FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series (17 page)

Wyatt seemed distracted. “Why is it going in and out? Are you losing him?”

“Shit! Oh, no, you don’t!” Brandon shouted, frustration making his voice throb.

Wyatt snapped into the phone, “I’ve got to go. We’re doing what we can; I think we’re going to lose him again. One thing we know at this point: The Reaper is online, playing in the Playground, right this minute. If you’re going to conduct interviews this morning, you might keep that in mind.”

“Got it,” Dean said, ending the call. He tucked the phone away and related the information to the others.

“So let’s go knock on good old Mr. Lee’s door, tell him we’d just like to chat, and see if he’s online,” Mulrooney said. “I bet he’s got some high-powered security equipment out there, run by a state-of-the-art computer.”

The idea had merit, but he saw by the look on Stacey’s face that she genuinely believed they’d be wasting their time. And frankly, they didn’t have time to waste.

He trusted her. He hadn’t known her long, but he already had faith in her instincts, and if she thought they’d be barking up the wrong tree, he intended to take her at her word. “Let’s stick with the original plan,” Dean said.

He glanced at the computer screen again, unable to keep his eyes off the final words, the sick desires of the winner. And the Reaper’s agreement.

God, he hoped they found this guy before he grabbed his next victim.

He enters
the Playground through the south gate.

The palette of odd colors is familiar, welcoming. The eerie, gray-streaked blue sky casts a perennial storm cloud over the preternaturally cheerful Playground. The grass is too green. The sun too yellow. The images too surreal, at odd angles, with unnatural curves and sharp edges.

It’s Dalí’s version of
Sesame Street.

Only if you look closely can you see the writhing forms of anguished souls carved into the base of the tree holding the tire swing. At first glance, the yawning opening beneath the sliding board, which falls away into a pit of flame and torture, appears to be only a shadow. The metal rings hanging from a jungle gym seem simple gymnastic playthings—until you notice the screaming man hanging from them, begging for mercy as a fire is lit beneath his feet.

As always when he comes to the Playground, peace washes over him. Happiness fills him from his core to the tips of his fingers and the very ends of each strand of hair on his body.

Ahead of him, the morning crowd is thick and buoyant as the weekend begins and earthly workweek identities fall away. Possibilities abound; excitement ignites the air. Convention and morality and mundane laws simply do not exist in this world. Nothing is taboo, nothing sacred.

No one ever says no. No desire is too dark to fulfill.

Here is a woman being beaten by a long, spiked whip. There a man is led around on a leash like a dog. A crowd encircles a duo taking turns raping the brunette they have pinned to the ground.

And a tall, skeletally thin man draped in expensive clothes takes yet another child by the hand and leads him through an elaborate gate marked PRIVATE.

Then, at last, they notice his arrival. All fall silent. Watching him. Waiting for him. They part like the sea spreading for some biblical being.

As they should. This is his kingdom and he stalks it like an all-powerful, all-seeing deity. Death ravaging the earth with every step he takes.

His black cape ruffles in the breeze, casting a long shadow of dread across the landscape. His scythe, sharp and vicious, swings side to side as he cuts a path toward his destination, everyone backing out of his way, bowing to him, whispering words of love and praise and adoration.

He doesn’t love back. In this world. In any world.

But he is fond of them, as a god is fond of his worshipers. He bestows benevolence upon them, emerging from his dark fortress every so often so they may bow at his feet. He occasionally allows them the privilege of touching his robe, of getting close enough to death that they will experience endless nightmares.

The power invigorates him. He needs no sleep. No sustenance. Just this.

He reaches the marquee for the theater. Swiping his gloved hand across it, he erases the mundane titles promising sexual delights for those who enter.

He replaces it with words of his own:

COMING SOON …

BEHEADED.

And the crowd erupts.

I
n the car
on the way to Lisa Zimmerman’s mother’s house, Dean forced himself to think only about the unpleasant task ahead. Notifying next of kin was never easy. With a murder case, it was a hundred times harder.

He wanted to focus only on the unsub, on what he might be doing this minute to another innocent victim, but he couldn’t allow himself to. Being distracted by that would make him less effective in his job, and he needed every brain cell in his head sharp and in control. And every emotion he had shoved away to be dealt with later.

He needed Stacey to be the same way. Remembering what had happened before Wyatt’s call, when he’d realized just how much she blamed herself for what had happened to Lisa, he wanted to get that out of her mind. Though he wasn’t the king of comforting women, and he knew she wasn’t the type who would be interested in being comforted, he couldn’t help saying, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Her hands clenched on the steering wheel.

“Stacey, you know as well as I do that she was dead by the time she was reported missing. There was nothing you could have done to save her, even if she’d been the mayor’s wife and the whole town had been in an uproar over her disappearance.”

“Tell her mother that,” was the flat reply. “Explain to Winnie that the past year and a half of crying and waiting and hoping and praying wasn’t my fault for not really believing something bad had happened to her daughter.”

He knew he shouldn’t, but something made him reach over and touch her shoulder. She flinched, taking her eyes off the road for one moment to glance at him.

“Anybody would have thought the same thing,” he insisted, focusing only on getting Stacey’s head back where it needed to be, in the now, rather than in the recriminations of the past. He squeezed lightly. “I would have. Wyatt would have. With someone like Lisa, who you admitted had disappeared before—”

“I know,” she acknowledged, shaking her head. “But that doesn’t make it right.”

He pulled his hand away, knowing Stacey wouldn’t be forgiving herself anytime soon. Sometime in the future, when they’d nailed this bastard to the wall, maybe she’d give herself a break. But not before then, if he was any judge of character.

Maybe that was one more reason he liked her. The incidents in her past that had forged her into the powerful woman she was today had also instilled a strong moral boundary within her. There was also her need to make a difference. He found the combination of sexy, sometimes playful, woman over that solid, implacable center incredibly appealing.

It could have been that the steel core inside her had been forged by fire in the heat of brutality she’d witnessed as a state cop. God knew, he’d never experienced anything like she must have at Virginia Tech. And part of him—a big part—wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her for the awful memories that he suspected haunted her.

He couldn’t, of course. She’d never accept that kind of gesture without reaching out for it first.

He only wondered what it would take to make her reach out.

Considering he’d never been able to acknowledge his own emotions about anything in his personal life until that life had been completely disrupted by his ex-wife’s choices, he couldn’t even venture a guess. He just hoped that whenever the moment did come, someone who really understood her would be there to respond.

“Do me a favor, okay?”

“Of course,” he said.

“When I tell Winnie, keep a close eye on her husband, would you? He’s not the nicest man in the world.”

His eyes narrowing, he tried to read between her simple words, wondering if Stacey suspected Lisa’s own stepfather of killing her. That seemed like a long shot, the Reaper being reckless enough to kill someone so close to him. But he’d certainly seen criminals do reckless things. “Of course.”

When they reached the same small, dingy, shuttered house they’d visited the previous evening, Dean noted the beat-up old hatchback in the driveway, as well as a dusty sedan with a smiling laptop logo on the side, and heard Stacey’s slow exhalation. “They’re both here.”

“It’s a rotten part of the job, but you’ll do fine,” he murmured.

When he saw the thin, wasted-looking woman appear in the doorway before they’d even exited the car however, he had to rethink that. She didn’t look strong enough to carry a gallon of milk, much less hear news of her only child’s murder.

The victim’s mother had obviously heard from her neighbor that the sheriff had come looking for her the previous night. She walked down the steps toward them, looking both hopeful and terrified. “Sheriff?” she called. “You got some news?”

Stacey reached for her hat, which she’d set between the front seats, and put it on her head as she stepped out of the car. It was the first time he’d seen her in it, and somehow it completed the whole image of a strong, in-control professional.

The slight tremble of her lips, however, said a thousand times more about the woman wrapped up in all that professionalism.

His heart twisted in his chest, an unfamiliar sensation that he’d only ever experienced with Jared, when his little boy had been hurt or was afraid. He wanted to soothe her, to protect her, to take this burden from her. But Dean knew he could only cover her back. And be there for the inevitable recriminations and emotional overload once she had done her job and gotten far away from here.

“Can we speak in private?” she asked.

The woman paled, her eyes darting frantically, as if she half expected to see her daughter appear, safe and sound, maybe in handcuffs but okay. Alive. Accounted for.

“Please, Winnie. Let’s go in out of the heat.”

The older woman nodded, twisting her hands in the front of her drab, shapeless housecoat. “All right.”

The house, with its dingy and weather-beaten exterior, was equally as morose on the inside. From the cluttered foyer, he noted that every curtain was drawn, each visible room cast in shadows that defied the bright morning sunshine. As if it weren’t welcome here, as if the whole place were already in mourning.

He supposed it had been, for seventeen months. But for Lisa’s mother, the true mourning was about to begin.

“Winnie, this is Special Agent Dean Taggert, from the FBI.”

He extended his hand. She merely stared at it, as if it were a snake ready to bite. Maybe she thought not acknowledging his presence would forestall the dark news she already sensed was coming.

“Is Stan here?” Stacey asked.

“He’s sleeping. He works nights a lot now.”

“Maybe you should get him.”

“He’ll be mad,” the woman whispered. “Tell me about Lisa.”

Stacey took her hat off, holding it at her side. “We should wait for Stan.”

The two women stared at each other, Stacey resolute, Mrs. Freed visibly afraid. Finally the older woman looked away, knowing in her heart what was coming, wanting to forestall the inevitable moment when reality could no longer be evaded. “I’ll go get him. Have a seat in there,” the woman said, gesturing toward a shadow-filled living room.

They watched her trudge down a hallway, open a door, and descend into what must be a finished basement. Separate bedrooms in the Freed marriage, perhaps?

When she was gone, her slow, aged footsteps growing lighter until they disappeared altogether into the bowels of the house, Dean stepped into the cavelike living room. Cluttered with a mishmash of furniture, it was as hot as an oven despite the closed curtains blocking out the sun. A sad assortment of ceramic figurines covered the surface of the coffee table, shepherds, milkmaids, and farm animals, gathering dust and ignored. The room had an abandoned feel, and he suspected that when Mrs. Freed was in this house, her existence consisted of sleeping, bathing, and eating. Not really living.

Catching sight of a number of framed photographs on the wall above the well-worn couch, he leaned closer. “Lisa?” he murmured, eyeing the sweet-faced little blond-haired girl in school pictures like the ones he had of Jared back at his place.

Stacey joined him, though she looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. “Yes.”

“I wouldn’t have recognized her. She was so pretty, so innocent,” he said, having to swallow hard as suddenly something clicked in his brain. He recognized it as the moment that came in almost every case, when the victim became a person. Someone’s loved one, someone’s daughter. “Sad.”

“She was a doll,” Stacey admitted through a throat that sounded tight. “I used to babysit her. Can’t tell you how many puzzles we did together right on that table.”

He jerked his attention from the half dozen photographs of the ponytailed child, and stared at the woman standing so stiffly beside him. Stacey had admitted she knew Lisa, just not how well she’d known her. Realizing how much this had to be personally affecting her, he again felt the urge to put his hands on her shoulders and tug her close to enfold her in his arms. He sensed she didn’t lean on anybody very often.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, knowing he couldn’t reach for her, couldn’t make this personal. Not here, not now. Not until she made it personal.

“I’ve got to catch whoever did this, Dean.” Her voice shook with angry emotion, her slim body suddenly seeming too fragile to handle the weight that had been dumped on it. “I can’t live the rest of my life without catching him.”

Hearing the depth of her frustration, he couldn’t resist putting one hand out, touching the tips of his fingers lightly to her arm. He wanted her to feel the unvoiced support he was offering her. “We’ll catch him. I promise you.”