Reclaimed (Powell Sanctuary #5)

Chapter 21

21

Aiden

“Come on. I don’t need to take your money.”

Corjan slips back onto his stool after handing Ruben his credit card at The Rocks. He picks up his beer with a smirk. “You’re about to be inundated with diapers and baby clothes. Take the help where you can get it. Trust me.”

The accompanying guilt has me picking up my own drink. The rusty brown liquid sloshes slightly against the sides of the beer stein.

“How’s she been doing?”

At mention of Isla, I pick up a spare coaster to fiddle with. “She’s good. Hanging in there, all things considered.”

Corjan’s stare feels heavy. I’ve been trying to spend more time around my family, but the anticipation of what they’re going to say has me on edge. The comments and questions have shifted from how I’m holding up to how am I doing with becoming a dad. As well-meaning as they are, at times the concern is a bit suffocating.

Isla is the breath of fresh air I’ve been craving and dragging her into my lungs each day is the sweetest addiction. I don’t know how I’m going to move on once this is all over.

“How are you?” There it is. The question he’s held onto for the first twenty minutes of our visit.

I level him with an even stare. “I’m good too.”

His brow cocks. “I would have expected something more than good with all the happy news you’ve had to share lately.”

I sense the underlying tone. “Do you have something to say, Corjan?”

“No.” He straightens on his stool and downs a mouthful of beer. “I’m happy for you. I can see that she’s good for you.”

“Wow.” The sarcastic bite falls from between gritted teeth. “Anything else?”

He shakes his head and grins. “Nope. That’s it.”

“Good.” I study the bottles behind the bar and sip my beer.

“What?”

Words tumble through my head like marbles rolling through an empty space. Too many. The wrong ones. I finally settle on something honest. “I get that I’m the youngest here, but I know what I’m doing.”

“I know,” he says earnestly. “I do know that. You’ve changed, is all. And I can’t say that it’s been bad.”

“It seems like you’re all just waiting for me to fail.”

“We’re just trying to figure out where this new version of you lands. From where I’m standing, you’re doing all right for yourself.”

“Why don’t I remember you doing this with anybody else?”

“We did.” He wipes the condensation, clinging to his hand from his glass, on his jeans. “The difference is none of them were recovering from a bullet wound.”

It’s all emotional damage from where I’m standing.

“Where was I?”

“Where you always were. Aloof. Hanging around. Just living your life.”

He isn’t wrong. Up until the incident, I did my own thing. Sure, a phone call would drag me back home to help at the Sanctuary or do a favor for Mom, but otherwise I marched to my own tune and all that.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around much.”

“You’ve been around just as much as we needed you to be.”

It’s funny how everything can change in an instant. One minute you’re moving through life, making jokes without a care, and the next, it feels like the weight of the world is crushing you without a lifeline in sight.

Until Isla came along. She’s my lifeline.

“Hey, Powells!” Silas’s greeting booms through the bar.

“Here comes trouble,” Ruben says as he stops to top off Corjan’s glass.

“I didn’t get to congratulate you at Sunset. We have a new father in our midst.” Silas claps my shoulder, sending me forward half a foot. My beer comes dangerously close to spilling over the rim and all over my hand.

“How’s Spencer by the way?” I set my drink down before it becomes a casualty of Silas’s playful mood.

He hooks his thumbs into his police vest. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet.”

“What do you mean you haven’t seen him?”

Silas runs his hand over the back of his head. “Ah. It’s been a little strained. I’m trying to give him time, but Sutton is on him like a K9. Doesn’t know when to back off.”

A brief smile splits my face at the similarities to my own situation.

“How’s the auction planning going?” I ask, scooping a handful of warm, salty popcorn from the dish on the bar.

“I don’t know a whole lot about that. Ask him.” Silas nods at Corjan.

I turn a sheepish look on my brother. “How’s it going?”

“We have some pretty steep donations. I think it’s going to be a huge success. We could use you for the adoption portion of it that day. Lee and I decided that we’ll donate 100% of the profits from the dogs to Spencer. We got a new pregnant momma on the last transport. We should have a litter of Catahoulas that’ll be about nine weeks old then if all goes well with her.”

“I’ll be there.” I flick a kernel in his direction.

“Didn’t doubt you wouldn’t be.”

“I’m sure Isla would want to come too.”

“She could donate a lap dance to the highest bidder.” Silas waggles his eyebrows.

I scowl, shove back my stool, and push up the sleeves of my Henley. “You take that fancy vest off and say that again.”

Silas holds his palms out toward me. The shit-eating grin on his face remains. “I get it. She’s off limits.”

“You keep her name out of your mouth and don’t speak of her dancing again.”

“Even if it’s in regard to the serial killer?”

Corjan groans and drops his head back between his shoulders. “Dammit, Silas. You always say the dumbest shit. One of these days, you’re going to get knocked the fuck out. Almost did it myself,” he grumbles.

“What can I say? I’m a ladies’ man.”

“More like a fucking playboy,” I growl. “What do you know about the serial killer?”

“Nothing since the last time I talked to you.”

I rest my foot on the rung of Corjan’s chair. “Another woman’s been murdered since the last time I talked to you.”

His eyebrows almost disappear beneath his long hair. “How do you know that?”

I glance quickly between Silas and Corjan. “Because Isla knew her.”

“Shit,” Silas says.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Corjan adds.

“So spill. You have any leads at all? A description? A motive?”

The stool to my left screeches loudly as Silas pulls it out. He straddles the top, and sits, resting his sole on the bottom rung. “I told you, there’s nothing. Either this guy knows how to evade cameras or he disables them. The girl fit the profile of the others. Single, young, blonde, and a stripper. You said Isla knew her?”

“Yeah. Old coworker but she moved on from Eve’s around the same time Isla did.”

Silas scratches his chin. “I should talk to her. See if there’s anyone from her old club that she thinks could be capable of this sort of thing. I’m not investigating of course, since it’s outside my jurisdiction, but it wouldn’t hurt to chat and see if anything comes up.”

“I can ask if she’d be up for it.”

“You should ask her if she’s ever seen this before. This isn’t supposed to be public.” He yanks out his notepad and pen from his breast pocket.

The image is a short line ending with an X.

“Is that an arrow?” Corjan asks. “Or maybe like X marks the spot?”

“It’s the only mark he leaves on them. He’s been carving it into their thumbs.”

“You mentioned this before.” I lift a shoulder in a shrug. “It could just be a calling card.”

Silas tears the sheet from his notebook and hands it to me. “I know I did, but she might have a different idea.”

“It looks like a magic wand.” Corjan furrows his brow and squints at the drawing.

“What, you think he’s pretending to be a fucking wizard?” Silas jests.

Corjan doesn’t stop staring at the drawing. “It has five points, like a star.”

A star.

Stella.

Star.

My mind works over the possibility. No. It’s too far out there. “I don’t think so. Why would it be so big on one side if he was going for a star?” I immediately dismiss the notion.

Corjan shrugs. “I’m just trying to help.”

Silas flips his notebook a few pages and jots something down. “It’s not bad. You might be right, Aiden. It might be just his way of leaving his mark on the victims. Something personal to him.”

“Let’s hope it’s nothing more sinister.” I swipe my beer from the bar.

Silas’s radio crackles to life, spitting out a familiar sounding street address.

“Looks like duty calls.” He kicks his stool back beneath the bar.

“What was that?” I half rise as if I’m about to follow him out the door. And if I heard what I think I did, I’m about to do just that.

“Break-in. Cloverleaf Lane.” Silas mutters something into his radio.

“Fucking hell. That’s what I thought you said.”

“Whoa, hold up, Powell. I can’t take you for a citizen’s ride. You haven’t passed a background check.”

“I’m not going with you, Silas. I’m following you.”

“Why?” Corjan stands, ready to run out the door with me.

“Because that’s where Isla lives.”

“Ah, shit. Ruben!” Corjan calls, I assume to close the tab, but I’m already out the door. Hot on Silas’s heels.

“You’re going to get me in trouble, Powell.”

“You afraid of your big brother?” I yank my phone from my pocket and hit Isla’s name from the call list.

“No. I’m afraid of yours though.”

Lee is someone to fear when his family is in trouble. He’s been looking out for me since he was twenty and I was twelve. “Shut up and drive, Silas.” I hit the red button when her voicemail picks up.

“I can’t order you to stay behind, can I?”

Me:

Where are you?

My headlights flash when I hit the fob. “Nope.” My phone clatters onto the dash where I toss it. “See you there.” The slam of my door suppresses his response.

Halfway to Isla’s house, my phone vibrates on the dash. A quick glance slows my heart back to normal levels.

Isla:

I’m on my way to my ultrasound appointment.

Fucking hell. That’s today? Of all the days for something to go sideways. I step on the gas. I need to get there before someone tries to get in touch with her. I’m not going to let this ruin what should be one of the most exciting milestones of her pregnancy.

Six cruisers line the street in front of Isla’s fourplex. Silas screeches to a stop behind me, his red and blue lights still flashing overhead.

“I should cuff you,” he snarls as we meet on the sidewalk.

“Go ahead. After I get to my girlfriend’s ultrasound appointment.”

“Shit. Is it soon?”

I don’t fucking know, but I pretend like I do. It struck me on the way over that my family and friends will find it odd I’m not there with her, and they’ll be doubly pissed when they find out I missed it to spend time in a bar.

“Soon as I can get out of here.”

“We can handle this.”

“I need to know what happened so I can give it to her gently once her scan is over. If anyone calls her before that, you’re going to have me to deal with.”

Silas nods, the usually laidback cop turning solemn at my tone.

“Got it. Let’s go.”

I follow him along the concrete walkway and up her rickety wooden steps. I need to refinish these for her. It’ll be dangerous to carry the baby up and down them, and the railing could use a tightening too.

Two officers stand in Isla’s living room. From my place in the entry, the room looks untouched. I breathe a sigh of relief that this room isn’t trashed. Hopefully the rest of the place is in similar shape. Her older neighbor—June, Jill, Julia?—gives a tearful statement to one officer while the other snaps photos.

“Hot boyfriend!” she cries, pushing Silas out of the way and plowing into my chest.

“Oh, okay. Hi.” I awkwardly pat her back as her shoulders shake with her sobs. Her graying tendrils tease the edge of my mouth. I grimace. An old wooden spoon is clutched tight in her fist, and every few seconds it hits me in the back of the head. “What happened here?”

“Who are you?” barks the cop closest to me. Officer Nelson if I remember correctly. I’ve seen him around town over the years, but we’ve never spoken.

“He’s the boyfriend.”

His brows jut inward sharply. “Hers?” he jabs his pen incredulously at the old women clinging to me, currently feeling up my biceps.

“No. I’m with the woman who lives in this unit.”

“I wish,” Isla’s neighbor murmurs.

I ease her back into her own space. She dries her eyes on the bottom of a stained apron. The edges are checkered red, frilly in the style of a maid’s outfit. The black front has white lettering that says, Don’t kiss the cook…. Bend me over!

I snap my gaze back to her face.

“Oh it’s those damn kids. I called about them in the alley last week but by the time a cruiser got out here, they were gone.”

“Did you see them?” The officer asks, jotting down more notes.

“I saw two of them. Medium build, muscley. They had on black ski masks. They must have been casing the place. She’s been gone so much, you know, spending time with hot boyfriend here. They must have noticed her house has been empty.”

“Maybe, but they hit a couple on this road.”

“How many?” I ask.

“Four total. Some worse than others.”

“What’s the damage here?”

Officer Nelson slips back through his notepad. “Kitchen drawers open. Bedroom took the worst of it. The mattress is flipped. Drawers ransacked. Closet torn apart. I’d guess kids looking for money or valuables to pawn. You want to walk through and see what’s missing?”

“I wouldn’t know what valuables she keeps hidden. I’ll have to bring her by.”

“Let’s do that.”

“It’s going to have to wait. I actually have to take off.”

A heavy hand falls on my shoulder. A glance back reveals Silas behind me. “Go ahead. Let me know when you’re finished.”

Thank god for good friends. My stomach feels heavy after the shit I was giving him earlier. “Will do. I’ll give her the news too, yeah? She’ll take it better coming from me.”

“The honor is all yours.” Silas steps back to give me room to leave the house. Before I’m out the door, Isla’s neighbor has already cozied up to him. Despite the eventful afternoon, I find myself leaving with a smile.