Twelve Shades of Midnight:

by Liliana Hart

  Something about that meeting prickled like an almighty rash against the back of his neck and set his instincts yammering. Yet he had no clue what he was picking up on.

  Yeah, she’d been cautious and shielded, but that was the normal M.O. for Kaylea Armund—behavior that he’d once found mysterious and enticing. She was the woman of mystery, so to speak. Whether or not that sense of distance she kept between herself and others, particularly the male of the species, would have worn thin as their relationship progressed was open to debate. It was difficult to cultivate a healthy relationship when half of the parties involved were as open as a closed spigot.

  But he’d sure as hell wanted to find out way back then. He’d wanted to crack that valve open and drown in the woman hiding within.

  Until she’d turned psycho on him.

  He’d shed his regret for that relationship’s crash and burn years ago, before he’d even graduated from the University of Washington and headed to Quantico. But a couple of questions had lingered long after he’d moved to D.C.

  What the hell had happened? How could she have spent hours in his bed, giving him the most open, honest and raggedly emotional sex ever—the most amazing sexual experience of his life—only to morph into a shrill, demanding, completely unreasonable shrew twenty-four hours later?

  He shook the memories aside, and tried to zero in on what was bothering him so much about this latest encounter.

  She hadn’t appeared deceptive. Besides, what the hell was there to be deceptive about? It wasn’t like she’d steal the dog, not with a cop bringing the animal to her clinic. No… there had been something else at play.

  Something closer to shock or grief than deception.

  But why? It was just a dog.

  There was one thing of which he was absolutely certain—her reaction hadn’t been a result of seeing him again. She’d been her usually prickly, withdrawn self until he’d brought the dog in.

  A spark of irritation surfaced. The attraction between them had always been stronger on his side than hers, and he was too damn old to blindly leap into such a one-sided relationship again.

  The golden retriever was the one who’d cracked that impenetrable exoskeleton she wore like armor. It had come pretty close to cracking her skull too, when it had knocked her off her feet. Maybe that’s all that weird moment had been. She’d been knocked off balance, both literally and figuratively.

  He’d probably never know what had been going through her mind in the clinic, any more than he knew what had driven her behavior back in college. From day one, the woman had been a mystery to him.

  A beautiful, solemn mystery with a dry wit and a body to bask in.

  A horn sounded, and he lifted a hand in acknowledgement as Beson, driving a white Ford Explorer that was a mirror image to the SUV he was driving, cruised past. He would have known the honker was a fellow officer, or maybe someone from the station’s clerical staff, just by the sound of the horn. Jamesville belied the reputation of warmth given to small towns. Instead, the citizens of his new town were remarkably stony and unwelcoming—thus unlikely to honk a welcome when he drove past.

  He wasn’t certain whether their coldness was due to the fact that he was a stranger, or the fact he was law enforcement. Maybe both; maybe the entire population of Jamesville resented the fact they’d been stuck with two outsiders in the local police station within the course of a month—with one of the outsiders, Nathan Stone, snapping up the key position of Police Chief.

  But then again, maybe the muted hostility was simply a local trait. Kaylea, for example, sure as hell exhibited that trait, expressing it long before he’d even stepped foot in Jamesville.

  He smiled at the irony, although the humor had a grim twinge to it. Who would have guessed that fate would drop him on the doorstep of the only woman of his acquaintance who’d managed to twist him into hungry knots, who’d invaded his dreams on a nightly basis? No question she’d affected him more strongly than any woman had prior to meeting her—or since, if he was honest. But the incredible sex simply wasn’t worth the psychotic, unreasonable behavior she’d exhibited afterwards.

  It had been impossible to reconcile the generous, funny girl who’d spent the night in his bed with the shrill, shuttered woman she’d become afterwards. She’d screamed impossible demands at him the next evening from across their table in a restaurant. That night, it had been impossible to find the girl he’d been falling in love with; the girl whose shuttered solemnity made his heart ache and whose wry humor made him laugh. Within the ruddy glow of the table lamp he saw a shrew sneering at him. Her face had looked twisted, hollow—maybe even possessed. She had become a caricature of the girl he’d thought he’d known.

  For Christ’s sake, she’d insisted he change his entire career path with no valid explanations, no discussion, and no discernable reasoning behind the demand. Then, when he’d refused, she’d walked out on him and spent the next eight months lobbing one bitch grenade after another every time they met up.

  He’d had one hell of a close call. The thought of dealing with those kinds of theatrics and melodrama on a daily or even monthly basis was enough to give him hives. God save him from self-absorbed everything-is-about-me girls.

  A wise man avoided the Kayleas of the world.

  It was a couple of minutes shy of six pm when he pulled around the back of the three story brick building that housed Jamesville police station. The building was almost perfectly square, with a huge front entrance that included a gigantic, wrap-around, multi-tiered staircase. It reminded him of the courthouses on Law and Order.

  Like many of the city dwellings in Jamesville, the police station had an identity crisis. The town had a generous benefactor, who’d insisted on a certain architectural style. This resulted in city buildings which mimicked the grand structures of much larger, more populated cities. With a population of less than nine thousand, Jamesville didn’t need a three story police station with a parking lot the size of Manhattan. On the other hand, the high-tech law enforcement advancements were handy: the live scan fingerprinting technology, the top-of-the-line networked computer system, and the brand new four by four cruisers.

  As the new guy, he’d been given the midnight shift. Technically, it started at eleven pm, but he’d agreed to come in early so Alan Beson could attend his daughter’s sweet sixteen party. The parking lot was all but deserted as he parked his cruiser in front of the small square of grass next to the station’s rear entrance. The clerical department’s shift ended at five pm, and the officers currently on duty were out cruising the streets, keeping Jamesville safe from the odd vagrant or drug deal. Only two other cruisers sat in the oversized parking area.

  The station was quiet as he pulled open the steel door of the employee’s entrance that led into the bowels of the first floor.

  While the city’s architects had been intent on impressing people with the exterior of the building, they’d apparently had no interest in impressing people with the interior. Or maybe they’d simply had no interest in impressing the population that actually worked in the building. The long, narrow hall that led from the back door to the middle of the building was faded to an unappetizing pea-green and smelled of disinfectant and vomit. That vaguely unpleasant smell gave way to burnt coffee the closer he got to the bullpen.

  The squad room was empty. He hung his jacket on the back of his chair and settled behind his desk. Beson wasn’t heading out until seven pm, which gave him time to catch up on any BOLOs—be on the lookout bulletins—or arrest warrants, or other paper work that had hit the wire since he’d left that morning.

  Twenty minutes later the ring of boots on tile brought Logan’s head up. He watched absently as Kyle Rutley entered the squad room, followed at a distance by Douglas Meechum.

  Meechum was okay. A tall, lanky guy with thick knobs for wrists and a face that looked like someone had blown it apart only to slap the pieces back together with haphazard disinterest, Meechum wasn’t much of a looker. Intellectuall
y, though, he was sharp as a razor. He carried the distinction of being the station’s only detective, and while he didn’t say a lot, people listened when he did open his mouth. Unlike Rutley, who everyone tried to ignore.

  Hell, Rutley was a bootlicking ass, and from what Logan could tell, the stupid bastard wasn’t even cleaning the boots of the current chief, but the one who’d retired. Precinct scuttlebutt had it he’d been in the running for the big office himself, only to lose out to Stone in a down to the wire council vote. Logan suspected the man hadn’t given up his aspirations of greatness, but was sitting on them, just waiting for the opportunity to stab Nathan Stone in the back and take the chair for himself.

  Logan tried to stay out of precinct politics, but if it ever looked like Rutley actually had a shot at the title Stone currently held, he’d be looking for another job. If Rutley ever took the office, the station would dissolve into good ‘ol boy quid-pro-quo. Stone might not be the warmest guy in town, but he had the necessary experience and instincts, and at least he ran a fair station.

  “Hey, feeb,” Rutley said in the unfortunately high tone of a prepubescent on helium. “I see you decided to try your luck with our ice princess.”

  Logan suspected that voice was the main reason Stone had reassigned the guy to lock down. It was damn hard to instill respect when you sounded like an adolescent chipmunk in an animated film. Well, that and the fact the jackass was about as incompetent as a toddler. Scratch that; a two year old might have better instincts.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He ignored the feeb comment, a not-so-subtle jab at his previous title of Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rutley seemed to think the reduction from Special Agent to simple officer had been forced on him, rather than a well thought-out career choice.

  “Kaylea Armund,” Rutley said, somehow managing to make the name sound both unsavory and animated. “A little bird told me you paid her a visit this afternoon.”

  Logan had a sudden image of a colorful flock of animated song birds fluttering around the jackass’s shoulders, like those scenes in Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty, or whatever animated Disney flick had been his sisters’ current obsession back when he’d been in college.

  “A stray showed up at my place last night—a golden retriever. There can’t be that many goldens in town. I figured she’d know who it belonged to,” Logan said dismissively and turned his attention to Meechum, who’d suddenly pulled up short, and swung towards Logan’s desk with the oddest expression on his misshapen face.

  “What’s up?” Logan asked as Meechum’s pale gray eyes locked on his face.

  “You’re out on Willow Burrow, aren’t you? Next to the woods?” Meechum asked in the raspy voice of a heavy smoker. He dipped his head slightly as he waited for Logan’s reply and his close-cropped hair shimmered like silver needles beneath the fluorescent lights.

  “Yeah. Why? You know who the dog belongs to?”

  Maybe the previous tenants had owned it and the animal had returned to familiar ground. The house he’d been given upon arriving in town belonged to the city itself. It was one of several that Jamesville maintained, leasing out to city employees free of charge. His house’s previous occupants, from what he’d been told, had moved out after purchasing a place of their own. Maybe the dog had missed its old haunts and returned for a visit.

  “Not a clue,” Meechum said, and sat on the edge of Logan’s desk like he was settling in for a nice long visit. “Did Lea recognize it?”

  Logan eyed him curiously. While the older detective wasn’t exactly unfriendly, he’d never come across as particularly chatty either. This sudden buddy-buddy behavior wasn’t in character at all.

  “Seemed to. She knew his name.”

  “Really? Well that’s a good sign,” Meechum said and then paused, a strange intensity glittering in his pale eyes. “What’s its name?”

  Pushing his chair back and to the right so he had a better view of Meechum’s face, Logan studied the detective. This was getting weird fast. If the detective didn’t know who the dog belonged to, why was he so interested in the animal?

  “Why?” Logan asked baldly.

  Meechum swung his foot and shrugged. “Call me curious.”

  Logan thought that over. He’d bet his ass that there was more going on in Meechum’s mind than simple curiosity, but hell, how would it hurt to share the animal’s name?

  “She called him Max,” he offered after a too long pause.

  Meechum’s foot froze. So did his face. The strangest expression, a cross between shock and satisfaction touched his face. “I’ll be damned.”

  “What?” Logan asked, his voice climbing in irritation. There was little doubt he was missing something. He glanced at Rutley, but the other man looked as mystified as Logan was.

  “Did she happen to mention she grew up in the Willow Burrow house?” Meechum asked.

  “No,” Logan drew the word out slowly, his brow furrowing as he tried to connect the undercurrents swirling around him. “Her parents worked for the city?”

  “Her dad, he was a cop,” Meechum said, with a hint of sourness in his voice, as though the answer left an unpleasant after taste.

  A cop?

  Logan shook his head slightly in disbelief. She’d never, not once in the year they’d known each other back in college, or in the 6 weeks that they’d dated, ever mentioned that her father had been in law enforcement.

  “You’re surprised?” Meechum asked, a shrewd gleam in his eyes.

  The detective couldn’t know about the history he and Kaylea shared. Logan hadn’t told anyone in town about the prior relationship between the two of them. Yet Meechum seemed to know something, or thought he did.

  “Yeah,” Logan said carefully. “She doesn’t seem particularly cop-friendly.”

  Which was putting it mildly.

  Her twisted, hollow face rose in his mind. It had looked almost grotesquely brittle as it seethed across the table from him, bathed in the ruddy glow cast by the amber candle sitting in the middle of their table. Every so often the memory of that night would invade his mind, haunting him. She’d looked like a woman possessed, or a satanically animated jack-o-lantern lit from within.

  “Hardly surprising, considering that crazy aunt of hers,” Rutley jumped into the conversation, as though determined to claim the gossip before Meechum had a chance.”

  Crazy aunt?

  Maybe crazy ran in Kaylea’s family.

  “Jessa’s not crazy,” Meechum contradicted, his voice cooling.

  “What the hell would you call it? What with her convincing those poor nieces of hers that their daddy killed their momma. That’s hardly sane talk now, is it?”

  Whoa. Back up.

  “Kaylea thinks her father killed her mother?” Logan asked, zeroing in on the half of the sentence that interested him.

  Had that been behind her violent reaction to his changing majors? But that made no sense. Kaylea wasn’t an idiot. She’d have known what happened between her father and mother had nothing to do what was happening between the two of them. She’d have known that he wasn’t her father. She wouldn’t have painted him with the same brush… would she?

  Rather than responding to Rutley, Meechum shifted on the edge of Logan’s desk, giving the shorter officer the cold shoulder. Logan ran a hand down his face, washing away a smile. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who found the chipmunk-voiced jackass a grade one pain in the ass.

  “How you liking Jamesville, so far?” Meechum asked.

  “Fine,” Logan said, and waited, absolutely certain this new line of questioning was leading somewhere.

  “Anyone fill you in on the town’s history?” Meechum asked idly, back to swinging that foot.

  “Some.” Logan settled back, waiting for the man to get to the point.

  “Have you seen the lights yet?” Meechum finally asked, tossing the question right out there for God and everyone to hear.

  The que
stion was both a surprise and a letdown. He hadn’t expected the savvy detective to put any stock in such superstitious nonsense.

  “I’ve heard about them.” Logan kept his voice noncommittal.

  “They haven’t been around for years,” Rutley said, regret in his voice.

  Rutley, on the other hand... well, Logan didn’t have any trouble believing the chipmunk was the type of man run by superstitious nonsense.

  “They’re back,” Meechum said, without taking his eyes off Logan’s face. “Mother’s had several reports through the day.”

  Mother was the foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, leather-faced grandmother who worked the day shift dispatch desk.

  “Why the hell didn’t anyone notify me?” Rutley snapped, and rushed off.

  Logan frowned and scratched his chin. Meechum didn’t actually believe in the superstitions attached to the woods, or the bright jumble of lights that periodically called them home... did he?

  He studied the leathery face across from him more closely, but couldn’t tell for sure. The guy was so damned inscrutable... he could just be hazing him.

  “They’re simply atmospheric pressure, from what I’ve heard. Like the Northern Lights of Alaska,” he said slowly, doing some testing of his own.

  Meechum shrugged, a hint of dryness touching his eyes, like he knew what Logan was doing. “That’s one theory.”

  Logan waited for him to offer up another theory.

  “Don’t take Lea’s bristling to heart,” Meechum said instead, changing the subject completely.

  Obviously his introduction of the lights of Spirit Woods had been a vehicle to get Rutley out of the conversation. Logan appreciated the delicacy of his subterfuge. The asshole hadn’t even been aware he’d been played.

  “I barely know the woman,” Logan said casually, but his curiosity got the better of him.

  It wouldn’t matter at this late date. The information had come ten years too late to make a difference. At least it would give him some closure, though; explain why such a promising relationship had crashed so hard and with such ugliness.