Haven of Nightmares (Littlemoon Investigations Book 5) (4 page)

His mother and father were at peace.

His sister was still missing.

Going there to disturb them turned his stomach.

They’d suffered so much. Giving them peace was the least he could do.

This was the one case, which he was continually chasing, that didn't end the way he had hoped. No matter what, he never found the answers he sought.

It haunted him.

It tormented him.

This moment in his life was what had made him run so many years ago.

Today was a dark day in his past. It was the anniversary of his sister’s death.

Well, he thought it was.

If they were lucky, the day his sister was taken, was the day she died. He hoped she didn't endlessly suffer at the hands of her abductor.

He prayed none of them did.

Their deaths weighed heavily on him, but for very different reasons. Love died that day, and he’d never been the same. When he lost his heart, his family, and his way in life, he’d filled it with work.

What choice did he have?

If he didn’t obsess about his career, what would be left? With each day, he filled his moments with working hard to help those who had caught a bad break in life.

Like his sister.

Like his family.

Roman had been a damn good reporter, but he wanted to do more. He wanted to help those who couldn’t help themselves, but he wasn’t really cop material. While smart, he wasn’t beefy like Kane or built to fight like Beau and Justin.

He was a brain.

So, he wanted to use it. That was his strength in life—
his asset
—and he was going to make the most of it.

It fueled him.

It gave him solace.

With those
‘weapons’
against the world, he was ready to fight.

His mom had been his rock. She was wise, and he missed her wisdom. Deep down, Roman always kept his mother’s words in the back of his mind.

‘You come from good people, Roman, so do good work. Let the world know you’re a kind person.’

He’d lived by those last remembered words from a woman who died way too young.

His heart ached.

Now, he was lighting a candle for each of them. Roman wasn’t sure it would work, but it couldn’t hurt.

Right?

With each flicker of the long match, his heart ached. He hated this day. It broke him every year when the anniversaries of their deaths came.

It destroyed another piece of him.

Ten years ago, his sister Rylee went missing with two other girls from the school campus. That day had doubly changed his life.

Not only had his family lost one woman, but he lost a girl he was madly in love with too. On that day, his high school sweetheart also went missing. She was the first and only girl he had ever thought about marrying.

When she went missing, so did his heart. It created a giant sucking void in his soul.

He’d never recovered.

At that one point in his life, he thought he ruled the universe. He was eighteen and heading off to college in the fall. He was the big man on campus.

He’d found a sweet girl to be his. The second he saw her, he knew she was the one. There was that instant spark between them. Their conversation lit something aflame in him.

She was sixteen and his world.

He was willing to wait for her to graduate.

She was worth it.

Then the worst thing happened.

On that horrible day, they were both stripped from his life. To make it a million times worse, the police accused him.

They made him bleed, and in the end, he’d had nothing to do with it. Roman had to swear up, down, sideways and back that he was innocent.

In the end, they still pointed at him.

That’s why he never went back. What kind of person did they believe him to be?

They actually thought he was a killer?

How?

Then the tide changed.

Five years ago, when the next three girls disappeared, they stopped blaming him.

He was across the country, working on his Master’s degree. Instead, they pointed their fingers at someone closer to home.

That was the day his father had hung himself. They decided the men in their family were deviants, and he’d picked up where his sick son left off.

So, his father did the only thing he could.

He’d strung himself up at the top of the school citadel. In his own way, he’d taken the blame. Now the finger was no longer pointed at Roman. His suicide had spoken volumes.

Instead, it was forever burned into his soul that his family was being blamed for a horrible crime.

It was hard to miss the pattern. Every five years, three women went missing.

He’d read the news.

He’d checked up this time of the year.

In a sick turn of events, he’d been asked by the media to allow them to interview him. The reporters on the local beat wanted him on the other side of the story.

Each and every time, he said no.

This case was dead to him, along with the happiness that once lived in his heart. He wasn’t going there ever again. That had once been his home, his solace, his place of love, but that was over.

No one could force him to go back.

No one.

This was going to stay buried. While his mother told him to face the world with compassion and kindness, nothing could make him open himself up to that again.

Nothing could get him to do it.

That time in his life was horrible, and he never wanted to walk the halls of his past, remembering what he’d lost. It hurt far too much. One man could only handle so much, and he was on his last ounces of strength.

Lighting the last candle, he stared into the flame.

“I miss you all. I wish you were here. I’m sorry that I didn’t keep any of you safe. I wish I had been a better son.”

The silence fell around him, as there was no reply. He didn’t expect one, but his heart always wished for that one last sound of their voice. He prayed his sister was alive, and that she’d find him again one day.

Or the woman he lost.

What wouldn’t he give to see her one more time?

Then, like he’d done every year to mark the horrible anniversary, he headed out, the scent of incense making him want to be sick. It turned his stomach, breaking his heart.

He was at his limit for mourning.

It was time to head into work.

Duty called.

There were people out there who needed his help, and he couldn’t live in his past. If he did, it would eat him alive.

Roman was smart enough to know that.

When he cleared the doors, the crisp air hit him full force in the face. He wanted to weep from all of it. On this day, ten years later, he was still paying for a crime he didn't commit.

He was paying for a sin that wasn’t his.

Roman was paying for the deaths with his very soul, and he didn't know how much longer he could take it.

Something had to give, and he hoped it wasn’t going to be his sanity.

Glancing down at his watch, he knew he was late for work. That was all that held his head above water. At least he had that. For now, he’d focus on work, cases, and even the ghosts that haunted the office.

They were a better option.

At least they couldn’t hurt him.

Or so he hoped.

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

Conference Room

Twenty Minutes Later

She was nervous.

They could all see it by the way she fidgeted in her seat. It made Tori think about
‘ants in her pants’
, and she wanted to laugh.

Only, Julian would frown over that. This was their client, and he liked to be professional in the first meeting.

He insisted.

Tori, on the other hand, liked to be herself. Why shock a client when they got out in the field?

As the team sat there, waiting to hear about the case she needed help with, they all could see this was costing her. She looked like she was exhausted.

That wasn’t to say that the woman who sat before them wasn’t striking.

She had blonde hair, which was braided and pulled back from her face. There was a dark pair of glasses perched on her tipped up nose. The blue eyes were what stood out the most.

They were crystal clear.

They were filled with pain.

And they were begging for help.

“Ms. Boyd, can you tell us why you want to retain our services?” asked Julian. “You said on the phone that you were desperate for our help. In fact, you sounded distressed, and that’s why we bumped you ahead of other clients. We don’t always do that.”

And it was true.

“I am beyond desperate. I need to find someone, and stop a crime that’s probably already happened.”

That intrigued them, so they continued to listen.

Julian studied the woman. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, but her demeanor said it all. She’d grown up way too fast. Tragedy did that to a person, and they each could spot it a mile away.

He also knew it personally. After all, Julian saw it in each and every one of his siblings when their father had died.

“Ten years ago, my twin, Devora, went missing. We were currently enrolled in a private school in a small town called Haven.”

Julian made notes. “Go on.”

“Today’s the anniversary of that day. Ten years ago, in one hour, she went missing. It was like she was wiped off the face of the Earth.”

They all looked at her.

She was in bad shape if she was counting the minutes of something so tragic.

“So you want us to find her?” Julian knew that she was likely dead. No one just disappeared if they were living. They used credit cards, their social security number, and couldn’t go completely off the grid.

It just didn’t happen—unless they were truly dead.

“This isn’t only about her. When she was taken, there were also two other girls who went missing. There is a serial abductor on the loose.”

That was a game changer, and it had their attention.

This case sounded right up Tori’s creepy alley. Julian knew what was coming.

They were going on a body hunt, and they would be using her ‘gifts’.

Yippee.

“Their bodies were never found.”

Tori felt horrible for her. “Go on, please.”

“Every five years, three more young girls go missing. Five years after I lost Devora, there were three, and this year, I hope it stops, but it’s likely going to happen. Something has to be done. There is an evil entity, albeit human or something else, and it is living on that campus. We have to stop it from doing this.”

They all looked up.

Criminals they handled.

Hell!

They even found bodies, but evil?

Could they have actually found their first client, who believed in spooks and she wanted their help?

Had word gotten out?

Well, Julian had said they were going all in and taking all the crazy cases. He didn’t think it would be this fast, but the universe was funny like that.

Julian was getting that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He already knew something big was coming. His gut was screaming, and Tori was staring at him with that look.

She felt it too.

“So, to recap, you want us to find your sister, and then find evil?”

She stared at him.

Matilda wasn’t shocked that they were looking at her like she was a few days shy of a week.

How could she blame them?

“I know you’re thinking I’m crazy, but I’m not. I’ve tried to hire countless PI’s. I’ve even gotten a few wackjobs to take the case, but they’ve never found anything. I’ve done my research, and you’ve found the lost, Mr. Littlemoon. I’ve studied your past cases, and I need someone who can do that. I also need help to end this nightmare. Haven is a mess.”

The man stared at her, and she knew she was screwed.

It was time to try with the big guns.

If pleading didn’t work, she was desperate enough to use blackmail.

Sort of…

“I’ve done my research on all of you. I’m a librarian, and I have the resources at my disposal. I’m accustomed to digging into dirt. Your agency is different, isn’t it? You don’t actually use regular methods to solve your cases, do you?”