Next Exit, Dead Ahead

by CW Browning

  “Speaking of, have you heard from her?” he asked.

  “Yes. She's back in town,” she answered. “And so is he,” she added after another hesitation.

  “Oh great,” John muttered. “Is your life insurance up-to-date?”

  “Is yours?” Stephanie retorted.

  “We should alert the local funeral homes and let them know they're about to get busy,” John said.

  Stephanie chuckled.

  “It's not that bad,” she said. “Alina didn't know he was coming, that much was obvious. She was surprised to see him. Angela seems to think...”

  Stephanie stopped suddenly, remembering who she was speaking to.

  “Angela seems to think what?” John asked.

  “Nothing,” Stephanie mumbled, closing the book in her lap and setting it on the side table.

  “Steph...” John sounded amused again. “I'm a big boy. I think I can handle whatever Angela had to say.”

  “Angela seems to think there is something...unresolved...between Alina and Damon,” Stephanie told him, trying to water down Angela's exact thoughts. While there was nothing between John and Alina anymore, and hadn't been for years, she knew John had big issues with Damon. The two didn't get along at all, and Stephanie was sure it was because of Alina. Watching John and Damon together was like watching two cocks in the same hen house. “I don't know if I agree with her, but Damon said he was here to see Alina, so who knows.”

  “Of course he's here to see her,” John said. “Why else would he come to Jersey? It wouldn't surprise me if there was something more to their...relationship,” he added thoughtfully. If he seemed to have trouble getting the word out of his mouth, Stephanie ignored it. “He's very protective of her.”

  “I'm protective of you,” Stephanie pointed out. “It doesn't mean there's unresolved sexual tension between us.”

  John let out a bark of laughter.

  “Is that what Angela said?” he demanded.

  “Yes.” Stephanie sighed and yawned. “She was rattling on about something to do with sandalwood candles and Chi...I don't know what she was going on about. I guess she's thought this ever since the Spring, when she saw them together at the house in Medford.”

  “You might want to warn Angela that they aren't what they seem,” John said. “They're not normal people, like us.”

  “Are we normal?” Stephanie asked, her lips curving into a grin.

  “As normal as we can hope to be,” John retorted with a laugh. “I'm pulling into my parking lot. I'll see you at the office tomorrow, bright and early.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” Stephanie said with another yawn. “I plan on sleeping in tomorrow. There will be no 'bright and early' going on.”

  “Then I'll come there and pull you out of bed,” John informed her. “We have a lead. No time to waste sleeping in.”

  “Hmpf,” Stephanie grunted. “If you show up here a second before nine, I'll put a bullet through your knee,” she warned him.

  John hung up with a laugh and Stephanie plugged her phone into its charger on the bedside table. She switched out the light and settled down under the covers. In the darkness, her lips curved into a smile.

  They had a lead.

  Chapter Three

  Viper lowered the scope and pressed her lips together thoughtfully. The sun was just cresting on the horizon and the gray light of dawn was breaking overhead. She glanced behind her and disappeared into the shadows between a row of bushes and the brick building. Moving silently, she followed the side of the building to the end and peered around the corner. The grass courtyard was still cloaked in pre-dawn shadows, and Alina examined those shadows carefully before turning her attention to the back of the end unit. The patio was bare of furniture and the blinds were pulled tight across the sliding doors. She turned and quickly moved back to the front of the building, peering around the corner toward the parking lot. Lifting the scope to her eye again, she expertly zoomed in on the putrid green crossover parked at the back of the lot, partially hidden by a tree.

  It had caught her attention because it was parked far down in the lot and away from the building, despite the fact that there were multiple parking spots available closer. It held her attention when she zoomed in and saw the man lounging in the driver's seat. He had been sitting there since she got here.

  Lowering the scope again, Viper's eyes narrowed. Her gaze moved to the motorcycle parked a few yards away, in front of the end condo. It had taken no time at all to find out where Hawk had holed himself up. He was in a complex in Marlton, off route 70, about twenty minutes down the back roads from her. She found it easily.

  So had someone else.

  High-pitched barking erupted suddenly from the back of the building and a fluffy white miniature dog came bounding around the corner behind her. He yelped when his leash was jerked back, and then his owner came into view.

  “Buffy, what's your problem?” the woman demanded of the yapping dog. “There's nothing there, you silly thing!”

  And she was absolutely right. Viper had disappeared.

  When Stephanie's cell phone started ringing at eight in the morning, she rolled over and pulled the pillow over her head with a groan. It stopped a minute later and she was just drifting back to sleep when her house line started to ring. She moaned and buried herself deeper under the covers, tightening the pillow over her ears, waiting for the incessant noise to stop. When it finally did, she loosened the pillow and determinedly willed herself back to sleep.

  It was some time later when her cell began ringing again, but this time it was Led Zeppelin interrupting her dreams. Stephanie cursed, kicked her legs impatiently, and flopped over to her other side, facing away from the side table with her phone. The music stopped and silence ensued. She opened one eye, waiting to hear the voicemail alert. When there was no sound after a minute, Stephanie closed her eye again and settled back down to sleep.

  Led Zeppelin sliced through the silence again.

  She flipped over angrily and reached for the cell phone, knocking her book off the table in the process.

  “I know I told you not a second before nine,” she snapped into the phone.

  “Sorry, Sunshine!” John's voice was gratingly cheerful. “Time to work! We have an arm.”

  “We have a...what?” Stephanie stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what he said. “Don't be cute, John. I haven't had coffee yet.”

  “Well, neither have I, since you mention it,” he told her. “Feel free to get us some on your way.”

  “On my way where?” Stephanie growled, frowning at the ceiling ferociously.

  “Mt. Holly Prison,” John said. “The old one, on High Street. I have Rodrigo's arm here.”

  Stephanie sat up slowly, the mists of sleep evaporating as his words sunk in.

  “Rodrigo's....arm?” she repeated.

  “Yep.”

  “Where's the rest of him?”

  “That, my dear, is the million dollar question,” John replied. “I just got here, but no one seems to know. Come on. Chop, chop! And don't forget my coffee!”

  John disconnected and Stephanie dropped the phone onto her bed, speechless.

  They had an arm? At the old Mt. Holly Prison? The prison she was just at the night before?

  Stephanie threw the covers off and got out of bed, padding into the bathroom. Halloween was five days away. Of course they would find an arm in an old, unused prison!

  So much for her relaxing Saturday morning at home.

  Stephanie walked up the brick pathway to the front steps of the old prison, a large coffee in each hand. The immense gray brick building was set back from the road in the middle of the historical town of Mt. Holly. Nestled amidst huge, old Colonial and Victorian houses, it was a dark reminder of days past when people were incarcerated behind its walls and hung on its grounds. The bricks had turned smoky gray over the years, and the windows were dark, small rectangles placed high and far apart, covered with iron bars. Step
hanie glanced up at the forbidding walls and shook her head slightly as a chill rolled over her. John spotted her from the top of the steps, where he was talking to a uniformed officer in front of the massive door. He waved and came jogging down the steps to meet her.

  “You're a saint,” he said, reaching out a hand for the coffee. “I'd just got to the office when they called me. I came straight here.”

  “Is it really his arm?” Stephanie asked, going up the steep steps to the old, solid wood door.

  “According to the fingerprints,” John answered. “Wait until you see where it is. I had them put it back so you could get the full effect. I know how you like that.”

  “Gee, thanks!” Stephanie shot him a look of disbelief as they stepped inside the massive, square building. “How badly is the crime scene messed up?”

  “Not any more than it would be anywhere else,” John told her, motioning to their right. “It's upstairs.”

  “I was just here last night for the haunted walk out back,” she said, walking with him along the front corridor to a narrow flight of stone steps.

  “Really?” John looked at her.

  “Angela wanted to come,” Stephanie told him, sipping her coffee and preceding him up the stairs. “Alina was with us. It was your typical haunted walk. Lots of fake blood, dry ice and strobe lights.”

  “Ironic, though.” John followed her. “Did you see anything suspicious?” Stephanie shot him a look over her shoulder and he laughed. “Ok, dumb question.”

  They reached the top of the stairs and encountered two police officers. John waved them away as she flashed her FBI badge and led her down a narrow hallway. Windows were cut into the thick brick wall at regular intervals to their left and cells doors were to their right. Most of the cells had the original old wood doors secured to the wall next to the doorway, so visitors could enter the cells and look around. Stephanie glanced into the rooms they passed, noting the white-washed walls and painted stone floors.

  “I held off on the pictures until you had a look,” John said, motioning to the Bureau photographer at the far end of the hall. He was sitting on a radiator with his camera, talking to the medical examiner's assistant. Stephanie nodded to them as they looked down the hall. “They just got here, so they haven't been waiting long.”

  “Good,” Stephanie said, stopping with him outside the center cell on the floor.

  John nodded to the cell and Stephanie raised an eyebrow. Unlike the others, this one was closed off. The original door was affixed to the wall beside the opening, but entrance to the cell was blocked by a heavy, barred door. Stephanie sipped her coffee, running her eyes over the bars.

  “Keys?”

  “Downstairs.”

  She nodded and stepped up to the bars, looking through them. The cell was smaller than the others and a metal ring was sunk into the center of the floor. A white dummy, shaped like a man, was sitting on the floor with its back against the wall. A chain attached to its ankle connected it to the metal ring. A single, tiny window was cut into the thick back wall near the ceiling, allowing a trace of light from outside to filter into the cell.

  “Solitary?”

  “Yep.” John stood next to her at the bars. “They call it the Dungeon. It's where prisoners were put in solitary confinement, and where they awaited their execution.”

  Stephanie nodded and lowered her eyes from the window to the cell floor. Propped up against the wall next to the dummy, for all the world like a forgotten broom, was a forearm. It had been disconnected from its body at the elbow and was resting on its severed end, the fingers pointed toward the ceiling. She looked at John.

  “Door?”

  “Locked.”

  “And the keys were downstairs,” she murmured. She glanced around the hallway and shook her head. “This is a museum, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Complete with motion sensors?”

  “Yep.”

  Stephanie looked at John. He was grinning like an idiot.

  “Oh for God's Sake,” she exclaimed. “You mean to tell me Rodrigo's arm just appeared in a locked cell in a prison museum?!”

  “I told you you'd want to see it for yourself,” John said. “The guard who found it had to go downstairs and get the key to unlock the door.”

  “That's ridiculous,” Stephanie muttered, looking back into the cell. “How the hell did they get it in there? And where's the rest of him?”

  “We're still searching the grounds and the haunted maze out back,” John said, motioning to one of the police officers. Stephanie moved out of the way as the officer came over and unlocked the cell. “As soon as the police pulled the name from the fingerprint, they called us.”

  Stephanie nodded her thanks to the officer as he opened the door and she stepped into the cell.

  “Have they found anything yet?” she asked over her shoulder. John shook his head and she turned her attention into the cell. It was a small room, perfect for solitary confinement, and the air was cold and damp. “It smells in here.”

  “The whole place smells,” John retorted from the doorway, making no move to enter the cell. “It's that musty, old building smell.”

  “Yeah, but this is different,” Stephanie murmured, looking around with a frown. “This smells like...I don't know what.”

  She turned toward the forearm and crouched down, tilting her head to study it. It was a man's arm and the nails were manicured. She remembered that manicure. When she interviewed Rodrigo the week before, she noticed it immediately. The nails were still perfect. No struggle from the victim then, or the struggle had been extremely short-lived.

  Stephanie turned her attention to the floor where the arm was resting. There was a smudge on the painted stone right next to where the arm rested and she glanced back at John.

  “They moved it?”

  “When they lifted the hand to put the finger on the machine for the identification, the arm fell over,” John told her, trying to keep a straight face. Stephanie rolled her eyes and he gave up the struggle, a grin breaking over his handsome face. His pale blue eyes were dancing when they met hers. “They said they were careful to put it back exactly as they found it.”

  “God save me from well-intentioned uniforms,” Stephanie muttered. “It would have been better if they just left it where it fell.”

  “Well, at least they didn't remove it altogether,” John pointed out.

  Stephanie nodded and rose to her feet. She was turning toward the door when a sudden pain shot through her gut and she gasped, her hand going to her side. The grin disappeared from John's face and he advanced swiftly.

  “Are you ok?” he asked, noting the sudden gray pallor of her face.

  Stephanie couldn't speak. Pain was ripping through her, robbing her of breath. Feeling as though a muscle cramp was tearing her apart from the inside out, she took a deep, calming breath, but the pain only seemed to intensify. John put an arm around her as she started to double-over, guiding her out of the cell quickly. He motioned for the medical examiners assistant as they exited the cell and the young man hurried over, his face creased in concern.

  “Agent Walker?” he asked, unceremoniously pushing John out of the way as he grabbed Stephanie's arms. “It's ok. Let's just get you sitting down here.”

  The man moved her toward a radiator nearby and lowered her down onto it. Stephanie focused on his brown beard as she sank down, trying to breathe through the pain. Then, suddenly, it was gone! It dissipated as quickly as it had come upon her.

  She lifted her eyes to the brown eyes of the assistant, crouching before her, then higher to John's blue ones.

  “I'm fine,” she said, shaking her head in confusion. “It's gone now. I don't know what happened.”

  “Maybe you stood up too fast,” John suggested, looking down at her.

  “Maybe,” Stephanie murmured doubtfully, somewhat surprised to find she was still holding her coffee. She lifted it to her lips. “That was unsettling, to say the least.”

&nbs
p; “It's cold up here.” The assistant stood up with a smile. “You probably just cramped up. Your color looks much better now.”

  “It must have been something like that,” Stephanie agreed. She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

  The police officers at the end of the hall glanced at each other knowingly and shook their heads slightly.

  “Spooky-ass place,” one muttered and the other nodded in agreement.

  “Between the chills, the pains, and the smells, the whole place needs to be exorcised,” he said.

  John perched next to Stephanie on the radiator and glanced at her.

  “Can I send in the techs now?” he asked. Stephanie nodded, sipping her coffee again, and he raised his hand, motioning to the collection of techs at the other end of the hallway. The photographer stood up and led the procession down the hall and into the cell. Within minutes, his flash was going off inside the cell and the techs were taking turns rotating in and out of the small space. “You're sure you're ok?”

  “Fine. I must have stood up too fast,” Stephanie assured him, standing. “You start up here and I'll go downstairs and start with the night guard. What's his name?”

  “Karl Didinger.” John stood and looked down at her. “Watch out. He's a ladies' man.”

  “My favorite kind,” Stephanie retorted with a grin and a wink, turning toward the stairs.

  Alina glanced at the woman in front of her at the bakery, her ears perking up at a phrase she had only ever heard in Mexico: Pan de Muertos. Day of the Dead bread. She listened shamelessly to the conversation being held in Spanish between the customer in front of her and the woman behind the counter. The customer was ordering four loaves of the sweet, skull-shaped bread for the Day of the Dead Festival, the Mexican holiday that spanned several days, culminating on the Catholic All Souls' Day, November 2. In Mexico, that day would traditionally be celebrated with picnics at the cemetery, honoring the dead.

  Viper studied the customer with interest from under her lashes. The woman was perhaps in her forties, and clearly an immigrant from Mexico. Her accent was still heavy and Alina thought she detected traces of a lilt common in the southern coastal regions of Mexico. Now what was a Mexican woman doing ordering pan de muertos in a little bakery in South Jersey? For that matter, what was a little bakery in Marlton doing selling pan de muertos? While the Day of the Dead was a huge celebration in Mexico, and had even migrated across the border into Arizona and Texas, it was practically unheard of in Jersey. As far as Jersey was concerned, the Day of the Dead was a movie, and a bad one at that.