Hoarfrost (Blood of Cain Book 2)

by J. L. Murray

  "Tell me what to do," he said, equal parts angry and confused. "I don't know what you want from me."

  "I don't want anything from you, that's the fucking point," I said. "Look, maybe after this, it would be best if we went our separate ways."

  "I knew this would happen," he said. "I fucking knew if I told you it would drive you away."

  “That's not why, you asshole!” I said, and I did take a drink then, emptying the last of the bottle and slamming it down onto the table. "You didn't tell me at all. Don't you fucking get it? It's the only thing I had, or thought I had. You were the only thing in the world I cared about. You. I ran away because I was worried I'd kill you. I came back because I couldn't bear to be away from you. Don't you even see me? Do you know how important you are to me? And it was based on a lie, you son of a bitch. How do you fix that? Tell me, Dekker, how do you break someone and put them back together again? I'd forgive anything from you. You can cut me, you can shoot me, stab me, tell me to go fuck myself. I'd forgive you. Hell, that's just a regular day for us. None of that matters."

  "I see you," he said, walking over to me and stopping short just in front of me. "It's all I see.” He was so close I could feel his breath on my face. “Every time I close my eyes, first thing when I wake up, it’s your damn face. Your gorgeous, maddening face. When you were gone, I felt like you tore something out of me and were carrying it around with you. Yes, I asked some people to keep tabs on you, so I knew where you were and that you were okay. But honestly, I think I could find you anywhere." He looked at me, standing perfectly still, but panting a little as if he'd just come off a long run. I could see his pulse jumping hard in his throat. "You're all there is, Frankie. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. Every second that's gone by it's been cutting at me, ripping deeper and deeper the longer it went on. You gave me every opportunity to give it up and I was scared. More afraid than I've ever been of anything. You're terrifying, Frankie Mourning."

  He reached for me but I pulled away, walked to the bed and sat on the edge. I wanted to put my hands over my ears and scream, I wanted to cry and punch him as hard as I could. I could feel the scratching and thumping starting inside of me, could feel the power expanding. I knew I should just leave, just run from this town and never look back.

  "I'm probably the last person you want to be stuck in a motel with right now," he said, coming over and knelt in front of me again. He didn't try to touch me, but put his hands on his knees, bracing himself for something, and for a moment, I forgot how much he hurt me and I wanted to pull him up, to kiss him. But instead I looked away.

  "I meant what I said. I'd die for you, Frankie," he said. "I'd do anything for you, anything. I'm more in love with you than you can possibly imagine. I love you so much it feels like you've got your fingers inside my chest and you're squeezing tighter and tighter and if I love you any more my heart is just going to burst. But then I look at you again, and I can feel it squeezing tighter than before. Tighter and tighter every day, until I feel like I'm going to die." I looked at him then, but he was looking down at his own hands, still talking, as if he had to say it, he had to get it out before it festered. "But I don't die. I don't die, but you're changing me. I can feel myself changing, and I goddamn like it. If the pain went away it would be like dying. And if I tried to go back to the way I was before, I don't think I could stand it. So if that's not real, then just fucking kill me right now."

  He finally looked up at me and saw me watching him, and he held my eyes, drawing me in, and it almost felt like drowning.

  "If this isn't real," he whispered, "I'm better off with your knife in my chest. Yes, I'd marry you, a million times, over and over again. I'd do anything to make you happy. Or to just take some of your pain away. You think I'm important to you? You're the center of my fucking universe. You're the sun, Frankie. And fuck the rest of the world, because I got to look at the sun every day, I got to touch her and hold her and make her laugh. If you don't think I see you, you're not paying attention. Because I don't see anything else."

  "I'm so tired," I said, and my voice was so soft and weak that I didn't recognize it. "It feels like I've been running since I was a little girl, Dekker. It feels like everyone I've ever met has been one thing on the surface and another thing underneath. I just killed my sister because whatever she was on the inside got all scrambled up. I killed her to save you. I told myself I was saving Esme, too, but that's not why I killed her. It was for a man that I thought I knew. I thought you were the only real thing, Dekker. I thought you were the beacon I was supposed to use to find my way."

  "I can be that," he said, and he did reach out and take my hands then. I grasped him tightly like I was holding on for my life. "I can tell you everything, Frankie. I can show you. After this, I'll take you, you can see my world. You can understand why all this happened, how I ended up here. Can we do that? We'll take a trip, to Chicago where it all began, and I'll show you everything. Give me that chance."

  I closed my eyes. "Yes," I said after a moment. "After this, if we're still alive, I'll go with you." I remembered my dream with Nyx, seeing Dekker in the backseat of the car, a horn piercing his heart.

  "Thank you," he said.

  I lay back on the bed, feeling as though I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.

  "Just lie beside me, Dekker," I said. "Hold me close and pretend everything is perfect."

  "Okay, Frankie."

  But it felt that I only closed my eyes for a second before rough hands were grabbing at me, afternoon sun streaming through the window into my face. There was shouting, the sounds of a fight, and then I was being shoved onto the floor on my stomach, something cold encircling my wrists.

  "Hey there," said a woman's voice. I could hear muffled yelling from next door. Dekker's face appeared next to mine, three cops in uniform on top of him.

  "Everything's perfect," Dekker said, letting the men handcuff him. "Try to be gentle, Frankie."

  And then Dekker was gone as the men lifted him up and practically carried him out of the room. There were other policemen outside, and I could hear voices shouting on the beach on the other side of the window. I looked up at the woman who was crouching beside me. It was the rumpled police detective I'd seen earlier, going into the pancake house after Abby Stromberg died.

  "I guess we have some things to talk about," said the detective.

  "How about this weather we're having?" I said.

  The detective nodded and I was pulled painfully to my feet, making me cry out.

  "Watch it," I said.

  “Go easy on Special Agent Peck," said the detective, then looked down at me. "I wouldn't want you to end up in the morgue. That's how we lost you last time."

  "I don't know what you're talking about." The detective followed behind as the men carried me by the arms down the stairs. There was an ambulance in the parking lot and Esme was strapped to a gurney. I could see Ron in the back of one of the four police cars, watching me helplessly.

  "Be careful with her," I shouted to the EMTs folding the legs of the gurney and sliding her into the back of the ambulance. "Where are you taking her?"

  "You drugged her good," said the detective. "We couldn't even wake her up."

  "You're lucky then," I said. "If you upset her, you're all dead."

  "Threats?" she said. "Very unbecoming."

  "You have no idea what you're doing," I said. "This is a mistake. No one needs to get hurt."

  "That's the plan," said the detective, opening the police car door for the men to shove me inside. The detective leaned against the open door and looked in at me. "No one else is going to get hurt because we've caught a gang of serial killers."

  "That's not even a thing," I said.

  She shut the door in my face, and I watched the ambulance drive away toward the hospital, siren blaring. I reached for the power inside me, but for once it was quiet. When I needed it, it wasn't there.

  I watched a police car blare away, and Dekker met my eyes from
the backseat. The detective was standing outside the car, laughing with her partner, a middle aged man with a paunch and gray hair. They both had paper cups of coffee. There was a thud on the front of the car and when I looked, the giant owl was staring in at me, even more terrifying in the light of day. It raised its enormous wings, as if angry. Its eyes glowed as it opened its beak and screeched, talons the size of paring knives cut into the paint on the hood of the car. Then, in a flash of dark feathers, something wrapped around its head. After a blur of movement, there were noises like a wet scream, and the owl, shaking off its attacker, flew jerkily into the air.

  "Holy shit," I said. The owl was gone, and my dead-eyed raven stood on the hood of the police car, red and blue lights reflecting off his white eyes. He had something round in his beak and he flapped his wings, hopping up and down. He dropped the circular object on the windshield and it sat, wetly cradled in the windshield wiper, glistening in the sun. Then he raised his wings again and took off into the air.

  I stared at the owl's eyeball for what seemed a long time. Then the detectives appeared behind it, seeming to examine it. The male detective met my gaze through the windshield and for a split second, he had a strange look on his face. He turned and walked toward another police car, but I recognized the look.

  He was absolutely terrified.

  "Welcome to the carnival, Detective," I said.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When I was a kid, I used to dream about flying. Going to sleep was the best part of my life back then. A lot of kids kick and scream and refuse to go to bed, but when my mom would give me that look that meant I was on her last nerve, I would offer to go to bed right away. Before the lake, before monsters, even before things got so bad between her and my dad, she was just a Bible-thumping wife of a hellfire preacher. And after a while, she stopped telling me to go to bed, because I would just do it on my own.

  Sleep hasn't come easy for me in a long time, but back then, I could close my eyes, and in an instant I’d be in my own little world. My favorite dreams were about standing in a field of wildflowers, wearing a long white dress. And I'd look at the sky and decide I wanted to go there, and suddenly I'd be soaring in the sapphire blue sky, my wings as white as my dress and unspoiled by stains or tears or scabby knees. In my dreams, I was perfect. In my dreams I was free. And I would fly until my mother shook me roughly awake every morning, growling at me to get up and say my prayers thanking God not taking me in the night. And I remember thinking that maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Maybe if I died, I could keep my wings and fly forever. I could fly until I got tired, and then I'd sleep with my wings wrapped around me, safe and warm and ready to fly some more when I woke up.

  Nodding off in the interrogation room, I remembered those dreams. And I remembered another dream, too. Ome the god of duality, his horrifying double faces, each with its own personality. He was holding a baby and she had wings down to the ground, black wings like a bat. Like a demon.

  Your sister thought you were an angel.

  I woke with a gasp, my face on my shackled arms, the detective closing the door behind her with an insincere smile. "Good afternoon, Agent Peck," she said. "I don't believe we've formally met. I'm Detective Morley."

  "I'd shake your hand," I said, blinking, "but you have me handcuffed to the table." I jangled the chains for good effect.

  "Sorry about that," she said, dropping the smile as she sat across from me, "but when we get people impersonating the FBI, it makes us understandably nervous."

  "Impersonating?" I said.

  Detective Morley leaned forward over a file thick with papers. "The thing is, we weren't even suspicious. You'd think that the chief would have had some bells going off, but given her circumstances, I'd lean towards compassion there. I'd also lean towards the fact that you kidnapped Chief Esme Petrussi from the hospital. Despite your claims that you had permission from the acting Chief, Ronald Weiss. We, of course, cannot corroborate that, as the acting chief seems to have been in on the whole thing. And another officer has just been found frozen solid on the fucking beach. Hank Willard was found right under your motel room window. Funny that."

  "Shouldn't you have your partner in here with you?"

  "He's busy," she said. "With Agent Tucker. Now, you'll need to clear some things up for me, Agent, if you don't mind."

  "Anything for a fellow peace officer," I said.

  "Now, now," she said. "Attitude won't get you out of here any faster. You were at Dixon's Pancake Restaurant when Abby Stromberg shot and killed Ellie Brooks, the waitress, and then took her own life."

  "Is that a question?"

  "I'm getting there," she said, opening up her file and sliding a photograph towards me. It was the aftermath in the pancake house – which was apparently called Dixon's Pancake Restaurant – blood pooled on the floor, brains splattered against a wall. The bodies had been removed, but she slid another photo toward me, this one with the corpses splayed out.

  "Still not hearing any questions,” I said.

  "We already know you were there, because we have your statement."

  "I was eating breakfast," I said.

  "With Agent Tucker."

  "Yes, and I have a lot of shit to do right now," I said. "So if you're accusing me of something, of orchestrating some kind of insane trap into which you all mysteriously fell, then please do it quickly."

  "What do you have to do?" she said, narrowing her eyes. "Did I mention that we logged your prints? As you know, when investigating a homicide, it's standard procedure to log all fingerprints. Even the police officers. Even the FBI agents."

  I swallowed hard, watching her. She was looking down at her papers again, which she held up to keep me from seeing what was coming next. She was in her late forties and it suited her. The fine lines under her eyes, across her forehead, etched into the edges of her mouth, all melded together into a competent, self-assured face, her watchful brown eyes surprised at every bit of information. Like Esme when we first met, she used a perceived innocence as a weapon, and it worked. I'd been interrogated by much scarier cops than her, and was feeling the panic inch up from my guts. I had to get out, had to get Esme out of the hospital before she hurt someone, or before the Mother found her again. I had to get back to the cottage where Abel was still tied up. The Mother should have come looking for me to fulfill my promise, and she hadn't. Which led me to believe that she had something far more terrible planned.

  "Fingerprints, really?" I said weakly.

  "You were at the fire that occurred at Bayside Pub, too, weren't you?" she said without looking up. She slid a picture of Will, blackened and charred, across the table.

  "It was ruled an accident," I said.

  "Yes, it was," she said, sliding another picture across the table. "However, the death of one Jerry Champlain was not an accident. If you can't tell from the picture, this lump right here is what's left of Mr. Champlain." She looked up and smiled a taut smile. "You can make out his weapon there, too, if you look closely."

  "I didn't make Will shoot Jerry, and I didn’t make Jerry go for Esme with a knife," I said. "And I didn't have anything to do with Abby Stromberg shooting that waitress, either."

  "Tragedy and death just seems to follow you, though, don't they, Dolores? May I call you Dolores? Or do you prefer Agent Mourning?"

  I nodded, watching her ruffling her papers once more. I looked up at the camera, a small red light blinking. I looked at my own reflection in the two-way glass behind Detective Morley.

  "So you know my name," I said. "I don't usually keep it a secret."

  "So why did you?" she said. "Your files, your badge, all the identification and paper trail, they all add up to an impeccable job of fabricating an entire person. I don't think you managed that on your own, it's not your style."

  "Style?" I said. "And what, exactly, do you think my style is?"

  "Frances Mourning, the Vigilante Killer," she said, looking triumphant, flipping pictures at me like a crazy card dealer, photographs o
f crime scenes sliding all around me, landing in front of me, on my lap, on the floor. She was still dealing her cards, flipping the pictures at me, and all the while, she was watching me, a satisfied, smug expression on her face.

  “I preferred the Hillbilly Hellion," I said, "but it's a personal choice."

  "Kurt Garrett, known pedophile. Franklin Deschute, a pimp known for exploiting young girls. Philip Carlisle, a man we suspected in a series of murders in Indiana. Jimmy Wayne Frasier, released from questioning for the deaths of a half dozen prostitutes. Father Brian Jackson, a dirtbag who liked young boys and who, it was found after his death, had several of his victims sitting in a deep freeze. I guess he thought he might get hungry later. You lashed him to the cross in the pulpit of his church and filled all the sacramental chalices with his blood."

  "None of those names ring a bell," I said, without looking at the pictures.

  "They don't, huh?" she said. "Then she plucked a photograph out of the dwindling pile and, ever so gently, laid it in front of me. "What about this one?"

  I looked down at the picture and blinked down at it.

  "How about that?" she said. "Does this one ring a bell?"

  The picture may as well have been in black and white, because the face in the picture was so pale that it looked like it was covered in white paint, the lips gray, hair washed out blonde. The top of an autopsy incision was just visible. Detective Morley, not unkindly, slid another picture over the first, watching me. It was a full shot of my body on the slab. My dead body, naked and cut open and stitched back up again. My eyes were open, a fishy film across them.

  "I want a lawyer," I said softly.

  "Do you?" Morley said. "Do you really want a lawyer, Miss Mourning? Frankie?" Then she slapped down a picture, this one actually was in black and white. She followed it with three more. Slap, slap, slap.

  "Oh," I said. There was nothing else to say.

  "This is your hometown, Helmsville, isn't it, Frankie? Did you go back? Again?"