Authors: EC Sheedy
One part of her longed to see her friend again, another part dreaded it. Her being here would raise the dead, force an unwanted trip down mortuary lane. But damn that "big bad wolf" comment of hers. Irritated and confused, Addy took a deep breath, looked up at the bright sky, and reminded herself calmly how Beauty always did have a flair for the dramatic, and she shouldn't put too much store in it. She'd get to the bottom of things soon enough when Beauty got here. Until then, the smart thing to do was forget about it and go to work.
She spotted another can as Toby, coming out of the office, spotted her.
"Hey, pretty lady, I was looking for you." He gave the cola can in her hand a broad disapproving look. "Weren't you made for better things than picking up garbage?"
She straightened. "That's what I keep telling myself, but our litter-challenged guests don't see it that way." She managed a smile. Her troubles weren't Toby's, and she didn't intend them to be. "How are you doing with the books?" She grimaced, waiting for his answer. He was probably hating every minute he spent with them and was past ready to dump them back on her.
"I'm doing good. Pretty much got them whipped into shape." He rubbed at his chin, gave her a quizzical look. "I'm thinking you and I should get ourselves a computer."
"A computer? You and I?" she echoed.
Toby laughed. "I didn't ask you to marry me, sweetums, just spring for a box and some accounting software."
"Now what would I do with a computer?" Even the idea of a computer gave her hives. All those telephone-book-sized manuals. Ugh.
"You? Nothing. Me? I'll make the baby dance."
"And after you've gone?"
He tugged his earlobe and looked oddly nervous. "Well, now that's it, isn't it? I was thinking I'd stay on, kind of permanent, part-time. Help out around here." His gaze narrowed. "But only in the office, mind. The physical stuff is all yours. I'm too old to be hefting paving stones or pushing a wheelbarrow."
When she didn't say anything—because she couldn't think what it would be—he coughed, went on, "Thing is, I like it here. No real need for me to go back to Seattle. Except maybe to pick up some stuff and give some notice to my fleabag landlord. And I figure with my pension and a nice cut on my cabin rate, things should work out just fine."
"You're serious."
"Damn right." He looked nervous again, as if he weren't sure what to expect.
She saw him straighten his bent shoulders as he waited for her answer. God, he expected her to say no. Did he think she was crazy? "Toby. That would be great," she said, relief drowning her worries.
You can do all the paperwork. Take care of the bills, the mail. And I'll be free to finish the cabins.
"We got ourselves a deal then?"
"Deal." She put out her hand. Toby took it and pulled her into a bear hug. She pulled back as soon as she could, uneasy, as always, with physical contact. In that respect, she and the remote, sober Lund were soul mates. "I think you being around all year will be terrific," she added, smiling broadly to mask her awkwardness.
"Good. Now, about that computer..." he added and stuck his chin out.
"What do you know about computers anyway?"
"Enough to get started," the old man said, aligning his seventy-year-old shoulders. "And what I don't know, I'll learn. There isn't anything a person can't learn if he puts his mind to it."
Addy wished she had half his confidence—even though she didn't believe what he said was true. "Okay, but all those bits and bytes will be your business. I want no part of it."
"Like I said, you take care of the buildings. I'll take care of the books. Never was one for having a woman look over my shoulder anyway." He started to walk away, then turned back, his wrinkled face beaming a smile. "Be nice to work with you, sweetums. You're a damn clever girl, and you've done wonders for this place." He shook his head. "Lund Baylor was my friend, but he never did appreciate you, no sir. But you and me? We'll make this old motel a real going concern. Yes, we will."
She watched him go, caught off guard by a wash of tears filling her eyes. She brushed them away, wondered why she always cried when she was happy and never when she was sad. Toby was wrong about her being clever, but she wished with all her heart he wasn't wrong about the future success of the motel.
Star Lake was her home, her safe place—or so she'd thought until she'd heard Beauty's voice again. The miserable, tight hand of worry grabbed at her chest again.
If someone had found them...
The thought of leaving, of running again, weakened her knees, made her heart weep in her chest.
Then don't run this time, Addy. No matter what, don't run.
A brave vow, but in a couple of months she'd turn twenty-nine—make that a hundred if you counted the street years—and if she knew one thing, it was that there were times when running was the only option, the only way to survive.
For now, she had to believe this wasn't one of them; that whatever their problem was, it could be fixed with some smart thinking and a good idea.
She bent to pick up an empty potato chip bag, tucked it into the trash, and looked across the lake. Her lake.
Positive thoughts aside, she couldn't shake the dreary sense her time was up, that maybe that special Someone Upstairs had looked down on Star Lake and decided Addilene Wartenski had been safe long enough—that it was past time she pay for what she had done.
Or hadn't done.
* * *
Frank was pleased with himself, and with Beauty. At first, when he'd seen her load her suitcase into that fancy Lexus convertible of hers, he'd been mad as hell. Then he'd thought on it a bit, decided on a wait-and-see attitude.
Chances were good she was sneaking off to see the Wart—maybe even Vanelleto.
The thought of Vanelleto made his guts churn and his mouth go hate dry. That vicious bastard deserved to die, one bullet at a time.
Bliss slid his hand under the newspaper on the passenger side of the car, stroked the cold steel of his newly acquired Glock. If he got lucky, and Beauty headed where he thought she was heading, he'd get his chance to provide those bullets.
For now, he'd wait, play it cool.
Revenge was good, but it didn't pay shit.
His mouth twisted into a thin smile. Wouldn't it be sweet, Vanelleto, Beauty, and the Wart all under one convenient roof?
Three chickens to pluck, two to fuck, and one to kill.
Warmed by the thought, he settled back into the seat of his rented Chrysler and watched the expensive red car switch deftly into the fast lane—but stick carefully to the speed limit.
He nearly laughed aloud. That's what made his plan so damn perfect: the woman driving the car had no more interest in attracting a cop's attention than he did.
Which made him and his Glock safe as babes in a stroller.
* * *
Cade mentally gave the DSHS, and Wayne Grover specifically, an A+ for record keeping. There was much more to go on in his files than the police report he'd borrowed from the SPD, Seattle's finest. Being a one-time criminalistics prof had its perks.
He shoved the Vanelleto and Lintz files aside and again opened Wartenski's.
It was thicker than the other two, more detailed, and he'd already committed most of it to memory. The child that was Addilene Wartenski now filled his mind and poked at his imagination. There were two pictures in the file, one of the girl at age seven or eight locked in the embrace of her mother, the other a stark portrait taken when she was eleven, the year she went permanently under the state's wing.
Cade wondered about the family photo. It was unusual to find a happy picture of a mother and daughter in the cold confines of an overworked caseworker's file. There was a sticky note on the back—in Grover's handwriting—
return to Addilene at Belle's.
Obviously, he'd forgotten to do so, or the murders and her running away precluded it.
There was no record anywhere of the father, and her birth certificate, like Dianna's, stated "father unknown." But even that scant information was more than there was for Vanelleto. There was zero documentation on his background, his birth, or his school time. Nothing. How he'd managed to stay in the cracks as long as he did was astounding, and it made profiling him impossible—and the worst place to start.
Addilene had at least attended school, albeit intermittently, until she hit the streets, although her grades were brutal and her attendance even worse.
According to her file, her mother, Marylee Wartenski, died when the child was nine, and Addilene was taken in by Marylee's sister, Gloria. Neither Marylee nor Gloria had married, and according to Grover's files, there were no other relatives. At least none he ever found. And from what Cade could see, the man had knocked himself out trying to find some.
He picked up the case photo and studied the likeness. The girl looked pale, glum, and plain. Blue eyes, long dark hair, apparently uncombed when the photo was taken, and lips that were either knife thin or tightly compressed. Hard to tell.
There were no birthmarks listed in the description, but it was noted she had a thin scar under her chin—probably invisible by now—acquired as a toddler when she fell from her tricycle.
While there was considerably more about Addilene's background than either Dianna or Vanelleto's, when it came to the murder of Belle Bliss, her name carried the least weight in both the police reports and in Grover's file.
Because of her age, Cade guessed. She would have been thirteen when the murder occurred and the youngest of the three. She'd been in the system for only two years and on the streets for most of that, after running away from Aunt Gloria for the third time.
With no home, no real family, no roots, Addilene would have been sweet pickings for a hustler like Vanelleto. Cade could easily imagine it, a smile, a few smooth promises...
Acquiring a virginal twelve-year-old would have been a gold mine for a guy like that. A guy who, according to Grover's notes, was in the process of earning his stripes in the girl-selling business. At seventeen, two other girls had already named him as their pimp and crack dealer. But before anything came of their charges, they disappeared, the case along with them.
Cade wasn't surprised.
Life on the streets had the stability of jelly in the sun. One day you had a witness, the next day you had a missing person. And so it went.
Cade tossed the photo on the file and pushed away from his desk. When he stood, Redge stood with him, eyes alert, tail waving hopefully. "Good idea, boy. Let's walk. It'll clear my head. Force it to focus." At the door, he snapped the leash onto the dog's collar.
In minutes they were outside the building, and while Cade drew in some of the early evening air, Redge lacquered the nearest parking meter.
They headed for the small park around the corner, Redge's brain dedicated to cataloging the neighborhood smells, Cade's preoccupied with Addilene. A murder. A missing child.
Dana wanted a child so badly... her child.
He killed that thought. Suddenly weary, all he wanted to do was walk away from the whole damn mess, disappear into the fictional world of Zero. A world where he could make everything turn out right. Where no one died unless they deserved to die, and he was judge, jury, and executioner.
He told himself he didn't owe Susan Moore squat, the debt was his mother's. But it didn't hold up. What was his mother's debt was his debt.
And there was Addilene, aka the Wart, who was fast getting a hold in his brain.
He never had developed skin tough enough to block out the damaged, lonely Addys in the world, which is why he made a better teacher than he did a cop, but it was the cop part of him that made one fact clear.
Of all three kids, Wartenski was the only one with a reasonably documented life before DSHS scooped her off the streets, which gave him some chance of getting to know her and come up with a profile that might give him a place to start.
Back in his apartment, Cade looked down at his cluttered desk, hit a key on his sleeping laptop, and woke up his screen.
With a few clicks, and an ounce of patience, he located Addilene's aunt, Gloria Wartenski, her phone number, and her current address. He considered the quick find, and the fact she lived less than an hour's drive from his apartment, an omen. It helped that Gloria was an upstanding citizen. The Internet unearthed the innocent faster than those with something to hide.
So Addilene Wartenski it was. If he were lucky, she'd lead him to the others—and to what happened to Josh Moore.
* * *
Addy sat bolt upright, her heart pounding.
The phone. It rang again, striking the quiet of her room like a lightning bolt.
She swallowed the shock that came with being roused at—she looked at the clock—three-fifteen in the morning and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" She shoved her short hair out of her eyes, then pressed her hand to her chest.
"Addy, it's Fallo—Beauty."
Fully awake now, Addy said, "I thought you'd be here by now." And because she was late, Addy had operated in submerged panic mode all day. "Where are you?"