Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection)

by McCray, Carolyn

  Michael hopped out of the SUV. “Ladies.”

  “I’m sorry. There has been a horrible misunderstanding,” Cecilia said, trying to pry herself out of Helen’s viselike grip.

  Michael’s face clouded. “Helen said that you changed your mind. That you were looking forward to coming?”

  Cecilia stepped on Helen’s foot. Her friend just smiled, though. “Yep, she sure is. Cecilia just wanted to make sure that she rode in front with you.

  Before Cecilia could argue, Francesca whispered into Cecilia’s ear, “Before you answer, look behind you.” Reluctantly, Cecilia glanced over her shoulder. Her mother was in the kitchen window, beaming and taking pictures. Francesca continued, “Don’t make us disappoint her.”

  Sighing, Cecilia turned back to the car. In truth, a stupid goth concert did actually sound better than staying home tonight. That was how low her life had sunk.

  “Okay, but I need to be home early. I have a lot of homework.”

  Helen clapped. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  “Here you go,” Michael said, as he opened the door for her. Who knew goths had manners?

  * * *

  Paxton lifted the crime scene tape for Ruth as they entered the YMCA’s locker room. Time did not improve the odor. If anything, it smelled even more like athlete’s foot and ass. The place was far less cluttered, however, than the last time he was here. All the CSIs and uniforms had gone home. Except for the guard posted at the door, the place was deserted.

  “All right, Wonder Woman, do your stuff.”

  “You could help.”

  “What? I already did.”

  When Ruth raised an eyebrow, Paxton clarified. “I cuffed the perp.”

  His partner sighed as she started her search. As Ruth searched, pointing her flashlight in every nook and cranny, Paxton found a nice bench and sat down. Leaning back against the wall, he positioned himself just right. With his legs outstretched, he might be able to get in a good nap. And no Darby to interrupt it.

  It had been a long-ass day. Make that two days.

  Closing his eyes, he imagined a nice, juicy porterhouse steak with a double-baked potato, and maybe corn on the cob on the side. Now that was how he wanted his evening to go. Which reminded him—he really needed to feed that cockatiel.

  Intruding on his thoughts, Ruth asked, “Darby was barefoot, wasn’t he?”

  “And going commando, I might add,” Paxton responded, without even opening his eyes. But his ruse would not last long. He heard his partner walk across the tile floor.

  “But look at this …”

  Very reluctantly, Paxton opened his eyes to find Ruth’s cell phone in front of his face. “They found a bloody shoe print in the blood.”

  Paxton shrugged. “Probably one of the beat cops.”

  “No, this print was made while the blood was still wet.”

  Paxton raised an eyebrow. “With the humidity in there, that blood would have remained sticky for hours.”

  It was Ruth’s turn to look a bit contrite. “You’re right.” But then, she chewed at her bottom lip as she enlarged the image on the screen. “That doesn’t look like a duty boot, though. The imprint looks like a…a…tennis shoe.”

  Her face brightened. “A ‘Speed Demon’ tennis shoe, to be exact.”

  “Speed Demon?”

  Ruth sat down next to him, typing into her browser. “You know, the hottest tennis shoes. You bought Jeremy a pair, so then I had to buy Evan a pair?”

  Paxton looked down at the scene. Oh, yeah, those two-hundred-dollar tennis shoes. He hated to tell his nephew, but the shoes were not what made Kobe Bryant jump higher. But try telling that to a teen.

  “Hey, uncles are supposed to spoil nephews and nieces. Besides, every student at Our Lady of Sorrows has them. Hell, every kid in every high school and half the weekend warriors across the country have got them, too.”

  Ruth sighed beside him and leaned back as well. “And a men’s size 10 is not going to help narrow the search, either.”

  Paxton followed Ruth’s logic forward. “So let me sum up your current theory. A knife-wielding, cape-wearing, tennis shoe-clad perp killed our guy?”

  “Well, when you say it that way…”

  They both stayed there for a few heartbeats. Her strawberry shampoo overcame even this locker room’s stale air. She smelled like happiness, or dessert. Paxton couldn’t decide which one.

  Ruth was all about the case, though. “I know that it was chaos when we came in, but I think we would have noticed a guy in a cape escaping.”

  “My point exactly,” Paxton replied, glad that Ruth was finally catching on.

  “No, actually, it is my point.” His partner sat upright. “It means that he stashed the cape somewhere.”

  Paxton closed his eyes again. “You get to make the call to search all of these lockers on a fishing expedition.”

  “Don’t need one.”

  He looked up to find Ruth smiling. Why, he did not know, though. “Um, unless the laws regarding search and seizure have suddenly changed, you most certainly do need a warrant.”

  But Ruth just opened an empty locker. “Not if the locker is unsecured. No lock, no warrant. Someone can’t have an expectation of privacy on a locker he does not legally occupy.”

  Damned if she wasn’t right. “Knock yourself out.”

  “We will get out of here a lot faster if you helped.”

  Normally, he would grumble. But he really was hungry and tired, and the sooner he could get to that porterhouse, the better. With a groan, he rose. Most of the lockers were secured. This really shouldn’t take long. Then, once he proved that there was no caped menace, he would talk Ruth into doing the final paperwork so he could head to the steak house before it closed.

  Rapidly, he opened five in a row. Granted, he found $2.89 in change and a condom, but otherwise, they were largely empty. Ruth was working her way down the aisle, flashing her light in each.

  Okay,” Ruth said, as she got to the end of her row. “Maybe we will need a warrant for the rest that are locked.”

  Paxton was about to say, “I told you so,” when he opened an upper locker. Sure enough, a damned bloodstained cape fell out.

  God, he hated it when Ruth was so very right.

  * * *

  Cecilia tugged the edge of her hem down. It was weird to have so much leg showing, especially sitting next to a boy. The car pulled into a nearly packed parking lot. She glanced around. She didn’t recognize the area, and she hadn’t paid much attention to where they were driving, since she was too busy rehearsing ways to still get out of this really ill-conceived concert.

  “Oh, my Gawd!” Helen yelled, pointing out her side window. “Look at that!”

  Cecilia’s stomach lurched at the sight. Yet everyone else seemed extremely excited that a rather large and gaily lit yacht, the High Jinx, sat at the dock.

  “The concert must be on Diablo Island. Score!” Quentin said from the backseat as everyone hurried to unbuckle. Everyone but Cecilia.

  Teens poured from the parking lot toward the gangplank. But each time the yacht banged up against the dock, creaking and clanging, Cecilia tensed. It just wasn’t natural. And each gulp of sea air she took in only made matters worse. She was already seasick, and she hadn’t even climbed aboard yet.

  “You okay?” Michael asked, but he sounded far away and tinny. All Cecilia could do was try to keep her breath steady and her hands from shaking. “Cecilia?”

  “Nobody said anything about a yacht.”

  “Um, we didn’t know. The tickets just said to meet here at seven. I take it that you aren’t all about water sports?”

  Cecilia shook her head. The thought of all those creatures beneath the surface, out of sight, lurking, creeped her out. Whether the seasickness came first, or her phobia of fish, she wasn’t certain. All she was certain of was that she was not getting on that yacht.

  “What’s going on?” Helen asked, as the group came back to the car. “We’ve got to get a
move on.”

  Again, all that Cecilia could do was shake her head.

  Michael spoke up. “It looks like Cecilia’s got some pretty bad seasickness.”

  “No, no, no,” Helen murmured as she pulled Cecilia from the car. “We are going.”

  Cecilia stayed seated, though. There were some things that even Helen could not manipulate her into doing. “Helen, just go. There is absolutely nothing you could say that will get me on that yacht.”

  As the captain sounded the horn, signaling that the High Jinx would leave the dock with or without them, Helen put her hand on her hip. “How about if I told you that we saw Jeremy get on the yacht?”

  “What?” Cecilia asked, as she stood up way too fast for her stomach’s current predicament.

  Francesca shrugged. “It sure looked a lot like him and that quiet little friend of his.”

  “Evan?” Cecilia asked, as both of her friends nodded. “But they were staying overnight at Evan’s place tonight.”

  Helen led her toward the yacht. “Come on—like you’ve never pulled the sleepover switcheroo?”

  “No. No, I haven’t,” Cecilia said, trying to wrap her mind around her brother’s latest stunt.

  “Well, Jeremy certainly seems to be doing it.”

  Cecilia’s fury rose. It didn’t necessarily replace the nausea, but it certainly pushed it to the side. How could Jeremy do this? It was bad enough that he slipped out to Evan’s. But now—to go to a concert after ditching school, and she could only guess, a few tests? The nerve of that kid! Only two years separated them, but they lived worlds apart.

  The yacht’s horn blared again as the crew hurried the last few stragglers up the gangplank. A stiff wind blew, and you could feel the clouds rolling in. Clearly, they wanted to get underway before the storm hit.

  Helen nearly dragged her toward the yacht.

  “I am sure they’ve got some Dramamine® on board,” Francesca coaxed.

  “And I am buying!” Helen added.

  Cecilia allowed herself to be led to the dock. It wasn’t because of Helen’s pestering or Francesca’s pleading. It was to see the look on her brother’s face—the little punk!—when she hauled his butt out of that concert and straight home.

  Well, not straight home. No. They needed to make one stop first.

  To buy a lock for his freaking window.

  This freewheeling, devil-may-care crap ended tonight.

  * * *

  Again, Ruth turned over the bag holding the bloody cape. Forensics had already done the preliminary tests and returned the evidence to the squad room per her request. She knew it didn’t make sense, but she thought a bit better when she had something physical to see and touch. So here she sat at her desk, mulling over the bloody cape.

  The lights were low. Instead of the usual sounds of a dozen phones ringing and cops streaming in and out of the bull pen, the place was as quiet as a church. Only a few other detectives were still hanging around, putting their files to bed for the weekend. Most of her peers had left early to go home for Halloween, but with Evan at Jeremy’s, Ruth had all the time in the world to ponder the inconsistencies of the case.

  It turned out that the blood on the cape was the same blood type as the victim in the sauna. It would take days to determine an exact match, however.

  Unlike the blood found in Darby’s sink. That blood had been his own. Turns out that on top of the cross fetish, he was also a cutter. More than likely, unless they found massive evidence linking Darby to the murders, he would be released in the morning. Finding him at the scene of the crime could be one of the worst “wrong place at the wrong time” situations. At the least, she hadn’t tried to shoot Darby.

  Ruth could feel the shame rise again over the shop owner, but Paxton leaned forward, tapping the evidence bag.

  “Okay. I’m on board with a costumed, yet highly fashion-conscious, killer as our perp, but how are we going to track him down? This cape could have been bought on a hundred different websites.”

  She turned the bag over again. “That’s what makes our job so interesting, right?”

  “Nope,” Paxton said, throwing his weight back into the chair. “I like the simple, straightforward, nab-the-guy-and-go-eat kind of case.”

  Ruth ignored her partner’s patter. Sure he was full of bluster, but he was still here. He didn’t have to go to the YMCA with her. He didn’t even need to come back to the station. He could have left hours ago—yet he was still here. And she wanted to make sure she made it worth his while.

  She turned to Darby. “Did this masked man say anything?”

  “Hey!” Paxton said. “Remember, no-talkie to the …” Her partner spun his finger next to his temple, making the international hand signal for crazy.

  “That was when we thought he was a suspect.” She turned to Darby. “I am asking you only as a witness.”

  The bald man’s eyes sharpened, but he took a step forward. “He spoke of the devil being a dog. The rest I will not repeat.”

  “Dude, she just said that we aren’t considering you a suspect any longer. You can tell us the whole thing,” Paxton urged.

  Ruth, however, did not get the sense that Darby was holding back. He truly seemed reluctant to repeat the killer’s words. “I think God would understand if those words helped us catch a murderer.”

  Darby shook his head violently. “I will not speak such blasphemy.”

  “The devil is a dog…” Bernoski murmured, keeping beat with his fingers on his desk. “So get ready to be mounted.”

  Darby pointed out of his cell. “Yes, that is the heresy!”

  “Wait. How did you know that?” Paxton asked Bernoski.

  The younger detective shrugged. “It’s a lyric from Diana Dahmer’s new hit, ‘Lay Down and Take It Like a Sheep.’ ”

  “How lovely,” Ruth commented. Seriously, people needed to find better things to do with their time.

  “Great,” Paxton said. “Now we just need to find a Diana Dahmer fan wearing ‘Speed Demon’ tennis shoes with a hard-on for the Spanish Inquisition.” He sighed. “No problem.”

  Yes, it was beginning to look like a very long night.

  CHAPTER 5

  Cecilia willed the gangplank to finally go down. She clutched at Michael’s arm as if it were the only solid thing in her world. Helen had bought the entire stock of Dramamine® from the vending machine, and still Cecilia’s head spun.

  When she got ahold of Jeremy…

  Ugh! Revenge would have to wait, though. First, she needed to get off this stupid yacht. The deck beneath her feet lurched. The sea swells worsened as the sky overhead boomed with thunder. Actually, the weather could not possibly be better for a Halloween night, but she really, really, really did not want to retch again—especially not in front of Michael. The poor guy had seen more of her than he probably ever wanted to again. He must have been pissed that he was stuck with Miss Pukey, while everyone else was below deck with a thumping bass, loud music, and high-pitched squeals from the girls.

  Finally, the ropes secured the rocking yacht to the dock. Despite the crush of people, Cecilia elbowed her way to the front of the crowd and was one of the first ones off. Well, she and Michael were the first ones off, given that he practically had to carry her down the gangplank.

  Whatever revenge she had plotted out against Jeremy before, it was now tenfold.

  Once her legs hit solid ground, they nearly buckled in gratitude. Michael guided her over to a barnacled post. She didn’t even flinch when their slimy shells brushed up against her skin. As long as they helped hold her up, she was fine with these sea creatures.

  Hundreds of partiers streamed past them, heading toward the glowing mansion perched on top of the hill. It was like a beacon to a bunch of goth moths. Cecilia gulped in a few breaths, feeling the brisk night air. The wind tugged at her hair, and not even Helen’s copious amounts of hair spray could keep it tamed.

  Cecilia closed her eyes and let the nausea roll over her. She was on dry la
nd. Well, at least dry for the next few minutes. Lightning struck over the sea as thunder boomed inland. This storm was going to be a doozy. She hoped that her mom remembered to close the storm shutters. But that would probably be asking too much.

  As the first wind-whipped raindrops splashed against her face, Helen and the rest joined them. With blushed cheeks and wide smiles, the rough ride was over, and it only seemed to invigorate them.

  “If the concert is anything like that ride, we are in for the night of our lives!”

  Cecilia ignored Helen and watched the crowd flow by. If she could just spot Jeremy, he would feel her wrath. But she just couldn’t keep her eyes open that long. The bobbing heads churned up more nausea.

  “Are you okay?” Francesca asked, as she rubbed her back.

  “Why don’t you guys go on ahead?” Michael suggested. “We’ll be right behind.”

  “But—” Francesca started to say, but Helen pulled her along the path up to the mansion.

  “Come on. Let’s give them some ‘alone’ time.”

  “You’ll look for Jeremy?” Cecilia asked.

  “Yeah, sure, of course,” Helen promised. “See you soon!”

  Through eyes that were nothing more than slits, Cecilia watched the rest leave, giving her more air to breathe. She was glad, as the boisterous, noisy crowd hooted and hollered its way up the hill. Catching her breath, she straightened her back. She felt ready to stand up. With support from the post, of course, but at least she was standing up. Cecilia was taking that as a win tonight.

  Swallowing hard, Cecilia turned to Michael. “Go. You should join them.”

  “I’m good.”

  “Seriously, the worst is over. You should go.”

  Michael cocked an eyebrow. “And leave you here alone in the rain?”

  Actually, the raindrops felt good against her burning cheeks. The cold wind seemed to whisk away the feeling of dread and the bile at the back of her throat. Then again, anything was better than that constant tossing and rolling of the yacht ride over.

  “I really appreciate everything, Michael, but you can lose the gentleman routine.”

  “Excuse me?”