She looked at him, looked at his shirt with the torn buttons, his pants with several spots that looked almost like mold staining the fabric and finally, she looked at his feet. He had one shoe on. The other was missing.
“I think you’re dead, Bill. I think you’re a ghost.” Her voice was a tiny thing, frail and broken.
“I’m not a ghost, Kelli. I’m right here. All you have to do is let me in and I can prove it to you.”
“Why can’t you just come inside?”
He looked at her for several heartbeats, his face working as he tried to come up with a proper explanation. “Just let me in. Please, Kelli, I’m cold and I need to get warm.”
“Go away, Bill.”
“Kelli . . .”
“I mean it. I’ll call the police. They’ll be here damned fast, too, with all of the people who’ve been vanishing from this house.”
“Kelli, come on now, we’re friends.”
She shook her head and looked away from him. When she looked too closely, she wanted to believe he was real and that he was there to be with her in a way she knew was wrong. The worst part was she knew he would be with her that way if she wanted. The desire to be with her was in his gaze.
“I can’t let you in, Bill. I don’t want to die.”
“I would never hurt you, Kelli. I just want to be with you.”
She shook her head again and tried not to cry. Bill slapped the sliding glass door hard enough to make her jump. “Let me in the fucking house, you bitch!”
She looked at him and blinked. He wasn’t handsome anymore. His face was dead white and slack, almost expressionless. His hair was plastered wetly to his skull, and she thought she saw something crawling through it, like a small crab. His eyelids were sagging, partially hiding that sickening glow from his pupils, and his teeth . . . his teeth were all wrong, grown obscenely long and sharp within the confines of his mouth. A dark, black tongue licked across those teeth as he suddenly snarled at her.
“You let me into the house before I have to get nasty with you!”
“Get away from me, Bill! I mean it!”
“You can’t stay in there forever, Kelli! And when you finally come out, I’ll be waiting for you!” His threat held more than merely the promise of violence. She shuddered and stepped away from the window.
Kelli looked around for something, anything that she could use to defend herself. Finally she settled on a letter opener and grabbed it.
When she looked up again, Bill was gone.
When she woke up, she was in her bedroom and the alarm was blaring at her.
“I can’t take these dreams anymore. Fuck, I just can’t.”
She slipped out of bed and stood, chilled by the early morning air and by the memory of Bill’s fury.
She didn’t even notice the letter opener near her feet. It had bounced when she dropped it earlier and was now mostly obscured by the covers.
III
Ben finally made it to his car just after sunrise. He had plenty of company along the way; a gathering of crows kept an eye on him as he walked the three miles toward Tom’s house.
He’d parked a block away from the place. Not by choice, mind you, but because the crows decided to land on his car and obscure his view until he did.
There was something very unsettling about having big black birds with wickedly sharp beaks telling you what to do. Still, he did it. He knew that Maggie needed him then and there, and he wasn’t going to let having to walk stop him.
Thinking back on the night that had just passed made his mind want to run and hide. He was fine with the whole thing, except for Maggie covered in blood. He could live with the demented intuition telling him he had to find her. He was dealing pretty damned well with the whole birds-hijacked-my-car-and-made-me-drive-here thing; it was really, really creepy, but he could manage to swallow it.
What was bugging him most was the sight of Maggie when he finally saw her. Damn near anyone else would have had trouble recognizing her right then. Most people didn’t know every feature of her face well enough to identify them through a caul of drying blood. The curve of her jawline and the teeth he knew so well were what gave her away. The way her hair fell, even when thick with crud, told him her identity. And her eyes as she came out of whatever spell had seized her; that was what really told him everything he needed to know.
She’d looked so confused, so dismayed . . .
Maggie didn’t really let a lot show on her face all the time. She was not an open book by any stretch of the imagination. When she was at school, she was studying; when she was in public, she kept a careful guard on her emotions. It was when she was alone that she showed the most emotion. Sometimes, she let herself relax around him, too, and he had learned to understand her expressions.
She’d been horrified by what she had done. He knew that. There were other emotions that warred with her fear in that moment before the crows swept through and blocked everything else, but he’d seen her repulsion at what lay before her on the ground.
He’d been horrified, too. There was a moment, very brief and fleeting, when he’d been afraid of her. She hadn’t looked human when he saw her; she’d looked more like a demon or a goddess or something that went beyond Ben’s definition of human. He’d been scared, and maybe he still was a little. But it was Maggie. Whatever else she might have become, no matter how frightening, he was in love with her.
And yes, he had recognized the remains of Tom Pardue, as well. Despite the vast mutilations, he had known the face of his enemy in an instant.
One look at the corpse and he knew he had to get her out of there. He also knew her car well enough by sight and knew a few other things that most people wouldn’t have known, like where her spare key was. She had a little magnetic box that was hidden in the well of her front bumper. Watching her dig for it one time had kept him focused on the shape of her derriere for almost a week. She was definitely as lovely from the back as she was from the front.
Ben shook that thought away. He was here to get his car.
She’d been quiet on the way back home, exhausted by whatever had overcome her. He’d been quiet, too, while his mind tried to take in the sight of her covered in blood and the fact that he’d come only inches away from running down two men who were too close to where she stood when he arrived.
Boyd and Holdstedter were decent enough guys, and he knew they had no love for Tom Pardue. But he still didn’t think they’d have let her walk away from the murder scene, and Ben knew he couldn’t allow them to arrest her. If they came after anyone, he preferred they come after him.
He was at least as guilty as Maggie: he’d killed Pardue a hundred times in his mind.
So far there had been no knock at his door. They seemed to have gotten away without incident.
Now he just had to get his car back where it belonged and avoid getting himself caught this late in the game.
Even from a block away, he could see the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles that surrounded the man’s house. That could be a problem, too. There might be an investigation into Pardue’s past. That investigation might bring up Maggie’s name.
He’d have to do something about that.
Ben was still thinking about how to handle the situation when he arrived back at his apartment. He entered quietly and crept back to his bedroom to find that she was still under the covers, only her thick curly hair in sight. He was closing the door when she spoke to him.
“Ben?”
“Hi, Maggie. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Ben, I’m cold. Come sleep with me.”
He climbed into the bed fully clothed. At first he lay on his back next to her and tried not to move. Eventually, she reached behind her own body and caught his arm. She pulled him closer until he was spooned against her back.
The feel of her body against his was an agony he willingly endured. Eventually, he managed to join her in her slumber.
IV
O’Neill was in a mood. Boyd wasn’t in the right mood to put up with it. He stood with his arms crossed and scowled throughout the entire peppy conversation about how he and Danny needed to get their acts in gear.
“The thing is, Boyd, that you two are good cops. I know that. But if this situation doesn’t get any better, I might have to look into outside help. I have to say I’m disappointed.” O’Neill was one of those bastards that was aging gracefully. Boyd wanted to slap him on general principles but he was normally okay as captains went.
“All due respect, Captain. Fuck off.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said fuck off.” He uncrossed his arms and moved toward O’Neill’s desk. “We normally deal with maybe ten cases. Right now we got over thirty. You want to go ahead and bring on a few extra people, you go right ahead. But don’t you dare accuse me of sloppy work. I’ll turn in my notice and take the time in jail for kicking your ass.”
“That is uncalled for, Rich.”
“The hell it is. You just said you’re ‘disappointed.’” He snorted. “What? You think I’m having orgasms over the way my week has been? Get a fucken clue. I got thirty fucken cases to handle here and not all of them are easily solved. You want my badge? Go for it. Wanna write me up? Do your shit. But you can shove your disappointment straight up your ass, you stupid bitch.”
He left the captain’s office and headed for the door, his expression murderous enough that everyone but Danny decided to look elsewhere in case his gaze might turn them into stone.
Danny took it in stride. He’d been there for the reaming. “So, what’re we doing first, Richie?”
“First I’m keying the fucker’s car.”
“He’ll know you did it.”
“Not if I write ‘Freemont was here.’”
“Maybe later. Right now I think you hurt him enough when you called him a bitch.” He paused. “I thought only women could be bitches.”
“Did you see balls anywhere on that piece of shit? ’Cause I sure as shit didn’t.”
“You’re being a baby.”
“Yeah? And?”
“Nothing. Just an observation.”
“Any news on the ballbuster?”
“Alan Tripp? No. He vanished.”
“I don’t think so. He’s just really good at not looking like a maniac in a hospital nightie.”
“Think he’s still hanging around?”
“According to him, his dead son kidnapped his dead wife. My guess is he’s looking for dead people.”
“Maybe we should let him know about the Red Lady.”
“We aren’t letting anyone know about her.”
“Oh, come on. They might give us vacation time.”
“No. But be on the lookout for red ladies with nice racks.”
“I’m always on the lookout for nice racks.”
“Do we have anything at all on the girls working for Tom?”
“No. Besides, you dropped this case.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yeah, you did. Just last night you handed it over to Whalen and Longwood.”
“Only on paper.”
“What? We’re gonna bust her now?”
“Shit no. I wanna thank her for the public service.”
“Seriously, Richie.”
“Seriously? Anyone could do that, maybe they know something about the Falcone car accident. Maybe they know a lot and they got caught before they could get rid of another body.”
“Shit.”
“Covering our bases is all. Far as I’m concerned, Tommy being dead is just a plus.”
“You heard about the fire?”
“Yeah. Fucken tragedy.”
“They didn’t find any bodies.”
“Yeah, that’s the tragedy. O’Neill is gonna shit a house when he hears.”
“Fuck the bitch, Richie. I ain’t wiping his ass.”
“That’s what I like about you, Danny Boy. You learn fast.”
“So, we’re going to the frat house?”
“’Course we are.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I just love to hear your voice, Richie.”
“You need help.”
“I need that vacation. Sure we can’t mention the Red Lady?”
“Very sure.”
“Bitch.”
V
Alan Tripp crawled out of his cubbyhole and shivered. The woods were not a good place for sleeping, especially without any shelter aside from a few trees. His body felt feverish. The bandages on his hand were soaked again. He didn’t have any more pads or even cloth, and he decided he’d have to risk a trip to his house.
Besides, he was tired of freezing his balls off. He had perfectly good clothes waiting for him at the house, and he had other things, like money.
And he wanted to go home. Screw everything else; he wanted to go home for a while. Even if home was empty of everything good but a few stale memories.
Alan winced and realized that he’d been clenching his fists. A steady stream of crimson ran from the web between his thumb and forefinger. The physical wound hurt, but the memory of how he’d been injured was a thousand times worse.
“That wasn’t my boy. They don’t understand that. But I know my son, and Avery would never . . .” He couldn’t finish the words. They stuck in his throat like barbed hooks and he gagged on them.
Alan Tripp started for his house, ignoring the worst of the scrapes and cuts that adorned his bare feet. The ground was rough, covered with a thick layer of autumn leaves that hid a hundred different traps. His feet were suffering for every move he made.
He let himself go numb for the majority of his trek. It was easier on him when he wasn’t lingering on memories of Avery’s laugh or Meghan’s sweet smile. The pain wasn’t as great when he pushed away the scent of his son’s hair as he came inside from playing, or the taste of Meghan’s lips pressed against his own.
A blink of the eyes was all it took to have him recalling a thousand things he didn’t want to remember anymore. Christmas morning, the first year after he and Meghan were married; their first celebration of the holiday on their own. Meghan holding on to his hand with crushing force, her eyes open and her mouth a beautiful scrawl of pain as she gave birth to their baby boy. Her not-completely-joking promise to kill him if he ever let her opt for natural childbirth again. The first time he had to change one of Avery’s diapers by himself. The look on Meghan’s face when she saw the end result and her laughter, sweet as honey, that took the sting from the exasperated look she cast his way. Avery’s first step, his first word, his first time falling down and bruising himself: they were all beautiful, painful mementos of the life he’d had until just a few days ago. They were his life, his reason for living, his sole purpose for drawing in another breath.