Maria and Bernie stood on the construction site’s foundation between two corpses, surrounded by uniformed officers and Crime Scene Unit members. The male corpse appeared bloated and discolored, the female broken and bloody.
“That’s Dawn Du Pre,” Maria said in a flat tone.
Bernie sipped his coffee. “What was she doing with Malachai?” They had identified the drug dealer through the driver’s license in his wallet.
“We know he was looking for her. Maybe she witnessed whatever happened to Edgar, and he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t talk.”
“Neither one of them is talking now.” Bernie gestured at the wire birdcage lying on its side. “What do you make of this?”
“I have no idea. It must be unrelated.”
“I’m sorry. I know they were your only leads.”
Maria looked at Dawn’s smashed remains. How strange that they had enjoyed dinner together less than a week ago, and now Dawn was dead and Edgar was missing. “No, I have one more.”
Laurel was feeding Edgar at the round table in her parlor when Jake entered with his arm in a sling.
“I bet no one ever lets me rent a car again.”
“He’s not eating much,” Laurel said.
“Maybe we should try steak. Edgar liked meat.”
“Ravens eat small mice. I’m sure he can handle some steak.”
“Stick him back in the cage for me, will you?”
“You should let me keep him here.” She eased Edgar into the cage. “At least you’ll know someone will always be here to watch him.”
Jake sat opposite her. “Maybe I’ll let you bird sit from time to time.”
“You know where to find me.”
Jake studied her oval-shaped face. So much mystery behind those eyes. “I did a little research on you.”
“You mean you’re investigating me?” She seemed amused.
“It’s what I do.”
“What did you discover?”
“Would you be surprised if I found anything?”
“Yes.”
“No birth date. No records of education, employment, or taxes. As far as the United States government is concerned, you don’t even exist. Whoever you are and whatever you’ve done, you’ve managed to cover your tracks completely.”
A trace of a smile appeared on her lips. “It’s what I do.”
Standing, he lifted Edgar’s cage from the table. “Maybe I’d like some references before I let you watch my bird.”
“I’m sure you’ll keep looking.”
“It’s what I do.”
Sitting at his desk, with Edgar hopping around getting his bearings, Jake turned the Afterlife disc, still smeared with Katrina’s lipstick, over in one hand. Laurel continued to press him to destroy it, but as long as there was a chance that information on the disc could lead to a solution to Edgar’s dilemma, he needed to hang on to it, regardless of the danger.
His intercom buzzed. “Detective Vasquez is here to see you.”
“Send her in, Carrie.”
He had been expecting this visit. Leaning back in his seat, he watched Maria enter. “Hi, Maria.”
Her eyes darted to the raven, which croaked at the sight of her and jumped onto the coffee table. “I didn’t know you had a pet.”
“Birds of a feather,” Jake said. Something about her expression told him that the raven had unnerved her.
“Prince Malachai is dead. So is Dawn. We found them together at a construction site near Dawn’s building.”
Jake controlled every muscle in his face, giving Maria nothing to read. “Did they kill each other?”
“It’s unlikely. His head was smashed in and her body broken into a hundred pieces.”
“Do you think whoever killed them is responsible for Edgar’s disappearance?”
“That’s a distinct possibility, isn’t it? The night Edgar disappeared, he and Dawn were both in her apartment. She came out; he didn’t. Then a Caucasian male in his early to midthirties ran out of the building and pulled a gun on the doorman. Where were you that night?”
Jake didn’t blink. “I checked into a hotel in New Jersey.”
“Only after the incident reported by the doorman. I checked your credit card activity.”
She’s good, Jake thought. “Am I a suspect in Edgar’s disappearance?”
“Let’s just say that in my book, you’re definitely a person of interest. Edgar’s cell phone records show that you two were in frequent contact during the time leading to his disappearance. What I want to know is, did you suck him into an investigation of yours, or did he suck you into a rogue investigation he was running on Malachai?”
“I’m sorry, but you’re on the wrong track. I’m glad to help you look for Edgar, but I had nothing to do with his disappearance.”
Setting her palms down on his desk, she leaned forward. “Bullshit. You’re in this up to your eyeball, and I know it. I think we’re going to see a lot of each other from now on.”
Jake said nothing. She would have taken any flippant remark by him as a challenge.
Turning to leave, she glanced at the raven and said, “Oh, and by the way—we found an empty birdcage at the scene of this double homicide. Do you have a receipt for that bird?”
Jake shook his head. “No, he just flew in through the window one day, and I decided to keep him. You’re not going to report me to Animal Control, are you?”
“And lay down a paper trail establishing grounds for harassment? Not a chance. But I will be seeing you around, so keep breaking those rules.”
“It’s what I do.”
After she left, Edgar flew onto the desk. Jake raised his good arm level with his chest, and Edgar hopped onto it.
“When will my life ever get easier?”
The raven didn’t answer him.
Glancing out the window at the Tower, Jake thought, Nevermore.
Jake Helman, an elite member of the New York Special Homicide Task Force, faces what every cop dreads—an elusive serial killer. While investigating a series of bloodletting sacrifice rituals executed by an ominous perpetrator known as The Cipher, Jake refuses to submit to a drug test and resigns from the police department. Tower International, a controversial genetic engineering company, employs him as their director of security.
While battling an addiction to cocaine, Jake enters his new high-pressure position in the private sector. What he encounters behind the closed doors of this sinister operation is beyond the realm of human imagination. Too horrible to contemplate, the experimentation is pure madness, the outcome a hell where only pain and terror reside. Nicholas Tower is not the hero flaunted on the cover of Time magazine. Beneath the polished exterior of this frontiersman on the cutting edge of science is a corporate executive surrounded by the creations of his deranged mind.
As Jake delves deeper into the hidden sphere of this frightening laboratory, his discoveries elicit more than condemnation for unethical practices performed for the good of mankind. Sequestered in rooms veiled in secrecy is the worst crime the world will ever see—the theft of the human soul.
ISBN# 978-160542072-1
Mass Market Paperback / Horror
US $7.95 / CDN $8.95
AVAILABLE NOW
www.slimeguy.com
Nominated for a 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel by the Horror Writers Association.
The upstate village of Red Hill is about to learn the meaning of fear.
Johnny Grissom, nicknamed “Johnny Gruesome” by his high school classmates, is a heavy-metal hellion who loves to party, watch horror movies, and get into fights. His best friend, Eric, admires him, and his girlfriend, Karen, loves him.
One winter night, Johnny’s car, the Death Mobile, is discovered submerged beneath the icy surface of Willow Creek, with Johnny’s waterlogged corpse inside. The residents of Red Hill believe that Johnny’s death was accidental.
Then the murders begin—horrible acts of violent vengeance that hint at a d
eepening mystery and terror yet to come. A headless body is discovered at the high school. A priest is forced to confront his own misdeeds. And a mortician encounters the impossible.
One by one, Johnny’s enemies meet a grisly demise, as the sound of a car engine and maniacal laughter fill the night. The students at Red Hill High School fear for their lives—especially Johnny’s closest friends, who harbor a dark secret.
If people thought Johnny had a bad attitude when he was alive, wait until they encounter him when he’s dead!
Johnny Gruesome is a valentine to E.C. Comics, Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula, and such gory 1980s splatter flicks as Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead. The novel is a horror fan’s nightmare come true!
ISBN# 978-193475545-7
Trade Paperback / Horror
US $15.95/CDN $17.95
AVAILABLE NOW
www.slimeguy.com
In every hardened cop’s worst dreams there lurks a nightmare waiting to become reality. Captain Mace has encountered his. When a string of raped and dismembered corpses appears throughout New York, the investigation draws Mace into an interactive plot that plays like a horror movie. Taking the lead role in this chilling story may be the challenge of his career, testing his skills and his stamina, but even a superhero would find the series of terrifying crime scenarios daunting.
Unlike anything Mace has experienced, every blood-spattered scene filled with body parts and partially eaten human remains looks like an animal’s dining room strewn with rotting leftovers. Only Satanic legends and tales from the dark side of spiritual oblivion resemble the mayhem this beast has created in his frenzy. In the wake of each attack is the haunting premonition of another murdering onslaught.
As Mace follows this crimson trail of madness, he must accept the inevitable conclusion. Whoever—or whatever—is responsible for this terror does not intend to stop, and it’s up to him to put an end to the chaotic reign of a perpetrator whom, until now, he’s met only in the annals of mythology. The mere mention of the word would send New York into a panic: werewolf.
ISBN# 978-160542099-8
Trade Paperback / Horror
US $15.95/CDN $17.95
AVAILABLE NOW
www.slimeguy.com
Arch Stanton has a bad job that’s about to get a hell of a lot worse.
He’s sixteen, scrawny, and dirt poor. He has an almost supernatural ability with firearms, but it may not be enough to survive the weekend.
Welcome to Whitewood, California, an isolated small town in northern California, a place full of bad manners and even worse hygiene. Money is tight, jobs are scarce, and bitter rivalries have simmered just under the surface for years.
Fat Ernst runs the local bar and grill. He’d stomp on his own mother for a chance at easy money, and when he forces Arch to do some truly dirty work, all hell breaks loose.
Fat Ernst’s customers find themselves being infected by vicious, wormlike parasites and dying in unspeakable agony. As events spiral out of control, decades of hatred boil over into three days of rapidly escalating carnage. Will anyone in this town escape … before they’re eaten alive?
ISBN# 978-160542101-8
Trade Paperback / Horrible Horror
US $15.95/CDN $17.95
AVAILABLE NOW
Twenty-two years of marriage have given Skye Donovan a life of structure and predictability. When she discovers some women’s underwear—not hers—however, she begins to suspect her husband is fooling around. And she’s right, he is. But she’s wrong about who the underwear belongs to. Not her husband’s girlfriend, but her husband. And then she walks in on her husband…and his boyfriend.
Skye finds herself confronting another new reality. She needs to start life over. She needs to find a job, a place to live, break the news to her teenaged daughter and—yikes—start dating again. At least she has her best friend to help her through it all.
Not.
Corpses are turning up. And her best friend is the prime suspect.
As Skye tries to prove her friend’s innocence, her own life is further complicated by a handsome detective, a sexy writer, a pagan wedding, her friend’s unexpected pregnancy, and a new career. Could it get any crazier? In a word, yes. She not only must exonerate her friend, but do so before the murderer strikes even closer to home…
ISBN# 978-193383639-3
Mass Market Paperback / Mystery
US $7.95 / CDN $8.95
AVAILABLE NOW
Fallen angels.
The last words of a dying man. To the local cops, the words are meaningless. But legendary assassin Cain knows exactly what they mean.
A hit is in the works.
And the target is big.
In 1971, five U.S. soldiers trained as assassins landed in North Vietnam to complete a deadly mission under the watchful eye of Cain, a man feared by the Vietnamese on both sides of the DMZ. Today, joining forces with his old boss General Lucas White, Cain soon learns that Seneca, a former ally, has been hired to kill the president of the United States and three top leaders in the Middle East.
Against a ticking clock, Cain must hunt down his former ally. But an even deadlier betrayal could sabotage his mission—and cost him his life.
From the dark jungles of Vietnam to the midnight shadows of Central Park, Heirs of Cain takes its readers on a thrilling ride they won’t soon forget.
ISBN# 978-160542102-5
Mass Market Paperback / Thriller
US $7.95 / CDN $8.95
AVAILABLE NOW
Dub Walker, expert in evidence evaluation, crime scene analysis, and criminal psychology, has seen everything throughout his career—over a hundred cases of foul play and countless bloody remains of victims of rape, torture, and unthinkable mutilation. He’s sure he’s seen it all … until now.
When Dub’s close friend Sheriff Mike Savage falls victim to a brutal serial killer terrorizing the county, he is dragged into the investigation. The killer—at times calm, cold, and calculating and at others maniacal and out of control—is like no other Dub has encountered. With widely divergent personalities, the killer taunts, threatens, and out-maneuvers Dub at every turn.
While hunting this maniacal predator, Dub uncovers a deadly conspiracy—one driven by unrestrained greed and corruption. Will he be able to stop the conspirators—and the killer—in their bloody tracks?
ISBN# 978-160542134-6
Hardcover / Thriller
US $24.95 / CDN $27.95
AVAILABLE NOW
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Desperate Souls Page 29