Repressed Read online

  “Natalie Bell.” The woman offered her hand. “So nice to meet you in person.” Her hand was cold, thin, breakable, and Morrison felt like a bear trying to capture a bird as they shook. She would be no assistance against an intruder—any eighteen-year-old tweaker like the kid out front could throw her into a wall and barge right on in. They’d need to get a dog. A big one. He should have gotten one already.

  Bell bent to Evie as Shannon closed the door. “Well good afternoon, Miss Evie. How are you today?”

  Evie kicked her feet and whined. Bell tickled her toes.

  Shannon led them to the couch and settled Evie to nurse. Morrison sank onto the sofa next to her, making his face placid and blank, trying to save his intimidation for suspects instead of aiming it at potential caregivers. But despite his efforts, Bell shifted uneasily on the chair across from them, her plastered smile faltering.

  “So tell me, Ms. Bell, how long have you been in this business?” he asked. “You were a nanny previously, yes?”

  She straightened, her smile returning. “I started when I was eighteen, officially, though I babysat before that.”

  Evie farted again. Bell laughed. “Sounds like someone ate too many beans.”

  “And the ages of the children in your charge?” It came out of him more bark than question. Like Petrosky. He was turning into the old man.

  Shannon elbowed him and drew a finger across her throat. He shrugged at her and they both turned back to see Bell staring at them, her eyes wide.

  “Um … all ages,” she said. “The last family, the Harrises, I started out with one six-week-old, a two-year-old, and a five-year-old. I was there for three years until they moved.” She grinned. All teeth. All smiles. But her gaze remained worried, almost … sad. “Now I work mostly with infants at the gym daycare.”

  “You said that your previous employer moved out of state?” Shannon asked her.

  “Out of the country,” she said, fingers laced over one knee. “I think they’re in Europe now.” She locked eyes with Morrison and his stomach soured at a twitch in the corner of her still-smiling mouth.

  “And you don’t have their contact information?” he asked.

  Her face fell. “Well, no, I’m so sorry. I have the parents at the gym who can vouch for me, but I’ve only been there a short time. After the Harrises, I worked odd jobs. Got too attached to the kids, you know? It was hard when they left.” Her eyes went glassy. She had all the right responses, but everything felt somehow disconnected, like a poor stage actor reading lines in a play.

  Shannon glanced at the sheet. “I’ll call the references you listed, Ms. Bell. I’m sure we can figure it out.”

  “The Harris family,” Morrison began, peeking over Shannon’s shoulder. “I’ll need first names.”

  Bell’s jaw dropped but she recovered. Evie, still nursing, kicked her legs and tried to turn her head, yanking at Shannon’s breast in the process. Shannon kicked him in the shin.

  “Sam and uh … Fletcher,” Bell said, and he had to lean toward her over the coffee table to hear her properly.

  “Two men?”

  “No, the mom was Sam. Samantha.”

  Morrison nodded. He was being a royal dick, as Petrosky would say. But why the hell would she put “the Harris Family” like it was a corporation instead of a person? What kind of psycho nonsense was that?

  He’d been working the beat for too long.

  Shannon passed him the baby, eyes narrowed in his direction, and walked Bell out. By the time his wife returned to the couch and sat down next to him, his distrust had mellowed, and it shrank further at the tightness around her mouth.

  “I know you don’t want to leave Evie, Morrison. Trust me, I don’t want to either. But I head to Alex’s in two days and we need the nanny ready to start when I get back. Not like we can keep asking Petrosky to help out so we can go to dinner.”

  “He doesn’t mind. And he—”

  “I know, Morrison, okay? But he’s got his own issues.”

  But Evie helped Petrosky. Hell, just being needed helped Petrosky.

  “We can’t put it off anymore,” she said, and her face was suddenly rebuilt in stone. Don’t argue with a lawyer. “It’s time. This girl is a good candidate. Name one thing wrong with her.”

  He touched Shannon’s marble cheek, almost surprised by her warmth, a reminder that she was not hard and unmovable—she was his wife, she loved him, and she was here. Real. “Just let me check the candidates out first, Shanny. Okay?”

  She crossed her arms. “You could have done that while you were off.”

  “I was busy.” I was stalling.

  “You were stalling.”

  He sighed. “You’re right. I’m still not ready to leave her with a stranger. But I know we need to do it.”

  Her face softened, a chink in the wall of her stoicism. “Fine. I’ll give you my top three to look up, but I knew this was coming. Which is why you’ve already met two of them.”

  “Weeks and Bell? But they—”

  “No buts. They’re my favorites based on their résumés and their interviews didn’t change that. Then there’s Alyson Kennedy, the one who just beat you here this morning, recently out of Oaklawn.”

  “The hospital?”

  “She used to be a nurse. Super sweet. Played with Evie on the floor throughout the whole interview this morning.”

  I should have been here. “She was a nurse?” He frowned, back muscles twitching as he leaned forward in the seat. “Why’s she leaving the profession? She get caught doing something unscrupulous?”

  Shannon rolled her eyes. “You’ll find that out soon enough. Research away.” She stuck her tongue out at him. He almost returned the gesture until he realized she was looking at Evie. Instead, he sank back in the chair and tickled Shannon’s side. She shoved at his shoulders and he cupped her chin and put his mouth on hers. Cheetos. Definitely Cheetos.

  Evie kicked Shannon’s arm from her perch on his leg.

  Shannon pulled back, her face suddenly serious. “If you really want to know, Kennedy said she needed a change of pace, and I can’t say I blame her. It’s gotta be hard dealing with sick or dying kids all day. You of all people should know …”

  A hook squirmed in his belly and caught the soft spot under his heart. She was right—seeing children in pain was horrible “Fine. But she better be good.”

  “Oh, she’ll be good. Nurses always are. And if I come home and catch her in my nurse’s uniform, you’re in trouble.” She winked and headed for the kitchen. “Just don’t take too long to decide,” she called over her shoulder. “If we lose all three because you’re busy screwing around—”

  “I’ll look today, Shanny. Promise.” He stood as she disappeared around the corner. “Wait, you really have a nurse’s uniform?”

  She poked her head back into the living room “I do if you can make this nanny thing happen.”

  He was opening his mouth to respond when his cell rang with the theme from Miami Vice. Shannon disappeared into the kitchen as Morrison pulled it from his pocket. “Hey, Boss.”

  “Fortieth and Shell. The middle school.”

  Hell. He looked at Evie, flapping her arms like an adorable, and extremely chubby, bird. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for detective work anymore. “On my way.”

  Please don’t let it be a kid.

  6

  It shouldn’t have bothered her, but the sound of his car starting up in the drive started Shannon’s own heart revving louder than his eco-friendly engine; the car door slamming was the muted thud of goodbye. Alone. The first full day in months that she’d been completely on her own. Not that Morrison had helped much when he was home today: the man was being irritating as all hell with this nanny thing, but she knew it was just because he loved her. Because he loved their daughter. But she would have been okay with any of these women … did that mean she didn’t love Evie as much?

  He deserves better than this. Evie deserves better than me. They deserved better than
a wife and mother who would settle for any of the top three instead of fighting for the one, perfect nanny for her little girl. Who was so damn fragile that she was terrified by the prospect of her own thoughts—of being alone with herself.

  No, that was the depression talking, she was certain of that now. Most days she squashed those thoughts like she was bringing a boulder down onto them, smashing them into useless pieces. It was a visual that she’d used to demolish negativity from her mother, her father, her ex-husband, every shitty bullshit defendant she’d put away. But every once in a while these new thoughts bubbled up and reminded her that she wasn’t quite … right yet.

  Not that she was totally nuts, not like before. Just … stressed. This trip was wearing on her, the mere thought of it rendering her almost unable to think about anything else. Was she going to be okay for so many hours, alone in the car with Evie? Of course she was. Could she even be trusted to be alone? Of course she could. Dr. McCallum believed in her. Morrison believed in her—that’s why he’d left her alone now. And goddammit, she knew she could do this. Alone? Alone. She’d never needed anyone else to hold her up. Why the fuck would she start now?

  She squared her shoulders and turned from the door, toward the pack-n-play where Evie was gurgling happily, kicking at the empty air. Shannon’s heart swelled at the sight of her. She was a good mother. This bullshit depression would not eat her alive. She would not give in.

  But she was becoming too dependent on everyone else to keep her steady. Morrison had been back to work for a fucking day and already she felt like she might lose her shit. And every time she explained to him why they needed to hire a sitter now she was really justifying it to herself. She’d never thought she’d be one of those women who wanted to stay home raising babies, but … she didn’t want to go back to work. Or she did—she just didn’t want to leave Evie.

  Is that why Morrison was hesitant to hire the nanny? Because he thought she wasn’t ready? She could feel it in every worried look he gave her, every concerned hug. Hear it in his voice each time he asked how her day was going. Even on the phone it was like his concern was bubbling through her ear and into her brain, reminding her that maybe she was sick.

  He didn’t mean it that way. Her husband loved her. He worried. Fine. But she was going to kick depression in the balls. She could do this trip without his help—without anyone’s help. And then she’d be back to kicking ass in the courtroom where she’d always belonged.

  Without her daughter.

  Below her, Evie gurgled and Shannon blinked back tears.

  7

  The school was red brick, scarred from continual sandblasting to remove graffiti, but still standing—more than Morrison could say for most of the other schools in Ash Park. Unlike the drab exterior, the signs on the doors were bright, and finger paintings lined the windows. Here and there a tiny face grinned at him through the glass, little pockets of innocence, probably drawn to the flashing lights of the police cars or the news vans that were now parking in the lot. But the raw trust on those children’s faces reminded him that someone on these grounds now understood how unsafe and cruel the world could be.

  The earth, still wet from last night’s rainstorm, sucked at his shoes. The grass pulsed with a vibrant energy that shuddered through the soles of his feet and up his legs, warning him to turn back toward the car before he had to see whatever waited for him behind the building. He strained his ears, but there was no wail of an ambulance siren, no shouts from an EMT pulling someone back into this world—just the ominous silence of a playground turned graveyard.

  Beyond the trembling fingers of grass, swings moved back and forth as if of their own volition—touched, perhaps, by a murderous palm and now terrified of whatever evil lay hidden beyond the playground. He'd have the techs check for prints. Beyond the swings, a low wooden fence marked the edge of the school property, and beyond that, a few dozen ash and poplar trees waved in the breeze over low-hanging firs. Petrosky stood at the tree line, watching a man in white coveralls string crime tape between two birches. He glanced over as Morrison approached.

  “What’ve we got, Boss?”

  “Dylan Acosta. Eleven. Raped and murdered sometime during morning recess—about three hours ago.”

  A kid. Morrison followed Petrosky’s gaze to the earth beneath the nearest fir boughs. Feet, socks. Sneakers, half the size of Morrison’s own, heels to the sky.

  Fuck. Morrison inhaled through his nose, trying to force the cool air into his burning lungs, trying to ignore the stink of gore and mud and what had to be feces. Trying to forget the fact that this pile of parts used to be a little boy. Be placid. Cool. Ignore the heat.

  Morrison approached around the perimeter, staying out of the way of the techs who were scouring the ground for prints or bits of hair. His fingers felt numb, or maybe just cold, or maybe they weren’t his at all—a collection of cold, random limbs, like in the scene before him. He flexed his fingers, balled his hands into fists, and forced himself to look at the body.

  Dylan Acosta. Skinny, shoulder blades prominent, face down in the dirt. Holes that looked like a series of small-caliber gunshot wounds marred the boy’s bare back and buttocks. A T-shirt that the kid had probably been strangled with lay crumpled and limp above his shoulders like blue wings—a child turned to a broken angel. Morrison hissed in a breath through his teeth. The kid’s pants were around his knees, his underwear … missing. If his clothing had been removed and replaced while the child was alive, the act was indicative of prolonged suffering. He hoped the killer had taken the undergarments as a souvenir after the boy was dead.

  “Found his underwear in the bushes,” Petrosky said, and Morrison swore he could feel the watchful eyes of the boy’s spirit on his back. “All torn up. Ditto on his jacket.”

  So the killer had left the clothing, tossed it like rags. Probably still warm. Probably still smelled like boy.

  Morrison let his eyes drift to where techs were bagging debris and cloth. The earth surrounding the dumping ground was muddy and creased in filthy waves. A struggle? He peered at the boy’s feet, but the mud didn’t cover his shoes as you’d expect if he’d been digging in his heels trying to escape. Instead, the dirt was speckled over the kid’s skin, over his sneakered feet, over his legs and buttocks as if it had splashed up from the killer’s heels only after the child had been incapacitated. But … there were more than one set of tracks. One appeared to be the shallow treads of a tennis shoe, small, but definitely bigger than the kid’s. The other treads were deep, thick rectangles that looked like they’d been left by boots. One set from the killer and another from the person who’d found the kid or—

  “We dealing with more than one suspect?”

  Petrosky was still frowning at the techs in the bushes. “Appears that way. The teacher who found him came around from the other side—heels don’t match these either.” Petrosky dragged his gaze from the techs to the impressions in the mud. “From the size of the shoes and the depth of these depressions, the guy in the boots is probably five nine, and slight—around a hundred and fifty, hundred and sixty tops. The other guy’s shorter, but heavier: five eight-ish, a hundred and seventy pounds. Looks like they got into a scuffle.”

  A scuffle? What would make a couple of raping murderers go after one another? Unless … one of them wasn’t a killer at all. Pedophiles didn’t usually kill their victims—many genuinely believed that they adored children, that sexual abuse was an expression of love. So had the shorter perp tried to keep the other from murdering the kid? Had someone else been here trying to stop the rape to begin with? But if that were the case, they’d probably have another body.

  Morrison followed Petrosky’s gaze to the holes in the child’s back. His stomach turned. He’d been wrong—the holes were round, but they weren’t from a gun. Probably not from a blade, either. Unlike a routine stabbing, where the wounds varied in size and distance from one another, here each set of round punctures on the boy’s back was a uniform distance apar
t.

  Between one set of punctures, four muddy rectangles, smeared and bloody, ran between the round holes. Morrison swallowed hard and held his shudder in check. Treads from the boot. “The holes are from a sharp object,” he began slowly. “But look at the patterns around the wounds. All the same. Like he strapped … spikes to his boot and …”

  “Stomped him to death,” Petrosky said. “This fucker didn’t want to get his hands dirty.”

  Morrison could almost feel the sharp prick of a spike in his chest and he inhaled over the pain until it subsided.

  Petrosky walked around him and knelt beside the kid, lifting the boy’s head with gloved fingers. When had he put on gloves?

  “Lots of blood around the mouth,” he said, quietly, almost as reverent as the hush that had fallen over the woods, as if every animal including the techs working the grounds felt the solemn emptiness in the air and were hiding from the evil that had caused it. “Punctured lungs, one or both. But we’ll have to wait on the medical examiner to confirm.”

  Morrison avoided looking at the kid’s face and squinted at the wounds instead. Middle back, either side of the spine—the kid had probably drowned in his own blood. He’d have been terrified. In agony. Strangulation would have been more humane.

  Petrosky laid the boy’s head—Dylan’s head, Dylan Acosta’s head—back into the dirt as gently as one might touch a butterfly’s wing.

  Morrison’s eyes were still glued to Acosta’s back, to a spot on the kid’s side that he’d noticed when Petrosky had moved him. Scratches or maybe another stab wound. He could hear the kid’s heartbeat—deep and fast—and was ready to crouch, check for a pulse, when he felt the throb in his temples and realized the beat was his own. Morrison wiped his forehead on his sleeve and pointed. “What’s there?”