The Bone Forest Page 9

  “Wren thinks I am,” said Hawk.

  “She told you that.” Reilly’s voice was flat. Why would Wren do that? She seemed smarter than that. He sighed.

  “It’s because of the girls,” said Hawk. “They’re the same age she was when David tried to pair us up.”

  “What?” Reilly was thoroughly confused.

  Hawk didn’t explain. He just kept talking. “But it doesn’t mean anything. I mean, it’s more significant to her, I think. Girls were always in that nine-to-thirteen age range when they became initiates, and so anyone who was doing it might be connecting to that. She keeps asking me for an alibi, and I told her that I spend Saturdays with Major Hill, but she said he was a suspect, too, so that wasn’t good enough.”

  “That’s the only alibi you have?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember what I was doing on those dates.” He shrugged.

  Reilly was having real trouble squelching the urge to punch this guy or something. It was a weird, visceral sort of reaction to the man. “What did you mean by pair up?”

  Hawk laughed. “Oh, seriously? That’s what you’re upset about?”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “Okay.” Hawk reached into the pocket of his unbuttoned shirt and came out with a pack of cigarettes. He tapped one out, proffering it to Reilly.

  “No, thanks,” said Reilly.

  Hawk lit the cigarette. “David Song, he was one twisted motherfucker. Apparently, using young girls as currency, it’s a thing that cult leaders do. What’s that guy with the polygamy? Something Jeffs? He kept going younger and younger, right? David did the same thing. But I think that Wren’s mother had something to do with Wren getting placed with me, because her mom knew that I was not going to touch a hair on that kid’s head. Vivian, she was a piece of work, but she did care about Wren. Maybe not enough, but more than she cared about anyone else, you know? I felt like I was entrusted to keep Wren safe. But it wasn’t long after all that that the murders came to light and everything got broken up. David disappeared. Vivian went to jail. So, there wasn’t any pairing. Pretty sure Wren’s single if you want to ask her out.”

  Reilly’s head was reeling, trying to process all that information, which was making him feel sort of sick to his stomach, and then that little dig from Hawk.

  He glared at the other man.

  Hawk lifted his chin.

  The urge to punch Hawk was even stronger than it had been.

  Reilly’s jaw twitched. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Marner. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Oh, are we done?” said Hawk. “Already?”

  Reilly backed away from the door. “We’ll speak again, I’m sure.”

  “Looking forward to it.” Hawk smiled lopsidedly. “A pleasure, detective.”

  Reilly turned on his heel and stalked off before he really did turn around start punching that smile off the other man’s face. Something about Hawk, it was off.

  * * *

  “Dad,” Wren sighed into the phone. “I swear, I’m fine.”

  “Are you?” he said on the other side of the phone. “Where are you, sweetheart? You haven’t been returning my texts or my calls or anything. Thanks for finally picking up the phone.”

  “I just… I didn’t know what to say yet.”

  “I’m sorry I told you,” said her dad. “If I’d known it was going to upset you so much, I would have kept it to myself forever, because it doesn’t change anything. No matter what, you’re still my daughter. You always will be.”

  “I know that,” she said quietly.

  “If you know that, come home,” said her dad.

  “It’s not home, Dad, not anymore. I’m twenty-five years old. I moved out a long time ago.”

  “Well, you could stay here for a while, though, just until you get back on your feet.”

  “I’ve actually got myself a job.”

  “Oh?” Her dad was surprised. “Doing what?”

  “A consultant for a task force.”

  “Task force? Like a police task force?”

  “Yeah, we’re investigating a serial killer, just like I was studying to do,” said Wren.

  “Who would hire you to a task force? I’m confused.”

  “You don’t think I can do it?”

  “Are you making something up because you don’t want to come home?”

  “No,” she said, annoyed. “Besides, I did come home, and then everything got weird.” She’d barely been back for a day before her father dropped the bomb on her that he wasn’t her father, not in the biological sense. Apparently, even though her father had been paired off with Vivian, they had never been together in a physical way. They had an agreement about it. Vivian had known he was gay and offered the arrangement as a way for her to appear stable while she was still having affairs with numerous men and for him to hide his gayness. So, someone was Wren’s father, but it wasn’t the man she’d always called dad.

  After all the things that had happened at the Academy and how untethered she felt, finding this information out was too much for her.

  “I’m sorry,” said her father. “I felt like I should tell you, because I felt guilty for keeping it from you for all these years.”

  “Dad, I get it. I know why you told me,” she said. She was actually surprised it had hit her so hard. Her dad was right. It didn’t really change anything. He was still legally her father. She had his last name, and his name was on her birth certificate. And he had always taken care of her. He had fed and clothed and housed her. He had single-handedly footed the bill for her college degree. (In-state tuition at a state school, so it wasn’t exorbitant. It was still significant, however.) He was her father, even if they didn’t share DNA.

  But somehow, it was a horrible blow to find out that they weren’t blood related. She felt untethered in a vast world. What was she connected to, then? Vivian was in jail. Her father wasn’t her father.

  And then she got another of those calls from that man claiming to be David Song. He told her to come home.

  She’d packed up the next day and headed back to the compound. She was connected to this place. This was home, not her dad’s place.

  “But you’re angry with me,” said her dad.

  “I’m not angry,” she said. “I have… things to figure out.”

  “And you’re doing that by chasing serial killers?”

  “You remember the bodies they were finding in Cardinal Falls?” she said. “We heard about it on the news together. You remember that?”

  “You went back to Cardinal Falls?” Her father was horrified.

  “I had to, Daddy.” She hadn’t called him Daddy in years, but it just slipped out.

  “Are you looking for your biological father?” He sounded sad. “Because whoever that sperm donor is, he never stepped up and took responsibility for you.”

  “No, it’s not about that,” she said. Of course, maybe part of it was about that. Maybe she did want to know where she came from.

  “It’s because I failed you,” he said. “When David Song sent you off to be with a man when you were just a little girl—”

  “Dad, I’ve told you a zillion times nothing happened!” Her voice was sharp.

  “You blame me,” he said. “I should have stopped it. I should have taken you out of there in the middle of the night—”

  “Taken me away from Vivian? That would never have happened. Besides, you believed in David Song, everyone did. I don’t blame you. I’m fine.”

  “If you were fine, you wouldn’t have dropped out of the FBI Academy. Come home, sweetheart. Let me take care of you.”

  “I can’t. I have to take care of myself now.”

  “You’re not too old to be taken care of.”

  “I need to do this on my own, Dad. I’m sorry, but I do.”

  * * *

  Reilly paced in his apartment after he got home. He needed to go to bed, but he couldn’t. He was trying to figure out what it was about that conversation with Hawk
that had gotten him so riled up. Did it mean that Hawk was guilty?

  And why was Wren having a hard time seeing that asshole clearly? She wasn’t involved with him or something, was she? Reilly knew that people could get stupid about people they had entanglements with, but Hawk had said there was no pairing.

  Not only that, the story he’d told about David Song and girls and pairing off was downright disturbing. The more he learned about Wren Delacroix’s past, the more he felt a dull rage building at the back of his skull.

  People did such horrible shit to other people sometimes. It made him crazy.

  He decided not to talk to Wren about what Hawk had told him. It was the kind of thing that put them on unequal footing. It made her a victim. It weakened her. If she wanted to tell him about it, then she would retain her power over it. But he wasn’t going to dredge it up and make her relive it all.

  Had Hawk abused Wren when she was a little girl? Was that what Reilly sensed when he was close to the other man? Something rotten and evil within him?

  Could be.

  If so, Wren was right. Hawk was their best suspect.

  And if Wren had problems seeing him clearly, it was because he was in her head somehow, still manipulating her, still abusing her.

  Maybe Reilly had to say something to her about it.

  Right, sure. Like, what would he say? “So, were you molested as a child?” He kicked over the trash can in his kitchen, angry.

  Then he had to kneel down and stuff the trash back inside.

  Damn it all.

  Somehow, he finally managed to get into bed and then get some uneasy sleep. The next morning, he went to the coffee shop, intending to buy Wren a coffee. But Angela said that Wren had already come and gone, so Reilly just bought himself a drink and headed into the task force headquarters.

  Maliah was in her office. She did the electronic work for the task force. If they needed email traced or a person’s digital footprint looked up, she was the woman for the job. She also doubled as IT if any of the computers broke.

  She gave him a little wave as he went past. She winked at him.

  He didn’t wave back. Why had he ever gotten involved with that woman? He wasn’t the sort of man who cheated, at least that was what he’d always thought. But then, there he was, doing it. It wasn’t even about his wife or his relationship, either. It was about… something else. A feeling of inadequacy and impotency and frustration. And somehow, when he was with Maliah, he didn’t feel that way.

  But it had been wrong, and the fact that his life had been destroyed in the wake of it, that was an apt punishment for him.

  He only wished his ex-wife had been so hurt by it as well, because she was innocent, and she didn’t deserve it.

  “Hey,” called Maliah. “Cai!”

  He paused in the middle of the hallway, nostrils flaring. He backed up. Stood in her doorway. “Maybe you should call me Reilly,” he said in a low, tight voice.

  Maliah shrugged. “Whatever. You know those websites you’ve been having me track? I got a hit on something.”

  “Oh, okay.” He stepped into the office, interested. Then he halted. “Wait, let me go get Wren. She should see this too.”

  Maliah made a face. “You want her in my office?”

  “Come on, Maliah,” he said.

  She sighed.

  * * *

  Wren squinted at the computer screen. “So, wait, who is this guy?”

  “He’s just a random crazy,” said Maliah. “He lives in Virginia, out in the boonies on a lot of land. He’s some kind of freaky homesteading weirdo. Half of his posts are about how to get your chickens to lay more eggs or how to use your own shit as compost.”

  “Yuck,” said Wren.

  “He’s also way into the murders,” said Maliah. “He’s got a post up about the last victim, Vada.” She gestured at the screen.

  “What’s he saying, exactly?” said Reilly.

  “Oh, he thinks that killing a little girl is somehow a political statement,” said Maliah. “He thinks that by taking the children of the evil lost generation, then it’s in the service of God and bringing about a new Eden on earth.”

  “He said the lost generation?” said Wren. “Those words?”

  “Yup,” said Maliah, pointing to the screen.

  “That’s jargon from the FCL, huh?” said Reilly. “Was this guy ever a member?”

  “No,” said Maliah. “Never.”

  “What about those people who Wren said were part of the cult, but ran?” said Reilly. “Uh, one of the names was Devon?”

  “Yeah, Devon and Roger Green,” said Wren. “They were a couple. And also members of the Fellowship.”

  “I looked into those people for you,” said Maliah, clicking down the window she had open and getting something else open. “Jared Follows is dead. Apparent suicide a few years back.”

  “Oh, geez,” said Wren.

  “Devon and Roger live in Baltimore,” said Maliah.

  “Okay, we need to pay them a visit,” said Reilly. “Maybe later today?” He raised his eyebrows at Wren.

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  “But about the website,” said Maliah.

  “Sorry,” said Reilly. “Didn’t mean to get us off track. Go ahead.”

  “I pulled it, because he said something about the girl being a sacrificial initiate,” said Maliah. She turned to Wren. “You said the girl was dressed like an initiate.”

  “That’s true,” said Wren.

  “And that’s information we’re not giving to the press,” said Reilly. “We’re keeping that to ourselves. So, if this guy knows that…”

  “Possibly, he’s the killer,” said Maliah.

  Reilly nodded. “All right, we’ll officially file him under suspect. Good work, Maliah. Good eye. Keep it up.”

  She winked. “Sure thing, Cai.”

  He grimaced.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wren knocked on the door at the apartment building in Baltimore where Devon and Roger Green were supposed to live. It hadn’t been nearly as long a drive to Baltimore as it had been to Richmond, so she was glad of that. When she had lived in Cardinal Falls as a kid, they had never left the compound, so she wasn’t really sure how far away anything was from the place.

  Reilly was standing behind her, not facing the door, instead looking out at the street where his car was parked. He seemed nervous. “This is a really shitty neighborhood.”

  “Yeah,” said Wren. The apartment building was pretty rundown.

  “I’m worried about leaving the car,” said Reilly. “I should have asked for black and white with lights. I bet Lopez would have given it to me for the day.”

  There was no answer. Wren knocked again.

  The door didn’t seem to be latched. The knocking jarred it and it opened an inch.

  “Nah,” said Reilly. “That probably would have been a bad call, because people would have fucked up the cop car. Maybe they’ll leave my car alone.”

  The door creaked a little, opening up another inch.

  Reilly turned back around. “You opened the door?”

  “No, it wasn’t latched,” she said. “I just knocked, but I must have gotten it open that way.”

  “Huh,” said Reilly. “Hello?” he called into the apartment. “Roger Green? Devon Green? Anyone home?”

  Silence from within.

  But there was a tired yellow light inside.

  Reilly glanced at Wren, a questioning look on his face.

  She shrugged. She wasn’t sure what to do in a situation like this.

  Reilly pushed the door open.

  They stepped inside.

  They were in a kitchen, with a dirty white tile floor. The sink was piled high with dishes and there were flies buzzing all over them.

  The smell was putrefying.

  Reilly flinched.

  Wren ducked her head down.

  “Roger?” Reilly called again. “Devon?”

  Wren looked back out through th
e door at the sliver of daylight outside the apartment, at Reilly’s car parked on the street. It looked welcoming. She had a strong urge to run back outside, out of this place, and not to stay.

  But Reilly was already going further into the apartment.

  She swallowed, and then she went after him.

  Reilly took out his gun, just like he had at David Song’s house.

  They entered a tiny living room, which had an old couch stuffed into it and a TV mounted on the wall crookedly. The coffee table was covered in dirty plates, discarded food wrappers, and overflowing ashtrays. The smell in here was just as bad as in the kitchen, maybe worse.

  They walked through the living room and into a small hallway.

  On one side, there was a bathroom.

  Reilly stepped inside. He pulled back the curtain of the shower, and there was someone in the bathtub.

  A male someone, face down, clad in a dirty tank top and a pair of jeans. He wasn’t moving.

  “Hello?” said Reilly in a soft voice.

  Wren licked her lips. That man was dead. She just knew he was. He was dead, and when Reilly rolled him over, it was going to be bad. Some kind of grotesque wounds, probably so old that they’d been infested by those flies in the kitchen, maggots squirming in the man’s sockets and orifices—

  The man moved.

  Wren screamed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The man sat up in the bathtub, rubbing his eyes. He was dirty and unkempt and he didn’t smell good, but he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even hurt. “Who the fuck are you?” he said.

  Reilly was surprised too. He was trying to put his gun back in his holster, but he was having trouble lining it up. “I’m, uh, Detective Caius Reilly. This is my associate, Wren Delacroix. We’re—”

  “Little Wren Delacroix?” The man got to his feet, wobbling a little, his voice eager.

  Wren recognized him now. She knew him from the bonfires. It had been a long time ago, though. He had changed. “Hi, Roger,” she said.

  “Well, what the hell are you doing here?” said Roger, grinning widely at her. He was missing one of his teeth.

  “I, uh, we’re just doing some routine investigation,” said Wren. “It’s about the murders back in Cardinal Falls. You’ve heard? There’s someone killing little girls.”