The Quiet Bones Read online

  Hawk reached around the front seat and came back with the notebook.

  “Okay,” said Reilly. “What are you thinking? All the surviving members of all of the victims?”

  “Well, that’s going to be a list, all right,” muttered Hawk, paging to a blank piece of paper. “Should we count all of them or just the ones who live in the area still?”

  “Just the ones in the area,” said Reilly. “For now.”

  * * *

  Wren wasn’t sure if she should run when she saw the Cardinal Falls police car. After all, maybe Oliver had the police on his side. Maybe he’d discovered that she’d escaped, and he had them all out on the road, looking for her. She wouldn’t put it past Oliver or the police in town. None of them liked her.

  The rift between the FCL and the community of Cardinal Falls was deep. It had been simmering long before the murders. You could say that the way that the community had fought the FCL had caused the murders in some way. Not that the community was responsible. No, Vivian and her army were responsible for that.

  Anyway, once the FCL started killing people, some of the people in Cardinal Falls seemed to think it might be okay to kill too. Or to hold people in old wells so that their bone marrow could be forcibly extracted.

  So, she probably should run.

  But she didn’t have running in her anymore.

  Besides, she’d come all the way out to the road so that she could get to a car, and so that she could get help. She was going to have to take her chances.

  The police car pulled up right next to her and the passenger door opened. Jim McNamara leaned across the car. “Wren Delacroix, we’ve been looking everywhere for you. Get in.”

  She hesitated. “You been talking to Oliver?”

  “Who?” said McNamara.

  Then she made a decision and climbed into the car, pulling the door closed after her.

  McNamara grinned at her. “How are you?”

  “Uh… been better,” said Wren.

  “Right,” said McNamara. “Well, I’ll take you down to the station and we’ll call Detective Reilly. You’ll probably feel more comfortable talking to him.”

  The thought made her feel the first bit of relief. “Yes, get me Reilly.” Of course, McNamara could be lying.

  “Hey, you know, we haven’t talked much since… well, ever, but I knew you in high school.”

  “Yeah?” Was he going somewhere with this? “It’s a small town. We all knew each other.”

  “Well, yeah. I was probably kind of a shit back then. I’m sorry about that.”

  Was this guy serious?

  “You know, someday when you’re feeling better, I wonder if you’d ever be interested in, you know, maybe grabbing dinner together?”

  She gaped at him. “What?”

  “Like a date?” He grinned at her.

  Wren shook her head. Unbelievable.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Twenty minutes later, Wren was wrapped in a blanket in the Cardinal Falls Police Station and Reilly and Hawk were coming across the room for her.

  Reilly and Hawk. Together.

  What the hell was that?

  The sight of them nearly broke her. For the first time since all of this had started, she felt like crying. But she didn’t. She didn’t want the police officers here to see her weak like that.

  She got up, and her blanket fell off her shoulders. She took a step toward them both.

  And then Hawk was there, and she was in his arms. She buried her face against his flannel shirt and breathed in the smell of him.

  “Little bird,” he murmured in her ear.

  She held onto him for several long moments, but then she didn’t want anyone in the station to see that either, and so she let go of him, and turned to Reilly.

  For a minute, she thought Reilly was going to hug her too. But he didn’t. He grabbed one of her hands and squeezed it. His voice was tattered. “Wren.”

  “What happened?” said Hawk.

  Wren shook her head. “Not here. I don’t want to talk about it here.”

  “This is the police station,” said Hawk. “Who did this to you? You need to tell them so that they can go after him.”

  She shook her head. “No. No, I just want to go to the Daily Bean and get coffee. Can we do that? Please?”

  “We can do that,” said Reilly.

  * * *

  Wren tried to take another drink of her coffee, but it was drained. She’d drunk it all. “So, anyway, then I figured out where I was, and I got to the road, which is where McNamara picked me up.”

  Wren, Hawk, and Reilly were back at her place. They were all sitting in her living room.

  Hawk was sitting on the couch, elbows resting on his knees, shaking his head. “That bastard. You have to go to the police, Wren. You have to. He kidnapped you. He hurt you. He threw you in a well.”

  “The police in Cardinal Falls are not going to believe me,” said Wren.

  “Well, you don’t know that until you try,” said Hawk.

  “Besides, he… I don’t know, I don’t know if he meant it,” said Wren. “He’s been through a lot, what with his father being murdered and his sister having leukemia. Maybe he kind of broke down.”

  Hawk turned to Reilly. “You going to convince her she’s being an idiot here?”

  Reilly set down his ginger latte, which looked empty too. “I wouldn’t use those words.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” said Hawk. He turned to Wren. “I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

  “What Oliver did, Wren, it’s a crime,” said Reilly.

  “Yeah, so what? He goes to jail?” said Wren. “How does that help anything? It just makes things harder for his family, and they’ve already been through a lot.”

  “You need to go down there right now and press charges,” said Hawk.

  “Well, I don’t think the statute of limitations is going to run out anytime soon,” said Reilly. “You could nap first.”

  Wren smiled at him.

  Hawk sighed.

  “Take some time to think about it,” said Reilly. “You don’t have to make a decision today. But I don’t think you can just let it go. This guy has to understand there are consequences for what he did.”

  Wren’s head hurt. She was exhausted, but now that she’d had coffee, her heart had started to beat faster, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to fall asleep. It was stupid to have drunk the coffee.

  “Plus, you threw yourself from a moving car,” said Reilly. “You should probably go to the hospital.”

  “Ugh, no,” said Wren. “I can’t handle the hospital right now. Besides, it’s not as if I have a benefits package from the task force since you’re just paying me out of discretionary funds.”

  “Hmm,” said Reilly. “We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”

  Wren slid down in her chair, getting comfortable. “Anyway, I want to know all about how it is that you two ended up together. That is about the least likely pairing I can think of.”

  “We were looking for you,” said Hawk. “We were both worried.”

  “So, you team up?” Wren looked back and forth at them. “What the hell happened?”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” said Reilly.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Wren, propping her legs up on her coffee table. “Spill.”

  Reilly laughed, shaking his head. “Well, this guy named Baldwin escaped from prison, and I thought he had you. So, Hawk and I went looking for him.”

  “Oh,” said Wren. “Did you find him?”

  “We did,” said Hawk.

  “So, you arrested him?” said Wren.

  “Actually, he shot himself,” said Reilly.

  “Whoa,” said Wren. “So, while I was off in a well, you guys were hunting down a bad guy. Together.”

  Reilly surveyed Hawk. “I’ll say this. If you want someone to have your back, you could do worse than Hawk.”

  Hawk spread his hands. “I didn’t do an
ything. Not really.”

  Reilly pointed at Hawk. “You ever think about going into sales? I feel like you could talk anyone into anything.”

  Hawk’s ears turned a little red.

  Wren was completely thrown by this. Were they… bantering? Whatever it was, it was strange, but she kind of liked it. Reilly had accepted Hawk. That was huge. She got up out of her chair, and then immediately decided that was a bad idea and sat back down.

  Both of the men were on their feet, worried.

  “You okay?” said Reilly.

  “What happened?” said Hawk.

  She started giggling. Oh, hell, was this her life? How was this her life? She was pretty sure that coffee was wearing off. “I just think I need to sleep,” she said. “Maybe a shower first. And then sleep. Lots of sleep.”

  * * *

  She slept until near dinner time, and when she woke up, Hawk was there, and he was ready to run errands to pick up whatever she thought she wanted to eat.

  “Unless,” he said, “you want me to leave, which is fine, because I know we were in the middle of an argument, and if you don’t want to see me right now, I get that. I’m gone. Just say the word.”

  Right, right. The thing with the girl and the wine and her being suspicious of Hawk… Thinking about it made her feel tired. She wished she could just forget about all of it.

  “There will be time to deal with that later,” she said. “If you’re volunteering to go pick up pizza, I am taking you up on it.”

  “One pizza coming up,” said Hawk.

  He ate and they talked about trivial things, TV shows they were both watching and whether or not to dip the pizza into the provided garlic butter or just the crust.

  And then she was tired again, and she wanted to go to bed, and Hawk crawled into her bed with her, and neither of them commented on that. They didn’t do anything except hold each other and sleep. She really was a walking bruise, and she wouldn’t have had the energy for anything else.

  She woke in the middle of the night to Hawk thrashing next to her, whimpering.

  Sitting up, she took hold of his shoulders and shook him. “You’re dreaming, Hawk,” she said. “Wake up. You’re dreaming.”

  His eyes snapped open. He was sweaty and out of breath and he sat up in bed and gasped until he got his breathing under control while she rubbed his back.

  Finally, he lay back down on the pillow and lay on his side.

  She lay down on her side, facing him. “You want to talk about it?”

  “Don’t even remember it exactly,” he said softly. “Just some images that are floating away. Vivian’s eyes. The Crimson Ram galloping away on a black horse.”

  She brushed his hair away from his face. “I have nightmares like that sometimes too.”

  “It’s nicer to wake up with you here than alone,” he said.

  She hummed her agreement and satisfaction, scooting closer, winding her arms around him.

  He traced one of his fingers down over her back, over the curve of her hip.

  She buried her face in his chest. “I’m sorry about the wedding.”

  “I shouldn’t have given that girl a drink of wine. I don’t even know her or her family. It was inappropriate.”

  “Well… in fairness, you don’t have a lot of templates to draw on for typical appropriateness. Growing up the way we did, nothing was normal.”

  He disentangled himself, rolling onto his back.

  “Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I’m not attracted to little girls.”

  “I know that,” she said softly.

  “But…”

  But? Her pulse flared once, in alarm.

  He looked at the ceiling. “I wasn’t attracted to you when you were ten, when we were forced to sleep in the same bed.”

  “Hawk, I know this.”

  “But when you were sixteen, when you kissed me—”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “It started sometime before that,” he muttered. “I don’t know when. Whenever it was, you were too young.”

  “Hawk…” She let out a long, noisy breath. “It’s okay.”

  “I don’t know if it is. I don’t know what I am, how much of me is broken.”

  “Look, I’m okay,” she said. “You didn’t do anything to me—”

  “Are you okay? Are you really?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Because I’m not okay,” he said. “I’m… there’s something wrong with me.”

  “Don’t say that,” she whispered.

  He turned to look at her. “If I was a good man, I’d leave you alone. You and I both know that you deserve something better than me. But I’m not a good man, and I don’t want to let you go.”

  “Stop talking like this,” she said. “It’s the dream. It’s the nightmare. You’re just saying these things—”

  “So, you’re not ashamed to be with me?”

  “No.” She said it too fast.

  “Just a little bit?”

  She kissed him. “Stop talking, Hawk.” She thrust her hands between his legs.

  He groaned. His lips met hers and his mouth was hot and wet against her. Gently, he pushed her back into the bed, so that she was beneath him. “You’re just trying to shut me up.”

  “Is it working?” she gasped.

  He lowered his mouth to her neck, to the hollow behind her ear.

  She scrabbled in the bedside table, feeling around for the box of condoms she kept there. But then she remembered it was empty, that she’d meant to buy more when she got groceries, but she’d never gone to get groceries.

  “What are you looking for?” Hawk’s voice was thick.

  “Nothing,” she breathed. “Shut up. Wasn’t this supposed to make you shut up?”

  He chuckled darkly into her skin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Oh, whoa, you’re here,” said Reilly as he stepped into the Daily Bean. Wren was at the counter, a coffee in each hand. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be up for anything today. You’ve been through—”

  “I’m fine,” said Wren, handing him one of the coffees. “I was surprised I beat you in here, though. Good thing I did. You wouldn’t have bought me a coffee.”

  “Thank you,” said Reilly, raising his cup in a salute. “But seriously, you don’t need to feel like you need to get back to work. Actually, you should spend the day at the Cardinal Falls Department, pressing charges against Oliver Campbell.”

  “Don’t say that so loud.” She ducked her head down and looked furtively around, as if the walls had ears.

  “You really think the police won’t take you seriously? Because I will be happy to go with you and crack skulls if necessary.”

  “No,” she muttered. “No.”

  “Wren, you can’t simply pretend it didn’t happen.”

  “Watch me,” she said, pushing past him and out of the door of the coffee shop.

  He went after her. “Hey, seriously.”

  She stopped at the bottom of the steps outside and whirled on him. “I think I solved the case.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s Agatha Christie,” she said. “I’ll tell you at headquarters, okay?”

  “What?” he said.

  She sashayed over to her car, winking at him over her shoulder.

  He shook his head. Okay. So, it was going to be like that, was it?

  She peeled her car out of the parking lot before he even got the chance to get into his, so she beat him there. Of course she did.

  Once at headquarters, he climbed out of his car and went inside.

  Maliah was there. “Good morning,” she said. “Thanks for telling me that Colt Baldwin was dead. That meant I didn’t have to inconvenience Yolanda and freak her out that some asshole was coming into her house to shoot us all an extra night. It was incredibly thoughtful of you.”

  He winced. “Sorry, Maliah.” He had been wrecked yesterday, after not getting enough sleep
. Janessa had called him, and he’d relayed the information to her. He’d meant to call Maliah, but he’d forgotten. It had slipped out of his head at some point between showering and getting into bed. He’d slept all day yesterday.

  “Yeah, well, as we both know, I’m incredibly important to you.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Please don’t read anything into that. You know, you and me, we should talk. Soon. Can we do that?”

  Maliah rolled her eyes and stalked down the hallway into her office.

  Wren’s head poked out of Reilly’s office. “Ooh, someone done gone and fucked up, Caius.”

  “Shut up, and don’t call me that,” he said, joining her in his office.

  She was sitting on a chair in front of his desk, spinning around on it and grinning. “It’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it is, but I prefer Reilly.” He sat down behind his desk. “So come on, what do you mean, it’s Agatha Christie?”

  Wren laughed.

  “Delacroix.” He glared at her.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “So, my dad’s new husband, he’s into murder mysteries. He has this huge library of stuff. He can’t get enough of the stuff.”

  “And this relates how?”

  “Well, he has this big collection of Agatha Christie,” said Wren. “You ever read The ABC Murders?”

  Reilly looked at her blankly.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s kind of a staple plot in mystery fiction. Like, the pilot of Castle did it. It’s been on Monk and CSI and Days of Our Lives.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Fake serial killers,” said Wren. “It happens constantly in fiction. I don’t know what kind of sicko you have to be to do it real life, but I mean, it explains everything.”

  “Fake?” Reilly furrowed his brow. “Wait a second, you’re saying that the person we’re hunting isn’t a serial killer? But he’s killed three people.”

  “Yes,” said Wren. “I mean, technically, I guess he is a serial killer, by the strictest definition. But profiling wasn’t working on him, because it was all wrong. He was basing everything he knew about faking serial killing on movies and TV shows. He never took a profiling course in his life. He didn’t know the difference between disorganized and organized serial killers.”