Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead (23 page)

“Is it Tonya? Have they . . . found something?” she asked, her voice filled with dread. “My phone’s in my purse. Did Casey call me and I missed it?” She started to get up, apparently to get her purse, but Matt gently pushed her back down.

“That wasn’t Casey. As far as I know, Tonya Garrett is still alive.”

Her brow creased with worry. “Madison, then? Has something happened to the baby?”

The genuine worry on her face helped him push away the dark cloud that had gathered around him while talking on the phone to his twin. Tessa cared about him, at least a little, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Otherwise she wouldn’t look so concerned about his sister-in-law, because it was no secret to anyone in his family—including Madison, who thought it was funny—that Tessa couldn’t stand her.

He laced her fingers with his. He would have liked to pull her into his arms and hold her, but he didn’t want to push his luck. Holding her hand would have to suffice, for now.

“Madison started bleeding. She and pretty much my entire family are at the hospital. Austin told me a whole bunch of medical mumbo jumbo, but basically it boils down to them having to do an emergency caesarian. Madison’s in the operating room right now.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry. I hope she and the baby will be okay. You should go home, right now.”

She started to get up, but he tugged her back down.

“I’m not going anywhere. Pierce got on the phone and specifically made me promise to stay with you, to keep pursuing our investigation. He told me Casey and the task force are following up on dozens of leads, but time is running out and no one knows where Tonya is. The roadblocks and searches at the bus station and airport haven’t yielded anything. We can’t stop our investigation, not if we have a chance at coming up with a suspect. Like it or not, we might be Tonya’s only chance. Besides, by the time I could get home, the surgery would be over. And it’s not like I can do anything to help my sister-in-law right now. But I can help you, and continue trying to find information that will save Tonya. And find out who killed your sister. Austin will keep me posted. He’ll text me updates.”

Pain flashed in her eyes when he mentioned her sister. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice raw.

“Are you ready to talk about it now? Are you ready to tell me what you’ve remembered about your past?”

Her mouth dropped open. “You know?”

He pulled his computer tablet out of his jacket pocket. “You’re a lot easier to read than you realize. And yes, I’ve suspected you remembered more than you were telling me from the very beginning—but especially after we left the burned-out group home in Murray.”

She wrapped her hands around her middle and stared down at the carpet. “I’ve always remembered more than I told my parents—my adoptive parents—but none of it ever made sense. There are just bits and pieces, just enough to be . . . frightening.”

“Like what?”

“Has Austin found Ginger yet?”

“No. Stop trying to change the subject. Tell me what you remember.”

“I’m sorry about your dog.”

“I know, and I appreciate it. Quit stalling.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, as if she was watching a movie on the backs of her eyelids. “I remember woods, with thick trees nearly blocking out the sunlight. I remember feeling afraid, all the time, of what was hiding behind those trees.” Her brow furrowed. “Sometimes I see a little boy. He has dark, curly hair, and he’s so young. He cries and clings to me, like he’s trying to ask me to help him. And then I see the others, just their faces, so many of them, their eyes accusing, and I know . . . I
know
. . . they’re dead. And they blame me.” A single tear slid down her cheek. “Then the faces disappear and . . . the bad man, he comes after
me
. He finds me.”

Matt tossed his tablet to the side and clasped Tessa’s hand in his. “Who finds you?”

“I don’t know. Just . . . a man, always the same man, in the shadows. I don’t know who he is, but he’s watching, waiting. I never see his face in my dreams, but I know he’s there.”

“What about your sister? Is she there too?”

Her expression softened. “Sissie is there. Funny, whenever I’ve seen her face in my dreams, I always assumed I was seeing myself. We look so much alike. It never occurred to me I have . . . had . . . a sister.”

Matt held her hand and waited.

She swallowed and composed herself before continuing. “In my dreams she’s always looking out for me. She protects me. She . . .” Her brow furrowed again. “‘
Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, they all fall down.
’ Sissie always sang that to me. It helped me sleep. I’d forgotten, until now.” Her horrified gaze shot to his.

Matt pulled her against his side, just as shaken as she was by her singsong chant. This couldn’t be a coincidence. This, more than the curlicue on her childhood bracelet, was an undeniable tie-in to the letters the killer had sent to the FBI. There was no question in his mind anymore that the killer had a strong connection to Tessa.

“What about your biological parents?” he asked, hating to push her but not wanting to let this rare moment of clarity go. He needed as much information as he could get about her past, and this was the first time she’d really opened up to him.

“I don’t remember them. Not even a little. When I try to think about a mother or a father, everything is blank.”

“That’s okay. What about the car? Do you remember why you and your sister were in the car the day of the accident? And why no one else was with you?”

She swallowed and wiped at the tears tracking down her cheeks. She shoved out of his arms and turned to face him. “Sissie was protecting me because she caught the man, the one from my dreams, going into my room.”

Matt’s insides turned cold. “Did he . . . hurt you?” he whispered.

She shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I think it was the . . . the first time he tried . . . and Sissie knew, and she stopped him. Somehow, she stopped him. I don’t remember how. I just remember later, being in the car. Somehow we snuck out, without him knowing. Sissie was crying, saying something about protecting me, that she’d take me someplace safe, but then she would have to go back.” She curled her fingers against the couch cushion. “I think I yelled at her, that she couldn’t go back. And then, and then, that’s when I heard the loud noise. There was so much blood. And then we were swerving all over the road. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never been in a car before. I didn’t know what to do.”

She was seven years old at the time of the accident and she’d
never been in a car before
?

Her shoulders shook with deep, wracking sobs. Matt’s heart wrenched at the sound, and he pulled her onto his lap, cradling her against his chest. He stroked her hair and whispered soothing words as he replayed everything she’d just shared. The one question that kept going through his mind was whether her dreams were just that—a young child’s vivid imagination—or whether they were actual memories. He was inclined to think that most of what she’d said had really happened. But if that was true, there was only one horrifying explanation for what she’d told him.

He closed his eyes and offered up a silent prayer, thanking God for sending Sissie to protect Tessa. Matt offered a prayer to Sissie too, thanking her for her sacrifice, for saving the life of the amazing woman he now held in his arms.

When Tessa’s tears stopped and she finally fell into a deep sleep, he tucked her into bed.

Then he called Casey.

He brought him up to speed on where they were, their plan to meet with Latham in the morning, and, finally, the dreams—or memories—Tessa had shared with him.

“Damn,” Casey breathed. “You know what that might mean.”

Matt clutched the phone so hard the edges bit into his palm. “Yes. Tonya Garrett isn’t the first child this monster abducted. He abducted Tessa and her sister.”

Casey cursed again. “She doesn’t remember anything else, her parents? Where she lived?”

“Not yet, but I don’t think it will be hard to figure that out. There can’t be that many missing-persons reports for two sisters with red hair and green eyes. I think you can narrow the search down to the South, looking at Kentucky first, since that’s where the girls were found. We don’t know how long they were held before they escaped, so I’d recommend searching a time frame of several years prior to the accident.”

“Agreed. I’ll get someone started on that as soon as I hang up. Man, I can’t believe Tessa was kidnapped as a child and didn’t remember it until now. Is she in any shape to continue the investigation?”

“I’ll see how she’s doing in the morning, but I doubt she’ll want to stop now. She already blames herself for the deaths of other victims, as if she should have been able to stop the killer when she was a child. I know she won’t want to stop trying to find clues to help with the search for Tonya Garrett.”

“All right. I’ll see what I can find out on the missing-persons reports. There’s one more thing. I got a call from Savannah Metro PD right before you called. A maintenance man went missing from Tessa’s apartment complex the night Tonya Garrett disappeared. His body was just found. I don’t have any reason to believe the two incidents are related, but . . .”

“It’s a hell of a coincidence that it was in Tessa’s apartment complex, with everything else going on.”

“Yes. It is.”

Matt glanced toward the closed bedroom door. “I’ll call you in the morning to see if you find anything from the missing-persons database search.”

T
ESSA LAY STILL,
blinking up at the ceiling over her bed. An
unfamiliar
ceiling. Where was she? Her pulse raced from the fading remnants of the nightmare that had awakened her. The same nightmare she always had, with the evil man in the shadows and the accusing faces of dead people staring at her. Panic bubbled up again, seizing her lungs in her chest.

She automatically reached for her gun, but she wasn’t wearing her holster. She sat up, and her panic faded. A light was on in the other room, casting a dim glow into the bedroom, just enough that she could orient herself. She was in the hotel, with Matt. She must have fallen asleep, and he’d put her to bed, minus her gun.

The slightest whisper of sound had her tensing again. What was that? Was it . . . music?

She looked at the other bed. Matt was sitting up against the headboard, eyes closed, wearing the funny earphones she’d seen him wear several times before. But that wasn’t what had her fingers twisting in the sheets. He was naked, or at least he was from the waist up, with the sheet and blanket covering the rest of him. Her mouth went dry as she looked her fill for the first time.

Before, when she’d seen him without his shirt at the construction site, she’d had to force herself not to look because she didn’t want him to know how much he appealed to her. But now, now there was no one to notice, and no reason not to look. She’d certainly rather enjoy the view than lie back down and go back to a world of nightmares and death.

Her hungry gaze caressed his broad shoulders, the stark line of his collarbone, the curve of his biceps. She itched to run her fingers up and down those well-defined arms, to feel the muscles bunch beneath his skin when he moved. There were few things more erotic to her than feeling the strength of a man’s arms beneath her fingertips as he held her, or leaned over her in bed.

She shuddered and closed her eyes.
Stop it.
Fantasizing about Matt Buchanan could only lead to trouble. She needed to go back to sleep. But sleep didn’t hold any appeal right now. There had been no peaceful dreams tonight, only . . . fear. And hopelessness. She’d been running through the woods, running and running, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t escape the man in the shadows.

“Tessa?”

Her eyes flew open.

Matt was looking at her, his brow furrowed with concern. He took one of the earphones off and kept the other one on. “Something wrong?”

Yes. Everything.

She hesitated, not wanting to seem pathetic, or needy. She’d already cried all over him once. Or was it twice? She wasn’t sure. The man probably thought she was weak. Maybe she was, because she wasn’t dealing well at all with the revelations from her past.

His expression softened. “You don’t want to be alone, do you?” he whispered.

She shook her head.

He scooted over and lifted the covers.

That was all the invitation she needed. She slid into the bed beside him, half disappointed to discover he wasn’t entirely naked after all. He was wearing boxers.

He tucked the covers around her but kept to his side of the bed, his body close enough for her to feel his warmth but not touching. Again, she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

“What are you listening to? What exactly are those?” She pointed to the earphones. “I’ve never seen anything like them before. No wires and they aren’t attached to each other.”

He gave her an admonishing look. “You don’t think Steve Jobs came up with all those inventions without some help, do you?”

“Are you telling me you’re the brain trust behind Apple Inc.?”

He hefted the earphone in his hand. “I’m just saying don’t be surprised if you see these on the market soon, with a little Apple logo on them.”

She wasn’t sure if he was teasing or not. But as smart as he was, and after seeing some of his other inventions, she wouldn’t be surprised.

“Here.” He slid the earphone over the top of her ear. “Now we can both listen to the same music.”

Heavy-metal rock blasted out of the foam cover. She grimaced and pulled her earphone off. “That is definitely not what I would call relaxing music to sleep by.”

“What kind of music do you like to listen to? Jazz?”

“How did you know?”

He grinned, like he had a secret. “Lucky guess.”

She narrowed her eyes. She’d bet her last bullet there was more to it than a lucky guess, but she didn’t have a clue how he’d know her musical preferences.

“I’m fresh out of jazz, but if it’s relaxation you want, I might have a compromise.” He leaned across her, his chest lightly brushing hers as he picked up his computer tablet from the nightstand on her side of the bed.