Does it intend to just keep going onward until the end of time? Is it going to just keep killing, keep murdering, keep sowing chaos and sorrow? What kind of existence is that? I look at all of the faces and wonder what it’s been doing all this time. Where has it come from? Why has it come to this place of all places? I shake my head. There’s no way of protecting people from this thing unless we all agree to stop hugging, kissing, shaking hands, bumping into each other, or any other form of contact for the next year or so. I’m sure whoever the demon is possessing at the time couldn’t last that long. I mean, I don’t think this thing has gone more than a day inside of a host before killing it. This thing could really just end up dying on its own if that’s the case. I look at the faces. If I could get this bastard alone, boxed inside of its host, I really might be able to just end it.
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I walk across the deep blue of the dawn light illuminating the parking lot. I look up at the sky, wondering if I should move somewhere cloudy and rainy. I could probably number the days of rain that I’ve seen under one hundred. I miss rain. It would definitely fit my mood right now, my paranoia and sorrow. I pass under the yellow line while citizens fire off questions at me like what’s happened, who the killer is, if I know anything. I ignore all of them, shoving past them, wondering if the demon is in me right now, thanks to them not getting out of the way. Would I even know? Did any of these people know? I blink a couple of times, stopping and thinking about David Marcus. He definitely knew. He definitely did there at the end.
I get back to my car and sit down in the leather seats, leaning my head back on the rest, trying to think of what to do next. I should head over to Parker High. That thing is inevitably going to end up there. This guy tended to use cash wherever he went, but I might be able to get Lola to do a search on his financial records now that he’s dead and part of an investigation. I’m sure that wouldn’t have held her up anyways. She’s some kind of prodigy or savant with computer type stuff. I look at my phone in the cup holder. I wonder if anyone has tried contacting me since I went in there and saw the seared Damian Sullivan on the grill. Scooping it up, I see that I’ve missed a call and that there’s a voicemail.
It’s from Kelly. I put the phone to my ear and listen for the voicemail. As I listen, it goes through the usual stupid information that I don’t care about. Finally, it gets to her and I listen to my daughter’s voice, recognizing it, but it still sounds so damn strange. I can’t believe that this is my little girl’s voice. Deep inside of me, I feel the sting of regret and disappointment with myself.
“Hey, Steven, it’s Kelly,” she starts off, like I needed her to tell me who she is. “I just wanted you to know that I’ve decided to take a few days off of work to deal with Mom’s stuff. I went down to the coroner’s office and saw her. It was terrible, Steven.” She pauses, choking up. She’s strong though. I can hear her gaining her composure, getting everything under control. “I’ve made arrangements with a funeral home. The coroner’s office isn’t going to release her for a couple more days, but when they do, I’m going to have the funeral at the Lutheran Church. If you want to come, you can call me to get the details. It would be good to see you, Steven.” I pause and think about that statement. It gives me just a twinge of warmth and hope. I haven’t seen my daughter in so long. I would love to see her face again. I would love to see how she’s grown in my absence, to see who she’s become. “Anyway, I hope things are well with you. Have a nice day.” It’s so painfully formal and awkward that it makes me cringe, but what do I expect? I only abandoned her because her mother wasn’t putting out. I’m the kind of monster that you can only be formal and awkward with at the best of times.
Ending the call before the automated woman can tell me that I have a bunch of undeleted messages that are about to expire, I hold my phone in my lap and stare across the parking lot at the mob that I’ve left on the heels of White and Landsmen. I’m glad to hear that she’s taking a few days off of work, but I know that this isn’t going to throw the demon off. It’s going to know that she’s not there the moment its host makes its way through the school, hunting for her classroom. Once it knows that she’s missing, it’s going to just keep spreading until it gets to someone who is close to her. I wish I knew if she had a boyfriend or someone like that in her life. If she does, that’s who the demon will probably go for. It’ll go for anyone that’s close to her and it’ll end up killing them along the way, adding them to the corpses in its wake.
I decide that it’s time to check in with Mendez. It’s been a while and I know that he’s going to want to have a chat with me. Honestly, I’m surprised that he hasn’t pulled me yet. Whatever he’s waiting for, I’m sure he has a good excuse for it, but I feel like my head’s through the hole and I’m waiting for the guillotine to fall. I dial the number for dispatch and wait for a single ring before it’s answered.
“Dispatch, how may I direct your call?” An unfamiliar voice answers. I curse whoever it is, wishing that it was Penny.
“This is Detective King,” I give her my clearance number and wait for her affirmation. She gives it after a second. “I need to be connected with Chief Mendez.”
“One moment, please,” she says while the call is transferred. I hear the dialing and I know that she’s sent me through. I’m just hoping that she’s sent me through to Mendez and not someone else to intercept me. I don’t know why, but I’m terrified that the Chief is avoiding me, letting me dangle like bait before he sends his strike team in to bring an imaginary killer down.
“Mendez,” he answers finally, in his harsh tone of voice that conveys that he’s all business and doesn’t have time to mess around with a horse that should have been out to pasture long ago. He’s the kind of man always on the climb, trying to get to the highest possible rung that he can master. I’ve never truly respected Mendez, but his ability to climb has been impressive since he joined the force.
“It’s King,” I answer.
“King,” he repeats my name, as if it didn’t come through clearly or he wants to remind me of who I am. “I just got off the phone with White. Impressive work with ID-ing the victim. Mind shining some light on how you pulled that one off?”
“I bumped into him when I saw David Marcus end his life,” I answer. “The bartender was able to ID him for me. Unfortunately, I got to him after he decided to throw himself on the grill.”
“Speaking of David Marcus,” Mendez clears his throat. “You are an eyewitness in his suicide. I’m going to need you to type up an account of the events from your perspective. Not that you don’t already know this, but get it down on paper sooner rather than later. Witnesses at the bar told Landsmen that David apparently knew who you were. I thought you said you never met the guy.”
“I hadn’t,” I stick my keys in the ignition. “But there’s always the internet. He might have looked me up when I called him and questioned him about Kate. Either way, he knew who I was when I found him.”
“And what exactly were you doing at the bar?” Mendez puts the iron to my face.
“I was going to meet with Kelly,” I tell him the truth. “I thought she deserved to hear about her mother face to face. But David interrupted that before it could happen.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Yeah,” I grumble, turning the key and firing the engine up. “I want a patrol car outside of her house, in case this asshole comes looking for her. He’s made it pretty clear that he’s out to get the people close to me.”
“Absolutely,” Mendez replies. “I’ll put two of my best outside of her house. Anyone approaching the house will have to go through them.” I take a moment to realize that this will do absolutely nothing if the demon wants to get to her. It’ll just go talk to one of the officers, make them depressed and then have the officer go talk to Kelly, shake her hand before going and killing himself. There’s nothing that will stop this thing unless I kill the current host without them touching anyone. “The forensics lab and the CSI
lab have come back with absolutely nothing on the previous crime scenes. This killer is good. He’s keeping all fingerprints and DNA away from the scenes and off his victims. Honestly, they’re telling me that everything here is looking like it’s genuine suicide. This killer is probably the most terrifying thing that I’ve ever seen.”
“He’s definitely good at what he does,” I play along. I don’t want to give him any indication that I’m not tracking along with him, White, Landsmen, and whoever else they might have put on this assignment. I look across the parking lot at the swarm of people that are gathered around the yellow tape. This thing must know exactly what I look like, what I drive, and what my strategy must be. It thinks that it’s still ahead of me and has no clue that I’m closing in on it. I want to keep it that way. I don’t want to give it any kind of a hint or indication that I’m onto it. “Thanks for everything, Chief. I’ll keep you posted on anything that develops.”
“Keep safe out there, King,” he tells me before I hang up on him.
I don’t like lying to everyone around me, but sometimes it’s necessary. I need to get to Kelly or I need to get to the demon, either way, it’s time to act. I look over at the crime scene as the forensics team heads in with the coroner’s crew. They’re all in for a surprise. Hopefully they transport the body over to Whitman and give him something to do. Honestly, I don’t care about the dead anymore. I don’t need to know how they die. I don’t need to be told again and again that this is a very suspicious suicide. A dead body only means that the demon has moved on and that the fox has escaped once more, which means that the hunt is on. I get ready to toss the phone into the cup holder again.
It starts to ring. I look at it and see that Lola has finished with her assignment again. I can’t help but think about how this case seems bookended by Lolas. I flip the phone open and hold it to my ear, hitting ‘talk’. “King,” I answer.
“Steven,” Lola fires off excitedly, which means that she’s got something good for me. “So Damian Sullivan spent the night at a sort of teen club where he paid for a soda with a debit card. It wasn’t hard to find, but that’s the last place that he was before he died.”
“Give me the address.” I fish out a pen from my pocket and scribble down the address on a napkin in my passenger’s seat. Unsurprisingly, the address is near Parker High School. It’s not super close, it’s a few blocks away, but it’s close enough for me to suspect that Kelly’s going to have to wait. The demon has jumped to someone who is definitely going to be going to class soon. I look to the horizon and see the sun halfway over the horizon. This isn’t good. I’m going to need to hurry. “Alright, Lola. I’m going to head there right now. I’m hoping they have some sort of security system there.”
“I’m guessing so,” Lola answers. “It’s a club designed to keep teens from loitering at local businesses. If you get a whole bunch of teenagers together, then there’s bound to be trouble. That means they’re going to have some sort of video feed. If they’ve got video footage, shoot me a text and I’ll send someone over to get it.”
“You got it,” I tell her. “Just make sure you don’t touch anyone until I say so.”
“I’m not touching anyone even after you tell me it’s okay,” Lola shoots back at me. “I’m pretty sure that I’m going to need some serious therapy after all of this.”
“I’ll stop the bastard and then you can go back to touching people,” I tell her. “We’re going to find a way to stop this.”
“I hope you’re right,” she answers while I speed off, heading for the next twisted chapter in this investigation.
It doesn’t take long to make my way from the Gampton Inn to the teen club that looks like a warehouse that someone decided to make into a swanky dive for teenagers to loiter at until curfew. I don’t think it’s a half bad idea, I would just hate to work there. I park my car in the nearly empty parking lot, except for two other cars that I’m guessing belong to the manager and whoever is keeping an eye on the place before school gets out and they get flooded with hormone-laden, sex-crazed teens. I kill the engine and lock the doors while I walk across the cigarette-butt-covered parking lot, realizing I’m starving to death. I need to find something to eat soon.
I open the door and step into a club-like atmosphere that makes my skin crawl. This is nothing but a club that doesn’t sell alcohol. It’s just a faux dream for the kids to play with before they’re actually able to go to real clubs. I can’t help but think of the Office and back to Jenny before I knew that this was something supernatural and not just a killer on the prowl. I walk over to the bar where a sign behind it specifically states that there is no alcohol allowed on the premises. I look at the menu hanging above the bar where they have sodas, virgin forms of as many cocktails as they can make, Italian sodas, espressos, and a dozen other disgusting sounding drinks. There’s also pizzas, sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers, and salads that the clientele here could order. Behind the bar is a pretty boy that looks like he was spit out of the fifties with his wide collar and pompadour.
“You the manager?” I ask, flashing him my badge. The greaser looks at the badge and his eyes widen. No one ever expects to have a run in with the police when they go to work. I listen as music from thirty years ago echoes in the cavernous club setting.
“No,” he answers with a shaky voice. “I just work the grill and bar on the slow hours.”
“Is the manager in?” I ask him.
“No, it’s his day off,” he tells me. “Is there something I could help you with?”
“Maybe,” I shrug. “You got a pretty decent security system here?”
“I think so,” he says to me. “Enough that we can pick out the troublemakers. You work with vice? We’ve cut down on the drug trafficking since the Jesus freaks started taking an interest in this place, thank God, no pun intended.”
“No, I’m murder police,” I tell him, and watch as his eyes widen.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Sorry,” he then quickly apologizes. “Shit, I know that Chucky might want a warrant, but I’m in charge when he’s not here. You want to take a look, you can go on ahead and take a look. I’m not into keeping the law at bay. This place is supposed to keep kids out of trouble.”
“Thanks,” I say as he leads me back to where they keep the security databanks. I have no idea what they are. I look at them and the single monitor stacked on top of a card table that they probably bought at a thrift store. “You remember a bigger looking fellow here last night? He’s got the look of a Marine, a little baby-faced.”
“Definitely,” he nods before letting out a long yawn. “Excuse me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. If he was here late last night and here this early, I can only imagine how much that must wear on a guy. Hell, I don’t remember the last time I slept. “I need to see if he left with anyone.”
“Sure,” he nods. “He came in after eleven.” He rewinds the footage all the way back to the time stamp, and together the two of us watch the footage. He arrives around eleven-thirty with a girl that makes me want to get to know her a lot better. They hang out at a group with a few other girls and when he goes to buy a round of drinks, I watch him return to the table and chat for a little while longer. The blonde bombshell that he’s chatting with gets up and leaves the table. He starts chatting with another one of the girls at the table and then gets up to leave. “Hold on,” he says. “There’s a camera on the entrance. We might be able to see where he goes.” After a moment of switching cameras, the greaser looks at me with a very serious expression on his face. “Did this guy kill someone?”
“No,” I shake my head. “I just need to know who he might have been in contact with last.”
Sure enough, the camera on the entrance comes up and I watch as the guy heads to his truck. That’s when another girl steps into the frame. She’s stumbling around as if she’s had a little too much to drink. Damian Sullivan is halfway to his car when he turns around and makes his way back toward the girl, who is ap
proaching her car that’s parked right up front. I feel a cold knot stretching out and expanding inside of my stomach. That’s her. That’s where the demon is.
“We get a lot of drunk teens here,” Greaser explains to me. “They sneak in alcohol and spike the drinks. The church groups have made a pretty huge dent on them, but they’re still showing up every now and again.”
“Do you recognize her?” I ask him as he freezes on the pretty face of the young teenage girl that’s clearly drunk.
“Maybe,” he shrugs. “They all have the same style, you know? They sort of start to blend together unless they make themselves stand out.”
“I don’t know.” I look at him with a studious gaze. “She’s pretty attractive. You sure you don’t know who she is?” He’s silent for a moment and I relax, hoping that he’ll do the same. “Come on, I’m not going to put you on a sex offender registry if you’ve noticed a scantily-clad teen girl. Everyone does at the store or gas station. Do you know her?”
The greaser shrugs as I look at the picture of the girl, memorizing her face. “I think her name is Alice.”
Alice, I run the name over and over in my head. She’s a dead woman walking, but hopefully she’s the last one. Hopefully.
V
I wake up with one of the worst headaches I’ve had in a very long time. In fact, I quickly realize that this isn’t just a headache, but a full-blown hangover. I blink, looking up at the ceiling, wondering why it’s so chilly feeling. I stare at the fan circling lazily above me before looking down and seeing that I’m completely naked. I feel slightly stiff, but what really bothers me is that there’s crusty, dried sperm all over my stomach and vagina. I groan and try to remember what happened last night.
The Darkness Inside Us (A Detective King Suspense Thriller) (A Detective King Novel Book 3) Page 4