by Dan Padavona
He didn’t notice the headlights moving along the gravel until they lit his face. He covered his eyes and kept walking. The motor gunned.
Derek had a split-second to react before the sedan leapt at him. He jumped out of the way and ran for the tracks. Was the driver drunk? The dark-colored sedan skidded to a halt and backed up as Derek caught his breath.
“What the hell?”
Derek turned and sprinted when the car shot forward. Frigid air burned his lungs and sapped his strength. The bumper brushed his leg as he scampered out of the way. The sedan wheeled around, the driver preparing for another attack. Derek’s heart slammed. The maniac meant to kill him.
As the car swerved, he caught sight of the driver. No, this wasn’t real.
The driver wore a Halloween pumpkin mask. Derek froze.
The door flew open on the sedan. Moonlight glimmered off the butcher’s knife as the macabre figure stalked across the road. Derek ran.
The maniac’s footsteps pounded the earth behind him. Closing in. As Derek increased his speed, the masked stranger threw himself at Derek and tackled him to the ground. Screaming for help, Derek rolled to his back and stared at the mask’s leering grin. A hand gripped his throat and squeezed, pinning him in place.
The blade plunged into his chest. Blood geysered and splattered the mask. Derek’s mouth fell open.
The killer glared down at Derek until the teenager’s eyes fluttered and fell shut.
Blood pooled beneath the boy as he sucked in his last breath.
CHAPTER FIVE
October 31st
12:35 a.m.
A thump in the dark brought Raven awake.
She sat up in bed and reached for her gun on the nightstand. Fog slithered down the window, gray light pouring across the hardwood floors. Holding the weapon, she held her breath and listened. It was quiet now, the sound of a crypt in the dead of night. Chalking the noise up to a dream, she set the gun aside and lay back on the pillow. She was making herself crazy. Mark Benson wouldn’t return to Nightshade County after escaping prison. He’d scramble for the border, reach Mexico before the police closed in. She couldn’t shake the memory of Benson’s eyes the night Darren and Deputy Lambert caught the kidnapper on a farm-to-market road outside Wolf Lake. Those eyes had promised revenge if he ever caught Raven again.
Raven placed the extra pillow over her eyes and blocked out the moonlight. Her chest rose and fell as her breathing regulated. She wanted to call Darren. More so, she wished the state park ranger was here to watch over the house. She chided herself for being a coward. Raven could best most men in a fight, and she’d tackled and subdued fleeing male suspects who’d outweighed her by fifty pounds. She spent five days per week in the gym, ran intervals on the treadmill, benched one-hundred-fifty pounds five times without breaking a sweat, and squatted more weight than the muscle heads.
So why was she so scared?
Sleep crept up on her. The thump came again. From inside the house.
Raven bolted upright and clutched the gun, pulse racing as she edged off the bed. A floorboard groaned under her weight.
She stood at the bedroom door and waited. If Benson was in the house, he’d find Mom’s room first. Hers was the first down the hallway.
Gritting her teeth, Raven turned the handle and opened the door. Peered down the dark hallway. Mom’s door stood closed, the bathroom door open halfway with a sliver of silver light scraping the threshold. Raven set her back against the frame, then spun into the hall with the weapon aimed into the gloom.
Footsteps trailed through the house. From the kitchen?
Raven followed the wall. After she cleared the bathroom, she waited outside Mom’s door. Serena usually snored, another reason Raven slept with a spare pillow over her head. But it was quiet inside Mom’s bedroom. A terrifying image popped into Raven’s mind. Mom’s body splayed across the bed, the sheets soaked with blood as Mark Benson loomed over her with an ax.
Raven reached for the door when someone bumped the kitchen table. She crept to the end of the hallway and stared across the living room. A shadowed figure swayed in the kitchen.
The refrigerator door opened, flooding the kitchen with light. Raven released her breath.
“Mom, why are you walking around in the dark?”
Serena’s braids matched Raven’s hairstyle, minus the beads. At forty-one, Serena was only sixteen years older than her daughter. She’d given birth to Raven during her junior year of high school. The boy who’d impregnated her refused to be a father, and Serena never mentioned him, though Raven had dug around and discovered the deadbeat still lived in Harmon. Jerome Ayers. One of these days, Raven hoped to cross paths with Ayers and stare into his eyes after she told him he was her father.
“Sorry, babe. I didn’t want to wake you.” Well, you did, Raven thought as she slipped the gun behind her back. Serena’s eyes widened. “What in God’s name are you doing with a gun?”
Raven brushed the hair out of her eyes and strutted past her mother.
“I thought you were a prowler.”
“Would a prowler sneak a midnight snack?” Serena pulled a blackberry pie from the refrigerator and set it on the counter. Raven laughed to herself. Only her mother could eat dessert after midnight and never gain a pound. The woman had the metabolism of a jackrabbit. “Can I cut you a slice?”
Raven’s mouth watered. Nobody baked pies like Serena Hopkins, though Naomi Mourning gave Mom a run for her money. If those two opened a shop, Ruth Sims and the Broken Yolk would go out of business.
“I’d better not. If I eat this late, I’ll wreck my stomach.”
Serena plated her dessert and set it at the kitchen table. Raven filled two glasses with water and sat across from her mother. Serena took a bite and pointed at Raven with her fork.
“You’re a bundle of nerves tonight. What’s gotten into you?”
Raven sipped her water and stared through the window. The foggy night held too many secrets.
“I can’t sleep. Mark Benson escaped prison.”
Serena set down her fork and leaned forward.
“The man who kidnapped you? How in the world did he escape?”
“I don’t know the details. Kane Grove PD phoned Chelsey after they received the news. Chelsey is close with two of their officers. They promised to let her know if Benson or Ramos got out of jail.”
Serena scoffed.
“Typical. The guards barely pay attention to the white prisoners. They probably let him roam freely. If Benson was black, they’d have found him by now.”
“Benson and Ramos weren’t in maximum security. But I wouldn’t describe their accommodations as a country club.”
“You don’t think he’ll come here, do you?”
Raven scrubbed a hand down her face.
“I doubt it. But it pays to be careful. It’s best if you’re not alone in the house until they catch him.”
Raven’s mother waved the idea away.
“I’m not scared of some over the hill steroid freak. We’re from Harmon, baby girl. A guy like Mark Benson wouldn’t survive five minutes in our old neighborhood.”
“Be that as it may, we need to be extra careful until the storm blows over. That means I’m watching your back.”
“I’m not keeping you from Darren. Girl, I’m forty-one, and you have your own life to lead. Don’t need no babysitter, understand?”
Serena forked another scoop of blackberry pie into her mouth and chewed without a care.
“I’ll call Darren in the morning. We’d planned to hang out on Halloween night. No reason we can’t get together here.”
Serena harrumphed.
“Nobody wants their mom around when they bring a date home. Go to the cabin. I’ll be fine.”
“What if you spent the evening with LeVar?”
“He don’t want to spend Halloween night with his mother, either.” After swallowing the last of the pie, Serena pushed the plate aside. “Tell you what. Naomi wanted company tom
orrow night. I’ll spend the evening with her, if it’ll get you off my back.”
“Thanks. That would put my mind at ease.”
“Besides, Naomi and I got business to discuss.”
Raven lifted her eyes.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s a sales position open at Shepherd Systems, and Naomi thinks I’d be good for the job.”
Raven set her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her palm.
“That’s great, Mom. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I wanted it to be a surprise.”
A million concerns assailed Raven at once. Sales positions were high-pressure jobs. What if Serena buckled under the pressure and relapsed?
“It’s a lot to consider, Mom. You’ll deal with business people who don’t want to hear from you, and you might need to travel.”
“Don’t worry about me. Your Mom can handle it. Y’all know I don’t take no for an answer.”
“Truth.”
“Besides, I don’t wanna mooch off my daughter for the rest of my life.”
Reaching across the table, Raven held her mother’s hand.
“You’re not a mooch. My home is your home, and that’s forever.”
Tears glistened in Serena’s eyes.
“That’s a charitable gesture. But I don’t deserve it, not after I tossed my daughter out of the apartment just because she wouldn’t sit by while I got high every day.”
“Mom, that’s all in the past.”
Serena straightened her back and set her palms on the table.
“Not for me. I’ll never forget what I did to you and LeVar. If it takes me a lifetime, I’ll make it up to you.”
CHAPTER SIX
October 31st
2:05 a.m.
Thomas wasn’t sure where he was when the call pulled him out of a dream. He rolled over, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and lay upon the empty half of the bed. Chelsey left before midnight, and the bed seemed cavernous without her.
“Hello,” he muttered, coughing into his hand.
His vision cleared when the dispatcher relayed her report. A Kane Grove PD squad car had responded to a complaint of someone screaming. A teenage boy lay dead beside the railroad tracks outside Barton Falls, stabbed multiple times.
Thomas pulled his clothes on, let Jack outside to do his business, then rushed to his silver Ford F-150. No time to swap the truck for his cruiser at the station. The motor fired to life before he turned the truck down the lake road. Halfway to Barton Falls, his dispatcher spoke over the radio.
“Be advised, the ETA on unit two is five minutes. Kane Grove PD will meet you at the scene.”
Unit two was Deputy Veronica Aguilar. Thomas’s lead deputy was scheduled on day shifts. The harsh realities of the job made it impossible to keep a consistent sleep schedule.
Barton Falls was a failed industrial town outside Kane Grove. A graveyard of closed factories and warehouses with boarded windows stretched across Barton Falls in a checkerboard of regret. There was a McDonald’s and a gas station in the town center, and little else beyond a stray newspaper dancing across the road at the whim of the wind. A garbage can rolled on its side, spilling something wet and sticky at the corner of Main and Spruce. A tomcat licked at the muck.
Thomas studied the residences as he passed through town. No cookie cutter upscale developments here. This was once a thriving town with hopes for the future. A computer chip maker purchased property during the early nineties, but pulled out of the contract after the company received a better offer from Buffalo. When Thomas was thirteen, the worst thunderstorm New York had seen in decades tore a hole through Barton Falls and demolished homes, flattening the few thriving businesses on the town’s west side. A curse hung over Barton Falls. Nothing good happened here.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and waited for the traffic light to change. Why was a teenage boy at the railroad tracks after midnight on a school night? He thought of one reason—the kid was partying with his friends. Then what? An argument started and someone stabbed the boy? The light flicked green, and Thomas pressed his foot on the gas.
The fog found him when he turned down a dirt and gravel access road. Mist slumbered over the meadow, wisps glowing beneath the moonlight as it ebbed and flowed across the gravel. Emergency lights whirled behind the wall of fog. Cutting off his high beams, he slowed the truck to a crawl, worried an officer might search for evidence along the shoulder.
When he arrived at the railroad tracks, two Kane Grove PD cruisers were on site. He recognized Detective Presley. Presley had responded to the Justine Adkins kidnapping in Kane Grove. Tall and lanky, the detective wore her almond hair in a shaggy bob. Judging by her mussed hair, she hadn’t been awake long.
Thomas stepped down from the truck and met Presley beside the tracks. A thin layer of frost sparkled like fallen stars.
“Sheriff.”
“Detective Presley. What do we have?”
She gestured across the meadow at a row of houses. Most of the windows were dark, but a few poured light into their yards.
“A neighbor reported a scream after midnight. County requested we send a cruiser through the neighborhood. Found nothing on the first sweep. Officer Stanton spotted the body when he took the access road out of Barton Falls.”
“Any idea who the boy is?”
“None. We didn’t find a wallet on him.”
“Not even a driver’s license?”
“Typical teenager. My girl forgets her license on the counter all the time. Can’t convince her to put the wallet in her purse. These kids pay for everything with their phones nowadays.”
Thomas glanced up as Aguilar’s cruiser pulled behind his truck. Stocky and muscular, dark hair cut short, Aguilar barely eclipsed five feet in shoes. Her commanding presence drew eyes and respect. Officer Stanton touched the tip of his cap when Aguilar passed.
Thomas briefed Aguilar and pointed at the houses on the far side of the meadow.
“Go door to door and find a witness. Someone must have seen who did this.”
Presley, dressed in a pantsuit and heels, stepped gingerly across the road and followed Thomas toward the tracks. The heels weren’t optimal for walking through a frosty meadow. The dead teenager had dark brown hair and a youthful face that made him appear younger than he was. Red stains soaked his jacket, and mud plastered his jeans. Blood coagulated beneath his back and fanned out across the ground like wings. His eyes lay open. Lifeless, yet clinging to the last terror he’d witnessed before the blade plunged through his chest. He was a good-looking boy, Thomas thought. The type of kid who wouldn’t have a hard time catching a girl’s eye.
“Multiple stab wounds,” Presley said. “This was personal.”
Thomas grunted in agreement. Guns were the most efficient murder weapons. Bullets cut down fleeing enemies and allowed a murderer to kill a foe without dirtying his hands. Stabbing someone was personal, an act of rage and hatred. Lying in the mist, the boy didn’t seem like anyone who’d engendered hatred. But looks were deceiving.
Shoe prints covered the ground. Which prints belonged to the killer? After studying the boy, Thomas stood and turned. Scattered footprints sank into the soft ground along the road. Sweeping his flashlight across the prints, Thomas followed the trail with Presley beside him. From his evidence kit, he placed yellow markers beside a tire track and two prints.
“The murderer drove after our victim.” Thomas stopped and squinted. “I see one pair of shoe prints until the tire tracks stop along the shoulder. Then a second pair.”
Presley knelt where the tire tracks ended.
“So the boy fled from the vehicle and left the road for the railroad tracks. The killer abandoned his vehicle and pursued on foot, catching him before the boy made it across the meadow.”
“Sure looks that way.”
Thomas lifted his radio.
“Aguilar, the killer drove to and from the scene. Ask the neighbors if anyone
noticed an unfamiliar vehicle on the access road after midnight.”
“Will do, Sheriff.”
A van stopped along the shoulder, and the Kane Grove PD crime scene techs piled out with their evidence kits. Virgil Harbough, the Nightshade County Medical Examiner, would arrive within the hour.
The crime techs erected an open-sided police tent twenty yards from the body. Thomas snapped photographs each time he placed an evidence marker. A ruler along the edge of the marker allowed Thomas to record the size of each shoe print.
Presley bent down beside him and aimed her light into the grass.
“What’s that?”
Thomas narrowed his eyes and used tweezers to pluck the orange fabric out of the weeds. It could have been stray garbage unrelated to the case. His intuition told him otherwise as he slipped the fabric into an evidence bag and held it up to the light. Thomas glanced at Presley.
“I might be crazy, but it looks like it came from a Halloween mask.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
October 31st
6:00 a.m.
It took four hours for the Kane Grove crime techs to reconstruct the scene. A sliver of gray lay on the horizon, but dawn’s approach did nothing to abate the cold. Exhausted officers hopped in place and clutched Styrofoam coffee cups, condensation clouds forming as they spoke.
At least it wasn’t windy, Thomas told himself. He pulled his coat together and wished he’d worn a second layer beneath his clothes. The building light beyond the hills warned him he should be elsewhere. Solving this murder was his responsibility, but his thoughts kept returning to the call Kane Grove PD placed to Chelsey. Raven’s kidnapper, the man who swore he’d get revenge, had broken out of prison. Thomas needed to be two places at once. He couldn’t protect his friends until he figured out who murdered the teenage boy.
He lifted his phone and called LeVar. After seven rings, he gave up. At six in the morning, LeVar was still asleep and probably hadn’t heard about Benson’s escape. LeVar had worked until late at the Broken Yolk last night. He needed to keep up with his studies, and his workday at Wolf Lake Consulting began at noon. Better to let him sleep. LeVar would be useless to Raven if he was too tired to keep his eyes open. Thomas sent a text message to LeVar’s phone. He’d read the message when he awoke.