The 9th Hour (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 1) (15 page)

Darryl stared at a plate of bacon and eggs, heartbeat racing. His stomach was rock hard and he had no idea why. Sharek’s fever was down, but her cough was worse. It might have been that hacking cough and the crowds in the Village Inn that made him feel sick.

He had been mad about the newspaper article on Friday morning. It painted him out to be a suspect, a tragic loner whose wife died under suspicious circumstances. If you could call an asthma attack
suspicious
then so be it.

What had been more suspicious was his boss’s reaction to it. Morty Coben, a man who groomed his moustache more than his staff, had called him into his office that same morning and thought it appropriate to let him go. After all, it was in his own interests.

Lucky he gave him a big fat pay check otherwise Darryl would have punched his teeth out.

He tried to smile at Sharek with her stack of pancakes, tried to smile at Tess. Maisie’s eyes flicked here and there, fork picking at a sloppy pile of scrambled eggs. He wanted to say something to make them laugh, something clever like he used to in the old days.

The best he could do was stare at his iPad, at the real-time video of every room in his house. It was then he realized something serious and profound was happening. The sliding door to the patio had been left open.

He couldn’t remember excusing himself from the table, pushing past Maisie, telling her to look after the girls. He raced home, tires skidding in the driveway and leaped from the driver’s seat without closing the door. To his surprise there were no signs of the police, no alarms, just the melodic splash of the fountain in the front yard.

Fountain
, he mouthed. It wasn’t possible.

The water had been drained out almost a month ago, every last drop sucked out with a power vacuum. Sure enough, water trickled over the lip of the first urn and dropped into the next. He was as clueless as he was baffled.

The motion detector in the bell tower should have sensed movement as he came through the front gate. He’d set it when he left and there was no beam winking between the columns, no alarm buzzing outside. His phone hadn’t sent him a text. It hadn’t even rung.

He walked toward the front door, saw the gap between the frame and the jam, and pushed it open with one hand.

He saw nothing unusual, only shadows in the hall and sunlight streaming in through the skylight. The smell of fresh air streaked through the house, and he could hear the pat-pat-pat of the window blinds.

At the end of the hall was the kitchen and he walked stiff-legged toward it. Sucking in a deep cool breath, he peered into the living room, no furniture overturned, no smashed glass underfoot.

The blinds began to snap back and forth as a stream of cold air shot through the house. He’d been holding his breath as he went through the house and he let it out in one big sigh.

Just as he was about to close the patio door, he saw footprints carved into muddy slush on the pavers, a crisscross pattern like those on the bottom of a moccasin. They seemed to be heading toward the back wall, stopping at the footing as if someone had jumped right over it.

They were inside the house too, etched in the light beige carpet all the way back to the front door. He hadn’t noticed them when he came in. But there they were, just dark enough to make out on the travertine floor.

This way
, he said to himself, walking toward the sitting room, eyeing the mantel, seven photographs in their neat silver frames.

Something was different.

Two were missing. The one of Kizzy on her swing and Tess proudly holding a medal. He saw the revolving pendulum on the clock, the glass screen, the reflection of a man’s face. His face. He nearly gasped when he saw it. Pasty, like a ghost.

Then he heard a sound, like the clip and slide of a gun. It came from the other side of the house, the garage if he guessed right. Inhaling slowly, he was convinced the intruder would hear each drawn breath, that he would track the very warmth of it with those supernatural powers of his.

Not an intruder. A hunter.

That was the worst thing. When his intuition kicked in and told him the intruder was somehow supernatural. A predator with sharper senses than a dog. How did he get in without tripping the alarms?

Darryl sensed his time was running out, that the hunter would find him at any moment, that he was being tracked and scented. As he started forward, another fear replaced the first. What if the intruder had a gun?

He eased around the furniture, eyes flicking toward the hall. He had to get his gun. The one in the nightstand. It was only seven steps to his bedroom, only five if he ran for it. The corridor was deserted. The only thing that moved was an army of dust motes, twisting beneath the skylight.

Sprinting down the hall, he reached the bedroom in three ragged breaths. The nightstand drawer gaped open. The gun was gone.

“No,” he murmured, fingers searching under the pillows on his bed, between the mattress and the box spring.

His first instinct was to call the police, but the noise would only carry around the house and attract the intruder’s attention.

But he could text.

Snatching the phone from his pocket, he found Detective Temeke in his contacts and clicked off four words.

Intruder in the house.

He checked the volume. The sound was off.

Then he sat on the edge of his bed and took three small breaths, listening to a chiming clock in the living room. He looked from the dresser to the open door and then to the closet on the other side. It was all the same, just how he had left it.

The phone vibrated in his hand and a red light blinked in the top left corner.

“Thank God,” he murmured.

He swiped the screen and stared at an unfamiliar number. There were four words in the message.

Can’t find your gun?

In spite of the terror he felt, Darryl knew better than to answer it. The security features on the phone had somehow been compromised and Detective Temeke was no longer getting his messages. The deep gloom that surrounded him got thicker by the second and he wished he’d kept the landline, the old dial phone that once sat beside the bed.

He saw the next text surrounded by a speech balloon. It looked so flippant in light of the message.

Should take care of your things Darryl. Should have taken care of your daughter.

What day was it? Sunday. Darryl had almost forgotten. His girls were eating breakfast with their aunt. They would be safe from this maniac.

Should always lock the door. Always check the alarms.

Darryl was already sick to the stomach. Texts flying out of nowhere. All he needed to do was get to the front door and out into the street. Anything to warn the girls just in case they came home.

A good father is a protective father. Remember that.

For some reason he couldn’t grasp, Darryl was reminded of his car before he entered the house. Had he locked it? Abruptly he felt poised on the brink of panic. If everything he had was systematically being taken away from him, what then? What did he have left to escape with? What did he have left to fight with?

The baseball bat. Behind the door.

Rather than hole himself up in his bedroom, he stumbled for the door, staring at the blank space between the carpet and the wall. He was sure he had left it there, sure it was there two days ago. And then he felt the vibration of his phone again.

A baseball bat? You must be hard up.

Darryl heard the pounding of his heart, so loud he thought it would break through his rib cage. The hunter was in the kitchen, watching every room in the house from the security monitor.

It was then his mind went back to the mantel shelf, to the clock, to the pictures. Why had he taken those two pictures? And the sound of a clip and slide? It was next door’s garage door. He could hear it closing as they drove away.

He wanted to shout out then, wanted to warn the intruder that he would protect his youngest from a mind sicker than sick. He wanted to rush out and squeeze that neck with both hands.

Trouble was, he didn’t have a weapon. But he did have a bullet-proof vest. In the closet.

I know what you’re thinking, Darryl. You’re thinking you’d like to run.

Darryl tried to stay calm. He tried to stop twitching. The hunter was already picking up every tiny nuance of fear, every rush of blood from vein to vein. He could probably hear it too, first like a waterfall and then a gushing stream from an underground pipe.

You’re thinking I’m down the hall.

It suddenly occurred to Darryl that the texts included apostrophes―something the self-editing feature didn’t always pick up.

You probably think I’m in the kitchen.

If this guy was taking his time to correct his texts, he certainly wasn’t paying attention to the surveillance monitor. It also occurred to Darryl that he might have bought himself some time, especially now he was standing directly beneath the camera.

You’d be wrong of course. I’m everywhere.

He took a few steps back toward the closet, opened the sliding the door and grabbed the Kevlar vest.

That’s when the phone vibrated again, ominously this time.

Now you’re just hiding.

“My kind doesn’t hide,” he murmured through gritted teeth, realizing he was standing in a blind spot, realizing he felt oddly empowered by it.

Such a beautiful girl. Enchanting.

He could see the hallway between the jamb and the door frame, and the front door beyond it. He decided to make a run for it, only his legs felt like two steel girders until he started thinking of Sharek. The asthma, the inhaler. The Village Inn.

So beautiful,
the text repeated.
You have nine hours.

“You won’t get her,” he said, and then, “Please God don’t let him get her.”

He pitched forward and scrambled for the hallway, feet slipping on carpet and tile. Just as he bolted for the front door, he saw the shadow of a man before falling on his stomach, wind sucked from his lungs.

A rage kindled in Ole as he packed up the house. He could still smell her, a seductive smell, delicious like caramel or butterscotch. Fainter on the stairs, but it was there all right. He liked Becky the moment he saw her, longed to be alone with her to ask her things, to tell her things.

He was angry his car was peppered with holes. But he had other ideas. First the cop, then the Williams girl. All in good time. He liked order and he hadn’t had much of that lately.

All of a sudden he began to laugh. The Williams man actually thought he was there yesterday. In the house. He had been a little earlier, of course, when the idiot was out at breakfast. He crept over the back wall, keeping an eye on Alvarez and that nice black charger in the street. Alvarez was a fool. He’d lose more than his pips and ribbons now.

That’s when Ole took the gun, the baseball bat and the photographs. He took some other things too, things the girl might need. He wanted her to feel comfortable, wanted her to feel secure. Then he came home, switched on his monitors and watched the Williams house. Wanted to get a good look at the girl, a good feel for what was to come. Wanted to send a few texts just to freak the old man out.

The spare lot was still stained red with Patti’s blood and not in a container where he kept it. Odin would have no mead to drink, no wisdom. There would be a price to pay for that.

And the car? What use was a car peppered with holes and leaking gasoline. It was at the bottom of the Rio Grande river now.

He hitched a ride to Haynes Park on the west side of town, sat on a swing watching the white house with the blue trim across the street. Regular as clockwork, Alvarez opened the garage door and started the car, letting it idle for a moment to warm up. He always left the driver’s window open, always checked his computer and never noticed a man edging along the side of the car, with a gun in his hand.

It was quick and Ole had a few seconds to feed off a pair of bewildered eyes, especially at the end. Opening the passenger door, he pulled the cop across into the passenger seat, sprinted around to the driver’s seat and drove the car to the northeast heights. Lucky Lt. Alvarez was far from home now, lying face down in an arroyo on Pennsylvania Avenue. And luckier still Ole had a car sleeker than a rocket powered aircraft.

Although nothing in his life was a coincidence. He was guided by a fierce and uncontrollable drive which directed him to leave the bone on the detective’s front door step. He would have left a packet of weed there as well if he’d had a sense of humor.

Ole hadn’t laughed much until he met Morgan, the reawakening of his brother. He’d changed since his death, aged almost beyond recognition. But a body couldn’t be expected to stay the same, not after a gunshot wound to the head and time in lonely limbo.

Morgan. Sea warrior. Transformed.

He was stronger now, a lifeguard, coming out of the Californian sea four years ago, body a shine of oil. Ole found him on the Internet, same age, same build, same last name. He offered him a home when he had none, a family when they disowned him and three million dollars when he was no better than a pauper.

And Morgan took it all.

He became Ole’s brother, shaved his head, braided his hair. Even tattooed one side of that shaved head with sun, moon and stars. He wanted to belong.

Only now the sucker was in jail. He wasn’t allowed a razor unless he was locked in a shower stall and that was only to shave his face. Ole had grown his hair out too. They were twins, weren’t they?

He felt weightless, airborne, driving down the street in his brand new car wishing he was flying like that bird up there. A hawk it was, almost the size of a cat.

He counted the windows on every building he passed. He counted the trees and, if he was close enough, he counted the remaining leaves, subtracting them by the days of the week and the ratio of daily molt. That’s how he knew how long it would be before they were completely bare. He was dedicated to the finer things in life, the things that others couldn’t see.

They wouldn’t see him in the Dodge Charger, not one with a police badge on the side panel. He drove down El Pueblo Road that sunny Monday afternoon. He wasn’t there because he wanted to be. Not really. He was there to do what Odin wanted, and what Odin wanted was a fresh cup of mead.

He hadn’t been the same since that ill-fated afternoon when Becky disappeared. Slipping up, making mistakes, sleeping at night when he never used to. Becky wasn’t a freshly laundered shirt, pressed and perfect, without stain. When he kissed her she wasn’t as stiff as a statue, rather hungry and a little too eager.

When they arrived at his house, she’d sprung out of the car like a rabbit from a trap, kissing him, running her hands through his hair, laughing. If it hadn’t been for the voice on the radio he would have been just as hungry.

The more he thought of Becky, the more he wanted her. Something different. Something priceless. Striking like the last sparkle on the ocean before the sun went down. That’s before she ran away.

Now it was afternoon and he backed his car in the school parking lot and to the right of the front entrance. He watched the children as they came out, evaluating each through a pair of dark glasses, wearing a badge and duty belt.

Badge and duty belt
. He nearly laughed.

He looked down at the cell phone and flipped through Alvarez’s messages, mapping his wording, his style. There was only one girl to pick up today. The other was home with flu.

“We’re going to ace this, you and me,” he whispered to himself, elbow resting on the door frame, arm half covering his face. He nodded at another police car in the driveway, fingers flexed to a wave.

Lt. Alvarez was due to take over the afternoon shift and he was Alvarez, wasn’t he? The morning unit pulled out and hardly gave him a second look. It was that easy.

Ole wanted nothing more than to smash the accelerator to the floor, fly down Central, lights flashing, sirens screaming. The power, the energy, it was worth all the frenzied fuss, cars pulling over in front of him, drivers mesmerized as he cast as little as a glance in their direction. They would be watching those pulsing emergency lights, glaring like white fire. And they would be watching him.

Ole liked to watch too, and the girl he watched today stood on the front steps of the school, staring out into the road, elegant as a black swan. It wasn’t the first time he’d watched her, talked to her, laughed with her. Taller, eyes furtive as if she had already sensed him. Swinging a backpack on a slender arm, legs like silk beneath a tiny tartan skirt, she waited for her ride.

She waited for Alvarez.

The sluggish breeze carried the scent of her hair, only soon it would carry an air of mold and decay. She would never have gray hair and squint through thick rimmed glasses, clothes stale with the fragrance of camphor. She would be forever young.

He slipped out of the car and gave her a smile. “Ms. Williams?” he said, without a trace of an accent.

She nodded, head inclined, brow puckered.

“Your dad called. Your uncle’s sick so he asked me to pick you up instead.”

She nodded at that and handed him her backpack. Hand instinctively pulled down the sleeves of a round-necked sweater, hands covered in its thick weave.

“You can go to the office and call him if you want.”

He knew she wouldn’t. She was far too fascinated with him to do that.

“No, that’s OK,” she said, avoiding his eyes, giving a small nod. “I have a cell phone. I can call him in the car.”

He opened the back door of the car, watched her slip behind the driver’s seat, hand smoothing down that tiny little skirt. She wore hiking boots with high traction soles, a strange outfit for a girl like that. He wanted to tell her he was sorry. That he would kill and mutilate her without hesitation.

“Thirsty?” he asked.

She took the bottle and thanked him. If he kept her talking she wouldn’t have to use that cell phone.

He pulled out of the parking lot, automatic locks in place. That’s when her told her his name. “Officer Eriksen,” he said, glancing through his rearview mirror. “But you can call me Ole.”

No recognition. No reaction. She was drinking the water instead.

There was a misty, haunted air to the afternoon and Ole wondered when she would know, when she would start to cry. Did Alvarez offer her the front or the back seat? It must have felt different. Somehow.

He kept driving and studying her through the rearview mirror. It would be miles before she woke up in the forest, in an unfamiliar bed. No one would suspect a killer of going back to the scene of the crime, not with all that crime scene tape snaking around the barn.

Her eyes were fixed through the side window, shifting back and forth to catch the sights. Oval eyes with a mix of hazel and green. She was a thinker and thinkers were secretive, dangerous.

“You can turn left here,” she said with a slur to her voice.

He drove right toward the interstate, glancing occasionally up at the rearview mirror. That’s when her head fell back against the seat and her eyes snapped shut.

That’s when he stopped and placed her in the trunk. His imagination was suddenly captured by this strange princess and he felt a stab of fear. It was Kizzy all over again, Kizzy come back to life.

He couldn’t see her any more. She was silent in the trunk, gagged and bound and lying on a bed of spare clothes. She’d sleep if she had any sense, because tomorrow she would be lying on her back on the forest floor where sunlight came through the trees in thin, dusty shafts of light.

He loved the drowsy fragrance of wet leaves and where spiders wove their elaborate webs between the twigs, each dappled with drops of dew. It was a good place to sleep. A good place to die.