“All right, fine. I think it’s because I’m connected somehow to this killer. And I think that’s because your brother must have been connected to him, too.”
He stood up fast. “Come on, Rachel, we’re back to that again? It’s ridiculous.”
And then I could see it. Now he was the one lying.
“Think about it, Mason. I had the first nightmare right after I got my sight back. It was a murder just like this one, and I kept having nightmares just like it. And then I had that...vision right outside your place, when I saw the guy in the T-shirt getting into that car—right as it was really happening. Then I heard the gunshot and felt what your brother must’ve felt when he blew his brains out the minute I set foot in your apartment. And now this. Nothing like this ever happened to me before I got your brother’s corneas. So what the hell else could it be?”
He shook his head, pacing away. “You’re reaching. A million things could explain it. Hell, sensory overload, first and foremost. Your brain must be dealing with a million times more input than it’s used to. Every sight, every color—every photon of light, for God’s sake. Your mind’s overwhelmed. This is stress, nothing else.”
I stood up slowly. He’d walked over to the fireplace and was standing there with his back to me, staring at the flames. Myrtle was still snoring away by his feet. “Why is it you can’t look me in the eye when you’re spouting this bullshit, Mason?”
His head came up and he turned. “Come on, Rachel, you’ve gotta admit, this is all pretty far-fetched.”
“You know something you’re not telling me,” I said, reading him like an open book. “I know you do, I smell it on you. What is it, Mason? Was your brother some kind of psychic after all? Was he the reason you solved so many crimes, earned so many commendations, before his death and have been floundering ever since? Was he your secret weapon?”
Everything in him relaxed. His shoulders eased, his chin lowered a notch, and his jaw unclenched. Oh, he was trying to hide it, and his reactions were subtle, but the ones I couldn’t see were more powerful than the ones I could. His soft exhale, the prickly defenses I’d felt as clearly as an electric charge, now blinking out one by one.
He was relieved, hugely relieved, that I’d said psychic and not some other word. The question was, what other word?
“No,” he said, and the hard, tight undertone was gone from his voice. It was soft, almost comforting. “No, to my knowledge, Eric was never in possession of any sixth sense or ESP or anything like that. I don’t think he even believed in it.”
I lowered my eyes, no longer willing to let him see into my soul. “So what, then? Why am I having visions of murder that feel just as if I’m seeing them through the eyes of the killer? And that he can see me back? What else could possibly explain—”
“Stress. That’s all. Come on, sit down, let me talk for a minute, all right?”
He came closer, hands on my shoulders, gentle, his face near mine. “Sit. Try eating something again.”
I nodded, the movement jerky, and sat so he would take his hands off me and back up out of my space. He was a liar, and I had to find out why, see through his masks, figure out what he was hiding, all the while without revealing my own thoughts to him. Especially not the one where I was sure he was lying to me.
I ate a bite of the donut, drank some more of my now cooling coffee, and nodded at him to go on.
“Look, you just got your eyesight back after twenty years. You just learned that your missing brother is probably dead, mostly likely the victim of either a serial killer or a copycat. You—”
“Copycat? You think there’s a copycat?”
He shrugged. “It’s one possibility we’re looking at. But you have to let me finish.”
“Why? Why a copycat?” I studied him, watched his face. “Was there a difference in the most recent abduction that you haven’t told anyone about?”
He shook his head, then was interrupted when his phone buzzed. He pulled it out, glancing down. Then he looked at me again. “There is now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I got up and leaned closer, looking down at the phone in his hand and reading the text message that had just changed his mind.
Body found. The W screwed up. 210 Orange.
“What’s the W?” I whispered, a beat late on the uptake. “The Wraith?”
He looked sideways at me. “Yeah.” He texted On my way and pocketed the phone. “I’ve gotta go.”
“I’m going with you.” I walked to the door on shaking legs, and grabbed my jacket and keys.
He came behind me, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I can’t take you with me.”
“I didn’t ask you to. I’m driving myself. I already have the address.”
“Rachel, you could cost me my job.”
“I’m an author. A self-help author. Researching for my next book on....oh, hell, let’s say the nature of evil. I heard the address on my scanner.”
He looked around my living room. “You have a scanner?”
“No, but my sister does. Her husband’s a volunteer fireman. But I can have it here by the time anyone comes to check, should it be necessary. So let’s get going already.”
He sighed heavily, and I ran back to my sleeping bulldog, crouched low and rubbed her ears. “I’ll be back soon, Myrt. Hold down the fort, ’kay?”
She sighed, opened one eye and went back to snoring. I interpreted her commentary as Bring me back a treat or you’re on my shit list.
* * *
When Mason arrived on the scene, he saw the flashing lights of two police cruisers bathing everything in red and blue strobes. Uniforms were already there, talking to a weeping, bathrobe-clad woman on a sidewalk lined with orange carnations. Neat little saltbox house, more flowers along the front. The front door was open, but one of the uniforms was standing nearby with the yellow tape ready.
He watched Rachel de Luca pull in behind him as he parked a block up, because he wanted her bright yellow convertible out of sight. The thing was like a neon sign announcing the fact that he’d brought a civilian to a crime scene. Since she knew the address, trying to shake her would have been a waste of time, but no way was he bringing her in his car as if he’d invited her.
This had to be a copycat. Had to be. It was a relief that there was such a marked difference in this murder. Leaving the body to be found had definitely not been Eric’s M.O.
Rachel hurried to join him on the sidewalk. She’d thrown on a jacket and a baseball cap, but her hair was still wet and sticking out the back, ponytail-style. No makeup. She didn’t look like a celebrity tonight.
She looked scared.
They speed-walked past the side-by-side houses. Not real nice ones. Sagging porches loaded down with crap, like something out of Hoarders, shingle siding with missing patches, dogs on chains with about four square feet of worn-bare dirt to stand on.
Rosie was already there, standing in front of one of the nicest places on the block. Small, but neat. Well kept. He spotted them coming and came to meet them halfway.
“Mason, hey.” He sent him a questioning look as he nodded at Rachel.
“I was with her when I got the call. She wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Mason explained.
“I do have a vested interest,” she snapped. Then she directed a phony but potent smile at Rosie. “Besides, I’m researching the nature of evil for my next book. It’s my way of dealing with what happened to my brother. I have to be here.”
Rosie went soft, like he was chocolate and her sunny beam was melting him. “I understand, Miss de Luca.”
She reached out and touched his arm. “Rachel. You can call me Rachel.”
Hell, Mason thought. If she was this good with the chief, they would be clearing out office space for her at the station in no time. How was it no one saw through her but him?
Fuck it, it wasn’t important. “What have we got, Rosie?”
“Uniforms responded to a suicide. Found the SOB hanging in his bedro
om. Bloody footprints in the hallway outside his room led ’em to check out the basement, where they found the body of our latest missing person. Come on, this way.” He stopped on the front porch to pull on paper shoe covers and a pair of latex gloves, then handed a set to Rachel.
Mason snatched them just as she reached for them and put them on as he said, “No. Look, you can’t go in there, I’d get my ass handed to me. Just wait outside, and for God’s sake, don’t talk to anybody.” He looked at the uniform standing at the door with the tape. “No one else comes inside unless it’s the chief or forensics. Got it?”
He sent Rachel a final warning glance.
She was pissed, but he could tell she was a little bit relieved, too. That fear in her eyes had noticeably eased. It wouldn’t have, he thought a minute later, if she had followed him inside.
The house was small and simple. You entered straight into the living room, furniture there all draped in flowery throws and way too many pillows. Eat-in kitchen on the right. No dining room. Then a hallway, with a bedroom on either side. One was smaller and had a bathroom beside it. The other was bigger, and farther down the hall. He noticed the bloody boot prints that led from a doorway at the far end of the hall—basement?—to the bigger bedroom. When he got close enough to see past Rosie, into the bedroom, he saw a man dangling from a rope tied to a ceiling light fixture.
“Couldn’t somebody have cut the poor bastard dow—”
Suddenly the fixture tore free of the ceiling and the dead man hit the floor, the light bashing onto his head with an explosion of dust and plaster, and a spark or two as the wires came apart. Rosie jumped backward so fast he flattened Mason to the wall.
“Easy, partner. He’s already dead.”
“Jesus, Joseph and Mary.” Rosie crossed himself as Mason squeezed out from behind him, then moved past him into the room.
“His wife know what he was depressed about?”
“It’s his mother,” Rosie said. “But we didn’t ask. It’s pretty clear. Follow me. We’ll come back to this.”
Nodding, Mason moved back into the hallway, stepping over the bloody prints rather than on them, and followed Rosie to the last door. It was already open, revealing a set of stairs going down into a basement with the lights on. Blood on those, too.
At the bottom there was a pile of bloody clothing in the corner. Wait...no, there wasn’t. It was a body. He realized that as soon as he spotted an arm and a small patch of the bright blue T-shirt that wasn’t soaked in red. The victim’s head had been smashed in.
“There’s a pretty likely murder weapon right there,” Rosie said, pointing.
Mason turned in that direction and saw the hammer. Blue metal with a black rubber grip. He moved closer, crouched low and tried to get a look at the head. Even though it was packed full of hair and blood and bone, he could see the checkerboard pattern.
Just like Rachel had said.
He closed his eyes, lowered his head, stood up again. The forensics guys were there. He could hear them chattering upstairs.
“Looks like all those murders finally caught up with him,” Rosie said. “At least it’s over now.”
“Looks like,” he lied. Because this guy was not the Wraith. The Wraith—his own brother, he thought—had always made his victims disappear. Until he’d made himself disappear, that was. Eric was dead. This was a copycat, and not a very good one.
If he was smart, Mason thought, he would plant all those driver’s licenses somewhere in this house before the team finished up. But no, he was too honest for that. Why put that poor woman outside through any more grief?
How the hell had Rachel known about this?
Voices floated down from upstairs, one of them female and all-too-familiar, clearly coming from inside the house. “I don’t care, I need to talk to Mason now.” And then, “Oh, my God.”
He met Rosie’s eyes briefly, then turned to jog up the stairs. In the hall he saw Rachel standing outside the dead guy’s bedroom door, her hands to her mouth and her eyes wide as she stared in at the tangle of dead man and light fixture.
“That’s why I told you to stay outside, Rache,” he said. He took her by the shoulders, turning her so she was looking at him instead of the body. “It’s hard, this kind of thing. You’re not used to it. It’s—”
“I know this guy.” She pulled away from his hands and refocused. “I know this guy.”
Every head turned turned their way, and Mason grabbed her shoulders again. “Not another word.” He turned her around, marching her straight out the front door and all the way to the street. The cop at the door knew who she was, Mason had seen the recognition in his eyes. It wouldn’t be long before word got around, dammit. To his amazement, she didn’t speak again until he got her out of earshot of everyone else.
“What the hell, Rachel? Do you want to be a suspect in this mess?”
“It was a suicide.”
“Yeah, he was a suicide. The guy in the basement wasn’t. His head was bashed in with a hammer, one with a grid pattern on its snout. And yeah, I’m dying to know how you knew this guy, and how you knew what you did about this crime scene, but for right now, you’re putting yourself in a helluva situation just by being here.”
“I have a right to be here.” She backed up three steps, hands deep in the pockets of her long leather jacket, shoulders hunching up a little. Maybe against the chill wind, or maybe something else. More cops were arriving all the time. He had to get her the hell out of here. “This guy killed my brother.”
“I told you before. I don’t think so.”
Her head came up fast, her eyes searching his. “Your copycat theory? You never told me why you believe that.”
Dammit, he had to be careful with her. She was as good a detective as he was.
“How did you know him, Rachel?” He glanced around while awaiting her answer, knowing this was starting to look fishy. Rosie would cover his ass, but still...
“Support group. For transplant recipients.”
His eyes shot back to her. “You’re shitting me. He got a transplant?”
“Bone. Said he ditched his Harley, smashed his skull in, had to have bone grafts.” She lowered her head. “I met him last Wednesday and saw him again last night. His first name is Terry.” She lowered her head again. “Did you see those fucking boots he was wearing?”
“I saw.”
“Just like in the dream. Did he have the tattoo?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I never saw it at group. Never noticed it, anyway. This is lunacy, right?”
“Seems like.”
“What’s going on, Mason? How can any of this be happening?”
The chief’s Mercedes pulled up to the curb. “Go home now,” Mason said firmly. “I can’t help you if I lose my job, and I sure as hell can’t help you if you get arrested and charged with multiple murders.”
“Oh, like that’s gonna happen.”
“You know too much, Rachel.”
She stopped talking, blinked twice, her gaze briefly turning inward, and then she met his eyes again, her expression worried. “You’re right. I do, don’t I?”
Not the response he’d been expecting. She turned toward where they’d parked, then turned back again. “Will you come back? After? Tell me what the hell’s going on?”
“I’ll come back,” he said, not promising anything more.
She nodded. “Okay. Okay.” Her eyes shifted past him, toward the house, then back to him again, quick, jerky. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you.”
He watched her all the way to her car, then jumped guiltily when a hand fell onto his shoulder. “You okay, Mace?”
He nodded at his partner. “Fine.”
“Something goin’ on with you two?”
Mason frowned, then barked “No” a little too emphatically.
“I see.”
“She’s a little freaked, is all. This guy was a transplant recipient, too. She met him at a support group she attends. I guess ther
e’s some kind of common bond there.”
“A bond, huh?”
“I know. It’s bull, right?”
Rosie shrugged. “I don’t know.” He paused, seemed to be thinking. “I guess if someone got parts from the same donor, maybe that might create some sort of sentimental attachment, but...”
Rosie’s voice was drowned out by the sudden buzzing sensation inside Mason’s brain. The same donor. Eric?
Could it be that his brother had been this guy’s donor, too? No. It was too much of a coincidence, and that way lay madness. He wasn’t even going to bother following that ridiculous thread any further.
Yes he was.
He was going to read the book by that local shrink and maybe even give the guy a call come morning.
11
The host the rat had chosen hadn’t been the right one. Oh, he’d allowed the rat to kill through him, but afterward, he’d self-destructed. Shame. It was a body he could have enjoyed inhabiting for a while.
No matter, he’d found another. One who would allow him free rein for far different reasons. Curiosity. A need to know.
The rat liked this one even better. A clever mind, but a willing one. It was perfect. With this sharp brain at his disposal, he knew just the way to take care of his unwilling observer.
* * *
I couldn’t stop pacing, and I was shaking, too. I felt like puking but there was nothing left to puke. No matter what Mason had said about a copycat, as far as I was concerned the man who had murdered my brother was dead, a man I’d sat in the same room with—twice now—and I hadn’t even realized who and what he was. Terry Skullbones had been the serial killer the press had dubbed “the Wraith,” and his final victim was in his basement. Unless Mason was right and he was just a copycat. Which means the true Wraith is still out there. My brother’s murderer, still running free.
I saw him do it, though. This time, at least, I watched it just as clearly as if I was there for the whole thing. And he saw me. He saw me!
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