couldn’t find it in herself to care. Stepping back into a corner, the older of the pair crossed his arms over his brown sports coat as he studied her, an unreadable expression in his pale blue eyes.

The younger man sat on the metal chair across from her. “Good afternoon,” he said, giving her a measured smile. “My name is Detective Malden. This is Detective Harris. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind?”

She watched him, wondering what she was supposed to say.

Unperturbed by her silence, Malden continued. “So how about we start with your name? Could you tell us that?”

“Ashley,” she whispered.

He paused, but when her silence remained, he simply nodded. “Okay, Ashley. We can get to last names later. So what can you tell me about last night, Ashley?”

“I didn’t…” she started, and then choked on the words.

A moment passed, and he sighed. “Well, what about this? The FBI has your diary, and I’m sorry, but they did have to read it. So we all know what you wrote, and we’ll deal with that in a minute. But in the meantime, it might make things go easier for you if you help us find your sister. Get the girl away from your boyfriend before something bad happens.”

Her gaze rose, meeting Malden’s dark eyes before moving to Harris with numbed incredulity. “What?”

Malden sighed again, but for a heartbeat, Harris’ brow furrowed, curiosity flickering through his eyes.

“Your diary,” Malden repeated.

“I don’t have a diary.”

He gave her a tired look.

Trembling, she shook her head. “I don’t,” she repeated. “I don’t have a diary. Or a boyfriend. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Her voice broke as she finished.

“What happened last night, Ashley?” Harris asked quietly.

She turned to him, clinging to the lack of accusation in his tone like a lifeline. “I don’t
know
,” she cried, pleading for him to understand.

“Is there anything you
do
know that could help us?”

She choked again, the memories hurting more than the quiet urging in his voice. “I just… they… I didn’t–”

“Where’s your sister, kid?” Malden interrupted wearily. “At
least
help us with that.”

Ashley stared at him. “She’s dead.”

The last shred of cordiality melted from Malden’s face as he looked away. Behind him, Harris grimaced.

“You realize you’re going to be charged as an accessory to her murder,” Malden growled.

Gasping, she struggled to find the words amid the lack of air in the room. “But I didn’t
do
that. She fell. I tried to reach her but I–”

“Save it,” Malden snapped, and she flinched at his tone. “The FBI has your diary in your own hand, documenting all your plans. You sold the girl out for sex to your drug dealer boyfriend and murdered your whole family. There’s blood all over your clothes, for pity’s sake. Arson investigators will find out how you burned the house down and between the trafficking, the fire, and the murders, you’re not going to see daylight for the rest of your life. So cut the victim act. Where’s the girl’s body?”

She couldn’t breathe. “I didn’t do that…”

“Whose blood is on your clothes then?”

Dazedly, she looked down. Dried blood stained the left leg of her jeans.

“Mine.”

He scoffed, pushing away from the table and then crossing the room. Behind him, Harris continued watching her. Reaching over, Malden knocked on the door and then stepped back as the officers on the other side opened it.

“Take her to a holding cell while we call the feds and see how soon they can get her out of here,” Malden ordered.

The cops nodded and then moved aside as Harris and Malden left. Ashley stared after them, barely resisting when the officers hauled her to her feet.

As they removed her from the room, Malden turned, talking into his phone. Harris jerked his head at the stairs, and his unreadable gaze tracked her as the cops started down the hall.

“I didn’t kill them,” she said to the older man, trying one last time to make him understand. “I didn’t. Please. I didn’t…”

Her pleas went unanswered as both detectives walked away.

*****

“Okay, thanks,” Malden said, and then hung up the phone. “That was Rawlings. FBI will be here in a few hours to pick her up.”

Harris glanced across their adjoining desks, and then went back to reading the case file.

“‘Great news, Scott! Thanks!’” Malden parodied, and then eyed him skeptically. “Care to share what’s up, John? You’ve been real quiet since we talked to her.”

Harris didn’t answer, his gaze tracking across the words of the report for the hundredth time. Nine dead. Ten if you counted the little kid, though that was unverified. A drug dealer, a kidnapped girl, and an addict with mental problems who documented her whole plan down to the order and method she’d use to kill each person in the house.