Jeaniene Frost - Halfway to the Grave

“I don’t know who your source is, but for someone to try and link me with this woman after six years is ridiculous. I was still in high school back then. Don’t you find it a little weird that all of a sudden, now someone is coming forward to say I left with this person?”

Mansfield allowed himself a nasty sneer. “You know what I find weird? How a nice girl like you got mixed up in this. What are they, Satan worshippers? Is that why they dug up a corpse and then dressed it in contemporary clothes? Some kind of effigy? These strange bodies are turning up in more places than one, too. Another one was found not too far from here about ten days ago. That one was a woman, and she’d been dead almost a hundred years! Come on, Catherine. You know who’s doing this. Tell us, and we can give you protection. But if you don’t, you’ll go down with them for accessory to murder, conspiracy, grave robbery, and kidnapping. Want to spend the rest of your life in jail? It’s not worth it.”

Wow, did they have some theories. Guess it made sense if they were looking at it from a purely human angle. Why else would someone dig up and then rebury a long-dead body? Because the person wasn’t really dead, of course.

“I’ll tell you what I know.” Anger and anxiety sharpened my voice. “I know I’m done listening to your crazy ideas about dead women and old bodies. You’re grasping at straws and I won’t be one of them.”

With that, I turned on my heel and slammed the door. They made no move to stop me, but Mansfield called through the door.

“I suppose you don’t know Danny Milton, then, either? How do you think we got your name? He’s the one who saw you leave with Felicity’s kidnapper at Club Galaxy six years ago. He remembers because he said the two of you got in a fight that night, and he didn’t tell the police about it back then because he was concerned about disclosing his relationship with an underage girl. He told Detective Black all about it on the phone this morning, however, after Detective Black stumbled across Danny’s police report stating your new boyfriend had crushed his hand by shaking it. Now, we don’t know how Danny’s hand got crippled. We know it couldn’t have been from a mere handshake. Did you take him somewhere and demolish his hand? Maybe to prevent him from talking? We’ll find out everything from him, believe me. And then we’ll be back.”

I waited until their footsteps faded before I sank to the ground by the door.

Having watched enough TV, at least I knew not to immediately pick up the phone and call Bones. The line could be tapped. They knew enough but still not enough. Their little scare tactic this morning had been staged to send me sobbing out a confession. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. For starters, it would be a great way to get an extended vacation in a padded room. One where I could tell all the lovely doctors who were pumping me full of lithium about monsters.

Instead, I dressed in black spandex pants and a long-sleeved tight top of matching material, completed with sneakers and a ponytail. Let them think I was going for a run in the woods. The mouth of the cave was difficult to find unless you knew where to look, which they didn’t. Besides, they couldn’t keep up with me at a run through that uneven ground if they tried. Mansfield would probably have a heart attack on the spot. He smelled like a chain-smoker.

First, I had to look like I wasn’t dashing right out to the scene of a crime. I went to the mall and shopped for an hour, my stomach churning inside. Then I left and started toward the cave.

When I parked the truck, I did it even farther away than its normal quarter-mile stop. Instead it was over four miles of wooded territory from the cave. In case I had an audience, I made a show of stretching and warming up as a normal jogger would. Then I sprinted away, going in large circles to confuse someone trying to pinpoint my direction.

After ten miles of sprinting, I darted into the cave. Bones was already walking toward me, a puzzled but pleased expression on his face.

“Kitten, didn’t expect you so early-”

He stopped, seeing my face. I threw my arms around him and burst into tears.

“What is it?”

He picked me up, carrying me swiftly through the lower entrance and depositing me on the couch. I got hold of myself enough to explain.

“Danny. Danny Milton! Damn him, he managed to fuck me again, and this time he kept his clothes on! I just got a visit from two detectives. Thanks to that schmuck giving them my name and telling them I left a club with a murderer, guess who’s their prime suspect in an unsolved crime involving a young woman and a strange mummified corpse? I think you’re going to need to drink them and change their minds, or I’ll never graduate college. God, they think I’m protecting an occult killer, you wouldn’t believe some of their theories-”

Alarm flashed across his face and he got up from the couch.

“Kitten.” There was deadly intensity in his voice. “Get on the phone and ring your mum. Right now. Tell her to get your grandparents and leave. Bring them here, all of them.”

“Are you insane?” Now I stood also, eyes wide with incomprehension. “My mother would run shrieking out of this cave to begin with, she’s afraid of the dark, and I can just see my grandparents bunkering down here. The police aren’t worth-”

“I don’t give a rot about the police.” His words sliced through the air. “Hennessey’s looking for anything he can find on me or, failing that, on someone close to me. You know he’s got connections with the police, so if they have your name now as a suspect in a murder where there’s a strange shriveled corpse, then he would also. You’re not anonymous anymore. You’ve been linked to a dead vampire, and all he needs to do is take one look at a photo of you to know you’re the same girl who almost got him killed, so get on the phone and get your family out of that house.”

Sweet Jesus, I hadn’t considered that! With trembling hands I took the phone he handed me and dialed. It rang, one time…two…three…four…five…six…Tears sprang to my eyes. They never let it ring that long. Oh no, no, please…ten…eleven…twelve…

“There’s no answer. I spoke to her this morning, before the detectives came. She said someone was at the door…”

We sped off through the trees on his motorcycle. For once I was glad he had the damned unsafe thing. It was the only type of vehicle that could navigate through this territory at such speeds. If anyone tried to pull us over, I would look guilty as all hell of anything they accused me of. Over my tight black spandex from before, I now had on crisscrossed boots with stakes inside, silver throwing knives lashed to my upper arms and thighs, and two guns tucked in my belt filled with silver bullets. Not that we would have stopped for anyone. Somebody could just try to catch us.

I kept trying my family on the cell, cursing and praying when there was still no answer. If anything happened to them, it would be all my fault. If only I hadn’t drunk that spiked gin and been unable to kill Hennessey…if only I’d never met Danny… A thousand different ways to scourge myself seared through my mind. Normally it took an hour and a half to get to the house from the cave. Bones made it there in less than thirty minutes.

We pulled right up to the front and I was the first one off, running up the steps of the porch and through the open door. Once there, my brain refused to translate what my eyes saw. The red liquid smeared on the ground caused me to slide forward and then fall to the floor with the momentum of my panicked strides. Bones stepped inside with more caution but just as swiftly, and he dragged me to my feet.

“Hennessey and his men could still be nearby. You’re no use to anyone if you break now!”