Chasing Thunder (36 page)

Stuart and Katherine shared a look. Finally, Katherine answered. “She doesn’t have friends. She stays to herself. It started about a year ago, shortly after we got married. It was my third marriage, and she didn’t acclimate well to our moving to Wilmington. Honestly, she never really got over my second marriage, either. She’s a classic introvert who folded into herself no matter how hard we tried to assimilate her with new family and friends. As far as we knew, she went to school and came straight home, without any real human interaction in between.”

“How about online?”

Both shook their heads. “We are fairly strict parents, Chief Bennett,” Stuart answered. “We know how dangerous it is out there for someone as innocent and naïve as Haley. Maybe that was why she felt as though she needed to run away as far as she could possibly go.”

Richard nodded as he stood. “Well, we are doing the best that we can. I know that doesn’t make the waiting any easier.”

Stuart was immediately put off. “So that’s it, then? We go back to the hotel and pray that you find her before the killer does?”

“You can pray,” Richard conceded. “Or you can search your memory for any clue possible that will help us find your daughter.” He stood. “But the longer you berate me, the more precious minutes we lose.”

Katherine’s breath caught in her throat in a hiccupping sob. She grabbed Stuart’s hand, and he stood a little straighter as he nodded at the Chief. “Very well. Just do your job, Bennett. But know this. If my daughter comes to harm, there will be hell to pay.”

Richard watched them exit his office. With a sigh, he opened up the top drawer of his desk, taking out a frame holding one of his many commendations. He flipped it over, removed the backing of the frame, and revealed a faded photo hidden behind the certificate.

It was a picture of his wife, Marty, taken in November 1985. Her vibrant red hair was matted against her scalp as she held a ruddy newborn to her bare breast. She smiled at the camera victoriously, and he found himself absently returning her smile. He traced her face with a delicate fingertip. When had he forgotten how she felt? How she smelled? How her voice sounded when she first woke up in the morning, snuggling up against him with that sleepy smile?

“They” say that time heals all wounds, but Richard knew all too well that was bullshit. His wife had been gone for more than twenty years. But it hurt as if it had just happened yesterday. Every time he saw her beautiful face he was reminded of his greatest loss—and his greatest failure.

It helped nothing whatsoever that his daughter was the mirror image of her mother. She was older now than Marty had been when she died, and she had enough of the Bennett edge to temper the flawless beauty she inherited from her mother’s side. He had hoped that would keep her safe even when he couldn’t . . . especially since he never could.

And now she was out there alone, facing off against a fucking crime lord, biting off way more than she could ever chew. Also like a true Bennett. He knew she’d never accept his help. She hated him, and for good reason. He hated himself, too.

But he would have hated himself even more if he sat in that office and did nothing, like he was supposed to do, like he was paid to do. He sighed as he replaced the back of the frame and put everything back in the top drawer. He grabbed his keys and headed to his car. This vendetta ended today, before he lost one more person he loved.

26. YOUTH GONE WILD

B
aby sat on the double bed in the darkened room, her knees pulled to her chest, coiled in the tightest ball she could manage. The piped lighting along the walls was neon purple, and rows of black lights made anything white on the walls and bed glow unnaturally, including baskets of sex toys of varying shapes and sizes.

She shook so hard her teeth chattered. She had no idea what to do next. There were no windows in the room and only two doors. One was to the locked closet, and one was the only entrance from the hallway, which X had soundly locked behind her after shoving her inside. There were restraints tethered to the bed, but they wouldn’t do her much good unless an assailant got close enough.

She prayed to every god she could think of that she wouldn’t have the opportunity to use them.

Music played from the TV monitor overhead. She recognized the alternative band, even though she had never been allowed to listen to their music before she had moved in with Snake and Kid.

Just thinking about her Wyndryder family brought tears to her eyes. What she wouldn’t give to be in that house in Pasadena, sitting on the sofa next to Kid, killing zombies on the TV while listening to rock music and noshing on popcorn and chips.

A tear streaked down her cheek when she realized that her own desire to be independent, to be a “grown-up” and work for herself and pay her way, had ultimately doomed her. It was what M.J. had feared most, but Baby had foolishly thought the rules didn’t apply to her. By changing her hair color and clothes and getting a tattoo, she had mistakenly believed she could be as safe at Wyndryder as she was holed away in that guest room they had graciously provided.

Now everything was fucked ten ways to Sunday, and Baby knew it was all her fault.

She had believed that safe bubble to be real. Now she was poised to meet the same end as Tammy. Her fate had been decided for her from the moment she stepped off that bus nearly six weeks before.

Mere minutes into her pity party, she heard the lock rattle at the door. She scrambled against the upholstered leather headboard like a frightened bird as the door swung open and a dark figure entered wearing a hoodie over his head. Her heart leapt momentarily, and she wondered if Kid or Mad Dog, Snake, or Jack had found her. But she didn’t recognize the man who closed the door and turned to her. He had short, sandy blond hair and amber eyes. She could tell that underneath his hoodie, T-shirt, and jeans that he was quite fit, making him a formidable opponent for her first real altercation.

He looked around the room, locating and identifying the cameras in every corner. She watched as he processed this information before he approached the bed. Her eyes were wide as he sat down next to her. She didn’t bother asking what he wanted. She simply waited for him to speak, which he did so quietly.

“Hi, Baby,” he said, leaning a little closer. “I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.”

She recoiled against his hand on her leg. “Who are you?”

Again he looked at the cameras. “A friend,” he finally said. His hand slid up her leg, which was still clad in her blue jeans. “I want you to listen carefully,” he said as softly as he could. “I can get you out of here, but you have to trust me.”

She shook her head and tried to move away. “I don’t know you,” she hissed.

He bent closer, his breath in her ear. “I know M.J.”

She shuddered the closer he got. “Fuck you,” she breathed.

“There are cameras,” he insisted as his hands moved up her body to her arms. “We’re being watched. So don’t fight. Don’t struggle. Just give me a minute to figure this out.”

“Like hell.” She wound the restraint around his wrist, knocking him right in the nose with his very own fist.

In the confusion that followed, she slipped away from him, flying off the bed and across the room. She banged on the door, hollering with all her might. He pulled her into the far corner and used his body to pin her against the wall, his mouth covering her ear. “I’m not a john, Baby,” he said. “I can help you.”

“Bullshit,” she sneered as she fought against him. “Let me go!”

“If I let you go, he’ll punish you. You want to end up like Tammy?”

Her wide blue eyes stared. “Who are you?”

Before he could answer, all the lights went out in the room. She used that opportunity to knee him right in the groin. She tried to scramble away, but he grabbed her by the ankle. She heard the door open, but the hallway was dark as well, so she had no idea who was coming in or going out. She listened keenly as a struggle commenced nearby. She barely got to her feet before strong arms grabbed her and pulled her from the room, leading her down some back stairs. She fought like a hellcat the whole way, until a sliver of moonlight revealed the identity of her captor.

It was Kid.

She threw her arms around him, never happier to see anyone in her entire life. “How did you find me?” she whispered.

He had no time to explain. He tucked her under his arm and shielded her as they made their way through the darkened maze of the club. “M.J.,” was all he said.

She nodded and followed without question or complaint.

M.J. prowled the perimeter of Isbecky’s Hollywood Hills estate, wearing black from head to toe and keeping low as she tested the fences for weaknesses. Unlike Slick, there were no service entries here. Just one gate in and one gate out, with an overlook facing a steep cliff of forbidding terrain. How the hell Baby got out of there without breaking her neck was a mystery. M.J. instantly knew that repeating that trick would be impossible. It made this formidable estate a dead end for anyone who dared enter.

A perfect lair for the Hard Candy Killer.

She considered doubling back down the hill and using her grappling hook to climb the rocky bluff toward the back of the estate. But then Mad Dog texted her, letting her know they had killed the power at Slick. That meant her two young protégés had been successful in their surprise attack, and this new chaos was her friend.

She pitched a bag of toys toward the back of the estate and then walked boldly through the front gate.

Both Snake and Kelly knew they wouldn’t find M.J. at her Hollywood apartment, but they used the opportunity to pick through anything she’d left behind as clues to where she had gone. Slick was the obvious answer, but both men knew M.J. wasn’t about to do anything obvious.

Kelly created a list of Isbecky’s properties using his connections and her computer. He tried to ignore the rumpled bed in the bedroom, and the familiar way that Snake navigated the small space. He now knew how deep their connection ran, not just in terms of the years Snake and M.J. had known each other, but because of all the things they had been through together— starting with the brutal murder of her grandfather.

“What do you think she meant when she said that this guy had always been after her?” he asked Snake.

Snake’s face hardened. “The guy who shot her grandfather used her as bait to get Joe to do what he wanted. I thought at the time that he was just talking shit, saying anything to get his way. He even threw my brother in there for good measure, anything to make us emotional and react. Because it worked, none of us thought anything about it. Now it feels like a bookend.”

“And we’re finally at the other end.”

Snake nodded.

Kelly was still confused. “But that doesn’t explain why M.J. was so atypical to his normal victims. If he was after her all along, why target girls who were young and blonde?”

Snake shrugged. “If we’re assuming Isbecky is the Hard Candy Killer, then it doesn’t make much sense at all, does it?”

“You don’t think he is?”

“I’m not the expert,” Snake said. “It could all be an unhappy coincidence, or it could be a carefully orchestrated plot. We’re obviously dealing with the criminally insane. I’d worry about myself if any of it started making sense to me.”

“Should we worry that it seems to makes sense to M.J.?”