Devil Dead

by Linda Ladd

  Chapter Fifteen

  Will Novak stood before a huge span of floor-to-ceiling windows at Louis Armstrong International Airport and watched Black’s sleek Learjet bounce down lightly and then taxi to the end of a dark and distant runway. He glanced down at his watch. Claire had said they would arrive at ten o’clock that evening, and they were pretty much right on the dot. She had texted him and asked him to meet her at the airport, and he had spent the wait time alone and turning the case over in his mind.

  The satanic connection was pretty much nailed down now. That told him that he and Claire were gonna have to spend a lot of time down his way in bayou country. He didn’t like investigating his neighbors. For the most part, they were extremely private people. They didn’t bother anybody, and they didn’t want to be bothered. He was the same way, nine times outta ten.

  His assigned task of following Lydie Creedy had gone nowhere, and fast. She had managed to lose him again. Since he was damn good at shadowing suspects, had done so more times than he could count and done it well, that told him right off that the Creedy woman knew what she was doing and was more than savvy about spotting and evading tails, a lot more so than any run-of-the-mill Tit Tats waitress should or would be. But she wasn’t gonna slip him again, no way.

  Earlier that afternoon, right after Creedy had shown up for work at the restaurant, Novak had stuck a tracking device inside the back right wheel well of her Taurus. A few minutes ago he’d checked the corresponding GPS on her vehicle, and it was still sitting outside the restaurant, right where he’d last seen it. She hadn’t gone anywhere yet. At least not in her car she hadn’t. On the other hand, she wasn’t dead yet, either, or another unexplained victim. Even better, she wasn’t off somewhere murdering one of her coworkers.

  More important, Claire was still okay, too, because about twenty minutes later, she showed up, dressed in her usual faded jeans and black T-shirt and high tops, walking with a swift, confident stride down the nearly deserted concourse toward him. She had looked pretty damn good in her Tit Tats outfit, sexy as hell, in fact, even with that blacker-than-black-hair-dye hair, which she still sported and probably would for some time, if it ever washed out at all. That opinion of her looks was a little too sexist for him to share with anybody. He sure as hell wouldn’t mention anything like that to her. Not while she was heavily armed—and she was always heavily armed. Except for right now. Much to her chagrin, she hadn’t been able to get through international airport security with her guns strapped on her person, not without a badge, so he had them locked inside his truck’s utility box with his own. But he understood how she felt, unarmed was not the best option. Not in their line of work. And not with Claire’s propensity for finding trouble.

  “You got my weapons out in the truck?” were the first words out of her mouth. He wouldn’t have expected anything less. The woman had a one-track mind, all right. No wonder she had such a good reputation in police work.

  “Yes, ma’am. All locked up, safe and sound.”

  “Turn up anything else on Lydie?”

  “She lost me again. She’s been trained to spot surveillance, no other explanation.”

  Claire stared up at him, disbelief written all over her face. She shook her head. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

  “I rarely kid.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that. Okay, well, we’ll just have to try again. A cop friend of mine managed to get her address off her Louisiana driver’s license. And guess what? Surprise, surprise, she lives somewhere down around you. You know, Novak, in the swamp version of Jurassic Park. Some box number out in the boondocks, or somewhere. Sounds like you live among a veritable truckload of suspicious and eccentric people. Come on, let’s go find her.”

  “She’s not down there. She’s at Tit Tats.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I put a tracking device on her car.”

  Claire’s eyes narrowed. “That’s illegal, Novak.”

  Annoyed, Novak became a tad impatient with his new and sometimes law-abiding partner. “Yeah, it sure is. So I guess you need to decide just how much you want to know where she goes, don’t you?”

  Claire frowned and glanced around. She was not happy. “Well, okay, fine, I guess. We know she’s not going anywhere for a while. If she’s there now, she’ll probably work till closing. Let’s drive down there and see if we can locate her house. Maybe we ought to break in and toss the place before she gets off. Since breaking the law is just so fine and dandy with you.”

  Novak nodded. “Now you’re catchin’ on.”

  “I cannot believe I’m gonna do something like this. I must be losing my mind.”

  “Or you just really want to find that missing kid before the bad guys do.” Novak glanced down the concourse behind her. “What about Nick? He comin’?”

  “He’s heading back to his clinic. After what happened to us in Paris, he knows I’ve got work to do. So does he. Quit worrying about him. He can take care of himself.”

  “Okay. Tell me everything you found out in Paris.”

  After they made their way out of the relatively quiet concourse, they traversed the busy, noisy main terminal, both walking at a swift clip. Claire started telling him what had transpired in Paris, and it turned out to be even worse than he had imagined.

  “So you’re sayin’ now that there could be underworld connections with Andrea’s disappearance? That’s what you’re tellin’ me?”

  “Bingo. That’s what I’m tellin’ you. I’m tryin’ my best to get photos from inside the airport of the woman he was traveling with, but she wore a jacket with a hood and knew better than to look up at the airport surveillance cameras. Seemed to know exactly where they were and where not to look, which indicates a certain savvy as to perpetrating criminal activities, I’d say. I think we’re now dealing with a major pro here. Maybe even an assassin.”

  “And now the Prefecture de Police is involved?”

  Claire came to an abrupt stop and searched his face. “Nice accent, Novak. You speak French, too?”

  “My mother’s entire family is French. Most of ’em still live in Paris. So what do you think?”

  “I think that’s good, because I understand about four or five words, tops. And you bet the police over there are involved, and your Parisian buds aren’t exactly the most helpful law enforcement agency in the world. Didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms, if you ask me. They did okay, though, I guess, but they could’ve done better at the crime scene, trust me.”

  Then Claire related the details of the actual murder, and it was Novak’s turn to stop in his tracks. He grabbed Claire’s upper arm and pulled her to a standstill, too. “Wait a minute. The bathtub was full of blood? You didn’t mention that in your text.”

  Claire looked really tired, all of a sudden. “It was not a pretty sight to look at, damn straight. Pretty horrible, in fact. They said his body was practically drained dry. I’m gonna dream about it, if I ever get to sleep again, and not in a good way. We’re definitely dealing with a sicko, the psychopath of all psychopaths. And a satanist, too, which is pretty much the same thing, if you ask me.”

  “Yeah, but this sure as hell isn’t the work of any run-of-the-mill assassin. How many hit men do you know who hang around long enough to drain their victims? They come in quick, hit hard, and get the hell out. They don’t bleed the corpse. Ever. This is not a professional job.”

  “Yeah, not exactly the way Jason Bourne would do it. We thought the same thing, of course. But it’s still a possibility. I met an assassin once upon a time who liked to play some pretty nasty and bloody games with his victims, and he lived down in the bayous, too. Not too awfully far from your digs. Yet another deadly neighbor of yours.”

  “I heard about that. You were lucky to get out alive. He was a bad guy, all right.”

  “Yeah? A bad guy, you say. Well, that sure as hell is putting it lightly, Novak. Bad doesn’t touch what he is.”

  When they reached his vehicle inside the parking gara
ge, Novak leaned over the side of the truck bed, poked in the code on his lock box, got out all of Claire’s weapons and handed them over to her. Then he tucked his .45 in his back waistband and got into the driver’s seat and turned to face Claire as she settled into the passenger side, still strapping on all her guns. He couldn’t believe how many she liked to carry around. She had to be strong to bear all that weight. After all were in place and she appeared satisfied with their positioning, she sat back and glanced over at him.

  “Adonis drains her animals like that, Claire. Cuts their throats and hangs them over a tub or ties them to a limb and lets the blood collect.”

  Claire nodded. “Yeah, I already thought of that. I saw those creepy Folgers cans sitting outside in her yard. What’re you sayin’? Don’t tell me that you think she flew commercial to Paris and offed Dubois?”

  Novak looked out through the windshield at a dark-colored Ford Focus driving past them. One woman inside, a clothes bag hanging in the back. She looked at him a moment too long as she passed. He had never seen her before, but out of habit, he memorized her license plate. Just in case. He turned back to Claire. “I can’t imagine that kid doing anything remotely like that, not to a human being, anyway. And she’d never be able to get on a plane by herself, much less travel overseas. She barely comes outside her house anymore. She’s regressed so much since I first met her that I can hardly get through to her now.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that.”

  Novak heaved in a deep breath. “And she’s getting worse. Not even making sense when she talks. You heard her that day we were down there. She didn’t used to talk like that. She’s got reality and some kind of nightmare world all mixed up in her head. I’m worried about her.”

  “Oh, yeah, I heard the kinda things she was saying. And I can’t imagine her doing any of this stuff, either. But that’s on very short acquaintance. She might be playing you, Novak. It happens. Psychos aren’t always stupid. Some of them know how to manipulate people; trust me on that.”

  “She’s not mentally sound. You don’t have to tell me that. She never was quite right, but she’s really screwed up now. I think she’s having hallucinations.”

  “Yeah? As if. Riding alligators around the swamp does sound a bit iffy. But she did go through a traumatic sexual assault, Novak. Maybe that pushed her over the edge somehow, or she only kills when the moon’s full, turns into a werewolf, or something else as weird as hell.”

  “Is the moon full now?”

  “Heck if I know. Haven’t been looking up, I guess. Knowing our luck it probably is.”

  “But Adonis being able to travel abroad, arranging transportation in a foreign country, and all that? No way. She doesn’t even have a passport, not that I know about.”

  “Well, like I said, maybe she’s a helluva good actress and putting on a good show when you come a callin’. Maybe she does a lot of stuff that you don’t know about. Maybe she’s out there all alone, all the time, doing really bad stuff. Maybe she and Dubois got together somehow. Maybe she’s got an accomplished accomplice. Maybe she’s been telling you one thing and draining blood out of lots of people after you drive off and go your merry way.”

  “Nope, that’s just not possible. Even if I could imagine such a thing, why would she do it?”

  “Good grief, Novak. Get a grip here. Who knows why she’d do it? If she’s doin’ it, she’s nuts. But we need to find her and question her and quit handling her with kid gloves the way you did the other day. She’s the only one so far in this case who drains blood into coffee cans, so low and behold, she’s my logical choice as the killer. She may not be the angel that you think she is.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. She is incapable of murder, and what’s more, I’m not gonna bully her, and neither are you. She’s mentally fragile. Do you want to be the one who pushes her over the edge into insanity, once and for all?”

  “Well, hell no. Of course not. But what if she’s already jumped and landed smack-dab into the deep end of a pool of crazy?” Claire frowned at him. “Okay, if you’re that much of a softie, then we’ll pull on our kid gloves again and lower our voices and walk slowly toward her, but I am going to ask her some pointed questions. She’s gonna have to answer them, too.”

  “Fine. But you’re not gonna bully her.”

  “So that’s what you think now? That I’m a big bad bully? Well, I’m insulted, Novak, but so be it. Let’s get going. Nice chatting with you, but we’re wasting time. My car’s in long-term parking. Take me over there, and then I’ll follow you down to Lafourche. Otherwise, you’d have to drive all the way back to New Orleans to bring me home tonight. Black’s grabbing a cab to get home.” She stared at him, examined his face for a long moment. Then she said, “You’re creeped out, too. Aren’t you, Novak? Trust me, I understand why. ’Cause I’m creeped out, big time, and I don’t creep out all that easily.”

  Novak started the car and backed out of the parking place. “A man would be stupid not to be shocked by this kind of stuff. You don’t have to tell me that. You’re the one who doesn’t look all that fazed by all this shit.”

  Claire’s gaze left his face, and she stared thoughtfully at the taillights on the car ahead of them. “Yeah, guess I got used to blood and gore and man’s inhumanity to man. Maybe I take it all in stride now. And maybe that’s not such a super good thing. Maybe I oughta step back and take a look at myself. Maybe I’m not normal, anymore, either.”

  “Yeah, maybe you should. It’s not a good thing to get that way, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Yeah? Well, thanks for letting me cry on your shoulder. I feel so much better now.”

  “That’s what Black’s for. Not me.”

  In a fairly heated and suddenly rather stilted silence, Novak drove Claire to her white Range Rover where she said it would be, in long-term parking. She got out without a word, unlocked her car and started it up, then followed him out into the heavy traffic headed out of the airport complex.

  Novak’s mind was going into overdrive. The murder scene Claire had described so vividly to him looked a lot like the things he’d seen done to animals hunted for their hides out in the bayous, all right. A whole lot like it, in fact. If Andrea Quinn had gotten involved with some kind of coven of witches practicing black magic, or blood-sacrificing satanists, or whatever the hell it was, she might be in too deep for them to rescue. None of it sounded good. Nothing about it. The girl they sought was probably long dead and the whole case was gonna blow up in their faces. He could feel it in his gut. And he always trusted his gut.

  Over an hour later, they were still driving southwest, ever deeper into bayou country. He continually checked Creedy’s GPS coordinates, and her vehicle was still sitting outside the restaurant. It was late now, the roads as dark as Novak’s foreboding. Very little traffic moved between the towns along the way. Claire was right behind him and having no trouble keeping up despite his high rate of speed. He wondered if her nerves were jumping more than she had been letting on. He had seen lots of terrible things in his lifetime, things he didn’t ever want to remember, but the draining of human beings of their blood was right out of some gruesome horror flick. But he also knew, good and well and without a doubt, that his poor little, pitiful friend named Adonis did not have the stomach, or the guts, to do such things to other living human beings, no matter how much Claire might suspect it.

  After more driving time, he finally wheeled his truck into Adonis’s driveway. He slowed down considerably, his truck bouncing and rocking over the heavily overgrown, rock-littered entry road. Claire was still riding his back bumper. He was probably the only one who had ever driven a vehicle down to Adonis’s place, and the condition of the road echoed that idea. Mary Lou and their other neighbors always walked the bayou trail to her place, or came in by boat. God, he hoped she was all right. He felt anxious about her this time, and he usually didn’t get anxious about much of anything, not anymore. He had been through too much to ever hope for the best.

/>   Moments later, Novak detected the smoky orange glow brightening the sky ahead, and realized right off and with some alarm that it was a fire blazing somewhere up ahead of him. It looked like it might be somewhere out behind Adonis’s house. Maybe the barn or the shed had caught fire. He stomped the gas pedal, and the truck surged ahead, throwing up a tail of dirt and gravel. Within minutes he’d reached the front gate of Adonis’s house and thrown on his brakes. Claire was there in seconds and out of her car, her Glock 19 mm already in her hand.

  “It’s out back, Novak!”

  They both ran up the side of the house, Novak leading the way. What they saw when they rounded the corner brought them both skidding to a standstill. The entire barn was blazing in a virtual infernal of crackling noise and broiling waves of heat, the fire already hot and raging well out of control. But their eyes riveted on the barn door, where somebody had built some kind of pyre of branches and boards and debris. A small figure was chained there, hanging up by the arms, the body completely engulfed in flames and looking like the burning effigies seen in newsreel riots. More leaping flames were licking out up high in the loft doors, the combustible and flammable hay inside igniting easily and spreading the inferno up to the rafters. The roar of the fire was so massive and loud, and the extreme heat felt as if they had waded into the surf of a fiery ocean.

  “Oh, my God, my God!” Claire cried out, voice choked, her eyes full of horror. Her weapon hung down alongside her leg, forgotten.

  Novak stared at the burning human being suspended by the chains, the slight body already blackened and burned beyond recognition. But he knew, he knew without any hope, that it had to be Adonis. Oh God, he could smell the stench of scorched human flesh. Clamping his jaw down tight, his stomach started rocking back and forth, the most bitter and caustic taste of bile rising fast and hard into his mouth. He staggered a few yards away and leaned over and braced his hands on his knees. It took him a minute or two to conquer the extreme revulsion of what he was seeing, but he finally stood up and looked at Claire. She was still staring at the fiery figure, her face white and strained and disbelieving in the wavering yellow-orange glow of the crackling, popping flames. Parts of the roof suddenly gave way and crashed to the ground in a loud roar of showering sparks and embers that lit up the night and sent more blistering waves of heat against their skin.