Dark Places

by Linda Ladd

  It didn’t take long for Gabriel to open the door and admit them. He grinned at Uriel, and Uriel could tell Gabriel was pleased that Uriel was willing to sacrifice his true love for their secrets. He invited them inside, and Gabriel took the girl’s hand and kissed the back of it, as if he was very glad to see her. He asked her how she liked her job at the school and told her how pleased he was to finally meet the girl that Uriel loved so much. He turned her away from Uriel and pointed out some of his artwork so that Uriel could strike her from behind when she wasn’t expecting it, just like they’d planned.

  Uriel clamped his jaw. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to. He wasn’t sure he could. Oh lord, how could he? He looked around for something heavy to wield. He picked up the heaviest object he could find and crept up behind Gabriel and the girl. He raised it high in the air and brought it down as hard as he could. Then he fell to his knees and wept with horror and remorse at what he had been forced to do.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  By the time I reached Cedar Bend with Jules Verne, my headache had worked itself into a frenzy of sharp, shooting pains and throbbing temples. I felt exhausted. Hell, I was exhausted. I wished that Black was home but he was in New York, for at least three days, more if he got snowed in. I guess the guy’s become a habit, after all.

  His personal security guard, a six-foot-six giant of a man by the name of Jerry Presson, saluted me as if I had on Queen Elizabeth’s fancy jeweled crown, so I wished him a subdued happy New Year and cuddled poor, shivering Jules Verne on the elevator’s quiet swoop up to Black’s palatial crib.

  The place was pretty much pitch black and silent so I snapped on this fancy chrome-and-glass lamp in the hallway near the elevator. I hadn’t been here often without Black, and the sprawling penthouse seemed lonely and strange in all its black-and-tan glory; even the whisper-footed staff had faded into the woodwork. Or maybe Black had given them New Year’s Day off. He was pretty good about stuff like that.

  More important, the penthouse was spider/rattler free, and that was a mighty big plus in my book. Nonetheless I checked the shiny cherrywood floors and listened for the skitter and rattle of scorpions, and whatnot.

  I was too sleep deprived to worry long, but I checked out every nook and cranny in Black’s huge, ultramasculine bedroom, threw off the sheets and shook them like I was trying to kill them, and armed myself with a small can of Raid I found under the kitchen sink. Finally, Jules Verne and I slipped between varmint-free smooth black satin sheets together and gave it up.

  The nightmares began at once, an extension of my life, I guess. I dreamed that Black was a huge, hairy brown recluse with his handsome face smiling and winking at me, and Bud was a snake with six arms that had rattles for fingers that kept grabbing at me. I was a field mouse trying to get away from them but instead ran straight into a huge, sticky white web that Joe McKay had spun high in the trees behind his farmhouse. He was sitting in his four-wheeler in the middle of that gigantic web, grinning and dimpled up, with a little kid wrapped in silk wiggling in the web beside him. A midnight snack, no doubt.

  I awoke with a start and found myself drenched in sweat. I was more frightened by McKay’s deadly methods than I’d realized, which really ticked me off. I was pretty shook up and couldn’t get a hold on it. Everything was so damn awful, so insane, downright scary even. That’s right, I am scared, and I don’t like it. So is Jules Verne. He is whimpering and burrowing deep under the covers. Must have had the same dream as me. After all Jules had been through, Black was going to have to invest in a canine shrink.

  I raised up on one elbow, snatched my cell phone off the bedside table and punched in the hospital’s number. Bud’s nurse said he was doing better but had a long way to go. Then I called the department and found no one had picked up McKay during the night. The autopsies on the new victims wouldn’t start until mid-afternoon so I got out of bed, showered, dressed, and strapped on all my guns and wished I had more than just two. I stuck some extra ammo clips in my pockets in case I got to unload on McKay, slipped into my parka and shoved my trusty can of Raid in my other pocket, just in case. Suddenly that miniature aerosol can was my bestest, most trusted friend. The “Mexican Hat Dance” erupted in the quiet room, and I grabbed my cell phone.

  Black said, “Where are you?”

  “At your place. I found a couple of unwelcome home presents at my house.”

  “Oh my God. What?”

  “Just a cobweb-coated squirrel in a plastic bag so I’d think it was Jules Verne. It scared the hell out of me, let me tell you, but don’t worry, Jules’s fine.”

  “Goddamn him.”

  “We can only hope. Oh, yes. McKay taped up Jules but didn’t sic any spiders on him, so I guess down deep he’s an animal lover. Too bad Simon Classon wasn’t a Pekingese. Oh, yeah, I forgot, he put a bunch of brown recluses in my tub, too, so I decided to skip my bubble bath today.” My attempt at glib was definitely not coming off. Actually, it sounded more like I was trying to break all my teeth off at the gums. I wouldn’t have laughed at me, either. I sounded creeped out, because I was creeped out. Soon it appeared that Black was creeped out, too.

  “Don’t go back there, Claire. I mean it. Don’t do it. And that’s it, I’m out of here, to hell with this consultation. They’ll have to handle it without me. He’s getting too close, and his warnings more deadly. I don’t understand why he’s continuing with it. He’s got to know you’re not scaring off. And it doesn’t seem like he’s really trying to hurt you, just trying to warn you off.” He finished his comments with a couple of rather creative obscenities, some of which I’d never heard him utter aloud but that I’d been thinking lately, too, then he asked, “How’s Bud?”

  “Better, but not good. No sign of Joe McKay yet but we’ve got every officer in the state looking for him.”

  Another rather unique curse, one with French Cajun overtones from his Louisiana youth, I suppose. “Yeah, and I better warn you, Claire, the media’s picked up on Classon’s murder. They’re calling the guy Spiderman.”

  “Oh, crap.” I hadn’t even thought about the media jackals, figured they were too busy with blizzard updates and keeping their heads warm without messing up their hair. I walked to the windows in search of satellite trucks. None had mushroomed up during the night. Not yet.

  Black was still asking me questions. “What about the victims in the woods? Any IDs?”

  “Buck thinks one is a young girl, teenager, maybe. The body’s too decomposed to be a recent kill.”

  “Claire, this is not good. This is too morbid. This guy’s been killing for years and getting away with it.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get him.”

  “Don’t you mean we? As in the rest of the department?”

  “Sure. That’s what I meant.”

  “Don’t go after him alone, Claire. Promise me.”

  “I can’t go after him. I don’t know where he is.”

  “If the weather holds, I can be back by tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “Great. And, Black, you better call that exterminator again. He might want to give my bathtub another spritz or two.”

  “Just stay away from your place. No use taking chances.”

  I was only too pleased to agree. Not that I thought McKay would show up there again. He was hiding out in some dark hole, waiting, biding his time, like one of his goddamned spiders.

  “Listen to me, Claire, you’ve got to be more careful. Don’t do anything reckless.”

  “Who, me?”

  Dead silence. I could almost see his teeth clamping. “This guy’s dangerous as hell, and he’s got it out for you.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. Somebody targeting me and my friends. Imagine.” I shut my eyes and remembered last summer and last year and all the years of my past when the people around me died because somebody hated me.

  “This time’s different. He’s not targeting your friends. He’s targeting you. They’re just getting in the way.”
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br />   “Now that makes me feel better.”

  “None of this is your fault. Remember how we talked this out. It’s him doing this, and him alone.”

  “I thought it was over.”

  “This is different than before. This guy’s after you because you’re on to him.” I said nothing so he said, “How does this make you feel?”

  There you go, psychiatrist mode kicking in. But he’d helped me before so I played along. “How do you think I feel?”

  “I think you’ll blame yourself and pull away from people who care about you.”

  “Right, and funniest thing, that saves the lives of people around me.”

  “Remember our sessions. This is not your fault. You’ve got a dangerous job, and sometimes bad things happen to people in law enforcement.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t like the way you said that.”

  “Right.”

  “For God’s sake, Claire, listen to what I’m saying! Don’t go off and try to prove something.”

  “Right.”

  Black fell silent, except for a highly exasperated sigh. He usually didn’t react when I badgered him. Guess I need to be civil. And he was right, of course, and I knew it.

  “I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m heading out to the crime scene now. About fifty officers are out there sweeping the woods, who can babysit me. Anyway, I’ve got my Glock and new .38 snub-nosed, all snug in their beds and ready to blow away anything that moves.”

  “Just so you don’t play Rambo.”

  “You’re no fun anymore, Black.”

  “You’re getting on my nerves.”

  “Well, everybody’s got to have a hobby.”

  He laughed but he definitely was not amused. “I shouldn’t have left.”

  “Get off it, Black, I’m a big girl, remember? A real, live, experienced police officer, trained and everything. I’ve even slapped a few criminals behind bars. Give me a break with the gloom and doom.”

  “Right.”

  I smiled. “See you when I see you. Stop worrying and take care of your patients. No sense rushing back here, just because I’m in deadly danger from a deranged arachnicidal maniac.”

  “Be careful. Duck and weave, et cetera, you know the drill.”

  “Right. Ditto.”

  “Are you wearing your Saint Michael’s medallion?”

  “I never take it off.”

  “Well, don’t. I’m superstitious.”

  We hung up, and for some reason all his dire warnings made me feel better. Loved, even, maybe. I zipped up my parka and left Jules Verne nervous as hell and tiptoeing around and avoiding highly dimpled men toting black trash bags. I checked out my Explorer inch by inch, then sprayed Raid under the seats, much to the naive amusement of Mike, the burly security guard. Obviously, he had never seen a Egyptian fat-tailed scorpion.

  Outside, it was sunny, bright, and a little warmer, which had probably been met with cheers and whoops of joy at the crime scene. When I got back to McKay’s little farm of horrors, four SUVs and the county crime scene van were still there. I checked out the house, where Buck’s team was dusting for fingerprints and looking for blood spatter, without much luck. Shag was squirting around with a spray bottle of Luminol to see if McKay had washed up any gore nice and tidy-like.

  I got back in my Explorer and jounced my way across the back field. I could still see the wide tracks Black and I had made in the Humvee. I could also see that all the bodies were now down and had been transported to the medical examiner’s office for autopsy. Buckeye Boyd was still on scene, still shaking his head, still chain-smoking. I wondered how many packs of Marlboros he’d gone through. I wondered if I should start smoking. Maybe it’d calm my nerves.

  “Hey, Buck. You been here all night?”

  He nodded and flicked the butt to the ground. It hissed when it hit the snow. “Yeah, I supervised retrieval. But I’m done. I’m going home, get some shut-eye, then I’ll start the autopsies.”

  “Any kind of IDs on the bodies?”

  “Nope. Most of them were nude, nothing we could trace.”

  “Think one might be that lady janitor that took off without telling anybody?”

  Buckeye shrugged. “Looks like the perp had a field day, really ran the gamut, Claire, I mean, men, women, children. It’s sickening, surreal. Like, I mean, where’s David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson? I keep expecting them to show up any minute, coats open and flapping.”

  Buckeye was a big fan of X-Files reruns.

  The wind shivered through the tree branches. A branch cracked and fell in a shower of snow. I pulled up my hood and stared at the frayed ropes still dangling where the killer tied the victims off under the arms. They swirled in the wind like hair on a corpse.

  “I think I’ll take a look around, Buck. How about letting me use that four-wheeler over there?” I pointed at the small off-road vehicle parked about twenty feet away.

  “Sure. The state guys used it to search the perimeter. When you get done, leave it where you found it. They’re picking it up later.”

  I climbed on, got the thing going and roared along the tree line just outside the yellow crime-scene tape. I slowed and surveyed the tree trunks marked with the yellow tape, the ones in which the bodies had been hoisted.

  When I reached the back of the kill site, I shut down the four-wheeler. Silence dropped like a heavy shroud, and then I heard the distant voices of the criminalists wrapping up their work at the scene. The scent of pine surrounded me, mixed in with gasoline fumes emitted by the four-wheeler. I searched the ground. Lots of footprints everywhere, and I mean lots. Teams of investigators had tramped around throughout the night, trying to find something. It looked like smaller groups, two and threes, spread out through the woods, searching, searching.

  I was looking for McKay’s four-wheeler tracks, and when I found them, the disruption of the snow looked like my colleagues had already checked it out. I climbed on the four-wheeler and followed McKay’s trail about a mile due north to a steep rock outcropping. The tread marks led into a small stream that was frozen along both banks. Water trickled down the middle of the bed, plenty wide enough for McKay to ride through in a four-wheeler.

  I hunkered down at the edge of the stream and then walked the bank about thirty yards in each direction. There were lots of bushes and trees growing along the opposite shore at the base of the cliff, all mounded with snow but with no exit point that I could see where McKay could have left the stream. There were no tire tracks on the sandy bottom that I could detect. My gut told me the rippling water had already erased them.

  Trampling footprints led me up a high hill behind the stream. I drove my four-wheeler to the top of the ridge and stopped. I could see a ramshackle building down below. It looked like an old motel. Out here in the middle of nowhere? An old hunting lodge, maybe. I followed the swath of disrupted snow down the hill atop knee-deep drifts. I managed to keep the four-wheeler upright and approached the dilapidated building, which was inundated with footprints of investigating officers. I shut off the ignition and dismounted at one end of the structure. I could hear the stream, wider and faster here, splashing over rocks in its rush to the lake.

  Snow looked like surging ocean waves against the north side of the lodge, but the sun had melted a lot of it off the south side. I spent some time searching for tire tracks in the icy mud in case McKay had left the streambed in this vicinity. It looked like the other investigators had, too. McKay could not disappear off the face of the earth. If he’d left a track, I was going to find it.

  I stomped packed snow off my boot treads and turned my attention to the lodge itself. One end had been burned to the ground, maybe two or three rooms deep. The remaining rooms were practically destroyed by wind and weather. I found roof cave-ins, broken-out windows, and missing doors. Empty beer bottles and soda cans and dead leaves everywhere. One room had discarded drug syringes and graffiti scribbled on the walls. It looked like someone had riddled the walls with
bullet holes, and there was a scorched place on the floor. The place had been used by junkies, all right. An excellent place to shoot up. An even better hunting ground for a psycho after human prey. I wondered if the kids who drank and partied and drowsed in heroin dreams and who left broken bottles and cups littering the ground were in the trash bags we’d found swinging in the trees just over the hill.

  I walked from room to room looking for names scrawled on the walls. Maybe it would help us identify victims. And I found plenty, calling cards of human quarry, kids that were young, reckless, experimenting with drugs and alcohol while their parents worried at home.

  Brandi luvs Tommy. Bobcats Rock. Tell mom I’m sorry. Heather and Jimmy. Friends 4 Ever. LYLAS, Kimberly S.

  LYLAS meant Love you like a sister. I’d seen other girls write the same thing in their junior high notebooks. I was never in one school long enough for anyone to write that about me. Once I even made up some names of friends in case anybody looked at my notebook, which is pretty damn pathetic but it seemed a good idea at the time. I jotted down the names in my notepad to match up with missing persons. Maybe I’d get lucky.

  The room on the end looked like a boiler room. Trash everywhere, sodden cardboard boxes, beer cans, plastic grocery sacks, rotted leaves and branches. It was filthy, but the roof was completely intact, making it darker inside than the other rooms. There was no writing on the walls. No charred traces of bonfires on the floor.

  Suddenly claustrophobic, I walked outside and inhaled deeply, letting the fresh air cleanse my mind of the young people who’d frequented this hidden place in the woods and were now probably dead. Somehow I knew they had become McKay’s victims, too, just like Classon and Christie and Willie Vines. The sky was overcast again, gloomy, foreboding. I wondered when the weather gods were going to give us a break and move on to Alaska. Lake of the Ozarks had never seen a winter so severe. I wondered if Black’s pilot could make it in before another storm hit.