Sinister (14 page)

No one would suspect the fire was only a diversion meant to direct attention outside of town. As soon as he was satisfied all the rescue vehicles and police were on their way to the church, he drove to the far side of town, parked his truck in the deserted lot of a school and strode, head down, along the sidewalks where others had trod.

The night was quiet, traffic on the main street through town hushed by falling snow. Even the few sounds that escaped from a late-night bar or the dog barking from an apartment were muffled by the snow.

Her house was small, unkempt, a cabin where the neighbors were far enough away that, unless something went very wrong, he could do what he had to do and get out unseen. His hand slid into his pocket to finger his trophies once again. Soon hers would be among the teeth now massaging his fingers.

Then he located the house key, the one he’d stolen from her purse as she’d set it down when he’d asked her advice on a bouquet for his girlfriend. As she’d looked into the case of cut flowers, he’d lifted her set of keys deftly. With that weird limp, he knew she could never make it back to the front counter in time to catch him in the act.

Now, he slid on his gloves and took her key ring from his pocket as he stole around to the back of the house. He knew she had no animals and that her untamed daughter was camping out in one of the Dillinger cabins.

Everything was coming together perfectly, he thought, as he slipped the key into the back door and felt the lock spring open.

 

 

Waiting for her sleeping pill to kick in, Mia tossed and turned in the worn groove of the double bed she’d slept in most of her life. The room was dark except for the glow that filtered in through her window shade. With the ground outside covered in white, the light from the street lamps was magnified and darkness was never complete.

The house still smelled of chili, and the pot still sat on the stove, ready for Kit to reheat when she got home.

If she got home. She’d promised, but then Kit couldn’t be counted on unless you were a horse, or a cow, or a goddamned dog.

Mia was sick of waiting for her, sick of living alone. It galled her to no end to think that her daughter, a Dillinger, mind you, had turned into a strange animal whisperer that other people looked at as if she weren’t right in the head.

“What do you do out there?” Mia had asked her daughter countless times, but Kit just looked away and shrugged. “Talk to me,” Mia had demanded, but her words never penetrated Kit’s veil of secrecy. It was downright embarrassing.

Mia knew that the Dillinger foreman, Davis Featherstone, encouraged her, tossing food here and there in return for work in the stables. Mia had told Featherstone in no uncertain terms to leave Kit alone, but the man had looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. That was typical of the help Mia got from the Dillingers—none.

The first wave of slumber teased at her brain. She let her breath out slowly and stared at shadows playing on the ceiling, shadows reflected from tree branches outside her window. Finally, she might be able to sleep.

Turning over, the bed springs creaking a bit, she thought she heard something. A soft
click
.

The back door?

Had Kit come home after all?

She listened hard. Nothing. Huh. Oh, well. Had she really expected her daughter to follow through? Her eyelids were getting heavier and she almost had Pilar’s sneering face out of her mind.

The soft sound of a door closing. The kitchen door.

So Kit was sneaking in again, trying not to wake her mother. Didn’t she know better? Mia was happy to have her home. “Honey?” Mia called toward her opened bedroom door to the darkened hallway.

Nothing.

Just the
tick
of the clock at her bedside, her mother’s favorite, and the quiet hum of the furnace.

“Kit?” she called again and then listened.

Silence. Nothing but the beating of her own heart.

And yet Mia sensed she wasn’t alone.

The hairs on the back of her arms lifted a bit.

“Honey, this isn’t funny!”

She rolled over to turn on the bedside lamp just as the door to her bedroom opened further. In the half light she saw the silhouette of a man, a big man, dark against the white woodwork.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

Her blood ran cold.

Frantically, her fingers scrabbled across the scarred nightstand, reaching for the lamp, for the clock, for anything.

He leaped across the room. She screamed bloody murder, but he was on her in an instant. A gloved hand muffled her cries as his body pressed her hard against the mattress.

Fear screamed through her body. Her fingers curled over the clock and she tried to strike him with it, but he used his free hand to rip it from her fingers and toss it aside.

“Don’t!” She tried to plead with him. “Don’t hurt me!” But her words were muffled by the fat glove. She wriggled and writhed, trying to get him off her, but he was too strong. Her broken body was unable to dislodge him.

She felt her bladder release as he yanked something from his pocket and held it up.

A knife. Its long blade gleamed dark silver in the light from the window.

She screamed again, but it was a feeble noise behind his big hand. A shiver rippled through her body and she struggled harder, intent on shaking him off. She twisted and bucked and tried to pummel him with her fists, but even as she fought, she realized her efforts were futile.

He was stronger, and he had a weapon.

A very sharp weapon.

God help me,
Mia thought as he leaned closer.

His breath was hot against her ear as he whispered, “Practice makes perfect.”

And then the knife descended.

 

 

Back at the bunkhouse, Colton kicked open the door and carried Sabrina in, all the while his lips pressed to hers in the kiss begun when he’d insisted on carrying her through the deepening snow.

He burned to have her, with all the heat and fury of the fire he’d dodged earlier in the night. His kisses were hungry, greedy, but she answered with a fervor that said she shared his desperation.

He ended the kiss and moved his mouth along her jaw, his lips teasing the silken texture of her skin. “Sabrina . . .” he said unsteadily.

She tried to answer but instead just brought his mouth to hers again, kissing him back with all the pent-up passion she’d kept locked away all these years.

He buried his fingers in her hair, awed by her openness. This was no seventeen-year-old virgin anymore. She was a woman—mature and smart and sexy as hell.

Her hands slid down to tug on the lapels of his flannel shirt. Two snaps popped open, and she cocked an eyebrow. He yanked up her sweater to run his hands over her warm flesh. Everything about her excited him. The crevices of her back and shoulder blades. The slope of her belly. The sweet mounds of her breasts. He pulled her bra down to suckle, feeling like an amateur, a teenage kid desperate to score, but he couldn’t hold back.

He had to have her. Now.

Feeling her nipple harden under his lips, he moaned and lifted his head. “You sure?”

Stars burned in her eyes, but she said, “Maybe we should stop and think this over.”

“What?” he expelled in disbelief, then he felt her silent laughter.

“Woman,” he muttered, tearing at the remaining snaps of his flannel shirt. Then, “Talking’s overrated.”

She pulled off her sweater, flung it aside, then hopped up from the cot to unfasten her jeans. “You got that right,” she said with a smile as she peeled off the denim. Then she grabbed his hand and led him to the shower. They plunged beneath the hot spray, locked together, their hands exploring all the forgotten places, their mouths forging new pathways, until Colton pulled her onto his hard shaft and Sabrina’s arms and legs encircled him and they rhythmically made love until they were both gasping and half falling against the tiles, laughing, and then gripped by desire. Sabrina cried out as they both climaxed at the same moment, and shuddering, Colton held her as tightly as he could, his heart full.

“The one that got away,” he said, to which Sabrina looked up at him with love and questions in her eyes.

“Later,” he told her and then kissed her hard again.

by Rosalind Noonan

Ricki Dillinger squinted down at the dead woman, her gaze following the line of skin that had been stripped from around her neck, exposing muscle and cartilage down over her shoulder and chest. Behind her, the conflagration of the church lit up the sky and sent waves of heat her way.

“I told you it was gruesome,” said Wiley Cook, the EMT who was young enough to be her son, but had heard of her reputation with the cops in New York. She’d convinced him to unzip the body bag for her by bamboozling him into thinking she was working for the sheriff now. No lies, just wishful thinking.

“Poor thing,” Ricki said, focusing her cell phone to snap a photo. “Just passing through Prairie Creek and someone did that to her.”

“Some crazy person,” Wiley said. “Like the mad butcher in that movie.”

“You’re right on that,” Ricki agreed, capturing another image just to be sure. It wasn’t a fresh corpse. Signs of decay were evident, though Ricki suspected that the freezing temperatures had delayed decomposition. Rigor was pretty far along, and the body was frozen in a sitting position.

“She must have been sitting for a while,” Ricki observed.

“That’s how your brother found her—sitting in one of the pews. He didn’t know she was dead, and the fire was spreading fast.”

“Right.” This was liable to set Colt back a few years. “But she couldn’t have been in the church long,” Ricki said. “They had a dress rehearsal there this afternoon.”

Wiley shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I’m guessing whoever set this fire left her there.”

Ricki muttered, “He probably killed her, too.”

So the woman’s killer was out here, close by. She thought of her own daughter, sleeping alone in the cabin, and picked up her phone, putting a call in to Janice MacDonald, the Dillinger housekeeper who lived in the small quarters at the back of the main house. “Sorry to wake you,” she said when Janice answered, then quickly explained about the fire and the killer on the loose. “He’s probably long gone, but would you mind going over to the foreman’s house to stay with Brook until I get back? Bring one of Dad’s guns with you.”

“I have my own,” Mrs. Mac told her, a subtle reminder that Ricki was not in New York City anymore.

As she ended the call, Wiley asked, “Should I close her up?” Ricki took one more look at the corpse. “I think I’m done. Thanks for taking the trouble.”

Wiley’s easy smile faded as he glanced over her shoulder, and before Ricki could turn around she heard Sam Featherstone’s gruff voice ask, “What’s going on over here?”

Wide-eyed, Wiley scrambled to zip up the body bag, as Ricki faced Sam. She held her phone up. “Got some images for us to look at. Sometimes when you send the body on to the medical examiner, it takes a while to get a report back, and you forget how things looked.”

“I know,” he said curtly.

“Where will she go? Cheyenne or Jackson?” Ricki asked, unfazed by his tone.

“Jackson.” Sam’s dark eyes held a flicker of annoyance. “But you’re not on this case, Ricki.”

“I’m aware.”

A loud crack and subsequent shudder of roof timbers interrupted her. Collectively their heads whipped up to see the roof begin to cave.

“Get back!” someone yelled.

Sam grabbed her arm in a proprietary way that made her do a quick double take, but he was just doing his job. They moved back another twenty feet, behind the vehicles.

A voice crackled on the radio and Sam held up a pointed finger for Ricki to wait while he adjusted the volume on the device clipped to the collar of his jacket. “Kit’s heading your way,” Naomi’s voice came through.

“She’s coming all the way out here?” Sam frowned. “Did you tell her there’s a fire here?”

“I did, but I swear there’s something wrong with that girl.”

Most of Prairie Creek would agree on that,
Ricki thought.

“Thanks for the heads-up.” Sam signed off on the radio and stared at the roaring fire.

“It’s burning fast,” Ricki said. “Do you know if they found any signs of accelerant?”

“Haven’t talked with the fire chief yet. I’ve been focused on Amber Barstow.”

Ricki nodded toward her father, who stood off to the side, talking with firefighters. “Dad said this is only the third big fire in eighteen years. The old homestead, the bakery fire and now this.”

Sam’s eyes were distant. “The bakery fire was an explosion. Bad gas line. This?” He shook his head. “No reason for a church to be engulfed in flames in the middle of the night.”

“Probably arson.” Ricki sighed. “With the homicide, you got a killer who appears to be a real psycho.”

Sam rubbed his knuckles against the side of his jaw. “I’d appreciate you keeping that under wraps for the time being.”

“You’re going to have to warn the public about him. Might as well do it now.”

“I don’t want to sound the alarm until we know what we’re dealing with. Did you see the way the victim is carved up? It could be a cult, some weird ritual. In which case, we’d be scaring the public without reason.”

“Whenever someone turns up dead, I’d say that’s a good reason.”

“See, that’s where law enforcement in a small town differs,” he said. “It’s more complicated than it looks.”

Ricki wanted to tell him that Einstein said that you should keep things simple, but she kept her mouth shut, distracted by headlights meandering up the hill, the car veering off the snowy roadway, then bouncing back on.

Sam noticed, too.

“Drunk driver?” she asked, squinting into the darkness.

“It’s a wagon. A Subaru.” Sam frowned. “Looks like Mia’s car.”

“It’s Kit driving.” Did the girl even have a license? Ricki wondered. Probably not.

They both watched in a mixture of curiosity and horror as the car turned into the parking lot so erratically that it spun around and slid into a snowdrift. When it appeared to have made a soft landing, Ricki and Sam hurried over.

“Kit?” Sam peered in through the driver’s-side window. “You okay in there?”

The door flew open and she emerged, eyes round as quarters, skin pale as the moon. She rushed to Sam, grabbed his arm and tugged frantically. “Come.” Her voice was taut, springing from a dark place. “My mother. Come, help.”

She pulled him toward the car, as if she could push him inside.

“Calm down, Kit. Did you say your mother needs help?”

She just stared at him through wide, wounded eyes.

“Tell me,” Sam urged.

But she couldn’t bring forth any more words.

“Where is Mia?” He looked around.

“Her house ... in town . . .” Kit forced out, then doubled over. Panicked or sick? Ricki couldn’t tell.

“We’ll go there,” Ricki said, putting a gentle hand on Kit’s shoulder. She knew the girl didn’t like to be touched, but she had to get through to her. “Over this way. The sheriff will give you a ride in his Jeep.” The girl’s body trembled as Ricki guided her around the hoses and trucks. Sam jogged over to Gary Rodriguez, one of his deputies, to let him know he was leaving the scene.

Ricki opened the back door of the Jeep. “There you go.”

Kit climbed awkwardly inside, fumbling, as if she’d lost control of her limbs. She stared straight ahead, helpless and vacant, and Ricki’s heart lurched with fear. Something was really wrong. Then she noticed the dark stain on Kit’s jacket and hands. Blood.

When Sam returned to find Ricki in the passenger seat, he said, “This is no time for a ride-along.”

“Deputize me, Sam. You need help and I’ve got the experience and know-how. So stop fighting it. Whatever happened in town, Kit’s in shock.” She lowered her voice. “And she’s got blood on her hands.”

He shot a look in the backseat, then turned back and started the engine. “Fine,” he clipped out. “You’re officially an employee of Prairie Creek.”

“Thank you, Sam.” She switched on the lights of the roof rack, and held on for a bumpy ride.

 

 

Hiring Ricki went against Sam’s better judgment, but having her beside him, listening as she gently talked to Kit, he began to revise his opinion. She did know how to talk to people, though Kit wasn’t giving them much. The girl never did, but this was something else.

The neighborhood was dark and quiet as they pulled up outside Mia’s cabin. The whispering snow that covered everything in white helped muffle the sound. He killed the engine and turned to Kit, but the back door was already open, the girl flying out into the snow. Ricki and Sam wasted no time following.

“Kit,” he shouted. “Don’t go in there. There could be . . .”

But she was loping ahead, an elk in the snow.

The front door was open a crack, a small mound of snow piled up on the floor, before Kit pushed it open and stomped inside. “Mia?” she said, hurrying down the dark hallway.

“Kit, hold on there,” Ricki called, following her.

Sam flicked the light on and drew his gun. There were footprints on the hallway linoleum. Bloody prints. “Shit.”

Ricki turned back and noticed. “Aw . . . fuck me.”

Words that Sam rarely heard from a woman these days. It would take some getting used to Ricki, who danced around the prints in a late attempt to preserve a crime scene, but kept moving down the hall.

Sam did a quick check of the living room and kitchen as he passed. No one, but then he didn’t expect there to be since the dark footprints on the floor were already dry, turning brown. From the bedroom came the noxious smell of a slaughter yard and the sound of whimpering, like the cry of a wounded dog. Stepping gingerly, Sam followed Ricki to the doorway, where they both paused, able to make out Kit’s shadowed silhouette leaning over the bed.

Sam flicked on the light to illuminate a world of horror. A crimson pool on the floor. Shattered glass and detritus scattered through the ransacked room. Stepping around the pool of blood where Kit stood silent as a grave, he saw her. Mia lay on the bed, naked from head to toe, her neck severed in a deep gash. Her face seemed untouched except for a line of blood trailing from her mouth. But her body ... the massacre was organized and repulsive. The skin of her shoulders and arms carved off in almost an ornamental way. Same with her stomach and thighs. She’d been skinned ... butchered like an animal.

Kit just stared down at her mother, so Ricki stepped forward and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder, her boot stopping just short of the puddle of blood. “I promise you, we’re going to find whoever did this to her.”

Kit seemed to see something inside her own head, some tableau that darkened her eyes and turned her features blade hard, but then she turned to Ricki and nodded.

 

 

It was pushing three
A.M.
when Ricki pulled Sam’s Jeep into a spot in front of the foreman’s house and killed the engine. She had a headful of gruesome images and a silent girl in the passenger seat, but somehow the edginess of it all was as familiar as a comfortable old pair of slippers. Police work really was a chronic sickness.

“Okay, we’re here,” she told Kit, who moved like a sleepwalker as they shuffled through the light powder that had fallen during the night. Ricki gave a courtesy knock so as not to startle Mrs. Mac, then stuck her key in the door.

The older woman was sitting up on the couch, fuzzy blanket on her lap and a revolver sitting on the coffee table. “I’m glad it’s you.” She pushed the blanket aside and smoothed back her hair. “I’m not too happy to hear there’s a killer roaming around this area.”

“You and me both.”

Mrs. Mac’s dark eyes were stern as Ricki motioned Kit inside.

“Kit’s staying with us tonight.”

Mrs. Mac nodded and took in Kit’s bloodstained appearance as she lifted her parka from the hook by the door.

When Kit hung back, Ricki prodded her. “It’s cold. Come in. Stay for a while. You can leave when you want to.” That got the girl to cross the threshold.

As Kit stood in the hallway, Ricki paused to peek in on Brook, sleeping peacefully in a lump under her zebra print quilt. Her hair fell over the pillow, and her pale face looked blissfully serene. Sleep was one of the few times Ricki saw her daughter at peace these days. She closed the door and thanked Mrs. Mac, who was hovering by the front door.

Ricki slung her own jacket on the hook. “You want me to call Dad to walk you back up to the house?”

“No need.” She slid her gun into her coat pocket. “My good friends Smith and Wesson will take care of me.”

Ricki turned to Kit. “Bathroom’s down the hall. There’s a pull-out couch in the living room.” Kit didn’t move for a moment, then finally walked stiffly into the bathroom and shut the door.

Mrs. Mac whispered, “What’s going on?”

Ricki exhaled. “Janice, Mia’s dead.”

Mrs. Mac’s hand flew to her chest. “Mia’s gone?”

“Looks like the same person who killed Amber Barstow killed Mia.” At least, that was Ricki and Sam’s guess based on the body carving. When Sam asked her to get Kit out of there, the techs from the state lab had just started collecting evidence. It would be days, maybe even a week before they got a complete report back.

“Oh, my Lord.”

“I know.” Ricki knew that the full impact of it hadn’t hit her yet; she was too tired and wound up and sick to wrap her mind around it.

Mrs. Mac nodded toward the bathroom. “Does she know?”

“I’m afraid she found her.”

“Good Lord in heaven. Who would do such a thing?” She shuddered.

“I don’t know, but I plan to find out,” Ricki said. “Thanks for coming over.”

“Anytime. You get some sleep now.”

“I will.” Ricki was throwing the bolt on the door when Kit emerged from the bathroom, decidedly cleaner but still skittish as a new colt.

She zipped her jacket to her chin, shivering despite the warmth of the cabin. “I need to go.” She moved toward the door, but Ricki stepped in her path, effectively blocking the way.