Dear Tragedy: A Dark Supernatural Thriller (House of Sand Book 2)

by Michael J Sanford

  “About fucking time,” Jake said as soon as DS Rebekah Grimly stepped in front of his cell.

  “I really don’t think that is how you want to begin things, Jake,” she said. “I’ll give you another chance to be civil and appropriate as to my station. Then we can continue. And trust me when I say, you want to hear what I have to say next.”

  Jake swallowed and scratched his ear. It buzzed, almost to the point that it sounded like whispering. He forced his hand to his side, stood up as straight as the current condition of his weary body would allow, and nodded. “DS Grimly, ma’am.”

  DS Grimly pursed her lips and frowned. Then she moved to the side and ran her ID badge through the card reader, unlocking the cell door. She pulled it open and started walking down the hall. “If I were you, I’d follow after, quick like, but remember your manners.”

  Jake did as ordered and stepped lively after DS Grimly. It didn’t much matter what lay ahead. He was out of that god-awful cell, and that was progress enough. DS Grimly led him to her office and opened the door, letting him walk in first.

  Inside, the Chief of the Seaside City Police Department, Benjamin Crun, sat at DS Grimly’s desk. Two empty chairs sat nearby. DS Grimly took one as Jake stood rooted in place. Not because the Chief was there—he and Jake were actually quite amiable—but because of the neat stack of papers in the center of the desk. A pile of red ribbon and a bow sat next to them. That little bitch.

  “I see you’ve taken notice of the gift we recently received,” Chief Crun said. “Please, Jake, have a seat.”

  Jake sat, but kept his eyes on the papers. What game was Aza playing, leaving her own journal entries in the possession of the police? Did she think she could frame him? And for what?

  “Chief, if I could—”

  “Jake,” Chief Crun said sharply. “Obviously, you’ve seen these pages before, so let’s not dance around that.”

  “Where’d you get them?” Jake asked.

  “From the hospital room of the Jane Doe you assaulted. There was another incident there yesterday afternoon. I’ll get to that in a minute. These pages were found on the hospital bed, tied up in red ribbon, a bow, and this card.” Chief Crun held up a greeting card, the typical kind you might find in a hospital gift shop. The front showed an image of a smiling cat. “The inside reads, ‘Blood is red and also blue. Here lies a piece of my life’s work. Look what DS Anderson made me do.”

  “Chief, whatever happened, you know it wasn’t me. I’ve been locked up since Sunday night,” Jake said.

  Chief Crun leaned on the desk and looked deeply into Jake’s eyes. It unnerved him, so he glanced away, only to catch a similar look from DS Grimly. That just pissed him off.

  “The incident I was referring to,” Chief Crun said. “A nurse was killed in that same room. Jane Doe is missing…and so is Danielle.”

  Jake’s world spun to a halt and staggered him. He grabbed the desk to keep from crumpling onto the floor. “What?!” he asked.

  “Your daughter was last seen in the area of Jane Doe’s hospital room. Now her and this Jane Doe are gone. Vanished. Leaving a corpse behind,” DS Grimly said, speaking for the first time since entering the office. “A corpse with a crushed windpipe and bruising that suggests two sets of hands strangled her. Two small sets of hands.”

  Jake spun and kicked the empty chair aside to more directly face DS Grimly. “What are you trying to say? That you think my daughter killed a woman and ran off with that psychopath?”

  DS Grimly stood and placed herself toe to toe with Jake. “Your filthy fingerprints are all over this case, literally and otherwise, so I don’t know, Jake, why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”

  “I need a phone. Let me try to call Dani. Does Amelia know? Oh, fuck.” Jake started pacing.

  “Well, we need answers,” DS Grimly said, stepping into Jake’s path.

  Jake stopped just short of her. He balled his fists. “My daughter is missing, Bekah. This is not a game you want to play with me.”

  “DS Grimly,” Chief Crun said. “Give us a minute, if you would.”

  DS Grimly glared at Jake, but then nodded sharply at Chief Crun and left the room. She slammed the door, as if it would have any effect on Jake.

  Jake pounded his fists on the desk and leaned closer to Chief Crun. “I need to find my daughter. Tell me what you know and then cut me loose.”

  “Jake, I know this is difficult. I have units looking for the pair. Trust me, I am doing all I can to find your daughter.”

  “That’s it?” Jake asked, throwing his hands up. “You brought me in here to tell me Dani is missing, but you’re doing all you can? I don’t need to hear that line of shit we hand families. You know me.”

  “Yes, Jake, I do, so I am hoping you’ll be straight with me, so I can be straight with you. Who’s Jane Doe?”

  Jake swiped at the stack of journal entries, sending a few pages to the floor. “Are you really asking me that? Obviously, you know. I don’t have time for games, Ben.”

  Chief Crun nodded and reclined in DS Grimly’s tall-backed office chair. “We have you on assault and obstructing justice. And that’s to start. If these documents are legitimate, then we have a whole host of other issues to discuss.”

  Jake ground his teeth as he tried to come up with an idea. The only one he currently had was to wrestle the Chief’s sidearm from him and shoot his way out of the station. So, nothing plausible.

  “It’s all true,” Jake said. He would lay himself bare if it meant a chance at protecting his family. What more did a man have? “Look, I know I have a bit of a…spotty…history, but I am telling you the truth. That monster took my daughter. Dani did nothing that she wasn’t forced to do, completely against her will. I am begging you, fudge my bail paperwork, leave a door unlocked, whatever. Just let me go. I need to find her.”

  “Dani or Aza?”

  Jake’s pulse quickened enough that his chest hurt. “You don’t understand.”

  “After having read all this,” Chief Crun said, gesturing at the scattered pages on the desk. “I looked into little Aza. I hadn’t forgotten her or that case, and it seems neither did you. You kept tabs on her at the asylum, didn’t you? There’s nothing in any of their logs or records, but you didn’t go unnoticed by the staff. And if that’s the case, then you know Aza escaped a few nights ago. And that the staff member personally assigned to her has come up missing as well. Until last night, that is.”

  Jake looked up and found Chief Crun staring straight at him.

  “You know about that as well, don’t you, Jake?”

  “She’s more than you know,” Jake said. “She can do…things. Make you feel and act in ways you’d never…”

  “And these,” Chief Crun said, holding up the pages from Daphne Miller’s diary. “Would seem to indicate Aza had some involvement in the Miller case. Any particular reason you had these?”

  Jake didn’t have an answer for that. “All I can tell you is that Aza is…she’s not human. It’s…I can’t explain it, but she made me attack her in the hospital. She set Peter on fire. She killed Gerry Switzer, the Miller girl and her babysitter, and the night watchman at the Rogue Gardens Complex in that small town outside Port Dimmock. She is obsessed with me and my family and now she’s kidnapped my daughter.”

  Chief Crun stood and walked around to the side of the desk. “I know it’s been a rough couple years for you. Since the House of Sand case. And the situation with Amelia… I get it, trust me, I do. But, Jake, you’re not making a lot of sense. And if I may be perfectly blunt, it seems that you’re the one obsessed.”

  Jake stood up and backed away a step.

  “I need to ask you one more thing, Jake.”

  Jake pointed a finger at Chief Crun, but said nothing. He could sense where this was going.

  “Were you involved with Aza’s escape from SCPC?”

  “How dare you?! Dani is missing! And you want to accuse me of releasing her kidnapper?! Are you out of your goddamn m
ind, Ben? I thought you knew me better than that.”

  “I do know you,” Chief Crun said, taking a step toward Jake. “And that’s why I’m concerned. I want to help you. Regardless of the situation.”

  Jake stepped up to Chief Crun, no longer willing to play the victim. No longer willing to retreat. He didn’t have time for bullshit. “Then let me go. Do what you have to, but let me go and find my daughter. And I swear to you, I’ll bring back Aza, and face whatever consequences I deserve.”

  Chief Crun sighed and put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Something brushed against Jake’s ear. No, it was deeper than that, like a cold breeze whistling through his ear canal to needle at his brain. “I can’t do that, Jake. You know I can’t. I’m not going to throw my career away and the possible safety of the community just because you asked me to. I’m sorry.”

  Jake twitched and swatted at his ear. She was there. Aza. Beneath Chief Crun’s monotonous voice and false pity, Aza was there, whispering in his ear.

  “Jake, are you hearing what I’m saying?”

  Jake snapped up and batted Chief Crun’s hand off his shoulder. “Don’t make me do this,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not because I don’t want to,” Jake continued. “Because I do. More than anything.” Sweat ran down his temples and he couldn’t release the tension in his arms. “You need to let me go. Please.” Jake spoke through clenched teeth. It was all he could do to fight off the sinister impulse Aza’s whisper provided him. The cuts across his chest burned with invisible fire.

  “Jake…” Chief Crun said, reaching for him again. “Let’s get you back to holding. I promise, I’ll do everything I can to find Danielle. And, as a courtesy to you, I’ll keep you completely in the loop.”

  Chief Crun put a hand on Jake’s back in an obvious effort to direct him toward the door. His touch sent fire throughout his body, and with a quick spin and thrust, Jake grabbed Chief Crun by the throat. Jake slapped his other hand over the man’s mouth as he drove him into the nearest wall. Chief Crun grabbed for Jake’s arms. Jake pulled back, forced Chief Crun into an awkward spin and swapped the hand around the man’s neck for an arm. Behind Chief Crun now, Jake tightened his hold, using all of his strength to cut off the police chief’s blood flow.

  “I didn’t want to do this,” Jake said. “And I’m giving everything I have not to kill you. You see?” The chief stopped fighting. Jake lowered him to the floor, still applying his chokehold. He wouldn’t take any chances. “This is what Aza does to you. Gets into your head. Makes you want things. Dark things. I want to kill you because she wants me to. Fuck, Ben, why couldn’t you have just let me go?”

  Jake released Chief Crun and laid him quietly out in the middle of the office. Jake had never choked a man out like that before and he didn’t know how much time he’d have before Chief Crun regained consciousness. He moved quickly, stealing the chief’s sidearm, wallet, and keys.

  It took only a matter of seconds and then he was out the window.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sunday 1:13 p.m.

  Jake finished his fourth cup of black coffee and polished off a third cheese Danish. He was just about to call the waitress over for a refill when Jaina walked into the diner. She rushed to Jake’s corner booth and slid in next to him. She embraced him.

  “Miss me?” Jake asked.

  Jaina pulled back. “Don’t be a smartass. Jesus, Jake, the whole Seaside City Police force is out, hunting you down. Do you really think this is the time for coffee? In a public place? In broad daylight?”

  “How else were you going to find me?”

  Jaina scowled and picked over the crumbs on Jake’s plate. “How’d you know I’d come here?”

  Jake shrugged. “You did, so does it matter?”

  Jaina tugged at her hair. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. Jake seldom saw her so haggard. It did little to take away from her beauty, and Jake cursed himself for admiring her in such a tense situation. Dammit, Jake, you don’t have time to ogle her.

  “Aza has Dani, doesn’t she?” Jaina asked.

  Jake nodded. “How’s Peter?”

  “Stable, far as I know. I left the hospital when you were arrested. That detective…I don’t know…some bitch—”

  “Grimly.”

  “Yeah, her. She interrogated me a couple different times yesterday. And again this morning. It’s how I learned you escaped. And as far as I figured it, you wouldn’t have a phone or any of your things. You couldn’t go home. So, I guessed you’d be here. Our old meeting place, as it is. Almost romantic.”

  Jake pushed his plate away and motioned for the check. “Don’t start. Dani is missing. And worse, with Aza. Look, you were right about her. Aza, that is. And I know I said I believed you before, but maybe I didn’t. But I am telling you now, she has crawled straight out of Hell and can do things that would paint the Devil green with envy.”

  “She made you hit her, didn’t she?”

  Jake looked down and examined his hands. The knuckles were dry and split. Thinking of what he’d done to her, and her to him, sent shivers up his spine. But it didn’t unnerve him. It stoked a longing deep within. Christ, she was still in his head.

  Jaina ran a hand over Jake’s back and leaned her head on his shoulder. Her hair tickled his neck, but her breath was warm and reassuring. Despite his own lack of sleep and the gallon of coffee he’d drunk, her presence settled him. How had he never seen her in this light before?

  “We’ll find her,” Jaina whispered.

  “I don’t even know where to begin. And Aza turned over the journal and diary entries to Seaside City’s finest. Like you said, I can’t go back home. I don’t have my car. Or phone.”

  Jaina pulled back from him and slouched.

  “I’m not giving up,” he said. “Or even being pessimistic. I’m just trying to lay out the obstacles. It’s just one of my methods. I like to know everything for and against us. Anyway, I do have Chief Crun’s wallet, with about a hundred left in cash. His keys; not much use.”

  “I have all my things,” Jaina said.

  “Eh, but the police know who you are. Or, at least, that you know me. It won’t be long before they put everything together, as far as how you relate to Aza and all. DS Grimly ID you?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess. But she didn’t mention who I worked for, and I didn’t mention it.”

  “Well, they would have by now, standard procedure. And Grimly is like a dog with a bone. She’ll make sure every T is crossed and every I is dotted. Leave your car here. Destroy your phone.”

  “Seriously?”

  Jake pounded the table. “Yes. Seriously. The whole county is after Aza and us. We need to find Dani first. Put a bullet in Aza’s head if we have the time, but we have to get Dani before the cops find them. They’re saying she killed that nurse at the hospital.”

  “Holy shit. Dani?”

  “Aza made her do it. We both know that, but the cops won’t understand. I will not have my daughter taken away from me. We find them first. Got it?”

  Jaina nodded her head. “Her grandparents are still in the area. Might be worth a visit.”

  “No way Aza would take Dani there, but you’re right. It’s possible they know something or could point us in the right direction.”

  The waitress returned with Jake’s bill. Jake snapped it out of her hand. “Jesus Christ, you sure took your sweet ass time,” he said.

  “Jake!” Jaina exclaimed.

  “Shit, sorry,” Jake said, looking over the bill. He hadn’t meant to react that way, even though he was pissed off.

  “It’s fine,” the waitress said. “No problem at all. Sorry for the wait.” She quickly walked away before Jake could say anything further. Not that he had the words.

  “What was that about?” Jaina asked, standing and adjusting her shirt.

  Jake slid out of the booth after her and dropped enough cash on the table to cover the bill and provide a large tip as compensation. “I di
dn’t mean… It just slipped out. My head is in a million different places right now. All right, let’s get over to Aza’s grandparents. I think I remember the way, but we’re getting a cab. Call on your phone, then destroy it. They’ll dig up the records and track down the cab company, but that will take time. We’ll be long gone by then. Got it?”

  Jaina gave him a salute. “Yes, sir.”

  Jake smiled. He had forgotten how goofy she could be. And cute.

  “Excuse me, mister…” the waitress called out as Jake and Jaina made for the door. “You forgot something.”

  Jake spun to look back just as the waitress lunged forward, leading with a large kitchen knife.

  “Fuck!” Jaina shouted as Jake pushed her into a nearby booth, atop another patron.

  The waitress stabbed, grazing Jake’s side as he pivoted and grabbed her wrist. She snarled and brought her other hand up in a claw, aimed for Jake’s face. Jake dropped to a knee and tossed her over his shoulder. She hit the hard tile floor with a smack and the knife fell loose from her grip.

  “What the fuck?!” Jaina shouted, scrambling out of the booth.

  “Dean, call the police,” the woman Jaina had landed atop said.

  “What’s going on out here?” a female voice asked.

  Jake kept hold of the waitress as she squirmed on the ground. “Beneath the pits of Hell. Is a darkness. Deeper than any other,” she said in fractured bursts, flopping back and forth like a fish.

  “Dottie!” a middle-aged woman with a manager’s name tag shouted, circling around the counter to stand over the waitress, opposite Jaina.

  “She attacked us,” Jaina said. “Came at us with a knife. She tried to—holy shit, Jake, you’re bleeding.”

  “I’ve called the police,” someone said.

  Jake didn’t bother looking at his side. It was superficial. He knew what it felt like to actually be stabbed. He shook Dottie. “What did you say?” he asked, trying to ignore the dozen other voices in the diner. And the one in his head, asking for blood.