Phoenix Dead (New Adult Dark Romance) (The Vampire Years) (3 page)

His whole hand came down on my shoulder, coaxing me to tell him with a gentle squeeze. “Do you want a female officer?”

“No…I can talk to you.”

“Then talk to me, Lee.” Another squeeze, his thumb dipping down to lightly stroke my neck. It seemed so automatic; I don't think he realized he was doing it.

“It's just -- I think they were looking for a virgin.”

The stroking stopped. His hand tightened on my shoulder. I knew he'd seen the toxicology tests, guessed they'd also done a rape exam while I was unconscious and reported back that, in at least one respect, they'd left me intact.

“We're gonna get these guys, Lee. I promise you.”

Chapter Five

The hospital released me to my uncle Elliot on Monday. There was no insurance, I was healing quicker than they expected and there was no one else to claim me. I hadn't seen my real dad in over nine years. My step-father Paul had left four weeks before, after he'd threatened to kill his mom and gotten the three of us thrown out of her house.

From what Elliot was saying, everyone was still trying to track Paul down to authorize the funeral arrangements.

There was my grandfather, with whom Sandy and I had been staying. But his newest girlfriend Emma and her son lived with him, too. Emma didn't want me back in the house if some biker gang might be looking to finish what they'd started. Truth be told, she just didn't want me back in the house. The tension between Emma and Sandy was why I had missed so many days of school.

So home I went with Elliot. He was on his second marriage, had a nine-year-old daughter and a step-son close to my age. His first marriage had ended in a dead son and a wife in jail for child neglect. Elliot had been at training and the crazy bitch had left the baby alone in his crib while she went out bar hopping for the weekend.

Elliot had gone from crazy bitch to cold bitch with his second wife, Joan. I didn't get the impression Joan wanted me in her house any more than Emma did, but Elliot's word was law. They put me in Casey's room. She had bunk beds and they moved her up to the top bunk while I "recovered" from my injuries. Only my body had healed completely by the second day home -- a fact I kept secret.

Officer Danny called daily. Sometimes twice a day. The Maryvale PD wanted me to sit down with a sketch artist. Danny was quietly relentless, talking about nothing at the start of each conversation, asking if my school work was being delivered to me and if I needed anything. But the conversations all ended the same.

“Have you remembered anything else? Maybe you heard something? People remember things better when they sit down with a sketch artist, Lee.”

No, no and no.

Sadly, the calls were the highlight of my day. The rest of it was listening to Elliot swear he was going to find and kill “that motherfucker, Army” or his arguing with me over why I wouldn't eat.

Every time, I pulled out the same argument stopper. “You didn't care if I was eating before this happened. Why the fucking change of heart?”

I couldn't tell him that food was making me sick, that everything I swallowed other than water was vomited up as soon as it hit my stomach. I couldn't tell him that I lay awake in bed through the night listening to blood pulsing through his nine-year-old daughter.

On the fourth day back from the hospital, Officer Danny stopped by. It was early spring and I was dressed in a long sleeved sweater I'd borrowed from Elliot's wife. It was 70 degrees out and everyone thought the sweater was to cover the marks Army and his gang brothers had left on my body. Instead I was hiding the fact that the marks were completely erased from my skin as if the entire night had never happened.

But it had, and Officer Danny was there to pry more information out of me. He asked Elliot if he could take me for a drive.

Elliot waved us off before turning back to work on his engine. “See if you can't get her to eat something while you're at it.”

Danny held the door open for me. Sliding into the front passenger seat, I felt scrawny -- empty. I watched him walk around the front of the unmarked police car. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, topped by a light leather dress jacket. His face was clean shaven except for the small, stylish goatee and his dark brown hair curled at his ears and collar.

Over the last few days, I had learned to see without being distracted by every little detail. He looked exquisite, the outline of the body beneath the clothes, the way his muscles moved as he walked.

I'd had crushes growing up -- had been trying hard to avoid crushing on Chris. This was beyond a crush. When he was near, my whole body zeroed in on him. Other smells and sounds disappeared until I was left with his scent, the rustle of his clothes, his pulse. I wanted him. It bothered me, how bad I wanted him. I'd spent almost a decade evading men -- one man in particular. Now I wanted to crawl all over Danny.

He got in the car and automatically hit the door locks. I tensed, my reaction surprising me. I hadn't been in a car since the drive back from the hospital and Elliot never locked his doors.

“Christ, I'm sorry, Lee. I should have warned you.” He twisted in his seat until he was looking at me. “They'll lock anyway once the car starts moving. All the units do.”

I nodded. “I'm fine. Maybe we can have the windows down?”

I didn't really need them down, my first reaction had been a knee jerk response. Now, with his worried gaze on me, he seemed to expect me to act afraid, traumatized.

He started the engine and put the power windows down. I dragged the seat belt across my chest, clicked it into place. We pulled out of the drive and he asked me if there was anywhere I wanted to go.

I frowned at him. “Not anywhere there's a sketch artist.”

He laughed. “Sorry. I know I've been hitting that hard.” He put his hand down on the side of my seat and pinched the fabric of my sleeve between his fingers.

“I know this is asking a lot…” He let go of my sleeve and rubbed at his jaw.

“Just ask.” The Maryvale cops had already had me pour through the perp books. I couldn't imagine what else there was left beyond the sketch artist he wanted me to try.

Then I realized we were back on Indian School Road, heading towards 63rd.

“You want to take me into the house?”

“Lee, these guys are predators. They're not going to stop doing this until they're caught.”

“Sure.” I wrapped my arms around my chest and looked out the window, wanting him, for the moment, to leave me alone so I could think. “I'll go in the house.”

It was a typical John F Long home. Most of Maryvale was. My grandfather had bought his place in the mid-sixties when it was still green-lawned, cookie-cutter suburbia. Little rectangles of middle-class paradise. Back before there was at least one meth lab per street.

Danny parked in the drive.

“We started in the garage.” I said.

“Let me cut the tape.” He got out, sliced the crime scene tape at the garage door and opened it. He pulled the car inside.

“The truck had a bench seat.” I unhooked my seat belt. “Sandy was sitting against the door.”

I was going to have to tell him -- about Sandy. I hadn't told anyone yet. I knew better than to try -- Elliot wouldn't believe me and everyone else in his house would fall in line behind him.

“He stopped the truck, the garage door went down. Then he tried to pull me out.”

“Is that when you screamed?” Danny got out and motioned for me to move into the driver's seat.

“No.” I crawled over the center console and held my left arm out to him. “He had me by the arm and I was trying to hit the horn.”

“Techs went over it, said it was disabled.” He took my arm, held me loosely by the wrist. “What was your mom doing?”

I pulled my hand back and he let it go. He repeated his question.

“Helping him,” I answered after a few more seconds. I took a deep breath and repeated myself. “She was helping him. When I screamed after realizing the horn didn't work, she covered my mouth.”

Danny bent down so that he was level with me and covered my hand with his. “I thought so. Your mom didn't have any defensive marks on her.”

“She thought he was going to take care of her. She told me I was going to ruin it if I kept fighting.”

“Shit, Lee.” Danny abruptly leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me. His hand cradled my head and I felt the press of his jaw against my temple. He held me like that for maybe a full minute, his grip growing tighter until he pulled abruptly away.

I looked at his face; he looked away, his cheeks flushing. I guessed he didn't hug most of the victims he worked with.

“Army finally got me out of the cab when he hit my leg.” I gestured at my left knee. At the time, it had seemed a crushing blow, may well have been, but, like the cuts, it had healed faster than humanly possible.

“Then he slammed me onto the floor.” I laid down, facing the garage door. “Someone else had come into the garage then, said he thought Army wasn't going to be able to handle me on his own. He called Army 'brother.'”

“His only real brother is in prison in California,” Danny said, helping me off the ground. “Probably a gang brother, but he's not listed as running with a particular gang.”

When I didn't say anything, he prompted me with a question. “Would Elliot know?”

I shrugged. Elliot ran with a lot of different bikers, guys that would kill one another if they were in the same room at the same time. How my uncle managed to pass among them was some kind of miracle. “Elliot isn't in a gang,” I answered. “He just…”

“Buys his drugs from them?”

I didn't say anything, didn't look at him.

“Lee, I know about Elliot--”

I walked past him, the tight space causing me to brush against him. “I passed out, woke up in one of the rooms.”

Before we could enter into the house, I turned back to him. “How'd they get out?”

“House behind this is in foreclosure, too. They'd dug a tunnel to the other yard without anyone knowing.”

Walking into the kitchen, I tried not to think about how many houses in the area were in foreclosure or how many yards Army's friends might have their tunnels running through.

Chapter Six

Army and his gang had torn down the wall that divided the kitchen from the living room. The walls were spray painted black. The table they had placed me on was still there, a four by six foot slab of particle board on top of four fifty gallon drums.

I climbed up onto it.

“Lee, are you sure?”

“Yeah.” There were still candles on the floor and I motioned to one. He lit it, brought it to me. “Turn off the lights.”

He turned them off and then came back to stand beside me.

“They were chanting when I woke up. The second voice in the garage…” I gestured up by my head. “He was talking from up here. I couldn't see him.”

I ran my hand down the front of my sweater. “He told Army to strip me. Then they started biting me.”

“Were your eyes open?”

“Just a little while, then I tried to go someplace else in my head.”

“Did you see any of their faces when…when they were biting you?” His voice was rough, laced with suppressed rage.

I shook my head.

“Lee, there were candles, your eyes were open. Try to remember.” He was rubbing my arm as if he could massage the memory out of me.

I closed my eyes, saw their faces, saw the occasional tattoo marking their cheek or brow. A swastika on one, a barrio tear on another. Someone would know who these men were. If I told Danny, he'd find them. He just had to find one and then the other names would fall in place.

But I wanted to find them first. It was the only way I'd know for sure what had happened to me, what was still happening to me.

I opened my eyes. “Sorry. They were all like Army, all teeth and long, dirty hair. Most of them had beards covering their faces.”

“It's okay, Lee.”

The way he was looking at me, I knew he still had something to ask me.

“What?”

“You said something about how they were looking for a virgin.”

“The other guy, the one that came into the garage. He said I was a 'rarity,' that I was 'untouched.'”

I sat up, my back to Danny. “My stupid step-father is always telling guys that, telling them I'm off limits.”

“Why is that, Lee?” He had moved around the table and was standing next to me, our shoulders touching. “Why did he say it all the time?”

I knew he was probing for something. I'd learned the nuances in his voice with the daily calls and gentle interrogations. I shook my head, playing dumb. I didn't want Danny to look at me as just another victim. I didn't want him to look at me as a victim at all.

He took my hand, held it. “I read the police reports from when you were in the third grade, when you went to live with your real dad for a while.”

“You mean before Elliot and my mom kidnapped me off the playground and we moved out of state.”