The Haunted Bones

THE
HAUNTED BONES

PM Weldon

Copyright © 2013 by Phaedra Weldon
All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design Copyright © 2013 Design by Trap
Door

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This book is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All
characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any
resemblance to real people or incidents is purely fictional. This
book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without
permission.

Prologue

I had a bullet in my head.

I knew this as sure as I knew I was too damn
young to die. The idea of going into the building alone had been a
stupid one, but I heard the witness scream. She was in danger from
the suspected killer and I couldn't wait on backup. The disguised
phone voice told me he would kill her if I didn't come.

Sometimes we think we're invincible because
we carry a badge and a gun.

Bullshit.

We can do worse than die.

We can live. I was still alive when my
murderer stepped out of the shadows to check to see if I was dead.
I couldn't get a clear look at him because I couldn't move. I heard
the click of his shoes on the wood floor and felt each step vibrate
against my back. I could only look up at the building's ceiling, at
the rafters made of steel and the dark shadows above them. Those
shadows darkened as my vision blurred. I wanted to close my eyes. I
didn't want to lie there like every other victim I'd seen with
their eyes staring into the mysteries of Heaven.

Or Hell.

"I can see you're still alive, Detective
McNally." The voice was the same electronically manipulated noise
as before. The same one who left messages on the witnesses' voice
mail. "I can see the light dim in your eyes just as I watched it
dim in your partner's eyes. Remember him? Jimmy something? You saw
him when you came in. He's got a hole in his forehead just like
yours."

I tried to say something. Anything. But
nothing moved.

"You're such a sad man, you
know. You will die and the one who killed the Senator's son will go
free. You failed, Devan McNally. You
failed
. You thought you could beat me,
but I'm better at this than you. You thought you could turn me
away. But I'm better than you. I'm a better detective than
you
."

The overhead shadows coalesced in the
center, until everything disappeared and I slipped away to stare
down my fate.

One

Two Years Later…

I had the perfect shot lined up when my butt
buzzed. I ignored it, figuring the call wasn't important. People
who knew me were aware I was working this afternoon, and if they
called anyway, they would be banned from my house. If they weren't
friends, I usually ignored them anyway.

The light was perfect; not too dark and not
too sunny. I liked shooting pictures on black-and-white days. It
gave a sense of mood to the scenery. Not that this property needed
atmosphere. It was a creepy old building, abandoned for over a
year. It used to be a bar before it became the bank's property. It
sat on the corner of an up-and-coming neighborhood in Buckhead,
Georgia. Wide street-side windows and a bar the length of the front
room. The beer taps had long been removed though the connections
were still there. The shelves behind the bar were bare, but an
antique mirror missing most of the silver reflective backing still
hung between them. A wooden, waist high ledge lined the opposite
wall; probably where stools once hosted a lot of after-work
hookups. It was easy to imagine the place in business.

It had a second story that I hadn't taken a
look at yet. There was too much history lingering on the first
floor. I knew I'd get upstairs eventually. This job was going to
pay pretty good.

And I needed the money.

There wasn't much of a back area. Just the
bar's kitchen. All the appliances were gone, leaving rusted
connections and grease-stained marks on the tiled floor. Took a few
shots there, then one or two of the door leading into the
alley.

The stairs were just behind the door between
the back and main bar and not visible to anyone coming inside. I
made sure to lock the front and back doors before I headed up,
camera in hand. I used a Canon PowerShot. It had all the bells and
whistles, and the sucker had made me a decent living for about six
months now. I have a spare in the car in case I drop this one—and
that's not something I wanted to think about.

Thunder rolled along the sky as I hit the
top step. The upstairs looked like it had been used for storage and
maybe an office. Old metal filing cabinets lined the street-side
wall under the only window. There was a bathroom, same shape and
size as the one downstairs. Only this one had brown stuff all over
the walls, sink, floor, toilet, and ceiling.

Having been a Homicide detective for three
years, I had a pretty good idea what that was.

I snapped shots, got creeped out, then
headed back downstairs. I usually brought my tablet along to check
proofs on the spot. Delete what was bad, keep what was good, and
then upload the chosen pics to an off-site storage server kept
secure by my favorite tech person, my niece. That way I could get
back to them while I watched TV, ate pizza, and worked on the
computer.

I grabbed the tablet out of the car as the
first drops of rain spattered my windshield. I didn't want to be in
the car when the rain came down so I yanked the backpack out and
headed back into the building. Just as I shut the door, the sky
fell and there was no going anywhere else for a while.

Using the camera's Wi-Fi, I uploaded to the
storage server and then downloaded to the tablet. I used the bar as
a make-shift desk and swiped at the tablet's surface with my
finger, skimming the photos in order—

Whoa. Back up.

I reversed my swipe to look at a picture
three swipes before. It was an okay shot of the bar, particularly
the right-side shelves, but one shelf was washed out. It looked
like a burned-out shot where the highlights were all turned up too
high and anything white or light-colored bleached away.

I pulled the picture into an editing app and
played around with the saturation until—

I damn near dropped the tablet as something
unexpected showed up and my phone buzzed again. This time I didn't
ignore it because I didn't want to hold the tablet anymore. In
fact, I wanted to put it down, so I set it on the bar.

I checked the caller ID. "Hey, Myra."

"Why haven't you been answering your
phone?"

Myra Coben. Victims advocacy champion and
licensed psychiatrist; i.e., my shrink. "Because I'm working."

She paused. "Oh. Well, that's good.
Pictures?"

"Yeah. A potential buyer wanted some shots
of a piece of property." I had the phone to my ear but my gaze was
fixed on the tablet. I wanted to save it and get the pic home so I
could take a look at it on my desktop computer, which had a bigger
screen.

"So how long will you be?"

I finally looked up and out the grimy
windows at the storefronts across the street. "Why? What are you
planning?"

"Well, it's not really a plan—and I know
it's last minute—"

"No. Myra…no more fixing me up, okay? I'm
fine with the divorce and I'm fine on my own. And besides," I said
as I eye-balled the tablet. "Isn't being a matchmaker
unprofessional?"

"Devan McNally—you are not fine on your own.
You don't go anywhere and you don't see anyone."

"I see you."

I could hear the scowl in her voice. "That's
not what I'm talking about. And talking with me about everything's
that's happened isn't a relationship."

Everything that's
happened.
She meant that night in the
warehouse. The night I was shot. Coma, recovery, and then divorce.
Yeah…the woman I thought I could count on didn't want to be chained
to a man with a bullet in his head.

"Devan, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said
that. I'm a crappy psychiatrist."

"No." I looked away from the tablet. "You're
a great psychiatrist; you're just a little lame in the friend
department sometimes."

"Okay, I deserved that. And I'm sorry. But I
do need a photographer."

"So you're not setting me up."

"Not on a date, no. But you might not be
appreciative of the client." She paused, and I felt nervous. "The
Chief Of Detectives' daughter is getting married on Saturday—"

"No."

"Devan—you haven't even heard me out."

"You
are
setting me up." I went from good
mood to suck-ass mood in a single second. "Myra, me showing up at
that wedding would be a bad idea. I've spent the better part of a
year telling you how I felt about what happened."

"And I've listened to you. I've also talked
to a lot of other people involved in the incident—and don't hang up
on me. When I say I talked to them, I don't mean I betrayed your
confidence. That's an ethical violation, Dev. Just as I won't tell
you their concerns. But from what I've gathered, their opinions of
you aren't as bad as you assume they are."

Thunder echoed my own
darkening thoughts as I turned away from the window and stared down
at the tablet without really seeing it. "Myra, it's really hard
when your own Captain suggests you take a leave of absence, and
then in the same sentence, insinuates it should be a very
long
absence because the
Chief Of Dees thinks you're an embarrassment. My partner was killed
that night. I was nearly taken out as well, and the suspect killed
himself."

"Yes, I know, and they were disappointed
when you woke and couldn't remember anything."

"
Disappointed?
" My voice rose and I
closed my eyes.
Easy. Take it easy. Bring
it down, Dev
. "That's not even close. You
weren't in the room during the interrogation—and there was no
mistake, Myra—my own captain
interrogated
me, as if I were
purposefully protecting that damn aide, Mason Ferrell."

"Okay, you need to calm down, Devan, or
you're going to black out again. Take several deep breaths."

She was right. I knew she was right. But I
was too pissed off about her destroying a perfectly enjoyable
afternoon. For more than a year I'd worked at putting all this
behind me, worked at accepting I might never remember the events of
that night, worked at…dealing with the fact I was no longer a
detective.

I was never dismissed or formerly fired, but
I had taken an extended leave, just as the Captain suggested.

Myra sighed. "I'm sorry, Devan. I misjudged
the amount of progress I believed you made during our sessions. I
thought…I hoped you had moved past this."

"I moved past blaming them,
Myra. That's all. But I won't move past blaming myself. They
weren't right in assuming I worked with the killer and they weren't
right about me and Llse. I never slept with her. I told her
no
."

"Dev—"

"I got Jimmy killed."

"No, you didn't. Jimmy's own bad decisions
got him killed. You weren't even there."

I hung my head. "I should have been."

"It's not your fault, Devan."

"I've got to go, Myra." I disconnected and
slipped the phone back into my pocket.

It had been a simple assignment. Protect the
witness, keep her safe. But in a matter of twenty-four hours, my
partner was dead, the killer was dead, I was on life support, and
the witness was the only one standing—and the testimony she gave
destroyed my life. I couldn't refute it because I couldn't remember
it.

I stared out the window and waited for the
rain to end.

Two

Mary Smith loved the good things in life.
And she knew money was the way to get them. And getting them from
wealthy, good-looking men was her way of securing all that she
desired. Until the men figured out who and what she was, and they
always did.

Then it was time to put them in their place
and move on.

Her mother called her stupid. The old bitch
never could keep her mouth shut. So when she was older, Mary shut
her mother's mouth. And out of spite and a sense of ownership, she
often visited her mother's grave: a concrete wall in a local bar.
But it hadn't been a bar when she punished her mother. It had been
their home.

A place she hated more than she hated being
poor.