J Ward - Crave

Doing drugs, Grier finished in her mind. It had begun in middle school for him. First booze, then pot… then LSD and ’shrooms. And then the hard-core contact sport of cocaine, followed by the mellow morgue feeder that was heroin.

Her father refolded his handkerchief with precision. “When my initial overtures about leaving were met with a resounding ‘no,’ I became paranoid that on one of my assignments they were going to kill me and make it look like an accident. I stayed silent for years. But then I learned something I shouldn’t have, something that was a game changer for an important man of power. I tried… I tried to use it as a key to unlock the door.”

“And…” she interjected, her heart was pounding so loudly she wondered if the neighbors could hear it.

Silence.

“Go on,” she prompted.

He just shook his head.

“Tell me,” she choked out, hating her father as she remembered walking in and seeing Daniel that last time. He’d had a needle sticking out of a vein in the back of his arm and his head had been back, his mouth slack, his skin the color of winter snow clouds.

“If you don’t answer me…” She couldn’t finish. The idea that she might lose all of her family right here, right now closed her throat up tight.

That handkerchief was unbound once more with shaky hands. “The men approached me in the firm’s parking garage downtown. I’d been working late and they… they put me in a car and I figured this was it. They were going to kill me. Instead, they drove me south to Quincy. To Daniel’s place. He was already high when we all walked in-I think… I think he believed it was a practical joke. When he saw the syringe they’d brought, he offered them his arm-even though I was screaming for him not to let them-” Her father’s voice broke. “He didn’t care… he didn’t know… I knew what they were doing-but he didn’t. I should have… They should have killed me, not him. They should have…”

Rage made Grier’s vision white out briefly. When it came back, the center of her chest was ice cold and she didn’t care that he had suffered. Or had regrets or…

“Get out of this house. Now.”

“Grier-”

“I don’t want to ever see you again. Don’t contact me. Don’t come near me-”

“Please-”

“Get out!” She shifted to Isaac. “Take him out of here-just get him away from me.”

She’d do it herself, but she barely had enough strength to stand up.

Isaac didn’t hesitate. He walked over to her father, hitched a hand under the guy’s arm, and lifted him out of the armchair.

Her father was talking again, but she was deaf as he was escorted from the kitchen: The image of her brother’s body on that ratty couch consumed her.

The small details were the killer: His eyes had been partially open, his pupils staring off sightlessly into the middle distance, and his faded blue T-shirt had been stained with dark patches under the armpits and vomit on the front. Three rusty spoons and a grubby yellow Bic lighter had littered the coffee table, and there had been a half-eaten pizza that looked a week old on the floor by his feet. The stuffy air had smelled of stale urine and cigarette smoke as well as something chemically sweet.

The thing that had stuck out the most, though, was that she’d noticed his watch had stopped: When she’d called 911, they’d told her to see if there was a pulse and she’d gone for his nearest wrist. As she’d pulled it up and dug her fingers in, she’d seen that the timepiece was not the one their father had given him upon his graduation from U Penn-that Rolex had long ago been pawned off. What he’d had on was just a battery-operated Timex and the hands had frozen at eight twenty-four.

It was the same way that Daniel’s body had just stopped. After all the beatings it had taken, it had finally run out of life.

So ugly. The scene had been so ugly. And yet his lovely hair had been the same. He’d always had a blond angel mop, as their mother had called it, and even on the slide into dead-and-gone, the curls on his head had retained their perfect circular nature: though the color was dingy from lack of washing, Grier had been able to see past that to the beauty that was.

Or had been, as it were.

Snapping out of the past, she rubbed her face and stood up from the sofa.

Then with all the grace of a zombie, she put the back stairs to use and went to her room-where she got a suitcase and started packing.

On the lawn at the McCready Funeral Home, Jim didn’t waste a lot of time trying to figure out how Devina had known where to find him: She was here and the issue was how to get rid of her.

“Cat got your tongue, Jim.” Her voice was just as he remembered it-low, smooth, deep. Sexy-provided you didn’t know what was inside her skin.

“Nah. Not hardly.”

“How have you been, by the way.”

“I’m fan-fucking-tastic.”

“Yes. You are.” She smiled, showing perfect pearlies. “I’ve missed you.”

“What a sap.”

Devina laughed, the sound rolling through the chilly night air. “Not in the slightest.”

As a car turned the corner and went by on the street, its headlights illuminated the front of the funeral home and the patches of brown in the lawn and the barely budding dogwood-and did absolutely nothing to Devina. Then again, she didn’t really exist in this world.

The demon’s eyes ran down him and then focused on Matthias. “Back to the issue at hand.”

“There is no issue, Devina.”

“I love when you say my name.” She took a lazy step forward, but Jim wasn’t fooled by the nothing-special. “Whatever are you going to do with him?”

“I was going to put him in his car to wake up. But now I’m thinking I’ll fly him back to Boston.”

“You’ll find that he’s too heavy, I’m afraid.” Another step forward. “Are you worried that I’ll do something bad to him?”

“Like you’re a naughty little girl and are going to tie his shoelaces together? Yup. That’s right.”

“Actually, I have other plans for your old boss.” A third step.

“Do you.” Jim held his ground-literally and figuratively. “FYI, I’m not sure his plumbing works after all the injuries. I’ve never asked, but Cialis only goes so far.”

“I have my ways.”

“Undoubtedly.” Jim bared his teeth. “I’m not going to let you take him, Devina.”

“Isaac Rothe?”

“Both of them.”

“Greedy. And I thought you didn’t like Matthias.”

“Just because I can’t stand the bastard doesn’t mean I want you to have him-or use him like a toy. Unlike the pair of you, I have a problem with collateral damage.”

“How about we make a deal.” Her smile was way too self-satisfied for his liking. “I let Matthias go along his merry way tonight. And you spend a little time with me.”

His blood turned cold. “No, thanks. I have plans.”

“Found someone else? Been unfaithful to me?”

“Not a chance. That would require a relationship.”

“Which we have.”

“Not.” He glanced around just to double-check that she didn’t have reinforcements. “I’m outta here, Devina. Have a nice night.”

“I’m afraid Matthias is not going to make it.”

“Nah, he’s going to be just fine-”

“Will he.” She extended her long, elegant hand.

All at once the man started to moan in Jim’s arms, his face screwing down in agony, his frail limbs spasming.

“I don’t have to even touch him, Jim.” Curling her fingers up tight, like she was squeezing his heart in her palm, Matthias torqued hard. “I can kill him here and now.”

With a curse, Jim combed through what he’d learned from Eddie, trying to pull a spell or an incantation or… something… out of his ass to stop the onslaught.