Carved in Darkness (14 page)

Ding, ding—round two.
“Hey.”

Val stood where she was for a second before coming toward her. She dropped a pair of socks and a sweatshirt into her lap.

“I know you’d rather freeze than come inside when you’ve got a class-A brood going on,” Val said.

She shot a look across the yard before she understood. Val thought she was refusing to come in because they were fighting. “I’m not brooding. I’m thinking.” She pulled on the socks.

“Same diff.” Val sat down on the chaise across from her and looked at the dog. “Dog-napping again, I see?”

She tugged the sweatshirt down over her chest. “He ’napped himself—what am I supposed to do?”

“Fill in the tunnel he dug behind the hydrangeas?”

“Did you really come out here to fight with me about the neighbor’s dog?”

Val sighed. She picked up Sabrina’s wine and drank the last of it. “No. I came out here as an exercise in futility.”

“Uh, oh—in that case I’m gonna need more wine.” She stood, but Val’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist. She gave it a tug, but her friend held firm. Val was the only person who could get away with grabbing her like that without consequence, and they both knew it. Val pulled her back down until she was once again sitting across from her, but she didn’t let go.

“Something’s going on. Don’t bother lying—you’re terrible at it.”

She pulled a hurt look. “I happen to be an excellent liar.”

“Not when it comes to me.”

She yanked her arm out of Val’s grip and settled back into her seat. “I got tossed off the job today for that shit that went down with Sanford.” She pinned the blame on him without guilt. There was no need to tell Val she skipped out on her psych sessions.

“Is that why he was here?”

“You saw that?”
So much for flying below radar.

“Yeah, I saw that. I also saw the guy you were talking to after he left. Who was he?” Val asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some guy walking by who happened to catch the show.” There was no need to get Val riled up. She could handle O’Shea on her own.

Val wasn’t buying it. “Who was he, Sabrina?”

I wish I knew
. “I told you, just some guy.”

“You looked pretty angry for someone who was talking to just some random guy.”

“I
was
angry. I had to chase Sanford off our front lawn at gun point,” she said, but Val just stared at her. Frustration and fear had kept her stretched thin all day. She finally snapped. “What do you want from me?” She threw her arms in the air, practically shouting.

“The truth. For once, goddamn it, tell me the truth,” Val said, her voice just as loud.

Sabrina’s mouth snapped shut, and they glared at each other. Tears stung her eyes. She ignored them. “The truth … okay. The truth is, fifteen years ago today, the girl I used to be was kidnapped. For eighty-two days she was raped and tortured. For eighty-two days, things were done to her that I will
never
talk about. And then on the eighty-third day, she was murdered.” She swallowed hard, shoving memories and emotions aside. “Melissa is gone. She’s dead, and I’m all that’s left. I can’t be her. I
won’t
be her. Not for you—not for anybody, so … if you can’t handle that, then you should just leave.” It was the most she’d ever talked about her disappearance. For a moment, all Val could do was stare at her.

Then Val shook her head. “You know what? Fuck you.” She stood and glared down at her. “We’re in this together, you and me. I don’t run. You taught me that.
You
—not Melissa. I know who you are and who you aren’t, so you can take your lone-wolf speech and shove it up your ass.” Val walked back into the house and slammed the door shut behind her.

TWENTY

M
ICHAEL WAS CERTAIN SHE’D
cancel her standing date with the law student. He was surprised when the flood light she had set on a motion sensor clicked on and he caught sight of him trotting his ass up the third story landing on the side of the house. The kid straightened his shirt and knocked on the exterior door leading to her bedroom. He was holding something …
Christ, are those flowers?

“You’ve gotta be kidding.” He glanced at his watch—eleven o’clock. Right on time. When she answered the door, they got down to business. Five minutes later the bedroom light clicked off, leaving only the bathroom light to see by. The bed, and what was going on in it, was thankfully cast in shadows.

The phone on his hip let out a chirp. It was Tom.

“Did you call Carson? What did he say?”

Tom was quiet for a second. He cleared his throat. “I can’t find him. Looked high and low. He’s nowhere to be found,” Tom said.

“What? What do you mean you can’t find him?”

“I mean, I can’t find him. I tried the station, his house, every bar and roadhouse between here and Marshall. Hell, I even checked his parent’s house. He’s gone.”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up. Jed Carson was gone, and so was Lucy. This was it, the proof he needed: justification to kill Carson.

“What about Wade? Zeke?” he said, mentioning Carson’s uniformed officers.

“Zeke’s at the station, holding down the fort. I harassed him into driving out to Lucy’s place with me.”

“And?”

“Nothing. He went inside, said everything looked fine, neat as a pin. No signs of a struggle, no signs of a robbery. He’s convinced she went to Shreveport—hell, it’s even marked on her calendar. Said if we don’t hear from her in a couple of days, he’d file a missing person’s report.”

“
A couple of days
? What the hell kind of good is that going to do? She’s in trouble Tom, I don’t give a shit what her calendar says. I know it,” he said, his tone hard and even. “What about Wade? You find him?”

And where the hell are Wade and Carson?”

“Wade’s gone too.”

Both of them? What the fuck was going on? Before he could ask, Tom pushed on. “I talked to Shelly. She said Wade left for work this morning as soon as she got home from the hospital. From what Zeke would tell me, he sent her a text around noon saying that he and Carson were headed up to Caddo to do some fishing.” Shelly, Wade’s wife was a pediatric nurse at Good Shepherd in Marshall. And she was pregnant with their first child. No way Wade just disappears on her like that. Not without a good reason.

“Fishing? They just loaded up the poles on a random Monday and skipped town? Bullshit.” That Wade was also gone meant nothing. He and Jed had been best friends since grade school. Wade followed Jed around like a puppy. He’d do anything Jed said—no questions asked. Even if it involved dumping Lucy’s body in Caddo Lake.

“It’s a hardly a random Monday. For any of us.” Tom said.

He was right. From what Tom had told him, Carson had lost it when Melissa disappeared. He’d come home from college and never went back. “I still don’t buy it,” he said stubbornly. “Why not tell Zeke or Shelly they were leaving? Whatever they’re doing, wherever they went, they didn’t want anyone to know until they were already gone.”

“Yeah, well, unfortunately, if you’re going to accuse the police chief of murder and his number one of offering a false alibi, you’re gonna need more than a gut feeling.” Tom’s voice was tight with anger. “When are you coming back? I’m probably gonna need help strong-arming Zeke into filing that missing person’s if Lucy doesn’t show up soon.”

Lucy. He was torn between his need to get back to Jessup and the promise he made her.

“I’m on a job … I can’t leave for a few days.” At least. He’d promised Lucy he’d stay the entire month, but if anything happened to her, all bets were off. “Besides, I’m the last person Zeke is gonna listen to.” How many times had Zeke tossed his ass in the back of his squad car and taken him to the station to sleep it off? Hauled him up the front porch steps at three a.m. to turn him over to an angry Sophia and worried Sean? Too many to count. Zeke knew him too well to take anything he had to say seriously.

“We need to find Carson,” Tom said.

“Caddo Lake State Park is almost a thousand square miles of wetland, Tom. If he
is
there, we ain’t finding him.” The frustration he felt had him raising the bottle to his mouth, but he lowered it without taking a drink. “Our best bet is to look for Lucy. Do you know where her sister lives?” He knew he was grasping at straws. Lucy wasn’t at her sister’s; Lucy was dead, but he couldn’t give up on her. Not yet.

“I never met her. All I know is her name is Loraine, and she lives in Shreveport,” Tom said.

“I’ll get you an address by morning.” He wedged the bottle between his knees and swiped a hand over his face. Getting an address meant calling Lark. Calling Lark meant listening to his bullshit.

“Where are you?” Tom never asked where he was—usually knew better—but he seemed surprised that work would take precedence over Lucy’s disappearance.

In a rented room, watching your high-school sweetheart play naked rodeo with her flavor of the month.
“Nowhere special. Look, I’m gonna try to get some shut-eye. I’ll give you a call in the morning. If you hear something—”

“Yeah, I’ll call,” Tom said before hanging up.

TWENTY
-
ONE

S
ABRINA ROLLED OVER AND
stared at the ceiling, listening to Matt’s heavy breathing from where he lay next to her on her bed. She’d made a mistake. She should’ve called him and cancelled. He was a sweet kid, good in bed—undemanding, willing to follow her lead, too busy to feel slighted over unreturned calls. Perfect for her, really. She used him because he was okay with it, but she could see that was changing.

He’d brought her flowers.

“So … what do you think?” Matt said. He reached for her hand, splayed her fingers to link them with his own. She wanted to bolt off the bed and tell him to get the hell out, but she stayed put, forcing herself to at least appear calm.

“What? I’m sorry, I must’ve zoned out. I didn’t hear what you said.” That was a lie. She’d heard him. She was just hoping he’d rethink his question.

“I said maybe I could stay the night. Be kinda nice to wake up next to each other for a change.” The second the words left his mouth, Sabrina knew their casual, no-strings affair was over. They didn’t do sleepovers. They didn’t do flowers and holding hands. He came over, they had sex, and he left—that was it. All she wanted. All she had in her to want.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Early roll-call.” Another lie. She didn’t have anything to look forward to tomorrow except watching
Family Feud
in her underwear and eating Cap’n Crunch straight out of the box.

“That’s okay. I’ve got a nine a.m. study group. I can lock up when I leave,” he said, willing to take any crumb she tossed his way. It made her feel angry and guilty all at once, and she couldn’t help but think of Nickels. The way he’d looked at her in the hallway outside Richards’s office and again, later on, when he’d tried to get her to confide in him.

Matt, Nickels, O’Shea. Even Strickland. They all wanted things from her she just couldn’t give.

“Sabrina—”

“Sounds great. Let’s shoot for next time.” She stood and pulled on a pair of boy shorts in addition to the tank she was already wearing. She never took her shirt off during sex, and Matt had never asked why. The majority of her scars had faded with time, and what hadn’t was easily explained away by the hazards of her job. But there was no explaining what had been done to her stomach. Looking down, she saw the bouquet of daises he’d ambushed her with was on the floor, next to his pants. She kicked them under the bed.

“I’m gonna hit the shower. Lock the door on your way out,” she said, heading for the bathroom. She shut the door between them before he could offer to join her. She was hurting him, but she didn’t care.

Her hands shook so hard that she fumbled with the lock for a few seconds before forcing it into compliance. She cranked on the shower and sat on the side of the tub, listening for the faint sounds of him dressing and leaving. She was unable to take a deep breath until she heard the quiet click of the door, signaling his departure.

Her hands slowed from a fast rattle to a pathetic twitch.
Next time?
There wouldn’t be a next time. She’d dodge his calls, delete his voicemails, make vague excuses, and avoid him like the plague. Eventually, he’d get the hint and give up. That was the type of guy he was. The only type she’d allow herself to become involved with.

She stood over the sink and removed her coffee-colored contacts. The eyes staring back at her didn’t belong to her. They were dark, sapphire blue. They were Melissa’s eyes.

They made her sick.

She backed away from the sink and lowered herself to the edge of the tub again. Her hands picked up the pace—they were jittering so hard she had to trap them between her knees to keep them still. She closed her eyes and took a few shaky breaths. She was fine. She was safe.