Sweet Dreams Boxed Set (81 page)

Sadly, Jade passed away in 2012 from pancreatic cancer. It took years, but we finally adopted again—this time, sisters, also shelter kittens. How Jameson and Jordan came to live with us is a story for another time, but I will share that Jade was a huge part of the process. And it’s not lost on us that we needed two kittens to fill the void Jade left behind. She was a magnificent cat.

Though it is a departure from the rest of the series, I’ve chosen to leave Jade in this story to honor her spirit. I miss my little furry muse terribly, and I simply couldn’t erase her from the book that she gave me. It wouldn’t be right.

Thank you for reading, and for being a part of my writer’s journey. Please forgive the book’s rawness. We all need to have a first.

J.T. Ellison

February 2015

Nashville, Tennessee

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the following people for making this novel possible: Scott Miller and Holly Root, for taking a chance on a new author; Detective David Achord, Officer Carl Stocks and Detective Mike Mann of the Metro Nashville Police Department for the ride-alongs and ghost stories; Dr. Michael Tabor for the forensic odontology research; Kris Rinearson of Forensic Medical; the Bodacious Music City Wordsmiths—Del, Janet, Mary, Rai, Cecelia, Peggy, and Jennifer for the original critique. Many thanks to Joan Huston, Sherrie Saint, Laura Benedict and Amy Kerr for the read, notes and excellent copyediting. As always, my family is a source of constant inspiration, and my better half, Randy, has always stood by my side, whatever may come. Taylor and Baldwin’s love story is rooted in reality because of him.

About J.T. Ellison

J.T. Ellison is the
New York Times
bestselling author of many critically acclaimed
novels
, including
WHAT LIES BEHIND
(5.26.15) and
WHEN SHADOWS FALL
, and co-authors the
Nicholas Drummond FBI thrillers
with #1
New York Times
bestseller Catherine Coulter. Ellison's novel
THE COLD ROOM
won the ITW Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original of 2010 and
WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE
was a RITA® Nominee for Best Romantic Suspense of 2012. She is also the author of multiple
short stories
, and her novels have been published in more than twenty countries.

Ellison grew up in Colorado and Virginia. After graduating from Randolph-Macon Woman's College and receiving her master's degree from George Washington University, she was a presidential appointee and worked in The White House and the Department of Commerce before moving into the private sector to work as a financial analyst and marketing director for several defense and aerospace contractors.

When Ellison moved to Nashville, she developed a fascination with forensics and crime. To research her novels, she has worked with the Metro Nashville Police Department and the FBI, as well as
performing autopsies
and
studying survivalists
.

Find J.T. on the web at
JTEllison.com
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by Heather Graham

Prologue

The
thing
was truly hideous. Life-sized and decked out in a nun’s habit, the creature had a skeletal face that was still partially clad in flesh. The eye sockets were dark and haunting; the mouth appeared to be open in a final scream. The “nun’s habit” covered most of the body, but skeletal hands and fingers stretched from beneath the fabric—as if they could reach out and touch someone.

Brush a cheek with a gentle touch….

Curl around someone’s throat with purely evil intent.

It stood—as if on guard—in a hallway that connected the back door to the kitchen, laundry room, downstairs bedroom, and bath. She’d noted it first from the desk in the living room—she could see over the counter divider into the hallway. For a moment, it seemed as if her heart had all but stopped; she thought someone was standing there.

But it wasn’t a
someone
. It was a
something
. 

Kathy Kennedy was accustomed to the craziness of her family’s décor. She had her own lovely penchant for weird collectibles. For one, she loved ravens and had dozens of little raven statues—and one stuffed raven adorned with sequins and beads. She was truly a Poe fan-girl and she had a bust of the writer set in the midst of the ravens on her mantle.

She had Day-of-the-Dead dolls mixed in with super heroes, resin models of aliens and more. A chip off the old block, more or less.

Collecting—it seemed to be a vise inherited by every member of the family. She remembered when she and Colby were in school and brought friends to their parents’ home on Elizabeth Street. Even in Key West—land of the weird, Kathy sometimes thought—their home was bizarre. Their dad collected movie costumes, props, and set pieces, historic military memorabilia, strange art, and far more. Their house looked like a museum.

“I think we’re the Addams’ family kids, sometimes,” Colby told her once. “Go figure! If we come home one day and mom is all in black walking as if her feet were in binders, we’ll know for sure!”

She was, beyond a doubt, accustomed to
things.

But this thing was different.

So, I won’t do laundry! I won’t sleep in the guest room, use the downstairs bathroom, the kitchen or do laundry….

She had to use the kitchen—there was, of course, only one in the small, historic house her brother had been so proud to buy on his own. Key West real estate was atrociously high—Colby had worked hard and negotiated like a tiger to buy the place. Then he’d brought in his own quirky furniture and collections.

Like the zombie thing or nun corpse or whatever the hell it was. She would have asked him—except that Colby had left that afternoon and she hadn’t come over until just an hour ago.

She’s been on location all day, had dinner with the director and two of the actors in the low-budget sea-monster movie. Then she’d shown them Captain Tony’s Saloon and the “hanging tree” and told them some tales about old Key West. Key West did have great stories. At one time the building that now housed Captain Tony’s had been an icehouse and the morgue. And it was built right around the hanging tree where sixteen pirates and one woman—guilty of hacking up her husband and children—had met their maker. Joe Tybalt, the handsome actor, had been certain she’d made it all up to scare them, especially since the woman—the Woman in Blue—supposedly still haunted the saloon. Vanessa Green, the beautiful actress had shivered and moved closer to Andrew Bracken, the director—who had smiled at Kathy, as if thanking her for the story. Then again, Vanessa was an outrageous flirt and Andrew, she had heard, was delighted to sleep with his leading ladies.

Joe Tybalt had walked her home; he’d loved the house. But then, he’d only come in so far as the parlor.

He hadn’t seen the…
thing.

Kathy hadn’t thought twice about coming to her brother’s to watch the cat.

She hadn’t thought about the hour growing late….

That it was nearly midnight.

That was it; the hour was late. She’d been telling Joe, Andrew, and Vanessa Key West ghost stories. She’d creeped herself out—and then come in here where it had been absurdly quiet and somehow…eerie. Something she hadn’t noticed at first, since she’d chatted with Joe, locked him out, and then run up the stairs with her bag. She hadn’t been afraid to be locked in and alone and she’d popped into the shower there and donned her fury robe. She’d come back down to do the smart thing and double-check that she had locked up. But then she’d noticed her computer. And then she remembered she had a few ideas about fixing a scene.

She’d sat down quickly to finish some work. Andrew Bracken had thrown the basic script together as a basic scene outline; she’d been hired to fix it. She loved working on films—she always had. And this time—as often happened—she’d been able to get Colby work, too. Not that Colby couldn’t work on his own—he was one of the best dive masters in Key West! But this film had some money and Colby had made enough in a few days’ work to take the nice little mini-vacation that had brought her here tonight.

Busy editing, she’d really not noticed the
thing
until she’d headed over to use the downstairs’ restroom. And really, why would she have noticed that particular
thing
? The little house was filled with movie posters, models, books, art—stuffed creatures. There were pirate heads, skull and cross-bone flags, driftwood creations…Colby had truly followed in the family tradition. She just had never seen anything quite as creepy as the zombie-nun-skeleton thing.

I won’t look at it!
She told herself
. If I don’t look at it, everything will be fine.

She sighed and turned away and hurried back to her computer. 

Waldorf—the giant Persian cat that was the reason for her staying at her brother’s place while he and Tracy flew off to the Bahamas for the weekend—was sitting on her keyboard.

Waldorf was really as much her cat as he was Colby’s, since he’d been their family cat when they’d still been at home. But, she’d had to do more traveling than Colby and now, because he was an old boy, they didn’t like to disrupt his daily pattern or take a chance of moving him around anymore.

“Waldorf, the last time you did this to me, you ripped all the letters off the keyboard. Do you know how hard it is to write anything at all when you can’t find the ‘e’ key? Please…I love my bro, I know how he loves you, but I need to work—do you mind?” she said aloud.

Waldorf looked at her with big blue eyes; she thought that the cat shuddered.

“All right. Treats. Come on, Waldorf. Treats!”

Waldorf loved treats. In fact, he was very fond of food. Waldorf was huge, a big furry gray Persian—a monster cat.

Kathy made a concentrated effort not to look in the direction of the
thing
as she made her way to the kitchen. Some of Colby’s treasures came from beneath the sea—her brother made his living as a dive captain. Some of his collection, she’d actually gotten for him. She was a freelance editor/consultant for the indie film market, repairing scripts, suggesting changes, and working with everyone from those who had to do cheap advertisements for local markets to those planning major motion pictures that utilized the Florida Keys as locale. For example, she’d gotten Colby the set of vampires figures that held prominence in his bedroom—models designed for
She-Shark Versus the Vampires
—a bizarre little flick that gained an even more bizarre cult following.

Models, figurines, created to help the costume and design departments in the crew. Some were actually beautiful. They were just resin. There was nothing about them that was….

Evil.

The zombie-skeleton-nun was evil.

Kathy could feel it.

And so could Waldorf.

“Come on, Waldorf. Kitty, Kitty!” Kathy called.

Waldorf looked at her. She could have sworn that he looked toward the zombie-nun thing—and shuddered again.

He didn’t leave the keyboard.

“Don’t look at it, Waldorf. Don’t look at it…just pretend it’s not there.”

Waldorf didn’t move. He was in the taut, hunched position cats took on when they were ready to strike—or when they were very wary and ready to take up a defensive position.

Kathy let out a sigh and brought the kitty treats over to the computer. The cat left the keys—jumping into her arms.

She gave him the treats. “You know, Waldorf, we’re going to go to my place. It’s just a shotgun rental—I don’t own it, and I’m not fixing it up—but we’ll be happier there.

She thought about her own place longingly. A block off Duval, it could be loud; drunks sometimes stumbled by singing at their top of their lungs after leaving the bars on the main street.

She had a few movie props and things of her own that one just might consider creepy.

But not the zombie-nun thing.

“I’m just going to close this up, Waldorf—then we’ll go to my place. You’ll stay in my arms, right? Didn’t bring the car and it’s about six blocks away….”

She sat, looking at the work she had done, ready to save it. She saw a few typos and set about fixing them before saving—then saved again in a backup file that she emailed to herself. As she did so, she felt the cat’s claws dig into the flesh on her thighs. Waldorf began to hiss.

She looked up.

It was there; the zombie-skeleton-nun thing. Standing in front of her. The gaping mouth now seemed to be grinning, the dark eye sockets seemed to have vision, and they were staring directly at her. She could have sworn that she heard it laughing.