A Lullaby in the Dark

by Billie Reece

  Someone said they thought they heard an ATV.

  Caroline stood still.

  Closing her eyes, she listened. She felt.

  The wind kicked up, coating her face with a chill. A winter chill. Each of The Lullaby Man’s victims was taken in the winter. The scent of fire tinged Caroline’s nostrils. Baby shampoo, too, like what a little girl would smell like. Prickles clawed up Caroline’s neck. The victims weren’t just scared, they were terrified. The sound of a girl’s scream pierced the air and Caroline flinched. She knew that scream. She lived that scream. It’s one full of utter agony.

  Caroline opened her eyes. Yes, one if not all of the victims were here at one point.

  Taking her phone, she snapped off a few pictures of the tire tracks and of the home. She walked the rest, rounding back to the front.

  It was as she walked back to her Mini-Cooper that she heard it. A child’s whimper. She turned, staring at the abandoned home. Holding her breath, she listened. There it was again.

  That was very real and right now. That was not in her mind.

  There was a little girl in there. Danielle!

  Caroline didn’t think twice. She took off toward the house.

  Thirty-One

  “I don’t know who paid me to deliver it! Just some guy!” Geet Cafferty yells.

  My palm presses more firmly into her chest. “What. Guy?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Tucker produces a phone with a photo of Fred Xanders. “Does this man look familiar?”

  Geet’s eyes blink. They focus. They unfocus. “I don’t think so. Should he?”

  I take a breath. “You. Tell. Us.”

  Her lips smack. “Nah, he looked different.”

  “Different how?” I ask. “Tall. Short. Fat. Skinny. Bald. Older. Younger. HOW?”

  “Oh! No beard.” Geet frowns, and I can almost see the gears grinding, mucking their way through her mush of a brain. She nods. “Yeah, smooth like mine.”

  Tucker’s radio squawks. “Dispatch to Officer Elder. Are you there Tucker?”

  I nod for him to step away and take the call. While he does that, I snap my fingers in front of Geet’s face. “Your drug-riddled brain better come up with something. Because right now we have your fingerprint on a package that was delivered to Danielle Stevens’s home. In case you haven’t heard, she’s missing.”

  Behind me, Tucker curses.

  “What is it?” I ask, without letting go of Geet.

  He shifts into my view. “It’s my sister.” He hurriedly scrolls through his phone. “Her school says she never showed.”

  “Did you drop her off?”

  “I did. I always drop her on the back corner. She meets her friends there and they walk in together.” Tucker presses his phone to his ear. “Hello, this is Tucker Elder. You’ve been trying to get ahold of me?”

  I jab my finger in Geet’s face. “I’m not finished with you. I suggest you search whatever synapses you have left in that brain and come up with more. Got it?”

  Geet doesn’t nod.

  “Got. It?”

  “Yeah.” She burps.

  I let go of her and turn fully to see Tucker. He listens to whoever is on the other end. Probably the school. “Well, where is she?” he asks, his voice rising.

  Taking Tucker’s arm, I lead him back to the patrol car. I hold out my hand for the keys. “I’m driving.”

  Thirty-Two

  I hold steady, siren screaming as I fly across town.

  Ahead of me, a truck chugs along. Not getting over. I jerk the wheel, swinging out and around. “Don’t people know what a siren means?” I swerve back into the lane. A glance in the rearview shows an old farmer.

  Probably deaf.

  He pulls over then. A little late.

  I gun the engine, roaring down the two-lane road. “Where now?”

  “Across the bridge. Left at the stop sign,” Tucker says.

  Up and over the small bridge we go. Stop sign. Stop sign.

  There!

  I slow just enough to make the turn.

  Tucker sucks in a breath, bracing his arm straight on the dash.

  “Been a bit since I did this,” I say.

  “No kidding,” he hisses. “Right at the Piggly Wiggly.”

  The car ahead pulls over and I sail past. The tires screech as I skid around the turn. “Are you sure she wouldn’t skip school? Go hang out with friends?”

  “She’s eight! Where’s she going to go?”

  “Right.”

  He dials her cell again. “Please pick up,” he mutters. To me, he says, “If she’s not at our house, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Her voice mail picks up and he leaves another desperate message.

  I shoot him a brief sideways glance. “She’ll be there. Don’t worry.”

  To myself, I say a silent prayer. Please God, please let his sister be there.

  I jam my foot on the gas and power the last mile to their house. I skid onto the paved driveway and Tucker’s out and running toward his front door before I have a chance to fully stop the patrol car.

  In the two-story brick home he goes. By the time I park, get out, and walk across the lawn, Tucker’s running back through the front door.

  “She’s not here!”

  I step onto the porch and peer inside. It’s a country-style decorated home with everything in place. Probably belonged to their parents. On the bottom step that leads up to the second story, I spy a pair of little girl running shoes—green with a white logo. To the right sits a dining room with a board game out and partially played. To the left spans a living room with blue and pink flowered couches and ducks on the mantel. Nothing looks disturbed.

  “Does she have a key?” I ask.

  “Of course.” He runs rough fingers through his dark hair. “Where could she be?”

  “We’ll call it in,” I calmly say. “We’ll find her.”

  He nods. “Right. Okay. Okay.” Tucker’s reaching for his walkie when I hear something.

  “Wait.” I hold up a hand. “Listen.”

  On the porch, the two of us fall silent.

  “What is it?” Tucker whispers.

  “In back.” I hurry off the porch with Tucker close behind. We round the two-car attached garage and race the length of the brick home.

  At the gate, I throw the latch and sprint into their freshly mowed back yard. A deck spans the left with a hot tub covered and a grill open. A metal linked fence encompasses the perimeter. Along the back sits a swing set. And a little beyond that crouches a girl digging in the dirt.

  Dressed in jeans and a white windbreaker, her back is to us. She’s got a spade in her hand. She grunts as she plunges the tool into the ground and unearths grass and dirt.

  “Ingrid!” Tucker runs past me.

  The little girl jumps to her feet and whirls around to face us. It’s then that I see it—blood. All down the front of her windbreaker and dripping from the tip of the spade.

  Her big brown eyes widen. She looks up at her brother and then to me slowly approaching. “Am I in trouble?”

  Thirty-Three

  What Caroline Christianson assumed was the front door opened into a kitchen. Or what used to be a kitchen.

  It had been covered in linoleum once but all of that now laid in ripped sections exposing rough wood flooring beneath. Cabinets sat half on/half off their mounts, most rotten and black with mildew. An old porcelain sink tilted in two big chunks. A dead rat occupied the corner, decayed and chewed on by something else. Moss grew up the walls and leaves covered the floor and counters.

  The floor creaked as Caroline quietly moved into the next room.

  Cringing, she buried her face in the crook of her arm. Her eyes watered. Her gag reflex kicked in. What in the hell was she smelling?

  Her eyes traveled around what must have once been a living room. In the stone fireplace laid a dead cat, recently mangled and mistreated. Caroline knew the difference between human cruelty and animal and this cat w
as done by a human.

  Every instinct told her to leave. Something bad was about to happen. But she ignored the instinct. Danielle was here and she needed Caroline to find her.

  Something plopped beside her and Caroline jumped back. A big roach wriggled on its back, its legs bicycling in the air. She looked up to the rotten ceiling, gaping and open to the upstairs.

  Where are you?

  She had to find Danielle before the ATV returned.

  Caroline stood very still, listening, but heard nothing other than the wind. She moved from the living room into a third room, this one smaller. Once upon a time, it might have been a utility room. So far it’s the only room with intact walls.

  She wanted to call out to Danielle but didn’t want to risk her voice carrying on the wind. Didn’t want to risk the man on the ATV hearing her.

  Instead, Caroline stepped back into the living room and stared at the mangled cat. She closed her eyes and with breath held, she listened.

  One second.

  Two.

  Three.

  Caroline’s heartbeat slowed.

  Four.

  Five.

  Six.

  A muted whimper drifted down.

  Her eyes snapped open. Upstairs. Danielle was upstairs.

  Caroline moved quickly from the living room toward the broken stairwell. I’m coming, Danielle. I’m coming.

  Thirty-Four

  “Ingrid, what did you do?” Tucker whispers, carefully approaching his sister.

  Tears fill her eyes and Ingrid shakes her head. “It wasn’t me.”

  I cover the last few steps across their back yard. Stopping a few feet away from the little girl, I eye her bloody clothes. “What wasn’t you?”

  “I found it,” Ingrid says.

  “Found what?” Tucker demands.

  Ingrid jumps at his rough tone. The tears in her eyes well up and over to trail her cheeks. She steps aside and points the bloody spade at the ground.

  A cat lay on the grass next to the hole Ingrid had been digging. Or rather, what’s left of a cat. Fur and flesh had been ripped away to expose meat, bones, and organs.

  Tucker curses.

  “I found it on the grass next to the school,” Ingrid whispers.

  Tucker sucks in a breath. “And you picked it up and carried it all the way here? That’s over a mile! You can’t just pick up dead animals, Ingrid. What were you thinking?”

  Her bottom lip wobbles. Her face turns red. She lowers her gaze.

  Tucker turns to me. His dark brown eyes widen. What the fuck? He mouths.

  Ingrid’s breath hitches. “It was in an accident. I couldn’t leave it. What if someone had left Mom and Dad at their accident?”

  Tucker’s shoulders drop. He kneels in front of Ingrid and wraps his arms around her. The spade drops to the ground and Ingrid buries her face in the crook of her brother’s neck. She sobs.

  Rubbing big circles on her back, Tucker says, “It’s okay, Ingrid. I’m sorry I got upset.”

  I touch his shoulder. “Why don’t you take her inside. I’ll handle this.”

  Ingrid mumbles into her brother, “We need to bury it. When Mom and Dad died, we buried them. We have to bury this cat, too.”

  Leaning down, I pick up the spade. “You’re right. I’ll bury it. I’ll take care of it. You go inside with your brother.”

  Still kneeling in the grass, Tucker glances up at me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  With a nod, he leads Ingrid across the back yard and up the deck to the rear door. Once they disappear inside, I squat down and examine the cat. It could’ve been hit by a car but the wounds are too neat for that. The slices are done with calculation. The broken legs splinter in opposite directions to make a mirror image of the other.

  The head is intact with the cat’s eyes wide and the mouth too. All the damage focused on the body.

  I want to believe it’s a car that did this, but I know it’s not.

  I’ve seen this exact mutilation before.

  Thirty-Five

  Halfway up the stairs, Caroline Christianson paused. Darkness crept in, surrounding her. She took her phone and launched the flashlight app.

  She clutched it, directing it upwards. The beam pushed against the gloom of the second story. Shadows morphed and danced across the walls.

  Each step groaned under her slight weight. She slowed her pace, paying attention to the planks and picking which ones to step onto. Some were busted with holes, giving a shot down to the first floor.

  She made it to the landing.

  Caroline stood, listening, but silence greeted her. Using her phone, she illuminated the upstairs. To the left sat three doors and to the right, three as well. She went right.

  The first door was closed with no knob. She opened it with a nudge and shined her light inside. A bathroom. There was no sink or toilet but a dirty tub sat flush to the wall. In the center of the small room, a jagged hole had collapsed in offering a view to the floor below.

  Caroline turned her attention to the next door. It stood ajar, offering a view of an empty room with worn carpet overtaken by bugs and mildew.

  Her throat tightened with fear. Not her fear, but the fear she felt in the air. Danielle’s fear.

  Her feet scuffed softly across the wood floor. She came to the next door. The fine hairs on her arms shifted. She looked down. Blood. Not fresh but congealed. It had seeped out from under the door. The sight of it jolted her back a step.

  She grasped the knob. Turning it, she pushed. But nothing happened. The door didn’t open. She tried again. Locked.

  No, not locked. She noted the hinges. It opened outward, not inward.

  She opened it then and the smell hit her first. Black and pungent. The smell of death. Her light picked up another dead cat. She directed the beam past the animal to discover a closet, not another room. Her light flicked along the wall and that’s when she saw the bones. A yellow pile of child-sized thin ones tossed carelessly into the corner of the closet.

  Ava Neal.

  A muted whimper filled the air and Caroline spun around. Her gaze darted past the stairwell to the three doors remaining.

  The floorboards squeaked as she crept toward the sound. She eyed each closed door. She was reaching to open the first one when the whimper came again, this time followed by a soft thud. Like a wounded animal.

  Or a child.

  Caroline bypassed the door she was about to open and went to the last one where the sound came from. The hinges told her it opened outward, like the other one. Another closet. She grasped the knob and opened it.

  In the corner, Danielle cowered with a gag in her mouth and her wrists tied behind her back. She stared at Caroline through wide, fear-filled eyes.

  “It’s okay,” Caroline whispered. “I’m here to help.”

  Danielle wheezed against the gag. She yanked her arms and Caroline noticed she was tied to a pipe coming from the floor. The little girl kicked her legs in panic.

  “It’s okay. I’m here to help.” Caroline knelt to untie her wrists and the little girl screamed against the gag. She was about to reassure her again when she noted Danielle’s eyes fixed on something over Caroline’s shoulder.

  A voice filled the air, singing softly. “Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep little baby.”

  But before Caroline could react, something sharp and cold pierced her in the back. Her world splintered in pain.

  Thirty-Six

  I stand at Tucker’s kitchen window staring out at the Smoky Mountains bumping peacefully against the morning horizon. Vibrant colors dot the hills and valleys with spring. A slight fog hovers the peaks. It’ll burn off by noon.

  Their house sits tucked into a valley. At the bottom runs a train and it’s horn echoes through the air.

  I turn away from the window. Ingrid sits at the kitchen island and she quickly glances down. She’s embarrassed she was looking at me.

  In the living room, Tucker paces as he speaks to school
administration. From this side of the conversation, he’s glossing over the fact his little sister carried a dead cat for a mile. I don’t blame him. I’d do the same thing.

  “You doing better?” I ask Ingrid.

  She glances up with the same brown eyes that Tucker has. Mature eyes. She’s growing up too quickly.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asks.

  I smile. “I think we’re all a little crazy. It’s what you do with the crazy that matters.”

  Ingrid frowns.

  “There’s the type of crazy that’s wrong, like kidnapping, stealing, murder, etcetera. Then there’s the type of crazy that’s okay, like skydiving, bungee, hiking a mountain, etcetera.”

  Ingrid picks at her thumbnail, thinking through those words.

  Bracing my palms on the kitchen island, I say, “Ingrid, you tried to do the right thing. There’s nothing crazy about that. Okay?”

  She nods.

  “I mean, did you look crazy with all that cat blood on you?” I shrug. “Sure.”

  Ingrid’s lips twitch. Her gaze lifts to meet mine and we share a smile.

  Tucker comes into the kitchen, pausing when he sees us smiling at each other. “What’s going on?”

  I wink at Ingrid. “Girl stuff.”

  She giggles.

  Tucker gives me a weak smile. “I’m sorry about this. I know we’re on a time crunch with this case.”

  I wave that off. “I can multi-task. I called Lieutenant Gordon. He’s going to bring in Geet Cafferty for follow up on the clean-shaven man who hired her to make the ‘care package’ delivery.”

  “Good.” Tucker holds up his phone. “One more call to my neighbor, Cynthia Hagist. I’m going to see if she can watch Ingrid. I told the school she wouldn’t be coming back today.”

  With that, he walks back into the living room, and I look at Ingrid.

  “Can we talk about the cat?” I ask.

  “Did you bury her?”