Trina stood for a moment on the threshold and she slowly waved her hand through the air from left to right. He had no idea what she was looking for, but clearly she did because a moment later she nodded and stepped inside.
Mark followed her and Jeremiah brought up the rear. It was not a position he fancied. The few times he’d worked with teams back in the old days he’d always preferred point. What was sneaking up behind him was always what worried him which was why he always wanted to know who or what was back there.
Without being told Trina managed to make a beeline for the kitchen and the door leading down to the basement.
“I don’t remember closing that door,” Mark muttered.
“You probably didn’t,” Trina said.
She held her hand up to the door and paused a moment.
Jeremiah strained his senses but he didn’t hear anything. He did have that tickling sensation on the back of his neck, though, that always warned him when he was being watched. He swiveled around but could see no one. He turned back, trying to block out the sensation lest it drive him crazy.
Trina took her hand and ran it down the edge of the door frame for a good two feet before she finally grabbed the doorknob with her other hand and twisted it open.
A blast of foul, dank air radiated outward, potent enough to drive both he and Mark back a couple of steps. Trina stood her ground, though. She had her head cocked to the side as though listening for something. He still didn’t hear anything.
There was no way Mark was going down into that basement. Not a chance. Not for all the money in the world. The dread he had felt in that house a couple of days before was somehow back tenfold. Maybe it was because it was just the three of them and there wasn’t an army of police officers scouring the entire building. Maybe it was because he had this creeping feeling of terror that he might find Lizzie’s body down there this time. Or maybe it was because all this talk of dark witches was finally starting to get to him.
I don’t believe in the supernatural, he told himself sternly. That should have made him feel better yet somehow it seemed cold comfort when he knew for a fact that the woman in front of him and the man behind him both did.
Maybe I’m the one that’s wrong.
The thought chilled him to the bone. He had always taken comfort in being an atheist, in believing that this life was all you got and there was no one out there watching out for you so you had to watch out for yourself and those you loved. At the moment, though, he’d give anything to have Jeremiah’s faith or Cindy’s. He wanted to believe that God was real and that He was going to look out for Mark.
I promised Traci I wouldn’t come back here.
He was sweating profusely even though it wasn’t warm. He’d had some close calls in his years on the force, but he’d never been so utterly and totally convinced that he was about to die. He was insane for being here. He should have listened to his wife. She knew, somehow she knew. He didn’t know how she knew, but she had told him he shouldn’t come back here and he had been a fool not to listen.
I promised Traci. I shouldn’t have broken that promise.
“I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. Don’t give into the fear,” Trina said. “That’s what they want you to do.”
He had no idea who the “they” were she was referencing, but if he’d had a white flag he would have held it high and run out of the building. He felt Jeremiah’s hand descend suddenly on his shoulder. He jumped, but then felt himself relax slightly. A humorous saying he’d once seen popped to mind and he mentally altered it to fit his current situation.
Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I’m walking with the meanest son of a gun in the whole darn valley.
And somehow that made him smile and the tightness he’d been feeling in his chest eased up.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jeremiah whispered.
It was an out. He knew it. He wanted to take it. The man who had spent his life hiding in shadows was telling him it was okay to retreat, and deep down he knew he should listen. Even if Trina did think that would be giving in to fear. What was it they said? Discretion was the better part of valor.
He wasn’t a coward. He knew that. And now he knew that the rabbi wouldn’t blame him for turning tail. Yet when Trina switched on the flashlight she had been carrying and led the way down the stairs, he found himself following.
The darkness pressed in around, thick and close, and the momentary relief he’d felt at realizing who he was walking through it with vanished. Twice he practically stepped on the back of Trina’s heels in an effort to stay close to the meager light that was all that was keeping the darkness at bay.
They were nearly at the bottom of the stairs and the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. He found himself looking into the darkness, imagining what terrors it held. Even though Cheyenne’s body was gone Mark felt like he could still see her lying there on the floor of the basement, eyes wide in terror.
That’s what killed her. Fear. I can’t let it kill me.
They made it to the bottom and Trina began walking through the space, moving her free hand in strange little circles as though she were stirring the air with it.
He shared a brief glance with Jeremiah and could tell that the other man thought she was just as weird as Mark did. It was small comfort. The worst part of all of this was it had been his idea to come here. There was something he had wanted to look for, but now all he could think about was getting out and he couldn’t even remember why they had come down there.
Suddenly Trina twisted on her heel and marched straight for the back wall. She put her hand on it.
“There’s something back here,” she said.
He nodded numbly. That seemed right. Something about hidden rooms and something Cindy was allergic to.
He and Jeremiah rushed forward, more to stay close to the light from the flashlight than to actually see what she’d found. “What is it?” he asked, hating the fact that he could hear his voice shake. Excess adrenalin, that was all that was. His body’s fight or flight response was in high gear.
“A room, I think. Something. Help me look for a way to open the wall,” Trina said.
The three of them spread out and began systematically examining the wall, pressing on every stone, looking for telltale indentations. After twenty minutes they still hadn’t found anything and he could tell the others were getting as frustrated as he was.
Suddenly Trina made a little exclamation and slammed her hand flat against the wall hard.
The earth beneath Mark felt like it moved and he staggered, struggling to catch his balance. Trina was saying something, but she was speaking so softly he couldn’t make out her words. Suddenly part of the wall moved, swinging open on silent hinges. And just like that all the fear he’d been feeling intensified.
Something was very wrong, but before he could decide what to do about it his phone rang. He yanked it out of his pocket and saw that it was an unknown number. He was about to put it away when something urged him to answer.
“Hello?” he asked, his voice echoing around the basement.
He heard heavy breathing on the other line. It didn’t sound like an obscene phone call, though. It sounded like someone was terrified and out of breath.
“Hello, who is this?”
“Mark,” a tiny voice squeaked into the phone.
Shock surged through him as he recognized it. “Lizzie, where are you?”
“Help me,” she whispered. “She was distracted, but she’ll be-”
He heard a muffled sound and the line went dead.
13
“Lizzie? Lizzie!” Mark shouted as the call ended and then slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to break bone.
“That was her?” Jeremiah asked.
“Yes, she asked for help. She said ‘she was distracted, but she’ll be’ and then the call was cut off.”
“W
e tripped the witch’s intrusion alarms pulling focus long enough for Lizzie to get to a phone. Let’s keep going and see what other chaos we can cause,” Trina said.
Mark didn’t want to keep going. He wanted to scream in frustration, but that wouldn’t help him get his sister-in-law back. He also wanted to run out of that house and never come back, but that wouldn’t help him find the killer who’d already sacrificed two young women. He forced himself to take a deep breath and then he followed Trina into the hidden room.
There was a large trunk in one corner and what looked like an altar in another one. There was a chair, what looked like some kind of metal cauldron, and a table with bunches of different looking herbs. He was so keyed up that he felt like he was seeing everything with a kind of hyper clarity and he knew that he wasn’t doing well because he was almost disappointed that there were no skulls or jars labeled ‘Bat’s Wing’ or ‘Eye of Newt’.
Inside the cauldron on the floor was what smelled like charcoal with some type of crushed leaves, or rather, what was left of them.
“What’s in here?” he asked.
Trina glanced at it. “Acacia leaves.”
“Cindy was right,” Mark said.
“This must have been burning while we were down here on Monday,” Jeremiah said quickly.
“Which means our killer could have been here, too, watching us, laughing, seeing how badly she could scare us,” Mark ground out through his teeth. Maybe that was the voice he’d heard. Not some mystical, otherworldly thing, but someone in here, watching, mocking. He was furious at how easily he’d been taken in by the dog and pony show. That was, until he remembered that two girls were dead and with nothing to link either of them to their murderer. Whatever was happening in here, it wasn’t amateur hour.
Behind him he swore for just a moment that he heard laughter, high-pitched and mocking. He turned around even though he didn’t want to, but it was just the three of them.
“Did anyone else hear that?” he asked sheepishly.
Jeremiah shook his head, but Trina looked at him sharply. “What did you hear?” she demanded, voice low and intense.
“Laughter.”
“Stay close,” she said.
He wanted to laugh himself. Where did she think he was going to go? It was getting hotter. He could feel sweat rolling down his back now. With each second that passed he wished himself far away from this place.
Pine Springs was just close enough to Los Angeles that they had a high-end costume shop in town, one that specialized in both original costumes and even rented and sold costumes that had been used by different movie houses. It was not a cheap place which was why Cindy was surprised to find herself roaming its aisles on her lunch break.
Geanie had brought her there and together they were ogling some of the famous pieces in the collection. Finally Cindy turned to Geanie. “Why are we here? I thought you and Joseph already had your costumes settled?”
“We do, silly. We’re here to pick out a costume for you.”
“Oh! There’s no way I could spend this kind of money on a costume,” Cindy said.
Geanie walked over and took her arm and rolled her eyes. “Who said anything about you spending your money?”
“Oh, I couldn’t let you-”
“Of course you can. It’s my party and I want our best friend to look perfect and have the most fantastic costume she can. What’s the point of having money if you can’t occasionally buy stuff for the people you love?”
“That’s really sweet,” Cindy said, feeling a warm glow. “It’s nice to have best friends,” she admitted.
Geanie smiled at her. “You haven’t done nearly enough living, but we plan to change that.”
Cindy smiled back. “So, as my benefactor, what costume did you have in mind?”
“Oh, I already picked it out. I was just enjoying browsing,” Geanie said mischievously.
“Oh! And what exactly am I going to be dressed as?”
Geanie led the way over to a dressing room that had a beautiful old Spanish style gown hanging on it that looked like something from the Mission days. Cindy stared at it for a moment. The dress was beautiful, and hauntingly familiar.
“That looks like one of Elena de la Vega’s dresses from The Mask of Zorro,” Cindy said, sucking in her breath.
“I was hoping you’d recognize it!” Geanie said gleefully.
“You are kidding me!”
“Nope! All that’s left for you is to try it on.”
“There’s no way it will fit me.”
“I and the in-house tailor beg to differ. Now, go try it on.”
Cindy went in the dressing room and tried the dress on with hands that shook slightly with excitement. She couldn’t believe a dress she’d admired on screen was actually in her hands. When she slipped it on she was stunned to discover that it actually fit her pretty well. When she walked outside to model it Geanie clapped her hands with delight.
“The perfect Spanish señorita!”
“It’s a little loose up top.”
“We can have that fixed. I’m sure the tailor could take care of that in no time.”
“Actually I think a safety pin or two would do it.”
“If you want, sure. It does look stunning on you. I’m so glad I found this.”
Cindy gingerly hugged Geanie then pulled back. “I have to admit, I’m afraid to hurt the dress. It must cost a fortune.”
“I don’t remember. I bought it last night.”
Cindy gaped at her and Geanie shrugged. “I know you love the movie and when I discovered they had it, how could I not?”
The gentleman who had been behind the register when they came in walked over. He smiled at them both. “You were right, she looks stunning in it,” he told Geanie.
Cindy felt herself blushing. Stunning was a word she was not used to having applied to her. She went back into the dressing room and changed into her regular clothes. A couple minutes later they were exiting the store with an enormous garment bag that it was taking both of them to carry.
Once they had settled in Geanie’s car Cindy glanced at the clock. “Just enough time to grab some drive through burgers and make it back to our desks,” she noted.
“On our way,” Geanie said, putting the car in reverse.
Suddenly a wave of terror rolled over Cindy, startling her and making her gasp out loud.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, but something is happening,” Cindy ground out. She could feel it. Someone was in terrible danger. She didn’t know how she knew, she just did. Her thoughts flew to Jeremiah and as terror took hold of her she began to pray.
They had been searching the basement and going over the items in the hidden room for a couple of minutes and with each moment that had ticked by Mark’s skin had been crawling more and more. He wanted out of there.
“These things have been in here a while,” Trina noted. “I don’t think this house was chosen at random. I think whoever is behind this has been planning things for a while, biding their time. This feels more like a headquarters than anything else.”
“But the place is abandoned. There’s nothing upstairs,” Mark said.
“Did you actually go upstairs yourself, Detective?” she asked.
“Not myself, no,” he admitted.
“Then you don’t know for sure what’s up there, only what other people thought they saw or didn’t see. And as we know from our discovery of this room, the looks of this place can be deceiving,” she noted.
Mark didn’t know what to think. “Okay, then I’ll tell you what. The three of us can tear this place apart from top to bottom and see what else we find.”
Why am I saying that? he wondered. He must be going crazy. The only thing he should have been saying was a plea for them all to get the heck out of there. He started to turn, realizing that at least searching upstairs meant getting out of the basement. Something gleaming caught his eye.
On a small table in the corner that
he had thought was empty there was a small piece of glass. There was something odd about it though. It reflected light almost more like some sort of gemstone or crystal. He felt drawn to it. He took a step. Another. He reached out his hand to pick it up.
Something sharp pricked his finger. With an exclamation he pulled his hand back.
“What is it?” Trina asked sharply.
“Nothing, I just cut my finger,” Mark said.
“On what?” Jeremiah asked.
Jeremiah sounded far away, though, muted.
Something hard slammed into Mark’s head and it took him a moment to realize it was the stone floor. He must have fallen.
“Mark!” he heard Jeremiah shout his name.
Something was deeply wrong. He could feel it. In one stunned moment he realized that Traci had been right. This house was going to kill him.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him!” Trina shouted as she bent over Mark’s body.
Jeremiah’s eyes were fixed on Mark’s index finger which had blood on it. “He’s been poisoned,” he said.
And given how fast it was acting they only had seconds before he was going to die.
14
“Call 911!” Jeremiah shouted as he yanked his belt off and wrapped it around Mark’s upper arm up by the armpit. It was probably already too late, but he had to try. He yanked the flashlight out of Trina’s hand and she gave a startled yelp even as she was dialing her phone with the other hand.
He unscrewed the flashlight and as the light flickered off the compartment opened. He grabbed one of the batteries out of it, a C size by the feel of it. He put the battery under Mark’s armpit against the artery there and the nerve cluster just behind it. He clamped the belt down hard over the battery, driving it deep into Mark’s armpit and he tightened it down as hard as he could. Even though Mark was slipping into unconsciousness he groaned in agony. Jeremiah knew the pain had to be excruciating.
“Officer down, he’s been poisoned,” Trina was saying into the phone. She gave the address.
I Will Fear No Evil Page 12
