Pure Hell (Seventh Level Book 1) (6 page)

He thought his daydream had gotten a whole lot more interesting but then she said his name. Her voice had such a lovely Scottish lilt it stirred something deep within him he had no idea even existed. “Mr. Ledoux?”

Mark forgot the report and stood. He offered his hand. “Yes, I’m Mark Ledoux. And you are?” He motioned for her to take the unoccupied chair by his desk.

The exquisite woman smiled before sitting. She waited until he was seated before answering. “My name is Anne Trace. The other officer said you are handing the investigation of my sister’s murder.”

He searched her face to see how she was handling Kylie’s death. The last thing he needed was to have to try to comfort a distraught woman. Of course, it might not be such a terrible thing to have this woman cry on his shoulder. She had the most beautiful blue eyes. And what man wouldn’t want to run his fingers through her long, silky hair?

He must have stared too long because after a full minute of him not saying anything she shifted her weight and re-crossed her legs. He ran a hand over his face and tried to focus on the job at hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Mark motioned toward the computer screen. “The man who killed Kylie committed suicide a few hours ago.”

Anne leaned forward. She never glanced at the screen but focused all her attention on his face. “You found Kylie’s killer?”

Mark’s fellow officers had a nickname for him because of his ability to detach himself from all emotion when he was in work mode, but right there in the middle of the station house, he forgot the guys called him “Iceman”. He nodded. “My partner and I went to question him again and he had killed himself.”

Anne fell back against the seat. “Did he confess?”

Mark nodded. He got goose bumps just thinking about the two hours he had spent inside the dead man’s house. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake those creepy feelings. “He left a note.” He hit save and shut off his computer. “Now how can I help you?”

She stood. “They said you would take me to the morgue to see my sister’s body.” The corner of her mouth quivered giving away her true feelings. However, the moment she saw him looking she bit down on her lip.

He reached over to open the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a yellow letter-sized envelope. He handed it to her. “We didn’t learn Kylie had a sister until this morning. I was going to mail this to you, but seeing as how you’re here…”

Anne took the sealed envelope and stared at it for a moment before slipping a nail under the edge of the sealed flap ripping it open. “I took the first available flight,” she said absently as she stared at the contents—a diary along with a necklace. She turned the pink journal covered with little red flowers, over in her hands before tucking it into her bag without opening it. She studied every inch of the gold necklace seeming to turn inside herself at the sight of the tiny cross. She sucked in a ragged breath but then quickly composed herself.

“Obviously she has an entire apartment full of private belongings but those two items seemed the most personal.”

At his words, she sat down again before meeting his eyes. “My mother gave this necklace to Kylie for her seventh birthday. The same day our parents died.”

Mark never allowed himself to get drawn into other people’s grief while he was on duty. He had learned early on in his career if he was going to keep his sanity, he needed to grow a thick skin, but here he was feeling as if he should do something to try to ease Anne’s pain.

She unhooked the necklace and put it around her neck. Covering her face with both hands, she sat in silence for several minutes before lowering her hands. While her eyes were moist and red, she had somehow managed to hold back the tears.

“Could you take me to my sister’s body, please?”

“Are you certain you want to put yourself through such a thing?”

She stood again and squared her shoulders. “It’s the least I can do for Kylie. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t been there for her in a long time. This is something I need to do for the both of us.”

There was no mistaking a woman with her mind made up so he stood and spent a moment debating whether he should offer his arm. There was something about her that brought out the protective side in him. It was tempting to treat her as he would a delicate flower but it was obvious she had a lot of backbone so he slipped his hands in his pockets to keep from making a total fool of himself.

“Okay. The morgue’s several blocks from here so why don’t we take my car and then I’ll take you to your hotel.”

She looked at her feet. “I was hoping I could stay at Kylie’s place. It took just about all my savings to buy a round trip ticket.” She finally met his eyes. “I don’t make a lot of money as a waitress so it’s not always easy to make ends meet.” Her cheeks dusted in a slight flush. “Plus, I need to go through her things.”

Mark was quick to try to alleviate her embarrassment. “Trust me. Detectives don’t have a lot of extra cash either. I really understand. I don’t mind dropping you off there instead. We went over her apartment this morning and didn’t find anything there relevant to the investigation. I feel as if I should warn you though. Kylie had the neighbor from hell. She might make your stay an unpleasant one.”

Without thinking, he took her arm and they headed toward the front door. She laughed. “No worries. She sounds similar to mine. I guess everyone has one. “

* * * * *

“Damn, you weren’t joking about the neighbor. What a bitch.” Before she had time to relive the horrid event, Mark came in and closed the door.

“You noticed, huh?”

Anne rubbed her arms in an attempt to get warmer. Her sleeveless shirt had been perfect out in the hot, humid New Orleans weather but inside Kylie’s apartment, her arms were covered in goose bumps. It was hard to deny some of the chill might have been caused from seeing her sister’s lifeless body.

Glancing at her chill bumps, Mark quickly scanned the living room before bringing all his attention back onto her. “I don’t remember it being this cold in here when Liam and I were in here earlier. I wonder if someone else came in after we left and bumped the air up a few degrees.”

He motioned for her to get behind him and go stand over by the front door. “Something doesn’t feel right,” he said after a moment. As soon as she was where he wanted her to be, he glanced over his shoulder at her. His expression was now grim. “Stay here.” He didn’t wait for her to respond before pulling the service revolver out of his holster.

Other than the movies and television, Anne had never seen anyone with a real gun in their hands before. The sight frightened her more than she imagined it would. Her first thought was there was no way he was leaving her alone. She stepped up as close as she could to him and said, “The hell you say. Wherever you’re going I’m going too.”

He turned and gave her an exasperated look but didn’t argue. Touching his fingers to his lips, he motioned for her to be quiet.

She rolled her eyes and grabbed a handful of his shirt. When she did, he looked back at her again so she nodded and whispered, “Go on. I’m with you.”

This time he was the one to roll his eyes, but surprisingly he did as she said. In sync, they crept toward one of the bedrooms and then stopped at the closed door. He pointed toward it to indicate he was going in. She waved him forward so he slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open. He scanned the room before stepping inside. Resembling a puppet on a string, Anne followed close on his heels.

The room was a wreck. Clothes, curtains, bedspread, sheets, even the foam pillows were all torn to shreds and scattered all over the floor. But it wasn’t what caught and held Anne’s attention. While Mark headed over to investigate the attached bathroom, she walked over to the bed. Lying on top was half of a picture. It had obviously been ripped from its wooden frame. The frame was broken into tiny pieces and the protective glass was broken into strange, long shards.

The bathroom must have held nothing of interest because in seconds Mark was standing behind Anne. He didn’t touch anything but also didn’t attempt to stop her as she picked up the torn photo. The smiling face was so different from how her sister had looked an hour earlier in the city morgue. The photo was a sad flashback to the day before their aunt’s sudden death. At Anne’s twentieth birthday party, her best friend had snapped the picture and had given both her and Kylie a copy of it at their aunt’s funeral.

The day reminded Anne of old times for her and Kylie. Almost as it had been before Kylie started talking to dead people.

That day her aunt had baked Anne’s favorite desert—a three layer coconut cake. For once, the mood had been free of old grievances and Anne had seen her baby sister for the sweet, seventeen-year-old girl, she really was. The photo caught the moment Kylie was walking her into the house. Arm in arm, they were both smiling at one another for the first time in years.

How had they grown so far apart? The sad truth was, she knew the answer. For years, she had blamed her baby sister for their parents’ deaths. Even though she knew Kylie couldn’t have been responsible. Anne needed to blame someone and Kylie was an easy target. After all, how could she blame God? Wouldn’t such a thing have been sacrilegious? So instead, she placed the blame on the only person who had been with them when the fire broke out. The truth was in the dead of the night, Anne wondered if she had stayed home instead of staying over at her girlfriend’s house, if she could have done something to save their lives?

Spending all her time being angry with her sister for something totally out of her control had cost Anne everything. Now she had no one.

“I wonder why someone did this.” Anne held up the photo and looked at its other half glued to the wall next to the headboard. Above Anne’s smiling face, carved into the wall were the words,
Anne Trace wins second place
. Without thinking about what she was doing, she slipped her hand into Mark’s.

He squeezed her fingers and she found her voice. “Did the man who killed Kylie do this?”

Before Mark could answer, there was a loud crash in the next room. They both jumped but Mark was the first to react. She could only guess it was his police training which had him moving toward the danger instead of away from it, because he took off in a fast but controlled run out of the bedroom. Not wanting to be left alone, Anne took off after him. He was opening the second bedroom door by the time she finally caught up with him.

Mark made a chopping motion to let her know she was to stay outside the room this time. She might have done as he wanted, but just as he entered the room, it felt as if someone ran a finger down the side of her face. She didn’t squeal the same as a little girl would but she did slap at the empty air even though there was nothing there to hit.

She didn’t get very far into the room when she stopped dead in her tracks. There were pieces of glass and plastic dolls everywhere. Heads had been separated from their bodies and it left all types of eyes staring at grotesque angles from every corner of the room. The only doll that had not been torn up was a creepy clown doll sitting in a rocking chair in the corner of the room. What made it worse was the chair was moving as if someone was sitting in it.

Anne must have made a sound this time, because Mark walked up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. He forced her to look at him before he whispered, “Are you okay?”

She shook her head even though she meant to nod. She whispered back, “What’s with the rocking chair? Why is it moving by itself?”

Mark’s face was covered in a thin layer of sweat and he looked as if he wanted to be any place other than Kylie’s apartment. “I don’t know, but there is some creepy shit going on here. Even as a kid, I never did care for clowns.”

He took her arm and tried to pull her out of the bedroom. She might have gone with him but she froze when she spotted the writing covering the bedroom walls. He tugged at her arm again but she refused to budge. Her heart was beating so hard it felt as if it was trying to escape her chest. She pointed at the wall nearest them even though she could have just as easily pointed at any of them. “It’s my name again. It looks the same as if someone took a hot torch and burned my name into every square inch of this room. What’s going on?”

Since Mark wasn’t having any success at being gentle, he finally picked her up and carried her out. She might have protested if she hadn’t been in so much shock but his brute strength was comforting. It was nice to know at least someone could still think and function.

When Mark finally got her back into the living room, he lowered her onto her feet. His voice returned to its normal, firm commanding tone. “Okay. Here’s the deal. You can’t stay here. I have a spare room. You can stay with me until we figure out what’s going on. There’s obviously a nut out there interested in you now that your sister is dead. I’m going to keep a close eye on you until your return flight. What do you say?”

Anne looked into Mark’s warm brown eyes. You could tell a lot about a person by looking into their eyes. His were full of compassion and strength. “Thank you. I don’t think I could stay here even if I wanted to. I’ve never seen anything compared to this before. This had to be the work of a madman.”

Mark nudged her toward the front door. “I agree.”

* * * * *

Kylie looked so lost sitting on his bed with her gaze cast at her feet, which were hanging over the edge. He’d been staring at her for well over an hour trying to figure out how to make this right. If she was bothered by his presence, she didn’t show it.

When she finally spoke, Liam jumped in surprise. “Was he there?”

“Was who where?” he asked in confusion.

She didn’t look away from her feet. “Mr. Rogers. Was he still there?”

His eyes fell closed at the question. Did she really want to do this to herself? When he didn’t answer right away, she added, “I couldn’t see him or feel him there, but since I died I haven’t seen anyone in a similar state. I used to see people with my affliction all the time, but now it’s just me.” She scoffed at her toes. “How fucked up is that? I get to be a weirdo in life and in death. That’s awesome.”