Twenty-four

You sure about this, darlin’?

The voice inside her head had been trying to talk her out of her meeting with Croft for hours now. Logic told her it was just her subconscious warning her Croft couldn’t be trusted. That the last time she’d trusted him she’d regretted it, but now, as then, she ignored the warning. Meeting Croft was risky but so was refusing him. He’d recognized her. If he wanted to make trouble for her, he could … and it would be the last thing he ever did.

In the end, she’d decided to try honesty for a change and tell Church what was going on. She’d been less than pleased to find out they hadn’t even made it a full twenty-four hours into their investigation before she’d been recognized. “Let me go instead, I’ll find out what he wants,” she’d said in the same easy tone she’d use to describe garroting someone. “Report back before you know it.”

Now there’s an idea. Let your new partner do your dirty work.

“Yeah—would that be before or after you killed him?” she said while she pulled on the only t-shirt she’d packed, along with a pair of worn jeans.

Church shrugged. “Probably after.”

Sabrina shook her head. “Working with you is like working with a psychotic toddler, you know that right?”

“Thanks,” she said, sounding genuinely pleased by the comparison. “What does he want, anyway?”

It’s about Wade.

Suddenly, her new honesty policy began to chafe. “He didn’t really say—just that it was important.”

“So, he wants to meet you but won’t say why?” Church shook her head, skeptical. Whether it was because she didn’t trust Croft or because she could sense the lie, Sabrina couldn’t tell. “Smells fishy, Kitten. Just stay here, let me take care of it.”

Sabrina laughed. She couldn’t help it. The truly insane part of it all was that for a few seconds, she actually considered it. “This is where I’ll be,” she said, bending over to write Luck’s address across the hotel notepad tossed on the nightstand. “If I’m not back by midnight, you can kill him—deal?”

Suddenly all business, Church glared at her. “I’m being serious, Sabrina. I was sent here to do a job and despite my recent lackluster performance concerning your family, I do my fucking job.”

“Your job is to make sure that the fact I’m alive remains a secret,” she said, applying logic to the situation. “Croft isn’t going to sell me out without at least telling me what he wants … besides, he played it smart. He approached a local officer and asked him to deliver a message to me.” She shook her head while she shoved her foot into first one boot and then the other. “Croft isn’t stupid. Someone knows he’s here,” she said, jerking hard on her boot laces, pulling them tight. “If he disappears or turns up dead, that little note he passed to me is gonna pop up. That uniform will remember and he’ll say something and then I’ll be questioned. If that happens, it’ll only be a matter of time before everyone knows who I really am.”

Church glared at her for a few seconds before flopping back on the bed. “Fine, if you’re gonna be all logical about it.” She sighed. “Midnight—and not one minute past.”

–––––

Exiting the car, Sabrina could see nothing about the place had changed. Large, rumbling tractor-trailers waited in line at the weigh station while others filled up on gas for the next leg of their trip. She could see lot lizards—what truckers called prostitutes who frequented truck stops—moving from parked vehicle to parked vehicle, looking for someone to buy what they were selling.

Someone ought to warn them about how dangerous it is out here for a woman, all by herself …

She walked across the expansive parking lot, dodging raindrops on her way to the brightly lit brick and glass building. Sabrina yanked open the door, setting off the automated chime. Out of nowhere, a perky hostess appeared. She was young, almost as young as she’d been when she worked here. Her starched, white uniform looked brand-new and the bright green four-leaf clover on her breast pocket had the name Lauren stitched across the front of it. Twenty years and the uniforms hadn’t changed.

Behind her, a man in a pair of dress slacks and a white button-down wiped down the lunch counter. The badge clipped to his shirt was engraved with the name Manny. It took only a few seconds to recognize him as the busboy she used to work the late shift with.

He stood taller than she remembered, thicker around the middle. Softer. Gray threaded through the dark hair he’d always kept short, but he essentially looked the same. He turned toward her just a bit, still wiping at the counter. She could see his badge had the word manager under his name.

“Can I get you a booth, sweetie?”

The hostess was talking to her, calling her sweetie, even though she was practically old enough to be her mother. “Yes,” she said, glancing at the large shamrock-shaped clock that still hung over the counter area. It was a quarter to ten. “I’m meeting someone—”

“Oh,” the hostess said brightly, tucking the menus back into their holder. “Is it a gentleman? Dark hair? Dreamy brown eyes?”

Dreamy? As far as she was concerned, Croft was about as dreamy as a bout of dysentery, but she nodded. “That’s him.”

Of course Croft beat her here. He had an annoying habit of always being two steps ahead of everyone else. He was like Ben that way.

“He’s waiting for you in back,” the hostess cocked her head to the side, jerking it toward the back of the restaurant. Croft was sitting in a corner booth, watching her. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Ain’t too late, darlin’. You can still leave. Let that crazy gal kill ’im before he mucks everything up.

She thought about the last text Croft sent her. It’s about Wade. Croft was reckless but he didn’t have a death wish. No way he’d play that card unless it was true.

“Coffee would be great,” she said, moving in the direction the hostess had indicated. The closer she got, the more uncomfortable Croft seemed to get. Whether it was from the hostile glare she was giving him or if he was having second thoughts about asking her to meet, it was hard to tell.

“What?” she said, sliding across the worn vinyl bench. Sitting on the seat next to him was a cardboard banker’s box. The kind you used to store paperwork.

“Hello to you too,” he said, a wry smile lifting the corner of his mouth, his dark gaze folding over her, appraising her. “You look good for a dead woman.”

“I don’t really qualify my appearance as important, Croft.” She sat forward a bit and dropped her voice. “So maybe you should just tell me what this is about before I lose my patience.”

“Huh,” he said, giving her a one-note chuckle. “It’s been awhile —I forgot how patently unpleasant you can be.”

This was a mistake. She moved to stand but he stopped her, one of his arms shooting across the table to wrap a hand around her forearm. “Wait—”

The look she gave him caused him to yank his hand back before he could blink.

“I’m sorry—I forgot. No touching.” He flattened his hands against the table and leaned away from her. “It’s just …” He let his words die out, giving the hostess a flat, polite smile as she deposited her coffee onto the table between them. As soon as she was gone, he continued. “I was surprised to see you, although I don’t know why—this isn’t exactly the first time you’ve faked your own death.”

“Don’t ever say that out loud again,” she said, dropping her voice low as she leaned across the table. “Not unless you’re tired of living.”

Croft opened his mouth like was going to say something but then thought better of it. He let it snap shut before giving her a curt nod. Like she’d told Church, he wasn’t stupid. He knew there was no way she could’ve pulled off her disappearance alone. Not again. Not with Michael involved.

“Now,” she said, lifting her coffee cup to her mouth to take a sip, “what are you doing here?” She lowered her cup. “No, wait—let me guess. You’re following a story.”

Croft shifted in his seat, lacing and relacing his fingers on the tabletop. “I’m not a reporter anymore.” His elbow bumped against the box sitting next to him. “It’s—I …” He looked away from her, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’m writing a book. True crime. About Wade Bauer.”

Well, look at me. I’m gonna be famous.

Sabrina felt her gut clench, instantly rebelling against the coffee she’d just drank. “Of course you are,” she said, setting the cup down with a sharp click. Her gaze fell to the box, imagining what was inside. She suddenly didn’t want to know. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Aside from the obvious?” Croft shrugged. “Nothing.” He sighed, letting his gaze find hers again before he continued. “But I’ve been doing a lot of research. Interviewed friends and family. Trying to get a handle on it. What he did. Why he did it.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. “Is that all? I can answer both questions in short order. Wade abducted, raped, and tortured nineteen women. He played with them. Chased them down like animals and then, when he couldn’t control himself anymore, he stabbed them to death before leaving them in the woods to rot. As for why—”

I did it—all of it—because of you. Because you ran from me. All those girls are dead because of you. Their pain. Their suffering … that’s on you, Melissa—every single second of it.

She swallowed hard, forcing down the surge of rage that suddenly gripped her. “He did it because he could. Because he wanted to. Because no one stopped him.”

“I contacted his wife. Shelly Bauer.” The words sounded like an apology. Like it was something he regretted.

“I knew Shelly.” She’d been Shelly Keene back then—and Jed Carson’s girlfriend. How she’d gone from one best friend to the other was a mystery. One Sabrina hadn’t given much consideration. Things like that happened in small towns like Jessup. “She hated me back then. I can’t imagine that’s changed, seeing how I shot her husband in the face.”

Croft blanched slightly, letting her know exactly how right she was. “She didn’t want to talk to me about you or Wade … didn’t want to talk to me about anything, actually.” His hands went still again. “But she sold me the key to a storage locker in Marshall for two thousand dollars.”

His admission brought her gaze to the banker’s box beside him. The hair on her arms stood up and she suddenly realized Wade had gone quiet inside her head. Like he was waiting. “What’s in the box, Croft?”

Realizing he had the upper hand, he took the opportunity to ask a question of his own. “He’s the reason you’re here, isn’t he? Wade—he’s connected to the murders. The crime scene I saw you at today.” He pushed his shoulder off the back of the booth, his tone hushed and eager. “It’s got something to do with him.”

“You may not be a reporter anymore, Croft, but you still get this excited gleam in your eye when you smell a juicy story.” She sat back, forcing her jaw to loosen as she folded her arms across her chest. “It’s kinda disgusting.”

He jerked back in his seat, rubbing his hand across his mouth like she’d punched him in it. “People have a right to know the truth. To be able to find a way to move past it.” He leaned forward again, having the sense to drop his voice before he continued. “Not everyone has the luxury of just disappearing from their lives without a trace when shit goes south.”

Fuck this. “I hope you die in a fire,” she said, moving to leave.

“Letters,” he blurted out, grabbing at her with his words, nailing her in place. “They’re letters. Newspaper clippings. Sent from someone here in Yuma, to a PO box in Marshall. Wade’s PO box.”

“You’re lying.” She said it plainly, sounding more certain than she actually felt. “No one here knew Wade or what he did to me. No one.”

Croft shook his head, his jaw set at a tight angle. “Not no one. Someone knew. They’re tons of them. Whoever wrote them claims to have seen him the night he left you at the church. Describes it to a tee. What he wore. Where he left you … right down to the description of the blanket he covered you up with.”

Each word sucked more and more oxygen out of her lungs. Spun it away from her, made it impossible to reclaim. She recalled none of it. The caustic sting of bleach when Wade washed traces of himself off her skin. The darkness of the trunk he’d put her in. The frigid bite of the cement bench he’d left her on. But someone else did. She’d filled in those blanks on her own, but …

Someone else saw it all.

“Is everything okay here?”

She looked up to find Manny standing over them, coffeepot in hand. She forced herself to smile and nod. Looking past him she could see several diners glancing nervously in their direction. “Everything’s great, thank you.” She shot a look at Croft across the table and he nodded in agreement.

Manny wasn’t buying it. “Just try to keep it down, okay?” he said, tipping more coffee into her mug. “I don’t want to have to ask you to leave.”

She nodded, not really trusting herself to speak. As soon as Manny was gone, she leveled a look at Croft.

“He idolized Wade,” he told her, confirming her worst fears. “They wrote back and forth. Talked about … things.”

Something cold did a slow crawl under her skin and she fought the urge to brush it away. “What sort of things?”

“You,” Croft said, that excited gleam in his eye replaced by something that looked almost like regret. Like he wished he’d never started down this path. The one that led him to her and the story of what Wade had done to her. For a moment, he looked like he wished he’d never heard her name. “They mostly talked about you.” He didn’t have to tell her anymore than that. She understood what that meant.

“None of that explains why you asked me to meet you here,” she said, her voice so flat and calm, the sound of it terrified her.

“Really?” Croft gave her an exasperated shake of his head. “Okay, let me spell it out for you: the guy who wrote to Wade is the same guy who’s been killing people here for the past year. He’s picking up where your brother left off.”