Profile of Retribution: FBI Profiler Romantic Suspense (Profile Series #3) (5 page)

He’d given her a long, searching look. “What are you suggesting, Tisha? That Devan had something to do with Evan falling off the roof?”

Tisha felt the anger building. “Hell, yes, that’s what I’m suggesting. While you were inside calling for an ambulance, he nonchalantly leaned against a tree very amused that his brother was in so much pain.”

“That’s ridiculous. You misread Devan, that’s all. He loves his brother.”

She wanted to shake him. “I am
not
misreading him. I am
not
overreacting. You’ve got to listen to me, Bradley.”

A nurse emerged from Evan’s room and told them he was asking for them.

Bradley touched her arm. “Calm down, people are watching us. If it will make you feel better, I’ll ask each of them exactly what happened.”

Later, Devan explained the fall was an accident, and his brother backed him up. After that day, she kept her misgivings to herself.

Entering the den, she picked up the remote control and flicked on the television and changed the channel to the Crime Story Network. She listened as CSN’s Grace Cohn discussed the case of a missing college student in Illinois.

Krystle set a carafe of hot coffee on the end table next to her, along with a floral china cup and saucer. “Mrs. Lucas, do you want me to change the channel?”

“Did I ask you to change the channel?” Krystle got on Tisha’s last nerve on a regular basis. The woman was a moron with the body of a stripper, which she probably
was
prior to working for them.

“I just don’t want you to get upset.”

“And why would I get upset watching a news story about a missing college student, Krystle? Why would I get distressed about a missing coed when my two sons abducted and murdered seven? Oh, wait a minute, not all of them were coeds. Five of them were young, drugged-out prostitutes.”

Krystle changed the subject. “The weather is nice today. Would you like to have your coffee on the patio?”

Tisha’s hand tightened on the remote control, as she fought the urge to shake the girl. Damn Bradley, anyway. He’d hired the housekeeper as a surprise for her birthday five years ago. And she certainly was a surprise with platinum-bleached hair, thick makeup, false eyelashes, and a rear-end that never failed to wiggle out of a room. Bradley told her he felt sorry for Krystle. Suspiciously, Tisha wondered if he was banging the girl and kept a close eye on both of them.

“I’ll have my coffee right here in front of my television, Krystle. I’m in the mood for an Irish coffee, so please bring that bottle of Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve Irish whiskey from the bar.” The girl hesitated. “Now!”

Never a drinker before, Tisha had changed her mind about alcohol. She liked the way it numbed the pain and fogged her brain so she could say good-bye to heartbreaking memories. At least temporarily. Since she’d lost her boys, alcohol had become her new BFF. And that her drinking upset her husband, made it that much more gratifying.

Once she heard the clink of glass bottles as Krystle looked for the Irish whiskey in the other room, Tisha pulled a folded piece of paper from her sweater pocket. She’d found it in their mailbox hours before. She read the note again.

You brought them into the world and you will pay for their sins. Retribution? Justice? They are the same.

—David109

Chapter Ten

Families of the Murdered

Kaitlyn sipped hot coffee from a Styrofoam cup alone in a corner of the room. She watched her friend, Margaret Bennett, talking to a group of people at the refreshment table. Though they were strangers, each person in the room was connected by a deadly act of violence by the same killers. It was a club no one wanted to belong to.

When Margaret first approached Kaitlyn to ask for help to start a chapter of Families of the Murdered, she’d said no. Hell, no. If she couldn’t bring herself to talk about her murdered sister, how could she expect others to do the same about their loved ones? Sure, she talked about Abby to Gabe and Carly, but could she share her pain with a group of strangers? Not likely.

Then Margaret asked her how many families were impacted by the teenaged boys who’d killed Abby. Kaitlyn told her that Evan and Devan Lucas, also known as the Gamers, had murdered seven young women: two college coeds, and five girls working as prostitutes. So that made seven families affected, including her own.

A mixture of interest and compassion had filled Margaret’s eyes. “Kaitlyn, do you think the other six families could use some emotional support dealing with their terrible loss? Not many experience losing a loved one to violence, so there are few people who can really understand what they’re going through. What if we could provide a place where family members of homicide victims could talk about their feelings with a group of people who understand exactly what they’re talking about, because they’ve suffered the same kind of nightmare?”

Kaitlyn didn’t answer Margaret’s question. Instead, she thought of how helpless she’d felt since Abby’s murder. Her sister had been taken from her, and she’d had no chance to prevent it. Which was worse, to have been killed, or to have been left behind to grieve the rest of her life? Maybe taking some kind of action was better than taking none at all. What would it hurt if she were able to get the kind of emotional support she needed herself, while helping others do the same?

After she discussed Margaret’s idea with her fiancé, Gabe, Kaitlyn headed straight to Cameron Chase’s office and asked for the names, and contact information of the other families who’d lost daughters, sisters, and mothers to Evan and Devan Lucas. After all, the Gamers’ murders had been his case. He’d have their phone numbers and addresses in their file.

At first Cameron refused, stating that he couldn’t violate the families’ privacy like that. Like most law enforcement officers, he was very protective of victims’ families.

After she
and
Gabe presented the idea and asked for the contact information several more times, he relented. But he insisted on calling each family himself to get their permission for Kaitlyn and Margaret to contact them about the FOM chapter. He left it to them to explain that the members of this particular chapter would be the families left behind by the Gamers’ homicides.

Representatives of six of the seven murdered victims were present for the first meeting. Val Staley, the youngest victim, was only fifteen-years-old when she died. She’d been a runaway from Chicago when her body was found outside Indianapolis. Her mother and stepfather, who lived in Chicago, said the meetings were too far away for them to attend.

Margaret positioned a group of folding chairs into a circle, invited participants to sit, and called the meeting to order. “I want to thank each of you for coming this evening to our first session of the Families of the Murdered chapter. My name is Margaret Bennett. I have a private counseling practice here in Morel. I’m also studying to be a forensic psychologist. I respect your privacy and I expect you to respect the privacy of others. I want you to speak freely, trusting what you say will not be repeated outside of this group. Everything said in this meeting is confidential.”

She cleared her throat. “Three years ago, my brother Gregory, was killed by a drive-by shooter. He’d done nothing wrong. Gregory was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The shooter was aiming for a man standing near him. My life hasn’t been the same since. I was thrust into a world of senseless violence, grief, and pain. I kept hoping I would awaken from the nightmare and find out it had all been a terrible mistake. That didn’t happen. But, I got lucky. I found a chapter of FOM near the university I attended and started going to their meetings. It made all the difference to me, and I hope these gatherings will make all the difference for you.”

Pausing for a moment, Margaret sipped from her coffee cup. She had the group’s undivided attention.

“I believe the process of healing is enabled by telling your story again and again to people who have experienced the same kind of event. Experiencing the pain, rage, and despair helps us heal and realize our own abilities to cope. Something each of you have in common is that you lost a loved one to violence at the hands of Evan and Devan Lucas. That commonality is the strength of this group. With that said, I’d like to hear from you. One at a time, please introduce yourself, and tell your story.”

She touched Kaitlyn’s shoulder. “Kaitlyn, may we start with you?”

Shakily, she got to her feet and fought the urge to bolt from the room. “As you heard, my name is Kaitlyn. My sister, Abby, was murdered by the Gamers. I’m here because there is no one I can talk to about Abby’s murder. My mother is in her own kind of denial and won’t hear a word about Abby, and what happened to her. No one I know has ever experienced the murder of a loved one. They want to, but they can’t understand what it’s like.”

Unshed tears blurred her vision, but she continued. “I think of Abby and me growing up. She was my younger sister. We supported each other as children do when their parents go through a bad divorce. When I think of Abby, I see her in the prime of her life, strong and beautiful. And in a flash, it’s all taken away. It’s like someone destroyed the book that told our story, but our story isn’t finished. And it’s not going to be, because Abby is gone.” Kaitlyn closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry, and then sat down.

Someone whispered, “I understand.”

Another said, “So do I.”

Margaret nodded to a muscular man in his twenties, sitting next to Kaitlyn, to go next.

“I’m Tate Green.” He glanced at Kaitlyn before speaking to the entire group. “I also lost a sister to Evan and Devan Lucas. I was in college in Illinois when Darla went missing. She was seventeen-years-old and should have been enjoying the hell out of her senior year of high school. Instead, she got herself addicted to meth. The cops told me Darla had been turning tricks at a truck stop to get money to buy methamphetamine when she disappeared. Thanks to two teenage psychopaths, they found her body in another county at the bottom of a ravine. And where was I? On a football scholarship, I was playing big man on campus while my little sister was selling herself to truck drivers to feed a drug habit I didn’t know she had.” He ran a hand through his thick blond hair and sighed.

“I was Darla’s big brother. I was supposed to look after my little sister, and I failed miserably. I came home some weekends and I knew something was going on with Darla, but she wouldn’t talk to me about it. I didn’t force the issue. I was too wrapped up in my own life. Now every time I think of how I failed her, I want to puke. You see, our mother was addicted to pain pills, and more times than not we’d find her passed out on the living room sofa. She gave my sister no supervision or guidance. I knew this, and yet I left for a college hours away and lived on campus. Darla had no one. What kind of a brother leaves his little sister like that?”

Kaitlyn’s eyes clouded and she looked down at her hands in her lap. He was in so much emotional pain. She was very familiar with that kind of sorrow. It was like someone had your heart in his hand and was squeezing it like a boa constrictor.

Tate Green, his face flushed with anger, had more to say. “But you know what pisses me off the most? It’s bad enough to lose my little sister, but to see the bastards that killed her get off so easy makes me insane. They’re both dead. That means we’ll never attend their trial and find out exactly what they did to Darla and the others. That means we won’t be doing a sigh of relief in unison in court when they got convicted. And if their sentence was life in prison, we won’t have the pleasure of fighting against their release at each of their parole meetings. It’s not fair. I wish they were both alive, so I could torture them like they did their victims. I’d do it so slowly that they’d beg me to end their worthless lives.” Kaitlyn placed her hand lightly on his wrist, and he stopped talking as he crossed his arms across his chest. She looked around and noticed that several people were nodding their heads in agreement. Could she blame them? Hadn’t she, too, wanted the men who killed Abby to suffer?

Margaret leaned forward to look at him. Her brown eyes held warmth and empathy. “Thank you, Tate, for telling your story.”

Kaitlyn glanced at the woman seated next to him. She seemed to be a woman who had stopped caring about her appearance. Wearing a worn pink cardigan over a T-shirt and faded jeans, she had long, graying hair and deep creases around her eyes and mouth.

“Guess it’s my turn to talk. I’m Charity Cassity. My eighteen-year-old daughter, Sara, was stolen from me by those bastards.” Looking down for a moment, she brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “Sara was a good baby and I had a lot of dreams for her. But life got in the way. Sara’s father left a couple of weeks after she was born. Jobs were scarce and I had no family to run home to. We were barely surviving when I contacted Child Services to help me find Sara’s father, but he’d disappeared. That meant no child support. I left Sara with a neighbor and I worked two, sometimes three jobs at a time. The money helped, but I had little time to spend with my baby. Eventually, I got training and went to work as a secretary. It was decent work, but moneywise, we were still struggling.” Charity slipped a tissue out of her pocket and wiped at her eyes.

“Sara started running with the wrong crowd in high school. I did everything I could do to keep her away from them, like grounding her, taking her cell, but nothing worked. It wasn’t long before Sara’s grades slipped and the school was calling me about her absences. Nothing I said to Sara seemed to matter. I realized Sara was taking drugs, first marijuana, and then anything she could get her hands on. I came home from work one day and found Sara and her boyfriend having sex in our living room. I lost my temper and threw her out. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I never saw her again.” Now crying openly, Charity’s heart-wrenching sobs filled the room. Tate touched her shoulder to comfort her and several members of the group wiped at their own eyes.