And he had even been bright enough to take a hostage.
But what now? Sure, Parker was rich. Maybe he even had research and development connections in the field of human reanimation, if there was such a thing. But he was from the west coast, his research facilities would be three thousand miles away, and the minute they even tried to use the guy’s ATM card to get a little operating capital the authorities would be on him like, well, like Earl Manning on a free beer.
The situation was just about fucking hopeless. Earl felt himself getting worked up, agitated, like he did when his Ma tried to make him do stupid shit like take out the garbage or clean their ratty trailer. If he could breathe, he’d probably be hyperventilating right now, but, of course, that wasn’t a problem, was it?
Earl spied a fire lane cut into the trees, coming up fast on the right. He hit the brakes, too hard, and the Porsche skidded along the deserted road, the car’s ass end trying to overtake the front. Parker’s limp body tumbled into the passenger side foot well and wedged itself into the tiny space. Earl concentrated on keeping the goddamn car from flying off into the trees and forgot to hit the clutch with his left foot and the fucking engine died and he slammed his hands on the steering wheel in frustration as the car came screeching to a halt, somehow stopping right in the middle of the road.
He wanted to cry or scream or hit something. Instead he turned the key to restart the car and it tried to jitter forward since it was still in gear. Earl forced himself to slow down, concentrating hard, and depressed the clutch before turning the key again and the engine fired up like the car had just come off the showroom floor, purring contentedly. Earl eased the Porsche into first gear and chugged forward, making the right turn into the fire lane and driving a couple of hundred feet until he was pretty sure the vehicle was out of sight of the road, not that anyone was likely to come by.
Then he shut the engine off and leaned down to the right. It was time the two of them had a little conversation, man to man. Or at least corpse to man. Earl snickered. He dragged Parker’s body back up onto the seat and raised his hand to slap the billionaire like people always did on TV when someone was unconscious—it seemed to work every time—and noticed his hostage’s blue eyes were open and he appeared more or less alert. He seemed to be working hard at looking anywhere but at Earl, but he was definitely awake, although he had not so much as uttered a word yet.
Earl smiled and Parker scrabbled his feet against the Porsche’s firewall, doing his best to shove himself through the passenger side door and into the woods. He had apparently learned nothing from unsuccessfully attempting the same maneuver at his house. A terrified whimper escaped his lips and Earl’s smile widened into a grin. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” he said. “That makes . . . well . . .” he pretended to count on his fingers . . . “one of us.”
“What do you want from me,” Parker whispered. “I gave that other guy the Codebreaker already; I have nothing more to offer.”
“That other guy,” Earl mused. “Oh, you mean The Fucking Devil Max Acton, the man whose throat I ripped out? The man who murdered me and then desecrated my corpse by cutting my heart out and bringing me back to life to act as his personal slave? Is that the other guy you’re referring to?”
Parker nodded slowly, clearly unsure where this conversation was going and whether agreement would be good or bad for his long-term health.
“Well, here’s the thing,” Earl said. “I don’t give a damn about the fucking Codebreaker, I have other things to worry about. Things like getting my heart put back in my chest and getting my life back. And not this crazy half-life of being dead, forced to do someone else’s bidding, either. I mean becoming a real, live person again, going to the Ridge Runner and drinking with my friends. It might not seem like much of a life to a rich snob like you, but it’s mine, and I WANT IT BACK!”
Earl had felt himself getting angrier and angrier as he talked, pissed off at the unfairness of what he had been put through, and by the time he finished talking, he was surprised to discover he was shouting, screaming into Brett Parker’s face. He would have been showering the man in spit, but, of course, he couldn’t generate saliva; he was dead.
Parker’s eyes were wild, his face white as a ghost. He shook his head. “What does any of this have to do with me?” He was still whispering, as if maybe he thought the sound of his voice at full volume might push Earl over the edge. And that pissed him off, too.
“What does it have to do with you? Are you really that stupid? You have all the money and all the resources. You’re going to use that money and those resources to figure out how to get me my life back.”
Parker shook his head. His bewilderment looked real. “I don’t know anything about what happened to you, and I don’t know anything about bringing the dead back to life. I . . . I don’t even think any of that is possible. I’m a computer software developer, a tech geek, that’s all. I don’t see how I could help you.”
Earl snapped. Parker was his only hope and the software billionaire had fallen right into his lap. That couldn’t have been a random occurrence; the guy had to be able to fix him. The universe couldn’t possibly be so cruel as to give him this rare opportunity and not allow him to use it somehow.
“BULLSHIT,” he screamed, and he turned the key and the engine started on the first try. He jammed the Porsche’s stick shift into reverse, remembering to depress the clutch despite the stress and his anger, and then stomped on the gas. The engine roared and dirt and dust and rocks flew from under the tires as they spun on the sandy surface of the fire lane and a second later they caught and the Porsche rocketed backward, Earl barely paying attention, somehow managing to avoid shooting off the narrow trail into a tree.
Parker screamed and Earl felt a rush of savage glee and in a matter of seconds, against all odds, the Porsche had reversed straight out of the fire lane. It bounced onto the crumbling pavement of Mountain Home Road, shooting sparks as it bottomed out on the slight rise of the shoulder and then flew into the air. Earl smacked the top of his head on the Porsche’s carpeted ceiling and he felt the car begin to cant slightly to the left, and then they slammed back down onto the road, sparks flying, thick black smoke billowing from under the wheel wells as Earl kept the accelerator jammed to the floor.
The engine screamed and the tires screamed and Parker screamed and the Porsche shot across the empty road, disappearing into the forest opposite the fire lane. It blasted through the branches of an ancient fir tree like a bullet and slammed backward into the tree’s massive trunk and the car exploded in a shower of smashing glass and twisting sheet metal.
And then it was quiet.
31
Sharon reached the top of the stairs and pushed Raven roughly through the doorway into the kitchen, anxious to get as far away from the overwhelming stench in the basement as possible. She was in a hurry to get medical attention for Raven and then transport her to a holding cell so she could continue her search for Mike McMahon.
She was frustrated and angry. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind this young woman knew more than she was saying, both about the dead body in the basement and maybe also about Mike’s disappearance, but she had clammed up and shown no signs of cooperating and Sharon didn’t want to waste precious time on a lost cause. Maybe once she had tossed Raven into the back of the cruiser and they were on their way to the hospital she could get the girl to open up a little.
But she was still pissed. She kicked the basement door closed after shoving Raven into the kitchen. The door slammed and the whole house seemed to shake, and she stalked forward and—
—What the hell?
A muffled sound came from somewhere she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It might have been in front of her or behind her or even above her on the second floor. Or maybe from the basement. The sound was brief and aborted and perhaps even a figment of her imagination.
She stopped dead still, grabbing Raven by the crook of the elbow to keep her from continuing into the empty living roo
m. What had she heard? Had she even heard anything? It had sounded almost like a puppy whimpering or maybe someone snoring enthusiastically under a blanket.
Or maybe a cry for help.
‘What is it? What’s going on?” Raven asked, turning her head to look quizzically at Sharon.
“Shut up,” she hissed. “Did you hear that?”
Raven shrugged. “What?”
“Never mind,” Sharon answered, concentrating, trying to focus all of her attention on her sense of hearing. Finally she shook her head. It must have been her imagination.
She took one step and heard it again, weaker this time, if that was possible. It was just barely intelligible. But it wasn’t a puppy whimpering and it wasn’t anyone snoring under a blanket. It was a cry for help, and it had come from the basement, Sharon was suddenly sure of it.
She looked at Raven and realized Raven had heard it this time, too. The young woman was watching her with sharp, clear, calculating eyes and Sharon knew if this girl had suffered an injury down in that basement, it definitely wasn’t anything too serious. She also knew the minute she let Raven out of her sight, the girl would run like a greyhound.
“Come with me,” she said, pulling Raven toward the kitchen sink. The girl stumbled and almost fell.
“What are you doing? What’s going on?” she said.
“Get on your knees.”
“What?”
“JUST DO IT.” Sharon was out of patience. She couldn’t tell whether the voice from the basement was Mike’s or not, but someone was definitely still down there, and that someone needed help, and Raven’s “poor me” game was getting old very quickly.
She forced the reluctant woman to a kneeling position and grabbed her handcuffs off her belt, leaning down and hooking one of the bracelets around the drain pipe under one of the kitchen sink’s dual tubs. Then she pulled Raven’s thin wrist toward her and slapped the other side around it. She had no idea how sturdy the pipe was, but this girl was even tinier than her—maybe 95 pounds soaking wet—and she was willing to bet Raven wouldn’t be able to escape before her return even if the pipe had weakened with age.
“Don’t you move,” she said, standing quickly and trotting to the basement door. She yanked it open and the smell of rot and corruption struck her again and her eyes began to water as she descended the stairs. She was sure the cry she heard had originated in the basement, but the damned basement was wide open and practically empty. Where had someone been imprisoned that wasn’t immediately apparent when she was down there?
She took the stairs two at a time, hanging on to the wooden stair rail and hoping she wouldn’t stumble and twist an ankle. The minute her eyes cleared the wall she knew exactly where the call for help had come from. The floor freezer at the far end of the basement was almost exactly the perfect dimensions for stashing a body.
She realized she had been distracted by the murdered man lying in the middle of the cement floor, as well as by the injured Raven, but still Sharon mentally kicked herself for not investigating the freezer; for not at least opening the lid and checking it out.
Another cry came from inside the freezer, this one weak and barely loud enough to hear. She took the final four stairs in one flying leap—to hell with worrying about a twisted ankle—and landed with a smack on the floor, stumbling but keeping her feet, making a wide berth around the dead body and all the blood and then sprinting to the freezer.
She yanked on the silver latch and her nervous, sweaty fingers slipped off it. Another swipe at it and the latch gave way and she pushed up on the hinged lid and there was Mike McMahon, crumpled on the freezer floor. His face was bright crimson and sweat poured off every exposed bit of skin in rivers and he seemed unable to catch his breath.
“Sweet Jesus,” Sharon muttered and clambered over the side of the freezer, hooking a hand arm under each of his armpits, struggling to lift his much heavier body. He smiled weakly and breathed deeply, his chest heaving, taking in the foul stench like it was crystal clear mountain air. He slipped out of her grasp and fell to the floor again, then pushed himself up to a kneeling position, hanging his head over the side of the freezer.
“What took you so long?” he whispered, and Sharon knelt down in the freezer, straddling his legs. She kissed him hard, knowing it was unprofessional but not caring.
She felt tears welling up in her eyes and forced them back. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” she answered. “This is a hell of a time to take a nap, though. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a lot going on right now.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” he said, and grabbed the side of the freezer with both hands, forcing himself to his feet. He stepped over the side and stumbled to his knees on the cement and Sharon grabbed him, watching his eyes closely. “Are you going to be okay?”
Mike nodded. “I think so. A few more minutes inside that thing, though, and I think I would have been taking the long nap. Lights were blossoming in my eyes and I couldn’t catch my breath to save my life. Literally. But I’m feeling better and better, just pissed off that Manning was able to get the drop on me.”
“Manning?” Sharon said. “Earl Manning? Earl threw you into this freezer?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“I have a witness that says she either saw Earl Manning get killed or she saw him kill someone. She wouldn’t be any more specific and now she’s clammed up.”
Mike looked down at her, his eyes seeming to become clearer and more alert by the second. “Well, if Manning’s dead, then he’s a zombie, because he was moving around pretty damned good a little while ago. In fact, he hit me like a freaking freight train. He seemed to have had a lot more strength than a scrawny little drunk should.”
Sharon shuddered. “Zombie? That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
32
The strange little group stumbled out of the house, Mike in the lead, clearly already more alert now than he had been just a few minutes ago, apparently none the worse for wear after nearly suffocating in the freezer. Raven followed him closely, with Sharon bringing up the rear, maintaining a tight grip on her prisoner’s upper arm.
Sharon wasn’t sure whether the young woman qualified more as a suspect or a witness, but one thing she was sure of was that Raven knew a lot more about what had gone down in that basement than she had thus far revealed. It seemed unlikely a woman as tiny as Raven could have gotten enough of a jump on the much bigger male victim to do the kind of damage that had been inflicted upon him, but Sharon had seen some strange things since returning to Paskagankee and had learned not to discount any possibility. Ever. Even if it was an impossibility.
They crossed the scraggly front lawn and Sharon said, “Wanna ride in my cruiser and then come back for yours after you get checked out at the hospital?”
Mike shook his head, wincing slightly as he did so. “No.”
Sharon narrowed her eyes. “You took a pretty good knock on the head, are you sure you should be driving?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Mike answered. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay here and secure the area. I can get a head start on the investigation and be as prepared as possible when the evidence techs get here.”
“You mean you’re not even going to the hospital?”
“No reason to,” he said. “I’m okay now and it’s not like we’re exactly overloaded with manpower. Harley can stay on routine patrol while you drive our friend here to the hospital to get checked out. I’m going to call Pete Kendall at home and get him out here to handle things on-scene, and I’ll come join you at the hospital after I’ve passed this off to him. That will give Ms . . .”
“Tahoma,” the young woman answered.
“That will give Ms Tahoma the opportunity to secure legal counsel if she wants it and we can begin interrogating her when I get to Orono.”
“You’re the boss,” Sharon said reluctantly. She knew he should see a doctor before continuing, but he did have a p
oint about the lack of manpower. Officers were hard to come by in a town as small and remote as Paskagankee, Maine, especially qualified ones. Investigating a murder, while simultaneously conducting a search for the missing Brett Parker, was going to tax the tiny force to the limit.
Sharon knew Mike would have to call in outside help. He would be reluctant to do so, given how he had been shut out of the search for the killer roaming Paskagankee last fall by the Maine State Police investigative team, but she had known him long enough to know he would never allow personal feelings to get in the way of his job, especially when it involved something as important as a murder investigation.
She gazed into his eyes, holding his stare, wondering whether the intense fear she had felt when he went missing was showing on her face as plainly as she thought it must be. Breaking up with Mike had been the only sensible solution to an unsolvable problem, she knew that. She was surprised the Town Council hadn’t taken action against Mike already for living with his subordinate.
But, goddammit, the pain was almost too much to bear. She had never felt whole until meeting Mike McMahon, and the thought of having to forego all the good he brought out in her for the rest of her life was unbearable. His going missing had only crystallized and clarified the feelings she had already known were there.
She tore her eyes away from his, aware that they had begun to tear up again, and hoped he didn’t notice. She cleared her throat. “Okay, then.” She pushed Raven Tahoma roughly into the back of her cruiser and slid into the front seat, firing up the engine.
“Hey,” Mike said gently.
She looked up at him.
“Be careful driving.”
She nodded, wiping the sleeve of her uniform blouse over her eyes, then gunned the engine, hitting the gas harder than she intended. She refused to return Mike’s stare as she backed quickly down the driveway, giving the empty road her full attention. She slammed the car into Drive and accelerated away. Then she rounded a corner and the ramshackle house was gone.
Revenant Page 16
