by Linda Ladd
Oh, God, Lilith was going to kill the nice couple. She wished she could warn them, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything to help anybody, nothing at all. She couldn’t even help herself, and the demons were so mean and cruel. They were the ones her mommy had always warned her about before she’d gone crazy and killed people and turned into Bad Luna. They were the bad ones, the dark witches, their magic was black and awful and evil, and they were going to end up in hell with all the other demons like them. She began to cry, but silently, her tears hot as they ran down her cheeks.
Then the two demons stopped their argument. The voices were back outside! They were calling her name, from somewhere down around the house. It scared the demons to death, and they told Diana that she had better not move a muscle, that they’d know if she did. Then they told the new demon, the one dressed in the red robe to stay there and guard Diana and the Lamb. Then they ran out the front door to see if the hikers were headed down the path that led to the Sanctuary. Diana just sat very still, right where she was, and didn’t move a muscle, but the Sacrificial Lamb woke up all the way and acted like she was very sick and dizzy. She started gagging under the tape on her mouth, coughing and choking and trying to breathe.
“Help me,” she was groaning under the tape, her words barely audible. “Please, please, help me.”
The demon girl in the red robe put both hands over her mouth and made some gagging sounds, too. But she didn’t move to help the Lamb. Diana shut her eyes and tried not to hear the Lamb’s terrible whimpering. The demons were gonna kill the poor bleeding girl as soon as they got back. And there was nothing she could do about it, nothing at all. She only hoped they killed her this time, too, because she’d rather be dead than have to do the terrible things they made her do. She ought to get out of the tub and try to save the Lamb, but she was so scared, so scared she didn’t think she could move a muscle.
Chapter Sixteen
As always, the Lafourche Parish sheriff’s forensics team, headed by Claire’s good friend, Nancy Gill, mobilized quickly and showed up less than twenty minutes after Claire and Novak discovered the body. The fire department had come roaring in, siren blasting, right in front of the forensic people. Within minutes the firefighters were out of the truck and hosing great streams of water on the virtually destroyed barn. Nancy climbed out of the driver’s seat of the white CSI van and headed straight across the yard to where Claire was standing. She was the official medical examiner of Lafourche Parish, and Claire had met her when Nancy had done an exchange program at Lake of the Ozarks the summer before. Detective Zander Jackson pulled up in his red Jeep Cherokee a few minutes later. It was great to see them both, even under such terrible circumstances.
Will Novak remained standing aside from the rest of them and watched the firemen dousing the flames. It appeared he was intentionally not looking at Adonis’s body, which was now surrounded by Nancy and her crew of criminalists. Instead, he looked as if he was going to explode into murder at any minute. He probably would do exactly that, no doubt, if he found the killer before this case was over. Claire had a feeling that she wouldn’t be able to stop him, even if she wanted to, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to. Not with the anger she suspected was building up inside him. Claire felt a similar urge welling up inside her, a need to find the heinous killer and bring him to justice, probably every bit as much as Novak wanted to. But she had to find the Quinn girl first, safe and sound, and get her onto a plane bound for Australia and the loving arms of her distraught parents.
“Nice hair,” Nancy said first thing when she walked up to Claire. She smiled. “Pretty damn black, I’d say. If you wanted a major change, I’d say you got it.”
“It washes out.”
“Well, I hope so. Bet Nick hopes so, too.”
But Claire had her mind on murder. “Can you tell if the victim was dead before they set her on fire?” Claire asked softly, aside to Nancy. She glanced at Novak again, who was now being interviewed by Zee. Zee was short for Zander, and he was one of the best all-around good and decent people with whom Claire had ever worked. He was good at his job, too, and almost got himself killed in the short time he had partnered with her. She blamed herself for that, of course, but he never had. He insisted that she saved his life in the end, and that was good enough for him. Yep, Zee was gutsy as hell, all right.
During her short tenure at Lafourche, she had worked alongside nearly everybody in the parish law enforcement establishment, including the firefighters, and that was not so long ago. They all knew Claire well, so nobody asked too many questions about why she and Novak were out there at the scene of the crime and in an unofficial capacity. Zee didn’t threaten to take them both in for a brutal round of questioning, either. Which he probably would have if he didn’t know Claire was legit. They trusted her, and she sure as hell trusted them.
Nancy Gill was a beautiful gal, tall with auburn hair and big luminous brown eyes to match. She was looking at the hideously burned body and shaking her head. She answered Claire’s question in the same low tone. “Can’t say yet. I sure do hope so, but if I had to take an educated guess, I’d say yes, that she was already deceased when they set fire to her.”
“That poor kid didn’t deserve this. She had a tough life. Abducted and beaten and gang raped according to Novak, and she wasn’t right in the head after that. She didn’t have a chance against whoever did this.”
“Wait a minute. I remember that case. Novak was the one who found her out in a roadway somewhere around here, I think. I knew he looked familiar.”
“He didn’t tell me that he found her. But he’s as closemouthed as he can get about his personal life. I need a crowbar to get a hello outta him.”
Nancy smiled a little. “I don’t think we ever caught the guys who did it. Zee didn’t have that case, if I recall. I think it was Ron Saucier’s, but he said it was pretty horrible what they did to that little girl. Case’s still open, but it’s gone cold now.”
“Novak says she was way too traumatized and terrified to tell the officers much of anything. And now she’s dead.”
“Maybe they came back tonight and finished her off. What’s her name again, Claire? Sounds like you knew her personally.”
“Adonis. I don’t even know her last name. I just met her recently on the missing person case that we’re working. But she was a good friend of Novak’s. He’s working with me now. He’s pretty torn up. When I met her, she seemed really strange and eccentric and scared to even venture out of the house. She hunted animals and drained their blood and then stuffed them, including her own up-close-and-personal pets. You know, weird kinda crap like that. Lived way out here all alone in the swamp. She seemed afraid of her own shadow the day we dropped by. She’d be an easy victim for the kind of sociopath who’d do this kind of thing.”
“Good grief, she must’ve been scared to death all the time that those guys would come back and get her again.”
“Did Saucier find out anything about her assailants?”
“Apparently, Ron and his partner ascertained they were most likely transients who didn’t hang around long enough to get caught. He said your friend, Novak, was pretty shaken up about the whole thing and bent over backward to help her after it happened.”
They were silent for a few moments, just standing there and watching Nancy’s colleagues efficiently go about their business as they quickly converged both inside and outside the house. In the distance, in the dark night sky, muted lightning flared briefly, way out over the Gulf of Mexico somewhere, and then died to blackness. A storm was coming in. Claire could smell rain in the cool night air. Maybe it would pour down and help put out the fire. But it might wash away evidence, too, and that was not good.
Nancy let out a long sigh. “Well, I guess I need to take a closer look at the body, and then we’ll load her up and get her back to the morgue. Forensics will stay behind and finish up the scene. Tell you one thing, I am not looking forward to getting this one on the table.”
Nancy kept shaking her head as if in disbelief of what had happened, and then she tried to change the subject. “So, how are you holding up? Not a very good thing to happen to you. You know, first thing after you get back from Tahiti, and all.”
“Yeah, especially since this is already body number two on our missing person case.” She explained the situation briefly to Nancy, including her stint as a waitress at Tit Tats.
“Okay, I get the dark hair now. But, man, it does not look so good for your missing gal, does it?”
“No, it does not. I’m worried, to tell the honest truth. I’m afraid she’s already dead. We’re thinkin’ a satanic cult is behind her disappearance, or something like that. Everything points to it, and Novak says he’s known of stuff like that going down around here now and again.”
“Makes sense, after all you just told me. What’s Nick havin’ to say about you involved in homicides again? Not so thrilled with that, either, I’d imagine.”
“He’s been surprisingly supportive so far. Believe it or not.”
“Why hasn’t Sheriff Friedewald been notified about your missing girl? We could’ve gotten the news out all over the parish by now. Maybe gotten a lead.”
Claire hesitated. “I can’t tell you that, Nancy. Sorry, but her parents want to keep the search very quiet and confidential. They have a good reason.”
“It better be good, if that poor kid ends up dead. Then they’ll blame themselves for not getting the word out.” She sighed and looked back at the body.
Both of them were greatly affected by the grotesque crime scene spread out right in front of their eyes. After a couple more hours working the scene, Nancy and her crew loaded up and drove off with the charred body. Novak had helped them get the girl’s body into the van, and then he and Claire both donned protective gear and went inside the house with Zee.
While the officers searched the upstairs, Claire and Novak stood back and said very little to each other. It seemed incredibly strange, indeed, to be at a crime scene with a former partner, but on the outside of law enforcement looking in. Zee was generous to let Claire and Novak remain on the premises at all. First thing Claire noticed was Adonis’s collection of old-fashioned dolls, where she had displayed them neatly on the living room sofa, propped up against some old blue and yellow, daffodil-embroidered pillows. Some looked like they were made out of cornhusks and red grosgrain ribbon. Claire winced inside. Hadn’t seen a cornhusk doll in a while. Or ever. Adonis had been a very peculiar girl, all right.
Everything else inside the house looked as if a ten-year-old child had resided there. Mentally, of course, that was probably true of Adonis. Or maybe she even had the mentality of a young teen, thirteen or fourteen, maybe, but no more than that. Lots of old toys, colors now faded to pastels, sat around all over the house, on the furniture and tabletops and wood floors. Lines of small wooden soldiers and old alphabet blocks were lined up in battle formation, and ratty stuffed animals, meaning the kind that one could buy at a mall, not Adonis’s own blood-drained, taxidermy handiwork. That kind, a.k.a. Adonis’s unfortunate former pets and lots of little sparrows and robins, stared forlornly at them from shelves and the backs of chairs and the kitchen table and even hanging from the ceiling, as if still in flight, and causing Novak to have to duck down in order to pass under them.
On an old beat-up desk in the corner of the kitchen, Adonis had placed a Disney coloring book and box of crayons. Claire bent down and read the little yellow sticky note that was still attached to the front cover, right on top of Mickey Mouse’s nose. Hastily scrawled, back-slanted handwriting read: Thought you might like this, kiddo. Someday when you’re ready to get out, I’ll take you to Disney World and you can meet Mickey. It was signed: Your friend, Will Novak.
So it looked like Adonis had been able to read. Claire glanced at Novak, where he was in the kitchen, just standing there very solemn and still, his face stiff and strained and still blanched with suppressed anger that was probably growing inside him by the minute. But it seemed that he was a real softie under all that great big, gruff countenance that he carried around, along with his unafraid and look-at-me-wrong-and-I’ll-beat-you-to-death expression. Tonight, however, he was pretty much living up to the latter. Oh yeah, he still looked scary enraged, scary determined, and just plain scary as hell, period.
The two of them lingered at the scene until the Lafourche detectives were finished searching and documenting evidence and in their cars headed back to Thibodaux. After Zee’s taillights faded from sight, Claire and Novak ducked under the crime scene tape again and began a new, even more methodical, more unsanctioned search of the property for anything unusual that forensics might have missed. After that turned out totally unsuccessful, they switched on their flashlights and spent an hour exploring the outbuildings and beating the bushes hugging the smoking barn and walking down the bayou’s bank to an old dock, looking for the white puppy that Novak had given to Adonis. All they managed to come up with was nil, zip, nada, nothing that would help one iota. So, in the wee hours of the morning and in virtual silence, they sat down on the back steps together and stared at the blackened beams and glowing embers of what had been Adonis’s barn.
Claire said, “Maybe we should make some house calls and interview the neighbors? Zee will do that, too, but probably not till tomorrow morning. They’ll wait for the autopsy and the final ID before they make their death notifications.”
Novak just stared at the house and said nothing. Finally, he heaved out a very tired breath, and then he said, “I think I should be the one who tells our neighbors. Maybe they’ve seen something suspicious. And they probably need to keep an eye out for anybody sneakin’ around on their property. They’re probably not home, or they would’ve come over when they heard the sirens. Most of them considered Adonis like a little sister. It’s gonna hit everybody around here hard.”
Claire knew full well that was how Novak had felt about his young friend. “I am so sorry about what happened, Novak. I know she was special to you.”
“Yeah.”
So they sat there in deep silence and watched the faraway flashes of lightning out over the Gulf some more and thought their own internal but mostly morbid thoughts. The wind was blowing now, making a racket as it whipped the branches around and snapped the crime scene tape. Claire tried to run through the case in her mind and what they had come up with so far. Something nagged at her, something about Adonis, something about the crime scene and the small house with its toys and dolls, something very wrong, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what was bothering her.
“This whole thing stinks to high heaven,” Novak said, echoing her own thoughts. “You got your weapons on you, right?”
“Of course. I’m always armed and ready. Don’t worry about that. You come up with any motive for this, Novak?”
“No. I don’t like anything about this case. It’s been messed up from the get-go.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Okay, there’s not much we can do till daylight. I’m gonna go over and see if Mary Lou and Becky are home. Tell them what happened and to be on the lookout for intruders. Maybe the dog’s found his way over there.” He looked at her. “You might as well go back home and get some sleep. You’ve got to have jet lag.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty beat. But if you need me to go with you, I will.”
“No, I’m fine. We’ll just start again tomorrow. I’ll call you.”
“Okay. You sure?”
“Yeah, go on home. Black’s gonna be worried about you.”
They walked over to their vehicles and Claire opened her door and watched Novak get in his truck, back it up with a loud crunch of gravel, and then start back down toward the bayou road. She stood there a moment and stretched her muscles a little, suddenly feeling tired to the bone. She smelled the rain and ozone in the air a lot stronger now, the storm coming in closer with each passing hour. She called Black, got his voice mail,
probably because he was in with a patient. She left a message and told him what had gone down and that she was headed back home and should be there in an hour or so and to call her back when he got the message.
Then Claire stared one last time down at the smoldering, smoking barn and hoped to God that Andrea Quinn wasn’t that charred body or another similar one left somewhere else, lying in some dark field or floating in some fetid swamp with nasty things feeding on her. The way things were going thus far, Claire wasn’t at all sure what they’d find next. If anything. The case was floundering and confusing and frustrating. The double homicide made it as dangerous as hell.
Just as she started to get into her SUV, she heard the very faint sound of a dog whining somewhere in the far distance. Now that everybody was gone and the wind had died down some, she could hear the pitiful yips and yelps, but just barely, coming from somewhere down beside the water. She stood still for a moment and listened to the songs of crickets and croaks of frogs and rustles of leaves. Then there it was again, very faint, but it sounded as if the dog was hurt or caught up in a fence or something. On the other hand, it could be a person with extremely bad intentions, luring her down into the swamp. But that, and way out here, where a whole bevy of law enforcement officers had been congregated, was a bit far fetched. On the other side of that coin, farfetched things happened to her before. A lot.
Drawing out her 9 mm again, she switched on her Maglite and followed the sorrowful sounds that were now turning into low and mournful howls. It sounded like Adonis’s little white puppy, all right. The yips and moans were intermittent, true, but as she walked toward the bayou’s bank and found the trail that edged it, the sounds of suffering grew louder. She was getting closer. She moved down the dirt trail beside the bayou, wary, weapon up with the Maglite alongside it, light beam bright in the smoky air, but the full moon bleached away most of the shadows and she could find her way without tripping on the encroaching vines and big rocks littering the ground.
