Erica Spindler - Dead Run

“Years ago. After her sister’s-” She bit the words off and began again. “She wasn’t always the way she is now. She was a sweet child. Prone to willfulness and pranks…but what child isn’t?”

She didn’t expect a response and continued. “Then…she began running with the wrong crowd. Fast girls. Boys I didn’t like or trust. She began dabbling in the occult. With drugs. It seemed liked overnight she became a girl I didn’t recognize.”

Martha Ferguson lowered her gaze to her hands, clasped tightly on the table in front of her. After several moments, she returned her gaze to Liz’s. “She became a girl who frightened me.”

Liz struggled to reconcile what this woman was saying with what she knew of Heather from personal experience. The two versions didn’t fit. “How old was she when this happened?”

“Before her fifteenth birthday is when I began to see changes in her.” She paused, the moment pregnant with pain. “At first I thought it was a…a phase. That given a bit of time and strict boundaries, she would return to her normal self…but it didn’t go that way. Her behavior became more bizarre. Her moods blacker, more violent.” The woman’s voice cracked. “The Lord took both my children from me.”

“Both your children?” Liz asked as gently as she could, heart breaking for this woman.

“Yes. My younger daughter, my darling Christina. She was…she was murdered by that madman Gavin Taft.”

Dear God. The connection, she had found it.

Rick had been right about Gavin Taft being the link to the killer. Only that killer was a woman, not a man.

Wednesday, November 21

5:40 p.m.

Carla stood at her front window, peering nervously out at the storm, waiting for Rick. The rain had hit during her ferry ride back from Sunset Key. It had begun as a drizzle; by the time she had reached the safety of her porch, it had become a downpour.

She swung away from the window and started to pace. Where was he? She couldn’t quell her growing sense of dread. Shivering, she rubbed her arms.

The wind howled. Lightning flashed. She hugged herself. Every time she closed her eyes she saw dirty old Bernhardt grunting and sweating as he screwed the two teenagers doggy-style, moving between the two as if feasting at a smorgasbord. It made her sick. It infuriated her.

Bernhardt had been a sick bastard and she was glad he was dead. Heather Ferguson, on the other hand, was evil. But worst by far had been Tara ’s tortured expression during the entire ordeal. A lost soul, Carla thought, squeezing her eyes shut against the haunting image. An innocent lamb to the slaughter.

A prayer popped into Carla’s head, one repeated daily in the early years of her life but long ago relegated to the far recesses of her consciousness.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name-

From the back of her cottage came a scraping sound, like her rear door opening. She froze. “Rick?” she called. “Is that you?”

Silence answered her. Heart thundering, she drew her service revolver and made her way to the back of the house. Her hands shook as she crept forward, bits and pieces of the Lord’s Prayer playing through her head.

– and deliver us from evil, for thine-

She nudged open her bedroom door. Empty.

– is the kingdom, the power and the-

She swung into the bathroom, gun out. Nothing.

– glory, forever and ever-

She reached the kitchen. The rear door had popped partially open. Rain had blown in, bringing leaves and flower petals, making a mess. She had forgotten to latch the door; this had happened before.

She laughed nervously as she laid her gun on the counter, then crossed to the door and pushed it shut.

She hated this job. She hated this place.

She wanted to go home.

“Hello, Carla.”

She whirled, realizing her mistake. Metal glinted as it arced toward her; her life flashed before her eyes. She threw her hands up, a scream ripping past her lips, a terrible sound drowned out by the howl of Rebekah’s wind.

Wednesday, November 21

6:00 p.m.

Rick tapped on Carla’s front door. It drifted open. Frowning, he nudged the door wider and slipped inside.

“Carla,” he called. “It’s Rick.”

She didn’t reply and his senses sharpened. This felt wrong. Bad wrong. He swept his gaze over the room. Except for the trail of water that led from the doorway where he stood toward the back of the house, nothing appeared out of place. He narrowed his eyes. Someone had come in from the rain and walked dripping wet through the house, not pausing to wipe their feet or towel off.

Someone other than Carla, judging by the way the wooden floors gleamed. She obviously took excellent care of them.

He told himself to get out. He told himself to call the KWPD and wait on the front porch until they arrived.

But Val was the KWPD.

And he was also the enemy.

Dammit. He flexed his fingers. When Sam died, he had promised himself he would never fire a gun again. For the first time since that day, he wished for the muscle his Walther PPK 380 had provided. He wished he was the man he’d been then-arrogant, cocky, invincible.

Problem was, now he understood how tenuous life was. How fragile.

Rick moved his gaze around the room again, this time looking for something he could use to protect himself. His gaze landed on a large brass candlestick on the mantel. He crossed to the fireplace and lifted it, weighing it in his hand. Not as effective as the Walther, he acknowledged. But it would have to do.

He followed the trail of water, inching forward, straining to listen. From the back of the house came a sound, one he couldn’t place. Like an ill-fitting door being dragged across the floor.

He wasn’t alone.

Carla.

Rick forced himself to proceed slowly, to not abandon stealth. He found Carla in the kitchen. She lay on her side on the floor, wedged against the far cabinet, her arm hitched up the wainscoting. Then he saw the blood, an obscene smear across the light-colored tile. A growing pool around her torso.

“Carla!” he cried and raced to her side. Snatching a dish towel from the counter, he pressed it to the gaping wound in her chest. Then he saw the others.

There were so many of them. Her attacker had hacked at her as if in a frenzy.

She couldn’t survive an attack like this. If the paramedics were here now, working to save her, she wouldn’t survive.

Her eyes fluttered open. They looked dull already.

“No,” he muttered fiercely. “Don’t die, baby. You’re not going to die, you hear me? You’re not.”

She held his gaze. Her lips moved, as if she was trying to speak. “What, sweetheart? Tell me.”

He bent his ear close to her mouth. Her breath stirred against his cheek, though no sound emerged. He drew away. Her eyes closed, a small smile curved the edges of her lips.

Tears burned his eyes. “No! Dammit, Carla!” He shook her; her head lolled to the side. “Come back, baby. Come ba-”

“Get up, Rick.”

Rick whipped his head around. Val stood in the doorway behind him, his gaze on Carla. He wore a hooded black rain slicker. Water dripped from the slicker onto the floor, pooling at his feet.

A trail of water from the door to the back of the house.

Fury choked him. Betrayal with it. “Is that all you have to say? Get up, Rick?”

He turned his expressionless eyes on Rick. “Is she dead?”

“What do you think?”

“I think that yes, she is.”

Rick eased to his feet, shaking with rage. “What are you doing here, Val?”

“Carla called me,” he replied woodenly. “She told me to meet her here, that it was urgent.”