Unmasking the Shadow Man

by Debbie Herbert

  Or was she being ridiculous? He’d always been an arrogant, powerful kind of man. Perhaps today was only more of the same. Yet she dared not turn her head to see if he was closing the distance between them.

  Halfway through the kitchen. Halfway to freedom. Her eyes locked on the prize, the cool brass knob of the back door.

  Fairfax’s longer, stronger arms caught up to her. He firmly laid hands on her shoulders, forcing her to turn around.

  “Mite jumpy, aren’t you?” he asked sardonically. “Always were a flighty little girl. Seeing things no one else can see. Hearing noises no one else hears.” He gave a wolfish grin. “Oh yes, your mother told me. We talked regularly. She was quite concerned about you for the longest time. Said you trembled at every little creak and groan of this old house as it settled.”

  Only because she’d learned to keep her mouth shut. That way her mother wouldn’t worry so much as she dealt with her grief. That way Harper could try and convince herself that all was well.

  She bit her lip to stop the involuntary trembling. “Why do you want to talk to me?” She kept her voice calm and reasonable in order to appease the alarming tension that swirled around them.

  “You and your boyfriend have been causing me lots of grief.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she answered truthfully.

  “Going around town, poking your nose in that old case.”

  “Which case?” she asked, genuinely puzzled. “The homeless murders?”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “Nobody cares about those bums. World’s better off without ’em.”

  And this guy used to be captain of the fire department? He had the sensitivity of a gnat. But she was hardly in a position to deliver an ethics lecture. “Then what case are you referring to?” she asked.

  “Presley’s death.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Why does that bother you?”

  And did she really want to know the reason? Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure. Not when Fairfax was standing so close, anger roiling off his massive body in waves.

  “You don’t believe her death was an accident,” he stated. “You never did.”

  They stared at one another, and she felt herself unwilling to look away, mesmerized by the sparkling yellow flecks in his eyes.

  “I have no grounds to prove otherwise,” she said at last, eyeing him with what she hoped was a reassuring, steady expression.

  Fairfax studied her for several moments and then shook his head. “Heard that you’ve stuck around Baysville this time for answers. You’re determined to find out the truth.”

  With a casual violence that caught her off guard, he clamped a heavy hand on her elbow and pulled her.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” she protested, struggling to escape his grasp. “Stop it.”

  He didn’t even bother glancing her way as he strolled a few steps to the window and pulled the curtains closed.

  The sunlight blocked, she trembled in the semidarkness. He faced her, his hot breath washing over her face. It smelled like a musky, holiday spice she couldn’t quite name. Her own breath was rapid and shallow—loud in the lull that lay thickly between them. Somewhere in the darkness, the unknown shadow dweller also breathed—silent, but watching. Always watching.

  “And now we talk,” Fairfax insisted. His fingers dug deeper into her elbow, hard and bruising.

  Cloves, she suddenly realized. That was the spice she couldn’t name. As if that mattered a whit. Perspiration dampened under her arms and her mind raced in a fever of foreboding. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

  * * *

  LIAM WAS RELIEVED to note that Gunner looked much stronger today. He sat up in the hospital bed, chowing down on roast beef and mashed potatoes. At Liam and Bryce’s entrance, he swiped a napkin across his mouth and then grinned.

  “They sure are feeding me mighty fine food here,” he said heartily. “Three hot squares a day. And anytime I want more tea or juice they bring it right to me. Can’t beat that service.”

  “Never known anyone to rave about hospital food,” Liam remarked drily.

  “And this bed’s so comfortable. They’ve already changed the sheets, and I only been here one night.”

  He and Bryce shared a brief, amused glance. Liam nodded in Bryce’s direction. “You’ve met Chief Fairfax before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.” The happiness in his eyes dimmed a bit. Liam didn’t blame him. Bryce had always acted condescending to the men at camp.

  “Sorry to hear of your attack,” Bryce said, extending a hand. “I’m here to make a report. We’ll do everything we can to find the culprit.”

  A bemused Gunner shook Bryce’s extended hand. “Thanks for coming out, Chief.”

  Bryce opened a file stuffed with papers. “Officer Andrews has filled me in on everything that’s happened, including the arrangement you made to be an informant. Based on that, we’ve compiled mug shots of men we suspect may have been your attacker. Can you look through them and see if you recognize anyone?”

  “Glad to.” Gunner placed the file in his lap and riffled through the papers, brow furrowed as he concentrated on each photo.

  Liam practically held his breath. Were their suspicions about Carlton Fairfax unfounded? What if he’d hired someone else to kill Gunner?

  Gunner frowned and shook his head until he came to near the end of the stack. He pointed a long, skinny finger on the page. “That’s him.”

  Liam directed his gaze downward and nodded in satisfaction at Carlton Fairfax’s unsmiling mug.

  Bryce wasn’t as satisfied. He frowned at Gunner. “You’re sure? Not a sliver of doubt in your mind? It was nighttime, after all, and your visibility was limited.”

  “That’s him,” Gunner said emphatically. “No doubt at all. Neck thick as a linebacker and dark eyes with them weird light flecks in ’em.”

  “Very well, then.” Bryce’s face was as grim and resigned as Liam had ever witnessed. “I’ll send Officer Denton to come take your formal statement.”

  “Hey, you know the guy?” Gunner asked.

  Bryce collected the file and stuffed it under his arm. “Meet you in the hallway,” he mumbled to Liam.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Gunner asked, gesturing at Bryce’s retreating back.

  Liam shrugged and changed the subject. “Doctors say anything about releasing you yet?”

  “Later this afternoon.” Gunner looked crestfallen. “Wish they’d let me stay a few more nights. I like it here.”

  Which showed how abysmal Gunner’s homeless status had become in his old age.

  “Don’t worry. You can crash at my place for a week or so. Until you’re healthy again.”

  “I don’t want to put you to no trouble.”

  He’d put Gunner in mortal danger, almost gotten him killed, and the guy was worried about inconveniencing him by temporarily staying in a spare bedroom. “No trouble,” he answered gruffly. “I’ve got to run. Check on you later.”

  In the hallway, Bryce waited, arms folded against his chest, his expression stern. “Let’s do this. We have enough to make an arrest.”

  “You don’t have to be part of it,” Liam said. “I can get another officer as backup.”

  “No. I want to.” A muscle worked on the side of his clenched jaw. “I have to do this.”

  Liam nodded. He could understand Bryce’s need to be the one to confront his father. “Where would we find your dad this time of day? Can you call him and make a pretense for a late lunch, a rain check on bailing earlier?”

  “Don’t even need to do that. I can tell you exactly where he is at this very moment.” Bryce pulled a cell phone from his back pocket and his fingers moved across the screen.

  “You’ve got a GPS tracker on his phone?” Liam asked in surprise.

  “No. He
forgets to carry his cell phone half the time. I put a tracker on his vehicle a couple weeks ago. After the last murder.” At Liam’s raised brows, he explained. “I’ve had my suspicions about Dad for a long time. I’d hoped this might come in useful one day.”

  “Ever make any connections between him and the homeless murders?”

  “Nothing definite.”

  They began walking down the hall, and Bryce tucked the phone away.

  “Where we headed?”

  “Seventeen thirty-eight King Street.”

  Liam stopped dead in his tracks. “That’s Harper’s address.”

  “Strange. What could he possibly want with her?”

  “I’m about to find out. Let’s move it.” Liam jogged to the stairwell, his heart thrashing in his chest—wild as an animal trapped in a cage.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Why am I doing this?” Carlton asked, mimicking her words. “I overheard Bryce and Liam at the station this morning. Like I said, you and your boyfriend have caused me nothing but grief.”

  As if she cared about his grief. Yet she had to reason with him, appeal to his logic—however faulty. “If you hurt me, Liam will see that you pay. Think this through.”

  He laughed. The glee in his eyes frightened her more than the anger. He’s off. Demented. And people thought she was off her rocker? No, this was crazy. The bone-chilling grip of the real thing was undeniable. Fairfax’s glittering eyes were a portal to an abyss of madness. Against dilated pupils, the yellow iris flecks whirled like pinwheels.

  “What did you hear them say?” Maybe they had figured out Fairfax was a menace. Maybe Liam was on his way now. She clung to that hope.

  “I’ll be the one asking the questions here.” He continued dragging her, and she stumbled beside him as he strode to the den.

  “What have you told Andrews about your sister’s death?” he demanded, pulling the curtains closed. The house darkened another fraction.

  “J-just what everyone already knows.”

  “That ridiculous story about a monster in the house?” Fairfax marched to the front door and locked it.

  The metallic click reverberated through her like a death knell.

  His lips curled in rebuke. “Your story was another lie feeding the legend about Baysville’s resident shadow dweller.”

  With her firmly in tow, he entered the kitchen, flicking the curtain closed on the lone window above the sink. Speaking of which... She peered desperately into the dark shadows. Where had it gone? Hysterical giggles at the back of her throat threatened to burst, like uncorked champagne bubbles rising to the surface. Was her shadow dweller a vision of death—a grim reaper who’d collected Presley’s soul and had now reappeared to claim her as well?

  Still—she feared the undeniably real Carlton Fairfax more. The merciless grip on her arm, the frigid eyes and the determined ritual of curtain closing to bar the outside world. It all pierced her with the promise of pain. And the possibility of death.

  He reversed direction and headed to the back of the house again. Panic spiked more adrenaline through her body. “Where are you taking me?”

  He ignored the question. “What else does Andrews suspect about me?” he continued in his hard, flat voice. One she was sure he’d wielded effectively against hundreds of criminals over the years. “I’m going to get the truth.”

  “Nothing! Liam knows nothing, same as me. It—it was all an accident.”

  “That’s BS.”

  He yanked her to move faster, and her hip slammed into the edge of the tea cart. Grandmother Claudia’s antique cups crashed to the ground. Porcelain shards scattered like snowflakes on the walnut flooring and crunched beneath her feet as she was relentlessly paraded through her own house. Desperately, she flailed her free arm, searching for a heavy object. Her fingers feathered against a glass candleholder, and she strained against Fairfax’s pull forward. Two inches. That’s all she needed. But her fingers tap-danced on empty air. The chance to grasp a weapon vanished.

  Surprisingly, Fairfax moved past the back door. She’d been certain he meant to force her into his truck. Instead, he threw open the door to the basement.

  The dark and relatively soundproof basement.

  “No!” She dug her heels in, throwing the weight of her body toward the ground.

  Pain exploded on her right cheek, stealing her breath, as he slapped her, hard. Hot needles of pain burned like a swarm of yellow jacket stings on the tender flesh. If she survived this day, Harper was sure her face would forever bear the imprint of his palm.

  “You’ll tell me everything Andrews knows about me,” he continued. “Right now.”

  “And then what?” She kicked at his shins, and the man barely even flinched. “You’ll kill me like you did Presley? Is that what happened?” If she was about to die, she could at least die knowing the truth about that night.

  Fairfax stood at the doorway, gazing around her house with a thoughtful expression on his face. “It all started here. With your sister.”

  “What started?” Her throat threatened to close on choked sobs. “What did you do to her?”

  “The killings,” he answered, his voice as calm as though they were discussing how to solve a math problem. “Presley was the first.” He chuckled as though he’d let her in on a private joke. “Turns out, I had a hankering all along for murder. A bloodlust I’d never suspected.”

  “What did you do to Presley?” she whispered.

  He faced her with narrowed eyes. “You really don’t know? You didn’t see me that night?”

  “No.”

  He gave a nonchalant shrug. “A quick kill punch to the back of her head where the skull base meets neck. Then I placed your sister in the kitchen and started a fire. Either her body would burn, or her lungs would fill with smoke. Death by fire or smoke inhalation, depending on when my fire department arrived.”

  Harper absorbed the full horror of his words. She imagined Presley’s terror as Fairfax raised his hand, poised to deliver a fatal blow. Harper could only hope she’d been truly dead and had never regained consciousness to find smoke and flames licking the air, an inferno from which there was no escape.

  And it had all happened as she and Mom had slept a floor above. Nausea rumbled in her belly.

  “It was easy,” he continued in the same singsong intonation. “Took her totally by surprise. No one heard a thing.”

  Except she had heard something—only she could never be sure exactly what it was. She’d only known that something horrible had taken place. Mom’s partial hearing loss had prevented her from waking.

  Harper didn’t want to hear any more details. More words that would forever haunt her if she managed to survive her own encounter with evil. Yet Fairfax’s confession relentlessly continued.

  “Afterward, once I’d checked her pulse to make sure she hadn’t survived the blow, I picked Presley up and carried her to the kitchen. Made it look like she’d slipped and fallen on the floor while heating up a bowl of soup. Easy enough to concoct a firebomb with chlorine and brake fluid in a plastic bottle, then set that in a pan on the stove. Untraceable.” He laughed. “As captain, I was the arson investigator. I made damn sure there wasn’t even a whisper that the fire might have been deliberately set. After all, why would anybody question my report?”

  Bastard. Fury crashed over her in waves. For what he’d done to Presley, for what he’d almost done to her and her mom.

  “You left Mom and me there to die,” she accused.

  “I had no beef against y’all and figured you’d wake up and escape before the house went up in flames. But if not, too bad. Funny.” He chuckled again. “All these years, I kept waiting for you to remember something. A buried memory.”

  “No,” she denied again. “Not you. I saw something else.”

  “The monster. Right. Maybe I’m the monster.”r />
  “No. He was thin, short. He looked nothing like you.”

  “Obviously, your mind has distorted my image. Could that be the truth?”

  “No,” she answered curtly. She wouldn’t be drawn into his psychological games. His need to twist and manipulate her reality. She saw what she saw.

  “But I was the only one there that night. Besides, Bryce, of course.”

  “Bryce?” Her belly took a nosedive. “Is he part of this?” If so, she feared her chance of escape had been reduced to zero.

  “No. Boy’s got a soft streak. Told me he wanted to forgo his football scholarship and stay here with Presley and her baby.” His face darkened. “I couldn’t let him do that.”

  Harper twisted and craned her neck, searching for a pale face in the darkness as Fairfax continued his poisonous confession. Where was the shadow dweller? Help me, she mouthed into the darkness.

  For someone claiming he wanted her to talk, Fairfax was the one carrying the conversation. His words poured out in an angry braggadocio. “I took care of everything for Bryce. Protected him from a nobody girl who’d tie him down forever. He had a scholarship to the University of Alabama. Do you know what that means? Do you realize what kind of opportunity that was? A chance to make something of himself. I wasn’t about to let your sister ruin his chances.”

  “You killed Presley and your own grandchild over nothing? You’re the real monster here.” Worse than anything her mind could have conjured.

  “After that incident, I took everything to another level with my side business.”

  Harper reeled at his dismissive attitude. Her sister’s life, her family’s pain, meant nothing to him. Instead, he acted as though Presley’s murder was merely a gateway for more business opportunities.

  “Somebody didn’t pony up on his gambling debt? Some hooker kept too much of her john’s fee? I’d hire one of those bums by the railroad tracks to force them to do the right thing.”

  “Murder for hire?” she whispered.

  “Nah, why let them have the fun part? Let them take the risk of enforcing my rules against some local who might recognize me. I prefer to run everything in total secrecy. But if my hired hands demand more money or threaten to blackmail me, why then—I kill them. You know what I discovered? Nobody cared. No victims’ family members breathing down my neck to find a killer. Hell, nobody missed the nobodies. I did the world a favor. When one of them bums got too big for their britches and demanded more money, I did what I had to do. Ain’t nobody going to take what’s rightfully mine. And you know what? I liked it. No, I loved it. That’s right. I loved meting out my own brand of justice. To feel my knife slice through their scumbag, filthy skin. I have no regrets.”