TWISTED MINDS
and
DARK PLACES

A Stacy Green Sampler

Published by Twisted Minds Press

Welcome to Twisted Minds!

Finding my niche and figuring out how to make my books stand out among all the masses is easily the toughest part about being an author. After all, your money is precious, and you probably don’t want to spend it on an unproven writer, right?

That’s when I came up with the idea of the Twisted Minds Sampler. I’ve included excerpts from all of my books, including the upcoming releases See Them Run (Lucy Kendall #2) and Living Victim (Delta Detectives #1).

Delta Crossroads Series

The Delta Crossroads Series is a suspense (with a dash of romance) series set in fictional Roselea, Mississippi. The town is modeled after historic Natchez, and the books are loaded with antebellum homes and sultry southern nights.

Tin God features Jaymee Ballard, a poverty-stricken woman trying to find the child she gave up in an illegal adoption. She becomes reacquainted with widower Nick Samuels, who just happened to be married to her best friend, when murder strikes Roselea.

Tin God placed second in the Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Book Awards for 2013 Mystery Thriller.

Skeleton’s Key is the second book in the trilogy and brings back Cage Foster, Jaymee’s childhood friend and would be suitor, as the caretaker of a tumble down plantation. The discovery of bones in the basement spawns an investigation that reveals two fresh murder victims, with Cage as the prime suspect.

The house’s new owner, Dani Evans, is a Yankee transplant who drives Cage crazy. But she’s the only one who believes in his innocence, and her search for the home’s secret treasure cache uncovers a family mystery that should have stayed buried.

Ashes and Bone is the exciting conclusion to the Delta Crossroads Series. Historic Roselea is slammed with a derecho, and Nick goes missing. Jaymee, Cage, and Dani unite to find him, but a fire threatens to destroy the town and the trio’s efforts.

When the flames subside, a cave hidden deep in the woods provides shocking answers to the final mystery of the Delta Crossroads Series.

Delta Detectives Series

The Delta Detectives Series is for the readers. Cage Foster is a much-loved character, and after attending Writer’s Police Academy in fall 2014, I knew I wanted to get more into the mind of a cop. And who better to start with than Cage Foster?

The Delta Detective Series follows Cage as a newly minted Criminal Investigator for the Adams County Sheriff’s Department. In Living Victim, a hoarder is found dead in a bathtub, and a perimeter search of the area reveals the kidnapping of a local girl once presumed dead. Cage must find the living victim before it’s too late.

Living Victim is available January 12, 2015.

The Lucy Kendall Series

Lucy Kendall is a dark departure from the Crossroads Series. A former CPS worker turned private investigator and vigilante killer of pedophiles, Lucy Kendall is as dark and twisted as they come. Complicating her life is the self-proclaimed sociopath and fellow serial killer offering to help her take out the trash. But Lucy doesn’t see herself as a killer. Yet.

All Good Deeds (Lucy Kendall #1) introduces the reader to Lucy’s dark mind. The kidnapping of a child sets off a chain of events linked to a suspect in a life-changing event in Lucy’s past. In the search for Kailey, Lucy will be forced to confront her inner demons in order to save the little girl.

See Them Run (Lucy Kendall #2) establishes Lucy as a bringer of dark justice. Her efforts to track down a local sex trafficking ring bring Lucy’s true character to the surface, and the impact will shatter life as she knows it.

See Them Run (Lucy Kendall #2) coming December 2014.

Stand Alone Novels and Short Stories

Into the Dark is my first novel, published by MuseItUp Publishing. Set in Las Vegas, an obsessed stalker uses the infamous Las Vegas Tunnels in a failed kidnapping attempt. When he escapes, victim Emilie Davis and SWAT negotiator Nathan Madigan work together to find the man known as the Taker before he succeeds in his quest to possess Emilie.

Welcome to Las Vegas is a short story I wrote featuring the frightening storm drains below Las Vegas, known as the Tunnels. This dark labyrinth serves as shelter for hundreds of Las Vegas’s homeless. Tate is searching desperately for his drug-addicted sister, but his journey into the depths below the city challenges his sanity and changes his life.

I hope you enjoy this sampler. I created it for new readers who wanted to test the waters before investing in me. I love every character I’ve written, and I’ve spent hours in the places I’ve created. They’re forever a part of me, and I hope you will feel the same.

If you’d like to join my new release mailing list, which includes series secrets as well as a chance to win a $25 monthly gift card to the digital vendor of your choice, click here.

To find out more about me and my books, visit my website at www.stacygreen.net.

I love hearing from readers! Please leave a review or send me an email via my website.

Thanks so much for downloading!

Sincerely,

Stacy Green

Copyright © 2013, 2014 Stacy Green

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Kindle Edition

Tin God and Skeleton’s Key edited by Kristen Weber, with line edits by Kristine Kelly, and published by misterio press. Cover art by Melinda VanLone at Darkstar Art.

Ashes and Bone edited by Annetta Ribken and Kristine Kelly. Cover art by Melinda VanLone at Darkstar Art.

All Good Deeds edited by Annetta Ribken and Kristine Kelly. Cover art by Melinda Vanlone at Darkstart Art.

See Them Run edited by Annetta Ribken and Kristine Kelly. Cover art by Melinda Vanlone at Darkstart Art.

Living Victim edited by Annetta Ribken and Kristine Kelly. Cover art by Melinda Vanlone at Darkstart Art.

Into the Dark edited by Kim Cresswell and published by MuseItUp Publisher. Cover art by Marion Sipe.

Welcome to Las Vegas edited by Kristine Kelly. Cover art by Laura Morrigan.

Praise for Stacy’s Books

“Stacy Green has the ability not only to allow the reader to see the scene, but also hear and smell it so there is a sense of total immersion.”

—Bestselling thriller author Rachel Abbott

For Tin God:

“Stacy Green has written an emotionally charged, thought-provoking and stunning mystery/suspense that will capture and hold you hostage until the last page is read.”

—The Kindle Book Review

“Stacy Green writes some of the best villains out there while at the same time keeping them well hidden. I highly recommend this book for adults who love suspenseful mystery with a dose of romance and a surprise you don’t see coming. I will definitely be reading more of her stories.”

—Open Book Society

“Stacy Green has the power to transport readers to a place and time. Whether it’s the sticky heat of a Mississippi summer, or the cold terror of coming face to face with a murderer, her writing stimulates all the senses. Tin God is a very satisfying read.”

—Bestselling thriller author Rachel Abbott

For Skeleton’s Key:

“Evocative, first-rate mystery that will keep you guessing to the end!”

—Stacey Joy Netzel, NY Times bestselling author of the Italy Intrigue Series.

An antebellum home with skeletons and secrets, characters who heat up the pages…this book pulls you in and sticks to your soul like a sweat-soaked shirt in the Mississippi heat. Loved it!

—Shannon Esposito (Author Pet Psychic Mysteries)

Stacy Green returns to beautiful Roselea, Mississippi with an exciting new heroine and a creepy, history-driven mystery. Stacy’s descriptions are so vivid, I can smell the old wood of the plantation homes. Her characters are so real, I feel like I know them. Don’t miss this one!

—Catie Rhodes (Author Peri Jean Mace Series)

“Stacy Green has once again demonstrated her mastery of words, painting a stunning picture of a hot and sultry Mississippi town and skilfully creating all the tension you could wish for in this clever mystery.”

—Rachel Abbot (Bestselling Author of Only the Innocent and The Back Road)

“Stacy Green’s All Good Deeds had me reading with a white knuckle grip on my Kindle, then left me craving the next book.”

—USA Today best-selling author Jamie Lee Scott

Also by Stacy Green

Welcome to Las Vegas

Into the Devil’s Underground

Tin God (Delta Crossroads #1)

Skeleton’s Key (Delta Crossroads Trilogy #2)

Ashes and Bone (Delta Crossroads #3)

All Good Deeds (Lucy Kendall #1)

Living Victim (Delta Detectives #1, January 2015)

See Them Run (Lucy Kendall #2, December 2014)

Contents

Title Page

About the Sampler

Copyright Page

Praise for Stacy’s Books

Also by Stacy Green

Tin God (excerpt)

Skeleton’s Key (excerpt)

Ashes and Bone (excerpt)

All Good Deeds (excerpt)

See Them Run (excerpt)

Living Victim (excerpt)

Into the Devil’s Underground (excerpt)

Welcome to Las Vegas (full story)

From the Author

About the Author

TIN GOD

Delta Crossroads #1

1

“That’s impossible.” Jaymee’s stomach lurched and then spiraled to her toes. The meager window air conditioner in the manager’s trailer did nothing for her constricted lungs. She shifted as the torn plastic of the junky folding chair cut into the back of her thigh. “My boyfriend–ex-boyfriend–paid the rent. I gave him the money last week.”

Her insides continued their cartwheels as Mr. Shaw, smarmy manager of Ravenna Court, pulled open a desk drawer and thumbed through his files. A glob of ash dropped off the cigarette dangling from his thin lips. He grunted and swatted the ash onto the floor. Jaymee squirmed again, reminding herself not to touch anything without first dousing it with disinfecting spray. A pungent aroma of sweat, stale cigarettes, and lemon-scented air freshener hovered over the short, square-faced man who directed all his comments to Jaymee’s chest.

“I didn’t get it.” Mr. Shaw crushed his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray.

Jaymee’s mouth went dry. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand?” Shaw’s gravelly voice held no empathy. “You’re two weeks late with the lot rent. Now you got five days to come up with the money or get out.”

Troy. What had he done with the cash she’d given him? She’d known this was going to happen as soon as she read the stupid note he’d left her yesterday. Apparently, he’d met the love of his life down at The Lotus, and they planned to live happily-ever-after in fairytale land. Jaymee had grown tired of his laziness and hadn’t been sorry to see him go until now.

“I can postdate a check.” She dug into her cheap bag. Embarrassment burned her cheeks. She’d always managed to pay her rent even if she had to skip a meal or two.

Shaw rubbed the back of his fingers against his scruffy chin, thick eyebrows raised. “Right. Then it’ll bounce. Cash or money order only.”

She didn’t have it–not to spend on rent. Dazed, she sat glued to the crappy plastic chair.

Shaw leaned back and put his hands behind his head. His stony expression changed: beady eyes narrowed; thin lips parted to display yellowed, uneven teeth; eyebrows hiked up his shiny forehead. “You got options.”

Cockroaches might as well have slithered over her body. Jaymee crossed her arms over her chest and pulled up the collar of her tank top, her hand lingering over the skin still exposed. “Excuse me?”

“I accept other forms of payment.”

Her stomach heaved. “I’m not interested.”

“Just sayin’, your neighbor Crystal saves a lot of money by providing certain services.”

Jaymee clamped her mouth shut. A decade of heartache and betrayal had taught her patience and more importantly, how to hide her hatred.

“Again, no thank you.” She snatched the pink slip off his desk. “I’ll have the money for you.”

Shaw’s pursed his lips together until they turned white. His eyes had gone cold again. “Have it your way. You got three days.”

Jaymee exited and shoved the door to Shaw’s trailer shut with her elbow. Midday heat snatched her breath. Red-hot sun bore down on the mobile home park, wilting the already scraggly pepperbush growing along the half-dried out creek bed that served as the park’s eastern border. Three fat tiger spiders nested among the bushes’ white leaves, lying in wait for mosquitoes. She shuddered and skittered to the other side of the drive.

She stomped down the dusty path, her chest aching with fury. She’d have to dip into her minuscule savings account, and that money was meant for something far more precious than rent. She glared at the miserable place she called home as her shoes began to fill with gritty dirt.

Ravenna Court was about as beautiful as a rattlesnake bite. Forty or more dilapidated mobile homes lined the park, all in various states of disrepair and neglect. Instead of cultivating colorful flowers, Ravenna residents battled kudzu and stubborn cogongrass. Children played in the weed-ravaged empty lots, and neighborhood dogs roamed free along with raccoons and other night bandits. Life on the west side of Roselea, Mississippi’s historic cemetery, was a hell of a lot different from the genteel atmosphere enjoyed uptown. Jaymee didn’t have any beautiful antebellum homes to admire on her walk home. All she saw were overgrown yards and decaying headstones from the nearby cemetery.

She lived here for seven long years–since just after her eighteenth birthday. Now that she had to dig into her savings just to get by, she figured she’d be stuck here for the rest of her life.

What other option did she have? She kicked a clod of dirt and watched it roll down the bank towards the creek. Everything she owned, however pathetic it might be, was in that trailer. She had no place to go, and she couldn’t do anything without a place to live.

Unless she called Darren. She’d rather eat dirt. Her brother would help, and then her father would descend to berate her for shaming the family yet again, but not before he chewed her mother out for Jaymee’s very existence. Her mother had enough misery to deal with.

Her sweat-soaked scalp tingled from the heat. A single bead of perspiration trickled down her neck and into the crevice of her bra. She followed the gravel road out of the small trailer park, grateful for the canopy of red maples and dogwoods lining the path. They were the only pretty things in this place. Graying headstones peeked through the thicket of woods. Guilt swept over her. She hadn’t visited in a while.

“Wish you were here.” Her voice sounded meek in the humid air. This was one of those days when Lana’s absence was nearly unbearable. Her oldest friend rested forever in Roselea’s historic cemetery, taken away four years ago by some cruel stranger in downtown Jackson. Lana had been a couple of years older than she, and they’d grown up together–along with Lana’s brother Cage–in Roselea. When things got bad at home, Jaymee fled to the safety of Lana’s. They’d lock themselves up in her pink and green bedroom, and Jaymee would pour out her misery. Lana listened but never judged. Not even when Jaymee made the biggest mistake of her life.

A fly landed on Jaymee’s bare leg, and she swatted it away. She followed the winding road past the cemetery, sadness mounting with every step. The graveyard was part of historic Roselea, with its hulking Civil War monuments and graves dating back to the late 1700s. Overgrown kudzu and jasmine snaked over the stones, giving the cemetery a wild, haunted look.

On cooler evenings when her life wasn’t totally falling apart, Jaymee loved wandering through the grounds. The decaying stones, some of them too faded to read, usually gave her a strange sense of peace.

But today the cemetery looked cold and bleak. Its appearance matched the sadness that lived in her heart, leaking into her everyday life until she wanted to lie down and give up.

Yesterday had been her daughter’s birthday. Sarah was seven now, living somewhere with her adoptive parents. Did she have a party? Eat too much cake and ice cream? Did Sarah have any clue her real mother existed–that Jaymee hated herself for trusting the wrong people? Only seventeen, she’d been naïve and in a hopeless situation. Ripe pickings for the manipulative bastard who’d bullied her into giving Sarah up.

Jaymee had been saving her money, biding her time. She almost had enough to retain a lawyer. Digging into her savings to replace the money Troy stole from her would set Jaymee back at least two months.

The hits kept coming, but that was life. At least that’s what Jaymee kept telling herself. “Can’t give up. Lana would never forgive me.”

Tired and hot, Jaymee stayed under the shade of the dogwood blossoms and checked her watch. Fifteen minutes to walk to her gig cleaning Roselea’s antebellum masterpiece before her shift at the diner this evening.

Maybe she could ask Rebecca for the money. Her part-time employer had become a friend of sorts over the past couple of years, and Jaymee suspected the housewife was lonely. Most days, Rebecca followed Jaymee around as she cleaned, rambling about her many charitable causes and plans for her ever-growing flower gardens.

Rebecca might loan her the money. But then she would ask more questions Jaymee didn’t want to answer.

Just a few more months.

Already late, Jaymee beat a fast path down Rosaire Drive, a winding avenue high on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. In the heart of the town’s antebellum district, the street housed several historic homes, but the crown jewel was Evaline Hall. Brick columns guarded the entrance, and the stones were covered with blooming jasmine. The blacktopped drive wound through magnolias and live oaks until turning sharply to the left, where Evaline emerged. She stood two stories tall, her white portico supported by four wide columns. The main body of the house boasted a second story balcony made of strong iron, and two symmetrical wings made the mansion as imposing as she was beautiful.

Part of Evaline was open for tourists, but the house was always closed for cleaning on Tuesdays. Jaymee hurried up the stone steps, eager to get started. Evaline was the only place she could escape the heat and shitty memories of her life. The old house, full of antiques and secrets of its own, felt more like home than Jaymee’s own tiny trailer.

She paused in front of the main entrance. Rebecca’s new marble planter chock full of pink azaleas lay on its side, planting soil spilling out onto the whitewashed porch.

“Damn.” Jaymee pulled the heavy planter back onto its base. A four-inch crack snaked vertically through the white marble. Rebecca was going to be pissed.

A hot breeze drifted through the porch. The azalea blooms shifted in the breeze, but the heavy marble remained rooted to the floor. Jaymee nudged the planter with her foot. It had to be at least twenty-five pounds.

A twinge of unease rippled through her. She shrugged it off. “Must have been one hell of a gust of wind.”

Jaymee bypassed the main door and followed the wraparound porch to the east wing where the Newtons lived. The side door was unlocked, and Jaymee entered the home’s newly remodeled gourmet kitchen. Evaline’s original kitchen sat in the west wing of the home. A favorite of tourists, the old room had once been detached, but the house had eventually been renovated to include it. Rebecca had preserved the old kitchen but had no desire to cook in it.

“Hello?” Jaymee looked at the granite counter. She’d left her sunglasses here last week and Rebecca said they were still sitting on the counter. But she didn’t see them. “Rebecca, I’m here.”

Silence greeted her. Odd. Rebecca was usually bursting to talk. She was probably holed up in her art room painting. Out of habit, Jaymee turned to the stove where apple muffins usually waited, covered with an embroidered warming towel. The stove was empty. A sharp jolt of nerves hit her. The kitchen was immaculate, as though it had just been cleaned. Rebecca hadn’t cooked a thing this morning, or there would have been dirty baking dishes in the sink.

Jaymee moved with heavy feet to the refrigerator. The iced tea pitcher was nearly empty. Rebecca always had fresh iced tea waiting for Jaymee.

“Rebecca?”

Jaymee hurried down the hall, her five-and-dime canvas shoes slapping against the hardwood floors. Rebecca’s art room was empty, the paints and brushes put away, the lights off and blinds closed.

She must not be home. But Rebecca would have found a way to let Jaymee know she’d cancelled. She was too polite to just disappear, and she’d stopped by the diner yesterday afternoon for a slice of chocolate meringue pie and confirmed their plans.

“Where is she?” Jaymee felt compelled to whisper, as if talking too loudly would disturb the house. The heavy silence felt foreign and sinister. A thump sounded on the private set of stairs that led up to the Newton’s master bedroom and guest area.

“Rebecca?” Jaymee heard the tremor in her voice and rolled her eyes. Good grief. The woman was probably late and just getting out of the shower. She didn’t always have to be the consummate southern hostess.

But she always was.

The voice of fear continued to nag Jaymee.

Another thump on the stairs, and she cut through the hall, skirting the antique desk. Royce Newton’s office door was closed; he was probably out of town, again. The stairs were just on the other side. Jaymee stopped short. Nerves threatened to choke her.

A red, gooey blob marred the bottom step. Blood. No, couldn’t be. Jelly. Had to be jelly. But Rebecca would never have left the mess on the expensive wood.

Jaymee’s heart beat double time. The blobs continued up the stairs in a strange pattern. Had Rebecca hurt herself? Jaymee took another unsteady step, but a hiss of anger stopped her. She caught herself on the banister to keep from face planting on the wood steps.

A mournful yowl sent a shiver of terror from her spine to her toes. Silas, Rebecca’s finicky Persian cat, sat halfway up the stairs, eyes narrowed. Brownish-red spots marred his white fur, and his front paws were covered with the crimson goop.

“Poor kitty. What happened? Did you hurt yourself?” She reached for the cat, but he hissed again and turned tail up the steps. Jaymee followed.

Halfway up, a foul smell saturated the air. The scent was so dense it seemed to have its own mass, much like the inescapable Mississippi humidity. Jaymee’s throat convulsed; she covered her nose and breathed through her mouth. The smell intensified with every step, taking on the odor of rotting sewage. Silas’s bloody paw prints continued up the stairs and across the hall to the Newton’s bedroom.

A memory stirred, twisting its way through the recesses of Jaymee’s mind. She knew this smell, knew the way the scent permeated the soul and made its way down into the gut.

Something terrible is in that room.

The door stood open just enough for the cat to squeeze through. Morning sun streamed through the massive picture window, bathing the room in a prism of light. More bloodstains glistened on the oak floor.

An icy sensation rippled down Jaymee’s spine. She tried to swallow, but her parched throat refused to work. If Silas had lost that much blood, he wouldn’t be running around the house. She fumbled toward the door, heart trying to pound its way out of her chest. The putrid odor had grown so strong it coated her mouth. Bile built in her throat.

The smell of death.

Her father and brother hunted, and as a small child, she’d made the foolish mistake of running to meet them when they’d returned from a weekend trip. In the back of her father’s black pickup truck lay a massive buck, gutted, tongue protruding out of its mouth. Her brother tried to stop her from seeing, but it was too late. The stench hit Jaymee full force, and she threw up on the side of the truck. Her father had spanked her.

Death lay inside that room. Every muscle, every nerve, begged Jaymee to turn and run, but anxiety propelled her forward. With a pale, shaking hand, she slowly pushed the heavy bedroom door open. The silence was so loud Jaymee feared her head might burst.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw sprawled out across the king-sized bed, wrists and ankles anchored to the bedposts.

Rebecca.

Tears and sweat stung Jaymee’s eyes even as ice-cold terror took up residence in her veins. Vomit churned in her stomach. She couldn’t look away.

Rebecca’s flaxen-colored hair spilled across the pillow. Her pale skin bore violent red slashes. Dried blood stained the white, silk sheets. Purple bruises covered Rebecca’s throat and chest. Her hands were clenched into permanent fists of agony, and her eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, her mouth slack.

Jaymee clamped her hand over her mouth. Her employer’s resemblance to Lana had never been more brutally obvious. The long legs, blond hair, high cheekbones, and sunny smile were all frozen in grotesque shock, just as Lana’s had been in the pictures Jaymee forced Cage to show her.

Dead. Both of them.

Silas sat on the edge of the bed staring at Jaymee. Rebecca’s blood. That’s what had stained his beautiful, white fur. He’d been mourning his master, no doubt trying to get her to pay attention, to wake up.

Jaymee fell to her knees and heaved, even as she crawled away from the nightmare in the bedroom.

Get out, get out, get out.

She crawled down the hallway, gagging and spitting. The Newtons kept a home phone in the kitchen. Tears blurred her sight as she stumbled down the stairs, clinging to the banister for support. Her weak knees finally collapsed, and she tumbled down the last three steps, banging her head along the way. Stars burst in front of her, but Jaymee rolled to her hands and knees. She had to call the police.

2

Jaymee huddled in the porch swing, knees drawn to her chest, untouched glass of water in her hand. She couldn’t go back inside that house. Not right now. A steady stream of techs carried evidence out of Evaline into an official-looking white van. Her overheated skin felt numb, her lungs exhausted. Had she been screaming?

“Miss Jaymee?” A portly man with thinning hair and a pink scalp leaned against the porch railing. “I’m Detective Charles. You ’member me from church?”

Her gaze flew to meet his. His dark sunglasses hid his eyes, but he offered her a friendly smile that accentuated his double chin. Detective Charles and his wife always sat in the fifth pew on the left. She held the Bible and sang while he mouthed the lyrics.

“I remember.”

“Been a while since I seen you there, so I wasn’t sure.”

She pressed her lips together. Racked with guilt for giving her daughter up and full of hate for her cruel father, Jaymee had let the entire congregation know what she thought of the self-righteous man who’d made Jaymee’s life miserable from as far back as she could remember. She hadn’t been back to church since, and Charles knew it. The whole town did.

He sat down next to her on the porch swing, the wood sagging beneath his weight. His proximity made her feel boxed in and nervous. Charles smelled like hot cinnamon and woodsy aftershave mixed with sweat.

Politely as she could, Jaymee sank into the corner of the porch swing and studied the detective. Charles was on the other side of forty and sliding full speed down the hill.

Wrinkles lined his eyes, and sweat shined on his forehead. He dabbed his face with a dingy handkerchief. “I know you’re upset, but can you tell me everything that happened this mornin’?”

She didn’t want to, didn’t want to think about Rebecca, bound and dead, her neck bruised and broken. Or how easily it could have been Lana lying there. A chill slid across Jaymee, and she forced her lips to move. “The house was so quiet when I got here.”

Jaymee recounted the last hour, with Charles jotting notes down on a yellow notepad. There was a coffee stain on its cardboard back. “You come here every Tuesday?”

“Yes. Rebecca closes for cleaning.” She swallowed the rock-sized lump in her throat. “Closed. She closed for cleaning.”

“What about her husband, Mr. Royce? You deal with him much?”

Jaymee shrugged. “He’s out of town a lot. Sometimes he’d be in his office. He cleans it himself.”

“You know if he’s out of town right now?”

“I think so. Rebecca mentioned it last week. Fat Jonas would know.”

Charles coughed. “Fat Jonas?”

“Tour guide. House servant. Butler. Gossip.” Jaymee rubbed the tears rolling down her cheek. “Pretty much knows everything that goes on in Evaline.”

“He normally off on Tuesdays?”

“Yeah.”

A miserably hot breeze drifted through the live oaks. Charles huffed and wiped his face again. His skin turned a darker shade of pink. “I think I’d rather have the dead calm heat without the hot wind.”

Jaymee nodded. The swarthy detective swabbed his face once more. It was soaked. “You should get some water, Detective.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that soon as we’re done. You think of anything else that seemed off when you showed up?”

Looking across the wide porch, Jaymee struggled to think about something other than Rebecca’s dead body. An azalea in the cracked marble planter fluttered in the hot wind.

“The planter.” Jaymee jumped to her feet knocking her glass of water onto the porch.

Charles stood too, moving quickly for a man of his size. He stepped in front of her and blocked her path. “Hold on, stay right there. What planter?”

“Rebecca’s marble one–there.” She pointed to the expensive pot filled with blooming azaleas. “It was knocked over and cracked when I got here. Maybe the killer tripped or something.”

“All right.” Pen scratched across paper. “That’s good, Jaymee. You remember anything else? Know of any enemies Mrs. Newton had? Problems?”

She couldn’t sit back down. “No. She loved showing off Evaline and meeting all the visitors. Oh, God. Could it have been one of them?” Jaymee’s mind began to race. “Tours were open last night, maybe–”

“But Fat–Mr. Jonas–he’s here until all the visitors are gone, right?”

“Right.”

“Then he or Mr. Newton should have been the last to see her, unless a visitor stowed away.”

“The private wing of the house is locked to guests. Only the Newtons and Jonas have keys.”

“You don’t?”

“Didn’t want one. My luck, I’d lose it.”

Charles nodded. “Don’t blame you. Too many valuables in this place to risk that.” He sat back down on the porch swing. “Tell me about Royce Newton. He and Rebecca get along?”

Jaymee massaged her throbbing temples. Her headache would be full blown soon, and she didn’t have any aspirin. “Far as I know. I think she was lonely.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, he traveled. She always talked a lot when I worked. I don’t think she had many real friends.”

“When was the last time you saw her, Jaymee?”

“Yesterday afternoon. She came into the diner where I work for a piece of pie.”

“How late are you usually here Tuesdays?”

“Until the afternoon.” Tuesdays were usually the best day of her week. Rebecca always insisted Jaymee have a late snack and iced tea with her. She didn’t think Jaymee got enough to eat. Another lump lodged in her throat. “I usually take a break, have tea with Rebecca. She insists. Then I leave for my shift at Sallie’s.”

“And nothing seemed wrong last time you saw Rebecca?”

“I told you, no.” Jaymee paced the enormous wraparound porch, making sure to avoid the private entrance where most of the techs were hovered. The thought of Rebecca’s strangled body lying in the master bedroom, a place the woman had once called her sanctuary, nauseated Jaymee.

If she lived to be a withered old lady, she’d never forget the sight of Rebecca’s body. She’d suffered unimaginable pain. Just like Lana. A fresh wave of sorrow swept over Jaymee. Now she would have two graves to visit.

“I need to know everything you saw today,” Charles said.

“I’ve told you everything.”

He ignored her. “You came straight down and called 911 from the kitchen?”

“Yes.”

Charles said something else, but she didn’t hear it. Her attention was focused on the man standing on the other side of the crime scene tape. Jaymee had spent years honing her ability to keep her anger harnessed, but white-hot rage lit up her veins as the man raised his hand in greeting. Her right foot shot forward, fists clenched, her body ready to attack.

“You all right?” Detective Charles’s voice doused Jaymee with icy calm. She closed her eyes and counted to ten.

“I’m fine. Why is Reverend Gereau here?”

“I called him,” Charles said. “Thought you might want some counseling after what you saw.”

Jaymee barely caught the scream before it left her lips. She couldn’t go off on a cop, and he’d just been trying to help. “Thank you, but that’s not necessary.”

She hadn’t seen Reverend Penn Gereau, pastor of Roselea Baptist, up close in a few years. He rarely came into the diner, and when he did, he sat as far away from Jaymee’s glare as possible. Though still tall and lean, he’d aged. His shoulders stooped more than she remembered, and gray had taken over his dark hair. Lined with deep wrinkles, his bright eyes looked on Jaymee with intense pity.

She didn’t want it. Jaymee would never forgive the reverend for siding with her father over Sarah’s adoption. Gereau had been in on the lie, and Jaymee was foolish to ever believe otherwise.

“Jaymee.” His deep voice was cautious, his smile wary.

Laying into Gereau now was low-class and selfish, and she wasn’t about to disrespect Rebecca’s memory. “Reverend. Thanks for coming, but I’m fine.”

His smile sagged, making the creases around his mouth stand out. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

Years of pent-up anger raged inside Jaymee’s heart. “I’m all right, thank you. Please save your counsel for Royce. He’ll need it.”

Charles made a sharp sound in his throat. “We’ve been unable to reach him.”

Royce was a suspect. Cops always looked at the family first. She couldn’t imagine Royce hurting Rebecca, but Jaymee had been betrayed by someone she once adored. What did she know?

“I’ll try to reach him if you’d like,” Gereau said. Blocked off by the yellow tape, he stood uncomfortably, arms crossed over his short-sleeved dress shirt, moisture beading in the wrinkles of his forehead. His stare made Jaymee’s skin burn.

“I need to get to work.” She couldn’t stay here a minute longer. Rebecca’s body was too close, and Gereau’s presence had thrown gasoline on the already flaming fire.

A commotion echoed up from the tree-lined drive where the police had blocked off the entrance to the grand house. Two officers were walking down the blacktop, hands outstretched and shaking their heads.

“Can’t be here, ma’am. Crime scene.”

“I’m picking up my friend,” came the angry response.

Jaymee glanced at Charles. “My neighbor, Crystal. She’s my ride.”

Crystal sidled up next to Gereau, her blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders. As usual, her skirt was too short and her tank top too tight. She flashed the pastor a teasing grin. Gereau nodded stiffly.

Crystal shaded her eyes to look up at the hulking mansion. “Got here as soon as I could.” She tilted her head.

“Reverend Gereau. Fancy seeing you here.”

“I came to offer my services.” Gereau spoke to Crystal without looking at her.

Crystal raised her plucked eyebrow. Jaymee shot her a look before her friend said too much.

“You finished here?” Crystal returned her attention to Jaymee. “Sorry, but I’ve got to be at The Lotus in thirty.”

“I’ll have more questions for you,” Charles said. “Might be tomorrow morning before I can stop by.”

“I’ll be home,” Jaymee said.

Charles handed her his card. It was smudged and crinkled from his pocket. “You remember anything else before then, call me.”

She waved in acknowledgement and stepped shakily down the old steps. Her legs wobbled, and her feet moved so sluggishly she could have been wading through mud. Hoping her knees didn’t give out, she slipped beneath the tape.

“Let me help you to the car.” Gereau’s hand was on her elbow.

She recoiled at his touch. “No thank you, Reverend.”

“I just want to help.”

Her eyes stung. She blinked against the welling tears. “You helped enough already.” She grabbed Crystal’s outstretched hand.

“You all right?” Crystal led her away from Gereau, down the winding drive to her rusting Chevy Malibu. “I’ve seen some nasty stuff, but never a dead body.”

Jaymee shook her head.

“Damned Royce Newton.” Crystal yanked open the passenger door. “I knew that horny sonofabitch was trouble.”

She fell into the seat of Crystal’s ancient Malibu. The cool, processed air helped clear her head.

“You need to clean up a bit before you hit Sallie’s.” Crystal carefully backed out of the drive. “Unless you’re taking the day off. Which you should.”

“Can’t afford to,” Jaymee yanked the sun visor down, groaning when she saw her reflection. She didn’t wear much makeup, but the small coating of mascara she’d put on had run down her cheeks leaving muddy tracks, and her lip gloss was smeared onto her chin. Most of her brown hair had escaped its loose knot.

Jaymee’s brush snagged in her hair. Her foggy brain was slow on the uptake, but Crystal’s words finally registered. “Hold up. What did you say about Royce?”

Crystal scowled at the antebellums as they drove down Rosaire Drive. “He’s a client.”

That was Crystal’s fancy word for the men she graciously allowed to pay her for sex. Her stripping at The Lotus couldn’t always pay the bills, and she figured if rich men wanted to cheat on their wives, they may as well do it with her. For the right price.

“Typical Roselea Righteous,” Jaymee spat. She’d given her father and Reverend Gereau the nickname when she’d renounced the church and everything the two men stood for. “Sitting in judgment while getting dirty on the side. Reverend Gereau probably knows all about Royce’s extracurricular activities too. Just another lie for him to protect.”

“Well, old Graybeard likes the kinky stuff,” Crystal said. “I don’t think his trophy wife was into that.” Crystal turned onto Forest Street heading into downtown Roselea. “But Royce is into something no good, and I think Rebecca might have found out.”

“What are you talking about?”

The light turned yellow, and Crystal hit the brakes. “Three, no, four nights ago we had a scheduled meeting in Vidalia.” Crystal often conducted her business in the small Louisiana town just across the Mississippi River. She claimed her rich clients preferred the location. “Royce couldn’t get it up. Too stressed, he said. Kept pacing the hotel room, running his hands through his hair.” She paused to study her manicured fingernails. “He does have great hair. Salt and pepper, all thick and wavy–”

“Focus, please.”

“Right. He kept talking about his wife. It was like I wasn’t even in the damned room. Just kept muttering under his breath about her digging her nose into shit and trying to ruin him.”

“Did you ask him what he was talking about?”

“Yeah.” Crystal’s mouth curved into a sly smile. “I worked some magic, got him relaxed. He started talking.”

“And?”

“I figured Rebecca had found out about me and was threatening to divorce him. Don’t think they had a prenup.”

“But that wasn’t it?”

Crystal traced her lips with her index finger, eyebrows knitted together. “I don’t think so. He said he’d gotten himself into a big mess and Rebecca knew about the money, about Jackson. He didn’t know how he was going to get out of it.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“That she could ruin him.” Crystal pressed the gas hard just as the light turned green.

Jaymee shook her head against the sudden wave of dizziness. “You’ve got to tell the cops.”

“No way.”

“Crystal, this is motive! Rebecca busted Royce for some kind of shady shit. It makes sense, too. That’s why the police didn’t find any sign of forced entry, and the alarm wasn’t tripped. He killed her.”

“Probably. But let Detective Charles sniff that out on his own.”

“How can you keep quiet?”

“Because I know how the police work. Charles wouldn’t hesitate to haul my ass in for prostituting, no matter that it’s the big dogs in this town paying for my services. Their names would stay out of it, and I’d do a six-month bid. No thanks.”

“We’re talking about a murder.”

Crystal pulled up in front of Sallie’s Diner and brought the car to a neck-breaking halt. “Trust me, it’s better to keep my mouth shut. And you should, too. You ain’t exactly popular with the upper crust ’round here. You’ll be opening a can of rotting worms you don’t need to deal with.”

Jaymee glared out the window watching the tourists shuffling by on the sidewalk. Laden with souvenir bags and sweating in the heat, they were probably clueless about the horror discovered in Roselea’s star attraction.

She didn’t know what to do. Rebecca Newton had been good to Jaymee. She’d ignored all the bullshit people like Jaymee’s father spewed and given her a job. She treated her like an equal, not a low-class girl from the other side of the cemetery. Rebecca deserved the truth.

Jaymee shoved the car door open and stepped back out into the blistering sun. “You need to do the right thing. Or else I will.”

Crystal leapt out of the driver’s seat with the grace of a cat and strode around the old car to block Jaymee’s path. Her long legs gave her at least two inches over Jaymee, and her eyes shined like black ice. Crystal’s angular features morphed into a frightening mask, reminding Jaymee of a rattlesnake preparing to strike.

“You ain’t had a lot of luck telling the truth around here. People didn’t believe you then. You think they’ll believe you now, talking shit about a prominent businessman? And a grieving husband?”

“I never should have told you what happened with the adoption.” Years of guarding her secret, and Jaymee’d spilled her guts over a bottle of cheap tequila.

“Alcohol has that effect on people.” The malice left Crystal’s face, leaving her with her usual wide-eyed, sultry expression–the black widow luring in her prey. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t right of me.”

“No.” As if it mattered. Crystal knew how to use information to her best advantage.

“But it’s the truth, Jaymee. You got problems. You got a plan. You got more things to worry about than Royce Newton and his dead wife.”

“She was good to me.”

“That’s nice. But she’s gone. And your problems are still here. Take it from me, you get mixed up with the cops, everything you been working for these past few years’ll end up in the toilet.”

Jaymee scrunched her face against the building tears. She wouldn’t cry in front of Crystal. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

“But they will. Cops’ll bring you down somehow.” Crystal slid back into the car and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. She fluffed her hair, pinched her cheeks. Satisfied, she turned back to Jaymee with pity in her eyes. “I’m just thinking about you, Jaymee. You get into trouble with the police, then how you gonna get your daughter back?”

The night drifted by in a blur of gossiping customers and fervor. Business was slower than normal, but those who did stop by to eat all had one thing to discuss: the murder of wealthy housewife Rebecca Newton. Rumor was already spreading that Jaymee found the body, and the stares made her skin itch. Even worse, her tired brain had Crystal’s words stuck on repeat.

Jaymee had spent seven years squirreling away every extra cent and trying to get the nerve to find the little girl she’d been bullied into giving up. She needed to stay below the radar and focus on her own problems.

She hated being alone in this life.

But that wasn’t fair. There was Cage, Lana’s brother. He and Jaymee remained close, but there were things he didn’t know; things she couldn’t tell him. It wasn’t the same.

Lana had been her only real ally, a mother figure when Jaymee’s own mother was forced to pretend her daughter didn’t exist. Jaymee dug her fingernails against her lips to keep from crying. Her throat stung with the effort.

She missed her mother as much as she did her dead friend, and Sonia lived five minutes away. She’d never been allowed to give Jaymee much comfort, at least not when her father was around. But still. Sonia had been there, and the love in her eyes–the one thing Paul Ballard couldn’t beat out of her–had shined when she looked at Jaymee.

A rogue tear trickled down her face. She huffed angrily and wiped it off her face. Time to stop feeling sorry for herself and focus on the problem. Getting involved in Rebecca’s murder would only complicate her life. Give a judge another reason to turn her request for custody down. If she ever found Sarah.

When she found her. Jaymee had come too damned far to believe anything else.

The racket of cicadas accompanied Jaymee on her walk home. The sun had set an hour ago, but a shadowy glow hovered in the western sky. Downtown Roselea was mostly closed up, but a few stragglers were out to enjoy the relatively cool evening air. Jaymee left downtown behind her and headed into the residential district. She’d taken this route home for seven years. Sometimes she caught a ride from Cage or his parents or Crystal, but plenty of nights she wound down from a busy shift by strolling past the quaint, old homes.

Tonight was the first time she felt the need to look over her shoulder.

On the hill, Evaline stood silent and foreboding. Somewhere in Roselea, a killer was hiding. Had Royce murdered Rebecca, or were the rumors true? Snitches of dinner conversation mentioned rumors of Rebecca having an affair. Jaymee had no idea if that were true, but she couldn’t blame the woman. Royce Newton obviously didn’t love her as much as he wanted everyone to believe.

Headlights blinded Jaymee. She stopped in mid-stride, holding up her hand to protect her eyes. A quick flash–the blink of the high beams. The vehicle sped up and headed toward her with purpose. Instinct told her to run, but her feet were glued to the sidewalk. The sound of her pounding heart drummed in her ears as images of Rebecca’s body splayed over her blood stained sheets robbed her of any rational thought.

The car was close now. Minivan. Silver. Shaggy-haired driver.

The van rolled to a sharp stop, and the passenger window slid down. Her brother leaned across the front seats, his angry expression evident in the glow of the van’s interior lights.

“I cannot believe you’re walking home at night.”

Jaymee tried to slow the rapid staccato of her heart. “What was I supposed to do? Click my heels together and say ‘There’s no place like home?’”

Darren rolled his eyes to the van’s cushy ceiling. “For Christ’s sake. Get in.”

3

Nick Samuels hated mornings. Stumbling around the small kitchen, he willed his heavy eyelids to stay open. Coffee. Must have it. He dug the bag of filters out of the drawer and dropped the entire thing on the floor.

“Goddammit.”

Working as an investigative reporter for Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger gave him the chance to cultivate his night owl tendencies, but he had to meet with his editor today, so he was up early. If he’d even slept. It had been one of those nights filled with twisted dreams and heartbreaking memories. Twice, he’d woken up in a cold sweat. Four years and the pain still burned raw.

Trying to wake up, Nick leaned against the counter while the coffee brewed. A tension headache had already started. He rubbed the creases between his eyes with his knuckles and sat down at the bar that served as both a table and sometimes an office. He popped his laptop open, waited as the machine took its time loading, and logged onto the newspaper’s website.

Hazy fragments of last night’s dreams floated through his mind. Same ones he’d had since his wife’s murder. Lana, running through the field she’d been found in, looking over her shoulder as her killer closed in. Her face bore the same terrified expression she’d had in the morgue when he identified her.

The images never changed, and they rarely left Nick alone for more than a few nights at a time. He’d be stuck in this purgatory until Lana’s murder was solved.

He tapped the track pad to scroll through the stories. It was an election year, so the front page centered on political bullshit. Couple of stories on a zoning issue the city council was fighting over. A robbery.

A grainy, black and white picture on the left of the page caught his eye. The ropelike tension in his forehead exploded across his face and into his neck. Nick sucked in a breath, his gut retracting as though he’d been slugged. Lana. She was on the front page of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger again. He’d been jettisoned back to four years ago when his life shattered.

Except it wasn’t Lana.

A smiling woman with honey-blond hair gazed back at him, eyes blue and piercing. Pouty, pink lips, perfectly shaped nose. She could have been his dead wife’s sister.

Nick snapped his head back and forth, tried to control his breathing. He wiped his clammy hands on his legs.

Wife of former prominent Jackson attorney found dead in couple’s Roselea home.

Roselea.

The room spun.

Lana’s childhood home.

A tourist darling, historic Roselea was the kind of town Northerners pictured when they thought about visiting the old south. It also had one of the lowest murder rates in the state.

Lana had been killed four years ago in Jackson. But this woman–this woman who looked so much like his wife–had been attacked in Roselea. In her home. Strangled. Beaten.

Different encounter. Different circumstances. Different killer.

Coincidence.

He looked at the picture again. His fingers flexed, aching to grab the phone, call his brother-in-law, and find out the details. Lana’s murder had been a stranger abduction. No real evidence left behind. Couple of hairs, a few fibers, but nothing that matched anything. Every suspect had been cleared, every lead a dead end.

Nick read the article again. The smiling blond-haired woman had been attacked in her home with no signs of forced entry. Her husband was the prime suspect–Royce Newton, a former prominent Jackson attorney retired from his family law practice. As a social worker, Lana might have known him.

Four years had passed without a lead in Lana’s case, and Nick desperately wanted to make the connection. But he knew the drill, having covered dozens of murders in his career. There was nothing here but hope and a creepy coincidence.

His muscles loosened back into their normal, tired state. Life went on, and he was done chasing ghosts. He hauled himself up straight and took a final gulp of coffee, then dumped it out in the sink. He had to clear his head and get ready for the pitch his editor couldn’t refuse. Not this time.

“No way.” Kim Lear, editor of Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger, glared at Nick across her immaculate desk. He met her gaze, chin jutted out like a petulant child’s, eyes narrowed in defiance.

“Kim. Come on. This is a real story.”

“You’re right.” She stood up and began to pace. Her thick braids were twisted into a loose knot, her heels sharp against the floor. Kim was constantly in the middle of a shitstorm, and Nick knew he slung more than his fair share of muck her way. But she was also a damned good journalist, fair and always seeking the truth. She couldn’t pass this up.

“The Reverend Wilcher is into something illegal,” Nick insisted. “He’s living too damned high for a preacher. He’s got to be embezzling.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“I can if you let me.”

Kim took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Doesn’t seem to matter if I let you or not. You’re already hounding Wilcher and pissing off advertisers. His followers give us big bucks to advertise, and we can’t afford to lose them.”

Nick said nothing, his anger building as Kim continued.

“You going to deny harassing Wilcher yesterday?”

Why was the good Reverend offended? All Nick had done was stop by during Reverend Wilcher’s brunch at The Garden to ask a few tough questions. Guess the saint of Jackson had been embarrassed in front of his cronies.

“Didn’t harass the man. Just spoke the truth.”

“You followed him, went up to his table, and told him–in front of two members of the Mississippi Republican Party–that you’d heard some nasty rumors. Thought it was time to investigate.”

“Again. Spoke the truth.”

“Well, don’t. There are a dozen other stories to follow, all of which have real leads. This is a witch hunt, Nick.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do.” Kim returned to her desk and pulled out a manila file with his name on it. “Four years ago, you pitched this same idea to Allan before he stepped down. He told you no for the same reasons I’m telling you now.”

Nick rubbed the day old stubble on his chin. “I’m still hearing the same rumors–”

“Really? Because I checked around, and you’re the only one with boo to say about Wilcher.”

“I’ve got better sources.”

“No. You’ve got guilt.”

Heat lit up Nick’s fair skin. He dug his chewed fingernails into the leather on the chair’s arms. “Excuse me?”

“You told Allan this was something your wife suggested.”

“Yeah. She was a social worker. She had contacts throughout the court system and the police department. Private sector, too. Heard some stuff. So?”

“You also told him later, after her murder, that you two had fought over you not pushing Allan harder.” Her gentle tone did nothing to quell the anger rising in Nick’s chest.

“This has nothing to do with Lana.”

Kim sat back down. She folded her arms over her desk and gazed at Nick with the same look of pity he’d seen on countless others. “It’s all about Lana. Ever since she died–”

“Murdered,” Nick cut her off. “Still unsolved.”

“Ever since then, you’ve been getting more and more reckless. I admire your willingness to get a story, but you’ve been threatened with jail time over harassing witnesses, accused of hacking into a computer system–”

“Never proven.”

“And gotten involved with a gang.”

“Undercover. Busted the drug ring, didn’t I?”

“You got lucky. Point is, you’ve been running half-cocked for four years, and you’re about to smack the bottom.” She looked him up and down, shaking her head. “You’ve lost weight, you live on caffeine, you’re always here, rarely home. Do you even have a life outside this paper?”

No. But he never had, even when he was married and his wife begged for attention. Climbing the career ladder and proving the poor kid from the sticks could become a big shot had been Nick’s focus for as long as he could remember. He hadn’t been able to change when Lana was alive; he sure as hell couldn’t when she was dead and he had nothing but guilt to live with.

“That’s none of your business.”

“It is when you start affecting sales. So far, all your exploits have made you a hero. But you’re picking the wrong battle this time. Reverend Holden Wilcher is a well-respected man with a lot of powerful allies. Ones who’d have no problem bringing you down and us with you.”

“I can’t believe this.” Nick shoved the chair back and stood up. He glared down at his boss. “You used to be different, Kim. You didn’t give a damn about the rules or kissing ass. You wanted to tell the truth.”

“Then I became the boss. Unfortunately, someone’s got to smooch some ass if the paper’s going to keep going in this Internet economy. Politics are everywhere.”

Nick raked his hands through his hair. “This is bullshit. I’m telling you Kim, he’s dirty.”

“Maybe he is. But you’re not investigating him.”

“And what if I do?”

“You’ll be looking for a new job.” She leveled a hardened glare at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“So much for loyalty.”

“I’m sorry, Nick. I’ve got to draw a line somewhere.”

His shoulders sagged, the anger turning into bitter disappointment. Lana had been so sure about Wilcher, gung-ho to bring him down. He should have listened to her when he had the chance.

“You need a vacation,” Kim spoke again, the sharp edge in her tone replaced by sympathy. “You’ve been going hard ever since it happened. Why don’t you take some time to properly mourn her, find a way to get your life back?”

“How do I do that, Kim? The sonofabitch who killed her is still walking free. How am I just supposed to move on?”

“I don’t know.” Kim’s gaze went to her desk. She swallowed hard, like she was choking down rocks. “But you need to get your act together, or I’m going to have to make some changes.”

“Excuse me?”

She finally looked back up at him. “I don’t want to. But my responsibility is to this paper first. Take two weeks off. Rest. Think about the way your life’s going.”

“And then?”

“Either come back with a new attitude, or don’t come back at all.”

He couldn’t look at Kim as he left her office. Barely spoke to colleagues as he gathered the mail off his desk. He was sick of the pity and fed up with the whispering. But work was the only thing keeping him from drowning in a pool of guilt.

Outside, a purple wall of thunderclouds closed in from the west. The oncoming rain brought little relief from the heat. His black Taurus baked under the hazy sun, the leather seats hot enough to fry meat on. Nick sank into the driver’s seat and cranked up the air.

He slammed the car into reverse and then gunned the accelerator, whipping out onto Congress Street. A soccer mom in a blue SUV honked when he cut her off, but Nick didn’t bother to acknowledge her. Lana would have yelled at him.

God he missed her. Tall, blond, and blue-eyed–the quintessential southern belle. She’d hooked him from the moment she’d walked into the library at Ole Miss, hair pulled back, black-framed glasses on, with a sway in her hips that demanded male attention. She was a year younger than him, majoring in sociology and planning to be a social worker. They’d been inseparable from the start, married just after Lana earned her master’s in social work and Nick had been a fledgling reporter at the Ledger.

That’s when the trouble had started. He hadn’t been a very good husband. Not a cheater or a slacker. Just absent. A workaholic who supported his wife in theory but never in action.

He cut into the left lane, scrunching up his face at the onslaught of images. Lana, laid out in the morgue, her face covered with purple contusions, fair skin sliced up with superficial wounds, the telltale strangulation bruises creeping out from beneath the graceful slope of her neck.

Nick once thought the pain of Lana’s death would be the worst he would ever experience, but with each passing year, the agony grew, festering within him like a spreading cancer and robbing Nick of any chance to move on as he knew Lana would have wanted. The knowledge her murderer walked free, breathing clean air while Lana moldered in the dank ground, tortured him.

He pulled into his parking spot at the Tombigbee Lofts, one of the few amenities that came with the cheap downtown residence, and let the engine idle. Bigby’s was just around the corner. Maybe he’d walk over and drown himself in drink. At least his mind would have the chance to shut off.

Nick reached for the mail, a whiskey and Coke on his mind. A letter caught his eye. It sat on top of the week’s worth of crap he’d picked up. Plain white envelope, his name and the Ledger’s address typed. Typed, not printed. Instinct prodded at the base of his skull, warning him not to touch the envelope without gloves, but it was too late. Who knew how many people had handled it?

He grabbed the envelope and tore it open, yanking out the note. Plain white stock paper, black ink. From a typewriter. Who the hell still had a typewriter these days?

Carefully, he unfolded the letter. The words jumped off the page.

I killed your wife again last night.

To Download Tin God FREE on any format, visit Stacy’s book page.

SKELETON’S KEY

Delta Crossroads #2

1

Cage Foster wasn’t afraid of the dark. He didn’t believe in creepers going bump in the night, and he could deal with the occasional nasty critter. But something about Ironwood Plantation’s cellar made the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. And he’d already been down there once today.

The cellar stunk. It reeked of mold-covered earth, stale air juiced up with God knows what dead animal carcasses, rotting wood, and several decades’ worth of dust. Like so many antebellum homes, Ironwood’s cellar was made of earth and bricks with some decaying Mississippi cypress thrown on top. Late afternoon sun shined in the kitchen windows and cast a shadow down the basement steps. An old light bulb and an equally ancient string hung somewhere past the bottom step, but since the entire fuse box had crapped out, Cage had to fumble down the rickety steps and hope he didn’t end up landing ass over backwards on the dirty cellar floor.

“Wiring up to code my ass.” His nose curled at the odor. “If it were, that cheap sander wouldn’t have blown the fuse.”

“You gon’ go down with me?” Harvey Lett, a square–shaped man with tobacco-stained teeth and a graying beard that desperately needed a trim, stood behind Cage. The only electrician willing to hurry out to an abandoned plantation house with old wiring and a fuse box from the Cold War era fixed Cage with a hawklike stare. “Or you gon’ stand there?”

Cage raked his hand through his hair–he’d been letting it grow the past couple of months as some sort of gesture to his supposed new start on life–but so far he wasn’t feeling any more carefree. Only irritated.

He avoided the basement as much as possible. The creaky stairs trembled at every step, and the layers of dust set fire to his allergies.

Plus the stinking hole gave him the creeps.

Fortunately, nothing important to Ironwood’s renovations was stored in the basement. In the last three months, he had only been down there twice. But now he’d sent the whole house into darkness, and he was on a tight schedule. After all, he had to have Ironwood up to par for the damned Yankee invader.

Smaller than some of the prized antebellums in Roselea’s historic district at just under 8,000 square feet, Ironwood was one of the few pre-Civil War era homes in Adams County that hadn’t been restored into a showplace. Adams County Baptist had done its best to keep the home from falling down, but the last decade had seen lousy renters and years of emptiness. A year ago, the church hired Cage to act as caretaker. Being a sheriff’s deputy didn’t rake in the big bucks, and the job offered cheap rent in a decent place: Ironwood’s carriage house, the only part of the plantation that had been properly restored.

One of the church members had called Ironwood a lost cause. The mansion had been neglected for too long until Cage arrived.

The plaster on its columns was cracked, the porch badly weathered, windowsills rotting. Inside, dust nearly an inch thick decorated nearly every surface. A previous tenant had left food in the 1930s refrigerator, and bits of garbage had been scattered about by whatever animal had used the back screened–in porch for its personal bathroom. He’d spent weeks just cleaning the 8000-square-foot home.

He knew all about lost causes. He’d spent years waiting for the only woman he’d ever loved to finally open her eyes and see what she was missing, and then she’d gone and fallen for his ex-brother-in-law. If his sister were alive, he might have had a shot. But Lana was dead, and Nick and Jaymee had moved on together. Leaving Cage stagnant and alone.

Sometimes he wallowed. Drank, too. Figured he’d be alone and bitter about it for the rest of his life.

Then one night he got sent out on a trespassing call to the old Ironwood Plantation–or what was left of it. Most of the land had been parceled off and turned into subdivisions, but the old house and nearly three acres still sat empty and wild, and an apparent hangout for teenagers.

Cage and another sheriff’s deputy broke up the party, and Cage found a new love. The old home, silent and dark and still breathing, called to him. He’d contacted the church about purchasing it. Couldn’t afford the price tag, but he’d jumped at the chance to be caretaker and had spent the last several months slowly making the big house livable.

He’d been semi-happy until three weeks ago, when he’d received the call from Adams County Baptist informing him that Ironwood Plantation had been sold–and to a damned Yankee, no less. Danny Evans, some rich Northerner set to come down here and make a mint off restoring one of Roselea’s last antebellum relics. Evans, a fancy restoration expert from Indiana. What did some Midwesterner know about the South and her plantations?

Cage had been kept on as caretaker and was now tasked with getting the big house decent enough for Evans to live in. The Yankee would arrive in a week, and Cage had too much left to do. And naturally, the fuse box was in the basement, and Cage would rather eat dirt than venture down there.

“Let’s get to it, then,” Harvey said.

Cage switched on his flashlight and stepped onto the first shaky step. “Be careful. These suckers aren’t exactly in top condition.” Ironwood had been built in 1835, and he had little doubt these stairs were original. He reached for the railing before he remembered it had rotted and fallen off.

Dust particles danced in the beam of his flashlight and then dived for Cage’s nose. He sneezed. The entire stairwell trembled.

Cage quickened his pace, trying to ignore the moldy stench and pressure of the encroaching darkness. He reached the earthen floor and cast his light around the black space. Like so many houses of its time, Ironwood only had a partial basement. The winter kitchen, or what was left of it, dominated half of it.

“The fuse box is under the stairs.” Cage shined his flashlight toward the area. Ducking massive spider webs, he hurried to the box, yanking on the rusty handle to the lid, and then flipped the switches. “Made sure I tried them before I called you.”

“Step aside.” Harvey busied himself at the fuse box. “Keep the light focused for me.”

“Right.” Cage peered over his shoulder, easy to do as he was a good six inches taller than Harvey. Of course, Cage was taller than most people. “Thanks again for coming out so quickly. The other two guys didn’t want to mess with the place.”

“Nice to know I was your third choice.”

“Yeah well, I’d have preferred to go to the hardware store and handle it myself, but electricity isn’t my strong suit. Figured I’d better call a professional.”

Harvey grunted, dropping his toolbox on the floor. He rummaged around the greasy tin box. “Fuse needs replacing. Shouldn’t take too long.”

“Good deal.” Cage kept the light focused as Harvey worked. “The wiring in this place is supposed to be up to code. You see anything that says otherwise?”

“Not so far. Sometimes you blow fuses.”

Harvey retrieved his own flashlight from the pocket of his overalls, shining it around the murky basement. “Wiring’s copper. That’s good. I don’t see anything that stands out, but I’d have to do a full inspection to be sure.”

“No thanks,” Cage said. “Church had one done before the place was sold last month, so I’ll have to take their word for it.”

Another grunt from Harvey, and then his flashlight stalled, the beam now shining against the sinking foundation. A deep crack running all the way to the ground had splintered the brick and mortar.

“Looks like you got varmints down here.”

At the base of the brick, the earth had been turned up as though something had been digging. A rat? Raccoon, maybe?

Cage shone his own light into the disturbed earth.

At first, he saw only white. Not bright white, like an untouched piece of paper, but a bleak gray-white. Aged.

Bone, he realized. Some critter had died down here–probably more than one.

He stepped closer, using the toe of his boot to shovel some of the dirt aside.

Behind him, Harvey emitted a sound resembling a frightened dog. “Is that what I think it is?”

Cage’s heart tightened into an iron-like fist, jumping at first into his throat and then dropping into the pit of his stomach.

An empty eye socket and cavernous smile protruded out of the earth.

A human skull.

2

“Son. Of. A. Bitch.”

Half-buried in the dirt, it had the weathered look of the skeletons he’d seen in an exhibit at the Mississippi Museum of Science. And on the Discovery Channel.

Harvey stepped forward, hands outstretched. Cage caught him by the arm. “Don’t touch the damned thing.”

Cage yanked his handkerchief out of his pocket. It was damp with sweat but would protect him from getting fingerprints all over the skull. He knelt down, balancing on his heels, careful not to touch the earth around the skull. Fingers protected by the thin cloth, he ran his hand over top of the gray bone.

Above him, hovering and breathing through a stuffed nose, Harvey angled for a better look. “What’s it feel like?”

“Brittle.” Cracked along the top, a gaping hole in the back. Cage’s cop-trained brain immediately thought of murder, but he quickly dismissed it. Who knew how long the thing had been here?

He collected the flashlight, shining the beam around the perimeter of the skull. Something had been digging all right. Clumps of earth splattered the brick foundation, and smoother, gray objects peeked up from the earth.

“Shit.” Cage swore again.

“Knew’d it though, didn’t you?” Harvey inched closer.

“Knew what?”

“That the story was true. About old John James and what his crazy daughter did with his body. Daddy’s little girl lost her marbles when he died. Kept his body in this house.”

“He’s buried in the Roselea cemetery.”

“So she said.”

Cage didn’t have time to listen to crazy Ironwood legends. He cast the light over the skull again. “No idea what time period this skull is from, or if it’s even a white person. Could be a slave. Could be a Natchez Indian. Could be any damned body.”

He toed the loose earth around the skull. He didn’t see any more bone, but Cage had a feeling it was there. Skulls don’t just end up in the earth all by their lonesome. Irritated by the intrusive light, a fat black beetle scuttled across the top of the skull and disappeared into the earth.

Cage straightened, swiping another cobweb aside. He’d better call the sheriff. His boss would love this.

“You finished with the box?”

Harvey’s mouth hung open, eyes slightly glazed. “If that’s John James, then I wonder if the secret room really exists after all.”

The best of the Ironwood legends. If any secret room existed in the shabby mansion, Cage hadn’t seen any evidence of it. More stories from centuries-old gossip mongers. “Please finish up so we can get out of the dark, and I can call the sheriff.”

“Yeah, all right. But if I were you’d I’d start searching this old place. Tear it apart if need be.” Harvey reluctantly turned back to the fuse box but kept glancing over his shoulder as he worked, as though worried the skull might start crawling toward him.

Cage sighed with relief when he heard the window air conditioner crank up. He yanked the string hanging from the bulb. It flashed briefly, and then the bulb died.

“Fantastic. Come on upstairs. We’ll settle up so you can get back to your other jobs.”

Harvey didn’t look ready to leave, but Cage directed him back up the rickety steps, reaching again for the missing handrail. He needed to fix that ASAP. Cops and probably the county coroner would be slogging up and down the stairs. Last thing he needed was for someone to break a neck.

He glanced back in the direction of the skull lying invisible in the darkness. A cold tremor slid down his spine.

Who the hell was buried in the basement?

Cage’s boss, Sheriff Jim Robards arrived with the county coroner in tow. Seeing the two men together always reminded Cage of the old comic, Mutt and Jeff. Robards was tall and mostly slim except for the generous padding around his middle. He regularly blamed his wife’s cooking for his going to seed, but the sheriff’s love of sweets didn’t help. In contrast, Jeb Riley was short, thin, and sporting a head of gray hair. Pushing seventy, Jeb had been the Adams County Coroner for more than twenty years, and his experience as a funeral home technician gave him more knowledge than many of the state’s elected coroners.

Cage shook hands with Jeb as Robards strolled through the foyer. The large, open space had once been a showpiece, but the marble floors were faded and cracked, as were the plaster walls. The church had refused to put any money into restoration, but they had allowed Cage to do minor repair work. Under his care, the big house had received a major clean up with the Adams County Historical Foundation footing the bill. Most of the original furnishings had either been sold during the plantation’s lean years or donated to the historical foundation, but many of Ironwood’s original features remained: built-in hutches, fireplace mantles, wooden doors, china handles, and windows. After getting rid of renters’ trash, Cage had cleaned every room until all resembled their original states, and he hoped to help in the restoration once the Yankee expert arrived.

“It’s clean at least,” Cage said. “No more mountains of dust, and you can see the crown molding. It’s not in too bad of shape. Most of the hardwood floors are decent, too.”

Jeb eyed the double staircase, Ironwood’s most elaborate feature. Made of rich mahogany and standing more than thirty feet high, the dual staircase curved gracefully up to a balcony overlooking the grand ballroom. “What kind of shape is the stairwell in?”

“Hard to tell,” Cage said. “Some of the stairs are rotting, and I haven’t gone up there. Who knows what the Yankee expert will say.”

Robards snorted. “Damned rich Yankees, coming down here to buy up stuff cheap. Suppose he’ll be educating us illiterate Rednecks, too.”

Cage had tried to keep an open mind about his new employer, but the idea of a Northerner being in charge of Ironwood’s restoration tied him up in knots. Restoration expert or not, what did Danny Evans know about Southern history and tradition? Nothing more than what he’d read in history books, and that didn’t do Mississippi any justice. People didn’t know what life was like down here until they experienced it for themselves. So how could Evans fully care for Ironwood without a true understanding of what the place meant to Roselea?

“You ought to at least give the Yankee a chance,” Jeb said. “Don’t be judging someone before you even met them. Maybe this Evans will do Ironwood justice.”

“We’ll see.” Cage shrugged. “Can’t imagine he’ll be thrilled about the new development. Ready to see what I’ve found?”

Sheriff Robards descended behind Cage, with Jeb bringing up the rear. “You tell Harvey Lett to keep quiet about this?”

“Yeah.”

“Means it’ll be all over town by tonight,” Jeb said.

“I hate these old basements.” Sheriff Robards grumbled as the men gathered in the dank cellar. “All of them smell like centuries of piss and mold.”

“Careful on these steps,” Cage warned.

He’d replaced the light bulb and set up a camping light on the rotting shelves. The additional light made navigating slightly easier, but it also made the heavy cobwebs shine like silver mist. He raked his hands through his hair and across his shoulders and then scratched the back of his neck. He hoped to God there weren’t any black widows down here.

“Skull’s over there.” Cage pointed to the back corner. It sat exactly as Cage had left it, partially hidden in the dirt. The additional light made the bone even creepier.

“You look for any more of the skeleton?” Robards asked.

“No,” Cage answered. “Figured I’d let Jeb do that. You know, protocol and all.”

Jeb knelt down to inspect the area. He breathed deeply and then coughed, waving his hand in front of his face. “Too bad CaryAnne never managed to put a concrete floor in. She was John James’s daughter and the last of the original family.” Jeb ran his gloved fingers carefully over the skull. “She probably ran out of money.”

“What makes you say that?” Cage asked.

Jeb shrugged. “My grandmother knew CaryAnne. Used to have tea with her in the evenings before CaryAnne’s health took a bad turn. That was in the late forties, after World War II and during the industrial boom. This place was never one of the giant cotton producers, but the family kept things going pretty well until the Great Depression. You know they come from the Evaline Laurents?”

Cage knew the story. Built by one of Roselea’s founding fathers, Evaline claimed the title of oldest antebellum in Adams County. “Henrî Laurent disowned his son for marrying a descendant of the Natchez Indians. The son built Ironwood, and the two families never reconciled. CaryAnne supposedly never set foot in Evaline, even though the feud was two generations behind her.”

Jeb continued to examine the earth. “CaryAnne never married. She kept this place up for a long time after her daddy died, but by the end, it wasn’t doing too well. Guess that’s why it never got treated like the big house.”

“You think the skull could be Native American?” Robards asked.

Jeb continued to examine the remains. “Hard to say, and I’m certainly no expert. Skull is clean–no sign of any tissue left. My best guess is that it’s a few decades old, but I’m just a county coroner. A medical examiner needs to make that call.”

Robards shifted his weight, hiking up his belt. “We need to start digging, find out if there’s more skeletal remains or just a dumped skull. Then we ship everything to the state medical examiner’s office in Jackson. They’ll have to go through any remains, but unless they can get a DNA match, we may never find out who this is.”

“I’ve got an intern who’s had some experience with archeological digs,” Jeb said. “He’s helping us out during summer vacation. He and I can start working on this today, but it might take a few days to make sure we find every bone. If there are any more.”

They stood over the remains, the yawning eye socket offering nothing more than a blank stare and more questions.

“You’ll have to call the Yankee,” Robards said.

Cage’s chills morphed into prickly irritation. Something terrible was about to happen.

“You’re the sheriff,” Cage tried. “Something like this would probably be better coming from you.”

“Nice try. You’re the caretaker, and you found the thing.” Robard’s dimples shone through his chubby face. “Let us know how he takes it.”

Jeb stood, wincing as his knees cracked. “No cell reception down here. I’ll go upstairs and call Billy. Get him over here and working.”

Upstairs, Jeb went into Ironwood’s expansive and once grand ballroom to make his call. Robards sat down at the small kitchen table, folded his arms across the formica, and smirked. “Best get it over with.”

Cage had been dreading talking to Evans for weeks. So far, the real estate agent had the pleasure of dealing with Evans and passing on the orders to Cage. Somehow, he couldn’t see the agent handling news of the skull very well. Easier for Cage to tell Danny Evans himself.

Turning his back on his grinning boss, Cage dug out his cell phone and scrolled through the contacts until he came across the number he’d been given for Danny Evans. With any luck, Evans wouldn’t answer, and Cage could just leave a message.

No such luck. Halfway through the second ring, the call connected.

“Hello?” The response was so quick it took Cage a few seconds to process the response.

“Hello? Who is this?” A woman’s voice rattled through the receiver. Like every Northerner Cage had ever encountered, she spoke too quickly, and he had to listen hard to understand her.

“This is Cage Foster, caretaker of Ironwood.”

“Who?”

“Cage. I’m the caretaker of Ironwood.”

“What about Ironwood?” The woman’s voice–Cage assumed she was Evan’s secretary–came out even more staccato.

She couldn’t understand him, Cage realized. Heat spread across his cheeks. Caretaker probably sounded like “currtaker,” and he probably sounded like a dumb hick to her.

“I’m the care taker.”

“Oh!” She laughed, and even though it sounded like a song on fast forward to Cage, her laugh wasn’t unpleasant. “Cage. I love that name, by the way. Very Southern.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“And so polite. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been the same. Must be the country upbringing.”

He dragged his teeth across his bottom lip. Country upbringing. She no doubt pictured him in tattered overalls with a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth and a greasy trucker’s hat on his head.

“Maybe. Listen, we’ve got a development here at the plantation, and I’ll be needing to speak to Mr. Evans right away.”

A beat of silence and then more laughter. “Oh goodness, Cage. We’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“Ma’am?” The question came without thought, and he rolled his eyes. He’d definitely proven himself a country bumpkin.

“Yes. There’s no Mr. Evans. At least not around here. We Northern women are independent, you know.” She might have been smiling, but all Cage could hear was the condescension in her voice.

Embarrassment swept over his already flushing skin and rendered him silent.

“I’m Dannette Evans, but I can’t stand my first name. Call me Dani, please.”

3

Heat rushed her in a single, eye-watering wave. Her breath, hot as fire, stunted in her lungs and evaporated. Shimmering waves of color, dulled by her sunglasses, danced across her field of vision. Her skin boiled and then erupted in sweat. Dani gasped at her first encounter with Mississippi.

“Holy God.”

She squinted at the ticket for the rental car she’d ordered and then looked at the map of the enormous lot at the Jackson airport. “This is going to be fun.”

By the time she found the blue Ford Focus, Dani’s fine, strawberry-blond hair was plastered to the back of her neck. Her thin cotton t-shirt clung as heavy as wool to her flaming skin. The heat was so oppressive dizziness swept over her. She jammed the key in the lock and leaned against the little car only to jump back in agony.

“Ouch!” Her forearm burned where the skin had touched the hot metal. Opening the car door was like unsealing an oven. She cranked the air conditioning and lost count of how many minutes passed before the air was breathable.

She’d lived through thirty Indiana summers, suffering through days that were so hot walking outside was nearly unbearable. But nothing compared to the take-your-breath away misery she’d just experienced.

Doubt cluttered her head. What was she thinking moving down here? Starting a new life entirely on her own so soon after her mother died?

Her barely recovered breath lodged in her aching throat. Had it really been less than six months since she’d buried her mother? The grief ebbed and flowed, and right now it flowed stronger than rushing flood waters. Diabetes. The silent killer. But the disease wasn’t so silent in the end. Death came as a relief to Dani’s mother, but it nearly shattered Dani. She’d spent the last few years of her life caring for her mother, and suddenly, there was nothing left but her career.

Dani’s world splintered. Pain swallowed her whole. Her mother’s influence stretched over every facet of Dani’s life. Her mother encouraged Dani’s profession, and after her mother’s death, work was a prison, and home was hell. She couldn’t bear to walk through the house, expecting to hear her mother’s throaty voice and then realizing the comforting sound she’d relied on her entire life was gone. The loneliness was indescribable. Days drifted by until she realized she’d sunk to the bottom of the well of grief. Something had to change, or she’d spend the rest of her life sleepwalking between her warm bed and a haze of misery.

And even then, her mother’s guidance remained.

Dani’s mother nurtured her love of history and lived vicariously through Dani’s career in historic preservation. They’d dreamed of traveling the Deep South, exploring the old plantations, and maybe finding one of their own to restore.

Her mother never got out of Indianapolis, but she’d made Dani promise to follow that dream someday. Embarking down this road without her mother stung worse than a yellow jacket, but it was better than rolling into a ball and giving up.

So here she was, melting in a Mississippi inferno, a new preservation specialist at the Adams County Historical Foundation, and the proud owner of a once great plantation home in desperate need of her expertise.

With a skull in the basement.

She caught her wilted reflection in the rearview mirror and realized she was smiling. She should probably be frightened–or at the very least, sickened. She definitely shouldn’t be rushing down to Roselea nearly two weeks before she was due to move. But she’d been counting the days. Her apartment was packed, her affairs were in order, her goodbye party at Indiana Landmarks Association over and done with. A skull in the basement gave her the perfect opportunity to grab the necessities and leave early.

Cage Foster had called this morning to let her know the coroner believed the remains to be more than a hundred years old. With Dani’s permission, the coroner and Cage were digging for more bones, which would then be shipped off to a state medical examiner for identification.

Ironwood’s caretaker had sounded testy on their second phone call, and Dani worried she’d embarrassed him with the good-natured teasing she’d given him about assuming she was a man.

“You don’t need to come right now.” Cage’s lazy drawl would have been appealing if it weren’t for the disdain in his tone. “We’re taking care of it.”

“But it’s my house,” Dani had said. “I should be there.”

“We’re capable.”

“I don’t mean to say you aren’t.” Dani had tried to smooth things over. “I just think I should be there.”

“I suppose you need someone to pick you up at the airport and drive you into Roselea?”

She needed to make things right with Cage as soon as she arrived at Ironwood. The historical foundation raved about his work as Ironwood’s caretaker, and she didn’t want to lose him.

“No, thank you. I’ve got a rental car. I’m sure I can find my way.”

“All right then. Call if you get lost.”

This afternoon should be fun, Dani thought as she navigated away from the airport and onto the interstate. The exit for US 84 was four miles ahead, and according to her GPS, she’d arrive in Roselea in about two hours. The Union Army spared the town in the Civil War, and many of the antebellum homes and plantations survived. Roselea’s location at the southern tip of the Natchez Trace made the town a thriving tourist stop.

A sign for Route 61 caught Dani’s eye, and for a moment, she was tempted to change course and head for the northern end of the Delta. The legendary crossroads where blues great Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil was just a few hours down the road.

Patience. She could do that another day.

She had another day.

Reality began to sink in. Finally, after all these years, she was here, ready to see the places she and her mother had so coveted.

She had all the time in the world.

During the ride from Jackson, she was grateful for the traffic’s leisurely pace. It gave her plenty of time to soak up her surroundings. The grass was a deeper shade of green, lush beneath the bright sun. Large farms, many of them old, dotted the landscape, but the ramshackle places with rotting roofs and sad looking lawns were just as prevalent. Poverty and grandeur interwoven into the state’s fabric.

She reached the outskirts of Roselea right on time and wistfully turned south instead of driving straight into town. There would be plenty of time to explore its history after she got settled. Anticipation began to swirl in her stomach as she threaded her way through the countryside, squinting to read the mailbox addresses and trying to keep her heart from taking permanent residence in her throat.

And then she saw it: 15 White Creek Road. The mailbox was a simple plastic affair–green with white letters. A wooden rail fence sat on each side of the dirt drive marking the entrance to the property. Ironwood sat back off the road more than a hundred feet, and a hulking live oak that had taken up residence in the front yard hid Dani’s initial view of the house.

Ducking her head to see beneath the oak’s drooping branches, Dani turned into the drive. Glimpses of dirty white railing partially hidden by rosebushes had her clenching the steering wheel with anticipation. The path wound slightly to the left, around the big tree, and Ironwood emerged.

Pictures hadn’t done her justice. The mansion’s wooded exterior was gray and faded, the balconies sagging dangerously in places. Its four front columns were cracked, its iron railings rusting, and the widow’s peak had lost part of its outboards.

But she was still beautiful, like a weathered grandmother who’d seen more of life than most could comprehend. The grand home’s front was a five bay structure, its centerpiece a two-story portico with four perfectly spaced Greek pillars. An exquisite bracketed cornice marked the roofline, and while several of the Italianate brackets were missing, their craftsmanship was still visible on the remaining pieces. Standing guard over the house was a widow’s walk with a balcony that circled a small cupola. Additional porticos marked the east and west sides of the house.

Dani closed her eyes and imagined the house’s mistress standing on the walk, waiting for her son to come home from the Civil War. Her summer dress would be lightweight, but hoops and underskirts would have added several pounds to her frame. Her hair might have hung in pin curls or been done up in a more stately but ornate knot. A delicate white handkerchief etched with precise stitching – probably flowers – would be crushed in her hand as she prayed for her son’s safe return from the war.

That son would have been John James Laurent, and he did return from the war. He and his father kept Ironwood afloat during the Reconstruction, and the plantation employed free blacks for decades, running a modest but successful cotton crop until sometime during the Great Depression. Ironwood had been slowly sinking into quiet despair since. The once grand home was no more than a shadow of its former glory.

Moisture dripped onto Dani’s lip. She flushed, hastily wiping the tears away. Old homes had always held a special power over her, but the plantations were a force she couldn’t explain. It was as if the last remnants of a forgotten way of life desperately grasped for survival. For someone to remember. To save them.

She would save Ironwood.

She wiped her face once again and checked her reflection. Her fair Irish skin was no longer pink, but her hair was still flat from the humidity. Quickly, she dug a brush out of her purse, dragged it through her hair, and pulled it into a loose ponytail. That would have to do.

An Adams County Sheriff’s cruiser was parked in the winding drive in front of what was obviously the carriage house. Single story, moderately maintained, a few flowers out front. Lived in.

The flowers.

Her attention was drawn back to the sprawling house. Well-kept blooming rosebushes surrounded the front of the house, and sweet jasmine peeked out from the bottom of the bushes. A mint julep plant adorned the side of the house, its rugged foliage neatly trimmed. Two large planters loaded with azaleas marked Ironwood’s entrance.

Someone else loved this place, too.

The front door, partially shaded by the portico, swung open. A tall man stepped outside wearing a sleeveless shirt and dark cargo shorts. Standing well over six feet, he was broad shouldered with just the right amount of muscle in his bare arms. Tanned skin, long legs, and chestnut colored hair that could use a trim.

He strode down the steps toward her car. This must be Cage. She reached for the door handle, ready to greet him with as much friendliness as she could muster. The door didn’t open, and she realized it was locked. She fumbled for the button in the unfamiliar car.

He was at her door now, squinting in the window, a tight smile on his face. Dani snapped the door handle at the same time as he grabbed for it, swinging the door into his outstretched hand.

He stumbled back, shaking his fingers. “Damn.”

“I’m sorry!” She stood on rubbery legs, immediately tearing at the heat. “Oh God, it’s hot.”

He grunted and then stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Ironwood. I’m Cage.”

“I’m so sorry about your hand.”

“‘S’all right.” Cage shifted his weight, brushing his hair off his forehead. “Let me get your bags for you.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d love to get inside the house.” She shaded her eyes to gaze at Ironwood. “I just can’t wait any longer.”

Cage cocked his head, staring down at her as though he were trying to decide if she were worthy to enter. She didn’t break eye contact and tried to smile, but she was pretty sure the heat made her look like a mangy stray dog.

“Go on ahead, then.”

She forced herself not to sprint to Ironwood’s front steps. There was nothing like walking into a pre-restored historical home for the first time. She’d entered her first when she was fifteen, and had been in countless others since then, traveling throughout Midwest for her internship and later career. No matter the state, every one breathed whispers of the past in Dani’s ear. Instead of crumbling foundations and cracked walls, she saw decades of life, family hardships, and strength. Instead of a money-sucking eyesore, she saw something to be cherished: a living structure waiting to be rescued.

She loved every home she’d ever worked on, but Ironwood was personal. The grand old home represented everything Dani loved about her mother and the promise she’d made to move on with her life. Stopping in front of the bottom step, she swallowed the hard lump in her throat and tried to will the stinging tears not to fall.

Close-up, the house looked even more dismal and haunting. Weather had scrubbed off massive sections of paint, and several of the porch spindles were rotting. The portico’s floor looked worn through in some places, making it impossible to tell what the original color had been. But she saw beyond all that–saw the beauty of what had once been.

She saw home.

“I haven’t been able to do much to the outside.” Cage stood beside her. “Spent most of my time getting the inside cleaned out. Church didn’t want to give any money toward upgrades so—”

“I’m glad they didn’t.” Dani knew her words were coming out too fast, but she couldn’t slow down. “That’s the biggest mistake made with these old homes. So many of them are gutted of their original designs. Old windows replaced with new, supposedly more efficient ones.”

“Why is that a mistake?”

“Because these houses aren’t made for the new windows. There is so much cost to fitting the old sills for modern windows, the energy savings are eaten up. It’s better to restore the old ones.”

He flushed and looked away.

“Did you replace any of the windows?”

“Not yet. But it was on my list.”

Dani breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Less mistakes to fix the better. What about the interior? Is everything still the same as the pictures I’ve been shown?”

“Yes ma’am. Majority of the woodwork is all original. Some is in pretty lousy condition, though.”

“That’s okay. As long as you didn’t mess anything up, I can work with it.”

Irritation flashed across his face. “No ma’am, I sure didn’t.” He strode up the sagging porch steps leaving Dani behind. She hadn’t meant to offend him. She just got so excited about restoration, and she’d encountered so much damage by well-meaning amateurs over the years.

Cage pushed opened the solid oak front door. Warped and faded, but solid. He held it open for her. “After you.”

Anticipation derailed her manners and she bounded up the steps. Dani’s pulse thrummed in her chest; her stomach danced. Her eyes threatened to tear again. Taking a deep breath, Dani stepped into Ironwood for the first time.

The musty scent of old wood and the past greeted her. Her vision took a moment to adjust from bright outdoors, but when it did, she found herself staring at Ironwood’s exquisite double staircase. Directly across from the door, the grand structure took center stage.

“What a statement,” Dani whispered.

“It’s pretty awesome, but it’s not in great shape.” Cage gestured to their left. “The great hall and music room are in decent condition. Several years ago, the church had the plaster fixed and repainted. Woodwork’s not too bad. Balcony overlooking the great hall isn’t great, though. Peeling wood, missing railings.” He turned to the right. “Over here is the parlor. Floor’s rough in here, but I got it cleaned out. Kitchen is that way, just beyond that white door. It’s functioning, but everything in there is from the seventies.”

She knelt down to run her hand across the marble floors. Smooth and cool, the once bright blues had faded with age. “These are from France. Early nineteenth century. Hard to find.” A section of the marble was chipped, not from the years and tread of feet, but from some sort of crude tool. “Did you do any work to this floor?”

“Other than clean it, no. Why?”

“Someone tried to lift the tile.” She pointed to the jagged cutting between the tile squares. “Probably a renter or some sleazy explorer looking for a buck. Fortunately the craftsmanship on these is excellent, and whoever tried to steal them had a crappy tool.”

“Huh. Wonder if that’s what happened to the hardware in the kitchen. It’s all missing. So are some of the china door knobs.”

“I’m sure. You wouldn’t believe the self-entitlement of some people who explore abandoned buildings. Complete disregard for the structural integrity. Common thieves.” Looking from left to right, Dani tried to decide where to go first.

“Church keeps the butler’s pantry locked.” Cage continued to tick items off a mental list. “And I was instructed not to go upstairs until the staircase was checked out by an expert. Library needs work. Most of the family’s books were either sold or donated after the last owner’s death. Renters probably took anything left. Then of course, there’s the basement.”

The basement. Dani had forgotten about the skull. “Have you finished digging?”

“Not quite. Jeb–the coroner–left a little bit ago with a few more bones. We plan on extending the excavation site out by two feet to see if we can find any more bones.”

“You still think it’s an old body?”

“I think so, but the medical examiner will have to tell us for sure.”

She faced Cage, looking up into his serious eyes. “I want to see it.”

4

Cage wasn’t sure he liked Dani. She talked too fast. She was frenetic. Jittery. She’d practically accused him of messing up the house he loved; another damned Yankee assuming the Southern hick was stupid.

Still, he would have replaced the windows if he’d been given the money. And that made his insides burn with embarrassment.

But the emotion on her face when she’d stood at the bottom of Ironwood’s steps pierced his heart. She’d looked ready to cry, and he wasn’t sure if they were tears of joy, sadness, or both. As he watched her in the foyer, her gaze darting from one aspect of the house to another with wide eyes, she reminded him of the way his sister had always looked on Christmas. Not at the presents or the food, but on the holiday lights tour when their parents would pile everyone into the car and drive through the antebellum district. That had been Lana’s favorite part of Christmas, and he hadn’t been able to tour the lights since her death.

He’d like to try to do that this year. Keep moving forward like his sister would want him to.

Dani fanned herself with her hand. “How many window air conditioners you have?”

“Just two,” Cage said. “Both downstairs, on opposite sides of the house.”

“Costs a mint to put central air in these places, but I’m going to have to figure out a way to do it.”

“You get used to the heat.”

She raised an eyebrow. It was as light as her hair. “I’d like to see the basement,” she repeated. “It’s got to be cooler down there.”

Cage led the way across the parlor. Dani stopped to inspect the large picture window overlooking the western lawn. “The sill’s not in too bad of shape. Are there any window dressings left in the house?”

“Might be. Like I said, haven’t been upstairs. I’m not sure the stairs are safe, and the church locked up those rooms a long time ago, just like the library and butler’s pantry. Trying to protect the house.”

“Awfully trusting of their renters not to break the locks.”

“Pretty sure everything valuable has either been sold or given to the historical foundation.”

“Maybe.” She looked around the room as if envisioning what it might have looked like more than a century ago. “But most people don’t know the truly valuable parts of these houses. They don’t have the training.”

Cage chewed back the retort and decided Dani probably didn’t realize how condescending her tone was. He’d give her the benefit of the doubt for now. “And what’s your training?”

“Degrees in history and art history. I started working in restoration in college helping a small local group in Indianapolis. Got the taste for it and have been doing it ever since.” Her eyes darkened. She pursed her lips and wrinkled her brow, then gave a quick shake of her head. “Ten years flew by. And now here I am.” She looked away and rubbed her eyes. “So. The basement?”

Why were her eyes watering? Was she allergic to the dust or were those genuine tears? Cage wished he had a handkerchief to offer her. His dad always had a handkerchief. So did granddad. He needed to start carrying one. He cleared his throat. “This way.”

They walked through the kitchen, where Dani paused to examine the cupboards. “Not original, but mid-twentieth century, I’d guess. Sink is definitely from that era. Is Ironwood on city water?”

“Nope. There’s a well, but the city has been trying to get the houses out here on their system forever. So don’t be surprised when they come calling.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

Like always, the basement door stuck due to years of humidity, and Cage had to pull the heavy wood up and then toward him to get it open. He’d left the light on, but the yellow gleam did nothing to dispel the cellar’s creep factor. He turned to Dani.

“Be careful on these steps.”

Dani started coughing. “The smell–that’s more than an old basement. And it can’t be coming from the bones.”

“Seems like the stink’s gotten worse since we started digging.” That bugged the hell out of Cage. Any flesh left on those bones should have been gone a long time ago. But the smell seemed stronger every time he descended the steps. He didn’t mention that to Dani. “Depending on how old the body was, there may be some…leftovers…in the soil.”

“You really think so?” Dani sounded nervous for the first time. “If the bones are clean, would there really be anything left?”

“I wouldn’t think so. It’s probably a dead animal.”

They reached the bottom of the steps. The basement looked much different than it had two days ago. Camping lights surrounded the gravesite, and plastic had been carefully laid out to place the bones on. Junk had been moved across the room to the winter kitchen. “Stay off the plastic,” Cage warned as Dani crossed the room. “Don’t disturb anything.”

“That’s right, you’re a sheriff’s deputy.” She looked back at him with wide eyes. “Is this a crime scene?”

“As of now, no. If the medical examiner says the bones are much more recent than we’re thinking, it might be. But with what we’ve got, it will be really hard to determine foul play.”

“Being buried in a basement isn’t foul play?”

He shrugged. “Ironwood was built in 1835. Old man Laurent owned the land before that, and he had slaves. Maybe someone died. Could have been buried before the house was built.”

“So unless these bones are recent, this person isn’t going to see justice?”

“Justice for what? We don’t know–”

“You told me on the phone the skull had a big piece missing out of it.” She got to her feet. “What if her head was bashed in?”

“We don’t know if the person was male or female. And the skull could have busted from the weight of the earth.”

Dani stared down at the upturned earth. “I bet it was a woman.”

“Maybe.”

Above their heads, the front door opened and shut. “You down there, Cage?”

“That’s Jeb Riley, the coroner.”

“Go ahead.” Dani turned away from the grave. She closed her eyes for a beat and then looked across the room. “I want to check out the winter kitchen.”

“I’ll be right up, Jeb.” Cage handed her his flashlight. “Here. Be careful. We pushed a lot of stuff over there.”

“Thank you.” She moved across the room with the exuberance of a cat, her excitement obvious with every step.

Cage hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, watching her flitter from object to object, muttering to herself. He shook his head and went up to meet Jeb.

The aging coroner sat in a kitchen chair, wiping his face with a worn handkerchief. “The Yankee here? What’s she like?”

“She loves this place. That’s a start. You get the bones shipped off to Jackson?” In addition to the skull, Jeb and Billy had found other bones along with a tooth and some other bone shards they couldn’t identify. Sheriff Robards had ordered the remains to the medical examiner’s office this morning in hopes of jump-starting the investigation.

“This morning,” Jeb answered. “But the deputy medical examiner doesn’t know when she’ll get a chance to look at them. She’s overloaded. In the meantime, we’ll keep digging. See if we can find a full skeleton. Gender can be determined from the skull, but I’d love to have the pelvis to back it up.”

“How much longer you want to keep digging?”

“I want to excavate what we marked off. We’ll see after that. Of course, we’ve got to have the continued permission of the owner.”

Since the dig wasn’t an official crime scene and the medical examiner hadn’t categorized the bones, Adams County needed Dani’s consent for further digging.

“Pretty sure you’ll get it. She wants to know who it was.”

“Me too,” Jeb said. “I don’t like the marks on the skull. I’m no expert, but I get a bad feeling every time I look at them.”

Cage’s response stalled in his throat at the sound of Dani’s quick steps on the rotten stairs. He hurried to the basement door just as she emerged from the doorway looking flushed and edgy. Some of her hair had escaped from the ponytail to curl around her face. She pushed a lock out of the way leaving a smudge of dust behind. “Have you looked at some of the things in the winter kitchen? I saw a tea kettle I might be able to salvage, plus an old ice cream freezer and a beetle.”

“A what?”

“A beetle,” Dani said. “It’s like a pestle. People used it to pound food and tenderize meat. And those were just surface items. I bet there are more.”

“Honestly ma’am, I haven’t spent much time in the basement until this week. The rest of the house needed to be livable for you.”

“I appreciate that.” She fanned herself again. “And we need to get something straight. No more ma’am. I know you’re a good old Southern boy and it’s a habit, but please, call me Dani.”

Jeb coughed, his laughter barely disguised. Good old Southern boy? Is this what all northerners thought of politeness? He supposed their lives were too busy for pleasantries. The few he’d spent any amount of time with were nothing but greedy, lying carpet baggers looking to line their pockets with Roselea heritage. He glanced at Dani. He’d just met her, and lumping her in with that group wasn’t fair.

Dani looked over Cage’s shoulder. “Hello, I’m Dani Evans. You must be Jeb?”

“I am.” The coroner stood to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too, although I’m not liking the circumstances. Do you think we can identify her?”

“Her?”

“For some reason, Dani thinks it’s a woman.” Cage didn’t admit his gut agreed.

“I see,” Jeb said. “I just don’t know. We’ll have to wait to see what the ME says. Erin’s damned good though. She’ll find whatever there is to find.”

“Well, you have my permission to dig up the entire area,” Dani said. “On one condition.”

Jeb waited. So did Cage.

“I want to help.”

5

Energy rushed through Dani with the speed of an Amtrak train as she waited for an answer from the genteel coroner. Her hands tingled, and blazing warmth stretched from her head to her sweating toes. She needed to dig out her sandals. And put in more air conditioning. A small window unit poured air into the kitchen, but it wasn’t enough to combat the high temperature of the rest of the house.

“I don’t think so,” Cage said. “You’re not trained.”

“Neither are you,” she shot back. She looked at Jeb. “I’ve excavated plenty of old basements looking for artifacts. I also did a dig in college looking for bones. Not to mention all the old basements I’ve stumped around in. I can be a lot of help to you.”

Jeb scratched his chin. “Well, I’ve already got Billy. He’s studying biology at Ole Miss and likes to help out on his breaks. But I could use the extra help.” He rubbed his knees. “I’m not as young as I used to be, and Cage has to work the next few days. Would make things move a lot faster.”

“She’s a civilian,” Cage huffed. He crossed his arms over his chest.

Dani stood her ground. “It’s my house.”

“It’s against protocol.”

“So are half the death investigations in the United States. Adams County is small and doesn’t have the resources to do a proper investigation.” She glanced at Jeb. “No offense. These are old bones. It’s not a crime scene. There’s no reason I can’t help.”

“Jeb, you can’t be seriously considering letting her dig.”

“She’s right,” the coroner said. “The county hasn’t made this an official investigation. We’re not talking flesh and blood down there, and we need to get this done. I’ll check with the Sheriff, but he’ll likely give the go ahead as long as I’m okay with it.” He held up his hand at Cage’s protest. “You can help, but you’re not to be working on the site unless myself or Billy is here. Understood?”

“Absolutely.”

Cage threw up his hands, stalked across the small kitchen, and leaned against the countertop. He ground his teeth and glared at her.

Irritation swelled in her stomach, making her skin even hotter. The air in her lungs burned with each breath. “Is there a problem?”

“I just don’t think you need to be down there messing around.”

“Messing around? Excuse me, but this is my house, and I’ve had some experience. I also know my way around an old foundation.”

Cage’s brown eyes flashed. “Yeah, you’re the old house expert, and we’re the lesser beings. We get it. Doesn’t mean you know a damned thing about digging up bones.”

Her heart beat at an alarming rate and pain throbbed in her temple. She tried to ignore them and focus on the tall man glaring down at her. Her equilibrium felt like she’d just staggered off the tilt-a-whirl. “When was the last time you excavated bones? Right, you haven’t. So we’re even.”

Jeb cleared his throat. “I’ve got to pick up Billy. Be back in half an hour.” He slipped between them and out of the kitchen. A few moments later, the front door opened and shut.

Dani and Cage faced off, the tension-filled silence sucking the air out of the room. Her head continued to pound, and the ache in her shoulders spread down her arms. She stuck her chin out against the pain. “Jeb made the decision, so we’re wasting our breath.”

“Unbelievable.”

“What?”

“You just waltz down here and take over. Like I haven’t been sweating buckets working on this house, taking care of her when no one else would. Just come in and tell me how it’s going to be. Typical damned Yankee.”

She stepped forward, finger in the air. Sudden dizziness overwhelmed her, and Cage’s angry face suddenly blurred. Dani blinked and then swallowed hard. She was thirsty as hell.

“Dani?”

Her face landed against something firm and smelling of a mix of sweet musk and summer air. Cage’s chest. Strong, large hands closed around her upper arms, pulling her upright. Cage’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he spoke and his voice rang in her ears, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“So hot.” Her mouth felt swollen and dried to a pulp. She pushed against Cage. “It’s so damned hot here!”

There was a scraping sound, and then she was sitting in a chair. More dizziness. Sourness rumbling in her stomach. She leaned forward, putting her head between her knees and trying not to fall off the chair. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

She heard the sound of rushing water and then cool wetness hit the back of her blazing neck. Fingers on her chin, raising her head up. A glass pressed against her lips and a flash of dark, worried eyes.

“Drink.” Cage spoke in her ear. His voice was nice. A tenor. She wondered if he could sing. “Dani, you need to drink some water.”

She obeyed. The cold liquid tasted like heaven, and she drank greedily. Her heartbeat eased enough for a moment of clarity. “Oh shit. I got too hot. I’m so stupid.”

Cage’s arm came around her. He pulled her to her feet. “You need to lie down.”

“You’re hot.” She pushed against him. “And making me hotter.”

“You can’t walk on your own.”

“I can.” She couldn’t see straight and her legs felt like jelly, but the closeness of Cage’s body smothered her. She tried to step forward, but he held on tightly.

“Would you let me help you? And keep drinking that water. Slowly.”

“I’m fine.” She gave him one last hard shove, escaping his grip, and stepped forward. The small kitchen tilted, whirling around her in a rush of colors. She caught a glimpse of Cage’s face before her legs failed and the vinyl floor hurtled toward her face. Her hands smacked the vinyl, but Cage’s quick reflexes kept her from a full face-plant.

Stunned and head swirling, she twisted into a sitting position, cradling her head in her hands.

“Sit there and relax. Take sips of water.”

This time, she didn’t argue. The vinyl was cool against her legs anyway. She closed her eyes and slowly drank, barely aware of the sound of Cage’s feet moving around her. Embarrassment began to offset the dizziness. Here she was bragging about her capabilities, and she couldn’t even remember to stay hydrated in the heat. She pushed her hair off her face trying not to think about the drowned rat look she had to be sporting.

A blast of warm air rushed over her. She looked up to see a small oscillating fan sitting in the doorway between the parlor and kitchen, its cord stretched tight.

“Best I could do.” Cage gestured to the whining air conditioner over the sink. “This window unit is doing a piss-poor job, especially if you’re not used to Southern heat. We need to get a bigger one.”

“Thank you.” She stared at his legs. He had an ‘L’ tattooed on his calf with the letter’s stem in the shape of a cross.

Dani pointed a shaking finger. “Your girlfriend?”

“What?”

She took another pull of water. “The tattoo. I assume your girlfriend’s name starts with an ‘L.’”

“My sister.”

She finally looked back up at him. He leaned against the doorframe, feet crossed at the ankles, arms over his chest, and his damp, wavy hair pushed off his forehead.

“Feeling better?”

“A bit,” she said. “So, you and sister must be close. Twins?”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and a shadow of something passed in his eyes. “We were. She was murdered four years ago.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry.” Dani wanted to crawl into one of the shabby cabinets and hide. “I had no idea. Did they…is her killer in prison?”

“Caught a couple of months ago.”

“Small blessing, right?”

Cage chewed on the inside of his cheek as he nodded. As she started to cool down, Dani noticed he was flushed, too, and covered with a fine sheen of sweat.

“How do you stand this heat?”

He grinned, the gesture reaching his eyes for the first time. “Born and raised in it, sugar. Part of being a good ole’ Southern boy, you know.”

“Yeah, about that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just…I want to be a part of things. Ironwood means a lot to me.”

“How’s that? You just got here.”

She hedged, unwilling to share too much with a stranger. Then she remembered his sister. Least she could do was reciprocate with a piece of her own story. “My mom and I always wanted to buy a plantation house and restore it. She got sick–diabetes–and didn’t get to live her dream. I promised her I wouldn’t make that same mistake.”

He studied her for a moment and then pushed himself off the doorframe. “All right, then.”

“What was your sister’s name?”

“Lana.”

Dani didn’t need to see his face. Grief colored his tone.

She finished her water, rolled to her knees, and slowly got to her feet. Cage immediately took her elbow, and this time, she didn’t push him away.

“So.” She steadied herself. “Who’s the best A/C man in town?”

To read more of Skeleton’s Key, visit Stacy’s book page.

ASHES and BONE

Delta Crossroads #3

1

JAYMEE

A distant rumbling, like the footsteps of a marching giant, made gooseflesh sprout on Jaymee’s sweaty arms. Shadows crept over her shoulders, and she cast a cursory glance out of the master bedroom’s bay window. A wall of fat, menacing clouds approached from the north. Her stomach knotted. Time to wrap this up.

Skin gritty with dust and hands aching, she’d been battling with the antique chifferobe for the better part of ten minutes.

Jaymee huffed a piece of hair out of her face and glared at the piece of antique furniture occupying the corner of her bedroom. Half chest of drawers, half hanging closet, the chifferobe’s top was blemished from age and whatever objects had sat on it over the last century, and the base was coming apart. Two stale, musty smelling hand-sewn quilts sat on the bottom of the closet side, while the drawers were empty except for the old contact paper lining them. She’d been told it was purchased by her great aunt in 1910 out of the Sears Roebuck catalog. It was next on her list of items to have her friend Dani restore, but the chances of the thing surviving today were slim.

“Damn you, open.” She yanked hard on the door. It had never stuck before, but it had been a humid week, unusual for this time of year. February in the Delta Crossroads of Mississippi was supposed to be nature’s calm before the spring storm. Plants pushed their way through the soil, the trees budded with new life, but the invigorating smell of spring renewal made Jaymee restless.

Tourist season approached, and for some insane reason, Jaymee had decided to put Magnolia House on the Roselea Heritage Tour of Historic Homes. So like the rest of the town, she head-deep in frenzied preparation for the mostly-affectionately coined “Yankee Invasion.”

A gust of wind rushed the window, and the sky’s angry growling increased. Mutt, the dog she’d rescued from the trailer park, appropriately named for his mismatched fur and eyes, shot up from his cushy spot on her bed and began to snarl.

Jaymee’s already frayed nerves hovered on the edge of pissing her pants. In just two weeks, she would open the doors to Magnolia House for the tour, and she felt petrified. The last thing she needed to deal with was a thunderstorm.

The stubborn door jiggled, teasing her, and then promptly snapped shut again.

“Mutt, bring me the hammer.”

He focused on the encroaching clouds, the tuft of thick hair at the back of his neck standing up.

“Why won’t the thing just frigging open?” She braced her feet and gave the knob another pull. The chifferobe rocked forward, and Jaymee teetered on her heels. For a split second, she thought she was going down and the antique coming with her. Then it righted itself and the door popped open, nearly smacking her in the face. The wooden knob remained in her hand.

“Shit.”

The door’s problem was obvious: a cardboard box sat on top of the quilts, wedge against the door hinges. “Where did that come from?”

She could hear her friends now. Cage would say the Magnolia House ghost was toying with her. Like most historical homes, Magnolia had its dark moments. Rumor was one of Jaymee’s ancestors had hung himself in the 1850s after his wife died in childbirth. Naturally, Dani latched onto the story and wanted to research, but Jaymee put her foot down. Living mostly alone in the big house was enough. Creaks and pops and breathy sighs in the wood were an everyday occurrence. She didn’t need confirmation of a nasty death to make her imagination worse.

Besides, she recognized the handwriting scrawled in red marker across the side. “Research.” Her boyfriend must have stuck the box in there and forgotten to tell her about it. Jaymee supposed she should mind her own business, but this was her house and her stuff, and she never was one to not snoop.

She expected to find papers, notes of gibberish only Nick could read. Instead there were several rusty items that looked like they’d recently been dug out of the dirt. Stored safely in plastic zip bags, they looked like buttons and possibly a belt buckle, along with a triangular piece of skinny metal she didn’t recognize. She played with the zipper, debating on looking closer. But opening the bag would likely mean taking pictures, which she’d then send to Dani, who’d call, and then they would end up on the phone for an hour. Jaymee really needed to keep working–her personal D-Day was rapidly approaching.

As if someone had draped a thin blanket over the afternoon sky, the last rays of meager sunlight disappeared. Jaymee put the bag back in the box and hurried to the bay window in the center of the room. The northwest sky glowed with thunder colored, gray and foreboding, clouds piling on top of each other as though they were in a wrestling match.

Fabulous. Another rumble of thunder sent the dog into a fit of barking. Mutt jumped off the bed and joined Jaymee at the window. Paws on the sill, he growled at the threatening storm.

“Settle down,” Jaymee patted his head. “Get your paws off the woodwork. And stay off my bed.”

Mutt gave another low growl, and then promptly returned to the middle of her four-poster. He settled into his spot, head on his paws, and wagged his tail. She swore she could see the challenge in his mismatched eyes.

“I’m going to send you back to the trailer park one day.”

He rolled over on his side, utterly unthreatened.

Her cellphone began to ring with her boyfriend’s rington. She jumped to answer it. “Hey. Speak of the devil.”

“Really?” Nick sounded out of breath. “Were you talking about me?”

“I was thinking of you.”

“Dirty thoughts, I hope.”

“Very dirty.” She dropped her voice low, pictured Nick’s excited face and held back a laugh. “Covered with it, in fact. Inside a plastic bag.”

“What?”

“Did you put a cardboard box of stuff in the chifferobe and forget to tell me?”

“Shit.” His playful tone evaporated. “Yes, I did. They’re Civil War artifacts. I bought them at that online store I told you about. I thought they’d be a good addition to the house for the tour, but I wanted to see if they were authentic first.”

Jaymee’s insides still twisted into knots every time she thought about opening up her inherited home for the first time to tourists. “We can have Dani look at them.”

“No.” Nick’s harsh response surprised Jaymee. “I mean, not yet. I’d like to find out a bit more about them first.”

“Okay,” Jaymee said. “Are you all right? You sound tense.”

He laughed, but it was stunted, bordering on fake. “Just a bit. I’m on my way to Roselea. Should be there in less than an hour, if the storm lets me. It’s followed me from Jackson. Sucker’s pretty bad.”

“It’s been creeping in on us all day.” The knot of nerves between her shoulders eased at the sight of seeing Nick. Holing up together sounded like the perfect way to forget about the Heritage Tour and strangers tromping around in her house. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming this weekend?”

Nick was an investigative reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, and most of their nearly year long relationship had consisted of phone calls and road trips.

“It’s an unplanned trip.”

A crack of thunder came through the speaker. “Jesus. Maybe you should pull over.”

“I may have to if the wind keeps up. But there’s no rain, so I can see. And yeah, things are okay. I just need to come down there.”

She knew the tone. Her brief giddiness bottomed out. “You’re working on a story.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because if you were coming to see me, you would have said that.”

“I’m coming to see you, too. I’ve just got to work on something while I’m there.”

She didn’t believe him. “As an afterthought.”

“That’s not true. You’re always on my mind.”

A familiar irritation prodded her. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument. When Nick caught a good story as a reporter for the Jackson Clarion Ledger, he latched on with the ferocity of a starving dog. Jaymee could tell he was sinking his teeth in again.

“How much will I actually see you?”

“Nearly the whole time.” His words sounded clipped. “Are we going to do this now, while I’m driving in a storm?”

Except he’d just said it wasn’t raining. She stowed that thought and went for a nastier remark. “I’m tired of being the weekend girlfriend. And now you’re bringing work, too.”

“This is different, Jaymee.”

Right. It wasn’t the story Nick loved–it was the adrenaline rush of the chase, and it had cost him his first marriage. An addiction Jaymee wasn’t sure he’d ever kick. And every time he started a new story, every time he had to reschedule a visit, Jaymee wondered if he even wanted to kick it.

Another round of thunder echoed over the line. He was right. Now wasn’t the time for this conversation.

“Fine. We’ll talk about everything when you get here. What are you working on?” She tried to keep her tone light, but she knew the edge was there. She braced herself for Nick’s retort.

“I can’t really talk about it over the phone, but I really want to discuss it with you.” He spoke with an urgency that dispelled her frustration. “I need your advice before I go any further with it.”

The fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled against a layer of dried sweat. “That doesn’t sound good. Does it have to do with anyone I know?”

“Not over the phone, honey. Shit.”

Worry pulsed through her. “What?”

“The lightning is bad, and the wind is really kicking up. I’m all over the road. I should go.”

“All right.” What the hell was he thinking, running down here with the storm coming? Was the story that big? “Be careful, please. Pull off if you need to.”

“I will.” Another crack of thunder from Nick’s phone. “Listen, I love you.”

The phone clicked off.

Bitter tasting panic welled in her throat. She swallowed it down. Nick would be fine.

Mother Nature’s biological clock must be screwed up, Jaymee thought as she dug out her weather radio from beneath the bed. It was too early in the season for storms. But this one sounded really bad, and from the increasing rumble and the nasty-looking sky, Roselea was in for it.

She turned on the radio, hoping the batteries were still good, and braced herself for the disembodied voice.

“A derecho struck Jackson at 12:09 p.m. and caused major damage to the city. The storm is producing winds up to ninety miles an hour along with severe thunderstorms. The storm is headed southwest and was spotted in Port Gibson ten minutes ago. Residents in Fayette, Roselea, and Natchez are advised to take cover in a basement or shelter. To repeat…”

Jaymee’s stomach turned upside down. Derechoes were the big-daddy’s of storms, with straightline winds and storms mixing together to make a great, long snake. The last one to hit Mississippi in 1998 caused millions of dollars of damage in Roselea and Natchez.

She needed to call Dani. Her friend was most likely stuck alone at Ironwood while Cage worked. Jaymee should have been paying more attention to the sky instead of fighting with the stupid chifferobe. She would have had enough time to get to Ironwood so she and Dani and Mutt could ride out the storm together.

God, she wished Nick were here.

Thunder rolled again, louder this time. She snatched the radio. “Mutt, let’s get downstairs.”

Her feet pounded on the hardwood, matching her racing heart, as she hurried down the steps. The once barren walls along the winding spiral were now decorated with a mix of old family pictures Jaymee had discovered and newer pictures, happy moments in her repaired life.

Her favorite had been taken just two months ago, she and Nick snuggled together underneath Magnolia’s porch, the sunlight illuminating the picture so their faces had a shimmery, angelic quality. Nick had asked her, more than once, to move to Jackson. And some days she considered it. But even though most of the memories before last year were as unpleasant as shit stains, her pride clung to Roselea. She finally had something good in this town, and she’d already made enough heartbreaking sacrifices in her life. Why should she have to walk away from what made her happy?

She needed to shake off the pity party. Right now she should be worrying about Nick making it her in one piece.

He would. He had to. He’d be here in less than an hour.

She closed her eyes, thinking of his sandy hair, with the fine, early grays spreading through it. She pictured the lustful look that always ignited in his eyes when she ran out of the house to meet him. Every time, she’d throw herself into his arms and breathe him in. For a while, the issues faded away, replaced by physical bliss. Hours of it, usually. That’s exactly what would happen today. The storm would pass.

Mutt followed her paced the rooms, whining and nervous. He stopped every so often to check the windows. Jaymee dialed Dani’s number, knowing she had to be petrified. She answered immediately. “I’m in your driveway!”

Christ. Jaymee hurried to the door with Mutt at her heels. She flung open the door in time to see Dani racing from her truck towards the house.

“Have you heard what’s coming?” Dani’s eyes stared wide, pupils dilated. Her fair skin flushed more than normal, spotted with red. Mutt bolted past her to the mansion’s wide porch, his scraggily tail sticking straight out from his ass. He barked frantically at the northwest horizon.

“Yes, I had the radio on. I can’t believe you drove into town.”

“I couldn’t stay at the house alone.” Dani’s hands shook so that her keys jingled in a cadence that matched her rapid speech. “This sucker took out an oil rig in the Gulf this morning and did serious damage to Jackson. It’s headed right for us.”

“Nick’s on his way here, racing the storm.”

Beneath the panic spots, Dani’s porcelain skin paled. Jaymee secretly envied her fair complexion and strawberry blond hair, its brightness a perfect match for Dani’s sometimes larger-than-life personality.

“The weatherman thinks it’s losing some steam, but it’s still capable of major damage.” Dani’s trembling words came almost as fast as the speed of sound. Jaymee was mostly used to her northern accent, but Dani was still hard to understand when she got excited. “And Jaymee, when I pulled up, the National Weather Service reported a small tornado was off Highway 84 near Fayette.”

2

Thunder boomed louder know, its force rattling the pictures on the walls. And then the wind attacked, a steady whoosh in the trees. She and Dani stood at the northwest window, watching as the live oaks’ moss covered limbs gracefully stretched, as though the old tree were greeting its dancing partner. The dance turned sinister. The whoosh flashed into a guttural groan, and the oak’s limbs flexed into a nearly impossible twist. A second later the smallest limb ripped off and careened out of sight.

Mutt’s rapid fire barking brought Jaymee and Dani out onto the porch. The sight left Jaymee breathless and absolutely terrified. The distant wall of clouds she’d noticed less than half an hour ago were closing fast. Instead of normal thundercloud, the derecho consisted of three shelf-like layers, an ugly mixture of dark green and gray, each layer darker than the next. The bottom shelf was colored sooty black, like a pair of shoes dragged through a fireplace. Behind the clouds were strikes of lightening, angry and fast. The wall stretched across the entire northern horizon, and as the women stood paralyzed, the wind doubled its velocity.

“Shit,” Jaymee held tight to the railing to brace against the wind, the weather radio tucked underneath her arm. The air smelled of dust and earth. “Nick said it wasn’t raining. He still had visibility.” The storm seemed to swell, mocking her.

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Dani spoke loudly over nature’s anger. “I was going to go home, but I’m too chicken shit. It was all I could do to drive here.”

“Ironwood is northeast of town.” Jaymee tried to focus on comforting her friend. She hated storms. Always had. And living in the trailer park had only intensified that fear. The clouds closed in, wrapping around the heart of town, contorted and menacing. “This looks like it’s moving southwest. Maybe it’s not big enough to do much to the plantations. Where’s Cage?”

“Working. He was headed into the station. And I can’t protect the house from a storm.” Dani added the last sentence in a small voice, as though reassuring herself she wasn’t doing Ironwood an injustice.

Jaymee switched the radio back on, trying to swallow her building panic.

“The National Weather Service has issued a warning for the cities of Roselea and Natchez. The windstorm is producing gusts up to ninety-miles an hour. All Adam’s County residents need to take cover immediately.”

“Oh God,” Dani’s voice rose to a shrill scream. “That thing is going to swallow everything it its’ path.”

A weather siren started screeching, followed by a car alarm. Panic fanned its way through Jaymee. Nick drove an economy-sized car. Good for gas mileage, he always said. Especially on his sojourns to visit her.

A vision of his helpless, little car being sucked in to the eye of the approaching monster flashed in her head. Jaymee bit the inside of her mouth. The pain gave her focus. “I’ve got to call Nick. Mutt, come on.”

The dog obeyed her harsh voice, and they hurried into the house just as another blast of wind rushed by.

“He’s not answering.” She felt frozen, watching Dani rifle through her kitchen for flashlights. All at once, as though God himself had flipped a switch, the remaining murky daylight evaporated, draping the house in gloomy gray. Mutt’s barking turned frantic, and he raced to the tall windows on the side of the house. Jaymee and Dani followed. Black, and swelled with power, the storm enveloped Roselea as if the town were no more than a speck that needed to be flicked away. Jaymee hurriedly turned on the light.

“I don’t see any funnels,” Dani said.

“Derechos make downbursts,” Jaymee said. “Straightline winds. They can be just as bad. Jesus Christ, Nick’s out there.” She moved toward the door, but her steps stalled. What could she do? She couldn’t fight the weather. She couldn’t protect Nick any more than Dani could protect Ironwood.

Another loud crack, this time sounding as though the giant had slammed the house with its mammoth hammer. The live oak’s largest waving branch snapped and flew down the drive, skidding to a stop against the base of the magnolia tree. The noise of the wind pitched to an animalistic growl, eager to devour its prey.

“We’ve got to get to the basement.” Dani’s fingernails dug into Jaymee’s flesh as she pulled her away from the glass. With winds this high, the house’s windows became murder weapons. Feet weighed down with concrete blocks of fear, Jaymee followed Dani into the kitchen.

“Flashlight in the bottom drawer. Candles and matches, too.” A hollow pit grew in her stomach. She’d been hateful to Nick over the phone. Hadn’t been able to tell him she loved him.

He knew, though. Just as he knew she was unhappy with him, he knew she loved him enough to put up with it. Right?

Dani’s phone rang. She put it on speaker. “Cage, I’m at Magnolia. We’re heading to the basement. Where are you?”

“At the station, hunkering down. You guys all right?”

“Nick’s out there,” Jaymee said. “He’s heading in from Jackson. I talked to him forty minutes ago, and the storm was bad then.”

A beat of silence, and then a close, angry smack of thunder followed by more wind, the giant’s roar of hot breath and wheezing lungs, determined to blow the house down.

“You can’t help him now,” Cage said. “Get downstairs, and stay off the phone. Dad always said lightning could come in on those things. I don’t know about cells, but don’t take the risk.”

Dani ended the call just as another hard burst of wind howled and beat at the house. Glass shattered upstairs. The kitchen light vanished, along with the digital displays of the microwave and the stove.

“Mutt!” Jaymee screamed. “Come on!”

He rushed between them, already on the way to the basement door.

“Turn on the flashlight.” Jaymee grabbed Dani’s hand, threw open the basement door, and they followed Mutt.

The basement was more of a cellar, original to the house and still full of things Jaymee didn’t want to deal with. Her life had changed forever in this basement, and while she’d come to terms with most of it, the musty, earthen odor made her feel as though she were back in that terrible time.

Grabbing Mutt’s collar, she led them underneath the steps. The women dropped to their knees, and Mutt snuggled in front of them. Still clutching Dani’s clammy hand, she wrapped her free arm around Mutt and buried her face in his fur.

“He’ll be okay,” she whispered. “He has to.”

Groans and bangs and more glass breaking, accompanied by the steam engine howl of the wind, surrounded them. Jaymee had faced death before, but she’d been able to reason with her attacker, give herself a fighting chance. Now, she and everyone she loved were at the mercy of Mother Nature. She’d never felt more terrified.

Shaking beside her, Dani squeezed her hand. “He will be. As soon as this eases, we’ll find him.”

Jaymee angled the light at her friend. “Cage will be pissed at us for taking off.”

Dani shrugged. “He’ll also be swamped with emergencies. And he’ll be so glad we’re okay he’ll get over it fast.” She held out her glowing phone. “Let’s see how long this thing takes to pass.”

Another gust of wind that rattled the house to its foundation. Mutt whimpered and pressed himself against Jaymee.

“Of course,” Dani laughed weakly, “that’s if we have a vehicle left after this.”

Six minutes later, the sound of the wind and thunder had faded into the distance, ebbing away as the storm moved south. Jaymee peeked around the stairs and saw weak light streaming from beneath the door.

“Be careful,” Dani said. “I’m texting Cage to let him know we’re all right. Watch out for glass.”

Jaymee slowly opened the door. Battered-looking daylight streamed in the kitchen window. Cautiously, the two women crept through the lower level. In the living room, a broken window, an overturned chair, the fabric torn. Outside, the oak had lost another limb and the rosebushes stripped of their leaves. Dialing Nick’s number again, Jaymee hurried upstairs, terrified of what she’d find.

She saw the window in the master bedroom was shattered, the shards all over the floor. Any other time, Jaymee would mourn the loss of the original window. The four-poster bed was pushed against the bureau, both antiques. Most of the items Jaymee had on top of the dresser lay on the floor, some in pieces. She barely registered the damage. Nick still wasn’t answering his phone.

“I can fix that,” Dani said, pointing to the gouge on the bureau and the marks the bed had left on the floor. She glanced at Jaymee. “Cage texted back. They’re okay at the station, but already getting calls. He said to keep trying Nick.”

The other bedroom on that side of the house, the one she’d readied for guests, was in a similar condition as the master. Jaymee barely heard Dani’s promises that she could salvage everything.

Jayme kept hitting redial. Every unanswered ring pulsed in her head.

“Nick’s phone is going to voicemail,” Jaymee said. “It’s not even ringing any more.”

“Let’s go. If my truck’s not in a tree, I’ll drive.”

They hurried outside with Mutt slinking along at their heels. Dani’s small Chevy pickup looked undamaged, except for the oak branch now lying in the bed. Jaymee noticed limbs down all over the yard and the planters on the porch scattered, but she didn’t even care at this point. All she could think of was Nick.

Mutt clambered into the backseat, and Dani headed down Magnolia’s drive, the truck easily rolling over the downed limbs. Jaymee gazed up at the house’s roof and took a moment to thank God it was still intact.

Neither woman spoke as Dani drove through town. The storm hadn’t produced rain, making the air thick with dust and dirt and smelling of ripe earth, but damage was evident. Homeowners were already outside, checking on neighbors and picking up the pieces. Jaymee stared out the window, crushing panic working its way through her weary body. She couldn’t muster the emotion to feel sorry for any of the destruction she saw. All she could think about was Nick. She kept calling, his voicemail kept answering. That damned message was forever ingrained in her head.

Tears stung Jaymee’s eyes at the sight of Annebelle’s Bed and Breakfast. Nick had stayed in the restored Victorian when he and Jaymee fell in love, and now the house’s majestic tower was demolished, its remains scattered around the yard, the original pieces lost forever.

Please let him be all right.

She scrubbed at the dripping tears. Other houses had roof damage, electrical wires were down, one light pole snapped cleanly in half.

How could a tiny car survive that sort of power?

Hands numb and shaking, Jaymee dialed Nick’s number again.

He still didn’t answer.

Usually Highway 84, the main route from Roselea to Jackson, teemed with traffic. But today, it was eerily quiet, with only the occasional passing car. No one wanted to drive south toward the storm.

Ahead, a car sat motionless. Recognition and then terror struck Jaymee’s brain and worked its way out of her mouth in a scream.

Nick’s car sat on the southbound side of the road, skid marks showing its progression across the pavement. A massive dent in its center, the driver’s side door hung open a couple of inches at an odd angle, like something had tried to rip it away.

Jaymee fell out of the truck before Dani fully stopped. Now that the roar of the storm had passed, the stillness of the air pierced her eardrums. No birds chirped in the nearby patch of woods. Even the normally relentless mockingbirds were silent. The slap of her shoes on the smooth, faded pavement and her own panting breaths were the only sounds Jaymee heard. Darting across the road took only seconds, but it seemed longer, enough for the worst to take root in her mind and blossom into a nightmare.

She skidded to a halt at the twisted driver’s door. Catching her breath, she looked twice. Then around to the other side of the car, on the shoulder near the trees. Acid bubbling her stomach, she dropped to her knees and checked beneath the vehicle.

“He’s not here.”

“What?” Panting, Dani reached her side, phone pressed against her ear. “Cage is sending an ambulance.” She looked into the car, and then at Jaymee. “Where is he?”

Jaymee peered into the backseat. She saw Nick’s suitcase.

“He’s not in the car, Cage,” Dani said. “No, there’s no blood that I can see. The air bag deployed. His suitcase is here, though, and I can see the keys still in the ignition.”

Jaymee reached for the twisted door, but Dani caught her arm. “Cage said not to touch anything. He’s on his way.”

3

Jaymee shook her head. Nothing made sense. The airbag hung limply; Nick had to be in some amount of pain if not injured. If he’d walked away, he’d have likely gone into town, which meant they would have seen him on the highway. Maybe he’d been picked up by a good samaritan.

She called the hospital, hoping to hear Nick had been admitted and his cellphone gone missing. They wouldn’t give her any information.

“Where is he?” She paced around the car, repeatedly calling Nick. “His phone is still going straight to voicemail.”

A sick worry snaked its way through her. The wind had been strong enough to break tree limbs and snap a light pole in half. What if it had simply carried Nick away?

“But shouldn’t there be some sort of blood?” Jaymee spoke to the car, as if it might answer.

Dani stood at the edge of the road staring into the barren rice field. “I don’t see any signs of footprints this way,” she said. “But you can tell the wind came through here–see the path?”

Cutting through the field was a broad trail, as if someone had come through with a massively-wide rake. The path headed towards town. Jaymee walked to the other side of the road, lined with trees and leading into a large, swampy area. “I don’t see anything here, either. But the grass is lying down. And I’m not a tracker.”

“Maybe he got a ride,” Dani said. “Got out of the car relatively uninjured, and someone picked him up.”

“Then why hasn’t he called? And why wouldn’t he take his stuff?” Jaymee finally spit out the words. “What if the wind carried him away?”

“Let’s be rational,” Dani said. “The wind didn’t use the door handle. He did.”

“But he wrecked,” Jaymee said. “The air bag deploys, he’s stunned. Maybe his ribs are hurt. He opens the car, thinking to get help or even take shelter in the ditch. And then the wind…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Her throat burned.

Dani stared into the field. Her hands tangled in her light hair, pulling it away from her face as she turned in a circle. Her slow speech bugged Jaymee. It meant her friend was just as uncertain as she was, and that wasn’t Dani. She made snap decisions and stuck to them. Right now she was obviously thrown off kilter, and her confusion only made Jaymee feel more helpless.

“God, I just don’t know,” Dani said. “I can’t even tell which direction it could have taken him.”

“It doesn’t matter if it did.” An unbearable hollowness–a gaping void Jaymee would never be able to fill–replaced her panic. “He’s dead.”

“Nick’s a smart guy. If he were in the eye of the storm, no matter how stunned he was, I don’t think he would have gotten out of that car. I mean, either way, he’s in trouble. But getting out in that wind would be really stupid when there’s no other shelter around. He got out after the storm.”

“Then where is he?” Jaymee’s shrill voice hurt her own ears. “And where the hell is Cage?”

Flashing cherry lights answered that question. Cage pulled up in an Adams County Cruiser, with Captain Gina Barnes riding shotgun. A detective now, he’d cut his shaggy hair and was clean shaven. Any other day, Jaymee would call him Keystone and watch him steam. Dani rushed toward him, throwing her arms around his tall frame. He kissed the top of her head. A tremor of pain rippled through Jaymee. Where was Nick?

Gina approached her, grim faced. Short and strong with an imposing presence and downplayed features, she always struck Jaymee as the type of woman who never smiled unless she was around friends. “You didn’t touch anything, did you?”

“No. But his stuff is there. He wouldn’t go off and leave it, and he wouldn’t ignore my calls. I think he wrecked, tried to get out, and the wind…”

Gina walked along the road following the skid marks. “It’s possible. We’ll try to get a group of volunteers to search, but the storm went through fast, eighty mile an hour winds. He could be a long way from here now.” She spoke with the professional detachment that Jaymee hated about the police.

She tried to respond, but her mouth refused to work. Jaymee held up her hands, shook her head. Dani stood next to her, slipping an arm around her shoulders.

“I need you two to move aside while we look at the vehicle.” Cage stepped past them to examine the door. Kneeling, he ran a hand along the hinges, and then the casing, before trying to pull it open enough to get a better look inside.

“What do you think?” Gina crossed her arms with an expectant look on her face. She’d already come to her own conclusion, Jaymee realized, and wanted to see if Cage agreed.

“I don’t think he got out during the storm,” Cage said. “Look at the way the hinges are. If he’d opened it in that wind, the door would have been caught up immediately,” Cage swept his long arm back for emphasis. “At the very least, it would have bent the frame significantly, if not ripped the door clean off.”

“What are you saying?” A spark of hope flickered in Jaymee’s head.

“I think the damage from the door is because of the wreck. Somebody hit the driver’s door, dented it in, and then Nick struggled to get it open.”

Cage studied the skid marks for a moment, and then went back to the door, nose nearly against the dent. “There’s paint marks here, Gina.”

“I figured.” She pointed to the black streaks across the pavement. “We’ll have to get a specialist out her to tell us for sure, but I’m think there are two sets of marks here. One car may have been going significantly faster than the other, and the other vehicle was going the opposite direction.”

“Could be the storm blew someone into him,” Cage said. “Slams the door, cars slide and comes to a stop. Door’s damaged, stuck.” He toed the gravel on the shoulder. “And with the force of the wind, trace evidence might be gone.”

He snapped on a pair of latex gloves. The sterile sound echoed across the empty fields and made gooseflesh break out on Jaymee’s arms. Cage took hold of the side of the door, wedging his hands in the gap between it and the car, and pulled. The metal groaned and squealed, but the door opened easily.

“Look there,” Gina said.

A footprint on the inside of the door. “He kicked it open.” The flame of hope snuffed out. “Which means he did go out–”

“No,” Cage said. “If he’d kicked this door open during the storm, the wind would have pulled it back, like I said. I think he sat here until the storm was over and then got out. And whoever hit him obviously had to back up. Assuming they waited and didn’t just run.”

“Then where is he?” Jaymee had about a sliver of control left. Her legs felt as if they were being pulled down into an inescapable well of grief that would consume her. “He wasn’t walking on the side of the road. He’s not answering his phone. If he weren’t hurt, he would let me know he was all right.”

“What did he say when he called earlier?” Gina asked.

Thinking about the conversation stung. “That he was working on a story. He wasn’t supposed to visit this weekend, but he needed to talk to me about it, he said. In person.”

“Did he give you any idea what it was about?” Gina asked.

“No.”

Jaymee struggled to watch over Cage’s shoulder as the Captain went around to the passenger side. She opened the door and peered inside. “I’d like to know where our other party is. I sent a deputy to the Roselea hospital and called in favor with the Fayette police. No one reported a wreck in this area. What do you see, Investigator Foster?”

“Spilt coffee,” Cage said. “Still wet. No sign of blood, but…”

“Go on.”

“See the airbag?” He carefully lifted it. “It looks almost like it’s been wiped off. And here,” he pointed to the center console. “Same thing.” He put his nose to the material. “Smells like some kind of wipe.”

“Who cleans up their mess after they wreck?” Dani asked.

Another scenario brewed in Jaymee’s head. But the idea made little sense. Still, her brain latched onto the seed of thought and began to cultivate it.

“Jay, you said he was coming down here about a story?” Cage asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Did you take his laptop bag out of the car?”

“No. I didn’t touch anything.”

“It’s not here,” Gina said. “Suitcase is, but not the laptop bag.”

“Well, that is what Nick would take with him.” Bitterness laced Jaymee’s tone and she burned with shame.

“But his cellphone is missing, too,” Cage said. “So if he took his laptop and cell, then why haven’t you heard from him?”

The seed sprouted into full bloom, malignant and unyielding. “What are you getting at?

Cage pulled the keys out of the ignition. He knelt at the tire tracks, silent and shoulders rigid. “We really need a tire expert, but good luck with that. Closest one is in Jackson, and they were hit hard earlier. But,” he ran a gloved finger along one of the marks, “see this one in the northbound lane? Nick was headed south, into town. I’ve worked a few accidents, and usually, when someone swerves, the marks are jagged. Fast. These have a weird curve that make me wonder. Could have been the wind’s force but they almost look …” he glanced up at Gina, and they exchanged a look that made Jaymee’s blood turn to ice.

“Intentional.” Gina stood at the trunk. “Give me the keys, Cage.”

Jaymee stumbled backward against Dani.

“I’m sure he’s not in there.” Dani’s words were shaky. “They’re just looking for the laptop.”

Slowly, the trunk rose. Jaymee swayed, never taking her eyes off Cage’s face. After more than a decade of friendship, reading him came easily. Impassive at first, and then a flash of relief.

“It’s empty.”

“Thank God,” Jaymee breathed.

“Meaning the laptop bag isn’t in here, either,” Gina said.

Cage walked along the edge of the field, staring into the dirt just as Jaymee had. She knew what he was thinking. “Why wouldn’t he call if he were on foot?”

“Maybe his phone died,” Dani said.

“It was ringing for a while,” Jaymee said. “That means it was on. And suddenly, it’s straight to voicemail.”

“Which means,” Gina said, “either the battery died or he shut it off.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Jaymee said. “Not when he knew the storm was heading for me.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Cage agreed. His eyes focused intently on Jaymee. They held a look she hadn’t seen since his sister died. “He wouldn’t go off and leave the keys in the ignition. And there were two people involved in this wreck. I’m thinking if the other party was a decent human being, we’d have heard from Nick by now.”

Gina and Cage continued to examine the car, their conversation now in hushed whispers. She felt wobbly and knock-kneed. Swaying, she grabbed Dani’s arm for support.

“Let’s sit down in the truck,” Dani said.

“No. I want to know what they find.”

She just knew something bad had happened to Nick, and the storm had nothing to do with it.

“You two need to leave the scene.” Cage appeared in full cop mode now. His handsome face passive, voice full of authority. Only his eyes betrayed his concern. “We’re having our crime scene people come out and process.”

Jaymee stared, knowing Cage had delivered the news matter-of-factly because he knew her, knew she wasn’t some lily who would crumple.

“What do you think’s happened?” Dani asked.

“We don’t think he left willingly. We’ll do another check of the hospitals–it’s possible they went north, away from the storm, but the fact that Nick hasn’t called is what bothers me. We’ll get some volunteers to search the neighboring fields if we can. Might be tough since everyone’s cleaning up after the storm.” He looked at Dani. “You ought to check Ironwood.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said. “He might have headed there on foot after the storm passed.”

Jaymee knew Ironwood was less than a mile away, with Oak Lynn just down the road. Ashland and Riverview were close as well. “If he’d gone to Ironwood, he would have called.”

“Won’t hurt to check,” Cage said. “And you two need to go on. Search around town all you want, but you can’t be here right now. I’m sorry.”

Feeling as if she’d been hit with a stun gun, Jaymee allowed herself to be led back to the truck where Mutt anxiously waited. She snapped on her seatbelt as Dani got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. From the back seat, Mutt rested his head on her shoulder, gently licking her face.

“We’ll go to Ironwood, see if Nick’s there.” Dani’s attempt at positivity fell flat. “And then we’ll hit town.”

“We won’t find him,” Jaymee said. “Someone’s taken him.”

“If that’s the case, Cage and Gina will figure it out. They’ll find him.”

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ALL GOOD DEEDS

Lucy Kendall #1

1

I’m not a killer. Or a savior. I’m just one person trying to repair the broken scales of justice one jagged crack at a time.

The crack I planned to eliminate tonight sat ten feet away eating nachos. His short, pink tongue darted out to slurp the gooey cheese off the chip before shoving the tortilla into his mouth. He smacked his lips when he ate. Licked his fingers and started over again, like a pig fighting for its mama’s teat. This coward wouldn’t be the dominant piglet. He’s the sort who would be shoved to the end of the hierarchy. The only way for him to feel powerful is to prey on the weak.

I flagged down my favorite waitress. Another drink was essential to the evening’s success. She grinned and started navigating her way between crowded tables.

Famous for its microbrews and restored tin ceiling with golden tiles that cast a warm glow over the entire restaurant, Chetter’s Bar and Grill was a hallmark of the historic Old Kensington area of Philadelphia. If I were in my twenties and still naïve, I’d probably love the place. But it’s too noisy, too full of people who can’t see what’s right in front of them.

A few tables to my left, a pair of middle-aged women tried to corral two hyper boys who were old enough to know that shaking salt on the wood floors was unacceptable. In between telling the boys to quit, the two women competed for shittiest day and sucked down strawberry margaritas. The bigger of the two boys had a red bouncy ball, one of those cheap things bought in any gas station. He took great delight in how the ball sprang back up from the hard floor. I waited for him to toss it at Chetter’s prized ceiling. Instead, he miscalculated his bounce and slammed the ball off his foot. It rolled three booths down and into the foot of the man positioned in the corner.

Nursing his beer, the man picked up the ball and examined it as if it were a rare gem.

One of the women–I could only assume it was the kid’s mother–snapped at the boy and ordered him to fetch the ball. Chin against his chest, he trod down the aisle and muttered something before sticking out a chubby hand.

The man, who looked like any other Joe Schmo off the street, smiled obligingly and gave the ball back. The middle-aged woman waved appreciatively and fluffed her hair. Brat boy shuffled back to his own table. Supposedly kids are more attuned to the things adults don’t want to see. Did the boy sense the evil he’d just encountered? Perhaps not, since the child was the wrong gender. He and his margarita-loving mother would go on about their lives, peacefully oblivious to what might have been.

The waitress finally reached my table. She wore stone washed denim shorts with carefully constructed rips in them–the kind I wore in my youth because we were too poor to buy new ones. She had the Betty Page vibe right down to her jet-black hair and the pin curl in her bangs. The men loved her too. Their eyes glazed over whenever she walked by, and I didn’t blame them. She never messed up a drink order, and her tables constantly smiled, even if the women who watched her strut away did so with wistful jealousy in their eyes. I liked her because she didn’t ask me how I was doing every four minutes. “What can I get you?”

“Martini, dry, please.”

“Your fingers cold?” She squinted at my hands.

“Circulation problems.” I flexed my fingers. Beneath the wool, the latex clung to my sweating hand. “Plus I’m a bit of a germaphobe. Gloves solve both issues.” Not to mention they were an essential part of my toolkit.

Tipping the glass made the liquid swirl beneath the bar lights. It sparkled. Dry. Two olives. Boisterous laughter came from several tables down. Twenty-somethings on a date, chowing down on potato skins chased with one of Chetter’s microbrews. I envied their youthful ignorance as much as I detested them for it. I wondered what they would do if they knew a monster was sitting just a few red booths down from them.

If they were like most people, the young couple wouldn’t believe it. Neither would the middle-aged women with the rowdy boys. A mistake, they would say. Wrong identity. Because surely that sort of person wouldn’t slither among them without their taking notice.

Living in the dark is a lot easier than facing the truth.

My gaze strayed back to the man in the corner–the man I’d come here for. Steve Simon sat alone. Facing the crowd, he casually tipped back his beer. Like me, his clothes were understated. He probably chose them as carefully as I did. For all I knew, he justified his behaviors. Perhaps he felt he was born this way, or that he was entitled. But I doubted he spent hours agonizing over his choices. That’s not how his mind was geared. There is no cure for the sickness he harbors.

A group of laughing young women strode into Chetter’s, and for a moment, I was painfully aware I was becoming invisible. At thirty-three, I’m nowhere near old, but the sight of them reminded me how quickly time races forward. Tan and toned, every one of them still had the glorious firmness of their early twenties instead of the creeping softness of the thirties. The women commanded the attention of all the straight men in the bar. Except for Steve. He never noticed the hot women.

Why would he? He has a fetish for adolescent females. The younger the better. Anything over the age of fourteen is too old for his particular kind of sick.

His file was burned into my brain. Molested his kid sister when he was fifteen, released at eighteen. A bid for possessing child pornography a year later, and then our well-oiled system sent him back to the streets. That’s when he got smart and started trolling online with the other cyber creeps. The Internet is the biggest double-edged sword in our technological history, but it’s not going anywhere. The sickos get sicker and more numerous. The Internet gives them a hidden playground, and privacy laws actually protect them.

Behind the group of beautiful women and waiting to be seated were a mother and her pre-teen daughter. Her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and clutching her daughter’s hand, the women had the slightly frazzled look I associated with motherhood. Working mom or stay-at-home-mom, the results were the same: never enough time in the day accompanied by random bouts of sheer exhaustion.

The little girl was probably around ten, all legs and impatience. Shifting from foot to foot, her gaze never strayed from the pink phone clutched in her hand. She’d already taken off her coat and given it to her mom. The girl’s almost too tight shirt revealed budding breasts and the smallest curve of the hips.

My Betty Page server greeted the mother and daughter and began to escort them to their table. The nerves I’d managed to contain for the past twenty minutes rippled through me. The bottle hidden deep in my bag felt as heavy as a brick. They were going to walk right by Steve.

I knew his trick. I’d seen him do it repeatedly over the past two weeks.

Just as the mother and daughter passed, Steve started to cough. He quickly shoved his head into his right elbow, discreetly twisting so that he could watch the girl pass by. He didn’t blink, didn’t move. Just watched until the girl sat down. Then Slimy Steve returned to his beer.

The first time I saw him do it, I almost attacked him.

But all good things come to those who wait. My computer specialist–who is the main reason my turn as a private investigator paid the bills–spent the last few weeks trolling online to make sure Steve was still molesting girls. That’s my number one rule. I won’t touch them unless they’re active. That probably made me a hypocrite since I believed sex offenders couldn’t be cured, but I figured I should have some sort of code in this operation. My girl found him in an online chat room recently soliciting a meeting with a twelve-year-old. Normally I took more time to act, but Steve’s living with a girlfriend who’s got a ten-year-old daughter, so he was escalated to Enemy Number One. His sentence came when I had a former colleague check the system at Child Protective Services and found out someone at the daughter’s school had reported her sudden behavioral change. The revolting drawings from art class depicting an older man and young girl in positions they should never be in is what did the trick. While my CPS friend started her investigation, I began my own.

Family members of a pedophile pray for change. The truth is, it won’t happen. The experts argue whether it’s brought on by nature or nurture. I really don’t care what they think. I know what I’ve seen in a decade of working at Child Protective Services, and as far as I was concerned, the only thing that mattered is this indisputable fact: pedophiles can’t be cured.

So I’ve come for Steve.

Steve finished his drink. I needed to get ready. I liked a good routine, so I quickly ran through my mental checklist. Fifteen years ago when I was a nervous yet hopeful college freshman, I attended a seminar about success. The professor resembled the Gandalf of my imagination, and much of what he said was lost on me because I’d been busy dreaming about my freshman formal and of hopefully losing my virginity. But three sentences caught my attention.

“See yourself creating goals. Think of what you need to do to achieve those goals. And then, imagine the reward of hitting those goals.”

I still lived by those words.

Time ticked by. I needed to act now, or I’d have to wait another night, and I was ready to be done with this filthy business. Every night like this drained a part of my spirit, and the recovery time got longer. But I believed in my decision. At this point in my life, nights like these were the only way I could make any kind of a difference in this world. I tipped my glass, making sure to drain it to the last drop. I stood and swayed just enough to look tipsy, like my night was just getting started. Making my way to the restroom, I made sure to keep my eyes hooded and my smile inviting. Several men smiled back. Steve ignored me.

The ladies’ room had two stalls and both were empty, but a woman wearing too much makeup stood at the counter freshening up her lipstick.

I slipped into the first stall and waited. If the woman even noticed me, she probably thought I was either sick or doing what every woman does in a public restroom: waiting until the place was empty so I could relieve my bowels in peace.

Heels clicked across the floor. The bathroom door swung shut. I took a deep breath and steadied my hands. I didn’t enjoy any of this process, but the next few minutes were the most dangerous. Since I’m not a livin’ on the edge kind of girl, sometimes it was all I could do not to pee my pants when I started.

I checked to make sure the latex gloves hidden beneath the thin cloth ones were still in place and then put on the sweater I’d wrapped around my waist. Making sure my wrists were covered and all the buttons on the sweater fastened except for the top one–I didn’t want to look like an uptight drunk–I pulled the clean martini glass and the black vial from my purse.

I carefully poured the contents of the vial into the glass and then put the empty container in a Ziploc bag and into my purse. My pulse beat at my temples, and the sweater felt hot. Or maybe that was just the adrenaline. I took a moment to collect my spinning thoughts. Steve sat two tables to the right of the restroom, against the wall. He’d been sitting hunched over his beer just like he does every other night. Almost recoiled, as if he were ready to run from a beating. Probably a habit picked up in prison.

Now was the time for the inevitable doubts. What if I miss my mark? What if the reaction starts before I’m out of here? What if I get caught this time? I simply couldn’t allow them to creep in. Too many children hurt, too many kids lost, my own sister, gone. Because of men like Steve.

I left the stall, took a deep breath, and sauntered out of the restroom. My gait was again tipsy, head down far enough not to make eye contact while still allowing me to see the room.

Steve’s table was empty.

Experience was the only thing that kept me from stopping in my tracks. Getting bumped into wouldn’t be good for my health.

Damnit. He always finished his beers, and he’d just ordered another. Why had he left?

I couldn’t stand there looking confused. A cough, a slight stumble to the left, and I quickly hurried to the bathroom. The place remained blessedly empty. I slowly poured the glass’s contents down the toilet, making sure the liquid only trickled and left no splash on the seat. Just in case, I wiped it off with a cleansing wipe. I ran the martini glass under the hot water and then stuck it back into the plastic zipper bag in my purse.

So much for wrapping up this case tonight.

The crowd seemed to have doubled in the last few minutes. Steve’s table was already taken. I chalked up my bitter defeat and headed for the door. The waitress would probably remember me after tonight, which meant I needed a new approach to Steve.

“Excuse me, miss.” The man now sitting at Steve’s table spoke to me. “Can I buy you a drink?”

I sized him up. Nice clothes, the casually preppy type, with strong cheekbones matching his full lips. An attractive man looking for a bar hookup. “No, thanks. I’ve got to call it a night.”

He grinned, his smile listing somewhere between charming and arrogant. He stood to his full height–at least six feet, with broad shoulders and lean muscles beneath his long-sleeved shirt. Certainly easy on the eyes, and apparently not willing to take no for an answer. I was in no mood for a hookup, but my skin warmed with egocentric pride. It felt good to be noticed.

I moved toward the crowd, but he was faster, closing the small distance between us. Standing less than an inch away from him, I smelled the pleasant scent of his cologne and caught a glimpse of bright blue eyes.

“Please.” He stood close enough he didn’t have to shout. “I’d really love to talk to you about something.”

Anxiety licked at my veins. I plastered a sweet smile on my face and twisted to meet his eyes. They were really blue. And calculating. “About what?”

He leaned down until I thought he might try to kiss me. “About that cyanide you just got rid of.”

2

My mouth tasted like someone had stuffed cotton balls into my cheeks. I didn’t move, didn’t break eye contact with the man. My pulse slammed in my temples. He might be bluffing. Oh bullshit. He wouldn’t have randomly guessed something as obscure as cyanide. He knew.

He’d called me out in a way I couldn’t ignore. What else did he know? How much of a threat was he? I’d never killed an innocent person, never even considered it to be an option. But I wasn’t exactly ready to start thinking of decorating ideas for my cell on death row. Not yet.

“All right,” I said. “I’m pretty sure you’re delusional, but since you’re cute, I’ll have a drink with you.”

He pulled out a chair. I sat. I honestly never imagined this moment happening. Not under these circumstances. Arrested, hauled in for questioning, accidentally spilling the cyanide on myself–those thoughts crossed my mind every day. But never a random, good-looking stranger in a bar who may or may not be a cop flat out calling me on the act.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of greasy bar food and warm bodies. Anxiety rippled in my chest, but I buried it. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not a cop.” His face was still friendly, but his gaze keen. I’ve never seen eyes so blue–or so perceptive. I instantly disliked them. He gauged my every move, no doubt measuring my body language just as I was his. He was probably counting my pulse considering the vein in my neck throbbed big enough half the bar could see.

“Good for you. So what should I call you?”

“My name’s Chris, and you can call me an interested party.” The response bordered on arrogance. My temper flared. I didn’t like being backed into a corner. The absurd idea of flinging the poison on him and running like hell flashed through my mind until I remembered I’d just flushed the cyanide. I nearly laughed, but his raised eyebrow sucked any mirth right out of my spirit. I tried to play it cool. He already had enough of an upper hand. But how did he know? Had Conner, the chemist who provided the cyanide, said something? Had Kelly charmed the wrong online predator?

“What are you interested in?” Thankfully the drone of the bar noise hid the shakiness in my voice.

“You. It’s not often I find someone who’s like me.”

“Like you?”

“In the same line of work.”

I said nothing.

“I don’t like to use the popular name for it.” He leaned over the table, into my space. His eyes burned even brighter up close. In another scenario, I would have matched his body language, flirted a little. A woman should always seize the opportunity to get up close and personal with a face like his. Unless he’s a stalker with the power to send her to the lethal injection chamber. “You know, serial killer. The term is so … trendy. I like to call myself the garbage man. Just taking out the trash.”

Of all the presumptuous, stupid things to say. I wasn’t a serial killer, and I had no interest in aiding this man’s sick fantasies. “I don’t know who you are–”

“Name’s Chris Hale. I’m a paramedic and an Aries. I love Indian food. Italian, too. And Mexican. Pretty much all food. I’ve got a major sweet tooth. Never done drugs, I’m an only child. I’ll spare you the sob story. Anything else?” He smiled again, the lines around his eyes crinkling in a ruggedly attractive way that probably made plenty of women act foolish.

“Good for you. But you’re way off about me. I’d guess it’s delusion talking. And if you’re thinking this game will get me into bed, I’m sorry, but I don’t go home with guys I meet at the bar.”

He laughed, throaty and packed with self-assurance. “Please, life’s too short to dance around the truth. Let’s be real. You were going to play drunk, dump that demon on the guy, and walk out of the bar. He’s gone thirty minutes later. Not original, but very good methodology.”

The walls closed in like a trash compactor. I felt trapped like a rat. I gritted my teeth and volleyed back. “You might want to seek a psych evaluation. There’s a good free clinic not too far from here.”

“The Iceman.” Chris ignored the bait. “That’s your inspiration, right? The mob hit man who lost count at 200 murders. His method was easy and anonymous. He spilled the bad stuff, his mark got angry about it but didn’t do anything about the wet shirt or pants. The goods seeped through the mark’s skin and twenty to thirty minutes later, into the bloodstream, and the Iceman was long gone. It’s brilliant, really. Great choice, for cold weather anyway, considering the health hazards. I just hope you’re more than a hit man. Woman, excuse me.”

My chest tightened into an iron cast, and my jaw ached from the hard set. If this guy knew the routine, he no doubt had proof. “Seriously, have you ever thought about seeking professional help?”

He ignored me and kept rambling. “Like I said, I’m a paramedic. And I’m observant. I saw you at a scene a few months back. You were standing to the side, in the middle of the onlookers. But something on your face gave you away–to me, at least. Guess I’m good at spotting my own kind.” He rested his chin on his hand and gazed at me with obvious admiration. To anyone else, we probably looked like we were on a first date and still stuck in the awkward getting-to-know-you stage.

“I’m not your kind.” He was nothing like me. I was just sick and tired of seeing a broken justice system routinely fail children who’ve already been treated like disposable playthings. So I did everything I could to balance the creaking scales of justice–the same scales many people want to believe are designed to protect the vulnerable in society. But those scales don’t shield anyone, even our most innocent victims. Their function is to balance the lines of bureaucracy.

Sometimes I have to fill the void.

He probably picked his victims at random and took them somewhere to torture them before finally killing them. If he was actually a serial killer.

“Your marks aren’t good people,” he continued as though I hadn’t denied him. “I know because I’ve been tailing you for a while. And I watch the news, managed to put two and two together. Kiddie diddlers, which is another nice choice, by the way. Scum of the earth for sure. Me, I’m not that selective. Long as they’ve maimed or killed, I’m willing to get rid of the trash.” He smiled again, and I was alarmed at how genuine he seemed. And his good looks were becoming an annoyance. “I gotta ask, though. The cyanide, that’s tricky stuff. Not the easiest way to kill someone. Untraceable unless a medical examiner is looking for it, yeah. But aren’t you afraid of spilling it on yourself? Or is sudden death not an issue for you?”

My throat constricted, my scalp felt clammy and hot. I was terrified of death, and the irony that I’ve given myself the right to administer it without question hasn’t escaped me. Death was a finality I could only fully comprehend in the dark of my bedroom, when I was on the cusp of sleep. Like an electric shock, it hit me with the force of a thousand wits. It’s the end. There’s no blackness, no tunnel, no sinking into oblivion. It’s literally nothing. And it’s the nothingness, the utter finality of ceasing to exist that scared me to the point of sitting up in my bed, gasping for air and covering my ears as if somehow that would stop my brain from dredging up the horrific reality.

I couldn’t think about that right now. I focused on Chris’s smirking face.

“Why are you bothering me?” How did I miss this man following me? He was the kind who drew attention everywhere he went.

“I admire your work. Thought maybe we could talk shop.”

“There’s no shop to discuss.” And we don’t do the same kind of work. I did it because it needed to be done. I wasn’t a killer. Not in the real sense of the word. I filled a much needed void in the most efficient way possible. I had to believe that, especially now. Even if he did claim to understand the need to get rid of pedophiles, his brazenness was repulsive.

He shrugged. “I’m a sociopath.”

“Well, good for you, Chris Hale.” Apparently this was the sort of man I attracted now. I reached for my purse. “I truly hope we don’t meet again. Good looks don’t cover your brand of crazy.”

“Come on.” His grin was part hypnotic, part dangerous. “I’m not the only one who knows your secret. You’ve got help.”

Fresh panic set in. Did he know about Kelly and Conner? No way could he have found their identities just by following me. I had to draw a line in the bar dust right now. He wasn’t going to bring them down too. “Excuse me? Are there more people out there suffering from your delusion?”

His twisted smirk made it clear he enjoyed my seeping panic. “There’s no way you’re doing this on your own. Maybe you’re computer savvy, but I’d bet you have help getting the information. Not to mention the poison. You can’t just buy that stuff at the pharmacy. So you don’t work alone, and I do. But I’m willing to make an exception for you.” He finally took a sip of the club soda he’d been fondling. Dingy bar lights reflected off the sliding ice as he drank, his Adam’s apple bobbing and his eyes always on me.

“I’m leaving now.”

He set the glass down. “Suit yourself. I think we could learn a lot from each other.”

“No offense, but I really don’t want to know any more about you,” I said. “I just want to pretend this never happened.”

Chris dug his wallet out of his pocket and tossed it across the table. “There. Look through it. Take my driver’s license information. Look me up.”

Now I was certain he needed the psychiatric evaluation. “Are you crazy? Besides, this could be fake.”

“Except it’s not. And you can easily confirm that.”

I stood up and slipped on my coat. My insides burned with panic, and my brain felt sluggish. I needed to get away from Chris, into the fresh air. Figure out what to do next.

Chris scribbled something down on his napkin and then slid it over to me. A phone number. I put it in my purse. I’d throw it out later.

He stood and stretched. His shirt hiked up enough for me to see the muscles of his abdomen. I looked away only to see the women at the next table trying to check him out without being noticeable. “It was nice meeting you, Lucy.”

“You know my name.”

“I’m observant. I’ll be looking forward to your phone call.” He flashed me one last annoyingly captivating smile and then disappeared into the crowd.

My phone call? I wasn’t about to get into any sort of partnership with some guy who crawled out of Chetter’s woodwork, even if he turned out to be exactly what he said he was. Especially if he turned out that way. With him out of sight, some of the tension in my muscles evaporated. I leaned against the wall trying not to throw up. Life has tossed me curveballs for as long as I could remember, and I was good at lobbing them out of the way with ease. Cops I could deal with. Angry family members, parents who feel they’ve failed their child because they didn’t realize the kid was being molested–those situations I could handle. I knew when to fight and when to walk away and save the battle for next time. When I finally accepted our justice system wasn’t black and white and decided to strike out on my own, I prepared myself for the inevitable day I was caught for my decisions.

But Chris Hale was an entirely different monster, and I had no idea what to do with him.

3

Sleep eluded me most of the night. Instead of dreams of falling into the black void of death, every time I closed my eyes, Chris Hale’s face danced in my memory. He was unpredictable, and that sort of person is always the most dangerous. How long had he been following me? And why? More importantly, how did I miss him? So much for being self-aware.

Dawn cracked through my blinds, and I imagined the city beginning to wake up. Windows glowed with life, hopefully with happy families starting their day, and furnaces vented out tufts of white smoke that looked like swelled clouds. The thought made me feel peaceful. A rare emotion.

Since my first eradication of a sex offender eighteen months ago, I’d accepted that one day I’d likely be caught. With every scumbag I silenced–five in all, as of now–a dozen new scenarios of my own judgment day raced through my head, dramatic and filled with chaos. None of them included being approached by a man like Chris Hale.

A warm, chubby body pressed against my shoulders, flicking its tail in my face. Mousecop, the fat tiger cat I’d rescued a few months ago, needed sustenance. Meaning he could see a spot on the bottom of his food bowl, which somehow translated to starving in cat-speak.

I rolled out of bed, and Mousecop immediately rubbed against my side, purring loudly. I scratched between his ears, and his green eyes glowed with appreciation.

“Somebody knows our secret, Mousey,” I said. “What am I going to do?”

He blinked and then rubbed his head against my hand, demanding more skritches.

“I wish my problems were solved with food and scratches.”

I spent the morning catching up on paperwork and cleaning my small apartment. I’d only been working as a private investigator for a year, but because of my background in social work, I’d built up a solid network and already had a nice client base. I wasn’t making big bucks, but I paid the bills.

By late afternoon, my eyes were glazed over from dealing with emails and billing. I rubbed my temples, contemplating taking a nap. My phone buzzed, and Kelly, the hacker who made my business run, popped up on the screen. Hopefully she had some information about Chris Hale.

If he’d been telling the truth about his motive, he was going to be a lot tougher to deal with than an old-fashioned blackmail. Not to mention lying about being a sociopath. I didn’t believe that for a minute, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t because I couldn’t believe someone so attractive could be terrible. I’d been around enough to know looks mean exactly squat. My instinct about Chris went beyond common misconception and into the realm of something I couldn’t explain yet.

I swiped the screen expecting to see Kelly’s information on Chris, but instead her words sent a cold rush of paralyzing fear through me. My body turned liquid, sagging down the chair as if it were ready to turn into a pool of shuddering mush. I’d been expecting this for months, resolved to it the same way a person accepts the diagnosis of a loved one’s terminal cancer, but this was worse than I’d envisioned. Every parent’s nightmare.

“8 yr old girl missing in Beckett’s area. Stop by asap. -K”

To read more of All Good Deeds, visit Stacy’s book page.

SEE THEM RUN

Lucy Kendall #2

(December 2014)

1

Blowing snow blinded me as I careened down Interstate 81. After a hazardous five-hour drive, the truck stop was still four miles away, and the exchange planned for 9:15 p.m., exactly eight minutes ago. Unless my luck had been blessed with a major traffic accident, I wouldn’t be catching the seller. But maybe saving the child and interrogating the buyer were still within reach.

“If I don’t die before I get there, it’ll be a miracle.” My tires hit yet another packed down section of snow sending the car sliding. I wrenched the steering wheel into the skid, my stomach burning as if I’d lit it on fire. Gently pumping the brakes and cursing the Polar Vortex, I saved the car from skidding onto the shoulder. The kid I was trying to save couldn’t afford my slowing down.

Pain burned my bottom lip; I dug my teeth out of the tender flesh. Two hazardous miles to go. The windshield wipers were on high, their annoying swish-swash giving me another reason to cuss.

After discovering Kailey Richardson had nearly been sold into an online sex trafficking ring, I’d decided to take my operation beyond old case files. Child sex trafficking is running rampant in this country, and law enforcement often found their hands tied by our legal system.

I don’t.

Kelly and I spent weeks searching online classified ads, learning the code words for selling sex. There are thousands of them readily accessible, and most of the sites have IP addresses that simply bounce back to a server in another country, making law enforcement’s job nearly impossible. Kelly created our ad, posing as a twelve-year-old girl. We read through the hundreds of replies very carefully. We needed a weak opponent, not a pimp looking for another child to seduce.

Our choice was the right one. The guy cried when I showed up instead of a little girl, and he begged for his life when I gave him the overdose of ketamine. Not before he bargained away a few online accounts and passwords, however.

It didn’t take long before Kelly found deeply embedded groups selling kids. Tonight was the first verified hit–our first chance to save a kid and glean some new information in the process.

I couldn’t erase the memory of the video. A little boy with dark brown skin, a little skinny but overall healthy looking, stood naked in the middle of a nondescript room. A disembodied voice ordered him to turn in a circle, to raise his arms over his head, to bend over. He obeyed with a glazed look in his eyes and tears running down his cheeks. A price was named just before the video ended.

I would kill someone for that little boy tonight.

“Stupid snow.” My eyes watered just looking at the cascading white flakes. I glanced at my bag. Injection loaded and ready. Cash for the kid. Pepper spray just in case. Kelly discovered the sale so suddenly I’d resorted to running around my apartment, throwing things in a bag and hoping I had what I needed. I promised the cat I’d be home to feed him in the morning, and I didn’t intend to let him down.

I peered through the sheet of snow to see Hagerstown 81 Truck Stop’s bright red sign.

“Please God, don’t let me be too late.” As I turned to take the icy exit, I felt the tires loose traction. “Give me a break!” Blood pounded in my temples as I half slid onto the ice and snow covered exit. For one blinding second, I saw nothing but the snow covered metal guardrail and braced myself for impact. Beyond the rail lay a valley of snowy abyss with a drop sharp enough to break my neck. Not ready to face the brain numbing fear of death, I rapidly tapped on the brakes, pulled the steering wheel to the left. The tires had nothing but snow to grip, my small car careening down the exit ramp. All I could do was follow the curve until somehow I bottomed out and hit the next patch of clear-ish pavement.

Back in control, my head damp with sweat and my fingers cramped, I turned into the truck stop.

A few short months ago, this moment was unimaginable. Watching a man die by my own hand–not the first time I’d administered death, but the first I’d witnessed–left me cold and guilty and shattered. The man I’d killed deserved to die. He was the worst kind of monster, but he was still human. I’m not sure I realized that until I saw the life fade from his frightened eyes. Someone would grieve him, and that was my shame to bear. My brand of justice needed to be re-evaluated. I couldn’t take another life.

And then I found out about little Kailey Richardson being sold for sex. The part of me I’d started to think of as evil rose from the secret corner I’d buried it in and screamed for vengeance. I probably should have been nervous, but instead I felt as if I’d rediscovered my favorite pair of jeans, and we were already intimately reacquainted. A match made in the blackest of heavens.

I used to think I was special, that I had a calling. That only I could deliver a much needed justice. A martyr, to be honest: risking my own freedom for the greater good.

Those were just my first round of lies.

With the seller likely long gone, I’d go after the buyer. Spun from the same cloth, anyway. Kelly discovered he would be driving a lime green Freightliner with a flatbed trailer. Code name Sand. No other information. We’d assumed the traffickers had a private c.b. channel, and I didn’t have time to run out and buy one.

“He said go to the west side of the truck stop,” was the last information I had from Kelly. Since Hagerstown 81 was the largest truck stop in the state and one of the biggest in the country, the west side meant several acres and more semis than I could count.

The parking lot was partially cleared, and I managed to drive the Prius between drifts and not get stuck. Bringing my own car was a risk, but everything happened too last minute for me to get a rental. On this terrible night, the massive parking lot was loaded with semis, and most of them were at least half covered with snow. With so little to go on, I’d have to rely on instincts.

Fortunately my instincts were as incessant as a malignant tumor. Always there, never quiet.

Privacy would be essential. Even in a truck stop with a lot of coming and goings, kids attract attention. A psychologically damaged, physically abused kid would probably obey, but the seller wouldn’t want to stand out. With the increase in human trafficking, truck drivers were becoming more perceptive and forming their own groups to help protect children. Extreme caution was needed to accomplish the trade.

I stayed on the outskirts of the west lot, gaze panning for the truck I so desperately needed to find.

The buyer came early, excited and prepared. Eager to test out the merchandise.

The winter storm could have held him up, so he’d plan his day accordingly, and snow provided a great cover. If he had any smarts, he would have let the snow pile on, and then cleared only a small portion of his cab so the seller could see the color. I needed to look for a flatbed semi whose cab had mismatched snow covering.

I found it in the far west corner. I parked twenty feet away, shut off the lights, and watched. The rig didn’t move. But inside the cab, a pinpoint of light flashed.

Whatever racing nerves I’d been battling now smoothed into calm. The malignancy extended its veiny fingers, shuttering my heart and wrapping itself around my nerves until they were snuffed out. I didn’t think about what the seller was likely doing to the boy–doing so would only invited my locked up emotions to take control. That caused mistakes.

I slipped my bag over my head, settling it across my thick coat. Double checked to make sure my tools were inside. Opened the door, shut it. Keys in pocket. Squinted my eyes against the stinging snow. I didn’t feel the cold.

Anyone watching would assume I was meeting the driver for a good time. Maybe a local girlfriend ready to warm him up on this terrible night. My inner voice hushed, my conscience shrank into its corner cage as I approached the large truck. I kept an even pace as I crossed the front of the semi to the partially hidden passenger door, each movement with precise purpose. The bright green cab shuddered. Movement inside.

This is the time most people would step back, afraid of what they were interrupting. Afraid of what they might see, what could damage them for life or even worse, embarrass their delicate sensitivities. I stayed on autopilot, my actions as familiar as breathing. I reached into my bag, feeling the cold of the metal emanating through my thin gloves.

I slipped the magazine into the receiver, then pulled the slide into place.

I hated guns. They weren’t my weapon of choice. Too messy and loud. But I didn’t intend to use this one. Controlling a person is all about showmanship.

And the metal made a nice sound when I slammed it against the cab door.

The cylinder of light inside the truck, probably from a small beam flashlight, blinked out. I banged the Glock on the door again and then hid it in the folds of my coat.

Only part of me heard the howling wind or felt the miserable cold that had plagued us for weeks. My eyes and ears lasered in on the truck door. The handle clicked; I brought the gun around.

The door opened slowly. Stepping my left foot back, I reinforced my footing and moved my finger to the trigger. Chris had only taken me to the range twice, but I figured I could hit a man from five feet away no matter how lousy of a shot I was.

A narrow-face white man peeked out of the slightly open door. His cheeks were hollowed out and flushed red, his irises dilated from either fear or arousal or drugs. Maybe all three. Despite the cab’s engine not running, the guy’s collarbone was soaked with sweat that stained the collar of his already dingy white t-shirt.

With the speed of light and the force of all my unanswered anger, the pictures of the scared, naked boy Kelly discovered this afternoon flashed through my mind. I leveled the gun at the man.

“I’m here for the boy.”

His eyes popped open. His body shifted. I caught sight of a bare knee.

“If you’re going for a gun, rest assured I’ll put a bullet in your head before you reach it. Show me your hands.”

“Who are you?” He didn’t deny the boy.

With my left hand, I showed him the FBI badge I’d painstakingly crafted. “FBI, Human Trafficking Division. I know you’re holding a nine-year-old African American boy purchased less than half an hour ago from a seller out of Ohio. The transaction took place here, and you’re under arrest.”

Lying came naturally to me, even easier than breathing

“Please.” A tear formed in the man’s eye. “I was just trying to save him.”

My finger twitched. Liar. We can spot our own kind, and men like him all have the very same sob story. Trying to save the child, bringing him home to a frantic family. All lies. “Is that why you’re sweating and half dressed in this cold?”

“My truck’s real warm.”

“The engine isn’t running.”

He shifted again, backwards as if he wanted to slam the door, but I was too quick, and the ice-caked snow worked in my favor. I stepped forward and slipped right to the door. Shoved the Glock under his chin. “Show me your hands.”

Shaking, he stuck out first one hand, and then the other. The fingers of his right hand were bloody.

“Having a problem?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Open the door, slowly.”

The man did as he was told. He was down to the t-shirt, blue paid boxers, and dirty socks.

“Step down onto that top step.” I retrieved the handcuffs from my messenger bag.

Shocked by the cold and my presence and the gleaming Glock, he obeyed. Confidence is everything, even when you can’t find it. And the fear of others–fear caused by the power of your actions–can be as exhilarating as the best narcotic. “Turn around.”

“What about my rights?”

“I’ll read them after I secure you.”

Snotty and shivering, he stumbled on the step, nearly sliding off. He jammed his hands behind his back, and I quickly snapped the cuffs on him.

“Inside the truck.”

He craned his neck over his shoulder. “My rights?”

“Inside. Too cold.” I pressed the Glock against his flaccid penis. “You know how easily I could shoot off your dick from this angle? Guarantee you the review board would say I was justified.”

“My hands are behind my back. I’m freezing!”

“Make like the snake you are and move.”

He pitched forward, his chest thudding against the interior of the cab. Using his right knee and then his left, he wriggled inside and into the driver’s seat. He flopped around to face me. Gun in front of me and overloaded on the power that came from his compliance, I hefted myself into the cab and slammed the passenger door shut.

“Aron?” I kept my voice soft and kind, a feat considering the rush surging through me.

A shuffling came from behind the curtain of the cab’s sleeper bed.

I kept the gun low but ready. The thought occurred the seller might still be here, or another accomplice, but I’d already entered the lion’s den. “My name’s Agent Rex with the FBI. I’m here to take you to safety. Are you alone back there?”

More shuffling, followed by a small, terrified voice. “Yes.”

“Good. Why don’t you come out so I can see you? I promise I won’t hurt you. That’s over. And this man is going to jail for a long, painful time.”

The coward in the driver’s seat began to cry. His fear stank, polluting the entire cab. Another ruffle of the curtains, and Aron’s young face emerged. Fine featured and dark skinned with dulled brown eyes, he stared at me. “I don’t have bottoms on.”

My eyes flashed to the coward, my teeth clenching. Another sliver of my heart broke off and disappeared. “That’s okay. You go ahead and get dressed.”

Aron moved to do as he was told, and I reached into my bag for the final solution. Still pointing the gun, I angled myself over the man like a lover would.

“You’re sick,” I whispered.

“I can’t help it.” His hot breath wafted across my cheek.

“I know.” Carefully, I slid the needle between his skin and the thin material of his t-shirt. “That’s why this is the end for you.” I jammed the needle into his armpit until he yelped, and then shoved the plunger down.

He cried out as the lethally high dose of insulin shot into his system. 100 units was likely all I needed, but as a precaution, I’d injected 200 units. Less than a minute passed before he lost consciousness. He’d likely be dead soon after we left the cab. A medical examiner probably wouldn’t notice the injection site. 27 gauge needles don’t usually leave a large mark, and his body hair concealed it. Low blood sugar would be found on autopsy, and assuming the man wasn’t a diabetic, the red flags would raise. But I’d covered my tracks well.

I sat back in the passenger seat. Breathing rapidly, hands no longer steady. Heart banging in my ribcage and pulse thundering in my neck. I found my reflection in the rearview mirror. Flushed from cold, yes, but my fair skin was also dotted with excitement. My pupils looked as if I’d actually taken a mind-altering substance.

Just as I wondered if I’d found my own drug and exactly what that would mean for me, Aron poked his head out of the curtains. He stared again, with awed and frightened eyes.

“I just put him to sleep for a little while,” I said. “That way when the jail truck comes, he won’t fight.” I eased the slider off the Glock and put it away. “Let me take off his cuffs, and then we’ll go.”

Aron watched as I reached underneath his tormenter’s quivering body and unlocked the cuffs. I brought his hands around to his chest and laid them across stomach so it looked like he’d fallen asleep. “There. Now he’s comfortable. And the jail truck will be here soon. We should go.”

Inside my knit cap and thick, blond wig, my carefully tied back hair was dripping wet. I quickly glanced over the inside of the cab. Gloves worn. Hair covered up. Skin cells no doubt left behind, but that couldn’t be helped. Maryland didn’t have my DNA on file anyway.

I held out my hand to little Aron. “Ready?”

Warily, he took it. He likely learned he couldn’t trust a single adult but he didn’t have the ability to say no. I might be the first person who didn’t let him down. “You going to take me back to my foster parents?”

I smiled, wishing I could run my hands over his little cheeks, and give him a mothering kiss on the forehead. “No. I’m going to take you to some real heroes. Firefighters. And they’ll get you home.”

His sad eyes brightened to a glimmer. “Like a real fire station? I didn’t know they could do that.”

I opened the door and climbed down into the worsening storm. Snowflakes with the consistency of birdseed rained down on us. “Firefighters can do anything, Aron.”

He took my hand and allowed me to help him climb down the steps. I zipped his thin coat to his chin and pulled his hat down past his ears. Silently, we walked to my snow-covered car, hand in hand. Perhaps a mother and child, retrieving the boy from a trip with his Dad.

“Aron.” I asked once I’d buckled him into the Prius. “Do you know where that bad man was taking you? Or were you supposed to stay with him for a while?”

He looked down at his lap, shame taking over his face. With the worst over, my emotions began to war with my instincts. I prayed this child would receive the counseling he needed, that he wouldn’t be thrown back into a corrupt home. Sometimes I thought if I could house them, I’d keep every child I’d saved for myself. And then I’d know they were safe.

“I think he was taking me to some place in Pennsylvania. The city with the big bell.”

Exactly what Kelly had managed to hack from the file she broke into. “Do you know where?”

“The man who brought me here.” Aron looked like he was about to cry, and then gave himself a little shake. “He kept saying exhale. That I’d be going to exhale. People there were interested in me. That’s all.”

Exhale. A business name? I’d have to get Kelly on it.

“Thanks.” I started the car and then reached into the backseat. “I’ve got a ham and cheese sandwich and some water if you want them.”

He looked unsure, and then grabbed the food, ripping the plastic wrap off. His first bite was big enough to nearly choke him. My heart ached.

“Well Aron,” I put the car into gear. “We’re going to go see those firefighters, but first I need you to make me a really important promise.”

Eyes wide, he nodded so fast he should have given himself whiplash. Little Aron would be no problem at all.

See Them Run will be here for Christmas 2014. Sign up for my new release mailing list to know when your copy is available!

LIVING VICTIM

Delta Detectives #1

(January 2015)

1

A black winged cockroach scurried across the mold-stained window in broad daylight, followed by several more of its buddies, and Cage Foster knew it was going to be a bad day.

He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, expecting to feel the tug of his once shaggy hair. He was still getting used to the short cut his boss had forced on him when he made Criminal Investigator. “Where’s the body?”

Bobby McKay, a veteran sheriff’s deputy, stood with his hands on his hips, fingertips brushing his gun. Flecks of premature silver hair shimmered in the late afternoon fall sun. “In the bathroom. On the toilet. Surrounded by shit.”

Cage grimaced. “Already relieved himself then?”

McKay snorted, the corners of his plump lips twitching into a grin. “I ain’t talking about what’s in the toilet. I’m talking about the stinking adult diapers piled up in the bathroom, which ain’t much bigger than a broom closet.”

“I’d heard the man was a hoarder, but it’s that bad?” Cage prided himself for having a strong stomach. He’d yet to throw up over a dead body, and so far he’d handled Dani’s wretched morning sickness without gagging.

Another nod from McKay. “Plumbing shot craps.” This time he didn’t bother to hide his grin. Several years ago, Cage worked his first traffic accident with McKay. He’d been startled and then offended by the man’s off-color remarks, but a few months of experience taught Cage that humor–even black–was often the best defense against the darkest of situations.

Cage rolled his neck, fighting the tense muscles. He hadn’t slept well the night before. Dani’s tossing and turning kept him awake, along with the creaks and groans of the old plantation house they lived in.

“How’s the missus feeling?” McKay read his mind.

“She’s not officially the missus,” Cage corrected him. “Not until after the baby’s born. She’s twenty weeks today and doing well. Still tired.”

And cranky, he added to himself. Ironwood’s restorations weren’t finished, and the unplanned but welcomed pregnancy had put Dani even further behind. Her mood swings were driving them both crazy.

“Well,” Cage pushed the thought out of his mind. “Guess we’d better get to it.”

“Waiting on hazmat suits,” McKay said. “I’m telling you Foster, it’s bad.”

Cage took his colleague seriously. McKay might joke to lighten the despair, but he never exaggerated a scene. As he waited for the hazmat suits, Cage approached the dead man’s daughter. McKay had already spoke to her, but as lead officer, Cage needed to make sure he offered his assistance.

She leaned against her dusty pickup truck, smoking a cigarette with shaking fingers. Sunglasses hid her eyes, but the shock surrounded her was a toxic as the smoke she exhaled.

“Miss Hill, I’m Investigator Cage Foster. I’m real sorry for your loss.”

Kara Hill nodded, wisps of her thin blond hair bobbing with the movement. She dropped her cigarette on the ground and stomped it out with her flip-flop. Cage didn’t understand how women walked in those things. Unable to shake the thought of Dani tripping over one and tumbling down Ironwood’s restored dual staircase, he’d hidden all of hers the night they found out she was pregnant. She was still mad at him for it.

“My dad and I didn’t really get along,” Kara said. “I mean, I loved him. But he is–was–sick.”

“His hoarding,” Cage said.

Kara sniffed, and then swallowed hard. “Destroyed him. After the third cleanup and he still wouldn’t help himself, I walked away. I had to, you know? I have my own kids to take care of and this,” she swept her hand in the direction of the house, “made me crazy.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Cage said. “I can’t imagine what it was like for you. What brought you here today?”

“I still check on him once a month,” she said. “He didn’t come to the door this morning, and I figured he was just too lazy to get through the mess. But I couldn’t shake the feeling…” her voice trailed off.

Cage patted her arm. No one should have to suffer finding a loved one dead, much less in the undignified manner Mark Hill had succumbed to. He asked Kara a few more questions, getting a list of the medications Mark was on and his various health issues. When the hazmat suits arrived, she offered to lead them through the house, but Cage gently declined and asked her to wait for them.

He and McKay shrugged into the paper-like white material. “Least it’s not miserably hot yet,” Cage said. May in Mississippi meant seventy plus degree weather and much less humidity.

“Wait until you get inside the house,” McKay said.

The structure looked like it was rotting from the inside out, Mark Hill’s mental illness spreading like some kind of biological warfare. “No electricity.” McKay opened the door, and they were immediately greeted with a stench so thick it seemed to have its own mass.

“Holy Lord,” McKay said. “If you could bottle filth, this is what it would smell like.”

Breathing through his mouth, Cage slipped the confining mask over his head and tried to see in the murky light. Despite the protective gear, the odor still seeped into Cage’s nose.

Inside, a literal mountain of trash greeted them, so solid and high the door wouldn’t fully open.

“Sad thing is,” McKay said as he started climbing the teetering pile, “this isn’t all trash. Or at least it didn’t use to be. Everything the guy owned is mixed in.”

Cage did his best to follow, but every time he grabbed for leverage, the object moved, sending Cage deeper into the pile. For a brief moment, panic swelled. What if he got trapped and smothered beneath all of this filth?

“Just go slow.” McKay was several feet ahead now. “You gotta ride it like a wave.”

Deep breaths only resulted in inhaling more of the smell and feeling lightheaded. Cage shook off the claustrophobia and did his best to follow McKay’s bobbing light. Finally, they slid off the first mound and wedged their feet onto the layer covering the floor.

“Tell me again,” Cage said. “How Adams County got stuck with this instead of Roselea PD?”

“Because we’re in the middle of BFE, and they’re busy writing traffic tickets.” McKay sounded like he was smiling. “So the big boys from County get the call. And lucky you’s the Investigator on duty.”

There was no malice in McKay’s tone. After twenty years as a deputy, he was happy right where he was. He’d told Cage he had no desire for the paperwork that came with being an investigator and eagerly supported Cage’s promotion.

Cage suddenly wished he hadn’t taken the job. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Follow the yellow brick road. Or in this case, trash bag boulevard.” McKay laughed at his own joke.

The bathroom door was nowhere to be found, and the adult diapers McKay mentioned littered the floor and hall. Even more were piled on the sink. Cage turned on his own flashlight and directed it to the faucet. The sink was full of scum and black mold, the fungus creeping up the sides, across the steel of the faucet, and into the cracked mirror.

It smelled like rotten eggs had been busted on the floor with dead animal sprinkled on top.

Cage’s stomach soured, his cheeks flamed. His eyes watered. The taste of vomit rose in his throat, but he swallowed it back.

He’d smelled decay more than once. Two bodies had been found in the cellar of his own home, tied up in plastic bags. The smell lingered in Ironwood for weeks until a crime scene cleaning crew bleached the entire basement. Several of the antiques left to age had to be stripped and refinished to just to get rid of the stench. Even when everything was sterilized, Cage and Dani smelled the decay in their dreams for weeks.

This was worse.

“He’s there.”

Cage stepped in front of the officer. Time to become detached and do his job. Try to forget the thing in the bathtub was once a human being.

Mark Hill looked liked he’d been attempting to take a sponge bath in the dirty tub. A five-gallon bucket with murky, roach filled water sat next to the tub, a thin, discolored washcloth hanging limply off the side. The man sat in the middle of the tub, slouched against the side. His head rested against a dark brown patch of soap scum. His body was past rigor mortis. Feces and urine surrounded him.

Chubby in life and bloated in death, the body was packed into the bathtub like a rotten sardine. Cage didn’t envy the medical examiner having to dislodge it.

His professional sense of detachment taking hold, he trained his light on Mark’s face. As far as he could tell, there was no sign of a struggle, no ligature marks, no petechial hemorrhaging. Sometime around death, blood trickled out of his nose. It dried around his mouth. Maggots had hatched around his eyes and mouth, which meant the medical examiner would have an easier job of establishing time of death.

Mark’s right hand rested on the side of the tub, fingers outstretched as if he’d been reaching for the washcloth and then slumped over. Maggots filled the open sores and scabs on his arms. The left hand was pinned between his body and the tub wall, its fingers purple.

No sign of trauma on the arms or legs. No knife wounds or bullet holes. Nothing suspicious.

“Find anything in the medicine cabinet?”

“Arthritis medicine,” McKay answered. “Rheumatoid. Daughter said he had it pretty bad. Guess that’s what started his hoarding. He had to stop work, all that.”

“Hmm.” Cage looked at the dead man one more time. Now he saw that the gnarled shaped of his hands had been partially hidden by the bloating. “So he obviously didn’t get around very well.”

“Nope.”

Cage blew out a breath and then immediately regretted it as his facemask steamed up. He directed his flashlight at the drum of dirty water.

“So who brought the bucket of water in for him?”

2

When Cage and McKay emerged from the house, the medical examiner still hadn’t arrived. A year ago, Cage would have been on the phone to Jeb Riley, the former Adams County Coroner, telling him to hurry his ass up. But Jeb was in jail and the state had finally upgraded most of their counties to a trained medical examiner. This gal played by the book, and Cage didn’t know her well enough yet to raz her. While McKay checked in with Kara Hill about who might have been helping her father out, Cage decided to do a perimeter check.

Mark Wilson lived at the far edge of the county, bordering the Homochitto National Forest. His three-acre pasture looked like an unkempt hayfield, with some of the grasses nearly matching Cage’s six feet plus height. He pushed through the tall grass, slapping at the bugs still hanging on to their summer glory. His cellphone vibrated just as he narrowly avoided getting slapped in the eye by a wild honeysuckle. Dani didn’t even give him a chance to say hello.

“I swear to God, the air conditioning’s not working.” She greeted him with her sharp, quick way of speaking. More than a year in Mississippi had done little to ease her northern accent. Pregnancy seemed to make it worse.

“I checked it this morning, honey,” Cage said. “Sixty-eight and going strong.” He’d been freezing, actually. But he didn’t dare tell that to Dani. She’d been having trouble with her hormones since before they found out she was expecting.

“If you say so. What are you up to?”

Cage told her about the dead man in the bathtub. “D, this house. It’s so sick and sad. I don’t know how people get this way.”

“Mental illness,” she said. “I restored a house in Indiana once that a hoarder lived in. The impact on the structure is astounding. And watch out for rats if there is a lot of trash. You know those things thrive in situations like that, and they’ll crawl right up your leg.” She paused for a breath. Cage stopped her before she could give him any more shivers.

“How are you feeling, besides overheated?”

“Good.” She didn’t sound so sure. Worry nagged at Cage. She was so tired all the time, and early in the pregnancy she’d spotted. The doctor assured them that was normal, and last week the baby’s heartbeat was strong. But Cage couldn’t help worrying.

“Take a nap,” he said.

“Can’t. I’m still working on the servant’s quarters.” Ironwood’s renovations had been slow, with Dani taking her time and doing everything to perfection.

“Damnit Dani, you need to take it easy. Don’t be running up and down those stairs and lugging around heavy stuff without me.”

She laughed, the sound fast and sweet. “You sound like I’m an invalid. I’ll be fine.”

“Keep your cellphone with you.”

“Yes, mother.” He pictured her sitting on their bed, legs folded beneath her with her free hand absentmindedly rubbing her stomach. She insisted she wouldn’t be one of those women who go around cradling their stomachs as if to draw attention, but she couldn’t keep her hands off it. “Any idea when you’ll be home?”

Cage reached the end of the yard, where weeds grew chest-high. Gazing between the trees into the swampy woods beyond, he caught a flash of red. “Not sure. So far this looks like natural causes. But I need to do paperwork before I leave, so I’ll let you know.”

“I love you,” Dani said. Her voice always deepened when she said those words, and he always felt a little lightheaded when he heard them.

“I love you, too.” He ended the call and headed toward the patch of land bordering the woods. Spring had taken over the Homochitto, the trees bursting with new leaves and wildflowers blooming.

Cage threaded his way through thick underbrush, careful to avoid the thornbushes. A throng of willow trees bordered the property. He smiled, thinking of the giant willow in his parents yard. He and his sister Lana used to play house beneath it, using the thin, whiplike branches as doors and walls. But these willows were so overgrown they looked liked a mutated wall of green, branches of one tree entwined with the overgrown branches of the next. They provided a macabre sort of border, protecting Mark’s hoarding from the county outliers.

Red flashed between the tangled masses of green. A tent, Cage realized. Set up in the middle of the wild forest. His hand drifted to his gun. The daughter said a barbed wire fence bordered the property. Unless the foilage had taken it over as well, Cage saw no sign of it. The tent was on the property.

He edged closer. The adrenaline started in his fingertips, a tingling that shot up his arms and into his chest. The air thickened, the breeze slowed, as if the trees themselves knew Cage was trying to keep quiet. He touched his shoulder mic.

“McKay, request backup. Found a tent in the woods just northeast of the house.”

He approached slowly, the dry grass crunching beneath his feet. A bramble tugged at his uniform. He jerked his arm away just in time to keep from snagging his skin and leaving unnecessary blood evidence. The tent was fairly small, maybe eight by eight. More five gallon buckets like the one in the house were placed haphazardly around the campsite. The shifting wind brought the smell of feces and urine mixed with a much headier scent Cage couldn’t place.

A small fire pit was dug into the ground, with a rudimentary grill and a few iron skillets off to the side. Next to the tent was a black, plastic toolbox with wheels. While the outside of the tent was marred with dirt and streaked with a dark, dried liquid, the tool box was pristine, as if it had been recently wiped down.

Ice dripped down Cage’s spine as fresh sweat broke out across his forehead, dampening the roots of his recently trimmed hair. His palms were sweaty.

Withdrawing his gun, he edged closer to the site. “This is Investigator Cage Foster with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. Like to have a word with you.”

He waited. A blue jay chased a sparrow out of a hickory tree. Beyond his vision line, crows squawked, their loud chatter feeling like mockery.

“Come on out now.” Cage inched forward. “Just need to talk with you about Mr. Mark.”

Clouds drifted over the sun, casting an unsettling pall over the campsite. A stronger wind sent the stench from the buckets towards him. He wiped his face on his shirt.

The crackling of his radio made his stomach flip. He cursed his nerves. “Yeah?”

“I’m headin’ back there,” McKay huffed. “Where you at?”

“Straight northeast of the house, keep going pass the yard and into the woods. You’ll see me. No one’s answering.”

McKay must’ve caught the tone in his voice. “Wait for me.”

Cage switched off the mic. Gun still high, body tense, he shifted slowly to the left, the arches of his feet burning with the effort. “Asking you for the last time, friend. Come on out so we can clear some things up.”

No answer.

The crows called louder, and McKay’s heavy footsteps burst into the clearing.

“Summer Jordan arrived and took the daughter right over.” McKay breathed heavily. “I know that girl’s good at her job, but she’s lousy with living people. Firing off questions about the dead guy to his daughter like he was just another person.”

“Summer’s thorough.” Cage didn’t take his eyes off the tent.

McKay got the message and pulled out his gun. “No response?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s your gut tell you?”

“I think it’s empty.”

“You’re in charge,” McKay said. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Cage thought of Dani, pregnant and tired. What if some crazy bastard waited behind the tent’s door with a shotgun? Gina would be the one to tell Dani her fiancé had been killed in the line of duty.

And the job was more than duty. It was a privilege he’d willingly signed up for. He jerked a nod at McKay and took a few steps toward the tent. One of the first things a cop learns is that approaching a vehicle that’s just been pulled over is one of the most dangerous things he’ll do. Cage had been lucky. He’d only had a gun pulled on him once, and the guy was too loaded to pull the trigger.

This situation could turn out far worse.

“Investigator Cage Foster. I’m coming to the entry of the tent.”

The rising tide of high blood pressure made his head throb. The HANDLE of the gun was slick with his sweat. He stepped to the side of the tent, as if the material would slow down a bullet the same way a wall did. Miraculously, his fingers were steady as he reached for the opening and slowly parted the polyester flaps.

Empty.

Cage had one brief moment of blissful relief before his eyes focused.

“Holy God.”

To Pre-Order Living Victim, visit Stacy’s book page.

INTO THE DEVIL’S UNDERGROUND

originally published as Into the Dark

1

Two people could have sent the Casablanca lilies, and Emilie never wanted to see either one of them again. The vase of sweet-smelling flowers taunted her as it sat beneath the window, soaking up the sun. No signature, no florist’s name. Just the poem—beautiful words piercing Emilie with dread. She read the card once more.

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn, The humble sheep a threat’ning horn: While the Lily white shall in love delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

The Lily, William Blake

Emilie kept her love of poetry locked away along with the rest of her secrets. She traced the elegant handwriting. It wasn’t Evan’s. She couldn’t remember what her mother’s looked like.

Emilie glared at the flowers. She’d been having a standoff with the lilies since their delivery a couple of hours ago. Casablanca lilies are funeral flowers. They’d covered her grandmother’s casket in clusters, their delicate stems like weeping tears, trailing down the sides of the silver casket. Having them so close dredged up bad memories.

Emilie grabbed the vase and headed for the lobby. The lilies would make a nice addition to the kiosk in the center of the bank. At just past four p.m., WestOne employees were getting ready for the late afternoon rush. Sunlight streamed in through the entryway’s impressive wall of windows and cast colorful prisms on the tile floor.

The door chimed behind her as a customer entered. “Welcome to WestOne.” Mollie’s cheery greeting made Emilie smile. She never seemed to mind the last hour customers.

The kiosk was a mess. Still breathing in their heady scent, Emilie set the flowers aside and started organizing the haphazard brochures: information about loans on the left, money market accounts in the middle, investment opportunities standing prominently on the right. She sat the flowers next to the pamphlets about creating an investment portfolio. Hopefully the paperwork would draw the customer’s eye, and he’d suddenly remember he had thousands of extra dollars to give to WestOne. Numbers were down, and it was Emilie’s job to bring them up. In this economy, pickings were slim.

The door opened again. Hot, Las Vegas air wafted into the lobby, but the skin on the back of Emilie’s neck broke out in gooseflesh. A collective gasp rippled across the room, and Emilie whipped around, her entire body covered in rippling cold spots. Her vision didn’t have time to focus before three quick, deafening gunshots rang out. Mollie and her customers screamed as glass rained over the tile floor.

Fear blasted through Emilie, making her head pound and her heart slam into her chest. Her brain was so rattled she barely had the sense to throw her hands over her head and drop to her knees.

“Everyone get down!”

Nathan Madigan sat down at the conference table with the rest of the SWAT team. “How many hostages, Dave?”

Sergeant Johnson cleared his throat. “Ten. Four employees—including the branch manager—and six customers.”

“Security cameras?” The man sitting next to Nathan rapped his fingers on the table. Nathan glared at his best friend, Chris Holt, who raised a challenging eyebrow.

“Got a glimpse of one guy before his partner shot out the security cameras. Working on an I.D. Metro hasn’t had any luck communicating. Branch manager’s name is Emilie Davis.”

“Inside job?” Chris asked. “Easiest way to pull something like this off.”

Nathan nodded once in acknowledgement. “What’s the manager’s story?”

“Doesn’t have much of one,” Johnson answered. “Thirty-four, divorced, lives alone. Worked for the bank for ten years. No record.”

“Doesn’t mean much.” Chris popped his cherry-smelling bubble gum. Nathan imagined yanking the gum out of his friend’s mouth every time he heard the obnoxious popping sound. “Who knows what she’s hiding? Can’t rule her out cause she looks bland on paper.”

Sergeant Johnson jerked his head in agreement.

“If we can get the bank robbers on the phone, I want to try to talk to her too,” Nathan said. “If she’s involved, maybe I can snuff something out. If not, she’ll still have the best knowledge of the bank. The other hostages will see her as a leader.”

“We’ll try, but don’t get your hopes up.” Johnson looked around the room and made eye contact with each of the twelve officers. “Keep your heads in the game. Move out.”

Nathan followed the group in silence. He lived for days like this, but the nerves never subsided until he was on the scene and in the moment. In the two years he’d been a hostage negotiator, he had a stellar record. But statistics meant nothing to the ten people trapped inside

WestOne Bank. Their lives were in his hands.

Inside the truck, he and Chris donned their Kevlar vests. “These things are so damned hot. Why can’t this kind of shit ever happen at night?”

Nathan ignored him. With the cameras out and no contact inside, he wasn’t going to be able to gauge their personalities until he got the perps on the phone. No mistakes. Nathan didn’t need another black memory to add to Jimmy’s anniversary.

“How’d today go?” Chris checked his assault rifle. “You come straight from your dad’s when we got the call?”

“Yeah. Went like it does every year. Aunt Kay made a big meal, tried to act like nothing was wrong. Kelsi did most of the talking. Dad only spoke to me when he had to. I don’t think he looked me in the eye once.”

“It’s a hard day for him.”

“He’s not the only one it’s hard for. Just makes it worse to know he’ll never forgive me.”

“It wasn’t your fault, man. You were a kid.”

Nathan adjusted the straps on his vest. “We both know what happened, Chris.”

“How’s your dad supposed to forgive you when you can’t forgive yourself?”

“He’s not.”

Fourteen years ago today was the first time Nathan had held someone’s life in his hands.

He’d failed miserably.

Not this time.

Sweat dripped down the back of Emilie’s neck and saturated the collar of her shirt. Her shoulder-length hair clung to her sticky skin like a drenched yarn mop. She covered her nose as the acrid smell of perspiring bodies permeated the air. The air stopped running over thirty minutes ago, and she assumed police had shut off the power in the hopes of drawing out the two gun-wielding men. The temperature inside had immediately soared. The hot sun peeked through the closed blinds in the front windows and cast the lobby in gray shadow.

She rapped her fingernails on the tile floor, sweating, shaking, and feeling sick.

The sense of being watched overwhelmed her.

One of the robbers had isolated Emilie from the group. He sat quietly beside her, his head turning every time she moved: the slightest shift, an anxious sigh, the continuous checking of her knock-off Cartier watch.

The rest of the hostages cowered in front of the teller’s counter, at the mercy of the other robber. Gun drawn, he stalked the lobby, the filthy duffle bag Emilie had filled with cash slung over his shoulder.

One of the trapped customers started to cry. Mollie put her arm around the terrified woman.

“Shut that bitch up.” The ringleader stopped in front of Mollie and stuck his gun in her face.

“Shh,” Mollie begged. “Please.”

The customer pressed her fist against her mouth and nodded.

“Keep her quiet.” Crazy man waved his gun at the terrified group. “Rest of you too.” He stomped away to resume his pacing.

What were these men thinking? Police surrounded the building. Escape is not an option.

Crazy seemed to understand this. He paced the room, reminding Emilie of a caged tiger she’d seen in the zoo as a child. The animal’s huge paws had worn a bare path in the green grass as it constantly circled its enclosure. Like the tiger, the man’s eyes shifted from person to person, spot to spot, but never settled. He knew he was as trapped as the hostages.

But the man sitting next to her was calm. Serene. And he scared her to death.

“Why are you here?” Butterflies swarmed in her stomach. Sweat rolled down her forehead and stung her eyes.

Laugh lines appeared at the corners of the man’s eyes. “You don’t know, Miss Emilie?”

Her heart skidded to a stop. How does he know my name? Throat constricted, she shook her head.

“For you, Miss Emilie. I’m here for you.”

Nathan surveyed the scene at WestOne Bank on Fremont Street. A swell of nosy assholes pressed against the yellow crime tape as annoyed officers repeatedly warned the spectators to back off. Most used their cellphones to record the drama with little thought to the helpless souls trapped inside. The blazing Nevada sun had been relentless all day, and the air was ripe with the smell of sweat, dust, and the Chinese restaurant a block east. Car horns blared in the distance as drivers displayed their irritation at being re-routed.

Surveillance continued to work on getting a wireless camera inside via the air ducts but so far had come up empty.

“We don’t even know if there are casualties,” said the lieutenant in charge. “There’s been no response.”

Nathan took the megaphone from the lieutenant. “This is Nathan Madigan. I’m a hostage negotiator. I want to help you. You need to answer the phone so we can get you out of there safely.”

He pushed ‘send’ on the department-issued cellphone and settled in for the wait. Fifteen rings later, he picked up the megaphone again. “If you don’t talk to me, you’re going to be at the mercy of the police. The only way your demands will be considered is to pick up that phone.”

Dead air and then a gruff voice came over the cellphone. “I’m in charge here, not you, got it?”

“Absolutely.” Nathan handed the megaphone to the lieutenant.

“Where you at? You all look the same out there.”

Nathan waved his free arm. “Here. See me?”

“With the black hair? You look like a kid. How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.” Nathan shaded his eyes with his hand to combat the sun reflecting off the bank’s front windows. Someone peeped through one of the blinds on the far left. “What’s your name?”

“Call me Joe.”

“What’s it going to take to bring this to a peaceful end, Joe?”

“Me walking out of here with my money.”

“What about your partner?”

“If there’s room for two.”

“What are your demands?”

“A way out,” Joe shouted. “This was supposed to be quick, but my partner dragged his feet, and now we’re stuck in here. Get me a car, a chopper, something.”

What an amateur. Either the partner was the mastermind behind the plot or Joe had gotten lucky.

“That’s going to take some time,” Nathan said. “As a show of good faith, can I talk to the branch manager?”

“Why the hell do I gotta show you good faith? I’m doing you a favor just by talking to you.”

“Because I’ve got to convince the people in charge to help you out. Letting me talk to the branch manager will make you look cooperative.”

Nathan waited. Joe needed to believe he called the shots.

Static crackled in his ear as Chris’s voice came over the mic. “Tech found a vent opening on the west side. They’re setting up the camera now.”

“One minute,” Joe snapped. “Talk, woman.”

“Hello?” A soft female voice came over the line.

“Emilie, my name’s Nathan Madigan. I’m a hostage negotiator. Is anyone inside injured?”

“No.”

“Did you get a look at either of the men, Emilie?”

“Sort of. They’re wearing masks.” She breathed hard. “Please, you have to get us out of here.”

“I’m working on it, I promise.”

“I have a cat.” Her voice cracked.

“I’m sorry?” Talking to a victim was always emotional and took far more out of him than negotiating with psychos like Joe.

“His name is Otis. There’s no one but me to take care of him. You’ve got to get us out of here.” A rasping sob echoed over the line, followed by a sharp, sucking sound. “I’m sorry.”

“Enough.” Joe’s harsh voice echoed in the background. “Give me the phone.”

“Not yet.” Sweat stung Nathan’s eyes. The heat made him feel heavy and sluggish. He shook off the discomfort and looked at the bank’s blueprints. “The bank has three exits, right? Front, rear, and side door.”

“Yes. I–” Her shaky words were cut short by the sound of skin slamming skin, and then the poignant sound of Emilie sobbing.

“I told you to give me the phone,” Joe snapped. He’d regained control. “Now you better stop crying before I teach you another lesson. And you, partner. What are you looking at?”

Nathan felt sick. He shouldn’t have pushed the issue. “Joe, come on, man. Talk to me. Don’t worry about them.”

“Told you I was in charge.” Joe panted like an overweight dog. “She’s talking to you about her cat like we got all damned day, and my partner’s hanging on her. He’s the reason we’re still stuck here.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Told you! We was supposed to be in and out with the money, but he took too long in the vault. Like we’re on a Sunday stroll. Next thing I know you assholes are outside. You getting me a car or what, kid?”

“We’re working on it.” Guilt swarmed Nathan. Hopefully Chris could get eyes and see how badly Emilie was injured.

“Get it done. Otherwise I’ll have to ignore my partner and go play with Red. She’s a pretty thing, even with a bruised up face. Curves in all the right places, dark-red hair, nice skin. Smells good too.”

Nathan gritted his teeth but didn’t take the bait. “Joe, I’m going to talk to my boss now and see what I can do about getting you out of there. I’ll call back in twenty minutes. Will you answer the phone?”

“Maybe. I might be busy with Red.”

“That definitely wouldn’t help your cause, man.” He barely managed to keep his voice even. “Gotta think about the future here, Joe.”

“Just get me out of here.”

The line went dead. Nathan spoke into his shoulder mic. “We’ve got to get eyes in there now. This guy’s a loose cannon, and I want to know how bad the branch manager’s hurt.”

“Tech says five minutes,” Johnson said. “Sounds like Joe busted her one. What’s your plan?”

“Keep him talking. He’s edgy and impatient. I don’t think he’s made for the long haul.”

“What about the partner?”

“He’s the one I’m worried about.”

2

Crazy Joe hung up the phone and resumed his pacing. His footsteps ground the shards of security camera glass into the expensive tile floor.

Cheek throbbing and blood oozing on her already swelling lip, Emilie drew her knees to her chest. The creepy, silent partner had bolted to his feet as soon as Joe leveled her, practically dragging her back to sit next to him.

None of this made sense. Crazy Joe had rushed around, trying to get the money and get out, while this man hovered, as if the police wouldn’t be here any second. The men had to have expected authorities would be alerted. Why had he stalled? Did he want to be trapped inside?

With her?

She swallowed back the scream and kept her eyes on the floor, trying not to be hyperaware of the quiet man’s steady, almost serene breathing. Trying not to cry, she stretched her cheek and jaw. She didn’t think it was broken.

Why had she brought up Otis? Her landlord knew she had the cat. Someone would take care of him if the worst happened. She’d wasted the negotiator’s time and paid for it.

Joe stomped across the lobby. The sole of one of his boots had come loose and flapped against the floor as he walked. Creepy turned to watch him. Emilie studied her captor. His nondescript black boots were new, and the scent of floral fabric softener clung to his clothes. Completely relaxed, he hummed a soulful tune, moving his head to the beat. He was nothing like his fidgety colleague, who looked and smelled like he’d just crawled out of a dumpster.

Creepy caught her staring. He held her gaze. “I’m sorry he struck you.”

She said nothing.

“Did you like the flowers?”

Shock exploded in her head and slithered down to her feet. “Excuse me?”

“The lilies, did you like them?” His looked at the vase sitting on the kiosk. “Casablanca lilies mean ‘celebration.’ A perfect flower for today’s occasion.” His carefully controlled voice slipped, and Emilie heard the slightest of accents. She couldn’t place it.

“You sent those lilies?” Nausea built in Emilie’s stomach. Casablancas meant only death to her. And now, unrelenting terror.

“Yes. Did you like them?”

A scream clawed its way up her throat. The flowers weren’t a mistake. This man, this freak posing as some kind of old-fashioned gentleman, had sent them to her. How had he known of her love for William Blake?

Emilie swallowed her building panic. She had to stay calm. “They were lovely.”

His eyes turned up—he was definitely smiling. “I knew you would. Those were just the beginning, Miss Emilie. Just the beginning.”

“We’ve got eyes,” Chris said.

Nathan flipped his mic back on. “What do you see?”

“Hostages are in front of the teller counter. Joe’s pacing the lobby. Looks like he’s packing a standard nine mil. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt and dark pants. Might have another weapon stashed.”

“What about the other guy?”

“He and Davis are separated from the others. This feed sucks. Looks like she’s got a little blood on her face, but she’s conscious.”

“You sure it’s her?”

“Got a copy of her driver’s license right here.”

Johnson’s voice came over the radio. “You think she’s in on this?”

“I don’t think so,” Chris said. “She’s got her head in her hands, rocks back and forth sometimes. Looks like she’s pretty scared. Unless she’s a damned good actress and doesn’t mind getting whaled on.”

“So why does the other guy have her separated from the rest? Just because she’s the manager, or are we missing something?” Nathan stared at the bank’s front windows. He couldn’t stop thinking about Joe’s complaints of the partner hovering around Emilie. Instinct told him to move quickly. “We need to get a hostage out, find out exactly what’s going on.”

“Madigan, get back on the phone. Holt, you got audio yet?”

“Working on it.”

“Get it done.”

Crazy Joe stood with the phone jammed against his ear shouting into it. “I ain’t releasing no hostage. They’re all we got to work with.”

Emilie shifted, her tailbone hurting from the tile floor. The man beside her moved as well, as if he thought they needed to be in sync. He’d never allow her to be released.

Did he intend to waltz out of the bank with her as his personal hostage? She’d seen things like that on television. The victim’s story never ended well.

“Did you know Las Vegas was founded as a city on May 15, 1905? Before then, this whole area was agricultural. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?”

Emilie stared at him. What kind of game was he playing?

“But the railroad came and changed everything, as it often did. One hundred ten acres of land between Main Street and Fifth Street—which is now Las Vegas Boulevard—were auctioned off.” He fiddled with his gloved left hand, turning what must be a ring.

Emilie focused on the tile floor and counted the blue flecks in the pattern. She thought back to the books she’d read about serial killers. The unimaginable fear the victims must have felt had always struck her, and she thought she’d have just died of fright on the spot. But it wasn’t that kind of fright. It didn’t shock her heart or quell her breath. It wound itself through her body like a boa constrictor, slowly squeezing out her will to stay calm.

“One of the city’s original buildings sat on this very spot: the Wildwood Hotel. Fifty rooms, a huge parlor, and a breakfast room. Very popular among the travelers riding the new rails.”

“Listen to me.” He laughed. “You must think I’m a boring well of facts. But I do love history. It’s such a vital part of who we are as a people and as a culture. Don’t you agree, Miss Emilie?”

Her lips pursed, fighting an inner battle. Common sense said to keep her mouth shut and not play his games, but her quick-tempered, irrational side wanted to demand answers.

“Miss Emilie, are you listening?”

“How could I not?” She chewed the inside of her cheek, pain shooting through her face into her eye. Talking to this man was stupid. It would only fuel his rambling nonsense.

“It’s fascinating, no?” He sounded pleased. Emilie finally peeked at the man.

Of course, he still regarded her like she was something to worship. “Now, after World War II, the Wildwood fell behind the times,” Creepy Guy continued. “It resurged in the eighties with new owners but just wasn’t glamorous enough. The hotel sat empty for several years before it was purchased by your bank.”

He messed with the ring again. “It’s a shame the city didn’t refurbish it. The Fremont Street Experience is nearby. The old hotel would have fit perfectly into the antiquated theme.”

Emilie wet her dry lips. If Creepy Guy wanted to talk, she’d oblige. Maybe she’d stay alive longer. “The place was falling down. It was an eyesore with cracked windows, rotting floorboards, and faded paint. Millions would have gone into repairing the place. Nobody wanted the burden.”

He leaned toward her. His hot breath leaked from the tiny pores of the facemask. “We know all about burdens, don’t we, Miss Emilie?”

She couldn’t speak. His tone was too familiar, kind. As if he felt sorry for her.

As if he knew.

“Now you listen to me,” Joe’s shouting turned deadly calm. “You want a hostage, you got one option.”

Nathan ended the call and turned to Sergeant Johnson.

Grim lines aged the man’s face. “What?”

“He says the only way he’ll release a hostage is if I come to the door and get him myself.”

Johnson snapped his head back and forth. “No chance. You know he’s going to try something.”

“We need a hostage.”

“We can go in without them,” Johnson said. “Done it before.”

“Not in a situation like this,” Nathan pushed the issue. “We’ve got too many people inside and out.” He gestured to the onlookers barely kept at bay by the uniforms. “This guy is volatile. If we can’t get him out peacefully soon, he’s liable to come out shooting.”

“What are you basing that on?”

“Gut instinct.” That wasn’t going to be enough, and he knew it.

“I don’t make decisions based on stomach acid,” Johnson said. “It’s too risky.”

“I’ve got armor on,” Nathan said. “We’ve got snipers, Chris has decent eyes on the door. I won’t get close enough for him to grab me. But if I can get face to face, maybe I can make progress. And we’ll have the hostage.”

“If it’s not a ploy.” Johnson looked away, sucking on the meaty part of his cheek. “Everything about this stinks, Madigan.”

He was giving in. Nathan saw it in the resigned set of his jaw. “Listen, boss. Something is off about this whole thing. Joe says the partner basically abandoned the plan as soon as they went inside. Why? They clearly knew they had very little time. It’s almost as if the partner wanted to get trapped inside.”

“That makes no sense.”

“That’s why we need a hostage. Find out what’s been going on.”

Johnson’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah, all right. But we take all precautions necessary. And under no circumstances are you to get close enough for him to get his hands on you. Make sure he knows you’re the go between. That’s it. Got it?”

“Absolutely.”

Sweat trickled down the back of Nathan’s neck as he approached the bank, hands in the air. His Kevlar protected everything but his head. He should have worn the helmet too, but he needed to make eye contact with Joe.

“He’s walking to the door with a male hostage.” Chris’s voice steadied Nathan’s nerves. “He’s got the guy in front of him, using him as a shield.”

Nathan stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, blocking out the noise of the city and the chattering in his head. He stared at the glass door, squinting at the reflecting sunset and wishing he could see inside.

“He’s sending the hostage to open the door,” Chris said. “We’ve got two guys on the roof. If he raises his weapon and they have a shot, they’ll take it. You doing all right?”

“Copy that.”

One of the glass doors cracked open. “Madigan,” Joe shouted. “You got guts, I’ll give you that.”

The hostage was tall enough Nathan couldn’t see Joe’s face. His collar drenched in sweat, the pale hostage stared at Nathan with large, frightened eyes.

Nathan gave the man an encouraging nod. “I’m just trying to put an end to this situation, Joe. Why don’t you send this man out, and you and I can talk, face to face?”

Joe barked a laugh. The hostage winced. “So I’m in the line of fire, right?”

“Nope. You can stay right there, with the door cracked.”

“You know I can shoot you.”

“You could. And I guarantee you’ll never get out of this. But it’s your call.”

“This is all bullshit,” Joe’s voice carried over the hot gust of wind. “We were supposed to be in and out of here. Easy. That’s what he said. Now I’m stuck dealing with you because he screwed up.”

“I get it,” Nathan said. “Just let this man go, and we’ll figure it out.”

“Isn’t going to be that easy.”

The hostage went rigid. His eyes looked wide enough to explode out of his head. A large, tattooed hand appeared on his elbow, turning him enough so Nathan saw the gun pressed against the hostage’s skull.

“Joe, don’t do something stupid.”

“Not stupid. Smart. I’ll let the guy go. If you take his place.”

“You don’t want to do that.”

“Sure I do. You’re worth more to your buddies out there than this jackoff. They’ll move heaven and earth to get their cop friend out alive.”

“If I come in there, then there’s no one to speak for you.”

“You’ll speak from inside.”

“I can’t.”

The gun dug deeper into the hostage’s head, and Nathan caught the silhouette of Joe in the glass.

“You switch places with him, or I kill him.”

“Please,” the hostage spoke for the first time. “My name is Tom. I have a wife and kid. They need me. My little boy’s only three.”

“Shut up.” Joe hit him with the butt of the gun. Tom stumbled and swayed but remained on his feet. “I’m not playing, Madigan. It’s you or this man’s death on your conscience. Can you live with that?”

Nathan had been living with that for over ten years. He’d be damned if he added to it.

“Give me a second, Joe.” Nathan reached for his shoulder mic. “Chris. I’m about to do something the boss won’t like.”

“What? No. You’re going to stick to the plan.”

“Plans change. I’m not going to let this man die.”

“Joe’s bluffing.”

“No way to know that. I’ll be fine. Tell the boss I’m sorry. I’m out.” Nathan turned the mic off. “I’m taking my vest and everything off.”

“You got any weapons hidden?”

“No.” Nathan let the vest fall on the ground and then raised his shirt, followed by each pant leg. “Nothing.” Sweat tracked down Tom’s face as he watched, knees bent, ready to bolt.

“Okay,” Joe said from behind him. “Madigan, you get up here and block the door. I’ll let Tom go, and you can come in and join the party.”

Nathan walked forward. “Keep your hands up,” Joe said.

Tom’s neck bulged against his shirt. Nathan stepped close enough to smell the man’s fear. Inches away from the partially opened door, he finally saw Joe’s face. Leathery, with a spotty, graying beard and small eyes that reminded Nathan of a great white shark’s.

Joe pointed the gun at Nathan. “Come inside.”

“Release him first.”

“You gotta have some faith in me, boy.”

He didn’t have a choice if he wanted to save Tom’s life. Joe might be bluffing, but the risk was too high. Slowly, hands in the air, Nathan slipped between Landry and the door.

Inside, the bank steamed, the heat combined with the smell of sweating, frightened bodies. Joe shoved Landry out the door and then slammed it shut, quickly locking it.

Nathan’s eyes took a minute to adjust from the glaring sunset. Finally, he saw two women sitting together at one end of the tellers’ counter. The young blonde’s nametag read Mollie, and she comforted a shaking customer. Both women looked at him in shock.

At the other end of the counter were the partner and Emilie Davis. Her dark-red hair fell around her face, and her pale complexion made the bruise on her cheek stand out like a purple stain. They locked eyes, her mouth open in astonishment. Nathan nodded once, hoping she understood why he was here.

Blinking, she cocked her head, as if she were trying to read his churning thoughts. Then she nodded, her high, tensed shoulders sinking away from her ears.

The man next to her–the silent partner dressed in black–didn’t move and didn’t question Joe’s motivation. Through his facemask, he glared at Nathan with the fire of a madman.

Joe clapped a heavy hand onto Nathan’s shoulder. “You’re with me.” The gun pressed into his ribs, Joe’s stale breath on his face.

“Whatever you say.”

Joe sat down in an overstuffed, grey chair across the lobby. He pointed the gun at the chair beside him. Nathan sat.

“So what’s your plan, Joe?”

He stretched out his legs, his bony right knee coming through a worn patch. He kept the gun on Nathan. “To get the hell out of here.”

“That’s not going to be easy.”

“Woulda been if he hadn’t screwed up.” Joe cast a hateful glance at the silent man, whose eyes remained on them. His body, however, leaned toward Emilie with the familiarity of a lover. She leaned away, looking sick.

“What exactly happened?” If he could establish some trust with Joe, Nathan might be able to end this thing peacefully.

“I told you already.” Joe pulled a wrinkled packet of sunflower seeds out of his shirt pocket and jammed a handful in his mouth.

“Why’d your friend take so much time? Panic?”

Joe spit shells onto the gleaming floor. “Ain’t my friend. And I don’t think he’s capable of panic. Or anything that takes energy. He’s on the same level all the time.”

“Makes for a good bank robbing partner.”

“You’d think. But Red’s got him all screwed up. Look at him guarding her like some rabid pit. If he thinks we’re leaving here with her, he’s got another think coming. I ain’t taking no hostage along.” He spit more shells out. A few landed on Nathan’s boot.

He shook them off, grinding them into the tile with his toe. “That’s definitely extra baggage to take along.”

Joe wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Why the hell you here?”

“You didn’t give me any choice.”

“Always a choice.”

“Not when someone’s life is on the line.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have shot him.” Joe’s mouth twisted in a mocking grin.

“Maybe not. But that’s a risk I couldn’t take.”

“Hero complex.” Joe spit out the rest of his shells. “You got a lot to learn.”

Nathan shrugged. He didn’t regret the trade-off. Every life he saved eased the sting of the one he’d caused to end.

Casually, he glanced at Emilie. The partner now faced her, head moving slightly. Nathan guessed he was whispering sick versions of sweet nothings. Still leaning away from her tormentor, Emilie suddenly caught Nathan’s gaze.

In the dusky light of the lobby, he couldn’t see the color of her eyes. He could only tell they were wide and staring at him, her chin set hard, like she’d bitten down on something and couldn’t unlock her jaw. Only seconds passed, but her fear leached across the tile separating them and penetrated Nathan’s bones until his anxiety was on high alert.

Emilie needed his help, and he didn’t have any idea how to give it to her without risking a bloodbath from Joe.

Emilie wished she could ask the hostage negotiator–his name was Nathan, she reminded herself–why he’d put himself in this position. Did he really think he could help them more as a hostage? How could he so easily decide to trade his life for a complete stranger’s?

Hope sparked in her frozen chest when Nathan came inside. Maybe he could save them.

Creepy went rigid when Nathan entered, and Emilie swore she felt the rage rolling off her captor. But he never said a word to Joe or the new hostage, never made a move away from her.

“Have you heard of the devil’s underground, Miss Emilie?” If he felt threatened, Creepy’s voice revealed nothing. The words rolled off his tongue with ease, his faint accent making everything terrifyingly pretty.

“No.”

“It’s a dark, dark place. A place hope long ago abandoned. And yet some people choose to be there. Some even like the refuge, the freedom. It’s a place of pure ugliness and yet, there’s a beauty in the lives existing in the undergound.”

“Sounds charming.”

“In a strange way, it is,” Creepy said. “Sometimes, when I’m visiting the underground, I liken it to Dante’s journey. ‘Justice moved my supreme maker: I was shaped by divine power, by highest wisdom, and by primal love.’” He nodded his head like a preacher deeply moved by his own sermon. “The underground is their path to hell. Because we all choose our paths, right?”

Emilie wished darkness wasn’t falling on the lobby. If she could only get Nathan to see her eyes, surely he’d realize how terrified she was of this man. She glanced at Creepy her stomach launching butterflies when she realized the hostage negotiator watched them. Somehow, maybe she could make him see.

“I’ll show it to you sometime.” Creepy snatched her thoughts back to him. Still, she stared back at Nathan.

“What?”

“The devil’s underground. I’ll take you there. Soon.”

The knot of fear residing in her stomach exploded, streaming its contagion into her blood. She tried not to cry out loud, forcing herself to look at Nathan as if he were Christ himself.

He was her only shot at salvation.

To read more of Into the Devil’s Underground, visit Stacy’s book page.

Welcome To Las Vegas

A heady perfume of mold, decay, and filth coated Tate’s tongue. He pressed his fist against his nose jamming his knuckles into his nostrils, but the scent squeezed between his fingers and invaded his lungs. His stomach recoiled. He willed his breakfast to remain in place.

With each step, oppressive darkness slithered around Tate, enveloping his ankles, his legs, his torso, and finally, his face. He hated the goddamned dark. Wearing glasses since the age of eight meant he couldn’t see anything but blurry shadows and shifting shapes after the lights were off. His imagination ran away with him, made him feel as though the darkness were alive and breathing down his neck. For years he’d suffered night terrors, relying on a nightlight for a decent night’s sleep.

Even now, at 30 years old, he kept a nightlight in the hallway of his apartment.

“Damn you, Lily.” His voice fell flat against the concrete walls, swallowed up by the abyss. His twin sister had disappeared into the stinking Las Vegas storm drains two weeks ago. At least, he thought she had.

After three months sober, Lily had been caught with meth in her shitty North Vegas apartment. Her roommate kicked her out and Lily bounced around to friends’ places. Word on the Vegas streets was that she’d ended up in the tunnels.

Providing shelter for Las Vegas’s homeless, the network of storm drains stretched more than two hundred miles beneath the city. The tunnels had gained notoriety after a reporter’s book chronicled his adventures in the drains. Most of the inhabitants were just trying to survive, but not everyone living below valued common decency. Drugs and depression fueled their existence.

Tate didn’t want to be down here.

And where the hell to start? He’d walked into the drain near the famous ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ sign. Thirty feet inside, the beam of his flashlight revealed nothing but graffiti-covered walls and more darkness.

He cast the beam higher and saw that the tunnel stretched beyond the light’s glow. Just ahead, a second drain branched off to the right. Judging by the trash floating in the murky water, the second tunnel was well traveled. Tate wiped his face with shaky fingers and walked into the adjacent drain.

Crawfish scuttled past, along with copious amounts of debris. A candy wrapper floated by, then an empty cigarette carton, then a swelled and used tampon. Tate’s stomach turned over as he waded through the trash.

People live down here.

The thought tripped through his brain as he traveled deeper into the void. How could they stand living in the darkness, unsure of who–or what–might be around the corner, breathing in the scent of mildew and bodily excretions?

Tate knew most of these people didn’t have a choice, but Lily had plenty of options and a family willing to help. Instead she’d thrown everything away to get high.

“I’m going to stop bailing you out one of these days.” Tate’s voice fell flat against the concrete.

He knew his words were complete bullshit. He and Lily had shared a womb for nine months. They’d been best friends for most of their lives, until Lily drifted away into her sad world of substance abuse. No matter how much Tate wanted to throttle his sister, he couldn’t walk away from her.

Something hard crunched under his boot. Tate shined his light into the brown water. A toy soldier–the cheap plastic kind sold at any dollar store–had snapped in half. A sickening realization rolled through him.

Kids lived in the storm drains, too.

He couldn’t think about that right now. He dug out his cellphone–he’d already spent an hour pussyfooting around. Time to pick up the pace, find his sister, and get out of here.

The Sandman’s coming in his train of cars

with moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars

So hush you little ones and have no fear

The man-in-the-moon he is the engineer…

His mother used to recite Tate and Lily the old nursery rhyme before bed, and in the hopes of alleviating his fear of the dark, urged Tate to tell it to himself when he got scared.

After their mother had left the room, Lily insisted the Sandman would creep through the dark and snatch them up while the man-in-the-moon watched.

Of course Tate had believed her.

“Twenty-five years ago.” He spoke to the walls. “Dark is just dark. It can’t hurt you.”

But what lurks inside it can.

Tate pressed on, fighting the urge to turn and run. When he found Lily, he was going to kill her.

He tried to maintain a sense of direction. He was heading south–he thought. He’d heard the majority of the drain squatters lived beneath the Strip, so Tate figured that was a good place to start.

Tate slowed his pace. A new scent had emerged over the stench of old water and trash: cigarette smoke. He tightened his grip on his flashlight and hoped he wasn’t about to walk into a fight.

“Who’s there?” A gravelly male voice seeped through the darkness.

Tate directed his light in the direction of the man, but all he saw were more graffiti-covered walls. “My name is Tate. Just passing through.”

“On a Sunday morning stroll, are you?”

Movement on the right, and Tate finally saw the glowing red embers. A short, pudgy man peeled himself off the drain’s wall and stepped into the glow of the flashlight. “You look like a cat walking into a pack of dogs. What’re you doing down here?”

“Looking for my sister.” Tate held up the picture he’d taken of Lily a few weeks ago. She’d been clean and starting to put on some weight. Her skin had cleared up and her eyes were no longer glazed over.

The man moved closer. “Don’t shine your light on me, dumbass. Put it on the picture so I can actually see it.”

Tate bit his tongue and obeyed. At this distance, he could see the pockmarks on the man’s face as well as a three-inch scar running along the right side of his neck. The burning cigarette dangled precariously from his cracked lips.

“Haven’t seen her.”

A sharp pang of disappointment ran through Tate. “Thanks anyway.”

“Sure.” The man turned his head and blew a puff of smoke into the darkness. “You know these tunnels go for miles and miles, right? Chances of you finding your sister ain’t good, ’specially if she doesn’t want to be found.”

“I know.” Tate stuck the picture back in his pocket. “Still, I have to try.”

“Good luck. Don’t get yourself lost. Or killed.” The man slunk back into the darkness, his cigarette his only light.

Tate walked on. He met a few more tunnel dwellers, most of them sleeping off the night before. None of them had seen Lily. Tate was getting desperate. He’d been slogging through the storm drains for hours. Maybe the man had been right. He didn’t stand a chance of finding Lily.

The heavy silence was starting to get to him. The dripping water, the echo of his boots plodding through the muck, and the rumbling of overhead traffic were just background music to the heavy silence pulsating in the drain.

“Hmmmmm.” The voice, deep and guttural, hit Tate’s stomach with the force of a sledgehammer. He staggered back.

Tate took a deep breath and wiped his hair off his face. Despite the drain’s cooler temperature, sweat plastered his curls to his forehead. He felt the tunnel waiting with him, holding its breath just as he was.

“God.” A woman’s voice this time, low and husky. Frantic. “Don’t stop.”

Embarrassment lit Tate’s cheeks on fire. The sounds came from ahead, where the tunnel turned left. In the stillness, he could hear a mattress scraping against concrete and skin slapping together. Slow at first, and then faster. The woman’s moans grew louder.

Tate stood like an idiot. Should he hurry by their camp like he didn’t notice, or wait?

He glanced to his right. Going back the way he came would be stupid, and would mean starting all over again.

He didn’t have to wait long. The couple finished with appreciative cries, and then the smell of cigarette smoke drifted by. Tate shuffled forward, hoping his cheeks would go back to their normal color by the time he reached the couple.

Several feet past the curve, their camp emerged. Tate kept his flashlight down, but the candles near their bed provided decent light. Their mattress lay on concrete blocks, and their underground home was more furnished than Tate would have imagined. Filled with books and knickknacks, a tall wooden bookshelf was adjacent to the bed, and a shower curtain rod was pinned between the bookshelf and the tunnel wall, giving the bed a modicum of privacy.

In the opposite corner was a makeshift shower made from what looked like a used office water dispenser. The walls were lined with torn magazine pictures featuring gardens and beautiful homes.

A dull ache bloomed in Tate’s chest.

“Can we help you?” The man sat up to peer at Tate over the edge of the bed. He was wiry and his face mostly clean-shaven.

“Sorry to bother you,” Tate said.

“No problem. Part of being on a public route.” The man grinned and gestured his belongings. “You lost?”

“Looking for my sister. Lily.” Tate dug into his pocket and retrieved the picture.

The man disappeared back behind the curtain and emerged seconds later wearing faded gym shorts and flip-flops. He took the picture and studied it closely.

“You know, I may have seen her. What’s she down here for?”

“I…well…” Tate wasn’t sure how to respond. Weren’t all the tunnel inhabitants here for the same reason?

“I mean, how’d she wind up here? Drugs?” The man hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “Lady and me been clean for six months. Just trying to save enough money to get a decent place. But if your sister’s still using, there’s certain places to look.”

Tate explained Lily’s situation. “She’s using, I’m sure.”

The man took the picture to his Lady. “Don’t she look like that girl we saw yesterday at Caesars?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s her.” The response from behind the curtain got Tate’s heart racing.

“You saw her yesterday?”

The man reappeared and handed the picture back. “Yep. She was with a guy we know, credit hustling at Caesars. You know, getting the credits left behind.”

Tate nodded. “Have you seen her in the tunnels?”

“Well, guy she was hanging with lives down here, so I’m guessing she is, too.”

“Do you know where his camp is?”

The man scratched his chin. “He don’t really have a camp. Not like ours. Kind of moves from place to place, but last week he was in the drain below The Golden Nugget.”

“Where’s that at?”

“Go past the open air channel until you hit a fork. Turn left. Well…maybe I shouldn’t send you that way. It’s a shortcut, but it gets pretty hairy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Thugs down there. Real dark. Low ceilings.” The man shook his head. “You’d be better off to go back the way you came and head north. It’s a longer route–”

“I’ll take the shortcut. I need to find my sister and get out of here.”

“Suit yourself.”

Tate listened as the man repeated his directions. “Now, you run into any assholes, you tell them Tony sent you that way and that you’re just looking for your sister. They try anything, give ’em your wallet. Don’t put up a fight.”

“Okay.” Tate swallowed nerves building in his throat and tried to grin. “You sure you’re not exaggerating?”

Tony didn’t smile. “If anyone’s in those drains, they’re rough types who won’t think twice about robbing you. Or worse.”

“Go back and take the long route,” his girlfriend called from the bed. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Tate regretted this whole damned day, but if he was in danger down here, then what about Lily? Images of what she may have encountered in the tunnels overpowered his shattered nerves. He summoned whatever bravado he had left. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” He waved to Tony and headed past their home, keeping his head down as he walked past the bed.

Soon Tony and the woman were eclipsed by the dark, and Tate was alone. Once again the tunnel walls seemed alive in the black stillness, their imaginary pressure closing around Tate.

The beam of his flashlight dimmed as the blackness grew thicker, wrapping itself around Tate like a hungry boa constrictor. He gasped for air and tasted dirt and trash and mildew. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sped up his pace.

Blood pounded in his ears, and his hazy thoughts made his limited vision blurry. The dark closed its iron fist around Tate’s throat sending his already pounding heart into overdrive. What lurked behind his precious little light? Was someone or something waiting to reach out of the pitch black and squeeze the life out of him?

Ridiculous.

His chest burned. His lungs worked overtime. One, two, three. Inhale. Exhale.

Stop being a pussy.

The smell of fresh, desert air caught him off guard. Tate came to an abrupt stop and nearly tripped.

Where was the smell coming from? He looked to his left and then his right, seeing only the concrete walls and their six-legged inhabitants.

Slowly, chest hitching as he caught his breath, Tate moved forward. The tunnel curved. Fifty feet ahead lay daylight.

The open-air channel.

He raced into the light. Tall weeds and swarming bugs greeted him, but Tate didn’t care. The blazing sunlight was beautiful. And blinding. Shading his eyes, he sank down into the dry grass. Digging a bottle of water out of his backpack, he guzzled until he realized he’d only brought two bottles.

What if he were stuck down here for days? He’d need the fresh water.

Traffic rushed by, and Tate wondered if the drivers noticed him. Were they as apathetic as he, just going through their busy lives without considering the less fortunate? Never again would he be able to drive past without thinking of this day, and he’d only been in the tunnels for five and a half hours.

Five and a half hours. His gaze fixed on the black mouth of the tunnel. Maybe Lily wasn’t here. Maybe he should go home and see if she’d shown up there. No. Resignation made his shoulders droop. That was nothing more than wishful thinking. He knew she was here. Even Tony and his Lady knew.

He raked his hand across his wet forehead, fortifying himself to reenter the underworld. He’d promised their mother he’d find Lily.

Stepping into the storm drains a second time was near torture. Drenched with sweat, Tate barely noticed the cooling temperature. The darkness dominated his thoughts. He’d swear it was even thicker than before, reaching out to grab him. Fighting the ever-present panic, he took a deep breath and pushed forward.

He made his way down the next drain, heading toward the Strip. Supposedly the area beneath the famed Las Vegas hotspot housed the biggest homeless population. He prayed that his sister would be there.

Splash, splash, splash. More standing water. More stink. More fucking darkness.

Tate swatted at the nerves crawling on the back of his neck. Or were bugs on him? Cockroaches skittered away from his light. Had one of them hitched a ride?

“Fuck.” He stopped, shimmied out of his backpack, and roughly patted himself down. He shook out his shirt and then did the same to the backpack. The bottom of it was now soggy with dirty water.

“Goddammit.” Tate hefted the backpack, disgusted by its new weight. “This thing’s going in the trash.”

An eerie glow several feet ahead kick-started Tate’s pulse. He tightened his grip on the industrial flashlight, preparing for what or who was to come. A runner and sometimes weightlifter, he could hold his own in a fight–with even odds. But anyone living down here, wanting to jump an outsider, would have the maze of tunnels and the darkness on his side.

Dense, stagnant humidity pressed against Tate’s face. He dragged his fingers over his cheeks, wiping away imaginary spiderwebs. He didn’t want to move toward the pinprick of light. His wits were barely hanging on, and a fight would sever them completely.

He kept walking.

The water had dissipated–he’d reached higher ground. As he approached the creepy glow, he realized it was a camp light, balanced on a cracked plastic crate. Next to it was a paper plate with crackers on it, and a generic can of spray cheese. A woman with her hair slicked back into a tight ponytail perched on a second crate holding a crack pipe and a lighter stripped of its color. She glared at Tate over the rim of the pipe.

“Who the fuck are you?” Her voice was raspy and irritated.

“I’m looking for my sister.”

“I’m not her.” The woman flicked the lighter, and the edge of the pipe burned red. “And I haven’t seen her.”

“You don’t even know her name.”

“Don’t care.”

Tate’s frayed nerves sparked. “Obviously, you only care about getting high.”

“Good catch.” The woman closed her eyes and exhaled a slow, satisfied breath. Tate edged closer, and he could see the damage done to her skin by the drugs. She was thin and wrinkled with heavy creases around her eyes and lips and rusty-colored splotches on her cheeks.

Her narrow eyes popped open. “Did I invite you into my home?”

“I need to find my sister.”

Before she ends up like you.

“She’s not here.”

He waved the picture. “Her name is Lily. Have you seen her?”

Another hard glare, and then the woman put down her pipe. She threw a gaunt hand out. Her nails were chipped and yellow. Tate handed her the picture, and she brought it close to the light.

“Pretty girl.”

“We’re twins.”

“You must be the ugly one.”

Tate didn’t care about the insult. His average looks were the least of his issues right now. “Have you seen her?”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.” The woman gave the picture back to him with another jerk of her hand. “I might have seen her hanging out closer to the Strip last week.”

“In here, by the Golden Nugget? Or on the streets?”

“In here. Yeah, maybe by the Nugget.” She rolled her eyes overhead and wrapped her skinny arms around her waist. “I don’t go out there much. I stay close to my place.”

Tate followed the tilt of her head and for the first time, saw the rest of the woman’s “place.” An old mattress was propped on cement blocks, and more crates were used to keep food and clothes off the floor.

He didn’t know what to say.

“You ought to get out of here,” the woman said. “My man’ll be back soon, and he doesn’t like strangers snooping around. Besides, this ain’t no place for the likes of you.”

“I have to find my sister.”

“If she’s down here, she don’t want to be found.”

“I can’t leave her in a place like this.”

A bitter laugh burst from the woman’s gray lips. “This is a lot better than being above. Here, we have shelter. We can breathe. Live our lives. Long as you know what places to avoid, down here can be paradise.”

Fear trickled down his spine. “What places should I avoid?”

“You? Everywhere. Look at you.” She flung her hand out again. “All tan and fit, with your expensive hiking boots and t-shirt. How much did you pay to wear that logo on your chest?”

“What does that matter?”

“Matters because you’re a begging duck. That’s what I call ’em. The lookees who come down here wanting to know what it’s all about. Most got money in their pockets and shit for brains. You know how easy it is for a guy like you to get jumped?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Sure. Until you run into a couple of guys who know these parts and are looking for their next score.” She waved the pipe. “You’d be amazed what a guy jonesing for a hit is capable of.”

“I’m following this drain toward the Strip and the Golden Nugget. There should be a fork ahead. Then I turn left. Right?”

“You’re an idiot to go that way. Tunnel’s going to narrow real soon. Hard to walk, even harder to see. Hardcore assholes like to hang out that way too.”

“I’m not worried,” he bluffed.

“They aren’t even the worst of it. The storm drains don’t come with a map. Least not one you can pick up at a gas station. Unless you know where you’re going, you’ll be lost within a couple of hours. Stuck in the dark with the rats and the drug thieves. Then what’ll you do?” She leered at Tate, showing a row of yellowed teeth. “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you, begging duck?”

Bile rose, burning his throat. These miserable tunnels with their concrete walls and dirty secrets had him on the verge of paranoia. He choked back the fear and glared down at the woman.

“Thanks for your help.” Tate turned to go as she lit up her pipe again.

“Remember what I said, begging duck.” Her raspy voice crawled through the blackness and wedged itself in Tate’s subconscious. “Don’t get lost. You might never find your way out. Think you could handle that?”

He ignored her and plodded past her camp into the gaping, black drain.

“Monsters down here.” She kept talking. “And they aren’t all alive. Monsters, begging duck.”

Tate splashed into the water and tried to control his breathing. His heart raced. Blood pounded in his brain. His head ached as he tried to rationalize the fear away.

She was a crack addict. Trying to scare him. The tunnels weren’t infinite. He’d find his way out.

Eventually.

Minutes or hours later, Tate reached the fork and turned left. The ceiling dropped until the top of Tate’s head brushed it. His heart rammed against his ribcage. His lungs heaved and ached. The pitch black grew even darker, and his flashlight became no more than a meager stream of illumination. The tunnel walls inched closer, trapping Tate.

Dizziness washed over him stronger than an ocean wave. He braced his hand against the wall and then jerked it away as a creature squirmed beneath his fingers.

He needed more light. With shaking hands, he fumbled in his jeans pocket for his phone. The slick case slipped through Tate’s damp fingers and into the water.

“Shit.” The dense air and thick walls stifled his shout. Stomach churning, he shined his light on the dirty stream at his feet and retrieved the ruined phone.

Having a working phone meant security, gave him a sense of normalcy, however false it may be. Now all he had was the bugs and bastard dark.

He had to keep walking. His knees locked together, making his movements stiff and jerky.

Count the steps–distract yourself.

Twenty-seven steps later, his heart once again bottomed out. The tunnel widened into another fork, leaving just enough room for a man to make his camp. And sure enough, a man had, a bed set up from the water like all the others Tate had seen.

Sitting on the bed with a lantern at his feet, the man had a full beard with bushy eyebrows to match. He wore stained khaki shorts and a red t-shirt that looked a size too small for his pot belly. His skin was paper thin and gray, probably from lack of sunlight. His veins stood out on his checks and arms, and his nails were yellow and cracked.

The scent of urine and feces nearly brought Tate to his knees. He gagged and covered his nose.

“Just heading toward the Strip.” Tate spoke behind the barrier of his hand.

The man didn’t answer.

Great. Passed out, and from the smell, sitting in his own filth. At least Tate didn’t have to talk to him.

He inched forward, keeping to the opposite side of the wall and trying not to touch it or the slumbering man.

A new odor bloomed in the festering air–a smell that crawled into Tate’s pores and made its way down to his stomach. A scent that made his eyes water. Worse than a skunk, more potent than a rotten egg. He’d never smelled anything like this stench, and it scared the hell out of him.

Now he really couldn’t breathe. Tate staggered backward and then shot away from the slimy something that brushed the back of his neck. No, no, no. He lost his footing, pitched forward, and fell straight toward the man. Just before his hands smacked the concrete wall, he saw the lump of the man’s body in the beam of the flashlight.

“Fuck!” Tate caught himself, stopping his face inches above the corpse. His fisted right hand still gripped the flashlight, and the beam gave the man’s lifeless face an eerie glow that made Tate lose control of his bladder.

The body’s right eye was open and staring straight ahead. Milky white spread over the iris, its color stolen by death. Maggots squirmed in the man’s nostril.

His nose within an inch of the man’s, lungs gasping, stomach bubbling, Tate scrambled backed until he banged against the wall. Unable to stop himself, he trained his flashlight on the body. Dead, dead, dead–death right in front of him, real and terrifying in its indignity. Alone and probably forgotten, the man had sat here and died. His body had emptied itself. The bugs came. A cockroach slithered across the dead forehead.

Disgust and fear welled inside Tate. And then utter sorrow. This poor man. Lily. This could have been Lily.

He wouldn’t let it happen to her. Tate would find his sister if he had to spend the rest of the summer trolling these miserable storm drains. He wouldn’t give up on her.

The vow gave him a sense of control. His senses returned, and he realized he was still nose-to-nose with the corpse.

Jesus. Tate blew out a hard breath.

The dead man’s left eye slid open.

Tate screamed.

He jerked back, slammed against the wall, and saw stars. He dropped the flashlight, and the tunnel went dark.

The blackness snatched Tate. He thought he heard it laugh. His arms flailed until he touched something cold and hard, covered with something soft and pliable.

The dead man’s hand.

The darkness called his name. A whisper at first, sneaking through the filthy air and lodging itself in his brain. Louder. And louder still. Over and over his name echoed in the darkness.

Tate, Tate, Tate.

He had been right; the dark was evil. All these years, it waited for him, biding its time until he was too weak to fight. The Sandman couldn’t help him now. Ice cooled his veins. He tried to run, but the blackness was everywhere. Terror–the kind that turns a man’s stomach inside out–overwhelmed him.

The dark kept talking, kept calling, kept laughing. He covered his ears.

“Leave me alone!”

Run the fuck away.

Robbed of his sense of direction, he stumbled, feet slipping and sliding, legs barely able to support his weight.

His foot hit something solid. He teetered for a single, heart-stopping moment, and then pitched forward. Pain radiated across his head and down into his spine. With a shaking hand, he felt around in the dark for the hard object.

His stomach jumped into his throat.

The dead man’s foot.

The darkness started laughing again. It called his name louder still.

Something long and hard-shelled slithered across Tate’s neck and into his shirt.

Raw terror owned his brain. His muscles locked up as tight as the corpse at his side. And the darkness devoured Tate’s fear.

Ready to claim his soul.

Tate closed his eyes and gave in.

Tate. Tate. Tate.

The darkness still called to him. But instead of deep and harsh, the voice was soft and feminine.

“Tate, please wake up.”

Something in his conscious stirred.

“Christ. That dead guy’s foot knocked him out cold.”

A man’s voice now.

“Don’t surprise me. Dude’s been dead a few days and is hard as a rock.”

“You think he needs a doctor?”

Tate recognized that sweet sound. Despite all she’d put him through, that voice represented safety. Home.

“Lily.” He forced his heavy eyelids open. Glowing yellow surrounded him–blessed light. And staring down at him, her heart-shaped face surrounded by her brown curls, was his sister.

“Thank God.” She wiped her eyes. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Told you not to come this way.” It was Tony who spoke. He knelt at Tate’s feet, holding a large camping light. “You found something worse than thugs.”

Tate looked around and realized he was no longer in the narrow drain jammed up against a rotting dead body. Tony and Lily had moved him back into the wider area of the tunnels. He could hear the water trickling nearby and wanted to weep.

“Can you sit up?” Lily asked.

With her help, he slowly pushed himself off the hard floor. His head swam.

“You might have a concussion,” she said.

“I doubt it,” Tony said.

“You’re the one who said the foot was hard as a rock,” Lily said.

“Yeah, well, that might be an exaggeration.” Tony held up his index finger. “How many you see?”

“Just one.” Embarrassment had begun to creep forward. Tate wasn’t sure if he’d been knocked out by the dead man or simply passed out from fear. He looked at his twin, and she nodded as if reading his thoughts. She knew about the darkness.

“You came looking for me,” she said. “Here, of all places.”

“Couldn’t let you live like this, Lil.” His head hurt when he spoke. “We’ll get you back into treatment, get you some help.”

“I’m not using, Tate.”

“Lily, I know what happened at your apartment. You had the meth in your drawer.”

“Yeah. It was my friend’s.” She shrugged at the clichéd excuse. “Honest. Guy I’ve been seeing. I caught him with it. And he’d promised. I was so pissed.” Lily looked away, her profile illuminated by the glorious camp light.

Tate searched her skin for the sores she always got with meth. It looked good–her scars from past use were healed. Her eyes weren’t sunken in and haunted, either.

“You’re telling the truth.”

“I took the shit,” Lily said. “Figured I’d use it so he couldn’t. Make him feel as bad as I did.”

“But you didn’t.”

She closed her eyes. “No. Didn’t get the chance. Roommate found it and kicked me out.”

“Would you have used?” Tate asked.

“I don’t know.” Lily looked at him with clear eyes. “But I didn’t, and I haven’t. Just been surviving in here with another couple of friends who are trying to get on their feet just like me.”

A mixture of shame and relief flooded Tate. He reached for his sister. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“You didn’t give up,” Lily said. “You never have, and that’s all I can ask.”

She held out her hand. “Let’s get you out of here. To a doctor.”

“Probably don’t have no concussion.” Tony spoke again. “But sometimes symptoms can develop hours later. You ought to go to the ER if you got insurance.”

“How do you know so much?” Lily demanded.

“Cause I’m a damned paramedic, that’s how.” Tony glared at her. “Spent five years with the North Vegas fire department before drugs got the better of me.”

“I didn’t know that,” Lily said.

“Not something I like to brag about.”

Tate looked at Tony with appreciation and a new understanding. Life wasn’t as black and white as he’d once thought.

“How’d you find me?”

“Tony,” his sister said. “He didn’t like you coming this way. He tracked me down, and we hauled ass this way. You’re lucky a dead body’s all you found.”

Tate glanced over his shoulder at the narrow path of darkness where he knew the corpse still waited. “We can’t leave him there.”

“No,” Lily said.

Tony stood up and offered Tate his hand. “Come on. We’ll get you out of here, and then you can notify the authorities. People won’t like cops in here, but getting the dude out is the right thing to do.”

Tate stood on shaky legs. He draped his arm around Lily’s shoulders. “Guess you rescued me this time.”

She squeezed his waist. “Call it even?”

“Yeah, we’re even.”

With Lily at his side, Tate followed Tony through the storm drains until they reached the entrance near the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. Night had fallen, and as he and Lily walked to Tate’s car, he glanced back at the tunnel entrance one last time.

The gates to Tate’s own personal hell.

“Do me a favor.” Tate handed Lily his car keys. “Stay out of the drains. They’re no place for anyone.”

“Some people don’t have any choice. Tunnels are their last chance.” She started the car, and Tate sighed in pleasure at the gust of processed air.

“You have a choice.” He thought of the dead man left to die alone, rotting in the dark. “You’re staying with me.”

“Tate, you don’t have to–”

“Yes, I do. You’re my sister. And I’m selfish.”

Lily’s eyebrows knit together as she turned south onto Las Vegas Boulevard and merged into traffic. “Selfish?”

“Yeah. You stay with me, I don’t have to worry about going back into those stinking drains.”

Tate settled back into the seat. Ahead, the Strip’s neon lights lit up the night sky, and the world-famous sign every tourist wanted his picture taken under beckoned.

“Welcome to Las Vegas.”

The End

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About the Author

Born in Indiana and raised in Iowa, Stacy Green earned degrees in journalism and sociology from Drake University. After a successful advertising career, Stacy became a proud stay-at-home mom to her miracle child. Now a full-time author, Stacy juggles her time between her demanding characters and supportive family. She loves reading, cooking, and the occasional gardening excursion. Stacy lives in Marion, Iowa with her husband Rob, their daughter Grace, and the family’s three obnoxious but lovable canine children.

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