by Rita Herron
Ronnie nodded, rubbing his hand over his eyes as he blinked back more tears, his bony shoulders slumped. “Tracy was only twenty-one. She can’t be dead. She was so young . . .”
He scrubbed a hand through his wiry brown hair, making it stick up in all directions. “She hated blood . . . the sight of it,” he said raggedly. “She fainted when they drew blood at her physical. I can’t believe she died covered like this.”
Clarissa jerked her head toward Vincent. “Her greatest fear . . .”
For a moment, his gaze flickered with acceptance of her theory, but a second later, a mask slid over his expression as if that moment had never happened.
“Did your sister live with you?” Vincent asked.
Ronnie jumped up and began to pace, kicking leaves and rocks as his agitation mounted. “She moved into an apartment last week. I go by and check on her every day, but this morning when I saw her car wasn’t at home, I got scared. So I drove around town and found it on the side of the road near the bakery. The battery was dead . . .” He paused and sniffed, and Clarissa patted his back, encouraging him to continue.
“I should have installed a new one for her last week . . . but I was going to wait for my next paycheck . . .” He gulped back more tears. “Jesus, it’s my fault. If I had, she wouldn’t have had car trouble—”
“It’s not your fault,” Clarissa said softly. “Tracy knows you cared about her, Ronnie. She loved you and wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”
Vincent gave her a sharp look, and Clarissa’s temper flared. But through the hazy turmoil of her own emotions, she saw a misty gray swirling above Tracy’s body.
Loose particles of ectoplasm glittered like tiny diamonds, then slowly congealed to resemble her shape. Even in spirit form, Tracy’s head hung precariously to the side, and her eyes were stricken as she watched her grief-stricken brother.
“She was stabbed. Judging from the knife wounds, it looks like the perp used a hunting knife,” Vincent said. “Do you know anyone who would have hurt her, Ronnie?”
Ronnie shook his head. “No, no one.”
“Was she dating anyone?”
Ronnie shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
“Any recent breakups?”
Again Ronnie shook his head. “You have to find the monster who did this.”
A muscle ticked in Vincent’s jaw, and Clarissa grabbed his arm before he could question Ronnie further. “Vincent, can we talk for a minute?”
“What?” he asked sarcastically. “Do you have more news from the dead?”
Anger sharpened her voice. “Maybe you should crawl back under your rock and request another agent for this case. You obviously don’t want to be here.”
His black eyes stabbed her. “My job is not to make friends here or coddle the locals,” he said in a gruff voice. “It’s to find out who murdered this woman.”
“At least you could have some compassion for Ronnie.”
“Everyone is considered a suspect in a homicide case.” The dark aura surrounding him swirled with energy.
“So I’m a suspect, too?” she said.
His eyes pierced her, his voice gruff when he spoke. “No.”
Desperate for something concrete to convince him, she turned to Tracy. Billie Jo and Jamie’s spirits appeared beside Tracy, and she silently begged them for more information.
Tracy held out a trembling, bloody hand and slowly unfolded her fingers.
Clarissa frowned as the other two women’s spirits extended pale, ghostly hands containing the same object.
She studied the rock, trying to understand the significance. “Agent Valtrez, there is something that proves the deaths are connected.”
His sigh rasped through the silence. “I’m listening.”
Clarissa cleared her throat, certain now she had a clue. “The killer left a small piece of black rock at each crime scene.”
His thick eyebrows rode up. “You know this how?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but he shrugged her off. “Never mind. I guess the victims told you.”
Her mouth tightened. “Just check the area. See if you find a piece of black rock beside Tracy. Look in her hand.”
He didn’t comment but glanced back at the scene. “Why am I looking for black rock?”
“The killer leaves it as his signature.”
His gaze met hers. Distrustful. Filled with suspicion. And a small flicker of some other emotion she couldn’t discern.
He knew something about the black rock . . .
Moving like a giant panther stalking his prey, he strode over to the body and knelt. Clarissa’s stomach tightened as he removed the small piece of rock from Tracy’s clenched fingers with his gloved hand.
The hairs on the back of her neck bristled, and she glanced up at the imposing ridges surrounding them. In spite of the heat, a stiff wind rattled the trees, a hollow moan echoing as if it had emerged from deep in the mountain. Below her feet, the earth shook as if the ground might open up and swallow her.
This killer was truly evil. Supernatural. He had been here last night in this park, and he was close by now, too.
Ready to strike again and take another life if they didn’t stop him.
The cycle of the moon—that was Pan’s curse. Collect seven souls and he could rise to the next level of the underground. Fail and he would be sentenced to the lowest level, where he would be tortured through eternity.
Pan had killed three times now, but the girls’ souls remained in limbo. Though they had begged for their lives, not a one had agreed to be converted. He had the power to offer them eternal life if they joined him on his quest. Once they sold their souls to him, then made their first kill, immortality would be theirs.
He’d known they’d contact the medium, had intended for them to drive her crazy. But she was stronger than he thought. She was trying to help them fight him, to cross into the light.
Still, she was suffering.
Heat beat down on Pan’s back as his demonic form watched the humans studying his handiwork. He enjoyed torturing the humans. Would use them to make Vincent more vulnerable.
The woman, Tracy, her blood had tasted like nectar, her fear like a fine wine, rich and heady. The coppery scent still lingered on his hands and in his nostrils, making him shudder with excitement. And what a fitting place to leave her body—Hell’s Hollow.
Had Vincent recognized his old homestead? Were his memories of the past and his father’s teachings finally returning?
Did he remember where he’d first seen the black rock? Did he understand its significance?
Excitement raced through him. Vincent would remember . . . everything. And soon.
His soul was worth a million others.
Pan would steal it for his master. Then he would bask in the glory.
CHAPTER SIX
Horrific images and thoughts suddenly bombarded Vincent as he held the black rock in his hand. For a brief second, heat seared his palm and the rock actually glowed, launching him back to the past he’d forgotten.
To the cave his father had taken him to in the Black Forest. The cave made of black rock.
The cave where his mother had burned to death.
He swallowed hard, emotions churning in his chest as the memory became clearer.
It had been a hot day, yet another in a series of vicious and cruel beatings. His mother had tried to protect him, but his father had raged and dragged her into the woods, into the Black Forest.
Vincent had been terrified, but he’d chased after them. He had to save her.
His body shook now as the images crashed back—battling his way through the snakes and creatures in the thick forest, fending off animals and dark shadows that he couldn’t distinguish.
And when he’d finally reached the cave, he’d found his mother, bloody and half beaten already, tied to a wooden stake in the center.
Then his father, a black shadow of evil surrounding him, had raised his hands, hands that had bee
n cruel and unforgiving, and pressed his fingertips against the stone walls. As if from the bowels of hell, flames sparked from the rock, lighting up the cavern. Satan’s image swam against the jagged stone surface.
His father’s hands held that flaming power. And he’d used it to light the torches surrounding his mother and burned her to death.
Vincent had fought him. Fought him and driven a stake into his father’s cold heart.
“You have my blood, bad blood,” his father had told him repeatedly when he was a child. “You’re a Dark Lord.”
He hadn’t understood the depth of his father’s lack of morality until that day.
Sorrow clogged his throat, nearly bringing him to his knees. He hadn’t been able to save his mother. He could hear her screams and cries as the flames consumed her.
“Vincent?” A hand touched his arm, fingers gentle and tender, dragging him back to reality.
Still, he shuddered at the power of the memory. He’d always suspected his father had killed his mother, but now he knew.
He’d witnessed her horrific murder and hadn’t been able to save her. His right hand went to his pocket, where he kept the amulet he’d pulled from the fire, the only thing he had left of her.
He’d kept it, had known it was important, that she would never have taken it off. Not willingly.
What else had happened in that forest? What exactly had he seen? And how had he ended up outside the forest afterward?
“What is it about the black rock?” Clarissa asked.
He blinked away the images and glanced into Clarissa’s eyes. Eyes that saw too much.
Did she possess a psychic power? Could she see the darkness inside him?
Tension knotted his neck as he handed the rock to the crime-scene investigator to bag. He wasn’t ready to reveal what he’d seen. Not yet. It was too personal, too painful.
Besides, it had nothing to do with this killer.
“I was just wondering if there could be a cave nearby made of this black stone.”
“It’s possible,” Clarissa said, still watching him thoughtfully. “The mountains have dozens of caves and mines interspersed throughout.”
He frowned. “I’ll have forensics analyze it. Could be where the killer takes his victims or where he’s holed up.”
He remembered Ronnie saying his sister’s car had broken down. Hadn’t Waller said Bennett ran a tow service?
He’d follow up, see if Tracy might have called Bennett.
Her eyes narrowed as if she suspected he was withholding information, but he didn’t have to include her in his investigation, not the details, anyway. She was nothing but a distraction.
And the only person he’d ever been tempted to confide in about his father’s cruelty.
“Why don’t you take the brother home while we finish up?” he suggested.
A heartbeat of silence yawned between them, filled with tension. “You want to get rid of me? Why, Vincent? Afraid I’ll slip into your head and see something you don’t want me to see?”
His jaw clenched. “I thought you talked to ghosts. I didn’t know you read minds of the living, too.”
Her lips tilted into a smile. “You don’t have to be a mind reader to understand some people.”
He arched a brow, injecting cynicism in his voice. “And you think you understand me?”
She shrugged. “You act tough. You want people to think you don’t care, that you don’t have a heart. But if you didn’t, you wouldn’t have chosen to save lives for a living. You protect and fight for innocents.”
He hissed a breath as he leaned forward, so close to her he inhaled her scent, so close he felt her breath on his face. Heat still curled inside him where she’d touched his arm.
Goddammit, he didn’t want her touch or her voice tempting him.
He wanted her to feel the danger radiating off of him as he stared coldly into her eyes. Wanted to make her run far away so he wouldn’t have to be tempted by her big eyes. “I do this job because I understand the need to kill,” he murmured. “Because I’m just like these monsters.”
Vincent’s masculine scent taunted Clarissa as he leaned closer to her.
Darkness swirled around them, cocooned them as if they were alone at the precipice of the mountain. His breath against her face was intended as a warning, just as his cold statement was. He wanted to scare her.
For a brief moment, fear tickled her nerves. Yet at the same time the power and intensity in his gaze sent heat and hunger splintering through her.
She constantly dealt with tortured spirits and refused to let Vincent intimidate her. If she ran from him like a frightened child, he’d never take her seriously.
Besides, her instincts and counseling experience told her that he wore a cold shield around himself as a protective device. Though she had no idea what a tough man like him could be afraid of.
Maybe that his secrets would be exposed.
The man had those; she saw them hidden in the depths of his eyes.
But she would be a glutton for punishment if she allowed herself to fall prey to his sexuality.
Before she had a chance to recover, he pivoted and strode away from her, cornering one of the crime-scene investigators, who’d found a small piece of blue fabric caught on a low branch.
She walked over to examine it and touched the branch. Suddenly, images bombarded her. Tracy crying for help. Silently pleading for the killer to stop torturing her. A faceless monster sinking the knife into her.
A man digging a grave. A grave meant for Tracy.
Or for her?
Ronnie sniffled and shuffled up to her. “Clarissa, I gotta go tell Mama ’bout Tracy . . .”
Clarissa’s heart bled for him and the pain Tracy had endured. No mother wanted to hear her baby girl had been dealt such a horrible fate. “I’ll go with you, Ronnie. Eloise might need me.”
Gratitude softened his haunted eyes as she folded him in her arms and hugged him. “Go back to your car and wait for me. Let me tell the sheriff and Agent Valtrez that I’ll drive you home.”
He nodded, his bony frame trembling, and she gave him a slight push for encouragement. He took one last look at the gruesome scene, swayed, then ran through the path to his rusted Malibu.
Clarissa drew a deep breath, watching Tracy’s spirit as she extended a trembling hand toward her brother. As much as Clarissa’s ability troubled her, she found solace in the fact that she eased the transition for the deceased and their families. Although at times, their suffering tore at her, as it must have her mother.
Would it eventually eat away her sanity, too?
No. She wouldn’t let it.
Aware the Cantons needed her, she hurried to inform the sheriff and Vincent where she was going.
The two of them stood by the body, discussing the crime scene. Before she reached them, Deputy Bluster approached her. She’d had coffee with him a couple of times, even dinner once. Odd how when most men gave her a wide berth, he had pursued her openly.
“Hey, Clarissa.” His brown eyes softened as he touched her arm. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s too gruesome.”
As if communing with the dead wasn’t. “My heart breaks for Tracy and her family.”
“Damn shame,” Tim said quietly. “How did you find out, anyway?”
“I was at the sheriff’s office when your call came in.”
He darted a glance at the sheriff and Vincent. “Can’t believe Waller called in a feebie.”
“Tim, there have been three murders in the past two weeks. We need help around here.”
He twisted his mouth sideways. “What do you mean— three murders?”
“Billie Jo Rivers and Jamie Lackey. I think they were murdered, too.”
He kicked an ant pile at his feet and dozens of fire ants scattered. “You know something we don’t know, Clarissa?”
She shrugged. Even though Tim probably had heard rumors that she communed with the dead, they’d never discussed it.
“
A hunch,” she said, glossing over the truth. He didn’t have to know the details.
“We don’t need his kind,” Tim said more harshly. “Sheriff and I are perfectly competent.”
The anger in his tone surprised her. “But if he can help, Tim—”
“Why some hotshot FBI guy? Does Waller think he’s better, smarter?”
“He called him because Vincent grew up around here, Tim. He knows the area.”
“Vincent?” Tim said sarcastically. “So you know him?”
“I did when I was young. Then he moved away.”
“Well, I don’t like him. Stay away from him, Clarissa.”
She couldn’t do that. “Tim—”
He gripped her hand. “I’m concerned about you. Especially in light of Tracy’s murder.”
Clarissa shrugged off his concern. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”
“Tracy probably thought that, too.”
A chill slithered through her, and she pulled her hand away, taking a step backward.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, lowering his voice. “But I’m not sure it’s safe for you, living in that old log house on the mountain all alone.”
She wasn’t alone, she wanted to tell him. She had the spirits. “I have Wulf,” she said instead.
He smiled slowly. “I could stay with you.”
Clarissa heaved a breath, using one hand to rake her hair from her forehead. Perspiration dotted her neck, and flies buzzed around her ankles. “Thanks, but I’ll be okay. Listen, Ronnie’s waiting. Tell the sheriff I’m driving him home. I figure someone should be there for support when he breaks the news about Tracy to their mother.”
He studied her for a long moment, then tipped the brim of his hat. “Good idea. I heard she has a bad heart.”
“Then I’d better go.”
“I’ll tell the sheriff for you.”
“Thanks.”
Vincent’s cold gaze pierced her, and she nodded, conceding for the moment. She’d stop by her house and take care of Wulf first, then go to the Cantons. Comfort the Cantons tonight, but she would talk to the sheriff and Vincent later. She knew these murders were related, and she had to make sure they found the killer before he stole another life.