handsome anymore. How to classify them as anything but monsters hiding underneath flesh. She knew that was unfair. To lump them all in with The Things. But life wasn’t fair. “I never touched the stuff again. Kind of lost its luster after you . . . left.”
“Left,” she said, laughing condescendingly. “Is that what I did, Maddox?”
“Aww, that’s Maddox?” Jaclyn drawled, her voice saccharine sweet, taunting the moment. She knew who Maddox was. Stories were all they’d had in The Cell.
Orion glared at her. “Shut up, Jaclyn.” She turned back toward Maddox and pointed at the man beside him. “So, who’s this?”
The man stepped forward, flashing white, perfectly straight teeth, a movie-star smile if she’d ever seen one, and she shook her head. Does everyone but me have great teeth?
“Detective Eric Baptiste,” he offered in a smooth voice. “Nice to meet you, ladies.”
Orion arched a brow and looked toward Maddox. How did they connect? A polite black man in a neatly pressed shirt standing next to the white man who hadn’t shaved in days, and obviously never changed his shirt.
“My partner,” Maddox explained.
Eric chuckled. “His better half.”
Shelby sat up, having been half hiding behind the two of them. Her eyes were wide and darting between the two men. “Seriously?”
Orion wanted to roll her eyes at the woman’s gullibility, but then again, to come out of what they’d been through and still be naive took talent. And some strong denial.
“No, no,” Maddox said. “My work partner.”
Eric shook his head. “He’s always denying our love. But, one day, we’ll be life partners too.”
Maddox rolled his eyes.
Playful, Orion noted. Sense of humor. Kind eyes with a hardness around the edges. She didn’t trust her taste in men at this stage. Anyone who wasn’t raping or beating her could be considered “good.”
Shelby giggled. Both Orion and Jaclyn glanced back at the sound. It was foreign. She decided she wouldn’t knock out Eric’s teeth. Not yet at least.
“So, you were saying . . . about us getting out of here? Haven’t we been locked up long enough?”
Maddox straightened, jutting his chin up ever so slightly. Orion watched a mask—a cop mask, she thought—settle over almost all of his face except his eyes. They gave him away. He cleared his throat. “The doctors are done with you. We’ve got one of our clerks bringing toiletries, a few changes of clothes,” he said. Cop voice too. He didn’t take his eyes off Orion. “If it’s alright with y’all, we’re going to get you out of here and over to a hotel in Edwardsville for the night. We’ll have uniformed officers there all night to keep you safe.”
Jaclyn let out a snort.
Orion was with her on that. Safe meant fucking nothing to them.
Maddox continued, “We’ll be over bright and early to take you to the sheriff’s office, if that’s alright. We won’t bother you today about anything, wanna give you some time to readjust. To sleep. But we’ve got one of these guys on the run. And we need to know everything. To make sure this cockroach, when he’s caught, is given the maximum sentence he deserves.”
Shelby stiffened beside Orion. “Are we in trouble . . . for the other guy?”
Orion knew Shelby was thinking about the body in The Cell.
Maddox’s features softened immediately at Shelby’s tone. The broken, scared tone. “No, not one bit,” he said, voice gentle. Calm.
He was good at this, Orion noted.
“We don’t give a fuck about him, if I’m being honest.”
Eric shook his head in agreement.
“We’re glad you did what you did. Now we need to get the other one. And we need to find the others.” Maddox’s eyes met the tiled floor, his bottom lip slipping between his teeth. “And get closure for their families.”
“You know about them?” Orion asked, cocking her head.
“They, uh . . . they had snuff photos. Of a few different girls. More than needs to be talked about right now.” Maddox took a deep breath, and a solemn look crossed Eric’s face. “Unfortunately, tomorrow’s gonna be a long day, so you ladies make sure you get some rest tonight.”
“Why are we staying all the way out in Edwardsville?” Jaclyn asked the question that Orion had been wondering since he said the location of the hotel. Not that she was all that excited to see her parents again. Maybe a little part of her. But she cringed at the thought of her parents soaking up the notoriety.
“What about our families?” Shelby asked, as if reading Orion’s mind. She