Devil's Night (24 page)

“Funny you should mention that,” Lou said. “Besides the museum and the bed-and-breakfast, the town has three other buildings on the historic landmark list. The rec center is one of them.”

“What are the others?”

“The library and All Saints Parish.”

The list made sense to Kat. All three buildings were notable in some way, from the rec center’s retractable gym floor to the bell tower at All Saints. Plus, there was the fact that they had greater importance than, say, the flower shop on Main Street. The loss of even just one of the buildings would reverberate through town. An arsonist with a chip on his shoulder could rationally target any of them.

Or, worse, all of them.

Kat mentally processed what she knew about each location, assessing which building might be in the most imminent danger. The church was probably deserted, making it the least likely location for casualties to occur. That left the library and the rec center as the places that could still have people in them. If they did, Kat needed to get them out of there immediately.

“Is Carl still there?” she asked Lou.

“Yep. Where should I send him?”

“The library,” Kat said. “Tell them to close early, just in case.”

“Where will you be?”

Through the windshield, Kat saw the gray roof of the Perry Hollow Athletic Center break over the horizon. She thought about the Halloween festival slated to take place there. Burning it down would indeed send a message to the town.

“I’m going to check out the rec center,” she said. “Hopefully, no one will still be there.”

“Does that mean the Halloween festival is canceled, too?” Lou asked.

Kat glanced back at James again, who looked to be on the verge of tears. It was going to take him a long time to forgive her for this.

“Yes,” she said. “Halloween in Perry Hollow is officially canceled.”

Signing off, she brought the Crown Vic to a stop a block from the rec center. She then turned to James, who looked more worried than disappointed. He sensed her steadily mounting fear.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

“Henry and I need to check on something really quick,” Kat said.

“Is the bad man in there?”

Kat didn’t have an answer. In all likelihood, the rec center was safe and sound. But there was also a chance that a witch with a massive grudge was inside, getting ready to light a stolen stick of dynamite, so she avoided the question altogether.

“Just stay in the car with the doors locked. Do not open them for anyone but Henry or me. Understand?”

James’s nod, quick and nervous, sent yet another wave of guilt crashing over her. It was hard being the child of a police chief. Kat knew that from experience. Her father had once been Perry Hollow’s chief, and she distinctly remembered watching him head off to work each morning worried that he might never come back. It required a measure of bravery she had been too young to handle. Now she was asking the same of James and hated herself for it.

“Does Henry have to go?” James asked, voice rising with trepidation. “I want him to stay.”

Kat would have preferred that herself. But she had no idea what awaited her inside the rec center. She needed the extra set of eyes Henry provided. His sheer size didn’t hurt, either.

Turning around, Kat reached into the backseat and grasped her son’s hand. “There’s nothing to worry about, Little Bear. We’ll be back in a minute. I promise.”

She and Henry got out of the car and slowly made their way across the wide expanse of grass leading to the rec center. When they got close to the building, Kat scanned the nearby parking lot. It was empty. Apparently the preparations for the Halloween festival were finished and everyone had gone home. At least they had that going for them.

The rec center’s front door was locked. Another good sign. Kat pressed herself against the glass door, trying to see if any lights were still on inside. The only brightness was the reddish glow of an exit sign on the wall near the door.

The place, it seemed, was empty.

“Let’s make one trip around the building,” Kat said. “I won’t be satisfied until I check every door.”

They trudged around the side of the building, encountering an emergency exit that was securely locked. Then it was on to the back of the rec center, where a set of double doors led directly into the gymnasium.

One of them was damaged.

Kat took a step backward, eyeing the door. The handle had been broken off, presumably by something heavy. Like an antique iron, maybe. What remained of the handle lay on the ground in bits of stainless steel. A small rock sat on the ground between the door and its frame, keeping it ajar. Although it was possible that someone was still inside, the rock pointed to another scenario—that someone had recently left and possibly planned on coming back.

Looking to Henry, Kat pressed an index finger to her lips. Then she slid her Glock out of its holster. She wanted desperately to run back to the Crown Vic and call for backup, but the clock was ticking. Connor Hawthorne had an agenda. He also had dynamite. Sooner or later, he was going to use it. Kat didn’t want to give him the opportunity during her minute-long trip back to the car.

She beckoned Henry to lean in close and whispered in his ear. “I’m going in first. Do not enter until I give the all clear. If something happens to me, run like hell back to the car and get James as far away as possible.”

She held his gaze, making sure he understood her instructions. Henry nodded once. He was on board.

He stepped aside, holding the door open for her. Kat passed the Glock from one hand to the other, taking a moment to flex the fingers of each. Then, with one last glance at Henry, she pushed into the building.

5
P
.
M
.

The only light inside the gymnasium came from the open door—a slash of brightness that narrowed to a sliver before vanishing completely. Kat avoided it, stepping instead into the darkness beside it, like a prowler skirting the glow of a lit window.

Once inside the gym, she stood motionless for a moment, straining to detect the presence of someone else inside. A sound. A movement. She sensed nothing but a vast and empty stillness.

Not having any idea where the gym’s light switch was located, she again had to rely on her flashlight to guide her. With her Glock gripped in her other hand, she trotted to the locker rooms on the opposite end of the gym. A quick search of both of them turned up empty. After that, she peered into the hallway that led to the front of the rec center. It, too, looked deserted. Whoever had broken into the place was now apparently gone.

Returning to the gym, Kat let her gaze roam the entire room. By that time her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she saw that more progress had been made for the Halloween festival. Decorations were everywhere, from hay bales in the corners to scarecrows in the bleachers. Black and orange bunting swooped from the rafters, colliding with sheets that had been turned into makeshift ghosts and strung up with fishing line.

Dotting the gym were a handful of mannequins that had been dressed in costumes and posed elaborately. A figure in tattered clothes and wearing a Frankenstein mask had its arms stretched menacingly, like it was going to lurch forward at any moment. Nearby was a mummy, dripping from head to toe with toilet paper, and a vampire that was blessedly more
Dracula
than
Twilight
.

The only figure that gave her pause was a witch standing at a remove from the others. Although it had been given the stereotypical costume—black dress, pointy hat, scraggly broom—Kat thought of Rebecca Bradford as soon as she saw it. Had she really been a witch? Connor Hawthorne certainly thought so, but seeing as how he was now trying to burn down half of the town, Kat took his opinion with a grain of salt. She preferred to think of Rebecca as a strong-willed woman just trying to provide for her son. They were very much alike in that regard, and it made Kat shudder to think what might have happened to her and James if they had been around in 1692.

Turning away from the witch figure, Kat looked to the swimming pool, which was still uncovered in the middle of the gym. The water, crystal clear earlier that morning, now looked like swill. Dark, oily globs floated on the surface and brownish clouds spread through the water just below it. If the goal was to turn the pool into something resembling a witch’s cauldron, Burt Hammond and his team had succeeded admirably.

The sharp smell of petroleum rose off the water, so noxious that Kat wanted to take a step backward. Instead, she covered her nose and knelt at the pool’s edge. When she dipped a finger into the water, ooze dripped off it like molasses.

It was motor oil. The swimming pool had been turned into an oil slick.

Kat tried to peer deeper into the water. Through the slime, she saw the faint outline of something resting on the bottom, something she couldn’t quite make out.

“Is it clear?”

Henry Goll’s voice, echoing through the gym, startled her. Kat turned to the door, seeing him standing at the threshold, looking around apprehensively.

“The gym, yes,” she said. “The pool, no.”

Henry joined her by the water. “What the hell happened in here? It looks like a swamp.”

“It wasn’t like this a few hours ago. My only guess is that someone is trying to clog the inner workings of the pool.”

“Why?”

Kat, watching her reflection in the grungy water, saw her shoulders lift and fall in a shrug. “To destroy it, I guess.”

“That’s better than fire,” Henry said. “And there’s something on the bottom?”

“Yup.”

She turned her attention back to the pool. Again, the smell of motor oil overwhelmed her, but she held steady, taking short, shallow breaths through her mouth as she pointed her flashlight at the water. The dark globs swirling on the surface occasionally parted, offering brief glimpses of the thing on the pool’s bottom. It was dark. Long. Human-shaped.

“Jesus. There’s a body down there.”

“Are you sure?” Henry asked.

“Not yet. But I will be soon.”

Kat removed her holster and duty belt, letting them both drop to the floor. Next to go were her shoes, which she kicked off and slid toward her holster. She then shed the top of her uniform, leaving her T-shirt on for modesty’s sake.

Henry blinked at her, confused. “You’re not going in there, are you?”

“Someone has to.”

Kat whirled her index finger, indicating to Henry to avert his gaze. Then she slipped off her trousers and pulled off her socks. She felt awkward stripping down in front of Henry, even in the gym’s dimness, but it was better than getting her entire uniform soaked.

Not that Henry was looking anyway. He was too busy unbuttoning his flannel shirt.

“You’re not going in alone,” he said. “God knows what could be down there.”

He removed his shirt, revealing a trim and well-muscled physique. Kat had always known Henry was strong. Other than the scars on his face, his body was the first thing she had noticed about him when they met. Which, she suspected, was the point. Women did it all the time. A killer body often drew strangers’ eyes away from a flawed face.

And Henry’s body was certainly impressive. Kat, who mostly kept her eyes on the murky pool, couldn’t help but steal a few glances as he sat down on a nearby bench to take off his shoes and slide out of his jeans. When he stood again, Kat saw that he was wearing only a pair of tight black briefs.

Henry caught her staring and blushed accordingly. “I live in Italy now. They don’t sell tighty whities there.”

“I’m not judging,” Kat said. “Especially because you’re about to see the world’s ugliest bra.”

She pulled off her T-shirt, revealing a bra that had once been white but was now faded to a dull gray. Between that and her very old, very utilitarian panties, she suspected she looked like the world’s worst underwear model.

But Henry wasn’t looking at her bra. He stared instead at the two circular scars that marred her upper chest, right near her heart. That’s where she had been shot by the Grim Reaper a year earlier. Her life had been saved by the Kevlar vest she was wearing at the time, but the bullets still had left their mark.

“Are those from last year?” Henry asked.

Kat nodded. “Turns out we both have scars.”

Their eyes locked—two kindred spirits who both knew what it was like to live with daily reminders of how close they had come to death. Their silent communion made Kat feel more exposed than she had when taking off her trousers.

“I guess we should dive in,” she said, breaking the eye contact to turn toward the pool. “So to speak.”

She sat on the edge of the pool and swung her legs into the water. It was cold and greasy, the surface coated by a thin slime. Beads of the oil floating on the water stuck to her skin. Submerging herself in this swill wasn’t going to be pretty.

Henry joined her at the pool’s edge. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I
know
I don’t want to do this,” Kat said. “But I’d be a terrible police chief if there was a corpse down there and I didn’t try to identify it.”

“Then here goes nothing.”

Henry slipped into the water first, submerged up to his neck. The slime clung to him, too, smearing across his shoulders and sliding off his chin. Kat followed, the chill of the water making her gasp. It was a cold slap to her lower back that instantly erased all tiredness she had been feeling.

Treading water, she tried not to get as slimed as Henry had. It was impossible. The oil was everywhere. She felt it attach to her skin immediately, like hundreds of tiny hands trying to clamber onto her for rescue.

Or else drag her under.

Bobbing with her head out of the water, Kat took several deep breaths. Calisthenics of sorts for her lungs. Then she counted to three and slid beneath the surface.

The water was cloudy—like swimming through a thick fog. Brown and brackish, it reminded Kat of the Atlantic Ocean. It stung like saltwater, too, so much so that she was forced to close her eyes. Pushing deeper, she could feel the presence of Henry swimming beside her. She reached out, blindly groping for his hand. When she at last felt it, she gripped it tightly. She felt more comfortable knowing he was right there with her.