Karen Rose - Scream For Me

Alex looked at Meredith. “That’s a good question. Daniel and Luke thought the seventh man had another set of keys, but I guess Granville didn’t.”

“Or he would have taken the pictures from the box himself,” Meredith said.

“He may still have done that,” Luke said from the doorway. “Granville may have taken the pictures years ago. We don’t know yet. But Simon’s turning up alive after all those years had them all nervous. If Daniel had Simon’s key and Bailey had Wade’s key, they would have started asking questions, and Granville didn’t want that.” He stood next to Bailey’s bed. “Chase wants to talk to you, Alex. How are you feeling, Bailey?”

“I’ll be okay,” Bailey said fiercely. “I have to be. How is the girl I found?”

“Unconscious,” Luke said.

“That’s probably for the best,” Bailey murmured. “When can I see Hope?”

“Soon,” Meredith promised. “She had a terrible trauma seeing you beaten. I don’t want to scare her again. Let’s get your hair washed and try to hide some of the bruises before we bring Hope in to see you here.”

Bailey nodded wearily. “Alex, I told Granville I sent you the key. Did he hurt you?”

“No. This blood on my shirt is mostly his. He’s dead.”

“Good,” Bailey said harshly. “Did he suffer?”

“Not enough. Bailey, who else did you see while you were being held?”

“Just Granville and sometimes Mansfield. Sometimes their guards. Why?”

“Just asking.” Alex would wait to tell Bailey that Granville said there were others, just as she’d wait to tell her Craig had murdered Sister Anne. “Sleep now. I’ll be back.”

“Alex, wait. I didn’t want to tell him you had the key. He…” Her eyes filled with tears as she pointed to the fresh needle marks on her arm. “He shot me up.”

Alex stared at the needle marks, horrified. “No.”

“I was clean for five years. I swear.”

“I know. I talked to Desmond and all your friends.”

“Now I have to quit again.” Bailey’s voice broke, breaking Alex’s heart.

“You don’t have to do it alone this time.” Alex kissed Bailey’s forehead. “Sleep now. I need to talk to the police. They’re going to want to talk to you about the girls.”

Bailey nodded. “Tell them I’ll help all I can.”

Atlanta, Saturday, February 3, 10:15 a.m.

Daniel woke up to find Alex sleeping in the chair next to his bed. He tried to say her name three times before he could get enough volume to wake her up. “ Alex .”

She lifted her head, blinking to immediate attention. “Daniel.” Her shoulders sagged and for a moment he thought she’d cry. Panic snaked through him.

“What?” The single syllable tore a chunk from his throat.

“Wait.” The ice chip she slipped in his mouth felt like heaven. “They took out your breathing tube, so your throat will be sore for a while. Here’s a pad and pen. Don’t talk.”

“What?” he repeated again, ignoring her. “How bad am I?”

“You’ll be out of the hospital in a few days. You were lucky. The bullet didn’t hit anything vital.” She kissed one corner of his mouth. “You won’t even need surgery. Your wound had already started to seal itself. You’ll make a full recovery and be back to work in a few weeks, a month at the outside.”

Something was still very wrong. “What happened to Mansfield and Granville?”

“Mansfield, Granville, and O’Brien are all dead. Frank Loomis, too. I’m sorry, Daniel. He was probably dead a few minutes after he was shot. But Bailey’s alive.”

“Good.” He said it as fiercely as he could. “What happened back there, Alex?” he asked hoarsely. “You and Luke… I heard you talking. Something about girls.”

“Granville was into something horrific,” she said quietly. “We found the bodies of five teenaged girls. He’d been keeping them prisoner. Beardsley said he thought there were maybe a dozen in all. Granville began to move them, but he didn’t have time to move them all. He killed the ones he left behind.”

Daniel tried to swallow, but couldn’t. Alex slipped another ice chip in his mouth, but this time it didn’t help. “One of the girls got away, with Bailey’s help. She’s unconscious, so we don’t have any details yet. Luke said he recognized one of the dead girls from the work that he was doing before.” She sighed wearily. “I guess he can’t forget their faces any more than you could forget the faces in Simon’s pictures. One of the girls we found was featured on one of the child-porn sites Luke’s team shut down eight months ago.”

Daniel’s stomach rolled. “God.”

“We were an hour too late.” Alex stroked his hand lightly. “Daniel, before he died, Granville said he taught Simon, that there were others, then he said, ‘I was another’s.’ ”

“Who were the others?”

“He never said.”

“Mack O’Brien?”

“Chase’s team found where he’d been living.”

“At the warehouses Rob Davis built on O’Brien land?”

“You’re half right. He’d been living in one of the warehouses the printer of the Review used for storage. Delia’s car was equipped with GPS and Chase’s people followed the signal and found all the other cars Mack kept. Luke found e-mails on Mack’s computer. He was planning to sell Delia’s Porsche, Janet’s Z, and Claudia’s Mercedes. He’d repainted Gemma’s ’Vette. Apparently he was going to keep it.”

“Wait. Mack was in a warehouse where they stored copies of the Review ? Why?”

“He worked for the Review. Daniel, Mack was the paperboy. He stood on my front porch talking to me Tuesday morning, just as pleasant as you please.”

Daniel’s gut tightened at the thought of Mack O’Brien that close to her. “Shit. And nobody recognized him?” he asked hoarsely.

“Marianne hired him. She did all the admin for the paper. She’d never met him. Mack would have been just a little boy when you all were in high school. He delivered the papers when most people were asleep, and the rest of the time he just drove around in Marianne’s delivery van, watching. Mack did a lot of watching.”

“Who?”

“He watched all of them. He’s got pictures of Garth going into Bailey’s house, Mansfield delivering girls to Granville’s bunker, Mansfield -”

“Wait. Mansfield was involved in that ?”

“Yeah. We don’t know how yet, but he was part of Granville’s business.”

Daniel closed his eyes. “Fuck. I mean… God, Alex.”

“I know,” she murmured. “For what it’s worth, it looks like Frank wasn’t. He got a text message yesterday morning telling him where he’d find Bailey. He thought it was from Marianne, but it was from Mack’s cell phone.”

“But Frank still falsified evidence in Gary Fulmore’s murder trial.” His voice was a dry croak, and Alex fed him another ice chip with a look of reproach.

“Use the pad and pen. Yes, Frank did falsify evidence then, but I don’t think he meant to betray you yesterday. Bailey said Frank helped her get away.”

There was some comfort in that, Daniel supposed. But still… “I wish I knew why . I need to know why .”

“Maybe he was protecting someone. Maybe he was being blackmailed.” She smoothed a hand over his cheek. “Wait until you’re strong again. You’ll investigate and hopefully come up with some answers.”

Hopefully. Daniel knew he might never know Frank’s reason, but he had to believe Frank had one. “What else?”

Alex sighed. “Mansfield hired Lester Jackson, the guy who ran me down and who killed Sheila and that young Dutton officer at Presto’s Pizza. Chase found a disposable cell in Mansfield’s pocket. The phone number matches the incoming calls to Lester Jackson’s cell phone the day he tried to kill me.”