Page 81 of Vengeance of Childhood Proportions (Till Death Do Us Part #7)

Chapter Seventy-One

Mal

As soon as I learned about an abandoned fishery burning on the Taku Inlet and a headless body being discovered by the fire department, I had known.

The news helicopter only showed a white sheet where the body lay outside the inferno, but there was no doubt in my mind whose body it was and where she was taking the head.

The past three days have been a living hell.

And not just because I came home from the police station to find all her things had been taken from my house.

The anger I’d been feeling since I pulled up that fucking email was stoked into rage by an entire bottle of bourbon.

Then came days of brooding while nursing a hangover worse than anything I’d ever experienced in my twenties.

Holly Marteen was my little owl. My little owl was Holly Marteen.

The betrayal of that fact cut to the quick and the alcohol certainly did not make my thoughts rational.

She’d played me. She’d used me. How the fuck had I , Shawn Mallory, the asshole, the man who never brought emotion into a contract, been the one to fall?

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. My entire life had been turned upside down by the very woman I’d been chasing for months.

And I’d been blind to it. So fucking blind.

She wore a fucking mask! The damn contacts and those wigs… She was hiding right in front of me, and I’d let her. I was now suspended and was likely facing a demotion, pending a review.

And for what? Some sex? I was never short sex.

Maybe a bit conceited, but not an inaccurate statement.

What I was generally short on was time, not available or willing partners.

So how had I been so easily manipulated?

I knew for a fact that she’d stalked her victims, perhaps for years, prior to abducting them.

That became apparent when I’d learned the evidence against Kaylee Collins had been anonymously delivered.

Had she stalked me too? She had to have, to become the perfect submissive for me. The submissive even I hadn’t realized I’d been searching for.

The police were chasing their tails looking for the woman known as Phoebe Snetsinger, and I was doing jackshit to help them. And not just because no one had believed me when I’d claimed Holly Marteen was alive two weeks ago. They wanted to claim I was crying wolf, so fuck them.

I would be the one to find her. I would be the one to bring her to justice.

I broke several speed limits as I made my way to Douglas Island.

I knew this case better than anyone because I’d been the only one to learn about Holly Marteen.

To care that her attack was the real crime.

Emmet Renfrew was dead. The man who’d orchestrated her gang rape was dead. I knew where she was going.

I had no doubt that she’d saved Emmet Renfrew for last. At least, last on her abduction list. Which meant that Roman Fitzwilliam was dead and his body just hadn’t been discovered yet. She would not kill Renfrew until she was ready. A guillotine? She’d literally chopped the head off of the snake.

I wondered why she allowed the principal and the sheriff to live this long—until I realized she wanted them to see everything. She wanted them to know what and who was coming for them, even if no one believed them. They would know. It was twisted and morbid, and I couldn’t exactly fault her for it.

Rushing into the hospice facility, I was surprised to find the front doors still open this time of night. There was no one at the reception desk, but that might be because it was after visiting hours.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and my hand went to my hip on instinct.

Only to remember that I no longer had a service weapon or a badge.

I could hear voices, but they were echoing from the hall opposite where I needed to go.

I hurried down the hall towards the former sheriff’s room, recalling the way from when Mira and I had visited several weeks ago.

It had been Sheriff Renfrew who had given me most of what I know about Holly Marteen. He’d been holding onto the evidence—tainted evidence now—for fifteen years. The guilt of what he’d done must have been eating away at him long before the cancer had.

I stopped halfway down the hall. I had to put my hand out to balance myself as comprehension dawned on me.

For the past three days, I’d been trying to fit what I knew about my little owl and what I knew about Holly Marteen into a single person, to figure out her motivations and her manipulations.

Maybe my brain had been blocking this realization because of the pain it was going to cause me, or perhaps my anger had been clouding my judgement until this moment.

I’d watched the old cellphone video of Holly Marteen’s attack. I’d watched Holly Marteen’s gang rape. I’d watched my little owl’s gang rape.

Turning, I vomited right there in the hallway of the hospice facility with my hand still on the wall for balance. I hacked and gagged, my stomach wrenching at more than just the measly excuse for dinner I’d eaten earlier.

My entire soul rebelled, finally merging the two inside my head and heart. Holly, my wounded little owl. I’d been so furious at her betrayal that I really hadn’t pieced it together until this moment. Alcohol and lack of food certainly hadn’t helped.

My little owl had told me about her attack, and I knew now that she was talking about Emmet.

He’d been the one to touch her hair, the one she’d said ‘no’ to when he’d showed her a modicum of attention.

It hadn’t taken place at a club or while she’d been an adult.

She’d alluded to some details, and I’d filled in the rest, but now I understood.

All her limits now made perfect sense. No bondage, not being taken from behind, needing to feel safe to orgasm, even the fact that she could take pain but didn’t like it.

Jesus Christ, the images from that video had been seared into my mind’s eye when I’d watched it from an investigative standpoint.

But to know that she would grow up to be the woman I would fall in love with?

My stomach seized again, more bile splattering onto the carpeting and wall.

Hadn’t I told my little owl that I wished her attacker was right in front of me so I could end him myself for what he’d done to her?

Those hadn’t been empty words. How could I fault her for being strong enough to get her own justice?

I’d been grateful to Master Kade for being there for her, for protecting her when I hadn’t been in her life yet to do so myself. Straightening, I spat several times to clean out my mouth before wiping the sleeve of my jacket along my lips and bearded chin.

Fuck, I really was a dumbass. Master Kade had found my little owl; Jason Kade er had found Holly Marteen.

I wanted to punch something, or maybe was just avoiding slapping my own palm against my forehead.

I’d spoken to Jason Kadeer over video call weeks ago.

The man was supposed to be on the east coast. I didn’t know if the old man I’d spoken to had been Master Kade in a disguise or if someone else had played the part of Jason Kadeer, but there was no doubt in my mind the two men were one in the same.

Jason Kadeer had found Holly after her attack. A year later, she attempted suicide and had ended up in the Alaskan State Hospital. God, what she must have suffered through. And her miscarriage! She’d been fucking fifteen years old .

I couldn’t fault her for her actions now.

I didn’t blame her. In a perfect world, her attack would have never happened.

But that utopian society didn’t exist. Failing that, her attackers should have been brought to justice fifteen years ago.

It was horrid what she’d gone through, but to compound it with how utterly she’d been failed by her parents, her principal, her town, and the police?

No, I couldn’t condemn her.

It was her manipulation of me that I couldn’t forgive.

It sounded so lame, and I fucking hated myself for the hurt coursing through me, but I’d been ready to give everything to her.

To move her into my house, to build her an art studio—which I was suddenly wondering if it even existed and her ‘art studio’ was actually whatever torture chamber she used on her victims—and give her my Collar.

I’d been fucking in love with her , and I didn’t say those words lightly because I’d never felt them before, still had yet to speak them out loud.

I’d like to say that she should have come clean with me, that she should have told me from the beginning who she was and what she wanted, but that was just stupid.

Of course, she wouldn’t. Why would she? What option did she have but to worm her way into my life to keep tabs on me?

She likely hadn’t meant for me to fall in love with her, but I wondered if she cared now that I had.

Not bothering to notify anyone of the mess I’d made in the hallway, I hurried down the rest of the way to Sheriff Renfrew’s room.

But I was too late. He was dead in his bed and his son’s decapitated head was placed like a trophy on the table above him. A projection of Emmet Renfrew’s murder played on the wall, and I watched as Holly, as my little owl, let the rope drop that separated Emmet’s head from his body.

There was no joy on her face. Not even satisfaction as Emmet’s head landed in a fucking picnic basket with a blue and white checkered lining. If anything, she looked… resigned .

I spotted the open window and knew I’d just missed her. She’d be going after the principal now. He was the last one. He might not have raped her, but he’d no less violated her. She would get her revenge.

I was off the case, and I had no idea where the principal was now.

Had he been taken into police custody? The last four we’d placed in a safe house hadn’t been secure; I doubted the weasel of a principal was now, too.

My anger spiked again when I now realized how the Atelihai Killer had discovered where the safe house was.

I was turning back towards the door to leave when I paused.

No, that was inaccurate. My little owl hadn’t asked me about the safe house and I hadn’t told her.

I hadn’t even been near her when I’d chosen the location.

I never spoke about work to her and she never asked.

Then how…? I shook my head, trying to clear it.

How had she known? Had she broken into my home computer?

I didn’t think so. As far as I knew, the first time she’d ever been in my office had been when she’d blown me during my phone call with Dr. Robinson.

And even then, I’d been sure to speak in vague phrases because I hadn’t wanted to speak about work in front of her.

My little owl hadn’t… No, that didn’t make sense.

She wasn’t getting information from me. I was so careful to keep my work life and my sex life separate.

So then how had she known? For that matter, how had she known I would be assigned to her case?

Even I hadn’t known that because local police wouldn’t have called the FBI.

They’d happened to call the State Police and the State Police had then called us.

She couldn’t have known that. Nor could she have known that Christopher Wise’s file would end up on my desk.

Hell, there was no way that she could have planted herself at Snow Chains the night I first fucked her because I hadn’t even known I was going there until a couple of hours prior to me closing a previous case.

But she had to have realized who I was eventually, right? Even if it wasn’t that first time? It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Maybe that first time I fucked her, but not afterwards. She had to have come after me again to learn what I knew about her case.

Except… she hadn’t chased me. I had chased her. Like a fucking lovesick puppy.

Christ, I couldn’t get my thoughts straight. Bottom line was that I needed to find her. I might not know where she was now, but I knew where she was going. I needed to find Principal Hagley.

I didn’t know what I was going to do once I caught up to her, but I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t done with my little owl.