Jeff wiped the tears off his cheeks.
About to leave, he caught sight of a black car almost hidden in darkness.
“Sweet Jeebus. Transportation.”
Apprehension seized him.
He’d done nothing wrong, but seeing Northcutt’s sedan made him realize that his law enforcement career was truly over.
He remembered what a couple of the cops had said about him while they searched for him.
Someone must know about the secrets of the pond, because it was obvious he’d been set up to take the fall for murders he had not committed. Killing Eli and Vanessa had been an unfortunate accident.
CHAPTER 79
Jeff grasped the door handle. A noise outside stopped him from getting in the car. He automatically smacked a hand on his lower back to check if his gun was still tucked in his waistband. He sprinted over to the flashlight. Clicked it off. Noticed the glow of the moon for the first time. He crept to the wall to the right of the barn doors, which were standing wide open. A deep frown. Wasn’t one of them closed when he entered the barn a few minutes ago? Had he been so lost in thought he didn’t hear the other door open?
Jeebus, I guess so.
Jeff looked over at Northcutt’s sedan. Figured that’s who’s stalking him. He raised his eyes to the loft. Searched the barn with the aid of a minimal amount of moonlight, and found the ladder. At first, he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. Far as he knew, Virgil had been the last to have his hands on it.
Another noise, closer this time, spurred him into action.
He propped the ladder against the lightest side, the side with the hole in the roof, the side above his mamma’s gravesite. Quietly, he mounted the rungs, unsure if any squeak. Got hold of the railing with both hands and swung his legs over it. Lost his balance and landed on little pile of hay. A soft grunt escaped his lips. He dashed over to the loft doors thankful they were already open. Dropped to the floor. Stretched flat on his stomach, and edged closer to the opening. He scanned each upstairs window of the house for any kind of light or any kind of movement.
Jeff burst out crying.
He lay where his mamma lay when she died. He had watched her, day after day, from his bedroom window. She’d been in far too much pain to try to jump out of the loft or to tie a rope to the rafters and swing down to the ground.
He watched her curl up and close her eyes.
He watched her die.
Then had to listen to his father gloat about it when he showed him and Bonnie June her final resting place.
Jeff gave into his grief for the first time in his life.
He continued to cry, his shoulders shaking convulsively.
Through his tears he caught sight of someone trotting across the back yard. Definitely a man. He figured it could only be Detective Northcutt. He no longer cared. His grief was more than he could bear.
Minutes later, Jeff slowly got to his feet. Sniffled hard. Patted his face with a damp shirttail, careful not to hurt his swollen eye. The man was long gone. Hanging on to the right side of the opening he leaned out. Someone new was skulking around the yard.
In his moment of grief, he’d finally made his peace with his mamma. He had forgiven her.
He needed to find his sister now, and reconcile their differences.
“In death do us part?”
CHAPTER 80
Jeff walked up to the window in his parent’s bedroom. He stood behind stiff white sheers and watched BJ trot across the back yard, her long blonde curls bouncing with each footfall. The light of a full long night moon cast an eerie pallor through the limbs of the old moss gatherer.
She pulled open one of the barn doors. Turned her head and looked up at him.
He ran down the stairs. Out the back door. Didn’t stop running until he reached the barn.
Lamplight?
He cautiously walked toward the center of the barn, twisting his head from side to side.
Where’d she go?
BJ stepped out from behind a wooden column to his left. She held a gun behind her back, an exact replica of Jeff’s gun. With her free hand, she gripped the front of the wig and slowly pulled it off, releasing long black curls. She let the wig fall to the floor in a silent heap.
Jeff’s jaw dropped open. He moved two steps closer to her. “Bonnie? Bonnie June? Is it really you?” He frowned. Smacked his forehead. “Ah, how stupid of me. BJ. Bonnie June. The sense of familiarity. I get it.” He looked her up and down. It had been a long time since they had been together. For a split-second he was happy to see the only family he had left.
“Good job, Sherlock. Or is it Schein?” Her voice was low and cold.
“Happy birthday, I think. What are you now? Twenty-six, twenty-seven?” The expression on her face was unchanged. He rubbed the back of his neck. Oooh shit. His face grew warm with embarrassment when a vision of all those dirty emails flashed across his mind. A half shrug. He didn’t know it was his sis—
“I’ll be damned,” he said quietly. “It was you all along. “You’re the serial killer the city’s hunting for?”
“I prefer serial quiller,” she said in a self-aggrandizing way, “but yeah.”
Everything that had happened since the day he returned to his family’s farm and found the skull and bones... Jeff gasped. “You killed our father?”
“Correction, I killed your father, who killed mine.”
“And Kelly? You came in the house while we were sleeping and, and…” He swallowed hard, his mind fighting back the image of locusts and wild honey. “Why her?”
“She had no right having sex in mamma’s bed.”
“My god, you killed them all.”
“Yes,” she said as evenly as she could. “How many times do I have to tell you? You have no idea of the horrific things that were done to me when I was a kid, do you? So you’ll know, I took special delight in getting rid of Uncle Jessup and the missus. I walked right into their cabin by the swamp, one night. Living in the middle of nowhere, I guess they thought they had no reason to lock their doors. I administered a magic powder containing fresh remains of poisonous toads, nettles and a number of other ingredients along with a potent toxin found in the organs of puffer fish. I went back outside. Noticed Uncle Jessup hadn’t unhooked the flatbed trailer from his pickup truck from when he went to a lumber store a few days before and bought roofing material. I backed the truck and trailer as close to the front door as possible. Dragged them out of the cabin, one at a time, then up the ramp of the flatbed where I dropped them on top of leftover shingles and tarpaper. They were paralyzed but completely conscious. I drove backward to the bald cypress tree forty feet from the cabin. The same tree where Uncle Jessup hung me one stormy afternoon, and watched me fight for my life. Unsure how long they’d be in a vegetative state, I tied their wrists behind their backs with zip ties. Pressed a strip of duct tape over their mouths in case anyone was in shouting distance. Each stared unblinking as I tightened a noose around their neck, slung the loose end over the branch and tied it to the truck. I drove forward. Uncle Jessup and the missus were yanked off the flatbed, dragged across the ground then halfway up the tree. They hung there, as stiff and still as mamma’s old white sheers, slowly choking to death. I wasn’t satisfied. I went to the kitchen and found what I needed. I slashed the bottoms of their feet with a soup can lid, for all the times they made me eat cold soup right out of the can. I used garden shears on Uncle Jessup to cut off the thing that offended me. Standing on the flatbed, I pitched chunks of raw meat in the water and some on the bloody ground. One gator rose to the surface, then three. I slowly backed up the truck again, just enough to lower them closer to the snapping jaws of the ravenous creatures. I put the gearshift in park, cut the engine. Got in my car and drove away. When I returned some time later, I had proof positive Uncle Jessup was half the man I always thought he was.”
Bonnie June threw her head back and cackled witchlike.
“Then you planted all of your little souvenirs in my ap
artment.”
Her features hardened. “What did you expect? It was your fault as much as mamma’s for why I was treated so badly. I, I kind of looked up to you, but you wanted nothing to do with me. You never came to my rescue. Not you, not anyone else. Would you run into a burning building to save me now that we’re together again?” Jeff looked down. “I didn’t think so. If you had acted like a big brother and protected me I wouldn’t have been sent to live with Uncle Jessup in the first place. I wouldn’t have been whipped with a leather strap, dragged by my hair through the back yard and locked in the firewood bin with cockroaches and spiders where I stayed for several days without food or water. I wouldn’t have been stripped naked and forced to kneel on uncooked rice on the kitchen floor for hours on end while the missus read verse after verse from the bible. Or smacked upside the head repeatedly if I screamed whenever she poured rubbing alcohol over my sores and cuts. Most of all, that smarmy bastard wouldn’t have raped me! Those two got off easy, just like your father did.”
Detective Lucas Cantin walked in. Aimed his gun at Donovan.
Wild-eyed, Jeff glanced from Cantin to BJ to Cantin. “Shoot her!” he screeched. “Kill the crazy bitch. She’s a murderer!”
BJ shot Cantin.
“Shit!” Jeff fumbled with his jacket, trying to get it out of the way so he could grasp the handgun. No sooner did he point the gun in her direction than she shot him in the forehead. His gun discharged. The bullet whizzed by, narrowly missing her.
She ran to Jeff, and switched guns. Just in case. Returned to her place.
Debated about firing another round into Cantin.
Gary Northcutt rushed in.
BJ hid the gun behind her back. Burst into tears. “Oh my god, I am so happy to see you,” she wailed. “It was awful. Officer Wentzel tried to kill me. Your partner ran in just in time and shot him. Wentzel’s gun went off. The bullet went wild and hit Cantin.”
Seeing BJ was unharmed, Gary dropped to the ground beside Lucas, slid an arm under his shoulders to lift him up, and then pressed a hand over the side of his neck to stem the flow of blood gushing from the bullet hole.
Lucas turned his head and found BJ. His body tensed. “Murrr-derrr.” He raised a shaky hand and pointed at her. His eyes stretched wide, blood gurgled in his throat.
BJ glared at him. Glimpsed at Northcutt to see if he’d caught on yet to what Cantin’s trying to say. She tightened her grip on her gun, took one step closer.
“Murrr-derrr.” He grasped Gary’s jacket sleeve. “Murrr-duh,” Lucas exhaled his last breath, his hand landed palm up at his side.
Tears welled in Gary’s eyes. “I know, Lucas. I know. BJ was almost murdered. Thank you, for saving her life.” He wrapped his arms around his partner and held him close.
BJ’s lip curled. She remembers the gris-gris bag she mailed to Northcutt’s home address. What does it hold? Good juju? Or bad, bad mojo? Only time will tell. His fate lies in whether or not he opens the bag.
WOLF MOON
Episode 2
Bad Mojo Series
>+<
JANUARY
Six newly published authors, along with BJ Donovan, are in St. Augustine, Florida to spend two weeks at a popular resort and workshop where their manuscript will be critiqued and given the attention it deserves.
While BJ is out gathering information on Arlene Wornon, an American serial killer, another writer breaks into her room. BJ seeks the help of a bokor after she discovers someone has stolen her manuscript, an unpolished first draft of a thriller novel packed with unpublicized details leading up to the murder of Detective Lucas Cantin of New Orleans in Louisiana.
Long Night Moon (Bad Mojo Book 1) Page 23
