Devil Dead (33 page)

“Yeah? Well, thanks for letting me cry on your shoulder. I feel so much better now.”

“That's what Black's for. Not me.”

In a fairly heated and suddenly rather stilted silence, Novak drove Claire to her white Range Rover where she said it would be, in long-term parking. She got out without a word, unlocked her car and started it up, then followed him out into the heavy traffic headed out of the airport complex.

Novak's mind was going into overdrive. The murder scene Claire had described so vividly to him looked a lot like the things he'd seen done to animals hunted for their hides out in the bayous, all right. A whole lot like it, in fact. If Andrea Quinn had gotten involved with some kind of coven of witches practicing black magic, or blood-sacrificing satanists, or whatever the hell it was, she might be in too deep for them to rescue. None of it sounded good. Nothing about it. The girl they sought was probably long dead and the whole case was gonna blow up in their faces. He could feel it in his gut. And he always trusted his gut.

Over an hour later, they were still driving southwest, ever deeper into bayou country. He continually checked Creedy's GPS coordinates, and her vehicle was still sitting outside the restaurant. It was late now, the roads as dark as Novak's foreboding. Very little traffic moved between the towns along the way. Claire was right behind him and having no trouble keeping up despite his high rate of speed. He wondered if her nerves were jumping more than she had been letting on. He had seen lots of terrible things in his lifetime, things he didn't ever want to remember, but the draining of human beings of their blood was right out of some gruesome horror flick. But he also knew, good and well and without a doubt, that his poor little, pitiful friend named Adonis did not have the stomach, or the guts, to do such things to other living human beings, no matter how much Claire might suspect it.

After more driving time, he finally wheeled his truck into Adonis's driveway. He slowed down considerably, his truck bouncing and rocking over the heavily overgrown, rock-littered entry road. Claire was still riding his back bumper. He was probably the only one who had ever driven a vehicle down to Adonis's place, and the condition of the road echoed that idea. Mary Lou and their other neighbors always walked the bayou trail to her place, or came in by boat. God, he hoped she was all right. He felt anxious about her this time, and he usually didn't get anxious about much of anything, not anymore. He had been through too much to ever hope for the best.

Moments later, Novak detected the smoky orange glow brightening the sky ahead, and realized right off and with some alarm that it was a fire blazing somewhere up ahead of him. It looked like it might be somewhere out behind Adonis's house. Maybe the barn or the shed had caught fire. He stomped the gas pedal, and the truck surged ahead, throwing up a tail of dirt and gravel. Within minutes he'd reached the front gate of Adonis's house and thrown on his brakes. Claire was there in seconds and out of her car, her Glock 19 mm already in her hand.

“It's out back, Novak!”

They both ran up the side of the house, Novak leading the way. What they saw when they rounded the corner brought them both skidding to a standstill. The entire barn was blazing in a virtual infernal of crackling noise and broiling waves of heat, the fire already hot and raging well out of control. But their eyes riveted on the barn door, where somebody had built some kind of pyre of branches and boards and debris. A small figure was chained there, hanging up by the arms, the body completely engulfed in flames and looking like the burning effigies seen in newsreel riots. More leaping flames were licking out up high in the loft doors, the combustible and flammable hay inside igniting easily and spreading the inferno up to the rafters. The roar of the fire was so massive and loud, and the extreme heat felt as if they had waded into the surf of a fiery ocean.

“Oh, my God, my God!” Claire cried out, voice choked, her eyes full of horror. Her weapon hung down alongside her leg, forgotten.

Novak stared at the burning human being suspended by the chains, the slight body already blackened and burned beyond recognition. But he knew, he knew without any hope, that it had to be Adonis. Oh God, he could smell the stench of scorched human flesh. Clamping his jaw down tight, his stomach started rocking back and forth, the most bitter and caustic taste of bile rising fast and hard into his mouth. He staggered a few yards away and leaned over and braced his hands on his knees. It took him a minute or two to conquer the extreme revulsion of what he was seeing, but he finally stood up and looked at Claire. She was still staring at the fiery figure, her face white and strained and disbelieving in the wavering yellow-orange glow of the crackling, popping flames. Parts of the roof suddenly gave way and crashed to the ground in a loud roar of showering sparks and embers that lit up the night and sent more blistering waves of heat against their skin.

Novak couldn't stand it. He couldn't wait any longer. “I've gotta get her down from there. She's still burning. She's still on fire. I gotta put it out.”

Claire looked back at him, as if she was suspended in a confusing dream, and then she nodded and glanced around. When she saw a garden hose coiled on the back of the house, she sprinted for it. Novak ran after her, grabbing the faucet and twisting the handle. Then he took the hose and dragged it as far as he could toward the barn and the burning body and tried his best to douse the flames, the scorching heat singeing his face and hair. He couldn't get close enough to completely put it out, the flames too intense, too high, and too hot, a rising wind fanning the blaze even farther into the night sky.

Novak stopped where he was, his mind tortured with his helplessness. How could anybody do such a thing to a kid like Adonis? How could they? And why? Oh, God, somebody had come out to her house in the dead of night and murdered her in the worst way imaginable. What if she'd been alive when they had lit her on fire? Right then, right there, he went stone cold inside, and that's when he vowed to God that he'd find whoever did this to his friend and make them pay for it with their lives. If it took him forever, he would get the son of a bitch who did this to a poor, innocent, abused little girl like Adonis.

Absolutely sick to the depths of her soul and not even able to look at the small blackened corpse, Claire stared at Novak's hard, totally enraged face for a mere moment, and then she left him there, still trying to douse Adonis's body with the small and completely ineffective hose. She walked several yards away and punched in 911 and alerted the Thibodaux Fire Department, and told them to hurry, that they had a barn on fire and a murder victim. Then she climbed up the steps to the back porch and crossed some old and creaky boards to the back door. It stood wide open and led straight into Adonis's old-fashioned kitchen.

Claire stopped cautiously at the threshold and looked around, thinking the perpetrator might still be inside, robbing the place or hanging around to admire his handiwork. She kept her weapon up and remained on high alert. The inside of the house was full of smoke now, and hot enough to bring sweat popping out on her face, but it was the acrid odor of the fire and the smell of cooking human flesh that permeated everything, everywhere, pungent, sickening, horrible to think about. She ground her teeth together and tried not to consider the air that she was breathing, tried not to remember how pitiful Adonis was, how slight and frail and unable to defend herself. Just like Novak had said.

There had been one hell of a struggle inside that kitchen, no doubt about it. It looked like Adonis, as small and weak as she had appeared, had fought her assailant tooth and nail for her life. Claire wondered briefly if the girl could have lit herself on fire in some kind of crazy suicide attempt, but quickly negated that idea. No, Claire had a feeling that the poor kid had been dragged outside in her own backyard, kicking and fighting and screaming, and then cold-bloodedly burned to a crisp. Oh, God, what kind of person could even do that to another helpless human being? Who would have anything against some reclusive and defective girl who lived alone out in the sticks? Why her? Why now? Why any of it?

Outside, the crackle and pop and hiss of collapsing timbers in the burning barn continued uninterrupted, despite Novak's futile attempts to put out the fire. All around her, the golden glow danced around on the pink-flowered wallpaper and reflected flames in the old casement windows. She just stood there a moment, trying to think. Not long after, Novak walked inside and let the screened porch door slam behind him. His face looked ashen and sick and awful but determined. He had black soot all over him now. On his hands and face and green T-shirt and tan pants. It looked to Claire like the palms of his hands had been burned.

“Novak, I am so sorry. I am so sorry.” She watched him, but he didn't say a word. He was in so much pain that she couldn't even bear to look at him. She looked away and said, “You gonna be okay?”

“That little girl was a friend of mine. I'm gonna get whoever did this. I am going to get them.”

Claire knew exactly how he felt. The pain, the loss, the utter rage at the monster who had done such a terrible thing, and more than anything, the overwhelming, paralyzing need for revenge. She had felt that way herself plenty of times when she found victims who were innocent except for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. “They won't get away with this, Novak. I promise you that. But you gotta let me call in the detectives at Lafourche Parish. They're good, real good. I worked with them, so I know them. Let me get them out here, now, while the crime scene's still untouched. Let them work this place. The fire department's already on its way. There's got to be evidence we can find.”

Novak didn't say a word, just stared wordlessly at her through the hazy smoke hanging waist-high inside the kitchen. “I'm gonna check out the house. Make sure he's gone.”

He left the kitchen but was back in a matter of minutes. He still looked like he wanted to murder the next person he laid eyes on.

Claire tried again. “My partner when I was down here? Zee Jackson? I can pave the way with him and the forensic team. They need to sweep this scene ASAP. I'm tellin' you, we need to get them out here. Now.” Then she just stopped talking, the smell of roasting flesh overcoming her for a second. She truly felt sick to her stomach. Rising nausea. Like she was going to vomit. Novak looked even worse.

Glancing out through the window over the sink, she could see that the girl's body was down on the ground now, lying a good distance away from the burning building. The corpse looked like a stick of burned firewood, but Novak had spread his jacket over the head and chest of the body. Oh, God, every damn thing they'd run across so far in this case was just so absolutely horrendous. Acts of pure depravity and inhumanity. And they still had no idea where the hell Andrea Quinn was. Or, Claire thought suddenly, could that poor tortured body lying out there in the yard be Andrea, burned well beyond recognition? Could Adonis have been the one who set the victim on fire?

Claire looked again at Novak's stricken countenance. She hesitated, afraid to voice her thoughts. “You sure that's Adonis out there, Novak? Maybe it isn't her? Maybe it's somebody else. Maybe it's Andrea Quinn? Anybody could've gotten in the killer's way. That body doesn't have to be Adonis. It could be anybody.”

“It's Adonis.”

“How'd you know that?”

“I just know.”

Claire blew out a deep breath and refocused her attention on the trashed kitchen. There were broken dishes all over the floor, the shards painted with pink and blue flowers, and ashes still wafted through the open door on the heat currents and hung in the air. Chairs were overturned, the kitchen table pushed out of place. “We are still in Lafourche Parish, right? Or is this place in Terrebonne?”

“It's Lafourche. The road we came in on runs over the Terrebonne line not too far from here.”

Novak stared down at Claire, and their gazes locked together. The most terrible expression still lingered in his eyes. She did not have the heart to press him further about anything. Not yet. He was just not ready. There would be an autopsy and dental records, with which they would have to identify a body burned that badly. Unless Adonis had no dental records, which was probably a distinct possibility. Andrea Quinn would have them, but they would probably have to be attained in France. Claire felt very afraid for Andrea Quinn now, very afraid that she was already dead, murdered in some brutal way, and maybe even burned alive, too.

Suddenly, Novak turned away from her and just stared out the back window at the body, motionless, and no doubt steeling himself for whatever came next. Still watching Novak's ramrod-straight back and clenched fists, Claire took out her phone and put in a call to Zee Jackson.