Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1)

by Justine Sebastian

  There was a folded newspaper on the edge of the table that Nick kept nudging with his fingertips, trying to knock it to the floor or just get it away from himself. MORE VIOLENCE IN SPARROW FALLS screamed at him from the front page headline. Nick knew it by heart, knew the words beneath it said, Family Attacked, 3 Dead. It had been written by Hylas Dunwalton and the spelling was immaculate.

  Nick knew the three pictures included in the article like the back of his hand. The first was a portrait of the Washington family; Mom, Dad and their two daughters, twelve year old DeShaunda and five year old LaAsla. Everyone was all smiles and they were real smiles. They actually had been a happy family. The other picture was of little LaAsla standing outside the family home, holding her pet dwarf lop-eared rabbit, smiling a gap-toothed smile. The third picture was of a blood-splattered and smeared rabbit hutch, the hatch on top open and leaning against the shed wall. Like the motherfucker had been careful about that part at least. The caption beneath the image said, Little LaAsla was found near the hutch. Authorities believe she had sneaked outside to play with her pet rabbit, Goliath.

  After the morning of the bunny toss, Nick had woken up alone with his nightmares still howling around his mind. He had stumbled into the kitchen and found a note hanging from the fridge that read: Much fuckery afoot. Had to bail. Hylas had gotten a call from one of his sources at the sheriff’s department about the murder. He told Nick later that he had pedaled so hard and fast he was pretty sure he pulled both hamstrings and maybe his groin. Nick had come very close to offering to check that out for him, but then decided it was (a) really damn lame to say something like that and (b) wildly inappropriate given what Hylas was talking to him about. Some of the things in the article seemed pointed, like they were saying to Nick: Dude, you have a mauled kid’s bunny buried in your yard.

  He could just see part of the family picture, could make out the smiling faces of the mother and DeShaunda. Their mother, Chantilly, had been the co-captain of the dance team in high school. She had known how to move and had in fact given Nick one hell of a lap dance at a homecoming party in tenth grade. Before Nick went to live with his aunt and uncle, he and Chantilly had ridden the bus together, both of them residents of Million Dollar Road with its shitty trailers and tar paper shacks. Life was an education in the definition of irony for them both.

  He’d told her about how he made easy money and she’d turned a few tricks after Nick’s bad influence had gotten into her head. Seeing the picture of Chantilly and her family made him think that it was good she’d gotten her happy ending. The last he’d heard about her she was a stripper in a French Quarter bar who would give a very private show for the right fee. Nick Lange’s tutelage strikes again. It was a damn wonder he hadn’t irreparably fucked up Nancy and Hylas since he’d been closer to them than anyone else.

  “So, you were going to tell me about the Gallagher House?” Wes said.

  “What?” Nick tore his gaze away from the paper to look at Wes.

  “Gallagher House?” Wes prompted. “You said that was one I’d really like.”

  “Oh, right, yeah,” Nick said. “You will like it.” He leaned forward and casually used his elbow to finally knock the paper off the table. “Do you want to see it?”

  “Absolutely,” Wes said. “I’ve been meaning to drive by, but I don’t really know where it’s at. I’m still finding my way around here.”

  “Then let me show you,” Nick said. He stood up and tilted his head toward the door. “I’ll drive.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to, Wes,” Nick said. “You need authenticity for your book, right? Well, you can’t get that from sitting in here talking to me. You need to see these things.”

  “I never said I was writing a book,” Wes said as he stood up and came around the table, notebook and pen in hand.

  “You don’t have to.” Nick waved his hand at the notes, the laptop, the printouts of old newspaper articles.

  “I’m being obvious again,” Wes said.

  They stepped into the hall and Nick offered Wes his arm. He took it with a little smile and ducked his head.

  “You’re not too subtle, no,” Nick said.

  Wes was subtle though, in a way. Not with the little stuff—his book, his interest in procuring Nick’s services again that night at the Christmas Carnival—but there was a lot more going on beneath Wes’s tidy surface than most anyone would ever guess. Hell, he didn’t even really look like the type to be into ghost hunting and bizarre happenings. He looked more like the type to groove on stamp collecting and painting miniatures.

  Wes was looking at his shoes, hair flopped over his forehead and a frown on his face. Nick stopped at the top of the stairs, leaned over and nipped Wes’s earlobe. “I like that you’re unsubtle, Wesley,” Nick said. He licked and sucked at the tendon on the side of Wes’s neck. Wes caught his breath, shivered and tipped his head to the side. “Yeah, like that,” Nick murmured. He gave him one last nip and pulled back with a grin. Wes was staring at him, color high on his cheeks, eyes getting that feverish look to them that Nick had come to know.

  “Not yet,” Wes said, mostly talking to himself. He looked away for a second then met Nick’s eyes again. “Later though, right?”

  “Of course,” Nick said as they started down the stairs. “First we work. Then we play.”

  “I like playing,” Wes whispered.

  “I know you do, sugar.”

  Wes made a soft moaning sound in the back of his throat as they stepped off the last riser and into the foyer.

  Nick got his truck keys out of his pocket and they walked quickly to the truck even though it was parked nearby and the small parking lot was well lit. It was rapidly becoming a trend around Sparrow Falls. People didn’t walk after dark, they scurried and jogged and trotted. A few particularly jumpy folks ran.

  No one wanted to be caught out alone at night like Hunter McAllister or LaAsla Washington because that seemed to be how their friendly neighborhood psycho killer operated. Chantilly and her husband, Phil, had been found outside as well. They had probably been drawn out of the house by their little girl’s screams. DeShaunda had been found in her bed, bedroom door splintered and busted open. Her cell phone had been jammed in her mouth. She had tried to call for help and had gotten her phone crammed down her throat for her trouble. Those tidbits were given to Nick by Hylas who had babbled them out in horrified excitement. Nick wished that Hylas had kept the information he got to himself.

  Wes had pointed out earlier that night that for a relatively small city—population 30,000—Sparrow Falls had a very high violent crime rate. Particularly when it came to serial murder because this newest nutcase brought the total up to two. In a place the size of Sparrow Falls, that was a hell of a lot of serial killers; not to mention the other strange and violent murders that took place around the area.

  For Nick though, it was one thing and one thing only on his mind at the moment—that picture of the open rabbit hutch, flopped open like an afterthought. Like the nutter wanted one more dose of fun after his big party and who better to play with than Nick?

  He also thought he was being paranoid and he sure as hell wasn’t a detective. But there was one more thing that kept tripping him up—Hunter’s body had been partially eaten. The rabbit’s leg had been eaten, the foot chewed on like a piece of gum. Had the same been done to the Washington family? He thought it probably had because strange beasts had strange appetites.

  The cab of the truck was quiet as they rode out to Gallagher House; Nick lost in his morbid thoughts, Wes staring out the window at the passing night, fingers tapping a light, nervous rhythm on the door frame. Nick felt like he should say something, he didn’t want to make the guy nervous and some conversation would be a nice distraction anyway.

  “Are you going back to Atlanta for Christmas?” Nick asked. He’d been wondering and now was as good of a time to ask as any.

  Wes tensed then slumped down in the seat. “No,” he sa
id. “I don’t think I am. In fact, I was wondering if you know of any houses for rent around here.”

  “I don’t, sorry,” Nick said. He hadn’t been back that long and he wasn’t in the market for a place to stay. “Wait. Are you moving here?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” Wes said. “I don’t have any reason to go back to Atlanta.”

  “Not even a job?”

  “I can take my work with me,” Wes said. “Self-employed.”

  “That must be nice.”

  “It is.”

  Wes slumped more in his seat. Nick could see him from the corner of his eye; head down, hands folded in his lap. He took a watery breath and Nick’s eyebrows lifted. When he had gotten hold of Wes he’d definitely caught himself a live one, but he had not seemed depressed or like a weepy sort in general. It wasn’t anything Nick couldn’t handle though and even with Wes’s weirdness, he found he liked the guy. In another life, Nick thought he and Wes could have been friends. Maybe they were friends anyway; very, very unconventional friends.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick reached over and ran his hand down the back of Wes’s neck. It was the nice thing to do and honestly, he never had liked it when people were sad. Nancy, like Hylas, swore it was because Nick was a nice guy beneath all the rough edges and cobwebs.

  “Three years,” Wes blurted out after another mile or two. “Three darn years and just like that… I…” He sniffled, a most ominous sound. “Jeepers, I’m sorry.”

  Nick’s mouth curled up in a little smile at “jeepers”; regardless of the situation that was not an expression you really heard anymore.

  “It’s okay,” Nick said. “Tell me about it.”

  “He said I was weird and that he just couldn’t do it anymore,” Wes said. His breath hitched and then bam, there came the waterworks.

  Nick thought that if this apparent ex of Wes’s had needed three years to figure out his boyfriend was a tad bit odd then the guy was probably an idiot.

  “I shouldn’t have told him,” Wes said. “I shouldn’t have asked, but I did because I thought we were good, you know? Like… like… solid and even if he wasn’t cool with the um… the stuff… My, you know… those things…”

  “Your kinks?” Nick offered.

  “Right!” Wes said. “My stupid, dirty, nasty kinks. I can’t get rid of them and I don’t even really know where they come from, but hey, there they are. It’s not like they make me a bad person though, but the way Beau acted when I finally asked him about maybe trying some of that stuff together you would think I told him I was into dead bodies and voodoo rituals or something. At the same time. Dead body voodoo rituals. Those. Yeah.”

  Wes sucked snot back violently and Nick winced. He’d opened the floodgates by asking, so he would stand the outcome, which was currently shaking with pent-up anger and tears.

  “What a fucking dick,” Nick said.

  “He’s a jerk, a… a fucking asshole.” Wes half-whispered the last two words. It was amazing that someone with a laundry list of kinks that walked a fine line between “safe” and “could get you killed” still hesitated to say dirty words. It was one of Wes’s more endearing qualities, in Nick’s opinion. As well as one of his strangest.

  “Is that why you came here?” Nick asked.

  “Yep,” Wes said. “I couldn’t stand it. Could. Not. We had an apartment together, but then he moved out to go be with some… some… twink from the building next door.”

  Nick thought that it sounded like wonderfully convenient timing for good old Beau to ditch Wes: Wes reveals his kinkier inclinations, Beau uses that as a cheap-shot excuse to dump Wes and voila, he can go move in with Timmy the Twink from across the way, who sounded like a cartoon character from Hell when Nick thought of him that way. Beau had probably already been cheating on Wes by the time he brought up the idea that they try something crazy in the bedroom that was less silk scarves and more handcuffs-and-faux-rape. Wes had given Beau an easy out and the coward had not only taken it, but used the opportunity to make it seem like it was all Wes’s fault, that his kinks had driven away goodhearted, vanilla loving Beau.

  “Goddamn piece of shit,” Nick muttered.

  “He is!” Wes was angry by then and he jabbed his finger at the windshield, probably picturing Beau’s face in front of him. “He said my interest in the paranormal was weird, too and he’d only tolerated it, he’d never liked it. Gah!” Wes swiped at his face then pulled up the tail of his sweater and wiped his face on it. When he dropped the shirt back down, he turned to Nick. “Do you want to know what him and Nancy Pants Numb Nuts went and did the weekend before I left though?”

  Nick thought he had a good idea, but he said, “Lay it on me.”

  “They went on a ghost tour in Savannah, that’s what.” Wes made an unamused coughing sound in the back of his throat. “But yeah, he only tolerated it from me and when I brought up all the ghost stuff, he said that was fine. He said that was normal, but because I like Bigfoot and the Michigan Dogman and black dogs and those creepy stories about black-eyed people and serial killers—oh, no, that was all just too much for Mr. Beau Simmons. He made me feel like I was so small and so dumb, that everything I like is just a big, fat waste of time and I… You know what?”

  “What?” Nick asked. He was almost sorry he’d ever brought it up, but watching Wes and listening to him made it only almost. Wes needed to get that stuff off his chest; it had to have been eating away at him. Wes was a sweet man who, as far as Nick could tell, had deserved a hell of a lot better than Beau Simmons.

  “I hate him,” Wes said. “I just do. So much. My goodness.” He sniffled and wiped his face with the tail of his sweater again. “I really loved him though. I thought… I don’t know what I thought… I guess I thought that it would work out with him.”

  “You can do better,” Nick said. “You are better, so fuck that guy.”

  “Thank you, Nick,” Wes said. “That’s really nice of you, but you don’t have to say that to me. I know it’s—”

  Nick knew exactly where that was going and made a sharp sound of negation in the back of his throat. “It’s not because you pay me,” he said. “I’ve spent enough time with you that’s not fucking to figure out that you’re a nice guy. Just because you’ve got a few kinks in your tail doesn’t make you any less than that as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Kinks?” Wes said. “More like knots.”

  “Okay, so you have a knotted tail, whatever,” Nick said. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Wes, but I think there’s a fucking lot wrong with Beau.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Oh.” Wes sounded choked up again.

  Nick left him to it. If he wanted to talk about it, he could and Nick would listen. If he didn’t then they could drive the rest of the way out to Gallagher House and Nick would give him as much privacy as he could manage in the cab of a pickup truck. Nick had been with guys who wanted to do nothing but talk; sometimes it was outright crazy nonsense (vampire chicken overlords) to simple conversation about their day (get up, go to work, go home, go find a hooker to tell all of that to). Some of them didn’t even want to talk, they only wanted to cuddle. Sometimes they lay in Nick’s arms and wept. Those were the absolute worst.

  Letting Wes vent about his god-awful bad break-up was not a big deal and by that point he was comfortable and familiar enough with Wes that it was more like listening to a friend than the ranting of a heartbroken john (there had been a couple of those, too, and they had fucked Nick like they were trying to get back at their exes).

  Nick parked on the far side of the road when they reached Gallagher House so he wasn’t in the driveway with its big black iron gates. The torch sconces bolted to the bluestone support columns never stayed upright and were casting pale circles of light on the gravel and not doing a damn thing to actually light the gateway.

  “We’re here,” Nick said just to have something to say.

  Wes was already looking out the window a
t the big brick house done in an old English manor style. It was big enough that it actually could have been one of those great old homes plopped down in the woods of Louisiana. The place had only stood for about eighty years though, which made it new in comparison to many of its European counterparts.

  “Is it okay for us to be here?” Wes asked. He was whispering and it made Nick grin.

  “Yeah,” he said as he opened the truck door and got out. “I know the owner.”

  “Really?” Wes asked as he opened his door and got out as well.

  “Really.” He took a crowbar from behind the seat lest the local ripper decide to pay them a visit. Wes saw it and Nick shook his head. “It’s fine. Just in case one of the local crazies tries anything.”

  “Oh, no,” Wes said. He looked back at the truck door. “I didn’t think about that because, my God, look at that house.”

  “It’s a behemoth,” Nick agreed.

  Gallagher House rose up out of the pecan trees and live oaks that covered a large part of the lawn. It looked haughty and foreboding sitting on the slight rise of the lawn, turrets and spires twisting up to the sky. Maybe it wasn’t like a manor house after all, Nick thought. Maybe it was more like an even older relic; a castle. It was a bizarre house and in the summer months the road in front of it was busy with tourists passing through on their way to New Orleans or beyond, but invested in making the most of the drive. The house was a looker and full of sordid, violent history.

  “Who owns it?” Wes asked.

  “Tobias Dunwalton,” Nick said. “He’s the guy I mentioned at the carnival.”

  Wes was quiet, trying to remember who Nick was talking about. “The funeral home guy?”

  “That’s the one,” Nick said.

  “I didn’t realize funeral home… people… made that much money,” Wes said.

  “They don’t, but nobody wanted to live in the house, so he got it really cheap,” Nick said. “Not free, of course, but the place was in pretty bad shape and the history of it is even worse, so he got it for a lot less than he would have otherwise. He won some money on a scratch-off around the time he was looking into the place, too, which helped a lot.”