AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’ve been a busy boy, Jamie,” Eve said evenly. “Planning on cat burglary as a career?”
“No.” He didn’t smile. “I’m going to be a cop. Like you.”
Eve blew out a breath, scrubbed her hands over her face, and sat. “Cops who make a habit of illegal entry end up on the wrong side of a cage.”
“They had my sister.”
“Were they holding her against her will?”
“They messed with her mind. That’s the same thing.”
Touchy area, Eve mused. She couldn’t go back and stop the kid from breaking into private property. His grandfather had been a solid cop, she remembered, and had tried to do the same. The boy had simply succeeded.
“I’m going to do you a favor because I liked your grandfather. We’re going to keep this off the record. As far as the record goes, you were never there. Never inside that place. You got that?”
“Sure.” He jerked a shoulder. “Whatever.”
“Tell me what you saw. Don’t exaggerate, don’t speculate.”
Jamie’s lips curved a little. “Grandpa always said that.”
“That’s right. You want to be a cop, give me a report.”
“Okay. Cool. Alice was in Weird City, right? She’d been cutting classes, making noises about dropping out. Mom was really wrecked over it. She thought it was a guy, but I knew it wasn’t. Not that she was talking to me. She’d stopped talking to me.”
He broke off then, his eyes dark and miserable. Then he shook his head, sighed once, and continued. “But I knew her. Alice would get all moony over a guy, dreamy-eyed and spastic. But with this, she was different. I figured she’d started experimenting. Illegals. I know my mom had talked to my grandfather, and he’d talked to Alice, but nobody was getting anywhere. So I figured I’d check it out. I followed her a couple times. I thought it would be good practice. Surveillance. She never tagged me. None of them did. A lot of people don’t see kids, or if they do, they think they’re harmless idiots.”
Eve kept her eyes hard on his face. “I don’t think you’re harmless, Jamie.”
His lips twisted in a smirk. He recognized that Eve’s statement wasn’t exactly flattering. “So I tailed her to that club. The Athame. First time I had to wait outside. I wasn’t prepped for it. She went in about ten, came out about twelve, with the ghoul patrol.”
He smirked again when Eve lifted a brow. “Okay, subject exited premises in the company of three individuals, two male, one female. You already got their descriptions, so I’ll say they were later identified by investigator as Selina Cross, Alban, and Lobar. They proceeded east, on foot, then entered multiunit housing structure owned by Selina Cross. Investigator observed light go on in top window. After weighing the options, investigator decided to enter building. Security was bypassed with minimal to average effort. Can I have another Pepsi?”
Saying nothing, Roarke took the empty tube, slipped it into the recycling slot, and fetched the boy another.
“It was really quiet inside,” Jamie continued as he broke the seal. “Like dead. Dark. I had a minilight, but I didn’t use it. I got upstairs, bypassed the palm plate and the cameras. The locks weren’t that tricky. I figure they didn’t think anybody’d have the nerve to come that far without an invite, you know? I got inside and the place was empty. I couldn’t figure it. I’d seen them go in, I’d seen the light, but the place was empty. So I poked around. They’ve got some screwy stuff in there. And it smelled…off. Sorta like the incense and junk in a Free-Agers’ shop, but different. Just off. I was in one of the bedrooms. There’s this wild statue in there. This guy with a pig head and a man’s body with a really monster cock at full alert.”
He stopped, flushed a little as he remembered he was talking to females as well as cops. “Sorry.”
“I’ve seen cocks at full alert before,” Eve said mildly. “Go on.”
“Okay. So I was just sort of looking at it, and this guy comes in. I thought, Shit, I’m busted, but he didn’t see me. He got something out of a drawer, turned around, and walked out. Never even looked my way.” Jamie shook his head, sipped deeply, as he reexperienced the bowel-liquefying fear. “I got to the doorway just as he was going through the wall. Secret panel,” he explained with a quick grin. “I thought they were only in old videos. I gave it a couple of minutes and went in after him.”
At this, Eve simply pressed her hands to her face, digging her fingers into the knots. “You went in after him.”
“Yeah, my luck was holding pretty good. There’s this stairway, narrow. I think it was stone. I could hear music. Not really music, more like voices, sort of humming. And that off smell was stronger. The stairway turns and there’s this room. About half the size of this one, with mirrored walls. Lots of candles and more horny statues. It’s smoky. Something’s in the smoke, because it makes me light-headed. I try to be careful not to breathe too much in.”
He stared down at the drink in his hand. This part was hard, he realized. Harder than he’d thought it would be. “There’s this raised platform, all this carving. Some sort of words, I think, but I can’t make it out. Alice is lying on it. She’s naked. The three of them are standing over her saying something. Singing it, I guess, but I can’t understand them. They’re doing things to her, to each other.”
He had to swallow again. His face was bone white with high, red blotches on the cheeks. “They’ve got like sex toys and she’s…letting them. Both of them. And she lets them, she lets them do her while that Cross bitch watches. Alice just lets them…”
Without realizing it, Eve reached out, took his hand, let him grip her fingers hard enough to rub bone.
“I couldn’t stay there. I was sick, seeing that, and the smoke, the sounds. I had to get out.” His eyes were wet now as he looked up. “She wouldn’t have let them do that if they hadn’t messed with her mind. She wasn’t a slut. She wasn’t.”
“I know. Did you tell anyone?”
“I couldn’t.” He swiped the back of one hand over his face. “It would’ve killed my mom. I wanted to hit Alice with it, hit her hard with it. I was so pissed off. But I couldn’t. I was embarrassed I’d seen her like that, I guess. My sister.”
