by Kylie Brant
Contents
Title Page
Books by Kylie Brant
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Coming Soon
Touching Evil
Book 2, The Circle of Evil Trilogy
By Kylie Brant
Also by Kylie Brant
Chasing Evil
Published by Kylie Brant
Copyright 2013 by Kylie Brant
Cover art by Middle Child Marketing, LLC
Cover photo by r.nial.bradshaw
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].
All characters in this book are fictional.
www.kyliebrant.com
For John - the one I live with, laugh with and love.
Acknowledgements:
Writing can be a very solitary pursuit. Until, that is, the author needs some expertise with research. As it happens, this author tends to veer in directions I know very little about, so I’m always grateful for people who spring to my rescue when I send out a frantic email ☺.
Special thanks once again to John Graham, ex-narc extraordinaire, for all things DCI-related — the details are always a tremendous help; to Jim Peters, Founder, STAR 1 Search and Rescue (1993), Ames, Iowa, and his German Shepherd, Rocky — a special note of appreciation for the fascinating information regarding cadaver dogs; and to Chris Herndon, Death Investigation Consultant for the intriguing details for my corpse-riddled plot. I am in your debt.
As always, any errors were mine alone.
Prologue
“I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m really, really sorry.”
He stared at her in the darkened room, his heart thudding hard enough to jump right out of his chest. Mommy didn’t say anything. Just stared and stared, with mean on her face. In her eyes.
Dread prickled over his skin. The words tumbled from his lips. “I didn’t leave my baseball glove at the park on purpose. But I could go find it now, I bet. Can I, Mommy? Can I ride my bike to the park and get it? I’ll be right back. Promise.”
But Mommy didn’t answer. And his stomach sank down to his toes. He was only five, but he already knew what it meant when she looked at him like that.
Other mommies gave hugs and kisses. He saw them in the park sometimes with their kids. They smiled and laughed and if they got mad their voices got high and sharp. Quiet was worse. Way worse. Quiet meant Mommy was going to open his bedroom door and let a monster into his room again. A monster that was big and smelled bad. A monster that was going to hurt him in his private places and make him scream and scream and scream.
He ran to hide in his bedroom closet, but Mommy got there first. She stood in front of the door and folded her arms, still staring.
So he turned and ran toward his bed. Crawled under it, quick as a bunny. Curled up in a little ball and continued to shake.
He could no longer see Mommy’s face. Only her feet, and part of her jeans. “Hey, Curt!” she called out. “Come meet my son.”
His shorts got wet and pee trickled down his legs to puddle on the cracked linoleum floor beneath him. Heavy footsteps clomped down the hallway. Paused at his door.
The monster.
As the door began to creak open, Mommy walked to the bed. Crouched way down to smile at him. An awful, terrible smile. And in that instant he realized that Mommy was a monster, too.
And someday she was going to have to die.
Chapter 1
“C’mon, Jonah. Don’t be such a wimp.”
“You try carrying a pony keg on your shoulder. Through the woods. At night.” Jonah Davis puffed as he stumbled on the winding path. Branches of scrub bushes scratched at his arms and snagged on his jeans. How the hell had he gotten stuck doing all the work while Spencer Pals got to help Trina Adams over every fallen branch, and around each tangle of brambles?
’Cuz Jonah had been a dumbass. He’d figured to impress Trina by being all macho and shit. Yeah, she was going to be real impressed about the time he fell over of a heart attack and the keg knocked her on her fine little ass.
She turned, flashlight in her hand to give him a melting look. “Are you sure you’re okay, Jonah? You should make Spencer take a turn. That’s so heavy.”
His chest swelled. “I’ve got it. You just watch out for Spence. He thinks these woods are haunted. He’s liable to piss himself if he hears a noise.”
“Fuck you,” Spence said.
She gave a tinkling laugh, and the sound of it went straight to Jonah’s groin. Before today Trina Adams had never so much as glanced his way in the hallways of Valley High, but there was nothing like the promise of a kegger to help people make friends. He’d looked at her, though. He’d looked plenty. She was Jennifer Lawrence hot with a smokin’ body that would look even finer under his.
Before the night was over he was going to know that from personal experience. Sometime after this keg was gone and she was feeling awfully friendly toward the guy who’d carried the damn thing the whole way.
“Sh-h.” Spence threw out an arm to stop Trina from going any further. Probably copped a feel while he was at it, too. He was that type of guy. “I think I heard something.”
“Here we go.” But Jonah was none too sorry to put the pony keg down. Even if they hadn’t yet reached their usual party spot. “Is it a ghost, Spence? Or maybe a zombie.” In an aside to Trina, he said, “You should see Spence in the morning. He looks like an extra from the cast of The Walking Dead.”
She laughed again and his dick took a bow. Thank God she couldn’t see how damn happy she made his pants.
“Listen Hulk, there’s someone up ahead.”
Jonah shot Spence a glare. He hated that nickname. But then he heard the noise, too. Voices too distant to really make out.
“You think the others beat us here?” he asked doubtfully. The spot next to the Raccoon River had always been his favorite spot for keggers. But not everyone coming tonight knew where it was. He’d had to send out maps.
“I don’t see how.”
Trina handed the flashlight to Spence. “Whoever it is, let’s sneak up and scare them.”
“Okay. Be vewwy, vewwy quiet.”
She muffled a laugh at Spence’s stupid cartoon character imitation, and the two of them went off. Neither waited for Jonah to wrestle the keg to his shoulder again, and nearly have cardiac arrest doing it.
Somehow this wasn’t going at all like he’d planned.
By the time he caught up with them the sweat was snaking down his back. Even the back of his shorts was wet beneath the jeans. He made a grimace of distaste. Butt sweat was really the worst.
Twin shushing sounds came from Spence and Trina. Since they were crouched down behind a rock he set the damn keg down. Again. His muscles quivered with relief. But they could have picked a better spot. The place reeked. Like an animal had died n
earby.
His flare of annoyance vanished when Trina reached up to grab his hand and yanked him down beside her behind the huge boulder. “You won’t believe this. There’s a couple down there making out. And the guy’s like…old.”
“Not old-old,” Spencer corrected in a whisper. “But like Halston’s age.”
Trina smothered a giggle with one hand clapped over her mouth. “What if it is Mr. Halston?” She and Spence snorted with laughter.
Jonah craned his neck to see. Halston was one of the gym teachers and an okay guy. And he wasn’t old. Not really. Maybe Jonah’s mom’s age. Forty, or so. But Halston was married. And Jonah couldn’t see any married guy boning on the banks of the Raccoon River. What would be the point when a couple had a house and a bedroom where they could bump uglies?
The place Trina and Spence had chosen wasn’t the greatest vantage point. They were well-hidden behind the jutting rock from the people yards below them. But they also couldn’t see shit. Jonah moved further away from Trina so that he could peer around the edge of the rock.
They could hear just fine, though. Not so much from the woman, but the guy. He seemed to be doing most of the talking.
“This will have to be the last time together like this. I know, I know. I feel it, too. Shush. Darling, are you crying? Don’t cry.” The guy touched the woman’s face, but Jonah couldn’t really see her well in the darkness. It didn’t really matter, though. The stars were bright enough that he could occasionally get a glimpse of bare skin.
It was enough to have his stiffie standing at attention.
“Don’t cry. We still have tonight. One more time. Our favorite way.”
Jonah’s eyes about bugged out of his head when the man turned the woman over. Was the guy going to do her up the ass? Oh man, this was better than a porno flick. Far better than Cracked Rear Entry, the DVD Spence had filched from his dad’s collection.
“Get ready.”
Jonah pulled his head back to protest. “No, man. Let them finish. I hate to interrupt a guy in the middle of getting some.” That should be written in the man rules or something. It just seemed wrong. Unless it was that creepy Roland Ott, who’d been trying to get in Jonah’s mom’s pants for weeks. Jonah would interrupt that as much as possible.
But there was no talking to Spence and Trina. “On three, okay? One, two…” The two stood up, shining the flashlight down on the couple, screeching, “Get a room, already! Zip it back up, Daddy Long Leg!”
That last was from Spence, because, well, he was an idiot. But not to miss out, Jonah rose too, hoping for a better glimpse of the naked woman.
The man jumped, yanking his pants up, grabbing at something on the ground. “Fucking little bastards! I’ll kill you!” He started for the rocky incline toward them, and Spence screeched like a girl.
“Gun!”
Trina caught the woman in the flashlight beam then and shrieked like she’d seen an ax murderer. Jonah grabbed the light to steady it, because the woman was just lying there. Maybe the guy had drugged her or something.
But then he screamed, too, every bit as high and girlish as Spence had.
Because the female on the ground was more zombie than woman. She was all bloated and leathery looking, and he had a sudden flash of comprehension about the source of the smell.
The woman was dead.
“Run!” Dropping the flashlight, he grabbed Trina by the arm and yanked her along. Back into the woods. Crashing through the brush. Leaping over downed limbs. Brushing aside branches. They ran until they got to the road. Where Spence already had the car running and ready.
Jonah pulled open the back door and shoved Trina inside. There was the sound of a gunshot. Then another. The guy was screaming something, but Jonah wasn’t waiting around to listen. He leaped into the car, sprawling on top of Trina. “Go!” Spence took off, leaving the maniac behind.
And leaving the zombie woman lying on the banks of the Raccoon River.
* * * *
Division of Criminal Investigation Agent Cam Prescott watched the activity silently. After being alerted by the Dallas County Sheriff, he’d dispatched a crime scene team and had arrived only moments before they did. Generators had been hauled through the woods and down the embankment to power spotlights lighting the area. Criminalists and evidence technicians dotted the inner perimeter and medical examiner personnel surrounded the body.
Foreboding cloaked him, dark and suffocating. Given the jurisdiction, the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s office had first been called to the scene. This victim was likely completely unrelated to the six female bodies they’d discovered buried in rural cemeteries around Des Moines three weeks ago. He badly wanted to believe that. But after they’d found a box this corpse had been kept in and the cave where it had been hidden, he’d alerted the state’s medical examiner’s office, just in case. Cam had been unsurprised to see Lucy Benally arrive.
Cases were assigned at the IOSME on a rotating basis. But Lucy had autopsied the victims in his last case. Cam knew she monitored every call that came into the state ME’s office and would insist on being at the scene. She wasn’t the most senior pathologist on staff. Just the most practiced at throwing her diminutive weight around. Right now that suited him fine. He may often have quibbles with her personality, but she was the best-suited to quickly determine whether this victim was connected to the others they’d found.
Dallas County Sheriff Mort Feinstein detached himself from a cluster of law enforcement personnel and ambled over to him. “I might have broken protocol by calling you personally, but Polk County Sheriff Dusten Jackson is a good friend of mine. Kept me abreast of the details regarding the Vance arrest a few days ago. From what he said, Vance had an accomplice.” He jerked his head to the scene. “Maybe I’m over-reacting but this seemed like a helluva coincidence. Thought you’d want a look at this scene.”
Cam waved away his concern. The call might not have followed the usual channels, but he was glad the sheriff had contacted him. Special Agent in Charge Maria Gonzalez had given him the green light for the response. “Under the circumstances, protocol is the last of my worries.”
Mason Vance was a sadistic sexual deviant he’d arrested just days earlier on eight counts of kidnapping, seven counts of rape and six counts of murder. Dr. Sophia Channing, the forensic psychologist consulting on the case had been Vance’s latest kidnap victim. And as Cam watched Benally’s assistants zipping up the body bag he couldn’t shake the thought that Sophie had escaped a similar fate only through sheer guts and cunning. The thought had his gut twisting.
Feinstein slipped his hands in his uniform pants pockets. “This one wasn’t found in a rural cemetery buried on top of a burial vault, but do you think…is it possible she was one of Vance’s victims?”
“I’ll let you know after I talk to the ME.” He looked around. “Where are the kids who reported this?”
“Back at the road, out of the way. The parents are anxious to get them home. I told them to hang around until one of your agents interviewed them. They’re pretty shaken up, but hey, it was a gruesome scene. And they’re kids. The big one, Jonah Davis seems to be the steadiest.” The sheriff grimaced. “Turned away about fifty cars after we’d secured the outer perimeter. Must have had a helluva party planned.”
“I’ll get to them in a few minutes,” Cam promised. First though, he needed to speak to Benally.
“Prescott,” she greeted him without preamble as he approached her. “Somehow it’s not surprising to find you where it’s damp and dark.”
“Ah, the famed Benally wit,” he shot back mildly. “Immature, and yet…not funny.”
“I’m hilarious.” She stood then, nodded to her assistants who lifted the body bag onto a stretcher and began the careful transfer through the woods to the ME vehicle on the road above. “I do stand up comedy in my free time.” She watched the progress of the stretcher until it entered the woods and then switched her focus to Cam. “You want to know if there’s a chance
this one is related to the first six victims.”
But the fact that she’d taken charge of the body already gave him that answer. “Dammit to hell.” He tracked the stretcher’s progress with his gaze until the woods engulfed it. “There were no other missing person’s reports matching Vance’s MO.” The offender had targeted wealthy single women primarily for their looks and bank accounts, and he’d cast a wide net, hunting both in and out of state. Each victim had last been seen withdrawing a large amount of cash from her bank.
The next time the women had been seen was when Benally had extracted them from shallow graves.
“Then this body can’t possibly be related to the others.” Lucy tossed her long dark braid over her shoulder and peeled off her gloves.
Cam gave a mental sigh. “Quit toying with me, Benally. What’d you find?”
She looked up at him. Way up. What the woman lacked in stature she made up for in attitude. Way overcompensated in that area, to Cam’s way of thinking, but she was usually worth the aggravation she caused him.
“I’m going to have to get her in the lab and take a better look,” she began.
Cam was used to the hedging. To the ME, perfectionism wasn’t a character trait, it was an art.
“This body differs from the other six in one significant way.” The woman waited a beat for impact. “It was embalmed.”
The news rocked him. “Embalmed? Are you sure?”
It was the wrong question to ask. Benally’s gaze narrowed. “I’d have to be a moron to miss it. Is that what you’re suggesting, Prescott?”
Suddenly his tie felt too tight. It was a common reaction in the woman’s presence. “It’s just a surprise. None of the other bodies were. So maybe this one isn’t related at all.”
The ME’s face was grim. “That’s what I thought until I turned her over. There are injuries visible on her shoulder that may turn out to be consistent with cigar burns.”
