FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series (26 page)

“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt the case.”

“I don’t mean the case, Stacey.” He cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I mean you. Just because we’re friendly lovers doesn’t mean I can’t worry about you. I want to know who the hell left that hateful message for you on the porch.” Frowning because he wouldn’t be around to help her deal with that situation, he quietly added, “The box is in the trunk of your squad car.”

“Thank you. And don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m sure that isn’t connected to the Reaper case.”

“I know. It’s not his style.” He offered her a grim smile. “Believe me, if I thought it was that bastard, I wouldn’t be leaving you here alone.”

She nodded, completely understanding, not arguing. She saw the sense in what he was saying without his having to explain a thing or justify himself. What a rarity.

Damn, he could love her.

Which was the last thing he could afford to think about as he said his good-byes and left to go try to find the Reaper’s latest victim.

For the first several hours
after receiving that anonymous e-mail message, the Reaper lost himself in the Playground. He disappeared from the dirt world, the one some people called real, but which he considered only dark, drab, ugly, and colorless. No life at all, just existence.

In that world, someone was trying to do him harm. Someone actually believed he could be blackmailed. Unacceptable.

He needed to escape in order to think about it and decide on a course of action. He couldn’t panic, couldn’t allow rage to make him do something stupid. Only one location calmed him now; only one provided any real escape. In the sunlit, warm, beautifully colorful world that was the Playground, no one could ever touch him. He’d never be betrayed. Never criticized. Never hurt.

He did all the hurting, of both the game-generated ’bots who inhabited Satan’s Playground, as well as personalized avatars created by those who wanted to see what it would feel like to be murdered.

And now it was even easier to do. He had lots of new toys to try out. He’d just bought some new custom-made weapons and implements to enhance the torture chamber that existed in the dungeon of his cyber castle: vises and blades, whips and chains, a stretching rack, gallows, and a spike-lined box. All perfect.

He’d filled a pit of snakes and rejoiced as a dumb bitch had broken her ankles and been devoured after he’d tossed her in. He’d finally experienced the excitement of seeing someone drawn and quartered. How wonderful a death; and how weak and pathetic people were to have stopped using it so long ago.

He loved his new toys. Worshiped them. He couldn’t stop touching them, testing each one several times as he acknowledged just how perfectly equipped he was to do his job now.

And he did it. Throughout most of the night, he gave free rein to his violent fantasies. Walking among the others, he plucked victims randomly, bringing them back to his lair and spending hours doing things to them.

If life were fair, he could have such a chamber in this cold, ugly world. Hearing the real cries, smelling the blood, tasting the fear that dripped from every pore of his victims, that would be heaven on earth. Acting furtively in the night no longer gave him enough satisfaction. He longed to take his time and enjoy it, to play and play, as he could in the Playground.

And now, even that could be lost.

Which was why he finally said his farewells with a few more swipes of his scythe and emerged from the light back into the darkness. Damp air assaulted his nostrils, and from within the walls he heard mice skittering around. Whenever he’d gone on a long visit away, his senses were always heightened upon his return. Even his eyes saw clearly into the darkness of his basement hideaway, and he couldn’t help picturing it laid out as a second dungeon.

There would be no room for the gallows, or for the pit. But a table with chains at the head and foot, a spike-covered board, those would be just fine.

“I will,” he whispered. If he got through this new threat to his safety and security, he’d do it. Somehow, he’d bring prey here and enjoy them for hours. Even if it meant removing others who might stand in his way.

Starting with the blackmailer.

Because in the long night of violent pleasure, when his mind had been washed clean with blood, the truth had come to him. He’d seen with utter clarity what he should have realized right away.

He knew who’d sent the message. There was only one person it could have been.

Warren Lee.

When he’d scoped out the perfect spot to kill Lisa, he’d realized the crazy man had cameras protecting his house. He’d spotted one on the perimeter of his property, pointed into the adjacent woods, and had steered clear of it. Still, he should have looked more carefully, should have known there could be others. But he gave himself a break. After all, it had been his virgin experience.

The black-and-white photo was fuzzy, and shot from above, probably the top of the whacked vet’s fence. Lee must not have realized the significance of what he had. But he’d held on to it, knowing it meant something.

Then the FBI had started poking around, looking for Lisa’s body. And Lee had put two and two together and come up with murder.

“He won’t be easy to get to,” he muttered, his own voice stark against the silence. “Not easy at all.” The man lived in a fortress of his own. He would defend it. Violently, if necessary.

“Damn him.” Why did that old bastard have to go putting his nose into it? What did Warren Lee need with money, anyway?

Someone should teach him a lesson about minding his own business. In fact, a few other people in this town might be due for lessons, too.

It could be done, taking Lee down. But he might not be able to do it soon enough to meet the deadline. Which meant he had to have a plan B.

Coming up with the money and using it to pay off Warren Lee long enough to get him alone and take him down. That was plan B.

He knew of only one way. That way both thrilled him and terrified him.

He’d have to hold a very
special
auction, where the potential gains could be huge.

But where all restrictions were off.

Stacey probably
should have gone into work on Sunday, but after the week she’d had, and mindful of her promise to Dean to keep her head down until she heard from him, she didn’t. Instead, she drove out to her dad’s, gave him a carefully edited version of the news, and helped him bury Lady’s body. God, how it hurt to see the sadness in his eyes.

Stacey hadn’t kept a secret from her father in years, and she hated to start now. But causing him pain, and making him fear for her, would be much worse.

Afterward, she drove back to town, focusing her thoughts on the one case she could investigate. She’d promised Dean she wouldn’t do anything involving the Reaper case. But she hadn’t promised not to try to find out what had happened to Lady.

She desperately wanted to know which sick bastard had slaughtered that poor, sweet dog.

It occurred to her for only a moment that the cases were connected. Psychos like the Reaper didn’t waste time scaring off small-town sheriffs with sick pranks. Even Dean had realized that right away. Whoever had done it probably hadn’t even intended to scare her. He’d just wanted to hurt her. To pay her back for something. To call her a bitch and to underscore the point as graphically as possible.

The list of people in this town who had a grudge against her wasn’t exactly as long as her arm, but it probably reached her elbow. Once she’d mentally drawn up that list, including some of the men she’d undoubtedly pissed off at the tavern the previous afternoon, she canvassed the area, trying to narrow it down. Her closest neighbors—the ones she trusted to keep this under wraps—had been devastated to hear about what had happened, and any one of them would have helped if they could, but they hadn’t been able to give her any leads that might help her investigation.

The mailman, who lived up the street, said everything had been just fine at noon, when he’d dropped her mail in the slot. Meaning the creep had to have done his nasty work between then and when she’d gotten home.

Broad daylight on a sunny Saturday, and nobody had seen or heard a thing.

It wasn’t hard to figure that he had parked on the quiet lane running behind the neighborhood, and approached her house through the thick woods running behind it. Easy enough for him to climb over the low fence, shielded from view by the huge evergreens that had attracted her to the area in the first place. A quick dash down the side of the house, hugging the late-afternoon shadows, and he’d be at her door. The porch was hidden from the street by the out-of-control hedges she never had a chance to cut back. He could have taken his time then.

Bastard.

After striking out with the neighbors, she’d worked out her frustration by cutting back those stupid hedges. She’d pushed herself brutally, until her arms and neck were scratched deeply enough to draw blood. And until some of the rage began to leave her.

Last night, in Dean’s arms, she’d been crushed. Now she was just damn furious.

By late in the afternoon, knowing she was going to have to go talk to some of the people who might have it in for her, she got into her squad car and headed downtown. But instead of going to the station, she detoured to Tanner Road, long considered the “wrong side of the tracks” in Hope Valley.

The Flanagan house had probably been beautiful when it was new. An old Victorian, it still exhibited graceful lines and genteel porches. But those lines were blurred by thirty years of dried, peeling paint, and the porches were falling off the sides.

Mitch and Mike’s father had lots of recriminations and a ton of blame for others when it came to his sorry lot in life.

Parking in the driveway and approaching the door, she saw the man eyeing her warily from the open garage. He’d been poking under the open hood of a rust bucket disguised as a pickup, complete with gun rack and Confederate flag on the back. Classy.

“What do you want?”

“I’d like to talk to Mike.”

He immediately hunched, his fists clenching at his sides. Damn, she didn’t want to bring the man’s wrath on the kid if Mike was innocent. But she needed to question him, because leaving a dead dog on her porch seemed like exactly the atrocity an angry, violent teenage boy would commit.

Still, there was a chance he hadn’t done it. “He’s not in any trouble,” she muttered, wondering how Mr. Flanagan didn’t hear the insincerity in her voice. “He just might have seen something that could help with a case I’m investigating.”

She’d promised Dean she wouldn’t investigate. But Dean didn’t know Mr. Flanagan. Or his beefy fists. And if she had to use the other case to get Mike alone for questioning, without setting him up for a beating from his father as soon as she left, she’d do it.

“You sure he didn’t do nothin’?”

No. She wasn’t. Nor, however, was she sure he had. “I just need to talk to him.”

“About that trashy Zimmerman girl?”

She wasn’t wearing her uniform. But she could still convey her office with a look. The disdainful one she gave him obviously came through loud and clear. He mumbled something, then hauled himself up the steps. Opening the door, he yelled for his son.

When Mike stepped outside, she watched for any sign of guilt on his face. She saw bloodshot eyes, a haggard frown, and a hint of a bruise on his cheek. She also saw a glimmer of fear. But it was not fear of her.

“What’d you do, boy?”

“As I told your dad,” she said, stepping forward, “you’re not in any trouble.”
Yet
. “I wanted to ask you if you saw anything that might help with a case I’m investigating.”

He nodded quickly, his head jerking up and down, all evidence of that cocky little prick at the doughnut shop gone. Which just made her despise his father even more. Thank heaven Mitch had escaped this nightmare. He’d done what he could to help his kid brother, though not going so far as pressing charges against his father.

A deep kernel of pity for the boy made Stacey hope Mike someday got out, too. But her pity extended only so far, and was conditioned on whether he’d left that horrid surprise for her on her porch.

“Will you excuse us?” she said to the father.

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

Eyeing Mike, she turned her head enough so his father couldn’t see and mouthed,
Get rid of him.

Paling, the kid shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s okay, Dad. It’s all good.” She could see the wheels churning in his head. “Coach says scouts like it when you get involved with the community. And I want to help if I can.”

Yeah, uh, bullshit.

But given that the only thing Mr. Flanagan had any pride in was his son’s ability on the football field, the line worked. He returned to the garage, leaving them alone.

“You’re not here about the other day?” Mike immediately asked.

Stacey shook her head once. “I really do want to talk to you about a case I’m working. But first I need to ask you something. Where were you yesterday?”

The kid showed no sign of guilt. “Practice. Coach was pissed about how we did last week and made good on his threat to make us come in on weekends.”

“What time?”

“Around ten. He worked us for hours. It was dark by the time we left.”

No wonder the kid looked bleary-eyed and bruised.

“He wants the state championship this year.” Sneering toward the garage, Mike muttered, “It’s my ticket outta this hellhole.”

“The coach will confirm that?”

“Sure. We never left the field. We got five-minute piss breaks and ten for lunch. That was it.”

The school was a good distance from her house. So if the coach and other players backed up his story, it eliminated Mike as the one who’d killed the dog. She wasn’t stupid enough to take his word for it, but the alibi was easily checked, so she had to assume he was telling the truth. A weight lifted off her shoulders that she hadn’t said anything to his dad about the real reason for her visit. “Okay.”

“Are we done?” He looked up and down the street, as if worried some of his thug buddies would see him cooperating with the cops.