Deep Within The Shadows (The Superstition Series Book 1) (9 page)

Caleb scrubbed his short hair. “So this whole thing has to have something to do with the Tanner Newton killing. Juliet Templeton was with him when he was attacked and beaten to death. What the hell was she doing with Samuel Newton at one in the morning?”

“He was walking her home. She refused to get into the car with him.”

“She’s afraid to get into the car with him, but she walks home at one in the morning?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Is Newton conscious?”

“Not yet. They sedated him so he wouldn’t move around too much. One of the nurses treating him said he was raving about something gray attacking him. He said it screamed at him, then threw him nearly fifteen feet against a building, like he weighed nothing.”

“Jesus!” Abbott had described the same thing. “This is crazy.”

Garr frowned, his face as wrinkled as an unmade bed. “Well, when one person describes something crazy, you can ignore it. But when you have four people who haven’t had a chance to compare stories describing the same thing—Something is going on here.”

“Yeah. And it has something to do with Tanner Newton’s murder.”

*     *     *

“I ain’t had
nothin’ to eat in two days. Got any food around here?” Gerald whined.

Deputy Bowhan scowled. “This is a jail, not a hotel, Abbott.”

Gerald remembered him from a DUI arrest six months before. The guards weren’t friendly, but they were fair to the prisoners. “Some crackers, anything. I’m going to be sick if I don’t get something.”

“I’ll look around the break room and see if I can find something,” the other deputy said, though he didn’t look happy about it.

Gerald was quick to say, “Thanks, man.” He stole a quick glance at the deputy’s name tag. Scott.

They stopped before an open cell. “Step in and turn around,” Scott instructed.

Gerald cooperated. He was a murderer, and they were taking no chances. He deserved it. The cocaine had made him aggressive. He had killed an innocent man. This is what his life would be like for probably the rest of his days.

The cuffs off, he rubbed his wrists and turned just as the heavy, barred metal door slid closed with a clang. His stomach clenched. Would the shadows be able to find him here?

Panic blasted through his system. If the guards left him alone, would the shadows come for him? He gripped the bars and tracked Bowhan and Scott’s path as they ambled away. His neck muscles strained with the need to call them back and beg them not to leave him. Once he could no longer see or hear them he rested his head against the bars. His eyes stung again, the urge to cry almost overwhelming.

The cell light went out, and he backed away from the door. Light slashed diagonally across one end of the cell to bathe the wall opposite the bunk. He retreated as far away from the hall light as he could. With his back against the wall, he slid down and huddled between the metal sink and commode. The smell of the heavy-duty cleaner used to scrub the facilities permeated the air.

He looped his arms around his knees. His stomach ached with the added pressure. He’d gone hungry before, but he’d been high, and the drugs had made it bearable. Sober, it was impossible for him to think of anything but his hunger. He pressed his hand against the ache and rested his head against one knee.

Exhaustion pressed down on him. It had been days since he’d had more than a couple of hours of sleep at a time. Like a bat, he’d slept in complete darkness only to wake every few minutes, his heart racing.

Would being arrested finally end this? Would whoever had sent the monsters be satisfied, knowing he was behind bars? The things he and Willy had done. His eyes stung again. He’d had weeks of sobriety to contemplate it. He should never have tried to kidnap that woman.

“Abbott.”

He jerked his head up at the deputy Bowhan’s voice, a momentary panic sending his blood rushing through his chest. He hadn’t even heard him approach. Had he fallen asleep?

“It’s your lucky day. Scott’s wife swung by and brought him another supper by mistake. It’s yours if you want it.”

“Hell, yeah, I want it.” He gripped the metal sink and hauled himself to his feet. His mouth had begun to water before he ever reached for the paper bag and plastic water bottle. “Thanks, man.”

“Thank Scott next time you see him.”

“I will.” He was already tearing into the paper bag and taking out the sandwich and potato chips before the Deputy turned and padded back down the hall.

Gerald tossed the empty bag on the blue blanket covering the lower bunk and returned to his seat against the wall. When he took the first bite of the sandwich, he groaned in pleasure. Roast beef, sliced thin, with mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. He’d never tasted anything so good. The chips were barbecue, salty and sweet. He crammed them into his mouth a handful at a time, scattering greasy crumbs all the way down his clean orange prison uniform.

After three bites of the sandwich and two handfuls of potato chips, his stomach was already feeling better. He forced himself to slow down and savor the food. It might be a while before he got anything but bologna, since the jail was famous for serving the cheap meat and plastic-tasting processed cheese at every meal.

Ten minutes later he licked his fingers and even the inside of the potato chip bag to get the last few crumbs. It was probably the best meal he’d ever had. He cracked the lid on the water bottle and took a deep drink. Now his stomach was full, his weariness returned. Still not trusting the position of his bunk, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

A flicker of color teased his eyelids, turning the inside pink and he opened his eyes a slit. A strange sheen came from the paper bag he’d ripped open. Two long, clear, almost clawlike legs gripped the side of the cot, and the creature attached to the legs dragged itself forward, bag and all. It was a spider, only bigger. He hated spiders.

His heart hammered against his ribs. Bile filled his throat as he pressed back against the wall. He wanted to move, needed to move, but his limbs felt heavy and uncooperative as a numbing paralysis gripped him.

He was dreaming. He was asleep and fucking dreaming. He needed to wake up.
Please let me wake up!

The paper ripped and the creature shook free. It poised, hunched on the cot, swaying back and forth in a threatening dance.

It was going to jump on him, bite him. Gerald’s feet dug at the floor, but the flimsy slip-on house shoes the guards had given him had no traction. He had to scramble onto his knees to get to his feet, and then he hugged the wall.

The spider bunched its eight long legs and leapt. Gerald gasped and threw up an arm, expecting it to land on him. When nothing happened, he lowered the limb to find the thing clinging to the well-lit area opposite the bunk.

An odd rainbow patch of refracted light shone on the floor. As he gazed up at the creature, tiny sections started spilling off it down the wall, and he realized they were smaller spiders. As each took its position, the patches of light connected to a narrow point of shimmering color leading straight to him.

Gerald’s throat seized with fear, his heartbeat sluggish and his breath coming in harsh gasps. He pushed his way around the sink and cringed behind it into the corner. His bony elbows burned as they scraped against the cinderblock walls.

A large gray shape rose from the diagonal band of light at the end of the cell.

A scream built in Gerald’s chest, but his throat closed around it like a vise. His breath huffed in and out in an asthmatic wheeze. His words “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” were no more than a whisper of thought.

The shadow danced along the fractured light on the floor to that small peak. Only part of its body was visible, the rest lost in the darkness around it.

Gerald dragged air into his lungs. “I’m sorry. I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry. I never meant to kill him.” It was a lie. He’d been high on cocaine, his drug of choice, and he’d been hot to get to the girl so he and Willy could share her. He’d killed Tanner Newton with no more feeling than he’d have had stepping on a roach. “Ain’t it enough they’re gonna keep me in here for the rest of my life?”

The gray form swayed back and forth, its eyeless face glaring at him, soulless and hungry.

It dissolved like so much smoke. At the disappearance of the reflected light on the floor, Gerald scanned the room for the spiders. They were gone.

Had he been hallucinating? Coming off the cocaine, he’d had some flashbacks that had seemed just as real.

The squeak of shoes on the tile floor preceded Scott’s appearance. “You okay, Abbott?”

Gerald’s muscles shook when he came out from behind the sink. “Yeah. Thanks for the food. It was real good.”

“You’re welcome.” Scott gave the empty bag on the bunk a pointed look. “Square away your trash and get some sleep.” Scott moved on down the aisle.

“Okay.” Gerald sank onto the lower bunk and sucked in a shuddering breath. Spying the torn bag next to him, he lashed out, batting it across the cell where it glanced off the wall.

The few moments of terror had drained his remaining strength. He couldn’t continue like this. Tears trickled out of the corners of his eyes, and he curled up in the bunk, his back against the wall and his knees drawn up.

They’d be back and he had nowhere to go. He shivered and dragged the heavy wool blanket up over him. It smelled of some kind of detergent.

After the adrenaline rush of terror, it took several minutes for him to relax. His eyes grew heavy. For nearly half an hour he fought the pull of sleep until he could struggle no longer.

He woke with the sensation of choking. Something was lodged in his throat. He looked down at the blanket. A thousand tiny spiders, their bodies glistening like glass, rushed up the blanket, over his arms, his chest. He kicked and batted at them, a scream locked in his chest by the obstruction.

He tried to keep his mouth closed, but the spiders forced their way into his nose. The sensation of them crawling down into his body, eating into his flesh, triggered a seizure of panic. The pain surged, beyond unbearable. Something exploded in his chest. Darkness feathered the outer edges of his vision. Empty blackness closed in around him.

J
uliet studied Detective
Robinson as he led her back to the observation room. He was at least six-three or four, and he towered over her in her stocking feet. His fingers had clasped lightly around her upper arm, as though he expected her to make a break for it. She didn’t doubt he was looking at them all as suspects in their own assaults. There had to be a reason why they’d all been attacked.

During Tanner’s murder investigation, she’d seen how the cops worked. They separated witnesses to keep them from talking or comparing notes. Whenever they started this divide and conquer bullshit, someone was in trouble.

Miranda never did anything to attract blame. Well, she had once, and in that instance Juliet had reaped the chaos in her sister’s place. This time neither of them had done a damn thing to deserve being attacked. She was certain of it.

But if there were a way the cops could pin it on one of them, they’d do it. The bird in hand was always worth more than the two hiding in the brush.

Detective Robinson urged her to take a seat on the bed while he pulled forward the chair Brian Underwood had been sitting on half an hour before.

He had a narrow face and short-cropped, blondish-brown hair. The shallow cleft in his chin gave his strong jaw an extra jolt of masculinity, and his brows, darker than his hair, emphasized how pale his eyes were. His gaze seemed to penetrate her outer shell and bore right into her.

“Do you walk home after work often?” he asked.

“Most nights.”

“You know you’re borrowing trouble with that kind of behavior?”

Juliet kept her face blank.

“Do you walk past the place where Tanner was killed every night?”

She swallowed, though her throat felt dry. “It’s on the way.”

“You were only a block away from the spot when you and Samuel Newton were attacked.”

“So?”

“Why wouldn’t you get into the car with him?”

“I didn’t know who he was, and once I did…I thought he might want to hurt me.”

“Why?”

“His parents blamed me for Tanner’s death.” She tentatively touched her throat. It ached every time she swallowed.

“Why did he show up tonight?”

Juliet reached for the plastic cup on the bedside table. Detective Robinson rose and quickly poured more water and ice from the plastic pitcher into the container. Beard stubble darkened the lower edge of his jaw. The powerful width of his shoulders blocked out the overhead light as he leaned forward and handed her the cup. She didn’t sense any aggression from him, and the momentary anxious tension in her muscles relaxed.

She held a piece of ice in her mouth and let the cold water soothe the pain. When it eased she said, “He wanted to groom me to testify against Gerald Abbott at his brother’s murder trial. He didn’t think a bartender would project the proper image and wanted to ensure my testimony appeared credible.” She kept her tone flat and devoid of bitterness, though it remained in the background, eating away.