A Lullaby in the Dark

by Billie Reece

  His car door opens and brown oxfords appear first, followed by a three-piece navy suit and burgundy tie. Always the snazzy dresser, my foster father. Wearing his usual gray flat cap, he takes his silver shades off and places them on the dash, before closing the door and crossing over to me.

  “Caroline,” he greets me with a nod and polite smile like it was just yesterday we saw each other and not three months.

  I return the greeting, “Vincent.”

  Taking his cap off, he slides long fingers over his clean-shaven head and, not for the first time, I wonder what he would look like with hair. But not Vincent, not once has he ever sported bristle on his cheeks or head.

  He glances at the little farm house my boyfriend, Fallon, and I are renting. All around us span acres and acres of isolated Tennessee land. In the distance on a hill sits the home of the woman who owns this place—Suzi Derringer. Good people, as my grandpa used to say.

  “I hope you’re getting out,” Vincent says. “I know it’s not easy for you to be social.”

  I nod, even though I’m not getting out. I prefer my own company. Or Suzi’s. Or Fallon’s. Or the multitude of dead people sitting in files on my desk. Cold cases I haven’t looked at in months.

  “Classes going good?” He asks.

  “Yes.” Truth is I’m looking forward to graduating and taking a break. But he wants me to roll right into a master’s program. A master’s in criminal psychology will take you much further than a bachelor’s. Words he has said to me entirely too many times.

  “I saw one of your professors at a conference last week. He couldn’t stop talking about your talent. About your ability to understand and empathize with sociopaths. ‘Like nothing I’ve ever seen,’ he said.”

  “I’d call it more an unwanted and active imagination.” Brought on by things better left in the past. But I don’t say this and instead smile. “Now why are you really here? It’s not to talk about my classes, I’m sure.”

  Propping his loafer on my porch, he leans in. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “I know we agreed you needed a break but you’re going to want in on this one.”

  With a sigh, I shake my head. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “Caroline, we think it might be cannibalism.”

  A stillness settles through my body and for several long moments I don’t move. I don’t respond. He knows cannibalism is the absolute only thing that would draw me back in.

  Reaching into his inside suit pocket, he pulls out a series of documents folded lengthwise and hands them to me. Turning away, he takes a seat on the porch steps and I open the papers.

  Three girls from three different private schools abducted in the past three months. Abducted as in no bodies, except for the third one found returned to her dorm room, dead, portions of her organs removed and then put back in.

  “Why is Detective Uzzo linking them?”

  “They may not be but the private school connection had her drawing some preliminary connections.”

  “And why do you suspect cannibalism?” I ask.

  “Because unused portions of the organs were returned with traces of seasoning.”

  Might be something ritualistic versus cannibal. Either way, I’m intrigued. I flip a page, looking at each of their pretty smiles. One with blond hair, another brown, another dark. The dark one with her pale skin and light eyes looks close enough to me that we could be sisters.

  I flick the page containing the photos, getting some initial thoughts. “If they are connected, then these are replacements for something that didn’t go right or a reliving of something that did.”

  Vincent shifts to look at me. “And the returned body?”

  “Other than the seasoning on the organs, what does Detective Uzzo have?”

  “It’s a fresh body so not a whole lot. Yet.”

  I shuffle the papers, pulling out the picture of the returned girl. “Why did he return you?” I mumble to the dead girl.

  “He?”

  “Just a pronoun to use until I know more. What about the parents?”

  “We haven’t been able to reach them.”

  I hand Vincent back the papers. He came here to lure me in and he succeeded. I’m officially on board with finding this killer. “Let’s go look at the scene.”

  Two

  It takes us an hour to drive from our town in southeast Tennessee north to the private school where the third girl was found returned to her bed. While Vincent drives, I study the files on the three girls. This one we’re about to see was strangled but, according to the report, it wasn’t the cause of death.

  Three girls. Three different schools. All within an hour drive of our town of Mockingbird, Tennessee. The killer either lives in our town or he’s trying to make it look like he lives in our town.

  “The killer has skills,” I say, zeroing in on the familiar cut marks.

  “Though they are done with a—” I pause, needing a second, “a hunting knife, the cuts have been made with expertise.”

  “Yes, I noted that as well,” he says. “A doctor, a nurse, a mortician—”

  “A hunter, a butcher, a chef.”

  With a nod, Vincent pulls onto campus and winds his way through the brick buildings, eventually pulling into a parking lot. Among the sea of student vehicles and news crews, I pick out Detective Uzzo’s old green and white Chevy truck and a couple of cop cars but I don’t see the white CSI van and assume they’ve come and gone.

  Zipping up my white windbreaker, I keep my head ducked, hoping the news crews don’t catch sight of me. Luckily, they don’t as I exit the vehicle and follow Vincent into the dorm. Girls crowd the lobby, some crying, some standing blank in shock, and yet others are on their phones chatting like a girl wasn’t found dead right here earlier this morning.

  We head through the lobby, ducking under crime scene tape and stepping into the now empty dormitory hall. Two cops stand guard and Vincent shows them his official ID, saying, “She’s with me.”

  They step aside and we walk toward a door where Detective Uzzo stands.

  Tall with thick gray hair and matching thick gray-framed glasses, Uzzo lifts her tired gaze to watch us walk toward her. We come to a stop at the eighth door on the left, a single unit like most seniors have.

  “Dr. DeMurr, Caroline,” Detective Uzzo greets us. “Thanks for coming.” She steps aside. “The team has combed it and already removed the body, so you’re free to walk in.”

  Already removed the body. That’s not normally the case but Uzzo knew I was coming. Uzzo knows I can’t handle the actual bodies. It’s too much for me. It’s what sent me toward the nervous breakdown I had three months ago. For now, I’ll do just fine with crime scene photos.

  Still, I eye the open door warily before sliding past Uzzo and stepping inside. Afternoon light from the window streaks across the floor over to the empty bed to light up the spot where the girl’s body was found. I stand just inside the door, immediately noting the first-floor window is open.

  “Take as long as you want,” Vincent quietly says allowing me some space.

  Knowing I’ll have a headache afterward, I pull prescription capsules from my front jeans pocket and swallow two dry. I need to remember to bring water with me to these things.

  Crossing the room to the window, I inhale the fresh winter air cleansing the smell of death from my senses. Then taking another breath, I exhale through my mouth and close my eyes.

  In my mind I bring up the picture of the body that Vincent showed me, dressed in a long sleeping tee and laying face up on top of the comforter, as if she were about to crawl under and go to bed. All sounds dull, replaced by the steady thump-thump-thump of my heart.

  I become the abductor, standing outside the window peering in. The campus is dark and quiet, most gone home for the weekend. Opening the unlocked window, I crawl through and I stand by her bed, staring down at her sleeping body.

  Then I move, lightening quick, and my ha
nds go around her throat. I squeeze, sudden and violent, knowing the adrenaline will shoot epinephrine through her body, richening the taste. The girl startles out of sleep, struggling, her face swelling with bursting capillaries that spread into the whites of her eyes. She tries to scream but it comes out as a croak instead and I continue my grip until she passes out. I don’t want her dead though, the organs are better when you take them out of a live body. So I release her throat and take a step back.

  My throat involuntarily opens and I gasp for a breath as I come back to the here and now, staring down at the spot where the body was found. My gasp brings in a new scent—honey, sweet and rich—and my stomach muscles clench. “Did the killer treat the wounds?”

  Vincent and Detective Uzzo step into the room, ready. “Yes, with honey and charcoal.”

  Exactly what I was treated with.

  Vincent hands me a homemade cookie that he pulls from his suit pocket. “Please eat this. I saw you take pills and you’re not the best about putting food in your stomach.”

  He’s once again got his foster-father cap on so I appease him as I peel back the plastic wrap and take a bite.

  He gives me a few seconds to eat and swallow before asking, “Why return her? Why not just dispose of the body?”

  Detective Uzzo moves closer to the bed studying the stained sheets. “Because the killer wants to be caught.”

  I nod but I think it’s more the person who returned the body wants the killer to be caught. I don’t say that though, because I’m not entirely sure and I don’t want to muddle things.

  With a sigh, Uzzo looks between us. “You should know the press is already dubbing this killer with a name. The Organ Ripper.” Turning, she strolls from the room. “I need to go make a statement.”

  Turning away from the bloody bed, I look up at Vincent and he reads my mind when he says, “Honey and charcoal.”

  With a nod, I press my fingers to that spot above my left brow that aches as a memory floats in…

  Our captor grips Annabelle’s head, a hunting knife poised at her neck, staring at me over her head. My sister struggles against his hold and my heart lurches as a prick of blood trickles from her skin.

  “Run,” she whispers.

  “Do that,” he speaks, “and I will remove her organs one by one, all while I keep her alive.”

  Her scent wafts across on a breeze, honey coating her raw skin, heavier than usual with her fear and sweat.

  I could run. I could get away. But I don’t. I won’t leave my sister.

  Three

  When we were babies, Annabelle walked before me. But I was the first to speak. I was also the first to read. While Annabelle was out running the farm, fishing and chasing goats, I would be on the porch reading.

  When I was two, I asked my dad to read me the dictionary and every night we would cuddle in his big brown chair, him reading while my head lolled on his chest as my eyes followed the words. It didn’t take long before I started saying the words ahead of him and my parents knew there was something different about me.

  When I was four, my mom found me in the yard with my grandfather’s sextant measuring the angle between the moon and the horizon. When she asked me where I learned to do that, I told her I read about it in one of my grandfather’s encyclopedias.

  When I was six, I stopped going to school with Annabelle and started attending an academy for the gifted. The first few days were scary but, after that, I couldn’t wait to come home and tell Annabelle about all the stuff I was learning.

  Grinning, she’d always say the same thing. “Caroline, I wish I was as smart as you.”

  “You are smart!”

  “Yes, but one day you’re going to be famous smart. You wait and see.”

  Those words go through my mind as I stand in my shower, letting the hot water stream down my neck and back. At the time I thought I would be “famous smart” like my grandfather in a mathematical or scientific field. The only thing I’m “famous” for is my ability to crawl into the mind of a killer. It’s not a famous I want but one destiny has slapped me with.

  I left the vent off and the steam rises and collects around me. As it does, the air around me shifts and I’m no longer here in the shower. I’m there in the woods where he kept us.

  I see him, our captor, walking toward me through the fog, his face obscured by the hood he always wore. A new girl lays lifeless across his arms and I look away. I can’t watch what’s about to happen. He whistles, just those three slow eerie notes he always did, and they carry through the mist.

  Shaking my head, I force myself back to the here and now as I shut the water off and grab a towel. After drying off, I pull on long plaid pajamas and then I go through my nightly ritual of checking every door and window before setting the alarm. Fallon will be back tomorrow from a research trip he took with his forensic science professor and a few other students. I sleep better when he’s here.

  Zane, Fallon’s elderly mixed-breed Great Dane, lumbers in from the living room, heading straight over to his giant memory foam bed that lays in the corner. He turns exactly one circle and then eases down into the lamb’s wool with a groan. At nine years old, he’s defying a big dog’s life span and I’m sure it has everything to do with the mixture of breeds running in his blood.

  Petal, my gray cat, is already curled on our bed waiting for me in her usual spot right smack dab in the center of the left side of the bed, the side I always sleep on. I found her last year alongside the road, matted, starving and huddled up hiding in a clump of flowers. We adopted each other and here we are.

  I pull the white comforter back and slide in between the purple striped sheets, my legs circling around Petal’s plump body. For a few seconds, I watch the tree shadows cast by the moon stretching along the walls of my bedroom, swaying slightly with the chilly night breeze. I glance at the digital readout on my clock. 11:23 p.m.

  With a heavy sigh, I close my eyes, already feeling the weighted pull of sleep.

  Another person’s breathing fills the room and my eyes flick back open. I take and hold a breath, listening, wondering if I’m hearing things—but there it is again, another person’s breath.

  Turning my head, I see the girl from earlier lying beside me, still alive and breathing. I’m used to this. I’m used to seeing the victims of the killers that I hunt.

  I reach out to touch her and her body shifts and stretches, lifting off the mattress. Blood seeps from everywhere, darkening her white oversized tee, and as her body gets sucked into the darkness, her face slowly becomes my sister’s.

  She’s huddled in the darkness where our captor kept us and I’m right there beside her. Something to the right scurries and I lunge. There’s a squeak, a snap and then a rip. I swallow and what little saliva I have coats the inside of my cheeks.

  Sliding back over, I give my sister her portion of whatever it is I just killed. Together we rip into it, slurping and eating the blood and raw meat and sucking the bones dry. From the weight, size and the fine hair, I can tell it’s a small mouse.

  The first time we did this, we both threw up afterwards. Now, neither of us even gags and the hungry acid in our stomachs settle.

  For now.

  With a jolt, I shoot straight up in bed, zooming back to the here and now. Annabelle. It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare. I’m used to getting them. I expect them, especially when I’m helping with a case. Except…

  They’ve never once involved my sister. She visits me in my dreams and she’s always in my thoughts but she’s never once mingled with a dead person from a case.

  Not once.

  This is the first cannibalism case I’ve worked on though, my mind must be making connections. That has to be it.

  Four

  The next morning I’m on my front porch sipping coffee, idly watching the birds zip and zing around the feeder that Suzi Derringer hung. She sits beside me knitting tiny booties for her granddaughter. Beyond her in the distance on the hill sits her multi-leveled brick and
wood farm house. Between our two homes runs a narrow trail that she walks every morning to join me.

  Fallon has lived here going on a year now and me three months. I moved in right after my nervous breakdown, soon after that Suzi began wandering over. I had, of course, met her several times when I visited Fallon but it wasn’t until I moved in that we began our morning ritual.

  Yes, I’ve gotten used to my morning front porch time with Suzi as I sit quietly taking in the scenery and she sits quietly knitting. It reminds me of all the times Rachel, my foster mom, and I used to sit on her and Vincent’s porch. Which is exactly why I let Suzi lead the conversations and am careful with what I say. I don’t want to unsettle Suzi. I don’t want to run her off.

  Like I did Rachel.

  Fallon and I spent our childhood years together in Vincent and Rachel’s home. Fallon started talking about moving away together years ago but I didn’t feel right leaving Vincent all alone in his huge home up on the mountain, especially with Rachel gone.

  It was Suzi actually, who encouraged me to do it. “Vincent will be fine,” Suzi had said. “Be brave. Be strong. Be independent. Don’t be afraid to make decisions for yourself. You owe Vincent nothing and I’m sure he would agree with that. He took you and Fallon in because he wanted to. Not because he felt you owed him something. Just like my children owe me nothing but love. If you want to move in here with Fallon, then do. Tragedy brought you two together. Now let love move you forward. Enjoy being together. You deserve happiness.”

  It was those words that prompted me to have the difficult conversation with Vincent. A conversation that went surprisingly well. Or perhaps Vincent made me think it went well.

  “I hear you’re helping Vincent with a case,” Suzi says, bringing me from my thoughts.