The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “Oddly, no.” In fact his stomach hurt. Probably a side effect of the antibiotics, or of being stabbed. “My back hurts, though. Can I take hydro now?”

  “Yeah. I brought them.” She snatched up a bottle from the nightstand and popped off the lid.

  “Aw… you’re so great!”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “Feeling better?”

  Max looked up from his files at Jack.

  His eyes widened. “My God!”

  “You should have seen me last week,” Max replied with a grin.

  Jack took a sip of coffee. “Are you in a fight club or something?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it… You want in?”

  He chuckled. “No way! Hey, did you hear about that drug bust out on Peace Church Road?” Max shook his head. “Yeah, it was all over the news.”

  “I’ve been a little out of it.”

  “Apparently there were skinheads making crystal meth in the woods behind a trailer park. A rival gang came in and shot the whole place up. We all had to deal with the fallout after the cops were done.”

  Max feigned a curious look. “Meth labs aren’t really our thing. What’d we have to do?”

  “They found four kids living in there.” Jack nodded at Max’s fake look of surprise. “Yeah, no one has any idea who these kids are. They don’t even remember their names!”

  “So what’s going to happen to them?”

  Jack shrugged and took another sip. “I dunno… I guess they’ll go into the foster system.”

  Brian shoved his way into Max’s cubicle. “Excuse me, Jack. Max, do you have a minute?”

  “I’m kind of expecting someone.”

  Brian waited until Jack was out of earshot and moved closer. “Yeah, that’s kind of what I need to talk to you about,” he whispered.

  “She’s here?”

  “Yeah. Why is she here?”

  Max gathered up a file and moved around him. “I don’t like to leave loose ends.”

  “Why is the cop here?” Max was too far away for him to whisper that. It drew a little attention from the rest of the office.

  “You’ll see,” he said back as he walked to the conference room.

  Janet sat with her hands on her waist. James was a few feet away, in uniform. He gave Max a friendly nod. Max returned it and sat down across the table from Janet. She looked at his eyes once then looked away.

  “Hello, Mrs. Winnans.”

  “I know why I’m here,” she said with a quiet voice. She nodded. “You’re disappointed in me for not remembering. I thought I did, but—”

  “No, that isn’t it.” Max sat the file on the table. Janet made eye contact and gave him a confused look. “Though it does have something to do with that.”

  “I don’t—”

  “See, I’m going to let you in on a secret.” Max opened the file with a bandaged finger. He was a little woozy from the pain meds but still able to keep focus. They did have the added effect of loosening him up and making him seem more sublime. In fact, he was anything but.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Max continued, “There isn’t any way you’d remember. See, what they do when they make someone forget… they remove any trace of it.” He waved a bandaged hand around his head. “Memories, thoughts, feelings… it’s all chemicals and electricity in the tissue of your brain. Every living thing has an electrical field, and it’s tied to the electricity in your brain. Making people do things, that’s kind of hard—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Max held up his hand and continued. “Only the most powerful ones can make you do something you don’t want to do. That’s like… rewriting the code. Getting people do to things they already want to do, that’s easy. They just turn on the switch that makes you want to do it, like open a door to a stranger or get in a car with someone you don’t know. Humans are social creatures, so we naturally trust each other. We have to learn to distrust, that’s why we have to keep telling children not to take candy from strangers and all that.”

  Her breathing got heavier as Max continued, “Making someone do something they don’t want to do… that’s hard. Because they have to rewire that part of the brain that makes you averse to doing whatever it is they want you to do, then turn it on. Only the really powerful ones can do it with one try, but the younger ones can pull it off if they put some time and effort into it. It’s like brainwashing—”

  “Who is they?” She looked at James after asking. He narrowed his eyes at her and looked away.

  “Who are they,” Max corrected. “That isn’t really important. The point is they can’t usually make you do something you don’t want to do. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Max leaned forward. “See, your husband doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember anything. Making someone forget something, that’s easy. It’s like wiping math equations off a chalkboard. You may not know what they mean, but you can make them go away. Of course, making someone forget a half hour of blood sucking is one thing… making someone forget having and raising a child… that takes a little longer.”

  She shook her head. “I still don’t understand… Why are you telling me this?”

  Max shook his head and almost grinned. Whatever look he gave her seemed to work. She sunk into the chair.

  “But once it’s gone—” Max tried to snap his fingers. Sharp pain ran through his hand, and the only thing he got was a soft patter of bandaged digits. He winced at how stupid it was to do that before going on, “It’s gone for good. They don’t leave bits and pieces in there, and no amount of coaxing or photographs are going to bring it back.”

  Max spread the photos out in front of her. One of them, a photo of Penny smiling and looking at the camera, was crinkled and splattered with blood on the edges. She looked at it for a second, then reached for it. Max slid it away.

  “No, that’s mine,” he sounded a little sterner than he intended. She looked up at him with trembling eyes filling with tears.

  “I suspected you knew. I didn’t know for sure until you came in and started pretending you remembered. See, your husband, he doesn’t remember a thing. That’s how you should have been, too. If you’d had your brain wiped.”

  Janet pressed her lips together and looked down at her lap. Max suspected she would have gladly collapsed into herself if she were able. Instead, she just tried to avoid eye contact. When she looked up, a tear was making its way down one cheek. The other already had a trail over it.

  “How did you know?” she asked, almost a whisper.

  “The first day I came to see you, I asked about the other worker. Do you remember what you said?” She shook her head. “You mentioned Janice by name. If they’d wiped all traces of Penny from your mind, they’d have erased the first worker’s visit. For you, the first, the only worker should have been Michelle. But she was really the second worker. They didn’t have any reason to remove her from your mind.”

  She let out a little sob and put her hand to her face. Max took a deep breath and thought about giving her the box of tissues they kept under the desk. He decided against it. She didn’t deserve the comfort.

  “You knew all along?”

  Max shook his head. “Not until you pretended you remembered. You saw that as your way out. You figured the truth was coming so you might as well play along. If we thought the skinheads killed Penny, well, that would take the heat off you. Of course, you figured out before talking to the police that it would be best to do as they told you, to keep quiet and pretend you didn’t remember. That’s what they told you, wasn’t it? To just shut up and say you didn’t remember?”

  She let out a short breath. “It was an accident…” It felt like a chain fell from the ceiling.

  “I’m sure it was. And when it happened, you called the only person you knew who could help, the deacon of your church. The ones who’d found you a home. Mr. and Mrs. Shay had a solution, didn
’t they? They said they were there to help you, but that wasn’t it. They just didn’t want the police investigating the murder of a child in that park… less than a hundred yards from a meth lab and child sex smuggling operation they were running with the Aryan Volk Alliance.”

  She let out a soft wail, followed by a line of sobs before lowering her head to the table. Her tears dripped on the photo of Penny standing in front of the trailer. She touched it gently before shaking her head and looking away.

  “They said it was the only way—”

  “They introduced you to a nice young man with pale skin and no hair, didn’t they?” She nodded. “He said he’d make everything fine with your husband. And that night, he made Larry forget… but they didn’t make you forget. They needed you to keep up the charade in case more workers came around. They couldn’t have you wandering around asking people if you had a daughter after a social worker tried to convince you that you did.”

  She whimpered and pressed her hand to her mouth. She whispered through her fingers, “I begged him to make me forget.”

  Max had to stop. He took a deep breath through his nose and tried to speak again. It didn’t work.

  “Do you know where she is?” asked James. “Her body.”

  “I didn’t mean to do it… it was an accident,” she wailed and looked up at Max with her face as red as cinnamon. “I wanted to tell the truth. I’m sick! I’m so… so sick! I couldn’t handle it! She was always there, always there, always there!” She shook her head so hard it splattered tears on the desk. “I just wanted her to go to sleep and not bother me for a little while… but she wouldn’t go to sleep, so I gave her something to help her take a nap, but…” She put her hands to her face and sobbed.

  “The Shays are…” Max looked down at the photo of Penny again. “They can’t hurt you. Neither can the Aryans. I know they said they would, but you don’t have to worry about them anymore. Do you know where they took her body?”

  She nodded. Max looked up at James. He nodded and opened the outer door of the conference room. Officer Unruh and a uniformed deputy entered as James drew a pair of handcuffs from his belt.

  “Mrs. Winnans, please stand up.”

  Max stood as she did and gathered up the photos. James read her the Miranda warning from memory over the metallic click of handcuffs tightening. When he was finished, Max turned to the door to leave.

  “Mr. Hollingsworth,” her voice was cracked, but she wasn’t sobbing anymore. Max looked back at her from the halfway open door. Janet’s eyes were buried under wet lids, and her hair was a tangled halo around reddened cheeks.

  “What?”

  She took a small breath before answering, “I’m sorry,” it was barely spoken, just mostly her tear-moistened lips mouthing the words.

  Max put his hand on the door and looked her in the eye. “I don’t care how you feel.”

  He stepped back into the office as the police removed her from the room. He was surprised at the silence. Everyone was gathered at the one-way window. They’d had the speaker on and had been listening to all of it. When Max stepped out of the conference area, all eyes turned from it to him.

  Someone started clapping. Max saw it was Donald. Soon everyone was clapping. Max grinned and gave a little wave. It all reminded him of something from a bad cop movie, but it was kind of nice and surreal at the same time. A few even patted him on the shoulder. Max pretended it didn’t hurt.

  After his little reception, he saw Brian at the door of his office waving for Max to come to him.

  “How long do I get off for solving a murder?” he asked after Brian shut the door and got back to his desk. Max sat across from him. He would have put his feet up but his back hurt too much.

  “For that… you can take as long as you want!” Brian smiled and shook his head. “And that whole thing about they do this and they do that… dammit! That’s like, saying it but not saying it… you know? No one else could have done that but you.” He waved his finger at him. “I knew it was a good idea to give you this. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

  “Hmmm…” Max gave him a skeptical look. “But it wasn’t really your idea to give this to me, now was it?”

  Brian’s eyes widened. Max reached into the file and pulled out a small brown envelope. It had a bulge in it, and when squeezed made a plastic hissing sound.

  Brian nervously tried to change the subject. “What’s that?”

  “This is a message for you to give to Moonshadow.”

  “Who?”

  “Go to hell, Brian,” Max kept his voice down, even though he really wanted to scream it. “You’re a chicken shit, and we both know it. You didn’t want this closed up… if you had, you’d have given it to me when Janice went missing.”

  “Janice—”

  “Is dead.” Max tilted his eyes to the side. “Well, she is now. The point is, Moonshadow wanted those skinheads out of her territory, but she didn’t have standing to extract them herself without proof they were violating some vampire law or something. So, she had you send me.”

  “Max, I—”

  “It was a win-win for her… either I would succeed and give her what she needed to justify a move against them, or I would fail, in which case I’d be dead. Or worse. She was probably hoping for worse.”

  Brian’s lips smacked. He stared at Max through the lenses of his glasses before licking his lips. “How did you know?”

  “I figured it out, Brian.” He leaned forward and tried not to show the sting of pain in his back and side. “I want you to remember something. I’m the smartest person you will ever know. May you live to be a hundred, you will never have one up on me.”

  Max tossed the brown envelope on his desk. He got up with a grunt and stepped to the door.

  “Wait,” Brian said before he opened it. “What’s this?”

  “Give that to her.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a message. She’ll know what it means.”

  “Wait! Wait!” He stood up as Max opened the door. “What about this?” he whispered. “What are you going to do about… this?”

  “Nothing, Brian. You can be Moonshadow’s bitch. Just next time she wants you to jerk my chain, let me know up front. Don’t mess with me again.”

  Brian nodded. Max stepped through the door.

  “Be sure you give that to her,” he said, loudly. He imagined Brian standing in the door of his office, eyes wide and jaw down. When Max turned a corner and glanced over his shoulder that was exactly what he saw.

  “Where are you going?” asked Jack as Max gathered up his coat and car keys.

  He replied, “I’m going home. I’m feeling beat.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  If he’d been standing in the light, Max could have seen his breath. At least it wasn’t raining, though it seemed like it could start at any minute. He drew a cigar from his pocket and lit it with a match.

  The screen of his phone was interrupted by a text message. He tapped the screen to open it. It was a cell phone photo of Sadie. She was topless but held the camera just high enough that he couldn’t see anything naughty. She was such a tease, especially with that look on her face. Max scrolled past the photo to the lonely text floating in white beneath asking when he’d be done.

  He took a puff of his cigar. He might be out here long enough to finish it, if his guests didn’t hurry.

  Action caught his attention, and he put away the phone. A black van rolled off the pavement and onto the gravel lot with a crackle. Max stepped away from his car and put his hands in his coat pocket. This new one was a little stiff. He’d bought it to replace the bloodstained one. It would take a little time for this one to feel right.

  The van stopped a few yards from him. By instinct, Max’s hand slipped from his pocket to the grip of his Glock, tucked in a belt holster at the small of his back. The side door slid open and Dwayne hopped out. He gave Max a nod, which somehow put him at ease. Letting go of the gun, he stepped forward.


  “Nice night,” said Kearny from inside the van. “Get up!” He kicked a prone form wrapped in duct tape and plastic. A woman’s scream punched through a pillowcase.

  “Shut up,” growled Dwayne.

  Max shook his head. “Let her scream.” He let out a long trail of smoke. “No one can hear her.”

  The other form was a bit more compliant, though Max heard him sobbing. Kearny and a dark haired female vampire dragged the bodies to the ground. Max looked up and saw Paul in the driver’s seat, smoking a joint. He waved at Max, who nodded in return.

  The female gasped and cried, as the male started begging. Max almost felt bad for enjoying that. Almost. “That’s not going to help,” his voice had a calming effect on them for some reason. It really shouldn’t have.

  “You wanted to see ‘em?” Dwayne pulled a battery-powered spotlight from the van and clicked it on. “Make sure we got the right ones?”

  “No, I knew you’d know who to get.” Max stepped closer and looked down at them. “I just wanted to see them one last time. Before you…you know, do what you do.”

  Dwayne nodded to Kearny. The vampire smiled and pulled the mask off the female first, then the male. Max tilted his head to the side and smiled.

  “Hi.”

  “Hollingsworth!” Hunter almost gasped the name. The right side of his face was swollen and bloody and his lip was blue. “What the hell? What are you doing?”

  Max looked at Raquel. She met eyes with him for a second then looked away. She didn’t seem as roughed up as Hunter. That was no surprise. She always went along with whatever the strongest wanted her to do. He envisioned the scenario went something like this: knock-knock, open door, punch, scream, grab, duct tape plus plastic and pillow cases, then into the van. It probably took the vamps less than a minute to grab them and go.

  “Who are these people?” Hunter shook his head and tried to get up. With his arms bound, he wasn’t going anywhere. He screamed until Kearny put his foot down in his stomach. His scream sputtered away into a series of gasps, then crying.