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

by Michael J Sanford

  There was a momentary pause, then the metallic snap of handcuff links being pulled tight. “Jake! Are you out of your mind? Take these off me right now.”

  Jake glanced passingly at the mirror, making brief eye contact before turning his attention back to the swarm of emergency personnel at Seaside City General Hospital. “Trust me, Bekah, you weren’t part of the plan. If anything, you’re a stick in the spokes.”

  DS Grimly slammed into the back of Jake’s seat and wedged herself between the front seats. “And I suppose you’re the one that clocked me on the back of the head,” she said, looking at Jaina.

  Jaina leaned away and waved a hand in front of her face. “Sweet shit, you smell like a dirty rat.”

  “Whatever mess Jake has you wrapped up in isn’t worth it,” DS Grimly said.

  Jake spun around at that and grabbed DS Grimly’s hair. He pulled her further toward the front and leveled his face with hers. “Not worth it? Not fucking worth it? What we’re doing is saving my daughter, so lose the act. We both have the same training.” Jake released her and turned back around.

  DS Grimly grunted, but didn’t retreat into the back seat. In fact, she managed to wiggle herself further forward, almost even with Jake and Jaina. Jaina cursed and pressed herself against her door.

  “This is Seaside City General,” DS Grimly said. “What…what’s going on? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Jake said. “But Dani is in there.”

  “Turn the scanner up,” DS Grimly said, nodding violently.

  Somewhere along the way, Jake had shut it off, not being able to stomach what was happening without being able to do anything about it. He twisted the center dial up.

  Static.

  “No, no, channel thirteen,” DS Grimly said.

  Jake tapped a button, letting loose a barrage of overlapping conversations.

  “…mostly contained. Lots of damage. Won’t be cleared for a while…”

  “…almost sorted. Best guess, there are still around seventy-five people inside…”

  “…Gurnesy, ETA on that surveillance tap…”

  “…few more minutes…”

  “…perimeter secure. Snipers in position…”

  “…conflicting statements. One witness says it was an orderly. Another says a pair of surgeons. Another claimed it was a little girl with a knife…”

  Jake punched the steering wheel. “Aza!” he screamed.

  “Aza?” DS Grimly asked. “Hold on a second. Does all this madness have to do with the daughter from the House of Sand killings? That Aza?”

  “It’s not what you think,” Jake said.

  “Jake,” Jaina warned, giving him a look that said shut up.

  “Not what I think?!” DS Grimly shouted. “What I think is that you’ve assaulted the chief of police, escaped custody, assaulted and kidnapped me, and your explanation has something to do with the girl from a crime four years ago that you are so obsessed with that it cost you your career in the first place.”

  Something moved in the corner of Jake’s vision, but when he turned to look, it was gone. Just shadows hiding shadows lined the barren street, dancing against the backdrop of emergency lighting.

  “Your son’s name is Gabriel, right?” Jake asked, feeling a coldness slither down his throat and chill his insides. He wasn’t sure he was speaking, but it was his voice that filled the vehicle.

  “…got nothing, sir…” the radio continued in the cold silence.

  “…we can’t go in without more intel…”

  “…just a note from one of the witnesses. Can’t even be sure it’s genuine…”

  “Don’t you dare,” DS Grimly said.

  Jake leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel, and studying the chaotic scene behind which he was certain his daughter was imprisoned. “Bekah, my daughter is in there. She’s in trouble. I’m going in—”

  “We,” Jaina said.

  Jake wrung his hands on the steering wheel, but kept his composure. “We’re going in to get her. Save her. You, DS Grimly, are going to help us. If you don’t, I will make sure little Gabe faces a far worse end than my Dani.”

  “You wouldn’t,” DS Grimly said.

  “If he won’t, I will,” Jaina said.

  “You’re bluffing,” DS Grimly said. “Well, go on, go running out there, right toward every cop from here and the surrounding four counties. You won’t even make it inside, much less be able to carry out any threat on me or my family.”

  Jake started the SUV and put it into gear.

  “What are you doing?” Jaina asked.

  Jake kept his foot on the brake. “The good detective here is a single mom. And when she’s on duty—which is most of the time—her only child, little Gabe—must be about six at this point—stays with his grandmother, Mara Grimly. Now, Mara Grimly is one of the nicest ladies you’ll ever meet—makes a mean cobbler—and always willing to act as a second mother for little Gabe. Really a great thing to have such a willing babysitter, aside from the fact that Mara Grimly isn’t the wealthiest woman in the city, no, not by a long shot. Lives in a shithole apartment on Thirty-second street. Isn’t that right, DS Grimly?”

  Jake looked back to see DS Grimly sitting rigid. She locked eyes with Jake. “You’re a monster.”

  “You see, Jaina,” Jake said, still watching DS Grimly. “This is Thirty-second street. Wouldn’t take us much more than a few minutes to—”

  “All right!” DS Grimly shouted. “What do you want?”

  Jake smiled, put the car in park, and turned off the engine. “Relax, it’s not like I’m going to ask you to go in there. Even with your son’s life hanging in the balance, I wouldn’t trust you to truly help me, but I need better information before I go storming in there.”

  “We, jackass,” Jaina said.

  “That’s what I meant,” Jake said.

  Jake produced DS Grimly’s phone from the center console and waved it for DS Grimly to see. “You are going to call whatever eager-to-please whipping boy you have under your thumb at the moment and find out everything about our little code one seventy-one.”

  “You’re psychotic. You need help,” DS Grimly said.

  “And you need to do something productive so I don’t remove your son’s head from his body,” Jake said. “And I really don’t want to have to take the time to do that right now.”

  DS Grimly frowned, showing only her usual disdain, but Jake could tell he had gotten to her. He knew what a parent would do for a child. He should have felt bad.

  “Brett Harrison,” DS Grimly said. “Patrol cop, up-and-comer.”

  Jake tapped the screen. It lit up and asked for a passcode.

  “It’s—”

  Before DS Grimly could finish, Jake tapped in Gabriel Grimly’s birthdate and started scrolling through the list of contacts. “No Brett. No Harrison. What’s his number?”

  DS Grimly dropped her defiant gaze. Something she seldom did when being challenged. “He’s under Rim Rattler.”

  Jaina made a disgusted noise. Jake simply scrolled to the entry and called.

  The Rim Rattler picked up after just one ring.

  “DS Grimly. I’ve been trying you for hours. Where—”

  “Officer Harrison!” DS Grimly interrupted. “I’m a few minutes out. What’s the situation?”

  Jake had to admit he was impressed by DS Grimly’s tact. If Jake hadn’t been the one to threaten her child, he wouldn’t have known anything was amiss given DS Grimly’s demeanor. Suddenly, she seemed just as in control as she always was. It made Jake uneasy.

  “Well, ma’am,” Officer Harrison said. “It’s a bit of a cluster fuck, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “Harrison! Situation report. Now!”

  “Oh. Sorry, ma’am. We received several calls from the hospital with a whole mess of different reports. Possible assault, dead bodies, armed intruders, mental health episodes, ghosts. The list goes on. When we responded, we never even got inside. A swa
rm of people came screaming out of the hospital. A bunch of them had notes stapled to their bodies—one dude even had it stapled right through his forehead. All basically said, anyone who enters the hospital will die, as will one of those within, or something like that. Some weren’t even notes; just drawings. Called in reinforcements after that. Got damn near every local department within a hundred miles, feels like. But the real shit-show just started—Federation Peacekeepers just got here.”

  Fucking Christ, Jake thought. Having to deal with a horde of local cops would be a trial in its own right, but the presence of feds made it an impossible task. He was already a wanted man.

  Jake made a circular motion with his finger, urging DS Grimly to dig for more.

  “What’s your current status?” DS Grimly asked.

  “Me and Greenie are watching a service entrance around the back. In an alley that smells like piss, by the way. Feds got us all split up. Did you know this hospital has over forty different entrance and exits? And that’s just the ground floor. Pretty piss-poor design, I’d say, from a security standpoint.”

  DS Grimly looked at Jake and raised her eyebrows.

  Where, Jake silently mouthed.

  Still eying Jake, DS Grimly asked, “Harrison, what entrance are you and Officer Greensman at?”

  “Oh,” Officer Harrison said. “Uh, the alley leads to the dead end off Beaker Street. We’re just following orders, ma’am, feds said—”

  Someone in the background of the phone call said something, but it was too faint to make out.

  DS Grimly frowned at Jake.

  “Hey, miss!” Officer Harrison shouted. “’You all right?”

  DS Grimly leaned further forward, her lips almost touching the phone as she said, “Harrison! What’s going on?”

  “Uh, some lady just walked out of the door. Miss, are you all right? You’re bleeding. Hey, Greenie, grab the medkit out of the cruiser, will ya? Miss? Greenie! The medkit. What the fuck you staring at, man? Get it moving. Medkit. Now.”

  Jake looked at Jaina and found her staring back with a knowing look in her eyes. Things were about to go from worse to totally fucked, and DS Grimly was the only one in the car that didn’t know it.

  “Harrison!” DS Grimly yelled.

  Through the phone, a new female voice asked, “Are you the Rim Rattler?”

  “What on God’s green Earth…” DS Grimly said.

  On the phone, Officer Harrison said, “Excuse me? Hey, don’t touch me.”

  “Your badge says Harrison,” the woman said.

  “Greenie!” Officer Harrison shouted. “Snap out of it, man! Miss, you need to stop touching me and tell me what’s going on. I can help you.”

  “I would like to speak with the woman you’re fucking,” the woman said.

  “What the fuck?” Officer Harrison asked.

  “Harrison!” DS Grimly shouted again.

  “Uh, ma’am,” Officer Harrison said. “Is this some sort of joke? This crazy lady wants to…uh, all right, all right. Bekah, I think she’s asking for you.”

  DS Grimly looked at Jake, her eyes begging for an answer Jake knew she couldn’t stomach. Jake just nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “Put me on speaker.”

  “Uh, yes, ma’am.”

  The sound of heavy breathing infiltrated the line as Officer Harrison’s phone picked up more of the surrounding noise.

  “This is DS Grimly. May I ask who you are?”

  “I am the unending and the forever,” the woman said.

  Jake closed his eyes.

  “How do you know me?” DS Grimly asked.

  “I live in the heart of hate and see through the eyes of the deceitful. I am agony transcendent.”

  “What do you want?” DS Grimly asked, a tremor in her voice betraying her unease.

  “The dead can offend none. They shed no blood and leave no trace. They are the blessed. It is the living who are the cursed ones. Isn’t that right, DS Anderson?”

  Jake opened his eyes. Jaina reached over and placed her hand on his wrist, steadying the tremble that shook DS Grimly’s phone to a point it was tapping on the center console. DS Grimly, wide-eyed, slumped back into her seat and stared straight ahead, saying nothing.

  “What do you want, Aza?” Jake asked.

  “The living have names. The dead do not. They are the free ones, bound not by law or construct.”

  “Tragedy!” Jake shouted.

  “As you wish,” the woman said.

  A shiver ran up Jake’s spine and his stomach soured. His throat and tongue became like wet sand and his head felt as if it were sealed in tar.

  “Where’s Dani?!” Jake screamed, shaking the phone.

  The phone responded with a soft beep, signaling the termination of the call.

  Jake slammed the phone down and got out of the car. Jaina hopped out and raced around to him as he was opening the back door.

  “What do we do?” Jaina asked.

  Jake reached into the backseat and forcibly dragged DS Grimly out.

  “What’s going on, Jake?” DS Grimly asked.

  “We really don’t have time for this,” Jake said. He spun her around and unlocked the handcuffs.

  DS Grimly turned back around and stood tall.

  “At this point, I don’t give a good goddamn what you do,” Jake said. “But if you care about any of the people in your life, you’ll—”

  DS Grimly pushed past him and started running down the street. “Beaker Street isn’t far,” she called over her shoulder. “This way.”

  Jake and Jaina chased after.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jake, Jaina, and DS Grimly reached the alley off Beaker Street at the same time. Officer Harrison had been right, it reeked of piss, but above that was the metallic tang of fresh blood, the fetid stench of voided bowels, and the acrid burn of stomach acid as it rose up in Jake’s throat.

  “No, no, no, no!” DS Grimly shouted, sliding down to the side of a burly man clad in the midnight black of Seaside City’s patrol force.

  Jake approached more cautiously. Jaina walked closely at his side, a single hand over her mouth.

  “Brett?” DS Grimly asked, cradling the man’s head.

  Jake stood near the pair and shook his head. “I’m…sorry,” he said. He couldn’t tell if it was a genuine sentiment or just habit.

  “Brett!” DS Grimly screamed again.

  Jaina nudged Jake and pointed at two other corpses, so recently dead that fresh blood still ran from their slit throats. One was another officer and he’d been nearly decapitated. The other was a middle-aged woman in scrubs, more red than blue. Clutched in her hand was a bloodied scalpel.

  “I don’t understand,” DS Grimly said, Officer Harrison’s head still in her lap, bathing her in blood. “Two armed cops. Brett’s gun isn’t even drawn. How?”

  “She made them want to die,” Jake said.

  DS Grimly gently extricated herself from Officer Harrison. She stood up and looked down at her blood-soaked arms and body. When she looked back up, she was silently crying. She walked up to Jake.

  “Jake… No more games. What is going on?” she asked.

  “I told you,” Jake said. “It’s Aza.”

  DS Grimly pointed at the dead woman at Jake’s feet. “That is not Aza. And no little girl could make…this happen.”

  “It’s true,” Jaina said softly.

  DS Grimly pointed a finger at Jaina. “I don’t know what kind of life you’ve had to make you want to fall into Jake’s delusion, but I want the truth. He was…” She dropped her finger to gesture at Officer Brett Harrison and the lake of blood that surrounded him. “…they were good men. My men. You know what it’s like, Jake, even as twisted up as you are now. Us cops are family. So, I’ll say it again; I want answers!” She punctuated the last statement with a stomp of her boot and a spray of saliva.

  The wild look in DS Grimly’s eyes told Jake that she was broken. But not in a way that makes a person roll over a
nd take it. She was broken in a way that said she would fight, without cause or concern to her well-being or to protocol. It was a look he’d seen in his own eyes before. If he’d had the time, he might have felt sorry for her. He might have even felt remorse for threatening her son. If he’d had time.

  Jake was about to speak, but Jaina squeezed his arm and stepped forward. “I know it sounds like a bunch of bullshit,” Jaina said. “But, I swear to you, it’s true. That girl, Aza, she can make people do things, feel things, see things. She made this happen. And she took Jake’s daughter.”

  DS Grimly looked skyward and ran her bloodied fingers through her hair, making a mess of it.

  “It’s no secret we hate each other,” Jake said. “But I’m not your enemy. The enemy is in there.” Jake pointed at the hospital. “Jaina and I are going in there. We are going to find Dani and I am going to personally put a bullet in the head of that psychotic monster that killed your men. What you do from here is up to you. But know, if you try and get in my way, there’s a bullet for you, too.”

  DS Grimly looked down and cleared her throat, adjusted her shirt, and marched away from the hospital.

  “Whatever,” Jaina said. “Fuck her. Can’t believe I even felt bad for her.”

  Jake watched the spot where DS Grimly had disappeared around the corner.

  “Jake? Are you coming or what?” Jaina asked. “The door’s open.”

  “Just a minute,” Jake said, backing up toward Jaina’s voice, but letting his gaze linger on the void left by DS Grimly.

  After half a minute, DS Grimly came back around the corner, the same broken look in her eyes, but now she stared down the sights of a tactical shotgun.

  “On the ground, now!” DS Grimly bellowed.

  Jake held up his hands, while still backing up. “Hey, Bekah, I thought we were past this. We’re on the same side now.”

  “Get down, now!” DS Grimly shouted, gesturing with her weapon, no doubt taken from the trunk of Officer Harrison’s squad car.

  “This is bigger than us,” Jake said. Another step backward. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it is. Maybe even bigger than Dani, though I have to start with her.”