by Brenda Novak
About J.T. Ellison
J.T. Ellison is the New York Times bestselling author of many critically acclaimed novels, including WHAT LIES BEHIND (5.26.15) and WHEN SHADOWS FALL, and co-authors the Nicholas Drummond FBI thrillers with #1 New York Times bestseller Catherine Coulter. Ellison's novel THE COLD ROOM won the ITW Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original of 2010 and WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE was a RITA® Nominee for Best Romantic Suspense of 2012. She is also the author of multiple short stories, and her novels have been published in more than twenty countries.
Ellison grew up in Colorado and Virginia. After graduating from Randolph-Macon Woman's College and receiving her master's degree from George Washington University, she was a presidential appointee and worked in The White House and the Department of Commerce before moving into the private sector to work as a financial analyst and marketing director for several defense and aerospace contractors.
When Ellison moved to Nashville, she developed a fascination with forensics and crime. To research her novels, she has worked with the Metro Nashville Police Department and the FBI, as well as performing autopsies and studying survivalists.
Find J.T. on the web at JTEllison.com | Facebook | @Thrillerchick. Sign up for her monthly newsletter for first looks at new books, reading recommendations, events, recipes, and more!
Toys in the Attic
by Heather Graham
Prologue
The thing was truly hideous. Life-sized and decked out in a nun’s habit, the creature had a skeletal face that was still partially clad in flesh. The eye sockets were dark and haunting; the mouth appeared to be open in a final scream. The “nun’s habit” covered most of the body, but skeletal hands and fingers stretched from beneath the fabric—as if they could reach out and touch someone.
Brush a cheek with a gentle touch….
Curl around someone’s throat with purely evil intent.
It stood—as if on guard—in a hallway that connected the back door to the kitchen, laundry room, downstairs bedroom, and bath. She’d noted it first from the desk in the living room—she could see over the counter divider into the hallway. For a moment, it seemed as if her heart had all but stopped; she thought someone was standing there.
But it wasn’t a someone. It was a something.
Kathy Kennedy was accustomed to the craziness of her family’s décor. She had her own lovely penchant for weird collectibles. For one, she loved ravens and had dozens of little raven statues—and one stuffed raven adorned with sequins and beads. She was truly a Poe fan-girl and she had a bust of the writer set in the midst of the ravens on her mantle.
She had Day-of-the-Dead dolls mixed in with super heroes, resin models of aliens and more. A chip off the old block, more or less.
Collecting—it seemed to be a vise inherited by every member of the family. She remembered when she and Colby were in school and brought friends to their parents’ home on Elizabeth Street. Even in Key West—land of the weird, Kathy sometimes thought—their home was bizarre. Their dad collected movie costumes, props, and set pieces, historic military memorabilia, strange art, and far more. Their house looked like a museum.
“I think we’re the Addams’ family kids, sometimes,” Colby told her once. “Go figure! If we come home one day and mom is all in black walking as if her feet were in binders, we’ll know for sure!”
She was, beyond a doubt, accustomed to things.
But this thing was different.
So, I won’t do laundry! I won’t sleep in the guest room, use the downstairs bathroom, the kitchen or do laundry….
She had to use the kitchen—there was, of course, only one in the small, historic house her brother had been so proud to buy on his own. Key West real estate was atrociously high—Colby had worked hard and negotiated like a tiger to buy the place. Then he’d brought in his own quirky furniture and collections.
Like the zombie thing or nun corpse or whatever the hell it was. She would have asked him—except that Colby had left that afternoon and she hadn’t come over until just an hour ago.
She’s been on location all day, had dinner with the director and two of the actors in the low-budget sea-monster movie. Then she’d shown them Captain Tony’s Saloon and the “hanging tree” and told them some tales about old Key West. Key West did have great stories. At one time the building that now housed Captain Tony’s had been an icehouse and the morgue. And it was built right around the hanging tree where sixteen pirates and one woman—guilty of hacking up her husband and children—had met their maker. Joe Tybalt, the handsome actor, had been certain she’d made it all up to scare them, especially since the woman—the Woman in Blue—supposedly still haunted the saloon. Vanessa Green, the beautiful actress had shivered and moved closer to Andrew Bracken, the director—who had smiled at Kathy, as if thanking her for the story. Then again, Vanessa was an outrageous flirt and Andrew, she had heard, was delighted to sleep with his leading ladies.
Joe Tybalt had walked her home; he’d loved the house. But then, he’d only come in so far as the parlor.
He hadn’t seen the…thing.
Kathy hadn’t thought twice about coming to her brother’s to watch the cat.
She hadn’t thought about the hour growing late….
That it was nearly midnight.
That was it; the hour was late. She’d been telling Joe, Andrew, and Vanessa Key West ghost stories. She’d creeped herself out—and then come in here where it had been absurdly quiet and somehow…eerie. Something she hadn’t noticed at first, since she’d chatted with Joe, locked him out, and then run up the stairs with her bag. She hadn’t been afraid to be locked in and alone and she’d popped into the shower there and donned her fury robe. She’d come back down to do the smart thing and double-check that she had locked up. But then she’d noticed her computer. And then she remembered she had a few ideas about fixing a scene.
She’d sat down quickly to finish some work. Andrew Bracken had thrown the basic script together as a basic scene outline; she’d been hired to fix it. She loved working on films—she always had. And this time—as often happened—she’d been able to get Colby work, too. Not that Colby couldn’t work on his own—he was one of the best dive masters in Key West! But this film had some money and Colby had made enough in a few days’ work to take the nice little mini-vacation that had brought her here tonight.
Busy editing, she’d really not noticed the thing until she’d headed over to use the downstairs’ restroom. And really, why would she have noticed that particular thing? The little house was filled with movie posters, models, books, art—stuffed creatures. There were pirate heads, skull and cross-bone flags, driftwood creations…Colby had truly followed in the family tradition. She just had never seen anything quite as creepy as the zombie-nun-skeleton thing.
I won’t look at it! She told herself. If I don’t look at it, everything will be fine.
She sighed and turned away and hurried back to her computer.
Waldorf—the giant Persian cat that was the reason for her staying at her brother’s place while he and Tracy flew off to the Bahamas for the weekend—was sitting on her keyboard.
Waldorf was really as much her cat as he was Colby’s, since he’d been their family cat when they’d still been at home. But, she’d had to do more traveling than Colby and now, because he was an old boy, they didn’t like to disrupt his daily pattern or take a chance of moving him around anymore.
“Waldorf, the last time you did this to me, you ripped all the letters off the keyboard. Do you know how hard it is to write anything at all when you can’t find the ‘e’ key? Please…I love my bro, I know how he loves you, but I need to work—do you mind?” she said aloud.
Waldorf looked at her with big blue eyes; she thought that the cat shuddered.
“All right. Treats. Come on, Waldorf. Treats!”
Waldorf loved treats. In fact, he was very fond of food. Waldorf was huge, a big furry gray Persian—a monster cat.
Kathy made a
concentrated effort not to look in the direction of the thing as she made her way to the kitchen. Some of Colby’s treasures came from beneath the sea—her brother made his living as a dive captain. Some of his collection, she’d actually gotten for him. She was a freelance editor/consultant for the indie film market, repairing scripts, suggesting changes, and working with everyone from those who had to do cheap advertisements for local markets to those planning major motion pictures that utilized the Florida Keys as locale. For example, she’d gotten Colby the set of vampires figures that held prominence in his bedroom—models designed for She-Shark Versus the Vampires—a bizarre little flick that gained an even more bizarre cult following.
Models, figurines, created to help the costume and design departments in the crew. Some were actually beautiful. They were just resin. There was nothing about them that was….
Evil.
The zombie-skeleton-nun was evil.
Kathy could feel it.
And so could Waldorf.
“Come on, Waldorf. Kitty, Kitty!” Kathy called.
Waldorf looked at her. She could have sworn that he looked toward the zombie-nun thing—and shuddered again.
He didn’t leave the keyboard.
“Don’t look at it, Waldorf. Don’t look at it…just pretend it’s not there.”
Waldorf didn’t move. He was in the taut, hunched position cats took on when they were ready to strike—or when they were very wary and ready to take up a defensive position.
Kathy let out a sigh and brought the kitty treats over to the computer. The cat left the keys—jumping into her arms.
She gave him the treats. “You know, Waldorf, we’re going to go to my place. It’s just a shotgun rental—I don’t own it, and I’m not fixing it up—but we’ll be happier there.
She thought about her own place longingly. A block off Duval, it could be loud; drunks sometimes stumbled by singing at their top of their lungs after leaving the bars on the main street.
She had a few movie props and things of her own that one just might consider creepy.
But not the zombie-nun thing.
“I’m just going to close this up, Waldorf—then we’ll go to my place. You’ll stay in my arms, right? Didn’t bring the car and it’s about six blocks away….”
She sat, looking at the work she had done, ready to save it. She saw a few typos and set about fixing them before saving—then saved again in a backup file that she emailed to herself. As she did so, she felt the cat’s claws dig into the flesh on her thighs. Waldorf began to hiss.
She looked up.
It was there; the zombie-skeleton-nun thing. Standing in front of her. The gaping mouth now seemed to be grinning, the dark eye sockets seemed to have vision, and they were staring directly at her. She could have sworn that she heard it laughing.
Impossible.
It had moved.
Kathy let out a shriek, stood, clutching the massive cat to her.
And yes, it moved…one of the giant hands reached out, reached out across the desk, reached for her….
She screamed and came around the desk, staring at it in horror, wondering in the back or her mind which was closer, the front door or the back door.
She raced toward the front door.
And then she felt it touch her.
Skeletal fingers wound into her hair, pulling her back. It spun her around and all she could think was that the thing was evil. She could hear the thunder of her heart; she could barely breathe. The noise of her pulse was deafening….
She screamed again, wrenched free, bolted for the front door and threw it open, letting Waldorf slip to the ground and run on his own, her only thought—escape!
She raced into the night….
On to Elizabeth Street.
And into the headlights of a coming car.
Chapter 1
“I feel like an absolute idiot, calling you down here for this. I mean…well, I think that Kathy just…freaked herself out,” Colby Kennedy told Michael Quinn. “But, she’s my sister. I love her. And she’s terrified. The doctors told me they were so worried about her sanity that they were afraid she was going to hurt herself more than she was already hurt if she was left alone. Of course, Traci and I made it back here in a couple of hours, but….”
Colby’s voice trailed as Michael Quinn studied his old friend. He could see that Colby was twisted, torn and lost. He loved his only sister.
At Quinn’s side, Danni Cafferty spoke up, her voice filled with empathy. “Colby—it’s all right. Please, believe me, we’re happy to be here, and we truly hope, with all our hearts, that we can help you.”
Quinn set an arm around her shoulders. Danni’s true sense of humanity was part of what he loved so much about her. Strange to think that they hadn’t known one another until her father had died—and that they’d started out almost as sworn enemies. But that had been because he’d worked with Angus when Danni hadn’t really known what her father had done—other than owning and operating a curios and local art shop on Royal Street in New Orleans.
But now they had been together for almost three years, in a relationship that was closer than any he might have imagined—and yet one that they seldom talked about. Danni still felt oddly about what they did and what they shared—dealing with the deadly and often very strange. Of course, he’d come into it all willingly. Danni had inherited the shop—and her father’s secret “business.” Still, she came at it all wholeheartedly and they depended upon one another and a small circle of friends.
This was a different occasion—and part of why he loved Danni so much. When he’d told her about the out-of-the-blue and desperate call from an old friend who lived in the Florida Keys, she had been willing to pack up within minutes, hop a plane to Miami and then a “puddle jumper” that brought them here, to meet with Colby Kennedy, at the hospital. Colby’s house was in Old Town Key West but right now they were in Marathon—a city comprised of a number of the small islands in the Keys—just about fifty miles west-northwest of Key West. There were no better facilities closer to Colby’s home for Kathy.
They sat at a table in the cafeteria drinking bad coffee. Colby’s wife, Tracy, was sitting with Kathy while Colby spoke with them.
“Thank you,” Colby said, his voice almost a whisper. It seemed he was near tears. “Really, thank you for coming. The cops thought that Kathy was on something—drunk or high on drugs. Then, when tests came back, they all thought that she was having some kind of an episode. A mental episode! She’s twenty-eight—and they tested her for early Alzheimer’s because of my mom. I know my sister—she’s a hardworking doll who has spent her entire life living in Key West—working mostly on short horror and sci-fi films. She doesn’t freak out easily. No—she doesn’t freak out at all. When I first saw her, she was under pretty heavy sedation and still convinced that she’d been touched by pure evil. She was really, truly terrified. By a life-sized horror doll. Oh, my God! She’s worked with so much more. Gory, horrible films that I can barely watch. I mean….” His voice trailed as he looked down at his Styrofoam coffee cup.
Colby Kennedy was a big man, fit, bronzed—in perfect condition. He’d played football with Quinn for Loyola years ago. They’d been friends—and then, when Quinn had gone off the deep end himself into drugs and alcohol—they’d drifted apart. Colby had always been a standup guy.
Quinn had actually been pronounced dead on an emergency room operating table before he’d become one himself.
Colby looked up at them again.
“Thing is, the mannequin should have been in the attic. That’s where I left it. I don’t know how it got down to the parlor. Or if my sister did go crazy, head up to the attic and drag it down. I just know that…well, I may be bothering you for nothing. Maybe that’s what she did. Maybe it’s all finally been too much and my sister is going crazy. But, I—I heard that this…this kind of situation is what you do. Like…weird things happening. Kathy could have died! I mean, you’re a P.I., Quinn, but you were a c
op, and I read up on you and…you’ve solved crimes that centered around…weird things. You, uh, own a collectibles shop, right?”
“Danni does,” Quinn said, smiling at her.
Yes, they ran a shop. And they were involved with weird things, found out about them, destroyed them, or added them to the strange collection Angus had started in the basement—built up first floor, really—of the shop on Royal.
“I’d read about some strange crimes in NOLA and saw that you’d been instrumental in solving them,” Colby said. “So I called you,” he whispered. “Thing is, too, Kathy got me the work that made us think we should take out little vacation and now…this, whatever, happens to her.” He swallowed and looked over at Danni. “Weird. But, then you’ve probably seen a few weird things in your day, right?” Colby asked Danni.
“A few,” she murmured dryly.
“But, evil things? Kathy is insisting that the thing is evil—and that it was out to get her. She’s absolutely terrified of being alone. I think she believes that it’s going to drive itself up here and attack her in her hospital room. Things can’t be evil—they’re just things!” Colby said.
Quinn thought that Colby was waiting for vindication of his words. “People can be very evil,” Quinn told him quietly.
“And people can—perhaps, in a way--imbue things they—that they use with that evil,” Danni said carefully. “What do you know about the doll or figure or—exactly what is it? And where is it now?”
“It’s a—a moveable mannequin, something like a puppet,” Colby told them. “There were five of them—they were used in a movie called ‘Zombie Nuns of the Apocalypse.’ The movie is, naturally, bizarre, but something of a cult classic now. Oh, I guess it’s really an animatronic—it’s battery operated and can jerk—the arms lift, that kind of thing. The moviemakers put them up at an auction—they were coveted by collectors! I was really lucky to have snagged one—or, at least, I thought I’d been incredibly lucky.”