Watcher of the Dark: A Jeremiah Hunt Supernatual Thriller (The Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle)

by Nassise, Joseph

  Thankfully, it wasn’t.

  Just whose it was remained to be seen, but I’d deal with that when the time came.

  My frantic self-examination had left my fingers and palms covered in warm, sticky blood that had the feel of drying glue, so I glanced about, looking for a place to wash it off.

  I was standing in a kitchen, one I didn’t recognize. Dark wood cabinets. Stainless steel appliances. Marble countertops. An island, with a sink, stood in the center of the room, and I went directly to it, nudging the faucet on with my elbow and rinsing my hands beneath the stream with a near compulsive fervor until they were free of blood.

  As I turned away from the sink, hands cold and dripping, I realized that the thing in my head, whatever it might be, was allowing me to see through its eyes again. Everything had that crisp, hyper-real tinge to it, which was fine when you were looking at countertops but decidedly unsettling when looking at what seemed like gallons of blood drying on your clothing.

  Afraid of what I would find, I went in search of the owner of that blood.

  I’d left a faint trail of blood drops behind me when I’d entered the kitchen who knew how many hours earlier. It was dried now, but still clearly discernible for what it was, and I followed it out of the kitchen and down the hall to what had once been a bedroom but which was now nothing more than an abattoir.

  The blood splashed on the front of my shirt was nothing compared to the amount that had been spilled from the body of the man on the bed in front of me. The entire bed seemed to be bathed in crimson, and its thick coppery scent filled the air, forcing me to bury my nose in the crook of my arm to keep from vomiting.

  The trail of blood on the floor was thicker here than in the kitchen, and I followed it right up to the side of the bed.

  The victim was spread-eagle across the bed, his arms and legs tied in such a way that they stretched him in opposite directions. His position reminded me of the position of the figure in Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

  Unlike Leonardo’s creation, however, the man on the bed had been mercilessly tortured.

  Due to his nakedness, it was easy for me to see the dozens of cuts that had been carved into his flesh: on his chest, shoulders, stomach, arms, legs, even the bottoms of his feet. The blood that had spilled from his wounds had splashed the wall behind him and had pooled beneath his frame before running down the sides of the bed.

  In addition to the knife wounds, he’d also been beaten, his face so swollen and misshapen that at first I didn’t recognize him. But after staring at his face for several long moments the pieces of the puzzle finally came together and I knew.

  The man on the bed was Sean Grady.

  I recoiled.

  Good God! Had I done this?

  The blood on my clothes and hands would suggest that I had, but I didn’t understand why. What had I been looking for? What had I wanted from him?

  Or rather, what had the thing inside my head wanted?

  Grady hadn’t been the most sterling of characters, but he certainly hadn’t deserved this. No one deserved this.

  The killer had left a calling card as well; he’d used Grady’s blood to write “I’m coming for you…” in large letters on the wall above the headboard.

  I turned away, my thoughts awhirl as I tried to figure out what to do next, and that’s when it hit me. Something Bergman said when we’d been talking the other night.

  He’d been tied down, tortured with a knife …

  The words were still ringing in my ears when I turned to look at Grady again.

  Tied down, tortured with a knife …

  I was starting to suspect I knew just who it was that was riding around with me inside my head.

  But I would have to deal with him later. Right now I was standing in an active murder scene with enough blood on my clothes to land me in prison for the rest of my life. I had to do what I could to make it seem as if I’d never been here. Then, once I’d taken care of that, I had to get out of this apartment and back to Fuentes’s property without anyone getting a look at me.

  No small task, I assure you.

  Back in Boston I’d worked as a freelance consultant to the Boston Police Department, more specifically homicide detective Miles Stanton. He’d call me in when things got a little unusual, so I’d been to my fair share of crime scenes. One thing I learned was that there was no way to eliminate all of the evidence of my presence there. There were just too many variables in play: trace evidence like hair and fiber samples, fingerprints, and DNA identification. You couldn’t hide the fact that someone had been there; hell, the body alone would accomplish that all on its own. But you could hide that it had been you, specifically, that had been present, provided you had a little bit of luck on your side.

  I was horrified about what had happened to Grady, but I knew I hadn’t done it, not consciously or willingly anyway, and I wasn’t going to take the rap for it if I could help it. I was already being hunted for murders I hadn’t committed; it seemed somehow fair, given the circumstances, that I keep them from hunting me for the one I had.

  The vast majority of law enforcement officials were good, honest people trying to do a difficult job in less than ideal conditions. Just like anyone else, they sometimes made mistakes. I needed to confuse the evidentiary picture enough that it would appear that mistakes had been made, even when the reality was quite different.

  And who knew, maybe one of the investigators would make a mistake when processing the scene, increasing my chances of staying out of the suspect limelight.

  I still had no idea whose property this was—Grady’s or someone else’s. If it was the latter, they could come home at any moment, so I worked as quickly and efficiently as possible, my heart pounding like a gong inside my chest the entire time.

  Back in the kitchen, I found the paper towel roll and tore off a couple of sheets. Using those as makeshift gloves, I opened up the cabinet under the sink and hunted around until I found what I wanted, a bottle of household bleach. Taking the bleach back into the bedroom, I went hunting for the other item I needed, a vacuum cleaner. I was starting to think that Grady—or whoever actually owned the place—used a cleaning service that brought in their own equipment, but then I found a decade-old upright hidden away at the back of a hall closet.

  I crossed my fingers and checked the bag …

  It was full!

  Armed with everything I needed, I headed back to the bedroom.

  Being careful not to step in the rapidly cooling blood, I picked up the bleach in my paper-towel-covered hand, twisted off the cap, and then poured the entire bottle over Grady’s corpse, moving my arm up and down his form in order to spread the liquid out as much as possible. My biggest concern was DNA evidence. I knew the bleach wouldn’t destroy it, but, if given long enough, it would degrade any DNA samples enough that they couldn’t be used to make a definitive match. The sharp, pungent smell of the bleach mixed with the metallic scent of spilled blood had me fighting to keep from vomiting.

  Three more minutes, I told myself, that’s all I need, three more minutes.

  I tossed the plastic jug of bleach aside and picked up the vacuum bag. Snatching a pen off the nightstand, I poked a hole in the bag and then did the same thing with its contents that I had done with the bleach, namely dump it on Grady. Dirt, dust, lint, thread, fingernail clippings, you name it—it all ended up on the corpse, adding to the trace evidence the investigators would have to deal with. I was hoping there had been a lot of visitors to the apartment in the days prior to the last time it had been vacuumed, each new person adding exponentially to the workload of the forensics team.

  As I tossed the bag away, I was struck with the unmistakable feeling of being watched from behind.

  I spun around, bringing my arms up just in case I needed to defend myself.

  As I did so I could see a figure behind me doing the same and I knew in that moment that there was no way of escaping this confrontation. Whoever it was had no doubt seen me an
d could now tie me to the murder; I was going to have to be certain that newcomer couldn’t tell anyone what he or she had seen.

  My body kicked itself into fight mode right about the same moment I completed my turn and came face to face with my attacker …

  … who looked just like me!

  For a second I thought the doppelganger nightmare had returned, that the fetch that Denise, Dmitri, and I had slain months before in Boston had somehow survived and had returned to make my life hell, but the true explanation was much simpler than that.

  I was looking at a mirror.

  I’d been so focused on the body on the bed that I hadn’t noticed the wide, rectangular mirror on the wall behind the dresser. The threatening figure was nothing more than my own reflection.

  Relief swept over me, but it was fleeting. The scare reinforced my awareness that time was at a premium and the longer I was here the more chance there was of someone discovering me standing over the corpse.

  It was time to go.

  Too bad it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t just walk out of the building with Grady’s blood all over me. The first person who got a good look would run off screaming and before long I’d be right back where I’d been before, running from the police and hoping they didn’t start shooting.

  I used the paper towels to protect myself from leaving fingerprints as I started going through the dresser drawers, looking for something to cover myself up. Grady was a bit bulkier than I was, so a sweatshirt or even an oversized t-shirt would do the trick nicely, provided it was a dark color; black would be ideal, but blue, green, or brown would work nicely as well.

  The first shirt I came to was a black Grateful Dead concert tee. Even I didn’t think the irony was funny, and my humor is blacker than most. Still, it was the right size and I pulled it on, being careful to keep the front of the shirt away from my body as I pulled it down. The shirt was even large enough to cover most of the bloodstain on the front of my jeans.

  With any luck, this might actually work.

  I had one last thing to do before I left.

  I went into the kitchen and looked around until I found a dishrag. Towel in hand, I went back through the rooms I’d been in, seeking out the places I was certain I had touched after regaining consciousness and making some educated guesses on others as I went. Each location was wiped down with the towel in an effort to eliminate any fingerprints I might have left behind. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.

  When I was finished, I went to the front door, listened, and then, not hearing anything, quietly turned the knob and peeked out into the hallway.

  It was empty.

  Keeping my head down, I stepped out into the hallway, pulled the door shut behind me, and headed for the stairs at the far end. I could practically feel the building security cameras pointed at the back of my head all the way down the hall.

  I heard the elevator ding as I pulled open the door to the stairwell, but then I was inside and headed downward. The three-foot-high twenty-four on the wall next to me told me that I had a long way to go, but the chances of running into anyone on the stairs were drastically reduced compared to the chance of doing the same on the elevator.

  Ten minutes later I stepped out the emergency entrance, wandered around to the front, and slipped into the first taxi in line.

  My heart was still pounding as we drove away into the night.

  28

  I had the cabbie drop me off down the street from the property and walked the rest of the way, slipping through the trees until I reached the back wall and then going over the top to keep from being seen by the guards at the gate.

  Once on the property, I kept to the shadows and made my way over to the row of bungalows. From there it was a relatively easy matter to ease around to the front, open the door, and then slip inside.

  I kept the blinds down all the time, so there was no danger of anyone seeing me as I flipped on the lights and headed directly for the bathroom. I turned on the shower and was about to strip down when I had second thoughts.

  Don’t screw things up now, I told myself, and headed back into the kitchen. I got a large plastic trash bag from under the sink and carried it into the bathroom. I shook open the bag and then arranged it on the floor so that I could stand inside it. With the plastic sack underneath me to catch any dried blood that might crack and fall off my clothes, I undressed, stuffing everything that I took off into the bag around my feet.

  When I was finished, I stepped out of the bag and into the shower. I felt dirty in a way I’d never felt before and I scrubbed at my skin, flaking off the splatters of dried blood and then scrubbing and scrubbing some more until my flesh was pink with the pressure. By the time I got out, I think I left more than a few layers of skin behind.

  I dressed in clean clothes, dried my hair with a towel, ran a brush through it, and then dumped the towel in the garbage bag with the rest of the ruined clothing just to be safe. I bundled up the bag and tied it tight. My plan was to carry it around to the garage and bury it deep amidst the other bags that were already in the dumpster there for pickup later that afternoon.

  Before I had a chance to do so, however, there was a loud pounding at my door.

  For one heart-stopping moment I was certain I’d been discovered, and I found myself waiting for the shout of “Police!” and the crash of the door being broken in with a tactical ram.

  Instead, I got another knock and a muffled shout. “Hunt! Open the door!”

  Rivera!

  I could think of only one reason he’d be pounding on my door at this hour of the morning, and it wasn’t to play Scrabble.

  Getting caught with a bag of bloody clothes in my hands was probably not a good idea, so I glanced around frantically, looking for a place to stash them that wouldn’t be immediately discovered. The closet was out, as that was too obvious. So was shoving the bag in with the rest of the trash under the kitchen counter. I needed someplace to stash it long enough to get rid of it properly

  My gaze fell upon the ceiling tiles above me.

  I didn’t have time to think about it any longer. I stood on the edge of the tub, popped one of the tiles loose with my left hand, and stuffed the bag inside with my right. I was just pulling the tile back into place when I heard him again.

  “Open the door, Hunt, or I’m coming in!”

  I hopped down from the tub, hit the flush on the toilet to give me a reasonable explanation of delay, and then hurried over to open the front door.

  Rivera gave me a suspicious glare when I did so, but with the sun coming up I wasn’t supposed to be able to see it and so I didn’t respond. Nor did I react when he peered past me on either side, clearly looking for something, though I didn’t know what.

  Instead, I went on the offensive.

  “Rivera? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  He studied me for a moment before responding. I expected some wiseass remark from him, as he usually felt the need to assert his superiority in such situations, but this time all he said was, “Fuentes wants you.”

  That was all.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Yes, now.”

  His tone was flat, devoid of emotion, and I recognized it as a sign of intense anger. Rivera barely seemed to be in control, and I knew it wouldn’t take much to set him off. With that in mind, I decided to tread lightly and dropped the irritated act.

  “Let me get my cane.”

  I left the door open so he could see me as I stepped back inside and grabbed my cane off the kitchen counter. Unfolding it, I returned to the door and said, “Ready.”

  Without another word Rivera turned and strode off in the direction of the main house.

  I followed.

  A few minutes later he was ushering me into Fuentes’s office. The boss man sat behind his desk, watching me closely as I entered. I pretended not to notice, felt for the chair I knew was there, and then stood beside it.

  “Sit down, Hunt.”

  I sat.


  He stared at me; I pretended not to see him.

  Outside I was as cool as a cucumber, but inside my thoughts were churning a mile a minute. What did they know? Who had they talked to? What had they seen?

  I didn’t have any idea.

  It was the not knowing that was making me nervous.

  After a moment, Fuentes said, “We have a problem, Hunt.”

  I considered his words and the tone in which he said them very carefully. Taken one way, his statement could mean that he and I had a problem between us. Taken another, it could mean that there was a problem that the two of us, together, needed to solve.

  There were miles between the two statements.

  I fought to keep from tensing as I replied, “Something I can help with?”

  “Grady’s dead.”

  I froze, intentionally, trying for stunned surprise. I shook my head, as if I hadn’t heard him correctly.

  “Come again?”

  I could see that he was still studying me intently and I tried not to let it bother me as I waited for his answer.

  “Sean Grady was killed by an intruder at some point last night.”

  “Here? On the property?”

  Fuentes shook his head. “No, it was … elsewhere.”

  Elsewhere? That was a strange way of putting it. “Any idea what happened?”

  Fuentes waved a hand; not important, the gesture said. “Rivera found the body about an hour ago.”

  Most people would have glanced back toward Rivera at that point, a physical way of acknowledging that the other man had been mentioned. I’d been blind a long time and thought such instinctive behaviors had gone by the wayside long ago, but my newfound ability to see, even if it was through an unwanted passenger’s eyes, had me repeating them like I’d never lost my sight. Thankfully, I caught myself in time and turned the motion into a simple adjustment of my position in the chair.

  Fuentes wasn’t finished. “He’s going back to the crime scene in a few minutes. I want you to go with him. Do what he tells you to do. Is that clear?”

  Crystal, I thought dryly, the sarcasm dying to fall from my lips, but I managed to hold my tongue and just nodded instead.