by J N Duncan
“I know. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t.”
“You always had the answers.”
Laurel gave her a sad, sympathetic smile. “Even if I had them, I can’t give them anymore, hon. You have to find your own way, leave all that old stuff behind, and start fresh. You’ve got a second chance at life now. Don’t be afraid.”
Afraid. None of the old terrors compared to this. “Do I deserve another chance?” She had not thought to ask the question, but it came out before she realized.
“Don’t,” Laurel snapped back, pointing an accusatory finger. “I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, so stop. You deserve it as much as anyone I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t have loved you if you didn’t deserve the best life has to give.”
Jackie sniffled and wiped the tears away again. “Okay, fine. I deserve it. So what happens now?”
“I don’t know. How about you go home and have a bath? Give Bickers some love. He misses you.”
“God, I totally forgot about him. He’s probably peed in every corner of my apartment.”
Laurel laughed. “He’s fine. You’ll be fine. Do something that will make you happy.”
Happiness was the furthest thing from Jackie’s mind at that moment. “I don’t see that happening any time soon.”
“There’s a little bit of it waiting right back there in the car.”
“What? Nick? I… I don’t really know what to think of that man.”
“Then don’t. Just do. He’s looking for the same things you are.”
“And what is that?”
“Hon, quit being dense, and quit being afraid of liking him. You’d be good for each other.”
It struck Jackie then that Nick was the first guy Laurel had ever said that about. “He freaks me out. He’s so fucking intense, and there’s that whole… blood thing.”
“And your point is?”
What was her point? She had none. The thought of something real with someone freaked her out more than anything else. “Fine, I’ll think about it.”
“No. Didn’t I say to stop thinking about it?”
“All right! Christ. Casper, you aren’t.”
Laurel grinned. “Feeling better though, aren’t you?”
The morose black veil that had been covering Jackie had lifted, though it still hovered at the fringes, ready to fall. “I suppose. Thanks, Laur. I just wish you were still here. I still feel so…” She shrugged. Guilty did not even come close.
“If I forgive you every day, will that help?”
Jackie snorted. “Yeah, it would.”
“Okay, then. I forgive you. It wasn’t your fault, and you weren’t to blame, and I still love you.”
Tears welled up again. “Better. I love you, too.”
“Now go. Cemeteries depress you. I’ll see you again soon.”
Laurel faded into the ground, but Jackie stood there a while longer staring down at the grave. Her friend’s body was buried down there, but she was not truly gone. How could you really say good-bye? It wasn’t right. Still, the pain of Laurel’s missing presence was there, and Jackie knew it would be for a long time to come. It just had to be dealt with. She had to move on.
Back in the car, Jackie closed the door. “You can take me home now.”
“You okay?” Shelby reached her hand over the back of the seat, an open offer of comfort there for the taking, if Jackie wanted it.
Jackie smiled at her, grateful for the gesture, took her hand, and squeezed briefly before letting go. “Thanks. Yeah, I think I’m good for now.”
Shelby nodded and turned back around. “Good. Let’s get out of here.”
Jackie stared out the window, watching the mound of flowers until they had faded from view. Move on. Don’t think about it, just do. “Nick?”
He looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Yeah?”
“What’re you doing Saturday night?”
“Huh?”
“Saturday. Are you available on Saturday night?”
“Available? What do you mean?”
Shelby’s fist flashed across the seat and struck him on the shoulder.
“Ow! What the hell?”
“I swear you’re an idiot sometimes,” Shelby scolded. “Just say yes, for fuck’s sake.”
They stopped at an intersection, and he turned to look back at Jackie, those faintly glowing eyes studying her with disarming intensity. She managed to hold his gaze, forcing herself not to look away. He turned back and set the car in motion once again.
“How’s seven o’clock?”
“Seven’s fine.” She took a deep breath and let it out to calm the butterflies. It was a step forward, and that was the only direction she could look now.
Jackie Rutledge has come to realize how thin a line separates the living and the dead, and her view of the world will never be the same again.
Follow her further adventures in the next book of the DEADWORLD series, a Kensington paperback on sale October 2011.
Turn the page for a special preview!
Prologue
Detective Thomas Morgan threw the empty pill bottle out of his cruiser into the manicured hedge dividing a pair of Sterling Heights, half-a-million-dollar homes. The bitter pill in his mouth was beginning to dissolve, so he reached and grabbed the cold remnants of his McDonald’s coffee and washed it down.
Had to be the last one for a while, if not for good. Beverly had been getting suspicious of late. Money was funneling in and out of the bank account too rapidly and gradually working its way toward zero. And, let’s face it, the shit was too good to be taking indefinitely. Morgan had seen it more times than he cared to remember. He was turning into an addict, or maybe he already was, if truth be told. Perhaps it was pilfering from his daughter’s college fund that had finally clued him in. Oxycontin was not more important than his daughter’s future. Tom felt disgusted with himself. Desperation was ugly and weak. He was turning into what he dreaded most: a bad cop.
Morgan turned the corner into a swirling mass of crime-scene color. Four cop cars blocked off the street leading to a two-story, tudor-style house that looked like every sixth or seventh house in the upscale neighborhood. Small groups of residents clumped together on the sidewalk and across the street, wrapped up in robes, blankets, or jackets, morbid curiosity getting the better of the cool and damp October morning. Everyone, it seemed, loved a good murder.
And, apparently, this one was very good, in the way people judged horror movies based on how disturbing the death scenes were. Morgan pulled up behind the roadblock and got out of his car. On the opposite side, he spotted Frank Wysocki’s vehicle. Tom frowned. Sock would be less than pleased that Tom had not been immediately available to pick him up. When Tom found him sitting on the front porch, hands hanging loosely over his knees and looking pale as milk, Morgan figured this murder was not just very good, it was Oscar caliber.
“Sock, man. You lose your lunch?”
“Where the fuck you been, Tom? Don’t stick me with this shit.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and then through his receding, graying hair. “Your jalapeno-eating, hairy black ass can take the upstairs. I’ll take the nice and cheery guy with his brains blown across the wall.”
Tom moved quickly to get out of Sock’s sight. “Hey, no problem. Sorry for the delay. I was away from the phone for a few.” He gave Sock a pat on the shoulder and walked up the front step. Worse than a brain mural? Morgan did not like the sound of that, because it usually meant children were involved.
“You’re always away from the fucking phone,” Sock said, but Tom was already through the front door and chose to ignore him.
He pulled a pair of neoprene gloves from his coat pocket and considered stepping back out for a mask, but that would mean raising Sock’s ire once again, and so Tom decided to let it slide. It was just a bit of the old blood and death. Just breathe through the mouth and tune the emotions out. It took practice to get good at that, but was essential for homicide.
&n
bsp; Morgan upgraded his assessment when he reached the end of the foyer, which opened into a living room to the right. There was a lot of blood, and one could only call it a living room in the loosest of terms. A Hispanic male slumped over on a leather sofa in sweats and a U of C T-shirt. He was in decent shape, until someone had put a slug in his head and redecorated the wall with bits of his brain matter. The smell of it was thick and pungent in the air, so the guy had been dead a few hours at least. As for the rest of the living room, every last piece of furniture and decoration had been smashed to pieces, demonstrating a level of violence far in excess of that needed to ransack the place.
Initial impression: crime of passion. Someone had been very upset about something or someone. The rest was up to Sock for now. Morgan continued walking toward the staircase and had to stop to get out of the way of a young beat cop hustling to get to the front lawn before he puked. Welcome to homicide, kid. Sometimes it ain’t cool or fun. Needless to say, it put Morgan on edge. Even strong stomachs had their limits. He kept his breath coming through his mouth only and climbed the stairs two at a time.
The temperature dropped a good ten degrees by the time he reached the landing. No draft blew through the house, however. If some dumbshit had opened a window to air out a crime scene before the evidence guys had done their job, he was going to give someone a reason to be sick.
Disbelieving voices, low and muttering, came from the room at the end of the hall that doubled back from the top of the stairs. Tom walked by a workout room with weights and a treadmill and then a spare bedroom. Items were knocked over and broken, more like an afterthought than an actual effort to destroy.
And still the temperature turned colder. Morgan thrust his hands into the pockets of his leather coat and forced his breath to slow and get shallower. The stench had taken on a different tone. Someone had spilled their guts onto the floor. He had seen it before with knife and bullet wounds. Gut deaths were some nasty shit.
Morgan paused when he reached the door. Goose bumps ran down his spine. He closed his eyes and tried to will away the nervous knot in his stomach. This had happened a couple other times in the past, on the verge of stepping into a crime scene he would never truly walk away from. Some crimes had a way of burning themselves indelibly upon your soul, and no effort could scour it clean. They changed you, and you had to hope you were strong enough not to let it take you down a dark path that might end your life or at least your career as a cop.
This was going to be one of those crimes.
Two officers had handkerchiefs over their mouths. They were staring across the room, which Morgan found obscured by a corner of wall marking the entry into the room. He cleared his throat, and both of them jumped, wide-eyed, glazed with fear and then relief.
“The fucking cavalry has arrived!” one of them said, raising his fists into the air. “This is brutal shit, man. It’s all yours, detective-”
Morgan stuck his arm across the entry, blocking his escape. “I’ll need one of you to stay,” he replied. “Draw straws or something.” He took a step around the corner and stopped dead. “Jesus motherfucking Christ!”
“Brutal, man, I warned you,” the first said. The other just nodded, refusing to pull the cloth from his mouth.
Morgan waved at the second guy. “Go. Brutal boy can stay.”
“Aw, shit, detective. Come on.”
He narrowed his gaze at the cop, mouth drawing into a thin line. Morgan did “angry face” very well. “You’re staying. Greenie over there can go puke now. Go!” The other hurried out, and Morgan slowly turned back around to face the bed on the opposite wall. “What a goddamned mess.”
“I told you, detective,” came the muffled reply. “Brutal. Sick fuck.”
Morgan swallowed down the bile in his throat. He had abruptly forgotten to watch his breathing and sucked in a lungful of the putrid air. The woman on the bed had been gutted and had the same dark hole in her forehead as the dead man downstairs. Dark splotches of blood and matter coated the headboard and wall behind her. The rest of her was just a grizzly mound of red straight out of a horror movie. From the neck down, Morgan hardly recognized the rest as having been human. Whoever had attacked her had not just cut her open, they had actively yanked her insides out.
“You touched anything over there, officer?”
“No, sir,” he said. “I’m not getting close to that. Blood on the floor around the bed, too. Maybe not just hers.”
Morgan nodded and stepped toward the end of the bed. The woman lay slumped against the headboard, pillows pushed to the side. Her legs were pushed apart at an uncomfortable-looking angle, with her hands clenched in her lap. Likely, she was alive when her gut had been split open. So much for anger. They had a genuine psychopath on their hands. Still, Morgan eyed the mass of organs and entrails spilled out on the bed. They did not look quite right, far more mass than should have been coming out of the human body. Given the blackening, pulpy mass in the chest cavity, the lungs and heart were still tucked up inside. So why did this look all wrong?
Careful of the blood spatter on the floor, Morgan stepped around the corner of the bed and moved in for a closer look, holding his breath as he did.
“You see something, detective?”
Morgan waved him off, leaning over the body. He started to reach down, to pull some of the gore aside, but froze, inches away. Something tiny and far too recognizable lay buried with the bloody remains. He stood up, staring at it in disbelief. “Ah, fuck me, man.”
“What is it?”
It couldn’t be. Sweet Lord above, let it not be. Morgan leaned back over, his hand trembling. He slipped his gloved hand beneath what might have been kidney and lifted, exposing a miniature arm and hand with its tiny fingers to go along with the face he could not believe he was seeing. Morgan’s heart thumped like a mad drummer in his chest.
LEAVE MY BABY ALONE! The voice burst inside his head, a screaming, rage-filled bomb.
Morgan stumbled back, clutching at his head. “God… damn.. .”
“Sir? What the hell?” The officer rushed over to Morgan, gripping an arm to steady him.
Tom gasped, sucking in the foul air, sure that any moment he would be spewing his coffee all over the floor. “Pregnant,” he said, shrugging off the hand and making for the door. “She was pregnant!”
“Ah, shit,” the officer said with quiet shock.
Morgan stumbled down the hall, grasping at the rail to keep his balance. He had to get out.
He killed my baby! He killed him. He must die. Must die! Help me kill him. You must!
Morgan tripped and fell going down the stairs, clutched at the handrail and kept himself from somersaulting down to the bottom, but only managed to delay the fall. He did a tumbling, rolling slide over the last dozen stairs before thudding onto the hardwood floor of the foyer. Someone had torn the babe right out of her womb, massacred her flesh and left the infant to rot away in the wake of blood. The voice was right. Someone would have to die for this.
YES. You will help me. He must die.
Morgan struggled back to his hands and knees. “Get out of my head.”
No. You will help me. My baby needs justice.
What was this shit? The Oxycontin was fucking with him, causing hallucinations. That had to be it.
Let me in, Detective Thomas Morgan. You will help me get justice.
“Tom, you okay?” Sock was kneeling beside him. “What the hell is going on?”
Sock’s voice sounded hollow, distant. Tom’s muscles were weak and trembling. “Sock? She was… The vic…” Morgan sagged sideways into Sock, who grabbed a hold to keep him upright.
“I know, man. Sucks to be us, huh?”
Sock’s voice faded into the distance, coming down a long tunnel. “Sock…” Sweet Jesus, help me.
You are too weak, Thomas Morgan. I will gut them and splatter their fucking brains all over their walls. My baby boy will have justice!
“What is it, Tom? You need me to get someone i
n here?”
Morgan sat up and stretched his neck from side to side. He pushed away from Sock and slowly staggered back to his feet. “No. I don’t need anyone. I’m good. I’m going to kill them, every last one of them.”
“That’s the spirit,” Sock said, slapping him on the back.
“Yes,” Morgan said and grinned. “It is.”
Chapter 1
Jackie woke from her recurring dream of the past two weeks where she had been chasing down Laurel through the shrouded, gray streets of Chicago’s Deadworld. Laurel continually stayed ahead of her, slipping into the swirling fog, only to reappear moments later. Sorry. A simple yet significant word. If Laurel would only stop so Jackie could say it, but she led her on a never-ending game of cat and mouse, taunting and teasing, until the end, when waking finally peeled back the layers of tequila-induced sleep, and Laurel would stop in those crystallized final moments of dreams, when everything was painfully real.
“I don’t love you anymore!” The damning statement came with such force it physically knocked Jackie backward. No matter what she did, she could not get the apology out of her mouth before the depressing light of day intruded and sent the dream scattering away, back into the recesses of her mind.
Jackie lurched up from the couch to the buzz of her doorbell, driving tiny little spikes into her throbbing skull. Bickerstaff blinked at her from atop one of the couch cushions.
“Shit. Go away!”
The cat leaped off and jumped for a safer perch atop the piano, hidden among the empty tequila and wine bottles, half-empty glasses, and open Chinese-food containers.
“Not you, dummy.” The buzzer rang again, followed moments later by her ringing phone. Jackie put her hands to her ears. “Oh, my God.”
She swung her feet off the couch and pushed herself up. Her head weighed fifty pounds. The motion knocked over the carton of fried rice in her lap, sending the remains spilling across the floor.
