Dear Tragedy: A Dark Supernatural Thriller (House of Sand Book 2)

by Michael J Sanford

  Jake took the diary and leaned back, opening it to the first page. It was dated a year back. A quick skim told him nothing except that Daphne really hated her math teacher for assigning so much homework. “Not exactly a smoking gun, is it? She write about some kid she had a beef with or something?”

  “Nope. In fact, her last entry was written over a month ago. Like I said, hardly wrote in the damned thing.”

  Jake looked up at Peter and had the impulse to slap the smile from his face. Was I ever that smug? “Want to get to the point?”

  “I said her last entry was from a month ago. Go on, flip to the end.”

  Jake laid the diary open on his desk and flipped through the pages, one at a time, in quick succession. Halfway through, Daphne’s calligraphic writing stopped and a very different handwriting began. The letters were hastily written. More scrawled than drawn. Harsh edges and hard lines. Written so fiercely that the paper was torn in places. Peter said something, but Jake had already tripped and fallen face-first into Hell. The new writing wasn’t a diary entry at all. It was a letter.

  Dear Tragedy,

  When I was eight years old, I told Daphne Miller that I would kill her one day. I can’t remember why I wanted to kill her back then. She had probably called me a name or stolen something from me. She was always such a bitch. But promises are promises. Once you make one, it’s set in stone and you must carry through with it or your word will never mean anything ever again.

  My word is law, for I am absolute.

  Daphne Miller is dead.

  When you kill someone, it changes you. I have always been different, but killing is something more than being the strange one at school who always knows what everyone else is thinking. When I first killed, I saw a darkness. Deep pits of invisible fire and agony. Something was screaming and I knew it was the souls of the fallen, but it didn’t sound like you or I sound when we scream. It was more animal, but even that isn’t quite right. I thought I was being punished. I thought I had done wrong, but deeper than the screaming and the pain and the flames, I saw a blackness. Darker than anything you can imagine, it opened up and swallowed me. But there was no pain or screaming in the darkness. There was peace. Comfort. Purpose. It wasn’t hot, warm, or cold, but I had never felt more at home.

  And it spoke to me.

  Not with words or gestures or pictures. It was sort of like something was whispering in my ear. I could feel it there. And I knew what it was saying.

  I have a purpose, but not like they tell us in school. I won’t be a doctor or a lawyer or anything other than what I have chosen for myself. No, that’s not right. I didn’t choose it, but it is what I am. I have a purpose and the darkness approves.

  You will know it, too. I cannot wait to show you your purpose, just like the darkness showed me mine.

  You probably don’t even know what you are yet. I wasn’t always sure, either.

  I’ve spent many nights over many years thinking about you and dreaming about you. The nightmares showed me what was real. They showed me your face and danced as they told me what you could be. What you are. You’re like me in some ways, destined to a purpose that few would understand. Everyone knows us. Everyone lives with what we’ve done. But so few would recognize us if we walked right up and stabbed them in the gut.

  I weep for the world and all those in it.

  They hold on to hope and dreams and wishes, but deny we exist.

  We are blamed and cast aside like a sick animal, left for the wolves to devour.

  Little do they know that we are the wolves and they are the sick flesh we feast on.

  I didn’t kill Daphne Miller because it pleased me, although it did greatly. And even though I promised to kill her when we were eight, that wasn’t the real reason either. I learned much from tying her up and cutting pieces from her, though she didn’t live through it like I wanted. But gaining knowledge wasn’t the reason either. That was simple mortal curiosity.

  I killed Daphne Miller because I had to. Not because of what she was or even what I am. I killed her so that the world would know I exist. Just as you exist.

  I have changed a lot in the past few years, but at my core, I am still the same.

  I know the world.

  And the world will know me as will you.

  The darkness put you in my dreams and nightmares for a reason.

  Soon we will be more than souls passing through the veil of shared dreams. Soon we will be more than either of us could be alone.

  I am coming for you. And I will not be stopped.

  “So, what do you think?” Peter asked.

  Jake read the letter a second time and tried to still his stomach. “Anyone else seen this?”

  “Just us. I know, I know, chain of custody and all that, but I haven’t made it back to the station yet. Figured you’d want to take a quick look before I logged it properly. Not like you never cut any corners.”

  Jake closed his eyes and shut the diary. When he opened his eyes, the room swayed slightly, but stilled after another deep breath.

  “Pretty wacky shit, huh?” Peter asked, grabbing for the diary.

  Jake slapped his hand over Peter’s, pinning it against the diary. As soon as he did, he pulled back.

  “You all right, Dad?”

  Jake nodded. “Yeah, I was just, uh, thinking about what that girl must have gone through. Whoever did it to her.”

  Peter grabbed the diary and waved it at Jake. “Think it’s pretty clear who did it. Well, the most of it. Didn’t exactly leave us a name to follow, did they? And I mean, Tragedy? What’s that about? That’s not exactly a real name, is it? A metaphor, perhaps.”

  “Could be Daphne wrote it herself,” Jake said.

  Peter slid the diary back into his satchel and scoffed. “Then that’d have to mean she killed herself, too, or at least knew how she was going to die. The letter has details in it. Vague, but enough to suggest that whoever wrote it had intimate knowledge of the murder. Besides, no one can tie themselves to a chair and dismember themselves. Miguel said most of the cuts were done postmortem.”

  Jake glanced at the binding of the diary, sticking out of Peter’s satchel. “All right then, Peter, give me your take on what happened, in light of the diary entry. No more getting cute with me.”

  “I wasn’t being cute. I just have a feeling that this diary is going to be pivotal. Guess I got excited that I was the one that found the smoking gun, as it were, this time.”

  Jake nodded, but couldn’t force himself to answer. It took enough effort just to stop glancing at the diary. He couldn’t let anyone else see it. It was bad enough that Peter had. Jake’s son had no idea what he’d stumbled upon. Even Jake wasn’t sure. All he knew was the sick, clawing feeling in his gut. It was a feeling good cops didn’t ignore.

  Peter cleared his throat. “Parents always warn their kids about strangers, but no one figures the dangerous stranger is a kid. And to think another kid did this? Shit. Child killers aren’t that unusual, but it’s not usually so…” Peter stood and walked to the window. “But it had to be another kid, right? It makes the most sense if you ignore the actual murder. Even if Daphne didn’t know them from school or wherever, he could have wormed his way in without causing too much alarm. Ooh! Maybe Daphne had a boyfriend. Kid or not, it had to be a male, right?” Peter turned and looked at Jake.

  Jake nodded.

  “Right? Right. I mean, could you imagine Dani involved in something like this? She’s the same age.”

  Jake pounded his fist on the table and recoiled, having not meant to do it. He quickly stood and moved away from the diary. Keep your composure, asshole, he thought.

  “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean—” Peter said, always backtracking over his words.

  Jake waved a hand. “No, it’s fine. Cases like this just make you think. That twelve-year-old girl could have been my twelve-year-old girl.”

  “I know, I know,” Peter said, sitting on the edge of the desk, facing Jake. “The same thing wen
t through my head when I first got to the scene. But if I’m right that this was some kid-to-kid spat, no matter how twisted that diary is, it means it’s probably a one-time thing. You don’t hear much about twelve-year-old serial killers, right? Not until they get older, at least.”

  “If you’re right,” Jake said.

  “Yeah. Chances are the killer wasn’t another kid. Writing something doesn’t make it true. Maybe the killer is a deranged adult that thinks he’s twelve or… Ah, maybe I don’t quite have anything definitive. Yet.”

  Jake went to the small wet bar situated against the wall opposite his desk and poured a tumbler full of whiskey. He took a deep swallow before turning to Peter and displaying the bottle.

  “No, thanks,” Peter said.

  Jake quickly polished off the drink and found greater control over his thoughts and body. A curious reversal of the normal response to alcohol.

  “You don’t solve cases, especially like this, in a day,” Jake said. Time to be the supportive father. “These things take time. Coming up with theories is part of that process, but don’t lock yourself into an assumption until the evidence backs it up.”

  Peter gave a look of mock exasperation. “Yeah, yeah, I know. This isn’t my first murder.”

  “I know,” Jake said.

  “There’s just something about it that feels… I don’t know. Different, maybe. More important.”

  “A kid was killed,” Jake said. “It is different.”

  Peter ran a hand through his hair and sighed loudly. “More than just that. Aren’t you always telling me to trust my gut? Well, it’s tossing around, and telling me that this is big.”

  Jake put away the bottle of whiskey. He smiled as best as he could and slapped a hand on Peter’s back. “Let’s leave the crime-talk for now. Come, I’d better go make sure Jaina isn’t destroying my kitchen too badly.”

  Peter grinned as if he’d immediately forgotten their previous conversation of dead children and killers on the loose. “So, Jaina, huh? Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend, you old dog?”

  “She’s not my—it’s complicated. Very complicated. And, frankly, none of your business, so don’t pry.”

  Peter held up both hands. “Best behavior, got it. Cross my heart.”

  Jake aimed a finger at his son. “I mean it.”

  “Fine, fine,” Peter said. “Good for you, Dad. Girlfriend or not, I was beginning to think you didn’t have much of a life outside of consulting. Lord knows you log more hours most weeks than I do.”

  Jake maintained his smile, but only just. “Very funny.” He steered Peter out of the office and toward the kitchen. “I gotta take a piss and wash up. Remember what I said.”

  Peter continued on down the hallway, singing, “…sitting in a tree, K—I—S—S—I—N—G…”

  As soon as Peter turned the corner and Jake could hear him greet Jaina in the kitchen, Jake darted back into his office and stole quietly over to his desk. There, he drew the diary from Peter’s satchel. It felt hot in his hands, as if it might burst into flames at any moment. He opened it to the last entry and laid it open on the middle of his desk. He kept his eyes from the scribbled words, not wanting to fall into their haunting presence again. In the top drawer of his desk, Jake took out a switchblade. Using it, he removed the last diary entry, cutting the pages as close to the spine as possible.

  When they were free, Jake quickly returned the knife and hid the loose pages in the bottom drawer. He locked the drawer as well. He’d have an awful lot of explaining to do when Peter got the diary back to the station for examination, but Jake couldn’t have the stolen pages seen by anyone else. He couldn’t explain the reason, but it was no less resolute. Another gut feeling.

  Jake replaced the diary in Peter’s satchel and walked out of his office. He paused in the hallway, listening to the muffled conversation coming from the kitchen. He looked back in his office. For a moment, he saw her. Little Aza, just eight, sitting on the edge of his desk, twirling a letter opener with her small fingers, ashes in her hair, smiling the same smile she had after setting her parents on fire. She waved excitedly at him.

  Jake shook his head and cursed his own obsession. He couldn’t say why he’d taken the pages from the diary. He couldn’t say why he’d broken into Gerry Switzer’s place. He had told Jaina that he was the only one that could find Aza. That wasn’t true. But it didn’t change the path he was on. He’d always been a reasonable man. He’d done his job by the book. But the aftermath of the House of Sand Killings had changed him. There hadn’t passed a day or night when he hadn’t thought of Aza. He used to tell himself it was because she shared an age with his own daughter, but he didn’t think that was true anymore.

  “Jake!” Jaina shouted.

  Jake jumped and found he’d been holding his breath. “Ye—Yeah?” he asked.

  “You never told me you were a cheerleader in high school!” Jaina shouted.

  Jake took one last look at his empty office, cursed himself, then his son, and headed for the kitchen.

  Chapter Seven

  Friday 8:14 p.m.

  Aza tugged at the edges of her newfound jacket. It was garishly pink, adorned with far too many ruffles for her liking, but it fit and kept the night chill at bay. The old guy, Walt, had found it in his coat closet. A bygone relic of a granddaughter long since grown. He was a senile old bat, but Aza found it far easier to manipulate him than any of the others. It had taken her a month just to get Gerry to stop calling her “Mad Alice.” Aza didn’t even get the reference. If there was one.

  Walt, however, had proven to be like putty in her hands. First, she’d had him take her home and bake cookies. She’d taken a hot shower while they baked and when she got out, Walt had assembled a motley of clothing from various children and grandchildren that had passed through his home over the years. It was only Walt now, in the tiny house at the end of Cyprus Lane. And a bit of fortune that was; both the street Walt lived on and the fact that he was a loner. Aza’s grandfather had liked to say that it was better to be lucky than good. Aza, it turned out, was both.

  She’d left Walt to die shortly after finishing the cookies. A shame, really, as they had been the best cookies she’d ever tasted.

  “You alone, miss?” a young man asked as he walked past.

  Aza looked up from her perch atop a covered garbage bin on Belt Avenue—a short one-way street on the east side of Port Dimmock—within walking distance of Cyprus Lane, as well. “I am, as are you,” Aza said.

  The young man stopped like he’d struck a brick wall. “I’m sorry?”

  Aza cocked her head to the side. She’d positioned herself beneath the only lamppost with a working bulb. She wasn’t hiding. She had nothing to fear. She had looked the deepest of evils in the eye and it had balked. “You’re alone, aren’t you?”

  The man frowned and looked around. Storefronts lined the opposing side of the street, people visible through pane glass, but behind Aza lay only an empty lot, construction equipment, and silence.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked. “It’s getting late and it’s only going to get colder. Can I call someone for you?”

  Why was it that everyone looked at Aza and saw a person in need of saving? Was it her diminutive stature and kind eyes? Aza laughed. The man took a step back.

  “Do you hear that?” Aza asked, letting her gaze wander from the man. He didn’t bear paying attention to. “The whispers of the dead. The cries of the dying. The night knows them by name. The darkness is their father and their mother. Do you want to meet them?” Sometimes Aza let it speak through her. The thing that she had met in the darkness.

  The man didn’t bother answering. He quickly crossed the road and ran back the way he had come, leaving behind only the stench of sweat and urine.

  “Men scare so easily,” Aza said to the darkness, turning her eyes back to a jovial group of preteens in the ice cream parlor directly across the street.

  Aza had strengthened her control over fear
during her time with Daphne. Their time had been short, for Daphne died far too quickly, but Aza had found fear to be an even easier emotion to fester than anger. It had a habit of growing on its own once implanted in the mind. Though, to be fair, Aza couldn’t be sure if it was her mysterious ability that had petrified Daphne or the fact that Aza had strapped the girl to a chair and cut off her fingers and toes.

  In the ice cream parlor, the group was finishing up. Aza could see the pack of girls tossing out empty bowls and soiled napkins. A single adult woman was waving her hands high in the air, trying to wrangle the masses. The shepherd to their sheep.

  Aza hopped off her trashcan and raced across the street. The group of girls exited the shop just as Aza arrived on the sidewalk in front of them. Aza fell to her knees and erupted in loud wailing. Through sheer will, she forced tears out.

  The girls stopped right in front of Aza. Their energetic conversation evaporated. Aza continued to sob pitifully. Through her tears and blurred vision, Aza kept her eyes up, searching the girls for a weak link. Bemoaning her own false sorrow made it difficult to hone in on anything else, but it was an important part she had to play. Even without using her gift, what decent human being could resist a distraught girl alone on the streets at night?

  The woman pushed through the girls and knelt in front of Aza. Aza stopped screeching, but kept her face pinched and wretched. “Oh, honey, are you hurt?”

  Aza sniffed and shook her head.

  The woman made a show of looking around. The girls pressed in around them, beginning to talk in hushed whispers. Aza could taste a hint of fear among them. That would not do. She didn’t want the pack to fear her. Not yet.

  “Where are your parents?” the woman asked.

  Aza renewed her sorrow and curled up on herself, wailing once more.

  “Mom, what’s wrong with her?” one of the girls asked.

  “Maybe she doesn’t have parents,” another said.

  “Shh, girls. Just be patient a moment,” the mother said.