Play Dead

by Anne Frasier

  "You have to go in there!" Audrey said, looking from one to the other. "You have to!"

  She knew about public ridicule. After all, she was thirteen.

  "Are you afraid to go in the tunnel?" she taunted. "Are you afraid of a few little bugs?"

  *

  Elise's heart was hammering in her head.

  Her breathing was choppy.

  She couldn't hear anything but the beat of her own fear.

  Should have waited for backup.

  No time!

  She straightened to a half crouch. Slowly, her eyes open wide, and, straining at nothing, she moved forward.

  She tried to retrieve the image. Tried to recall exactly how it had looked.

  Dark. Misshapen. Maybe the size of a person, but it could also have been something else. Some artifact left over from the time the tunnels had been secretly used to cart plague victims to the cemetery.

  She paused and straightened.

  With feet spread and legs braced, she held her gun against the flashlight, aiming in the direction she thought the shape should be. But like someone driving in heavy fog, she found it impossible to gauge how far she'd come since turning off the light, and how far away the shape had been to begin with.

  She pressed the switch, turning on the light.

  Where?

  She shifted the beam.

  There.

  And held it.

  The shape was exactly as she'd remembered, but with more detail.

  Dark fabric. The approximate size of a person.

  She moved forward one slow step at a time, never taking her eyes off the object.

  A dress.

  Black lace.

  The curve of a person's back under crumpled fabric.

  A gloved hand.

  For all appearances, a dead body.

  Strata Luna's dead body.

  But since dead bodies had a way of not being dead, Elise approached with caution.

  She hooked a foot against the shoulder.

  The body unrolled limply from its huddled, protective position, falling with an echoing thud against the floor.

  Strata Luna.

  Eyes open.

  Mouth open.

  A pool of blood.

  Dead.

  What was going on?

  Who'd killed Strata Luna?

  Where was David?

  The dead body suddenly heaved, sucking in air.

  Elise jumped, almost dropping the flashlight.

  "Go" the black, bloody heap rasped, pointing down the length of the tunnel, her monumental struggle to communicate conveying the utmost urgency.

  Elise scrambled to her feet, turned, and raced toward the cemetery, keeping her head low.

  No time to think, no time to try to figure out what was going on beyond the obvious.

  The killer wasn't Strata Luna.

  David Gould was in danger.

  Those were the two things she knew. The only things she knew.

  Chapter 46

  She forced his eyelids open with her thumbs.

  Broken light from a lantern near David's head radiated upward to disappear into a darkness of stone and marble.

  They were in some kind of mausoleum, he realized. The woman was leaning over him, veil gone, face streaked with blood.

  Not Strata Luna.

  This was the daughter. The daughter who'd supposedly hung herself. Marie Luna. She'd killed her own sister—a case of sibling rivalry taken to the extreme. She'd killed Enrique and Flora for the same reason. And now she'd killed her own mother.

  Elise had been right about her death obsession, her necrophilia.

  Marie Luna let go of his eyelids and knelt next to him. Earlier, she'd removed him from the gurney and laid him out on some kind of platform. He felt like a sacrifice.

  "If you eat the heart of your enemy, it makes you stronger," she told him.

  He flinched—an actual movement, even though it was minuscule.

  Was she saying what he thought she was? Had she feasted on Strata Luna's heart? Or was she going to eat his heart? Both ideas were too terrible, and his mind ran away. He felt himself sinking....

  She gathered up the black folds of her gown and straddled him.

  He tried to close his eyes, but couldn't now that she'd opened them. All he could do was watch from a front-row seat.

  She produced a knife. A wicked-looking weapon, made of forged steel. He watched it move south, finally disappearing below his line of vision.

  Was she going to gut him like a fish?

  Was she going to castrate him?

  That wasn't her style, but something had slipped and she'd moved beyond her standard MO.

  He'd met a lot of weird, fucked-up people in his life, but even the most horrendous had a line they wouldn't cross. There was always something they held as sacred in their own screwed-up heads. For some, it was children. Others, old ladies. Still others, animals.

  The bitch in front of him seemed capable of anything.

  David had spent the past two years wishing he were dead. Now, when that state of nothingness seemed imminent, he was surprised to find he had mixed feelings about dying.

  How would he know how Audrey's pitching was progressing?

  How would he know what kind of car Elise got when hers finally broke down for good?

  Would she ever finish her house?

  And what about Isobel? Who would take care of Isobel?

  Would Starsky and Hutch wish they'd treated him with more respect? Would they feel like shit once he was gone?

  He hoped so.

  To die now would be like leaving the theater in the middle of a good movie. Or accidentally leaving a book in an airport.

  But death was like that. An interruption of a work in progress. Maybe that's what LaRue found so intriguing about dipping his toe into the pool and being able to pull it back with only minor damage.

  David heard the sound of tearing fabric as she ripped open his shirt.

  Something cold—the knife blade—touched his stomach, above the navel.

  Cold steel.

  Sensation was returning.

  Perfect timing. Now he would be able to feel the slice of the blade.

  Instead of plunging it into his gut, she put it aside, and began unbuttoning his pants.

  Oh yeah. Rape. In all the excitement, he'd forgotten about that part. She was going to rape him first.

  *

  The tunnel veered to the left and rose sharply. At the top was a metal door. Laurel Grove Cemetery. Elise paused and listened.

  No sound of backup.

  So it wouldn't prematurely announce her arrival, she pointed the flashlight toward her feet, then moved quietly forward, up the incline.

  The door was ajar.

  She gripped her gun. Bracing it against the flashlight, heart hammering, she stepped rapidly through the opening and swung to face the center of the room.

  A mausoleum.

  Marble walls lined with compartments that held bodies and ashes. In the middle of the floor was a sarcophagus. On top of it was a woman in a long black dress straddling a man. Straddling David Gould.

  Who was she?

  Elise struggled to put it together. Now that Strata Luna was out of the picture, she was having trouble making sense of anything.

  Was this one of Strata Luna's prostitutes?

  "Get away from him." Elise's voice was level, even though her heart raced.

  The woman fell forward, sprawling across David, all the while watching Elise.

  She was beautiful, with copper skin and strange eyes.

  She stroked David's arm. Without speaking, staring at Elise, she nuzzled him, shifting his head around. She pressed against him so they were cheek to cheek, both facing Elise.

  David's eyes were wide open.

  Jesus.

  A tremor ran through her gun arm.

  Was he dead?

  "Get off him," she said.

  Kill her.

  With the woman tur
ned sideways, there was only one vulnerable spot. The middle of her forehead, which was only inches from David's.

  Elise was a decent shot, but no sharpshooter. And in these conditions . . . low light. Lots of shadows . . . her gun arm shaking.

  "Put up both hands and move away," Elise commanded.

  Where was her fucking backup? Where were Starsky and Hutch?

  "Or I'll blow your head off."

  The woman's smile broadened. She lifted her hands high. Then, as if being pulled by a string, she sat upright, still straddling David. She swung her leg over his body, one of her arms dropping.

  "Up!"

  She raised her arm, then awkwardly slipped from the platform until she stood beside it.

  "Move away from him."

  Hands in the air, the woman shuffled sideways, skirting the foot of the burial vault.

  Then she began moving toward Elise.

  "Stop! Right there!"

  She stopped.

  Kill her.

  "Who are you?" the woman asked.

  Elise had the feeling she already knew the answer. "Detective Sandburg."

  "Elise," the woman said slowly, with syrup in her voice. That sly smile again.

  It was giving Elise the creeps.

  Kill her now!

  "Elise Sandburg. I know all about you. About how you were left in a cemetery as a baby. The daughter of a conjurer."

  She stared at Elise a long moment, then began to chant:

  Blue glasses of a conjurer

  Cast a fatal spell

  Get ready for the funeral

  Ring the coffin bell.

  Elise held her flashlight in one hand, revolver in the other. The next step would be to handcuff the woman, but that would take some cooperation—something that seemed highly unlikely.

  "My name's Marie. Marie Luna."

  Elise felt a thud deep in her belly.

  This was Strata Luna's daughter. The one who was supposedly dead and buried. The one who was supposed to have hung herself.

  She recalled Strata Luna's sadness when they were discussing daughters. Elise had thought she'd been sad because her children were both dead. Instead, she'd been sad because at least one of her offspring was twisted and evil.

  What do you do with an evil child?

  What Strata Luna had done? Pretend she was dead?

  "We're sisters," Marie Luna said.

  At first Elise thought she meant "sisters" as in all women were sisters.

  "Jackson Sweet was your father," Marie Luna continued. "He was my father too."

  The floor shifted.

  All her life, Elise had wanted to know her roots, know where she'd come from, but this was a sick joke—that's what it was. Her father—a root doctor. Her mother a prostitute turned permanent monastery guest. Her sister a murdering psychopath? Didn't get much funnier than that.

  Marie Luna was just playing with her head. Trying to trip her up.

  "That makes us half sisters." Marie Luna took a step closer, then another, the fabric of her heavy skirt shushing across the stone floor.

  She's lying, Elise told herself, her stomach churning.

  Marie Luna stopped. "Look at me. Our skin isn't the same color because your mother was white—mine was black. But look at my eyes."

  Oh, God. Those eyes. They were Elise's eyes. She could even see a resemblance to Audrey in the woman's face.

  Marie Luna nodded and kept smiling that horrid smile, pleased that Elise was now convinced of their familial bond.

  Kill her.

  She laughed. "I'm your sister. You wouldn't hurt your own sister, would you?"

  Emotions rose in Elise's throat and she let out a choke of denial. This is a nightmare. This isn't real. It can't be real.

  Elise risked a glance at David.

  Staring at her. Life in his eyes. Trying to tell her something.

  *

  She has a knife, David tried to say, but no words came out. Hidden in her skirt.

  He could see the horror in Elise's face, see her struggling with what Marie Luna had told her.

  Marie Luna would be able to see it too. She would be ready the second Elise wavered.

  Things were changing. David's body was waking up. He could feel sparks of electricity shooting along nerve pathways, zapping him.

  He forced himself to let go of his thoughts of Elise and focus on the physical. Don't think about anything but getting your ass off this slab.

  Move, his brain commanded.

  Move!

  Suddenly he lurched sideways, rolling off the marble vault, the lantern going with him.

  He tried to catch himself. His arms didn't respond. He smacked into the floor, the lantern shattering.

  Marie Luna lunged for Elise, screaming, the knife appearing seemingly out of nowhere.

  Raised.

  Plunging.

  A gun discharged.

  Marie Luna tugged the blade free, then brought it down again.

  Elise's flashlight hit the floor, the lens shattering.

  Absolute darkness.

  Strata Luna's daughter continued to shriek, stringing words together that made no sense.

  Elise was silent.

  Silent.

  Blond hair floating in the tub.

  Little blue fingers.

  NO!

  This couldn't be happening.

  Not again.

  Another gunshot.

  Deafening.

  Followed by another, and another.

  David's ears hummed hollowly as he dragged himself across the floor, digging his fingers into the cracks between stones, pulling his own deadweight.

  From the tunnel entrance came the sound of running feet. High-powered flashlights blinded him.

  "Jesus Christ." Starsky. Hutch.

  Too late, you assholes. Too damn late.

  David followed their gaze to where Elise lay in a pool of blood. Sprawled across her was Marie Luna. Tears burned his eyes.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Elise. Dead.

  Marie Luna shifted.

  The detectives jumped forward, guns and flashlights braced and ready.

  A voice—Elise's voice—came from beneath the bloody pile. "Can someone get this evil bitch off me?"

  Chapter 47

  "What's that look about?" David asked with concern, eyeing Elise closely.

  They were on the balcony outside her bedroom, Elise in a wicker rocker, David lounging against the railing. He was barefoot, dressed in faded jeans and gray Savannah Police Department T-shirt. Elise wore a pair of loose black pants and a top in various shades of red that Audrey had dug from the closet and convinced her to wear.

  "Does evil move through bloodlines?" Elise asked fearfully. Would it resurface in future generations? In Audrey's children or grandchildren?

  "You know what?" David pushed himself away from the railing with his hip and reached to pluck a magnolia from a nearby tree. "I'm just glad you're alive." He tucked the white blossom in her hair, above her ear. "And I'm glad I'm alive. I don't want to think about that other stuff."

  He was right. It served no purpose to obsess about something that couldn't be controlled and would probably never happen.

  Major Hoffman had offered David his job back, and he'd accepted, along with a year's probation. His criminal profile had been fairly accurate other than the sex and education of the perpetrator. And except for a bit of short-term memory loss that LaRue, who was out of jail and also on probation, assured them would go away soon, David didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects from the TTX.

  After forty-eight hours in the hospital, two pints of blood, and eighty-some stitches to four defensive wounds, Elise had been sent home. The all-purpose vest had saved her from any fatal injuries.

  Strata Luna herself was alive and in stable condition, the knife blade having missed her heart by a hair.

  "When I get outta here, I'm gonna teach you some good root doctoring," Strata Luna had said from her hospital bed when Elise h
ad stopped to visit.

  The lights had been draped with blue scarves to chase away evil spirits, and Strata Luna had gotten into trouble several times for burning heal-me-now incense.

  "I gotta have somebody to pass the mantle to, and who better than Jackson Sweet's daughter? And later, when the time is right, you can pass it on to your girl."

  "I don't know ...," Elise had said noncommittally, while at the same time experiencing a sense of excitement at the thought of embracing her past so openly. But she was a cop. A detective. She shouldn't be messing around with root work. And yet...

  "You can't let it all just stop. One more generation gone by and nobody will even know what root doctorin' is. Don't waste your heritage, girl," Strata Luna had told her. "You could be using it to be a better detective."

  An intriguing notion ...

  Then the conversation turned to Marie Luna.

  "I always suspected she killed her own sister," Strata Luna confided. "But as a mother, I couldn't believe it." She shook her head. "Thought I had to be mistaken. Just in case, I decided to keep her away from school and teach her at home. Maybe that's where I went wrong. Maybe she shouldn't have been denied the company of kids her own age."

  "I think you made a wise choice," Elise said. History had proved that someone with Marie Luna's tendencies only got worse when forced into the public education system.

  "There were the usual things," Strata Luna continued. "She was mean to animals. I learned real fast that she couldn't have any pets, but she still caught baby birds and tortured them till they died. I tried all kinds of spells, but they seemed to make her worse. For a while, I even tried to keep her sedated."

  "With tetrodotoxin?"

  "Not a zombie potion, but a relative of it. Meant to take the edge off her energy. Instead of knocking her out it made her so she couldn't sleep. She started prowling those damn tunnels all night long."

  "I've heard of sedatives having that kind of negative reaction sometimes," Elise said. If only Strata Luna had asked for help. But there was no use telling her what she already knew.