Five Days Post Mortem: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (Violet Darger FBI Thriller Book 5)

by L. T. Vargus

  “So did you find anything?” the man said.

  Shadows still concealed his face, but she recognized the voice. It was Fowles.

  Darger let out the breath she was holding in, took her hand away from her holster.

  “You shouldn’t sneak up on women in dark parking lots, Bug Guy. Especially not when they’re armed.”

  “Sorry. Did I frighten you?”

  “Only a little,” she said, still feeling the rapid thump-thump of her heart beating against her sternum.

  Darger cocked her head to one side, thinking she wouldn’t mind some company.

  “I owe you one for the Korean tacos yesterday. Want to grab dinner?”

  “With you? Absolutely.”

  So maybe that scratched the bubble bath, but there were other ways to relax.

  * * *

  They settled on a seafood restaurant that came highly recommended by internet foodies. The tall seat-backs of their booth provided a lot of privacy, and the dark walls and low light seemed to help ease the atmosphere into something relaxed. Just what Darger was looking for.

  One of the specialty cocktails on the menu was a Tom Collins, with gin made at a local distillery. Darger ordered one along with her crab and goat cheese ravioli. Fowles opted for the grilled local-caught sturgeon.

  Darger couldn’t help grinning at the drink set in front of her a few minutes later.

  “You look happy,” Fowles commented.

  “I’ve always loved a good, old-fashioned cocktail. They’re so… not of this century. I mean, look how goddamned precious this is.”

  She picked up the skewer that pierced a maraschino cherry and lemon slice.

  “It’s like my drink comes with accessories,” she said, taking a sip.

  Fowles laughed.

  It had been a while since Darger had consumed alcohol. First there was the head injury, and then the rehab, and then the pain pills that didn’t mix so well with booze.

  The gin hit her fast. The drink didn’t taste strong, more like lemonade than anything hard, but she felt it after her second sip. It started in the pit of her belly, a tightness that felt like claws squeezing her insides. She wondered for the first few minutes if she might end up throwing up, which seemed absurd. She probably hadn’t even had a half an ounce of gin so far. Had she developed some sort of sensitivity to it?

  And then the uncomfortable feeling loosened. Warmed. Spread outward from her gut to her chest and then up to her head and eventually, as they ate and drank, out to the very tips of her fingers and toes.

  Fowles was charming, which didn’t surprise her at this point. A never-ending well of lightness and positivity. Easy to talk to. Not exactly hilarious but a dry enough wit to stay amusing.

  They talked about their families — Fowles had an older sister in entertainment law. Where they grew up — Fowles was born in Arizona, and his family moved to the Portland area when he was 9. And where they went to school — Pepperdine and then Oregon State for the Bug Guy.

  Anytime the topic seemed to be skirting near the case, they both nudged it gently back into casual territory. It was like they both wanted — or needed — a reprieve from the dreariness of dead girls in bathtubs and streams. Of bloated corpses and fly larvae.

  “OK,” Fowles said, pretending to crack his knuckles. “Tough question time.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Why did you leave the FBI?”

  Darger finished off her drink before responding.

  “I haven't officially left yet. I'm 'on hiatus.’”

  Raising one eyebrow, Fowles said, "Let it be noted that the witness did not answer the question."

  Darger snorted.

  “I'm tired of the politics and red tape. The injustice. Of always having some asshole above me making stupid decisions.”

  “Sounds like academia.”

  Now it was Darger's turn to look dubious.

  “I didn't think the academic world got very political.”

  “Oh, it absolutely does. The various disciplines are always competing for grant money and tenured positions, so there’s constant infighting and sniping. Besides that, everyone wants their theories to be correct, and unfortunately, many people think the way to do that is to discredit any other approach. Instead of seeing how all of the branches intersect, they end up slicing everything into pieces and arguing about how their piece is best.”

  “Doesn’t that drive you crazy?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “But you keep doing it?”

  “Of course. The work is important. I can’t let the fact that we are a stupid, selfish, argumentative species stand in the way of scientific exploration. Of seeking out the truths of the universe. That would be… like giving up.”

  “Now you sound like my partner.”

  “Well, he sounds like a man of considerable intellect and prowess,” Fowles said, letting his crooked half-smile linger.

  The second and third drinks went to Darger’s head quickly, kind of swirled the evening into a blur of pleasant talk and delicious seafood.

  The next thing she knew, he was dropping her off, walking her to her room, and she was standing in the open door, convincing him to come inside. The words weren’t working, not coming out just how she wanted them, so she tried a different tactic.

  She kissed him. He kissed back.

  Moved down her neck. Brushed his lips against her collarbone.

  She reached for his jacket, started to slide it off his shoulders, and then his mouth stopped. He pulled away.

  “What’s wrong?” Darger asked.

  He shrugged back into the jacket, wiped a hand across his brow.

  “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

  Darger put a hand to her mouth. She’d just assumed he wasn’t attached, but why would she assume that? He was neat, polite, charming, handsome. Why wouldn’t he have a girlfriend?

  “You have a girlfriend.”

  He shook his head, and Darger pressed her eyelids closed, fearing the worst now.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re married.”

  “No. It’s not that. It’s… it would be better for us to keep things professional is all.”

  But it wasn’t that, and she knew it. Besides the fact that she’d yet to meet a man that actually gave a rat’s ass about keeping things ‘professional’ when it came to sex, there was something in his eyes. Pain. Sadness. If Darger wasn’t mistaken, Fowles was on the verge of tears.

  She ran back through the last fifteen minutes, searching for something she might have said or done. Something that would have offended him. Hurt him. There was nothing.

  “Did I do something?”

  “No. Please don’t take it personally.”

  He turned away then, heading for the door.

  “I’m sorry, Violet. I should go.”

  Darger watched him leave, the door falling shut behind him with a snick that sounded like the period at the end of a sentence. Game over.

  She let herself fall into a sitting position on the bed and sat looking at the door for a long time, wondering what had gone wrong.

  Chapter 30

  You wake to the sensation of the blankets shifting around you in bed. A strange lifting of that weight resting on you. Disorienting. Cool air whooshing to fill the place where your sleep warmth had percolated for so long.

  You open your eyes, and she’s there in the half-light of the morning. Callie.

  She climbs into bed with you. Her smile a devilish tilting of her mouth.

  “I called in sick,” she says just above a whisper. “Wanted to rush over so I could sleep in with you.”

  She giggles as she speaks these words. Nestles her cold body against the sweltering furnace of your chest.

  And the images of last night flash in your head. The body slumped in the bathtub. The maggoty face. The blanket-wrapped corpse washing out into the river.

  Panic surges in your blood. Cold current in your veins.

  The two worlds spin out of or
bit. Flailing. Threatening to touch each other. A prospect that makes you nauseous. Makes your heart thud faster in your ribcage.

  And you tilt your eyes to look down at the top of Callie’s head tucked beneath your chin. Loops of dark hair poking up to brush your bottom lip.

  Could there be a smell she’d detect this close? Some trace of a dead body odor? Even a swampy river smell could be bad.

  But no. You know there’s no such stench. Know it for a fact.

  You remember to breathe, and your heart’s gallop seems to stop accelerating at last. The tension in your chest falls back.

  Good thing you showered this morning after all. Tired as you were, you didn’t want to.

  Or was that yesterday morning? How long have you slept?

  Time. Fucking with your head again. A whole day must have passed. Must have.

  You only half remember standing under the shower head. Rivulets of hot water cascading down your back.

  The heat felt so good after the chill of the woods had wormed its way under your skin. An incredible tingling warmth that saturated the meat of you, rubbed its heat in deep like some full body massage.

  You’re pretty sure that you were in and out the whole time you bathed. Falling asleep for a second and shaking yourself awake over and over. Blinking out of slumber to find steam clouding the bathroom, seeming to billow fog inside your head as well as out.

  You have no memory at all of actually toweling off or climbing into bed. Nothing.

  But she lays here now. With you. And the past does not matter. The rest of the world doesn’t matter.

  You may as well be trapped under a dome of glass together. Encased away from all else in the universe.

  This room is all that’s real, all that exists.

  Her body slowly goes warm against you. Passes through several stages of cool that you almost experience as color changes in this moment. The initial blue retreating to purple before swelling to red to match your color.

  Her breathing changes. Slows. Evens out. She’s asleep.

  And you’re so warm together. So safe and so warm.

  You squeeze her just a little. A careful touch that will not wake her.

  You love her so much. So, so much. Sometimes you almost can’t take it. The intensity of the love you feel. It makes your body tremble, makes your eyelids flutter. So stimulating. Overwhelming. Like maybe it could make you sick. Make you projectile vomit. Love sprayed all over the walls.

  But other times, you can ride the waves of giddiness like a rollercoaster. Hold onto them. Survive the rounds of shimmies that crawl up your abs into your chest. Excited little puffs of breath chittering out of you now and then. Sometimes it doesn’t make you feel sick, and it’s the most striking and strange thing you’ve ever experienced. The most beautiful thing in the world.

  The opposite of the violent feelings. The antidote to them.

  And now your breathing slows to match Callie’s.

  Together.

  Safe and warm.

  As you drift somewhere between waking and slumber, you ponder how your life can work this way. How can you be both the one who loves Callie so and the one who kills those girls and dumps their bodies in the water? How can that wide of a gap in identities exist in the same skull? So much love and so much hate roiling out of one soul.

  But these thoughts go nowhere. Spiral. Circle endlessly like a dog chasing its tail. And in the end, that’s all they are. A meaningless flutter in your head. More words to be forgotten like all the rest in this endless stream.

  What’s real is the warmth between you and Callie. Your bodies are real. Your heartbeats are real. What’s between you right here and now is real.

  And your love is real.

  In those other moments — when you bludgeon and stab these women, hold their unconscious bodies under the bathwater until their breathing stills, carry them off to dump them — in those moments your hatred is real.

  But not here. Not now.

  Here only love exists, only Callie exists. No one else would believe it if they knew the things you’ve done, but it’s true.

  And you wonder how anyone can know a person. Even themselves, to a certain degree. How can you know all of someone? Too many pieces, you think.

  All of those compartments locked away from each other. Because a person is made up of all of their parts. They are the good things. They are the bad things. Both. Everything. All of it.

  When you’re here with Callie, it’s like you fall into a sit-com world. Everything makes sense. Everything works out in the end. The laugh track punctuates the never-ending amusement.

  There are happy endings to every episode. Sappy endings to every episode.

  The conflicts seem small. Entertaining. They all get resolved, ultimately harmless.

  The emotional music swells in just the right places. Strings, mostly. Mournful cellos to jerk the tears off.

  And it’s all easy in the sit-com world. Everything comes easy. Maybe too easy.

  But when she’s gone, when you’re left on your own, the sit-com goes away.

  The world turns dark. Turns violent. Foreign. Creepy. Unknowable. A black hole you stare into that also stares into you.

  A nothing that gets inside of you.

  And you can’t sit still. So you go out walking, go out stalking, go out ripping through the city. Go out shopping for… for something you don’t have yet. Maybe something you can’t have.

  But you go out looking for something. Something you’ll know when you see it. The kind of thing you can only know when it’s in your grip.

  You don’t set out to kill. You don’t plan it.

  It’s just a thing that happens to these girls. A thing that happens. That’s all.

  Isn’t that all life is? A bunch of things that happen. This happens and then this happens and then this happens. There’s no reason for any of it. No explanation that’s quite sufficient.

  The dark impulses come from nowhere. Set your teeth on edge.

  It’s a wave in the air. A frequency beamed into your skull from parts unknown. Sets you on a path of destruction.

  And someone — some girl out there right now — is going to get it. She doesn’t know it, but she’s going to get it.

  It happens to you as much as it happens to them, when you think of it that way. Comes without warning.

  You don’t choose to want something like this. No one does. It’s just there. Part of you. You don’t choose the parts of you.

  The furnace clicks somewhere in the distance, and your mind ascends to the surface again. Consciousness swells. Real life comes back, and Callie is there, and the darkness recedes again.

  For a while, anyway.

  Wishing now that time would stop. That you might stay in this version of the world forever. The sit-com version. Under glass.

  Chapter 31

  Someone was screaming. A high-pitched, ear-splitting shriek of distress.

  Darger sat up straight in bed.

  Her first thought: Where am I?

  Then she remembered.

  A hotel. In Sandy, Oregon. On a case.

  Heart still racing, she shut off her squawking phone alarm, only then realizing that what she’d thought was a woman screaming was just the electronic jingle of her phone trying to wake her up.

  She rubbed her eyes, not wanting to get out of bed. The failed date with Fowles had left her anxious. Her sleep had been fitful. She supposed it didn’t help that the case had seemed to hit a dead end, as well.

  When she recalled that one of Prescott’s private investigators was trying to track down Dustin Reynolds, she felt a little better. Maybe he’d been able to find something.

  That hope gave her the little burst of energy that finally roused her for good.

  Darger showered, dressed, and brushed her teeth. She spit a mouthful of foam into the sink and considered again how she was going to get to the police station. She’d realized in the middle of the night, in between two restless snatches of sleep, t
hat her car was still in the Sandy PD parking lot. Fowles had driven to dinner and then dropped her off.

  So that was just great.

  She’d have to call for a car. Or she could walk, depending on the weather. It was probably less than a mile to the police station.

  While she continued her morning routine, she drank a cup of crappy coffee from the little one-cup machine in her room. It tasted stale. She never understood these single-serve brewers. Who only drank one cup of coffee? It was a ridiculous notion.

  Along with the pods of coffee and tea, there were packets of instant oatmeal and instructions for using the coffee machine to make it.

  To her surprise, it actually worked. What wasn’t a surprise was that the oatmeal sucked. Like most of the instant varieties she’d had, it was gluey and overly sweet.

  She stood at the window and ate her sugary gruel while staring out at the milky sky. There was an angry graphite scribble of dark clouds off to the northwest. Did that mean rain? If she decided to walk, she should ask the front desk if they had an umbrella to borrow.

  A knock at her door drew her to the peephole. Closing one eye and squinting the other, Darger peered out. It was Fowles, his tall frame distorted by the fisheye lens.

  She stepped away from the door reflexively. Felt a flush hit her cheeks. Half of her was happy to see him again, the unmistakable feeling of butterflies in her stomach. The other half was still embarrassed about last night. And still unsure of what she’d done wrong.

  She had a juvenile impulse to not answer the door. To pretend she wasn’t there. But that was ridiculous. He could probably hear her inside. Besides that, what was she, a coward?

  She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and steeled herself.

  Suck it up, buttercup.

  She tugged at the sleeve of her jacket and smoothed a stray strand of hair before grasping the door’s handle and pulling it wide.

  It took some effort, but she conjured a calm, unbothered smile. She was determined not to show any sign of her damaged ego.

  “Good morning,” Fowles said. “A little birdie told me you might need a ride into the station.”