The Beast

Matter of fact, Bryant had gotten the guy and his wife a house about six months ago. Assuming she had it right.

A quick search in the client files and, yup, she was correct—

“I’m so sorry I’m late!”

Bryant Drumm came through the glass doors at a dead run, but he didn’t look frazzled. His dark hair was in perfect order, his gray-blue suit was closed at the jacket and the papers in his hands were separated into three sections.

So he hadn’t really rushed over. He’d been going at his own pace, even as she’d been rotting here.

He put his elbows on the desk and leaned in with his trademark smile. “Jo, how can I make it up to you?”

She held her hand out. “Gimme. And let me go home.”

Bryant put the papers in her palm, but then refused to let go when she tried to take them. “What would I do without you?”

As he stared down at her, his focus was locked on and complete—like nothing else existed in the world for him, like he was both captivated by her and slightly in awe. And to someone who hadn’t mattered much to her parents, who had been put up for adoption by the people who’d conceived her, who felt lost in the world . . . that was how he got her.

In a sad way that she didn’t like to dwell on much, she lived for these little moments. Stayed late for them. Kept plodding along in hopes it would happen again—

His phone rang. And he was still looking at her as he answered. “Hello? Oh, hey.”

Jo glanced away, and this time when she tugged, he let her have the contracts. She knew that tone of voice of his. It was one of his women.

“I can meet you now,” he murmured. “Where? Mmm-hmmm. No, I’ve already had dinner—but I’m up for dessert. Can’t wait.”

By the time he ended the call, she had turned to the side and fired up the scanner.

“Thanks again, Jo. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Jo didn’t bother to look over her shoulder as she fed in the pages one by one. “I’ll be here.”

“Hey.”

“What?”

“Jo.” When she glanced back at him, he tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “You should wear that red more often. It looks good with your hair.”

“Thanks.”

Going back to the scanning, she listened to him leave, the door he went out of whispering shut. A moment later, there was the flare of a powerful engine and then he was gone.

With the knowledge that she was good and alone, she lifted her head and looked at her reflection in the glass entrance. The light from the inset fixtures above streamed down, hitting her hair in such a way that its red and brown tones stood out against the black and gray all around her.

For some reason, the emptiness in the office . . . in her life . . . seemed loud as a scream.

EIGHTEEN

The notes in Safe Place’s client files were all still handwritten. Part of it was cost; computers, and networks, and reliable storage were expensive, and with staffing as the priority, funds diverted in an IT direction were just not mission critical. But another part of it was the fact that Marissa, their fearless leader, was old-fashioned and didn’t really like things that were important kept in a form she couldn’t hold in her hands.

After all, if you were almost four hundred years old, the technology revolution of the last three decades was a blip on your radar screen.

Maybe a century from now the boss would trust the likes of Bill Gates a little more.

And it was kind of nice, Mary reflected. More human, somehow, to see the different handwritings, different inks, different ways people misspelled things from time to time. It was the visual equivalent of conversation, everyone bringing something unique to themselves to the records—as opposed to the entries being made up of uniform, spell-checked, all-the-same typed words.

It did, however, make searching for one particular reference or note more difficult. But then again, re-reading everything from the beginning helped you pick up on things you might have previously missed.

Like uncles, for example.

When there had been no mention of any next of kin on the original intake form, Mary had gone on to read each and every one of the progress notes in Annalye’s file, many of which were in her own handwriting. And just as she had remembered, the passages were invariably short and contained little of any use.

Bitty wasn’t the only one who had been quiet.

There wasn’t a single mention of a brother or any parents. And the female hadn’t spoken of her dead mate, either, or of the abuse that she and Bitty had been through. Which was not to say that the violence was undocumented. The medical notes for the two of them had been printed out and attached to the back cover of the file.

After she was done reading it all again, Mary had to sit back and rub her eyes. Like many victims who were afraid for their lives, Bitty’s mahmen had come in for medical assistance only once, when her child was so hurt, there was no way for the natural healing process to take care of the injuries. The x-rays told the rest of the grim story, showing years of broken bones that had reknitted themselves. For them both.

Closing the file, she traded it for Bitty’s. The girl’s was thinner as her medical record had been merged with her mom’s and she’d given them even less to write down than Annalye had. There had been regular talk sessions, as well as art therapy and creative play and music class. But there was not much to go on.

In a way, everyone had only been waiting for the inevitable—

“Ms. Luce?”