by Rita Herron
Dr. Underwood gestured toward a set of steel doors. “Follow me.”
Dante did as he requested, stepping into the sterile room where Jordie lay on a steel gurney, her charred body draped with a sheet. Dr. Underwood had already made the Y incision and weighed organs. The acrid body odors, and the scent of burned flesh and blood, permeated the air, all reeking of death.
The doctor pointed at a jagged blood-red mark on Jordie’s neck. “See that laceration?”
Dante leaned forward to study it, his pulse pounding. “It’s made by some kind of tool with jagged edges.” He paused, his breath tight as his mind processed the possibilities. “No.. . it’s from teeth marks.”
Dr. Underwood muttered a word of disgust. “Exactly. Looks like the maniac severed the carotid artery with his teeth.”
Dante tensed. “So she bled out?”
The doctor grunted. “Yes. She was set on fire postmortem.”
He ran his fingers over the dozens of photos of Marlena he’d clipped from the newspaper. That gorgeous silky hair of hers was so thick and lustrous he wanted to run his hands through it. Her eyes like clear emeralds. Her body.. . like a sex goddess.
And her brain.. . she was intelligent, strong, dedicated.
God. He wanted her with a vengeance. He had since the first time he’d laid eyes on her.
But she barely knew he existed.
Her work was all that she cared about. Her patients. Her damn research.
He’d read articles about her and her project at Blood-Core.
He disagreed with her theories.
But then the demon had possessed him, and he’d realized she was right. Evil was planted, embedded deep within the genetics of the body. Within the blood. The life force.
She thought she could find a cure.
But nothing could stop evil from growing.
He felt it running through his bloodstream now. The dark, primal, twisted urges. The hunger for death.
The need to kill.
The burning desire was already heating within him again. He was becoming a monster, his body changing just as the sinister thoughts consumed him.
He had power now, power in his hands and body.
His soul faded a little more each day.
Soon it would be nonexistent.
And he would serve only the Master.
Chapter Six
Marlena buried herself in her work at the lab for the afternoon, desperate to distract herself from worrying about Jordie McEnroe’s killer.
There was still no news on who had stolen the blood from her research project. She needed to collect more samples from the original subjects, but convincing them to participate and offer their specimens a second time when now her reputation—and confidentiality—had been compromised was difficult.
Dr. Edmund Raysen tapped on her office door and poked his head in. He was tall and thin, almost frail-looking, with pale skin, freckles, a mole on his chin, and eyes that twitched constantly. As coworkers, they’d had coffee to discuss projects before, but there had never been anything more than a healthy respect for each other’s work and friendship between them.
“Hi, Marlena,” Edmund said. “How’s it going?”
She shrugged, not ready to divulge her concerns. “Fine. But I can’t move ahead with the project until I find more subjects.” She angled her head toward him. “How about your work?”
He made a dismissive sound. “You know cancer research. You think you’ve found something, then you discover a deviation from the norm.”
She nodded with a yawn. She knew her work bored others, but Edmund’s monotone voice put her to sleep. “Thanks for stopping by,” she said, too distracted by her own thoughts for chitchat.
“I was going for coffee. You want me to bring you some?”
Her cell phone buzzed, and she checked the caller ID. Mysteria Psychiatric Hospital, so she waved him off with a no thanks and quickly connected the call. -
“Dr. Bender speaking.”
“Dr. Bender, this is Ruthie Mae Stanton. Dr. Chambers wants you to come over immediately.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s about Gerald Daumer. The doc will explain when you get here.”
Marlena hit save to protect her work, then shut down her computer. “I’m leaving now.”
She grabbed her purse and coat and raced to her car, battling the wind as she hurried toward the psych hospital. Had Gerald experienced a breakthrough? Had the tests come back? Or could he possibly have confessed to Jordie’s murder?
Ruthie hurried up to her as she arrived, then beeped Dr. Chambers. He appeared within minutes, rubbing at his forehead, his thick brown eyebrows bunching together with his scowl. “We have a problem.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Gerald Daumer escaped,” Dr. Chambers said. “Apparently one of the techs went in to draw blood, and Daumer went berserk. He attacked the tech and got away from security as well.”
Marlena grimaced. “I don’t understand. Gerald was never violent before.” But he had been severely agitated and could have suffered a psychotic break. “Did you call the sheriff?”
“Yes, but he was out of the office. I explained the situation to his deputy, and he said they’d put out an APB for Gerald.”
Marlena tensed. She hated to see Gerald hunted down like a wild animal, but he definitely needed to be found and treated before lie hurt himself—or someone else.
And if he had killed Jordie, he had to be stopped before he killed again.
Dr. Chambers jammed his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “There’s something you should see, Marlena. Something very disturbing. Follow me.”
Her stomach twisted at his bleak tone, but she followed him to Daumer’s room.
“I checked on him earlier,” Chambers continued, “and he was nonresponsive. But I left a sketchpad beside his bed.”
She wet her dry lips with her tongue as he handed her the pad, and she flipped the pages. Gerald had complained about voices in his head ordering him to kill girls and talked about blood splattering the walls and floor.
Page after page in the sketchpad depicted the violence and bloody scene he’d described. And in the middle of the crimson splatters lay a woman who’d been carved with a Satanic S.
Dante studied the photos of the crime scene, focusing on the Satanic S on the ground. Had it been made by a mortal? A psychotic? A religious fanatic? A teenager rebelling against his parents by delving into the occult?
A bloodsucking demon?
A human who’d bitten into his victim’s carotid artery—that was a first.
It was more likely he was dealing with a demonic force of some kind.
The lacerations didn’t look like a werewolf’s fangs. But they were similar to markings he’d seen inflicted by vampires, and also by other bloodsucking demons.
He licked his lips. Dammit, he’d controlled his dark side ever since he’d left Father Gio. But occasionally the scent of blood or thought of it on his tongue aroused him.
Marlena’s face flashed in his mind, and disgust at himself filled him. He wished to hell she’d never come back to Mysteria. Now she was in the middle of his investigation, he couldn’t avoid her. He had to stick close to her to protect her.
But seeing her, even thinking about her, stirred desires and fantasies that tempted him like the devil.
His pulse hammering, he headed out to his car. The bitter cold assaulted him as he climbed into the SUV and drove to the garage to examine Jordie’s pickup truck, reminding him of the days and nights he’d spent living in the woods. Hiding out in caves or tunnels. Starving and alone and. . . fighting his own inner battle with evil.
Harry, a hefty guy in stained coveralls, wiped his hands on a grease rag as he approached.
Dante flashed his badge and introduced himself. “I need to take a look at Jordie McEnroe’s truck?’
The chunky man’s face twisted into a grimace. “I heard about that little girl gettin’ killed. She was a s
weet thing. I hate it for her mama.”
“Did you know her very well?”
Harry stuffed his grease rag in the pocket of his coveralls. “Me and my wife have both known her since she was knee-high. She babysat our younguns.” He frowned. “You got any idea who done it, Sheriff?”
Dante had to treat everyone as a suspect, but Harry didn’t strike him as demented or cunning enough to kill a woman in the manner in which Jordie had been murdered. “I’m working on it,” Dante said. “Where’s the truck?”
Harry spat chewing tobacco on the ground, then led him to the back parking lot. “There she is. I fixed her up, and had her all ready for Miss Jordie.”
Dante crossed the distance to the Ford pickup, snapped on gloves and opened the driver’s side. Jordie hadn’t been driving the truck the night of the attack, so he~ didn’t expect to find traces of the killer, but maybe some indication of her personal life. -
A cheap perfume scent lingered on the seats. He found a spiral notebook inside, and he flipped the pages. A half-dozen listings of various courses in cosmetology, appointments at the Curl Up ‘n Dye, a dentist appointment, lunch with her mother. Nothing significant or helpful.
He checked the glove compartment and back cab but found nothing suspicious, no leads.
As he headed back to his SUV, he called the phone company and requested they fax Jordie’s phone records to his office. Then he punched in Jordie’s mother’s number.
A tired sigh echoed over the line. “Yes?”
“Mrs. McEnroe, did Jordie have a girlfriend she might have talked to or confided in?”
A hesitation, then Mrs. McEnroe sniffled. “Yeah, Sheila James. She works at the beauty shop, the Curl Up ‘n Dye.”
“Thanks.”
“Please find him, Sheriff. I know it won’t bring my baby back.. .“ Her voice broke. “But I have to know he’s in jail paying for what he did to my baby.”
Dante swallowed. “I will.” He had to.
It was only a matter of time before this killer murdered again.
Marlena’s shoulders knotted as she gripped the steering wheel and maneuvered the mountain road up the ridge toward her house. The tall ridges rose above her, the jagged edges like sharp fingers reaching out to trap her inside.
Darkness bathed the old Victorian at the top of the hill, and a falcon soared above the angular roof. Once this house had represented a haven for her. As a child she used to climb up into the attic and stare out the dormer window. She’d pretended that she could climb all the way to the moon, and was intrigued by the animals and wildlife living in the midst of the dense woods.
Until that fatal day when she’d learned the dangers.
She hadn’t felt safe since. Even now the house held sorrow, memories too difficult to forget, too painful to remember.
And now with Jordie’s murder, she felt the evil like a pervading, invisible ghost clawing at her skin.
Fresh storm clouds robbed the moonlight, the signs of winter evident as the wind tossed dry leaves to the ground like crumbling ashes.
She tried to shake off her paranoia as she parked in the drive.
But her nerves were on edge, and worry over Gerald Daumer nagged at her. She never should have left him. She should have stayed and supervised his tests, pushed him to talk more.
Now that he’d escaped, would he act on the violent thoughts in his head?
Sighing in frustration, she opened the car door and forced her feet forward. She’d come home to confront her past, and she wouldn’t run from it or anything else again.
She was an adult, not a frightened child. A doctor, for God’s sake. A rational woman of medicine and science. She wouldn’t let the monsters in the closet chase her away.
Silently chastising herself, she tugged her coat around her neck, climbed the porch steps, and jammed the key into the door. But before she could turn the knob, the door screeched open. Then a cold blast of wind whipped past her, an acrid odor suffusing the air.
She stiffened and clenched the key in her hand. Hadn’t she locked the door when she’d left this morning?
A quick glance revealed that her roll-top desk was open. Loose papers from her desk swirled across the floor, the curtains in the den flapping.
Panic shot through her. An intruder had been inside her house...
Chapter Seven
Discomfort settled in Dante’s chest as he entered the Curl Up ‘n Dye. A half-dozen women who looked like aliens were huddled beneath hairdryers, some in curlers and others with aluminum-foil spikes in their hair. Noisy chattering and the buzz of the hairdryers filled the air along with the rancid odor of chemicals and thick volumes of hairspray.
The moment the women spotted him, the chitchat abruptly ceased, women shifted awkwardly, and nervous glances flitted between them.
A receptionist with flashy blue-blond hair sat behind a desk chewing gum. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Sheila James.”
She blew a bubble then snapped the gum back in her mouth. “Third station on the right.”
Before he could go to her, a brunette with spiked hair in a bright orange dress with tattoos snaking down her arm leaned over and said something to the older woman in her chair, then sauntered toward him. “Sheriff, I’m Sheila. You came to talk to me about Jordie?”
He nodded. “You were friends?”
“Sure were.” She grabbed a jacket on the hook by the door. “Let’s step outside. I need a smoke.”
He opened the door and gestured for her to go first, then they stepped onto the sidewalk. She whipped a pack of Marlboros from her pocket along with a lighter and lit up.
For a moment, he watched the tobacco ignite and begin to sizzle, mesmerized by the glow of the burning tip.
“Sheriff, do you know who killed Jordie?” Sheila asked, drawing him back to the job.
“Not yet. Maybe you can help. Was Jordie involved with anyone? Did she have a boyfriend or lover?”
Tears filled the young woman’s eyes, but she swiped at them with the back of her hand. “No. Jordie had sworn off dating the past year. She was focusing on going back to school.”
“Cosmetology school?” Dante asked.
“Yeah. She was a natural with color. Did better foils than me.” Sheila tapped ashes on the ground and took another drag, then tilted her head back and watched smoke rings float into the air. “She was such a sugar. I can’t believe this shit happened to her.”
Dante clenched his jaw. Had the killer chosen her at random or was there a reason he’d picked Jordie?
“Did you ever notice anyone watching her? Maybe a man, someone she’d rebuffed?”
Sheila propped a spiked boot against the lamppost. “No, no one I can think of. Everyone liked Jordie. She was kind and trusting and friendly to a fault.”
So trusting she’d been easy prey.
“Why?” Her forehead crinkled. “Do you think the killer was someone Jordie knew?”
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. How the killer got close to her. There
was no sign of a break-in, so I figure she must have let him into the house.”
“That sounds like Jordie all right.” More tears blurred her eyes. “She never met a stranger. I kept telling her to be careful, but if someone knocked, she would have probably answered the door. Hell, at the diner, she waited on everyone in town.”
His phone buzzed at his belt and he checked the number. Marlena.
“Thanks, Sheila. If you think of anything else, give me a call.”
He grabbed his phone and headed back to his SUV as he answered it. “Dante.”
“It’s Marlena.”
A knot tightened his stomach at the warble in her voice. “What’s wrong?”
Her breath rattled, out. “Someone broke into my house.”
Marlena’s pulse was clamoring as she huddled inside the car. -
“Are you sure?” Dante asked in a gruff tone.
“Yes,” s
he said, her voice cracking. “I came home and the door was open. It looks as if someone’s been inside.”
“Where are you now?”
“I ran back to the car and locked myself inside.”
“Good. Stay put. I’ll be right there.”
The line went dead as he disconnected the call, and she clutched her phone like a lifeline.
Why would someone break into her house? She had nothing valuable inside, nothing except her grandmother’s silver. Maybe it was just some teenagers or a vagrant looking for a warm place to escape the cold.
But the memory of the killer’s trophy on her doorstep taunted her. And Gerald Daumer had escaped today...
A noise rattled from the woods, and she glanced to the left, searching the trees. The distinct snap of twigs breaking echoed in the tense silence. A vulture soared above the treetops, its sinister squawk indicating it had found prey.
Another sound to her right made her jerk her head toward the woods on the opposite side, and her breath caught in her chest.
A shadow floated between the tall pines and oaks, then hovered beneath the sweeping brown moss from the live oaks. A coyote howled from the ridge, then the shadow suddenly disappeared as if it had vanished into thin air.
Marlena pressed her fingers to her temple. Was she imagining things, or had someone been in the woods watching her?
The sound of a siren rent the air, and she heaved a breath of relief at the sight of Dante’s SUV screeching to a stop behind her car.
His thick, wavy black hair brushed his shoulders and the wind tossed it around his face when he climbed out. His walk was powerful, intimidating, his scowl deep and harsh.
He withdrew his weapon and strode toward her car, his intense brown eyes scanning the perimeter as he approached, his shoulders rigid as if braced for an attack. With one finger, he motioned for her to roll down the window and she complied.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, feeling safer now he’d arrived, just as she had as a child. She remembered how easily he’d picked her up and run with her. How she’d burrowed against his chest and he’d hidden her face so she hadn’t been forced to look at the people who’d killed her family.