The Evil Returned

by Richard Raven

  Jeff had sensed more from her than a cop doing her job and trying to do it well. In her he had felt hostility, outright dislike, and it had seemed to him all during the time she was in his room that she found the very act of looking at him repulsive. It was as if the woman was pursing some kind of personal vendetta and had found a target that suited her. Jeff had no doubt that Angela figured heavily in the woman’s thinking and actions, but he didn’t think it stopped there. He was convinced that it also had a lot to do with his brother.

  Half-brother, he reminded himself. There were still times when he forgot they had different fathers.

  “No good news, I take it?” Janice asked softly.

  Jeff opened his eyes. He noticed for the first time since leaving the hospital that it was raining a little harder. He also realized with surprise that they were already on Willow Road and not far from the house. He glanced at Janice.

  “No, not really,” he said with a heavy sigh. He was about to say more when his phone went off in his hand. He checked the screen, but didn’t recognize the number and it wasn’t in his contacts. Thinking it might be business related, he hit connect.

  “This is Jeff Taylor.”

  There was only a moment of silence before the call cut out. A sour look on his face, Jeff dropped the phone in his lap.

  “Wrong number?” Janice asked.

  “Apparently so. Either that, or whoever it was changed their mind.”

  There was only silence in the car the last few miles to the house. When Janice steered into the driveway and stopped, Jeff had a terrible moment. It was like he didn’t know the house at all. That Janice had mistakenly driven him to the wrong place. That the memories he had of it and of living here were, somehow, wrong and didn’t fit together. The only familiar thing was his red Big Horn Ram crew-cab, parked near one corner of the house. It was right where he had left it Friday afternoon.

  Why does it seem so long ago?

  “Are you okay, hon?” Janice asked, one hand on his arm, her eyes concerned.

  Jeff blinked, the moment passed, and he groped for a response. “It’s just so weird not seeing her Mazda here,” he murmured as he wondered who had the car at the moment and where it was. None of the cops he had talked to had bothered to mention that detail.

  He reached for the door handle and got out, fishing his keys out of his pocket. Janice took them gently from him and, one arm looped through his, walked him to the house and the front door.

  Once inside, standing with Janice in the foyer, it didn’t get any better. His eyes moved, missing nothing. Everything looked the same: the sofa were he and Angela had made love three nights before she disappeared; his old and battered recliner that she had complained about to no end and had threatened to throw out more times than he could count; the big screen TV in one corner, beneath which on the metal and glass stand sat a CD player and radio with external speakers; the coffee table, it’s top littered with well-thumbed copies of Glamour and Cosmo; the framed pictures on the wall, some of family members; most of a smiling and happy couple.

  It all had a stark and alien feel to it that left him feeling a little cold and numb inside.

  “Jeff, are you going to be okay?” Janice asked, still holding his arm. “I can see how upset you are, and I really don’t want to leave you here like this.”

  “I’ll be fine in a minute.” Jeff took a single step into the living room, Janice still clinging to his arm. The light switch was next to him; he looked at it, thought about it, and decided not to bother with it.

  “Are you hungry? Is there something in the kitchen I can fix for you?”

  Jeff made a face. “I couldn’t eat anything.”

  “You need to, though. You haven’t eaten anything today that I know of.”

  “Janice, the very thought of food makes me sick to my stomach.” He disengaged his arm from hers. “You’ve done enough for me already—I’m talking above and beyond here—but I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to need you even more in the coming days and weeks. There’s going to be times coming up very soon, I’m sure, when I’ll probably have to leave the business entirely in your hands.” He saw the look that crossed her face and it made him angry. “And if any of the guys on the crew—and the same goes for their wives and girlfriends—still have a problem with you, then they can all hit the damned door right now. It’s not like we don’t have a drawer full of applications from experienced and qualified people who’d be more than happy to take their place. As far as who runs my business when I have to take time and sort through this big mess, you’re the only one I trust.”

  Janice smiled her thanks and gratitude. “Yes, sir, Boss.”

  “So you take your butt home and put it to bed,” Jeff told her gently. “Right now, that’s the most important thing you can do for me.”

  Janice’s smile dimmed ever so slightly; then it began to fade and a pensive look crept onto her face that was so affecting that Jeff could almost feel it.

  “What is it, Janice?”

  She opened her mouth, seemed to think about it some more, then quickly closed it. Another moment passed before she tried again. This time she got the words out.

  “Do you believe it’s true?” she whispered.

  Jeff thought about his reply for a long time.

  He remembered the week she was away, and how she told him she was going home to Texas to visiting her ailing aunt, her last living relative. He remembered the depression and mood swings before and after that visit and the way that, after she had returned, she had avoided him and wouldn’t let him get close enough to even touch her for weeks. She wouldn’t even let him see her naked—and never had she ever denied him that simple pleasure. It only got worse for a time right after the lawyer she had worked for had suddenly quit and moved on to another firm. In the past couple of weeks it had seemed that she preferred spending more time with girlfriends such as Susan Romine than she did with him. Two days before she disappeared he had come home to an empty house, something that rarely happened even when she was working. He was about to call her when she walked in, clearly upset and looking rather ashamed. She had explained that she had been out all day following up on job prospects with no luck; that she was tired and wanted only a long hot bath and to go to bed.

  “Yeah,” he finally said, affecting the calm demeanor of a man in control, which wasn’t the case at all. “I believe it. It all fits and makes sense.” And I thought I knew her so well.

  Janice went to him and pulled him into a hug. “Jeff, I am so sorry.”

  He stood there unmoving for a time, then his arms encircled her. Tentatively at first, then emotion seized him and he held her with feeling and without shame.

  “You and me both,” he murmured.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The tall and bullet-headed man was beginning to think he was wasting his time.

  He had first seen the woman walking along the road several days ago. For the pure hell of it and with nothing better to do, he had struck up a conversation with her. He had seen her every day since then, always at about the same time; he had always made a point to chat her up.

  Just for the pure hell of it.

  At least there was nothing phony about a bitch like her.

  But now that she could actually do something for him, it was beginning to look as though the bitch wasn’t going to show. Either that, or he had missed her because some asshole had got to her first. Every day he had seen her she had left with some fuck that had showed up and flashed some green. It was obvious enough that she was meeting some of her best paying regulars. That had to be the only reason she bothered coming here because it wasn’t exactly a prime location for a bitch in the business of peddling her ass.

  He was getting impatient, not to mention a little pissed. He had been there for almost twenty minutes; he couldn’t hang around much longer. He already felt like he stuck out like a turd on a plate; some fuckhead was sure to call down the law on him and soon. That he needed about as much as he ne
eded a new asshole.

  Fuck it, he had decided and was about to walk away when a voice from behind him startled him.

  “Hey, there, handsome. Fancy seeing you here, again.”

  Fuck me! The bitch had slipped up on him! He wheeled around and glared at her, his hands suddenly itching to reach out and snap her fucking neck. He fought the urge and controlled it, barely.

  “Sorry,” the woman drawled, her face now a little wary. “Didn’t mean to scare you, big guy.”

  “Forget it,” he told her, his voice sounding almost normal. He even managed a smile. “Been waiting for you.”

  “Yeah, I figured that.” She arched an eyebrow as she studied him. “I’m also beginning to think there’s something you want me to do for you. Am I right, honey?”

  “Today, yeah, there is.”

  “Just name your pleasure. I’m down for anything you can think of—and I do mean anything.”

  “Here’s what I want,” he began, and for most of the next minute he detailed his request and finished with what he was willing to pay for the favor.

  The woman stared at him with a mixture of suspicion and incredulity. She was thin to the point of emaciation, her short brown hair dirty and tangled. Her obvious use of crack and meth had ravaged what had probably been a pretty face at one time, and she was missing several of her front teeth.

  “That’s what you want me to do?”

  “That’s it.” He thought it an inspired idea. Sure, he was taking a chance; he had no doubt the cops would be all over it. But he didn’t see that as too big a deal; it would take some time for the law to get their shit together and move. When they finally did, he would be long gone. It was about time for him to move on, anyway. To disappear back into the shadows as he always did. Only this time he planned to stay there, maybe for a long, long time. It was really the only thing he could do. Friday night had been a high point for him, but it had generated so much heat that it felt like the whole fucking city was about to catch fire. Yet those flames would never touch him; he was too smart for that and he was making sure of it. Only a couple of small chores left, and then it was “Fuck you” and “Go to hell” and “So long” time.

  “And you’ll give me fifty dollars for doing that?” the woman asked.

  “That’s what I said.” He pulled several bills out of a pocket and let her see them.

  A sly glint appeared in the woman’s washed out brown eyes. “You know…you add another thirty to that you can have a piece—and I’ll blow you for free. I’ll take you right out there in those bushes and trees and take care of you. What do you say?”

  No bitch like her would ever have his dick in any of her holes—even with a damned condom. Again, he felt the itch to snap her fucking neck for even propositioning him like this. She wouldn’t be the first to learn the hard lesson that came with fucking with him. Even after he controlled the urge that swept through him, it was all he could do to keep the revulsion out of his voice when he spoke.

  “I’ve only got the fifty and, right now, I need the other favor more than a BJ or pussy. So how about it?”

  And just like that, her hesitation vanished. Her eyes still on the money, they were now filled with greed and a gnawing need. She shrugged and said, “Honey, it’s your money and your loss. So, tell me again what it is you want me to say.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Soon after Janice left, Jeff had walked through the darkened living room to the kitchen and sat down at the table. He was still sitting there, staring into space and trying with little success to sort through the tangle of thoughts and worries that twisted and writhed in his mind like a nest of snakes. He found it not only hopeless but the effort seemed to drain him of energy he really didn’t have to expend. God, he felt like shit and knew he should take his words to Janice to heart and put his own butt to bed.

  Would that ever be a complete waste of time.

  A long time had passed before he finally realized that he was sitting there at the table with his phone in his hand. As he stared at the phone, a thought occurred to him. It didn’t pop into his head but, rather, seeped in like a faint wisp of smoke.

  Why not call her number and see what happens?

  It seemed such a crazy idea at first, and yet it struck him as strange that he hadn’t thought of doing it before now. Was there any point to it? The lady detective had said there had been no activity with Angela’s phone since Friday. Was that the straight of it? Had the cops already tried calling her number? Even if he did make the call, would it accomplish anything? Perhaps give him a few answers? Answers he could live with?

  Still considering those questions, lost in thought, he jerked and mouthed a curse under his breath when the phone buzzed and vibrated in his hand. Then the ringer kicked in and the phone went off loudly. Startled though he was, the real surprise wasn’t that the phone had suddenly come alive in his hand or that someone had chosen that precise moment to call him.

  It was because that Angela’s picture and number appeared on the phone’s screen. That almost brought him out of his seat and would have if not for the way that every muscle in his body seemed to turn into jelly.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “This Jeffery Taylor?” A high and scratchy female voice.

  “Yes, yes, speaking. Who’s this?” My God, has someone found her phone?

  “Who? Just somebody that wanted to let you know you’re a sorry sack of shit.”

  Jeff’s eyes went wide. What the fuck? “Who are you? Where’s Angela? Goddamn you, where’s my wife?”

  “How would I know? You’re the one that killed her, you murdering bastard. Did it make your dick hard when you did it? I bet it did. I bet you stood there and jacked off all over her. What do you figure the cops would think if they heard that? But you know what? I hope it’s not the cops that nail your ass. What I hope is that someone finds you before that and blows your fucking head off.”

  Then there was only the sound of dead silence from a broken connection.

  “Shit!” Jeff shouted, hesitated, then reached with a shaky hand for the redial button.

  The call went straight to voicemail.

  “Hi, this is Angela, and you know what to do. Wait for the beep, though. Bye.”

  The sound of her voice left him feeling gutted as if someone had opened him up with a knife from throat to crotch. He dropped his phone on the table and tried to calm his breathing and to make sense of that first call. He found it far easier to accomplish the latter than the former.

  A death threat, no doubt of that, and one he had no choice but to take seriously. Yet there was more to it than that. A hell of a lot more. He believed that as strongly as he did the threat. That call had been a message.

  Actually…two messages. Both were plain and simple, and he got both loud and clear.

  The first was a warning. That seemed obvious enough, and though it scared the hell out of him, it didn’t have quite the effect on him as the second message.

  While he had never really believed it was possible as there were too many things that suggested otherwise, Jeff had clung tenaciously to the hope that Angela had simply walked away that night. That, for whatever reason, she had decided to leave him and their life together and everything she had behind. It wouldn’t be the first time a wife had run away, chasing after something she thought was better. To Jeff, at least, it had seemed the lesser of two evils.

  But now he knew better. His tiny thread of hope had just snapped. Angela was dead and his life as he knew it was no more. He felt it in his heart and in his bones that it was true. The harsh and undeniable reality of it was like a slap in the face. Not only was Angela dead, but someone had her phone and was taunting him with the knowledge. And that same person—a woman, for God’s sake? —was warning him in no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut and to stay away from the cops.

  A feeling of absolute and penetrating cold spread through him that made him shiver violently. That shiver sunk even deeper into him when the weirdest
sensation of all swept through him that someone had come into the kitchen and sat down at the table with him.

  What made it so eerie—what nearly stole what little breath there was from his lungs—was that it was so much like all the mornings after she lost her job when Angela, usually more asleep than awake, would come into the kitchen and join him for coffee and a bite of breakfast before he left for work.

  That was when he finally managed to get out of his seat. It was more that he fell out of it, rather than leaping to his feet. The chair spilled over backwards, hitting the hardwood floor with a resounding crack. Jeff had to grab the edge of the table to keep from hitting the floor butt-first. Once he had his balance and could stand up straight, he looked around frantically, his eyes dancing here and there and flicking back and forth.

  Damn it, get a grip! There’s no one else here! The feeling had to be nothing more than the brutal stab of loss he had suddenly felt. That and a sudden and keen awareness of Angela and of her lingering presence. That had to be it—she was everywhere, all around him. Virtually everything in that house bore her touch or conveyed her spirit.

  So much of her here…and yet nothing at all.

  Still, the feeling that someone was there with him was growing stronger, becoming almost unbearable, and the cold that gripped him was getting worse by the second. He had to get away from here. Away from…whatever the hell it was that was happening to him. If he stayed much longer he believed and feared that he would start to hear her voice—

  “I put my precious little body and my all in your capable hands, my darling.”

  —and not just in his head, either.

  He lurched out of the kitchen and hurried into the bedroom. If anything, he discovered, he felt the eerie presence stronger here than in the kitchen. He would, of course; there was more of her in this room than anywhere else in the house. Ignoring the feeling as best he could, Jeff went to his side of the bed and dropped to his knees, avoiding so much as a glance at Angela’s photo on the bedside stand.