by Paige Tyler
“Okay,” she said. “As long as you promise to call me.”
“I will,” Logan assured her.
* * * * *
Logan knew a lot of cops in the Stamford area, so he made some calls on the way there to see if any of them were on the task force investigating the killings. Fortunately, one of them was, a former fellow NYPD detective named Ted Muncie.
Of course, the only drawback to Logan knowing the local cops was that they knew him, too. Or more precisely, what he did for a living. Which meant a lot of them thought he was a whack job, including Muncie’s partner, Dan Simpson. Stocky with dark curly hair, Simpson was a good fifteen years younger than Muncie.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the local ghost buster,” Simpson sneered as Logan walked over to their table on the far side of the diner where Muncie suggested they meet. “See any ghosts lately?”
Logan smirked. “I don’t know. Your girlfriend was a little pale when she came over to my house last night.”
Simpson flipped him the bird. “Eff you.”
Logan chuckled. He’d learned to ignore what people thought of him a long time ago. Besides, it wasn’t like Simpson would do anything more than spit out cuss words. Logan could easily kick his ass and the other man knew it.
“Give it a rest, Dan,” Muncie said. “I agreed to talk to Logan. If you don’t like it, you can always go somewhere else.”
Muncie’s partner swore under his breath and pushed back his chair. “I’ll meet you back at the station.” Giving Logan a disdainful glare, he threw some money down on the table.
As Simpson walked away, Muncie held out his hand to Logan. “Damn, it’s been a long time. How the hell have you been?”
A good ten years older than Logan, Muncie was carrying a little extra around the gut and his red hair was grayer than the last time Logan had seen him, but otherwise he looked the same. “Not bad. Not bad at all. How about you?”
Muncie gestured for Logan to take the chair Simpson had been sitting in. “Can’t complain. Listen, forget my partner. He hasn’t been around very long, so he thinks he knows everything.”
Logan shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve heard that shit a thousand times. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”
“Bullshit it doesn’t,” Muncie scoffed. “But whatever. We’re just two old friends having a cup of coffee, right?”
“Right.”
Logan would have said more, but the waitress came over, interrupting him. He ordered a cup of coffee while Muncie asked for a refill on his.
“How’s business been?” Muncie asked after the waitress left.
“Good.” While Muncie might not think Logan was the whack job everyone else did, that didn’t mean the cop wanted to hear all the gory details.
Muncie nodded. “You see Brenda lately?”
Logan had known the question was coming. Brenda was his dead partner’s widow. Muncie had been in the same NYPD precinct back when everything had gone down all those years ago. He knew Brenda almost as well as Logan did.
“Yeah, I still check on her every few weeks. She’s doing all right. Tommy Jr.’s getting big. He’ll be starting running back for the varsity team this season.”
Muncie watched as the waitress refilled his coffee cup. “Junior’s a good kid. Tom would have been proud.”
Logan’s mouth edged up. His old partner had played football in high school and would have been thrilled to see his son on the field. If only his life hadn’t been cut short in a warehouse that night. Logan’s hand tightened around his cup and he hastily gulped his coffee, not caring that it burned his throat on the way down. Anything to get that memory out of his head.
Across from him, Muncie set down his cup and regarded him thoughtfully. “You said on the phone you wanted to talk to me about the case I’m working. You got some information about the murders?”
That was Muncie’s way of asking if there was any spooky shit going on with his case. The cops who knew Logan usually went out of their way to avoid discussing the kind of stuff he got involved in and the ones who did talk about it made sure they laughed it up. But a few beers later, every one of them would start telling him about the strange crap they’d seen on the job. They would never admit it openly, of course, but deep down most of them knew Logan was solid. They also knew if he was asking about one of their cases, things were about to take a turn for the Twilight Zone.
“No,” Logan said. “I saw it on TV and thought it sounded interesting.”
Muncie’s eyes narrowed. “Bullshit. We haven’t had coffee together in what, three years? And if I remember correctly, the last time we did, you made me pay for it.”
Logan chuckled. “Okay, you got me there. But you make more money than I do, so you should be paying.”
The other man let out a snort. “Right. From what I hear, money hasn’t been an issue for you since you left the job.”
“It never was.”
Muncie leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table. “Enough about who makes more than who. I’ll pay for your freaking coffee, okay. What’s this about?”
Logan had spent the better portion of the drive to Stamford thinking about what he was going to say to Muncie and decided it would be best to stick as close to the truth as possible without revealing too much of it. “I need to know if there’s anything unusual about your case. I have a client who’s convinced you have more than your average run-of-the-mill serial killer on your hands.”
“Uh-huh,” Muncie said. “And does this client of yours have a name?”
“She does, but it’s not important.” Logan sipped his coffee. “I’m not looking for the details of the investigation, Ted. I need something to tell my client. Something to put her mind at ease. Something to convince her the cops are after a regular, everyday fucked-up-in-the-head person.”
He emphasized the last part, knowing Muncie would understand exactly what he meant by it.
The other man was quiet for a long time. Too long for Logan’s liking.
“Wish I could tell you what you want to hear,” Muncie said finally. “But I knew the moment you called what you were after. Truth is, I’m not sure it is a regular, everyday fucked-up-in-the-head person we’re looking for. I’m not sure what the hell it is.”
Shit. Muncie wasn’t some newbie detective like Simpson. He’d been on the street for a long time. If he thought there was something weird about the case, then there was.
“I’m listening,” Logan said quietly.
Muncie looked around like he was paranoid someone might be listening to them. There were a handful of people in the diner, but none of them seemed interested in eavesdropping. Muncie lowered his voice anyway. “First off, there have been four murders, not three. The first woman didn’t have any family, so we kept it out of the news, figuring we could use the information if we ever catch the son of a bitch doing this. We’ve got every cop in Stamford working this one along with the sheriff’s deputies and the state major crimes division. We’ve even brought in the Feds to help and we’ve still got nothing. No suspect. No physical evidence. No DNA. Hell, we can’t even pin down what the murder weapon is. This is worse than the Stamford Stabber case.”
Logan frowned. “How the hell is it possible to come up that empty?”
“I’m thinking maybe you can answer that better than I can.”
Muncie looked at him expectantly, clearly waiting for Logan to say something. When he didn’t, his friend let out a sigh.
“Before you ask, there’s no outside connection between the four women that we can establish,” Muncie continued. “Not that remarkable, I know, since lots of serial killers have patterns that are hard to figure out. All four victims were killed in their homes. Again, not that remarkable. The strange part is that we can’t identify how the assailant gained access to any of the homes or even how he got the hell out afterward. All the doors and windows were locked from the inside and there was no indication he picked the locks.” He grabbed his cup and took a s
wallow of coffee. “With the first murder, we figured that meant the victim either knew her attacker or he had a key to the residence.”
“What made you change your mind about that theory?”
“The second victim was killed inside the panic room in her apartment, but she never opened the door again after she went inside. If it wasn’t for her blood seeping through the floor into the apartment below, we would have never even found her. We still haven’t figured out how the killer got to her in a locked safe room. It took our guys an hour to get through the door with a blowtorch.”
“Maybe she was wounded before she went in, then died while she was inside,” Logan suggested.
Muncie shook his head. “That’s what we thought at first, too. But there wasn’t any blood anywhere else in the apartment except the panic room. In addition to that, the security system she had installed has the ability to track and record activity, like one of those electronic hotel door locks. The door to the panic room was only opened once and the medical examiner puts the time of death somewhere around an hour after the door was locked. And before you ask, the door didn’t open again until we opened it, so no one was in there with her. She was in the room alone and still ended up dead, sliced to ribbons.”
Logan didn’t like what he was hearing. “You said you didn’t have any physical evidence. What about witnesses?”
“When I said we have nothing, I meant nothing, and that includes witnesses. Nobody saw or heard a damn thing. This guy picks the perfect time to commit the murders. All the neighbors are either out or otherwise occupied. The neighbor of the third victim was home, but she was had on noise canceling headphones while the woman next door was getting sliced to pieces and didn’t hear a thing.
“What about defensive wounds on the victims?” Logan asked. “Any of those?”
“Plenty. Their hands were slashed up, just like their bodies.”
That wasn’t unusual. “You said before that you didn’t know what the murder weapon was, but if they were stabbed, it’s obviously some kind of knife.”
Muncie let out a snort. “In theory.”
“What do you mean, in theory?”
“Just that if it’s a knife, then it isn’t like anything any of us has ever seen before. It’s sharp enough to cut through bone and yet leaves zero particulate residue behind. Forensics is saying it’s impossible to stab someone and not leave some kind of evidence. After the first murder, they swore up and down someone tampered with the evidence. Since then, they don’t have an explanation. There’s no way the murderer should be able to do this.”
Unless the murderer wasn’t human.
No matter how much Logan wanted to believe Presley was wrong about this, it was starting to look more and more like she was right. He wasn’t sure if it was a ghost because he’d never heard of a ghost that could slice people up, but it was definitely some kind of paranormal creature.
He leaned forward. “I’m going to ask you some questions that are going to sound damn weird, but just answer them, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Did you smell sulfur at any of the crime scenes?”
Muncie frowned. “Sulfur?”
Logan nodded. “Yeah, sulfur. You know, like rotten eggs.”
Muncie shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”
“How about cinnamon? Or a bitter jalapeno smell?”
“Is this some kind of joke?”
Logan gave him a rueful smile. “No, it’s not a joke. I wish it were, believe me. So, think. Did you smell any of that stuff I mentioned?”
“No. I didn’t smell anything at all. Except blood and death.”
“Okay. Did you see anything that looked like fine black pepper scattered around any of the apartments, maybe in the corners of the rooms?”
“No, nothing like that, either.” Muncie scowled. “Logan, what the hell are these dumbass questions all about? Are you as crazy as everyone says you are?”
“Maybe,” Logan said. “Did you find any bags of herbs in the apartments? Any sigils or markings painted near the bodies?”
“No and no.”
That was good.
“How about the electrical stuff in the houses? Anything strange there? Burned wiring maybe, or appliances still running?”
“No. That’s…” The words trailed off as Muncie frowned. “I was going to say that’s crazy, but maybe it isn’t. At the time, I figured it was a coincidence, but there were a lot of light bulbs burned out in the apartments.”
“Shit,” Logan muttered.
“Is that bad?”
Logan clenched his jaw. “Yeah.”
“Do I want to know what kind of bad?”
“No, but if you ever end up in a situation where you get to a crime scene and the lights are still flickering, wait for backup before going in. You got me?”
“Yeah, I got you.” Muncie picked up his coffee cup. “Since the asshole murdering these women isn’t the average run-of-the-mill serial killer, where does that leave us?”
Logan thought a moment. “I don’t know. I have to find out what’s special about the four victims or I’ll never get ahead of this thing. You sure there’s no connection between the women? Nothing at all?”
Muncie shook his head. “Nothing. They didn’t have the same jobs or the same friends. They hung out in different social circles, had different income levels. Two of them were college students, one worked at an architect’s office, and the other was a real estate agent. Hell, they didn’t even belong to any of the same Facebook groups. There’s nothing to connect them other than the fact that they were all tall and pretty with long, blond hair. At least they were pretty before that a-hole carved them up. If the way they looked is the only way he’s picking his victims, we’re screwed. Do you know many pretty blonds there are in Stamford?”
Logan felt like someone punched him in the gut. He knew one.
Shit.
“What is it?” Muncie asked when he didn’t say anything.
Getting to his feet so fast he almost knocked the chair over, Logan tossed a ten-dollar bill on the table and sprinted for the door.
Muncie caught up with him outside. “Dammit, Logan. What is it?”
“I know someone who looks exactly like the victims,” was all Logan said before he took off at a run for the Hummer.
And she was in a hell of a lot of danger.
CHAPTER FOUR
AFTER LOGAN LEFT, Brielle and Robert tried to get Presley’s mind off Del Vecchio by having her help them do research on the past residents of the haunted house they’d gone to the night before in Delhi. She wasn’t sure why the information was important, but they said it would be helpful when it came to exorcising the ghost later. She figured it was more likely something to try to keep her occupied. She was grateful for their effort but could only read through so many old tax records and newspaper archives before she felt like she was going cross-eyed. Sighing, she shoved aside the folder she’d been looking at.
“Okay, I’m going to head home and wait for Logan to call,” she said.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Brielle asked.
Presley shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I’ll be fine.”
At least she thought she’d be fine. But by the time she got to her sister’s place a half hour later, she wished she’d taken Brielle up on her offer. Even though the building complex probably had hundreds of people in it, she felt like she was alone in the quiet apartment.
“Stop being such a scaredy-cat,” she muttered to herself.
Changing out of her clothes, she made some tea, then sat down with her laptop and tried to lose herself in her journal. It worked for a little while, but the moment the sun went down, she got nervous again. Every time someone slammed a door or honked a car horn, she almost jumped out of her chair. It didn’t help that she was writing out the details of what she’d felt when she saw Del Vecchio on the front page of that newspaper. Just the thought of it was almost enough
to make her hyperventilate.
For the hundredth time in the past few hours, she wondered why she hadn’t told Logan and the rest of Paranormal Investigations Unlimited that she’d been seeing ghosts almost nightly since waking up in the hospital. Maybe they would have been more likely to believe her story. Because she was pretty sure none of them did right now.
But she knew if she’d brought up that detail—even to people who looked for ghosts for a living—it would have made her seem even more hysterical than she appeared already. No, she needed them to believe her first and help her prove Del Vecchio was back. Then she’d tell them everything.
Deciding she should write about something else, like maybe the work she’d been doing with Brielle, Presley scrolled down to a new page. She’d written the entry heading and was about to start typing when the screen suddenly went black. Frowning, she checked the power button and saw that the little blue light was still on. That was odd. Then again, the computer was a few years old. Praying it hadn’t picked now to quit on her, she moved her finger back and forth over the touchpad hoping to coax her laptop back to life when she saw Del Vecchio’s reflection suddenly appear in the screen.
Letting out a scream, she whirled around in her chair, expecting to see the psycho killer’s ghost standing behind her, but there was nothing there. Telling herself she was imagining things, she turned back to her laptop. Whatever glitch had made the computer act weird must have been gone because her word processing program was back up, the blinking cursor right where she’d left it.
Sighing, she leaned forward to start typing only to freeze when words suddenly began to appear on the screen of their own accord. Presley stared at them in horror.
Time to die, bitch.
Oh, crap. Del Vecchio was in the apartment with her.
She leaped to her feet and backed away from the computer, terrified the bastard’s ghost was going to jump out of it and grab her. She probably would have backed all the way to the door if she hadn’t smacked into something. Startled, she turned around to see what she’d bumped into and was shocked to see Del Vecchio standing there.