South of Hell (Louis Kincaid Mysteries)

by P J Parrish

  He had been right all along. Jean was here somewhere.

  He retreated into the root cellar, not wanting the girl to see him. He had to think about this, had to figure out what to do. He crouched on the stone steps behind the half-open door, watching, waiting.

  Pink. Something pink. The pink of her jacket moving across the gap in the boards.

  Come closer, girl. A little closer.

  He heard the snap of a twig as she walked along the edge of the cornfield. So close now he could almost smell her.

  He held his breath.

  Silence.

  Had she stopped? Why wasn’t she coming inside? She was just standing there, frozen. Her weird eyes were colored with the same look she used to get when she was little, like when the tornados were coming.

  She knew he was in here.

  And she was going to run.

  Damn the cops and anyone else out there.

  Brandt pushed open the door. At the sound, the girl’s head snapped up, her eyes—those weird fucking eyes—pinned on him.

  Suddenly, she bolted toward the cornfield.

  He was slowed by the thorn bushes but he caught up with her at the edge of the field and threw an arm around her neck, knocking her to the dirt.

  “No!” she cried.

  He started to drag her back to the root cellar. She was light, no heavier than a bundle of sticks, but she was kicking hard, her hands clawing at his arms.

  A pain seered through his hand.

  Fuck!

  She had bitten him. He dropped his hand and clenched his teeth to keep himself from yelping. Blood. The bitch had drawn blood.

  “God damn you,” he hissed.

  He smacked her. She cried and covered her head, crumpling to the weeds in a whimpering heap. He dropped a knee into the girl’s chest and pulled his knife from his waistband.

  He wanted to slice her up right here but he couldn’t do that—not yet. He leaned close, holding the knife inches from her face.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  She didn’t open her eyes, just held her cheek, crying.

  “Where is she?” Brandt said. “Where’s your momma?”

  She opened her eyes. “Momma?” she whispered.

  Brandt grabbed a fistful of her hair, pushing the broken blade into her cheek. “Tell me now, or you die,” he said.

  Tears streaked the girl’s face, and she was gulping in air like she was drowning. She sounded like she was having one of those damn breathing attacks.

  “Stop it!” he hissed.

  Her eyes came up, staring right into his. It was the same kind of look he’d seen in Jean’s eyes just before he plunged the knife into her chest. And the same one he’d seen in Margi’s before he pushed her from the car.

  And the screaming. The same screams that Jean had made and—

  But no one was screaming, he realized. It was a siren he was hearing now.

  A thud. Voices.

  Brandt’s eyes shot to the road. Blue lights cut through the fog.

  He looked down at the girl. She had heard it, too. He thrust a hand over her mouth, his knee digging harder into her stomach to keep her still. Ten feet away, a rusting tractor sat surrounded by a heavy curtain of brush. He dragged the girl behind it.

  Brandt crouched behind the tractor’s wheel, watching the cops. One of them was heading toward the farmhouse. The other was going toward the barn.

  Brandt knew the second cop couldn’t see him behind the tractor. But they’d start searching out here soon enough. And there was no way he could risk trying to drag the girl back to the root cellar now.

  Think! Think!

  The Gremlin. If he could make it to the creek, he could get back to the old barn where he had hidden the car and get away.

  Brandt yanked the girl to her knees and held her by the neck. “Crawl,” he said. “You make one sound, I’ll slice you open and throw your body in the fucking hole where no one will ever find it.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Louis saw the blue pulse of the lights ahead. The fog had almost burned off, leaving the sun a pale smudge in the eastern sky, and as they rounded the bend on Lethe Creek Road, the farmhouse came into view.

  Two Livingston County sheriff cruisers were parked at the gate. Joe had called them from the hotel in Ann Arbor, knowing they could get to the farm faster. A report of a runaway girl wasn’t high priority, but when Joe told them that Amy could be a target of Owen Brandt, the response was swift.

  There were three deputies standing in the yard. But they were alone.

  “Where is she?” Joe said, leaning forward in the passenger seat.

  “Take it easy, Joe. Let me get the car stopped,” Louis said.

  But Joe was out of the Bronco before he got it into park.

  Louis followed as fast as he could, his chest aching and his brain still fogged with painkillers. He had insisted on driving, because for the first time since he’d known her, Joe was incapable of a single rational thought. By the time they had turned onto Lethe Creek Road, she had managed to calm down some, making the transition back into cop mode, as he called it, but she still was not herself.

  He came up behind Joe, recognizing the shortest man in the group as Sheriff Travis Horne.

  “Look, we’ve been here almost an hour already,” Horne was saying to Joe. “We’ve searched the house and the barn and every other damn building out here.”

  “Did you search the attic?” Joe asked.

  The sheriff sighed. “Yes, ma’am, we did.”

  Joe spun and looked out at the fields. “Then we do a grid search,” she said.

  “With three men?” Horne asked. “Are you nuts?”

  “There’s five of us here,” Joe said.

  “And sixty-some acres out there, plus two or three miles of nothing beyond that,” he said, gesturing toward the barn. “It’ll take days.”

  “For God’s sake,” Joe said. “She’s only a child.”

  The sheriff tipped back his hat. “A child who made her way out here twice now all by herself. She sounds a mite more capable of taking care of herself than you’re giving her credit for.”

  Joe glared at him, then spun away from the group and walked away. Arms crossed, she stared out at the cornfields. Her shoulders jerked with a smothered sob.

  Louis looked at Horne. “Sheriff,” he said, “we’re sure Amy will come back here, and we’re going to stay. I would appreciate it if you’d leave us one of your deputies to help.”

  Horne cut his eyes to Joe, chewing at his lip as he considered the request. “I still have men on overtime patrolling the back roads for Owen Brandt,” he said. “Who you also told us would come back here, and he hasn’t showed, either. I’m sorry, I can’t use what little manpower I have to keep looking for your ghosts.”

  “Would you at least call Detective Bloom and let him know Amy’s missing and ask him if he can spare a few men?” Louis asked.

  Horne nodded. “That I can do,” he said.

  Louis stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked to Joe. She was walking toward the barn, already anxious to start searching. He knew it would be hours before Bloom could dispatch anyone to help them. If he sent anyone at all.

  “Kincaid?”

  Louis looked back at the sheriff.

  “I’ll send Sam here back with some coffee and doughnuts in about an hour for you.”

  Horne started toward his cruiser. His deputies followed him, and in less than a minute, the two cruisers headed away, down Lethe Creek Road.

  Joe had disappeared. Then Louis saw her coming around the north side of the barn. She was stopping to look under every piece of rusted machine, inside every metal drum, and through every bramble and bush.

  Louis squinted into the pale sun, then did a slow turn in a circle, surveying the land.

  He had never believed in ESP or telepathy, but he did believe in instincts. Especially his own. And he had the feeling Amy was here somewhere.

  Maybe she had seen the c
ops and, thinking they would take her back before she found her mother, found a place to hide. Maybe she had simply curled up somewhere and fallen asleep.

  He knew one thing for sure. Amy wouldn’t hide from Joe.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could. “Amy!”

  Joe’s eyes shot to him from her position by a coil of barbed wire.

  “Joe, call to her,” he said.

  Joe hesitated, then called Amy’s name. She called again and again, her voice growing hoarse.

  Louis strained to hear anything, any response. But there was nothing but the empty echo of Joe’s voice floating on the wind.

  Amy…

  Brandt spun around, his ears perked at the sound of the voice. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, trying to see who was back there calling to the girl.

  “It’s Miss Joe,” Amy whispered.

  Brandt’s hand shot out and clipped her by the ear. “Shut up.”

  He grabbed the sleeve of her parka and manhandled her the rest of the way up the slope and into the cemetery. She tripped on a headstone and fell to the grass.

  Brandt yanked her by the collar to her feet. “Keep walking,” he said. “We got a long way to the car.”

  “You’re going the wrong way,” Amy said.

  “What?”

  “She’s back there.” Amy pointed south.

  “No one’s coming to get you, girl.”

  “She’s back there. If you leave now, you’ll never find her.”

  Brandt stopped and stared at her.

  “Momma’s back there,” Amy whispered.

  Brandt twisted to look over his shoulder. But he saw nothing. What the hell had he expected to see? Jean standing there and looking back at him?

  The bitch is lying to me. Like they all lie.

  He jerked her arm so hard she cried out. “Don’t you lie to me, girl,” he said. “Don’t you ever lie to me about your god damn momma, you hear me?”

  The girl’s eyes welled with tears, but for the first time, he didn’t see any fear in them. Suddenly, she didn’t seem to be afraid of him at all.

  Damn it, he’d make her afraid.

  He hit her in the side of the head. The blow knocked her to her knees. He yanked her back up and pressed the broken blade of the knife to her cheek. But still, he saw no fear.

  He smacked her again. This time, the blade glanced off her chin, ripping skin and drawing blood. She started to cry, hands at her face.

  “Where is she, then?” he asked, leaning into her. “Where is your momma?”

  “In the hiding place.”

  “What fucking hiding place?”

  “The root cellar.”

  The root cellar?

  No. He’d been in the root cellar. Been there for two days. There had been no one else in there with him.

  Suddenly, the girl twisted away from him. He groped for her sleeve, but she was gone, stumbling down the hill, arms flailing, trying to keep her balance.

  He broke into a run after her, letting his momentum propel him down the slope. He caught her on the muddy bank of Lethe Creek, but she spun away from him and plunged into the water.

  He trudged into the stream, clawing at her parka. But she was fast, flying through the water. He couldn’t keep up, slowed by the icy rush against his thighs and the sucking of mud at his shoes.

  “Stop, you little bitch!”

  She stumbled onto the rocks on the other side, gasping and trying to get her balance. He lunged at her. All he could catch was her ankle. With a jerk, he pulled her backward. She slammed face-first to the bank, her screams smothered in the mud.

  He flipped her over so he could see her face. Now he could see the terror burning in her eyes, feel the hot pulse of panicked air from her lips. This was the way it was supposed to be.

  He plunged the knife into the soft flesh of her belly.

  Her small hands flew up, groping for something to grab, but he ripped them off his shirt and shoved her away from him.

  She fell back into the water.

  He was going to go after her and cut her up good, but it didn’t look like he had to. The bitch was motionless. One arm wedged between the muddy rocks, the other floating limply in the rippling water that rocked her thin body.

  Her eyes were open, looking at him. But there was nothing in them now.

  Brandt sucked in some cold air to steady himself. His knees felt like rubber.

  She’s back there.

  He turned slowly to the south, toward the farm.

  The bitch had been lying to him. They all lied.

  But he couldn’t stop himself.

  He slogged back through the stream and up the rise on the other side. When he got to the cemetery, he paused. There to the south, through the bare black trees, he could see the barn.

  He started toward it.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Joe, wait.”

  “I’m going to look in the barn again,” she yelled back.

  “We’ve been over it twice, Joe. She’s not in there.”

  Joe stopped. She was about twenty feet from the barn door, hair whipping around her face, the tip of her nose raw from the wind.

  Louis trotted over to her. She was just standing there, staring out at the cornfields. They had already been back through the house, searching it from attic to cellar. They had scoured the barn from the loft to the stalls. The only buildings left to search were a pump shed and the outhouse.

  “I’ve never been this worried about anyone,” Joe said softly.

  “I know.”

  Joe pushed her hair from her face. “Maybe she didn’t make it this far, Louis,” she said. “I keep thinking maybe somebody picked her up on the highway, and we’re wasting valuable time here, and…” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head slowly.

  Louis reached out and zipped up her jacket. His hand lingered on her cold cheek. “She’s here somewhere,” he said.

  She ran a shaky hand under her nose. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll take the shed. Will you…?”

  She motioned toward the outhouse. Louis nodded and headed off in that direction. He didn’t think Amy would be in either building, but they had to look. He was coming to believe there was another possibility that neither he nor certainly not Joe wanted to consider. Had Amy regressed to the same childlike state she’d been in when they first found her in the cupboard? That was the only logical explanation for the fact that she hadn’t responded to their calls.

  Because she was here. He hadn’t said that to Joe just to calm her down. He believed it.

  He stopped outside the outhouse to grab a breath, then pulled open the door. Hand to his nose, he fished the flashlight from his back pocket, stepped inside, and looked down into the dark hole. Nothing.

  He let out a breath of relief and backed out into the cold air. Joe was coming out of the shed, and he walked toward her, taking time again to scan the horizon. His step slowed as his mind tripped with an idea. There was a place they hadn’t thought of yet.

  The cemetery.

  But why would Amy go there? She had no reason to think Jean would be there, buried or unburied.

  Joe suddenly disappeared behind a low, grassy hill out toward the cornfields. He didn’t like the idea of her being out of view, and he hurried to her. He found her digging through a tangle of heavy brush on a west-facing slope of the hill. He could see a peeling white board behind the branches.

  He stepped closer. “What did you find?”

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. Her hands were bleeding from pulling at the thorn bushes, but she didn’t stop. She yanked away the last of the bushes.

  They stood silently, staring at a rotted old door hanging by one hinge, embedded in the side of the hill.

  He hadn’t seen this door on his other visits. But he realized now that it had been easy to overlook. The small hill was just one of several on the gently undulating ground surrounding the farmhouse and barn. All of the rises were dense with b
rush hidden by garbage and rusting machines. Maybe the deputies had found this door and already searched what was behind it. If there was nothing inside, there was no reason for the deputies to mention it.

  But why was his gut telling him something was wrong about this place?

  Joe reached to the door.

  “Joe,” Louis said, “draw your weapon.”

  She glanced back at him, then pulled her .45 from its holster. She stepped back to let Louis pull the door away.

  Joe slipped inside, arms rigid, gun pointed. Louis stayed at the entrance, clicking on his flashlight and wishing like hell he’d thought to put his Glock on his belt. But they had not come here with the idea of finding Brandt.

  The beam of his flashlight swept over the back of Joe’s leather jacket, then picked up gray stone walls and sagging rafters.

  What was this place? A tornado shelter?

  “You can’t go in there.”

  The man’s voice was deep and familiar. And it was coming from above him.

  Louis’s head snapped up to the hill above the door.

  “You can’t be in there!” Brandt screamed.

  A second later, Louis saw the broken knife in Brandt’s hand.

  “Joe!”

  Brandt lunged at him, coming off the top of the hill with the force of a two-hundred-pound boulder. Louis stumbled backward and threw up both arms, trying to deflect the impact of Brandt’s body.

  But he was knocked off his feet and slammed to the ground onto his back. A splintering pain fired through his chest.

  The knife. Get the knife.

  He saw a flash of metal. His hands flew up, locking around Brandt’s wrist to stop his downward thrust. Brandt started hitting him, desperate to free his knife.

  “Joe!”

  But he knew why she hadn’t fired. She had no clear shot. He and Brandt were too close, too tangled up.

  He gritted his teeth and steeled his arms, using all the strength he had to force Brandt’s shoulders back and up, pushing until Brandt was on his haunches and erect.

  The six gunshots came rapid-fire.

  Brandt spasmed like he had been electrocuted, and with a gasp, he went limp, tipping forward. Louis pushed him aside and scrambled to his feet.