Devoured Read online

  Garron accepted the blow.

  “That wasn’t it,” he said in a low voice. “I…told her things. Private things. I thought—”

  “No, you didn’t think. You got mad and turned her in just in time for that bastard of an ex-husband to come get her and take her God knows where…”

  “I didn’t know!” Garron held up both hands in a gesture of peace. “If I had, I never would have taken her to the authorities. I’m here now to try and make things right—only I can’t find her. Her scent ends right outside the building and I don’t know this world. I can’t track her any further without help.”

  “Well, you—” Just then her handheld device started squawking again. Di put it to her ear and listened for a moment. “Yes, I understand. Thank you anyway.” She pushed a button that seemed to end the communication. “He didn’t take her to the station.” Her voice was quiet with despair.

  “I could have told you that,” Garron said evenly.

  “How?” She frowned at him. “How could you know that? Were you in communication with some of the Kindred guards down here or something?”

  “Something like that.” Garron didn’t want to tell her about the dream. It sounded crazy for one thing. And for another it was too…intimate. Like a secret he shared with Tess, even though he didn’t really know her.

  “Well it sounds like you’ve got more information than I do—where did he take her?” Di demanded.

  “I was hoping you would know that.” Garron felt a surge of frustration—was this going to be a dead end?

  “Let me think.” She sighed. “Well, he didn’t take her to the station and he wouldn’t take her back to her apartment—he’s been trying to get her out of there for months. I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet he took her back to his place.”

  “All right. Where is it?” Garron was ready to go at once.

  “He has a house out in Old Seminole Heights—Central Tampa.”

  “Can you take me there?” He was shifting from foot to foot with impatience. “Please, I have to find her. I have to make this right.”

  Di shook her head grimly. “Knowing Pierce, this situation is so wrong nobody will be able to make it right. But I’m with you—we need to find her.” She frowned at him. “But before we go, why do you care so much? You didn’t even know Tess before today—she was just some girl you turned in. Why the change of heart?”

  “I don’t know,” Garron said honestly. “I just know I have to find her and make sure she’s safe. Please, will you help me?”

  She gave him a long, speculative look and then nodded.

  “Okay, big boy. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Tess is about the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet. We used to work together at the nursing home. I was the administrator there back before I got the job at the HKR building.”

  Di was keeping up a running commentary as her little blue car sped through the Tampa streets. Garron, crammed into the passenger side with his knees almost up to his ears, could only nod.

  “Uh-huh. Can this vehicle go any faster?” he asked tensely, scanning the strange alien domiciles and vegetation as they flashed past outside his window.

  “Going as fast as I can without getting a ticket,” Di said grimly. “If we attract the attention of the police it’ll slow us down considerably. Not to mention if we get the wrong officer, he might call and give Pierce a heads up that we’re coming.”

  “All right. I see your logic,” he growled. But he couldn’t help feeling restless. What was that bastard Pierce doing to Tess? What was she enduring right now because of Garron’s wounded pride? I never should have taken her to Sylvan. I should have let her go back to the Pairing House—at least there she would have been safe!

  “We’ll be there soon. Anyway, as I was saying, she’s always been the sweetest kid. So kind to her patients. But she kept popping up with bruises and black eyes—”

  “What?” She had Garron’s attention now. “You’re saying he beat her?” He’d been hoping against hope that what he had witnessed in his dream wasn’t a common occurrence. But…he thought of the small, white scar he’d seen on Tess’s thigh.

  “All the time,” Di said grimly. “She always had excuses—‘Oh, I ran into the door frame…I fell down the stairs…I tripped in the dark…’ But I could see the signs. My first husband was a beater—nearly beat me to death before I finally got away from him.”

  Garron thought of his own childhood. Of the screaming, drunken rants his father, Feels Pain, had gone on. Of the verbal abuse he’d heaped on his mother and the way he had beaten Truth and, on occasion, Garron as well. If he and his brother hadn’t been there to stand up to him, the younger children in the household would have carried his marks of violence on them too.

  “I know…something about that,” he said in a low voice. “My own father…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Then you know what it’s like—walking on eggshells all the time, trying to keep him happy, praying he won’t get angry and take it out on you.” Di sighed. “I finally just took Tess aside and let her know that I knew. She denied it at first but then she broke down and cried. She’d been trying so hard to make it work. Every time after he hit her he’d beg her to forgive him—do something nice like buy her flowers and swear it would never happen again.”

  “Yes.” Garron nodded, thinking of the remorseful face his father would show after a night of drunken savagery. “I am…familiar with the pattern.”

  “So am I. I told her when she’d finally had enough I would help her leave him.”

  “And?” Garron raised an eyebrow at her.

  “And a couple of months ago he—” Di broke off, shaking her head. “No, I can’t tell you that. I wanted to give you a little background but that’s…it’s personal. Not my story to tell.”

  Garron wondered what Pierce had done that finally convinced Tess to leave him. Whatever it was, it must have been truly horrific. And he had sent her back to that situation—he was responsible for whatever was happening to her right now. Whether that bastard was beating her, bruising her…or something worse. It could all be laid at his door.

  Oh Gods, I can’t bear it! He put his head in his hands and groaned.

  “Hey—are you okay?” Di threw him a worried look as she drove. “You in pain or something?”

  “Only here.” Garron put a fist to his chest. “I hate myself for turning her in. If only I had known…I was just so angry.”

  “You didn’t know,” Di said. “Nobody did—that was the way Tess wanted it.”

  She twisted the wheel and the little car made a sharp left. They were in a residential area now, as far as Garron could see. A quiet street lined with the strange domiciles built right on the ground instead of up in trees where they would be safe from predators. Of course, maybe the Earth people didn’t have big enough predators to worry about—or big enough trees. None of the ones flashing past his window looked like they would support a good sized dwelling, let alone several.

  “We’re here.” Di pulled up in front of a medium sized white domicile and parked her vehicle. “I don’t see his car—maybe he’s gone.”

  Garron felt his heart jump into his mouth. “If he’s taken her someplace else…”

  “We came all this way. Let’s check the house first to be sure. I’d call Tess but I’m sure he’s taken her phone—the bastard. Come on—just be quiet and careful.”

  They went to the front of the house but the front windows were covered by some kind of metal mesh which completely enclosed the glass. They had holes big enough to see through but there were cloth panels hanging on the inside of the glass which obscured the view.

  “This is new,” Di said grimly, pointing to the metal mesh window coverings.

  “Is it not common to have these on your world?” Garron looked at the mesh which was fixed firmly in place almost like a cage around the window. “I thought maybe they were to keep predators out.”

  “They put the