Twelve Shades of Midnight:

by Liliana Hart

  These had to be the lights of Spirit Woods. And no, they didn’t look like the Northern Lights. Not in the slightest.

  Or at least they didn’t look like any of the light shows he’d seen, and he’d seen plenty during his stint in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Northern Lights, at least the ones he’d witnessed, hung like a giant glowing curtain across the sky, and while they moved, it was more of a soothing undulation, like a curtain being stirred by a gentle breeze.

  These things, on the other hand; yeah, they glowed—and did they ever, like fucking Christmas lights—but they didn’t hang like a curtain. Hell no, they moved like a hive of swarming bees, zipping through the air in a dense, elongated ball that was constantly in flux. The colors waxed and waned, thickened and thinned, bunched and elongated, zipped up and down, left and right, constantly in motion. They changed directions as quick as a dragonfly, and in perfect unison.

  The show lasted for barely twenty seconds before they suddenly dropped like a stone.

  And the forest below, Jesus H. Christ, it exploded in brilliant, throbbing colors. Ribbons of sapphire, emerald, ruby, and amethyst twined through the trees and lit the entire forest from floor to canopy in a brilliant magical cacophony of color.

  For the first time he saw how Spirit Woods had come by its name.

  Chills prickled the back of his neck and tip-toed down his spine. It was the eeriest thing he’d ever seen. The whole damn forest glowed, but not with just one color. There were distinct jewel-bright hues snaking through the trees. Purple to the right, emerald to the left, sapphire in the middle and then the colors brightened to silver and with a brilliant pop, they were gone.

  In unison the radio died and the forest went dark.

  He sat there, frozen, staring at the blue black stretch of trees.

  He stared until his eyes burned. Until he wondered whether he’d imagined the incident.

  By the time seven am finally rolled around, along with the end of his shift, he’d almost convinced himself the fiery display was a mirage. That it had been a result of a tired, distracted mind coupled with too much talk of the supernatural and useless speculation.

  Logan pulled into the station’s parking lot. He climbed out of his SUV intent on clocking out and writing up his shift report as fast as humanly possible. He had to get home and get some shut-eye, to reset his obviously Jamesville-infected brain.

  By eight fifteen he was back in his cruiser headed home, without running into Rutley—thank God. The last thing he needed was the second degree by someone who seemed emotionally invested in whatever those damn things had been.

  The house he was currently calling home sat on the outskirts of Jamesville and backed up to the eastern tip of Spirit Woods. The residence wasn’t visible from the street, thanks to the quarter-mile driveway and the thicket of trees and underbrush shielding it.

  The seclusion was the biggest plus to his new home. The fact that the driveway might well be impassable in the winter during heavy snow fall was the biggest con. The impassibility could be solved, however, by mounting a snow plow blade to the front of his pickup.

  For the first time since he’d moved in, he studied the rustic two story white farm house as he drew close. The covered porch was huge, with thick railings. It wrapped around two thirds of the house. He tried to imagine Kaylea there and frowned when the vision refused to come.

  Neither could he conjure an image of Kaylea running through the waist high grass that surrounded the two story structure. Hell, the image of Kaylea as a child wouldn’t come. The woman was so guarded and self-contained it was hard to imagine her as a kid—hard to imagine a time in her life where she’d been full of innocence, joy, or the simplicity of trust.

  Impossible to imagine her as anything other than what she was now.

  A beautiful, watchful enigma.

  He pulled around to the back door and parked with the SUV’s nose pointing out. While his shift was over for the day, for the next three days actually, Jamesville’s police force was small enough that everyone was on call in the case of an emergency. And during an emergency, speed often meant the difference between life and death. Hence, he always parked nose out, in case that emergency call came in.

  After climbing out of the cruiser, he took a moment to scan the forest behind him, something he’d never done before. But the thick tangled grove of trees simply hulked there in their own shadows, with no sign of those creepy Christmas lights decorating them. Unable to help himself, he surveyed the woods again, from right to left, with thorough care.

  God help him, he’d been relegated to the same obsessive forest stalking as the rest of the residents in this damn town. Shaking his head in disgust, Logan jerked his gaze away and started for the stairs, only to freeze when his eyes fell on the first step.

  A thick, black clump of mud trailed across the board. It hadn’t been there when he’d left the house the previous afternoon. His eyes moved up, and a partial boot print stamped in the same thick, black mud stood out in stark relief against the white board of the second step. That hadn’t been there either.

  Logan unclipped the strap to his holster, drew his weapon and took the stairs slowly, at an angle, in order to keep the door in his line of sight and avoid the clumps of mud which continued across the porch right up to the back door.

  He’d thought seeing Kaylea in another man’s arms had been the low point to his day, until he got his first look at the kitchen entrance with its splintered, gaping door.

  Chapter Five

  Sonofabitch.

  His gun up in a two-handed grip with his finger loose around the trigger, Logan eased back down the steps. As he backtracked to his SUV, he scanned the gravel driveway. The rocks made it impossible to identify any new car tracks since they showed as compressions in the gravel bed rather than tire impressions. However, there were several more clumps of that thick, black mud scattered across the driveway, some with partial boot prints stamped into them like the one on the stairs.

  He used the button on the key fob to unlock the Explorer and opened the driver’s door as quietly as possible—no sense in alerting the intruder to his presence. With his thighs pressed against the car seat, and his chest facing the driveway, he leaned into the SUV and reached behind him for the radio. Luckily the mic’s cord was long, and stretchy, allowing him to talk while keeping an eye on his surroundings.

  “Dispatch,” he said quietly into the mic. “This is car 7. I’ve got a possible 1521 at 68 Willow Burrow Street.”

  A 1521 meant a burglary in progress, although Logan had no clue whether the asshole who’d kicked down his door was still inside or long gone. Still, he’d proceed on the assumption his visitor was inside, armed and waiting for him.

  A cop who prepared for the worst case scenario was a cop likely to clock into his next shift.

  “Copy that, Logan.” Mother’s raspy voice responded immediately. “Stand by.” Static crackled down the line. Logan split his attention between the back porch, with its gaping door, and the sides of the house, in case someone had exited from the front and was working his way around back. “Units two and four in transit. ETA five minutes.”

  “Copy,” Logan said with a frown. Five minutes gave the intruder plenty of time to make a run for it, assuming he hadn’t already done so. “Advise backup I’m proceeding to clear the house.”

  “Copy that.” Mother’s voice broke on a burst of static.

  Closing and locking the door to the cruiser, Logan grabbed his portable radio, snapped it into place on his equipment belt and headed back up the stairs, gun extended in a two handed grip.

  This time he didn’t stop at the splintered door. Instead, he nudged it open and slid into the kitchen with his back to the door. He swept the room.

  Empty.

  The floor looked like an abstract black and white print though. Muddy boot prints and clumps of black soil across bleached white linoleum.

  And Jesus Christ, the bastard had done a number on the walls and floor. It looked l
ike he’d taken a sledgehammer to the sheetrock, leaving huge, gaping holes in the smooth surface. The floor hadn’t fared much better. The dining room table had been shoved aside, and the three-foot section of floor that had been directly beneath it peeled up. Linoleum, subfloor, everything ripped up and tossed aside until there was nothing but a two foot drop followed by the cement foundation.

  He glanced in the walk-in pantry as he passed by, grimacing at the shattered shelving and holes in the pantry walls.

  What-the-fuck was with this asshole? He have something against walls?

  Logan had used the shelves for camping and hunting equipment, and the bastard who’d invaded his home had dumped everything onto the ground before going badass on the shelving. But Logan could tell from the small mound of equipment at the base of the shelves that the asshole had helped himself to a bunch of stuff too. That pile on the floor didn’t come close to matching the volume of equipment that had been on the shelves.

  Logan glanced at the newspaper in the sink as he eased through the kitchen. A drug induced rage would explain the violence against the walls and floor, but why the grudge against the daily news? He’d left the paper on the table, but his visitor had shredded it and then balled it up before pitching it into the sink.

  The farmhouse had been built long before the open space floor plans so popular among modern day homes, so each room was separated from the rest of the house by an assortment of walls and doors. The kitchen was separated from the dining room by a floor to ceiling swing door. He sidled up to the wall beside it and gave it a good nudge, sending it swinging, and then settled back to wait.

  Nothing.

  No shots. No drug addled asshole exploding through the door in fury.

  His instincts whispered that the vandalism had taken place hours earlier, and the bastard was long gone. But his instincts had been wrong before, so he continued his slow, painstaking search of the house.

  The damage was extensive, but almost entirely to the walls and floor, which was odd. Not that Logan was complaining. He preferred his sixty-inch flat screen television on its stand, instead of lying in pieces on the floor. Ditto for the Blu-ray player, DVR, and stereo. But hell, it didn’t add up. Generally vandals destroyed everything, and electronics were a favorite choice when it came to trashing.

  He’d cleared the entire house by the time he heard the crunch of gravel outside. Poking one of the living room curtains aside, he watched as a dark blue Explorer braked hard in front of the back porch.

  Detective Meechum.

  Just fucking great.

  Perfectly still, he watched Kaylea’s hug-buddy climb out of his rig and turn to scan the tree line behind the house. The fact Logan had done the exact same thing—twice—just a scant time earlier made him want to slam his fist into something. Repeatedly.

  Preferably Meechum’s face.

  Scowling, he let the curtain drop and headed for the kitchen. The tall, raw-boned detective had climbed the last step and was standing on the back porch when Logan shoved the splintered slab of wood that had once been his kitchen door open.

  “He gone?” Meechum asked, his gaze shifting from the broken door, to the muddy streaks of soil on the porch.

  “Looks like it,” Logan said, hearing the clipped antagonism in his voice.

  Meechum must have heard it too. The detective’s head snapped up, and shrewd amber eyes studied Logan’s face.

  Logan tried to rein in his sudden dislike of the man. If he were lucky, Meechum would chalk his ill humor up to being robbed and vandalized.

  “He get anything?”

  “Camping equipment. Some cash. Clothes.” Logan had to look away from Meechum’s square face and intelligent eyes, because looking spawned images of Kaylea in his arms, which gave rise to the urge to start swinging.

  He wanted to attribute this sudden need for violence to the burglary and vandalism, except the urge had hit the night before, right around the time Kaylea had walked out of her clinic and into this man’s arms.

  Which was absolutely ridiculous. He had no claims on the woman. He had no feelings for her.

  What they’d shared was in the past. Ten years in the past. He’d gotten over her years ago. He had, damn it… hadn’t he?

  “He get any guns?” Meechum asked, his forehead crinkling as he scanned Logan’s face.

  “You don’t think I’d mention it if he’d got any fucking guns?” Logan growled, the sudden questions rising in his head as unsettling as those damn lights had been the night before.

  He swore under his breath when Meechum rocked back on his heels, and raised heavy eyebrows. When the amber gaze across from him narrowed, Logan turned and stomped back into his kitchen. “No, he didn’t get any guns. I have a safe.”

  Not that the bastard hadn’t tried. The safe door was scratched to hell. So was the handle and dial. If the thing didn’t weigh as much as the house, the asshole probably would have taken it with him.

  “Relax, we’ll catch this nut job,” Meechum said from behind him and then whistled. “Christ, he sure did a number in here. Lucky you’re renting this place. At least you aren’t responsible for damages.”

  Logan grunted, relieved that the detective had concluded Logan’s bad mood was burglary-related. The crunching of gravel outside indicated another car approaching, so Logan swung back to the porch, thankful to get away from Kaylea’s main squeeze—fuck that; only squeeze, according to what Rutley had said.

  At least he wouldn’t be alone with the good detective anymore. He was pretty sure an explanation of burglary-related stress wouldn’t stave off charges if he hauled off and gave the asshole the pummeling Logan craved.

  “Looks like your guy was on foot.” Meechum’s voice was thoughtful.

  Logan turned to find him surveying the hole in the kitchen floor and the muddy boot prints all over the linoleum with the strangest look on his face. It was kind of a cross between disbelief and cold determination, with maybe a little rage thrown in. The expression vanished when he caught Logan watching him.

  What the hell had that been about?

  “Any of this mud yours?” Meechum asked in a mild voice, the polar opposite of the look that had been on his face.

  Logan shook his head and waited, but that weird expression was gone. Hell, maybe he’d imagined it.

  Within half an hour his driveway was swarming with cop cars—or SUVs, in this case, since Jamesville’s Police Department’s cruiser of choice was the Ford Explorer. It looked like his call to dispatch had brought the whole damn force out—or most of it, anyway.

  And that included Chief Stone.

  He nodded politely as the boss stepped though his splintered back door. “Sir.”

  Stone nodded back, surveying the damage with hooded gray eyes. “You work up what’s missing?”

  Logan nodded; he walked through the house with Beson and noted the missing items—the bulk of which had come from the pantry and his closet. “Beson has the list.”

  Stone wasn’t much older than Logan was himself, mid to late thirties. But he was a cold bastard, with the cynical, aged eyes of a guy who’d seen too much, too often, and the haggard face of someone who wasn’t sleeping worth a shit. Rumor had it he’d been a homicide detective out of Seattle, one of the best, until tragedy struck. Nobody knew for sure why he’d resigned from his squad and taken the lead office way out here, but Logan could hazard a guess.

  Sometimes the only way to get back some semblance of normal life was to walk away from your old life. The only way to keep the shadows at bay, and the memories locked down, was to start over.

  “Detective Meechum thinks your guy came from the woods,” Stone said slowly, his gaze shifting from hole to gaping hole without the slightest change in his expression.

  Logan wasn’t sure why that surprised him, but it did. “How does he figure that?”

  “He tracked the mud back to the edge of the forest.”

  No fucking kidding. What was he, Daniel Boone?

  Logan scow
led. He would have tracked the mud himself if he hadn’t been stuck in the house making fucking lists and answering the same damn questions over and over again.

  “Problem?” Stone’s voice didn’t fluctuate from its cool, slow calm.

  “No sir.” Logan took a deep breath, and worked on leashing his irritation.

  “The theft of camping gear and clothes indicates a vagrant.” Stone continued after a moment, his ancient, cynical eyes studying Logan’s face. “As does the entry point.”

  Logan simply nodded; he’d already figured that out for himself.

  “It’s likely our suspect’s still in the woods. I’ve asked for off-duty volunteers to canvas the area. Meechum’s already out looking.”

  “I’ll join him.” Logan instantly offered, although he had no intention of actually tracking the detective down. But then, he wouldn’t need to. With the acres of forest available, he had plenty of room to walk off this frustration and ill humor without running into the man who’d caused it in the first place.

  “’Fraid not,” Stone said, already turning away. “You’ll need to stick around for the contractor. Mother’s got someone coming out to fix that door and assess the rest of the damage.” He paused, and turned back around. “You want to stick it out here, or head to a motel while the place gets a facelift?”

  “I’ll stay.”

  “You sure? That bastard might return.”

  Logan smiled grimly. Wouldn’t that be nice? “I’ll stay.”

  Chapter Six

  At nine the next morning Kaylea opened the door to the cab of her pickup. Max immediately jumped inside and settled his furry butt on the passenger seat. She folded herself behind the steering wheel, pulled on her seatbelt, and fished her cell phone out of her purse, but the call to her sister went to voice mail.

  Again.

  She’d already left a message—okay, more like three—so she hung up and eased the pickup out of its parking slot.

  The trip to the east side of town and her old stomping grounds went quickly. There wasn’t much traffic on the road since it was Saturday and still fairly early for the residents of Jamesville. She pulled off the main highway and onto an old forest service road. It was about a mile from the house in which she’d grown up. She continued following the rutted, one-lane, dirt road through a grassy meadow right up to the edge of Spirit Woods.