Enter Evil

by Linda Ladd

  “Jeff, can you still hear me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I want you to kill that blond-haired nurse named Maggie in exactly the way I said when you hear me say the words ‘Enter Evil.’ You understand me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you won’t remember that I told you to do this or that you pushed the woman. You must make sure nobody sees you and that you get back to your room and in bed before they find her. Understand?”

  “Yeah. No problem.”

  The purest wave of elation filled Tee, and a sense of the most unbelievable power washed over him. My God, if this worked, and it probably wouldn’t, but maybe it would. My God, think what he could do, think how he could control people. This was a gold mine, a gold mine he was going to get rich with. He’d wait awhile, see how Jeff reacted, see if he showed any signs of knowing what he’d been told or any signs of anxiety. If all went well, he’d have the kid kill the lady two days from today.

  Smiling in anticipation, he brought Jeff out of the trance.

  Jeff said, “So? What happened?”

  “Nothing much happened. You did good, though.”

  “Well, sure, why wouldn’t I?”

  Jeff rolled over on his side and faced the wall. He went straight to sleep, still drugged up and heavy limbed. Tee got into Buddy’s bed and figured out all the details on killing Maggie the Witch. It was rare for an adult not to like Tee because he made it a point to butter them up. But nothing he said or did worked with Maggie. She didn’t like him, watched him all the time, in fact, it seemed as if she saw right through him, as if she knew he was always up to no good. And this time, he was, and she was the main attraction.

  SEVENTEEN

  On the way home from Oak Haven, I found myself taking the long way around, driving down rural blacktop roads north of the lake. Then to my super surprise I was suddenly turning onto the dirt road that led up to Joe McKay’s place. Don’t ask me why. I sure didn’t plan it; it just seemed to happen. The last time I crunched over this gravelly overgrown track, I was with Black in his Humvee, and Joe McKay took off running the minute he saw us, which led us straight to a whole bunch of rotting corpses in black plastic bags. This time I didn’t have to worry about that. This time I was more worried as to why I suddenly felt the urge to pay him a call. Funny thing is, I don’t remember making a conscious effort to go psychic visiting.

  Joe McKay lived in an old farmhouse, but I could see he had spruced it up quite a bit since I last chased him through his cornfield. He had painted it sky blue, of all things. In fact, when I pulled up and cut the motor, he was still painting up on a ladder near the front porch. I couldn’t help but notice that he had his shirt off and had been lifting about a million weights, judging by his muscle tone. He had his long hair pulled back into a ponytail at his nape and his dimples were flashing.

  As I got out of the car, he climbed down the ladder. A few feet away, in the shade of a large, big-boled oak tree, Elizabeth played in a sandbox. She had on a pink-striped sundress and little white sandals. McKay had cinched up one of his ball caps and set it on her head in an effort to shield her face from sunburn, I guess, but it had two red Cardinals sitting on a bat so it passed muster with me and everybody else in Missouri.

  “Okay, Officer, I give up.” McKay put his palms on the side of the house and leaned on them, legs apart in frisking position. “Pat me down and make it thorough, please.”

  “Ha ha, McKay.”

  Grinning, he turned back and approached my car. He was sweating, his bare chest glistening in the sun. I looked away, considering Black’s feelings and the slight jump in my pulse.

  “Wow, Detective, I never thought I’d see the day. To what do I owe this pleasure?—and I do mean pleasure. You look sexy as hell with that big police logo on your T-shirt, by the way.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  We stared at each other. Both waiting.

  He said, “Well, welcome to my humble home. What can I do for you? Or is this just a social call?”

  I found out quick enough that I didn’t have an answer to that. So I made up one. “I was just in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop by and see how Lizzie was doing.”

  McKay laughed. “In the neighborhood? What were you doing? Coon hunting?”

  He was right, of course. There was not much going on this far out in the boondocks except dense woods, wild animals, and Joe McKay, who might be considered a wild animal now and again.

  “Thanks, McKay, you’re making me feel like I’m not welcome around here.”

  “Au contraire, Detective.”

  Au contraire? “Getting all fancy on me now, aren’t you, McKay?”

  “Yep, want you to know how cosmopolitan I am. Learned that on shore leave in Marseille.” He smiled and then said, “So? How about a cold beer?”

  “Can’t. I’m on duty.”

  “So this is an official call?”

  “No.” I glanced around, remembering the snow and the wild chase across the fields and all the horrible stuff that had followed over the next few days. “Truth is, I don’t know why I’m here. Just found myself turning in at your mailbox and decided to go with it.”

  McKay’s eyes narrowed, brow furrowed. “That doesn’t sound like you, Claire.”

  Surprised he’d called me that, I decided to change the subject. “Nice color on your house there. Bit unusual, though.”

  “I tried to match your eyes.”

  “That’s lame, McKay.”

  “Yeah, most of my come-ons are.”

  We laughed a little. I said, “How is Lizzie? I think about her a lot.”

  “Well, c’mon and see for yourself. She’s talking more all the time. She keeps saying she wants to go see that dog of yours, old Jules Verne. Remembers his name, and everything. I think I’m gonna hafta get her a pooch of her own.”

  “Hey, that’s really great, Joe.”

  “Yeah. I think she’s on the way back. She’s gettin’ to be quite a chatter bug. Hey, sit down in my new lawn chairs. I got this whole table set on sale at Lowe’s for two hundred bucks, umbrella not included.”

  I obliged and rocked slightly in one of the red and green flowered, comfortably cushioned chairs. McKay reached into an ice-filled cooler and pulled out a bottle of Corona. He dug me out a Pepsi and handed it to me. I took it, cracked the lid, and took a deep swallow. It tasted good, revived my spirits a bit. I watched Lizzie toddle over to her daddy, and he gave her a Pepsi, too. I watched her drink, gripping it with both hands without spilling. She looked at me over the top, but this time she didn’t show any reaction.

  “Say hi to Claire, Lizzie. You remember her, don’t you?”

  “Hi. Where Jules at?” She looked at me, as if I had the dog hidden in my purse.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I left him at home, but you come to see him soon, okay?”

  The child actually smiled. “Okay.”

  “See what I mean, Claire? Things are gonna turn out all right, after all.” Smiling and proud, McKay lifted the toddler up onto his lap, and I watched the dappled sunlight making light patterns across his face and Lizzie’s blond hair. And then his little girl became Zach in my mind’s eye, and the gushing torrent of pain almost sent me reeling. What was going on with me?

  “What’s the matter?” asked McKay, pretty observant himself. He looked intently at my face.

  Clamping my jaw, I moved my attention out over the pasture, trying to get a grip on myself. “It’s peaceful out here. You still gonna pack up and move to Springfield?”

  Nodding, he followed my gaze. “I’m set to close on that Victorian next week. I just jumped in and did it. I’m gonna keep this place, too. I grew up here. It’s my roots. Lizzie’s, too.”

  Roots. Wish I had some, but I didn’t. Wish I had my little boy back, sitting on my lap and drinking Pepsi, too, but I didn’t. My throat clogged up thick and squeezed shut. I stood up.

  Frowning, McKay stared up at me with a what-the-hell’s-going-on-with-you look. “Relax
, Detective. You’re making me nervous here. I do something wrong?”

  “No. I need to get back to work. I’m just wasting time out here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No offense. My case is going nowhere.”

  “Sit down. Give me your hand. Let me help.”

  Considering him and wondering if that’s why I showed up out here, to get a bit of psychic insight. I sure as hell needed it. If he could help me get a lead, it wouldn’t hurt, maybe would even help. I sat back down and held out my hand. He took it between his big work-roughened palms and closed his eyes. I knew the drill well. Sometimes he hit; sometimes he didn’t.

  A few minutes later, he opened his eyes and let go of my hand. “You need to be careful, Detective.”

  “Oh? What’d you see?”

  “Nothin’ good. I gotta flash of you struggling in the water and it’s dark, nighttime, but that’s all I saw. Except, and man, I hate to tell you this, I really do, but I saw a picture of your little kid, clear as day, in a little white Winnie the Pooh frame. And I just now felt lots of tension in your body, too. You comin’ down with something, summer flu, maybe?”

  Staggered by what he had said, I stared at him and then tried to shrug it off with a joke. “So now it’s Dr. McKay? Black nags me enough about that kinda stuff.”

  “You should listen to him. You might have some kind of health problem. Sometimes that’s what it turns out to be when I read this kinda tension.”

  “Physical or inflicted.”

  “Either or both, knowing you. How’s the foot, by the way?”

  I’d gotten a minor gunshot wound in my foot during my last case, another in my shoulder, both not more than nicks. “Both healed up and good to go.”

  “Good.”

  “Well, I gotta go. You take care of Lizzie, hear me?”

  “She’s my life.” He’d uttered it simply, and I knew he meant it. He was a good dad, better than most.

  “Okay, I’m outta here. See you around.”

  “Next time, come for dinner. I’ll bake you another one of those delicious apple pies.”

  “You still giving Mrs. Smith a run for her money, huh?”

  “You bet.”

  As I left, he boosted Lizzie onto one hip and carried her up onto the front porch. She was tired, ready for a nap, leaning her head against his shoulder, her little legs hanging down on either side of his hips. More memories flooded me, and I shut my eyes a moment to block them, then fired up the Explorer, turned it around, and got out of there.

  All the way home, I thought of nothing but Zachary. The dams and locks I’d built to keep his face buried were being swept away; my defense mechanisms were disintegrating under the onslaught of his sweet little face, the nightmare of him in his tiny coffin, his long black lashes down on eyes closed to me forever, his soft blond curls falling over his forehead, his well-worn blue Winnie the Pooh blanket over him, his little brown teddy bear that I’d tucked under his right arm the way he liked to carry it. And the frame that McKay had described to a T.

  And I remembered the dread I felt, the deep, bottomless guilt when I walked off and left him all alone in that vast, grassy, shady, lonely cemetery in west Los Angeles. I’d never been back there since that day; never allowed myself to dwell on him being buried away under the ground. Now I couldn’t seem to think of anything else, and my heart grew to the size of a basketball inside my chest.

  When I finally made it to my gravel road, I stopped at Harve’s and found him in his office. When he saw me, he waved and smiled but turned back to his conference call. He told somebody at the other end to hold just a minute, put his hand over the phone, and then said to me, “Hey, Claire, good to see you. Sorry, got some East Coast clients on the line.”

  “Hi Harve. Listen, I don’t want to interrupt your call, but you know that trunk I left here when I moved in at the cabin? I need to pick it up.”

  “Oh, yeah, okay. It’s in the guest room’s closet. Up on the top shelf, I think. You sure you don’t want to hang around and have some dinner? I’ll be off here in, say, twenty minutes.”

  “No, not this time. Go ahead with your call. Black’s supposed to be waiting down at my house, anyway.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure.”

  “I’ll take a rain check. See you later, Harve.”

  Harve’s guest room was large and painted colonial blue with white woodwork and lots of red and white around. An American flag folded in a triangle was displayed in a glass case above a dresser. It had been on his father’s casket when he was gunned down while on duty at the LAPD. His father was as much a hero in that department as Harve was.

  I reached up and retrieved the little red trunk, trying not to think about what was inside. It wasn’t heavy, and I carried out to the Explorer, raised the rear hatch, and stowed it inside. I’d open it later, if I opened it at all.

  A few minutes down the road my house loomed up, and I was super pleased to find Black’s Cobalt 360 bobbing alongside my little dock. I didn’t see him, though. I pulled into the garage, alerted at once when I didn’t hear my little pooch, Jules Verne, yapping his shrill but welcoming poodle yap.

  “Hey, Claire! Down here!”

  Black’s voice came from out in the water, and I saw his head bobbing in the lake, about twenty yards out. Jules Verne’s little head was right beside him. That made me laugh, which was what I needed, so I headed down there and strode out to the end of my rather rickety little dock.

  Black swam in closer. I could see Jules paddling to beat the band. Luckily, there was a little beach where the dog could climb out by himself, but Black usually boosted him up on the deck. The man loved that dog. What can I say?

  Black called to me, “Come on in, the water’s fine.”

  Considering, I smiled because Black looked good with his black hair wet and slicked back, blue eyes glinting with challenge. It was the edge of night, deepening dark, and the water was calm, not a boat in sight and none likely this time of evening. Still hesitant, I decided it was safe enough to disarm, had second thoughts about that, considering my recent brushes with Mr. Death, but then began to unbuckle my shoulder holster. I wound the straps around the holster, placed it on the dock near the edge where I could get it fast if need be, then followed suit with the .38 revolver strapped to my ankle. I unlaced my hightops and pulled them off.

  “Come on, you’re stalling,” Black called out.

  I dove in, fully dressed, and swam under the surface to where Black was treading water. I came up against his chest, and he said, “Now this is the life.”

  “The water feels good.”

  “So do you.” His mouth was on the side of my neck and his hands were busy unzipping my jeans.

  “Hey, I paid eighteen dollars off the sale rack for these Levi’s, and I’m not leaving them on the bottom of the lake.”

  When he got them off, with not a little trouble, either, he tossed them up on the dock, then got my T-shirt off even quicker. It went onto the dock with a wet plop, and our skin slid together, then our mouths, and finally all the morbid thoughts of Zach took leave and I thought about Black and what he was doing to me, and what I was doing to him, and how good it felt to be doing it in cool water, crickets chirping, full moon coming up in the night sky behind us, and the two of us all alone for a change. I went with it, and so did he, and it was really good.

  EIGHTEEN

  At 3:30 A.M. I jerked awake out of a horrendous nightmare and bolted upright in bed. Sweaty, afraid, heart hammering against my rib cage, my skin was cold and clammy. I’d dreamed of Zach again. He died in my arms, again, for the millionth time. Gritting my teeth, I pulled the sheet up and wiped sweat off my face. For a few moments I sat on the side of the bed in the darkness, trying to let the overwhelming emotions dissipate and roll off me, but it just wasn’t working anymore. Black called them my defense mechanisms, but what had happened to them? Why had they broken down? Lately, all I could think about was Zach, whether I was awake or asleep, in the car, in the
office, anywhere. Why now?

  Behind me, under the covers, Black slept soundly on his back. So did Jules Verne. The dog was nestled up against Black’s right side, stretched out full length, all four paws in the air. Both dead to the world. Glad I didn’t have to explain myself, I stood up and remained motionless beside the bed. I let my breaths return to their regular cadence. There was a little whirlpool of nausea swirling inside my belly. Black usually awoke, too, when I had a nightmare, but this time he only mumbled something and turned over, facing away from me.

  Picking up my weapon off the bedside table, I carried it downstairs. I didn’t turn on the lamps. White light from the full moon flooded through my front windows, misting up the living room and painting skinny slanted patterns across the couch and kitchen cabinets. Outside in the dark night, the lake looked like a brilliant white mirror, slick and calm and beautiful and beckoning. I needed to run, get out the tension. Get some exercise. Fresh air.

  I put on some shorts and a T-shirt and my Nikes and strapped the .38 on my ankle with a lightweight Velcro strap, then took off down the beach. I had beaten a trail there on all zillion of my prior jogs, and I followed it in the moonlight, sweat drying on my skin in the cool night air. It was quiet, just the lap of very gentle waves, and I ran to my one-mile point, then turned and retraced my steps. I sprinted the last hundred yards and collapsed down on the grass behind my beat-up picnic table. I stared up through the tree branches at the moon, a great white orb floating in the blackness and knew what I had to do.

  The time was right, and somehow I knew it. Tonight I had to do something I swore I’d never do, but I felt a deep, tangible need for inside myself. Maybe if I just did it, walked straight into the house and faced the demons head-on, I could sleep again at night, without the tortured dreams, without Zach haunting my mind, the memory of his baby face and sweet smile shredding bloody strips off my heart.