Murder in Real Time

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  “Ha! Me? You! You! You!” I nabbed the phone and the screen went black. “What happened? What’d I do?”

  Adrian took the phone back with gentle hands. All his charm and charisma were gone. Deflated. “The battery does that sometimes. I cracked the backing when we fell on the sidewalk last month.”

  “When your office caught fire?”

  “Yeah.”

  He fiddled with the phone and looked at me with sad eyes. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  After a few long breaths, he moved to the door. “Look, I better get going. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. If you don’t, I’ll understand, but please believe I won’t ever touch you like that again.” He lifted his palms as if I might arrest him.

  I nodded and bit back a tear. That thought broke my heart, which just made me mad. He had no business touching me like that, so it shouldn’t matter to me that he wouldn’t.

  The smile felt awkward on my face. “You go ahead without me. I need a minute.”

  He opened the front door without another word. I jogged to his side. “Adrian. Wait.”

  I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed my cheek to his chest. He froze under my touch. Too many emotions boiled in my heart and head. Too many to sort. Too many to process. “I love you.”

  He patted my back and pressed his lips to the top of my head. “Back at you.”

  I wiped my eyes and straightened his jacket before I stained it with mascara and makeup. “Okay. So, we’re cool?” If any two people could get past a little regrettable lingering, it was us. I hoped.

  Adrian’s cocky, lopsided grin returned. “Very.” He turned on slick designer shoes and sauntered down my steps into the night.

  A pint of ice cream churned in my stomach. I needed actual food. And a lobotomy. Kissing Adrian? What was I thinking? I blamed stress and sappy movies and a sugar buzz. Definitely that. Too bad Sebastian would blame me and our romance would implode. Except, there was nothing to tell because it hadn’t been an actual kiss. There had been extremely limited lingering. None, really. A misplaced cheek peck that bounced right off my lips and wasn’t awkward at all. It basically never happened.

  I grabbed my keys and moped across the street to the Tasty Cream. Mrs. Tucker met me at the door.

  “What can I get you, sweetie?” Her round cheeks were dotted with eyeliner freckles. Her red wig was braided into pigtails, standing left and right of her head with the help of some barely visible wire.

  I laughed. “Are you the sign from Wendy’s?”

  Her smile drooped. “I’m Pippi Longstocking. Who are you supposed to be?”

  “I’m Mrs. Davis.”

  A deep belly laugh rumbled and filled the empty room around us. “Well, what can I get you to go with your fabulous new dress?”

  “Salad.”

  Her face crinkled. “Salad? What happened?” She poured a cup of coffee and pushed it my way. “Come on. It’s okay. You can tell Pippi.”

  “I’d rather not talk about it. It’s too horrifying, even for Halloween.”

  I sipped the coffee and enjoyed the scenery. “Monster Mash” played on the speakers overhead. Faux cobwebs hung from everything and family-friendly decorations adorned every surface. Smiling spiders and witches crashing brooms into walls. Mrs. Tucker always made the Tasty Cream feel like an extension of home.

  The bell over the door jingled and Karen Holsten Thompson walked in. So much for feeling at home.

  Her smile faded when she saw me.

  I wiggled my fingers. “Hi.”

  Mrs. Tucker rang Karen up at the register and hoisted a large brown bag onto the counter. The bag was filled to the brim with Styrofoam containers, and grease circles stained the sides. My gaze fell to Karen’s middle, where her fingers lingered on her abdomen. She dropped the protective hand to her side and gave me a dirty look.

  I had a thought. “I don’t suppose you sent me any cupcakes with tiny daggers?”

  She rolled her eyes and left with her ten-pound bag of food.

  I looked at Mrs. Tucker. “She sent me dead birds once. Why not some threatening cupcakes?”

  Oh my goodness. Of course. “Those cupcakes were a warning. A threat.” My bones chilled. “I ate threat cupcakes.”

  Mrs. Tucker wiped a rag over the counter. “Were they any good?”

  “Delicious.” I shivered the thought away. Sebastian and his team had their finger on Jimmy the Judge. The Watchers were leaving in the morning. Midnight was coming up fast. The awfulness of my week would be over soon. Meanwhile, I was safe inside the Tasty Cream with good food and great company. I ate salad and laughed with Mrs. Tucker until my butt fell asleep on the little red stool at her counter.

  The clock on my living room wall said ten-thirty when I opened my front door. Sebastian should’ve called.

  Time to see how things were going at Adrian’s. I pulled my laptop onto my legs and tuned into the live feed from the Halloween party. A thousand faces I didn’t know clogged the screen as cameras panned and changed from one angle to the next. It was like watching New Year’s Eve live in Times Square, only echoes of the island party several blocks away penetrated my walls from time to time, with a blast of microphone feedback or a random air horn blowing.

  I cued up another movie but couldn’t steady my mind after all the coffee Mrs. Tucker had plied me with. I opened a search engine in a new window. If Sebastian wouldn’t fill me in, maybe some online reporter would have new details about the Jimmy the Judge case. I found nothing current, so I read dozens of articles from the past decade. Most of the stories I knew from my time at the FBI. I ran my fingertips over pictures of Jimmy the Judge. He was a portly, black-haired thing. He couldn’t outrun Sebastian, but he was shrewd and nefarious. A shoot-them-in-the-back kind of guy. The next article was about someone called Leo the Lucky. According to the report, Leo got off of airtight laundering charges in Boston when his dear friend Jimmy stepped in with his team of crooked attorneys. Behind Jimmy in the photo, surrounded by men carrying briefcases, was a face I recognized.

  “Oh no.”

  My hands fumbled blindly over the couch, searching for my phone. I couldn’t drag my gaze from the screen for fear it’d change or disappear while I wasn’t looking. The man in the picture was a few years younger and a dozen pounds lighter, but he still wore John Lobb loafers. I skipped texting Sebastian and dialed his number instead. It went to voice mail.

  Mr. Meanie was Leo the Lucky. I hadn’t been overreacting earlier. It wasn’t my imagination doing double-time today. There was a hit out on Sebastian, and Leo the Lucky was here to get the job done. My tummy coiled into my spine. He’d sat with me today and asked about my guard dog. He told me he was doing his job.

  I tried Sebastian again.

  Email dinged on my phone. I logged into email on my computer, hoping it was a message from Sebastian. I redialed his number. If he didn’t answer in five minutes, I’d call dispatch. Maybe they could get a hold of him or tell me he was safe. I had one new email from DoYouEverWantToSeeYourFriendAgain@email.com. My hands shook hard enough to loosen my grip on the phone. I pulled in a breath. Inside the email was a link. No further message.

  I clicked.

  Dark video footage played on the screen. Claire screamed and the camera honed in on her as she ran through a maze of hallways. Heat shot into my hair. She was at Flick’s Funeral Home. The one place on the island I’d rather die than step foot in ever again. My stomach knotted. I threw my purse over one shoulder, dialed Sebastian one more time and ran for my car. No car.

  I swore and took the steps two at a time back up to my apartment. Claire’s keys lay on the counter. I grabbed them and went back to the street.

  I gunned the Jetta to life and roared into the empty street.

  “Clark.�
�� Sebastian answered the phone I forgot I was holding.

  Relief flooded over me. I sobbed. “He’s got Claire and he wants me to get her. They’re at Flick’s Funeral Home. Where are you? You’re in danger. It was all Jimmy!” I blurted words trying to convey all I knew about Leo the Lucky while driving through town. Tears blurred my vision as I turned up and down a half dozen alleys, taking every shortcut possible to the funeral home. Shivers racked my body.

  “Patience. I want you to listen. Do not go into the funeral home. I’m calling Fargas now.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? Jimmy’s after you. His guy, Leo the Lucky, is on the island. That’s the guy Todd saw following me. You have to be careful.”

  I jammed the car into park and ran for the front door of the creepy old house.

  Sebastian growled. “You aren’t listening. I know all about that. I followed him to Jimmy this morning. Jimmy’s in custody and Leo’s in the hospital. I caught him an hour ago.”

  My feet planted in the overgrown grass outside Flick’s front door.

  An ambulance blared through the phone. “Where are you?”

  A car door slammed. “I’m leaving the hospital. I’ll be there in an hour. Stay put and wait for Fargas.”

  “Are you hurt?” Panic shot through me. Claire was held captive. Sebastian was at the hospital.

  “A couple bullets grazed me. I got a few stitches. I’m fine. Where’s Adrian? He’s supposed to watch you.”

  My tummy knotted. That was a whole other mess I didn’t want to talk about. Snapped back to reality, I ran to the front door and tuned the knob.

  “Claire’s at Flick’s. Send Fargas fast.” Unless he’s trapped in there, too. “Wait. Sebastian? I just got the email five minutes ago. When did you say you caught Leo?”

  Who else was in the funeral home?

  The call broke into static and disconnected. I looked at my phone, remembering the same thing had happened to me this summer when a killer wanted me cut off from the world.

  Cell blocker. Shoot.

  I hesitated at the threshold. Go inside and look for Claire, or wait for backup? I reached a palm around the door’s edge and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. I guessed no one paid the bills when a home was in foreclosure.

  A blood-curdling scream split the darkness inside, and I jumped through the doorway without another thought. “Claire?” I dragged one hand along the wall for balance and waved the other in front of me. “Claire?”

  Behind me, the door slammed shut, followed by the unmistakable snap of a lock.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Hello?” I quavered into the dark room. “Is someone there?” Ugh. I sounded like a horror movie cliché. I rolled my shoulders back, summoning courage. Of course someone was there. The door hadn’t locked itself. I gulped. Had it? It was a funeral home, after all. Plenty of bodies passed through these halls over the years. What if one of the souls didn’t go into the light or get snatched up by the smoke goblins in time to leave Earth or whatever happened to spirits when bodies died.

  The floorboards creaked beside me. I pressed my back to the wall, sticking tight to the shadows. If I didn’t see the thing moving nearby, maybe it couldn’t see me—whatever it was. I strained sore, tired eyes to find something in the darkness besides my fear. Bouquets of the dearly departed tickled my nose. Decades of old women in floral perfumes and boatloads of carnations had permanently seasoned the carpets and walls. A gag built in my throat.

  I tried my voice again. “Hello?”

  Air rushed past me, stirring stale scents of the home’s emptiness into the mix.

  Claire spoke in hushed tones somewhere deep in the cavernous house. Her words carried through the air vents, reverberating off the bare walls around me. “No, no, no, no. Please, don’t. Please.”

  “Claire!” I tipped my head back and screamed into the air. “Claire. Where are you? What do you see?” The jolt of pain and fear I experienced while holding her hand came rushing back. My heart squeezed tight. I didn’t believe in those things. Did I?

  “Don’t do this,” she begged. “Please.” Her voice cracked and my heart broke. Whoever aimed to harm her would need to go through me first. I turned my head toward the front door one last time. Was it locked? Had I heard right? Did it matter? I wasn’t leaving without Claire.

  “I’m coming! Hang on, Claire. I’m here. I’m coming!” Following the wall with one hand, I ran in the direction of her screams. The hall stopped near the rear of the home, past offices I’d once sat in making small talk with killers. Heavy fabric over the windows limited incoming light from the moon and streetlamps. The Watchers had probably tamped out the light to tape their scenes earlier. My fumbling fingertips found a doorknob on the wall.

  A shriek of horror shattered my world. I couldn’t see what happened, but Claire’s scream left no question as to whether or not she was okay. I yanked the door open and barreled blindly inside.

  Two rampaging strides later, stars appeared in the blackness. My knees wobbled and I fell into waiting arms. My head throbbed and my ears rang. I counted out rescue hero as a possible career choice. Cologne filled my nostrils. My feet fumbled under the guidance of male arms until my knees gave out. Pain shot through my temples and rang in my ears. I slid to the ground and leaned against the wall. Everything in the room was slick to the touch.

  Shafts of light shone through an open door on the far side of the room. I worked to focus my eyes. A shadowy figure moved into view. My head ached as I searched for Claire. The room was covered in plastic. What kind of mold or bacteria required this kind of measure? Did the movers do this as they emptied the home? Did The Watchers crew cover things to protect their equipment? I slid sweat-slicked palms over the floor around me. Through squinted eyes, I made out the shapes of cabinets in the walls, each with a little cardholder. Fear wedged in my throat. This was where they’d kept the bodies. I yanked my palms off the plastic-covered floor and rubbed them against my legs.

  The silhouette approached again and stepped into the shafts of light from the door. Jesse Short pushed night vision goggles onto his forehead. A smug look dawned over his face. “I knew you’d come. Everything I read about you said you would. You hear someone’s in danger, and off you go on a rescue mission.”

  “You,” I spat. My head pounded. I pressed a palm to the ache. “What the hell are you doing? Let us go!”

  “Look around, darling. There is no us. There’s only you.” He opened his palms and bowed like a magician on stage.

  “Claire!” I screamed.

  “She’s at the party like everyone else in this backwoods Podunk town. Everyone but you.” He lined some dangerous looking tools on a table beside him. I hoped they were props. A few looked a little sharp and too realistic.

  I forced my gaze back to his face. “Don’t lie to me. I heard her scream. Now, let us go. I told Sebastian I was here. He’s contacting Fargas now. You’re done for, so you might as well try to get a head start out of town because...”

  Jesse stuffed a wad of cloth into my mouth. “That’s enough out of you. Do you think I’ve gotten this far in life without being prepared? Fargas’s phone was lifted from his pocket in the crowd about an hour ago. The radio in his car is having some trouble, as are his walkie-talkies, thanks to this.” He twisted a gadget in his hand, presumably another cell blocker. “His deputy is a big fan of my show, like your friends Claire and Adrian. They’re all gathered around punch bowls and big screens, having the night of their life, while you’re having the last night of yours.”

  Confusion rocked me to the core. I’d heard her yell. Had he killed her? Why was he lying?

  She screamed again, and I twisted in the direction of the sound. Her scream sounded less authentic. More...recorded.

  “Your little friend is quite the actress. Eager to help out too.” He pla
yed the scream again. A tablet appeared before me, glowing, in his monstrous grip. He played the clip from my email. “She taped this scene in case we needed it. She was conveniently cast as an extra when I saw she posed great usefulness to me.” He dropped the tablet onto the table with the line of realistic-looking saws, clamps, scissors and scalpels. My gaze darted over the room in search of help. My purse lay near the wall two feet away. Bingo.

  Jesse paced before me. “It’s ridiculous...being cast as an extra on a reality show. How did she think that would work out? The show is reality.” He broke his final word into syllables.

  I inched my fingers over the cold plastic-covered floor and tried not to think about all the odds and ends around me. My tummy clenched at the creepy things left over from days when the room housed corpses instead of crazy television producers and idiotic island counselors. The purse’s strap caught on the end of my finger and I dragged it closer.

  “Your island was the perfect location for this episode. All the clever folklore and superstition. I knew this town was the one way before Rick got onboard. While reading everything I could about your island, I found an interesting series of articles on local crimes, and guess whose name kept popping up?” Jesse lifted a long metal file off the table and moved it in the air, as if he directed an unseen chorus. “When I heard about you, you sealed the deal. You’re a writer’s dream. All savior-complex and no sense.”

  I raised my eyebrows, hoping to look innocent. My fingertips froze at my side, though they itched to rip the cloth from my mouth, to dive into my purse for help.

  He chuckled and tapped the file against one open palm. “I realized I could make this season the best one ever. Islanders already thought their town was haunted. All I needed to do was convince America. I contacted all the ghost hunter websites and got them riled up, then I made a trip out here to look at possible shoot sites. I read up on the architecture and found hidden staircases, Underground Railroad tunnels and all sorts of fun things.”

  “Unduhgon Ailode?” I repeated through the gag. I had no idea. How cool was that?