by Devon Monk
“Can we see the video?” Myra asked.
“Why sure!” He stood, but not before snagging three more squeegees out of the box. “I’ll just ring up your squeegees, and then we can take a look at it on the computer out front.”
There wasn’t a computer in the office. They probably only had one tablet or laptop that they kept at the counter with them.
He jiggled two squeegees at me, waiting for me to take them from him. I didn’t know if it was Stan’s idea to have him push the squeegees, or if it was Apocalypse Pablo’s idea. But it was an effective way to move stock.
I gave in and took the squeegees.
He lit up like we’d just executed the passing of the Olympic torch.
“Fantastic,” he said. “We are going to be so ready for the end of the world.”
He handed Myra the other two, and she didn’t resist either.
“Follow me, Ms. Reed, and Ms. Reed.” He practically glided out of the room, humming some pretty little tune under his breath.
“You buy, I’ll check the tape.” I handed her my squeegees. Or was it squeegi? Squeeguses?
“Give me your card,” she said.
I pulled my cash card out of my wallet. “They’re on sale.”
“I’m not paying for them.”
“They are all the rage in apocalypse accessories. Useful. Like umbrella hats, apparently.”
“I don’t need a squeegee. I already have two.”
I threw a look over my shoulder as I walked out the door. “You hoard squeegees?”
“I have one for the car and one for the bathroom. It takes more than two of one thing to constitute hoarding.”
“Like six?”
From the crinkle of her nose and corners of her eyes, I knew she would have slapped me upside the head if we weren’t on duty. Being professional. Officers of the law.
“Two of these are yours, idiot.”
Apoca-blo was already behind the counter making himself busy at the register. Stan, who was leaning one hip on a tall stool near the lottery tickets, raised an eyebrow at the cleaning utensils in Myra’s hands.
Then he grinned. Yep. This had to be his idea.
She tipped her chin up and gave him the dare-you look I’d last seen on her face when she bought her first pack of tampons from Scott Holderman, the hunky senior running back who used to work the grocery store.
Stan, just like Scott, wisely averted his eyes and made no comment.
“We need to take a look at your video from the last couple days,” I said. “Can you queue that up for us?”
“Sure. No guarantee we’ll get a good shot. The rain has really been messing with my equipment.”
If Thor kept up his pity party, Ordinary was going to rust clear through by next spring and leave nothing but a sinkhole behind.
Myra declined paper or plastic and came over to stand next to me. Stan positioned the laptop so that all three of us could see the screen.
A bell rang out and Apoca-blo dashed out from behind the till. “Got a customer. Do you officers need me to stay?”
“No, we’ve got your statement,” I said. “Thank you, Apoc—ah, I mean Pablo.”
“Sure, sure.” He pushed out the door and before it closed, I heard his cheerful greeting: “Good afternoon! Such a nice day! Are you ready for the end of the world?”
Stan shook his head. “Something not right with that one. But he’s a good worker. Heck of a salesman. Nice kid too. Just...” He shook his head like that explained it all.
And it did. Compared to the things that happened in Ordinary, and the citizens who made it their home, one happy-go-lucky apocalypse enthusiast wasn’t even a blip on the town’s weirdness radar.
“Here it is.” Stan clicked on the link to the video feed. “I have it set to record from sundown to sunrise. As a security measure for my employees.”
And for catching Bigfoot in the act. He wouldn’t mention that because everyone knew it was crazy to believe that Bigfoot was real. And yes, Bigfoot got a kick out of that.
Stan hit the button and the black and white video played. It was a still shot of the shed, and just a corner of the road beyond it. The only way I could tell the recording was playing was by the occasional car that zoomed down the road at a fast-forward speed.
We watched as the time stamp ticked down. Nothing changed at the shed. No one drove close to it, no one walked near it, no one touched it.
The sky was dark, raindrops a flurry of silver lancets.
Something flashed by the screen.
“Wait,” I said.
Myra tensed beside me at the same moment.
“Back up slowly.”
“I think it was just a bird.” Stan backed up the recording, a little too quickly so that we got only the briefest glimpse of something moving in front of the camera again.
“Slow it down,” I said.
He hit play and the recording rolled, rain falling at the right speed.
I held my breath, curled my fingers so that I could feel the press of my fingernails in my palm. Had we really caught a break? A clue as to who had dumped Sven’s body in the shed?
Would it be Ryder?
Please don’t let it be Ryder, I chanted silently. Please don’t let it be Ryder.
Stan stabbed the button to stop the recording. “Sweet Mother Mary,” he breathed.
And there, frozen on the screen clear enough to crawl through it, was a man.
My mind furiously cataloged hair, eyes, face, jaw.
Not Ryder. Oh, thank gods.
I broke out in a cold sweat and shivered in relief.
“That’s Sven, isn’t it?” Stan said. “His face...it’s wrong. Animal...”
“It’s the lighting,” Myra said.
It wasn’t the lighting. It was his fear, his pain, his death. Sven looked more vampiric in that image than I’d ever seen him in life. His eyes were wide, pupils blown out to cover any color, a hole centered in his forehead above them. His face was sharpened, and out of shape. At the paused moment of the video his three-quarter profile showed bloody, swollen lips hanging open enough to reveal the wickedly sharp point of an elongated fang.
He was dead.
“We’ll need to take this file,” Myra said. “To look over it more carefully.” She smoothly killed the video, erasing Sven’s face from the screen.
My heart was hammering and I had to take little gulps of air to get my breathing back to normal. The sheer horror of death on Sven’s face triggered my run now, run now instincts.
I didn’t know how Myra remained so calm.
“Sure, sure,” he said. “Where do you want me to send it?”
“Here. Let me do it.” She took over the keyboard and sent the file to our secure server, then erased the video from his hard drive. “Are there any back up copies?”
He shook his head. “Just the computer.”
“Okay. Since this could be admitted as evidence, we’ll hold the copy. We’ll try to get it back to you if you want it after this investigation is over.”
Stan looked a little pale. “That’s okay. I don’t need to see it again.”
“Thank you for this,” I said. “I know that was hard to see. If you need someone to talk to, I could refer you to a couple of good counselors who work with the police and other emergency responders in the area.”
“No,” he said, his voice a little thin. Then, stronger: “No, that’s fine. I’m just sad for him. For his family. For the Rossis. You’re going to catch whoever did that to him, aren’t you?”
“Damn right we are.”
“Good. Thank you. Both of you. I sure miss having your dad in town, but he’d be real proud of you girls.”
We mumbled our good-byes and left with our squeegees, Myra crowding into the front of my Jeep with me.
Doors shut, rain pattering down. We both sat there just trying to get sea legs on reality again.
“Okay,” I said. “Pull it up. Let’s see it.”
She took a tablet o
ut of the inside pocket of her coat—trust Myra to be prepared for anything—and pulled up the video.
We watched a super-slow motion Sven get dragged in front of the camera, face toward the lens like they knew he was being recorded. Like they knew we would find the tape.
An invitation, just like Rossi had said.
Neither of us spoke as we watched the rest of the scene scroll out.
A hand reached out of the darkness behind Sven. From the angle, the other person was shorter than Sven, supporting him under the arms, sleeves plain and dark. The hand wrapped around Sven’s head and clamped down tight on his mouth.
It was a man’s hand. Wide, thick. In the crappy light and downpour it was hard to make out any distinguishing features.
Even though the picture was blurred by rain, there was a sort of haze of light radiating from Sven’s chest. From the ichor techne painted there.
The video feed cut, sputtered, picked back up. The time stamp was five minutes later. The screen showed nothing but darkness, rain, and the watery shape of the shed, door open, the darkness beyond it a gaping maw.
I couldn’t tell if there were any footprints in the mud and gravel and grass that separated the shed from the mini-mart. Didn’t see tire tracks.
“Well, hell,” Myra said. “I’ll get Jean on this. See if we can enhance the video. That looked like a man’s hand to me.”
I nodded. “Have her check the fingers. I thought I saw something, maybe a ring.”
She rewound the video, then started it forward in tiny, slow skips.
We watched the hand arc up, forward and just before it curled toward Sven’s mouth, Myra paused.
We stared at the fingers. “Maybe?” I asked.
“Maybe.” She turned off the video and then touched my arm. “Who did you think was going to be on this video, Delaney?”
“No one.”
“I saw you in there when Stan first played it. You thought it was going to be Ryder. Do you know something I don’t know?” She waited, her patience endless.
“No.”
“Maybe you should step down from this one,” she said quietly. “Let Jean and me handle it.”
“I can handle it.”
“Even if Ryder is involved?”
No.
“Yes, even if Ryder is involved. I know how to do my job and keep my heart out of the equation.”
That look in her eyes, the one that was probably pity, told me she didn’t believe me, but was nice enough not to call me out on it.
“I’ve seen the bruises you think you’re hiding,” I said softly.
She frowned, then stared out the window at the rain. “I’m not hiding them.”
“Yes, you are.” I pressed my palm on her knee. “Myra. What’s going on? Where are you getting those bruises?”
Her eyes narrowed a bit and spots of red flushed her face.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You can tell me. Is it a man? Are you dating someone? In secret? Did someone hit you?”
“What?”
I’d never heard her voice so high. “Oh, my gods, Delaney! You think? You think I would just let...” She shut her mouth, eyes flitting back and forth, trying to read the worry, and yes, confusion on my face.
“I’m a trained police officer. Nobody hits me and gets away with it.”
“Then why are you bruised? On your arms. On your hip.”
She exhaled and laughed. “You really think I’d hide something like that from you?”
“You are hiding that from me.”
“But not for those reasons. Come on. We’re sisters. You know I’d have you at my back the instant anyone tried to hurt me like that. We promised. We all promised each other when we were in middle school, and Jean took that head shot in dodgeball, remember?”
“I remember.” Jean had still been in elementary school. Little Tommy Richard had been a headhunting jerk when playing dodgeball. He targeted the girls and hit them with the ball as hard as he could when the teacher wasn’t looking. Usually in the face.
Myra and I stole our Dad’s police department T-shirts, made fake brass knuckles, and cornered Tommy after school. I recited police codes at him while Myra explained what they meant.
“You touch our sister again and you’ll be 12-16A.”
“A fatal accident.”
“You hit her in the head at dodgeball, or in PE, or the halls, or anywhere, and there’s gonna be 12-49A.”
“Possible homicide.”
We were really selling it, slamming our fake brass knuckles into our palms and closing in on him.
Since we were older and taller than him and he was only ten, he went pale and sweaty and made a break for it.
“You better run. You 12-19!”
That was request for tow truck, but I’d been sort of in the moment and hadn’t memorized all the really cool codes yet.
“I just thought.” I sighed, and rubbed my hand over my face. “It’s been a weird few days. I’m glad it’s not what I thought it might be.”
“Good,” she said. “Good.”
“But I still want to know why you’re hiding bruises.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m...uh, sort of joined a team.”
“Wrestling?”
“No.”
“Martial arts?”
“No.”
“Circus performers? Dance troupe? Cheer Squad? Want to help me out here?”
“Roller Derby.”
“Roller Derby. We have that?”
“No. Salem has it. Cherry City Derby Girls.”
For all that my sisters and I are really close, it’s not like we don’t get days off. Salem, Oregon’s capitol, was only an hour’s drive east from Ordinary. There would be plenty of opportunities for her to drive there for practice and games.
Plus, Myra had seemed a lot more relaxed lately.
“You like it?”
A wicked little smile curved her mouth. “Love it.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t approve?”
“No. I just...I just needed something away from here, you know? Something my own. A place to clear my head and not have to deal with...”
“Everything?”
She nodded.
I patted her knee. “Good. Can I come to a bout sometime?”
From the look on her face, it was just what she needed to hear.
“I’d like that.”
“All right. Back to the station?” I started the Jeep.
“Maybe you should take a long lunch and get some rest instead.”
“Do I look that bad?”
“No,” she lied. “But you haven’t taken a break today have you?”
“Not since drinking tea with the vampires.”
“Take an hour or two. We’ll hold down the fort. Maybe you can get a nap.” At the mention of it, it was suddenly exactly what I wanted.
She was good at that too.
Chapter 9
I found myself standing in the middle of my living room, arms wrapped around my elbows, staring at nothing.
My coat was thrown on top of my couch and I only had one boot off. I inhaled, exhaled, digging up out of my funk.
Sven had seen Ryder when he died.
Unless that was a vampire trick—an implanted suggestion.
Ryder wasn’t on the tape.
That wasn’t Ryder’s hand.
Was it?
My thoughts circled again, questions that just made more questions and answers that couldn’t be proved.
What if he’s guilty?
I’d stop loving him. Right? I’d have to. No one loved a murderer.
Liar, my heart whispered.
A knock at the door brought me fully conscious. I glanced at the throw blanket I’d been planning to crawl under, then pushed my shoulders back and walked to the door.
I opened it without glancing outside first.
I should never do that.
“Hey.” Ryder held a bottle of wine in one hand and his heart in his gaze. “Got a min
ute?”
I should say no. I should tell him to leave. Tell him I didn’t want to see him, couldn’t see him alone like this.
Don’t be sexy. Don’t be a murderer. Don’t be a sexy murderer.
He bit his lower lip and I was a goner.
“Sure.” I stepped back, let him into the house and shut the door. “Wine?”
He glanced down at it like he wasn’t sure it should be there. “Yeah. I feel like I owe you an apology.”
“For?”
“Letting my business get in the way of a police investigation today. With Jake and Rossi and...everything.”
Are you innocent? Did you kill Sven? Are you a murderer?
“It’s fine. Everything worked out fine.”
Liar.
I stared at his right hand holding the wine, trying to decide if it matched the blurry hand of the killer in the video. Maybe I stared a little too long.
He raised his hand, holding the wine out to me. “Uh...Delaney?”
Yep. Definitely a little too long. He moved to stand in front of me, close enough I could feel the heat from his body. I took the wine and set it on an end table.
Was it cold in my house or was I just a little too freaked out about my not-boyfriend being a maybe-murderer?
“Tell me you didn’t kill Sven.”
That startled both of us. He caught his breath, held it, his mossy eyes hurt at the accusation. Hurt and confused. “I already told you that last night.”
“I know. I need to hear it again.”
“I did not kill Sven Rossi.”
It sounded like the truth. It felt like the truth.
But then, wishful thinking had a way of feeling like the truth sometimes.
“Why do you think I would kill him?”
He was whispering. I was whispering too, like somehow, if we didn’t put our voices into the words, that would make this less real.
“Someone saw you. At the bar. With a group of men.”
I almost thought I could hear his heart stop beating.
“Who saw me?”
No denial.
I shook my head. “Truth. I still have seven questions left.”
“So do I.”
“Were you at that bar?”
“Yes.”
Six questions. Technically, by his rules, it was his turn to ask. I wasn’t following his rules.
