Deathscape

by Dana Marton

  “Hey, Joe,” he said as Joe passed by his desk. He showed him the username he’d scribbled on a piece of paper. “What do you think of this?”

  Joe shrugged. “Looks like my e-mail address.”

  “Decoded?”

  “Position I played, and my number.”

  “If you had to guess, what position do you think this guy plays?”

  “Captain.”

  “You know the captain of the local football team?”

  “Sure. Sometimes the coach has me come in to give the kids a talk.” He gave a cocky grin. “I’m considered very inspirational. I think Bobby Adamo is the captain now. Principal Adamo’s oldest. Man used to bust me for everything back in the day. Then I played in a few championships, and now they have a separate display case for me in the hallway. Figures.” He swaggered away with a sentimental look on his face.

  Jack stood and walked over to Bing’s office, and filled him in.

  “Not enough for a search warrant,” the captain said from behind his desk with a scowl on his face. “Not with these kids. When we make that move, we have to be a hundred percent sure. Their parents will be asking for our badges. Get me more.”

  He would. He didn’t need a warrant to talk to the kids. “And if I get more?”

  “We take the little suckers down. Town politics or not, I took an oath to defend our citizenry from dipshits like this.”

  Exactly why he liked Bing. Jack was turning to leave when the captain called after him.

  “I hear you’ve been asking about Eddie Gannon at the diner. Is he connected to this somehow?”

  Right. Bing got his coffee there too, in the mornings.

  Jack took a step back. “Not really.”

  “Are you investigating the Blackwell case?” Bing leaned forward in his chair. “Look at me. This is not my happy face.”

  He was right about that. “On the side,” Jack admitted.

  “Do you listen to anything I say? You’re not to investigate that bastard. How many ways do I have to tell you? I hear you took Ashley Price home the other day.”

  “I ran into her in the parking lot. She didn’t have a ride.”

  “Don’t run into her again. I mean it. You have a serious conflict of interest. Even if you find something, you could mess up the whole case. If the FBI catches you meddling, they’ll bring a shit storm down on us we won’t want to see.”

  A moment of silence passed between them, tension rolling off both of them. On anything else, he could have backed down, but not on this.

  The captain shot him a frustrated look. “I know it’s difficult for you to stand back. I even understand it. But you have to do it anyway. I put you on sick leave. It didn’t work. I put you on another case. It didn’t work. I don’t want to have to ask for your badge.”

  That brought Jack up short, both the words and the serious tone in which they’d been spoken. For too many years now, he’d been the badge. The badge was his life. That and Blackwell. “Listen—”

  “Focus on the burglaries, dammit. You’re obsessed. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re not right in the head. You’re crossing a line here. Stay away from Blackwell.”

  “Why?” he challenged. “What the hell is the FBI doing?”

  “Following other leads. They’re looking at Ashley Price again. I heard they got a warrant.”

  The wave of protectiveness rose swiftly. “They found anything?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  He relaxed a little. “I was thinking too, actually—”

  “Don’t.”

  “Do you think Blackwell ever returns to her place? He’s got an ego on him, fed by the fact that he hasn’t been caught all this time.”

  “Tell me you haven’t been back there by that creek.” Bing glared.

  Jack was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “You’ve seen any evidence of him returning?”

  Frustration tightened his jaw. “Nothing.” Yet.

  “The reason he hasn’t been caught is because he isn’t stupid. He’s probably out of the state by now.”

  “Maybe.” But his instincts said something else. He was almost sure that Blackwell was still around. He was meticulous in what he did. He didn’t seem like the type to leave a job unfinished. The thought that the bastard might come for him filled Jack with anticipation instead of dread. In fact, he was counting on it.

  Bing shoved a folder aside on his desk. “The cabin with all the guns has nothing to do with Blackwell, by the way. Just to set your mind at ease. It belongs to old Albert.”

  “Shoemaker?” He knew the guy, a retired mechanic who sometimes still worked on cars out of his garage at home.

  “He’s been watching some TV show about people preparing for the end of the world or whatever. The old man decided to buy a hunting camp and turn it into a survival bunker.”

  “Shouldn’t he be stockpiling food?”

  “He’s got two hundred cans of kidney beans buried all around the cabin, apparently.” Bing swore under his breath. “Him and his buddies have some kind of club. This is what happens when the city cuts funding for the senior center. Too much time on too many old geezers’ hands. Like I needed something else to worry about. None of them can see worth a damn. Running around in the woods with guns.” He closed his eyes for a second and rubbed his eyelids.

  “Maybe we could offer bingo night here at the station.” Jack tried to lighten the mood.

  Bing looked up. “Maybe I can put you in charge of that without messing up.”

  “Not if Albert and his buddies eat all those beans.”

  The door to the conference room the FBI occupied banged open and the agents spilled out, just as he said the last word. They headed out the front door, Agent Hunter in the lead.

  “Any news?” Jack hurried from the captain’s office and called after them before Bing had a chance to call him back.

  “Missing-person case up in New Jersey. Two, actually. Female, twenty-one and twenty-three. One kidnapped three days ago from her home, the other one this morning,” the last of the junior agents said before the door swung shut behind him.

  In batches. Jack’s heart rate picked up.

  “See? What did I say?” Bing came out of his office. “Blackwell moved on already. He was never from Broslin. He came here because of you. He tracked you down to stop you from following him.”

  No. “Maybe.” He headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home to rest. My ribs are hurting.”

  “Bullshit. You never admit to anything hurting. I don’t want you near the Feds.”

  “Roger that,” he said, without promising anything, knowing he was risking both his friendship with Bing and his career over this case. And for a moment, just a moment, he wondered if he could toe the line this once, let the FBI bring Blackwell in.

  As long as the man was brought to justice—

  But no, he couldn’t. For one, he didn’t trust the FBI not to mess up. Two, this was too personal. He needed to personally see it finished. He’d gone too far to pull back. He had too much invested in this.

  He strode out of the station, stepped into the falling darkness, and sucked in a sharp breath when the cold hit him. With everything he was, he wanted to drive to Jersey. But he didn’t turn right out of the parking lot, toward Route 1 that would take him there. The crime scenes would be crawling with FBI tonight. He had to give them first look. He would drive over in the morning.

  He turned left and drove by his house, packed Ashley’s paintings into his trunk, except one—his. Then he headed toward the reservoir. He needed to think right now, and there was one place that never failed to bring his mind into sharp focus. He wanted to ponder what the new development in Jersey meant, if Blackwell had moved on. If the bastard did know that Jack had been after him all these years, would he expect Jack to move after him again?

  For the first time, he didn’t want to. Broslin wasn’t a bad town, better than many. And his su
dden inclination to stay didn’t have anything to do with Ashley Price, he told himself, even if he wasn’t sure he believed it.

  The victims circled in his mind, along with dozens of questions. But he reached no solution, gained no new insight by the time he pulled his car over on the side of the desolate stretch of road about three quarters of a mile from Ashley Price's house. He got out and started forward. The cold would do him good. It would wake up his brain.

  Here he always felt as if Blackwell was right next to him, within reach. And, of course, Ashley was here, not far behind the trees.

  He hated Brady Blackwell with a passion that bordered on religious fanaticism. Yet he no longer spent every minute of every day thinking of him. Sometimes now, he thought of Ashley.

  Not even the cold, bracing wind would clear her from his mind. The light at her core drew him, the light behind her palpable fears, especially when she spoke of her daughter. She loved that kid.

  A million years ago, his father had said every man had two wolves in his heart, one representing love, the other hate, fighting for dominance. Which one wins? The one you feed. He’d made his choice, Jack thought. He’d been feeding hate for too long. He needed it to catch Blackwell.

  His black, cap-toe boots crunched in the snow as he headed toward the creek. He saw the rock first, before he heard the water. It ran too fast to freeze over, even when the weather turned this cold. He slowed, watched, and listened for other noises. Nothing. He moved forward again, looking for footprints, any sign that someone had been out this way other than him.

  He pulled his keychain from his pocket and the tactical light attached to it. He let the high-powered beam sweep the ground. He walked straight to the grave. Snow had filled the hole nearly to the top. Most of the yellow police tape was still waving from the nearby bushes where the wind had blown it.

  Almost a month had passed since he’d been pulled from the damned grave, and not many new clues since. Maybe Blackwell had moved on to Jersey. Frustration tightened his muscles as he kicked the snow. Then he stilled as the short hairs stood straight up at his nape.

  He was being watched. He felt it.

  He turned slowly and reached for his weapon.

  He couldn’t see anyone, bushes and trees and the boulder obstructing his vision. The moon sat too pale in the sky for him to see much beyond the circle of his flashlight.

  Yet he knew, without a doubt, with every cop instinct he had, that he wasn’t alone in the woods.

  A branch snapped somewhere to his right.

  He whirled that way. “Hey! Who’s there?”

  No response came.

  “Broslin PD. Step forward and identify yourself.”

  Nothing.

  But a second later, he heard more rustling.

  He moved forward, carefully, step by step, his weapon ready.

  When he reached the point where he thought the sounds came from, he panned the ground with his flashlight. The ground rose here, rocky, blown clear of snow, so he couldn’t see footprints.

  The rocks led straight down to the creek.

  He looked there too and kept looking, but he found no prints anywhere, and he didn’t hear any suspicious noises again.

  Had Blackwell come? Why? To recall fond memories of torture? To plan his next move? To say good-bye to a failed job before heading back to Jersey for a third victim?

  Jack cast a last glance at the grave, then started off toward the house, through the woods, looking for evidence that Blackwell might have gone that way. He hurried.

  ~~~***~~~

  Chapter Ten

  He found no footprints as he moved forward, keeping a close eye on the ground, keeping his gun out, listening. The dark woods seemed endless suddenly, the frigid air menacing. He was pretty chilled through by the time he walked out of the woods.

  He walked around the backyard, did find some shoe prints, but not the size and tread he was looking for. As he strode up to the front door, he could hear Ashley talking and laughing inside.

  No extra car in her driveway but her own. Maybe she was on the phone.

  Light poured out the windows. He glanced back at the woods that stood in dark silence. And darker yet, the grave.

  He cursed, his breath visible in the air. He stabbed the doorbell before he could think more about it.

  Then Ashley opened the door, with a black eye, and everything inside him stilled. Rage rose swiftly. Whoever touched her—

  He hadn’t come up to the house with any clear idea of what he wanted, and whatever little he’d prepared in his head now fled, replaced by hot, pumping anger. “Are you okay?”

  Maddie peeked from behind her with wide green eyes and dimples in her cheeks. “Hi, Jack,” she squeaked. “We’re playing makeup. Want to come in?”

  A second passed before he regained his balance. Makeup. She wasn’t injured. “Sure.”

  Ashley stepped back to let him through, long-legged and curvy in jeans and a simple sweater. “Maddie is visiting today. My father is in Baltimore for the day. He’ll be picking her up on his way back.”

  The little girl ran forward in a fluffy skirt made of rainbow silk. “I’m a princess.” She had a sparkly purple magic wand in her hand.

  Ashley watched her daughter with a smile, the first true smile he’d seen on her. It dazzled him more than it should have, so he turned to the kid.

  “Hi, Princess Maddie.” He scrambled for something to say. “Uh… How is Princess Lillian?”

  “She had a fight with Prince William. She wants to get earrings, and Prince William won’t let her. And all her friends have them already.”

  Huh? And then he caught up. Man, he was slow tonight. Princess Lillian’s latest drama was probably the reflection of a real-life earring issue Maddie was having with her grandfather.

  Jewelry and body piercing in general were out of his realm of expertise. He had no idea what to say. He came up with, “True beauty needs no adornment,” and was damn proud of himself for the quick thinking.

  She looked at him as if he was talking Japanese.

  “When you’re the most beautiful princess already, all the extra stuff is just distracting,” Ashley translated with a grateful glance at Jack. “Who needs it?”

  Maddie’s scrunched-up face eased into a smile as she lifted her doll. “She is the most beautiful already, isn’t she?” She hugged the doll. “See? Jack says beauty doesn’t need ornaments. ‘Cept if you’re a Christmas tree.” She glanced up to her mother for confirmation, looking happy when her mother nodded.

  He was about to extricate himself—he hadn’t meant to intrude on a private moment, take up any of the precious time they had together—when Ashley said, “How about some coffee?”

  An invitation to all the warmth and light and smiles the house held.

  He hadn’t known, until just now, that a part of him, deep down, wanted something like this. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about that. But he kicked his snowy boots off and hung his coat on a peg. “That would be great.”

  “Do you want to play makeup?” Maddie’s face transformed into a look that he was pretty sure one day would have kids and puppy dogs ruling the world. “I’m very good at it. Mommy let me. See how pretty she is?”

  He looked at the dark blue eye shadow all over Ashley’s cheekbone, held her gaze as he said, “She’s very pretty.” He wasn’t lying.

  Surprise crossed her face as she looked away. “I don’t think Jack wants makeup, honey. How about we frost the last of the cookies?”

  “Yay!” The kid danced around them, rainbow skirt flying, wand pumping in one hand, Princess Lillian in the other.

  “I swear she lives for sugar.” An apologetic smile hovered over Ashley’s lips.

  He moved toward the kitchen.

  “Better get started before somebody loses an eye.”

  She already had coffee made, probably for her father to have a cup for the drive home. She poured him a cup; then they all focused on frosting and sprinkles. Maddie wanted
to make a contest of it, so they did.

  He figured the kid would lose interest in ten minutes—short-attention-span generation and all that. He hoped in vain. An hour passed before the contest ended, not before every last cookie was elaborately frosted. They had secret voting. Maddie came in first.

  The little girl pushed the biggest cookie toward him. “You get a condensation prize for trying.”

  He glanced at Ashley.

  “Consolation prize,” she translated.

  “Can we play a board game?” Maddie beseeched, already squirming on her seat.

  “I don’t think we have time before Grandpa gets back, honey.”

  “Can I watch cartoons?”

  “Sure.”

  The kid scampered off to the living room with her own frosted sweet, turned on the TV, and plopped down to watch a cartoon elephant doing cartwheels.

  Ashley was wiping pink frosting off the tablecloth. “It’s not as bad as you think. Oatmeal, and I used honey instead of refined sugar, substituted some of the oil in the recipe with applesauce. She loves her cookies, so I try to make them as healthy as possible.”

  He grabbed a sheet of paper towel and helped. “It must be difficult not to be able to see her every day.”

  The smile she’d been wearing all evening slid off her face.

  He wished he hadn’t said anything. He really liked the lighthearted, smiling Ashley. She was going through a hard time. And he had done nothing but make it worse, ever since they’d met. She needed these moments of lightness. She deserved them.

  "I want to apologize for pushing you so hard before,” he said. “I have your paintings in the trunk.”

  She looked more alarmed than relieved, probably because her daughter was there.

  “I can come by again with them tomorrow,” he offered.

  She watched him with a wary expression. “Does this mean I’m completely cleared?”

  “As far as I’m concerned.”

  “You came all the way out here to tell me that?”

  “I came to make sure you were all right.”