She nodded. “You here to arrest Jonah? Probably too late. Y’all’s investigation is sorrier than a spider with pink eye.”
“What do you mean?”
Kerilynn looked around her. Then she whisper-shouted at him, “I’m worried about my friend, Belinda. Something ain’t right.”
Yes! Here we go. Finally something I can use.
“Belinda didn’t come to work today,” she continued.
Damn. Nothing.
“I see,” he said trying to keep his cool. “But have you noticed anything peculiar?”
Kerilynn’s eyebrows arched and her mouth twisted in a sneer. “Duh. She left the diner with Jonah Morrison yesterday and nobody’s seen her since. I find that more peculiar than my cousin’s two-headed frog.”
“I understand you spoke to my partner, Frank, the other night.”
Jutting out one leg, Kerilynn jammed a hand on hip with a huff. “I surely did. What the freak? I thought your guy was on his way to stop Jonah from hurting Belinda. But then the next morning, Jonah strolls into the diner bold as a bass drum. He grabs Belinda and kisses her in front of everybody. Then off she goes with the crazy effer.”
So, Jonah had been at the diner on the morning of Austin Lawrence’s murder.
“What time did he get there?”
“I don’t remember. What difference does it make?”
Just the difference between an innocent man and a murderer.
“Coulda been around 10:00 a.m.” She scratched her head.
That would’ve given the Morrison guy plenty of time to do the murder.
Kerilynn inclined her head at the cottage. “You going in there to get Jonah or what?”
His answer was cut off by the buzzing of his cell. Seeing it was the CSI offices, Mike held a finger up to Kerilynn as he turned away to answer it.
With half an ear he heard her groan. “Ugh. I gotta do everything my damn self.”
“Wayburn,” he said.
“We’ve got results,” Pete crowed.
“Tell me.”
“The soil at the crime scene is geologically consistent with southeastern Georgia.”
“Fantastic,” Mike said sarcastically.
“Right. But more significantly the soil contains microorganisms and chemical properties consistent with long-term human body decomposition. We’re looking at soil from a place where a lot of bodies are rotting without modern entombment techniques.”
Glancing around, he spotted a headstone for a death in 1818. “Like an old cemetery.”
“Yup,” Pete said. “Even more definitive are the results from that bandana. The blood on the thing is all the victim. But the fabric also had a significant amount of sweat we used to get a second DNA profile.”
“Any match?”
“We compared it to all our DNA databases and got nothing. But then we compared it to the ones the task force has amassed during the voluntary sample extractions from the citizens of Ambrosia.”
Mike’s heart pounded so loud in his ears he almost couldn’t hear what Pete said next.
“We have a match: one Jonah Morrison.”
Mike felt himself grin so wide his cheeks hurt. “We got him.”
He turned back to where he’d left Kerilynn, but she was gone and the door to the cottage stood open. He had to get this nutty broad out before she contaminated evidence and caused problems with his search warrant process.
He stepped inside the cottage and found Kerilynn snooping. “You are committing a crime, miss. Breaking and entering.”
“Puh-lease,” she said. “I didn’t break anything. The door was unlocked.”
Kerilynn pointed at the remnants of a chalk circle and candles. “Look here. Devil worship.”
Mike nodded, but his eyes had fastened on another object: the car key and fob lying on Jonah’s desk. He recognized that American flag fob. It belonged to his partner. And if Frank’s car keys were here—
Punching at the face of his iPhone, Mike found Frank’s name in the recent call list and pressed it. As the call began to ring in his ear, Mike listened for sounds in the cottage but heard nothing.
Disappointed, he stuffed the phone into his back pocket and returned his attention to Kerilynn. “Out. Now.”
“Oh. All right.” Kerilynn stomped away still grumbling under her breath when she reached the path outside.
Mike followed her out and closed the door behind him.
“I didn’t even get a chance to look in the bathroom. I bet Belinda’s dead body is in there,” Kerilynn groused as they walked toward the cemetery gate.
Shaking his head at her complaining, Mike pulled out his phone. He’d call that moron at the DA’s office again and stuff the forensic results into his fat head. The guy couldn’t deny they had enough for a warrant now.
Kerilynn stopped and blocked his way. “If she’s dead I’m gonna make sure I sue you, your partner, the GBI…maybe even the whole state of Georgia.”
Mike glanced down at his cell’s face and noticed a call in progress. He’d butt dialed his partner’s phone.
In the distance, he heard a musical note or two between Kerilynn’s words.
“Shhhh!” He held a finger to his lips.
Her eyes widened to the size of saucers and then narrowed into a dangerous glare. “Did you just shush me, dickwad?”
The faint music cut off.
Mike redialed.
“This is gonna be included in my lawsuit, let me tell you. This shit is sicker than an Ebola patient.”
“Shut up or I’m arresting you for obstruction!”
Kerilynn’s lips snapped shut.
The music began again. Was this Frank’s phone? Mike followed the sound, but it abruptly cut off as his call went to voice mail.
After recalling, the music began again, louder now. Mike strode down the cemetery pathway until the sound became clear: the theme from Mission Impossible. Definitely Frank’s ringtone.
He called his partner’s phone over and over again, following the digital tune until he found its origin: a freshly dug grave. Mike stared at the temporary marker designating it as the grave of Jessica Bundy.
“What are you doing?” Kerilynn demanded from behind him.
“Leave these premises immediately, miss.” Mike stared down at the grave almost as if he would be able to see his partner’s body beneath the soil if he looked hard enough. “This cemetery is now a crime scene.”
Chapter Fourteen
At the sink, Eliza struggled to calm her trembling body as she scrubbed at her hands. This wasn’t the first time she’d been up to her wrists in blood, but it was the first time someone had died in her arms.
Behind her Jonah sat at the mayor’s kitchen table, elbows on the butcher-block top and head in his hands. He hadn’t spoken a word since he’d returned to find the man dead. He’d robotically followed her into the kitchen but still seemed to be lost in whatever internal agony had gripped him. After wiping her hands on a paper towel, Eliza faced him. “Okay, we could call the sheriff’s department and tell them we came here for a sympathy call and found the mayor already dying.”
No response from Jonah.
“But they’d take us in for questioning for sure. We can’t lose that kinda time,” she continued. “I wrapped my bloody scarf in plastic. It’s in my bag. I’ll burn it later.”
Jonah didn’t move. She could barely detect him breathing.
She crossed to him and placed a hand on his back. “I’m gonna wipe down everything we touched. With any luck nobody’ll know we was here.”
“What’s the point? They’ll find traces of us no matter what you do.”
“I have to try.”
Jonah exploded out of the chair, knocking her hand away as he stood to tower over her. “Do you think I really care if we’re arrested? They can give me the death penalty. I couldn’t give a fuck, as long as I get Belinda back safely first. She’s all I care about.”
The pans on the rack over the kitchen island across the
room banged together as if moved by an unseen force.
Deflating, Jonah sank back down onto the chair. The pots continued to clang.
“Knock it off, Derek.” Jonah’s head fell back and his eyes closed as if in pain. “I’m not gonna hit your mother.”
The reminder that her dead son hovered somewhere in the room out of her sight squeezed at her heart. She knew the devastating pain of the loss Jonah would feel if Belinda couldn’t be saved.
Before she could try to say something comforting, the house phone rang, its bleating sound plaintively echoing throughout.
“Oh my God.” Jonah rushed to the handset hanging on the wall.
“Don’t answer it,” Eliza yelled. “No one can know we’re here. There’s a dead body in the other room.”
“I have to,” Jonah said as it rang for a second time. “Jessica said she’d call. This could be her.”
He picked up the handset and held it to his ear.
* * * * *
Jonah meant what he’d told Eliza. All the concerns on his top one hundred list were Belinda. Nothing else even came close. He’d have gone to the police himself if he thought they’d be able to save her. But even if they believed a tenth of what he had to say, they lacked the equipment and knowledge to have any chance against the demon.
He held the phone to his ear. “Jessica?”
From across the line, her cackling laugh taunted him. “You have missed me. That would warm my heart if it weren’t embalmed.”
“Let me talk to Belinda.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I want proof she’s still alive or I hang up,” he demanded.
“Jonah?… She says to tell you I’m okay.” Belinda’s voice sounded weak and hesitant, so unlike her usual boldness.
Her fear made his knees buckle. He leaned against the kitchen counter for support. “Say something so I know you’re not a recording.”
“I’m not a freaking recording. Just get me the hell away from this puta.”
That sounded more like his Belinda. “I will, Bunny. Just hold on. I love you.”
“Aw. How sweet.” Jessica took over the call. “Now that we have that out of the way. Let’s talk about what I want.”
“The soul release ritual. You want out of that body.”
“Bingo.”
Eliza positioned herself at his shoulder and he turned the handset so she could listen in.
“The ritual has to be done after dark,” he said, hating the delay. Every second Jessica held Belinda was another second she could snap and kill her. “Meet me at the caretaker’s cottage at dusk.”
“No can do,” Jessica said liltingly. “There’s a bit of a problem at the cemetery.”
“What problem?”
“Never mind that,” she said. “Instead we’ll meet at your mummy and daddy’s house at 7:00 p.m.”
Jonah’s intestines twisted as she continued, “It’s been years since I’ve been there. It’ll be so nice to walk down memory lane.”
He swallowed down the vomit in his throat. “Whatever. I’ll be there. Just be prepared to let Belinda go.”
“Then I’ll need someone else’s body to slip into after the ritual,” Jessica said.
Eliza waved at him, mouthing “no.”
Beyond her, Derek shook his head.
Jonah turned away from both of them before he spoke. “Fine. You can have mine.”
“Okay. Come alone. Not Derek or his mama. I don’t want to see that witch or Belinda dies.”
The phone clicked signaling the call’s end, and Jonah slammed the handset back into its wall mount. “Let’s get back to the cemetery. I need stuff from the cottage to do the ritual.”
After popping in beside Jonah’s shoulder, Derek yelled, “No way, bro. You can’t give yourself up.”
Eliza plucked up the phone and wiped at the invisible fingerprints before returning it to the wall. “You shouldn’t have promised her your body, Jonah. We don’t know what kinda magical significance that could have. You mighta bound yourself to some sorta metaphysical contract.”
Derek nodded vigorously. “What Mama said.”
“Couldn’t be helped,” Jonah said, pushing a hand through his hair and then scrubbing at his face. The anxiety coursing through his body made him feel as if this body would fly apart into a million molecule fragments if he didn’t hold it together by strength of will. “What’d you expect me to do? Let Jessica torture Belinda ‘cause I wouldn’t give in? Not gonna happen.”
“Now that the cycle’s complete, the only thing to do is to wait and hope that when that body she’s in crumbles away, Jessica goes to hell,” Eliza said. “According to the fake Rayna, there’s a fifty-fifty shot.”
Jonah was shaking his head before Eliza finished. “Do nothing and hope for the best? No.”
“Jessica ain’t just gonna let Belinda walk away,” Eliza said. “If you give in and do the ritual, she’s gonna kill Belinda or take her body anyways.”
“And then that crazy bitch will kill my mama, soul suck me and pretty much wipe out anybody that knows her nasty secret.”
“Believe me, I know,” Jonah said. “That’s why I need you both to help me make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“How?” Derek asked.
“I’ll explain on the way back to the cemetery,” Jonah said. “I don’t know if it’ll work. It’s the only plan I’ve got where Belinda makes it out alive.”
Before they could go, Eliza had insisted on cleaning up the mayor’s house as best she could while Jonah paced and Derek hovered. The only way Jonah prevented himself from bolting back to the cottage was to remember that in order to save Belinda he couldn’t get arrested right now.
Finally, Eliza pronounced herself done and the trio left, sneaking out the back door and making a roundabout trip to Eliza’s waiting car. When Jonah pointed out that stealth now would do nothing to eliminate the reports of neighbors who had probably seen him clinging to the side of the mayor’s SUV making a getaway, Eliza noted that she’d performed an obscuring spell while cleaning. She hoped it would make the neighbors’ memories of the morning hazy and provide a cloak for the mayor’s house.
“It won’t hold forever,” she said. “But it gives us some time.”
But their time abruptly ran out when they arrived at the cemetery. The first alert to a problem came from the flashing lights of the two police cruisers parked halfway up onto the sidewalk, blocking the entrance.
“Get down.” Eliza pushed at Jonah’s neck and he ducked out of sight.
“Damn,” Derek said. “There’s yellow tape every-freakin-where. And the place is crawling with five-O.”
No. No. No.
The last hope of saving Belinda was trapped behind police crime scene lines. Now what?
Chapter Fifteen
Heart pounding, Eliza inched the car forward past a deputy leaning against his cruiser. With Jonah still hunched down in the passenger seat, she carefully pulled to a stop at the intersection and made a right turn. Only once the cemetery was out of sight did she blow out a sigh.
Her mind raced. How could they get to the cottage in time to get everything they needed before Jessica’s deadline? Maybe there was a way to get what they needed without going inside.
She pulled to the curb and parked behind a red Dodge Charger with a black racing stripe. The rear bumper bore a sticker that read “CSIs do it with gloves on!”
“I know that car,” Eliza said. “It belongs to Pete Norton.”
Jonah glanced at it and shrugged. “So?”
“He came to my house to gather evidence from Derek’s room after, you know.”
“I still don’t know where you’re going with this.”
“Norton must be at the cemetery,” Eliza answered. “He can help us.”
She watched Jonah tilt his head, as though listening to something. “Derek says you’re crazy and you’re gonna get us thrown into the graybar hotel,” he reported. “But I’m for trying anything right now.�
��
After making Jonah climb into the backseat to keep him out of sight, Eliza got out of her car and walked to the Charger and tried the driver’s side door.
Dang. Locked.
The passenger side, on the other hand, opened with ease.
Eliza glanced around but didn’t see anyone so she ducked inside. Rummaging in the glove box produced nothing but some manuals, unused napkins, and a half used foil packet of Nicorette gum. No help there. In the side door pocket she found a black terry-cloth sweatband. She could work with that. But the drink holder held the mother lode: a well-chewed piece of gum stuck to the end of a straw in an otherwise empty styrofoam cup.
After gathering up her prizes, Eliza slipped out of the car and made a quickstep to her own. She slipped inside and got to work. Adding a few items from her bag, Eliza quickly fashioned a rudimentary figure consisting of an upside-down cup body, straw neck protruding through a hole in the cup with chewing gum head, and twigs for the arms and legs. Finally, Eliza wrapped the sweatband around the cup. Ordinarily she wouldn’t use Styrofoam or plastic in a totem, but since they contained Norton’s DNA they would hopefully make the likelihood of success stronger.
“Is that supposed to be Norton?” Jonah asked from his hiding place on the floorboards in the back. “It looks like he’s wearing a dress.”
“Don’t matter. Now shush.”
She held the figure in her hands, concentrating on seeing Norton’s image atop that of her figure. After the superimposed image came clear in her mind, Eliza spoke the spell aloud, “I have a need that you can fill, but only if you accept my will. With no lasting memory of the task, you will do whatever I ask.”
For a moment, a twinge of something dark nipped at her heart. Doing black magic—no matter how necessary under the circumstances—always ate a little of her away. How many more times could she go there without completely turning as her grandmother, Rayna, had done?
And even at the cost of another shadow on her soul, the spell might not work. Interfering with free will always proved tricky.
After placing the figure in her knapsack and cracking open the car door, she looked over the seat at Jonah. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, you take the car and go on without me.”
Caught Dead Page 17