Nick: Justice Series (2 page)

Steele looked at the list and nodded, telling him that she was missing as well. He waited until Charlie could talk again before he asked him where he had come from. By the time he had some information to go on, the rest of the men in the house were up as well and joining them. Kari was helping to get breakfast on the table with their cook Izzy and her husband Jake.

Ray was making arrangements to go by van. They would all load into it, but Steele and Kari would go by car. Not that they would normally be separated from the group, but Charlie knew where he had been but not the address. He would have to follow the man by car as he made his way back to where his body had been tossed, no doubt. It was going to be a long day if the list that was on the missing report was any kind of indication.

It took them nearly an hour to find the gravesite. And by the time they’d called in the local police, the news vans had started to show up. It took Steele having to call in a favor to keep their names out of the paper, and no one was happy when the Feds showed up. It was a missing person’s case up until the first body was discovered. Ray Hancock stood near him as the second, then the third body was found.

“You know how many are here?” Steele told him there might be as many as eleven. “Christ. Children too?”

“Yes.” Ray hated it when children were involved. Well, to be honest, they all did. But when Aster came to stand next to him, he told her to go to Kari. She was taking this very hard. The little girl, Meggie, had found his wife, and Kari had never had to help with a child before this. Steele continued speaking with Ray as his sister went to his wife. “They were at his home for Christmas. The woman who killed them was with the son. He seemed confused, his dad said.”

“You think she went there just to murder them?” Steele nodded. “Why? I mean, maybe she had a breakdown and just killed them on a whim.”

“She tortured them. Charlie looks like she cut him up over a long period of time. I’m betting that the autopsy will show that they were all done the same way. She brought them here, but I don’t think this is where they were killed. Charlie said he lived in this area, but this isn’t his land.”

“So we have to figure out where that is as well, unless it was his house. You think that’s where she killed them?” Steele just stared at him. “You know, don’t you? You know either who she is or where she is.”

“I know who she is, but you’re not going to like it.” Ray started cursing, and Steele just smiled. “Yeah, I know what you mean. We tried to tell them when they released her that this would happen again.”

Ellen Wooten had been in an institute for the criminally insane since she’d been eight. Ellie, as everyone had called her, had murdered not just her family, but the neighbors on both sides of them, as well as all the animals that had been in the houses. There were nineteen people killed and torn up by the child, and she’d been put away. Not her face, her name…nothing about her had hit the papers for over fifteen years, until about a year ago when her time served had been up and she’d been labeled as fit to return to society. A mistake by the system that was now coming back to haunt them in the worst kind of way.

“‘Model patient,’ they said. ‘Never even raises her voice,’ they said to me. I told them this would happen. I told them every day that fucking meeting was going on this would happen. Once those kind get a taste for it, there isn’t a damned thing going to stop them.” Steele let Ray go on. At least his voice was down so that the papers and news crews weren’t getting any of it. “What the fuck are they going to do now? I ask you this.”

“We find her, or help to find her, and have her put away again.” They looked at the dogs going over the property, and Steele watched as they pulled out another body, this one wrapped in what looked to him like wrapping paper. “I know that it won’t help these people, but we can hopefully save a few more.”

It took them nearly nine hours to find them all. All the people on the missing list had been accounted for, and even the dog and cat that had been in the family had been found with the bodies, as if she’d wanted to keep them together for some reason. Steele was thinking how she would have needed plenty of time to dig these graves for them, not to mention bringing them all to this site. He wondered if she’d had any help, and decided to go and ask the group of ghosts that were gathered around each other.

“No. Not that we remember seeing.” The little girl was standing next to who Steele assumed was her mom when Charlie answered him. “Suppose she could have when she…after she was done, but didn’t see nobody that night.”

“If you’d let me touch one of you, the way you are now, maybe I can get something more. Perhaps she left behind something on you that will let me see more of what happened to you all.” Charlie put out his hand, but Steele shook his head. “I’m sorry, but not you. You’ve been…you’ve been dealing with this for too long. I need someone who is still unsure what has happened.”

It had to be the child. He could see that she was still not understanding what had happened to her. Yes, she could see that her family was all hurt, but it hadn’t occurred to her that all of them were as dead as she was. Steele knelt before her, careful not to frighten her.

When she shied behind her mom, Aster told him to let her do it. He watched his sister, someone that had been gone longer than this little girl had been alive, and let her take over for him. Her smile was as beautiful now as it had been the morning she’d left him and been killed.

“My name is Aster Bennett. Your name is Meggie, right?” The little girl nodded but didn’t move from her mom. “I’m sure this is all very scary to you. It was when it happened to me, so I know all about being afraid. But my brother can help you all. Would you let him?”

“She hurt me. I didn’t do anything wrong, but she still hurt me.” Aster nodded and Steele knew that this was costing his sister. She loved children as much as she had life. Her love of them had been what had gotten her killed that day. A simple act of kindness had led her into the path of a semi, and she’d been killed just like that. “I don’t want anybody to hurt me again.”

“And they never will, honey. Not ever again.” Steele felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up at Kari. She could see as much as he could, but not the injuries. His wife was a necro as well, but not as strong as him. No one was as strong as he was. “My brother is going to help find that bad woman and make sure that she never hurts anyone again. But you have to let him touch just a part of you. I swear to you, it won’t hurt you one bit.”

The little girl stared at him, then looked up at her mom. The woman had suffered greatly at the hands of Ellen; not just her body, but her face as well. It was the same for the other family members that Ellen had killed. The women of the household had suffered the most.

“He won’t hurt me?” Aster assured her that he wouldn’t, not for anything. “And he’ll catch her? She hurt my doggie too. I love Shep, and he needs to be taken to the hospital soon.”

Steele only moved forward when little Meggie did. She was terrified, he could see that, but she was brave too, and he told her that. His touch to her cheek was just to assure her that he’d not hurt her, but he got more than he’d bargained for. The little girl had seen it all, her entire family being killed, before she was murdered too.

Chapter 2

Addie watched the men in the house. They were bringing in more and more equipment all the time. And the woman who was with them seemed to be in charge, but the guys didn’t seem to realize it, not yet at least. Addie thought the woman was a great deal like Joel in that she simply expected you to do as she wanted, and fuck your opinion. He’d been like that with her every time she’d spoken to him.

Joel had told her right after her father had told her that she was marrying him what he expected of her as his wife. She had only sat there listening to him because it never occurred to her that he was serious. All she could think of was he was having fun with her. Something she would never have guessed he’d be doing, because as far as Addie knew, Joel didn’t have a funny bone in his body. But she learned quickly enough that he was not only serious in his rules, but he wasn’t going to let her have any say in anything, or she’d feel his wrath.

The slap had taken her breath away…not that she’d never been slapped before. Her father would hit her just because he felt that, while he’d not heard that she’d done anything wrong, it was his duty to make sure that she never did. But Joel had hit her when she’d spoken, as he said, out of turn.

“You will obey me, Addison. There will be no more of this temper of yours when we are wed. I simply won’t tolerate it.” She just stared at him with her hand on her cheek. “And don’t think that tears will move me. There won’t be any little bobbles or gifts to appease you either. I’m not going to apologize for keeping you in line, ever. When you mess up, I’m going to be swift in showing you how you’ve done so, and expect you to never mention it again. To anyone.”

“You mean my grandmother.” He drew back to hit her again and she stood up. One thing she’d learned that day…he hated that she was taller than him. “You touch me again, and so help me I will take you down.”

It didn’t matter what she said. He hit her again, over and over until she could no longer see straight. But she’d gotten in a few licks of her own…a kick to the groin, a chair over his head. She might have even gotten away from him had her father not chosen that moment to come and check on them. His hit had knocked her out.

Two days later it was in the paper that she was to wed Joel Delaney, and no amount of talking to the paper to get them to retract it or begging her parents would change any of that. She was fucked. And the fact that her grandmother was out of the country at the time this all was arranged had not helped her one bit. Three days before her birthday, her grandmother had returned, and with her, a hell like no other had ever seen.

“You love him?” Addie told her not only did she not love him, but that she loathed him, and her grandmother had nodded. “I’ve talked to your father. A stupider man I’ve never known. He won’t budge either. And I told my daughter that I was done with her too. You know what she said to me? ‘One gets used to it after a while.’ She’s as dumb as he is, I think.” Addie laughed, but it was short lived as well when she realized she had nowhere to turn.

“I won’t marry him.” Grandmother nodded. “I mean…I just won’t. He told me that I’d never see you again either, even if he had to have you committed and then killed to keep us apart.”

“We’ll see about that. I’ve been around a good deal longer than that little pisser, and I plan to be around a good deal longer.” Her grandmother put her hand on Addie’s chin. “Did he do this?”

“Yes.” Grandmother nodded but didn’t say any more. “He’s going to do it again if he finds out that I’m here. And you should see the guards that he has on me when I go out. May has been fired too. I’ve known her my entire life, and now he has this woman that he’s picked out to take care of my needs. I don’t have any needs that she can take care of…she wants to dress and undress me. Fuck that crap.”

“He is old school for such a young millionaire. And a moron.” Grandmother dismissed the woman in the corner of the room with them. She didn’t want to go, but Grandmother got what she wanted even if she had to use force. Bentley, her best friend and butler, had forced the woman out of the room bodily when she wouldn’t go. “This will cost you too, I would imagine. So you have to think quickly and move on it. But don’t tell me. I don’t…when you go, just call me to tell me you’re gone so I know that no one murdered you.”

When she handed her a card with a number on the back, Addie had had a feeling it was going to help her. Her grandmother had kissed her on the cheek and held her just a little longer than she normally would have before telling her how much she loved her. Addie had a feeling that her grandmother knew that her days within this house were numbered too.

Going to the bank the morning of her birthday had been difficult, and she might not have been able to pull it off had the clerk in the wedding shop not been on her grandmother’s payroll. As soon as she was put into a room to try on the dress that Joel had picked out for her to wed him in, Addie was shown to the back of the place, where a cab was waiting for her. When Addie asked the woman if she’d be all right, she told her that she was going to be if Addie got away. Smiling, she handed Addie a letter from her grandmother and told her to go to the bank. It was arranged there too.

The sound of screaming had Addie going to her little window that looked out over the yard. The barn wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought, and it afforded her a perfect view of the yard and front door to the house.

Addie had been living in the house until a few days ago when a couple of men had shown up. They were talking about bringing back some equipment and some ghost hunting items to the house. Addie still found it hard to believe that anyone would be stupid enough to think that dead people wandered around like they showed you in the movies.

The man stumbling out of the house covered in blood made her glad that she’d moved to the barn as soon as the men had left the first time, and not waited to see if they’d return. Addie stared at the macabre scene below her in a kind of horrific stupor.

Addie nearly screamed when the woman came out behind him with what appeared to be a large sword in her hands. When the woman grabbed the man’s hair, Addie thought for sure that she was seeing if he was all right, but soon saw that she was wrong. His head was removed almost as soon as the woman got to him, and it tumbled across the yard to land looking up at her. Addie scrambled away from the window so quickly that she nearly fell off the short ledge.

Her heart was pounding so hard that she was sure that anyone going by the big barn could have heard it. When the door to the barn squeaked open, Addie moved with the utmost care. There was nowhere to hide up here, so she covered herself with the hay, hoping and praying that the woman wasn’t coming to find her as well.

“Hello?” Addie whimpered a little but didn’t move. The woman had seen her; that was all her mind could focus on right now. “Where are you? I know that you’re in here. I could smell you all over the house. It never occurred to me that you’d still be around, but here you are.”

Addie covered her mouth and nose with her shirt and closed her eyes as she tossed the hay over her. The creaking of the door didn’t fool her one bit. The woman was still in here with her. Addie decided that she’d lay here for days before she gave in and moved, if that was all it took to keep her alive.

The ladder was being used. The sound of it scraping the edge of the loft, where she was, gave her reason to believe that she’d be dead within minutes. Her family—well, her grandmother—would never know what had happened to her. Joel would be madder still at her. A small giggle started to bubble up from her belly, and she only just managed to stifle it when the hay near her head moved.

“Did you see my handiwork?” The voice was very close to her, but Addie didn’t move. “I killed Peter too. What a douche bag. Both of them really. They were going to find me out with their machines, and I just couldn’t have that. I have a great deal of work yet I want to do. Well, not so much work, but playing. I so love to play.”

A slicing sound had Addie holding her breath tighter within her. While she had no idea what it was, she knew as surely as she lay there that it would not bode well for her. As the noise echoed again, Addie knew what it was the moment that the pain in her arm caused her to be terrified. Not that she wasn’t already. But the woman was slicing the knife into the hay around her, looking, no doubt, for her or anyone that was hiding up here.

“You never know about people, I guess. Here I thought that I was the only one that knew about this place, and then these assholes put an ad in the paper asking for an assistant. I applied—they told me that I was the only one really, but I had to see if they could do it. Never in a million years did I think that they would. But they thought they could, and who knew? They were able to record ghosts on their little machines.” The noise was closer to her body now. Addie knew that something had cut her, and hoped that her blood wouldn’t give her away. “I guess we’ll never know now if what they found was just squiggly lines or a ghost that I had made the last time I was here. I got…I guess I got a little greedy in my need to draw more blood.”

This time the pain centered in her right side. The pain was so great that Addie screamed silently behind her hand. Whatever the woman had stabbed into her, Addie knew that this time it was deep. In her pain, she thought of the man at the cemetery.

Oh, how I wish you were here now, Nicholas.
The connection to him was profound. And even if she didn’t actually know him, she felt comforted by him touching her mind.
I’m going to die this time, and without you being a part of it.

Where are you?
Smiling, the woman still talking above her, Addie told him that she had no idea but that she was in a barn
. What state? Do you know the city?

After telling him what she could remember, he told her to wait for him
. Yeah, well, I have nowhere to go, so that isn’t going to be hard. Will you contact my grandmother?

What’s her name?
Addie didn’t think she told him, just thought of the grief her grandmother would feel when she was dead.
I’ll contact her. Who else? Anyone else that I need to notify for you?

No. No one cares. But you can’t tell Joel, Joel Delaney, about me. He’s a monster of the worst kind.
The woman said something, and Addie wanted to ask her what she’d said. Then as she moved by her, her foot stepping between her legs like she knew she was there, Addie talked to the man of her dreams
. I’m going to die. This woman was here with two men and she killed them. I don’t know her name, but they were here to film ghosts of the dead. There are no such things as ghosts, and now because they’re stupid, I’m going to die.

You’re not going to die, and there are ghosts. I’m coming, Addie. I’ll be there soon. Just hang on for me.
She told him she would try.
Just hang on for me.

~~~

Nick told Mitch, who was riding with him, what Addie had told him. The car they were in lurched forward as Mitch pressed down on the gas pedal. If they got there, it would be faster than if Steele or any of the others were driving because, as much as he loved Mitch, he drove like a race car driver most of the time. Nick called Steele and told him what was going on just as he and Mitch pulled into the long drive of the house that Charlie had sent them to.

“It has to be the same house. I mean, how many houses do you think are in the middle of nowhere that she used to murder her victims?” Steele agreed with him and told him they were there already. “We’re in the driveway. Go to the barn. She’s in there.”

“I’m there now. I don’t see anything.” Before the car was at a complete stop, Nick was jumping out and running to the barn. The men were in there, all of them, looking for Addie and calling her name. Nick closed his eyes and tried to reach for her again, but didn’t feel her any longer. Something dripped on his face, and he rubbed it off and looked at Kari, who was in front of him.

“What?” When she looked up, he did as well. There was nothing there but an overhang and some straw or something hanging over the edge. “What is it you see?”

“You have blood on your face.” Nick looked down at his hand, then at her. “She’s up there somewhere. We just have to figure out how to get up there.”

Steele found the ladder that had been taken off. It had blood on it as well, and Steele and Drew held it steady for Nick as he climbed up. He tried to judge where the blood had dripped onto his face and the place above it to find her. When he was at the top, he got off the ladder clumsily in his haste, and nearly fell to his death when he tripped. The straw under his foot was drenched in blood.

“I found her.” Or at least he hoped so. Taking off the shirt that was over the woman’s face, he looked down at Addie, his future wife. “She’s stabbed, twice that I can see. Pulse is weak. And she’s lost a great deal of blood.”

The medics that were there with them made their way up the ladder much as he had, carefully and quickly. As soon as he was asked to move back, Nick started to tell them her name when they asked, but stopped himself. He had to keep her identity a secret, as well as the fact that she was alive.

Steele was coming up the ladder when Nick started to fall apart. One look from the man and Nick could feel his back start to stiffen up again, and he started to ask for things that he knew he should be caring for himself. But he didn’t want to leave her. Not yet, at any rate. Steele seemed to know why he was doing it. Nick was scared shitless and didn’t want anyone to mess this up for her. Or him for that matter. Steele only nodded and told him he was on it. Then Nick sat down hard on the hay.