Midnight Sacrifice

by Melinda Leigh

  “I know where he lives, sure.” Though she’d never been inside Nathan’s house, a fact that still pricked her conscience. Father abandonment issues aside, how had she let him charm her? She glanced at Danny. What would he think? How would he respect her if he knew she was the most naive woman in the state?

  “Is it far?”

  “No. Two miles outside town. Big cedar and stone house on Route Twelve. You can’t miss it. It’s the nicest place for miles. Kind of stands out.”

  Danny turned and walked briskly across the entryway. Mandy jogged to catch up. “Where are you going?”

  Key in hand, he paused at the curb. “You should probably go back to the inn.”

  “No way.”

  His gaze pierced. “Go home, Mandy.”

  She propped a hand on her hip. “No. I know what you’re going to do.” She winced. She hadn’t intended to sound like a petulant teenager.

  Danny glared, but Mandy didn’t back down. She had to know what he discovered, what he was planning to do, so she could react.

  “Suit yourself.” He got into his car and drove off, but she’d caught the quirk of his mouth. She scrambled to start her little wagon. Pulling out onto the street, she followed him through town and out onto Route Twelve. He stopped at the circular driveway. Nathan’s house was modern with a stone facade and landscape that was still ornate despite the lack of maintenance. Another month of spring growth and the property was going to go downhill fast.

  Danny parked behind a clump of ornamental evergreens. She pulled in behind him, making sure her car wasn’t visible from the road either, and joined him on the walk.

  He glanced up the road in both directions. “How busy is this street?”

  “Not very.” Was he going to break in? “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged and went up to the front door. A ribbon of torn yellow tape dangled from the doorframe. With a subtle movement, Danny produced a pair of gloves and a small tool from his pockets. A few deft twists and turns unlocked the door. It swung inward with a creak of unused hinges and swollen wood.

  “That was fast.” Alarmingly so.

  “Like stealing a bike.” Danny tucked her behind him as he walked into the house.

  “You can’t do this.” Panic pulsed through Mandy’s veins. Clammy sweat gathered between her breasts as she stepped into Nathan’s foyer. This felt creepy and wrong in a hundred different ways.

  “Why not? You just searched Ray’s office.”

  “This is illegal, big-time.” Though it wasn’t the law that Mandy feared. What would her blackmailer think of them snooping through the house? She was supposed to be getting rid of Danny, not aiding and abetting him in illegal entry, and certainly not helping him find Nathan.

  Danny closed the door behind them and faced her. His glare was a mix of challenge and disbelief. “Are you going to call a cop?”

  She should. Doug could arrest him and then boot him out of town. Mandy’s problems would be solved.

  “Well, are you?” Danny tried to read Mandy’s expression, but she dropped her eyes to the stone floor. Guilt gave him a quick jab in the ribs. Here we go again, corrupting an otherwise good girl. His sister had a juvie record because he’d talked her into stealing a car with him. Slippery as usual, he hadn’t even been caught, but someone had ID’d Jaynie by her bright-red hair.

  “No.”

  “Then let’s see what’s here.” He told his conscience to suck it and checked out the house. Despite the warm spring day outside, the chill in the house seeped through the soles of his shoes. No heat. No surprise. As Danny and his siblings knew firsthand, it didn’t take long for utility companies to act on unpaid bills.

  “The police have already taken everything connected with the case.” Mandy’s eyes skittered around the room as if she was afraid of what she might see.

  “I’m looking for more general information.” Danny wanted to know what made Nathan tick. In the few days he’d been here, all he’d learned was that the family was close-knit, something he didn’t particularly want to dwell on. Danny understood how tightly tragedy and suffering could cement a family bond.

  He’d do anything for his sister.

  The interior was bachelor spiffy, heavy on overstuffed leather furniture, light on knickknacks. They did a slow tour of the formal living and dining rooms. Under the dust, the furniture had an unused look to it. He followed the hall to the back of the house. A kitchen opened into a family room. Danny paused at the mantle. Empty frames lined up like soldiers. The police must have taken the photos. Oddly empty shelves indicated they’d taken other things as well. “What happened to Nathan’s wife?”

  “She died a week after Evan was born. Pulmonary embolism.”

  “So he was a widower for over twenty years?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did he ever date anyone in town?” A girlfriend, past or present, might know personal details about Nathan.

  “I never saw him date anyone.” Mandy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Twenty years is a long time for a man to go without a woman,” Danny said.

  “I wouldn’t know.” Mandy’s eyes flitted toward the window overlooking the tree-ringed backyard.

  If he didn’t have a local woman, did Nathan have one-night stands or rendezvous with women in other towns? Prostitutes? All questions Danny wasn’t going to ask sweet, small-town Mandy, who was clearly uncomfortable talking about her ex-boss’s sex life.

  Just how sheltered was she? Danny shook his mind from the thought of Mandy and her sexual innocence. This was not the time.

  Danny walked to a door between the kitchen and family room. He opened it. A stairwell led down. There was nothing down there. He knew it. But the darkness was intimidating. On the way down, he flipped a switch on the wall. Nothing, which was exactly what happened when electric bills didn’t get paid. Danny pulled the small flashlight he’d taken from his glove box out of his pocket. He swept the beam around the dusty room. Scant light filtered through a few dirty, narrow windows at ceiling height.

  The basement looked ordinary. Raw concrete floor, whitewashed cinder block walls, unfinished ceiling. Empty shelves lined the walls. A long workbench spanned the far wall. Had Nathan prepared the props of his religion on its scarred wooden surface? There were no signs of the evil that had been planned here. Until Danny looked closer. A circle in the center of the room was dotted with globs of hardened wax in different colors. Danny squatted next to it. Under the dust, faint symbols drawn in chalk decorated the concrete around the space. Spirals. Interlocking triangles and rings. Pentagrams. Afraid of indoor lightning strikes, he avoided church unless someone was getting married, baptized, or buried. But the Catholic boy inside him cringed. He could practically hear his mother saying the rosary from heaven.

  This was where it happened. A human sacrifice had been planned right here.

  He looked over at Mandy, who was hugging herself at the bottom of the steps. She took a step backward, up onto the last wooden step, as if she were also repulsed by the remnants of pagan rituals on the concrete.

  He pulled out his phone and snapped pictures of the circle. The flash illuminated more symbols painted on the rough walls. Stick figures and bonfires galore. Danny photographed everything.

  What had he hoped to accomplish by coming here? The police had taken everything that could possibly be considered evidence. But nothing could clear the dusty air of the desperation that clung to the space, or eliminate the taint of ruthlessness that drove a man to kidnap and slaughter innocents to save his own family.

  Brutality lingered because the events that were put into play here weren’t over yet. Evil was sticking around.

  “What about all the artifacts that were down here? Did anyone know about them?” Danny asked.

  Mandy lifted a shoulder and moved up two more steps. “Sure, everybody knew about Aaron’s collection. He had a degree of some sort in Celtic history. Collecting artifacts from Scotland was his hobby. That’s w
here he was born.”

  In that light, Danny supposed it didn’t seem strange at all.

  “I’m getting out of here.” She tripped up the stairs.

  Danny swept his light over the space one last time. The beam settled on a dark discoloration on the floor beneath the far window. He walked over. The window was cracked an eighth of an inch open. The lock was busted. Water had dripped onto the cement, and mold had grown over the winter.

  Was the window jimmied before or after Nathan disappeared? If it happened over the winter, who had broken in and why? The answer could be as simple as a vagrant looking for a dry place to weather a storm. Or Nathan could have returned.

  Danny went upstairs at a jog. He couldn’t get out of the cold, dank cellar fast enough. The patio door caught his eye. He walked out back to the broken basement window and shone his flashlight on the shaded frame. Definitely jimmied from the outside. He swept the beam over the surrounding area. Something was crushed between the cinder block foundation and the weeds that grew around the building. Danny stuck his finger in the mud and pulled it out. He put it in the palm of his hand. A faded white lollipop wrapper.

  Ray?

  He remembered a flash of his first night in town. He’d seen someone in the alley next to the diner. Could that have been Ray? What would he be doing in the vacant restaurant?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Feeling trapped, Mandy scurried out of the basement. Above ground, she rubbed at a tight spot in the center of her chest. Under her sweater, her skin was clammy and damp. She could barely draw a full breath.

  Just a few more minutes, then she could get out of here. What else needed to be searched? The steps leading to the second floor pulled at her gaze. Mandy crept upstairs alone. She stuck her head in the first room. Dirty clothes and used plates vied for surface space, and the air smelled of many, many things gone sour. Evan’s room, no doubt.

  The next door led to a spartan space. Nathan’s uncle’s room? Shelves and surfaces were bizarrely bare. The police had taken most of Aaron’s personal possessions. Small picture frames lay on their backs, the photos removed. Mandy walked to the dresser and opened a drawer. Sweaters. She looked in the other drawers. More clothing. The closet held pants and jackets. Nothing unusual. A few boxes sat on the floor, the tops off-kilter, summer clothes hanging over the sides.

  Nathan’s room was orderly but not insanely so. Most of his personal items were missing from the medicine chest and dresser tops. Mandy wandered into the closet. Traces of his cologne sent nausea ripping through her stomach.

  She’d slept with a killer. He’d lied to her, but she’d been honest. Foolishly, she’d thought they were in love. She’d confessed her private thoughts, and now he knew many personal things about her. Things he could use to hurt those she loved. As he’d proved in getting threats to her, Nathan might be crazy, but he was smart. She wrapped her shaking hands around her middle. If he wanted to kill her brother, he’d do it.

  “Anything in here?”

  She jumped.

  “Sorry.” Danny put a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s just creepy being in here.” Mandy put a hand to her chest. Her heart pounded against her palm.

  “I know. Relax.”

  Mandy sucked in a deep breath. Not helping. “No, I didn’t find anything in here. How about the basement?”

  “Nah. Looks like the cops got everything interesting.” Danny shook his head

  Small lights twinkled in Mandy’s vision. Her knees buckled.

  “Whoa.” A strong hand supported her elbow.

  “I need to go outside.”

  “Yeah. Sure, of course.” Danny steered her from the room, down the stairs, and out the front door.

  “You OK?”

  She gulped pine-scented air until her head cleared. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “Looked like a panic attack.” Danny’s hand was still under her elbow.

  “I don’t have panic attacks,” she protested.

  “OK.” But his expression and tone made it clear he didn’t believe her.

  “But no more breaking and entering.”

  “No argument from me. Good girls aren’t cut out for criminal activity.” Was he holding back a grin? If he knew why she was so upset, she doubted he’d be amused.

  “I need to go.” She pulled away from his support. Nothing wobbled. She was good to go.

  “You’re sure you’re all right to drive?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m going to make a stop on the way back.”

  Distracted, Mandy closed the door and started the car. The upbeat music of Maroon 5 thumping from the speakers sounded obscene after viewing Nathan’s home. Misery lingered in that cellar like black mold after a flood. She clicked off the radio in her car and drove back to the inn in silence.

  Danny filled up his tank and drove through town. As he passed the doctor’s office, Carolyn Fitzgerald was getting out of her red sedan. Her beige suit was spotted with blood. Danny pulled over. He got out of his car. “Do you need help?”

  “No, thank you.” Tension added ten years to her face since he’d seen her. She opened the passenger door for a frail-looking man in his sixties.

  The man shook his head. “No.”

  “Please, Walt,” she begged. “We’ll go right home afterward. I promise.”

  A teenager emerged from the back of the sedan and stood at her side. Danny recognized the sullen slouch and moody eyes of an angry adolescent. It was like looking in a mirror during his own youth. “Come on, Dad. Dr. Chandler needs to look at your head. You fell, remember?”

  Danny had been better at covering the pain in his voice with insolence. Practice makes perfect and all that.

  The old man sawed his jaw back and forth. His eyes were wide and had a confused sheen. He turned his head to look at Danny. Stubbornness and hostility lingered behind the fear, much like his son’s expression. Blood was dripping from a long cut on his forehead, but he seemed oblivious to the injury.

  Keys in hand, Danny hesitated. Carolyn didn’t seem to want assistance, but he hated to just leave her in obvious distress. “Are you sure I can’t help?”

  Carolyn moved closer to Danny and lowered her voice. “I don’t know. He gets confused. Sometimes strangers are good. Sometimes not. My husband is hard to predict. It’s so hard to see him like this. He used to be a colonel in the army.”

  Danny looked over at her husband. A vague, opaque film clouded his eyes. The colonel squinted, as if he knew the truth was in front of him but he couldn’t focus on it. Frustration tightened the age-slackened muscles of his face. Alzheimer’s? If not, something similar.

  “Let me try.” Danny pocketed his keys and strode to the car. “Colonel.” Danny snapped a salute. “Sergeant Daniel Sullivan. We’re ready for you, sir.”

  The colonel blinked and straightened in what appeared to be a reflex to Danny’s formal address. Purpose filled his movements as he reached for the door handle. Danny itched to help him but restrained himself. Carolyn stepped forward. Danny shook his head, and she backed off. With great effort, her husband climbed out of the car. Danny hustled to the doctor’s office door and opened it wide. He stood tall, gaze straight ahead, and saluted again as the frail old man shuffled through.

  Carolyn wiped a teardrop from her cheek. “Thank you. Sometimes I forget he still needs respect.”

  “Anytime.” Danny closed the door behind the family. Now that he knew the extent of the old man’s illness, Danny agreed with Mandy. The relationship between Carolyn and Dr. Chandler was normal.

  He considered the parallels between Nathan’s disease and Alzheimer’s. Danny imagined the heart-wrench of watching a loved one succumb to dementia. Had seeing his uncle descend into darkness pushed Nathan into madness? The colonel’s son looked to be about fifteen. How would watching his father’s decline into dementia and death affect him? And what had become of Nathan’s son?

  He jogged back to his car. Back at the inn, he parked his c
ar next to Jed’s truck. Not good. Danny wanted some privacy with Mandy. Whether she liked it or not, they had things to discuss.

  Mandy wasn’t sure how long she sat in her car, waiting for her stomach and her nerves to settle. When she was able to plaster a benign look on her face, she opened the car door and walked across the grass.

  She took a minute to listen to the wind rustling though the tree branches. She used to wish something would happen out of the ordinary in this trap of a town. Now she just hoped life could return to the normal, boring routine she hadn’t known to appreciate until it was whisked away.

  The throaty rumble of Danny’s engine stopped her. Tires crunched on gravel. She turned to watch him get out of his purple convertible. He stopped to wipe something from the fender with the hem of his T-shirt. The gesture brought a bubble of giddiness up into her throat. Like shiny paint was going to help him catch a homicidal maniac. God, she was losing it.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She led the way into the kitchen. Forget the lemonade. She needed a glass of wine. A big one. Danny closed the door behind them. Too bad it was so early, and she had too much work ahead in her day to indulge.

  Jed was drinking coffee at the island. “Mrs. Stone just left. The rooms are clean. Your mother’s friends picked her up a few minutes ago. They took her to get something done to her hair. Said they’d be all afternoon.”

  “OK.” Mandy dropped her duffel by the door so she wouldn’t forget to clean the weapon later.

  Honey sat at Jed’s feet, ears pricked forward. Despite their entry, the dog’s focus didn’t waver from her master’s face. Behind her, the door to the family quarters was propped open with a stool.

  “Find Bill,” Jed commanded. The dog spun around and dashed into the apartment.

  Mandy plunked her purse on the counter. “What are you doing?”

  “Just a game we’ve been working on.” Jed got to his feet, rinsed his mug, and put it in the dishwasher. “Keeps the dog and your brother busy.”

  With the thud of heavy footsteps and the clatter of dog nails on hardwood, Bill and Honey rushed into the kitchen.