by Rita Herron
Vincent stood, crammed his dick back in his jeans, and zipped them. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back to her, but his cell phone rang, and he reached for it, shoving her away. Her eyes were glowing brighter now, a sickening shade of yellow and orange.
Pulse clamoring, he connected the call. “Valtrez.”
“Vincent . . .”
Clarissa’s voice sounded tiny, far away, streaked with terror.
His heart hammered. “What’s wrong?”
“A girl . . .” she whispered. “She’s dead. At my house.”
Adrenaline pumped through him, and he turned to see Sadie Sue watching, her naked body still glistening with sweat, her words ringing in his ears.
I’m the devil’s child, just like you.
He had to get to Clarissa. Make sure she was safe.
Because she was right about everything. Evil thrived in the town, and after seeing the change in Sadie Sue’s eyes, he knew that evil wasn’t human.
Clarissa trembled as she hung up the phone and stared at Daisy’s body swinging from the Devil’s Tree.
The dead’s voices plagued her, never quieting in her head.
Yet this girl’s cry never came.
Because she’d moved on?
A sob wrenched her throat. Daisy Wilson was a nurse at the local hospital. Clarissa had met her on a consulting case. After that, they’d become friends. As close a friend as Clarissa had.
Who would have killed her in such a brutal manner? Daisy helped others, saved lives. She worked on the maternity ward, for heaven’s sake. She took care of babies . . .
And why had Clarissa seen images of snakes, when it appeared Daisy had been suffocated by plastic wrap or strangled by the rope?
Daisy’s wide, sightless eyes stared into space, her tangled brown hair like a spider web around her pale, gaunt face where the plastic wrap had distorted her nose and features. Moonlight highlighted the red and purple bruises on her neck, and other bruises marked her chest and torso, as if the man had held her down with his knees.
Protective instincts begged Clarissa to wrap a blanket around her, not to let the police or strangers see her brutalized this way. But common sense warned her not to tamper with a crime scene.
Whoever committed this vile act had to pay.
Tree frogs croaked around her, and she suddenly glanced around for Wulf, her pulse racing. Had he attacked the man who’d done this? Or was he hurt?
Panic made her pulse race. Was the killer still nearby?
She scanned the area but saw nothing, only ghosts floating in the shadows, begging for help. A siren wailed closer, and she faintly realized that Vincent must have called the sheriff.
Lights blazed up the drive, flashing across Daisy’s body, and tears caught in her throat. What good were her psychic powers if she couldn’t stop this madman from killing others?
The vehicle screeched to a stop, and she realized it was Vincent’s Land Rover. He jumped out and jogged toward her.
“Clarissa, are you okay?”
She nodded, then fell against him, trembling and shaking, the tears she’d managed to keep at bay overflowing and spilling down her face as a choked sob ripped from her chest. On some level she smelled another woman’s perfume, but she didn’t care.
She needed him to hold her and make her forget the horror in her yard and the constant barrage of the dead crying out to her.
Vincent cradled Clarissa against him, stiffening as the anguished sobs shuddered through her, and she trembled in his arms. Shock and pain reverberated in her sobs, and even the asshole that he was, he couldn’t help but murmur stupid assurances that everything would be all right.
The fact that she was so strong and gutsy yet was clinging to him indicated the depth of her emotions, and he stroked her back, pressing her head into his chest, uncaring that her tears soaked his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “Sorry he did this here.”
“She was my friend,” Clarissa whispered, then glanced up into his eyes. “Her name was Daisy Wilson. She was a nurse.”
Fury tightened his jaw at the sound of the pain in her voice. “I’m sorry, Clarissa.”
Had the killer chosen these girls to torment Clarissa?
The idea sent pure hot rage and fear streaking through him. If so, why?
The sheriff’s car screeched up the drive, siren wailing, blue lights flashing. Waller and his deputy jumped out and ran toward them, but Bluster’s look turned feral when he saw Clarissa in Vincent’s arms.
Vincent made no apologies as the men approached, but slowly Clarissa pulled away, brushed at her tears, valiantly attempting to compose herself.
“Shit,” Sheriff Waller said. “Little Daisy Wilson. She was a nice girl.”
“You okay?” the deputy asked Clarissa.
She nodded and sucked in a sharp breath. “I found her here when I got home tonight. It looks like the killer suffocated her with the plastic, then strung her up.”
Another shudder tore through her, and Vincent stroked her back. “Why don’t you sit on the porch. Let us secure the crime scene.”
“Crime unit is on the way,” Waller added with a concerned nod.
She clutched the edges of his shirt. “Please, Vincent, you have to find out who did this. We have to stop him before any more girls die.”
“We will,” he promised as he led her up to the porch. He threw a look over his shoulder, aiming at the deputy. “I’ll search inside. Bluster, check the back—let’s make sure this guy’s not still lurking around.”
Bluster growled that he didn’t like taking orders from Vincent, but Waller gestured for him to do as Vincent instructed, and Bluster removed his gun and flashlight and eased around the house to the back yard.
Terror streaked Clarissa’s eyes, as if she hadn’t considered the possibility that the killer was still on the premises. But Vincent had to make certain. He might have waited around, might be waiting to strike Clarissa next.
“My dog . . .” she whimpered as he guided her to the porch.
“I’ll find him, but let me secure the house.”
She collapsed into the rocking chair on her porch, folding her arms, stroking them as if she was chilled.
Vincent gripped his weapon and flashlight, then slowly opened the door and eased inside. A quick visual assessment—living room and kitchen combination to the right, dining room to the left. Stairs in the middle, which led to the second floor. He checked the living room and kitchen, then inched up the steps.
The first room to the right he pegged as Clarissa’s. A four-poster antique bed draped in a white chenille spread dominated the room, and he checked her closet and bathroom, where he noticed a clawfoot bathtub with bottles of scented bubble bath. Must be why she always smelled so damn sweet, like strawberries and vanilla.
Two other bedrooms with antique furniture revealed nothing, so he exhaled in relief and strode back down the steps. When he exited onto the porch, Bluster was climbing the steps. “Nothing out back. He’s probably long gone.”
“He hasn’t gone far,” Clarissa said in a strained voice. “He’s still watching us. I can feel his presence here now. And he’ll kill again.”
The crime-scene unit arrived, and Waller yelled for Bluster. He glared at Vincent but, before descending the step, muttered. “Son of a bitch left her in the Devil’s Tree.”
Clarissa nodded, then lifted her tear-stained face and stared at the girl’s body.
“The Devil’s Tree?” Vincent asked.
“That’s what the people around here call it,” Cla-rissa whispered. “Like Hell’s Hollow, grass won’t grow around it. And in winter when it snows, the snow melts off the moment it touches a branch.”
Vincent frowned, and she continued. “People think the devil planted it when he walked on this land. They thought my grandmother and mother were in cahoots with him, but they were wrong. My family has fought him for generations.”
“Why did he leave her there?” Vinc
ent asked.
“To torment me,” Clarissa said in a faraway voice. “My mother hanged herself in that same tree.”
Vincent’s throat closed. He had no idea what to say. Clarissa had had a painful past but had never shared it with him.
Because he’d been a selfish bastard caught up in his own grief and anguish.
His heart squeezed. She was hurting and needed a shoulder, and he wanted to be that shoulder for her.
Unable to resist, he pulled her into his arms.
“My grandmother was right,” Clarissa said against his chest. “There are demons here. And one of them killed my friend and left her here to send me a message.”
Vincent’s heart pounded. “What kind of message?”
“That he’s coming after me.”
Hadley loved the year of the eclipse. The year of inevitable death. The air was steeped with the smell of fear, the residents were more guarded, the trees rattled with the whistle of the dying screaming their last breaths.
He had to dig another grave. Yes, another girl would need to be buried.
Upstairs, his mother screeched. “Hadley, you sorry piece of trash, did you take your medication?”
He crushed the pills with his bare hands and dumped them in the potted plant in the den. “Yes, Mama, now go back to bed. I have to go to work.”
He didn’t wait for her to reply. Didn’t want her cane clicking as she toddled down to check his eyes. In them, she’d see the truth. That he hadn’t taken the pills in weeks. That he liked the strangers who visited him in his head. Liked the conversations they had. Enjoyed the war between them.
Especially the sick sadistic fantasies and the courage they gave him.
He lumbered out the door, yanking on his work hat as he walked down the road toward the graveyard. Heat bathed his neck, the stench of a dead animal floating through the trees. The Black Forest lay just a few miles away. Sometimes, from his open window at night, he could hear the roar of the inhuman creatures that dwelled within the forbidden land.
Those nights he dreamt about joining them, just as he dreamt about lying with the dead.
The animals. Large. Small. The humans.
Tracy Canton. Jamie Lackey. Billie Jo Rivers. He could see their faces as the mortician meticulously colored the gray pallor of their lifeless skin with thick makeup to make them look more human again.
Their naked bodies as he dressed them and placed them in the satin-lined coffin. The ground that he opened for their final resting place.
The pleasure he took as he shoveled the dirt on top of them. Their loved ones crying upon their graves as they hummed their final good-byes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next two hours became a blur for Clarissa, as if she was watching someone else’s life. She found Wulf cowering in the laundry room, uncharacteristically whimpering and shaking.
What had happened to traumatize him? The dog was as sturdy as an ox and normally would fight anyone who posed a threat.
She brought him outside to the porch, gave him some water and a blanket, and petted him as Vincent conferred with the sheriff and crime-scene investigators.
“Did you see what happened, buddy?” she whispered. “Did Daisy’s killer do something to you?”
A pitiful howl rumbled from him, as if he’d been terrorized, and she realized the truth. Although most animals reacted to spirits, Wulf usually handled those encounters calmly. Which meant that whatever he had come in contact with had been of another world, and completely evil.
A helplessness crept over her as dark as the storm clouds hovering in the sky. How could she stop the demon from ending more lives?
The crime-scene investigator had photographed the scene and Daisy’s body, and the medical examiner had arrived along with an ambulance to transport her to the morgue.
Finally the sheriff and Vincent climbed the steps. Wulf growled, baring his teeth at Vincent, but Clarissa laid a hand on his head and gave him a command to be quiet.
“These are the good guys, Wulf.”
The dog sniffed each man, then settled by her side, his eyes still watching, guarded.
Sheriff Waller leaned against the post and scrubbed his arm across his forehead, wiping away sweat. “We’ll need you to come to the station and make an official statement tomorrow, Clarissa.”
She nodded. “What did the medical examiner say? What time did she die?”
“We won’t know the exact time until he completes the autopsy, and that will take a while. We have to send her to the state medical examiner’s office. But you were right. It appears she was suffocated someplace else, then brought here.”
She knew there were probably questions she should ask, but she couldn’t think straight. Poor Daisy. She didn’t have any family to call.
Vincent shifted. “We found a piece of black rock in her hand, just like with the other girls.”
She nodded, not surprised.
“You want to come into town, stay in the inn?” Sheriff Waller asked. “I can drive you, girl.”
Clarissa stroked Wulf’s fur as he edged up closer to her. “No, I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Vincent offered in a gruff voice.
The deputy appeared at the foot of the steps. “Not necessary, Valtrez. I’ll play bodyguard.”
Waller shook his head. “I need you to do rounds tonight.”
Vincent relayed what he’d learned about J. J. Pirkle at the Bare-It-All.
Waller tugged at his pants. “I’ll go have a talk with Pirkle.”
Waller glanced at Clarissa. “You okay with Valtrez tonight?”
Her heart thrummed in her chest, but she nodded. The deputy growled an obscenity but followed the sheriff to the car, while the crime unit climbed in their van and followed the ambulance as it rolled away.
“You look exhausted, Clarissa. Why don’t you try to get some rest?” Vincent said.
She patted Wulf’s head, then pushed up to her feet. “I don’t know if I can sleep. I keep seeing Daisy hanging in the tree, her face distorted by the plastic wrap.”
Her mother’s image surfaced as well, but she couldn’t talk about that painful time in her life or the nightmares that haunted her, her fear that she’d end up the same.
“Forensics didn’t find much,” Vincent offered. “This guy knows what he’s doing and doesn’t leave a trace.”
“Because he’s not human,” she said, slipping back into that dazed state of shock.
A muscle ticked in Vincent’s jaw. “You may be right.”
She spun toward him. “You believe me now?”
He stared at her for a long moment, his dark eyes revealing nothing.
“Vincent?”
His breath hissed out between clenched teeth. “Let’s just say that I saw something tonight that makes me wonder.”
She grabbed his arms, forcing him to look at her. “What did you see?” He averted his gaze, but she refused to let him blow her off. “Tell me. We have to work together if we’re going to prevent him from killing more girls.”
“Sadie Sue.”
Jealousy flickered through her. “You were with her?”
He shrugged, jaw tight. “I went there for information.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
Her gaze held his, the underlying meaning hanging between them.
“The bouncer told me that J. J. Pirkle likes to get rough with girls. Waller’s going to talk to him.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, then hated herself for asking. Did she really want to know if he’d slept with Sadie Sue or one of the other girls? His sex life was none of her business.
He arched his brow. “She gave me a lap dance, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Irrational jealousy plucked at her. “I’m sure you enjoyed it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “It was nothing personal, Clarissa.”
“Nothing personal? No, I guess it wouldn’t be with you. But it is with me.” She released him and hea
ded inside, heat scalding her cheeks, embarrassed that she cared what he did when he obviously didn’t care about her.
Except she felt the chemistry between them. Felt it when her fingers had clutched his arms. Felt it in the way his eyes raked over her. In the way he’d just murmured her name.
The screen door screeched open as he followed her in. “What the hell was that about?”
Anger, the shock of the night, frustration . . . a dozen emotions bombarded her. “These girls’ deaths are personal to me. So is the heat between us, Vincent. But you pretend not to feel anything, not to notice it when we’re together.” Her gaze latched on to his powerful, sternly set face, and her senses spiraled out of control. She wanted to touch him so badly she ached.
But touching him would be foolish, because she couldn’t stand it if he pushed her away again.
Vincent snapped. The night had been hell for both of them, yet in spite of the fact that another girl had died, or maybe because of it, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman.
He’d tried to ignore the heat between them, but the attraction simmered like a raging fire, intensifying each time he saw her or heard her sultry voice. And when he’d held her earlier . . .
He dragged her into his arms, had to hold her again. Had to taste her just one time.
Once would have to be enough.
His lips fused with hers, savagely, almost punishing, and he nipped at her lips, plunged his tongue into the recesses of her mouth, and kissed her thoroughly. He hated that he wanted her, hated that he hadn’t walked away.
Hated that he couldn’t have her because he knew he’d want more.
Hated even more that she was right about the heat between them, just as he sensed she was right about the evil in the town.
He was part of that evil, carried it inside him all the time.
Bad blood, bad blood . . . he was just like his father, born a demon.
She parted her lips for him and moaned in invitation, then clasped his face between her hands as if she didn’t want to let go, and he shunned the voice ordering him to stop. With a groan torn from deep in his gut, he explored her, tasted the sweetness of her desire, the frenzied depth of her need as she urged him on.
