Skye Cree 02: The Bones Will Tell Page 12

  Fresh, deep purple bruises adorned her torso, her arms and legs. A rope burn around her neck told Skye all she needed to know about Perry York. In addition to everything else, the girl looked drugged and beaten down.

  While Skye assessed just how long it would take to pick the lock on those manacles binding the girl’s wrists, to her surprise, the girl opened her eyes and blinked in astonishment. The teenager immediately started whimpering.

  Skye tried to settle her down. “My name’s Skye. Don’t worry. I’m getting you out of this hellhole. What’s your name?”

  “Kelly,” the teen croaked out. “Donahue. There’s security all over this place. He’ll come back and when he does—”

  “Should’ve known,” Skye uttered. She moved to the girl. Knowing they might not have much time, Skye started working on getting Kelly’s hands free. She dug out her lock kit again. Inserting the little metal rod into the hole, Skye waited for the tumblers to give. When they did, she reached around Kelly to hold her up while she slipped the girl’s hands out of the restraints.

  But at that moment, Kiya growled at the sound of the back door opening upstairs. Skye heard it too about the time she caught the footsteps overhead. “So he’s come back,” Skye acknowledged. “I knew it couldn’t be this easy.”

  “He told me there was a silent alarm on all the doors and windows,” Kelly whispered by way of explanation.

  “Damn. Okay, stay here. This won’t take long.”

  “No. Don’t…don’t leave me down here. You’re my only hope,” Kelly rasped out.

  “Just for a minute. Don’t worry, Kelly.”

  “No, he’ll hurt you. He’ll kill you,” Kelly cried out.

  Skye shook her head, lifted her finger up to her lips in a signal for Kelly to be quiet.

  With that, Skye made her way back up the stairs. She didn’t care if he heard the creaks on the wood or not. If he did hear them, he’d more than likely think that somehow Kelly had gotten loose. That Kelly had been the one to open the back door and set off the alarm. With any luck, the asshole would be expecting a weak, fragile teenager not a grown woman used to combat.

  So as soon as Skye reached the space at the top of the landing, she listened for the jerk to move in front of the door, right where she wanted him. When she was certain she’d given him enough time to get in place on the other side, Skye threw all her weight into it as she burst through the doorway. The force knocked him against the wall.

  Skye took that opportunity to advance, elbowing him in the gut. She pivoted, sent a series of karate kicks, first to his groin, and then took him the rest of the way down with one boot aimed at his head. The blow broke his nose.

  As if dazed, Perry teetered then keeled over. He hit the floor with a thud. Skye took advantage of his condition to pat his clothes to make sure he carried no weapons. When she found him “clean,” she reached inside her jacket, brought out her nightstick just in case.

  About that time Skye realized Kelly had come up behind her. The teen stood clutching what looked like a two-by-four she’d picked up from somewhere in the cellar. Skye gaped as the girl brought back the lumber. With every ounce of strength remaining in her body, the teen started bashing Perry over the head with it.

  If Skye hadn’t rendered him unconscious using martial arts, the wood had done so now. The timber scored several gashes along his face and head, bringing with it a fair amount of blood. Skye could see stitches in Perry’s immediate future.

  For a minute, Skye simply stood by while Kelly exacted a measure of her own justice, hitting him again and again, one after the other anywhere on his body she could make contact.

  But after several blows, Skye stepped in, stilled Kelly’s arm in mid-strike. “Kelly, listen to me now. I know this piece of shit deserves it. But he’s had enough. And even though I’d like nothing more than to let you finish him off, I gave my word to a friend that from now on I’d do my best to bring these bastards in alive. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Kelly turned to look at Skye as if seeing her for the first time and nodded. With all her energy zapped, the fifteen-year-old collapsed in Skye’s arms.

  In his Denver hotel suite, Josh had just dug into his club sandwich and fries he’d ordered from room service when he hit the remote control to get the TV to come on. He had yet to completely unpack his clothes. But that hadn’t stopped him from ordering supper. He munched on a crunchy pickle before taking a seat beside the window at the little table to eat.

  Absently he picked up the remote control for the TV, started to arrow through channels to locate ESPN. One national news station caught his attention. At first he passed it by, until he caught something about Seattle. He hit the back button.

  The words “developing news story” ran across the bottom of the screen. A familiar feeling tugged at his brain. Gut instinct, which had nothing to do with Kiya, had his jaw locking into place. Then he saw the name. The minute Skye Cree’s image appeared, he felt his throat tighten.

  Riveted now, he listened as the television anchor reminded the viewing audience how many teen girls the Seattle woman had saved over the years. From there, the on-air talent threw the story out to his reporter in the field, which happened to be the Seattle police station on Cherry Street.

  The wind sailed out of Josh about the same time he recognized his own home turf.

  He watched as the blonde journalist reminded everyone this was live feed—before she rehashed Skye Cree’s entire history in case anyone in the viewing audience might’ve forgotten—or simply didn’t know Skye’s reputation for taking down sexual predators. The correspondent went back years to when Skye had been kidnapped at the age of twelve by a pedophile, reciting Skye’s detailed survivor past.

  Josh listened to the voice but all he could hear was the roaring in his ears as the woman went over the details of another escape Skye had miraculously pulled off. This time she’d rescued a girl by the name of Kelly Donahue from some sexual sadist’s basement. A fight had ensued with the offender who had eventually been taken by ambulance to the hospital.

  From fifteen hundred miles away all Josh wanted to know at that very moment was that Skye was okay. About that same time, in the background, he caught sight of her on camera as she tried to dodge the press outside the police station. Josh let out a gasp of air he didn’t even know he’d been holding. So she was all right. That was the important thing. Wasn’t it?

  Because if she was fine, if she’d gotten out of that goddamned cellar unscathed, unhurt, right at that moment, he wanted to be the one to ring her stubborn neck himself. Fury took over aimed at Skye as he stared at the screen. She seemed to be walking without impairment in a hurried pace to get away from the reporters and the cameras.

  “Damn it! I knew you were holding something back. I knew it,” Josh yelled at the television. “We’re a team now, when are you going to realize that?” he grumbled at about the same time his cell phone went off. The digital readout told him it was Travis.

  “Where the hell are you? Why did you let her go into that house alone? I thought you cared about her,” Travis barked into Josh’s ear. “What were you thinking?”

  “If you’ll stop yelling at me long enough, I’ll tell you,” Josh snapped. “I’m in Denver attending some stupid gaming conference. She wasn’t honest with me, Travis. She never told me what she planned to do. If she had, do you think I would’ve let her go in there without backup? Now it all makes perfect sense. She let me get on that damned plane and afterward went straight out hunting this guy down before I’d even had time to get here.”

  No wonder he hadn’t been able to reach her on her cell phone when he’d landed. She’d been giving her statement to the cops. “Have you seen her, talked to her? Do you know for a fact she’s okay?”

  “I’ve seen her on the tube but she still isn’t talking to me, certainly not returning my calls. How about you? Have you talked to her?”

  “She hasn’t picked up all evening. But that’s about to chang
e,” Josh assured him, as he turned the volume up on the TV. “Hang on a second, Travis. Harry’s holding a press conference right this second and she’s standing next to him at the podium while he takes questions from the reporters. Are you watching this?”

  “I’m watching. It says the feed is live. I thought they said there was a fight. But Skye doesn’t have a mark on her,” Travis pointed out.

  Josh chuckled. “No, she doesn’t have a mark on her. But one thing you can count on. I’m sure the other guy looks a helluva lot worse.”

  Josh Ander and Travis Nakota were not the only men interested in Skye’s whereabouts or movements. Frank De Palo had tailed her to the gray house with the red trim. She’d been so intent on her own target, the sexual predator known as Perry York, she’d never even sensed his presence so nearby.

  Perhaps she wasn’t as clever or as talented as he’d first thought.

  He’d be a fool not to recognize her considerable skills at hand-to-hand combat. Although when the cops had dragged York outside, the man hadn’t looked like much competition on that score.

  And since Frank had waited across the street and watched her enter a man’s home without key or invite, he’d wondered what she planned to do once she got inside. He’d stood by fascinated at the turn of events once the cops showed up. Along with the other curious neighbors, Frank had listened. He’d learned from the uniforms and their grumblings what exactly had transpired within that box of a house.

  She had, after all, gone down into the man’s personal torture chamber to rescue a girl. She’d taken down the man in question there in his own kitchen when he’d unexpectedly returned home. And doing it, she’d been alone without having the gamer in tow for backup.

  An impressive feat to be sure, Frank decided and one that he could not dismiss. So while her intelligence was questionable at best, she might be a worthy opponent when he met up with her face to face.

  And when he surprised her in her own space, when he stood over her in her own bed, he would make certain he’d get the most out of her. It was the only way he could assure she’d challenge him to the max.

  Chapter Twelve

  Even though Skye had tried to talk Josh out of leaving the convention early, assuring him she was just fine, he’d caught the next plane back to Seattle. He’d been pissed he couldn’t get back to Sea-Tac though until morning. And now, according to Josh’s latest text message, his plane had pulled to the gate and was now unloading.

  That’s why Skye sat behind the wheel of her Subaru parked at the curb outside the terminal, waiting for him to walk out.

  She’d known he’d be angry with her. But she hadn’t considered the Ander wrath lasting for this long. She’d seen him upset before. But they’d never stayed mad at each other overnight. The amazing thing about their relationship so far had been that despite some major obstacles to overcome, they could talk most things out without wanting to walk away from each other. Until this instance, the marriage hot button had been the only thing dividing them. She had a feeling though Josh was waiting to explode up close and personal.

  Last night she’d listened as he’d vented. His anger had gone on and on—over the phone. Over the past twelve hours she’d had time to think about the repercussions of going into York’s home alone. After replaying the situation several times, she could understand why Josh was so furious. But she’d been on her own too long to change for anyone at the drop of a hat. And she realized now that probably wasn’t fair to the person she loved.

  When she spotted him exiting through the sliding glass doors with the suitcase in tow she’d helped him pack only yesterday, she honked the horn and waved.

  He tossed his bag in the backseat and crawled into the front.

  “Did you sleep okay last night?” Skye asked as she pulled out into traffic, not wasting any time trying for damage control. Noting the dark circles under his eyes, she already knew the answer to that. But knowing she had to make amends somehow, she went on, “Because it looks like you’re still pissed and it kept you awake all night.”

  “Don’t try to get on my good side right now, Skye. Okay? I’m still furious with you. And no, I didn’t sleep well at all. Every time I closed my eyes, I must’ve replayed what I saw on the news no less than fifty times. With you here, and me in Denver, it might’ve been a good thing, after all, because I wanted to strangle you myself. At some point I thought I might even be having a heart attack.”

  “Now you’re exaggerating.”

  Slanting her a withering glare from the passenger seat, he was slowly getting to a boil. “It turned out to be a nasty case of indigestion and the fact that I’m hooked up with the most stubborn hardhead I’ve ever known who refuses to give an inch. Since last night, I’ve had time to consider every ‘what if’ in the book. All you had to do was tell me what you suspected, share a little info and you know I would’ve hung around. I’d never have gone to Denver in the first place. But you didn’t do that. Let’s be clear here what’s pissed me off. The fact that you deliberately held back you’d been plagued by dreams again. The fact that you were having dreams again is a big deal. But you went out of your way to make sure I got on that plane. If we’re a team—” He stopped, shook his head. “Oh what’s the point? We’re not much of a team. Maybe you’re right and this, what we have between us, just isn’t meant to be.” He rubbed at his temple, lack of sleep and jet lag beginning to catch up with him. “Anything could’ve gone wrong in York’s house and you might be dead right now. I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “But it didn’t go wrong,” she pointed out. “And I’m still very much alive. And so is Kelly Donahue.”

  “Luck,” Josh tossed back. “Don’t throw the fifteen-year-old girl into the mix either. You know exactly why I’m upset. Don’t sit there and deny it. If not for your deliberate deception, I’d have been right there to go in that house with you.”

  She tried for patience knowing she deserved some degree of hostility. But then she shifted gears. “Harry thinks this Perry York guy might be responsible for several other girls in the area who went missing since 2006, the year his mother died.”

  Josh cocked a brow. “And you think this helps your case? How? That you went up against another serial killer alone? Trust me, it doesn’t.”

  “Speaking of which, I’m beginning to think our sicko has indeed moved on to another, more fertile, hunting ground.” To her credit, she kept up the barrage and did her best to change the subject. “What do your dreams tell you?”

  “You know it’s been almost two weeks or more since I’ve seen anything. Don’t try to placate me. Without fresh crime scenes, without new victims, it’s as if the images are blocked to me now. And since we don’t want new victims—”

  “So no news is good news as far as the dreams go.” She paused before adding, “I’m sorry I didn’t share what was going on. You’re absolutely right. I should’ve told you the dreams were back. But try to understand, this wasn’t like in the past. I barely got a clear view.”

  “You expect me to buy that?”

  “This partner thing is new to me. I’m still working on the kinks.”

  “Then try harder,” Josh suggested as he leaned over the console to plant a kiss on her cheek. “All I’m asking, Skye, is for you to show a little confidence in me. I’m your partner. Try acting like it.”

  She sucked in a breath. “You really know how to get to me.”

  “Yeah? Good to know. Then I need to get to you a lot more often.”

  After working a twelve-hour shift at the hospital the first thing thirty-eight-year-old nurse, Betty Triplett, noticed when she got to the door of her bedroom was that someone had been there.

  Dresser drawers had been pulled out. Her panties and bras and various other lingerie left dumped on the bed. Whoever had been there had carefully gone through the contents of her jewelry box. Earrings, necklaces, and bracelets were lined up neatly in an orderly fashion on the dresser, as if the person had wanted them arranged item
by item in a particular way.

  An eerie feeling crept up her spine. Betty went down the hallway to check on her teenage daughter, Gina’s bedroom. Even though she knew for a fact Gina had spent the day with her father at her grandmother’s house, Betty still needed to make sure Gina wasn’t in the house.

  But in a teenager’s room where disarray was the norm, here someone had taken the time to tidy up Gina’s mess, not make one. All the while he’d gone through Gina’s things the same way he had Betty’s.

  Instinctively Betty reached for her cell phone to text her daughter. After sending the message, a frightening thought occurred to her. The intruder might still be in the house.

  As fast as she could, Betty backtracked to the front door the way she’d come in. But as she darted pass the kitchen she saw the refrigerator door standing ajar. She took two steps and glanced at the back door leading to the yard. It too, stood open. It was as if someone had heard her come in through the front door and disappeared out the back in a hurry.

  No way did Betty intend to stay in the house. Instead, she headed out to her car parked in the driveway to call nine-one-one.

  About the time Betty reached her Buick, Gina returned the text, saying she was okay. Breathing a sigh of relief, Betty hit the numbers on her phone. At this point, even though she wasn’t sure the prowler had taken anything of value, she still thought the cops needed to know—because someone had violated her home, her personal space.

  With all the murders she’d heard about on the news, the ones occurring a few streets over, Betty wasn’t taking any chances. She wanted a member of law enforcement to do a walk-thru with her. She wanted the violation logged into public record. She wanted them to document the fact that there had been some type of break-in. It might have nothing to do with the serial killer stalking Seattle women, but Betty wanted the cops to be the ones to make that determination. Even if it turned out to be nothing more than a teenager in the neighborhood, Betty wanted some assurance that her safe haven was still just that, if not for her sake, for her daughter’s.