CHAPTER EIGHT
Later that night after everything had settled down, Cassie was feeling lonely. Everyone else had gone home and her house was silent again. She laid there in the dark alone. She didn’t know where Deke was only that he wasn’t beside her in their bed. He hadn’t been for several days.
She rubbed her big belly and tried to hold back her tears. She didn’t know when Deke became so important to her but he had. Now, it seemed like she was losing him and she couldn’t bear it. All her life she had been alone then for a brief few months, she had something with him that made her feel alive. At least he had given her one thing, he’d given her the babies. She knew she would never really be alone again, even if her life had changed.
Demon jumped up on the bed and laid his huge body next to hers. Her fingers buried deep in his long hair. “Oh Demon, what am I gonna do without him?” she whispered. “I love him so much.”
The shadows moved and Deke knelt beside the bed. Taking her hand in his he whispered, “He loves you too, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”
Cassie turned tear filled eyes toward him. “I thought you didn’t want me anymore. I thought I was losing you.”
Deke smiled. “Not gonna happen, lady. At least not in this lifetime.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve just felt like you were pulling away. I’ve lived my whole life alone and I guess I never expected a happy ever after.”
Deke chuckled. “I can’t be near you without wanting to make love to you and we can’t do that at the moment.”
Cassie grinned. “We may not be able to make love but there are other ways to satisfy certain urges.”
Deke raised his eyebrow. “Doc said no excitement for the next two weeks.”
“Yeah, well look how far that went?” Cassie snorted. “I feel fine, the babies are fine.” She hesitated then whispered, “I need you so much, now and forever. I think I’ve been waiting for you my whole life and now, I don’t want to live without you in it.”
Deke couldn’t help himself. He crawled into bed and held her for a moment then his lips found hers.
Cassie felt him harden against her belly and she groaned. She couldn’t help herself, she wanted what only he could give her. She ripped open his shirt and pressed kisses down his neck and on his wide chest. She suckled his hard nipples and she could feel his heart beating in his chest. The rhythm was increasing and she kissed down his belly and nuzzled his jeans where his cock was, hard and throbbing.
Her fingers fumbled with his belt and she pushed his clothing aside. Her hand slipped under his boxers and reached for his hardness. Pushing the cloth barrier of his boxers down, her lips closed around him. As she tasted his pre cum she felt him grow harder inside her mouth.
Groaning, she swallowed and heard him moan. She felt his hands at the back of her head and he lifted his hips to her mouth. His cock hit the back of her throat. She could smell his musky scent and she wanted more. She wanted him to give her everything he had. Her fingers wrapped around his cock and she began an age long rhythm. She moved her hips in time to his and before long, she felt him explode in her mouth. Swallowing his load, she felt herself rubbing her body on his. His knee found her sweet spot and she let go, awash in desire.
Deke hauled her body up and his lips pressed to hers. His tongue pushed into her mouth and dueled with hers. Desire renewed in both of them and Deke had to break away. “We can’t, as much as we both want it, we can’t.”
Cassie groaned and hid her face in his neck. “I know.”
Deke pulled her close to him and held her tight until his heart slowed down and he felt the calm engulf him. “Please don’t think I don’t love you or that I’m pulling away from you. From the moment I saw you at the club, I wanted you and over time that want became so much more.”
Cassie bit her lower lip. “But I’m badly damaged, Deke and what you think you know of me isn’t all the bad there is.”
“Honey, we’ve all done things growing up that we wish we’d done differently. You didn’t have a choice in what happened to you, you never did. But you did what you had to do to survive.” He brushed the hair away from her eyes. “You aren’t damaged, maybe a little scuffed up, but not really damaged.”
Cassie closed her eyes for a moment. “How can you say that?” she whispered. “You’ve seen my scars…you know what Robbie did to me and what he would have done if he’d been able to.”
“Yeah, I see your scars but inside your heart, you aren’t bitter about what life has done to you. You cared enough about other people to make your dreams of a safe home like Redemption House a reality. You kept Peaches alive when you could have left her on her own. Damaged people are people like Janelle Walden, people who don’t care what they do, or what harm they cause others. That’s not you. You are stronger than anyone I know, strong enough to overcome whatever happened in your past.”
Cassie felt a tightening in her throat. “I’m not so sure I’ve overcome all my past. I deal by pushing it out of my mind. Sometimes, I worry about my past coming back to haunt me. There’s so much more in my past that nobody knows yet, things I’ve done I don’t talk about, not with anyone. Things even Peaches doesn’t know about.”
“That’s okay.” Deke hugged her closer. “You aren’t alone anymore and your past can’t hurt you if you don’t let it. Turn those bad memories into something good.”
“How do I do that?” Cassie scrunched her nose.
Deke settled in and reached up to snap the light off. There in the darkness, he shared a bad memory of his own with her. “When Sam took me away from my mother I was pissed. While she wasn’t the best mother, she was all I ever knew up until then. I didn’t know Sam at all. Then Gator took me under his wing and taught me what I needed to know. He became more than just a mentor to me and I’m closer to him than I am to my father. One night, Sam got drunk and came home yelling and screaming at me. He told me I showed him no respect and that was gonna change then and there. I was fourteen years old and at the time I hated being with him. He beat the hell out me that night. I thought he was gonna kill me. Every time he knocked me down, I thought about staying down but I was too stubborn to let him win the game and I kept getting up. He knocked me down again and again and every time, I got back up.”
Cassie tightened her embrace around him and let out a sad sigh.
“Then the last time he hit me, I stayed down. He knocked me out and I was in bad shape. Sam finally went to bed. I woke up a few hours later in so much pain I could barely move. I could her Sam snoring and I knew I was safe at least for a while. Each time my heart beat, the pain inside me grew stronger and stronger and I felt the hate for my father growing until the pain went away. I knew in my mind what I had to do but my heart wouldn’t accept it.”
“What were you planning?” Cassie whispered.
“I was going to kill Sam. I blamed him for everything bad that ever happened to me. I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I was lonely and I was tired of being scared all the time. Scared that every time I saw him…he would end up killing me. I got to my feet and grabbed a knife and I went after Sam. I didn’t think about what would happen to me if I did it, I couldn’t see any other way to survive. I got all the way to his room with the knife in my hand and bloodlust in my heart. I stood over his bed and looked down at him.” Deke’s voice lowered to a whisper. “I wanted so badly to plunge that knife into his chest and end my pain.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Deke barked out a short laugh. “Someone grabbed me from behind and dragged me out of there. When he threw me into the dirt, I looked up at him and saw Gator standing there. He was glaring at me like he didn’t know who I was. I yelled at him wanting to know what the hell he was doing.”
Cassie was quiet and waited there in the dark for him to finish the story.
“Gator asked me if I wanted to die. He told me that if I killed Sam, the rest of the club would kill me and they wouldn’t make it pleasant. He told me they would hunt me down like a rat or I could let it go. That I was almost grown and I could get out of there and have the life I wanted someday soon.” Deke shifted. “I wanted out of there and away from Sam then and there but Gator told me to bide my time. To learn what I could from Sam and to start acting like a man I wanted to become. That if I killed Sam in his sleep, I would never be the man he knew I could be, the man I was meant to be.”
“Is that what you did?”
“Yeah I did, but I wanted Sam to suffer too. When he woke up the next day, I still had the knife in my hands and I told him if he ever hit me again, I’d end his life. He wouldn’t know when or where but I would find a way to kill him….” Deke hesitated then went on, “He must have seen I was serious because he never hit me again. I stayed there another three years and the day I turned seventeen…I left him. I left Maine behind me in my rear view mirror and as soon as I could no longer see the border, I felt a release so strong it damn near crushed me. Gator and Reva came with me and when we finally got to Troy, I could breathe again. I found a motorcycle club that I liked and we’ve been here ever since.”
“But that wasn’t so bad,” Cassie replied.
“For me it was,” Deke admitted. “For me that was the turning point I faced. I hated my father enough to end his life that night and if Gator hadn’t shown up, I would have. I would have shoved that knife deep into a sleeping man’s chest and I would have lost my own soul if I had done it that way.”
“And is it still hard for you to see him?”
Deke nodded. “I no longer hate him like I did when I was a kid, but that doesn’t mean I want him in my life either. When I left Maine, I left him behind and started over. But I did follow Gator’s advice. I did learn from Sam how to belong to a MC. I watched and learned how he treated people and how I would have done things differently. I lost any respect I had for him but I did learn how life was with him.”
“So, you and Gator have been together for a long time then?”
“Yeah, we have been.” Deke smiled in the dark. “He’s more of a father to me than Sam ever was and as long as I live, he and Reva have a home with me.”
“That’s the same way I feel about Peaches.” Cassie sighed. “We’ve been through so much together and the night we took her back to her dad was the happiest I’ve ever seen her. That’s what I always wanted for her because she had family that cared. My family died when Flynn murdered my Mom. When I saw Flynn in that warehouse, I didn’t feel anything for him. Not love or hate, or even pity. I just felt nothing. He’d killed any feelings I had when he took me to Janelle’s and walked away with that damn four hundred dollars in his hand.”
“What about when you knew Calderone wanted him dead?” Deke asked. “Did that mean anything to you?”
“No, it really didn’t, Cassie admitted. “Flynn was already dead to me and when he threatened me that night, I found I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I hadn’t been for some time. I told Calderone the truth and the fear I saw in Flynn’s eyes almost made me happy. I felt that same fear every day when I lived with Janelle. Maybe that makes me a bad person but I knew Flynn was going to feel the pain I’d lived with and I prayed that Calderone would let him live long enough to suffer at least for a little while. I wanted Flynn to know the pain I had lived with from day to day, just for a little while.” Cassie closed her eyes and whispered, “Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, that makes you human.” Deke kissed her forehead. “Now, it’s time to go to sleep.”
Cassie snuggled closer and closed her eyes. She could hear the beat of his heart and feel the heat from his body and it made her feel safe. Before she dropped off the sleep, she had to ask one more question, “Do you know what Gator’s real name is?”
Deke chuckled. “Yeah but if I tell you, you have to promise never to say it.”
“I promise.”
“His real name is Aaron Willis,” Deke whispered. “Don’t ever tell him I told you or he’ll skin me alive.”
“I won’t.” Cassie smiled in the dark. “I won’t.”
~* * * *~
The next few days passed quickly and once again, Cassie found herself bored to tears with her confinement. The fourth day after her run in with Donny, Peaches came in to tell her she had visitors. Boston Detectives Lance Sullivan and Victor Shroder were waiting to talk to her.
Cassie insisted on getting up and going to the kitchen to talk to them. Peaches helped her get dressed and as she sat down at the kitchen table, she found herself wondering what they wanted. Paige, Peaches and Peggy were there as well. “What can I do for you?” she asked as she stared at Lance Sullivan.
Lance glanced at his partner then looked at Cassie. “We shared the evidence you gave us and wrapped up most of Janelle’s kiddy ring. We were able to find and return over three hundred kids to their families. They will all need counselling for a long time but I’m confident they will get better. But we were unable to find only a handful of the kids listed in her books.
“New York has a Special Victims Unit and one of their officers, Seth Kyle, has a suspect he thinks is involved in this ring,” Victor added. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the evidence he needs to stop this creep. We were hoping you would be able to tell us if you ever saw him around Janelle’s house.”
Cassie shrugged. “I can try but when people came to see her, we were always locked in our rooms.”
“It’s worth a try,” Lance told her as he opened a file and pushed it across the table.
Cassie looked at the photo in the file.
The photo was of a well dressed man. His hair was dark blonde and he had the oddest eyes she’d ever seen. They were a pale blue with a rim of dark blue. They made his eyes unique. In the photo, his eyes looked cold. His eyebrows were drawn together as if he scowled a lot. His lips were thin almost as if he were hard pressed to smile. His chin was squared off and had a deep dimple and his nose was long and slightly hooked. Overall, his face seemed to suggest he wasn’t a happy man.
The longer she stared at the photo the more she knew she’d seen this man at some point in her life. Her brows were furrowed as she tried to remember him so at first, she didn’t notice the sound in the room. Then her subconscious picked up on the slight tapping sound. First, one single tap, then a single tap and a double tap, then it was a single tap, a double tap and a triple tap. She raised her eyes to the sound. Her frown deepened as she tried to remember where she had heard that rhythm before.
Her eyes went down to the photo again, but the tapping wouldn’t stop. Raising her hands to her temple she gasped as pain flashed inside her head. She got to her feet and stumbled away from the table.
Peaches and Page rushed to her side and they led her back to her bedroom.
“What is it?” Peaches asked softly.
“I’m not sure,” Cassie admitted. “I know that man, at least I think I’ve seen him before. I just can’t remember where.”
Peaches sat down on the bed beside her. Putting her arm around Cassie’s shoulders, she hugged her friend. “Is this nightmare never going to end?” she whispered.
Cassie hugged her friend back. “It has to, it has to end soon. I don’t know if I can take much more.”
“Maybe I should call Deke,” Paige suggested. “He’d want to know about this.”
Cassie nodded. “I know he would. Okay, I’m ready to go back out there. I need to know who this guy is.” Getting to her feet, she went back out to the kitchen slowly. She made her way to the table and sat down. Picking up the file, she stared at the photo for a long time. Then she laid it back down on the table and stared at Lance for a moment. “What is his name?”
“His name is Elliot Handlin.” Then he shrugged. “I don’t want to tell you any more about him unless you know him somehow.”
Cassie frowned again. She kept looking back at the photo. Then she heard the tapping again. This time, she glanced around the table and noticed it was Victor’s fingers that were tapping out the strange rhythm. She stared at his face for a moment then closed her eyes and let her mind wander. When the tapping stopped, Cassie opened her eyes and stared at Victor. She could see the sweat on his forehead.
His eyes were blank but his expression was anything but.
She was curious about his reactions, but her eyes dropped to the photo in front of her.
His face was familiar to her but she didn’t know the name Elliot Handlin. Suddenly, she got to her feet. So quickly were her movements that the chair flew back and her hands came up to cover her mouth. Her eyes went to Lance then went to Victor. Backing away, tears began rolling down her face.
At that moment, the front door flew open and Deke came inside. “What the fuck is going on here?’ he demanded.
Lance stood up and held out his hands. “We came up here to see if Cassie could identify someone. I don’t know what’s going on now.”
Deke went over to Cassie and put his arms around her. “Are you all right? You shouldn’t even be out of bed right now.”
Cassie glanced at him and nodded. “I’m okay, but I’m glad you’re here.” She went back to the table and picked up the photo. Handing it over to Lance, who was sitting again by this time, she told him, “I knew him by the name of Seymour. I saw him only once when I was eight years old. He came to Janelle’s very late one night but he wasn’t alone. He had his nephew with him. A nephew named Victor.” She turned her head and studied Victor Shroder very carefully. “You were there that night,” she claimed calmly.
“What are you talking about?” Victor tried to bluff. “I have no idea who that man even is.”
“You called him uncle,” Cassie insisted. “You and Janelle built the crypt and you poured the cement.”
“Crypt? Cement? What are you talking about?” Lance demanded.
Cassie sat down and told her tale, “One night when I was eight, Janelle had beaten me earlier that day and thrown me in the basement. She tied me to the wall and she thought I was out of it. I stayed quiet, so she would leave me alone and not hurt me anymore. The night in question, it was very late when Janelle came downstairs with two men. One was someone she called Seymour and the other man she didn’t name but he was there. He was younger than Seymour by a number of years. Seymour came down the stairs carrying a small child over his shoulder. A little girl. She’d been beaten and was bloody. He tossed her down on the floor and I could barely see her chest move as she took a breath.”
Lance stared at her as everyone listened.
“Janelle was screaming at him, wondering what the hell he’d done to her. Seymour told her things got out of hand. I watched as the other man lowered two more young kids down on the floor. They weren’t beaten like the girl was but they were barely breathing. From where I was, I could see they were younger than the first girl. Janelle checked them out and she told them they used too much chloroform on them. She told them they had almost killed the brats.” Cassie pointed at Victor. “He noticed me first. He called out to his uncle that I was a potential witness. Janelle laughed and told them not to worry about me. She told them I was unconscious for the night. That she’d beaten me and thrown me down here as punishment and that I wouldn’t remember anything the next morning.”
“What happened then?” Deke asked, keeping one eye on Victor but his hand curled around one of hers.
“Janelle checked the beaten girl again, and she was gone. She’d stopped breathing and her pain was ended. Janelle ranted about losing money because Seymour couldn’t keep it in his pants. Seymour began arguing with her but it didn’t make much difference. She said now, they would have to get rid of all three bodies.” Cassie shook her head. “Victor wanted to add my body to the others but Janelle wouldn’t let him. She assured them both I wouldn’t be a problem. The she noticed a stack of bricks in the corner and she laughed. She told them getting rid of the bodies wouldn’t be a problem. She got Victor to help her build a small narrow bench against the outside wall and once it was done, they put the three small bodies inside and filled it with cement. They topped it off with another row of blocks and by the time they left, the crypt they’d built looked like a small bench running along the wall. I kept as quiet as I could while they worked but couldn’t help but cry when I was alone again.”
Lance turned his eyes to his partner and asked, “What makes you think Victor was there?”
“The tapping. The man that night kept tapping out a pattern. He seemed nervous the whole time he was down there. First, one tap then one and two taps then one, two and three taps. He kept it up while Janelle and Seymour were arguing.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Victor.
“She’s crazy. I’m not related to that monster. I didn’t kill three little kids and I didn’t help bury them in some crazy woman’s basement.”
“You do realize we can check that out,” Lance pointed out. “If the bench is there and if the three bodies are in it, her story will make sense.” He turned to Cassie. “Did you hear any names that night? Did they name any of the kids?”
“Seymour carefully touched the girl’s face when he placed her inside the bench. He whispered the name Michelle. Then when the other two kids were dumped in beside her, he looked at Janelle and said they would have to replace Elle and Orlando with two others.” She shook her head. “Janelle wasn’t impressed. She didn’t have two small children to replace them. She said the buyers wouldn’t be happy about the delay.”
Lance nodded. “Those are three of the names of kids we haven’t found yet.” He looked at his partner. “I hope to Christ you can prove you aren’t related to Seymour and you weren’t there that night, but if we find even a smidgen of evidence you were there, you won’t see daylight again in your lifetime. And neither will your uncle.” Slipping his hand inside his pocket, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
Before he could do anything else, Victor slipped his hand into his jacket and grabbed his gun. He slammed it upside of Lance’s face toppling him over in his chair then swung the gun to where Deke sat. Firing off a round, the bullet hit Deke’s chest and he fell back to the floor. Victor then pushed the table over and stood there pointing the gun at the women.
Cassie got to her feet and screamed as she went to kneel beside Deke.
Victor grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to stand in front of him. He placed the gun barrel at her temple and snarled to the other three women. “Me and her are leaving. If you make any moves toward either of us I won’t hesitate to shoot you, then I’ll shoot her.”
Peaches, Paige and Peggy huddled in fear and they didn’t move. As soon as Cassie and Victor left the house they rushed over to Deke and Lance. Lance was just waking up and Deke was trying to get to a sitting position. Peggy pushed him back on the floor and told him to lay still.
Blood stained his shirt and a few minutes later, they all heard pounding footsteps coming toward them. Gator, Deacon and Iceman joined the group.
“What the fuck happened here?” Iceman growled taking in the scene.
Peggy was pressing a cloth to his wound and Paige was wiping the blood from Lance’s face. Peggy turned to them and said, “Victor Shroder shot him and took Cassie.”
Deke grimaced as he told them, “The sonofabitch took Cassie at gunpoint. He’s involved with Janelle Walden’s group. His uncle is one of the men involved and he’s been covering for his sorry ass all these years.”
“Where did he go?” Gator asked.
“I have no fucking clue.” Deke growled. “But I’m gonna find that little fuckhead and I’m gonna kill him if he hurts her.” He glared at Lance, “Hell, I might kill him just for the fun of it.”
Lance nodded as he took the bloody towel away from his nose. “I might help you do it.”
Deacon turned to Lance, “Where would he go?”
Lance looked unsure of anything anymore and he didn’t give an answer.
Then Iceman knelt down and picked up the photo of Elliot Handlin. He turned to Lance and asked, “Does he have anything to do with this man?”
Lance shrugged. “Cassie seems to think he’s family, why?”
Iceman snarled, “Because this man is a disease on humanity…that’s why.”
“You know him?” Lance asked.
“Yeah, I know him.” Iceman nodded. “I don’t know what name he goes by these days but I knew him as Seymour Dent. He’s a lowlife from Boston. Thinks he’s a big shot. He moved to New York about twelve, fifteen years ago.”
Lance shook his head. “Do you know Victor Shroder?”
Iceman shook his head. “Never met him but Seymour has a couple of nephews. One is named Victor the other one is in my MC. His name is Tommy.”
Gator knelt down beside Deke to check his wound. It was a clean wound, high on his chest, just under his clavicle. It was painful but not lethal.
Peggy cleaned him up and was bandaging the wound.
Deke got to his feet. “Let’s try Boston then.”
“You shouldn’t be going anywhere,” Gator told him. “You’ve lost too much blood.”
Deke glared at the older man. “If you think I’m staying behind you’re fucking nuts. That’s my woman he took and my babies.”
“All the more reason to stay put,” Sam called from the doorway.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Deke asked with a hateful expression on his face.
“Never mind that.” Sam glared back at him. He, Raine and Sabbath were standing there watching the rest of them. “He knows you but he don’t know me or my guys. If this creep sees you, he might shoot first and ask questions later. He sees us and he won’t think anything is wrong until it’s too late.”
Deke stared at his father for a few minutes then asked, “And why should I trust you to bring her back here?”
Sam just stared at his son for a moment then turned his back and walked away.
Raine shook his head and growled, “Dumbass.” Then he too, turned and walked away. Sabbath glared at Deke but didn’t say anything, and he left as well.
“I’d better call and let my guys know there’s a shit storm coming their way,” Iceman announced to no one directly.
Deke looked over at the other man and grimaced. “Iceman, she was wearing the locket I gave her.”
Iceman frowned. “So what? How is that gonna help us find her?”
“There’s a tracking device in the locket. After my father kidnapped her, I wanted a way to keep track of her, so she wouldn’t be in that position again. I wasn’t gonna take any more chances with losing her.” Deke sat down in the nearest chair. “We should be able to track where he takes her.”
“Do you have the tracking program?”
“Zipper does.” Deke nodded.
~* * * *~
Cassie watched the road and the man behind the wheel. Before they hit the highway, she thought she’d seen motorcycles parked just inside the wood line outside the compound. With their lights off, she didn’t think Victor had seen them yet. He was driving like a crazy man weaving in and out of traffic and going well over the speed limit. She knew they were going toward Boston but she didn’t know where they would end up once they got there. She prayed whoever was on the bikes would follow and get her back to Deke. She prayed the bullet that hit him hadn’t taken his life. She wouldn’t allow herself to think Deke was gone from her life, she couldn’t. He had promised her she would never be alone again.
Victor stopped along the highway long enough to tie her hands together once they got away from Troy and up until now, she had been quiet but that was about to change. “So what are you going to do now?”
“Shut up bitch!” Victor barked as he maneuvered through traffic. He had a look in his eyes that didn’t bode well for Cassie.
He kept checking the rear view mirror and when he didn’t see anyone following them, he began to relax a bit. “So how long were you watching us that night?” he finally asked.
Cassie could plainly see how nervous he was and she noticed the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. “From the moment you came down the stairs until you left.”
“Janelle said you wouldn’t remember a thing,” he grumbled.
Cassie scoffed. “Yeah, she used to say a lot of things that only a fool would believe. She only learned at the very end, how strong I was.” She glanced at the side mirror and saw the lights of motorcycles following them. She prayed they belonged to someone she knew. They were far enough back not to draw attention to themselves, yet close enough to keep the car in their sights.
“So did Calderone Vincinti really kill her?” Victor wanted to know. “That was the rumor we heard anyway.”
Cassie shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care how the bitch died.”
“That’s cold, really cold. And your father, Flynn Rearden?” he asked. “Do you care about how he died?”
“Not really,” Cassie admitted. “His brother might but I don’t.”
“His brother?” Victor asked.
“Flynn has an older brother named Donavan. He wanted to kill me, so don’t think you are the only one.”
He grunted. “Maybe I’ll let him know where you are and let him have the pleasure.”
“The dumbass is probably dead by now.” Cassie rolled her eyes. “He thinks he’s going after Calderone and going to live through it?” She waited for a moment then asked, “So why did you become a cop?”
Victor barked out a laugh. “Seymour thought I would be his inside man. If the kiddy ring ever came to light, he thought I could steer the investigation away from him.”
“And isn’t that what you’ve been doing all these years?”
Victor turned his head to stare at her for a moment. When he turned back to watch the road, he nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing. Watching his fucking back and he doesn’t even appreciate it.”
“Do you do know what he dropped into the crypt that night?” Cassie asked.
Victor frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Your uncle.”
“What about him?”
“While you and Janelle were mixing up the cement he reached inside your jacket pocket and took something out. Just before you both turned around, he slipped it inside Michelle’s small hand. He made it look like she grabbed it before she died.”
Victor hissed. “The lousy bastard.” He glanced at her quickly. “Did you see what it was?”
Cassie shook her head. “It was too dark down there. All I could see was that he had something from your jacket.”
Victor thought for a moment then swore. “Damn, so that’s what happened to it. My uncle gave me a harmonica a couple of days before that night. He wanted me to play it often.” He groaned. “He wanted my DNA on the mouthpiece, so I would be blamed if the kids were ever found. That bastard!” he yelled as his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. “I’m gonna kill him.”
Cassie didn’t say anything as she turned her head and watched the landscape changing. They were getting close to Boston now and she had no idea what was going to happen next.