by Rita Herron
She’d tried to scream for help, but the sound had died in her throat, as if her voice was paralyzed, just like her body.
One touch of his hand and she had been immobilized by fear.
How had he done that? Why? God, why? She was too young to die.
She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to remember why she’d climbed in the car with him. Her car had broken down . . . she’d needed a ride. She knew him, had trusted him. His eyes had been kind.
Nothing like the evil of the hideous creature mauling her now.
Pine needles stabbed her back and head as he pressed his weight on her with one knee and twisted the knife into her thigh. She gasped, inhaling his rancid breath as pain exploded in her leg. Unable to scream, she shook with sobs, trying desperately to fight him, but her limbs refused to cooperate. Instead, she lay like a limp doll below him, helpless to stop him from carving her into pieces.
He waved the knife in front of her, the bloody tip glinting with drops of crimson. Her body spasmed with nausea. Through the fog, his eyes turned a yellow, ghoulish color, piercing her. Then he flicked a drop of blood with his finger and painted her lips with the sticky substance.
She gagged, choking on the coppery taste as the world spun sickeningly. Knowing she was going to pass out, she closed her eyes again, praying for him to end this torture.
Despair and sadness washed over her. Yesterday her entire life had loomed in front of her. She wanted to get married one day. Have babies. Attend college.
None of that was going to happen.
He plunged the knife into her shoulder, and her body jerked in agony. In a last-ditch effort to save herself, she silently begged him to let her go.
But his vile laughter echoed off the mountain as he raised the blood-soaked knife again and sliced her throat. Blood gurgled and spewed, her choked scream dying in the air.
Finally, the black abyss of death swallowed her.
CHAPTER THREE
Five days until the rising
Vincent studied the questionnaire at BloodCore, debating how much information to reveal. If the bureau discovered he was here, they’d ask questions.
Questions he didn’t want to answer.
Maybe it had been a mistake to come.
“Mr. Valtrez?” A slender female doctor who looked to be in her midthirties approached him. “Hi, I’m Dr. Marlena Bender. Come this way.”
Shoulders rigid, he followed her into a small laboratory, where she proceeded to explain the project in more detail.
“This research is privately funded, and it’s one of my personal pet projects,” she said. “The age-old question of nature versus nurture. It especially intrigues me, as I was a product of a rape myself and feared that my genetic father passed his violent tendencies on to me. I’ve always struggled with that fear and decided to make it my life’s work.”
Vincent relaxed slightly.
“I’m sharing my story because most patients in the study are reluctant to reveal their histories. But rest assured, your records and tests will be kept strictly confidential.” She explained how she used encrypted codes to prevent hackers from accessing the data. Feeling marginally better, he admitted that his father had been abusive and had murdered his mother.
“It’s admirable that you’ve chosen to be a federal agent,” she said. “Seems we’re both fighting our pasts. Just think, if we could pinpoint genetic markers to identify aggression, tendencies toward violent behavior, and mental disorders, we could test fetuses or newborns and treat them early on and possibly eradicate criminal behavior.”
Her enthusiasm seemed sincere, although Vincent doubted they’d ever be able to prevent criminal behavior completely. There were too many variables.
“The agency is not aware that I’m participating in this,” he said. “My anonymity has to be kept.”
“Absolutely.” She arranged several test tubes on the counter, tied the tourniquet around his arm, and inserted the needle. He stared at his blood as it flowed through the tubing, his anxiety mounting.
Was violence genetic? Had he inherited his father’s violent tendencies?
Worse, would he someday succumb to the darkness within him and let it consume him, as his father had?
The graveyard always drew the ghosts.
Clarissa tried to avoid it, but her family was here, and she forced herself to visit and bring flowers at least once a week.
She’d been awake half the night, haunted by Billie Jo and Jamie’s whimpers. She had no room in her cluttered mind for the other spirits rising from their graves, crying out for her.
A scraping sound jarred her, and she pivoted, then noticed Hadley Crane digging a grave for a burial. Probably Jamie Lackey’s.
As if he sensed her watching, Hadley lifted his gaze to her and tipped his baseball hat. She flicked her hand up in greeting. Although he was nice-looking, he’d always seemed strange, talking to himself constantly.
Of course, most people thought she was strange, too.
Shaking off the thought, she knelt, gently placed the flowers in the respective vases. Needing solace from someone who understood her, she summoned her grandmother’s spirit.
She’d long ago stopped calling for her mother. The night she took her own life, she appeared to Clarissa, whispered that she loved her and that she was sorry for leaving, but that she wouldn’t visit her from the grave, because she wanted Clarissa to stifle her ability, to have a normal life free from the voices. True to her word, she hadn’t visited since.
“Grandmother,” she said softly. “I’m here.”
“I know, sweetness.” Her grandmother’s voice sounded distant and low, like an ocean breeze ruffling the water. “I knew you were coming.”
“Then you know about Billie Jo and Jamie, that I need to help them cross into the light.”
“Yes, dear. But I’m afraid there will be more victims of this evil.” Her voice warbled. “There is talk that a new leader is rising from the underworld. A band of Soul Collectors has dispersed across the Earth to claim souls for the offering at his coronation.”
“Will I recognize him?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Some demons can shape-shift, possess a human’s body and walk among you.”
Clarissa swallowed. “What can I do to stop him, Grandmother?”
“Trust your instincts, and help the lost cross over,” her grandmother said.
Clarissa nodded. She’d accepted her destiny years ago.
“There is one who comes to town,” her grandmother continued, “one you must be wary of.”
Clarissa knotted her hands. “You’re talking about Vincent Valtrez, aren’t you, Grandmother?”
Her grandmother sighed. “Yes. He is dangerous, possesses a darkness as his father did.”
Clarissa waited for more, but her grandmother’s voice faded, and so did her image. Fear blanketed her as the mist of morning dotted the tips of the mountain ridges and animal life scurried through the forests.
She shivered.
She wasn’t a child anymore or a fanciful teenager. This time she’d heed her grandmother’s warning and protect herself from Vincent.
Troubling thoughts pounded at Vincent as he drove through the Smokies to Eerie, Tennessee. The mountain ridges jutted around the ghostlike town like soldiers guarding an ancient tomb, a tomb of lost souls and malevolence.
McLaughlin’s words about relaxing while he was here taunted him. This was not a place to relax—it was a place that bred trouble.
Storm clouds rumbled above the tall ridges, the spiked, jagged cliffs offering the perfect place for a madman to hide. Childhood memories of hiking through a similar area flashed back, making him break out in a sweat.
The insufferable heat choked him, the crunch of leaves and animals scurrying for safety echoing in his head. He inhaled the loamy scent of the earth, the rotting vegetation, the stench of an animal’s blood where nearby vultures gnawed at the carcass already too mauled to identify. He heard his father’s breath coaxing him on,
driving him into the woods, teaching him to aim at his target, telling him to shoot.
Kill or be killed . . .
He banished the memory. The past did not matter now.
He was here to do a job, and he’d do it, then go home and on to the next case.
But a frisson of anxiety ripped through him. He had lived in these mountains near Eerie when he was young, then in that juvenile facility on the other side of the Black Forest as a teenager. Would people here remember him?
Praying they didn’t, he wheeled into the police station entrance and parked, dust spewing from his boots as he strode into the mud-splattered adobe building. This meeting would be a waste of time. Time he’d never get back.
Time he could have used on a real case, not on speculations made by a psychic.
A short, burly man with wiry graying hair lumbered up from behind a metal desk, a cup of coffee in one stubby hand. “Sheriff Dwayne Waller. Thank you for coming. Do you remember me, Valtrez?”
Vincent gritted his teeth. Hell, yeah, he did. Waller had been young and cocky years ago, had come out to his house on a couple of domestic calls. “Yes. That was a long time ago.” And I’m not my father.
They shook hands, then the sheriff gestured for Vincent to follow him into a cramped, sweltering office overflowing with paperwork, dirty coffee cups, and Dolly Parton memorabilia. The aroma of bacon filled the air, along with strong chicory coffee.
Vincent fought a caustic remark, but the comment died on his tongue as his gaze shot to the woman seated in one of the caned straight-back chairs to the side. Damn.
Clarissa.
Not a frail-looking kid any more.
Yet those eyes . . . they were still huge in her heart- shaped face. Soft. Troubled. Mysterious. The color of burnt copper.
She stared up at him with a fierce expression of bravado, like an enemy warrior braced for attack.
Except this soldier had curly auburn hair that cascaded over slender shoulders. Skin like hot honey. And a body that was sinfully curvaceous.
His mouth watered as he pictured the womanly Clarissa sprawled beneath him, naked and begging him to bed her.
He had a habit of imagining a woman naked the first time he saw her. Liked to guess at the color of her nipples. Clarissa would have large areolas, golden brown tipped in bronze. He could almost see them hardening beneath his gaze, imagined wetting them with his tongue.
He hadn’t believed she could talk to ghosts when he was young. Then she’d freaked him out when she’d offered to commune with the spirits to see if his mother had passed . . .
Time to get this meeting over with. He cleared his throat. “Clarissa?”
Her gaze remained steady, soulful like an exotic gypsy’s, as she extended her delicate hand. “Special Agent Valtrez.”
He clenched his jaw as he accepted the gesture. Her palm would have fit inside his hand twice, her skin soft next to his callouses.
Heat seared him at her touch, making his body harden. Had she felt it, too?
A cool look slid onto her face, masking any emotion, giving him his answer.
Against his will, though, that aloofness turned him on. He’d like to do her right here in the office up against the wall with Dolly Parton watching.
But that mysterious, almost eerie look settled back in her eyes again, sucker punching him, and he realized that once with her might not be enough.
She’d want more. She’d pick at a man’s soul with those probing deep eyes, weave a magic spell around him with her sultry voice.
His jaw tightened, and he pasted his professional mask in place, reminding himself why he was here.
To check out the possibility of a serial killer. Nothing more.
CHAPTER FOUR
Clarissa took one look at Vincent and a tingle rippled through her. He had been a tough and lonely little boy, mad at the world, and he had grown into a tougher man, big and broad shouldered, all dark, brooding, and sexy.
In fact, he was absolutely breathtaking now.
He stood well over six feet. His muscles had become defined and pronounced, his jaw square, and a few lines had started to fan around his eyes. His black hair was thick and layered and shadowed dense brows, deep-set eyes, and a slight scar on his forehead.
Tension vibrated between them as those intense black eyes bore into hers. They were blacker than she remembered, angry, as if he was void of a soul.
Maybe it had been ripped out by all he’d seen as a kid and since he’d left Eerie.
God knew that living with the victims’ spirits had robbed her innocence. Their suffering—the mind-numbing fear that had frozen them in place and kept them from escaping their tormentor—ate at her. Sometimes their final thoughts as their last breath shuddered from their failing bodies haunted her at night, especially those not ready to pass. And then there were the ones with so many sins they’d never make it into the light.
Fear of not being able to help the victims barreled through her. Sorrow rolled in on the last train in that car. She couldn’t fail. Billie Jo and Jamie were depending on her. And so was this other woman.
“Sheriff Waller requested the FBI’s assistance because of information you’ve supplied, Clarissa?” Vincent’s husky tone dripped sarcasm and male sexuality.
“Yes. Thank you for coming.”
He claimed the other metal chair, his impressive height towering over her, his intimidating look pinning her to the seat. He fully intended to discount any information she offered, that was obvious.
She forged on anyway, determined to convince him to investigate. She didn’t care what he thought of her personally anymore, but she had to help the ones in limbo.
“Let’s review the facts. You’re a grief counselor now?” he asked.
“Actually, I’m a family therapist here in town, but I specialize in grief counseling. I’ve spoken with each of the two families who lost loved ones.”
He gave a clipped nod. “I’ve studied the files on those cases, and I don’t see anything to indicate they’re connected.” He consulted the folder in his hand. “In fact, both the drowning victim and spider-bite victim appear to have died from accidental causes. And according to the lack of evidence of a struggle or footprints, the drowning might have been a suicide.”
“Billie Jo Rivers did not kill herself,” Clarissa stated with conviction. “She had just gotten engaged last week and was excited about planning her wedding.”
Vincent glanced at the sheriff for confirmation.
Sheriff Waller nodded. “I talked to Billie Jo’s mama. She said she and Billie Jo were supposed to go dress shopping the next day, that Billie Jo couldn’t wait.” Sheriff Waller hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “There was no suicide note, either.”
Vincent arched a thick black brow. “Maybe she discovered her fiancé was cheating and was distraught.”
“No,” Clarissa argued. “Curtis Riggs worshipped that girl. He’s not the cheating kind.”
Vincent leaned back, his crisp shirt stretching across massive, powerful broad shoulders. “What about defensive wounds?”
Waller hesitated, then scratched his head. “That’s what makes this so danged confusing. There weren’t any. And Billie Jo was a strong girl—she should have fought back.”
“Any markings around her neck or head where someone held her underwater?” Vincent asked.
Waller shook his head again. “No. And she didn’t have any enemies, either. Everyone in town loved Billie Jo. That girl was sweet as molasses.”
“You questioned the fiancé?”
“Yep. Standard police work.” Waller’s tone held a defensive edge to it. “We may be small-town, but we’re competent. Curtis was devastated over Billie Jo’s death, cried like a baby.”
“He loved Billie Jo,” Clarissa seconded. “They were high school sweethearts. I talked to him myself, and he’s despondent. He said Billie Jo was afraid of water, too, that she never would have gone to that creek by herself.”
“How about
alcohol in her system?” Vincent asked.
Waller shifted. “Tox reports showed no alcohol or drugs.”
“That’s interesting,” Vincent conceded, “but what makes you think the spider-bite victim was murdered?”
“Did you see the number of bites she sustained?” Clarissa asked, annoyed. “Her apartment building was new, too. Someone had to have collected those spiders and put them in her bed.”
Vincent leaned forward, his jaw set hard and firm. “Even if that were so, what makes you think the two deaths are connected? That they’re the work of one person?”
The two women’s faces floated into Clarissa’s vision, ghostly hues in ethereal, shimmering pale white that screamed for her to speak for them, because they could no longer speak for themselves. They wanted justice and deserved an explanation. So did their loved ones.
Vincent folded his hands, hands that were large and masculine, filled with power and strength. His fingers were scarred now, rugged—she wondered about the scars, then if his hands could be gentle.
He cleared his throat. “Clarissa, answer the question.”
“Because Billie Jo’s and Jamie’s spirits are together, holding hands,” she said in a strained whisper.
Vincent’s jaw tightened. “If these spirits can talk to you, why don’t they tell you who killed them?”
“Because they don’t know.” She wet her dry lips with her tongue. “When people die from a sudden trauma or violent death, their souls go into shock,” she explained. “It takes time to adjust, to accept that they’re dead. It may take even longer for them to communicate.”
“Why do these spirits appear to you?” he asked.
Clarissa twisted her hands. “Two reasons. I knew both victims. And I’m what’s called a safe zone. The spirits know I’m a believer and more emotionally detached than a family member.”
His eyes narrowed. “Have you ever been tested?”
“No. I don’t need testing. I know what I hear.”