by J N Duncan
Hugs and kisses good-bye went around, and Shelby whispered in her ear. “Planned on staying, didn’t you?”
“If I can stay awake,” she muttered back. “How late were you two up last night?”
“Oh,” she said, “kind of late. Sorry, babe. Get a nap in for later.”
Yeah, right. If she fell asleep now, she would never wake up until morning. Except that is exactly what she did. Nick put on It’s A Wonderful Life for them to watch, and with the fire going to warm the bottoms of her feet, and the soft crook of Nick’s shoulder to cradle her head, Jackie was gone before the opening credits were done.
When Jackie stirred from her comatose state, it was dark, and she was lying down, smothered in a thick layer of blankets. Nick’s arm was around her waist and she was spooned up against him. It felt too good to move.
“There you are,” Nick said, amused. “Good morning.”
“Morning?” Jackie groaned. “Damn, what time is it?”
“Three-thirty or so,” he replied. “I was going to let you sleep on the couch, but when the movie ended, you muttered, ‘Let’s go to bed.’ I had to carry you, but you weigh 110 in the pouring rain.”
She halfheartedly threw an elbow back at him. “One twenty-four, thank you very much.”
Nick chuckled. “I was close. You need anything? Glass of water? You want to get up?”
“No,” she replied and relaxed against him. “This is good just like this.” Settling in more solidly against his body, Jackie could tell that he was good with it, too.
His head lifted up next to hers and his lips pressed softly to her neck. “Agreed. Might be stuck here all day at this rate.”
Jackie felt him grow even firmer against her backside, settling between her cheeks. It occurred to Jackie then that she was indeed naked. “Nick?”
“Hmm?”
“I have no clothes on.”
“I noticed,” he said. “You undressed yourself when I set you on the bed last night.”
“Oh.” She had thought about it, had been considering it for the past two weeks, but the actual implementation of it? The thought had knotted her stomach with fear. “I guess that’s OK. Did we? I mean, last night.”
“No,” he replied. “I did take the liberty of settling in here with you. If that’s all right.”
Jackie smiled. Actually, it was more than all right. When was the last time she had actually woken up in the morning with a guy still next to her? “Yeah, this is good. I like this arrangement.”
“I’d hoped so,” Nick said. “I could get used to this.”
Jackie shifted her hips against him and turned her head back to look him in those depthless, softly glowing eyes. “Me too.”
Nick’s hand slid up her torso, cupping a breast, and brushing the palm across her hardening nipple. His mouth came down against hers, pulling her body tightly against his. What he wanted was readily apparent, and Jackie knew that she wanted this, too. The time was right. Fear had drifted away to an inaccessible place. She lifted up her leg and draped it over his, allowing Nick’s cock to settle between her thighs. A subtle move of his own hips and a moment later he was inside her.
Jackie gasped and moaned against his mouth. There would be no hyperventilating this time, no panicked, racing heartbeat, and no urge to just hurry up and get it over with. They had hours here, and Jackie felt no compulsion to get out. He wanted her, every single neurotic cell of her if his hands and mouth provided any indication. The time was finally right, and for the first time in her life, Jackie made love to a man she truly cared about.
It did not last all day, but Jackie heard the clock chime two PM before she finally crawled out of bed and into the shower. Her mouth appeared to be stuck in a perpetual smile. The nerves had crept in at times over the course of the morning, but Nick was so casual and at ease with her in bed, that they would recede into the background once again. So many things to do and try, many of which she might have actually done at one time or another, but tequila had stolen all of those memories. It was almost like learning about sex for the first time, and Mr. Practical had been just as willing to talk about sex as actually perform it. It had gotten to the point, at one stage, where she tried to see if she could fluster him with absurd sexual requests, but he took everything in stride.
“We’ll try it all,” he had said, implying that this would not be the last night they would be in bed together. Her biggest fear, that he would not find her at all interesting in bed, had been assuaged right then and there.
Now, the clear, bright December sky lit up the windows of Nick’s great room, and Jackie sipped on her coffee while Nick fried bacon down in the kitchen. The smell of it had her stomach growling. She sat at his desk and logged into her e-mail to check on messages, hoping to find more Christmas messages. Who would have thought the holiday spirit could fill her so completely?
Shelby, not surprisingly enough, had sent the first message.
How’d it go? Tell me it ended up being the best
Christmas ever!
Jackie hit reply and typed,
It was, in more ways than I can count.Thank you.
There was a note from Cynthia, too, a message from Belgerman and from Tillie, and even Hauser sent her an e-mail, oddly sent to her as a forwarded reply. What stupid Christmas shit had he sent along to her? Jackie opened it up.
Hey, Beautiful! Hope your Christmas was awesome! All the guys in the geek room send their love ;-). Anyway, this caught me off guard, so I wanted to zip it to you right away. You remember, way back in the early days, when we had no gray hair, I still had hopes of getting you into bed, and you gave me a name to put in to see if it pulled anything up on the database? Well, guess what?
It finally got a hit! After all of these years. I don’t even remember why you said you wanted to know, but the name hit on an Indianapolis newspaper. The article is attached. Happy New Year, gorgeous. Keep kicking ass. Hauser.
The headline of the article was innocuous enough: INDIANAPOLIS MAN ARRESTED IN FRAUD SCHEME. The picture and name of the accused was not. Jackie sat up abruptly, sloshing coffee into her lap. She swore and set the cup on the desk. All of the warm, contented feelings swimming through her body evaporated in an instant. The man’s name was Bradley Jenkins, a.k.a. Carl Peterson. Carl the Cop had been caught.
Jackie’s stepfather had resurfaced into her world once again.
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Prologue
A misty rain swirled down into the darkness between the two brick buildings. Flattened against one cold wall, Archie Lane huddled next to a stack of sagging cardboard boxes, peering out of the narrow alley at the sliver of sidewalk illuminated by a nearby streetlight. This was not how he had envisioned running away. There had been no envisioning to speak of, really. All he had wanted was to escape the smack down going on in his parents’ living room, where Dad had the leg up on the cursing scorecard and Mom was on pace to set a new “thrown objects” record. Now the midnight sounds of Chicago’s suburbs were frightening him even more.
They were not strange sounds. Archie recognized most of them, from the sounds of tires on wet pavement to the screeching yowls of two cats duking it out, but in darkness, all things magnified in the wrong direction. Every shadow contained lurking doom. Body parts lay rotting in every container. Every passing car was his dad hunting for him. Surely, he was destined for the belt with this one. That threat had been very explicit after the last time.
The problem was where to go? Every friend he knew would have parents who would turn him over and make a phone call. His grandpa would let him stay, if only he could remember how to get there. He was also a thirty-minute ride by car. On foot that might take all night, if he even knew what direction to go in.
Archie’s concerns had turned more immediate as the rain began to fall
. It was getting cold. His long-sleeved shirt offered piss-poor protection, and, worse, he was starving. Where did street kids go when they were hungry and wet?
Archie hadn’t the slightest clue. He did not know a single street kid. If he could find one, maybe they could tell him. At worst, maybe he could find a store to hang out in for a while, maybe steal a candy bar or something to fill his rumbling stomach. There was a Kroger not far from his house, but the darkness had confused his sense of direction. It was not on the old downtown strip where he found himself now. It was ... somewhere else.
Archie thrust his hands deeper into his jeans and ventured forth. He would just have to ask someone. It couldn’t be far, and it was open twenty-four hours. He could wander around until the sun came up and maybe, if he was really lucky, sneak back into his room without anyone being the wiser. Mom and Dad would be passed out by sunrise. As long as Dad didn’t come in to kick at the foot of his bed to see if he was sleeping, all would be good.
At the alley’s opening, Archie stood at the corner and poked his head out. There were only a few cars parked on the street. Further up at the corner, a couple walked quickly down the opposite sidewalk, huddled under an umbrella. Boy! They were in a real hurry, looking back at something, but Archie could not tell what. The intersection ahead appeared empty. Not fifty feet down the sidewalk, a car door opened, and a man stepped out. Nice car. Nice suit. He popped open an umbrella and looked up in Archie’s direction, eyes hidden behind dark, round glasses.
Archie ducked back into the darkness and watched as the man began to walk toward him. He hardly looked dangerous, but what Archie found disquieting, what spawned a gnawing worm in his gut, was that the slick-looking car eased along the edge of the street, matching him step for step. Archie took another step back into the darkness, just in case.
The man hummed a tune, some old-fashioned-sounding thing Archie didn’t recognize. His footsteps were silent upon the wet cement. When he got close, Archie held his breath, freezing every muscle of his body, willing it not to begin shivering. There was no way the guy could see him there, melded flat to the brick wall, right? He continued to walk, stepping across the alley’s opening, one step, two, but at the edge he stopped.
Archie’s heart leaped in his chest. The man, not ten feet away, paused and then turned, the umbrella resting lightly against his shoulder. He looked directly at Archie.
“I dare say, young man. Whatever are you doing out on a night like this and dressed like that?” His voice was old, reminding Archie of his grandpa, but it had a smoothness to it that belied the man’s age. “And huddled in that rotting, forsaken alley. Surely you must be cold?”
Stranger at night on a nearly empty street. Archie knew better. These weren’t the sorts of people you talked to when alone. “Pervs will snatch you right off your own street!” his mother had been fond of telling him.
“Just, um, hangin’ out,” Archie said. “I was on my way home actually ... from a friend’s house.”
A corner of the man’s mouth curled up beneath the shadows of the umbrella. “I see. No ride home from your mum or dad? It’s awfully late. Bad sort of folk out and about this time of night, Mr. Lane.” The blue car came to a stop behind the man, its windows cloaked in glossy, rain-splattered darkness.
“It’s okay,” Archie said, the worm in his gut now chomping gleefully at his insides. “I’m good. I don’t have far to go.” If he was quick enough, he might be able to bolt past the old guy. If not, one of those gloved hands could easily get a handful of shirt. The man’s words suddenly sunk in. “Hey. How’d you know my name?”
“I know your mother, Archibold,” he said, the other corner of his mouth twitching up to reveal a ghostly smile. “We met at the mall just the other day. I believe you were at the candy machines getting yourself a treat.”
Archie nodded. “Oh. Yeah.” His stomach rumbled at the thought of the handful of gummy worms he had gotten last weekend.
“Would you care for a ride home, Archibold?” When Archie remained silent, the man knelt down. “You ever ridden in a Rolls-Royce before?”
Archie shook his head. “Nope. It’s Archie, by the way. I hate Archibold.”
A deep chuckle rumbled out of the man’s throat. “Archie it is. I’ve got soda inside, and I believe there might be something you could eat.”
A ride in that car would be cool, no doubt. Free food and drink would be good, too. The worm paused in its hungry gnawing to shake its wary head. Don’t ride with strangers. You just never knew, did you?
“I don’t know. Actually, I think I’m good. My house isn’t far at all.”
He stood back up, looking down the street from where he’d come. “Almost two miles, Archie. That’s a bit of a walk on tired feet.”
“You know where I live, too?” Archie pulled his hands from his pockets. The worm was telling him to run, and the idea was making more sense by the second.
“Of course I do,” he said, kneeling back down. A gloved hand reached up to pull the glasses down the bridge of his nose. “I could not have followed you here if I did not, now, could I?”
Archie froze, his body and mind coming to an ice-encased standstill. “Whoa, dude. Your eyes are glowing.”
“They are.” A black gloved hand reached out toward him. “It’s a special trick. Can you see anything in them? If you look hard enough, you will see something very special indeed.”
One step, followed by another. Archie felt his hand reach out to take the strange man’s hand. There actually was something in the glowing, irisless eyes. Shadows, gray and swirling like fog, danced around inside them. Archie began to shiver.
“They look like ghosts,” he whispered.
The man stood up, his hand clasped tightly around Archie’s. “Very good, Archibold. You can see the other side. Would you like to go?”
The door latch clicked open, and Archie stepped toward the car. “Are they all dead over there?”
“Every last one, my young man,” he said and pulled open the door. “You see, they are my ghosts, but to join them, you must be one as well.”
“Oh.” The comforting warmth of the inside of the car beckoned. It felt so good against his wet, shivering skin. “Don’t you have to be dead to be a ghost?”
The gloved hand gently pushed Archie in the back, easing him into the black cave of the car. “But worry not, Mr. Lane. I shall take care of that.”
The door slammed shut, and a moment later the Rolls eased back into the street.
Chapter 1
Beneath the serene, protective canopy of maple leaves, a boy reclined against the trunk, withered and bloodless, his skin two sizes too big for his depleted body. It was death in all the wrong ways.
Jackie Rutledge squinted at the chaos from the parking lot, frowning at the milling gawkers. A gaggle of reporters and cameramen huddled around their cluster of vans waiting to pounce on the nearest unwary law-enforcement officer. She absently rubbed at her throbbing temple. There should have been laws against committing crimes on Mondays.
The drifting scatter of clouds taunted her by blocking the late September sun only to laugh at her seconds later. Her sunglasses provided little relief from the pain induced from last night’s bottle of tequila, and Jackie hoped that luck would bring a thunderstorm and send the crowd running. There was no luck to be found in this park however. Death had sucked it all away.
The enormous maple, its branches drooping nearly to the ground, was completely encircled with crime-scene tape. Some of the crew were walking around, combing through the grass. The local police looked to have been put in charge of crowd control.
Jackie walked over to her partner, Laurel’s, car and accepted the triple-shot latte and four Tylenol. “Thanks for the wake-up. Why can’t killers keep better hours?”
“Off shifts pay better,” Laurel said and reached up to brush off some lingering sand from the dangling ruffle of auburn hair on Jackie’s forehead. “How was the lifeguard?”
“My thighs still
hurt, so I’m guessing it was good.” Tequila shots blurred out everything beyond last night’s walk on the lake. The guy was long gone when Laurel had pierced Jackie’s skull with the seven AM wake-up. Plopping the pills into her mouth, Jackie swallowed them with the lukewarm coffee.
She took the FBI jacket offered by Laurel, who was now scanning the crowd past the pair of television vans parked at the curb of the parking lot, her blue eyes narrowed in concentration. Her voice was distant. “Wish my thighs hurt.”
“So is this the same MO as the Wisconsin woman?”
Laurel did not answer. Her eyes were closed, and Jackie knew better than to keep talking. Laurel had her psychic radar on, checking for anything out of the ordinary. If this was related to the Wisconsin victim, odds were there would be something. Even with the length of time that she had been dead, there had been a “taint.” For Jackie, some demented prick had drained the woman of her blood. Period.
She finished off the last of her latte and waited for Laurel. She was ready to get moving, more so to avoid the media that looked to be wandering in their direction.
“Something is off here,” Laurel said, her voice barely a whisper.
Jackie cringed. Of course there was. “Not off in a ‘spiked your morning coffee’ sort of way, I hope?”
“There’s some bourbon in the trunk.” Laurel didn’t smile at the humor. She was too intent on something out in the crowd.
“Great. Off to a fabulous start already,” Jackie said, but Laurel was shuffling across the grass to the other side of the parking lot where the crowd had gathered. Something had tweaked that little psychic nerve of hers, and Jackie knew when to leave well enough alone. She waved. “Go find your bogeyman, Laur.” Turning around, she made her way toward the overhanging tree before any media might notice she was standing by herself.
