Bad Moon Rising (30 page)

“Relax,” the officer shouted. “DOAs.”

“Who is the responding officer?” Anna demanded.

“That would be McGowan, ma’am.” He looked around at
Honey’s open door just as an officer exited the apartment. “That would be him.”

As McGowan moved toward them, Anna said, “Travelli,
FBI. What have you got?”

“Two dead—”

“Male? Female?”

“Male.”

J.D. sank against the wall, swallowed back his groan
of relief.

“Names?” Anna asked.

“Tyron Johnson and Marcus DiAngelo. Ugly stuff.”

“Who was the RP?”

McGowan reached for the flashlight on his belt,
clicked it on, and focused the beam on his notebook. “Call came in at
approximately three-fifteen. A one-eighty-three in progress. Reporting person
was female in obvious emotional and physical distress. Dispatcher had
difficulty understanding her.”

“Give me a name,” Anna demanded, her impatience
mounting.

“Shana. Kept mentioning Melissa. What sounded like Rampart Street.”

Anna and J.D. exchanged looks. J.D. turned back toward
the street and began running, hearing Anna shout:

“I need backup. Now. Rampart Street!”

Shana reached Poland and Rampart with only
thirty seconds to spare,
parked Tyron’s car half on the curb, engine idling as she rested her head back
against the seat and dragged the gun onto her lap. Where the hell were the
cops?

Think. Where was her cell phone? Think. She reached
for her purse, dumped it out on the car seat. No phone. She must have dropped
it at Honey’s apartment. She couldn’t remember.

The pain in her face had become a constant throb, pressure
building behind her eyes. Slowly, she turned her head, did her best to focus on
the empty, fog-shrouded street.

He was out there, of course. Watching her.

She fumbled for the door handle, shoved open the door,
and eased from the car, moving unsteadily into the dark, toward the distant
illumination of the streetlight on the corner. The moon was barely visible over
the warehouses, its fog-diffused glow little more than a hazy iridescence. The
rank smell of the river swam in the hot air and she could easily hear the waves
lap at the old pilings of crumbling buildings jutting out over the river.

How many streetlights had she stood beneath, waiting
for some nameless, faceless john to approach her, fear a hot pit in her belly,
knowing that any one of them could turn into a killer.

Yet, here she stood, too weak to do more than lean
against the lamppost and pray her legs didn’t give out on her, knowingly
waiting for a monster who fully intended to destroy her, and there was no fear.
No hot pit in her belly. Only resolve.

Too damn tired to run any longer. To hide from her
past. Tired of the loneliness. And the memories.

Odd that she would now allow herself to think of her
mother, young, unmarried, believing she could raise a child on the little money
she made working as a checker in a grocery store. Shana had only vague memories
of her face, cheeks painted by the bright red and blue lights of a ferris
wheel, her hand gripping Shana’s one moment, then she was gone.

“Shana.”

She lifted her head, her heart skipping a beat as a rush
of relief swept through her. A familiar face. Oh, thank God.

“Hello, Shana.”

“Eric. Thank God.”

As he joined her in the pool of light, she sank
against him, clutching his shirt. “The police. You have to call the police.”

He removed the gun from her hand as he wrapped one arm
around her. His body felt drenched with sweat.

“What happened to you?” he asked softly.

“Doesn’t matter. Please, just call the police. The
killer has Melissa, and...” She pushed away and stared into his face. “What are
you doing here?”

That hot pit was back, deep in her belly, as she
looked into his face, so much like J.D.’s. What was Eric Damascus doing here?
No car in sight.

She backed away, realization no longer occluded by her
desperate relief to find J.D.’s brother materializing out of the fog. No.
Surely it wasn’t possible.

She glanced down at her gun in his hand before looking
back into his eyes.

“Surprise.” He smiled as his hand snapped out to close
around her throat.

As the car streaked down Rampart Street, the
headlights bounced off the fog
that moved like dingy, flimsy sheets around them. J.D. slammed his fist on the
dashboard. “She could be anywhere along this damn street.”

“Relax,” Anna said in her infuriatingly calm voice. “We’ll
find her.”

“Yeah, but will we find her in time?” He looked out
the window at the flashes of dark, hulking warehouses along the river.

“There!” Anna shouted, drawing J.D.’s attention toward
the car parked partially on the curve near the distant streetlight. Anna
slammed on the brakes, causing the tires to skid on the damp street, and J.D.
threw open the door, jumping from the car before it came to a dead stop. He hit
the pavement, running toward the idling Viper, its driver’s door open. “Jesus
God.”

The car seat and steering wheel were smeared with
blood. Shana’s purse and contents were scattered over the seats and floorboard.
He glanced toward Anna, who had remained in the car reporting the car’s
location to the police. Even as she spoke, the eerie wail of distant sirens
filtered through the fog.

A pulse beat passed before he recognized the intruding
beep of the cell phone on his belt. He glanced down at the caller ID. Christ. Beverly again. Not now, for God’s sake.

The phone stopped ringing. It began again. Beverly. Furious, he answered, “I can’t talk to you now—”

“Please,” she wept. “Listen to me.
Patrick—”

“Dammit, Bev—”

“It’s Eric.
The killer—I found evidence
...
”

J.D. stared at his feet, the door of denial he had
slammed the last hour blasted open with an impact that jarred his entire body.

“I found evidence,” she said, her voice drowned by
emotion. “In Patrick’s room. The dead hookers’ client books. John, he told me
he found them hidden in Eric’s office. Those disgusting magazines as well. He
told me he’d been following Eric at night. That he followed him tonight to the
old Redman warehouse where Eric has been meeting hookers. John, I’m afraid
Patrick has gone back there. Eric knows. He knows I know about the books. I
told him—”

J.D’s gaze flashed down Poland Street and he began to walk,
his stride breaking into a run as he threw down the phone and grabbed for the
gun under his jacket.

“Damascus!” Anna shouted behind him.

Down the pitted old street, beyond the boarded warehouses
flanking the river that moved like a black, slithering snake with the moon
tide. Sirens drifted through the hot night air, one, two, screaming from every
direction as the Redman warehouse loomed ahead of him, two stories of brick and
crumbling wood, boarded windows and a rusting tin roof.

Slowing, slowing, cautiously approaching the front
door. Locked. Moving through the dark down the side of the building—which way?
East? West? Sweat rising, the pounding of the river waves against the pilings
muted by his heart slamming in his ears.

Carefully, he moved onto the walk, ancient boards
skirting the building. They shuddered under him, creaked and moaned as he
avoided the broken banisters that would surely turn to dust if he touched them.
He headed toward the double doors at the far end of the warehouse—breathe,
breathe, steady—gripping the gun in both hands.

Below, the river swirled like eddies around the mossy
pilings as he reached for the door and tried it. It moved, slightly. Blinking
the sweat from his eyes, J.D. squeezed through the narrow opening, stepped into
the yawning black cavern.

Dim yellow light shone in the distance. J.D. inched
his way through the dark, senses expanded to an excruciating level, his brain
bombarded with frantic thoughts.

Was he in time? Had Eric already murdered Shana?

Could he kill his brother—his own brother, for God’s
sake?

Back off and let the cops take care of it.

Not enough time. Each second was precious. Since Eric
knew Beverly and Patrick were aware of his crimes, he would have nothing left
to lose.

Christ, oh Christ. His mother—how would he ever tell
his parents?

Deep in the dark recesses of the warehouse, beyond the
skeletonlike shapes of meat hooks hanging from the overhead beams, J.D. noted
an old meat locker, its door ajar. His back against the wall, J.D. eased toward
the door, his heart climbing his throat as he heard a woman crying.

Bracing himself, lifting the gun, finger on the
trigger—

He stepped through the door, leveling the gun, his
gaze streaking from one side of the locker to the other, freezing on the two
women huddled on the floor together. Shana held a weeping Melissa in her arms,
then Shana’s head whipped around and he saw her face. Oh Jesus, her face,
bloody and battered and contorted in horror—

The unexpected slam against the back of his head sent
sharp shards of pain and blackness through his brain. His knees buckled. With a
groan he hit the floor, the impact jarring the gun from his hand. Through a
tunnel of dark agony and confusion, he heard Shana cry out, and though he did
his best to scramble to his hands and knees, the dizziness in his head made him
fall again. Slowly, with effort, he rolled to his back and looked up into his
brother’s eyes—no, not his brother’s eyes, but the eyes of a madman.

“Oh, my.” Eric’s lips stretched into a skull-like
grin.

He bent over and picked up the gun, stroked the barrel
as he continued to stare into J.D.’s eyes. “Was my little brother going to
shoot me?” He cocked his head to one side. His face pale and sweating, he
blinked sleepily and sighed. “This is a hell of a mess, isn’t it, J.D.?”

“Yeah,” he said. Think. Remain calm. Where the hell
was Anna?

“Now what am I supposed to do? Kill you, too? Mommy
and Daddy wouldn’t like that much. Would they?” He closed his eyes briefly then
sat down beside J.D.

“What the hell happened to you, Eric?”

For an eternal moment, Eric stared off into space, as
if he was struggling to remember, his expression shifting rapidly from madness
to fear, to the pitiful semblance of a tormented child.

“It all began by happenstance. Jack ... enjoys the company
of hookers. Sherrie Shepherd. She was the first. Got a mouth on her and decided
she would go public about him unless he paid her big money. He suggested that I
shut her up.”

Eric’s smile stretched wider as tears coursed down his
cheeks. “I shut her up, all right. And I liked it. For once in my life I was in
control. Total control. My entire life has been dictated by Daddy. Live up to
Daddy’s standards. Please Daddy or he won’t love me. God, I hated you for
standing up to him. For refusing to kiss his ass.”

“Is that why you killed my family?” J.D. said through
his teeth, his sudden surge of blind fury making him clench his fists.

Eric nodded and gave him a wink. “Me and Laura
...
it was my way of getting back at you. I’m
sorry about that. The kids and all. But what could I do? She threatened to tell
everyone about our affair. She was stupid to bring the kids that night. Left
them asleep in the car. I had no idea they were there until I looked up and
found Billy watching me cut off her head.”

J.D. closed his eyes and groaned, “Ah, God.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t make them
suffer. It was quick and clean. I’m very good with my knife.

“There was Jack, of course. Just like Daddy. Dictating
my thoughts, my actions, reminding me constantly that I would be nothing
without him—he held my future in the palm of his hand. I’m little more than his
lackey. His pawn. I really would like to kill him, too. Him and Daddy.”