by PM Weldon
The Haunted Bones
The Haunted Bones
Midpoint
THE HAUNTED BONES
PM Weldon
Copyright © 2013 by Phaedra Weldon
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition
Cover Design Copyright © 2013 Design by Trap Door
Cover Image Copyright © Conrado | Bigstock
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely fictional. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Prologue
I had a bullet in my head.
I knew this as sure as I knew I was too damn young to die. The idea of going into the building alone had been a stupid one, but I heard the witness scream. She was in danger from the suspected killer and I couldn't wait on backup. The disguised phone voice told me he would kill her if I didn't come.
Sometimes we think we're invincible because we carry a badge and a gun.
Bullshit.
We can do worse than die.
We can live. I was still alive when my murderer stepped out of the shadows to check to see if I was dead. I couldn't get a clear look at him because I couldn't move. I heard the click of his shoes on the wood floor and felt each step vibrate against my back. I could only look up at the building's ceiling, at the rafters made of steel and the dark shadows above them. Those shadows darkened as my vision blurred. I wanted to close my eyes. I didn't want to lie there like every other victim I'd seen with their eyes staring into the mysteries of Heaven.
Or Hell.
"I can see you're still alive, Detective McNally." The voice was the same electronically manipulated noise as before. The same one who left messages on the witnesses' voice mail. "I can see the light dim in your eyes just as I watched it dim in your partner's eyes. Remember him? Jimmy something? You saw him when you came in. He's got a hole in his forehead just like yours."
I tried to say something. Anything. But nothing moved.
"You're such a sad man, you know. You will die and the one who killed the Senator's son will go free. You failed, Devan McNally. You failed. You thought you could beat me, but I'm better at this than you. You thought you could turn me away. But I'm better than you. I'm a better detective than you."
The overhead shadows coalesced in the center, until everything disappeared and I slipped away to stare down my fate.
One
Two Years Later…
I had the perfect shot lined up when my butt buzzed. I ignored it, figuring the call wasn't important. People who knew me were aware I was working this afternoon, and if they called anyway, they would be banned from my house. If they weren't friends, I usually ignored them anyway.
The light was perfect; not too dark and not too sunny. I liked shooting pictures on black-and-white days. It gave a sense of mood to the scenery. Not that this property needed atmosphere. It was a creepy old building, abandoned for over a year. It used to be a bar before it became the bank's property. It sat on the corner of an up-and-coming neighborhood in Buckhead, Georgia. Wide street-side windows and a bar the length of the front room. The beer taps had long been removed though the connections were still there. The shelves behind the bar were bare, but an antique mirror missing most of the silver reflective backing still hung between them. A wooden, waist high ledge lined the opposite wall; probably where stools once hosted a lot of after-work hookups. It was easy to imagine the place in business.
It had a second story that I hadn't taken a look at yet. There was too much history lingering on the first floor. I knew I'd get upstairs eventually. This job was going to pay pretty good.
And I needed the money.
There wasn't much of a back area. Just the bar's kitchen. All the appliances were gone, leaving rusted connections and grease-stained marks on the tiled floor. Took a few shots there, then one or two of the door leading into the alley.
The stairs were just behind the door between the back and main bar and not visible to anyone coming inside. I made sure to lock the front and back doors before I headed up, camera in hand. I used a Canon PowerShot. It had all the bells and whistles, and the sucker had made me a decent living for about six months now. I have a spare in the car in case I drop this one—and that's not something I wanted to think about.
Thunder rolled along the sky as I hit the top step. The upstairs looked like it had been used for storage and maybe an office. Old metal filing cabinets lined the street-side wall under the only window. There was a bathroom, same shape and size as the one downstairs. Only this one had brown stuff all over the walls, sink, floor, toilet, and ceiling.
Having been a Homicide detective for three years, I had a pretty good idea what that was.
I snapped shots, got creeped out, then headed back downstairs. I usually brought my tablet along to check proofs on the spot. Delete what was bad, keep what was good, and then upload the chosen pics to an off-site storage server kept secure by my favorite tech person, my niece. That way I could get back to them while I watched TV, ate pizza, and worked on the computer.
I grabbed the tablet out of the car as the first drops of rain spattered my windshield. I didn't want to be in the car when the rain came down so I yanked the backpack out and headed back into the building. Just as I shut the door, the sky fell and there was no going anywhere else for a while.
Using the camera's Wi-Fi, I uploaded to the storage server and then downloaded to the tablet. I used the bar as a make-shift desk and swiped at the tablet's surface with my finger, skimming the photos in order—
Whoa. Back up.
I reversed my swipe to look at a picture three swipes before. It was an okay shot of the bar, particularly the right-side shelves, but one shelf was washed out. It looked like a burned-out shot where the highlights were all turned up too high and anything white or light-colored bleached away.
I pulled the picture into an editing app and played around with the saturation until—
I damn near dropped the tablet as something unexpected showed up and my phone buzzed again. This time I didn't ignore it because I didn't want to hold the tablet anymore. In fact, I wanted to put it down, so I set it on the bar.
I checked the caller ID. "Hey, Myra."
"Why haven't you been answering your phone?"
Myra Coben. Victims advocacy champion and licensed psychiatrist; i.e., my shrink. "Because I'm working."
She paused. "Oh. Well, that's good. Pictures?"
"Yeah. A potential buyer wanted some shots of a piece of property." I had the phone to my ear but my gaze was fixed on the tablet. I wanted to save it and get the pic home so I could take a look at it on my desktop computer, which had a bigger screen.
"So how long will you be?"
I finally looked up and out the grimy windows at the storefronts across the street. "Why? What are you planning?"
"Well, it's not really a plan—and I know it's last minute—"
"No. Myra…no more fixing me up, okay? I'm fine with the divorce and I'm fine on my own. And besides," I said as I eye-balled the tablet. "Isn't being a matchmaker unprofessional?"
"Devan McNally—you are not fine on your own. You don't go anywhere and you don't see anyone."
"I see you."
I could hear the scowl in her voice. "That's not what I'm talking about. And talking with me about everything's that's happened isn't a relationship."
Everything that's happened. She meant that night in the warehouse. The night I was shot. Coma, recovery, and then divorce. Yeah…the woman I thought I could count on didn't want to be chained to a man with a bullet in his head.
"No." I looked away from the tablet. "You're a great psychiatrist; you're just a little lame in the friend department sometimes."
"Okay, I deserved that. And I'm sorry. But I do need a photographer."
"So you're not setting me up."
"Not on a date, no. But you might not be appreciative of the client." She paused, and I felt nervous. "The Chief Of Detectives' daughter is getting married on Saturday—"
"No."
"Devan—you haven't even heard me out."
"You are setting me up." I went from good mood to suck-ass mood in a single second. "Myra, me showing up at that wedding would be a bad idea. I've spent the better part of a year telling you how I felt about what happened."
"And I've listened to you. I've also talked to a lot of other people involved in the incident—and don't hang up on me. When I say I talked to them, I don't mean I betrayed your confidence. That's an ethical violation, Dev. Just as I won't tell you their concerns. But from what I've gathered, their opinions of you aren't as bad as you assume they are."
Thunder echoed my own darkening thoughts as I turned away from the window and stared down at the tablet without really seeing it. "Myra, it's really hard when your own Captain suggests you take a leave of absence, and then in the same sentence, insinuates it should be a very long absence because the Chief Of Dees thinks you're an embarrassment. My partner was killed that night. I was nearly taken out as well, and the suspect killed himself."
"Yes, I know, and they were disappointed when you woke and couldn't remember anything."
"Disappointed?" My voice rose and I closed my eyes. Easy. Take it easy. Bring it down, Dev. "That's not even close. You weren't in the room during the interrogation—and there was no mistake, Myra—my own captain interrogated me, as if I were purposefully protecting that damn aide, Mason Ferrell."
"Okay, you need to calm down, Devan, or you're going to black out again. Take several deep breaths."
She was right. I knew she was right. But I was too pissed off about her destroying a perfectly enjoyable afternoon. For more than a year I'd worked at putting all this behind me, worked at accepting I might never remember the events of that night, worked at…dealing with the fact I was no longer a detective.
I was never dismissed or formerly fired, but I had taken an extended leave, just as the Captain suggested.
Myra sighed. "I'm sorry, Devan. I misjudged the amount of progress I believed you made during our sessions. I thought…I hoped you had moved past this."
"I moved past blaming them, Myra. That's all. But I won't move past blaming myself. They weren't right in assuming I worked with the killer and they weren't right about me and Llse. I never slept with her. I told her no."
"Dev—"
"I got Jimmy killed."
"No, you didn't. Jimmy's own bad decisions got him killed. You weren't even there."
I hung my head. "I should have been."
"It's not your fault, Devan."
"I've got to go, Myra." I disconnected and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
It had been a simple assignment. Protect the witness, keep her safe. But in a matter of twenty-four hours, my partner was dead, the killer was dead, I was on life support, and the witness was the only one standing—and the testimony she gave destroyed my life. I couldn't refute it because I couldn't remember it.
I stared out the window and waited for the rain to end.
Two
Mary Smith loved the good things in life. And she knew money was the way to get them. And getting them from wealthy, good-looking men was her way of securing all that she desired. Until the men figured out who and what she was, and they always did.
Then it was time to put them in their place and move on.
Her mother called her stupid. The old bitch never could keep her mouth shut. So when she was older, Mary shut her mother's mouth. And out of spite and a sense of ownership, she often visited her mother's grave: a concrete wall in a local bar. But it hadn't been a bar when she punished her mother. It had been their home.
A place she hated more than she hated being poor.
But on dark days like today, taking a ride to that part of town so she could see that wall made her happy. She could laugh silently, knowing that behind the wooden shelves filled with liquors and exotic spirits, behind the dated wallpaper, behind the drywall, between the layers of bricks and cinder blocks, hung the remains of the woman who had birthed her and the future that would have ruined her life.
It had been a few years since her last visit to the old bar. But she was ready, and she had cash in her wallet so she could buy something very expensive and drink it in front of her mother, to prove to the old crone that now she could afford anything she wanted.
And there it was—the corner building on the left—
Her heart fell into her stomach when she didn't see the sign over the door. The iron hanger was still there, but the wooden sign with the pub name, The Alley Haunt, wasn't there. She slowed the car and stopped in the middle of the street. There was no traffic in the storm, so no one honked a horn or flipped her off as they moved around her. Her headlights cut a beam through the rain as her intermittent wipers cleared the glass with every other beat of her heart.
The windows were dark and the bar's old logo had been scrubbed off the glass.
The unthinkable came to her. Had they gone out of business? Was it the economy? And, more importantly, had anyone started construction inside?
Common sense said to drive away. Never look back. No one could ever connect her to the body in the wall. The person who had walled that woman up was dead. Long dead. She had gone to great expense and lengths to change her appearance, alter everything about herself.
Anger replaced guilt and fear. She believed the owners would always be there! That was the deal when she sold the place to them under an assumed company. How dare they close it down?
A lone silver Prius in front of the store caught her attention. Businesses on either side were also dark. She looked around and realized the entire neighborhood had For Sale signs in its windows.
No…no, no, no. This couldn't be happening. Three years ago, this was a thriving area of town. Up-and-coming yuppies—did they still call themselves that? They were here. They were moving in. Her secret was safe as long as the building was being used.
A ghostly image appeared in the front window. Someone was inside! It looked like a man from her angle. Maybe it was the owner of the car. That's when she noticed a For Sale sign on the door of the bar. Was he a prospective buyer? A contractor? Was he a PI?
Drive away!
No. She had to know who this man was and what this man was doing here.
It was easy to find a parking spot for her Mercedes. The rain had moved from a downpour to a drizzle. She hesitated about bringing her gun with her. If she had a gun, she'd use it. And now wasn't the time for making more mistakes. She needed information. If this person proved to be a problem, she could pay to have him disappear later.
She had money.
Lots of money.
And she had power.
After she shoved her purse under her seat, she grabbed the keys, got out, hit the lock on the key fob, and walked swiftly across the dead street to the corner where her life had started.
The man wasn't in the window anymore. Had he seen her and left through the back alley? She tried the handle—an innocent customer looking for a former store was a good cover, just in case. The door was locked, so she took a step back and looked at the car.
After a few seconds, she heard the lock slide and the door opened.
The man who stepped into view was the same one she'd seen in the window. But now he was clearer. He was tall and lean, with a thin face and light brown hair. The hair was thick and looked as if someone had tried to cut it into submission but failed. It was short around the collar of his dark blazer and the maroon shirt beneath. His exp
ression, when he spotted her, was pleasant. He was just a few inches off of handsome, but he was attractive.
The eyes were what put her off guard at first. They were haunted eyes. Eyes that held secrets. "Can I help you?" he asked. His voice was nice. A medium tenor, filled with apprehension and a Southern drawl.
She put on her best smile and half-feigned surprise. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I used to come here a few years ago with my husband. It was a bar—but I see the sign's gone and the place is for sale."
He nodded and glanced behind him before he spoke. His right brow arched up into this thick hair. "Yeah, it's been closed down for about a year and a half. Everything's cleared out. Sorry."
She stuck out her hand. "I'm Mary Smith."
He hesitated a second before taking her hand. His was warm and a bit clammy. "Devan McNally." He gave her a firm handshake and let go. "Did you want to come in and see?"
She schooled her features into the proper look of appreciation, even though she couldn't believe her luck. This guy was a sucker, and given the look of his car and his clothing, there was no way he was a buyer. "Yes, if you don't mind? I lost my husband a year ago and I was being nostalgic."
He stepped aside to let her in, then closed and locked the door behind them. "Sorry—I'm not a crazy lunatic or anything, but this neighborhood went downhill pretty fast and the guys at the bank told me to make sure I locked all the doors and windows while I was here. Oh, and to keep an eye on my car."
That was all interesting news, and given with little prompting. "So…the bank owns this property now?" She moved to the farthest wall, the one separating this store from the one next door. A fire wall and the tomb of a wicked lady. The old shelves were still there, along with the mirror between them. Nothing had been disturbed.
Yet.
Mr. McNally moved to the bar. An expensive-looking camera sat near a black bag. He had one of those tablets in his hand and was moving his finger over the surface. "Yeah," he said absently. "They own all three of these units now and they're looking to sell." He nodded to the For Sale on the window.
