First Do No Evil: Blood Secrets, Book 1

by Carey Baldwin

  Purse in hand, she exited the car. How was it possible to forget her gloves in this weather? Her phone glowed in her palm. Maybe she’d try Garth one more time. The news about Bella was so good, she could hardly wait to tell him. And if she was being honest, she had to admit it made for an excuse to check up on him. It wasn’t like her brother not to take her calls, and she was beginning to get worried.

  She didn’t want to let her mind wander recklessly, but suspecting that the police considered her their best lead, and knowing that Danny was focused on Garth as his prime suspect, she couldn’t help wondering who would stop the real murderer should he choose this moment to strike again. Hefting her purse, she was comforted by two extra pounds of weight. Courtesy: One loaded Glock.

  Returning her attention to her cell, she tapped her brother’s avatar. A half ring, and then, Garth picked up. Her breath released in a whoosh. Her brother was safe.

  “Is something wrong, Sky? This is the third call in half an hour.”

  She swallowed her irritation. He’d seen her calls; he hadn’t picked up. And she’d made it clear in her voicemails, her call was important. “Where are you? I was beginning to worry.”

  A mysterious clunk sounded on the other end of the line.

  “What was that?” The light on her phone flickered, betraying a tremor in her hands. Ridiculous to jump out of her skin at every unidentified sound. Drawing her elbows close to her side, she steadied her hands.

  “I dropped the phone. I’m a little busy here.”

  She couldn’t recall her brother ever speaking to her in such a dismissive manner. He must be having a terrible day…well, that was about to change. “I’ve got great news. News that will put everything right for you again.”

  “Forgive me if I’m skeptical, but considering the fact that your boyfriend is out to destroy my reputation, that he’s run off to Page to conspire with that liar, Yesinia Martin, I can’t imagine anything you could say that would put things right.”

  Her chest deflated. Garth’s coldness both disappointed and disconcerted her, but, she supposed it was understandable under the circumstances. “It’s about Bella.”

  A crash sounded, and then she heard the clunk of the phone dropping again. When she looked up at Danny’s house, the lamp no longer glowed behind the drapes. Troubled by the thought of Katie sitting in the dark, brooding, she picked her way over the icy sidewalk as quickly as she could, her eyes on the path wending to Danny’s front porch. She heard the sound of electronic feedback, and then Garth’s voice again. “Fucking Christ.”

  Her feet felt unsteady beneath her as she continued up the walk. “Are you okay, Garth? What’s going on?”

  “I knocked over a desk lamp. Banged my ulnar nerve in the process,” he said breathlessly.

  “Is that all? You have no idea how jumpy I am tonight…” Her voice trailed off as she strained to make out a high-pitched background noise. It sounded like a cat mewling or…someone crying. Her heart flipped in her chest. Her brother had yet to tell her what he was doing. “Where are you?”

  “It’s not enough that your boyfriend is investigating me? Now I have to submit to your interrogation as well? Suppose you tell me where you are instead.”

  “I’m at Danny’s place.” She’d just reached it.

  “You can’t be.” His voice was a low, combative growl.

  With some difficulty she managed to keep her own voice composed. “I am. In fact, I’m almost at the door now. So I—”

  “Go home.”

  “I’m already here. I don’t see—”

  With a curt, “Suit yourself,” he cut her off.

  She stopped in her tracks. Looked up at the dark house. Down at her feet. Stomped the snow from her boots. Tried to shake off the ominous feeling that she was in the presence of evil. She looked behind her and to each side, but saw no one.

  “Still there, Sky? Go ahead and tell me your news. I suddenly have all the time in the world.”

  Gulping down a breath of air that transformed her already chilled core into a solid block of ice, she said, “I never should have doubted you. You told me Bella was safe, and as usual you were right.”

  “That’s no news at all. I already know Bella is safe. When you deliver a Christmas package to a child who already knows what’s in the box, you can’t expect him to be surprised.”

  Her shoulders shook beneath her coat. This wasn’t the way she thought this conversation would go. And her brother wasn’t acting himself. Not at all. She kicked away a chunk of filthy hardened slush. “I mean I can prove Bella is safe.”

  “Ah, now, that’s more interesting.”

  Pausing at the front steps, she said, “The women all had West Nile Virus, and their autopsies will prove it.”

  “My, my. You really are intelligent…in some ways. Now that you say West Nile, it’s as plain as your little freckled nose. I should’ve discerned the diagnosis myself. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t change a thing.”

  Phone in hand, she climbed the steps. “It changes everything. And how could you expect to know the women had West Nile? You haven’t seen the files…” By the end, her voice had altered to a hoarse whisper.

  I should’ve discerned the diagnosis myself.

  With a shaky hand, she pressed her finger to the doorbell. The chime reverberated and magnified and echoed…the sound seeming to come from all around.

  It was transmitting back to her through her telephone receiver.

  Hard, suffocating waves of nausea left her gasping for air, and her cell landed in a snow drift with a soft mush. She looked at her empty hand, flexed it, trying to relieve the numbness. Her palm looked oddly white with the blood drained from it. She tightened it into a fist.

  She was breathing rough and fast, yet her lungs remained empty, aching. She felt like she was drowning, and perhaps she really was because horrifying images began to float before her eyes: Edmond’s skull blasting apart. She saw Nevaeh… Dear God. And then a shadow figure dancing and laughing behind a wall of black water. She couldn’t see the laughing man’s face.

  But she knew.

  It was him.

  The front door opened.

  Every muscle in her body strained to attention.

  Katie stood in the threshold, shaking, strands of hair matted against her swollen, tear-stained cheeks. She looked frail and sweet in a pair of Levis and a white cashmere sweater decorated with tiny blue flowers—pretty flowers that reminded Sky of her mother’s china. Katie’s lips were glossed in feminine pink. She wore gold hoop earrings, and around her neck… a spiked dog collar.

  Sky grabbed her Glock.

  Katie’s stance blocked her way into the home’s dark interior.

  She couldn’t point the gun ahead of her, so she aimed the muzzle straight up, toward the wolf moon.

  From behind Katie, an arm darted out and up and pinched the nerves in Sky’s wrist.

  Involuntarily, her grip on the Glock loosened.

  Garth slid the gun from her hand, and yanked her inside.

  Deputy Sherriff Scotty Humphries was getting damned tired of parking his butt in Corrine’s Jeep. It was fucking cold tonight, and the new car smell was giving him a migraine. His gaze fell to his wrist. Eight thirty-five and still no word from Danny. He wasn’t going to make it home by nine after all. Willing his cell to ring, he gave it the evil eye.

  It rang.

  He ought to try the evil eye routine more often. “Benson, where the hell are you?”

  “Is Sky safe?” Danny’s voice cut in and out through static. He must be driving through an area with sketchy reception.

  “Yeah. I got eyeballs on her right now. You got an ETA? My boys are frozen solid.” That was the damn truth, but more importantly, he wanted to get home and patch things up with Corrine.

  “Forget your boys. You gotta stay on Sky. Where is she?”

  “On your front porch. Where are you?”

  “Sky’s at my place? That’s great.”

  Even t
hrough the static, Scotty heard the surprise in Danny’s voice.

  “Do not take your eyes off her, and do not, under any circumstances let her go back to her place. It’s her brother.”

  Moving the phone off his ear, Scotty turned it over in his hand and stared at it. Then he put it back to his ear. “Say again.”

  “Garth Novak murdered Nevaeh Flores.”

  “I know you don’t like the guy, Danny, but fuck, you got any hard evidence? ‘Cause if this is just your gut talking, if you don’t have the goods…”

  “I have the goods all right. What I don’t have is time to explain. I’ll fill you in when I get back.”

  “When did you leave Page?”

  “Right now.”

  “You’re still two damn hours away.”

  “Not tonight I’m not.”

  “Shit. Try to get here in one piece, then. The roads are crap. I’ll keep a lock on Sky until you get back. Captain know about this?”

  “Yeah…I don’t understand what Sky’s doing at my place.” Danny’s voice, turned raw. The combination of anguish and hope in the man’s tone left no doubt about the way he felt about Sky. Danny was in love.

  A lumpy thickness filled the back of Scotty’s throat. He coughed it off. Benson was a good man…maybe even good enough for Sky. With his free hand, Scotty squeezed the binoculars against his eyes. “Looks like she’s talking to Katie.”

  Holy mother of God.

  With adrenaline roaring hot and fast through his blood stream, Scotty dropped the binoculars. He slammed his shoulder against the door and leapt from the car. He took a split second to wheeze into the phone before he dropped it, “Garth! Need backup!”

  Scotty’s words delivered a sucker punch to Danny’s solar plexus. Doubling over, he groaned, then his chest froze, and he couldn’t fill his lungs. The phone dropped from his hand, and with a jerk of his arm, his Mustang swerved onto the shoulder of the road. Amid gravel pinging and tires squealing, the words kept grinding in his ears. His nostrils flared, but his respiratory muscles remained paralyzed. Unbridled fear sucked his lungs down to airless bags and revved his heart into overdrive. His brain, however, kicked into autopilot, and began to issue calm, emergency commands.

  Pump the brake. Good.

  Again. That’s it.

  His Mustang lurched to a stop.

  Now, stop sucking air. Blow out hard.

  His diaphragm jolted, and he coughed. He could smell exhaust. As his lungs expanded, he grunted in relief.

  Pull it together.

  He grabbed his phone and speed-dialed the precinct.

  In this moment, Katie didn’t need a panicked father any more than Sky needed a frantic lover.

  What they both needed was a cop.

  Lucky thing he was a damn good one.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Funny how regret can carry you forward and backwards at the same time. As Scotty burst through the door into the darkened room he knew. He knew that what would’ve happened fifteen years ago, had he followed Sky into her house that Halloween night, was going to unfold right here and now. This time he would protect her. This time he would fulfill his destiny. This time he would have no regrets.

  Crossing his chest, he swore to God he was going to live to take that trip to the Big Island with Corrine.

  Elbows locked, pistol pointing straight into a black hole, he crouched. “Police! Freeze!”

  His words fired back at him like a hollow point bullet to the brain. It killed him to have to warn the murdering bastard. That never worked.

  His thighs trembled. His pupils opened to the ambient light, and as the curtain of darkness slowly lifted, the scene before him was illuminated, and he saw just how futile his command had been.

  Sky lay prone on the floor, arms spread wide. One of her wrists bent upwards, stretching out to hold hands with Katie who was curled in a kitten ball by her side.

  Novak towered over the girls. He slammed a boot onto his sister’s back and used the barrel of a pistol to raise Katie’s chin. Then he rotated his head a few inches right. A sneer lifted his cheek and stopped halfway, where the darkness sliced off the remainder of his profile.

  Scotty’s grip tightened around the cold butt of his gun. “Drop your weapon and step away from the women!”

  Garth pushed his pistol higher, and the veins in Katie’s neck bulged beneath a tight leather collar. A rusted chain dangling from the collar’s clasp made a metallic scratching noise with her every movement.

  Scotty could count Katie’s breaths by that scratching.

  “I don’t recall sending you an invitation to the party, Scotty, but since we’re all old friends here…welcome. I’m glad you could join us.” Novak leaned forward adding weight to the boot on Sky’s back. “What about you, little sister? Aren’t you glad to see your old beau?”

  The scratching sounds disappeared. Katie must be holding her breath. Scotty filled his lungs deep, wishing he could breathe for Katie too, and his lungs started to spasm. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d needed his inhaler. But he needed it now.

  Sky raised her head and made eye contact with Novak. In an eerily steady, almost soothing voice, she addressed her brother, “Put down the gun. You don’t want to do this.”

  Novak’s sneer curled the corners of his mouth. “Sure I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because you’re my brother. And…” a vibrato of emotion rang through her voice, “…and no matter what you’ve done, I’m still your sister.”

  Scotty’s lungs stopped seizing, and he gasped in exquisite relief.

  “Touching. But not relevant,” came Garth’s mechanical reply.

  Psychopathic bastard didn’t have a heart or a soul. No use trying to appeal to his human side—he didn’t have one. But if Scotty could somehow goad Novak into aiming his gun away from Katie, and toward him instead, he could get a round off. It would surely cost him his life, but at least he might save the girls. “Hey asshole, talk to me, not her. I got a bullet with your name on it.”

  “And I got a Glock on a little girl. So you do your own arithmetic. But by my calculations, you’re not the one in charge.” Then with the stone cold nerve of a grave digger, Novak said, “Now suppose you drop your weapon, and I let one of the girls live.”

  Pointlessly, Scotty searched the room for cover. He couldn’t make a move unless Novak turned and aimed at him. Novak bumped the barrel of his pistol on the underside of Katie’s chin, and the sound of metal against bone obscenely intruded on the taut silence in the room.

  It was sickening, to have to watch and to have to listen. But that was exactly what Scotty had to do. Reacting with the disgust and rage he felt, would only play into Novak’s hand, maybe push him into escalating violence. He made his voice all business. “Look me in the eyes, and let’s talk about this man to man.”

  Novak kept his gun beneath Katie’s chin. He was too smart not to. “Man to man, then. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

  “You’ve been waiting a long time for what? Tell me exactly what you need to let the girls go, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’ve been waiting a long time to give you exactly what you deserve.”

  Scotty scrambled to decode this statement and failed. He didn’t know what the hell crazy idea Novak had in his head. They’d known each other since school, and far as Scotty knew, they’d never been enemies. He’d never done any harm to the man. At least not that he recalled. “I’m sure sorry for… I’m sure sorry. But let’s not let personal animosity get in the way of you and me making a deal. Just tell me what you need to let the girls go.”

  “You’re sorry you fucked my sister? That’s a bit insulting, don’t you think.”

  “Whoa. I didn’t fu— I didn’t touch Sky.” He heard scratching and sobs, and glanced over at Katie. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay.”

  Once again, Sky tried to intervene. “Let them go, Garth. You can keep me as hostage. I’ll go anywhere with you. I’ll
stand by you. But please…just please don’t hurt anyone else.”

  Garth ground his boot heel deeper into Sky’s back. “Not another word, Sky. Not unless you want me to lose my patience altogether. And I promise you, if I do lose my patience, it won’t be good for Katie.” Keeping his gun beneath Katie’s chin, he rotated his face ever so slightly in Scotty’s direction. “Well isn’t that sweet. My whore of a sister is begging me for your life. If she doesn’t want me to kill you, she shouldn’t be fucking you.”

  “What the hell—”

  “Drop the innocent act. I saw the two of you balling in the back of your dad’s Impala.”

  High school. But this guy was talking like it was yesterday. “That was a long time ago. We were just kids.”

  Scotty could tell by his roving eye movements that Novak was becoming disoriented. He wanted to nudge Garth back to the present. Only thing worse than a motherfucker with a gun was a crazy motherfucker with a gun. “I’m sorry. I wish I could go back in time.” He put a hard emphasis on the words, hoping to anchor Garth to reality. “And undo that mistake.” That wasn’t true. But this next part was, and he hoped Sky would know which was which. They had dated a full year. She was the first woman he’d ever been with in that intimate way, and he’d never even told her… “I loved her.”

  Garth bared his teeth like a rabid skunk.

  “But I never deserved her.”

  Garth nodded.

  Okay, they’d found common ground. They both agreed that Sky was too good for Scotty. “Maybe we could get back to the present. Just tell me what you need.”

  Garth’s eyeballs seemed to vibrate as he jerked them back and forth around the room. “You’ve got nothing I need. And if you did, I’d simply take it. Drop your weapon and kick it across the floor.”

  Scotty might not be an egghead like Garth, but he was no Barney Fife either. If he relinquished his weapon, he’d have no leverage. And disoriented or not, Novak was goddamn smart enough to know that. If Scotty agreed to drop his gun, Garth would see right through him. He’d know he was being played. And if he thought he was being played, he’d kill them all.