Skye's Trail

"Did someone come to your hotel room and go with you and Brittany?" Skye asked.

"No."

"What were you and Brittany doing before you left in the car?"

"I was watching TV. Brittany was talking on the phone."

"Do you know who she was talking to?"

"No." The child gave an exaggerated frown. "Brittany always whispered when she was on the phone."

"What happened after Brittany stopped talking on the phone?"

"She watched TV with me. But then she said we were going to leave the hotel room. She said we'd get ice cream."

"What was on TV?"

"A movie."

"What movie?"

"Harry Potter."

"Did you go get ice cream when you left?"

Callie pouted. "No. We went to a place with lots of cars and Brittany told me to wait while she went inside for a few minutes. She said we'd get ice cream after she came back out. Only she was gone a long time and I got scared waiting in the car all by myself. So I got out and went to look for her. Only I couldn't because the man at the door said this wasn't a good place for little girls and I needed to go back to the car and get inside and lock the doors."

"Do you remember the name of the place you were at?"

"No. But there were naked people inside. Somebody opened the door and I saw naked ladies inside."

"Were they naked all over? Or were they just naked on the top?"

The little girl frowned. "Some were just naked on top. But the ones dancing were all naked."

"Was everybody inside naked, or just some people?"

"Just some people."

"Can you picture it and tell me what it looks like?"

Callie scrunched up her face. "It was like a house only you couldn't see inside it. They had music playing. I heard people yelling. But that's all I remember. It was dark."

"Did the people yelling sound like they were fighting?"

"No. They sounded like Daddy when he's watching football."

"Okay. Did you go back to the car and lock the doors?"

"Yes."

"Then what happened?"

"Brittany came back out to the car. There was a man with her. He scared me."

"What did the man look like?"

Callie struggled with an answer. "He just looked like a man. Only he scared me. When he got in the car I got down on the floor in the back. I didn't want him to look at me. And Brittany didn't tell me to get up and put my seat belt on."

"Did the man know you were in the car?"

"I think so."

"Did he scare Brittany?"

"No. She talked to him while she was driving."

"What did she say?"

"That she couldn't do it tonight. She had to baby-sit me." Callie frowned again. "I'm not a baby."

"Did Brittany say anything else?"

"No."

"Where did you go in the car?"

"To the woods."

"Where you got lost?"

"Yes."

"What happened there?"

"We stopped and there was another car. Brittany told me to stay in the car, but I didn't. She and the man walked over to where the people were standing."

"How many people did you see?"

"I saw a girl and another girl and another girl and another man. The tallest girl and Brittany started talking."

"Could you see the other people's faces?"

"No."

"What color clothes were they wearing?"

"Black. Everybody had black clothes on."

"Did they have their bodies pierced like Brittany did?"

"I think the girls did."

"Could you hear what they were talking about?"

"Not at first. But then Brittany said she couldn't because she was babysitting. The other girl said it didn't matter that I could come with them. She said if they used me in the ceremony it might even make the magic stronger. The other girl knew my name. She said for me to come over to the car. Only I was too scared to move."

"What happened next?"

"The man started back to the car. And Brittany screamed for me to run as fast as I could." Tears began trailing down Callie's cheeks. "I didn't want to leave Brittany. But she kept screaming for me to run. I started running. Then when I looked back, I saw horrible red eyes chasing after me. So I ran even faster."

"And you got lost?" Skye's voice was gentle, soothing.

"Yes."

"Did anything bad happen to you when you were lost?"

"No." The voice was small. "But I was scared. I thought they'd find me. All night long I saw eyes staring at me, only they were yellow instead of red. I ran as far as I could. Then I climbed a tree."

"And now you're back with your mom and dad who love you very much. Right?"

"Yes." Callie added in a whisper. "But I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"Brittany's friends. They'll take all my blood and kill me."

"Why do you think that might happen?"

"Because that's what they did to Brittany. They took all her blood and killed her."

"How do you know that?"

"Mom and Dad were talking about it."

"Did they talk about anything else that scares you?"

Callie took a minute before answering the question. "No."

Once again Skye let the silence fill the room.

Waited for it fill the child.

Skye's voice became a promise of help, a musical sound so beautiful that it couldn't be denied. "Callie, something scary happened when you went on vacation with your mom and dad and Brittany. Your cousin, Brittany, got killed because she made some very bad friends. But she kept you safe, Callie. And you were brave and tried to help the police find the people who killed your cousin. Now it's okay to let the scary memories go away. Are you ready to let them go?"

"Yes."

Skye sunk further into that other world. She took Callie into the endless blue again. Then with the gracefulness of a deer, they moved through the woods, heard the calming voice of the trees as wind moved through their leaves. She could feel the little girl's joy as nature wrapped its arms around her.

"Are you afraid of the woods now?" Skye asked.

"No."

The sunlight faded and darkness surrounded them. They flew as an owl does. Saw the forest in all its nighttime glory. The little girl's eyes got wider as she saw the night as she'd never seen it before.

"Are you afraid of the dark now?" Skye gently asked.

"No."

They circled the woods one more time. Night faded to day. And the illusion dissolved as Skye let little girl thoughts of dolls and balloons and bubblegum-flavored ice cream fill her mind. Then with a blink, it was done.

"Can we go to Baskin-Robbins now?" Callie asked in the carefree voice of childhood. "I want an ice-cream cone."

* * * * *

Rico and a stone-faced Detective Caldwell were waiting for them as they stepped out of the police interrogation room. Callie never stopped talking as they walked out to the family's rental car.

Once again Karen hugged Skye. When she was done, Jon offered his hand. "If there's anything we can ever do for you, let us know. We're in Richmond, Virginia. We're in the phone book."

"I'll remember," Skye told him, then stood with the two detectives as the Armstrongs climbed into their car and left.

"Do you know anything about a strip club named Bangers?" Skye asked Rico.

He shook his head. "Not my beat. But I don't remember hearing they've been raided. Why?"

"A kid I'm looking for may have been seen there. Want me to flash Brittany's picture around when I hit the strip club scene tonight?" Skye joked.

Caldwell's reaction was immediate and predictable. Her entire body stiffened while her lips almost disappeared from being pressed so tightly together. Rico put his cop face on. "Do you have the picture with you?"

"No."

The look he gave Skye told her that he didn't believe her. But he let the subject drop. "Are you going to Bangers?"

"It's my first stop."

"I'll meet you there."

Remembered intimacy simmered between them as their eyes met and held. It wasn't a good idea for them to be together in a place that existed for sex.

He knew it. She knew it. Yet neither of them voiced the thought.

* * * * *

As soon as Skye walked into Bangers she knew that if Amy and Brittany had frequented strip clubs, this was probably one of them. The clientele was diverse, everything from bikers to out-of-town tourists. Scattered in among them were more women than you'd expect, all of whom seemed to favor the solid-black, silver-studded, heavily body-pierced, Goth look. One of them sported fangs.

Rico and Caldwell were already there. They sat at the bar, backs turned away from the action taking place on stage as they talked to the bartender. Everything about them screamed cops.

A thick-necked black man with bulging arms covered by tattoos approached Skye. When he got to her he jerked his head in the direction of a table near the stage and said, "Big Daddy wants to talk to you."

Skye nodded and followed the muscleman. Another black man was sitting at the table, his hair a mass of dreadlocks. As soon as Skye got to him, he turned to the four women sitting with him and said, "Get scarce." They left without a word.

"Must be my lucky day. Big Daddy was just sitting here thinking about conducting some business with his friend, Skye." The man stood and offered his hand. She took it and they went through a series of intricate moves before the handshake was done and they both sat down.

"What kind of business?"

Big Daddy laughed. "Can't do no business without being a good host." He snapped his fingers. A bare-chested waitress came over immediately. "Baby, get a beer for my friend."

The waitress disappeared. When she returned and sat the beer down on the table, Big Daddy pushed a couple of bills into her green g-string. There was barely enough fabric to cover the money.

Skye put the bottle to her mouth and took a swallow as she waited for him to begin. He eyeballed her. "A couple of Big Daddy's girls got hurt real bad. Big Daddy is trying to find the motherfucker who did it."

"What happened to them?"

"Got their faces beat in. Then got whore carved on their stomachs."

"They live?"

"Yeah. But they ain't gonna look the same and their value to Big Daddy has been greatly reduced. They was good-lookin' girls. Now I'm gonna have to send them where the clientele ain't so picky."

"When'd it happen?"

"One a little while back. One two days ago."

"The cops have any leads?"

Big Daddy slapped the table and laughed so loudly that heads turned in their direction. Then with a mercurial change he stopped laughing and looked straight at Skye. "I got my own kind of justice. And it don't involve cops."

Skye shrugged. "Can the girls describe the guy?"

"No. Nothing besides the fact that he's a vicious motherfucker."

"There're a lot of those around."

Big Daddy laughed again. Then he snapped his fingers and the muscleman reached into his pocket and pulled out a collection of pictures. He dropped them on the table in front of Skye. She studied them. The faces barely looked human. The carved-up stomachs a further testament to how vicious the attacks had been.

She looked closely at the picture that had both girls standing side by side before they'd been attacked. They were young, underage or just barely legal. Both were white with a drugged-out runaway look to them. Both had stringy brown hair and green eyes.

"They related?" Skye asked.

"No."

"Looks like he goes for the same type."

"Yeah. Big Daddy thought so too. Big Daddy's got protection on some of his girls just in case."

Skye separated out the picture taken before the attack. "This one for me?"

Big Daddy flashed pearly-white teeth. "If you think you're gonna need it to help Big Daddy with his problem."

"What're their names?"

"The piece on the right is Tia. The other one's Angel."

"They staying with your other girls, down by the biker bar?"

"That's the place."

"I'll need to talk to them."

"Big Daddy will tell all his people they can talk to you about this."

"I'm working a couple of cases right now. I'll fit it in when I can." Skye pulled the pictures of Jen, Brittany, and Amy out of her pocket and laid them side by side in front of Big Daddy.

"Mmm, mmm. These two wouldn't bring in much money." He pointed at Brittany and Jen, garbed in black and covered in body-piercings. "Big Daddy don't let his girls do themselves like this."

Skye tapped the picture of Amy. "She probably has the same look. This is an old picture. They may have come around here."

"Big Daddy can't be everywhere at once. He doesn't personally keep an eye on the girls at this club." He studied the pictures a moment longer then looked at his bodyguard and nodded.

The other man leaned forward and flipped the picture of Brittany over. "Used to see these two every night."

"They hustling?"

"No. I may have seen them once or twice with a couple of guys. But they weren't working girls." He flipped the picture of Amy over, leaving Jen's picture faceup. "Another dude's been around here a couple of times looking for this one."

"Red hair, short, wiry?"

"That'd be the dude."

So Kyle had been looking for Haley's sister. It answered one of Skye's questions, but opened the door to another question-whether or not he'd ever found Jen.

"A friend of the family," Skye said as she scooped up the three photos plus the picture of Tia and Angel and put them in her pocket. Then she turned to Big Daddy. "I've got to go visit with my friends at the bar about these other girls. The sooner I find out what happened to them, the sooner I can turn my attention to your-" she gave a half-smile, "-quest for justice. Maybe to help things along, your friend here could call me if he sees my girls. And maybe you'd let your girls know it's okay for them to look at my pictures and tell me what they know."

"So Big Daddy helps you find your girls and you help Big Daddy find the motherfucker who damaged his girls."

"Something like that."

"Big Daddy will let his people know."

Skye finished the rest of the beer then put the bottle back on the table. "Thanks for the drink," she said as she stood. "I'll stop by and visit the girls as soon as I can."

"Big Daddy'll be in touch."

For once Rico and Caldwell wore identical frowns when Skye joined them. "How can you sit at the table with that scum?" Rico asked. A muscle twitched in his cheek.

"Think of it as being undercover," Skye answered.

His frown deepened. "It looked like you were doing business with him."

"My business, Rico. And I'm not a cop."

The bartender came over and asked her if she wanted something. She ordered another beer. "Get anywhere flashing Brittany's picture?"

"You'd better not be carrying it." Caldwell's voice was hostile.

Skye grimaced. "This is getting old. For the record, the kids I'm looking for disappeared before Brittany did."

"Who are they?" Caldwell asked.

"That's privileged information," Skye answered and the detective's lips pressed together in annoyance.

"But they were into this vampire shit, right?" Rico asked. His expression was all-cop.

"Yeah," Skye agreed. "They were." She knew he'd run a check for missing persons when he got back to the station. She also knew he wouldn't find anything. "Don't guess you'd want to exchange information," she ventured.

Caldwell's frown was immediate. Rico's eyes narrowed.

"Stay out of the Armstrong investigation. It's an open case." Rico's voice was terse.

Skye studied him, wondered if he was uptight because he'd seen her with the pimp or because Caldwell was with him. She paid the bartender and took a swallow of beer. Rico's phone hummed and he walked away without a word.

"Thanks to your stunt with the kid, the captain reamed his ass this afternoon." Caldwell's voice was hostile.

"And I thought aiding citizens was supposed to be a police priority." Skye looked over at the detective, amused at how quickly Caldwell averted her eyes.

"Doesn't it bother you that Rico got in trouble because of something you did?"

"Would it have been better if I talked to the kid somewhere else, privately?"

Caldwell looked like her head might explode any minute. "You don't have any respect for authority at all, do you?"

"I play it the way I see it."

"And you don't care what happens or who gets hurt?"

Skye shrugged, growing tired of the conversation and the company.

"One step over the line and I'll see that you spend time locked up."

"I'm sure you will."

Rico walked back over to the bar. By now Caldwell's face was flushed and angry. "I read the transcripts. You had no right to tell that child to forget what she saw. You destroyed any chance we had of getting her to ID someone or provide a description for an artist's drawing. You should have had one of us in the room with you."

Skye shrugged. She'd held Callie's mind in hers and knew with certainty that the child had given them what she could. She was tired of cops with their rules and regulations. The session with Callie had worn her down, lowered her resistance. She didn't use her skills in that manner very often. It was difficult to go so deeply, to maintain control and hold another's mind for such a long period of time.

Right now she felt some of her usual control slipping. She wanted to rip the sanctimonious Caldwell off the barstool and kick her ass. Only the knowledge that it would complicate things with Rico kept her from doing it.

"Nothing's free, Caldwell. The price for the information you got is what you had to let go to get it. Callie would never have been able to ID anybody."

"You don't know that," the detective argued.

"Cia, just drop it," Rico said.

"It's not right, Rico, you got your ass chewed because of this."

"Just drop it," he repeated and Skye could read the struggle in his face, the conflict, the need that echoed in her own body.

"Are you working all night?" she asked and saw Caldwell's lips tighten in the too-familiar disapproving line.

Rico's body tensed. "Yeah, Cia and I have a few more places to hit."

Need made Skye edgy. Unpredictable. She felt like a bitch in heat.

Her nipples were rock-hard, her panties wet. Fuzzy images from the past washed over her and she knew that this was why her mother had two mates. Fuck. Of all the men to want, of all the men to bind to her, why did it have to be him? "I'm out of here," she said and walked away from the bar without looking back.

When Rico didn't follow her out to the parking lot, Skye considered going to Fangs, to Gian. But instinct warned that he was just as dangerous to her as Rico was.

With a grimace she thought maybe it was time to buy a vibrator. She'd never needed one before. But the edginess that rippled over her skin, the hunger that had her nipples so tight that it was painful, was distracting, dangerous in its own way.

She went home instead. Only to find Gian waiting in the hallway outside of her apartment.

The flame in the midnight centers of his eyes promised something she didn't want to resist. His voice was pure seduction. "Invite me in."