Lana Falco’s mother, petite and beautiful, had silver hair and expensive clothes. Though it certainly couldn’t be an everyday occurrence in this neighborhood to open the front door and find a couple of cops standing outside, little surprise showed on Mrs. Falco’s face. In fact, it was far from surprise. If Diana had been pressed to put a name to the expression, she’d have picked resignation.
Diana held up her badge and asked, “Mrs. Falco?”
Silence met her question as sad gray eyes studied their faces. Then she let out a long breath. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Keeping her shock behind a neutral expression, Diana nodded slightly. “We’re very sorry,” she said.
Stepping back, Mrs. Falco opened the door wider. “Please come in. I’ll get my husband.” She left them in the doorway to the living room, her shoulders slightly bowed as she disappeared down a hallway.
Diana leaned close to Paul and whispered, “Not what I was expecting.”
“Copy that,” Paul said under his breath. “Get the feeling she was expecting us?”
Diana nodded. The same thought had occurred to her. “I think she’s just been waiting. If it wasn’t today, it would have been tomorrow or the next day.” She grew quiet as the sound of footsteps approached.
A tall man with thinning gray hair and rimless glasses preceded his wife into the room. He held out a hand. “I’m James Falco. Please, have a seat.”
Diana and Paul both sat, and she delivered the awful news as gently as she could. These parents might have known that one day this visit would come, but it didn’t make the reality any easier to take. Heartsick pain showed in both sets of eyes.
Though Lana’s background was vastly different from that of the other two, her story wasn’t. As so often was the case, drugs and poor choices had taken Lana down a path leading far from the big brick house and the parents who tried every avenue to help her. Counselors, rehab, special schools, tough love. In the end, they had to let go because they discovered, as so many did, it was impossible to help a daughter who didn’t want to help herself.
After trying everything possible, they had walked away, knowing one of two things would ultimately happen. She would one day get sick and tired of the life and finally make the choice to go clean. Or, she would die.
Diana had learned quickly in her profession that drug abuse is an equal-opportunity employer. That reality was never more evident than after today’s notifications. The pain and heartache that the senseless murders of three young women caused showed equally on the faces of their families, and it had nothing to do with their net worth. They all felt loss and grief.
That thought rolled over and over in her mind as she now sat at her desk staring down at the half-finished reports. It had been hard enough doing the notifications today; having to relive those moments as she put it down on paper was torture.
“You need to go home.”
Her head snapped up. She hadn’t heard anyone come in, yet there stood Greg Warner, wearing his trademark Carhartts and black T-shirt, gun and handcuffs on his belt. “Jesus, Greg, you just about gave me a goddamn heart attack.” Sometimes the guys on the late shift were like ghosts, which is probably why they were so good at night.
Greg smiled. “Good thing my first-aid card is current. I would have gotten to rip your shirt open and give you CPR.”
Diana laughed and stood. “You’re a sick bastard, you know that?”
He put a hand to his chest. “Ah, Diana, you wound me.”
“Yeah, well, you just want an excuse to get your hands on me.”
Greg had made a run for her early on. After he found out where he stood with her, they’d been friendly ever since. The situation could have turned out ugly, but he was pretty laid-back and didn’t take the rejection personally. All in all, a good guy. Too bad there weren’t more like him in the world.
This time he laughed. “Guilty. But seriously, what are you doing here this late? Go the hell home. I promise we’ll keep the city safe until you return in the morn.” He patted the butt of his gun.
She squeezed his shoulder as she walked by. Yeah, she slept a little easier knowing guys like Greg had her back. “The city’s all yours.”
*
Circe recognized the SUV in the driveway and it made her smile. She needed to get out another wineglass. When she opened the front door, Zelda’s best friend, Lila, zoomed in. Sixteen months old, the German shepherd knew her way around Circe’s house as well as she knew her own.
“Hey,” she said to Vickie, who followed Lila through the door, although she opted to walk in rather than zoom.
Vickie didn’t say a word, just enveloped her in a hug that was warm and tight. She didn’t realize until that second how much she needed that hug. Tense muscles suddenly relaxed and her shoulders felt lighter. Her heart felt lighter too.
“What’s this for?”
“Oh, please,” Vickie said as she let her go. “You know exactly what that was for. Go sit your ass down. I’m getting my own glass of wine and will join you in a sec.”
“Well, you are older and wiser so I guess I have to do what you say.”
“And you’re a little bitch,” she said with laughter in her voice. “Now go sit before you collapse.”
People became best friends for a reason and stayed best friends for even more reasons. She and Vickie had been tight since the day they met. Sometimes she wondered if they were perhaps friends in another life too. Made sense on so many levels, at least in her mind. Before Vickie returned from the kitchen she grabbed the comfy corner spot on the sofa left vacant when Zelda headed through the dog door and out to the backyard with Lila. It would do Zelda some good to run and play for a little while.
Vickie was back in minutes, carrying a wineglass in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other. She grinned and told Circe, “Figured I’d save time by just bringing the bottle with me.” She filled her glass and, after putting the bottle on the low table in front of the sofa, took a seat on the opposite end. She kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs up onto the cushions.
Circe smiled both at the wine and at the way Vickie settled in. “Good plan.” It was going to be that kind of night.
“Uhm, good,” Vickie said after a sip. “Now, tell me what happened today.”
“We got called out.”
Vickie tilted the wineglass in her direction. “I know that, girlfriend. I saw your bright shining little face on the six o’clock news. I want to know the rest of the story.”
Emotion rolled up, washing away the momentary sense of calm brought on by Vickie’s impromptu visit, and for a minute she couldn’t say a word. Vickie simply waited her out, which was one of the benefits of having a friend who really understood. She trusted only one person in her life enough to share the truth. Even with Vickie it had taken years before she’d finally summoned the courage to tell her. At the time she’d figured Vickie would react like her family had done when she was a child. She was a licensed professional, after all, and while crazy wasn’t in her vocabulary—at least not professionally—that’s undoubtedly what she was sure to believe Circe to be. When she realized Vickie actually believed her, she’d broken down and sobbed. Every bottled-up emotion from a lifetime of pretending poured out, and still Vickie stayed her friend. There wasn’t enough money in the world to buy that kind of loyalty and friendship.
Holding her wineglass between both of her hands, she stared at the wine and started to speak. “When I saw the first woman I thought, great, we’re done here, but you know how it is. You go out to do a job, you want to do it right. So Zelda and I kept walking our grid intending to cover the whole area. We should have blasted through it in half an hour, tops. Then a second woman appears and then a third! Three women, Vic. Three murdered women. What kind of sick sonofabitch does something like that?”
Vickie reached over and covered her hand with one of hers. “Oh, kiddo, I’m sorry. That is so messed up. You’ve got to feel like your ass has been kicked.”
She nodded. Oh, she felt like she’d been kicked all right, and not just in the ass. Her head and her whole body as well. “I’ve never experienced anything like this, and I hope to God I never do again. It was so wrong.”
When she was a child, the dead usually came to her one at a time. Before she was old enough to grasp what it all meant, she’d thought of them as friends. Odd friends with not a lot to say, and sometimes hurt and bloody, but friends nonetheless. She knew even back then they didn’t mean her any harm. It was the only world she knew, and so she was comfortable there even if no one else understood.
But she truly had never experienced anything like today. It went beyond the multiple victims who’d come to her. Today it all felt different and not in a good way, and not because the women were murder victims. They certainly weren’t her first. As a K9 handler she was in on a number of finds where the victims lost their lives through foul play. It was all part of what she and Zelda had signed up for. They trained for it and they were prepared.
What made today different was the whispered plea, “Help me.” Those who came to her seemed to know their fate, and what she typically heard, if she heard anything at all, was, “Thank you.” They wanted to be found and seemed to know that because of her they were going home at last. They would no longer be cold, lost, and alone. So why today did two of these women ask her for help?
Vickie leaned forward, picked up the bottle of wine, and topped off her nearly empty glass. Her eyes studied the dark liquid as though it was something new. Then her gaze shifted and her eyes met Circe’s. “You know, I’d really like to be all cheerful and comforting and tell you this is the last time you’ll feel like this, but I’m not going to lie just to make you feel better. I’m not that friend.”
Circe smiled despite the less-than-comforting words. In an odd way they actually were a form of comfort rooted in Vickie’s never-wavering dependability. She wasn’t the kind of friend who told her whatever she thought would make it all okay. No, she always told her the truth even if it was painful and ugly. Her honesty was one reason they stayed close. She loved Vickie’s attitude about life, along with her way of seeing things for what they were and then dealing with them. Despite all the ugliness she encountered in her own day-to-day work, she found a way to keep the light in her world. It was a gift she freely shared with her friends, and Circe, for one, was grateful she was one of those friends.
“Given what you’re doing and given what you can do, this won’t be the last time something like this will happen. You just have to find a way to deal with it and work through it. You have the guts, girlfriend. You just have to use them.”
Good advice. Not so easy to follow. Today made her uneasy on so many levels. Usually bringing someone home left her feeling complete and like she and Zelda had done a good job. But right now it felt as though a loose end was hanging out there, and a sense of urgency was pressing her to pick it up. Whatever it was, she needed to discover it and tie it up before she would find peace.
As if that wasn’t enough to leave her with a sense of uneasiness, a niggling feeling at the back of her mind said this wasn’t a simple case of murder, or serial murder, given the multiple victims. Calling serial murder simple was a bit of an oxymoron. Something far darker and more sinister lay at the heart of the murder of those three women, and she wouldn’t be able to rest until she knew what it was. They asked her for help and she intended to give it to them.
Circe held up her wineglass and stared at it for a long moment, almost seeing the young women and hearing their pleas for help. The mild scent of the wine tickled her senses as she tipped the glass back and forth. It wasn’t a crystal ball and the answers were definitely not there, no matter how much she wished they were. She brought the glass to her lips, closed her eyes, and savored the wine’s sweet taste. Opening her eyes once again, she picked up the bottle.
Vickie had the right idea when she’d brought the bottle out here. It was going to be the kind of night that called for the whole thing. Trying to push through to an answer wouldn’t work. Instead, she poured a healthy amount of wine into her glass and smiled. Sometimes finding the answer meant letting go. She tapped her glass against Vickie’s. “Bottoms up.”
Chapter Four
The book was open on the workbench and he studied the words carefully. Latin was such a bitch. Hated it in school and hated it now. It was funny how the world worked. He would never admit it to the priests and nuns who beat it into him as a child, but damned if the detested Latin didn’t come in quite useful now. Never would have guessed that back in the day.
Of course back then how was he to know that reading the stuff would change his life? Or that his penchant for purchasing rare books was his ticket to glory? Yet here he was putting all that expensive education to good use. Wouldn’t Mother be pleased? Probably not, considering that nothing he ever did seemed to make the old bitch happy. Of course, after trudging through the Latin, one thing became very clear: it took guts to get to the glory, and he definitely had those.
His attic office was as functional as his basement work space, except here golden light flowed in through the big picture window. Darkness was his comfort zone, and he worked exceptionally well when most of the world slept. At the same time, daylight worked very nicely, and it was a good thing he didn’t need much sleep.
Most of the time, he came here to work, just as he was doing right now. The light through the windows made the room bright, and it was easy to concentrate. At other times he simply needed to get away to somewhere quiet and unwind. Too often for his tastes, she left messes around the house and he had to clean up after her. Her lack of respect for their home appalled him and went against everything he was taught. When everything was in its place, he was most comfortable. She thrived in chaos, and he spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning up after her. At those times he craved solitude, and so he came here. He could relax in the warmth of the sun and read his first editions of Edgar Allan Poe and forget she ever existed.
Today he wasn’t reading Poe. As much as he loved the Gothic stories and poetry of the man he admired, this book was in a completely different dimension. Simply holding it in his hands was incredible. Some would call it luck, but not him. He saw it more as destiny. The original De Nigromancia text, translated and subsequently attributed to Roger Bacon, lay open on the desk in front of him. As he labored through the Latin he began to understand what had compelled Bacon to do the famous translation. It was no mystery to him how Bacon had ended up known as a wise possessor of forbidden knowledge because this beauty told it all.
In his opinion, Bacon had held back in the English translation he presented to the world. This astonishing text illuminated the world with a range of possibilities he’d never before considered. Until now his life had gone along fine. Well, it had gone along fine after he’d been able to strike out on his own anyway. He played his games, did his work, and kept them all pleasantly in the dark. The world he’d carved out for himself was a good one.
Now, everything was about to change. All he’d managed to accomplish before today, all the skills he’d worked on and refined foretold what he was soon to create. He could use this beautiful, magical text as he wished, and within its delicate pages lay the keys to greatness.
Soon what had begun as a hobby would elevate him to a position of unparalleled power. The world would literally be his. He could envision the money, taste the spoils, feel the touch of beautiful people as they crowded close just to be near him. No one would ever be able to control his life again or take away the freedom he cherished above all else. This book, this beautiful book, made him promises he could hardly wait to collect.
Slowly, he closed the cover and placed it back into its silk-lined, climate-controlled box. Nothing was too good for this treasure, and he planned to keep it as safe as humanly possible. He wasn’t sure why he went to such measures, considering nothing in ten centuries had managed to destroy even a single page. The book, it seemed, was impervious to damage, and
just as the book was immune to destruction, so too was he.
He was smiling as he descended the stairs, though he frowned when he kicked a high heel left carelessly out on the landing below. God, he hated it when she did that. It didn’t matter what it was, she dropped it wherever she took it off. Blouse, skirt, designer heels. Regardless of the cost, and she spent plenty on her things, she discarded everything as though it were trash. He would find clothing, shoes, or purses in the kitchen, the entryway, the bathroom, or like now, the middle of the second-floor landing. With the toe of his shoe he sent it flying through an open bedroom door. Maybe if he was lucky the expensive heel would break off when it hit the wall.
At the back door, he plucked his keys off the counter and went into the garage. As he passed the small wall-mounted rectangular box with the glowing orange button, he punched the button to engage the automatic garage-door opener. Earlier he’d put his supplies in the trunk of the sleek automobile, so he didn’t need to check now. Everything he required for the next few hours was tucked nice and tidy in the plastic container with the bright-blue lid.
*
“What’s up with you?”
“Huh?” Paul stopped and looked over at Diana. He sort of heard her question, but his mind was elsewhere. Not really good. He needed to be present and to leave his personal problems at home.
“I said,” she began slowly, “what’s up with you? You’ve been off since you got in this morning.”
He couldn’t really refute her observation. The problem was, it had happened again. One step out the door and there she stood: Brenda, with her long blond hair, perfect makeup, and slim body. Any guy at first glance would find her beautiful and, under normal circumstances, pleased to find such a vision waiting outside the door. Once he did too. Not now. Behind the pretty façade lay something dark and frightening. Given what he did for a living and all the shit he’d seen through the years, if what he glimpsed freaked him out, then she was one scary bitch.
Necromantia Page 4
