Cusp of Crazy: Nick Stryker Series, Book One, Shallow End Gals
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CUSP OF CRAZY
Nick Stryker Series,
Book One
TERESA DUNCAN
VICKI GRAYBOSCH
LINDA MCGREGOR
KIMBERLY TROUTMAN
The Characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or coincidence.
Copyright, Vicki Graybosch 2014
All rights reserved
Copyrighted Material
ISBN: 1500493929
ISBN 13: 978-1500493929
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912534
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
North Charleston, South Carolina
Cover Model: Jordan McGregor
Photographer: Jennifer Unger
Edited by Erika Canter
CUSP OF CRAZY
Nick Stryker Series,
Book One
The Shallow End Gals
TERESA DUNCAN
VICKI GRAYBOSCH
LINDA MCGREGOR
KIMBERLY TROUTMAN
PREVIOUS BOOKS:
TRILOGY
ALCOHOL WAS NOT INVOLVED, BOOK ONE
EXTREME HEAT WARNING, BOOK TWO
SILENT CRICKETS, BOOK THREE
CATAHOULA
LIST OF CHARACTERS AT END OF BOOK
CUSP OF CRAZY
Nick Stryker Series
“The seeds of madness can be planted in anyone’s backyard.”
Phillip G. Zimbardo, PHD
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
Cusp of Crazy List of Characters
CHAPTER 1
He was savagely flawed. He felt it. Deep in the dark crevices of his mind, where normal people stored memories, he had caged monsters. They used his eyes to watch his world. He heard them pacing, huffing great vapor clouds of breath through their bars. Dark shadows crossed his mind and grabbed at his thoughts with glaring eyes narrowed, shoulders hunched and thin lips twitching.
He controlled them like a ringmaster with a whip; snapping them back to their cages with sharp commands from his mind. Shudders of terror and glee raced under his skin. He felt them grow stronger and defiant. He would use them when he was ready. He dare not suffer a weak moment for they would escape again, kill and return.
They always returned.
Tuesday 4:00 p.m.
“It’s moving too slow! This author is telling me about some lady brushing her teeth!” Casey shook her head as she spoke to the ceiling, “By the time this chick gets murdered, I would have done it myself!” Casey stuck a bookmark in the page and plopped the book on her desk, cover down. The smiling face of the author grinned at her from the back cover. She placed her hand over the picture as Tanner walked in her office.
Tanner grinned, “You know, we can all hear you ranting.”
“Trade ya?”
Tanner shook his head, “You wouldn’t make four chapters in what I’m reading; non-fiction, Nazi Germany. I think the author wants us to see the ‘softer’ side of Hitler.” Tanner walked over to the coffee machine, poured himself a cup and stood over Casey’s desk. Her facial expression of sheer boredom made him chuckle. “You were the one that insisted indie authors needed a platform for promotion. What was it you said? ‘A voice to champion the nuggets of gold buried in the Amazon heap’.”
Tanner blew over his cup, and noticed Casey’s heels kicked over to the corner. His eyes scanned the top of her desk where the lid from her jelly bean jar was missing and the colorful candies dotted the entire surface. Casey reported to work every morning looking as if she had stepped out of a fashion magazine. By mid-afternoon, she usually could be found sitting in a yoga position in her chair, skirt hiked up, makeup rubbed off and pens covering the floor where she had tossed them. If she was really upset, she sucked on jelly beans.
Casey frowned at his obvious delight in her misery. “We need a better system for finding nuggets.”
Tanner picked up a few pens, dropped them in the cup on her desk and looked back at her. “Good luck with that.” He knew there was no point in trying to have a conversation with her when she was in one of her moods.
Casey checked her emails hoping for something urgent to attend to. The author’s grin on the book cover now looked like a sneer daring her to finish. After all, the author had paid five hundred dollars for a professional review. She was well aware that if she didn’t produce at least a few favorable reviews this month, authors would stop using her company. Typical catch-22. She prided herself on her honesty and professionalism. It wasn’t her fault if they wrote crap.
Black clouds dropped from the sky and hid the grey Chicago skyline outside her window. The office was quiet as her staff of three steadily read through the piles of submissions from authors. Casey glared at the book in a sideways glance, this has to get better. She pushed her chair back, put her feet up on her footstool, and popped a green jelly bean in her mouth. Tanner constantly reminded her that not all books grab the reader in the first few pages. She was only on page eight. So far she knew the lady lived alone in a townhouse and had an aquarium of fish. So? She lived alone and had an aquarium, too. She read another five pages of mind numbing nothings about the gal’s job and coworkers. A copy editor, huh. True enough, it is boring work. On page fourteen, the gal in the book, finally given the name Lisa, goes home to find her aquarium busted and her fish lying dead on the living room floor.
Casey looked at her watch. It was only four thirty, too soon to leave. She rubbed her neck, exhaled loudly and continued reading.
Lisa walked through her townhouse and found other evidence that someone had been there. Lisa noticed her computer was on and walked over to a screen that simply read, ‘more to come’. She opened her broom closet for a mop and dustpan to clean up the aquarium mess from her hardwood floor. A large object fell from within. Her tall kitchen wastebasket had been shoved in the broom closet. What the heck? Lisa didn’t have a cleaning lady, or a boyfriend, or a crazy ex-husband. She remembered that last week she had put her milk in a cupboard and put her crackers in the fridge. My God she thought, am I doing these crazy things without remembering?
Casey chuckled at that part of the book. Okay, this is going to be one of those ‘am I crazy or are you crazy’ books. Got it. She continued reading and followed Lisa’s laborious nighttime ritual right up to her shower before bed. Casey’s mind started going numb again. She should charge more than five hundred dollars from some of these people.
Lisa stepped into the shower, grabbed the soap and lathered up her body as the hot water pounded her face. She opened her eyes and froze in disbelief at the oozing river of blood running down her body and disappearing into the drain. She stared at the bar of soap in her hand. A shiny piece of metal was embedded in her soap.
Lisa recognized the exposed edge of a razor blade. Then she saw another and another. Terrifie
d, she dropped the soap, got out of the shower and looked in the full length mirror on the back of her bathroom door. Streams of blood ran from her shoulders, across her breasts and down her body. Bloody circular cuts were everywhere. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She gingerly touched one of the circles on her breast. It didn’t hurt. She stared at her blood dripping from her hand and felt time slow to a stop.
Casey looked at her watch, five o’clock, finally. The book seemed to be getting better, thank God. She placed a bookmark to save her page and tossed the book in her purse. She would finish it at home. As she walked past Tanner’s door, he gave her the Heil Hitler salute. She waved goodbye to the other staff and left the building.
The noise from the traffic and the glare of the lights assaulted her senses back to reality. The November chill held the promise of another brutal Chicago winter. Casey shuddered as she lifted her purse above her head to shield herself from a sudden burst of rain and hailed an oncoming cab. The cabbie grinned at her through the rearview mirror the entire ride home. When he stopped in front of her apartment building, she practically threw her money at him and jumped from the cab.
Mrs. Wilson’s adult son, Eric, was on his skateboard in the downpour. Doing things like riding a skateboard in the rain was why everyone whispered that he was crazy. Casey always felt a special fondness for him. He had served in the Army and many soldiers came home damaged. Eric was probably one of them. In her haste to exit the cab, she accidentally bumped him into the railing of the apartment building’s stairs.
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, Eric. I should watch where I’m going.”
Casey sputtered her apology again as Eric smiled, regained his balance and scooted away in the pouring rain. She walked up a half flight of stairs, put her key in her door and pushed it open. She dropped her purse on the foyer table and stopped dead in her tracks. Her aquarium was shattered in the middle of her living room. Her fish were all dead.
She opened the broom closet to get a mop and her wastebasket fell against her. A frigid chill ran down her spine. Her heart began to pound. This can’t be happening. She ran to the bathroom and gingerly picked up her soap. Razor blades protruded from all sides. Her front door slammed. For an instant, she thought she was going to hyperventilate. Her throat constricted and she couldn’t get enough air to breath. Casey forced herself to calm down, grabbed the only weapon she could find, and inched her way down the hall holding the toilet plunger high in the air.
The apartment was silent. Her purse had been emptied on the table. The book was gone. Her hands shook as she unburied her phone from the pile and dialed 911. A woman’s voice answered, “911. What’s your emergency?”
Casey sputtered, “My apartment was just broken into. Someone was in my apartment.”
The 911 operator asked, “Do you need medical attention?”
“No. I need cops.” Casey slowly walked around her apartment looking for anything out of order. Her laptop was sitting open on her dinette table. Someone had started a Word document. It only said, ‘More to come.’ Her screen saver had bubbles floating over the three words. Casey dropped down on her sofa and waited for the 911 operator to comment.
“If you don’t need medical attention, someone will contact you before five tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? What the hell! I have to work tomorrow. What if they come back?”
“Ma’am, this is Chicago. If you are not in immediate danger or do not need medical assistance, then the next available officer to take your report could be there tomorrow. Or you can go to the closest precinct and file a report yourself.”
Casey surprised herself by stating, “I’ll go to the precinct myself. Just forget I called.” Casey carefully bagged the soap and put it in her purse. The sky was black and distant lightening could be seen through the sheets of rain pounding the street. She hailed a cab and dialed Tanner’s cell. Casey told him what had happened while the cab driver watched her in the rearview mirror, a look of horror etched on his face. When Casey finished talking, Tanner was silent.
Casey exhaled. “Hello? Have you been listening?”
Tanner answered, “Uh, yeah. Sounds creepy. What do you want me to do?”
She should have expected Tanner to be clueless. “Nothing. You don’t have to do anything. I guess I just wanted someone to know what happened to me in case I don’t make it through the night.” Casey hung up. Her cabbie pulled up in front of the police station, she paid, and stood on the sidewalk under her umbrella. She watched people bustle past her, seeking refuge in the old brick precinct building. She wondered how many of them had a bar of soap packed with razor blades in their purse.
Tanner felt guilty that he hadn’t offered Casey any kind of solution. She was right. As a boyfriend, he had been useless, and now as a coworker he wasn’t much better. She usually handled emergencies better than anyone he knew. It had startled him to hear the fear in her voice. Tanner dialed her cell. There was no answer. Even though it was only six thirty, it was already dark out. November in Chicago, for him, was panic month. He hated Chicago winters and always felt November was his last chance to do anything fun. It didn’t help that the city was already infested with Christmas decorations. Like locusts they arrived every Halloween to push everyone quickly through fall and into the Christmas buying season. He had planned on spending the evening at his favorite pub playing darts. He put his jacket on and locked the office door.
His car chirped and he dialed Casey again while his motor warmed.
This time she answered, “Hey.”
“I’m coming to your place.”
“Don’t bother, I’m not there. I’m sitting here at the precinct, waiting to talk to someone.”
“You’re at the police station? Which one?” Tanner pulled from the parking garage out to the drenched street.
Casey gave Tanner the address and smiled to herself. Tanner did have good character; you just had to dig for it sometimes.
Nick Stryker ascended the staircase two steps at a time and felt the strain on his thighs as he reached the top landing. His job as a homicide detective didn’t afford him much time for the gym, so he improvised whenever possible. He looked at Lacey’s door at the end of the short hall and pushed his shoulders back. There was a distinct possibility she might be mad at him. He wasn’t sure when he’d called her last.
Nick ran his fingers through his dark hair and practiced his most charming smile. It might have been a couple of weeks ago come to think of it. He knocked on Lacey’s door. After a minute of displaying a toothy smile to her peephole, he heard the bolt he had installed for her slide and the door opened.
Lacey’s eyes danced when she smiled. Nick’s heart melted every time. Her long, black hair was wet and clinging to her neck and shoulders. She was wrapped in her bath towel and shaking her head. Her expression was mischievous.
Nick tilted his head as he asked, “What?”
“You forgot, didn’t you?”
“Forgot what?” He walked past her and shut the door behind him. He turned and wrapped his arm around her waist, and held the back of her head as he gave her his best hello kiss. He nuzzled her neck. She smelled wonderful. He asked again, “Forgot what?”
Lacey leaned back and put her hand on his chest.
“We broke up.” She walked into the room and plopped on the couch, smiling at his expression.
Nick stepped back. “When?”
Lacey chuckled, “Last month.”
Nick’s mind raced back to their last conversation. Seemed to him everything had been fine. They had gone to a movie, came back to Lacey’s place and made love. He did get a call from homicide and left, but that was normal. He sat down across from Lacey, who was still smiling.
Nick crossed his right leg over his left knee as he leaned back and studied her smile. “It seems like you’ve gotten over it okay.” He raised his arms to rest shoulder level on the chair cushions. He was fairly sure that she was messing with him. “Tell me again how this came about?”
/> Lacey’s facial expression turned serious. “I told you I deserved more in a relationship than you were willing to give.”
“Yeah. I remember that.” Nick uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, “That was it? That was our breakup?”
Lacey laughed out loud. “What did you think I meant? Yes, that was it. And to prove my point, I haven’t heard from you since! It’s been a month, Nick…….four weeks! Not even a call.”
He stood and started walking over. Lacey stood and put her hand up. She shook her head slowly and said, “It’s all about the job for you. I get that, but I need more. We are in different places. I have to move on.” Lacey walked to the door and held it open. “I have to finish getting ready for my date.”
Nick knew from her expression that she was serious. She was also right. She did deserve more.
“Okay, I get it now. You could really work on that breakup speech though.” He smiled and leaned in to kiss her cheek as he stepped over the door threshold. Standing in the hall, looking at her closed door, he felt the pangs of loss for the first time in a long time. He had known many women, but Lacey was special.
The evening was closing in fast and rain pounded the traffic congested street. Nick listened to the dispatcher on his radio request any available personnel to report to the 107th. A funeral viewing for a fallen officer was tonight and other districts were covering for staff. He slapped the switch for his lights and headed for the 107th Precinct building. He wanted to go back to Lacey’s. He could beg for a second chance. She would maybe even give it to him. In his heart he knew he wouldn’t change. For now, the job was still his life.
It had been five years since he sat in a precinct intake chair. Chicago always delivered colorful nightly stories. He smiled to himself that it may be a welcome change of pace for the night.
Jen straightened the pile of files on her desk and scooped the paperclips and pens into her top drawer. The 107th Precinct was asking for volunteers to man the desks so their officers could attend the memorial of a fellow officer. There were six homicide officers that shared this side of the third floor. Four were on duty and she and Nick had the night off. Nick had spent twenty minutes primping for his hot date with Lacey. Jen was stalling. She should go home. She wanted to volunteer at the 107th.