Another explosion rocked the building—this time on their side of the room. The chandelier above swayed precariously.
Diana Dahmer rushed from his dressing room. “Get us out of here!”
Paxton put a hand on the singer’s still-naked chest. “We are getting the kids out first.”
“Bull—”
Another bomb exploded, this time right behind the dressing rooms. The band poured out of the room as smoke billowed. Ruth looked to her right. That, too, was aflame. She couldn’t see if the security chief had survived the blast, or even if the exit was still accessible.
“This way!” Paxton ordered.
The path he suggested moved them deeper into the mansion, but there was no other direction to head toward, which worried Ruth. Those weren’t random explosions. They were timed. Synchronized. And now they had to wonder when the next one would strike.
One of the band members tripped and skidded out on the floor.
Without breaking stride, she hauled him up by the back of his black crushed velvet jacket. “Move it!”
“I can see a light ahead!” Paxton called out, as they all rushed forward.
“Watch out!” Ruth yelled, as she saw a figure round the corner.
In horrible slow motion, she watched Paxton pull his weapon.
* * *
Cecilia didn’t see who was wielding the gun—only its bright, shiny barrel. She tried to stop, but Michael was right behind her, and his legs had finally kicked in.
She heard someone yell, “No!”
Careening around the corner, Cecilia ran headlong into the figure, who oomphed loudly. He kept his feet, but barely. Her face buried in his shirt, Cecilia smelled pretzels and whiskey.
Cecilia looked up. “Uncle Paxton?”
His brow furrowed in surprise. “Cecilia?”
“Uncle Pax!” she screamed, heedless of the group gathered round. She opened her arms and hugged her uncle.
It took a second, but he hugged her back. Paxton felt solid and real. And while the gun had scared her, Uncle Pax came bearing weapons. God, she had never loved him more than she did right now.
“Cec, where’s Jeremy?”
A woman stepped forward. “And Evan?”
“I don’t know. They should be at Evan’s.”
The woman’s face clouded over. Didn’t Cecilia recognize her? Ruth thought.
Was that Evan’s mom? Uncle Paxton’s partner? Cecilia asked herself.
She swung around to Michael. “I thought Jeremy wasn’t here?”
Before he could answer, another explosion rocked the mansion.
Paxton urged her back the way they had come. “Let’s get somewhere safe and discuss it.”
“No,” Cecilia said. “The killer’s that way.”
“Great, just great,” her uncle grumbled the way he always did.
She tried to urge him back down the way his party had come. “We’ve got to go this way.”
But Evan’s mom, Ruth—Ruth was her name—blocked her way. “The bulk of the fire is that way.”
Paxton pointed toward a side hallway. “Down here.”
Cecilia followed her uncle, and Michael was right behind her. Quickly, they found themselves at a dead end. Ruth and Paxton both checked their weapons, making sure they were loaded.
“Brilliant. Now we are trapped,” one of the group said.
“Der, Eyeliner Man,” Paxton shot back.
The shirtless man scoffed. “Glad to see our tax dollars are going to such good use.”
Even more bizarre than finding her Uncle Paxton here, Cecilia realized, was that Diana Dahmer was with his group. The goth king paced as his bandmates grumbled. She wanted to say something, but what could she say? It was surreal.
The flames, though? The heat? The killer? Those were all real.
Paxton opened a side door and swung his flashlight around the room.
“It’s clear. Everyone in.”
Even though her uncle held the door open for her, the band brushed Cecilia aside, and Dahmer himself elbowed her out of the way. But a lack of manners was the last thing on her mind as Michael escorted her into the room. He looked stronger, but he still had a sway to his step that Cecilia didn’t like.
Once the door was shut behind them and Ruth was guarding it, her uncle turned to her.
“You said the killer was deeper in the mansion?” Paxton asked her.
“He wasn’t far behind us,” Cecilia said.
Ruth asked from the door, “Could you identify him?”
Cecilia looked at Michael, who nodded. “Yes. I mean, we think so.”
Michael pressed his palm against his forehead wound as he stepped forward. “It is John Rampart.”
Cecilia squirmed, almost embarrassed to speak in front of her uncle. “We, Michael and I, caught him… Well, with a girl… And they both had blood and—”
“Is he Catholic?” Ruth asked.
“All-American altar boy,” Michael answered.
A look passed between the adults. Cecilia had seen that look before. When they knew something the adults didn’t want to “kids” to know. Like when her dad was diagnosed with cancer, or when her mom had lost her job for being out on too many “sick” days.
“What? What is it?”
Neither adult looked inclined to tell her, though.
“My best friend is dead, we’ve got three others injured in a room upstairs, and Quentin is missing,” Cecilia said, stepping closer to her uncle. “You can’t spare me, shield me, or protect me, Uncle Pax. So, just tell me already.”
More looks passed between the adults. Then, strangely, Ruth tossed her phone to Michael. “Look up everyone’s names.”
“I don’t understand,” Cecilia said as Michael flipped through the pages of a book on the detective’s phone.
“Me, either,” Paxton said as he turned to his partner. “What are you thinking?”
Ruth paused, cracked open the door, and surveyed the hallway before answering, “I thought we might be a tad more prepared if we knew how the perp was planning on killing us.”
Paxton just nodded, but Cecilia was still confused.
“I don’t get it.”
Her uncle turned to her. “The killer is selecting people based on the names of the saints.”
Oh, God! Helen. What had Sister Sarah said during catechism class? Saint Helen had died upon the crucifix. And Saint Paula had her fingernails pulled and her hair shorn.
“And killing them in the same manner,” Cecilia concluded.
* * *
Paxton nodded sadly. “I am afraid so.”
Cecilia had been through so much already. She shouldn’t have to carry the burden for this as well, but how could he avoid telling her? She was right. Like or not, she was deep in all of this.
He indicated the phone. “Ruth downloaded the Vatican’s Guide to the Saints.”
Diana Dahmer snatched the phone from Michael. “Let me see that.” Paxton tried to grab it back, but the sweaty singer slipped through his grasp. The band members converged around Dahmer.
Fine. Let them have it. Paxton had other problems. Like how to avoid being fried to death—and a maniac with a fascination for martyrs.
“Ha! I’m not in here!” Dahmer exclaimed.
Another band member shoved his way forward. “What about me?”
“Okay, Pancreas …” Dahmer said as he scrolled through the names.
“Pancreas?” Paxton could not help but ask. “Your name is Pancreas?”
“What?” the guy wearing purple lace Spandex said. “It’s the most important digestive organ in the body.”
Okay, that did not really answer Paxton’s question, but Dahmer’s face blanched.
“Oh, man … Panc, you get torn limb from limb.”
Another band member elbowed his way closer to Dahmer. “What about me?”
“Sixtus,” Dahmer murmured as he looked.
“No way! I’m next in the alphabet!” another band member argued.
Paxton rolled his eyes. These weren’t names—they were marketing ploys.
Dahmer shook his head. “There’s no Rage.” The shorter band member looked relieved until Dahmer followed up. “Wait, there’s a Ragener.”
Everyone looked at Ruth, who was watching the door. She glanced back. “Anglo derivations do seem to be fair game.”
“Oh, man! What’s my way?” Rage asked.
“It doesn’t say, except for an ‘extremely violent and painful death.’ ”
Rage leaned forward, grabbing his head in his hands. He rocked back and forth, moaning. Paxton was pretty damn sure the Stones would have taken this news way better.
“Come on, get to S,” the last band member insisted.
“Hold on, hold on.” Dahmer urged as he scrolled down. “Here it is. Six, or Sixtus.”
“Yes!” Sixtus stated, his eyes nervously trying to read over Dahmer’s shoulder. “What’s it say?”
Dahmer looked uncharacteristically somber. “Dude. You get run through by a dozen swords.”
“No f—ing way!” Six shouted as he backed away and ran into the wall, although he didn’t seem to notice.
Paxton snorted. That’s what they got for picking such idiotic names.
Ruth said from the door, “Diana, you had better check under your real name. He might be going off of that.”
The singer looked insulted, however. “Diana Dahmer is who I am.”
Paxton smacked the guy on the back of the head. “Your legal name, you moron!”
“I … I don’t ….”
“Julian,” Michael stated. “Julian is his given name.”
His secret outed, Dahmer—Paxton meant Julian—found his name. His lips opened, then shut. The phone slipped through his fingers. Only with quick reflexes did Michael catch it before it hit the ground.
The boy read from the screen. “Julian. Beheaded with a dull sword.”
The lead singer sank to the floor.
Okay, maybe Mick would have had the same response.
* * *
Cecilia hit the screen icon for the M category.
“No, I wanted to look you up,” Michael argued, but Cecilia was determined. She had to know.
She scrolled up, and then down. “There’s no Michael!”
Ruth shook her head. “No, Michael is an archangel. If the killer’s MO doesn’t change, you should be okay.”
Cecilia hugged Michael. “You’re safe!”
While he returned her hug, his frown remained. “We just better hope Maggie didn’t come to the concert…”
Cecilia read the entry next to Saint Margaret. “Eaten by a dragon and burned at the stake.
“A dragon?” Paxton questioned. He turned to Ruth as she shut the door. “How in the hell was he going to simulate a dragon?”
Ruth frowned. “How in the hell has he done what he has already?”
“Granted, our suspect is an altar boy, but it is one thing to kill one person at a time. It would give him time to prepare. But this? This is a whole other level of execution, so to speak.”
“And isn’t he a jock?” Ruth asked Cecilia.
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “He’s captain of the football team.”
She watched her uncle pace the floor. Her heart sank as the adults frowned. Cecilia had pinned her hopes on the adults, and especially two cops, knowing what to do next. That somehow they could make sense of all the pain.
But looking into her uncle’s face, Cecilia knew that no could ever make sense of what happened here.
* * *
What the hell was going on? Paxton worried. Nothing had really added up since they had been assigned to the priest’s murder. Now, running around a burning mansion, hauling Diana Dahmer around, finding his niece, things were even more out of whack.
“We can’t hide here. We’ve got to find a way out of the building,” Ruth said.
No kidding.
“We’ll figure out the delusion later,” Paxton agreed.
“Let me see, Michael,” he heard Cecilia demand.
Paxton turned to find Michael holding the phone away from his niece.
“What did it say about Cecilia?” Ruth asked.
“Nothing much,” the younger man said, with an obviously forced smile. “She shares a name with a martyr. So we know she’s at risk. That’s enough.”
Paxton grabbed the phone away from Michael. What was the kid playing at? “I appreciate your attempting to shield my niece, but the mechanism may be important.”
Quickly, Paxton scanned the screen, reading the entry for Cecilia the Martyr. A lump formed in his throat.
“Michael’s right,” Paxton stated. “It has no bearing on the case.”
“What?” Cecilia said. “Let me see.”
Paxton slipped the phone into his pocket. He hadn’t done the best job protecting Cecilia from life. The least he could do was protect her from this.
“Come on,” Cecilia said. “I’m just going to imagine way worse than it is.”
Paxton glanced over at Michael, who frowned.
No. No, she couldn’t possibly imagine worse.
A loud bang came from the door. Ruth tried to open it, but could not.
“It’s locked from the outside,” she said, rattling the knob.
Then the steady sound of hammering filled the room.
Diana Dahmer said exactly what everyone was thinking. “Dear God! What now?”
* * *
With Paxton distracted by the hammering, Cecilia slipped her hand into his pocket and lifted the phone out.
“So is his MO changing? Locking us in here to burn to death?” Paxton asked Ruth.
Cecilia wasn’t sure if his partner answered him or not as she read the passage. Her fingers felt numb as Michael took the phone from her.
“It doesn’t mean that it’s going to go down like that,” Michael tried to reassure her.
But the words were burned in her mind. “Three days of torment. Being blinded and boiled?”
Michael pulled her into a fierce hug, but she barely felt it. The hammering had stopped, but the crackle of the fire in the hallway was plain to hear. She could see Paxton and Ruth slamming their shoulders into the door, but she didn’t make an effort to help. She knew that smoke was coming under the door, but she didn’t care.
Cecilia had seen the agony on Helen’s face. She had felt the torment in her voice. And the killer had her friend for what? An hour? Maybe it would be better to burn alive here. Better than what was promised to her for three full days of torture.
She heard Paxton cough and pull his shirt over his nose. “We had better come up with a plan B pretty damn quickly.”
Dahmer was sobbing in the corner as his bandmates kept throwing themselves fruitlessly against the door.
Then a noise came from behind them.
Cecilia did not even bother to turn around. It could be nothing good.
* * *
Ruth pulled her gun as she turned. The wall behind them buckled as someone pushed through from the other side. Paxton stepped beside her, his gun drawn as well.
They were ready for whatever came through that wall.
With one last heave, the wall gave way and a figure tumbled out.
“Hands up!” Paxton barked.
The figure rolled forward, whimpering.
She knew that whine. She loved that whine.
“Evan?”
The figure turned to her. “Mom?”
Evan scrambled up as she holstered her weapon.
“Mom! I’m sooooo sorry! I know that I’m in huge trouble—”
Ruth scooped him up into a hug. “Shh. I’m just glad you are here! Are you okay?”
“I twisted my ankle, but I’m good.”
Despite her son’s assurances, Ruth checked Evan’s vitals. Paxton came alongside.
“Where’s Jeremy?”
She held her shivering son as he answered, “I … I don’t k
now. We got split up and I was looking for him when the explosions happened.” He looked up at her. “Then I thought I heard Mom …” Evan sniffled. “So I followed her voice here.”
Ruth held him close. She closed her eyes. Even though smoke burned as she breathed in, Ruth couldn’t stop smelling her son’s hair. She never wanted to forget the smell. Screw overtime. Screw her job, if it came to that. She never wanted Evan to eat dinner alone again.
“I am all about reunions, but now that we have an exit…” Paxton indicated the hole in the wall.
She smoothed Evan’s hair and kissed him on the head as she answered her partner. “You’re right.” Ruth urged her son up as she turned toward Paxton. “Can you take point?”
“You know it.”
Hugging her son close to her, they got out of the death trap.
* * *
Paxton hauled ass—well, as fast as you could haul ass crawling through a tight air duct. He came to a junction. They could go right or left. He looked back at the rest of this ragtag group. They were streaked with soot and blood. Well, Cecilia and Michael had actual blood. The band was streaked with red-dyed corn syrup. How he wished the evening’s deaths were so fake.
They were up to three bodies and counting. Who knew how many dead bodies were going to be cremated in the fire? As the metal under his hands warmed, Paxton knew that they had better find a way out—or be added to that gruesome number.
“Which way?” he called back to Ruth.
She looked at her son. Evan pointed to the left, his voice tinny in the enclosed space. “That way takes us back to the stage.”
Which, of course, was on fire right now, so not a great option.
“What about to the right?” Paxton asked.
The boy frowned. “I’m not sure, but I think that leads to a loading dock.”
“Which means there is probably a door of some sort.” Maybe they caught a bit of luck.
“Then why aren’t you moving?” Dahmer whined from behind him.
Damn it, but the singer was right. Paxton made the right-hand corner. Not far down, he thought he saw a light. He turned his flashlight off.
“Hey!” Dahmer complained, but Paxton kept it off.
Sure enough, he did see a light not a few yards ahead. A nice, steady emergency light—not the flickering light of flames consuming the room they were headed toward. Could they really outrace the fire?
Down & Dirty: A McCray Crime Collection Page 16