Insatiable Desire (26 page)
Time would never be able to erase the vile odors, just as it couldn’t erase the images in his mind from his own past.
He swung a left into the graveyard parking lot, glanced at the church—a sacred place, Clarissa called it. His heart pounded when he spotted Clarissa’s rental car. But he checked it and she wasn’t inside. He strode through the rows of tombstones, his jaw tightening when he spotted her purse lying by an empty grave, the contents spilled.
The wind whistled through the bare trees, sending the hairs on the back of his neck at full attention. His instincts kicked in, and he scanned the graveyard for Clarissa.
A noise to the left jarred him, then he noticed the ground had been disturbed. Marks from a body being dragged across the yard created indentions in the ground.
His heart thundered as he followed the trail in the woods, wielding his weapon.
More scraping. He hiked on. A mile, then another, until he spotted a shadow in the distance. He hesitated behind a live-oak, assessing the situation.
Clarissa was lying on the ground, blood seeping from her head. Hadley Crane stood above her, sweating and dirty, a shovel in his hand.
Vincent clenched his hand tighter around his gun, then jumped Crane from behind. A barbaric sound careened from Crane, and he bucked backward in an attempt to throw Vincent off his back.
But fury fueled Vincent’s strength, and he wrapped his hands around Crane’s neck in a chokehold. Crane screeched, but Vincent tightened his fingers, digging them deeper and deeper into Crane’s throat. He could hear him wheezing for air. A crack of his windpipe and he’d snap . . .
Clarissa stirred, then dragged herself up and tugged at his arm. “Vincent, stop, please,” she whispered, “don’t kill him.”
But all Vincent could see was the grave Crane had dug for Clarissa. All he could feel was the black rage eating at his soul.
Clarissa jerked him again. “Please, Vincent, look at me. Stop. Arrest him and turn him over to the cops.”
But the monster inside him wanted to forget the law. End Crane’s life for trying to hurt Clarissa.
She gently stroked his back, his shoulders, her soft voice whispering against his neck. “You can’t do this, or you’ll be like him.”
Crane gurgled with another scream. His eyes were bulging now, rolling back in his head.
Finally, somewhere in the far recesses of his brain, Clarissa’s words registered. He was a Dark Lord. This was a battle he’d have to fight all his life.
He couldn’t give in to it.
Clarissa sagged with relief as Vincent released Hadley. He dropped to the ground in shock, clutching at his throat, wheezing and coughing violently. Vincent grabbed handcuffs from his belt and cuffed Hadley’s wrists, then phoned Waller.
“Crane assaulted Clarissa. He’s in cuffs now, so send an ambulance to the graveyard.”
He hung up and dragged Clarissa into his arms. She curled against him and he stroked her hair, holding her and rocking her, his heart pounding.
If he’d been a few minutes later, she wouldn’t have made it. Crane would have buried her alive.
Finally Waller and the ambulance arrived. Hadley screeched and cried like an animal as Waller jerked him up and shoved him toward the squad car. “The voices told me to do it. I had to listen. I had to obey.”
The medics rushed to Clarissa and examined her injuries. “You need stitches, miss. And you probably have a concussion. We have to do x-rays.”
Clarissa protested going to the hospital, but the medic insisted she needed further testing and observation.
“Let them take care of you, Clarissa,” Vincent said. “I want to interrogate Crane.”
She grabbed his arm. “I need to take care of Wulf.”
“I’ll take care of him,” Vincent promised.
A dizzy spell assaulted her, and she conceded, then allowed the medics to help her onto the stretcher. She should be relieved Crane was being arrested, but as the ambulance rolled away, a sick feeling pinched her stomach.
If they had found the demon, the girls should move on.
But so would Vincent.
Crane’s crazy screeching echoed from the back room as Vincent entered the police station.
He slammed his fist on the table in the interrogation room, his blood still sizzling with rage, from the need to kill.
If the sick, twisted bastard gave him one good reason, he’d strangle the life from him without remorse.
Waller’s phone rang and he let himself out, giving Vincent full rein. “You tried to kill Clarissa King?” Vincent snarled.
The man’s eyes were glazed, and he twitched back and forth, murmuring incoherently about the voices in his head. “She was crying, cried for the dead. She wanted to be with them. They’re her friends.”
“She didn’t want to be buried alive,” Vincent growled.
“Yes, put her out of her misery, that’s what the voice said.” Crane jammed his hands on his ears and rocked himself back and forth. “No control. No control. He made me do it. The voice told me to.”
“What voice?”
“The voice in my head. It tells me to do bad things.” He lapsed into a crazed litany about different monsters invading his mind, then jumped up and paced across the room, pounding his head with his fists.
“Make them stop. Can’t make them stop.” He turned to Vincent, a cackle erupting. “Tell me to kill. Like the blood, to watch them die. Bugs eat the flesh. You know that. Bugs eat the flesh. It rots off the bone and turns to dust.”
Vincent tossed the crime-scene photos on the table. “You killed Tracy Canton, Billie Jo Rivers, Daisy Wilson, Jamie Lackey. Cary Gimmerson.”
Crane paused long enough to stare at them. “Put them in the ground, covered them with dirt. That’s what I do.”
“Tell me how you killed them,” Vincent demanded. “How did you know their fears?”
“Pretty little girls,” Crane cried. “So pretty. So pretty to watch them die.” Another crazed laugh. “I dug their graves. Hear them scream when I cover them up, just like Clarissa does.”
Vincent drilled him with more questions, but Crane was obviously insane. He continued to rant about the voices, beating his head, then laughing hysterically, and ranting again, all lucidity gone.
Scrubbing a hand over his neck, Vincent stepped outside and met Waller in the hall. “He’s incoherent. Needs to be locked up.”
Waller nodded. “I called his doctor to come in and examine him. He’ll probably wind up in the sanitarium.”
Waller’s phone rang, and he answered it, a scowl on his face. “All right, Trina, we’ll check around.”
“What?” Vincent asked when Waller hung up.
“That was Petey LaCoy’s babysitter. Trina claims she saw Sadie Sue shaking the baby, thought she was going to kill him.” He pulled at his pants. “Said her eyes looked funny, that she was out of her mind. Sitter thinks she’s on drugs.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “I need to wait here on the state psychiatrist. Do you mind driving around town and looking for Sadie Sue?”
Vincent’s chest suddenly tightened, the air barely making it past his lungs as he tried to breathe. He’d assumed all along that the killer was a man. But Sadie Sue had made a deal with the devil, and she hated Clarissa.
What if she’d gone after her now?
V
incent phoned the hospital to alert security in case Sadie Sue showed up and attacked Clarissa. Then he phoned the Bare-It-All, but she hadn’t shown up for work. Frantic, he called the babysitter.
“I’ve never seen Sadie act like that or lose her patience with the baby. Her eyes were so wild, as if she didn’t have control.” Trina’s breath rushed out. “I think she scared herself, ’cause she handed me the baby and ran out like a bat out of hell.”
He frowned. If she’d scared herself and really loved the baby, maybe she was fighting the demon’s control. “Think hard, Trina. If she was upset, where would she go?”
A long silence followed, the sound of the baby’s cooing echoing in the background. “I don’t know, maybe the river.”
“The river?”
“Yeah, at that little church where she was baptized. When she’s upset, she goes there to think.”
“Thanks, I’ll check there now.” He climbed in the SUV and spun from the parking lot, spewing gravel.
The night seemed black, inky, silent, so tense that he could hear his own breathing in the silence of the car as he raced toward the river. Headlights of an oncoming truck nearly blinded him, and he swerved, his SUV skimming the guardrail and sending sparks flying. But he managed to correct himself and stayed on the road.
Sadie Sue had enthralled him at one point—did she have the power to do so again?
He wouldn’t let her.
His tires churned on the asphalt, gears grinding as he braked and slowed around the curve, then turned onto the dirt road leading to the church.
The area looked deserted, weeds dotting the ground, ancient trees framing the wooden church. The river water glimmered beneath the faint moonlight, and he spotted Sadie Sue’s rusted Chevy parked in the empty lot.
But a quick glance indicated Sadie Sue wasn’t inside the car.
Bracing himself for her seductive powers, he screeched to a stop, threw the SUV into park, and jumped out.
He checked for his weapon, hoping he didn’t have to use it, then flexed his hands, thinking that he also held power there.
Pulse hammering, he stepped into the tepid air, caution slowing his movements as he walked toward the river. The water lapped against the rocky embankment, the sound of crickets chirping and frogs croaking resounding in the silence.
But a shrill, pitiful keening rent the air.
He hesitated, skimming the darkness for the source, then realized it was Sadie Sue. Moving slowly, he inched toward the river until he spotted her head bobbing in the water. Sobs wrenched the air, her pleas for death to take her reverberating against the heavens.
“Please, God, save me, take me now so Petey will be safe.”
He wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. Or maybe this was a twisted ploy to trap him.
Then lightning flashed from the heavens, the sound of thunder rumbled, and her head dipped below the water.
Vincent dropped his gun to the ground, then raced into the river to save her. Sadie Sue flailed and fought him, trying to drown herself, but he lifted her as if she weighed nothing, then carried her to the shore.
“Why didn’t you let me die?” she sobbed, beating her fists against him. “I have to die to protect Petey.”
Another boom of thunder sounded, and lightning lit around Sadie Sue in a circle.
He froze, shocked, wondering what had happened.
“I love my baby,” Sadie Sue wailed. “I begged for forgiveness.”
Vincent laid her on the grass, then looked into her eyes. They were normal, soft, loving.
She had been released of the demon. “You’re free now, Sadie Sue. You don’t owe the devil anymore.”
She hugged her arms around herself and sobbed, whispering her thanks to the heavens.
In her unselfishness, she’d found a way to break the deal she’d made.
Maybe he could find a way to defeat the demon inside himself.
Clarissa stared at the blank hospital walls, her heart aching. She’d hoped Vincent would visit, but she had to accept the truth.
He didn’t love her. Didn’t want her. Was going to leave her alone again.
She couldn’t stand in his way. He had demons to battle, a much more important destiny than being with her.
The door screeched open, and he walked in. All six feet four of muscle, brawn, and brooding darkness. He was so sexy that he literally took her breath away.
He paused in the doorway and met her gaze. She read the pain and turmoil, yet hurt still gripped her.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“A few stitches,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “But I’ll be fine.” Except for a broken heart, and the fact that she still hadn’t seen the spirits cross into the light.
“Do you think Hadley killed all those girls?”
He nodded. “It appears that way. He claims he’s heard voices ordering him to do evil things.”
“What about Sadie Sue?”
He explained about the babysitter’s phone call. “I found her at the river where she’d first been saved. She tried to drown herself.”
“Oh, my God.” Clarissa frowned. “Is she okay? What about the hold the evil had over her?”
“I guess she broke the spell when she tried to sacrifice her life to save her child.”
“That’s what a mother would do,” Clarissa said, her voice choking.
His expression contorted in pain, and she realized he must be thinking of his own mother.
She bit her lip, wanted to beg him to stay, but realized it was better he go. He didn’t love her, and she couldn’t allow him to keep hurting her.
He stared at her for a long moment, emotions warring in his eyes. Pain. Regret. Acceptance that he had to leave. That he hadn’t made any promises. He’d told her his rules.
Yet he’d broken them for her.
His eyes flickered with emotions, then he cupped her face between his hands and fused his mouth with hers. The kiss was tender, erotic, hungry, except not nearly long enough. Her heart ached, words of love lodging in her throat—he was everything she’d ever wanted in a man.
But she bit back the words as he abruptly pulled away. She looked into his eyes. The coldness had softened, but the pain was back, even more intense than before.
Then without another word, he turned and walked out the door. He didn’t look back, and she didn’t call out for him.
Instead she rolled to her side and let the tears fall.
Saying good-bye to Clarissa was the hardest damn thing Vincent had ever done.
As much as he didn’t want to care about her, he did.
But love—no, he didn’t know what love was.
If his destiny was to fight demons the rest of his life, he’d do it. But he wouldn’t bring her into the fight.
Regardless of his rationale, her trusting, loving eyes haunted Vincent as he drove back to his cabin and let himself inside.
He stripped and lay down on the bed, then fell into an exhausted but fitful sleep. His dreams were filled with fighting demons, with bloodbaths and sadistic murders that no human should see firsthand.
