His to Take (Wicked Lovers #9)(95)
Author: Shayla Black

Bailey felt her body buckle. She pressed a hand to her chest. “Mikhail, my brother, was murdered in his room.”

Who would do that to a child? Why?

She couldn’t look anymore and jerked from the doorway. Joaquin was there to support her, wrapping his arms around her body, easing her head to his chest. He crooned nonsensical words. She didn’t care that she couldn’t understand what he said because his touch made it clear that he would stand with her no matter what. It didn’t feel like he just wanted answers or to solve a case. Bailey would have sworn that he genuinely cared.

Flinging her arms around him, she sobbed quietly into his chest. He edged them away from the opening of the bedroom and leaned against the far wall, removing her another precious few inches from the tragedy.

For long minutes, he simply let her shock have its way. As she grieved, he lent her his strength and support. She sniffled, dreading what she’d find next, but a quick glance around proved that the sunlight was waning and their time was running low. She didn’t think she’d find the mental muster to come back here tomorrow, so she had to tough it out for the rest of this wrenching house tour. Bailey had no idea if she’d remember anything of value, but she had to try.

“I’m fine.” She pulled back.

He tightened his arms and braced a finger under her chin, lifting it. After a long scan of her face and a deep glance into her eyes, he blew out a breath. Obviously, he didn’t like this, but he knew what had to be done. “Come with me.”

Together, they made their way down the hall before pausing at the next door on the right—the room she had shared with her sister, Annika. The walls were no longer a sunny yellow. The grime on the windows and the setting sun made the darkening room look gloomy, shadow-filled. The child-size kitchen set and tea party equipment had all been taken away. The pale carpet still bore the scars of bloodstains splattered on the far side of the room. The closet door stood ajar, a terrible reminder.

As with the scene in Mikhail’s room, Bailey remembered that horrific evening. Her older sister had tried to hide from her murderer in the closet, but he’d found her. So had Bailey, later, all huddled and crumpled in a corner of the dark little space. Some bastard had hunted her down and snuffed out her life. Annika’s last moments must have been terrifying.

Bailey wondered why she had been spared when none of the others had.

“I have to get out of this room.” She turned and bolted back into the hall.

Joaquin followed. “Was that your room?”

She nodded. “My sister and I, yes. I had the top bunk.”

In fact, she’d remembered awakening that morning early and seeking out her mother, begging for pancakes.

Her mother.

Bailey’s heart stopped as she headed toward the final room off the hallway. Her parents had shared that bedroom. She remembered sometimes hearing them arguing. Sometimes she’d heard moans and grunts, which she suspected now had been their lovemaking.

The cozy queen bed had been stripped bare, the mattress now a dingy white. The nightstands were devoid of the clock and jewelry that had always graced her mom’s side of the bed. The bench near the window still had the needlepointed seat of flowers, but looked like a neglected antique.

Bailey inched closer but couldn’t make herself enter the room—couldn’t stop remembering her mother lying in a pool of blood, as if she’d come to check on the gunshots and Annika’s screaming, then been gunned down herself.

More of that evening drifted back to her. Bailey recalled coming in from the cold and wandering down the hall, finding the carnage in each bedroom more horrifying than the last. Then she’d seen her mother, bloody and lifeless, on the floor. She remembered trying to shake her mother awake, somehow so terrified by the woman’s open, sightless eyes. She’d screamed, thrown herself against her mother and hugged her tight, pleading for Mama to hug her, assure her that the world hadn’t ended.

Into the dead silence, she’d fled the house in horror, wondering if the bad man would come for her next. When she’d darted back down the hall, she’d slipped in the blood and peeled off her socks before pushing out the back door, into the snow. The rest of the events fit her dream, all the way until the concerned couple in the blue sedan had discovered her. Then . . . nothing again before her life with Bob and Jane Benson.

“Baby girl?”

“My mom was killed right here.” She pointed to a spot barely a foot away. “I found her body. I remember finding them all dead.”

Joaquin pulled her close, and she could feel his ache of sympathy for her. “I’m here. Cry or get angry or . . . whatever you need.”