Tell No Lies

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  High Risk

  Augusta met every exploration of his hands with her own hungry inspection of his body. She had lived thirty-four years and never experienced this aching need to be filled so deeply by a man.

  “Is this why you came to see me, Augusta?” he whispered, his voice raw against her cheek. He pressed his groin against her so she could feel the full evidence of his arousal, and her breath caught. She tasted the sweat from his upper lip and lapped it greedily from her lips. She was vaguely aware that one breast had escaped the confines of her T-shirt and her bare flesh was being caressed by cool night air. She wanted his mouth to warm her skin.

  His eyes impaled her, those clear blue eyes that made her want to say anything to keep him right here in her arms. “Yes,” she said with a shivery sigh, and reached up to nip his lip.

  “You sure?”

  Would a killer ask permission to make love to her?

  She didn’t think so.

  Also by Tanya Anne Crosby

  Speak No Evil

  TELL NO LIES

  TANYA ANNE CROSBY

  eKENSINGTON BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  High Risk

  Also by

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Don’t miss Speak No Evil, the compelling prequel to Tell No Lies, available now.

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  There is no place within the human body where the soul can be found and carved out. It does not sit on an altar in the cavern of the heart. Nor does it linger in a decomposing corpse. It cannot be extinguished like a lamp.

  Energy; it is said the human body produces about two hundred and fifty BTU while sleeping, up to twenty-four hundred with heavy labor.

  How much does fear produce?

  Everything we do is controlled by electrical pulses running through our bodies—even those crucial signals telling our hearts to beat faster when we’re in danger. Our blood pumps more oxygen to our muscles and brains. Pupils enlarge to better see. The digestive and urinary systems slow. Lungs expand to take in more air . . . so we can focus and fight until our final breaths.

  All things become crystal clear during the moment of death . . .

  “But I am her mother,” I said, and felt it was my duty to intervene, to set the course for my wayward child . . . because like me, she would make too many mistakes before stumbling onto the right path . . . and if she strayed too long in the darkness, she might go too far . . . and never turn back...

  Sunday, August 15, 7:15 P.M.

  The sun was going down, filling the woods ahead with long, slithery shadows.

  Cody Simmons imagined there were copperheads under every rotting log he leapt over. He knew a kid once who got bit just by sitting down on a log, so he kept his eyes wide and his jumps high, watching for signs of snakes in the tall grass.

  TC, who was thirteen and a full year older than Cody, would make fun if he thought Cody was scared, so Cody kept his mouth shut and kept pace behind TC as they raced toward the old abandoned church.

  TC was his best friend, but sometimes he got Cody into trouble and Cody’s grandma Rose didn’t like TC’s family too much. She said they were “puttin’ on airs” and that “you couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear no matter how hard you tried,” but Cody didn’t exactly know what that meant. Sometimes his grandma said things that didn’t make sense and Cody’s mom said it was ’cause Grandma Rose was still living in the past—whatever. Cody didn’t care as long as he could still play with TC.

  He heard Grandma Rose’s voice in the distance, calling his name for supper. There was a roast simmering in the pressure cooker and sweet creamed corn waiting, but he didn’t stop. They had at least thirty minutes before she got serious about finding him, and TC said he was pretty sure they could make it to the church and back without anyone realizing they were gone.

  Maybe he was a little scared, but the anticipation that was bubbling up over seeing something he’d never seen before, except in TV shows, was way more thrilling—a real-life crime scene! TC swore on a Bible that he’d seen blood on the altar at the old church and even though Cody didn’t believe him, that didn’t make it any less exciting.

  His new sneakers were muddy now because they ran through the marsh, skirting the woods until they had to go in. They spotted the little white broken-down church as the huge ball of orange sun at their backs plunged into the creek, extinguishing most of the light from the woods.

  Skidding to a halt, TC waited for Cody to catch up.

  “We shoulda brought a flashlight,” Cody lamented.

  “Scared!”

  “Am not! Bet you just didn’t bring one so I couldn’t tell if it’s blood or something else! Probably it’s just oil or something.”

  “No, it’s blood,” TC assured, shooting him a keen-eyed glance.

  The church building was no more than thirty feet away now, the front door ripped off so you could see right into the black interior. It looked like a yawning mouth in a mean face. Two darkened windows sat on either side of the door. The windowpanes had long ago been smashed out and not much remained now, except for a sliver of jagged glass wedged in the bottom sill of the right pane. The orange glow from the setting sun reflected off it like a glint in someone’s eye.

  The two boys walked slowly toward the building, past old tombstones and rotten wooden crosses that marked the church’s ancient graveyard.

  TC’s dad had told them stories about long-ago secret meetings right here in the woods. He’d said they’d found a man hanging right inside the old church. Supposedly, he committed suicide—something about doing bad stuff with kids and feeling guilty about it—or maybe someone just did him in to make him pay for his sins. Cody guessed that was why they didn’t use the church anymore—that, and because they went and built a Harris Teeter grocery store right over the dirt road that led to the old church, cutting off the way for anyone who might have been brave enough to face the ghost of a hanged man. In the five or so years since the road had been blocked, the forest had already reclaimed the dirt road.

  “Whattaya think the blood’s from?” Cody asked, fighting the urge to bolt back in the direction they’d come. He was starting to feel weird—like maybe somebody was watching—someone they couldn’t see. It was a bad feeling he couldn’t shake.

  “I heard tell of people killin’ and skinnin’ cats ’n’ things, could be something like that,” TC said, in that same know-it-all tone his dad used.

  Cody wrung his shirt. One of his fists balled at his side. “That ain’t right.”

  “Well, sometimes people ain’t right, my dad says.”

  “I bet someone slashed themselves on that glass, maybe. Looks awful sharp to me.”

  TC glanced at the jagged bit of window and shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe.”

  They stopped at the door and peered inside. Cobwebs stretched across the top of the door fra
me, into the interior. It was nested with insects, all waiting to be sucked dry.

  “Check this out,” TC said.

  He fingered the remains of a dried-up cicada carcass, trying to pry it loose from the exposed wood on the door frame. When it wouldn’t come off, he smashed it with his fist. The whack reverberated within the dark interior of the church and somewhere within the shadows something squealed.

  Cody swallowed the lump that rose in his throat.

  A barely visible altar rested on a stage inside. The pews were all gone but you could still see the path where people had scuffled down the center aisle, the wood worn by hundreds of Sunday-best shoes. The path was obscured three-quarters of the way down, disappearing into shadows.

  They slid wary looks at each other.

  “Go on in,” TC ordered him. “I’ve already seen it.”

  “I’m not going in alone!” Cody protested.

  “Why? You scared?”

  “No!”

  “Chicken!”

  “No, you just have to show me where is all—maybe it ain’t really there.”

  “No, I swear—look.” He pointed toward the right of the altar. “See where all those rags are hanging? They’re dripping with blood.”

  Cody squinted to see in the darkness. “I just see a bunch of dirty old rags hanging like maybe someone’s been cleanin’ the place.”

  TC made a disgusted face. “Why would anyone clean this old dump?” he argued. “Ain’t nobody used it in a hundred years.”

  Cody lifted a dubious brow. “Yeah, well, your dad said he used to come here to church when he was little.”

  “My dad was born in the sixties. That’s a long time ago.”

  “Yeah,” Cody relented.

  “Yeah,” TC said.

  Both boys had completely lost their nerve. Neither wanted to go in, but neither wanted to admit they might be too scared, so they stood there, each clutching a frame of the doorway. At their backs, the last traces of sunlight were barely visible through the tree line. But right where they stood, it seemed pitch-black and growing darker by the second.

  The sounds of the marsh were intensifying. Crickets chirped louder and bullfrogs croaked from their hiding places. In the heat of August the time was ripe for frog gigging. Cody thought maybe those frogs were better off keeping their mouths shut unless they wanted to end up on someone’s dinner plate—not his, of course. He’d never tried one and since his mom was scared of frogs, he guessed he never would—not that he cared to since everyone said it tasted just like chicken. He’d rather just eat chicken. His stomach grumbled.

  “I think I heard your grandma calling,” TC offered.

  “Yeah. I think she’s worried.”

  “Probably.”

  The sound of a shuffle came from the dark interior of the building. Cody’s heart beat a little faster. “Hear that?” he whispered.

  TC shook his head no, but his wide eyes said yes.

  They froze, listening for more sounds.

  “Probably just a rat . . . or a snake,” Cody whispered, but it didn’t sound like either one of those things. It sounded more like the way a smooth-soled shoe did when it brushed over a rough floor, a soft scuffle like the one he could make when he slid his Sunday-best shoes over Grandma Rose’s old wood floor.

  Cody didn’t have the guts to peer inside again, and TC’s eyes were fixed on Cody’s face. Both boys were frozen with indecision.

  Deep inside, something crashed to the floor and both boys bolted.

  Cody ran for his life, but TC was faster and Cody struggled to keep up, not quite as sure-footed in his new sneakers. He was too scared even to watch for snakes or logs and tripped in a hole in the ground, tumbling into the darkness knees-first.

  “TC!” he yelled as he went down, but TC was racing toward the disappearing sunset and he didn’t stop to look back even after he broke through the trees. The last thing Cody saw was the back of his friend’s bright yellow T-shirt.

  Cody’s head hit the soft dirt on the other side of the hole, a wall of wet mud that oozed with stinking water. It was another confused instant before he realized he had fallen into a deep hole—a grave—and he choked on fear as he felt something squishy beneath him. It was a person—a dead person—but he couldn’t scream, ’cause his voice stuck in his throat. His ankle hurt like maybe it was broken. Pain shot through his leg when he tried to stand.

  Cody began to cry—softly, so that whoever might be inside that busted-up old church couldn’t hear him. He was alone in a hole in the woods and couldn’t see anything except for a splinter of dusky sky above the canopy of trees. There wasn’t even enough light to be able to see what he was kneeling on, but he tried again to stand, despite the pain, and found the ground uneven and mushy and fell back to his knees, clutching what felt like a bare butt cheek. Horrified, he shrieked and lurched to his feet, but more pain shot through his ankle and he crumpled to his knees, choking on a sob.

  As his vision adjusted to the growing darkness, he could see the faintest outline of a pale breast and a distorted face beneath him.

  Or maybe it was his imagination.

  God! He was pretty sure he was kneeling on a cold dead body.

  Hot tears poured from his eyes, but he stifled his sob. What if someone was out there? He didn’t want them to know where he was. Maybe TC would come back with help. What kind of a friend left you to die in a hole in the woods? Maybe his grandma was right and TC wasn’t right in the head! Even old as Grandma Rose was, she would never have left him alone to die. He thought about his grandma getting worried about him and felt another wave of welling hysteria.

  A shadow loomed up and towered above him, a form with pale eyes and he felt something warm trickle down the inside of his leg.

  Cody froze, looking straight into those eyes, unable to move, unable to cry.

  For the longest moment, the inky shadow stared down into the grave, saying nothing, and Cody’s mouth quivered.

  God, what was he going to do? He swore he would never again leave his house without telling someone if he could just go home. He would never listen to TC—never again!

  “You hurt?”

  It was a man’s voice, not a monster’s, but Cody couldn’t see a mouth moving and he realized there was something covering the man’s face, except for the eyes. Cody nodded, unable to speak.

  The man fell silent again, staring down at him, and Cody felt fear rush through him like a freight train. His whole body started to quake. And then the man leaned over the grave, reaching toward Cody.

  Chapter 2

  Monday, August 16, 2:15 A.M.

  Pam Baker was officially a murder victim.

  Her body lay twisted beside an open grave while the medical examiner wrapped up the initial exam. Later, when all the evidence had been collected, they would bag her and haul her in.

  Only recently had the Lowcountry recovered from an epidemic of terror that had propelled Charleston out of the age of innocence it had stubbornly clung to. The possibility of a copycat killer was unthinkable.

  Detective Jack Shaw was beginning to see spots before his eyes from the insistent flash of the assistant’s camera. Photos of the body, in and out of the grave, the hands, the mouth, the church, the perimeter, and anyone milling about the scene—thankfully, at 2 A.M. there weren’t many onlookers. Realizing what they were facing, they’d purposely kept silent on the police band.

  He stared down at the bagged hands. Samples from beneath her nails would be taken later in the lab. The tape over the girl’s mouth was undisturbed, though he had a hunch he knew exactly what they would find once they removed it—or more importantly, what they wouldn’t find. If the MO was the same, the tongue would be gone and the inside of her mouth would be painted blue. The problem was . . . he could see this one didn’t exactly follow the previous patterns, and there was a growing sense of unease in the pit of his stomach while he waited for an estimated time of death.

  “Dual lividity . . . present.”

/>   Which meant that the body had been moved since death. The perp had probably killed her somewhere else and then dumped her here. The obvious place to look would be inside the abandoned church, but the place was clean as far as he could tell. The only discernible footprints they’d found along the dirty wood floor were those belonging to kids. A few oily black rags had been hanging inside, but they appeared to be covered by a coating of wax or grime. Still, the lab would test them thoroughly.

  “No presence of larvae—ants, check, flies check. Exposure to elements . . . brief.” The examiner’s assistant stood behind her, scribbling down every word uttered onto a notepad. Somehow, the toneless oration seemed an insult to a girl who, only weeks before, had been full of life. Jack had met her only once, but he’d talked to her on several occasions whenever he’d called the Tribune ’s offices. Pamela Baker had disappeared while investigating the Secessionville murders for the newspaper. He sighed. She was a wannabe reporter who never got to finish her first case.

  “Rigor mortis . . . on the decline. Hand me the thermometer.”

  The assistant scrambled to produce the desired instrument. After a moment, the examiner continued, “Body temp matches environmental temp, currently eighty-seven degrees. Initial guess, time of death, judging by the lack of blood decomposition, somewhere between twenty-four and thirty-six hours.”

  Although he was expecting it, Jack felt bile rise in his throat at the announcement. The girl’s skin was pale, bloodless, no marbling yet, very little bloating. Her eyes were sightless, covered with a thin film, but you could still see the dark spidery web of broken vessels in the bulging whites of her eyes. Inserting a thermometer into her liver had been easy since, unlike the other victims, this one had been sliced from her pelvic cavity up past her navel.

  Maybe the killer was evolving?

  Whatever the case, the team would leave no stone unturned tonight, because if the medical examiner was correct—and she had seen more than enough dead bodies to know—Pamela Baker had only been a corpse for less than thirty-six hours while suspected murderer Ian Patterson had been sitting in a jail cell for more than three weeks. There was a dead girl lying near an open grave in an abandoned graveyard and a missing kid—a twelve-year-old boy—and it was entirely possible they had the wrong man behind bars.