Sky Like Bone: a serial killer thriller Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Mwhahahaha. Yes, I am evil.

  SKY LIKE BONE

  Wren Delacroix, Book Eight

  V. J. Chambers

  SKY LIKE BONE

  © copyright 2021 by V. J. Chambers

  http://vjchambers.com

  Punk Rawk Books

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  CHAPTER ONE

  WREN pushed open the door to her office, clutching her cell phone to her ear. “Wait, hold on a second.”

  “All right,” said Jeremy Rowland, her real estate agent.

  Wren poked her head inside her partner Caius Reilly’s office, which was right next door to hers.

  He looked up from his desk, eyebrows raised.

  She took the phone away from her ear and put it on speaker as she stepped inside. “Okay, Jeremy, say that again.”

  “I’ve got a buyer for the land that formerly belonged to the Fellowship of the Children of the Lord,” said Timothy.

  “Whoa, seriously?” Reilly got up from his desk, coming over to stand next to Wren.

  “Am I on speaker phone?” said Jeremy.

  “Yeah,” said Wren. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s no problem,” said Jeremy, chuckling. “I wasn’t expecting another voice, that’s all.”

  “This buyer seems serious?” said Wren.

  “I wouldn’t have called you otherwise,” said Jeremy. “We’ve got an offer on the table.”

  “Wow,” said Wren.

  “So, who is it?” said Reilly. “Some developer who wants to build a subdivision out there?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Jeremy, “but I don’t know. This buyer is a little mysterious. They want to work through a representative, and they don’t want to reveal their name. Everything is going through some LLC or something. It’s called Sunrise Ventures.”

  “Huh,” said Wren. “Is that concerning?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Jeremy. “They’re financially solvent, and that’s all been verified. The money is there.”

  “Why the secrecy, then?” said Reilly.

  “Who knows? Some millionaire recluse?” said Jeremy.

  “It’s probably a sick fan of either David Song’s or Hawk’s,” said Wren. “Some weird, twisted rich guy who wants to own the murder compound for shits and giggles.”

  “Yeah, the thought did cross my mind,” said Jeremy. “Is that a problem for you?”

  “Honestly? I want rid of that place,” said Wren. “But how fast is this going to move, because we’re currently living on the land.”

  “It can go pretty fast,” said Jeremy. “They want it. They have the money. It can be a pretty quick thing.”

  “Okay,” said Wren, blowing out air, her mind racing.

  “Well, then, I’ll email you what I have, and if it’s amenable to you, shoot me back an email or text, and we’ll start moving forward,” said Jeremy.

  “Thanks,” said Wren. “I really appreciate the work you’ve done on this.”

  “Absolutely,” said Jeremy. “You take care.”

  “You too.”

  Wren and Reilly both said their goodbyes and then she and Jeremy hung up the phone.

  Wren put her phone into her pocket. “Oh, my God, this is happening.”

  Reilly chuckled.

  She walked over to the window of Reilly’s office and looked out. They’d been in these new offices for nearly two months now. Their old offices had been a converted trailer in Cardinal Falls. Now, they were part of a satellite office that was associated with the FBI’s Washington, D.C., field office. It housed them and also a wing for rehabilitation and training for the FBI. It was significantly nicer than the crappy trailer, though it wasn’t quite as close to home as the trailer had been. That had been a five-minute commute. This was more like twenty. Even still, it was a big step up, and even the view from the windows was nicer. She peered out at a landscaped lawn, dotted with early summer flowers, flashes of bright color here and there. “This is happening,” she said again.

  “It’s a good thing,” said Reilly.

  She turned to face him. “It’s definitely a good thing.”

  “But it means we have to move.”

  “Right,” she said. She and Reilly lived in adjacent cabins on the old FCL compound. In the winter, trying to keep them winterized and heated had been a nightmare, but now, in the summer, it was quite comfortable. Out there in the woods, under the canopy of green leaves, it was usually nice and cool. Rarely did she need to use air conditioning, and she had enough money to put window units in every room now, considering she had a decent salary and she hadn’t been paying any rent for months now.

  “And moving is always stressful,” he said.

  “I know,” she said.

  He spread his hands. “But maybe this is the push we need.”

  “Need for what?”

  “To take the next step, to move in together,” said Reilly. “It’s silly, because we basically live together now. We never spend a night apart. We eat every meal together. It’s honestly a pain having to divide our clothes between two houses at this point.”

  She nodded. “You’re right.” She had thought this before, on numerous occasions, but she hadn’t mentioned it to Reilly, because the last time they’d talked about moving in together, it had sparked a weird conversation—not really an argument, but still something deeply uncomfortable. She remembered he’d said things to her about Hawk, and she liked to avoid the subject of Hawk as much as possible.

  Which wasn’t easy when the specter of his appeal on his murder charge hung heavy over them both. Hawk was a serial killer who had killed five young girls. He should never be let out of jail. But due to a lack of evidence, that very thing could happen. He’d never been charged for the murders of the girls, and he was only in jail due to a completely different murder charge. Even though Wren and Reilly had witnessed him shooting Karen Freeman before their eyes, Hawk sought to discredit their testimony.

  Because she and Hawk had been lovers, he might have a case.

  The date of his appeal loomed on the horizon, every day bringing it closer.

  Anyway, the subject of Hawk could be a sore one between her and Reilly. She didn’t like to bring it up, even obliquely.

  “I am?” Reilly gave her a tentative smile. “You want to move in together?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Are you sure you want to?”

  “Positive,” he said. “I’ve been positive for ages now.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t like to poke, you know? We’re good, and I feel like the only time I doubt that is when I poke.”

  She nodded.
“I get that.”

  “It makes better sense to buy than rent,” he said. “If we pool our salaries and our resources, we can get something nice. Nicer than we can do on our own. Honestly, I’m not going to buy a house without you anyway, because I assume eventually, we’re going to buy a house together.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  “So, why put it off?” he said. “We’ve been together for over a year now. We’ve been working together longer than that. If we want proof of concept, I think we’ve got that already, so…”

  “So, let’s buy a house together,” she said.

  He grinned. “Excellent.”

  She grinned too.

  He crossed the room to her and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her.

  She ran her fingers over his neck and up over the back of his hair, which he always kept closely cut to his head.

  He kissed the tip of her nose, looking triumphant. “I’m really excited about this.”

  She laughed. “Me too. This is good.”

  Suddenly, he pulled completely out of her arms. “I should… we’ve never…” He ran a hand over his mouth, furrowing his brow.

  “Cai?” she said. “You okay?”

  “I don’t think I want to get married ever again? Are you, like, thinking that maybe if we move in together that—”

  “Oh,” she said, widening her eyes. “Right. Normal people get married before they buy houses together.”

  He laughed. “We’re normal.”

  “Maybe you are,” she said. “I’m not normal.”

  He wound a hand around her waist and pulled her against him. “You are very normal.”

  She ran her thumb over his bottom lip, shaking her head. “I’m a freak of nature, and you know it.”

  “Well, however you’re freaky, I like it,” he said, his voice dropping in pitch.

  “We’re at work,” she said.

  He smirked.

  It was true that the first time they’d had sex, it had been in the workplace.

  He cupped her face with one large, brown hand. “I’m only saying that it’s unnecessary. We know how we feel about each other, and I don’t want to get everything legally tangled up and all of that. I’ve been through one divorce, and I never want to do that again.”

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  “You sure?” he said, concerned.

  “Positive.” She kissed him quickly. “You keep thinking that I want things that normal people want, Cai, but I’m not normal. I don’t care about getting married.”

  He searched her expression, and she could tell he didn’t quite believe her.

  “Oh, Lord, Cai, this is the last thing to be talking about right now. We have to pack up all of our stuff, you realize that? We have to find a house. We have to put in an offer. We have to get approved for loans. We are going to be way too busy to think about anything else.”

  His shoulders slumped. “You’re right.”

  She patted him on the shoulder. “Okay, well, I better get on all that.” She started across the room toward the door.

  “We got to meet the new lab guy at 2:00,” he called after her.

  “I didn’t forget,” she called back. She went through the door and ducked back into her own office.

  TREVON Aronsen looked like he was about sixteen years old. He was dressed in a pair of very tight skinny red pants and an AC/DC shirt. He bounced on the balls of his feet as Wren walked across the room toward him.

  Before she’d quite reached him, he called out, “Wren Delacroix!” He gave her a grin, and it was so infectious that she couldn’t help but grin back.

  She heard the door open and saw that Reilly had entered the room too.

  “Caius Reilly!” said Trevon, continuing to bounce.

  Wren closed the distance between them, holding out her hand to shake.

  He gripped it firmly. “So good to meet you.”

  “Welcome to the team,” said Wren.

  “It’s about time you guys had some new blood,” said Trevon. “How long has it been that it’s just been the two of you? You guys must be getting bored with all your old drama. You need someone else, someone young and stupid like me to inject some new drama into your lives.”

  Wren laughed. “Okay, well, I guess maybe you’re right.”

  Reilly was there now. He shook Trevon’s hand too. “I thought you were here to be our crime scene lab expert, to run all the DNA that we never find.”

  “Well, that too,” said Trevon, shrugging. “I’m equal opportunity. And, you know, now that I’m around, I think your luck with DNA is going to change. We’re going to find so much stuff that will need running through a lab that you’ll wonder how you ever got on without me. I mean, what else is the point of me?”

  “Honestly,” said Wren, “when we took this job, we were promised a team.”

  “Yes, as in multiple people,” said Reilly. “And that was over a year ago, and we are just now getting you. One person.”

  “Right, and I had to beg them to reassign me to work with you,” said Trevon. “You guys are legends!”

  The door opened again, and Maliah Wright came into the room. She was clutching a cup of coffee. “Sorry I’m late, guys.

  Wren and Reilly both cocked their heads sideways.

  “How come you have coffee, and you didn’t ask us if we wanted any?” said Reilly.

  “Yeah, where’d you get that?” said Wren. It was no longer an easy task to leave midday and go to the Daily Bean, a local coffee shop, so they had to make do with going there in the morning and then drinking Starbucks later in the afternoon. They’d drink anything coffee, of course, but it wasn’t the same.

  “I got it in the lobby,” said Maliah.

  “Oh, it’s the drip coffee from the lobby,” said Wren, sighing.

  “Still,” said Reilly, “we should hit that up after this.”

  “Definitely,” said Wren.

  “Is that coffee good?” said Trevon. “I saw it on my way back here, but I wasn’t sure if it was, you know, drinkable.”

  “Oh, you know, bad coffee is like bad sex,” said Wren. “Even when it’s bad, you still drink it.” Then she cringed. “Is that not a workplace-appropriate thing to say?” Honestly, she could get used to Trevon, both for his youthfulness and his manner of dress, since she herself usually wore a leather jacket and torn jeans to work every day.

  Reilly and Maliah were always professional, both in suits. Wren always felt like she stuck out like a sore thumb. In the beginning of their working relationship, she’d been a consultant, and it hadn’t mattered what she wore. Now, she was gainfully employed and even had a title, Special Agent Wren Delacroix.

  She had tried wearing a suit to work once, but she didn’t think they made suits out of fabric that didn’t itch. And all professional-looking shoes pinched, even the ones that weren’t high heels.

  “Well, it’s true,” said Trevon. “Appropriate or not.”

  “You like coffee?” said Reilly.

  “Of course,” said Trevon.

  “You’ll fit right in here,” said Reilly. “Have you been shown around yet?”

  “No, I just got here,” said Trevon. “I’m actually still looking for an apartment. It’s probably a doable commute from D.C. I know lots of people go the other way, and I’d never be fighting the traffic, so it would be even quicker. But I don’t want to spend hours on the road every day, so I’m going to move. But, yeah, I just arrived in the parking lot, probably ten minutes ago.”

  “You want to see your lab?” said Wren.

  “Definitely,” said Trevon.

  “They just put this in,” said Reilly. “It was built especially for our little unit, so we’re lucky to have it, especially since, in the other cases we’ve worked on, we’ve used the local labs. They thought it would benefit us to have some independent analysis here, however.”

  Trevon rubbed his hands together. “I kind of can’t believe I’m so lucky to land this.”

  “I thou
ght you begged for it,” said Wren.

  “Which is why I’m so lucky,” he said. He turned his gaze on Maliah. “I’m sorry, did we get introduced? Are you Maliah Wright?”

  Maliah smiled. “Yes, that is me.”

  Trevon offered her his hand. “Good to meet you. You’re a legend too.”

  “Really?”

  “Computer genius, right?” said Trevon. “Being part of this team with you guys, it’s… well, it’s my dream job.”

  “Things have been quiet for the last few months,” said Maliah. “We’ve done some consulting work, but mostly day trips, nothing like earlier in the year.”

  “Oh, right, with the Phineas Slater thing,” said Trevon. “And then he escaped prison.”

  “And they found him again,” said Wren.

  “Did you go back out to help with the manhunt?” said Trevon.

  “Nah,” said Wren. “The local boys were fine to handle that on their own.” She didn’t say that the captain of the Cape Christopher Police Department had indicated that the bad press that Wren and Reilly were getting in the wake of the stuff with Hawk was a factor in his not wanting to work with them. Wren couldn’t be sure that the fact that things had been quiet wasn’t related to that as well.

  “Still, it’s really phenomenal how many killers you’ve interacted with. Warren Brock, Edward Trask, Louis Bitner… Any one of those guys is a once-in-a-lifetime case, and you’ve had them all.”

  Wren and Reilly exchanged a glance and shrugged.

  “It’s because we’re cursed in this part of the country,” said Maliah.

  “Right, the serial killer capital of the world,” said Trevon. “But there hasn’t been anything happening here lately.”

  “We’ve had a brief respite,” said Reilly.

  He eyed them all, grinning. “You guys don’t really believe in that kind of stuff, right? Curses? Serial killers being drawn here because of the energy of that weird antler-god thing that the FCL worshiped? Mystical, evil energy?”

  “Of course not,” said Wren.

  “Yeah, it’s all a coincidence,” said Reilly.

  “And killers are drawn here all right, but there’s nothing mystical about it,” said Wren. “It’s just the typical competitive spirit of a serial killer. All of them want to top whatever has come before.”