His Garden of Bones (Skye Cree Book 4) (2 page)

Rocking back and forth, his mind captured every nuance of the moment. Maybe because he knew that from this night forward he would forever measure success by his precious little Camilla. He would treasure every minute, replay every part over and over again for later. He sat back taking in the delectable shade of her hair. She was like a delicate bud, a fragile blossom he would shape into his own. He would plant Camilla in a garden of his very own, the one he would create, create just for his raven-haired beauty.

As he looked around his sanctuary, the walls of the cave suddenly began to close in around him. But he took comfort in the fact that he was no longer alone. He’d never be alone again, not with Camilla here next to him.

Because Camilla he would keep with him forever.

Three weeks before Christmas

Seattle, Washington

T
all and lean, Skye Cree walked between towering high-rises that speared the night sky like giant peaks of steel. Along the dark streets she made her way west toward the harbor. The gentle waves of Puget Sound lapped against the docks as she stepped onto the pier to look out on what she considered her turf.

Night, and all it held, encompassed the woman who wore black from head to toe—a turtleneck and snug pants under a long leather coat, high-top combat boots on her feet, and a watch cap tucked over her raven hair. The attire meant she was dressed to move. Her athletic skill, practiced and refined from the age of eighteen, meant she could defend herself in a fight, and often did.

With a weariness that came from an all-day hunt, she climbed to the highest point of the jetty and looked back at the skyline then out to sea. She scanned the massive expanse of coastal water.

Her flawless Native American looks blended with the darkness around her except for one distinctive feature, a trait she’d inherited from her mother. Her violet eyes were usually the first thing anyone noticed. Their deep purple color radiated out into the black of night allowing her to home in on any movement close by.

From her spot above the wharf, she had a great view of the bay but more important the row of lofts and warehouses where trouble tended to find its way inside. With low-hanging clouds overhead, she studied a heavier than usual fog rolling in, the mist so dense at times it twisted and turned like a thick tangle of knotted rope.

She tried to block out the noisy boat traffic in the bay but with ships, ferries, and tankers from all over the world vying for shipping lanes, but it was almost impossible.

As if on cue, the captain of a passing ship laid down on the horn, blasting the air three times signaling it neared one of the buoys in the channel. The sound echoed back on shore loud and clear, enough that Kiya, Skye’s Nez Perce spirit guide, growled into the foggy night. The snarl from the wolf set off Atka, the companionable malamute puppy that yipped in response.

Skye snapped her fingers to shush the din so that she could hear farther down the row of abandoned warehouses. For the last half hour, Kiya and Atka had been on the scent of…something. The canines had tracked what Skye hoped was the fourteen-year-old girl who’d gone missing that afternoon from the local mall. Gwen DeLargo hadn’t been seen since noon that day, when the teen had met up with her running buddies from school, only to disappear after a trip to the restroom shortly after lunch. Gwen’s friends had notified Security.

While detective Harry Drummond and his cronies concentrated on surveillance cameras, Skye had hit the streets. Backed by the Artemis Foundation, the hunter had rallied her own set of friends and family to get the word out, to get flyers printed and distributed in record time.

Skye lifted her head, breathed in several puffs of chilly air before taking in the sounds of urban living—the bus coming to a stop at the corner, the commuter train pulling into the station to the east, no doubt the last one of the night. She caught sight of the hot dog vendor packing up his cart at the corner of Madison and Western, the steam still rising from the trailer.

At that moment, the sound of a car engine caused her eyes to dart southward. She sharpened her gaze to the lone man slamming the doors as he got out of a white paneled van. Under any other set of circumstances that was no big deal. But a white van had been seen speeding away from the parking lot at the mall around the same time Gwen had disappeared.

Skye centered her focus on the forty-something man, who stood about five-nine. There was something about the sneaky way he jumped out of the front seat and looked around to make sure he was alone—almost as though he had something to hide.

She watched as the man slid open the side doors, reached his arm inside, pulled out a roll of carpet padding and dumped it on the ground before turning back to grab something else from the back.

Even though it was an odd time of night to be catching up on installing carpet, Skye decided the guy fit the neighborhood. The older, rundown area wasn’t that different from other sections of town trying to remodel and upgrade the buildings. And God knew this part of town could use a little sprucing up.

She heard herself let out a heavy sigh. It wasn’t exactly relief, more like frustration. Pivoting on her heels to head the other way, she signaled to the animals to follow. But when both canines stubbornly kept eyeing the van, she turned back to stare at what captured their attention. It was in that split second that she noticed he brought out a huge comforter and tossed it over his shoulder. Skye could’ve sworn she saw the blanket wiggle. Whatever was in there, or rather whoever, seemed to be squirming to get out.

Skye’s mouth went dry. After an all-day search for Gwen, could it be this simple?

She automatically reached for her nightstick and went flying down the path to the concrete viaduct below, Kiya and Atka on her heels. The wolf and malamute soon took the lead, covering the distance faster than she could. Soon all three were able to burst out of the greenbelt and onto the pavement and into the man’s line of vision. The confrontation startled the carpet layer who tightened his hold on the bundle he held.

“Who are you?” the guy asked. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“The more important question is what’s in your blanket? Why would it be moving like someone’s struggling to get free? And why are you doing your best to conceal what’s in there?”

About that time, Skye heard a muffled groan coming from the dirty, stained comforter.

“Now see, that’s weird. Your haul shouldn’t be moaning. So let’s make this simple. Just set the bedding down on the ground and step back.”

“Who do you think you are? Dirty Harry? Who’s gonna make me? You? I don’t think so.”

“Really? You’re planning to push this when my feet are killing me? Okay, but that makes you more than a pervert. It makes you an idiot.”

Challenged, the man dropped the bedding and reached toward his waistband. Skye saw the glint of a pistol. Before he could take hold of the weapon, she whirled and brought her boot down on top of his foot. She rammed one elbow into his gut, threw her forearm backward and put a fist into his nose. She angled into a turn, brought her knee up to his crotch.

While he doubled over in pain, Skye whacked him over the head with her nightstick. He dropped like a rock.

She bent down and snatched up the weapon, a twenty-two caliber Smith & Wesson he’d stuffed down his pants. For safekeeping, she slipped the small handgun into the top of her boot.

In four long strides, Kiya stood over the man’s chest, ready to rip out his throat.

“Good girl,” Skye told the wolf. “Atka, come on, girl, get over here and latch onto his pants leg for me and don’t let go.” The malamute didn’t have to be told twice, clamping a set of sharp teeth into the man’s jeans narrowly missing his skin.

Skye stroked her fingers through canine fur while noting the overriding fear in the man’s eyes. Even the blood coming from his busted nose wasn’t enough to garner any sympathy. “What do you suppose we have here? What type of sick beast is this?”

Bleeding and winded, the man groused, “I didn’t do a thing. Get these filthy dogs off me. They’re the beasts, dirty, filthy, smelly animals! Get ’em off me!”

Looking down on the man they’d been after all day, Skye studied the suspect, decided to put a great big ding in his bravado. “Her name’s Kiya. In case you haven’t noticed, Kiya’s a wolf and will rip out your throat quicker than you can take your next breath.”

Just as she’d hoped, his face went whiter. She reached out, took the man’s chin in her hand to turn his head from side to side. “My, my, what are all these scratches doing all over your face? I know I didn’t put those there. Let’s see if we can find out who did.”

He slapped her hand away and said, “I got a cat at home.”

“Sure you do. Keep an eye on this sick excuse for a human being, will you, Kiya? He tries to bolt, you have my permission to take a bite out of his jugular.”

The wolf obediently sunk a pair of incisors into the first layer of the guy’s skin at the neck.

When the bundle in the blanket on the ground began to groan louder, Skye walked over and knelt down to peel the layers back on the comforter. She uncovered a dazed and frightened teenage girl with brown hair and huge glassy brown eyes. No surprise that the description fit her missing teenager.

“Hey there. Gwen DeLargo, right? A lot of people have been looking for you.”

“They have? Help me,” the girl sputtered out, struggling to raise her hand high enough so she could point a finger in the direction of her kidnapper. “He did things to me. Help me. Please.”

The girl’s glassy eyes and slurred speech indicated the teen had been drugged. Listening to those all-important first words from a victim, Skye knew she needed to sear them to memory for later—the legalities ever-present on her mind to get a conviction and make it stick.

Skye removed her cell phone, punched in a number she had on speed dial and began trying to comfort the young girl while she waited for an answer on the other end. “Rest easy, he’ll pay for what he did. Count on it.”

When her friend and cohort picked up, Skye relayed their location to detective Harry Drummond. “I’ve found Gwen DeLargo and the bastard who took her. Get here fast with the paramedics else I’ll have to get her to the ER on my own.”

“I’m on my way. Don’t do anything you’ll regret later,” Harry warned.

Skye shot a look over in Kiya’s direction. The wolf, with the help of the malamute, had been vigilant at keeping the suspect on his best behavior. So far.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Skye asked dryly. But even with the jab, she added, “I’ve done this before, Harry. I know the drill by now.”

“Good. Then I’m on my way.”

After disconnecting the call, Skye looked over at the frightened teen. “Help’s coming.”

“It’s already here. Thank you. You know who I am?”

“Sure. Your picture’s been all over the news all day.”

“It has? How did you find me?”

“I have my sneaky, covert ways,” Skye said with amusement, doing her best to get the girl to relax, which she knew was damned near impossible after the scum-sucker had put her through an all-day ordeal.

“Does it have anything to do with that white wolf over there?”

Skye lifted a brow in surprise. “You can see the white wolf? I’m impressed. Not everyone does.”

“I see the wolf, I see the dog, too. Unless I’m seeing double.”

“Nope. There’s two. They work as a team. Kiya’s the leader of the pack and the one that found you. Atka is still just a puppy and pretty much follows wherever Kiya goes, although she does have great instincts.”

“Kiya’s beautiful. Her eyes are like violet. They match yours. You both have gorgeous eyes. I love wolves.”

Skye sent the confused girl a wide smile. “Funny about that, I do too.”

But just as Skye thought everything was going well, Gwen rolled herself in a ball and began to sob. Skye wrapped the teen up, rocked her back and forth, and listened while Gwen went into a rambling recount of her day.

“I just wanted to go shopping for a new outfit that I could wear to a party I was going to this weekend. I just wanted to spend the day with my friends. Now look at me. I’m bloody and sore and I feel just awful.”

“I know, honey. The monsters out there have a way of finding you when you’re most vulnerable, alone, and off-guard. He singled you out among a sea of people. You did nothing wrong. It wasn’t your fault. You need to believe that. Before you know it, things will be back to normal. In a few hours you’ll see your family. I promise. Everything will work out. Your life will get back to normal and you’ll be fine.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Sure it will. Don’t let this cause you to feel like it’s the end of the world. It isn’t. You survived.”

“Thanks to you.” Gwen took a shaky breath. “Don’t leave me though, okay? Please.”

“I’m right here. I’ll ride with you to the hospital if that’s what you want.”

“What about the wolf?”

“Kiya? She knows her way home.”

“And Atka?”

“Like I said, Atka will follow Kiya wherever the wolf decides to go.” As sirens blared from down the street, getting closer, Skye added, “Hear that? That’s my cue to get over there and relieve Kiya from her guard dog duty.”

“He raped me,” Gwen announced.

Skye squeezed Gwen’s shoulders tighter and held on. “I figured that out. Talking about it sometimes helps. Once you get to the hospital, the police will ask you a bunch of questions. After that, there will be someone there asking you if you want counseling. Take them up on it. Your family will be so worried about you, they’ll make every effort possible to help you any way they can. And remember, everyone handles this kind of thing differently. Me? I prefer taking names and kicking ass.”

Understanding finally appeared in Gwen’s puffy eyes. “This happened to you?”

“It did. I was much younger than you are now. Not only did I survive I got stronger every day.”

“Oh my God, really? You aren’t just making this up to make me feel better, are you?”