Lost Reaper (The Reaper Series Book 1)

by Shelley Russell Nolan

  I opened my mouth, ready to blurt out something crazy to divert everyone’s attention, maybe I’d tell them about Sarah, when we were all startled by a loud knock at the front door. My half-brothers froze as Rhonda got up to answer it, while Dad resumed his meal as if nothing had happened. A faint murmur of voices floated down the hall and then Rhonda marched back into the dining room, a frown on her face.

  ‘Tyler, there’s a police officer here to see you.’

  All movement in the room ceased as Dad, Connor and Andrew stopped everything to stare at me.

  Then Dad pushed back his chair. ‘I’ll sort this out,’ he said as he stood, dabbing at his mouth with his serviette before dumping it back on the table.

  ‘Dad, no, I can take care of this,’ I scrambled out of my seat and followed him down the hall. ‘You go finish your lunch.’

  I heard chairs scraping across the timber floorboards as my half-brothers joined the parade. Relieved the situation with Andrew and Connor had been deflated, panicking about my entire family witnessing my encounter with the police, the full enormity of Detective Lockwood’s arrival didn’t hit me until I spotted his familiar face.

  He knew what I’d done. I was about to be arrested.

  Chapter 9

  Detective Lockwood’s eyes picked me out amongst the huddle of bodies and he inclined his head, making no move to step aside as Dad and Connor came to a halt in front of him.

  ‘Miss Morgan, sorry for the interruption but I have a few more questions for you. If you wouldn’t mind coming down to the station with me, we can get your statement sorted out.’

  ‘What’s this about? Is my daughter under arrest?’

  ‘No, sir. Like I said, I have a couple of questions I need answered.’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation with you, Mr Morgan.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. If you can talk to my daughter about it, you can sure as hell talk to me. What’s she got herself involved in?’

  ‘I’m not involved in anything.’ He wasn’t there to arrest me. I was safe. ‘I’ll get my bag.’

  Before anyone could protest, I darted into the lounge room, grabbed my bag off the floor and arrived back at the front door only slightly out of breath. ‘Let’s go,’ I said as I squeezed between Andrew and Connor to get to Detective Lockwood’s side.

  ‘Tyler,’ Andrew came towards me, arms outstretched. He hugged me and I screwed up my nose, holding my breath as I waited for him to release me.

  ‘I’ll come with you, for moral support,’ he said as he clutched me tight. His eyes darted sideways when the detective stepped into view. ‘I’m sure the detective won’t mind if I tag along.’

  ‘No.’ I stepped back, and took a breath of air not tainted by Andrew’s aftershave. ‘You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine. Go back inside and finish your lunch.’ I didn’t give him time to respond. I spun around and marched down the front path towards my Corolla, conscious of my family watching as Detective Lockwood strode along beside me.

  His unmarked car was parked behind mine and he took my arm and angled me towards it. ‘I’ll drive.’

  I stopped and stared at him.

  ‘I’ll bring you back later, to get your car, I promise.’

  ‘With all the questions my family will have, bringing me back here is more of a threat than a promise. I’ll take my own car thanks.’ I pulled my arm free. ‘You lead and I’ll follow,’ I said as I unlocked my door. I waved goodbye to my family and then slid inside my car and buckled up.

  Detective Lockwood pulled out and drove forward slowly, giving me time to get in behind his car for the drive to the police station on the south side of town. Ten minutes later he drove into the car park and I took the spot next to him. He appeared at my door, opening it for me before I’d even turned off the engine and unbuckled my seatbelt.

  I shouldered my bag and grinned at him as I got out. ‘This is service. Not only do you rescue me from my family, you open doors too. What else do you do?’

  ‘I catch bad guys.’

  ‘Seriously, I owe you for getting me out of there. But how did you know where to find me?’ I locked the door and gazed up at him. He wasn’t overly tall for a guy, but I still had to look up to meet his eyes.

  ‘I’m a detective. It’s my job.’ He took my arm and led me towards the station’s front doors. Two minutes later he ushered me into an office and gestured for me to take the chair in front of his desk.

  ‘Would you like a coffee or a cold drink?’

  I sat down and placed my handbag in my lap. ‘No, thank you, Detective Lockwood.’

  ‘Please, call me Sam.’ He smiled at me as his took his seat, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. ‘May I call you Tyler?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘It’s an unusual name, for a woman.’

  I shrugged. ‘Dad was sure he’d only have boys and didn’t have another name picked out when I came along, so I got stuck with Tyler.’

  ‘And your mother didn’t mind?’

  ‘She didn’t have a choice. But, my stepmother once told me Mum made a point of calling me Tyler Maree so everybody knew I was a girl.’

  ‘That wasn’t your mother back at the house?’

  ‘Rhonda is wife number three. Wife number one is Denise, Andrew’s mother. They divorced when Andrew was two and then Dad married my mum, but she died in a car accident when I was a baby. Next he married Rhonda, our neighbour, and had Connor.’ I bit my lip, shutting off my nervous babble.

  ‘I see.’ Sam gazed at me, hazel eyes filled with compassion, like he understood what living with my family was like. I fidgeted with the straps of my handbag, worried he was buttering me up for something. Was I about to be arrested after all?

  ‘You didn’t bring me here to talk about my family history or how I got my name. You said I had to make a statement, but I don’t see how I can help your investigation when I didn’t see or hear anything.’

  He folded his hands together on top of the blotter. ‘That case is closed. We caught the guy who did it last night. I brought you in for questioning about another case.’

  I froze, dropping my eyes as I struggled to think it through. It must have been my anonymous tip. Obviously it wasn’t as anonymous as I’d hoped.

  ‘I don’t understand. What do I have to do with this new case?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  I searched his gaze for clues, but his eyes were suspiciously blank. Then he tossed a small package on the desk in front of me.

  ‘Want an Oddfellow? I understand you like them.’

  My mouth dried up as I stared at the innocuous red, blue and white package. The last time I’d seen one was Thursday night, on the service station floor, covered in my blood.

  How could I have been so stupid? My blood on the floor, fingerprints on the packet of Oddfellows, even the pile of vomit. I’d left behind enough DNA evidence for even the most mediocre of detectives to connect the dots, and Sam did not strike me as being anything less than thorough.

  I shook my head, scrambling for a way out. ‘Who told you I like Oddfellows? Was it the same person who told you I was at my Dad’s? Did you talk to Sarah?’ Oh god, what else had she told him?

  ‘I didn’t need to talk to anyone. I saw you, on this.’ He held up an old style video cassette and it was all I could do not to groan out loud. It had never occurred to me that the service station had surveillance cameras, it was so old and the owner had never put any money into upgrading it since the day it was built.

  The tape in Sam’s hands proved how wrong my assumption had been. He must have seen everything.

  I twitched and the handbag on my lap toppled sideways, my fingers grasping empty air as it tumbled off. It met the floor with a thud and I reached after it, using my hair as a shield to block me from Sam’s view, gaining a few precious seconds to compose myself. When I sat up, once again clutching my handbag, I met his gaze with all the c
alm and bravado I could muster.

  ‘I still don’t understand. What has my liking Oddfellows got to do with your investigation? What exactly are you investigating?’ I attempted a laugh. ‘Surely the sweet habits of part-time uni students aren’t of interest to the police.

  ‘They are when the only place in Easton to sell Oddfellows is the scene of a triple homicide.’

  ‘This is about the murders in the service station. I knew one of the victims, the owner. Well, I didn’t know him, but I saw him whenever I went in to buy my Oddfellows.’

  ‘I know. You were there two weeks ago, according to the surveillance records.’

  ‘Two weeks?’ I covered my surprise at the timeframe. ‘Yes, that would be about right. I haven’t bought any for a while.’

  ‘Are you positive you didn’t drop in on Thursday night?’

  ‘You tell me. You’re the one with the tape.’

  ‘The tape for Thursday is missing, but there was a packet of Oddfellows on the floor and seeing as you appeared to be their best customer when it comes to these,’ he gestured at the packet in front of me, ‘I thought there’s a chance you’d been there around the time of the murders and could tell me what happened.’

  A wave of relief washed over me. ‘I wish I could help you but, like I said, I haven’t bought any for a while. I’ve been trying to wean myself off. Don’t want to rot my teeth.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Sam leaned back in his seat, linking his fingers over his stomach and staring at me so intently I kept talking to disguise my nervousness.

  ‘I thought the investigation was closed, that it was a murder/suicide?’

  ‘Where’d you hear that?’

  ‘I work at the newspaper. I might not be a journalist yet, but I still hear things.’

  ‘A number of things don’t add up. Like what killed the guy who murdered the other two.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Wasn’t it drug related?’

  ‘The first time he died was from a drug overdose. But we’re not sure what killed him the second time around.’

  ‘What?’

  Sam pulled a photo out of a folder in his in-tray and placed it down on the desk in front of me. The man in the photo was clearly dead, his skin grey and waxen. Though his face wasn’t mottled like rotten fruit, I recognised the man who had slid his knife into my stomach. I dispelled the image from my mind only to have it replaced with the grotesque mask of fear and agony he wore as I ripped his soul out of his body.

  I averted my eyes. ‘I don’t understand. Why are you showing me this?’

  ‘Do you recognise him?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Sam echoed, staring at me like he knew I was lying. ‘According to my sources, you always study at the university library on a Thursday night, and usually stock up on Oddfellows before you go. Surveillance for the six months prior shows you making at least a fortnightly appearance at the service station. Yet you want me to believe you did not go there last Thursday night. You weren’t there when this man,’ he tapped the photo, drawing my attention back to it, ‘came in? Because someone sure as hell was, and they were buying Oddfellows.’

  Sam placed another photo on the desk, this one not as clear as the other one. This showed a familiar scene, a pool of my own blood, on the edge of it the packet of Oddfellows I’d gone into the service station to buy.

  ‘The witness who made the “000” call took this photo on his mobile before he phoned it in. He was instructed to wait outside for emergency services to turn up, and swears no one else entered or left the service station. But when the first officer on the scene went inside there was no blood. If the witness hadn’t taken this photo there’d be no proof another person had been present at the time of the murders, someone who lost a lot of blood.’

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. How had Grimm managed to clean up the place before the police arrived? Then again, if he could bring me back from the dead I guess taking care of spilled blood and vomit would be easy in comparison.

  Sam made me forget about Grimm when he locked me in place with a penetrating stare. ‘You were unwell yesterday, slept in and then got sent home from work early. I hear you even passed out. Care to tell me what the problem was?’

  ‘Are you serious? You think it’s my blood?’ Guilt threatening to choke off my words, I prepared to lie my way out of trouble. ‘You saw me, yesterday morning. Did I look like I’d left half my blood count on a service station floor? I was under the weather, sure, but not because someone tried to kill me. I told you why I was upset, and it’s the same reason I left work early. I had to sit there, in the same office as Sarah, knowing what she’d been doing the night before. Of course I felt sick. Who wouldn’t?’

  He stared at me, silent, like he knew every word I uttered to be a lie. How could he not know? But I had to make him believe me. I stood, dumping my handbag on the ground and grabbing the bottom of my top.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sam bolted from his seat and raced around the desk to grab my hands, stopping me from stripping to my bra and jeans.

  ‘I’m trying to show you you’ve got the wrong girl. When you see I don’t have any gaping holes in my body, maybe you’ll let go of this ridiculous idea you have about it being my blood,’ I gasped out, breathless as I struggled to free my hands from his iron grip, but he held me tight and we stood there, locked in a facsimile of an embrace. I glared up at him, tears of anger stinging my eyes until I saw the remorse on his face.

  Guilt slammed into me and I sagged against him, burying my head in the curve of his shoulder. Sam let go of my arms, his hands moving to the small of my back, and shame fizzed in my stomach. I didn’t deserve his comfort. I was lying to him, withholding information and doing everything I could to make sure he never uncovered the truth. But I couldn’t bring myself to be the first to move away.

  ‘Tyler, I’m so sorry.’ Sam’s arms dropped from around me and he stepped back, one hand pulling at his tie, the other rubbing his forehead. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course you weren’t there. I’m not sure anyone was. This case is so messed up, nothing makes sense.’

  I took a deep breath and straightened my top, shaking as I sat back down. I swallowed repeatedly but still couldn’t clear the lump in my throat. In danger of bursting into tears, I sought some way to distract myself from this latest disaster. Something Sam had said earlier started to make horrible sense.

  ‘You said he died twice.’ I gazed up at Sam, willing him to explain this statement away with a laugh. ‘What did you mean?’

  Sam seemed to gain strength from my question. He straightened up and took his seat again. ‘This morgue shot is from Thursday afternoon.’ He tapped the photo of the murderer again. ‘He was picked up in a park around three pm and pronounced dead in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, suspected drug overdose. Before an autopsy could be carried out, his body disappeared from the morgue, vanishing without a trace, until it turned up at the service station. So what I want to know is how a dead man could kill two people before dropping dead again.’

  Chapter 10

  ‘They must have made a mistake. He can’t have been dead,’ I said.

  ‘I thought the paramedics screwed up too, but the coroner agrees with them, says the damage to his internal organs and the amount of decomposition all point to this guy being dead long before he turned up at the service station. Someone else must have taken his body and planted it there after killing the other two men. Even then, it doesn’t make sense. All the physical evidence points to the dead guy as the killer, but there’s no way he could have done it.’

  Oh, god. He really had been a zombie, a monster. I wanted to bury my head in the sand, pretend that zombies and the like couldn’t exist. But … the Grim Reaper was real, very much so, so why not zombies.

  I cast around for something sensible to say. Sam beat me to it.

  ‘I’ve got no leads and, considering the things you can do with a phone
these days, have no reason to think this photo is even genuine.’ Sam indicated the grainy photo of my blood. ‘I need a break on this case and you were my last hope.’

  ‘I am sorry I can’t help you, Sam. I wish I could.’

  ‘You don’t want to confess you’re in a cult and take photos of fake blood and snatch bodies from morgues to plant at crime scenes?’

  I had no words, I stared at Sam and he gave me a sheepish smile. ‘Not one of my best theories, but considering your necklace I figured it was worth a shot.’

  My hand automatically went to my throat.

  ‘I saw it yesterday morning, when you were in your pyjamas.’ Sam gave me a crooked smile.

  My cheeks flushed.

  The door to the office swung open behind me. Sam stood, frowning at the newcomer.

  ‘Lockwood, you don’t look happy to see me,’ said a deep voice, full of amusement. The voice’s owner moved forward and when he reached my side I glanced up at his imposing figure. Brilliant blue eyes twinkled as he smiled at me. ‘Ah, now I see why.’

  I gazed up at Chris Bradbury, unable to pull my eyes away from his. He dominated the small space around me, making me feel tiny in comparison. He had to be well over six feet tall and oozed confidence in a tailored suit designed to highlight his muscular build.

  ‘You’re early,’ said Sam, his voice curiously toneless.

  ‘Thought I’d get this tedious alibi business over and done with, and then I can relax and enjoy all the pleasures the day has to offer.’ Even though he was speaking to Sam, his eyes never left mine and I flushed.

  I’d seen him, in magazines and being interviewed on television, but those mediums had failed to properly capture his magnetic presence. I struggled to remember what Sam and I had been discussing.

  ‘You wanted to know about my necklace,’ I said as I twisted around to face Sam, determined to ignore the other man even though I could sense his eyes were still on me. I used one hand to pull the cowl down so the chain peeked out. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, again. I don’t belong to a cult. There’s nothing sinister about my necklace. It was a gift, given to me a couple of days ago. It’s nothing special.’