Haven of Nightmares (Littlemoon Investigations Book 5) (37 page)

“Oh, really?”

Tori flipped through her notebook as if she was trying to refresh her memory.

“Yeah, I have good teacher written down. Are you sure we’re talking about the same literature teacher?”

“He was a cad!”

They waited.

Tori began counting backward.

Three.

Two.

One.

“He was a molester in teacher’s clothing. He was a disgrace to our field!”

And here it came.

“After he began that inappropriate relationship with that girl, someone reported him. Adult men shouldn’t have sex with children. Eighteen or not, Honey Caulwell was nothing but a child.”

Julian sent a text to his brother. He wanted information on Lisa Hansen and Honey Barnes. If there was smoke, there was fire. If Clifford Remington was dipping his stick in the kiddie pool, and August Barnes was too, it was possible that Benzian was the only one who didn’t get caught.

“Someone reported him?” Tori asked.

“Yes, and I’m glad. It takes a brave person to do things like that. It was the right thing to do.”

Tori already knew who it was.

“You did it, didn’t you?”

She hesitated.

“For the record, I agree with you. If someone is preying on children, they deserve to have their junk removed.” Tori rubbed her hand over her belly.

The woman relaxed.

“I agree. Honey was a child. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He likely manipulated her into the situation.”

“And when he came here?”

“The day I showed up to work, I saw him. I was appalled that he’d been hired. I immediately reported him to the boss. Since we were both new employees, he didn’t have tenure. He was released. Clifford Remington tolerated that, but this school is public. They don’t screw around.”

Tori was glad.

She knew why Clifford turned a blind eye. He was a predator too.

“So, he’s tutoring! Can you believe that? He left a place where there are kids to be around more. He’s a pedophile, and he should be behind bars!”

Again, Tori wouldn’t argue there. If he was behind this, they were going to make sure he stayed in prison. That she could personally guarantee.

“Did he get angry when Remington booted him?” he asked.

“Yes! He wanted to sue him, but then Clifford died. The school imploded after that, and then when Betty took her life, he couldn’t sue them. After all, Roman was away at school and starting his life. I think he realized that if he stayed quiet, then he would have a chance at getting a new job.”

“Until you saw him.”

“Yes.”

Tori made notes.

“What about the three girls who disappeared from here?”

“Have they been found?” she asked. “They were good kids. I hate to think about what happened to them.”

Yeah, she did too.

“As a teacher, it is our jobs to protect the students. Those girls didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

“We don’t know they’re dead,” Julian offered.

Well, they did, but they didn’t need to explain how. Tori’s gift needed to stay quiet.

“I hope not.”

“What about Roman and Rylee? When they were at school, what were they like?”

“Smart. Roman is a good man. He grew up fast after losing everyone. When he was dating that Boyd girl, she had him tied up in knots. She wasn’t a good girl.”

Tori knew what she meant.

“She was wild. Her sister Matilda? Now she was a good girl. That sweetheart loved reading and playing the piano. I think he picked the wrong twin. They say there is always a good and bad one.”

Julian opened his mouth and Tori kicked him in the leg to stop him. This woman was spilling her guts. There was no reason to stop her.

“What about Christie Erickson, Anissa Dryer, and Yida Wright? What can you tell me about them?”

The woman thought about it.

“You know what’s odd?”

“What?” she asked.

“They were close. You know how girls form cliques? Well those three girls always hung out. They were inseparable.”

“Okay,” she said, not seeing what was odd.

“Only, there were four of them.”

That surprised her.

The girls were friends, and there was one who wasn’t taken. That might lead somewhere.

“Who?” Julian asked.

“Mackenzie Johns.”

“Could we speak to her?”

The woman hesitated. “You really can’t question a child without their parents here. It’s not legal.”

“Actually, we aren’t questioning her as a suspect. We’re only going to ask her about her friends. She’s more an asset to the case.”

The woman mulled it over. “If I can stay, I guess that’s appropriate. If I feel like you’re crossing the line, it’s over. My job is to…”

“Protect them, and you’re doing a darn good job, too,” Tori added.

The woman pulled up a list of names on the computer. Then she called down to a classroom.

“Remember, be respectful, and you can talk to her. If not, I’ll have to notify her parents.”

“We will be.”

This wasn’t Tori’s first time interrogating a child. She knew there was a fine line. Glancing over at Julian, she knew he had to go.

“Can you take a walk?” she asked.

He got it.

A girl wouldn’t talk in front of male authority figures. Tori looked less hostile since she was pregnant and pleasantly smiling. She would get more out of her.

“Sure thing, honey,” he said, dropping a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll head back out to the car. Meet you there.”

When he was gone, Alexis O’Connell smiled. “Thank you. I knew you would understand.”

Oh, she did.

At the knock on her door, Alexis escorted Mackenzie in. Already, she looked scared.

Yeah, she knew something.

Tori just had to figure out how to find out what it was.

This would take finesse, and she knew it.

“Mackenzie, this is Tori Littlemoon.”

“I saw you on the news. You found those other girls who died years ago.”

“I did. I was brought in to find your friends.”

The girl stared down at her hands.

“Hey, I’m not the enemy. I promise. I only want to find them to bring them home. I promise that I won’t be upset.”

“By what?” she asked, still not giving her eye contact.

“By anything you tell me that no one else knows. You can trust me, Mackenzie.”

“I don’t know anything.”

Tori could hear Bethany in her head. She was whispering,
‘Lies’
over and over again.

Silently, she shushed her.

“Okay. If you don’t know then that’s fine. I was simply hoping you could help me. I’m sure you miss your friends.”

“I do.”

The girl’s eyes filled with tears.

“Mackenzie, are you okay?” Tori asked.

“I do know something, but it’s going to get me into trouble. If I tell you, I’m dead. My parents will kill me.”

Tori glanced over at the principal. “I won’t say anything if you don’t,” she offered.

Alexis looked torn.

“I mean, if it helps Christie, Anissa, and Yida, that’s what matters, right?”

The principal nodded.

“Go ahead, Mackenzie. I won’t tell anyone.”

She hesitated. “Really?”

“I’m not a cop. You can be my secret informant. How’s that? I won’t tell a soul.”

She nodded. “We did something wrong.”

“What?” asked Tori.

“We used to get together, steal some wine from one of our parents, and then head to Remington to drink.”

The principal opened her mouth, but Tori gave her a look. “That’s okay. You won’t do that anymore, right?”

She shook her head. “I learned my lesson.”

“Go on.”

“Two nights before, we were there. We roamed around, trying to find a good spot.”

“Where did you head?”

“The citadel. It’s spooky. We went there, and the door was ajar.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “It was braced open by a small rock.

“Continue,” the principal stated.

“So, we went in and checked it out. There were all these old statues and urns. On our way out, we found some stick and jammed it in the lock so it wouldn’t lock on us.”

“You were going back?”

She nodded.

“The night they went missing?”

She nodded again.

“What happened?”

“I was ready to leave to meet them, when my mother came into my room. She’s a single parent, since my parents got divorced, and she needed me to watch my bratty brother.”

Tori listened.

“I couldn’t meet them. We don’t bring our phones so our parents can’t GPS us.”

Yeah, Veronica was getting a personal Lojack device implanted the day she was born.

This was the deciding factor.

“So, my friends went there, and I was stuck babysitting.”

“That’s the last time you saw them?”

Mackenzie nodded.

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

She shook her head.

Well, it looked like they now figured out how the girls were picked. The killer had to have been the one who opened the door. He was there.

He was watching and listening.

The prey came to him.

That explained a lot. Their killer didn’t come to the school to steal away a couple girls.

Oh no.

He hunted on familiar grounds.

Chapter Twenty-One

The interview had been brutal. Roman felt like he’d been run through the ringer. The detective had asked him a million questions, and then when he was finished, he asked them all over again.

He wasn’t kidding when he said that he was going to be hard on him. Nothing was off limits.

Hart asked about his sex life with Devora, his current sex life, and everything in between.

He asked if he hated his parents.

If he cared about anyone but himself, and that was only the beginning.

Then he got mean.

Did he cry when his father died?

Did he weep when his mother followed?

Roman had to account for every second of the past ten years, and it wasn’t easy.

The only thing that saved him was that Detective Rose had footage that was timestamped. It was the airline’s recording of Roman getting on the plane. Fortunately for him, it was the day the girls had been reported missing.

The man had kept his word.

He couldn’t hold him.

That one piece of evidence was his salvation in this whole entire sordid affair.

Roman would like to say he was grateful, but he was left with a void in his chest.

It was right where his heart had been.

Rehashing everything was hard.

To make it a million times worse, now Mattie was inside the same room being grilled, and it wasn’t fair.

She was innocent.

She didn’t deserve this.

Her only crime was being part of his life.

Roman sincerely hoped that the man took it easy on her. She’d lost someone too.

When she came out, she headed down the hall and right past him. He watched her.

She wouldn’t look at him.

It made him sick.

When the detective approached him as he sat on the bench, he lowered his voice. “She’s going to pick you up out back. The front is packed with reporters. They’re not going to follow her. They’re waiting for you. Follow me.”

He knew the man was risking a lot.

His boss had been watching the interview.

How did he know?

Detective Rose had written it down on the notepad that housed the questions for the interrogation. He obviously knew that Roman, being an ex-reporter, would look.

He got it.

They were both in the fire on this one.

Somewhere in the bowels of the police station, he stopped at a door. “She’ll be right out here. Avoid the media, and tell Tori and Julian that I’ll see them later. If I don’t find these girls tonight, I’m out of a job tomorrow.”

He felt horrible.

“Detective, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s the politics of the job. Someone has to be the sacrificial lamb, and today it’s me.”

Hart patted him on the back as his ride approached.

“Stay safe, Mr. Remington.”

He intended to do just that, so he headed out.

Roman waited for the vehicle to come to a stop and he raced for the back seat. Ducking down, she drove them away from that hellish experience.

After a few seconds, Mattie broke the silence. “Are you okay, Roman?” she asked.

“I will be. Having you here and not pissed at me helps. I was worried you’d walk out of there hating me again.”

Her heart squeezed.

“I would never do that. I love you too much, Roman.”

For that, he was grateful.

“Where to?” she asked, navigating the streets to make sure they weren’t being followed. Honestly, she didn’t believe Roman could handle any more today.

He sounded like he was a man on the edge.

“I need to eat something. My gut is raw and tied into knots. I have a headache, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

Her heart broke for him. That one sentence said everything about the interview.

It had been tough.

Despite how he was feeling, Mattie knew a place they could go. “I know a private spot.”

“That would be perfect.”

“How about my place?”

For Roman, that was even better. “Would you mind if I call Julian to tell him where we’ll be? I really need to check in with them since they’re my bosses.”

“No problem, Roman. Go ahead.”

After he dialed, it didn’t take long for his boss to answer.

“Yo!”

“I’m done. We’re going to Mattie’s house. Detective Rose wants me to lay low for a while. So far, we don’t have any media on us, and I’d really like to avoid that.”

“Good idea. Your friend Harrison called looking for you. Was your phone off?”

“I had a call. I didn’t recognize it, so I didn’t answer. I’ll call him back later.”

Maybe.

He really wasn’t in a good mood.

“Are you okay, Roman?” Julian asked.

“I don’t know, Julian. I don’t know. I feel like I’ve had to relive it all over again. It’s as if my heart was ripped out, twisted inside out, and thrown back into my chest. I feel raw.”

He knew what it was like.

He’d been on the opposite side for a few years. He’d watched the FBI run people through the ringer, and he was always glad that he chose the straight and narrow.

“Eat something and relax. Tonight, we’re having this séance and hopefully, we’ll be out of here.”

“Oh, and a heads up,” stated Roman, “Detective Rose is in a bind. If he doesn’t wrap this up, meaning throw me in jail as a killer, he’s going to lose his job.”

There was silence.

Finally, Julian spoke, “That’s shitty.”

“Yeah, what can we do?” Roman asked. “I feel bad. It’s not this guy’s fault. He’s just the poor sap who got stuck working this godforsaken case.”

“We can find the bodies and wrap this up. That’s about it,” he offered.

Roman was willing to bet that was going to be harder than they thought, but he had to have faith in the team.

It looked like it was coming down to them, and he wasn’t the only one who was going to lose it all.

“Talk to you later.”

Roman hung up. Digging through his call list, he found the number he was looking for, so he made another call.

When Harrison answered, he placed him on speaker phone. As soon as he heard his voice, Roman was a little less stressed. There was a part of his past and it didn’t suck.

Harrison had made it a little better. As kids, they had fun. He missed that.

“Hey, Harrison.”

“Roman? Dude! I haven’t heard from you in years! We need to meet up.”

He glanced up at Mattie in the mirror.

She nodded.

“I’m about to have lunch with my girl at her place. Want to meet us? I can’t be out in public. The media is all over me.”

“Yeah, I saw. I’m at the gym. I’ll meet you anywhere. What’s her address?”

He rattled it off.

“I’ll be there in forty five minutes. I need to shower. I’ve been working out.”

“See you there.”

When he hung up, she patted the seat beside her. “You’re golden. We don’t have any tails. You can get in the front if you want.”

Yeah, that was exactly what he wanted.

As he climbed over the seat to the front, she took his hand in hers. That connection gave him more peace. Although Mattie said she was fine, he was worried that wasn’t the case.

“We’ll be okay, Roman. When this is over, we’ll be back to normal.”

He hoped so.

Then again, what was normal?

Did he want to go back to that way of life? Was this a divine sign that he needed to reevaluate his life?

“I’ll park in the garage in case someone’s watching my place. I don’t care if they stick around outside. We can close the blinds.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, sunshine.”

“I meant it, Roman. We’ll get through this. Tori and Julian have your back, and Detective Rose is going to do his best.”

“When I came back here,” he said, as she pulled into her garage, “I never thought I’d have to deal with all of this. Solving this seemed so easy. I didn’t realize that it was going to drudge up so much pain.”

“Would you go back and change it?” she asked. “Would you go back and avoid meeting me again?”

He heard the pain in her heart.

“No, but I would avoid that slap. You have a wicked swing.”

She laughed. Leaning over, she kissed him. Roman fell into it, and he couldn’t focus on anything else. Mattie was practically in his lap.

Now he wished he didn’t invite his old friend over. There was something he would rather do than reminisce.

Slowly, she pulled away.

“Better?”

“When I get my conjugal visits, I’ll need more kisses like that.”

“You’re not going to jail. I promise.”

He rested his forehead against hers. “Mattie, I hope you’re right. I never saw this coming,” he admitted. “When I came back, I really believed I’d be ahead of this mess, and now I’m not.”

“It’s all going to work out. I can feel it.”

Honestly, he hoped she was right.

Roman didn’t want to lose what he’d recently found, and he certainly didn’t want to hurt the woman beside him.

She’d suffered enough.

In fact, they all had.

       
         
* * *
  L   i   t   t   l  e  m  o  o  n  * * *

An Hour Later

When Harrison Weber arrived, the reunion was well timed. Roman needed to be cheered up, and this was a step in the right direction. Seeing his old friend helped him forget what had happened earlier that day.

He was still raw, but Roman knew he’d bounce back. After all, his support system was there.

He had his bosses.

He had his friends.

He had Mattie.

He was immediately transported back ten plus years ago. When he opened the door, the man hugged him.

“Roman! It’s been too long!”

He agreed. “Come in! I want you to meet my girlfriend,” he stated, leading Harrison inside the quaint place.

When the man entered and saw Mattie, he stopped.

“Woah. That’s trippy. I didn’t see that one coming a mile away.”

Mattie began laughing.

She got it.

No one expected Roman to shack up with his deceased girlfriend’s sister.

“Hello, Harrison! It’s good to see you again. The years have been really kind to you.”

“Matilda Boyd! What the heck are you doing with this guy? You could find someone worthy of you.”

Roman elbowed him. “Hey! Really? I finally found the one, and I don’t need you screwing with my good fortune.”

Mattie’s heart skipped when he said, ‘the one’. She felt the exact same way.

Harrison was amused. Giving her a hug, he winked at his childhood friend. “It’s good to see you, Matilda. You haven’t changed at all. You’re still gorgeous.”

“You can call me Mattie. I prefer it.”

He winked. “Wow, this is crazy. I wish this mess wasn’t the reason you came back. You’ve stayed away too long,” he stated.

Roman was well aware.

“Follow me,” Mattie offered, leading them into the kitchen. It was time to feed Roman. He was pale and looked like death had warmed over.

The men didn’t argue.

In the kitchen, Mattie took her place at the stove, stirring some soup and making sandwiches.

“I know, Harry, but I couldn’t come back. I wasn’t ready to face all of this. Besides, fate wanted me here now. I’ve got Mattie, and I’m working on cleaning this mess up.”

He got it.

How could he not?

“Hey! I don’t blame you. The last time I saw you…”

“It was my mother’s funeral.”

“Yeah. Are you doing okay?” he asked. “What can I do for you?”

Roman shrugged. “I was hoping you could catch me up on a few people.”

He laughed. “Hell yeah, I can! I’m like the social mayor of Haven. If you need gossip, I’m your man. You learn a lot of great shit at the gym. It’s the epicenter in town.”

Roman took a seat at Mattie’s sunny table. “That’s awesome. First, let’s start with you. What have you been up to these last ten years?”

He grinned. “Well, as you know, I had that trust fund, so it hasn’t exactly been a hard journey. I made some good investments along the way, and me and the little lady are enjoying it. I don’t have to really work. I’m semi-retired.”