by Anne Frasier
The room continued to swirl as the intruders went to work posing the people slumped at the table. Iris didn’t participate in what they were doing. Instead, she looked away and began humming to herself once more.
Hours might have passed, or minutes. At some point, the leader pulled her to her feet and swept her into his arms as he began to dance with her again. She wanted to tell him to be careful, he’d get blood on him, but it was too late. When his hands touched hers, his gloves were finally soiled.
“There are only seven people.”
The dance came to a halt and the leader looked at the boy-man who’d spoken. “Are you sure?”
“We’ve gone through the whole house twice.”
“Seven.” The man with the white gloves frowned. “With all our careful planning, how did this happen?”
“We don’t know.”
The leader slowly turned back to Iris.
It took several beats for her to understand his intent.
She ran.
Through the house, up the stairs, to her old room. She slammed the door, locked it, and dove under the bed.
They were right behind her. The door crashed open. The lock meant nothing to them. A hand grabbed her leg. Another grabbed her arm and dragged her out.
From a neighbor’s house, a dog barked in alarm. Had she screamed? Yes. Maybe. Another dog took up the cry. One of the boy-men pushed the curtain aside with the barrel of his gun. “There’s a car out there.”
Tristan? Finally?
“We need to hurry,” someone said.
The doorbell rang.
Iris was lying on her back as they loomed over her. “Don’t. Please.” From downstairs came the sound of a lame and happy cell-phone ringtone that went on and on and on.
She put up a hand and a knife slashed her arm. Another cut her throat. Looming above her, they were a jumbled snarling pack, and it was impossible to know which one of them had served up her death.
CHAPTER 31
Jude was lying on the couch, Roof Cat curled up on a pillow near her head, the sound of his purring hypnotic and soothing as she stared at the ornate light fixture on the ceiling. She should be sleeping, but this passive meditation was better, and certainly better than the nightmares sleep brought. She felt relaxed, and it was a state she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Her cell phone vibrated on the coffee table. Not taking her eyes from the ceiling, she reached blindly for the device, held it in front of her face, saw Uriah’s name. Her body tensed, and relaxation vanished. Without answering, she continued to stare at the device. The tone stopped. Moments later, a voicemail banner scrolled across the screen.
After some hesitation, she listened to it.
“There’s been another massacre.”
Her reaction was to stroke the cat and aim her eyes back at the light fixture as Uriah’s voice continued to fill her in. This one was different from the last two because it was in an occupied home in a wealthy area of town. He told her the names of the homeowners. She recognized them. Vincent and Meredith Roth. Vincent Roth was a real-estate investor her father had hung around with. That told her everything she needed to know about him.
“First responders are saying it’s much worse than the last one. Not sure how that can be possible. And Jude? There are eight bodies.”
She sat up. The cat slipped from the pillow and let out a small protest before jumping to the floor with a thud and sauntering to his food. Since his return, he’d been cocky and even friendly, enough for her to quit feeling sorry for keeping him captive.
Standing, Jude entered the address Uriah had given her into the map app on her phone. Her hands shook, but she ignored them as she memorized the location. Done, she tucked her phone away, pulled on her boots, laced them, strapped her gun belt around her waist, stuck her badge in the pocket of her black sweatshirt, and headed for the door.
And then she had a thought. What if she didn’t go? Uriah had no way of knowing she’d listened to his voicemail. She could pretend it hadn’t happened. Pretend she hadn’t gotten it.
Music was coming from Elliot’s place. She locked her door and went down the stairs, pausing at his apartment to listen. She pictured him in there, living his life, his simple life, which didn’t involve murders.
With no conscious understanding of her motives, she knocked.
Moments later the door opened and the music grew louder. He looked surprised to see her. “Your cat isn’t gone again, is he?”
“No. And thanks again for everything. The flyers. Finding him.”
“I’m pretty sure you would have found him without my help, since he was on the roof.” He smiled. “And when you consider his name . . .”
“Yeah, but still. You helped. You didn’t have to.”
“Glad to do it.”
She was sorry she’d been mean to him. She hadn’t been interested in whatever he wanted from her. Friendship, sex buddy, possible relationship. None of those things were her anymore.
He took a step back and she could see his black cat sitting on the couch, one leg pointed toward the ceiling as he groomed himself.
“You busy?” he asked. “Wanna come in?”
He was barefoot, wearing a torn pair of faded jeans and one of the flannel shirts he seemed to like, this one blue. He smelled like soap and shampoo, and his hair was damp. Behind him, the coffee table was strewn with schoolbooks tagged with yellow labels on the spines that said Used. Purchased at the campus store. Completing the student persona were an open laptop and a backpack. Next to the books was a Canon camera that looked fancy and expensive. But the strap looked less serious—it was black with white peace signs.
She remembered those days when all you had to think about was class. When you could fall into that insular world and stay there. Until this moment, she hadn’t missed her old life and her old self with such deep longing, not really. But standing in Elliot’s apartment, she felt a strong wave of loss and nostalgia for what had been taken from her. Not just a life, but her. The old Jude. The one who laughed and told jokes, and even sometimes had casual sex.
Instead of trying to ignore the person she used to be, instead of trying to forget she’d existed, maybe she should try to be her again. Fake it till you make it. If she tried hard enough to imitate her old self, maybe her old self would become her new self.
In her pocket, her phone vibrated. She ignored it, stepped inside Elliot’s apartment, and closed the door behind her.
He turned down the music. “Want something to drink? Beer? Water? That’s about all I have.”
His apartment was the opposite of Uriah’s. Her partner had created his own world with vintage furniture, antique rugs and light fixtures, floor-to-ceiling walls of collectable books inside a sterile apartment complex. This was sparse. Almost monastic. Or maybe more like Elliot hadn’t committed to living in the space, knowing it was temporary. Which made perfect sense. He was a student.
Elliot’s apartment was the same size as hers. Just a living area, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and only one window. At first, when she’d escaped her captivity, she couldn’t stand to be inside and she’d slept on the roof, the roof being the reason she’d chosen this apartment complex, and it was how she’d met Roof Cat. But as time had passed, open spaces began to make her uneasy, and she found herself craving confinement.
“A beer would be nice.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. Saw she had another message from Uriah. Put her phone away.
“I would have baked some Oreos if I’d known you were coming,” he said, returning with a beer he handed to her.
She took a drink from the bottle, then looked at the label. A brand you could only get in Wisconsin. “I think there really are recipes for imitation Oreos.”
“You might be thinking of whoopie pies.”
“Maybe.” Her phone vibrated again. She ignored it and took another drink. And another. It didn’t take long for her to feel a little buzzed, because she rarely drank and she couldn’t remember when
she’d last eaten.
Elliot sat down on the couch. She could see her presence was puzzling him but he was being a good sport about it. Coming to an abrupt decision, she placed her bottle on the coffee table and said, “You know what?” She nodded, pleased with herself. “I’ll have sex with you.” A shrug let him know she didn’t expect anything beyond the act. No cuddling. No pillow talk. No uncomfortable encounters in the hall later.
He laughed, then saw she was serious. “Hey, whoa.” He put up his hands and leaned into the couch cushions as if to put more distance between them.
She felt the weight of her gun on her hip. “Don’t worry about this. Here, I’ll take it off.” She reached for her belt buckle.
“It’s not that. Well, yeah, I mean—” He jumped to his feet. “There’s the gun, but—”
“I thought you—”
“No, no, no!” His denial was rapid-fire. No room for doubt there. Not even interest. Not even Maybe someday.
A flush rose in her face. “Well, this is embarrassing. And inexcusable. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Not a big deal.” He smiled crookedly, trying to make light of an awkward situation. “It’s flattering. Really.”
“What do you want, then? I need to know. It would help me process this and any future possible sexual encounters.” Like someone testing water, she stirred the air space between them.
“Not everybody wants something. I keep telling you that.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to.”
So much for her superpower. Just because she’d learned to read one man didn’t mean she could read them all. And yet this guy . . . Something was off . . . “I have to go.” Too mortified to look at him any longer, she left his apartment, ignoring his weak attempt to talk her into staying. In the hallway, she stopped to check the voicemails she hadn’t yet listened to.
“I’m on my way to the scene. I’ve been told it’s bad, but I know you can handle it. You handled the last one better than everybody else.” The next message asked where she was. The third one began to sound alarmed. “Call me when you get this.”
It was almost as if Uriah didn’t want to go to the scene without her. Like he needed her there.
She stuck her phone back in her pocket and took the stairs to the parking garage, straddled her bike, started it, then hit the “Open” button on her key chain. The garage door groaned and inched its way upward. She shifted with her foot and let out the hand clutch. The bike leapt over the incline and into the street.
She didn’t go to the crime scene. Instead, still in need of a reset or diversion, she took a route that would take her down a familiar street to a familiar house. Once there, she’d hopefully feel safe, at least for a while.
CHAPTER 32
If a person’s footsteps could transmit dread, Uriah’s were doing just that. He’d parked his car far from the lights that flashed silently against the city skyline. Hands deep in the pockets of his long coat, he walked with his face down, hoping the darkness would keep him hidden from the media. At one point, he paused under the deeper shadows of a tree, pulled out his phone, and tried Jude one more time.
She didn’t answer.
His inability to contact her was alarming, because she had no home life, and if she didn’t pick up, she always called him back within minutes. Under any other circumstances he’d drive straight to her apartment to check on her, but he was needed at the crime scene. He left another message while trying to ignore the throbbing in his head.
The responders around him seemed to be moving in slow motion, some coming, some going, all silent and quiet, their thoughts internal as they tried to cope with what they’d seen or been told about. The nearer he got to the house, the more surreal the setting felt as cops wordlessly strung yellow crime-scene tape and news teams set up in prime locations, not proud of their accomplishment for once and maybe even regretting their haste to arrive.
A few reporters recognized him, but none tried to approach. And it came to him that this felt like a funeral. Everything was hushed. Even the footfalls were muted by the leaves that covered the sidewalks.
Uriah wasn’t an angry detective. He sometimes worried that his lack of anger was a weakness. Sometimes getting mad, getting really pissed, was a form of protection. Anger gave your thoughts a solid focus, a diversion from things that were too hard to look at with unfiltered eyes.
The sidewalk to the front door was wide, the steps flanked by concrete urns containing some kind of purple plants that looked like cabbage, along with the mums people liked to plant in the fall. He thought about how they didn’t smell like flowers, but more like earth and the moss that grew in the forests along Lake Superior. His mother said mums were a waste of flower space since they didn’t bloom until late fall. He just remembered that. A conversation that had taken place when he was a kid. He supposed that memory would now be replaced with a new one, of this night and the horrors he hadn’t yet seen but knew were coming.
He was met near the door by a first responder. “Officers are having a hard time here.” She was pale, her voice shook, and she was shivering. From where he stood, he could see two officers doubled over, throwing up into unused evidence bags they clutched in both hands.
“Any sign of forced entry?” Uriah asked.
She tried to say something, then just shook her head.
Which might or might not indicate that the occupants knew their assailants. “Take a breath,” he said softly.
She did. After a pause, she was able to speak. “We have people canvassing nearby houses and taking statements. The neighborhood is in lockdown. Residents have been alerted and told to stay inside.”
“Who reported it?”
“A guy named Tristan Greer.” The relaying of straightforward information seemed to calm her a little more. She knew how to do this part.
“Greer?” He recognized the name.
“Son of the couple inside, Declan and Blythe Greer. Says he was invited to dinner, was running late, and when he got out of his car, he heard someone scream. Tried to call both of his parents, who were inside. No answer from either of them even though their car was parked in front of the house. He called 911.”
“Security system?” Uriah asked. A house like this would likely have a good one.
“Got people looking into that right now.” She pulled in another deep breath, and her next words were free of trembling. “There are cameras at the front and back doors, but they were blacked out with paint. We’re hoping one of them picked up something beforehand.”
“Good work.” Uriah gave her a nod and made his way inside.
The interior of the building was a hive of controlled chaos. Eight bodies to process required a lot of manpower. A coroner was on site, along with an ME, two night-shift detectives, the BCA, and Homicide’s own crime-scene specialists.
“In there.” An officer jerked his head, indicating that Uriah should step out of the foyer and into a dining room.
Uriah entered the space and people moved back. He didn’t look at anybody, but he felt their eyes on him and sensed their expectation of his reaction. He was only slightly aware of the stillness of his stance as he took everything in.
The place was brightly lit—blinding, really. He fought the urge to slap a wall switch and turn off at least some of the lights. This was not the kind of thing you wanted brutally exposed.
He wished he had anger in him. He could use that anger now.
What he had, what was washing over him, drowning him, was a grief so deep and so painful he didn’t know what to do with it other than lay it aside. Just find a chair that wasn’t soaked in blood and put his grief down there.
He remembered this feeling. From when his wife died.
He’d felt responsible. He should have been able to stop it. Should have seen it coming. In this case, he should have figured out who was doing this and stopped them by now, locked them up, done whatever had to be done before they stru
ck again.
His fault.
“It doesn’t look real, does it?” someone said.
Uriah agreed. “Just what I was thinking.”
The dining-room scene was like something out of a B movie, the images so horrific that the mind rejected them while trying to explain them away as something fake.
Where was Jude? Not that she could make it any less unspeakable, but she’d bring a practicality he needed right now. With a sense of panic, he looked around, not at the bodies, but at the room, searching for exits, searching for a place to run and maybe hide. He, a grown man. Not only a grown man, but the head of Homicide.
He didn’t run.
They were all going to need some serious therapy after this. All of them. Every person who’d stepped into this room. And with that realization, he found himself thinking that maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t been able to reach Jude. Maybe she shouldn’t see this.
“We don’t even know where to start.”
It took him a moment to realize someone was standing a few feet away. One of the crime-scene team members, waiting for instructions, his eyes large, that familiar telltale sheen of perspiration on his face.
Uriah wiped at his own upper lip with the back of a hand. Someone gave him a pair of latex gloves. He took them and watched himself snap them on. He was going to have to make eye contact at some point. Then, oddly, he felt a hand on his arm. “Eight bodies?” a familiar voice asked.
Jude. Solid and dependable Jude. And she was actually touching him. He wasn’t sure if she’d ever touched him other than by accident or task—like the time she’d helped him home when he was too drunk to get there under his own power. When he finally looked up, he saw the compassion in her face and it almost undid him. He swallowed, and they both nodded in silent communication. “Five here, two in the kitchen, one upstairs.” They could get through this. They would get through it. Her hand was still on his arm as she said, “I’m here now.” So level. So together.