[Shaye Archer 01.0] Malevolent Read online

  “I take it Detective Beaumont was right?”

  “And then some. Tests for narcotics and alcohol were negative. She was staggering because of blood loss. Once we got her onto a gurney, she all but collapsed, eyes wide open and vitals strong, but she was nonresponsive.”

  “Shock?”

  “I’m sure. Dr. Thompson was working the ER that night, so we were lucky.”

  Emma nodded. Dr. Thompson was one of the hospital’s oldest doctors and took his time with patients. He was the nursing staff’s favorite.

  “He sent her straight off for X-rays and that’s when all hell broke loose,” Clara said. “That poor girl…it was unlike anything I’d ever seen before and something I hope to never see again.” Clara looked directly at Emma, her big brown eyes misting up. “So many broken bones, some of them old injuries and some more recent, and none had ever been set right. My guess is, she’d never even seen a doctor.”

  Emma’s stomach rolled. “Oh my God.”

  “Then Dr. Thompson started his physical exam.” A single tear rolled down Clara’s cheek and she swiped it away. “That girl had been violated in every way possible. There were cuts all over her body and a brand in the middle of her back in the shape of a pentagram. I had to leave the room for a few minutes. It’s the only time I’ve ever gotten sick on the job, but I’m not ashamed of it. An hour after he finished the exam, I found Dr. Thompson in his office crying.”

  Emma’s chest constricted and she struggled to keep her own tears at bay. What Clara described was unfathomable, that someone could abuse a child to the point that even veteran medical staff struggled to handle it. What kind of monster could do that?

  “We cleaned her up as best as possible and treated the wounds on her hands and wrists. She didn’t stir, not even for a minute. Not until the next night when she woke up screaming. Me and one of the new nurses ran in and tried to calm her down, but it took some convincing before she stopped looking ready to bolt.”

  “Did she tell you who did that to her?”

  Clara shook her head. “She didn’t remember. Didn’t remember a single thing before waking up in the hospital. It was as if her mind had simply erased it all.”

  “Self-preservation?”

  “That’s what I think. What happened to her was so horrible her mind made it all go away. She didn’t even know her name. Had to pick one out for herself.” Clara sniffed. “Based on her bones, Dr. Thompson estimated Shaye’s age at fifteen or thereabouts. He couldn’t be certain of the year, but he was certain she was a minor. We were about to call social services when Miss Archer showed up. Detective Beaumont had served on a charity board with her and had given her a call. I all but yelled hallelujah when she took a personal interest in the case.”

  “Charity board? Wait, Archer? As in Archer Manufacturing and State Senator Archer?”

  “His daughter.”

  Emma frowned, completely confused. “I don’t get it. What was a New Orleans socialite supposed to do? Pay her hospital bill?”

  “Corrine Archer may be one of the wealthiest women in New Orleans, but she’s the salt of the earth. And the best damned social worker we have in this city.”

  “Corrine the social worker is that Corrine?” Emma gasped. “Pierce Archer’s daughter? I never realized…”

  “Which is a testament to the caliber of woman she is. Corrine could be sitting in a ten-thousand-dollar leather chair in a boardroom or soaking up rays in the Bahamas full time, but she chose to help children. And against her father’s wishes, I might add.”

  “I’m absolutely blown away. I had lunch with her one day at a hot dog vendor outside of the hospital.” Emma shook her head, some of her faith in humanity instantly restored. If a woman of means like Corrine Archer chose to spend her time in the trenches helping children, then there might be hope for the future.

  “Corrine doesn’t usually throw her weight around. She wants to be seen and treated as any other social worker, but in this case, I was hoping she’d pull out her last name and get things done.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was clear that Shaye had been through a horror the rest of us couldn’t even begin to imagine. Putting her in a group home or with foster parents wouldn’t have done a bit of good. The girl needed serious medical and psychological treatment, and Corrine could afford the best of everything.”

  “You’re saying she took custody of Shaye herself?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Corrine had her father pull some strings, and Shaye was placed in Corrine’s custody. Corrine got her entrenched in her home, cleaned up, and spending time daily with Eleonore Blanchet.”

  “I’ve always heard she’s the best.”

  “You’ve heard right. Eleonore brought that girl from the brink of madness back to reality—her new reality.” Clara shook her head. “Shaye had several surgeries to correct broken bones that hadn’t been set property. It took Eleonore a year before she could get Shaye to leave Corrine’s house, except for doctors’ visits.”

  “But that was only nine years ago. She seems so normal. How in the world could someone come from what you described to the woman I met today?”

  “Money to hire the best of the best, time, and a spirit that couldn’t be broken. Shaye could read and knew math up to multiplication and division, so they assumed she’d received at least an elementary education. Corrine hired the best tutors she could find and they worked with her every day in Corrine’s home. Shaye grabbed right on to those books and surprised everyone with her intelligence. In three years’ time, she took the GED and started college. When she turned eighteen, the state released her and Corrine adopted her. Shaye worked for a local detective agency while she was going to college and as best I know, has never looked back.”

  Emma shook her head. “That is the most incredible, awful, wonderful story I’ve ever heard. Did they catch the person who abused Shaye?”

  “No. With Shaye’s memory gone, the police didn’t have much to go on.”

  “I guess a child abuser isn’t likely to file a missing persons report on their victim.”

  “Got that right. The police circulated her picture through all the national databases, sent it to schools and churches, and even did those commercials, but they didn’t get any hits.”

  The reality of Shaye’s situation crashed into Emma like a freight train. “If Shaye has no memory of her abuser, then she has to assume that anyone she comes in contact with could be her attacker. My God. Every day is some form of nightmare.”

  “I would imagine so, although she seems to have found a way to balance it out and try to live a normal life.”

  “That’s why you thought she’d believe me…because of her own extraordinary story.”

  “I think it’s no coincidence that Shaye became a private investigator. She doesn’t have answers for herself, and my guess is she doesn’t want anyone else to live in the shadow of darkness like she does.”

  Emma took another drink of her now-lukewarm coffee, trying to fathom what a normal day was like for Shaye. For all intents and purposes, Shaye was born at age fifteen, with a lifetime of baggage and no claim ticket to tell her where it had come from. The fact that she was sane, much less accomplished, was a testament to Shaye’s strength and Corrine’s determination.

  For the first time in weeks, Emma’s bleak outlook cleared just a little. If Shaye could go through all that and come out the other side not only sane, but educated, and eager to help others, then Emma had a chance of regaining her own life and sanity.

  Chapter Three

  The room was dark and damp. The old bricks that made up the walls were crumbling in some places and growing moss in others. She didn’t know the length of the room in feet, but she knew it was exactly thirty steps long and twenty steps wide. When it rained, water crept in where the brick met the concrete floor. If it rained hard, the entire floor was drenched. She stood as long as she could, but if it rained for too long, her weakened body couldn’t keep her upright and she eventuall
y had to sit down. The water soaked into her clothes and made the room freezing in the winter and sticky hot in the summer.

  She couldn’t remember how long she’d been in the room. Several summers and winters had passed. Maybe five. Maybe more. When you sat in the dark every day, it was hard to know how much time passed. But as bad as the room was, it was worse when he came to get her. He’d stick her with a needle and she would go to sleep, but not completely. She could remember what happened, how he bathed her and dressed her, then took her to the red room with all the candles. There were other people in the red room. People who hurt her, along with the man.

  But she didn’t want to think about that.

  Thinking about the red room made her want to die.

  She’d tried to kill herself once. Had slit her wrists with a piece of broken brick. The man had been so angry when he found her. He’d wrapped her wrists to stop the bleeding. Every day, he’d returned to the room to make sure the cuts didn’t get infected, and every day, he’d made her pay for her attempt to escape her prison. Made her pay so badly, she’d never tried again.

  Thunder boomed outside and she slid to the center of the room, curling her arms around her legs. Her right foot throbbed from the minimal movement. Maybe it was broken, but as long as it couldn’t get infected, the man didn’t care. Her teeth began to chatter, and she hoped the storm was short. She wouldn’t be able to stand on her foot, not for more than a minute.

  As the water began to creep into the room, she squeezed her arms tighter around her legs and prayed. God hadn’t heard her yet, but he was the only thing she had left.

  Shaye bolted upright in bed as thunder shook her bedroom walls. She squinted a bit as the bedroom light hit her eyes, then zeroed in on the baseboards, looking for water. The old hardwood floors were as dry as a bone. She flopped back onto her pillow and blew out a breath. Lately, every time it rained, she had the same dream. So far, most of the summer thunderstorms had rolled through the city during the day, but a few had broken the night stillness with booming thunder and pounding rain.

  She closed her eyes, wondering if she’d be able to get back to sleep, but with every roll of thunder, her heartbeat ticked up a notch. She flung back the covers and walked down the hall and into the kitchen. It was a short walk and an easy one. No light switches to fumble around for in the dark. The only time Shaye was in the dark was when the power went out, and even then, she had a lantern and a whole nightstand drawer full of flashlights, located right above the drawer filled with batteries.

  No complete darkness. No candles. Not ever.

  She grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator and flopped down on the couch. The television was mounted on the wall in front of her, but the cable guy wasn’t due until tomorrow, so right now, it was just a big black monitor, providing no distraction whatsoever. At least the Internet guy had made a call that afternoon. Television she could do without for a night or two, but having no Internet was akin to having no hot water. It just wasn’t a livable sort of thing.

  She rubbed the bottle of water across her forehead. The air-conditioning in the apartment was good, but the humidity from the storms made the air inside stale and muggy. Her laptop sat on the end table where she’d left it before she went to bed, so she flipped it open and fired up a movie on Netflix. At least it provided a little bit of noise to drown out the storm.

  Staring at the dark television in front of her, she tried to force her mind from the dream but she couldn’t. Was it real? She had no doubt the girl in the dream was her, but what she didn’t know was if the dream was true. Had that really happened to her? Was that the reason she was terrified of the dark and hated even the sight of a candle? Or did she fear those things for other reasons and the dream was a made-up story that her mind had created? Its way of expelling her demons?

  Would she ever know?

  She blew out a breath. Eleonore told her that her mind had blocked the past in order to protect her from a mental break. Given the extent of her physical injuries, Shaye had no doubt that was true, but Eleonore also thought that one day, when she was strong enough, she might start to remember. The problem was, right now, everything Shaye saw was only in her dreams. Nothing flashed through her mind or caught her attention when she was awake. Only when she was sleeping did the darkness creep in.

  The dream felt real. She could feel the terror the girl felt, the horribly painful throbbing of her foot, the awful desperation when she began to pray.

  Shaye’s foot had been broken. It was one of the many things she’d had surgery to fix after she’d gone to live with Corrine. Two long scars across her wrists indicated a suicide attempt, and one made by a child who had seen it in the movies but didn’t know that you should cut long ways if you were serious about dying. But again, were those things that she knew to be true manifesting themselves in her dream, or was the dream giving her a glimpse of her past?

  As much as the dreams terrified her, she hoped they were real. Because if she never remembered, then the people who’d done this to her would get away with it.

  ###

  Emma hurried across the hospital parking lot, one of the hospital security guards in tow. Jeremy Walker was a nice man and more importantly, a big man and a retired cop. When her shift had ended, she’d sought him out specifically and asked if he would walk her to her car. It was a little after 2:00 a.m., and most of the city had shut down for the night. But it was midweek. Come the weekend, at 2:00 a.m., some parties would just be getting started.

  “How you doing tonight, Miss Frederick?” Jeremy asked as they walked.

  “I’m doing all right,” Emma said. “Thanks for asking.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. You’ve had a rough time of it lately, and I’m sorry for that.”

  “Things will get better, right? Isn’t that what you always tell the victims—that time heals everything?”

  “I reckon that’s what we say.”

  Emma looked up at him. “You don’t think it’s true?”

  Jeremy frowned, his dark eyes troubled. “I don’t guess I do. I don’t think there’s enough time to repair some things. Some things just become part of a person, like their skin color. It doesn’t have to define them, but it’s always with them.”

  “That’s an interesting way to look at it, and I agree with you. I don’t doubt that at some point I’ll be as happy as I was before, but I don’t think I’ll ever be the same, if that makes sense.”

  “Yes, ma’am, it does. Most people go through life with a false sense of security…until something happens. Then you start to take a closer look at the way you do everything and the risks involved.”

  “Like walking to my car alone at night in a dark parking lot?” Emma smiled.

  “Two weeks ago, you’d have been waving and hurrying out that door without so much as a backward glance.”

  Emma stopped in front of her car. “Well, I appreciate you walking me out here.”

  “Any time. And I mean that. You don’t go traipsing around here like you’re some superhero. They gave me a badge and a gun for a reason.”

  Emma placed her hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze. “You’re the best, Jeremy.”

  He smiled. “I’m going to tell my wife you said so. Sometimes she needs a reminder. Now, go on and get out of here.”

  He took a couple steps back from her car but stood and waited as she pressed the button to unlock her car door. Clearly, Jeremy didn’t consider the job done until he saw taillights. She pulled on the door handle, but the car was still locked. She pressed the button again, waiting to hear the click that indicated the lock has disengaged, but it never made a sound. She pulled on the handle again, just to be sure, but it didn’t budge.

  “Is something wrong?” Jeremy asked.

  “The keyless entry isn’t working. Something else to take care of, I guess.” She pulled her car keys out of her purse, disengaged the slave key, and manually opened the car door. “I can’t remember the last time I used a key to do this.”


  Jeremy nodded as he pulled her door open. “Technology has taken over the world. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’m not one of those old people always bitching about progress. Last night I talked to my granddaughter in Tokyo on the computer. Nope, you won’t hear me complaining at all.”

  “That’s great,” Emma said, trying not to think about all the times she’d Skyped with David. All the emotions she felt seeing her husband so far away and in a war zone. Back then, she couldn’t wait to see him again. Now she was afraid she’d never stop seeing him.

  Jeremy shut her door and stepped back from the car. She tried to start the car, but it didn’t make a sound. She tried again. Nothing. She opened the door and stepped out. “It won’t start.”

  “Probably your battery,” Jeremy said, “which would explain the remote not working. Pop your hood and I’ll take a look.”

  She reached back into the car and released the hood latch. Jeremy lifted the hood and shone his flashlight onto the battery cables.

  “One of your cables is loose,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any pliers?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “No worries. I can get it fixed up well enough to get you home. You got pliers there?”

  “If I don’t, I can get them.”

  Jeremy pulled a package of gum from his pocket and popped a piece in his mouth. He offered Emma one but she declined, then watched in confusion as he carefully folded the foil wrapper. Her confusion cleared when he stuffed the wrapper in between the terminal and the wire cap to hold it in place.

  “It will conduct power because it’s metal,” she said. “Ingenious.”

  “Done it more times than you can guess. Probably still carry gum because of it. Don’t chew it much anymore because of my dentures. Go ahead and try her again.”

  Emma hopped into the car and gave it another try. The engine roared to life and she grinned at Jeremy as he closed the hood. “Lifesaver,” she said.