Skye Cree Boxed Set Books 1 - 3

by Vickie McKeehan

  A few minutes later, Julie heard the sliding glass door open and Tracy joined her outside. She popped her head up to see Tracy carrying two glasses of white wine, one in each hand.

  Julie watched as Tracy handed a goblet out to her and leaned over the steamy tub. “Here you go. Thought you might need a nightcap.”

  “Thanks. Aren’t you getting in?”

  “Nope, I’m having this glass of wine and heading off to bed. Tonight, I plan to get my eight hours of beauty sleep. I don’t have to be at work on Fridays until ten o’clock. Besides, I’ve decided Kyle is a major bore. I’m sending him a text in the morning and dumping his ass.”

  Julie grinned. “What gave it away?”

  “He spent the entire evening tonight talking about how he wanted to move to Alaska. Alaska, Julie. I’m not moving to Alaska.”

  “I should think not. You’ve only known the guy three weeks.”

  “Well. Yeah. But I just spent the entire evening with a freaking windbag who wants to live in a cabin in the woods. That’s his life’s desire. Can you imagine me living in some shack in the woods?”

  Julie snickered and shook her head. “That’s a deal breaker all right. Who do you have lined up?” Julie knew Tracy and knew her roommate would always have a backup. Tracy had to have a guy waiting in the wings or at least somewhere on her radar to even consider breaking up with a man this close to Friday night and the weekend.

  “Oh Alaska is a deal breaker all right,” Tracy sang back in agreement while the two women tapped their glasses in complete unity. “Besides, there’s this hot-looking UPS guy who keeps asking me out. I’ve decided to let him.”

  When Tracy began to shimmy out of her jeans, Julie pointed out, “I thought you weren’t coming in.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve decided life is too short. I can always sleep. I’m gonna soak for a while and then swim a couple of laps in the pool. Then I’m texting that hunky UPS man and asking him out for happy hour tomorrow night.”

  By this time Frank had walked to the alleyway and positioned himself where he could watch Julie and Tracy in the backyard spa. But the adrenaline was already beginning to race through him. It took another twenty minutes before the two women finally decided to crawl out of the water to go inside.

  When they moved to the sliding glass door, Frank took a pair of gloves from his back pocket and slapped them on. He undid the latch on the gate to move in closer all the while keeping his eyes on the back door. He crept closer, so close that he could pick up bits and pieces of their ongoing convo.

  Tracy came back outside to pick up her jeans which she’d left draped on the chair. That made her the last one inside. Frank listened for the lock to flick into place. The women were so deep in conversation that Tracy hadn’t bothered to flip the catch on the sliding glass door.

  Frank shook his head, grinning. Some nights it wasn’t even a challenge. It didn’t appear Julie or Tracy had caught the evening news. Nor did either of the women seem concerned about Seattle’s latest serial killer.

  He had to wait another fifteen minutes before he saw the lights go out in Julie’s bedroom. She would be first, he decided. It took another ten minutes for Tracy’s bedroom to go dark.

  From that point, Frank inched open the unlocked patio door and walked into blackness. Since his eyes had already adjusted to the dark while in a holding pattern outside, he set his bag down on the floor, unzipped it. He removed the penlight dangling from his neck and stuffed it down inside the bag. He took off his running shoes and socks first. His shirt came off next, then his jeans. Once he’d stripped down to skin, he reached for his larger flashlight. Searching his bag, he gathered up the pre-cut nylon ropes he’d brought, pulled out his mask and grabbed the seven-inch knife.

  With the nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson he’d stolen last winter, he had his hands full. But not for long. He slipped the fabric of the mask over his head, adjusted the eyeholes so he could see, and headed down the hall to the bedrooms.

  He reached Julie’s room first and turned the knob. Once he saw her begin to stir, he rushed over to the side of the bed to cover her mouth with his hand.

  “Hello, Julie. Shhh, now don’t worry,” he whispered in her ear. “I won’t hurt you as long as you do what I say, okay? Nod if you understand me.”

  Julie blinked at the brown eyes behind the mask. Realization dawned that he was naked and that meant he was here for only one thing.

  Julie nodded.

  He crawled on top of the bed so he could roll Julie over onto her stomach. He put the nine-mil down while he began to bind her hands and feet with the nylon rope. Once that was done, he went to the dresser, took a pair of her panties out, balled them up, and stuffed them into her mouth.

  “Stay right there, sweetheart. I’ll be back in a flash. Don’t you move now, hear?”

  He picked up the pistol from the bed and went next door to Tracy’s room knowing Julie would do exactly what he told her to do.

  When he stepped into Tracy’s personal space he found her snoring softly. As he tried to straddle her to tie her hands, though, it proved to be more difficult. Tracy’s arm came up swinging. The punch she threw at him barely missed his nose. It pissed him off. He flipped her over on her stomach, jerked her hair and pulled backward. “Listen to me, bitch. You do that again and I’ll make you pay. Do you understand?” Frank yelled as he tugged harder on her hair, making her head bob up and down in response.

  “Get off me you stupid jerk!” Tracy screamed. With that, she came out of her daze doing her best to buck and fight back with her entire body.

  Fuck this, Frank decided. He turned her over onto her back—picked up the gun and used it to bash her in the face—hard. Blood sprayed his hands, which infuriated him. When Tracy fell back, he grappled with her hands, secured them as tightly as he could. When she kicked out with her legs, he whacked her across one knee, then the other, hard enough that he heard bone crack.

  He took another length of rope, wrapped it around her throat. With everything he had, he pulled tighter until she stopped struggling. He flipped her to her stomach. Unbridled rage had him entering her from the rear.

  He’d told the bitch she would pay.

  And Frank De Palo always kept his word.

  Vivid images came to Josh in sleep. Deep red for all the blood. The black and brown gore was almost too much to bear. He saw tissue and flesh separating from bone as the man kept up a brutal attack with precision blows to the face and skull.

  It didn’t matter because even in sleep, Josh knew the woman was already dead. She’d been strangled by a piece of white nylon cord the killer had brought with him. Then to be on the safe side, he’d used the gun.

  A voice inside his head kept repeating the same phrase over and over again. So much that Josh’s head pounded with a steady roar. Josh could make out the violence just beginning to ramp up in another room.

  Through the fog of sleep Josh could see the deadly brown eyes of a madman—make out the rage in them as fury pumped through each slash of the knife—as easily as gasoline flowed through a hose. Because of that it didn’t take long for the other bedroom to become just as bloody as the first, just as bad as the one he’d witnessed as if he was right there.

  Josh could almost feel each blow as the defenseless, tied-up woman lay beaten to a pulp. He’d switched weapons. Again. From somewhere the killer had picked up a softball bat. The aluminum had done its damage. Her skull appeared crushed while her assailant kept up the brutal pace shattering bone after bone throughout her body.

  Even in slumber, Josh shuddered. He could smell the iron as the woman’s blood spilled and spattered the walls. He recognized the odor of death, the wrath of a truly evil man.

  The scene was so intense that Kiya had to leap into his line of vision as a warning, much like she had done months earlier when she showed him his current path. That was after he’d gone through the cleansing ritual at The Painted Crow. In his mind he went back to that night when the wolf had showed him the
faces and smells of evil.

  But Kiya had missed the mark.

  This was so much worse than Josh had seen that night. Because what he’d seen then in his vision hadn’t seemed real. But with so much carnage now, so much blood to deal with, so many broken bones…

  “The bones…the bones will tell,” mumbled Josh, over and over again as he slept.

  Skye watched Josh’s fitful movements, let them play out until he settled. She curled into him, wrapped her arms as best she could around his body. For some time he lay there shaking, trembling. Powerful dreams, she knew, could do that—and more—if you let them.

  Every now and again, the nightmares from when she was twelve still wanted to creep in and take hold. Even though that feeling of helplessness had lessened, she could relate to Josh’s torment.

  She would try to walk him through it tomorrow. But as she tried to close her eyes, she couldn’t help but wonder what his words meant. Questions started humming through her head as sleep eluded her.

  How could bones tell a gamer anything, even if he was ten percent wolf? Were he and Kiya onto some scent that only they could detect? And more importantly, why had she been excluded from the hunt? After everything she’d done, after everything she’d endured, why had the bonding between Kiya and Josh been stronger than it ever had been with her?

  Because for her, over the last couple of weeks, her visions had completely dried up. Instead, Josh was now the one who seemed troubled by images he couldn’t stop from coming. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. For the first time since she was thirteen, there were no voices inside her head keeping her up nights, no vivid colors bombarding her brain.

  After all, Kiya was her spirit guide. So why had Skye suddenly been left out of it all? On some level, it hurt to be left out. On another, she could sleep without fears of disturbing images coming to her at all hours. That had to be the major bonus.

  Maybe it was this shared life she now had with Josh. Maybe it was someone looking out for her. There were a hundred maybes, she decided as she tried to close her eyes and blank her mind, let sleep overtake her thoughts.

  But no matter what spin she put on all of it, it still bothered her. So much that she wasn’t sure how long she could handle the feeling of being left out.

  The ringing phone beside the bed pulled Josh out of images he couldn’t shake. Even as he rolled to his side to grab for the noisy device, he knew who was on the other end and why they were calling.

  Skye stirred beside him and grumbled, “It’s only seven-forty.”

  Josh wasn’t quite coherent when he fumbled the pickup and snapped, “Hello.”

  “How soon can you and Skye get to Ballard?”

  Josh blinked at Harry Drummond’s all-business-like voice. He sucked in a breath, ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “Give me the address.”

  He heard Harry rattle off a location he already knew was in Ballard. It didn’t surprise him when Harry added the warning, “And if I were you, I wouldn’t eat breakfast first.”

  Josh had known it wasn’t all a dream. But hearing Harry’s warning had him turning to Skye. “Harry has a double murder. Two women this time, same house.”

  More awake now, she pushed her hair from her face. “You tossed and turned all night, Josh. Does that have anything to do with the fact we’re crawling out of bed to go to another crime scene?”

  “I’ll tell you about it in the car. Let’s not waste time. With rush-hour traffic, we need to move.”

  By the time Josh and Skye reached Ballard it was almost nine o’clock. They had no trouble picking out the right house because cop cars lined the curbs. And Harry waited for them at the curb alongside a string of yellow crime scene tape.

  “I’m telling you right now, both of you are going to want to prepare yourself for what’s inside that house. In all my years in homicide this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. This time, there are two victims.”

  Skye and Josh traded glances. On the ride over, Josh had already given her a vivid replay of the night before.

  “What he did to Tracy Lewis—” Harry stopped talking, tried to regain his composure. He glanced up at Josh and for the first time noticed the sickened look on the other man’s face. “If you’re that green now, you won’t last five minutes in there,” Harry admonished.

  Skye took hold of Harry’s arm. “I think it’s a little too late for that.”

  Harry didn’t ask what she meant. Instead he studied Josh’s face again, this time longer, buying all three of them some time. But to Skye, it seemed as if Harry had already decided there was something else going on here which was a good thing.

  “Why do I get this feeling that Josh here has already somehow seen the carnage firsthand?” Harry asked.

  But Skye simply shook her head.

  “Well, let’s give this a try then. Follow me.” Harry grabbed two pairs of latex gloves from a crime scene investigator and handed them off. “Just because you have those on, doesn’t mean you can touch anything. In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  Josh removed his sunglasses before turning to Skye. “Will you be okay in here?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I did this before, remember?”

  Josh had done his best to prepare her on the drive here for what she’d likely see. But stepping into the house, his sense of readiness plunged. He wasn’t sure he could follow through. He already knew what was down that hallway and wished like hell that Skye did not have to witness it.

  As they moved through the doorway, the unmistakable smell of death hung in the fetid air.

  While Harry directed them to the first bedroom where Julie’s body lay on the bed, Skye trailed behind. But Josh hung back even farther. Finally she walked into the room behind Harry. This time, the killer had not left an orderly murder scene behind.

  Julie Freeman’s space had been violated much as her body had. Bruises were already starting to form along the throat and around her breasts just as they had with Sylvia Waterston.

  But the battering and wounds were far worse this time around, Skye decided. The rage more pronounced. “Who found the bodies?” Skye wanted to know.

  “Tracy’s boyfriend, a man by the name of Kyle Mattingly. Tracy spent the early part of last night with him and left her cell phone behind at his apartment. On his way into work this morning, he swung by here to drop it off. He found the front door unlocked, walked inside…to this. If it hadn’t been for him wanting to return the phone, we probably wouldn’t have known about this until Saturday. That’s when the other roommate was due back from out of town. She’s a flight attendant.”

  “Good thing she was gone. Otherwise this could’ve been a three-for-three deal,” Skye suggested, as she took in the bloody mass on the bed that passed for Julie Freeman. “So unlike the Waterston crime scene,” Skye muttered. “Julie must’ve really pissed him off.”

  Harry cleared his throat. “You think this is bad? Tracy is worse and there isn’t much left of the face that’s recognizable.”

  Skye shook her head, met Harry’s eyes, and then turned to Josh who hadn’t said a word at this point. “You okay?” she asked.

  Josh shook his head. “I might need a minute before going on.”

  Skye patted his shoulder. “Take all the time you need.” Just one of the things she loved about the guy. Even with everything that had happened, even with all the changes his body and mind had gone through since last spring, since the transformation into part wolf, the man still had a tender heart. The same as he’d had the night she saved his ass in an alleyway. It truly amazed her that Josh Ander could have gone through so much in so short a time and managed to keep his own sense of being, even a sense of humor.

  But not today.

  She left Josh standing in the hallway while she followed Harry into the other bedroom, the other crime scene. Skye wasn’t prepared for the amount of blood or the violence here.

  If Julie’s bedroom had been in disarray, Tracy Lewis’s bedroom had been trashed. The
killer had taken a knife and shredded the bedding along with every stitch of clothing in Tracy’s closet only to leave the tattered remains all over the room.

  “Your impressions?” Harry asked Skye.

  About that time, Josh appeared in the doorway. But he stood where he was without actually setting foot inside the room. With a heightened sense of smell, courtesy of Kiya, Josh used that to replay what had taken place here only hours earlier. In his mind’s eye, he retraced the steps of the killer, watching the crime play out in progress. When he tried to speak, he found his voice a little scratchy. But he did his best to concentrate and get through this.

  “He goes into Julie’s bedroom first. Julie’s willing to oblige him, do whatever he says, whatever he wants. Julie wants to live more than anything and believes she will. That is, until he leaves her and goes into Tracy’s room where it goes badly from the start—because Tracy fights back. Julie overhears what’s happening. All the while he’s in the other bedroom, Julie hears Tracy struggle, hears everything he does to her, the grunts, the sounds of a scuffle. It gets bad. And when the killer takes out his gun...” Josh swallowed hard and turned to look at Skye before he added, “He hits Tracy, over and over again, bashing her head in. After he has her subdued, he rapes Tracy. After the sexual assault, he places the gun between Tracy’s legs and pulls the trigger.”

  As if from the end of a tunnel, Josh heard Skye let out a gasp.

  But it was Harry who had questions. “How do you know that?” Even as the words flew out of Harry’s mouth though, just as quickly, he held up a hand. “On second thought, I promised Skye. I don’t care because it’s right on the money. We think that’s exactly what the killer did.”

  “I’m not sure what good it will do knowing this but—”

  “Don’t hold anything back. I want to hear everything you think you know. That’s why you’re standing in the middle of a crime scene,” Harry said with some emphasis.