I Will Fear No Evil (Psalm 23 Mysteries Book 10) (17 page)

“But the place is abandoned. There’s nothing upstairs,” Mark said.

“Did you actually go upstairs yourself, Detective?” she asked.

“Not myself, no,” he admitted.

“Then you don’t know for sure what’s up there, only what other people thought they saw or didn’t see. And as we know from our discovery of this room, the looks of this place can be deceiving,” she noted.

Mark didn’t know what to think. “Okay, then I’ll tell you what. The three of us can tear this place apart from top to bottom and see what else we find.”

Why am I saying that?
he wondered. He must be going crazy. The only thing he should have been saying was a plea for them all to get the heck out of there. He started to turn, realizing that at least searching upstairs meant getting out of the basement. Something gleaming caught his eye.

On a small table in the corner that he had thought was empty there was a small piece of glass. There was something odd about it though. It reflected light almost more like some sort of gemstone or crystal. He felt drawn to it. He took a step. Another. He reached out his hand to pick it up.

Something sharp pricked his finger. With an exclamation he pulled his hand back.

“What is it?” Trina asked sharply.

“Nothing, I just cut my finger,” Mark said.

“On what?” Jeremiah asked.

Jeremiah sounded far away, though, muted.

Something hard slammed into Mark’s head and it took him a moment to realize it was the stone floor. He must have fallen.

“Mark!” he heard Jeremiah shout his name.

Something was deeply wrong. He could feel it. In one stunned moment he realized that Traci had been right. This house was going to kill him.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him!” Trina shouted as she bent over Mark’s body.

Jeremiah’s eyes were fixed on Mark’s index finger which had blood on it. “He’s been poisoned,” he said.

And given how fast it was acting they only had seconds before he was going to die.

14

“Call 911!” Jeremiah shouted as he yanked his belt off and wrapped it around Mark’s upper arm up by the armpit. It was probably already too late, but he had to try. He yanked the flashlight out of Trina’s hand and she gave a startled yelp even as she was dialing her phone with the other hand.

He unscrewed the flashlight and as the light flickered off the compartment opened. He grabbed one of the batteries out of it, a C size by the feel of it. He put the battery under Mark’s armpit against the artery there and the nerve cluster just behind it. He clamped the belt down hard over the battery, driving it deep into Mark’s armpit and he tightened it down as hard as he could. Even though Mark was slipping into unconsciousness he groaned in agony. Jeremiah knew the pain had to be excruciating.

“Officer down, he’s been poisoned,” Trina was saying into the phone. She gave the address.

“It’s probably a neurological poison,” Jeremiah barked and she repeated it into the phone.

That was what would explain just how fast it had started to react. All he could hope to do was cut off the flow of blood up Mark’s arm, even reverse it as best he could. By applying the pressure of the battery where he did and holding it in place with the belt it not only acted like a tourniquet but it also put pressure on the nerve cluster which would slow down the transmission of the poison through his nervous system.

“What can I do?” Trina asked once she was off the phone.

“Pray, and see what you can figure out about the poison without getting it in your own system. Does it have a color, odor? Gather all the information you can quickly for the EMTs.”

She clicked on the flashlight app on her phone and headed to the table where Mark had cut himself. Jeremiah continued to keep the pressure up, doing everything he could, and praying frantically. He had not gained a brother just to lose him.

A minute later Trina was back at his side, kneeling next to him and Mark. Her hand hovered over Mark’s forehead. “I don’t know how to help, what to do,” she said, her voice agitated.

“Go upstairs and get the EMTs down here safely as soon as they arrive. Tell them everything you can so they’re prepared when they get down here,” he said.

She hesitated, still hovering.

“Go!” he thundered.

She scrambled to her feet and raced up the stairs, taking the light from her phone with her and plunging Mark and him into complete darkness. As her footsteps retreated they were left in utter blackness, cold and silent as a tomb. Jeremiah knew from experience that such complete sensory deprivation could lead to a number of problems ranging from anxiety to inability to properly judge the passage of time. Those could be a problem in any ordinary place, but they were deeply compounded when the darkness and silence was in a place already disturbing and filled with traumatic memories.

Even though he knew that they were alone in the basement, it didn’t feel that way. It was as though a strange and terrible presence was there with them, pressing in around them with malevolent intent. The place was haunted, that was what his uncle would say. Sometimes the history and the memories inspired by a place could be as present as any phantom.

He did know that the darkness here was oppressive. Terrible things had happened here, and while it was not something he often gave great thought to he suspected that something demonic might be at play. Letting his thoughts linger on such things, though, would help neither of them.

“Mark, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to get through this,” he said out loud, chasing the silence away. “You claimed me as family and if you think you’re getting out of that so easy, you’ve got another thing coming.”

On the one hand it was good that Mark was unconscious because otherwise the pain he would be experiencing would be unbearable and Jeremiah would likely have had to struggle with him to keep the battery and the belt in place. On the other hand it worried him because it would make it easier for Mark to slip away from him. If the other man was screaming at least he would know he was alive and fighting.

“You sure picked a heck of a time to investigate a crime scene without wearing some kind of protective gloves,” Jeremiah said. Truth be told whatever had cut him probably would have sliced through the thin disposable gloves he knew Mark carried with him for when he had to handle evidence.

Something moved in the dark to his left and Jeremiah swung his head that direction. He couldn’t see anything in the absolute blackness, but he had heard something. His heart began to beat faster as he considered the options. It was possible there was another way into this room from somewhere else in the house or even a tunnel to the outside. If that was the case the killer might be there with them. Whatever it was it had been too large to be a rat or a mouse.

He held his breath, straining to listen. After a moment there was movement again, a faint scratching sound accompanied by a dragging noise.

If the killer of that first girl had really been in this room while the police had investigated the house had he or she stayed until the police left hours later. Or was there really another way out?

Jeremiah shifted slightly, moving as silently as he could but positioning himself so he was facing the direction from which the sound was coming. It was one of the corners of the secret room. He tensed his muscles, preparing to defend himself and Mark and hoping that his adversary would be as blind as he was.

More scratching and dragging. Whatever it was it was getting closer. He had his phone in his pocket and he could reach for it and shine his light into the darkness. That would leave him vulnerable, though, even if just for a couple of seconds. It was no good calling Trina for help either since he didn’t know her number.

He raised himself silently into a crouching position, preparing to lunge in any direction he needed to. He thought he heard for a moment the distant wail of a siren. Perhaps Trina and the EMTs would be down shortly. He had a feeling, though, it wouldn’t be before whatever was creeping toward him in the darkness attacked. He waited, tense, ready, wishing he knew what kind of weapons the creature in the darkness had.

Or if what is over there is even human.

He tried to shake the thought from his mind. It was just this place making him panic, imagine things. Whatever was creeping toward him was alive and corporeal, not some ghost or demon.

Suddenly he heard a new sound. It was coming from upstairs. Trina must be on her way. Which meant that now was the time it should attack him if it was going to. He stayed still, waiting, refusing to leave Mark’s side. He would let his enemy come to him.

Then he heard voices and a moment later footsteps on the stairs. Any moment now and light would fill the room and he’d see just what he was up against. If whatever was there was going to attack, it was now or never.

“We’re coming!” he heard Trina call, voice frantic.

A sudden stab of light shot through the dark, and he winced against the brightness after so long in the darkness. He threw a hand into the air to shield his eyes from the light.

And he felt a needle jab him in the thigh.

Before he could react light suddenly flooded the room. Squinting he looked down and realized it wasn’t a needle that had stabbed him, but a claw. A black cat had his paw on his leg and was shaking. The poor animal looked like it had been mangled, but it was still alive. He realized that’s what he’d heard, the animal dragging its body across the floor to him from whatever hiding place it had been in.

“Can you move out of the way, sir,” one of the EMTs said tersely.

Jeremiah carefully picked the cat up and it pressed itself close against his chest as he stood up. He moved over to Trina and she glanced at the cat. “Where did he come from?”

“Somewhere in this room. That corner over there, I think,” he said, pointing.

“But we searched this place.”

“Apparently he found a hiding place we didn’t. It’s probably what saved his life.”

Her eyes drifted over to where the EMTs were working on Mark. “He looks in rough shape.”

“They both are,” he said, not sure if she was referring to Mark or the cat.

A short while later Jeremiah was happy to be standing outside in the sun, away from the house, as Mark was being loaded into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher. The men seemed to have gotten him stabilized and Jeremiah was starting to believe everything might be okay. He started to get in the back of the ambulance, but Trina stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“I still need help searching the rest of this house,” she said.

He took a deep breath, barely holding back a harsh retort. She was right. There was nothing more he could do for Mark, but he could keep on the search for Lizzie and the killer.

“I know a good vet, I’ll drop him off on the way to the hospital,” the driver said, indicating the cat that Jeremiah was still holding.

“Let him know the cat is a potential witness to a homicide and any forensic evidence he can collect off him should be reported to the police,” Trina said.

The man nodded and Jeremiah reluctantly surrendered the cat. The poor thing had probably been trapped in the house since before the murder and was likely in as desperate need of water as he was medical attention.

As the ambulance drove off he quickly called both Liam and Traci to let them know that Mark had been poisoned and was on his way to the hospital. He was about to call Cindy as well, but decided to wait until he had left the crime scene. She wouldn’t take kindly to him continuing to look around the place where Mark had been poisoned. Better to tell her everything afterward.

A couple hours later Jeremiah and Trina staggered outside the house, sweaty and disheveled. Upstairs they had found one bedroom that was clearly being occupied and Jeremiah had no idea how Mark’s people had missed that. They’d found another hidden room upstairs that was reached through a linen closet. There hadn’t been much of interest inside it, though. They’d also found a tiny hole in the wall in the hidden room downstairs that the cat had likely secreted himself in, hiding from his attacker. It had been hard to see with the way it was blocked from view by the trunk that occupied the one wall.

He checked his phone and found that he had a missed call from Cindy, wanting to check in with him, and another from Traci letting him know that the doctor had said that Mark was going to be okay, thanks to his efforts.

He relayed the information to Trina who looked relieved. “I’ll follow up on the cat, see what more we can find from him,” she said.

Jeremiah wanted nothing more than to go home, take a hot shower, and go to bed. He glanced at his phone, though, and saw that he only had a few minutes before he was supposed to be teaching the scare class at the church. He’d been a fool to agree to do it, especially with everything that was going on. He should call and cancel, but Wildman would just try and get him to come out on Sunday. After all, what was happening with the murder investigation didn’t involve Wildman or the kids or their haunted house.