Forgotten (Shattered Sisters Book 2)

by Maggie Shayne

  She'd drifted off to sleep wrapped in the comforting warmth of her make believe husband. And she woke with a chilled start, as she realized that warmth had gone missing.

  Shaking the grogginess of sleep from her mind, she focused on what she was feeling. Blackness. An ugly, bloodstained soul eclipsing hers. Cold. Violence. Death. She ran a hand over her brow and felt cold sweat beading there.

  God, no!

  She lunged naked from the bed, tore clothes from the dresser and slung them on at record speed. She pulled on shoes with no socks and ran from the room, wincing every time she landed on the injured leg, but refusing to slow her pace because of it. Ash was gone. Nowhere in the house; she was sure of it without even looking for him. She turned, raced crookedly down the stairs and skidded to a halt, then turned to look toward the guest room door.

  "Caroline," she whispered. Then she glanced down the stairs. "Ash." God, to protect one of them was to leave the other alone, vulnerable.

  The sound of a car out front snapped her out of the quandary. She hobbled through the living room to the sliding-glass doors.

  The car was Caroline’s minivan. Her father got out of it and stood there, staring at Joey through the glass. For the first time ever, Joey wrenched the broom handle from the tracks, flicked up the lock and tugged the door open.

  "Dad. What are you—?"

  "Ash called me, asked me to come over."

  Joey shook her head in bewilderment.

  "He said you could be in some kind of danger, Joey. Why on earth didn't you tell me about this? What's been going on in your life that's got you in trouble? What—?"

  "Not now." The tone of her voice seemed to get through to him. "Look, I'll explain later. Right now I have to find Ash. He's the one who's in danger, not me. Did he say where—?"

  "He's in danger?"

  "Where is he, Dad?"

  Her father stepped forward, ran one hand over her hair as if soothing a child's headache. "You saw it, this danger he's in?"

  She nodded hard. Her stepfather had never doubted her visions. He was the only one who had never questioned them.

  "But you're safe? You're sure?"

  "Yes, Dad. But I'm not so sure about Caro. I want you to stay here with her. Watch the house. Don't let anyone in. No one, not even the cops. Especially not a tall blond female cop. My gun is in the nightstand beside my bed. Go and get it, and then stand watch over Caroline and the girls."

  "You're going to try and find Ash?"

  She nodded. "I have to."

  "You love him, don’t you Joey?"

  She swallowed a huge lump in her throat. "God, yes."

  "He said he needed to ask someone some questions. I thought he sounded like he suspected them of something."

  One of the people Ash suspected could be the Slasher, she thought grimly. Ted, or Beverly Issacs?

  She'd have to check both. She gripped her father's arm, looked him in the eyes. "This is no joke, Dad. Watch out for Caro. Don't let me down...again." She drew him inside and turned to grab her leather jacket from the back of the chair where she'd left it. Then she exited the door he'd just entered. "Lock this behind me. And put mom’s broom handle back.”

  He did, and turned on the outside light. Joey trotted to the garage, swung one leg over her big bike, since Ash had taken her car, and painfully kicked it to a start. Her trusty Harley always started on the first try. The rear wheel spun as she took off into the night.

  The message Ash spoke was simple. "Meet me to talk about the Slasher." He had only needed to utter those seven words to get Bev Issacs’ full attention. She still had an answering machine. Didn’t trust voicemail stored off site on some computer, she said. But as soon as he said those words, she had picked up her phone.

  "Ash, what is this?”

  “Screening your calls, Bev?”

  “What have you got on the Slasher?" she demanded.

  "Meet me. We'll talk."

  "Where?"

  "Someplace quiet. How about the last crime scene?"

  "You're one morbid son of a—"

  "You afraid I'm the Slasher, Bev? Afraid your throat'll get cut?"

  "Try it and I'll break you up in little pieces and feed you to the glow-in-the-dark bass in Onondaga Lake, Coye."

  "Funny."

  He hung up and then eased Joey's car out of the driveway as quietly as possible. He'd already put in a call to Joey's father, explaining as much as he could and asking him to come and stand watch over the girls while he checked this out. If Bev was guilty, then he'd be able to get her to slip up and reveal something. The woman had a temper like nitro and it wouldn't take much to set it off. If she got mad, she'd slip and then he'd know for sure.

  Or at least he hoped so. It was worth a shot.

  Anyway, he'd made it there, to the old man's house in Central Square. It was empty, ghostly, and the sickening aroma of decay still lingered. It was a simple house, a shoebox kind of a place with a sickly sweet smell clinging to everything—tobacco mingled with liniment mingled with mothballs. It almost overshadowed the scent of death.

  He walked back and forth in the living room, past the worn plaid sofa and the tilted recliner and the magazine rack that spilled over with junk mail, past the flooded ashtrays with their stale butts, and a half-dozen brown pill bottles huddled together as if for warmth on a folding tray table nearby.

  The damned door hadn't been locked. Then again, he saw little worth stealing there. The TV was so old it still had a knob to turn the channels with. He stiffened as a sound came from behind him.

  Turning slowly, Ash scanned the dim room. He'd only turned on one light, a low-watt bulb in a big lamp with a yellowed shade. The front door, the one through which he'd entered, was just to his left. But the sound hadn't come from there. It had come from the rear of the house. Maybe from inside the house.

  He strained his eyes in that direction. A set of steep, narrow stairs ascended into blackness and the second floor. Another black hole led to what must be the kitchen. There would be a back door in there, wouldn't there? And maybe a basement. And the front door hadn't been locked, so why the hell would the back door be? Someone could have come in. Hell, someone could have been there waiting.

  The Slasher?

  Ash swore the skin around his jugular retracted just a little as he moved slowly forward to investigate the sound. He stopped, going rigid for an instant when someone's fist thumped the wooden door behind him, then spun around. The door swung open and Bev stepped inside. She pulled a restless hand through her David Bowie haircut, then gave it a shake, as if she was worried the night wind had messed it up. There wasn't enough there to mess.

  "I'm glad you came,” he said.

  "This better be good, Ash. My last experience in this shack was a little too memorable."

  He shrugged and crossed the room toward her, the noise from the kitchen momentarily forgotten. "Have a seat?"

  She glanced down at the faded brown couch, then shook her head. "No thanks."

  Ash wondered if he'd been tactless. "That isn't where they found the guy, is it?"

  "Hell, no. You've seen the Slasher's work."

  She was right, he realized. There was no blood anywhere. His curiosity was piqued. This was the one crime scene he hadn't taken a good look at. He glanced at her, brows raised.

  "The kitchen. You been in there yet?"

  He shook his head, the sound he’d heard out there leaping to the front of his mind again.

  Bev glanced toward the darkened doorway, her face going tight. "Bloodbath."

  "Worse than the others?"

  Her gaze came back to his, but it was unfocused, as if she was seeing the crime, instead of him. "He struggled."

  Ash closed his eyes, trying to block out the image those two words painted in his mind. He was unsuccessful.

  "So what did you want to talk to me about?"

  He blinked at the way she shifted gears without warning. It took him just a second to catch up. Then he said, "Vegas."
<
br />   She stared at him. Hard, as if she was trying to read him. "What about Vegas?"

  "Come on, Bev. You know what I'm talking about. A string of murders, just like what's happening here. You were a rookie cop with a Vegas beat when they went down."

  She averted her eyes, shrugged. "Four murders. I wouldn't call that a string. And they weren't just like these. One of the victims was a woman."

  "I see you've been giving this some thought."

  Her head came up fast, chin jutting. "Damn straight I have, Coye. Wouldn't you? There are similarities, but just as many differences. I've reached the conclusion that we're dealing with two separate killers."

  "You're sure?"

  She stabbed holes through him with her eyes. "Positive."

  He nodded, rubbing his chin. "Because the only other answer is that it's the same lunatic. And if that's the case, we'd have to start wondering about the connection between the Vegas murders and our own. So far you're the only connection I see."

  She leaned forward, glaring at him, her eyes narrowing to ice blue slits. "What are you getting at? You saying I have something to do with these killings?"

  "Just asking, Bev."

  She was on her feet before he finished the sentence. "Damn you to hell, Ashville Coye. You dare even hint at this bull in that rag you call a paper and I'll have you wrapped up in so many lawsuits—"

  "Easy, Bev. Come on, you know I wouldn't print anything without facts to back it up. And The Chronicle is no rag. Rad wouldn't let anything libelous slip by him."

  "You can take Rad Ketchum and his paper and..." She stopped, mid-sentence. "Is that what that fiasco was all about? That clod you call a reporter sifting through my ashtray?"

  "It's just a precaution. I'm planning to use a DNA profile to rule people out."

  "Well, why didn't you just ask? We've already run DNA analysis on the butts found at the crime scenes."

  He shrugged.

  Bev’s eyes widened. "You thought I'd get access to the results, didn't you? God, you really think I had something to do with this. I can't believe it."

  "Look, I'm just trying to cover all the bases."

  "You're trying to cover any base that would take attention away from your little wife, Coye."

  "Joey's not a suspect. She was with me the last time the Slasher tried anything, remember?"

  "Doesn't mean she might not know more than she's saying. She was at the crime scenes, don't forget. You ought to be grilling her, not me."

  Ash sighed and shook his head.

  "Don't think I'm not aware of the way you've been covering for her, Coye. The times you claimed to be with her while murders were committed, and God knows what else. If I can prove it, I'll have you up on charges."

  "Knock yourself out, Bev."

  She paced away from him, her strides long, forceful. "So do you have anything useful to tell me, or was this whole meeting just supposed to shake me up?"

  "I was hoping you'd have something useful to tell me."

  "Like what?"

  "Like details about those Vegas murders. The things they left out of the official reports. The things that might help me piece this crap together."

  She stopped walking, faced him, her expression like chiseled stone. "There is no connection between those deaths and these. None.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  She rolled her eyes, then heaving a tremendous sigh, said, “Fine. I’ll give you something we never released. The Vegas killer was right handed.” She lifted her right arm, bent at the elbow and drew an invisible blade across the front of her neck. “The throat was cut left to right. But the Slasher—”

  “Is left-handed,” he said.

  “That’s right. Every neck out here was cut right to left. Can’t be the same killer Ash. You're barking up the wrong tree, and I have better things to do than stand here and listen while you do."

  She started for the door. Ash lunged after her, gripping her arm. She stopped, but refused to face him. "There is a connection and you know it. If it isn't you, then I have to find out what it is, or this lunatic will go on killing. Is that what you want?"

  Her spine was rigid as she twisted her arm from his grasp. "I thought you knew me better. We dated, for God's sake. We were friends. You know, you're obsessed with this case. You were objective before she came into it. Now it's like nothing else exists. She's involved up to her neck, Ash, and you're scrambling to get her out. But it's not gonna work."

  "She's not involved in anything."

  "Tell it to a cop without instincts, pal. She's hiding something, and I'm going to find out what it is before you manage to pin this whole thing on me just to clear her."

  He started to argue, but she whirled on him. "Don't deny you're trying to protect her."

  "I wasn't going to." He pushed a hand through his hair. "But you can hardly blame me for wanting to look out for my wife."

  "I can if she's guilty."

  "I know she had nothing to do with the murders. I know it as sure as I know my own name, Bev. I wouldn't cover for her if I thought—"

  "Hell, Coye, you're so head over heels in love with her you don't know what you're doing. But I'll tell you what you're not doing. You're not setting me up to take a fall, just to clear her." She shook her head slowly, turning again toward the door. "Must be nice to have somebody care enough to put their own head on the block for you. Does she know how much risk you're taking for her? Your career could be in the toilet, Ash. Is she aware of that?" She gripped the doorknob, yanked the door open. "Call me when you get your precious test results back. Then you'll know I'm not moonlighting as a crazed killer and maybe listen to what I have to say."

  She stalked out into the night, slamming the door behind her. Ash heard her car start and move away a second later. He paced, rubbing one palm over his nape in a vain effort to ease the knot of tension coiled there. This was like beating his head against a brick wall, and he was beginning to doubt his skull could outlast the bricks. There was a kernel of truth to what Bev had said. If Joey turned out to be guilty and it came out that he'd lied for her, his career would be over. He might even end up serving time.

  But it was a moot point since she wasn't guilty and had nothing whatsoever to do with the murders. Nothing.

  He stopped pacing, sighed and felt his gaze drawn again toward the darkened doorway that must lead to the kitchen. Well, he was here. He might as well get a firsthand look at the crime scene, much as that thought disagreed with his stomach.

  He approached the doorway with caution and reached through it to pat the wall in search of a light switch.

  Joey had found Ted alone, watching television. She didn't even bother to knock. As soon as she saw him through the window, and her car nowhere in sight, she got out of there, found a quiet spot and called Radley Ketchum. The man had given her his home number when he'd asked her to keep tabs on Ash for him, and she was glad now that he had.

  Rad answered in a sleepy voice, but came alert as soon as she explained the situation and asked for Beverly Issacs's home address. He recited it, and Joey hung up while he was still barking questions. Bev's house was only five minutes away. Joey skidded into the driveway in under three and a half.

  The lights were on inside, but the house was silent. No car sat in the driveway, dammit. Joey walked around the small Cape Cod, peering through windows, searching for any sign of Ash or Beverly. Her heart plummeted...and then a tiny red light, flashing insistently, caught her eye. She did a double take. An answering machine? Seriously? Hell, it was worth a shot

  She continued around the house until she found an unlatched window, pushed it up and climbed inside. Then she went directly to the machine and depressed the Playback button....

  Bev's recorded message played, and then there was a beep followed by Ash's voice. The machine had still been recording when Bev picked up the phone to talk to him. It had recorded their entire conversation.

  Twenty minutes later, Joey lurked outside the small house in Cen
tral Square. She'd shut the bike off and coasted down the last stretch of road, parking in the shadows behind a huge oak tree. No one would notice it there. She saw Beverly go inside, and knew Ash was already there because her car was parked by the curb. Silently, she crept closer to listen in.

  Something in the center of her chest throbbed when she heard Ash defending her, and heard Beverly say he was too in love to know what he was doing. God, she wished it could be true. She knew too well, though, that it wasn't. Ash might be protecting her, but only because he thought she was his wife and saw it as his duty. When he learned the truth...

  At least she knew he wasn't seriously jeopardizing his career by covering for her. She wasn't guilty, and she'd make damned sure no one else ever learned that he'd lied to protect her.

  Beverly exited the front door, and Joey ducked lower in the shrubs. She breathed the scent of green leaves and night air as she waited. When Bev's car left, she waited some more, thinking Ash would come out a moment later, then worrying anew when he didn't.

  She slipped out of the shrubs and peered through the window into the living room. Ash wasn't there, but a light glowed from another room. Shadows in there moved. She went around to the back of the house slowly, peeking through one window after another, her fear for him growing. The dark, clawed hand that had a grip on her mind tightened. She felt an instinctive panic bubbling up inside her and fought to keep herself rational, calm, ready. But her pulse accelerated and her heart throbbed.

  Ash stood in the center of a small kitchen, his face twisted into a grimace. One hand rose to cover his nose and mouth, as he turned slowly, examining the room. Joey moved to the next window to see what he was looking at, then finally stepped right up to the glass panel in the back door.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Dark stains marred the kitchen floor. Ugly spatters dotted the walls, and the fridge, taking odd, grotesque shapes, even seeming to move....

  Wait, that one stain was moving.

  No, not a stain, a shadow! An arm lifting, a slender pointed blade clutched in its fist as it came flying downward toward Ash’s throat.

  Joey threw the door open, slamming it into the dark form. “Ash!”