This Dark Place: A Detective Kelly Moore Novel

by Claire Kittridge

  This Dark Place

  Detective Kelly Moore #1

  Claire Kittridge

  Delicate Prey Publishing

  For Carol

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Epilogue

  A Letter From Claire

  A Letter From the Publisher

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  He watched the screen as MissPris99 leaned toward the camera, stroking the gun.

  “You know what happens now...” she said. Her voice dripped like syrup, her eyes were wild.

  He hoped the gun was empty. He hadn’t asked for this.

  He felt his entire body tense as she held up the gun by its barrel, the smoothly worn wooden handle facing him. She flipped open the cylinder in a motion that seemed practiced, but still awkward, revealing the inner spaces of the primitive yet deadly tool. It was empty. No bullets. Relief and disappointment surged through the veins of his decrepit body.

  From between her breasts, she pulled out one pristine bullet and placed it in the chamber. Its round areole shone silver through the screen into the dimness of his musty flat.

  The smoky taste of twelve-year-old scotch burned his throat as she aimed the gun right at him, spun the cylinder around, and clicked it shut with a confidence that sent a shiver down his back.

  Through the cheap black monitor, he saw the eggshell-colored wall behind her. The sofa where she sat was simple, but tasteful. By the look of it he could tell it was expensive, but he knew, that for her, it was a throwaway. He knew where she lived, though MissPris99 had no clue who he was. His screen name was obscure: MrkLewis60. He knew her upmarket central London apartment was temporary. Her stay, he thought, would not be long enough.

  The few bits of clothes she wore were simple, like the furnishings, but costly–black lace and silk framing the outline of her breasts and hips, her stomach and thighs. He knew their cost, because he had bought them for her. He knew many things about her: how she spoke, how she walked, whom she kissed. He saw her often, though she didn’t know the half of it. When he’d sent her down this path, he knew she would be perfect. Her secret life intersecting with his.

  She caressed the tip of the gun with her lips and licked a circle around the cool black metal. Her finger rested lightly on the trigger.

  Watching had consumed him these past weeks, as her solo performances grew darker, more dangerous.

  When she first started, it was striptease. Hesitant. Almost bashful. Her shirt pulled off slowly over her head, her smooth blonde hair cascading down, untied and loose, as she ran her delicate fingers over her milky pale skin. But as the time went by, he watched her grow bolder. Her wild blue eyes, desperately seeking him.

  The danger made him uneasy, but equally excited. It was only two nights earlier that she’d roped a silk scarf around her neck and the bedframe, crafting a seductive noose. The scarf pulled tighter and tighter as she arched her back down the bed. She touched herself and cried out in a mixture of pleasure and genuine pain. He had felt it himself, fast and hard, slowing his breathing only when she had loosened the scarf from beneath her chin.

  Then last night, she had not shown up. Her chat room stayed dark as he got drunk alone.

  During the day, he had walked the halls in a daze, answering questions at a slow dreamlike pace, missing appointments. Absent minded, they said.

  But tonight, she was back.

  He leaned forward, studying her face as her golden-yellow, tousled hair tumbled around her shoulders. So young, he thought. But not so innocent. Her smile was shockingly easy, relaxed. As if she knew just how this would end.

  1

  Avery Moss stood in the center of the room. Her eyes glassy, her ears ringing as she absorbed the shock. The smooth wall above the couch was patterned with a fine spray of blood that spread up the wall and outward like a rainbow gone wrong.

  She thought about the oil-slick rainbows that formed in puddles on the streets of the city back home. A clattering noise startled Avery from her thoughts. She looked down.

  The gun had fallen from her hand.

  On the couch, Priscilla lay motionless.

  Priscilla. Her best friend for almost as long as she could remember. She could picture the day they met as if it had just happened. It was her first day at St. Agatha’s Elementary in Brooklyn–Avery was nine years old. She was there on a special scholarship for needy neighborhood kids, and everything looked to her as if she were in a dream. The girls with their hundred-dollar haircuts and mail-order, organic cotton outfits imported from Sweden. Boys with brand-new backpacks bulging from tins of cards showing statistics for monsters; part-dinosaur, part-alien. When one of those boys had stepped up to Priscilla on the playground, called her Prissy Missy and pushed her arm, it only took an instant for Avery’s fist to connect with his nose. They hadn’t even known each other’s names yet, but from that day on, they were inseparable. And when Avery’s scholarship ran out, Priscilla’s father had stepped in, sponsoring her studies, making sure she had what she needed. She’d never really known her own parents, only the foster care families that she was shuffled through once she had become a ward of the state.

  How had it come to this? Priscilla lying dead on a designer sofa in a London apartment. A hole in her head and a thick dark spot on the fabric growing wider, darker, as Avery stood watching. She felt something sticky and hard congealing on the side of her face, but couldn’t muster the energy to wipe it off.

  The sound of a key turning in the lock forced her to look away. Footsteps came from the kitchen and into the room.

  “Oh, god. Avery!”

  “She’s dead.”

  There was a long silence.

  “We have to get you cleaned up.”

  2

  NYPD Detective Kelly Moore sat in the back seat of the black cab as the driver darted skillfully around other taxis, massive SUVs, little Mini Coopers, a double-decker bus. For a few minutes that felt like a lifetime, they were stuck behind a tall, dark, windowless van that she knew held a special anti-terror unit like those in New York. The sight of London brought back an old sick feeling in Kelly’s gut, the frantic sense that her sister, Cass, was o
ut there—in a cafe or store, flashing past on the Underground, held quiet and frightened in some dingy cellar, or in the back room of a penthouse party–or, in her darkest thoughts, cut up in parts, weighted down at the bottom of the Thames. She’d never have come back to England at all, if it weren’t for the death of Priscilla Ames.

  She resisted checking the time on her phone. Looking instead at the Monday morning commuters in their raincoats and at the red phone booths—now just photo ops for tourists.

  Kelly knew the press briefing had already started. She’d left New York for London as soon as she’d gotten the call. Less than a day’s notice, and she was itching to get to the station, to get started. Finally, nearly an hour after leaving the airport, the taxi pulled up to the curb of a modest brick building.

  “Fulham Broadway police station, miss.”

  Kelly counted out the twenties, handed them to the driver, grabbed her bag, and hurried inside; she knew the exchange rate, but had no time to wait for change.

  The wheels of her suitcase whirred along the smooth tile floor. She showed her NYPD badge to the officer at the front desk who checked her name on a list and buzzed her in across the lobby. Kelly followed the hum of voices to a large room where a sea of reporters vied for space in front of a platform at the far end. Kelly stood to the side and pulled a notebook out of her black leather briefcase.

  Two officials stood at the front of the room. A man with close-cropped hair and a handsome square jaw, whom Kelly took to be a plainclothes detective, was wearing a dark blue blazer and a casually knotted blue tie. He stood next to a striking woman who appeared to be in her early sixties, who was currently speaking. The woman was wearing a trim navy suit and thin-framed glasses. She had raven-black hair pulled back against her head in a tight bun. Kelly pegged her immediately for Superintendent Janet Frame—Priscilla’s father, Peter Ames, had described her when he called yesterday, his voice frantic with grief and anger. Superintendent Frame took off her glasses, leaving them hanging from a jeweled chain around her neck as she finished her speech.

  “...as noted by Detective Chief Inspector Jack Dunne, who is Senior Investigating Officer,” she said, gesturing to the man beside her.

  Several reporters’ hands shot into the air but she ignored them, continuing to talk.

  “We are also encouraging anyone with knowledge of the events to call the Metropolitan Police non-emergency line, 1-0-1. This investigation is ongoing.”

  More hands reached for the ceiling. Kelly cursed under her breath. This is the kind of press turnout you see when a rich girl dies. When it’s a girl like Cass... She shook the thought from her mind and watched Frame point to a man sitting close to Kelly. He had a long body and broad shoulders and took up more space than the other reporters.

  “Nigel,” Frame said.

  “Have you determined the time of death?” the reporter asked.

  DCI Dunne leaned toward his microphone. Even from a distance, Kelly could see the light of his pale blue eyes and four distinct vertical scars evenly spaced above his brow, each about two inches long, as if he had been clawed by a bear. “We don’t have the full postmortem report back yet, but we estimate that she’d only been dead for an hour, possibly two, before she was found. That puts it at right around midnight Saturday.”

  The reporter, Nigel, did not take notes. His salt-and-pepper hair was thick and had been carefully groomed to look unkempt. His freckled white skin was tanned as if he had recently been somewhere much sunnier than London.

  “Were there signs of forced entry?”

  “No, nor any clear signs of a struggle, though forensics is still analyzing the scene.”

  Nigel bowed his head, typing a few sentences on his tablet. More hands shot into the air. When he looked up again, directly at Kelly, she felt her stomach shift unexpectedly. He looked to be around Kelly’s own age, much younger than she had originally supposed from the color of his hair.

  “Yes, Miss Lane,” Dunne said.

  A woman in black lowered her hand and spoke. “Are you calling it a suicide, or homicide?”

  “That’s for the coroner to determine. We are waiting on his report.”

  “Can you confirm reports that she was found wearing only a black lace negligee?” a short man with thinning hair called out from the front.

  “Those details cannot be confirmed,” Dunne answered again, “as they are pertinent to the investigation.”

  “Is the roommate a person of interest?” Kelly could not see who had asked.

  “At this time, we cannot comment on whether anyone is a suspect or not,” Superintendent Frame said, leaning into the microphone. “We have investigative leads that we are pursuing.”

  “A source says Ames’ roommate stood to gain financially from her death,” a fast-talking, short-haired woman standing at the back of the room called out.

  “And the Mirror’s got a source saying aliens abducted Prince Charles and replaced him with a lizard,” the detective said. “Get to the point, Tracy. Is there a question?”

  A ripple of laughter went through the room, although Frame scowled at Dunne’s reckless joke before leaving the podium.

  Most of the reporters stayed in their seats, taking notes and talking to each other. Kelly stood still. The flight had been a redeye, and although her body was tired, her mind was racing. The reporter called Nigel stood up.

  He was dressed distinctively in many layers: His camel-colored corduroy jacket sat over a gray flannel sports coat. Beneath that, a navy blue V-neck cardigan covered a red-and-gray striped tie, worn loosely over a white dress shirt with a pale blue grid of lines; as if he had taken a philosophy professor’s entire wardrobe and worn it all at once. It would have been comical if he hadn’t been so at ease. It reminded Kelly of being a beat cop and wearing 25 lbs. of gear.

  “Need help, luv?” he asked. The question was innocent, but Kelly detected a trace of sarcasm, or maybe her ear just hadn’t gotten acclimated yet.

  Kelly shook her head. “Nah, I’m good.”

  “American?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Kelly gave him a deadpan look.

  “Right,” he said. “I heard that Peter Ames sent you in.”

  Kelly said nothing and wondered how much other information he had and how he’d gotten it. If nothing else, it was clear that he knew his way around the station.

  He continued, “Our lads are quite capable, you know.”

  “Name?” Kelly said.

  His dark brown eyes had the tiniest gleam in them as he reached into his jacket and handed her a business card. “Nigel Brickmat,” he said. “Is that how you charm all the boys back in Queens?”

  Kelly put his card in her pocket without looking at it and extended her hand to him.

  “Detective Kelly Moore,” she said. “NYPD.”

  He shook her hand and held it there for a second longer than she would have liked.

  “This force is one of the best,” he said.

  “You write PR for them?” Kelly smirked, then broke into a disarming smile. “A pleasure to meet you, Nigel. I have a feeling this won’t be the last time we talk.”

  She turned, retrieving her suitcase, and left the room, putting Nigel Brickmat out of her mind. It was time to get her bearings and get to work.

  3

  Back in the lobby, Kelly caught sight of her reflection and gave herself a quick once-over, the overcast sky making a mirror of the window. She stood 5’4” but people often remembered her being taller. She wore dark slacks with a black leather belt, a bright white V-neck shirt fit snugly under a light steel-blue suit jacket emphasizing her fit upper body. Around her neck hung a silver chain with a small dagger pendant. Her dark brown hair was cut short to one side, yellow-blonde streaks dyed into the longer hair on top and held away from her face by a pair of sunglasses. She had gotten the dye job just a few days earlier, and it looked good. Her hair was the one thing that she liked to always be changing. Sometimes blonde, sometimes purple, sometimes jet-black. It wa
s a nod to her sister, who always had a rebellious streak. It looked like she might not be needing those sunglasses so much in London, but they helped her feel at ease.

  Kelly walked over to the front desk and presented herself to a uniformed officer; his boyish face gave him the air of a teenager playing at cops and robbers.

  “Detective Moore!” he said, more of a statement than a question.

  Kelly extended her hand and smiled widely.

  “Sergeant Jerzy Blevins, though folks here call me ‘JB.’ It’s a pleasure. The Super says to come on up once we stow your gear.” He stood up as he spoke. At his full height, he was an inch or two shorter than Kelly. She followed him up a staircase, then down a wide corridor.

  Blevins stopped at a door on the right and knocked.

  “Good luck,” he mouthed as he opened the door.

  Kelly stepped inside. Superintendent Janet Frame sat at her desk, typing on her laptop, her glasses perched on the rim of her nose.

  “One minute,” she said.

  Kelly looked around the office. It was nothing like the rest of the building. The walls were a deep navy blue, the furniture not standard-issue. The chair in which Frame sat was a warm caramel shade of leather; there was a walnut bookshelf packed with books. An Oriental rug covered most of the floor. Frame’s computer was thin and silver, though she looked like she’d have been equally comfortable working on an old typewriter. She finished typing, then looked at Kelly.