by Dawn Kirby
“Where’d ye get this?” Declan asked, gently caressing the hood of my car.
“Mom gave it to me when I graduated,” I told him. She’d had it delivered while we were at the ceremony so the car would be here for me when we got home. “She wanted me to know how proud she was.”
“I’ve never been that proud o’ anythin’.” His fingers ran lovingly down the driver’s side. “Does she ‘ave power?”
“You have no idea,” I said, smiling proudly. “I’m pretty sure Mom didn’t have a clue when she bought it.”
“I made it a point not to tell her,” David whispered in my ear. “Sometimes it’s nice to turn up the radio, roll down the windows, and punch it.”
I turned my head to look at him. A feather could have knocked me over. “You picked this out for me?”
“I hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t see a daughter of mine in a Taurus,” he chuckled.
“That’s what she was gonna get?” I asked, crinkling up my nose.
That would explain why she’d spent four months quoting the stats and safety features every time we saw one. No opportunity was lost to tell me about the side curtain airbags or the good insurance rate I could get from such a safe car.
“It was dark green,” he informed me. “Luckily I have a friend at the dealership that owed me a favor. He managed to talk her into a Mustang. I thought you’d like the Shelby better.”
“I love it,” I said, happily throwing my arms around him. “Thank you so much.”
The hug wasn’t just for the car. It was for being there for it. Maybe it was only a small part, but at least he had played a part in the decision. I took comfort in knowing, despite whatever distance and circumstance separating us, he still wanted to be involved in my life.
“Ye couldna stop with a regular ‘stang?” Declan asked.
“Everybody has one. I wanted her to have something special,” David told him.
Declan shook his head and started towards the front door. A couple of feet away he stopped cold. When we caught up with him I saw why. Our front door had been kicked in. David caught me by the wrist before I could make it inside.
“Do you hear anything?” David asked me quietly. I shook my head.
“Stay between us. We need to check the house,” he ordered. Declan took his place behind me. Then we stood there. “Leah, can we go in?” he asked urgently.
“You know you can! Both of you can,” I yelled. We didn’t have time for pleasantries. I appreciated the gesture, but it really wasn’t necessary. “Just go!”
We walked into the house cautiously. After seeing the force used to kick in the door I thought the house would be wrecked, but it wasn’t. Everything looked fine. The cups we used earlier were still sitting on the table. Not one cabinet door had been opened. “Stay close,” Declan whispered. “We can’t turn on the lights ‘til we know it’s safe.”
“She can probably see better than we can right now,” David said moving further into the house.
“David, she—”
“It’s fine, really,” I assured him. After a moment’s hesitation, he fell back in step with us. I smelled a faint scent of blood once we reached the living room. One half of it was unfamiliar, but the other half was unmistakable. “There was a woman in here. Can you smell her?”
“All I smell is the blood on yer clothes,” Declan answered. “Where is she at now?” David asked anxiously. “Is she still in the house?”
Declan shook his head and took a step towards David. “Ye’ know as well as I do she canna tell ye’ that. Yer askin’ too much.” “Unless she’s like you two, she’s either dead or already gone,” I said slipping past them. “Either way, she bled while she was here.”
“What’d ye mean like us?” Declan asked.
“I can’t hear your hearts beating,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders. “It’s no big deal. It happens every now and then.”
His body relaxed. “How do ye know the woman ye smell isn’t, an’ please forgive me, yer mother’s? Ye’re covered in her blood.” “It’s a different smell.” His blank stare compelled me to explain. “Besides the obvious, the blood here smells young and feminine. Mom’s doesn’t smell like that. There’s something else in it too, but I can’t place it yet.”
The closer we inched towards Mom’s room the stronger the smell became. David and Declan stayed annoyingly close. There was a broken picture frame lying on the floor just outside Mom’s door. Judging by the way it was broken, it looked like a fist had gone through it. There was also blood on it. I picked up a stained piece of glass and handed it to David.
“Do you smell it?” I asked him.
“Leah, I can smell the blood, but I can’t smell anything past that. I’m sorry,” he said, handing it back to me. “Let Declan try.” I turned on my heel and shoved the piece of glass under his nose. He smelled it and then my hand.
“I smell the canine, but that’d be all.” He smiled brightly at me and chuckled. “Yer goin’ to give Kale a run for ‘is money.” “I don’t really know if that’s a compliment or not,” I said, tossing the glass back on the floor as I stepped towards Mom’s
room.
David reached Mom’s bedroom first, but the door refused open. He had to force his way in. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Her room had been destroyed. I didn’t see one piece of furniture left intact. Her mattress and box spring had been thrown against the wall and ripped apart. There was nothing left in her closet. Its contents had been tossed and left in pieces on the floor. Blood from the woman’s hand tainted the entire room. A bloody palm print was smeared down the length of one wall. Something had been tossed through the window. What it could have been was anyone’s guess. Though blood was everywhere, there didn’t seem to enough to explain why the scent was so overwhelming.
The full-length mirror had been shattered with the lamp that used to sit on the nightstand. Pieces of both lay in a jagged pile on the floor. Not even the alarm clock survived. It had been thrown through the television. If I could have walked through the bedroom without breaking my neck, I was sure I would have found the bathroom in the same shape.
“I guess cleaning all morning was a waste of time,” I said to myself.
“It’s the best thin’ ye coulda done. She won’t know what ye’ smell like,” Declan informed me. “I assume ye did the same upstairs?”
I nodded my head and walked out of her room. No one followed me back into the living room. Nor did they follow my path upstairs to help check out my room. Tears streamed down my cheeks. None of this made sense. The longer time wore on the worse things became. Yet nobody felt it was important enough to tell me why.
As I rounded the corner of the steps, I found my bedroom looked the same as Mom’s. I guessed she hit my room first because there wasn’t a speck of blood anywhere. The crazed woman had trashed my bathroom as well. Not even the bath mats had made it out in one piece. After I found all my clothes shredded in the middle floor, I realized how lucky I was. If I had been here when she busted in, she would have ripped me apart.
I stumbled my way to the window, trying not to think. With the curtains and shades gone, I had a full view of the night sky. Perfect. I tuned out everything and stared out the window. Just one moment of peace was all I wanted. Whatever they were doing downstairs could be done without me.
Minutes passed as I stared absent-mindedly at a car parked across the street from our house. It was familiar to me, but in my fuzzy state of mind I couldn’t place why. I looked towards the neighbor’s house when it hit me. The car I was seeing was a primer gray, late ’60 model Bronco. It was JD‘s truck and there was someone sitting inside it.
The irrational urge to face him suddenly took over. I didn’t know what I’d do once I confronted him; I just knew I had to get out there. I ran as quietly as I could to the stairs. It didn’t work. David and Declan were already waiting for me. Fancy footwork on my part allowed me to sidestep both of them on my way out the door. There were headlights about twenty feet
away, but I didn’t slow down. I knew I’d be out of the way long before the car ever got close. A few seconds later my hand was on the driver’s side door. I was so focused on seeing who was inside the vehicle I barely noticed Kale pull in behind David’s truck.
“Leah, don’t!” Kale yelled, slamming his car door.
Ignoring him, I yanked the door open and was instantly knocked to the ground by a very heavy object. Unfortunately, the object turned out to be JD’s bloody body. He was most definitely dead. The few seconds his body covered mine was enough for me to figure out he’d done it. He’d killed my mom. Her scent was all over him.
Kale lifted his body off mine before David could make it across the street. Declan not far behind. He wrapped his arms underneath mine and extracted the lower half of my body out from under JD’s corpse. Blood oozed onto my clothes. David held me at arm’s length.
“What in the hell were you thinking, Leah?” David scolded. “I told you not to leave my side!”
“I wasn’t,” I answered.
“Clearly!”
“Do ye know him?” Declan asked calmly.
“It’s JD,” I said softly. “He killed Mom.”
I stared down at the body and noticed several deep scratches on his face and arms. He also had a few bruises on his face and hands. At least Mom was able to get her licks in before her body succumbed to her injuries. Blood trickled from a horrific would on his neck. His jugular vein had been severed. Above the open wound were two small puncture wounds. Just like the ones on Mom’s neck.
“But he didn’t do it alone,” I told David, pointing to the tiny marks. “Mom had the same thing on her neck.”
“She’s right David,” Kale said solemnly. “Judith was there. Inside the store. JD may have beaten her, but Judith killed her.”
I watched as David went from calm to rage in a nanosecond. His eyes were literally on fire. Emerald green turned to red quicker than I could comprehend the change. Wherever Judith was hiding she might want to stay there. David was ready to kill her.
Declan put his hand firmly on David’s forearm. “There’ll be time for revenge. I promise ye that,” his voice stayed deathly calm. “Right now yer girl’s in trouble. Put yer anger aside an’ let’s do what we have to do to keep her safe.”
David, calming down slightly, grabbed Declan’s shoulder and bowed his head. His anger wasn’t completely gone, but at least he wasn’t crazy mad anymore. “Thank you, Declan. You’re a good friend.” He turned to Kale and pointed to JD’s body. “Put him back in the truck and come on inside. Leah’s found something.”
While they walked back across the street Kale picked JD up by the scruff of his neck and literally threw his body back into the Bronco. His head hit the passenger side door with a blunt thud. Kale kicked JD’s feet inside the vehicle, and then slammed the door shut. Apparently tossing a body around like a sack of potatoes came naturally to him. I on the other hand, couldn’t keep from cringing.
“He hurt your mom,” he said, seeing the disbelief in my face. “He doesn’t deserve much more than that.” He slid his arm around my waist and led me back to the house. “What have you found for me this time?”
Once inside I went straight for the broken frame. So far I was the only one who’d been able to smell her and I didn’t hold out much hope for him. Even as I handed it to him a big grin spread across his face. He already knew.
“You smell it too, don’t you?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the other two men. Both looked back at him the same way they’d looked at me. “I take it they can’t?” I shook my head. “Tell me what you smell.”
“A woman,” I said. He was obviously testing me, but I didn’t care. “She’s young. The rest is hard to explain. She smells wild, experienced.” I was at a total loss to find the right words. To me, the woman smelled the way I would have described Deana, but naming names without being positive about her identity didn’t seem fair. “Whatever it is, it’s definitely not maternal.”
Kale’s smiled. I passed his test and found out who he was in the process. While he stood there grinning, he unknowingly revealed his character. The scent of mint oozing off him told me he was a very happy, carefree man.
“You’re good,” he said tossing the frame on the floor. “She smells like a bitch in heat.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” I confessed. That particular thought had never crossed my mind.
“Trust me on it,” Kale said, looking at the pictures on the wall. “I’ve been around plenty of ‘em.” He picked up a picture of my ex-boyfriend and I at our senior prom and turned it towards me. “Is this your guy? He’s a little scrawny, but we could use him.”
“Good luck,” I told him. “We haven’t been together since the day after that picture was taken.”
He sighed and put the photo back on the wall. “Think your new squeeze might like to try to save a damsel in distress then?”
“Frankly, I’ve never had much luck in the boyfriend department.”
Declan’s eyes rolled towards David, who had suddenly found something very interesting in the carpet. Kale shook his head at both of them. Obviously, I was missing something yet again.
“That’s a real shame. Yer a very beautiful young lady,” Declan said sweetly. “To ‘ave yer youth hindered in such a way?” He looked at David and shook his head. “Ye should both be a shamed of yerselves.”
David shot him a go-to-hell look. The angry glare didn’t seem to bother Declan at all. He got the reaction he wanted. Kale snorted so hard he choked.
“It’s okay David. He was just making a point,” Kale said recovering his composure. He took a couple of steps away from David. “Just so you know, I happen to agree with him.” He turned towards me quickly. “You better show me where you found it.”
Seeing the anger rising in David’s eyes, I grabbed his hand and led him quickly to her room.
“There’s more in here,” I told him switching on the light. “Watch yourself though. I think there’s a lot more blood than we can actually see.”
I stayed in the doorway while he sniffed around so I wouldn’t get in the way. For such a big guy he moved through the mess easily. His feet waded through broken pieces of furniture and glass like they weren’t even there. Not once did I hear anything he stepped on crack or break. The tattered clothing on the floor barely moved when he walked over it.
“Can you figure out who it is just by smelling the blood?” I asked curiously. I knew how my ability worked, but his was a mystery.
“If there’s enough and only if I know them,” he told me. “I can’t pick a name out of the sky, if that’s what you mean.”
He reached for one thing after another pausing to smell each one. I guessed, one by one, he would be able to get enough scent to make a positive identification. I already had a theory of my own though. Only one woman had come to mind after I saw JD. Time to test my theory.
“I think Deana did all this,” I offered. “She probably came in when we left to go find Mom. I’m pretty sure she and JD have been following me since they came in the store last night.”
“It was definitely her,” he said, agreeing with me.
“You know her?” Mint had always been an uplifting scent for me. One that brings back a flood of happy memories. Was it possible I’d been wrong all this time?
“Leah, I know a lot of people,” Kale said sifting through more rumble. “But knowing a person and condoning their actions are two different things. Just because I happen to know what she smells like doesn’t make me bad person.” A self-satisfied grin appeared. “Personally, I think it makes me a pretty darn observant guy.”
“I’ll give you that,” I said seeing his point. Nobody can force morals on another person. “Can I ask how you know her?”
“Let’s just say I hang with a diverse crowd and leave it at that for now.”
Okay, not exactly the answer I was looking for. Then again we’d just met. Why should I expect him to tell me any more th
an that?
“Do you think she killed JD?” She may possess the strength to toss the contents of our house around like toys but I doubted she’d be able to do the same to a man his size.
“You saw the body, Leah. There’s no way Deana could do that,” he said. He knelt down on the floor to get a better look at something. “But if we find her, maybe we can find out who all Judith told about you.”
He stood up and turned around holding Mom’s engagement ring in the palm of his hand. I stumbled over everything to get to it. The ring hadn’t even crossed my mind when we were in here before. I was so happy to see it I started bawling.
“Thank you, Kale.” I threw my arms around his neck. He squeezed back so tight I couldn’t breathe.
“You are most definitely welcome,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. “I can’t wait to tell my little brother about you.”
“Why’s that?” I asked curiously.
“No reason in-particular,” he answered, sliding his arm firmly around my waist. “I think he’ll find you as fascinating as I do. Maybe even more so”
He lifted me up a few inches up off the floor and carefully stepped over the mess. I slid her ring in my pocket the second my feet hit solid ground again. He switched off her bedroom light and held my hand as we walked back to the kitchen.
Desperately in need of a caffeine fix, I got a can of Coke out of the refrigerator. The coffee I’d had with David had already lost its edge. Kale gladly took one on his way up to my room. Declan wanted him to check it out just to be sure while he and David searched the basement.
Chapter Seven
With them on the hunt for clues I decided feeling a little fresh air on my face would be welcome. On my way to the front door, I glanced at the time. Though the microwave said it was three-fifteen it felt so much later than that. I went on outside and let the night air fill my lungs. Apart from everything else, it was a beautiful night. The cool, steady breeze felt wonderful.
I let my head fall back to inhale the night air. Deana’s scent tickled my nose again. At first it was faint, but as the seconds ticked by it got stronger. I shut my eyes and let my nose lead me to her. The smell was coming from the backyard, not inside the house like I thought.
