The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) (4 page)
Read The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Jody Klaire
“You do?”
I nodded and walked over to Nan’s trunk. I opened the journal she’d written for me and pulled out a sealed note. It had on the front:
Dr. Serena Llys—no peeking, Shortstop
.
“It’s from Nan,” I told her as I handed it over.
“Are you serious?”
I smiled.
Llys shook her head. “She knew I’d be here? She knew my name?”
“The one you’re using, yeah.”
“This is surreal, you know that?”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I mumbled as I left her to read the note in private.
Chapter 34
ELI WALKED DOWN the river bank to the white tent where the forensic team from the sheriff’s department was working. The county sheriff had happily agreed for Eli to take charge because he’d served in the city in homicide for so many years. All his experience, however, seemed to count for very little. It made him sick to his core that Aeron had been right and even sicker that he hadn’t kept his temper to himself.
“Hey, Chief,” Jeff, the medical examiner, said as Eli walked into the tent.
“Is it the girl?” Eli asked.
“No standing on ceremony today, huh?”
Eli scowled.
Jeff sucked in his neck like a turtle. “Guess not. It’s the missing girl—”
“And?”
“Geez, give me a chance to speak, will you?”
Eli forced himself to relax and to unhinge his sore shoulders but he was panicked. How long before Aeron was hauled in for this? “Sorry. Go ahead.”
“Strangulation marks were extensive but not the cause of death. Extensive wounds to her legs and arms, not to mention her front is consistent with being dragged for some distance.”
“By what?”
“Car, horse . . . something with power.”
Eli tried to swallow but he couldn’t. The picture of his own daughters swam before his eyes.
“You want me to sum up? It only gets worse.”
Eli nodded. If he looked like he felt, he was probably all shades of pale.
“Cause of death is drowning. She suffered . . . a lot and whoever did it is a sick son-of-a-bitch.”
“Any clues?”
Jeff shook his head. “Wiped clean. I don’t know how the hell the killer did it either. The boys are tracking the fields to take dirt samples. If we can find out where . . . maybe we can find a tread or something.”
Eli looked up into the sky, an ominous-looking cloud slid over from the mountains. “You’d better work fast.”
“No pressure. No pressure at all,” Jeff muttered as Eli left the tent.
Jeff was good at his job but he didn’t go too much for haste. His too-methodical-for-his-own-good pace was only going to wind Eli up more.
Eli pulled at his shirt collar and felt the sweat trickle down the back of his neck as Mayor Casey stomped across the field toward him.
Mayor Casey shook a finger at him. “She’s been out less than a week!”
Eli tried to calm himself. It would do Aeron no good if he lost it now. “This has nothing to do with Aeron,” he said as steadily as he could.
“No? She gets out after murdering my son and then two women just happen to end up dead?”
Eli gripped his belt to control his urge to knock sense into the ranting idiot. “Causing a panic will do the tourist trade no good, so why don’t you leave it to the professionals and go on home?”
Mayor Casey sneered. “You think I trust
you
to keep an objective eye?”
Eli frowned. “I locked Aeron up once. If she is guilty of anything I’ll do the same again. I am going to follow the facts and look at this logically, and do my job.”
He didn’t bother to remind the fool that he was chief by merit and not just popularity. He’d earned his damn position not bribed his way into it.
“She’s a killer. She’ll always be a—”
“Save your whining for someone who has time.” Eli turned to Skip, his only full time officer. “Escort the mayor from the scene.”
“Sir!” Skip kept his face stoic but Eli could see the twinkle in his eyes. He felt as warmly about the Casey family as Eli did.
Eli watched Casey Sr. leave as Casey Jr. pulled up. Sam got out of his car and hurried down to the river bank, his cheeks flushed.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Sam pulled him out of earshot of everyone. “Another one is missing. Toughton’s girl.”
Eli took his hat off and closed his eyes. “When?”
“Mother said she didn’t come home from work, but you know the family.”
Eli frowned. Oh yes, little people with no importance. Big family, small income. “We take it seriously. The last thing we need is three.”
“Will do. Just make sure Aeron has an alibi . . . anything.”
Eli nodded and watched Sam march across the field to his car with a determined stride. Sam could have radioed through and let the cat out of the bag but he hadn’t. Maybe there was hope for the boy yet.
Chapter 35
LLYS WAS QUIET, real quiet after she had read Nan’s letter. Her guarded mind got even harder to read as her eyes veiled. I didn’t know what to think or what Nan had said in that letter but it made me feel edgy.
“Did it scare you?” I asked after what felt like forever.
She nodded. “Yes, but that isn’t why I’m quiet.”
“What is?”
“You didn’t tell me about the girls.”
I felt my hands get clammy. Had Nan seen it all? No wonder she never spoke. I could still feel Natalia’s anger jarring at me in every quiet moment and I couldn’t block it out.
“Nan’s a rat,” I muttered, getting a gust of icy wind in response.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I looked at the floor, feeling like I’d committed a crime. “You have your secrets. I have mine.”
Llys sighed, her eyes focused on the letter in her hands. “Aeron, they could fit the evidence to you . . . the same as they did with Jake.”
I shrugged. “What am I supposed to do?”
“For a start, wear your monitor. It’s to stop things like this from happening.”
I got up, the frustration bubbling in me. I hated feeling guilty, and for what? I hadn’t hurt anyone . . . had I? “My father took it. So I wouldn’t go into town.”
Llys scowled and her aura leapt a mile. I’d never seen her this mad, not even when I rattled her in the institution, but then this was outside, and she had no more control than I did.
“I’m staying. I’m staying until they catch the killer,” she announced.
“What?”
Biting her lip, Llys nodded, her eyes intense. “I’m entitled leave. I’ve earned it and I’m not just going to let you get thrown to the wolves.”
I stared at her. I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to someone who is putting their entire career on the line for you? “It ain’t necessary . . . really. I’ll be—”
“Don’t spout a load of lies, Aeron. Unless I’m here, you have no alibi and no chance of stopping this.”
I folded my arms. “They could make you an accessory.”
“They can’t,” she answered.
Ah yes, the elephant in the room that neither of us could discuss. “What makes you so sure that your superiors will back you up? It could take months, years. Who knows how long—”
“It’ll be over by your birthday apparently.” She offered me a wry smile as if she couldn’t quite trust the words herself.
I rolled my eyes. “So, are you gonna fill me in? ’Cause I’d really like to know what the hell is going on.”
Llys smiled. “She said you’d act like this. But I can’t, she doesn’t know.”
“Then what did she know? What did she say?”
Llys looked away, her eyes veiled again.
“Just how bad is it?” I asked, my hands shaking.
“It’s nothing like that, but we have to get moving on repairs.”
I looked around, wondering how the hell she was going to repair anything. She’d chip a nail for a start.
“Why?” I asked after a long silence.
Llys gazed at the place where the wheel should be. “Nan said that this year’s storms would be the most vicious yet.”
DARCY STOPPED AND turned, hearing the whisper of her name. Her skin prickled yet it was warm. Was it the wind?
Her heartbeat thudded so forcefully in her chest. It was just the storm . . . or her exhausted mind playing tricks.
She needed a break that was all. Not that she’d get one. All the rich kids in school had gone on vacation during spring break. It must be nice being a—
Darcy screamed as white hot heat ripped through her leg. She looked down. Steel jaws of a snare clamped around her calf. Her body shook with the agony. She screamed for help, for someone. Her hot tears streaked her cheeks, dribbling into her mouth, her shaking hands clutched at the metal.
Sharp pain in her shoulder, she yelped, her hands grabbing at it. A dart? A hunter’s dart . . . what?
The pain of the dart spread out across her shoulder, her head funny, she couldn’t see, the ground hard on her back, had she fallen? What? . . . Why?
Chapter 36
WHEN I WOKE up, I smelled bacon frying and my stomach growled so loudly that I heard Llys chuckle somewhere outside the tent. I opened the zipper, and Llys was standing over an expensive-looking camp stove and cooking up breakfast.
Now, I’ve never been a morning person. I’m grumpy until past noon and grumpier if I haven’t eaten but right then I smiled so broadly that my cheeks ached.
“Please tell me I can share,” I said, rubbing my now roaring insides.
Llys flipped over an egg and flashed me a grin. “You think I’d just let you starve on that rubbish while I fed myself?”
I smiled. We both knew she’d more than likely give up her own food when starving than do that.
“Nan say I couldn’t cook?” I asked as she handed me the plate. I sniffed in the aroma of eggs and bacon and toast and smiled. My stomach smiled with me, adding a loud rumbling groan.
“No, you did. When you were hysterical about leaving you asked how you’d feed yourself.”
I nodded, shoved a forkful into my mouth, and closed my eyes as it hit my tongue. It was like eating heaven, after a decade of prison food and a week of slop . . . I could have hugged Llys half to death.
“It’s not that good,” Llys stabbed her fork into a piece of bacon, “but it’ll keep you going a bit better.”
I murmured, too entranced by the salty bacon dipped in sinfully delicious egg yolk on my taste buds.
Llys raised her eyebrows and laughed. “You’d think you’d never eaten bacon before.”
“Not good bacon . . . not good food . . . since . . . well . . . since Nan.”
Llys sighed as she ate her own breakfast.
“Y’know you’re supposed to be a vegetarian, right?”
Llys’s eyes flew to mine and she looked down at her plate in horror.
“I’m guessing that’s an oops moment?”
Llys groaned.
“It’s okay. Who would believe me anyway.”
“How do you do that?” she muttered.
I looked at her, wondering what she meant now. It was no secret in the institution that she was supposed to be a vegetarian. “Do what?”
“Disarm me. No one ever does that.”
I smiled. “Not even the fake husband who left you or the fake reason you took the job in the prison?”
Llys shoved her food in her mouth, which I knew was to stop herself speaking.
“Can I stop calling you Doc now?”
“No. No . . . you can’t.” She wagged her food-filled fork at me, a frown on her face. “Aeron. I don’t know how you know—”
“Yes, you do.”
Llys let her shoulders drop. “Okay, so I do but you can’t. I’m Doctor Serena Llys. It’s that simple and that complicated.”
“So, you gonna blame the bacon on me?”
“I need protein. If I’m doing manual labor I have to eat enough to keep me going.”
“And the fact you aren’t wearing lipstick and you’ve scraped your hair back, and that T-shirt says Harvard on it when your certificate said Yale?”
Llys finished off her food, walked over to a plastic bowl full of water, and washed up her dishes. “What’s first on Nan’s list?”
I finished my own breakfast and washed up my plate. “Roof. Got to strip off the broken tiles and replace them.”
“Sounds pretty high up.”
“For a rock climber? You’ll be just fine.”
Llys scowled at me and walked out into the sunshine. Mrs. Squirrel had clearly introduced herself. When we passed by she didn’t even cast us a second glance.
“We could use the climbing gear in your trunk to make it safe,” I suggested.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Llys said.
I walked to her car, popped the trunk, pulled out the gear, and shoved it into her hands.
“Must have put it in your trunk by mistake . . . sorry, Doc.”
Llys threw her hands in the air and pulled ropes from the rope bag.
“If you grew up in the Rockies, you can climb,” I said.
“You aren’t meant to know that.” Llys took hold of the static rope and ran her hands over it, her eyes searching for any worn parts on the sheath.
“You told me yourself.”
Llys sighed, looking up from her task. “Yes, and I’m also a bad vegetarian. Like I said . . . disarming.”
I shrugged and picked up a rope. I ran my hands over it, felt a nick in the sheath, and tossed the rope aside. “Ever thought that maybe you don’t have to pretend with me ’cause I already know?”
She took the rope bag and walked back inside. I looked at Mrs. Squirrel who cast a look at me that said, “She’s tied up in knots.”
“She was when I met her,” I answered.
Mrs. Squirrel flicked her tail in agreement.
I walked inside. Llys was waiting for me.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m clearly slipping up but let’s get this straight. The second anyone approaches I’m Doctor Serena Llys.”
“And what’s the story why you’re here?”
“I was concerned about the events, and concerned about you. So, I stayed and will stay until you feel . . . more settled.”
I tried not to laugh. “You think they’ll buy that?”
“They have to. Otherwise I’m blown and you’ll be back in Serenity.”
“Good point.” I took the rope from her and tested the knot. “It’s not bad for a first-timer.”
I walked up the stairs with Llys behind me. She then pulled herself up into the rafters with me following close behind. At the far end was a window that led up onto the roof. Llys lifted herself up onto the roof with too much ease for someone who wasn’t supposed to do any sport. I suppressed a chuckle.
She looked down at me with narrowed eyes. “Not a word.”
Pulling myself up was easier said than done. Trying to squeeze my bulk through a window was even harder—flexibility was not a strong point of mine. As I scrabbled onto the roof, the breeze picked up and buffeted me as I tried to stand. I looked up at the clear blue sky, wondering if I could really smell rain. It didn’t look stormy.
“You need to be careful up here,” I told her as I attached the harness to her. “Take it easy, sure steps, anything feels creaky just stop and wait for me.”
Llys smiled at me, a genuine warm smile that showed the real woman. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Can’t have my psychiatrist take a dive off the roof now, can I? How the hell would I explain that one to Daddy dearest?”
Llys laughed and squeezed my hand.
It was raining when she found out he was never coming home. Her mother cried every day for a year. She pinned his medal onto her uniform and had never once missed the parade. She loved to ride horses, fast horses. She hated the city and loved the feel of the wind on her face, the quiet of the mountains . . .
“Static shocks are awful,” she said and smiled as she started to walk down the roof.
I nodded, understanding that she’d let me see, just a little, of what she couldn’t say. At least not now, but then, sometimes silence spoke far louder than words.
Chapter 37
ELI SHOVED HIS toast into his mouth to stop himself from answering Jenny as she jabbed at him about Aeron for the umpteenth time.
“Y’know they should never have gone an’ let her out. Bad news, that’s what she is.”
Eli looked at his plate.
Keep chewing, don’t rise to it, anything for a quiet life
.
“I mean come on.” Jenny slammed the kids’ lunch boxes onto the table, one hand waving the butter knife. “The girl is so freakin’ weird that what’d they expect?” She slapped the knife into the peanut butter and slopped it onto the bread. “First Jake, then the oddballs . . . who’s next?” She squashed the sandwich closed and licked the peanut butter off her finger. “No one is safe until she gets locked up. No one.”
Eli picked up his plate and walked to the sink. He soaped it, the water warm.
Don’t rise to it. Don’t. She’s picking a fight, ignore it
.
“It ain’t really surprising when the girl was raised by the witch on the river.”
Eli felt the plate strain under his white-knuckled grip. He rinsed it, methodically, slowly, he had a lot to do today. There wasn’t time for a domestic spat.
“You listening, Eli? Hell, you’re deafer than your father was.”
Eli turned around and did the only thing he could trust his voice to do without exploding into a rant. He grunted.
“That it? The freak is threatening your career and all you can do is grunt?”
Eli smiled, a forced, placating smile, and kissed Jenny on the cheek, while wondering when she had become a stranger to him. Did she not care that she was talking about his daughter? Aeron, his own flesh and blood?
“Girls need a father with a purpose, don’t want them ending up with a bum like the Toughtons now do you?”
Eli snapped. Shoot the easy life. “Their daughter is missing. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Jenny smiled that triumphant smile she got when she’d cornered him into a fight. “I’m not the one pretending the freak ain’t guilty.”
“The freak has a name. Aeron
Lorelei
the same name you have.”
“And why is that, Eli? Why don’t we share the same name as Abe and the rest of your family?”
“You know damn well why. I’m going to work.”
“Oh no,” Jenny countered, stepping in front of him, hands on her hips like he was a naughty school boy. “No one else wanted you . . . I gave you two girls. You don’t get to march out when you don’t like the truth.”
“The truth?” he barked. “You’re talking about my daughter. Aeron is
mine
. I love her like I love our girls. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me, her, or our girls. I
love
them.”
Jenny wagged her manicured finger. “Love? How can you love a murderer?”
Eli grabbed his jacket off the chair, sending the chair clattering onto the floor, making Jenny jump. He didn’t turn around to look at her, he just got the hell out and slammed the door.
Not for the first time, Eli wondered why the hell he had married her.
Because no one else wanted you and she could cook
.
He was that great a guy that he’d married so he wouldn’t end up eating frozen dinners for the rest of his life. He’d never pretended he was capable of loving any other woman but Lilia, he never pretended that he’d feel happy ever again.
He would have left, years ago, but Jenny had gotten pregnant with the girls, and they were everything to him. He’d done it right with them. Every mistake he’d made with Aeron, he’d corrected with them and every time he’d done that . . . it had stung like hell.
Eli got in his car and started the engine, the morning sun weak against the clouds that were threatening. Neighbors walking dogs or their kids to school waved as he past. It was a quiet little place, every house the same as the next, long green lawns with sprinklers whizzing around on them. A quiet place that housed good people, people who needed to be kept safe from whoever lurked out there.
They would need to find Darcy, the Toughton’s girl fast. No doubt that cloud was the start of the storms and there was no way they could search when the weather closed in.
As he got to the main road into town, he looked right and thought of going to Aeron’s. She’d know exactly where the girl was, she’d know if the girl was alive.
“And how the hell you gonna explain that one, man?” he asked the empty car.
What would he say when everyone asked how he’d gone straight to the spot and found the girl? “My daughter, the one you all hate and fear said she’d be here. But she’s not a killer, she just gets visions.”
He laughed at how absurd it sounded to his own ears. Aeron would be locked up by noon. He turned left, staring into his rear-view mirror, wishing he’d had the courage to go to her. “So, you just play with the young girl’s life because you’re too gutless.”
He turned into the city hall parking lot, his blood pressure sky high. If he wasn’t careful he wouldn’t be around to do anything at all. He rubbed his chest and popped the tablets he kept hidden in his dash. He’d gone to see a doctor in the city, who he’d known on the job, to get his blood pressure medication. A good guy, who wouldn’t tell the mayor that the chief wasn’t as fit as he used to be.
Eli rubbed his stubbled chin in an effort to find some kind of motivation to go inside. He was pretty certain that if Darcy was taken by the same person who killed Mari and Natalia, they would find her, but it would be far too late.
DARCY, YOU COULDN’T stay awake for me? All the wonderful things I have planned for you and this is how you reward me? You can’t think I’d let you sleep just yet, oh no . . . you don’t get to sleep now.
Ungrateful, that’s the trouble with you and all your filthy muck . . . you don’t appreciate the effort, the sweet attention I’m giving you. You’re lucky . . . you know?
For that, we’ll take a little ride in the woods, that will be fun, won’t it? And I’ve got you something very special, Darcy . . . oh, so special. It’s a new rope . . . far nicer than the one I used on the mutt . . . you get a proper one . . . ain’t that nice?
Chapter 38
WE HAD SPENT a good hour on the roof checking the damage, and I was relieved that it didn’t need a complete overhaul. The main problem seemed to be one section, which had been caught by debris in a waterspout, a funnel that shot up from the river in high winds.
A lot of the folk around town said they were mine and Nan’s true forms, that we were nothing but water furies waiting for people to prey on. A lot of the folk had way too much time on their hands. If I could turn myself into all sorts of things, why the hell would I bother staying in Oppidum?
“Hey, Aeron,” Llys called from the far side of the roof.
I got up and walked over the tiles which clanked beneath my ripped sneakers.
“This section needs fixing too,” she said, tapping another hole.
“That’s not too bad, considering.” I made my way to her. It was another debris wound but it could be fixed within the day.
“How ’bout we stop for a snack before we start repairs?” Llys suggested.
I nodded my agreement and my stomach lurched.
Motor roaring, the ground hard, stinging, clawing, dirt, sore, the pain, agony, ankle snapping, the roaring motor, rope stinging, clawing, stop, stop, stop—
I knew I was falling but my legs wouldn’t work and I toppled so fast that I was sure I’d hit the ground in seconds.
SERENA WATCHED IN horror as Aeron’s eyes flickered in her head. It looked like she was having some kind of a seizure and there was no way the rope holding her would stop her before she did herself damage.
Serena was in broad daylight, on the roof. She should under no circumstances do what she was about to. Every bit of training she had been through told her who she was, and her agenda was far more important than this woman. It was too important to jeopardize for any one person, even if that person was Aeron Lorelei.
Serena looked around, though she knew no one was around for miles.
She lassoed the rope around Aeron’s chest and held it tight as she controlled the fall until they were both lying side-by-side on the roof tiles, inches from the hole’s jagged edges.
“Some psychiatrist you are,” Aeron said groggily.
Serena checked Aeron over. Did she suffer from fits?
“Vision, Doc. Just a vision.”
Serena looked at Aeron’s ashen face. “That could have killed you.”
Aeron nodded. “Good thing I have a novice up here with me.”
“Can you move?”
Aeron wiggled her fingers and toes.
Serena winced at Aeron’s tight clothes. Hell, she needed something that fitted.
“Chest is a bit tight,” Aeron said.
“Probably the rope.”
“Oh.” Aeron’s face paled again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Can we get off the roof first?”
Serena nodded and pulled Aeron up. She helped Aeron put on a looped climbing rope harness and eased her down into the watermill. By the time she climbed down, Aeron was free of the ropes and shivering on the top step of the death-trap stairs, the ones she still couldn’t believe had no guard rail.
“Asking if you’re okay is a dumb question, but are you?” Serena asked.
Aeron nodded then shook her head. “Another girl,” she mumbled. “Getting worse.”
“Can you see who it is?”
Aeron looked down at the steps. “Darcy Toughton.”
“Is this a flash or is she gone?”
Aeron rubbed her hand over her face like she was trying not to cry.
Serena stopped herself from comforting her, knowing that all she would do was give Aeron more visions.
“Same as Mari. not gone . . . not here . . . just . . .”
Aeron’s eyes shimmered with unspilled tears.
“Do you know where she is?”
Aeron shook her head. “Why can’t I get something that will help?”
Serena stood up, her training taking over. “You may have. We eat, we’ll go over what you did see, and then we’ll fix the roof.”
“It probably ain’t a good idea to make notes, Doc. Evidence an’ all that.”
Serena smiled. “I don’t need notes.” She held out her hand. “Trust me.”
Aeron nodded and pulled Serena’s sleeve over her hand before taking it.
“You might get a little freaked out,” a shivering Aeron told her as Serena steadied her.
“I have no doubt about that, but I am good at my job. If you trust me, I can help.”
Aeron laughed as they headed down to the camp on the first floor.
“What’s so funny?”
Aeron plonked herself onto a camp chair as Serena walked to the cooler she’d bought. “You said that before.
After
you’d kicked me out and tried to get me mauled in the exercise yard.”
Serena opened the cooler and pulled out a can of soda. Aeron had scared her out of her skin that day. Not only had she not believed Aeron could see things but she had wondered if Aeron was in fact a plant. “I have nowhere to kick you out of now, so you’ll be safe this time.”
Aeron took the can, and Serena opened one for herself. She drained it, the fizz refreshing her senses and making her eyes water.
“You are the worst undercover agent I’ve ever met,” Aeron said.
Serena snapped her eyes open and stared at Aeron. “What?”
“You’re meant to be a prim-and-proper doctor, remember?”
Serena nodded. “I
am
a prim-and-proper doctor.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you drinking straight out of a can? Why haven’t you noticed you’re covered in dirt and where did your highly polished nails go?”
Serena looked down at herself. She was covered in muck from the roof, her hair was half hanging out of her band, and somewhere between the roof and the kitchen half the stick-on nails had ripped off, revealing her neatly cut ones underneath. At a loss of what to say, her favorite cuss word fell from her lips.
“Nice,” Aeron said and sipped her soda. “Real ladylike.”
Serena sighed. She’d been deep undercover for nearly fifteen years and at no point had she ever even come close to being revealed. She was so good at being someone else, she had forgotten who she had been originally. At least until Aeron Lorelei had wandered into her office.
“Who
are
you?” Serena muttered, trying to ignore the smug look on Aeron’s face.
“I think it’s
your
identity that’s in question.”
Serena’s mind flashed back to the note. Aeron couldn’t know everything. Not yet, it was too dangerous. The murders were one thing but there was the bigger picture to think about, the bigger picture of keeping Aeron safe. And Aeron would not be safe if she knew the truth. That, and Aeron would never trust Serena the second she learned it either.
For some strange reason that bothered Serena. She’d protected countless people without their knowledge and kept them safe and well. It didn’t matter that most of them despised her when they understood why she had been so close, why she had gained their trust. It was part of the job,
this
was just part of the job. Aeron knew Doctor Serena Llys, and when this was all over, Doctor Llys would no longer exist, she’d be another person in another place protecting another person of interest. Simple, right?
“So what did you see?” Serena asked after noticing that Aeron was watching her.
“Okay. Darcy was in woods, maybe near the tourist lodge out by the rapids. She got caught, same as Mari. She was running but the rope hit her feet. The killer likes to do that—to lasso them like they’re cattle.”
Serena tried to mark out the possible positions in her mind’s eye as she stared at the ordinance map she’d brought.
“Darcy was dragged . . . a mile . . . maybe more, then she passed out. That’s it.”
Serena looked at Aeron who fiddled with her toeless sneaker. “What kind of trees?”
Aeron closed her eyes. “I smell pine . . . there were needles on the ground . . . a motor roaring . . . I can’t tell what kind.”
“What did the rope feel like?”
Aeron tensed, her shoulders tightening as she gripped the chair. Serena waited, disconnecting herself from emotion until she saw only facts of something familiar and easier than trying to fake who she was to Aeron.
“Big . . . Darcy’s not a tall girl . . . a tow rope maybe?”
“What kind of rope?”
Aeron frowned and opened her eyes. “I don’t know. How many kinds of rope are there?”
“Hundreds, what kind?”
“I don’t know!”
Serena shook her head. “You do know. You know because you were there.”
“What?”
“You know because you did it, don’t you?”
Aeron shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t know . . .”
Serena nodded. “And that’s why you need to stop digging for information on me. The only way you know that you aren’t the killer is if I’m here to tell you that you aren’t.”
Aeron glared, her eyes were so piercing when she was angered.
“If I didn’t believe in you, I would have hauled you in myself.” Serena sighed. She hated this situation, she hated feeling so out of control. Why did Aeron do that to her? “But, I do believe in you and I need to make sure that these yokels can’t lock you up.”
Aeron cocked her head. “You reading my mind now?”
Serena flashed her a smile. “I’m a psychiatrist remember. Mind reading is my thing.”
Aeron said nothing, instead she looked down at the map. “Do you have an idea? I mean I like trees but one pine is like the other and I know there’re a lot of them in the forest.”
“Well, the thick smell and the carpet of needles would probably rule out yellow pine, they’re too tall and if Darcy is being dragged, then the trees can’t be dense . . . the motor, if it’s a car maybe, would rule out deep forest.”
Aeron nodded. “It was a roaring motor. Like . . . like a quad or a dirt bike.”
“See, that’s useful. Did she get hit?”
Aeron winced. “What do you mean?”
“By trees. Did she hit any trees?”
Aeron leaned over, paling as though she would be sick at any moment.
“Try and think. I know it’s hard.”
“Now you do sound like a shrink.”
Serena didn’t laugh. She was too busy thinking. If the girl was in dense forest, that could be anywhere. Aeron seemed to think instinctively it was over by the rapid lodges which catered to the water sports industry. The lodges wouldn’t be open for another month according to her map. A perfect place to take victims.
“No, she didn’t. She broke her ankle though.”
Serena pulled her keys out of her pocket.
“Where are you going?”
