After Moonrise: Possessed\Haunted (12 page)

PROLOGUE

The woman lay naked atop a cold slab of metal, her
wrists cuffed above her head, her legs shackled apart. Frigid air that smelled
of blood and disinfectant had turned her skin into a layer of ice over muscle
too weak to even tremble. Determination to escape had drained out of her after
the thousandth attempt, though the tears she’d shed forever ago were still
crystallized on her cheeks.

This was it for her, she thought. The last day of her life.
Sadly, there would be no changing course. The ship had already sailed and the
storm had already begun.

She hadn’t asked for this, certainly hadn’t wanted it, but
she’d gotten it. Now all she could do was fight. And she would. With every ounce
of her strength, she would.

A muffled mewling sound echoed somewhere beyond her.

Though she was bound too tightly to twist and look, she knew
her replacement had just woken up and realized she was locked inside a dog cage,
only a metal slab and another female’s shame visible. She knew—because she had
once been locked inside that cage herself.

She had been forced to watch as the psycho who’d stunned her
and stuffed her inside of his car had finished off the
other
woman who’d been on this slab. The one before her, now dead,
killed in the most horrendous way.

“Do yourself a favor and shut up,” she told the girl. Now
wasn’t a time for gentleness. “It’s better to remain silent than to give him
what he wants—and he wants you to cry. He wants you to scream and beg and tell
him how badly it hurts.”

The mewls increased in volume.

“Or continue doing that and make him the happiest murderer in
the world,” she added with a grumble.

The thump of booted footsteps suddenly filled the room. Her
heartbeat spiked into a too hard, too fast beat. One second passed, two, before
the hinges on the room’s only door groaned. Sickness churned in her stomach.

He was here.

Was she really going to do this?

“Good morning, my lovelies.” Such a smug tone, layered with
threads of glee and malicious intent. “How are we feeling today?”

Yeah. She was.

Cries emerged from the cage as she said, “I’m feeling like it’d
be fun to do a role reversal with you. What do you think? You on this bed, me
with a low IQ, a tiny penis and—stop me if I’m wrong—big-time mommy issues.”

A hiss of breath slithered in her direction. “You will never
mention my mother again, do you hear me?” Anger had replaced the smugness,
knives and other toys clanging together as he searched for the instrument he
desired.

“If by ‘never mention again’ you mean ‘never stop talking about
it,’ then, yeah, I heard. So, why don’t you pretend I’m your therapist and this
is a free-of-charge session?”

“Enough!”

Hardly. “Tell me. Did Mommy Dearest not breast-feed you? Or did
she breast-feed you far too long?”

A heavy silence crawled through the small enclosure.

Dig the knife deeper—he soon will.
“Come on, you can trust me. I’ll keep everything on the down low, and only bring
up your deep, dark secrets on my blog. Well, and maybe my Twitter feed. Oh, and
Facebook. Possibly a video diary on YouTube. Other than that, my lips are
sealed.”

The metal crashed together with more force. At last he found
what he wanted—an eight-inch serrated blade. Holding it up so that the silver
gleamed in the too bright overhead light, he turned to face her, a half grin,
half scowl lifting the corners of his lips.

“Darling,” he said to the other captive, pretending to ignore
her. He couldn’t hide the clenching of his teeth. “You’ll want to pay special
attention to what happens next because if you displease me, you’ll experience it
yourself.”

The cries became muffled whimpers, the cage rattling as the
female tried to slink through the bars.

Never again will I give him that kind of
satisfaction
. “Oh, goodness, oh, no,” she said, mocking him. “The
psycho killer has a knife. Someone cue the spooky music and my terrified
screaming.”

His narrowed gaze landed on her, and he waved the blade back
and forth, back and forth. “Have you not yet realized the beast you
provoke?”

“Uh, hello. Obviously I have. He’s as tiny as the rest of you,
which is why I’m grinning.”

He popped his jaw. He wasn’t an ugly man, was actually quite
beautiful, with golden curls, eyes of the sweetest honey and features as
innocent and guileless as a child’s.

Such a cruel, cruel mask.

When she’d first woken up in that cage she’d thought he was
here to save her. A notion quickly disabused as he hauled her out, cut away her
clothing and laughed with chilling delight.

“I can make this painless…or excruciatingly painful. Watch
yourself,” he snapped.

“Did I hurt your feelings?” she said. “Bad prisoner. Bad, bad,
bad prisoner.”

Steps slow and measured, he approached her. “Think you’re so
brave? Well, let’s see what I can do to change your mind, shall we? I know you
can’t see her, but the girl in the cage is—drumroll, please—your only real
friend. You remember her, don’t you? Of course you do. She’s the pretty
one.”

The first spark of heat ignited in her chest as she craned her
neck to try to peer into the cage, but again, as tightly bound as she was, she
was unable to contort herself as needed. She saw only the wall of pictures.
Photos he’d taken of the other females he’d violated.

Tomorrow, her image would join them.

“You’re lying, trying to hurt me because you’re a miserable
little runt whose heart has rotted and you can’t find any other way to get to
me.”

Hatred flared in his eyes, creating deep, dark pits of evil.
“You think so? Well, why don’t you ask the girl and find out whether or not I
spoke true.”

Her fingers curled into fists. He wasn’t lying. Was he? A liar
would not appear so satisfied. Would he? “Say something,” she commanded the
girl.

Silence.

His smug chuckle resounded between them. “My deepest apologies,
but she’ll not be saying anything. She’s mouthy, your friend. You know she is.
I’m afraid I was forced to cut out her tongue.”

Another spark of heat, this one containing fiery strands of
rage. Growing…growing… Her friend
was
mouthy, and
this man was vile enough to take her—and just cruel enough to stop her from ever
speaking again. Anything to add to the torment he’d already unleashed.

How dare he abduct her friend! How dare he force such a
precious girl to endure the horrors he’d visited upon her! Growing…growing…

“You sick, disgusting…argh!” she rasped, jerking at her cuffs.
No description was foul enough. “I’ll end you. You’ll never be able to hurt her
again. Just wait… I’ll…end…you.”
Don’t cry. Don’t you dare
cry
. But she was having trouble catching her breath, forming
words.

With his free hand, he stroked along her brow, his touch
gentle, almost tender. “You’ve always thought yourself stronger than you really
are. It’s your biggest flaw. One I’ll enjoy culling from you.”

She tried to bite him.

He laughed. “I can’t wait to show my newest plaything pictures
of our time together. Think she’ll be jealous?”

The rage spread through the rest of her, burning, blistering,
causing any hint of tears to evaporate. “You can kill me, but I’m staying here,
I promise you.” There was her voice, stronger than before, dripping with
determination.

He quirked an eyebrow in mock fear. “Oh, scary. And just how
will you manage that, hmm?”

“I’ll find a way. There’s
always
a
way, and good
always
overcomes evil.”

“So certain,” he said, and tsked under his tongue. “I’ve heard
a strong spirit can prove victorious against anything, even death, but, darling,
as I’ve tried and tried and tried to tell you, you aren’t very strong.”

“We’ll find out.” An accepted fact in their world: there was
indeed an afterlife. Some people moved on to a better place. Some, to a worse
place. But she wasn’t going anywhere until her friend was safe.

“Well, I hope you’re right. Just think, if you remain here on
earth, we can be together again.” He raised the blade, grinned—and plunged the
metal deep.

CHAPTER ONE

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

SIG-Sauer: eight hundred dollars.

Case of bullets: thirty dollars.

Shooting your neighbor in the face for going through your trash
after you’d already warned him there would be consequences if he ever dared to
do it again: priceless.

And I’ll do it, too,
Detective Levi
Reid vowed as he polished the gun in question.
My stuff is
my stuff. Even my trash!

He’d moved into the King’s Landing apartment complex three
weeks ago, but he still wasn’t sure why. Or how. Fine, he knew how. He didn’t
like it, and would never admit the truth to anyone but himself, but every day he
experienced some sort of blackout. He would snap out of it missing anywhere from
five minutes to five hours. Or, in the case of this apartment, seven days.

Honestly, here’s what he knew about the events leading up to
such a major loss: he’d followed a suspicious-looking guy to the building’s back
entrance. The end. He’d next woken up inside this very room, all of his things
surrounding him. He had no idea when he’d packed his stuff, given his home of
six years to a stranger or rented this spacious though run-down two-bedroom
hellhole totally
not
suitable for a king.

His coworkers hadn’t come looking for him because he was
currently on a forced leave of absence. He didn’t have a girlfriend and had
already canceled all of his “mandatory” appointments with the shrink. So, he’d
decided to stay put, just in case another blackout struck and he came to
someplace worse.

First he’d fumed about his total lack of control—and there were
holes in his walls to prove it. Then he’d sunk into a (manly) depression. Manly:
no crying or whining, just staring stoically—if not sexily—into the darkness.
Now he pondered. He should have manned up and moved somewhere better, but some
part of him had actually grown to like it here, despite everything.

Situated at the edge of downtown Oklahoma City, his new home
gave him an up close and personal view of the homeless who littered the streets,
the prostitutes who constantly hunted prey and the dealers who made back-alley
sales day and night. He’d come to this area countless times while on the job,
and it had always given him the creeps. (Again, in a manly way.) And okay, okay.
The building wasn’t as bad as he remembered. Someone had fixed it up, made it
habitable.

His neighbors weren’t so bad, either, he supposed. They had
their quirks, but who didn’t?

The guy in 211 skulked around every corner as if a serial
killer had his number—and that number was up. Any time Levi heard a suspicious
noise and decided to check the halls, the guy glued himself to Levi’s side,
crying and begging Levi to help but refusing to answer any questions or share
any details.

The girl in 123 liked to tiptoe up and down the halls at all
hours of the day and night, stopping to attempt to X-ray vision her way past
every door she encountered. Any time Levi walked past
her,
her attention would swing to him and she would say something
spine-chilling like, “I miss my baby. Will you be my baby?” Or, his favorite,
“What will you do when you’re dead? Dead, dead, dead, you’re so dead.”

The guy in 409 was Mr. Dumpster Diver.

As of last week, a redheaded stunner and her pretty blonde
roommate had moved in. They might be as weird as the rest of them, but he was
thinking about asking the redhead out. He wasn’t a fan of dating, but he sure
did like getting laid.

Right now he sat at his kitchen table, his SIG in pieces and
mixed with his cleaning supplies. He greased the gun’s rails, put the slide on,
removed the slide and wiped off the rails, each action automatic. He’d done this
a thousand times before, and now found the act calming.

Calm, something he was supposed to maintain. Apparently, if you
were on the job and attacked an alleged serial killer who liked to store body
parts in his freezer, you’d be told you had “temper issues” and needed to take
time to “think and rest.”

What he really needed was a distraction. So, okay, fine. No
more thinking about asking Red out. He’d just do it. Hopefully, she was into
rough-looking homicide detectives who were possessive of their stuff but trying
to learn to share. Also, Levi wasn’t interested in one-night stands and actually
expected commitment. And despite popular opinion, he did know how to smile.

A hard knock at his door brought his head snapping up. Probably
just another neighbor here to ask to hide from Johnny Law or to tell him the end
was near. “Go away. No one’s here.”

Another knock, this one harder, more insistent. “I won’t bite,”
she said. “At least, not more than a few times.”

He liked her voice. Soft and sweet, yet determined. Still, an
intelligent person didn’t offer to nibble on strangers.

Motions swift, he put his gun back together and shoved it in
the back of his running shorts. The weight created big-time sag, never a good
thing but especially not when he was shirtless. His uninvited guest would
probably get a peek at his goods, but by the time he finished with her that
wouldn’t be the worst of her worries. She needed to learn the consequences of
this kind of behavior.

But…then he glanced through the peephole and spied the
redhead’s roommate, the pretty blonde. Teaching her a lesson took a backseat to
getting rid of her. Last time he’d seen her, she’d made him feel a tide of guilt
and shame. Why, he didn’t know. Didn’t care. He just didn’t want to deal with
her.

The moment he opened the door, however, urgency took a backseat
to concern. She was highlighted by flickering overhead light, chewing on her
nails and shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Crimson specks marred
her cheeks and splattered her hands. Blood?

Frowning, he opened the door wider. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

Eyes of ocean-blue narrowed on him, her gaze becoming a laser
that sliced through flesh. She stopped chewing and shifting at least, and no
feelings of guilt or shame rose to the surface. “Ma’am? Did you just call me
ma’am?”

“Yes, ma’am. Are you okay?”

“Wow, that hurts!” she said, ignoring his question a second
time. “Just how old do you think I am?”

A minefield of a query, and one he was better off disregarding.
He motioned to her stained hands with a tilt of his chin, even as he reached for
the handle of his gun. “Let’s try this again. Are you hurt?” He scanned the
walkway. Empty. No suspicious shadows, marks or noises. “Is someone following
you? Bothering you?”

“Why would you—” She glanced down, chuckled and wiggled her
fingers at him. “This is paint. I’m a painter.”

Paint. No mortal danger, then. His concern faded, and the
surliness resurfaced. “Then what are you doing here?” Okay, so he probably
should have pretended to be nice. She’d tell her friend he was a tool, and the
friend would tell him she’d rather date a dishrag when he finally asked her
out.

“As I was saying,” she continued blithely. “My amazing art does
not contain…” A shudder of revulsion shook her. “You know.”

What? Blood? Probably. So many people had an aversion to the
stuff, but he’d never had such qualms. “‘You know’?” he parroted.

“Yeah. The elixir of life.”

You’re kidding me.
“And the elixir
of life is?” Levi was having what he suspected was fun for the first time since
his suspension. The girl was brave enough to knock on a stranger’s door and
demand he open up, but she couldn’t say a certain five-letter word? How cute was
that?

She ran her tongue over her teeth and whispered, “Fine. I can
do this. It’s
B-L-O-O-D
.” Another shudder shook
her.

Would it be rude to laugh at her? She’d actually spelled the
word rather than said it.

His stance softened, and he allowed his arm to fall to his
side. “So you’re an artist, huh?”

“An
amazing
artist.”

“I don’t know about amazing,” he said, “but you’re definitely
modest.” And she was more than cute, he realized. She was short and curvy, her
face something you might find on a little girl’s favorite doll, with big blue
eyes, a button nose and heart-shaped lips. She was utterly adorable.

“By the way,” he added, “being called ‘sir’ would be a reason
to have a hissy. Ma’am’s all good. I say that to everyone with—” his gaze
automatically dropped to give her a once-over, but he got caught on her breasts,
which were straining the fabric of her pajama top. He managed to jerk his
attention back up and choke out “—estrogen.” Girl was
stacked
.

“Good point,” she said, tossing that tumble of pale hair over
one shoulder, “but I assure you, I’m all woman.”

Noticed. Believe me
. Rather than
voice the sentiment aloud—and risk finding his testicles in his throat—he gave
her a single nod of affirmation. “No argument here.”

A relieved breath left her. “Thank you for not telling me I
need to double-check my woman card.”

“A double check isn’t necessary.”
Are
you…flirting?

“Well, isn’t the big, strong he-man sweet?”

“Yes, ma’am, he is.”

He wasn’t the type to flirt, but yeah. Yeah, he was flirting,
and she was flirting back.

He’d planned to ask the redhead out, not really wanting
anything to do with the blonde and all that guilt and shame she’d caused, but
now, with the emotions out of the way, he changed his mind. He wanted this
one.

In female-speak, that meant he wanted to get to know her
better. In male-speak, he wanted her in his bed, like, now.

She was young, probably in her mid-twenties, with that cascade
of wavy blond hair, blond brows and blond lashes, those delicate doll features
and the fair skin of someone who preferred to hiss at the sun rather than to
bask in it. And she was—

Familiar. He knew her, he realized. Somehow, someway, he knew
her. Finally, an explanation as to why he’d felt what he’d felt when she’d first
moved in, and yet he had no idea when or where they would have met.

“You’re staring,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip.

A nervous habit, definitely. One that made him think she was
slightly…broken.

A protective instinct he usually only experienced on the job
sprang to life. Annnd, yes, there was the guilt and the shame again.

Why? Why would he feel this way about her?

Well, no matter the answer, Red was back in the running. Levi
didn’t date the broken. Ever. He protected, he avenged, but he didn’t fix. How
could he? He couldn’t keep his own life on track. Besides that, he didn’t like
feeling this way.

“Seriously. What?” she demanded.

“Just wondering if we’ve met before.” Even as he asked, his
arms felt heavier, the muscles tense, as if memory had been stored there and he
was now reliving his time with her. But…that would mean he’d held her. That
wasn’t something he would forget.

Her nose scrunched up endearingly. “Is that a line? Because
that sounds like a line.”

“Actually it’s a question—”
can’t date
her, can’t date her, really can’t date her, even though you dig her
straightforwardness
“—and an answer would be nice.”

“Oh.” Was that disappointment in her tone? “Well, the only
answer I can give you is no. I would remember someone with your
particular…attitude.” Her gaze raked over him, and the little tease shuddered as
if they were discussing
B-L-O-O-D.
“And for your
information, I’m entirely lacking in modesty about my paintings because there’s
no need for it. I’m an incredible artist. Incredible!”

Confidence was more of a turn-on than straightforwardness, and
she possessed more than most. There was no way she could be the broken girl he’d
imagined her. Right? And guilt and shame weren’t that bad.
Right?

“Never said you weren’t incredible. And what’s wrong with my
attitude?”

“It kind of sucks, but I’m sure you’re told something similar
all the time.” Up her hand went, her nail back in her mouth, her teeth nibbling.
“I, uh, smell coffee,” she said, a sudden tremble in her voice, “and yes, I’d
love some. Thanks.”

She darted around him and breezed inside, a waft of cinnamon
and turpentine accompanying her. As he watched, momentarily speechless, she
stalked to his kitchen.

His brain eventually chugged out of the station. Who did she
think she was? His home was his sanctuary and strangers were never allowed. Not
even hot ones.

To be honest, this girl was the first person other than himself
to ever step inside the apartment. His partner was avoiding him, and his family
was…well, he had no idea where. At eighteen, he’d left home and had never looked
back. His parents had died when he was six, and none of his relatives had wanted
him, so he’d hopped from one foster family to another until the age of thirteen,
when a depressed housewife and her emotionally abusive husband had adopted him.
Good times.

So, yeah, call him paranoid, call him domineering and selfish
and rude, but what was his was his, and he never shared.

But you’re learning to share,
remember?

Not anymore!

He would kick her out after scolding her for her daring—and, as
a courtesy, he wouldn’t shoot her in her pretty face—and then they could discuss
going to dinner, maybe a movie.

He would have the blonde or no one, he decided.

But he took one look at her and found himself rooted in place.
Her motions were stiff, jerky, as she gathered the supplies she needed. A cup,
the sugar, a spoon. As many interrogations as he’d conducted over the years, he
knew when someone wanted to say something but hadn’t yet worked up the courage.
His new neighbor was desperate to confess a secret; she just needed a little
push.

Take control of the situation.
“Hey, lady. You need to get something straight.”