First Born (Lily Moore Series)

by Tricia Zoeller

  They stopped on either side of it.

  “Cherubs always seem evil to me,” Seth said. “Look, their eyes are telling us ‘run, run away from the Quinn house.’”

  She gave him a withering look. “In the last week, I’ve been attacked by a date rapist, shot, almost blown up by a necklace, and you’re scared of a bird bath?”

  “Demonic bird bath covered in Georgia’s finest pollen slime.”

  “Say a little prayer.” She tilted the bowl of the birdbath sloshing the yellow-green soup on to the ground. Reaching her hand between the bowl and the pedestal, she found salvation.

  The silver key was old and chipped, but to Lily it looked like the rarest diamond sparkling in the sun. Seth let out a whoop. Lily did a happy dance involving a lot of butt shaking. She halted when her shoulder protested.

  Seth ran back to the car while Lily dashed up the rear stairs leading on to the deck. A hot tub! She forced herself to run past the hot tub and around the porch swing to unlock the front door. Next to the door was a cute plaque decorated with ivy scrolling around painted letters that read, “The Quinns.” She hesitated a moment before reaching up to turn the plaque over. There. Now it was just a blank white plaque.

  She pushed the front door open and flipped on the lights. Huge glass windows let in shafts of sunlight. Vaulted ceilings and exposed beams accented wide-plank hardwood floors. She let out a sob as she realized no more sleeping on laundry room floors or having people praise her when she took a crap.

  “Dude!” Seth almost barreled her over as he came into the house carrying Walmart bags. “This is a total party pad.”

  After plopping the bags down on the granite counter tops, he opened the stainless steel fridge, which was empty except for a six-pack of beer. “Thank you, beer gods,” he said as he looked up to the heavens. She just shook her head and ran down the steps to retrieve the rest of the items from the car.

  When she returned, Seth sat with his shirt off downing a Fat Tire. “Are you sure they’re out of town?”

  “They go every year for months. Do you see a car in the driveway?”

  “No. I don’t.” He took another swig and burped. “You bring up a good point. How are you supposed to manage out here by yourself without a car?”

  She scowled. Then she remembered her visits with Katie. She crossed the room to the Quinn’s junk drawer, yanked it open, and procured a garage door opener. “Aha.”

  Seth followed her out the back door and noted the hot tub. “Sweeeet!” he proclaimed.

  She pressed the button. “Open sesame.” The door went up. There was the ancient red Jeep Wrangler. She opened the driver’s door and sat down. Seth stood in the driveway, arms crossed, looking through the windshield at her. She felt under the driver’s floor mat, retrieved the keys, and started the car. Problem solved. Mrs. Quinn always hid keys for when friends and relatives used the cabin.

  When they got inside, Seth pulled out his laptop. “I want to show you a few things.”

  She sucked down an entire two liter of coke and belched. He raised his eyebrows at her. “That is really unnerving to me, Lil. It doesn’t sound—”

  “Human?” she finished for him.

  “Yeah.”

  “One of my new Super Shih Tzu powers.”

  “That will be helpful in a fight,” Seth said. He typed in tengu and turned the laptop toward her. “I think you should read this.”

  She leaned in to learn more about her fate through deciphering Asian folklore.

  Tiangou or “celestial dog” is a creature of Chinese legend. The Chinese describe the tiangou as a meteor or black canine monster that devoured the sun during an eclipse.

  Holy crap, that’s me. I’m a canine that will eat anything.

  The dog made a noise like thunder and was a harbinger of war. In Japanese culture, the tengu is a supernatural creature resembling a bird of prey. Buddhism long held them as harbingers of war.

  There was a picture next to the text. Seth attempted to pull the computer away, but she latched on to it. In the picture, the creature had an old man’s face with a long red nose, not unlike that of a Proboscis monkey. “Not encouraging! My God Seth, I do not want to look like that!”

  “Lily, you control your outward appearance to some extent. Koko doesn’t look like an old man. She has a magnificent beak.”

  “I don’t want a beak either for crying out loud.” She turned back to the screen and continued to read.

  Tengu or tiangou are considered masters in shapeshifting. They have the ability to speak telepathically and to enter dreams. In addition to flying, they can travel via teleportation. They are famous for their skill in Kung Fu and their love of the arts, particularly poetry. Over the years, their reputation has softened. However, people still consider them spirits or monsters of the mountains and forests.

  Frantic, she looked at Seth. “Is this supposed to allay my anxiety and misery? I’m not a monster!”

  “Of course you’re not,” he said as he sat up. “You’re a heavenly dog!”

  “Teleportation? Beam me up Seth. I’ve surpassed my threshold for weird.” She looked over to see his huge eyes. He was beyond excited.

  “This, this is what happened,” he stuttered. “There’s no other way you could have made it over twenty miles in the condition you were in.”

  “Well Captain Fuzz Face, next time I’ll take you along for the ride. Trust me. It sucked. I don’t ever want to do that again.”

  He frowned. “Wish I could teleport.”

  She huffed. “Mr. Liu didn’t mention me being a tiangou. He talked about the fenghuang and Dad’s genes.”

  “At this point anything is possible. But keep in mind. You are in control of yourself. It does not mean you are evil, or bring war and destruction.”

  “Oh really, take a look at my boyfriend, neighbor, and Mr. Liu. I was the harbinger of some wicked events.”

  “None of this is your fault. I’m not sure whom to blame at this point. Part of me is angry at Dad for never telling us anything about himself.”

  “Being angry at him isn’t going to change our current predicament, Seth.”

  Seth continued to look dejected.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “I don’t feel right leaving you here, but it won’t help if I disappear too.”

  “What are you going to do?” She didn’t feel right just throwing her baby brother under the bus. This made her think of the school bus graveyard and then she didn’t feel right about him leaving her either.

  “I guess I’ll go back and face the music,” he laughed.

  “What are you going to do if they arrest you?”

  “Get a lawyer and pray,” he said. “You stay hidden. If you get in a real bind, you should call your vet.”

  “I don’t think he wants anything to do with us.”

  “Me. I don’t think he wants anything to do with me...or Koko.” Seth just grimaced.

  Lily felt tears sting her eyes. “You can’t go back! They’ll put you in jail.” This was her baby brother, and despite all his faults, she did love him.

  “I need to go back. Maybe in some way I can help them figure out who this killer is.” She tried to control the tremble in her lips. “Don’t cry,” he pleaded.

  She pulled herself together so she could think logically. Once they found her bloody cell phone and connected it to him, there was no way he would walk. “Seth, I don’t want you in trouble because of me.” She felt herself starting to hyperventilate.

  “I find my own trouble whether you’re around or not. At least now I feel like my actions are for a good cause,” he laughed.

  They hugged. He didn’t pull away. She realized before the confession he had always avoided close contact with her. She wondered if it was because he feared she would discover what he was.

  “Call me and let me know you are okay,” she demanded.

  “Don’t worry about me. You need to focus on controlling your situation. Learn what you are
. What type of things you can do.”

  “Okay,” she said, kissing his cheek.

  She waved from the door while he turned the truck around to head down the driveway. Glancing at the clock, she noted it was already 3:30. Hopefully, he wasn’t returning to squad cars in front of his apartment.

  * * *

  To be alone for the first time in weeks felt good. She was used to living alone after Peter’s death. She could walk around naked, singing at the top of her lungs if she wanted. Scanning through the Quinn’s CDs, she found old school Sarah McLachlan “Building a Mystery” and sang off key while eating two PB & J sandwiches chased down by another liter of Coke. The shapeshifting definitely drained her strength. Perhaps, that’s why her new metabolism was that of a teenage boy.

  Sitting in her underwear and a tank top on the brown leather couch, she stared at the two-story fireplace considering her options. Built-in oak shelves flanked the fireplace. The Quinns’ book collection was much more alluring than the shears and hair paraphernalia Seth had grabbed from the Walmart and neighboring Sally’s Beauty supply store. She was avoiding the inevitable; she needed to chop off her long hair then dye it. And according to Seth, she would need to use the hair bleach first before the dye or she’d wind up looking like Carrot Top. Having a brother who was a serial dater of blondes apparently had some advantages.

  As she made her way back to the CDs, she noticed a wine rack in the corner. She diverted from her path to pluck out a bottle of Pinot Grigio. “Thank you, Bacchus.”

  Feeling empowered, she continued to the music selection. Katie’s stepmom had a majority of country CDs. This seemed appropriate for getting drunk while feeling suicidal. Martina McBride? Lily blasted Wrong Baby Wrong while she started to cut. A half bottle of warm Pinot Grigio was necessary to get her to read the directions on the tub of Clairol’s Extra Strength Basic White hair bleach. She stared at the Caucasian woman on the front of the box of L’Oréal’s #9, Natural Blonde. Two hours later, she was woozy from fumes and alcohol. But she was a blonde. Nothing natural about it.

  When she was in a bad way, she sang I Like It I Love It along with Tim McGraw. But she really didn’t like it or love it. After covering every mirror in the house with a towel so she could avoid looking at herself, she dressed in a purple sundress with clear plastic flip-flops.

  Once back downstairs, she sat on the couch, the bottle of Pinot cradled lovingly in her lap, glass forgotten. With a southwestern throw draped over her feet, she clicked on the TV. Breaking news flashed across the screen. Paramedics ushered a man into the back of an ambulance, his eyes looked tragic—particularly with the bloody gash over his left brow. They posted the picture of their Most Wanted on the screen then—armed and dangerous.

  Warm tears fell. Numb, Lily turned off the TV and drank the rest of the wine.

  Chapter 31

  Bad Love

  Larry’s hands were numb from being pinned behind his back and handcuffed to a chair in the garage. He passed delirium hours ago. He had cried, screamed until he was hoarse, pissed himself, prayed, and cried some more.

  Three years he had been with Frank. The house, the vacations, the cars, the laughter, and good food. Now where was he? Sitting in his own piss in the four-car garage wearing a Budweiser drinking helmet filled with two water bottles. Bastard! Frank had started to gag him then decided that he might die if he didn’t have water. He figured by the time someone heard Larry, he would have put some distance between them.

  Frank had anchored the chair in place with a bungee cord so Larry couldn’t scoot over to the garage windows or throw himself over to attempt breaking the chair.

  Larry was semi-conscious when he heard the men talking in his backyard. At first, he considered the voices were in his head or perhaps from another realm that would suggest he go further into the light. Either way, screaming seemed like a good idea.

  Unfortunately, when Larry went to scream, all that came out was a raspy croak. He had gone completely hoarse. Frank had tied his feet to the chair, bungeed the chair to the wall, and cuffed his hands. That only left his head. He attempted to rock in his chair, but he was perfectly tethered. That’s when he went ballistic. He truly couldn’t take much more.

  Frantic, he looked around him. The pooper scooper rested against a post approximately two feet away from his chair. About three feet away was the metal garbage can.

  Larry heard the men walk past the garage doors. Frank had positioned him by the Mercedes front bumper, out of sight if anyone peeked inside the square garage windows. Bastard.

  In desperation, he leaned over from the waist and grabbed the handle of the scooper in his mouth. His head hurt from where Frank hit him over his left eye. He barely had strength left to keep his head up with the freaky helmet in place. He bit down as hard as he could, swung the scooper sideways and made contact with the metal trashcan. Thwack! He had hoped for more of a reverberating gong sound. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Through his Mercedes’s front windshield, he saw a face in the window. He dropped the scooper between his knees and attempted to scream again. Nothing.

  He picked the nasty pooper scooper up in his teeth again and bashed away at the garbage can. He didn’t know Morse code. That would have been very savvy. Instead, he kept flinging the pooper scooper while remnants of dog doo flung in the air.

  * * *

  “Something’s going on in there!” Officer Hawkes said.

  “Call for backup!” Caldwell said, drawing his gun. He peered into each window of the garage door, shining his flashlight. He caught a glint of red through the Mercedes windshield—something red and moving. Then he heard the sound again. Thwack. He spotted the side of a metal trashcan as it shook from some force.

  “I’m going in,” he screamed to Hawkes who was returning up the driveway. “You cover the front.” Caldwell made his way to the back door of the garage then tried the knob. Locked. It took three kicks, but he got the door open. When he did, the sun streamed in on Larry Jones with some kind of contraption on his head. As Caldwell drew closer, the scene perplexed him. Jones held a pooper scooper sideways in his mouth and wore a beer drinking helmet. His arms and legs were tied to a chair.

  Larry Jones dropped the scooper from his mouth, “Don’t shoot,” he rasped.

  Caldwell checked that the room was clear. “Anyone else here?”

  Jones shook his head. Caldwell examined the contents of the water bottles in the slots on the helmet to ensure that they were not some kind of bomb. “Hang tight,” he said as he proceeded through the house, calling for Hawkes first. After they made sure the place was clear, they returned to the scene in the garage. Drenched in sweat, Jones was barely keeping himself alert despite the water. The temperature had been in the nineties in the last twenty-four hours, and was even hotter in the garage with no ventilation.

  They called for paramedics then extricated him from the kitchen chair. Caldwell removed the helmet to reveal Jones’s sweat-drenched hair plastered to his head.

  “You okay?”

  Jones just shook his head and whispered, “Frank.”

  “Mr. Harding?” Caldwell asked.

  Jones nodded his affirmative.

  “He do this to you and take off?” Caldwell asked. Jones nodded. “I know you don’t feel well, but I really need your help here. Was Frank armed when he left?”

  Jones nodded. “Sig P220,” he whispered.

  “You know where he’s headed?”

  Jones shrugged, “Out of the country.”

  Caldwell called the office to put out a BOLO on Frank Harding, which notified airports, customs, the GBI and FBI.

  “He didn’t kill anyone,” Jones said.

  “Mr. Jones—”

  “We found all her stuff.”

  “Ms. Moore’s?”

  “She had been staying here...using the bike. We didn’t know. Never saw her...just the dog.”

  “What did you find?” Caldwell asked. His stomach dropped. Lily was hiding there the whole time. How the hell did
I miss this?

  “Backpack, clothes, blood,” he said. Caldwell squinted as he concentrated on hearing him better.

  “Where?”

  “On the dress and backpack.”

  “Where is she now?” Caldwell held his breath.

  Jones looked at him blankly, “I don’t know. Frank didn’t know. He looked surprised by it all. He was worried about the papers.”

  “Papers?”

  “He was shredding them. When I asked about them, he hit me in the head with his golf umbrella. Bastard!”

  “You don’t think he hurt Ms. Moore or had her tied up somewhere?”

  Jones thought for a while before shaking his head. “He was genuinely surprised by Lily’s things, but more worried about the papers.”

  “What was on the papers?” asked Caldwell.

  “Don’t know, but they belonged to Mona Sinclair. Apparently she was a client.”

  “You realize how this looks?”

  “I love Lily. She’s the bratty little sister I never had,” he said, starting to cry. “I understand how this looks, but I wouldn’t harm a hair on her head.”

  Hawkes escorted paramedics into the garage. After ten minutes of their attending to Jones, Caldwell checked in with them.

  “I need to take him to the hospital, get his head stitched, hydrate him, and make sure all his feeling comes back in his limbs,” said the EMT.

  Caldwell nodded. “I’m sending Officer Hawkes with him.”

  Caldwell took a few more minutes to wrap up questioning. Jones volunteered all of Frank’s favorite exotic countries to offer some leads. He denied knowing Hitomi, Li Liu, or Mona Sinclair.

  Once the CSI Unit showed up and Jones was on the way to the hospital, Caldwell headed back to the office. He needed to check in with Tiny to see if the bullet retrieved from the Liu crime scene could have been fired from the barrel of a Sig Sauer P220.

  Chapter 32

  Lake Updates

  Caldwell stood at the board in Lake’s office, but he wasn’t looking at it. Instead, he peered out the one tiny window at the full moon. He worked Lake’s American Heart Association stress ball with his left hand. As much as he tried, he could not accept that Lily Moore was involved in these crimes. He feared the lieutenant disagreed with him.