by Brenda Novak
In her mind, a question seemed to scream.
Why?
She knew now who was controlling the zombie nuns.
She turned a corner—and she realized that she’d managed to run in a circle—right back into the creature. She stopped, staring at it.
It was just an animatronic. It was stalled. Because the person running the controls didn’t see her yet! Then one of the hands raised.
Out of the corner of her eye, Danni saw a person. A person with a black box that looked almost like a video game control stick.
The zombie started to raise a hand. And Danni prepared to run, but she heard her name shouted—shouted with a thunder that seemed to tear the very air apart.
Quinn.
The zombie doll was moving. She backed away, ready to run, and fell over a gravestone. The zombie nun moved toward her, the skeletal fingers reaching out in the eerie shadows of graveyard.
She couldn’t run; she was on the ground. She could only roll, but could she roll fast enough to escape the razor-sharp fingers?
Reaching for her, grasping out….
And going dead still.
It wasn’t moving; it had stalled again.
Danni rolled and leapt to her feet and saw that Quinn was across the cemetery—over by a row of mausoleums. He was on top of the person wielding the controls.
“Quinn!” she cried, racing for him.
Suddenly she saw the second person; the one’s whose voice she hadn’t quite placed, moving toward Quinn, a massive branch held high with which to attack him….
Danni doubled her energy, leaping angels and cherubs, crying out in warning again.
“Quinn!”
She wasn’t going to make it; she wasn’t going to make it in time.
And then there was something behind her, something coming fast. The zombie-nun, moving again! But then, to her astonishment, the thing moved passed her. It moved past her at high, whirling speed.
And it flew straight into the figure heading for Quinn with such terrible menace. Twirling, flapping, deadly arms and fingers waving.
The person went down.
Danni reached Quinn who was rising then, dragging his quarry up with him.
“The box!” he told Danni. “The control!”
She made a dive for the black box. The zombie nun was wildly spinning and slashing at the second figure in the cemetery.
Danni tried to control it; at first, it went wilder.
Then she saw the off switch and hit it. She moved over to the prone figure.
Vanessa. Vanessa Green.
Vanessa was bleeding from a multitude of cuts.
She wasn’t getting up, not on her own. She lay in the grass, sobbing.
“She made me do it; she made me do it!” Vanessa cried.
And Danni turned to see that Quinn had shoved the woman who had originally been wielding the control box, causing the animatronic to run and whirl and kill.
Tracy Kennedy.
“Hey, you meant when you said you were coming home soon, huh? Had to get into your house, right?” Quinn said, his tone dry and sardonic. He sounded harsh. Of course. He’d been afraid—afraid for her, Danni knew.
“It wasn’t me!” Tracy cried. “It was the zombie nun—from the minute it came into the house, it told me that I had to do kill. It wanted me to control it—it’s evil.”
“Tracy, that’s pathetic,” Quinn said. “This isn’t even the zombie nun that was in your attic. This is one of the others.”
“Oh, don’t be an idiot,” Tracy snapped. “Don’t you get it? My husband had them all; they were in the attic. He managed to bribe a friend to stop the truck with the zombie nuns—he had them all the time. Toys in the attic. They were there…hidden by cardboard, shielded by boxes. They were there—all the time. And….”
She broke off. Danni could hear sirens coming close again. The police. Now, they were coming back to the cemetery.
“They made me do it. They’re evil! Evil exists. They made me do it!”
She was still shouting when the police came for the two women.
And then Danni could at last throw herself into Quinn’s arms.
Epilogue
It was sunset.
A glorious sunset.
Danni looked out the plate glass window of their hotel room to watch as the sky burst into a prism of colors.
She felt Quinn’s arms slip around her and she smiled.
Key West was wonderful, beautiful—spectacular.
Even if there had been zombie nuns running amok—controlled by a vicious woman.
Once Officer Sandy Burnett had come to take control, the story had come out. Vanessa Green had met Tracy Kendall through her husband and Kathy.
Vanessa had been bribed into helping with the absurd zombie-nun murder spree, convinced that she’d become a true star. She’d manipulated the animatronics at times when others saw Tracy—thus giving her an alibi.
And as for Tracy….
The motive they hadn’t understood had been greed. Mrs. Kennedy—Colby’s and Kathy’s mother—was suffering Alzheimer’s disease—and a host of other ailments. She wasn’t long for the world.
Kathy had been intended as the first victim—with the animatronic operated by Vanessa. Others had to die, too, of course, so that the real motive wouldn’t be known. With Kathy gone, when the elder Mrs. Kennedy expired, the old Victorian the family owned would go straight to Colby.
It was worth millions.
Greed. It had always been a key motive for murder. The animatronics had simply provided very bizarre weapons.
“She’s going to try to get off,” Danni murmured. “Tracy. She’ll keep up the claim that the nuns were evil—and that they made her do it. She’ll go for an insanity plea. And Vanessa…she’ll get an attorney to help her with the same plea, or help her to come up with some story about being terrified of Tracy. They killed four people and put three others in the hospital—and they could get off.”
Quinn pulled her closer to him. “No one is going to get off—not even Colby. He was guilty of bribery—and of stealing the zombie nun animatronics. When he learned the truth, I think he went a little crazy himself. He believes that once he owned the property, Tracy would have killed him, too. And he feels a horrible guilt; he just had to have all the zombie nuns. He admitted to the police that he did bribe the delivery driver and stole the other two nuns. I think they did make him a little crazy.”
“Will he do time?”
“I don’t know. He did—unwittingly—set it all into motion. But, whether he does time or not, he’s going to hate himself and perhaps punish himself worse in his mind than anything could that might be done to him by the legal system.”
Danni slipped her arms around his waist and looked up at him. “Do you think that the nuns were evil?” she asked him.
He smiled down at her. “Well, in the end, one didn’t harm either of us—it saved us.”
“True,” she agreed. “So, do they need to come back to the house on Royal Street?”
“No. Officer Burnett—soon to be Detective Burnett—has seen to it that they never go anywhere again. They’ve been shot up to ribbons—including the one in the boxes that ‘disappeared’—into Tracy Kennedy’s car.”
“Ah.”
“All that remains is to go home,” Quinn said softly. He trembled slightly as he held her. “When we can, of course, when we finish with all that still needs to be cleared up with the legal machinations. And, of course, Detective Mason is asking that you come by the hospital so that he can thank you—and beg your forgiveness.”
“He’s going to make it?”
“Thanks to you,” Quinn assured her, smiling. “And, of course, I’ve told Andrew Bracken that we will have lunch with him. He’s torn—horrified by everything that happened—and speculating on what will happen with his movie. Oh, he needs a new leading lady. I think he has his eye on you.”
Danni shook her head. “I think I’m done with robots, animatroni
cs…and, definitely, I don’t want anything to do with an evil mannequin.”
She turned back to watch the sky as the sun fell in its palette of colors, leaning against his chest. “It doesn’t seem as if it should be quite right, seeing such beauty, enjoying it…when so much bad happened.”
She felt Quinn’s hesitation, then he said quietly, “We helped stop a lot of bad things, too, Danni. And, there will be more that happens in the world that’s bad. Evil, even—because we both know, people can be very, very evil. Thing is, that makes it so that you have to appreciate every moment in life that shows what good is all about. Like the sunset,” he added.
“Like the sunset,” she agreed.
She turned into his arms again and kissed him.
And the kiss became much more….
And beyond the window, the sun continued its descent, bursting with color, then fading into pastels, falling gently upon them as they enjoyed the good that could happen in life as well.
About Heather Graham
New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Heather Graham majored in theater arts at the University of South Florida. After a stint of several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals, and bartending, she stayed home after the birth of her third child and began to write, working on short horror stories and romances. After some trial and error, she sold her first book, WHEN NEXT WE LOVE, in 1982 and since then, she has written over one hundred novels and novellas including category, romantic suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult, and Christmas holiday fare. She wrote the launch books for the Dell's Ecstasy Supreme line, Silhouette's Shadows, and for Harlequin's mainstream fiction imprint, Mira Books.
Heather was a founding member of the Florida Romance Writers chapter of RWA and, since 1999, has hosted the Romantic Times Vampire Ball, with all revenues going directly to children's charity. She is pleased to have been published in approximately twenty languages, and to have been honored with awards from Waldenbooks. B. Dalton, Georgia Romance Writers, Affaire de Coeur, Romantic Times, and more. She has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed, or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, People, and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including local television and Entertainment Tonight.
Heather loves travel and anything have to do with the water, and is a certified scuba diver. Married since high school graduation and the mother of five, her greatest love in life remains her family, but she also believes her career has been an incredible gift, and she is grateful every day to be doing something that she loves so very much for a living.
Find Heather here:
http://www.theoriginalheathergraham.com/
https://www.facebook.com/HeatherGrahamAuthor
https://twitter.com/heathergraham
Hanover House
by Brenda Novak
“The psychopaths are always around.
In calm times we study them, but in times of upheaval, they rule over us.”
--Ernst Kretschmer
California...
Prologue
He’d found what he needed. At last. After twenty years of waiting, of planning, of purposely blending in to escape notice, he had the thread that would lead him back to the only woman who’d ever really mattered in his life.
The only woman who’d ever been a challenge.
The only woman who’d ever gotten away.
Once his parents had finally gone to bed, and long after anyone would expect for them to have a visitor, Jasper Moore stared down at the envelope he’d recovered from his father’s desk. Inside was a letter from Evelyn Talbot’s father, pleading with Stanley and Maureen to come forward if they possessed any information on Jasper’s whereabouts. It said that Evelyn had been through enough. That the Moores should finally do the right thing and divulge any information they possessed.
But they never would. They were the ones who’d helped him escape in the first place, all those years ago—and they told everyone they hadn’t seen him since before the murders, even though, in recent years, he risked a furtive visit now and then, if he could do it safely.
Anyway, it wasn’t the letter that concerned Jasper. He didn’t give a shit about the Talbots’ emotional plea for justice and closure.
He was far more interested in the return address on the outside.
Four months later...
Chapter 1
She’d been attacked. Dr. Evelyn Talbot remembered that right off. From the lights and the noise, she also knew she was in a hospital. She just couldn’t recall how she’d gotten there.
“She’s moving. I think she’s coming around.”
Was that a doctor, or maybe a nurse? She didn’t recognize the voice, but her thoughts were fuzzy, and it was too difficult to open her eyes. She almost sank back into the dark void she’d just emerged from, where she could drift without worry, without having to conjure up the chain of events that had led to this. She didn’t want to fight any of the battles she’d have to fight if she woke up.
But then she heard a voice she did recognize, and that voice spoke directly to her.
“Honey, it’s Mom. Can you hear me? If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”
Squeeze her hand? Surely, things weren’t that bad. But Evelyn didn’t yet know for sure. She could hear tears in Lara’s voice, so she felt obligated to expend the Herculean effort required to actually break the surface of consciousness.
“She’s pretty drugged. It might be a while,” the first person responded, but that person didn’t realize how much Evelyn stood to lose if her family started to make too much fuss about the risk inherent in her job. What’d happened today (if it was still “today”; she had no idea how long she’d been out) was her own fault. She knew the type of men she dealt with, understood what they were capable of. She’d studied more psychopaths than almost any other mental health professional in America. She’d merely allowed herself to be distracted at the worst possible moment.
“Mom?” she croaked, forcing the word through lips that would barely part.
“Evelyn!” Her mother leaned over her bed. “You gave us such a scare. Are you okay?”
Lara’s white hair and gently lined face, pinched with worry, finally came into focus. A nurse was in the room too—a young Indian woman with a kind smile—but no one else. Where was her father? And her sister? Surely, Lara had alerted them.
Wait...she wasn’t thinking straight. Of course they wouldn’t be here; they’d be back in Boston. Her mother had traveled with her to San Francisco, where she’d had to come on business, so that they could spend some time together before Evelyn moved to Alaska.
“I’m fine. Everything’s...fine.” At least, she hoped it was. It would help if her darn tongue wasn’t so unwieldy... That was due to the pain meds, no doubt; she recognized the effects. “What happened?”
She remembered leaving her mother at the hotel, arriving at San Quentin State Prison, passing through security and waiting to meet with one of the candidates on her list—a serial killer who’d strangled fifteen women...
Hugo Evanski. That was his name. She’d been standing up, reading his file when he was brought into the room, and then...nothing. That was where her mind went blank.
“That animal you went to see?” her mother said. “That murderer? He broke away from the guard and rushed you on sight. Hit you so hard you banged your head against the wall, then fell and hit the corner of the desk. You have several stitches in your temple.”
Evelyn licked her lips, trying to ease the dryness. She felt like the tin man from The Wizard of Oz, with no oil. “Did he...did he do anything else?”
Lara’s eyebrows knitted. “Isn’t that enough?”
“I can’t feel much. I’m...trying to ascertain the extent of my injuries.”
The nurse lifted Evelyn’s arm to take her blood pressure. “According to your chart, you have a concussion and six stitches,” she said and gave her hand a reassuring
rub before putting air in the cuff.
“They got him before he could do any more damage,” her mother explained. “But you hit your head so hard that they had to check your brain to see if you were hemorrhaging.”
Not good news. “Am I?”
“No. Thank God.”
Evelyn drew a deep breath. “Then I’m going to be okay, like I said.”
“This time,” her mother responded. “But what about next time? What if something like this happens in Alaska, and they can’t pull the bastard off you soon enough? Or if you’re hurt even worse and they can’t get you to a hospital because of severe weather? Why you’d isolate yourself up there, in the wilderness, with so many human monsters, I have no idea.”
Evelyn couldn’t miss this opportunity, even if her mother didn’t like the idea of her living so far away. It was the culmination of her professional aspirations. “I didn’t get to choose where they built the facility, Mother.”
The nurse removed the blood pressure cuff, made a notation on her chart and said she had another patient she needed to check on.
“They tried other locations,” Evelyn went on as the nurse hurried out. “Texas. Arizona. South Dakota. Hilltop didn’t protest quite as much.” With only five hundred people in town, they couldn’t have the political influence of a larger community, so even if they’d gone at it with more determination, it might not have made the same difference. But she didn’t add that. Neither did she volunteer that public opinion hadn’t shifted in the facility’s favor until after Hilltop had been adopted as the building site. It seemed as if those in the “lower forty-eight” liked the idea of stashing their worst criminals all in the same place, as long as it was some other place.
“Heaven help the people who live there,” Lara muttered.
“They won’t need heaven’s help.” She stifled a groan for how difficult it was just to talk. “Hanover House is going to be a level 4 facility. All the...the monsters will be locked up.”
