Sleep With The Lights On (18 page)

“I know this guy.” She pulled away from his hands and refocused. “I know this guy.”

Every head turned turned their way, and Mason grabbed her shoulders again. “Not another word.” He turned her around, marching her straight out the front door and all the way to the street. The cop at the door knew who she was, Mason had seen the recognition in his eyes. It wouldn’t be long before word got around, dammit. To his amazement, she didn’t speak again until he got her out of earshot of everyone else.

“What the hell, Rachel? Do you
want
to be a suspect in this mess?”

“It was a suicide.”

“Yeah,
he
was a suicide. The guy in the basement wasn’t. His head was bashed in with a hammer, one with a grid pattern on its snout. And yeah, I’m dying to know how you knew this guy, and how you knew what you did about this crime scene, but for right now, you’re putting yourself in a helluva situation just by being here.”

“I have a right to be here.” She backed up three steps, hands deep in the pockets of her long leather jacket, shoulders hunching up a little. Maybe against the chill wind, or maybe something else. More cops were arriving all the time. He had to get her the hell out of here. “This guy killed my brother.”

“I told you before. I don’t think so.”

Her head came up fast, her eyes searching his. “Your copycat theory? You never told me why you believe that.”

Dammit, he had to be careful with her. She was as good a detective as he was.

“How did you know him, Rachel?” He glanced around while awaiting her answer, knowing this was starting to look fishy. Rosie would cover his ass, but still...

“Support group. For transplant recipients.”

His eyes shot back to her. “You’re shitting me. He got a transplant?”

“Bone. Said he ditched his Harley, smashed his skull in, had to have bone grafts.” She lowered her head. “I met him last Wednesday and saw him again last night. His first name is Terry.” She lowered her head again. “Did you see those fucking boots he was wearing?”

“I saw.”

“Just like in the dream. Did he have the tattoo?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I never saw it at group. Never noticed it, anyway. This is lunacy, right?”

“Seems like.”

“What’s going on, Mason? How can any of this be happening?”

The chief’s Mercedes pulled up to the curb. “Go home now,” Mason said firmly. “I can’t help you if I lose my job, and I sure as hell can’t help you if you get arrested and charged with multiple murders.”

“Oh, like that’s gonna happen.”

“You know too much, Rachel.”

She stopped talking, blinked twice, her gaze briefly turning inward, and then she met his eyes again, her expression worried. “You’re right. I do, don’t I?”

Not the response he’d been expecting. She turned toward where they’d parked, then turned back again. “Will you come back? After? Tell me what the hell’s going on?”

“I’ll come back,” he said, not promising anything more.

She nodded. “Okay. Okay.” Her eyes shifted past him, toward the house, then back to him again, quick, jerky. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you.”

He watched her all the way to her car, then jumped guiltily when a hand fell onto his shoulder. “You okay, Mace?”

He nodded at his partner. “Fine.”

“Something goin’ on with you two?”

Mason frowned, then barked “No” a little too emphatically.

“I see.”

“She’s a little freaked, is all. This guy was a transplant recipient, too. She met him at a support group she attends. I guess there’s some kind of common bond there.”

“A bond, huh?”

“I know. It’s bull, right?”

Rosie shrugged. “I don’t know.” He paused, seemed to be thinking. “I guess if someone got parts from the same donor, maybe that might create some sort of sentimental attachment, but...”

Rosie’s voice was drowned out by the sudden buzzing sensation inside Mason’s brain.
The same donor.
Eric?

Could it be that his brother had been this guy’s donor, too? No. It was too much of a coincidence, and that way lay madness. He wasn’t even going to bother following that ridiculous thread any further.

Yes he was.

He was going to read the book by that local shrink and maybe even give the guy a call come morning.

11

T
he host the rat had chosen hadn’t been the right one. Oh, he’d allowed the rat to kill through him, but afterward, he’d self-destructed. Shame. It was a body he could have enjoyed inhabiting for a while.

No matter, he’d found another. One who would allow him free rein for far different reasons. Curiosity. A need to know.

The rat liked this one even better. A clever mind, but a willing one. It was perfect. With this sharp brain at his disposal, he knew just the way to take care of his unwilling observer.

* * *

I couldn’t stop pacing, and I was shaking, too. I felt like puking but there was nothing left to puke. No matter what Mason had said about a copycat, as far as I was concerned the man who had murdered my brother was dead, a man I’d sat in the same room with—twice now—and I hadn’t even realized who and what he was. Terry Skullbones had been the serial killer the press had dubbed “the Wraith,” and his final victim was in his basement.
Unless Mason was right and he was just a copycat. Which means the true Wraith is still out there. My brother’s murderer, still running free.

I saw him do it, though. This time, at least, I watched it just as clearly as if I was there for the whole thing. And he saw me. He saw me!

I couldn’t keep denying it now, even if I wanted to. Not when I’d seen every detail before ever setting foot at that crime scene.

Zero chance now that there could be any other explanation. This killer got inside my head somehow.

I paced and muttered to myself so damned much that I disturbed Myrt’s comalike sleep. She opened her sightless eyes and shifted her ears to follow my progress back and forth across the living room but didn’t bother picking up her head.

I poured a drink—vodka, stiff—and turned on the TV to try to distract myself with an episode of whatever the hell mindless reality show was currently airing. I found one, tried to focus on it. Every contestant sucked. The judges might not hear that slightly off-key warble, but imperfect pitch rang in my ears like a dog whistle in Myrtle’s. Real talent was rare.

My drink was empty. I poured another. I was contemplating a third when I must have drifted off in my comfy chair, lulled by the heat of the fireplace, because the door chimes startled me awake again.

Two hours had gone by. I got up and picked up my regrettably empty glass. The doorbell rang again.

“Rachel, you up?”

It was Mason’s voice. I dragged my feet to the door and turned the lock. “Come on in, it’s open.” Then I headed back to the bar for a refill and poured one for him while I was at it. I made mine weaker this time, though, and added soda. Yeah, image. I didn’t want him seeing me drinking straight vodka like water. People tended to form certain opinions of women who did that.

Turning, I offered him a glass, ice cubes clinking, and as he took it from me, his fingers brushed over mine. Ice-cold, and not all that steady. He looked like hell, and it wasn’t just exhaustion.

“So?” I asked, watching his face.

“Yeah, I can’t tell you all that much.”

“You don’t
have to
tell me all that much. I saw it. Remember?”

“You know that’s not possible.” I could tell by the lack of conviction behind those words that even he didn’t believe them.

“Then how do you explain what’s been happening to me?”

He shrugged and averted his eyes. Aha. He had a theory.

“I need to know if the details I saw were accurate, Mason. I
have
to know, okay? You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Yeah.” He drew a breath, let it out again. “Yeah, I can’t even imagine what this must be like for you. I really didn’t believe it, to tell you the truth. Until tonight.”

I wanted to ask if he believed me even now, but I was afraid of the answer. There was still no proof, I knew that. He’d been with me when the call came in, yeah, but before that I’d had all night. I could have slipped out, bludgeoned one guy, hanged another...yeah, right. He had to know as well as I did how impossible that was. Terry Skullbones must have had eighty pounds on me. Maybe a hundred. Probably a hundred.

“So? Were my details accurate?”

“Several of them were, yes.”

Yes?
Not yeah, not uh-huh, not yup, but yes. Formal now. He was keeping a physical distance, too, now that he had his drink. Like I was carrying some virulent bug he didn’t want to catch. He was probably spooked. Hell, he oughtta try being me for an hour and see how fucking spooked he was.

“Which details?” I demanded.

“I can’t—”

“You can’t tell me that. You’re like a broken record, you know that?” I moved to the fireplace and cranked it up a notch, took a big gulp from my glass and decided to make the next one a little stronger. “What
can
you tell me, Mason?”

He shrugged. “There’ll be an autopsy, but it’s pretty clear he died from the hammer blows.”

“Three of them. The one that glanced off the side and tore half his ear off, the one dead center, topside, and the one in the back.” I touched my own head as I spoke. “Right?”

His body tightened. I felt it, knew it, even though I didn’t see it. He tensed up, sure as shit, and there was a hitch in his breath, just a small one.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said.

Shooting me a look, he said, “How do you do that?”

“Do what? Read you?” I shrugged, downed the rest of my drink, paced to the bar and made another. “You?” I asked with a lift of my tumbler.

“I’m sipping.”

“God forbid you get drunk and tell me what the hell is going on, right?” I didn’t sip. I gulped.

“If I knew—”

“I know you don’t
know.
I
don’t know, either, but I’ve got some theories. And the one I keep coming back to is your brother.”

I didn’t have to look at him to feel him react. The ice cubes in his glass tinked the sides more loudly than before the second I said “brother.”

“My brother is dead.”

“I know. But his organs live on. What if Terry back there got his bone grafts from your brother just like I got my corneas?”

I turned to look at him. He was taking a long, slow pull from his glass. When he lowered it, he moved closer to the fire and stood staring at the flames, his back to me, and I knew what he was doing then, too. Trying to focus on something so intently that I wouldn’t be able to keep reading him the way I was. “What if he did? How would that explain any of this?” he asked.

He was picking every word so carefully, speaking so slowly, making sure nothing he didn’t want to reveal would leak out, and that made me even more certain that he was holding something back.

“Don’t you see it, Mason? It would connect us. I’ve got the corneas, Terry got some skull bone, both from the same donor. Somehow that linked me to the killer. I was seeing the stuff Terry was doing.” I lowered my head. “Maybe your brother
was
a psychic and you just didn’t know it. Maybe he was seeing the killings, too, and that’s what he couldn’t live with.”

His breath rushed out of him. Relief? And for the second time he was feeling it when I talked about his brother being a psychic.
Why?

I walked up beside him, ostensibly to stare into the fire but really so I could see more than just the back of his light blue shirt. “I know you think Terry was a copycat, but I don’t. The thing is, why would he suddenly off himself like that? I mean, after killing thirteen other men, why kill himself after number fourteen? And without even bothering to hide the body, as if there was no point in trying to keep you from knowing it was him. Were you getting close to catching him?”

Mason shook his head slow. “He was never a suspect. But they’ll search his place, anyway.”

“For his trophies. The missing driver’s licenses.”

He nodded, then stopped himself. “You’re not supposed to know about those, either.” He turned to search my face. “How do you?”

“I don’t know. I must have seen it. It’s just there with a pile of other useless crap I didn’t have before the transplant.”

“What kind of crap?”

I shrugged. “A love of hot sauce and reggae music. A fondness for very lame rhymes.” I blinked. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Terry said something about that at group.”

“Something about what?”

“Rhyming.” I gulped, then shook my head. “Look at me now. I’m one of those woo-woo freaks, seeing signs and omens in every little thing. This is ridiculous. Terry’s dead. I guess the guilt must’ve gotten to him. Maybe that’s why he didn’t hide the last body. So the families would have closure and the police could stop wasting time looking for a killer who was already dead. His way of atoning for his sins or something. At least it’s over now. No one else will have to die. And maybe...maybe we can find where he dumped the bodies, right? Find my brother. Give him a decent burial.”

“I hope so.”

“Then why do you sound like you don’t believe it?”

He lifted his head but didn’t look at me. He looked at his drink instead, then quickly downed it. “I should go.”

“Really?”

Then
he looked at me.

I shrugged, rolled my eyes. “Look, I’m not hitting on you, okay? But it’s a big house, and I’ve had a rough night.”

“You’re scared.”

“Shitless, to put it delicately. And I know it’s stupid to be. He’s dead. The Wraith is dead. This is over now. Right?”

He almost relaxed, nodded. “All right, Rachel. I’ll sack out on your couch.” With one blow, he broke the tension that had been squatting on my shoulders. Knocked it right off me.

“No need. There’s a perfectly good guest room upstairs.”

“Okay. Is there a perfectly good shower to go with it?”

“Oh,
hell
yes. But breakfast is gonna consist of instant oatmeal and coffee. I’m no cook.”

“Neither am I.”

“No worries. We’ll muddle through.” I slugged back the rest of my drink and set the glass down. “This way, Detective.” And I headed up the stairs.

Myrtle jumped up—or what passed for jumping with her—and came scrambling up behind me, scrambling also being a relative term. I mean, she was an overweight bulldog, after all.

“Aren’t you going to lock the door?”

“Oh.” I paused on the stairs. “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t usually. It’s... I mean, you know, quiet out here. I’m in the middle of fucking nowhere. And there’s a gate.”

“Which you left open. How do you think I drove right up to the door? Humor me.”

I waved an arm. “Be my guest.”

He went to the front door, and turned the lock and dead bolt. “Are the other entrances...?”

“Already locked. I keep them that way, since we hardly ever use them. Will you come to bed already?”

He sent me a look, a quick, unguarded, surprised one.

I winked at him. “Just wanted to see your face. You’re a little bit scared of me, aren’t you, Mason Brown?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

I was surprised he’d admitted it. “Good,” I said. “You should be. This way.” And I headed up the stairs again.

* * *

He didn’t sleep. Hell, he wasn’t about to sleep. He had to keep an eye on the mouthy, spooky chick, because he was half-afraid she really was the serial killer. Okay, not really.

Or maybe.

He didn’t know what to think. But he was sure this wasn’t about his brother, couldn’t possibly be about his brother. There were no ghosts, and there were no such things as unseen connections made through body parts, no matter what some psychiatrist thought. Tissue and bone did not have intentions or minds or evil in them. And the thought that kept on coming to him, that somehow his brother was still killing...no. Just no.

But he had the shrink’s book stuffed inside his jacket, anyway.
Cellular Consciousness.
So he lay awake reading it. At first he was just skimming, and then it sucked him in. This Dr. Vosberg had a lot of documentation. Page after page of cases—the names turned into aliases, of course—where transplant recipients not only developed cravings for their donors’ favorite foods but felt inexplicable familiarity with their favorite places, started using turns of phrase their donors had used, even recognized the donors’ family members, though not by name.

Eric had loved reggae music and hot sauce. And his most irritating habit had been those weird rhymes he came out with. Used to drive Mason crazy when they were kids.

Mainly because it never seemed like Eric who said them but like someone else. Someone mean.

Was there any way Rachel could be making up her newfound love of hot sauce and reggae? Had she faked the vision that knocked her to her knees when she stepped into his apartment, or lied about having seen the latest murder go down? Maybe, but where the hell would she have gotten the information? And why would she want to? What would she have to gain?