Out Of The Darkness
Out Of The Darkness
Heather Graham
A love rekindled… Or a deadly reunion?Sarah Hampton is still haunted by a night that nearly ended in a bloody massacre and destroyed her romance with Tyler Grant. Now the horror has returned. This time, Tyler must protect Sarah from the killer hiding in the darkness…
A love rekindled...or a deadly reunion?
Even after a decade, Sarah Hampton is haunted by the night that nearly ended in a bloody massacre and destroyed her high school romance with handsome Tyler Grant. Now the horror has returned. It’s a reckoning from the events of that terrifying night—and a love they never let go. Only this time Tyler must protect Sarah from the killer hiding in the darkness...or lose her forever.
From New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham!
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author HEATHER GRAHAM has written more than a hundred novels. She’s a winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, a Thriller Writers’ Silver Bullet and, in 2016, the Thriller Master Award from ITS. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America, and is the founder of The Slush Pile Players, an author band and theatrical group. An avid scuba diver, ballroom dancer and mother of five, she still enjoys her South Florida home, but also loves to travel. For more information, check out her website, www.theoriginalheathergraham.com (http://www.theoriginalheathergraham.com), or find Heather on Facebook.
Also available by Heather Graham
Law and Disorder
Into the Shadows
Out of the Darkness
Dying Breath
A Perfect Obsession
Darkest Journey
Deadly Fate
Haunted Destiny
Flawless
The Hidden
The Forgotten
The Silenced
Visit millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more information
Out of the Darkness
Heather Graham
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07854-2
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
© 2018 Heather Graham Pozzessere
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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For Saxon and Joe, two of the nicest and most talented young men I know.
May their move to New York be filled with dreams—and, of course, all kinds of visits from West Coast friends!
Contents
Cover (#uce8f6905-a15f-5050-a271-50dfd29e2718)
Back Cover Text (#u3c4a268f-4297-52d7-84b3-dc674e857d69)
Author Bio (#u77b4b71e-8b9f-5a3c-a507-c45c4a1bc476)
Booklist (#u8b829140-c8dd-55da-a2c1-5b0893c48540)
Title Page (#u4df48ab5-9ea2-5850-bcfa-904ebf7e7604)
Copyright (#u25b601e3-2c61-5569-87e9-ad2ad605d40c)
Dedication (#ufec4e5bc-96c2-5145-a848-4daa8a54d769)
Prologue (#u52b95c7d-9785-584f-ae89-b120bdc959b9)
Chapter One (#u91761426-2e1a-541b-9995-c96768f27a8b)
Chapter Two (#u978de0fa-b0e9-591a-a34d-c5f67f1965de)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Author Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u1dc1a16a-4f77-5924-b6dc-11974310841d)
What Davey Knew
The Bronx
New York City, New York
Ten Years Ago
The eyes fell upon Sarah Hampton with a golden glow; the woman’s mouth, covered with blood, split into a diabolical smile as she cackled with glee, raising her carving knife and slamming it down on the writhing man tied to the butcher block in the kitchen. Blood seemed to spurt everywhere. Screams rose.
And Sarah, laughing at herself for her own scream, grabbed Davey’s hand and followed Tyler Grant out of the haunted house.
“Fun!” Tyler said, laughing, catching his breath.
It was fun. Though Sarah had to admit she was glad she was here as part of a party of six. Fun? Yes, sure...
And creepy! The weapons had looked real. The “scare actors” could have passed for the real thing quite easily as far as she was concerned.
“Ah, come on, the guy on the butcher block—his screams were nowhere as good as they should have been,” Hannah Levine said. “He must be getting tired of screaming—long season, long night. But I guess it is Halloween.”
“Yeah, I imagine that the poor kid has been at it awhile,” Sean Avery agreed. He looked at Sarah’s cousin, Davey. “Then again, this place opens for only four weekends, with Halloween weekend, the last, being the boss. Coolest thing ever, Davey!”
Davey gave him a weird little half smile.
Suzie Cornwall—Sarah’s best friend—frowned. “What’s the matter, Davey? Was the haunted house too scary for you? We were all with you, you know.”
“That one was okay,” Davey said.
“But now...drumroll! We’re moving on—to the major attraction!” Sean said.
“No, no, no!” Davey shook his head violently. “I’m scared!” He clearly didn’t want to go into Cemetery Mansion, another of the haunted houses; he seemed terrified.
Sarah looked at her cousin with dismay.
She loved Davey. She really loved him. She had never met anyone who was as kind, as oblivious to what others thought, as willing to help others.
But Davey had Down syndrome. And while most of Sarah’s friends were great, every once in a while they acted as if they didn’t want to be with her, not if she was bringing Davey along.
And tonight...
Well, it was almost Halloween. And she and her friends had scored tickets to Haunted Hysteria in a radio contest. It was the prime event of the season, but one they couldn’t actually afford. Well, to be honest—and they all had to agree—it was Davey who’d won the tickets. They’d asked him to dial the radio station number over and over again, and Davey hadn’t minded.
The place itself was fabulous. Decorated to a T. Bats, ghouls, ghosts, vampires, witches and more—young actors and actresses, of course, but they walked around doing a brilliant job. The foam tombstones looked real and aged; the makeshift mortuary chapel was darkened as if older than time itself. Lights cast green and purple beams, and fog machines set in strategic places made for an absolutely immersive experience.
And now they were all here—she, Davey, Tyler, Sean, Suzie and Hannah. Suzie, tall and well-built, perfectly proportioned to be dressed up as Jessica Rabbit for the night, was her best friend. Tyler was the love of her life. And most of the time, both of them were truly wonderful friends. Tyler had even told her once that he knew right off the bat if he’d like people or not—all depending on the way they treated Davey.
Hannah was a stunner, olive skinned and dark haired—and as an evil fairy, she was even more exotically beautiful than usual. Sarah was pretty sure she’d caused one of the “scare actors” to pause—too startled by her beauty to scare her!
Sean...Sean was charming, the old class clown. Apropos, he was dressed up as the Joker. Every once in a while, his wit could be cruel. Mostly, though, he was a great guy, and the five of them had been friends forever, even though Sarah and Tyler were the only duo in their group.
She had come in steampunk apparel; Tyler had matched her with an amazing vest and frock coat. Davey had come as his all-time favorite personality—Elvis Presley.
They were all nearly eighteen now. Come October of next year, they’d be off at their different colleges, except she’d be at NYU with Tyler, as they’d planned. But for tonight...
It was fricking Halloween. Aunt Renee had asked her to take Davey with her. Yes, of course, Sarah was very aware the tickets really belonged to Davey.
Sarah always tried to be helpful. It was easy to help care for her cousin.
Aunt Renee wasn’t in any kind of financial trouble—she had a great job as a buyer for a major chain store—and she had household help and could afford to send Davey to a special school.
But Aunt Renee wanted Davey to have friends and spend time with people his own age—Sarah’s age. Aunt Renee wanted a wider world for Davey; she did not want his mom to be his only companion.
Sarah’s friends were usually happy to have Davey with them.
But now Sarah could feel that Davey was holding them all back—and they were kids, with a right to be kids. The others were looking at her. Sure, they loved Davey. They were good people. But she could see them thinking screw it! They’d come to Haunted Hysteria; they were going in the haunted houses, and Sarah was welcome to sit outside with Davey.
Tyler, of course, had the grace to look guilty. He wasn’t eighteen until January, but he was already over six foot three, heavily muscled in the shoulders and extremely fine in the face. Hot, yes. Tyler was hot. And he loved her. He really did. Then, she hoped she wasn’t exactly dog chow herself. She was, she admitted, the typical cheerleader to his football hero. Yes, she was blonde and blue-eyed, the fault of her genetics. She was a good student and coordinated enough to be a great cheerleader. She liked to believe she’d been taught by her family to be a lot more, too—as in decent and compassionate and bright enough to see and understand others.
She thought Tyler was like that, too. No matter how cool he was.
They were just right for each other—and their group of friends was nice, too! Something she considered extremely important. Tonight, they wanted to be seniors—they wanted to be a little bit wicked and have a great time.
But being Davey’s cousin had long ago taught Sarah about the importance of kindness in the world. Patience, sharing, caring...all that.
All that...
Seemed to go out the window right now.
“Davey, I know you were scared in the first house, but we’re all with you,” she said.
“Hey, buddy,” Tyler told him. “I’m bigger than the damned ghosts!”
“You can go between Sarah and Tyler,” Suzie said. “They’ll protect you.”
“No! No—the things in this house—they were okay. They weren’t real. But that house...that one, there. There are things in it that are real. That are bad. They’re evil!” Davey said.
“Oh, you’re being silly,” Hannah said.
“It’s true,” Davey said.
“How do you know?” Sean asked him.
“My father told me!” Davey said. “He helps me see.”
Sarah bit her lip. Davey’s dad had died over a year ago. Aunt Renee was alone with Davey now. Davey’s dad had been a marine, and he had been killed serving his country. Her uncle had been a wonderful man—good to all the kids. She’d loved him, too, and she’d known he loved her.
“Davey, your father isn’t here,” she said. “You know...you know your dad is dead.”
Davey looked at her stubbornly. “My father told me!” he insisted.
“Davey,” Sarah said softly, calmly, “of course, the point is for it all to be very scary. Vampires, ghosts—but they’re not real. It’s a spooky fun place for Halloween. There are all kinds of made-up characters here.”
“No. Real bad things.”
They all let his words sit for a minute.
“The actors in there—they’re not evil, Davey,” Suzie said. “Come on, you’ve seen creatures like that before—and the ones who walk around, they’re high school kids like us or college kids, and now and then, an adult actor without a show at the moment! You know all about actors, buddy. There are pretend vampires—and werewolves, mummies, ghosts—you name it.”
“No. Not werewolves. Not vampires,” Davey insisted. “Bad people. Like my dad said!”
“You love actors and movies,” Sean said. Sean knew Davey had a skill for remembering everything about all the movies and, because of that, he always made sure Davey was on his team for trivia games. When they weren’t playing trivia, however, Sean had a tendency to ignore Davey.
Sean seemed to be trying with the rest of their group to engage Davey, but he kept looking at his watch. He wanted to move on.
“You shouldn’t go in! You shouldn’t go in. It’s bad. Very bad,” Davey said.
“It’s just a haunted house!” Tyler said.
“I love you, Tyler,” Davey said. “Don’t go. My father...he was next to me. Yes. He was next to me. All the things he taught me. He’s dead, I know! But he’s with me. He said not to go in. He said there would be bad men and you have to look out. He was smart. My dad was a marine!” he added proudly.
“That’s kind of sick!” Hannah whispered to Sarah. “Does he honestly think...”
“Davey,” Sarah said softly. “Your dad loved you—you loved your dad. But he’s gone.”
“I’m not going!” Davey said stubbornly.
“He should come,” Tyler told Sarah. “If you give in to him all the time...it’s not good. Don’t make him into a baby. He’s several years older than we are.” He turned to Davey. “You know I love you, buddy, right?”
Davey nodded. “We don’t have a weapon. I’m not going.”
“Davey, I’m begging you...please?” Sarah asked.
Davey shook his head, looking at her. There were tears in his eyes; he was obviously afraid she was going to make him go into the haunted house.
“Just go,” Sarah told the others. “Davey and I will get a soda or...hey, there are a bunch of movie toys over there. We’ll go look at the toys.”
Tyler sighed. “I’ll stay with you.”
The others had already fled like rats.
Not even Suzie—some best friend—stayed behind.
Just Tyler. Staring at her.
“Go,” she told him, suddenly feeling put-upon.
“Sarah—”
“Go!”
He stiffened, squared his shoulder, shook his head—and walked on quickly to join the others.
“I’m still so confused. What scared you so badly?” Sarah asked Davey, leading him to a bench. At least she could sit. Her steampunk adventurer boots were starting to hurt like hell. “You were fine when we first got here. The haunted house we went in was made up to look like that one from the movie—you know, when the kids get lost in the woods and they find the house, but everyone in it is crazy! The father likes to hang people, the brother plays with a Civil War sword, the sister sprays poison and the mother chops up strangers for dinner. It was creepy cool—and they were all actors.”
“Yes, they were actors,” Davey said.
“Then why are you afraid of that one?” She pointed to the house where her friends were now in line, Cemetery Mansion. It was a good, creepy representation from a horror film where people had built over a graveyard and the dead came back to kill the living for disturbing them.
“It’s evil,” Davey said. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shivered. “I saw them. Dad told me to watch—I watched. That house is evil.”
“How is it evil? It’s honestly much the same. The themes are different. There are a lot of fabricated creatures—some cool motion-activated stuff, like robots—and then more actors. People just pretending. We went through the one house—it was fine.”
He nodded very seriously and then pointed at the Cemetery Mansion.
“That one,” he said. “It’s wrong. I’m telling you, Sarah—it is wrong. And I like Tyler. And Suzie,” he added. He didn’t say anything about Sean or Hannah.
“You mean—you’ve heard they got the characters wrong somehow? We haven’t been in it to see what the house is like, Davey.”
“No, we can’t go in,” he said insistently, wetting his lips as he did when he got nervous. “No. It’s wrong. You can feel it. It isn’t scary—it’s bad. Evil.”
She looked at the house. It was spooky—the theme park had done a good job. Images were hazily visible in the windows: creatures that had just crawled from the grave, bony, warped, black-and-white, like zombies or ghosts, horrible to behold.
“You should stop your friends from going in there. Make Tyler come back. He wanted to stay with you. But you were all stubborn and mean.”
Sarah heard the words and spun around to stare at Davey. But he didn’t even seem to realize he had spoken to her.
He was looking at the stand where there were all kinds of toys.
Sarah suddenly smiled. His eyes were wide; he was happy to look at the toys. Davey loved the movies and he loved toys—that made movie-inspired props and toys extra special.
“Let’s go see what they have,” she told him.
* * *
“THIS IS WRONG,” Tyler said as he got into the line for the haunted house with Suzie, Hannah and Sean. What was one more haunted house? he asked himself, irritated that he had let Sarah push him away. No matter if it was their idea or not, Davey had gotten them the tickets. He’d been patient enough to dial his phone over and over and over again.
And Tyler knew that Sarah was feeling alone—as if Davey was her responsibility, and she wasn’t about to burden anyone else.
Tyler loved her. He knew they were both lucky, both blessed. People referred to them as the “Barbie and Ken” of their school. He liked to think it wasn’t just that he played football and she was an amazing cheerleader—for any team the school put forth. He tried to be friendly, kind, sympathetic—and he worked hard in class.
Naturally, he and Sarah had been intimate—though not in a way that would give others a chance to tease them. They were discreet and very private; Sarah would never do anything to disappoint her parents. But in their minds, marriage was a given. Sometimes, in the middle of a class, Tyler would smile, imagine being with her in such an intimate way again, when they both laughed, when they grew breathless, when the world seemed to explode. She was an amazing lover and he hoped he reciprocated. Sex was fireworks, but life was loving everything about her—her great compassion for others, her integrity. He liked to think that he was similar in his behavior.
Leaving her on her own tonight hadn’t been considerate in any way.
“I’m going to go back and wait with Davey and Sarah,” he said flatly.
“Go back where?” Hannah asked him. “They’re already gone. And besides, Miss Stubborn Pride isn’t going to let you stay with her. I’m sure you already tried to and she sent you after us. She doesn’t want you to have a lousy time just because she has to.”
Tyler gritted his teeth and looked away. “She isn’t having a lousy time—and neither am I, Hannah. I love Davey. No one out there has a better heart.”
It was true, though, that Sarah and Davey had walked off somewhere.
He should have firmly ignored Sarah when she’d pushed him away. She was usually bright enough to be angry if someone didn’t understand that hanging out with Davey was like hanging out with any friend...
And Tyler was suddenly angry himself; they wouldn’t be here at all without Davey. Davey had won the tickets.
“Oh, come on, Tyler!” Hannah said. “It’s okay! The retard is her cousin, not yours.”
He wanted to slap Hannah—and he was stunned by the intensity of the feeling. In his whole life, he’d never hit a girl. And Hannah was a friend. She was usually...fine.
“Hannah, you know calling him that is not okay. Not cool. He’s just like you or me,” Tyler said.
“Maybe like you!” Sean said, laughing. “Not me. Hey, come on—this is supposed to be the coolest thing here, ghosts coming up out of the ground from all over. They say the creatures—animatronic or whatever—are the most amazing, and they put their best ‘scare’ actors in this one. Tyler, come on, we take Davey with us all the time. But this is our night. It’s our last Halloween together. If he doesn’t want to come in, screw it!”
“Not to mention that, as I already pointed out, we don’t even know where they are anymore,” Hannah said.
“Yep, well, I do have a cell phone,” Tyler said.
“Tyler, leave it,” Suzie said. She looked guilty, too, he thought. But maybe she was right. “We have VIP tickets—we get to move into the express lane up there. We’ll be out soon and then we’ll explore the food booths—Davey will like checking those out! And we’ll hug him and tell him that he was right—we should have stayed out. It was really scary, so now we’re all hungry!”
An actor in some kind of a zombie outfit came toward them, using a deep and hollow voice to ask for their tickets. They showed their passes and were moved up quickly in the line.
They entered the mudroom of the Cemetery Mansion. Bloody handprints were everywhere. They were met by a girl in a French maid outfit—with vampire teeth and blood dripping down her chin.
“Enter if you dare!” she said dramatically.
A terrified scream sounded from within. And then another. And another.
The place had to be amazingly good.
“Ah!” said the maid. “I say again, enter if you dare! Those who have come before you seem to be just...dying to get back out!”
She opened the door from the mudroom to the foyer and stepped back.
Tyler thought she looked concerned. As if...
As if people actually were dying to get out.
* * *
“CAN WE GO look at the booth over there?” Davey asked Sarah.
He gave her a smile that made her ashamed. She had been secretly bitter; she’d wanted to go with her friends. It wasn’t terrible that she should want to; she knew her feelings were natural. But she felt guilty, anyway. Davey wasn’t being mean, she knew. He wasn’t hurting her on purpose. He had his irrational fear set in his mind.
“Come on!” She caught his hand and led him to the toy stand. This one was stocked with prop weapons.
There were all kinds of great things: realistic plastic ray guns, gold-gleaming light-up lasers and much more. There were fantastic swords, like from some 1950s sci-fi movie, she thought. They were really cool—silver and gold, and emitting light through plastic blades that shimmered in a dozen colors.
They were cheap, too. Not like the licensed merchandise. It was called a Martian Gamma Sword.
Sarah smiled, watching Davey’s fascination.
She worked three days a week after school at the local theater and could easily afford the toy sci-fi sword. She paid while Davey was still playing with it.
“Okay, good to go,” she told him.
He looked at her, surprised.
“I bought it, Davey. It’s yours.”
His eyes widened. He gave her his beautiful smile again. Then he frowned, appearing very thoughtful.
“Now we can go,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“We have to go,” he insisted. “I can save them now—Tyler and Suzie. I can save them.”
Sarah couldn’t have been more stunned. She smiled. Maybe they could catch up—and if not, well, she’d still be able to say she’d experienced the most terrifying haunted house in the city—the state, maybe even the country!
“Come on!” she said. “Sure, I mean, it will be great if we can save them. So great.”
“I have to go first. I have the Martian Gamma Sword.”
“Okay, I’m right behind you!” Sarah promised. She hurried after him.
“They don’t like this kind of light, you know.”
“Who doesn’t like it?”
“Those who are evil!” he said seriously.
He had his sword ready and held in front of him—he was prepared, he was on guard!
Sarah smiled, keeping behind him. She hoped he didn’t bat an actor over the head with the damned thing.
* * *
TYLER DIDN’T KNOW when it changed.
The haunted house was incredible, of course. He knew the decorations and fabrications, motion-activated creatures and the costumes for the live actors had been created by some of the finest designers in the movie world.
The foyer had the necessary spiderwebs dangling from the chandelier and hanging about. As they were ushered in—the door shut behind them by the French maid—a butler appeared. He was skinny, tiny and a hunchback. Igor? He spoke with a deep voice that was absolutely chilling.
Tyler had to remind himself he was six-three and two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle. But just the guy’s voice was creepy as hell.
“Cemetery Mansion!” the butler boomed out. “The living are always ever so careless of the dead! Housing is needed...and cemeteries are ignored. And so it was when the Stuart family came to Crow Corners. They saw the gravestones...they even knew the chapel housed the dead and that a crypt led far beneath the ground. And still! They tossed aside the gravestones, and they built their mansion. Little did they know they would pay for their total disregard. Oh, Lord, they would pay! They would be allowed to stay—forever! Forever and ever...with those who resided here already!”
Suddenly, from thin air, haunts and ghouls seemed to arise and sweep through the room. Suzie let out a squeal. Even Hannah shrieked.
Good old Sean let out a startled scream and then began to laugh at himself.
It was done with projectors, Tyler realized.
“To your left, ladies and gentlemen, to your left! The music room, and then the dining room!”
They were urged to move on. The music room hosted a piano and rich Victorian furniture. There was also a child sitting on the sofa, holding a teddy bear. She turned to look at them with soulless eyes—and then she disappeared. A figure was hunched over the piano. Suzie tried to walk by it; the piano player suddenly stood, reaching out for her.
She screamed. The thing was a motion-activated figure, one who would have done any haunted mansion proud. It was a tall butler—blond and grim-looking, with a striking face made up so that the cheeks were entirely hollow. It spoke with a mechanical voice. “Come closer, come closer... I can love you into eternity!”
It was nothing but a prop, an automaton. But it was real as all hell.
Suzie ran on into the next room.
The dining room...
At the head of the table was a very tall man—an actor portraying the long-dead head of the household; a man in a Victorian-era suit, wearing tons of makeup that had been applied very effectively. He was sharpening a knife.
There were dummies or mannequins or maybe animatronics slumped around the table. At least their bodies were slumped there. Their heads were on it. Blood streamed from their necks and down their costumes.
“One of them is going to hop up, I know,” Hannah murmured.
She bravely stepped closer to the table. No one moved.
Tyler noticed there was a girl about their age at the end of the table. She was wearing one of this year’s passes to Haunted Hysteria around the stump of her neck.
Good touch, he thought.
The bodies around the table did not move. The master of the house watched them with bloodshot eyes. He sharpened his knife.
A girl suddenly burst into the dining room from the music room. “Run! Get out—get to the exit! He’s in the house somewhere!” she screamed.
“Yes, he is. He’s right here,” the master of the house said. He reached for her and dragged her to him. She screamed again, trying to wrench herself free. He smiled.
He took one of the knives he had been sharpening.
And he slit her throat.
* * *
SARAH DIDN’T KNOW what had gotten into Davey; he was usually the most polite person in the world. He’d been taught the importance of please and thank you.
But he was almost pushing.
And he knew their radio station tickets gave them VIP status.
Light sword held before him, he made his way to one of the actors herding the line. “VIP, please!” he told her.
“Uh, sure. Watch out for that thing!” She started to lead them up the line, toward the house. As she did so, there was a scream, and one of the actors came bursting out the front door.
She was dressed as a French maid—a vampire or zombie French maid, Sarah thought.
She stumbled out of the entry and onto the porch, grabbing for one of the columns. Blood was dripping down her arms and over her shirt—she appeared to have a number of stab wounds.
“Don’t!” she shouted. “Don’t... He’s a killer!”
Applause broke out in the line. But then someone else burst out of the house—a ghoul dressed in an Edwardian jacket.
He crashed down, a pool of blood forming right on the porch.
More applause broke out.
“No, no, that’s not supposed to happen,” the zombie leading Sarah up the line murmured.
Davey burst by her; he was headed to the house, his light saber before him.
“Davey!” Sarah shrieked. Something was wrong; something was truly wrong. They needed to stay out, needed to find out if this was an excellent piece of play-acting or...
Or what?
Imaginary creatures came to life and started killing people? Actors went crazy en masse and started knifing the populace? Whatever was going on, it seemed insane!
The sensation that crawled over Sarah then was nothing short of absolute terror—but Davey was ahead of her.
With his Martian Gamma Sword.
He was charging toward the house.
Davey! She had to follow him, stop him and get him away—no matter what!
* * *
TYLER COULD HEAR nothing but diabolical laughter.
And screaming—terrified shrieks!
Suzie hopped on a chair and grabbed a serving platter for defense.
The master of the house turned toward them, dropping the body of the girl whose throat he had slit. It fell with a flat thud.
Sean squeaked out a sound that was nearly a scream.
Hannah grabbed Sean, thrusting him between her and the big man with the massive knife.
“Back up, back up, back up!” Tyler said.
Hannah did so. Sean turned to flee.
The master of the house went for Sean. He picked him up by the neck.
“No! Stop, stop it!” Tyler shouted.
This couldn’t be happening.
“This isn’t funny. It isn’t right!”
The character didn’t seem to hear Tyler. And Tyler had no choice. He leaped forward, shoving Hannah away, and tried to wrest Sean from the killer. He grabbed Sean’s arm and pulled.
“No!” Suzie shrieked.
Tyler looked up.
The master of the house was approaching her with the massive knife, dragging Sean along with him. Then he turned. He came swinging toward Tyler, still dragging Sean. Tyler held on to his friend and jerked hard; Sean came free and they staggered back—Hannah, Sean and himself—until they crashed into the table.
Hannah began shrieking in earnest. As she did so, Tyler became aware of the tinny scent of blood.
Real blood.
And he looked around the table and he knew.
They were people. Real people. And they were dead.
Really dead.
“No!” Suzie shrieked.
She slammed her serving platter at the master of the house.
He just laughed.
And raised his carving knife.
* * *
DAVEY RACED ACROSS the porch, pushing aside the bleeding maid and hopping over the body of the man in the Edwardian dress.
Sarah had no choice but to follow.
He burst through into a mudroom. There were bloody handprints all over it.
Some were fake—stage blood.
Some were real—human blood.
She could tell by the smell that some of the blood was real.
Davey rushed through to the foyer, his Martian Gamma Sword leading the way. But there was no one there. He threw open another door.
“Davey, stop! Please, Davey, something is going wrong. Something is...”
They were in a music room; it was empty—other than for a bloody body stretched across a floral sofa.
“Davey!” Sarah shrieked. “No, no, please...”
She started to whirl around. There were holograms everywhere. A child in black with a headless doll appeared. And then a hanged man, the noose still around his neck. All kinds of ghouls and creatures and evil beings began to appear in the room and then disappear.
“Davey, please, we’ve got to get out. Davey!”
She gripped his arm as the terrifying images swirled around them.
“Not real,” Davey said. “Sarah, they’re not real.”
He was moving on—and she heard screams again. Terrified screams...
He went through a black hazy curtain and they were in the dining room.
And there were Tyler, Hannah...Sean and Suzie... It appeared that they were all being attacked by...a creature, by someone or something. They had fallen back and were struggling to rise from the dining table, where there were...
Oh, God, corpses, real corpses. Dead people, all around the table. Suzie and Hannah were yelling and screaming, and Tyler was reaching out, but the carving knife was coming down and it was going to sink into Tyler’s chest at any minute!
She heard a terrible scream—high-pitched and full of fear and horror. And she realized it was coming from her...
And she had drawn the attention of the...
Man. It was a real man.
An actor gone insane? What the hell?
No, no, no, no. It was impossible. It was Halloween. It had to be a prank, an elaborate show...
The man was real.
Absolutely real.
He was tall and big and had long scraggly white hair and he might have played a maniacal killer in a slasher movie.
Except this wasn’t a movie.
And he was coming at her.
He opened his mouth and smiled, and she saw his fangs. Long fangs that seemed to drip with something red...stage blood...
Real blood.
She screamed again.
It sounded as if it was coming from someone else, but it was not. It was coming from her.
Tyler struggled up from the table. He slipped.
He was slipping in blood.
“No, no, no!” Sarah screamed.
And then Davey stepped up. He thrust her back with his arm and stepped before her, his cheap little plastic sword at the ready.
“Leave her!” Davey shouted, his voice filled with command.
The man laughed...
And Davey struck him. Struck him hard, with all his strength.
The man went flying back. He slammed into the wall, and the impact sent him flying forward once again.
He tripped on a dead girl’s leg...
And crashed down on the table.
Right on top of Tyler and Sean and Hannah, who had already been slammed down there. It was too much weight. The table broke with an awful groaning and splintering sound.
Shards and pieces flew everywhere as what remained of the table totally upended.
Tyler let out a cry of fear and fury and gripped the man’s shoulders, shoving him off with all the force of a high school quarterback.
To Sarah’s astonishment, the man, balanced for a matter of seconds, staring furiously at Davey—and then he fell hard. And didn’t move again. She saw that he’d fallen on a broken and jagged leg of the table.
The splintered shaft was sticking straight through his chest.
Tyler got up and hunkered down by the man carefully, using one of the plates off the table as a shield.
“Dead,” he said incredulously. He looked up at the others. “He’s dead... He fell on the broken table leg there and...oh, God, it’s bad.”
“Out of here! It’s evil!” Davey commanded. “It’s still evil.”
They were all shaking so badly no one seemed able to move. Davey reached for Hannah’s arm and pulled her up. “Out!” he commanded.
And she ran. Suzie followed her, and then Sean, and then Tyler met Sarah’s eyes and took her hand, and they raced out, as well, followed by Davey—who was still carefully wielding his plastic sword.
They heard sirens; police and security and EMTs were spilling onto the grounds.
The medics were struggling, trying to find the injured people among the props and corpses and demons and clowns.
When the group of friends reached a grassy spot, Sarah fell to the ground, shaking. She looked up at Davey, still not beginning to comprehend how he had known...
Or even what it was he had known.
“I told you—that house is evil,” he said. “I told you—my dad. He taught me to watch. He stays with me and tells me to watch.”
* * *
IT HAD BEEN the unthinkable—or easily thinkable, really, in the midst of all that went on at a horror-themed attraction at Halloween.
Archibald Lemming and another inmate had escaped from state prison two weeks earlier. They had gotten out through the infirmary—even though he had been in maximum security. News of the breakout had been harried and spotty, and most people assumed the embarrassment suffered by those who had let them escape had mandated that the information about it be kept secret.
Archibald Lemming had been incarcerated at the Clinton Correction Facility for killing four people—with a carving knife. The man had been incredibly sick. He’d somehow managed to consume some of the blood in their bodies—as if he’d been a damned vampire. He’d escaped with a fellow inmate, another killer who was adept with a knife and liked to play in blood—Perry Knowlton. Apparently, however, Lemming had turned on the man. Knowlton’s body had been found burned to little more than cinders in the crematorium at an abandoned veterinary hospital just outside the massive walls of the prison.
Sarah knew all that, of course, because it was on the news. And because, after the attack at Cemetery Mansion, the cops came to talk to her and Davey several times. One of them was a very old detective named Mark Holiday. He was gentle. His partner, Bob Green, was younger and persistent, but when his questions threatened to upset Davey, Sarah learned she could be very fierce herself. The police photographer, Alex Morrison—a nice guy, with the forensic unit—came with the detectives. He showed them pictures that caused them to relive the event—and remember it bit by bit. The photographer was young, like Bob Green. He tried to make things easier, too, by explaining all that he could.
“Archibald Lemming! They found his stash in prison. Idiot kept ‘history’ books. Right—they were on the Countess Bathory, the Hungarian broad who killed young women to bathe in their blood. The man was beyond depraved,” one of the cops had said that night when he’d met with the kids. He’d been shaking, just as they had been.
People were stunned and angry—furious. If there had been better information on the escape, lives might have been saved. Before the confrontation with Davey and his friends, the man had killed ten people and seriously injured many more. He’d managed to escape at a time when it was perfect to practice his horror upon others—Halloween. He had dressed up and slipped into the park as one of the actors.
But many survived who might have died that night. They had lived because of Davey.
It did something to them all. Maybe they were in shock. Maybe denial. Guilt over being the ones who made it out. And confusion over what it meant, now that the normal lives ahead of them seemed all the more precious.
Sarah was with her cousin and her aunt when Tyler came to say goodbye.
He was leaving the school, going into a military academy and joining the navy as soon as he could.
Sarah was stunned. But in an odd way, she understood. She knew she had closed in on herself. Maybe they all had, and needed to do so in order to process that they were alive—and it was all right for them to go on.
She, Tyler and their friends had survived. And it was too hard to be together. Too hard to be reminded what the haunted house had looked like with all the dead bodies and the blood and things so horrible they almost couldn’t be believed.
So she merely nodded when he told her he was leaving. She barely even kissed him goodbye, although there was a long moment when they looked at each other, and even this—losing one another—was something they both accepted, and shared, and understood.
Sarah gave up cheerleading and transferred to a private school herself, somewhere that hadn’t lost any students in the Cemetery Mansion massacre.
When college rolled around, she decided on Columbia and majored in creative writing, veering away from anything that had to do with mystery or horror. She chose a pseudonym and started out in romance.
However, romance eluded her. She was haunted by the past.
And by memories of Tyler.
She turned to science fiction.
Giant bugs on the moon didn’t scare her.
Except...
Every once in a while, she would pause, stare out the window and remember she was alive because of Davey and his Martian Gamma Sword.
Still, by the time she was twenty-seven, she was doing well. She had her own apartment on Reed Street. For holidays she headed out to LA—her parents had moved there as soon as her dad had retired from his job as an investment banker. Of course, they always tried to get her to join them with a permanent move, but she was a New Yorker and she loved the city. Sometimes she guest-lectured at Columbia or NYU. Upon occasion, she dated. Nothing seemed to work very well. But she was okay. She had college friends, and since she’d worked her way through school waitressing at an Irish pub, she still went in to help out at Finnegan’s on Broadway now and then. The Finnegan family were great friends—especially Kieran, who happened to be a psychologist who frequently worked with criminals. He always seemed to know when Sarah wanted to talk a little about what she’d been through—and when she didn’t.
It wasn’t the happiness she had envisioned for herself before the night at the Halloween attraction.
But it was okay.
She hadn’t seen Tyler—or any of her old friends—for over a decade.
Sarah had been living in the present.
And then she heard about the murder of Hannah Levine.
Like it or not, the past came crashing down on her.
And with it, Tyler Grant reentered her life.
Chapter One (#u1dc1a16a-4f77-5924-b6dc-11974310841d)
“Tyler!”
Davey Cray greeted Tyler with a smile like no other. He stepped forward instantly, no hesitance after ten years—just a greeting fueled by pure love.
It was as if he had expected him. Maybe he had.
Tyler hugged Davey in return, a wealth of emotions flooding through him.
“I knew you’d come. I knew you’d come!” Davey said. “My mom said you were busy, you didn’t live here anymore. You work in Boston. But I knew you would come.” His smile faded. “You came for Hannah.” Davey looked perplexed. “Hannah wasn’t always very nice. And I watched the news. She wasn’t doing good things. But...poor Hannah. Poor Hannah.”
Yes, poor Hannah. She’d disappeared after leaving a bar near Times Square.
Her torso and limbs had turned up on a bank of the Hudson River.
Her head had come up just downriver about a half mile. She had been savagely cut to ribbons, much like the victims ten years past.
According to the news, Hannah had become a bartender, and then a stripper—and then a cocaine addict. Had that already been in the cards for her? Or had her life been twisted on that horrible night?
“Poor Hannah, yes. Nobody deserves to have their life stolen,” Tyler assured Davey. “Nobody,” he repeated firmly. “Had you—seen her?”
Davey shook his head gravely. “My mom doesn’t let me go to strip clubs!” he said, almost in a whisper. Then he smiled again. “Tyler, I have a girlfriend. She has Down syndrome like me.”
“Well, wow! That’s cool. Got a picture?”
Davey did. He pulled out his wallet. He showed Tyler a picture of a lovely young girl with a smile as magnificent as his, short brown hair and big brown eyes.
“She’s a looker!” Tyler said.
“Megan. Her name is Megan.” Davey grinned happily.
“That’s wonderful.”
“Sarah set me up on the right kind of page on the internet. It really is cool.”
“I’ll bet it is! Leave it to Sarah.”
“She loves me. And, you know, she loves you, too.”
“Of course. We all love each other.”
By that time, Renee Cray had made it to the door. She was a tall, thin, blonde woman in her late forties, with big brown eyes just like Davey’s. “Tyler!” she exclaimed.
And then she, too, threw her arms around him, as if he was the lost black sheep of the family being welcomed back into the fold.
Maybe he was.
“Tyler! How wonderful to see you! We knew, of course, that you’d joined the navy. And I know Sarah had heard you’re living in Boston, working there as some kind of a consultant. Police consultant? PI? Something like that?”
“Exactly like that,” he told her.
Renee continued to stare at him. “You’re here...because of Hannah Levine, right? But...what can you do? What can anyone do? Is it horrible to say I’m glad her parents died in a car accident years ago? But what...” Her voice trailed off, and then she straightened. “Where are my manners? Come in, come in—you know the way, of course!”
He entered the parlor; Renee and Davey lived in a charming little two-story house in Brooklyn that offered a real yard and a porch with several rocking chairs. Renee was a buyer for a major retail chain and was able to keep up a very nice home on her own salary. Since the death of her husband, she had never done much more than work—and care for Davey. Tyler doubted she had changed. She was, in his opinion, a wonderful mother, never making Davey too dependent and never becoming codependent herself.
“Sit, sit,” Renee told him. “Davey, get Tyler some tea, will you, please? You still like iced tea, right?”
“Still love it,” Tyler assured her.
When her son was gone, Renee leaned forward. “Oh, Tyler! It’s been so hard to listen to the news. I mean, bad things happen all the time. It’s just that...you all escaped such a terrible thing, and now Hannah. Of course, her lifestyle...but then again, no one asks to be murdered... They haven’t given out many details. We don’t know if she was raped and murdered, but she was...decapitated. Beheaded. Just like—”
She broke off again, shaking her head. “It’s like it’s the same killer—as if he came back. Oh, I’ll never forget that night! Hearing what had happened, trying to find Davey, trying to find you children... Oh, Tyler! Hannah now...it’s just too sad!”
“It’s not the same killer,” Tyler said quietly. “I saw Archibald Lemming die. I saw him with a wooden table leg sticking straight through him. He did not miraculously get up and come back to kill again. Hannah had demons she dealt with, but they were in the way she looked at life. It’s tragic, because no one should ever die like that. And,” he reflected softly, “she was our friend. We were all friends back then. We haven’t seen each other in a while, but...we were friends. We knew her.”
Renee nodded, still visibly shaken.
Maybe they hadn’t seen Hannah in a long time, but she had still been one of them.
“Tyler, I guess it’s been in the media everywhere, but...you weren’t that close with Hannah, were you? Had you talked to her? How did you come to be here?”
He smiled grimly.
Sarah. Sarah was why he had come. He thought back, hardly twelve hours earlier, when he had heard from her. He had received the text message from an unknown number.
Hi Tyler. It’s Sarah. Have you seen the news?
Yes, of course he’d seen the news.
And he’d been saddened and shocked. He’d been there the night of one of the most gruesome spree killings in American history, and then he’d gone on to war. Not much compared to the atrocities one could see in battle. Between the two, he was a fairly hardened man.
But...their old friend Hannah had been brutally murdered. And even if her life had taken a turn for the worse lately—which the media was playing up—neither she, nor any victim, should ever have to suffer such horrors.
While Tyler hadn’t seen Sarah in a decade, the second he received the missive from her, it felt as if lightning bolts tore straight through his middle and out through every extremity.
They said time healed all wounds. He wasn’t so sure. He never really understood why he’d done what he’d done himself, except that, in the midst of the trauma and turmoil that had swept around them that night in a long-gone October, Sarah had still seemed to push him away. She always said she was fine, absolutely fine. That she needed to worry about Davey.
She had rejected Tyler’s help—just as she had refused to understand he’d been willing to make Davey his responsibility, just as much as Davey was Sarah’s responsibility.
They’d all had to deal with what had happened, with what they had witnessed.
Tyler had always wanted her to know he loved Davey, and he never minded responsibility, and he didn’t give a damn about anyone else’s thoughts or opinions on the matter. They had to allow Davey a certain freedom. When they were with him, they both needed to be responsible. That was sharing life, and it was certainly no burden to Tyler.
But Sarah had shut down; she had found excuses not to see him.
And he’d had to leave.
Maybe, after that, pride had taken hold. She had never tried to reach him.
And so he had never tried to get in touch with her.
But now...
Now Sarah had reached out to him.
He’d kept up with information about her, of course. Easy enough; she kept a professional platform going.
He liked to think she had followed him, as well. Not that he was as forthcoming about where he was and what he was doing. He had become a licensed investigator and consultant. Most of his work had been with the Boston Police Department; some had been with the FBI.
He knew she hadn’t gone far. Her parents had rented out their Brooklyn home and moved to California. Sarah was living in Manhattan. She’d found a successful career writing fiction—he’d bought her books, naturally. Her early romances reminded him of the two of them; they’d been so young when they’d been together, so idealistic. They’d believed in humanity and the world and that all good things were possible.
Her sci-fi novels were fun—filled with cool creatures, “aliens” who seemed to parallel real life, and bits of sound science.
Part of why he’d never tried to contact her again had been pride, yes. Part of his efforts had actually been almost noble—her life looked good; he didn’t want to ruin it.
But now...
Yes, he’d seen the news. Hannah Levine had been murdered. The reporters had not dealt gently with the victim because of her lifestyle. They hadn’t known her. Hadn’t known how poor she’d grown up, and that she had lost both parents tragically to an accident on the FDR. They did mention, briefly, that she’d survived the night of horror long ago.
As if reading his mind, Renee said, “They’re almost acting as if she deserved it, Tyler! Deserved it, because of the way she lived. I’m wishing I had tried harder. Oh, look! If she hadn’t been an ‘escort,’ this wouldn’t have happened to her. I feel terrible. I mean, who ever really understands what makes us tick? Not even shrinks! Because...well, poor child, poor child! She never had much—that father of hers was a blowhard, but he was her dad. Both dead, no help...and she was a beautiful little thing. She was probably a very good stripper.”
That almost made Tyler smile. “Probably,” he agreed. “And yes, she was beautiful. Have the police let anything else out yet?”
“We know what you know. Her body was found...and then a few hours later, her head was found. First, we heard about the body in the river. Then we heard that it was Hannah.”
The front door opened and closed. Tyler felt that same streak of electricity tear through him; he knew Sarah was there.
Renee frowned. “Sarah must be here.”
“I’m sorry. I should have said right off the bat that she was meeting me here,” Tyler said. “That’s why...why I came. She didn’t tell you?”
“No, but...that’s great. You’ve been talking to Sarah!” Renee clapped her hands together, appearing ecstatic.
“We’ve exchanged two sentences, Renee,” he said quietly. “Sorry, four sentences, really. ‘Did you hear the news?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Will you come and meet me at Aunt Renee’s?’ And then, ‘Yes, I’ll come right away.’”
Renee just nodded. Davey was coming back in the room, bearing glasses of iced tea. “Sarah is here,” Renee said.
Davey nodded gravely. “Of course she is.”
Tyler watched as she walked into the parlor. Sarah. Whom he hadn’t seen in a decade. She hadn’t changed at all. She had changed incredibly. There was nothing of the child left in her. Her facial lines had sharpened into exquisite detail. She had matured naturally and beautifully, all the soft edges of extreme youth falling away to leave an elegantly cast blue-eyed beauty there, as if a picture had come into sharp focus. She was wearing her hair at shoulder length; it had darkened a little, into a deep sun-touched honey color.
He stood. She was staring at him in turn.
Seeing what kind of a difference a decade made.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Hey!” she replied.
They were both awkward, to say the least. She started to move forward quickly—the natural inclination to hug someone you held dear and hadn’t seen in a long time.
He did the same.
She stopped.
He stopped.
Then they both smiled, and laughed, and she stepped forward into his arms.
It was impossible, of course. Impossible that they had really known what the depths of love could be when they hadn’t even been eighteen. Then he’d felt as if he’d known, right from the first time he’d seen her at school, that he loved her. Would always love her.
That no one could compare.
And now, holding her again, he knew why nothing had ever worked for him. He’d met so many women—lots of them bright, beautiful and wonderful—and yet nothing had ever become more than brief moments of enjoyment, of gentle caring, and never this...connection.
Sarah had called on him because a friend had been murdered, and he was the only one who could really understand just what it was like. This didn’t change anything; whether he loved her or not, she would still be determined to push him away when it came to relying on him, sharing with him...
Back then, she hadn’t even wanted him near.
They drew apart. It felt as if the clean scent of her shampoo and the delicate, haunting allure of her fragrance lingered, a sweet and poignant memory all around him.
“You are here,” she said. “Thanks. I know this is crazy, but...Hannah. To have survived what happened that October, and then...have this happen. I understand you’re in some kind of law enforcement.”
“No. Private investigator. That’s why I’m not so sure how I can really be of help here.”
“Private investigators get to—investigate, right?” Sarah asked.
“Why don’t you two sit down?” Renee suggested.
“Sit, sit. Have tea!” Davey said happily.
Once again, Tyler sat. For a moment, the room was still, and everyone in it seemed to feel very awkward.
“I’m glad you came,” Sarah said. “Not that I really know anything. I belong to a great writers’ group that brings us down to the FBI offices once a year for research, but...I really don’t know anything. I don’t think the FBI is involved. New York police, high-crimes or whatever they call it division... I just—The killing...sounds way too familiar!”
Tyler nodded. “Yeah. Though psychopaths have beheaded and sliced up victims many times, I’m sorry to say. And, of course,” he said, pausing then to take a breath, “well, we were there. We saw the killer die back then.” He looked over at Davey and smiled tightly, still curious about how Davey had sensed so much of what had gone on. “We were all there. We saw him die. Davey was a hero.”
“My dad. My dad was with me,” Davey said.
“In all he taught you, and all you learned so well!” Renee said, looking at her son, her soft tone filled with pain for the husband she’d lost.
“The police may already have something,” Tyler said. “When a murder like this occurs, they hold back details from the press. You wouldn’t believe the number of crazy people who will call in and confess to something they didn’t do, wanting what they see as the credit for such a heinous crime. I have friends in Boston who have friends in New York. Maybe I can help—all depends on whether they want to let me in or not.”
“Sarah has friends, too!” Davey said.
Sarah looked at him. “I do?”
“Kieran!”
“I haven’t talked to her in a while,” Sarah murmured.
“Who is Kieran?” Tyler asked.
“A friend, yes,” Sarah said, looking at him. “She and her brothers inherited a very old Irish pub on Broadway—downtown, near Trinity and St. Paul’s. The oldest brother manages, Kieran works there sometimes.”
“You worked there!” Davey said.
“I did—I worked there through college,” Sarah said. “Anyway, Kieran is a psychologist who works with two psychiatrists, Drs. Fuller and Miro. They often work with the police—they’re geniuses when it comes to the criminal psyche. And her boyfriend is a special agent with the FBI. So, yes, if I asked for help...”
“That’s excellent,” Tyler told her. “And it could really help, as far as finding out whatever information there is forthcoming. Other than that... I’m not law enforcement.”
“But people hire PIs all the time,” Renee said.
“When someone is missing, the family might hire someone. In murder investigations that go cold...”
“We can hire you!” Davey said happily.
“We’re not her family,” Sarah said.
“That doesn’t matter. We were her friends,” Davey said. He was quiet a minute and made one of his little frowns. “She was mean to me sometimes, but she was my friend, too. Mostly she was nice to me.”
They all fell silent.
“I’ll figure something out, and I’ll keep you posted. I do have a legal standing as a private investigator, but it’s a lot nicer if the police want me involved.”
Sarah nodded. Again, they were all quiet.
“So, what’s happening in your life, Tyler?” Renee asked. “It’s so very long since we saw you. Davey has missed you.”
“I know what Tyler has been doing! I follow his page,” Davey said. “He dated a model! Pretty girl, Tyler. I think, though, Sarah is prettier. But I saw the pictures of you.”
“She’s very nice,” Tyler said. “She’s—in Romania now. Shooting a catalog, or something like that.”
“You must miss her,” Davey said.
“We were casual friends.”
“BFFs. That’s friends with benefits,” Davey told his mother, certain she wouldn’t know.
“Davey!” Renee said. “Please, Tyler came as a favor. Let his private life be private.”
Davey had lowered his head. He was chewing on a thumbnail, something he did, if Tyler recalled rightly, when he was nervous—or hiding something.
“You’ve got to be able to help somehow,” Sarah said, as if she hadn’t heard any of their exchange. “I’m so frustrated. I feel so worthless. And I feel terrible that I didn’t keep up with her. I mean...we were friends once. I don’t know what that night did to her. We all dealt with it differently. But...” She paused, inhaling a deep breath. “Sean suggested there was something—”
She broke off again. He knew what she was going to say. In the confusion with police and parents—and the horror that seemed almost worse when it was over and the garish lights were on—both Sean and Hannah had suggested there was something weird about Davey.
That it was downright scary, the way he had known something was really wrong.
“We talked. Davey told me. I think the police understood, but others didn’t. My uncle taught Davey to watch people—to have excellent situational awareness, like an operative or a cop. Because people can be so cruel and mean. My uncle wanted Davey to be able to protect himself from that. Davey knew when kids wanted to—to make fun of him. He was good at avoiding such people. He was amazing at looking out for bullies. He saw that man...Archibald Lemming. He’d noticed him earlier. And he’d seen him go into that particular haunted house, and that was how he knew. But...”
“I told them,” Davey said, nodding grimly. He brightened. “But they lived!”
“You were a hero,” Sarah assured him.
Davey’s smile faded and he looked grim. “But now Hannah is dead. And I’m afraid.”
“You don’t need to be afraid, Davey,” Sarah assured him quickly. “You’ll never be without one of us.”
“Or my girlfriend!” he said brightly. “Megan,” he reminded Tyler.
“Trust me, young man. Megan’s mom and I will make sure you two aren’t in any danger. Someone will be with you,” Renee said.
“Can we still kiss and all?” Davey asked.
“We’ll look away,” Renee promised. She shook her head. “We’re trying to keep it real—they have ten-year-old minds in grown-up bodies.”
Davey giggled. Then again he looked grim. “It’s scary. Sarah has to be with somebody, too.”
Sarah smiled and reached over and patted his hand. “Davey, I won’t be out late at night. I won’t be anywhere without friends.”
“You live alone.”
“You could come stay here,” Renee said.
“Aunt Renee,” Sarah said, “I need to be near the universities. And here’s the thing. We know Archibald Lemming is dead. What happened to Hannah is tragic, and one of those horrible events in life that happen to mirror another. I’ll be careful. But I’m always careful. I grew up as a New Yorker, remember? I’ve been savvy and wary a long, long time. Besides...” She paused and looked over at Tyler. “This must be...random. The act of some horrible, twisted thing that parades as a human being. Tyler...Tyler went to war. He knows very bad things happen.”
“We followed you when you were deeped,” Davey said.
“Deployed,” Aunt Renee said.
“We were afraid you wouldn’t come back,” Davey said.
“Well, I am here, and I will find out what I can to help see that this man who killed Hannah meets a justice of his own, I promise,” Tyler said.
He rose. He did need to get checked into his hotel room. And he needed to find out if the people he knew had been able to pull any strings for him.
“You have my number?” Sarah asked him.
He smiled at her curiously. Of course he did. They had been texting.
“Same number, right?”
She shook her head. “Well, it’s the same as about five years ago?”
Tyler frowned. “But...you have my number?”
“Has it changed?”
“Never. It’s the same one I’ve been texting you on.”
“I—I didn’t get a text. Davey told me you were coming.”
Davey was up on his feet and running out of the room.
“Get back here!” Sarah commanded.
Davey hadn’t quite made the door. He stopped and turned around.
He looked at Sarah.
“He needed to come. Tyler needed to come. I...”
“You pretended to be me,” Sarah said. “Davey! You must never do things like that!” she added with dismay.
“Davey, I should cut your texting time with Megan!” Renee said firmly.
Davey sat down, crossing his arms over his chest, his lips set stubbornly. “Tyler is here. He needed to be here.” Then he threw his arms out dramatically. “Do what you will!”
“Just don’t do it again! Ever!” Sarah said, horrified.
She looked at Tyler. “I’m so sorry. I never would have twisted your arm, made you come here. I mean, it was on national news, you’d hear about it, but...”
“I need to be here,” Tyler said softly. “Davey is right. I’ve got some things to do. I’ll be back with you later. We may need help from your friend.”
“Kieran,” she said. “Kieran Finnegan. And she’s living with a man named Craig Frasier. He’s—he’s great. I don’t know if the FBI will be investigating this, but...”
“We’ll talk to him.”
He wanted to hold her. To pull her to him. But she was already trying to back away. She hadn’t done it—hadn’t contacted him. Davey had. And Tyler needed to remember that.
“I’ll be in touch later tonight,” he said.
He didn’t hug her goodbye. But as he went to the door, Davey raced to him. “I’m sorry, Tyler. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay. You’re right. I need to be here. The police might already have a lead on this madman, okay? But I’ll be here.”
He nodded to Renee and Sarah, then headed out of the house. He imagined Sarah might follow him, tell him that the years had been wasted for her, too, that she knew, just seeing him again, that...
Didn’t happen.
He drove into the city and checked himself—and his car, which was as expensive to park as booking another room!—into his hotel. He had barely reached his suite before his phone rang.
And this time, it was actually Sarah.
“Tyler,” she said excitedly. “We’re in!”
“What?”
“This makes me feel worse than ever, but...I just got a call from a lawyer. Tyler, Hannah left a will. She has me listed as next of kin. She didn’t have much money—barely enough for her funeral,” Sarah said softly. “But that means that I can hire you, that it can all be legitimate, right?”
“I can work the case—even work it as if you’ve hired me. That’s not the point. I have to form some relationships, step carefully, keep in with the police. We need everyone working together.”
“But I am next of kin. You will stay, you will—”
“I will stay,” he promised her softly.
And a moment later, he heard her whisper, “Thank you. Thank you!”
And then...
“Tyler?”
“Yes?”
“I am so sorry. I don’t know why...I lost everyone. I should have been her friend. I really should have been her friend.”
He didn’t know what to say.
“Time doesn’t change things like that. You were her friend. And...you’re still my friend, Sarah. I still love you. I will see this through, I promise.”
And he hung up before she could say anything else.
Chapter Two (#u1dc1a16a-4f77-5924-b6dc-11974310841d)
“Survivor’s guilt,” Kieran Finnegan said softly.
Kieran was a good friend. While the hectic pace of her life—she worked as a psychologist for a pair of psychiatrists who worked frequently with the police, FBI and other law enforcement agencies, and helped out at the family pub—often kept her in a whirlwind where she didn’t see much of her friends, she was the kind of person who was always there when she was needed.
Sarah had called her that morning.
It was Sunday noon. Hannah’s body had been discovered the morning before; last night, Tyler had come to Aunt Renee’s house.
And while Finnegan’s on Broadway was doing a sound weekend business—they had a traditional roast entrée every Sunday that was very popular—Kieran was sitting down with Sarah. Of course, Finnegan’s was in good shape that day as far as staff went, and since Sarah had once worked there, she could probably hop back in to help at any time herself, just as Kieran would do if the need arose.
Kieran had assured Sarah she would be there to spend some time with her, talk to her. As a very good friend would do.
That made Sarah feel all the worse about the lousy friend she had been herself.
“Survivor’s guilt?” she repeated, shaking her head. “Honestly, I don’t think so. I mean, what happened years ago...all of us survived. We survived because of Davey, though, honestly...some of the guff he had to take afterward! People wanted to know what kind of a medium or seer he was. ‘Down Syndrome Boy Sees Evil.’” She was quiet for a minute. “Well, I have to admit, I was young and easily irritated, and Hannah...” She bit her lip and shrugged. “I was annoyed. She liked to have Davey around for the publicity, but then wanted me to leave him home if we were going out for the night or clubbing. She would use him when it seemed he was drawing a lot of attention, and then be irritated if we were spending any real time with him. But now...”
“From what I’ve gleaned through the media, her murder was brutal,” Kieran murmured. “And far too similar to the method of the massacre at the theme park. Here’s the thing. You’re experiencing terrible guilt because Hannah is dead, and she was your friend—even it was a while ago. You both survived something horribly traumatic. But now she is dead. And you are alive. And all that happened before is rushing back. But, Sarah, you’re not guilty of anything. Hannah survived that night—along with your other friends—because of Davey. You felt protective of Davey. That was only right. So quit feeling guilty. Hannah did choose to live a dangerous lifestyle. That doesn’t mean what was done to her isn’t every bit as horrid and criminal. But she may have put herself in danger. You have done nothing wrong. Of course, you could learn to be a bit more open to the possibility there are good people out there, and good things just might happen—and most of your friends truly love Davey.”
Sarah leaned back and picked up her coffee cup, grinning. “Do I have a really big chip on my shoulder? I’m not sure whether I should enter therapy or say ten Hail Marys!”
“Do both!” Kieran suggested with a shrug. She let out a sigh. “Sarah, if you weren’t really upset, you wouldn’t be human, and I’d have to worry about you. Or rather, you would be a sociopath and I would have to worry about you.” She shook her head. “Craig was saying that it was uncanny—the remarkable resemblance to what happened before.” She hesitated. “In the actual killing, that is. Archibald Lemming found himself an amazing venue in which to carry out his bloodlust—what better than a haunted house? But it isn’t him.”
“It could be someone who studied him or knew him.”
“Possibly.”
“And someone like that doesn’t stop, right?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Kieran admitted unhappily. “When such a killer isn’t caught and the killing stops, it’s usually because he’s moved on, been incarcerated for another crime or he died. This kind of thing...”
“It’s not just someone who wanted Hannah dead?”
“I doubt it. What was done was overkill. Now, overkill can mean just the opposite. You see it with victims who are stabbed or bludgeoned over and over again—their killer was furious with them. Or sometimes, with someone else—and the victim they choose is the substitute for the one they want to kill. But again, remember I’m going from what was in the news. The way that this was done...”
“You think there will be more victims.”
Kieran was thoughtful. “Yes—if we’re talking a copycat killer who had a fan obsession with Archibald Lemming. I am afraid there will be more victims. Then again, people are clever. Maybe someone had it out for Hannah and wanted her dead specifically. Make it appear there is a psychopath or sociopath on the loose. There have been cases where several people were murdered in order to throw off suspicion when just one was the real target.”
“Archibald Lemming was a psychopath, right?”
“Yes, the term applies to someone who is incapable of feeling empathy for another human being. They can be exceptionally charming and fool everyone around them—Ted Bundy, for instance. There are, however, psychopaths who turn their inclinations in a different direction—they become highly successful CEOs or hard-core business executives. They will never feel guilt. A sociopath, on the other hand, reaches his or her state of being through social factors—neglectful parents, bullying, abuse. Some function. They can be very violent, can show extreme bitterness or hatred along with that violence, but they’re also capable of feeling guilt and even forming deep attachments to others.”
Sarah nodded, listening to Kieran. It was good, she figured, to have a concept of what they might be dealing with.
But dead was dead. Hannah was gone. And it didn’t matter if she’d been viciously murdered by one kind of killer or another. It had been brutal.
Kieran smiled at her grimly. “I know what you’re thinking. But when hunting a killer, it’s helpful to have a concept of what you’re looking for in his or her behavior.”
“Of course! And thank you!” Sarah said quickly.
“So...Tyler Grant has come back to help?” Kieran asked. “And you were listed as Hannah’s next of kin. That’s good. It will allow him a lot of leeway.”
“The FBI hasn’t been asked in yet, right?”
“No, but Craig has a lot of friends with the police.”
Kieran was referring to Special Agent Craig Frasier, FBI. They were living together—sometimes at Craig’s and sometimes at Kieran’s. He had the better space in NYC, so Kieran would eventually give up her apartment, most probably, and move in with him. They were a definite duo; Sarah was sure marriage was somewhere in the future for them, especially since Kieran’s brothers—Declan, Kevin and Danny—seemed to accept him already as part of the family.
“Do you think...” Sarah began.
“Yes, I think!” Kieran said, smiling. She inclined her head toward the door. Tyler must have arrived. Sarah found herself inhaling sharply, her muscles tightening and her heart beating erratically.
Why? She wanted him here; she wanted...a solution. Hannah’s killer caught and put away for life. She wanted...forgiveness.
Maybe it just seemed that their lives—so easy a decade ago—had come to an abrupt break. It had become a breach, and she wasn’t sure things could ever be really right for her if she didn’t come to terms with that.
Once upon a time, she had been so in love with him. High school! They’d been so wide-eyed and innocent, and the world had stretched before them, a field of gold.
Kieran stood, waving to him.
“You’ve met Tyler?” Sarah was surprised. She hadn’t known Kieran in high school.
“No,” her friend said, shaking her head. “He called about meeting up with Craig. I looked him up after—found some pictures online. Rock solid, so it seems.”
Rock solid.
Yes, that had always been Tyler.
“But how...?”
Kieran laughed. “How do you think?”
“Davey!” Sarah said. She wasn’t sure whether to be exasperated or proud of her cousin. Devious! No, being devious wasn’t really in his nature. Pretty darned clever, though!
Tyler reached the table. Sarah stood, as Kieran had. It was still awkward to see him. He’d grown into a truly striking man with his quarterback’s shoulders and lean, hard-muscled physique. There were fleeting seconds when they were near one another that she felt they were complete strangers. Then there were moments when she remembered laughing with him, lying with him, dreaming with him, and she longed to just reach out and touch him, as if she could touch all that had been lost.
He was obviously feeling awkward, too. “Sarah,” he said huskily, taking a second to lightly grip her elbow and bend to kiss her cheek—as any friend might do.
That touch...so faraway and yet so familiar!
“Hey, I hear Davey has been at it again,” Sarah said. “This is Kieran, of course.”
“Of course,” Tyler said, shaking her hand.
“Craig should be here any minute. He had to drop by the office,” Kieran told him.
“Thanks,” Tyler said.
“Coffee? Tea? Something to eat?” Kieran asked. “We are a pub. Our roast is under way.”
“I’m sure it’s wonderful,” Tyler told her, smiling. “I’ve heard great things about this place—you’re listed in all kinds of guidebooks.”
“Nice to know.”
“I would love coffee.”
“I’ll see to it. Black?”
“Yep. It’s the easiest,” he told her.
Kieran smiled pleasantly and went to get a cup of coffee for him.
Tyler looked at Sarah.
“Craig is great. You’re going to like him a lot,” Sarah said. “I can’t believe Davey is making all these connections.”
“The kind we should have made ourselves.”
Kieran was already heading back with coffee. And she was indicating the old glass-inset, wood-paneled doors to the pub.
Craig had arrived.
He hurried to the high-top table where they’d been sitting. “Hey, kid,” he said to Sarah, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. He looked at Tyler. “Tyler, right? Grant?”
“Tyler Grant. And thank you, Special Agent Frasier.”
“Just Craig, please. And sorry,” he added, watching Kieran arrive with coffee, “you’re going to have to slurp that down. We need to get going. The man on this particular case is a Detective Bob Green. He’s a twelve-year homicide vet—he worked the Archibald Lemming case years ago. You might know him when you see him, though he wasn’t the one doing the interviews back then, his partner was. He’s senior man on his team now. Good guy. We can join him for the autopsy.”
“That’s great! Thank you,” Tyler told him. “I know you have other cases.”
“This caught up with me in the midst of a pile of paperwork,” Craig told him. “My partner is handling it for me, and my director knows where I am, so it’s all good.”
“What about the site where Hannah was left?”
“I can take you there.” Craig turned to Kieran, slipping an arm around her. “Save us supper, huh?”
“You bet.”
The affection between them wasn’t anything overt or in-your-face. It was just that even the way they looked at one another seemed to be intimate.
“Okay, we’re on it,” Craig said. He turned and headed toward the door. Tyler looked back and nodded a thanks to Kieran. He glanced at Sarah and gave her something of an encouraging smile.
She remembered his words from last night. He would stay on this.
He loved her still.
Friends...
Yes, sometimes friends loved each other forever. Even if they couldn’t be together.
* * *
AUTOPSY ROOMS COULD be strange places. It was where doctors and scientists studied the dead and did their best to learn from them. The NYC morgue downtown was huge; the body count was almost always high. It wasn’t that so many people were murdered; New York had had less than a hundred homicides in the past year—a large number, yes, but considering that it was home to eight million-plus people, and double that number came through almost on a daily basis, it wasn’t such a massive amount.
But the homeless who died so sadly in the street came to the morgue, as did anyone who died at home or in hotel rooms, or anywhere else about the city other than with a doctor or in a hospital or directly under a doctor’s care and with a known mortal disease.
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Heather Graham
A love rekindled… Or a deadly reunion?Sarah Hampton is still haunted by a night that nearly ended in a bloody massacre and destroyed her romance with Tyler Grant. Now the horror has returned. This time, Tyler must protect Sarah from the killer hiding in the darkness…
A love rekindled...or a deadly reunion?
Even after a decade, Sarah Hampton is haunted by the night that nearly ended in a bloody massacre and destroyed her high school romance with handsome Tyler Grant. Now the horror has returned. It’s a reckoning from the events of that terrifying night—and a love they never let go. Only this time Tyler must protect Sarah from the killer hiding in the darkness...or lose her forever.
From New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham!
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author HEATHER GRAHAM has written more than a hundred novels. She’s a winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, a Thriller Writers’ Silver Bullet and, in 2016, the Thriller Master Award from ITS. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America, and is the founder of The Slush Pile Players, an author band and theatrical group. An avid scuba diver, ballroom dancer and mother of five, she still enjoys her South Florida home, but also loves to travel. For more information, check out her website, www.theoriginalheathergraham.com (http://www.theoriginalheathergraham.com), or find Heather on Facebook.
Also available by Heather Graham
Law and Disorder
Into the Shadows
Out of the Darkness
Dying Breath
A Perfect Obsession
Darkest Journey
Deadly Fate
Haunted Destiny
Flawless
The Hidden
The Forgotten
The Silenced
Visit millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more information
Out of the Darkness
Heather Graham
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07854-2
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
© 2018 Heather Graham Pozzessere
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Saxon and Joe, two of the nicest and most talented young men I know.
May their move to New York be filled with dreams—and, of course, all kinds of visits from West Coast friends!
Contents
Cover (#uce8f6905-a15f-5050-a271-50dfd29e2718)
Back Cover Text (#u3c4a268f-4297-52d7-84b3-dc674e857d69)
Author Bio (#u77b4b71e-8b9f-5a3c-a507-c45c4a1bc476)
Booklist (#u8b829140-c8dd-55da-a2c1-5b0893c48540)
Title Page (#u4df48ab5-9ea2-5850-bcfa-904ebf7e7604)
Copyright (#u25b601e3-2c61-5569-87e9-ad2ad605d40c)
Dedication (#ufec4e5bc-96c2-5145-a848-4daa8a54d769)
Prologue (#u52b95c7d-9785-584f-ae89-b120bdc959b9)
Chapter One (#u91761426-2e1a-541b-9995-c96768f27a8b)
Chapter Two (#u978de0fa-b0e9-591a-a34d-c5f67f1965de)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Author Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u1dc1a16a-4f77-5924-b6dc-11974310841d)
What Davey Knew
The Bronx
New York City, New York
Ten Years Ago
The eyes fell upon Sarah Hampton with a golden glow; the woman’s mouth, covered with blood, split into a diabolical smile as she cackled with glee, raising her carving knife and slamming it down on the writhing man tied to the butcher block in the kitchen. Blood seemed to spurt everywhere. Screams rose.
And Sarah, laughing at herself for her own scream, grabbed Davey’s hand and followed Tyler Grant out of the haunted house.
“Fun!” Tyler said, laughing, catching his breath.
It was fun. Though Sarah had to admit she was glad she was here as part of a party of six. Fun? Yes, sure...
And creepy! The weapons had looked real. The “scare actors” could have passed for the real thing quite easily as far as she was concerned.
“Ah, come on, the guy on the butcher block—his screams were nowhere as good as they should have been,” Hannah Levine said. “He must be getting tired of screaming—long season, long night. But I guess it is Halloween.”
“Yeah, I imagine that the poor kid has been at it awhile,” Sean Avery agreed. He looked at Sarah’s cousin, Davey. “Then again, this place opens for only four weekends, with Halloween weekend, the last, being the boss. Coolest thing ever, Davey!”
Davey gave him a weird little half smile.
Suzie Cornwall—Sarah’s best friend—frowned. “What’s the matter, Davey? Was the haunted house too scary for you? We were all with you, you know.”
“That one was okay,” Davey said.
“But now...drumroll! We’re moving on—to the major attraction!” Sean said.
“No, no, no!” Davey shook his head violently. “I’m scared!” He clearly didn’t want to go into Cemetery Mansion, another of the haunted houses; he seemed terrified.
Sarah looked at her cousin with dismay.
She loved Davey. She really loved him. She had never met anyone who was as kind, as oblivious to what others thought, as willing to help others.
But Davey had Down syndrome. And while most of Sarah’s friends were great, every once in a while they acted as if they didn’t want to be with her, not if she was bringing Davey along.
And tonight...
Well, it was almost Halloween. And she and her friends had scored tickets to Haunted Hysteria in a radio contest. It was the prime event of the season, but one they couldn’t actually afford. Well, to be honest—and they all had to agree—it was Davey who’d won the tickets. They’d asked him to dial the radio station number over and over again, and Davey hadn’t minded.
The place itself was fabulous. Decorated to a T. Bats, ghouls, ghosts, vampires, witches and more—young actors and actresses, of course, but they walked around doing a brilliant job. The foam tombstones looked real and aged; the makeshift mortuary chapel was darkened as if older than time itself. Lights cast green and purple beams, and fog machines set in strategic places made for an absolutely immersive experience.
And now they were all here—she, Davey, Tyler, Sean, Suzie and Hannah. Suzie, tall and well-built, perfectly proportioned to be dressed up as Jessica Rabbit for the night, was her best friend. Tyler was the love of her life. And most of the time, both of them were truly wonderful friends. Tyler had even told her once that he knew right off the bat if he’d like people or not—all depending on the way they treated Davey.
Hannah was a stunner, olive skinned and dark haired—and as an evil fairy, she was even more exotically beautiful than usual. Sarah was pretty sure she’d caused one of the “scare actors” to pause—too startled by her beauty to scare her!
Sean...Sean was charming, the old class clown. Apropos, he was dressed up as the Joker. Every once in a while, his wit could be cruel. Mostly, though, he was a great guy, and the five of them had been friends forever, even though Sarah and Tyler were the only duo in their group.
She had come in steampunk apparel; Tyler had matched her with an amazing vest and frock coat. Davey had come as his all-time favorite personality—Elvis Presley.
They were all nearly eighteen now. Come October of next year, they’d be off at their different colleges, except she’d be at NYU with Tyler, as they’d planned. But for tonight...
It was fricking Halloween. Aunt Renee had asked her to take Davey with her. Yes, of course, Sarah was very aware the tickets really belonged to Davey.
Sarah always tried to be helpful. It was easy to help care for her cousin.
Aunt Renee wasn’t in any kind of financial trouble—she had a great job as a buyer for a major chain store—and she had household help and could afford to send Davey to a special school.
But Aunt Renee wanted Davey to have friends and spend time with people his own age—Sarah’s age. Aunt Renee wanted a wider world for Davey; she did not want his mom to be his only companion.
Sarah’s friends were usually happy to have Davey with them.
But now Sarah could feel that Davey was holding them all back—and they were kids, with a right to be kids. The others were looking at her. Sure, they loved Davey. They were good people. But she could see them thinking screw it! They’d come to Haunted Hysteria; they were going in the haunted houses, and Sarah was welcome to sit outside with Davey.
Tyler, of course, had the grace to look guilty. He wasn’t eighteen until January, but he was already over six foot three, heavily muscled in the shoulders and extremely fine in the face. Hot, yes. Tyler was hot. And he loved her. He really did. Then, she hoped she wasn’t exactly dog chow herself. She was, she admitted, the typical cheerleader to his football hero. Yes, she was blonde and blue-eyed, the fault of her genetics. She was a good student and coordinated enough to be a great cheerleader. She liked to believe she’d been taught by her family to be a lot more, too—as in decent and compassionate and bright enough to see and understand others.
She thought Tyler was like that, too. No matter how cool he was.
They were just right for each other—and their group of friends was nice, too! Something she considered extremely important. Tonight, they wanted to be seniors—they wanted to be a little bit wicked and have a great time.
But being Davey’s cousin had long ago taught Sarah about the importance of kindness in the world. Patience, sharing, caring...all that.
All that...
Seemed to go out the window right now.
“Davey, I know you were scared in the first house, but we’re all with you,” she said.
“Hey, buddy,” Tyler told him. “I’m bigger than the damned ghosts!”
“You can go between Sarah and Tyler,” Suzie said. “They’ll protect you.”
“No! No—the things in this house—they were okay. They weren’t real. But that house...that one, there. There are things in it that are real. That are bad. They’re evil!” Davey said.
“Oh, you’re being silly,” Hannah said.
“It’s true,” Davey said.
“How do you know?” Sean asked him.
“My father told me!” Davey said. “He helps me see.”
Sarah bit her lip. Davey’s dad had died over a year ago. Aunt Renee was alone with Davey now. Davey’s dad had been a marine, and he had been killed serving his country. Her uncle had been a wonderful man—good to all the kids. She’d loved him, too, and she’d known he loved her.
“Davey, your father isn’t here,” she said. “You know...you know your dad is dead.”
Davey looked at her stubbornly. “My father told me!” he insisted.
“Davey,” Sarah said softly, calmly, “of course, the point is for it all to be very scary. Vampires, ghosts—but they’re not real. It’s a spooky fun place for Halloween. There are all kinds of made-up characters here.”
“No. Real bad things.”
They all let his words sit for a minute.
“The actors in there—they’re not evil, Davey,” Suzie said. “Come on, you’ve seen creatures like that before—and the ones who walk around, they’re high school kids like us or college kids, and now and then, an adult actor without a show at the moment! You know all about actors, buddy. There are pretend vampires—and werewolves, mummies, ghosts—you name it.”
“No. Not werewolves. Not vampires,” Davey insisted. “Bad people. Like my dad said!”
“You love actors and movies,” Sean said. Sean knew Davey had a skill for remembering everything about all the movies and, because of that, he always made sure Davey was on his team for trivia games. When they weren’t playing trivia, however, Sean had a tendency to ignore Davey.
Sean seemed to be trying with the rest of their group to engage Davey, but he kept looking at his watch. He wanted to move on.
“You shouldn’t go in! You shouldn’t go in. It’s bad. Very bad,” Davey said.
“It’s just a haunted house!” Tyler said.
“I love you, Tyler,” Davey said. “Don’t go. My father...he was next to me. Yes. He was next to me. All the things he taught me. He’s dead, I know! But he’s with me. He said not to go in. He said there would be bad men and you have to look out. He was smart. My dad was a marine!” he added proudly.
“That’s kind of sick!” Hannah whispered to Sarah. “Does he honestly think...”
“Davey,” Sarah said softly. “Your dad loved you—you loved your dad. But he’s gone.”
“I’m not going!” Davey said stubbornly.
“He should come,” Tyler told Sarah. “If you give in to him all the time...it’s not good. Don’t make him into a baby. He’s several years older than we are.” He turned to Davey. “You know I love you, buddy, right?”
Davey nodded. “We don’t have a weapon. I’m not going.”
“Davey, I’m begging you...please?” Sarah asked.
Davey shook his head, looking at her. There were tears in his eyes; he was obviously afraid she was going to make him go into the haunted house.
“Just go,” Sarah told the others. “Davey and I will get a soda or...hey, there are a bunch of movie toys over there. We’ll go look at the toys.”
Tyler sighed. “I’ll stay with you.”
The others had already fled like rats.
Not even Suzie—some best friend—stayed behind.
Just Tyler. Staring at her.
“Go,” she told him, suddenly feeling put-upon.
“Sarah—”
“Go!”
He stiffened, squared his shoulder, shook his head—and walked on quickly to join the others.
“I’m still so confused. What scared you so badly?” Sarah asked Davey, leading him to a bench. At least she could sit. Her steampunk adventurer boots were starting to hurt like hell. “You were fine when we first got here. The haunted house we went in was made up to look like that one from the movie—you know, when the kids get lost in the woods and they find the house, but everyone in it is crazy! The father likes to hang people, the brother plays with a Civil War sword, the sister sprays poison and the mother chops up strangers for dinner. It was creepy cool—and they were all actors.”
“Yes, they were actors,” Davey said.
“Then why are you afraid of that one?” She pointed to the house where her friends were now in line, Cemetery Mansion. It was a good, creepy representation from a horror film where people had built over a graveyard and the dead came back to kill the living for disturbing them.
“It’s evil,” Davey said. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shivered. “I saw them. Dad told me to watch—I watched. That house is evil.”
“How is it evil? It’s honestly much the same. The themes are different. There are a lot of fabricated creatures—some cool motion-activated stuff, like robots—and then more actors. People just pretending. We went through the one house—it was fine.”
He nodded very seriously and then pointed at the Cemetery Mansion.
“That one,” he said. “It’s wrong. I’m telling you, Sarah—it is wrong. And I like Tyler. And Suzie,” he added. He didn’t say anything about Sean or Hannah.
“You mean—you’ve heard they got the characters wrong somehow? We haven’t been in it to see what the house is like, Davey.”
“No, we can’t go in,” he said insistently, wetting his lips as he did when he got nervous. “No. It’s wrong. You can feel it. It isn’t scary—it’s bad. Evil.”
She looked at the house. It was spooky—the theme park had done a good job. Images were hazily visible in the windows: creatures that had just crawled from the grave, bony, warped, black-and-white, like zombies or ghosts, horrible to behold.
“You should stop your friends from going in there. Make Tyler come back. He wanted to stay with you. But you were all stubborn and mean.”
Sarah heard the words and spun around to stare at Davey. But he didn’t even seem to realize he had spoken to her.
He was looking at the stand where there were all kinds of toys.
Sarah suddenly smiled. His eyes were wide; he was happy to look at the toys. Davey loved the movies and he loved toys—that made movie-inspired props and toys extra special.
“Let’s go see what they have,” she told him.
* * *
“THIS IS WRONG,” Tyler said as he got into the line for the haunted house with Suzie, Hannah and Sean. What was one more haunted house? he asked himself, irritated that he had let Sarah push him away. No matter if it was their idea or not, Davey had gotten them the tickets. He’d been patient enough to dial his phone over and over and over again.
And Tyler knew that Sarah was feeling alone—as if Davey was her responsibility, and she wasn’t about to burden anyone else.
Tyler loved her. He knew they were both lucky, both blessed. People referred to them as the “Barbie and Ken” of their school. He liked to think it wasn’t just that he played football and she was an amazing cheerleader—for any team the school put forth. He tried to be friendly, kind, sympathetic—and he worked hard in class.
Naturally, he and Sarah had been intimate—though not in a way that would give others a chance to tease them. They were discreet and very private; Sarah would never do anything to disappoint her parents. But in their minds, marriage was a given. Sometimes, in the middle of a class, Tyler would smile, imagine being with her in such an intimate way again, when they both laughed, when they grew breathless, when the world seemed to explode. She was an amazing lover and he hoped he reciprocated. Sex was fireworks, but life was loving everything about her—her great compassion for others, her integrity. He liked to think that he was similar in his behavior.
Leaving her on her own tonight hadn’t been considerate in any way.
“I’m going to go back and wait with Davey and Sarah,” he said flatly.
“Go back where?” Hannah asked him. “They’re already gone. And besides, Miss Stubborn Pride isn’t going to let you stay with her. I’m sure you already tried to and she sent you after us. She doesn’t want you to have a lousy time just because she has to.”
Tyler gritted his teeth and looked away. “She isn’t having a lousy time—and neither am I, Hannah. I love Davey. No one out there has a better heart.”
It was true, though, that Sarah and Davey had walked off somewhere.
He should have firmly ignored Sarah when she’d pushed him away. She was usually bright enough to be angry if someone didn’t understand that hanging out with Davey was like hanging out with any friend...
And Tyler was suddenly angry himself; they wouldn’t be here at all without Davey. Davey had won the tickets.
“Oh, come on, Tyler!” Hannah said. “It’s okay! The retard is her cousin, not yours.”
He wanted to slap Hannah—and he was stunned by the intensity of the feeling. In his whole life, he’d never hit a girl. And Hannah was a friend. She was usually...fine.
“Hannah, you know calling him that is not okay. Not cool. He’s just like you or me,” Tyler said.
“Maybe like you!” Sean said, laughing. “Not me. Hey, come on—this is supposed to be the coolest thing here, ghosts coming up out of the ground from all over. They say the creatures—animatronic or whatever—are the most amazing, and they put their best ‘scare’ actors in this one. Tyler, come on, we take Davey with us all the time. But this is our night. It’s our last Halloween together. If he doesn’t want to come in, screw it!”
“Not to mention that, as I already pointed out, we don’t even know where they are anymore,” Hannah said.
“Yep, well, I do have a cell phone,” Tyler said.
“Tyler, leave it,” Suzie said. She looked guilty, too, he thought. But maybe she was right. “We have VIP tickets—we get to move into the express lane up there. We’ll be out soon and then we’ll explore the food booths—Davey will like checking those out! And we’ll hug him and tell him that he was right—we should have stayed out. It was really scary, so now we’re all hungry!”
An actor in some kind of a zombie outfit came toward them, using a deep and hollow voice to ask for their tickets. They showed their passes and were moved up quickly in the line.
They entered the mudroom of the Cemetery Mansion. Bloody handprints were everywhere. They were met by a girl in a French maid outfit—with vampire teeth and blood dripping down her chin.
“Enter if you dare!” she said dramatically.
A terrified scream sounded from within. And then another. And another.
The place had to be amazingly good.
“Ah!” said the maid. “I say again, enter if you dare! Those who have come before you seem to be just...dying to get back out!”
She opened the door from the mudroom to the foyer and stepped back.
Tyler thought she looked concerned. As if...
As if people actually were dying to get out.
* * *
“CAN WE GO look at the booth over there?” Davey asked Sarah.
He gave her a smile that made her ashamed. She had been secretly bitter; she’d wanted to go with her friends. It wasn’t terrible that she should want to; she knew her feelings were natural. But she felt guilty, anyway. Davey wasn’t being mean, she knew. He wasn’t hurting her on purpose. He had his irrational fear set in his mind.
“Come on!” She caught his hand and led him to the toy stand. This one was stocked with prop weapons.
There were all kinds of great things: realistic plastic ray guns, gold-gleaming light-up lasers and much more. There were fantastic swords, like from some 1950s sci-fi movie, she thought. They were really cool—silver and gold, and emitting light through plastic blades that shimmered in a dozen colors.
They were cheap, too. Not like the licensed merchandise. It was called a Martian Gamma Sword.
Sarah smiled, watching Davey’s fascination.
She worked three days a week after school at the local theater and could easily afford the toy sci-fi sword. She paid while Davey was still playing with it.
“Okay, good to go,” she told him.
He looked at her, surprised.
“I bought it, Davey. It’s yours.”
His eyes widened. He gave her his beautiful smile again. Then he frowned, appearing very thoughtful.
“Now we can go,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“We have to go,” he insisted. “I can save them now—Tyler and Suzie. I can save them.”
Sarah couldn’t have been more stunned. She smiled. Maybe they could catch up—and if not, well, she’d still be able to say she’d experienced the most terrifying haunted house in the city—the state, maybe even the country!
“Come on!” she said. “Sure, I mean, it will be great if we can save them. So great.”
“I have to go first. I have the Martian Gamma Sword.”
“Okay, I’m right behind you!” Sarah promised. She hurried after him.
“They don’t like this kind of light, you know.”
“Who doesn’t like it?”
“Those who are evil!” he said seriously.
He had his sword ready and held in front of him—he was prepared, he was on guard!
Sarah smiled, keeping behind him. She hoped he didn’t bat an actor over the head with the damned thing.
* * *
TYLER DIDN’T KNOW when it changed.
The haunted house was incredible, of course. He knew the decorations and fabrications, motion-activated creatures and the costumes for the live actors had been created by some of the finest designers in the movie world.
The foyer had the necessary spiderwebs dangling from the chandelier and hanging about. As they were ushered in—the door shut behind them by the French maid—a butler appeared. He was skinny, tiny and a hunchback. Igor? He spoke with a deep voice that was absolutely chilling.
Tyler had to remind himself he was six-three and two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle. But just the guy’s voice was creepy as hell.
“Cemetery Mansion!” the butler boomed out. “The living are always ever so careless of the dead! Housing is needed...and cemeteries are ignored. And so it was when the Stuart family came to Crow Corners. They saw the gravestones...they even knew the chapel housed the dead and that a crypt led far beneath the ground. And still! They tossed aside the gravestones, and they built their mansion. Little did they know they would pay for their total disregard. Oh, Lord, they would pay! They would be allowed to stay—forever! Forever and ever...with those who resided here already!”
Suddenly, from thin air, haunts and ghouls seemed to arise and sweep through the room. Suzie let out a squeal. Even Hannah shrieked.
Good old Sean let out a startled scream and then began to laugh at himself.
It was done with projectors, Tyler realized.
“To your left, ladies and gentlemen, to your left! The music room, and then the dining room!”
They were urged to move on. The music room hosted a piano and rich Victorian furniture. There was also a child sitting on the sofa, holding a teddy bear. She turned to look at them with soulless eyes—and then she disappeared. A figure was hunched over the piano. Suzie tried to walk by it; the piano player suddenly stood, reaching out for her.
She screamed. The thing was a motion-activated figure, one who would have done any haunted mansion proud. It was a tall butler—blond and grim-looking, with a striking face made up so that the cheeks were entirely hollow. It spoke with a mechanical voice. “Come closer, come closer... I can love you into eternity!”
It was nothing but a prop, an automaton. But it was real as all hell.
Suzie ran on into the next room.
The dining room...
At the head of the table was a very tall man—an actor portraying the long-dead head of the household; a man in a Victorian-era suit, wearing tons of makeup that had been applied very effectively. He was sharpening a knife.
There were dummies or mannequins or maybe animatronics slumped around the table. At least their bodies were slumped there. Their heads were on it. Blood streamed from their necks and down their costumes.
“One of them is going to hop up, I know,” Hannah murmured.
She bravely stepped closer to the table. No one moved.
Tyler noticed there was a girl about their age at the end of the table. She was wearing one of this year’s passes to Haunted Hysteria around the stump of her neck.
Good touch, he thought.
The bodies around the table did not move. The master of the house watched them with bloodshot eyes. He sharpened his knife.
A girl suddenly burst into the dining room from the music room. “Run! Get out—get to the exit! He’s in the house somewhere!” she screamed.
“Yes, he is. He’s right here,” the master of the house said. He reached for her and dragged her to him. She screamed again, trying to wrench herself free. He smiled.
He took one of the knives he had been sharpening.
And he slit her throat.
* * *
SARAH DIDN’T KNOW what had gotten into Davey; he was usually the most polite person in the world. He’d been taught the importance of please and thank you.
But he was almost pushing.
And he knew their radio station tickets gave them VIP status.
Light sword held before him, he made his way to one of the actors herding the line. “VIP, please!” he told her.
“Uh, sure. Watch out for that thing!” She started to lead them up the line, toward the house. As she did so, there was a scream, and one of the actors came bursting out the front door.
She was dressed as a French maid—a vampire or zombie French maid, Sarah thought.
She stumbled out of the entry and onto the porch, grabbing for one of the columns. Blood was dripping down her arms and over her shirt—she appeared to have a number of stab wounds.
“Don’t!” she shouted. “Don’t... He’s a killer!”
Applause broke out in the line. But then someone else burst out of the house—a ghoul dressed in an Edwardian jacket.
He crashed down, a pool of blood forming right on the porch.
More applause broke out.
“No, no, that’s not supposed to happen,” the zombie leading Sarah up the line murmured.
Davey burst by her; he was headed to the house, his light saber before him.
“Davey!” Sarah shrieked. Something was wrong; something was truly wrong. They needed to stay out, needed to find out if this was an excellent piece of play-acting or...
Or what?
Imaginary creatures came to life and started killing people? Actors went crazy en masse and started knifing the populace? Whatever was going on, it seemed insane!
The sensation that crawled over Sarah then was nothing short of absolute terror—but Davey was ahead of her.
With his Martian Gamma Sword.
He was charging toward the house.
Davey! She had to follow him, stop him and get him away—no matter what!
* * *
TYLER COULD HEAR nothing but diabolical laughter.
And screaming—terrified shrieks!
Suzie hopped on a chair and grabbed a serving platter for defense.
The master of the house turned toward them, dropping the body of the girl whose throat he had slit. It fell with a flat thud.
Sean squeaked out a sound that was nearly a scream.
Hannah grabbed Sean, thrusting him between her and the big man with the massive knife.
“Back up, back up, back up!” Tyler said.
Hannah did so. Sean turned to flee.
The master of the house went for Sean. He picked him up by the neck.
“No! Stop, stop it!” Tyler shouted.
This couldn’t be happening.
“This isn’t funny. It isn’t right!”
The character didn’t seem to hear Tyler. And Tyler had no choice. He leaped forward, shoving Hannah away, and tried to wrest Sean from the killer. He grabbed Sean’s arm and pulled.
“No!” Suzie shrieked.
Tyler looked up.
The master of the house was approaching her with the massive knife, dragging Sean along with him. Then he turned. He came swinging toward Tyler, still dragging Sean. Tyler held on to his friend and jerked hard; Sean came free and they staggered back—Hannah, Sean and himself—until they crashed into the table.
Hannah began shrieking in earnest. As she did so, Tyler became aware of the tinny scent of blood.
Real blood.
And he looked around the table and he knew.
They were people. Real people. And they were dead.
Really dead.
“No!” Suzie shrieked.
She slammed her serving platter at the master of the house.
He just laughed.
And raised his carving knife.
* * *
DAVEY RACED ACROSS the porch, pushing aside the bleeding maid and hopping over the body of the man in the Edwardian dress.
Sarah had no choice but to follow.
He burst through into a mudroom. There were bloody handprints all over it.
Some were fake—stage blood.
Some were real—human blood.
She could tell by the smell that some of the blood was real.
Davey rushed through to the foyer, his Martian Gamma Sword leading the way. But there was no one there. He threw open another door.
“Davey, stop! Please, Davey, something is going wrong. Something is...”
They were in a music room; it was empty—other than for a bloody body stretched across a floral sofa.
“Davey!” Sarah shrieked. “No, no, please...”
She started to whirl around. There were holograms everywhere. A child in black with a headless doll appeared. And then a hanged man, the noose still around his neck. All kinds of ghouls and creatures and evil beings began to appear in the room and then disappear.
“Davey, please, we’ve got to get out. Davey!”
She gripped his arm as the terrifying images swirled around them.
“Not real,” Davey said. “Sarah, they’re not real.”
He was moving on—and she heard screams again. Terrified screams...
He went through a black hazy curtain and they were in the dining room.
And there were Tyler, Hannah...Sean and Suzie... It appeared that they were all being attacked by...a creature, by someone or something. They had fallen back and were struggling to rise from the dining table, where there were...
Oh, God, corpses, real corpses. Dead people, all around the table. Suzie and Hannah were yelling and screaming, and Tyler was reaching out, but the carving knife was coming down and it was going to sink into Tyler’s chest at any minute!
She heard a terrible scream—high-pitched and full of fear and horror. And she realized it was coming from her...
And she had drawn the attention of the...
Man. It was a real man.
An actor gone insane? What the hell?
No, no, no, no. It was impossible. It was Halloween. It had to be a prank, an elaborate show...
The man was real.
Absolutely real.
He was tall and big and had long scraggly white hair and he might have played a maniacal killer in a slasher movie.
Except this wasn’t a movie.
And he was coming at her.
He opened his mouth and smiled, and she saw his fangs. Long fangs that seemed to drip with something red...stage blood...
Real blood.
She screamed again.
It sounded as if it was coming from someone else, but it was not. It was coming from her.
Tyler struggled up from the table. He slipped.
He was slipping in blood.
“No, no, no!” Sarah screamed.
And then Davey stepped up. He thrust her back with his arm and stepped before her, his cheap little plastic sword at the ready.
“Leave her!” Davey shouted, his voice filled with command.
The man laughed...
And Davey struck him. Struck him hard, with all his strength.
The man went flying back. He slammed into the wall, and the impact sent him flying forward once again.
He tripped on a dead girl’s leg...
And crashed down on the table.
Right on top of Tyler and Sean and Hannah, who had already been slammed down there. It was too much weight. The table broke with an awful groaning and splintering sound.
Shards and pieces flew everywhere as what remained of the table totally upended.
Tyler let out a cry of fear and fury and gripped the man’s shoulders, shoving him off with all the force of a high school quarterback.
To Sarah’s astonishment, the man, balanced for a matter of seconds, staring furiously at Davey—and then he fell hard. And didn’t move again. She saw that he’d fallen on a broken and jagged leg of the table.
The splintered shaft was sticking straight through his chest.
Tyler got up and hunkered down by the man carefully, using one of the plates off the table as a shield.
“Dead,” he said incredulously. He looked up at the others. “He’s dead... He fell on the broken table leg there and...oh, God, it’s bad.”
“Out of here! It’s evil!” Davey commanded. “It’s still evil.”
They were all shaking so badly no one seemed able to move. Davey reached for Hannah’s arm and pulled her up. “Out!” he commanded.
And she ran. Suzie followed her, and then Sean, and then Tyler met Sarah’s eyes and took her hand, and they raced out, as well, followed by Davey—who was still carefully wielding his plastic sword.
They heard sirens; police and security and EMTs were spilling onto the grounds.
The medics were struggling, trying to find the injured people among the props and corpses and demons and clowns.
When the group of friends reached a grassy spot, Sarah fell to the ground, shaking. She looked up at Davey, still not beginning to comprehend how he had known...
Or even what it was he had known.
“I told you—that house is evil,” he said. “I told you—my dad. He taught me to watch. He stays with me and tells me to watch.”
* * *
IT HAD BEEN the unthinkable—or easily thinkable, really, in the midst of all that went on at a horror-themed attraction at Halloween.
Archibald Lemming and another inmate had escaped from state prison two weeks earlier. They had gotten out through the infirmary—even though he had been in maximum security. News of the breakout had been harried and spotty, and most people assumed the embarrassment suffered by those who had let them escape had mandated that the information about it be kept secret.
Archibald Lemming had been incarcerated at the Clinton Correction Facility for killing four people—with a carving knife. The man had been incredibly sick. He’d somehow managed to consume some of the blood in their bodies—as if he’d been a damned vampire. He’d escaped with a fellow inmate, another killer who was adept with a knife and liked to play in blood—Perry Knowlton. Apparently, however, Lemming had turned on the man. Knowlton’s body had been found burned to little more than cinders in the crematorium at an abandoned veterinary hospital just outside the massive walls of the prison.
Sarah knew all that, of course, because it was on the news. And because, after the attack at Cemetery Mansion, the cops came to talk to her and Davey several times. One of them was a very old detective named Mark Holiday. He was gentle. His partner, Bob Green, was younger and persistent, but when his questions threatened to upset Davey, Sarah learned she could be very fierce herself. The police photographer, Alex Morrison—a nice guy, with the forensic unit—came with the detectives. He showed them pictures that caused them to relive the event—and remember it bit by bit. The photographer was young, like Bob Green. He tried to make things easier, too, by explaining all that he could.
“Archibald Lemming! They found his stash in prison. Idiot kept ‘history’ books. Right—they were on the Countess Bathory, the Hungarian broad who killed young women to bathe in their blood. The man was beyond depraved,” one of the cops had said that night when he’d met with the kids. He’d been shaking, just as they had been.
People were stunned and angry—furious. If there had been better information on the escape, lives might have been saved. Before the confrontation with Davey and his friends, the man had killed ten people and seriously injured many more. He’d managed to escape at a time when it was perfect to practice his horror upon others—Halloween. He had dressed up and slipped into the park as one of the actors.
But many survived who might have died that night. They had lived because of Davey.
It did something to them all. Maybe they were in shock. Maybe denial. Guilt over being the ones who made it out. And confusion over what it meant, now that the normal lives ahead of them seemed all the more precious.
Sarah was with her cousin and her aunt when Tyler came to say goodbye.
He was leaving the school, going into a military academy and joining the navy as soon as he could.
Sarah was stunned. But in an odd way, she understood. She knew she had closed in on herself. Maybe they all had, and needed to do so in order to process that they were alive—and it was all right for them to go on.
She, Tyler and their friends had survived. And it was too hard to be together. Too hard to be reminded what the haunted house had looked like with all the dead bodies and the blood and things so horrible they almost couldn’t be believed.
So she merely nodded when he told her he was leaving. She barely even kissed him goodbye, although there was a long moment when they looked at each other, and even this—losing one another—was something they both accepted, and shared, and understood.
Sarah gave up cheerleading and transferred to a private school herself, somewhere that hadn’t lost any students in the Cemetery Mansion massacre.
When college rolled around, she decided on Columbia and majored in creative writing, veering away from anything that had to do with mystery or horror. She chose a pseudonym and started out in romance.
However, romance eluded her. She was haunted by the past.
And by memories of Tyler.
She turned to science fiction.
Giant bugs on the moon didn’t scare her.
Except...
Every once in a while, she would pause, stare out the window and remember she was alive because of Davey and his Martian Gamma Sword.
Still, by the time she was twenty-seven, she was doing well. She had her own apartment on Reed Street. For holidays she headed out to LA—her parents had moved there as soon as her dad had retired from his job as an investment banker. Of course, they always tried to get her to join them with a permanent move, but she was a New Yorker and she loved the city. Sometimes she guest-lectured at Columbia or NYU. Upon occasion, she dated. Nothing seemed to work very well. But she was okay. She had college friends, and since she’d worked her way through school waitressing at an Irish pub, she still went in to help out at Finnegan’s on Broadway now and then. The Finnegan family were great friends—especially Kieran, who happened to be a psychologist who frequently worked with criminals. He always seemed to know when Sarah wanted to talk a little about what she’d been through—and when she didn’t.
It wasn’t the happiness she had envisioned for herself before the night at the Halloween attraction.
But it was okay.
She hadn’t seen Tyler—or any of her old friends—for over a decade.
Sarah had been living in the present.
And then she heard about the murder of Hannah Levine.
Like it or not, the past came crashing down on her.
And with it, Tyler Grant reentered her life.
Chapter One (#u1dc1a16a-4f77-5924-b6dc-11974310841d)
“Tyler!”
Davey Cray greeted Tyler with a smile like no other. He stepped forward instantly, no hesitance after ten years—just a greeting fueled by pure love.
It was as if he had expected him. Maybe he had.
Tyler hugged Davey in return, a wealth of emotions flooding through him.
“I knew you’d come. I knew you’d come!” Davey said. “My mom said you were busy, you didn’t live here anymore. You work in Boston. But I knew you would come.” His smile faded. “You came for Hannah.” Davey looked perplexed. “Hannah wasn’t always very nice. And I watched the news. She wasn’t doing good things. But...poor Hannah. Poor Hannah.”
Yes, poor Hannah. She’d disappeared after leaving a bar near Times Square.
Her torso and limbs had turned up on a bank of the Hudson River.
Her head had come up just downriver about a half mile. She had been savagely cut to ribbons, much like the victims ten years past.
According to the news, Hannah had become a bartender, and then a stripper—and then a cocaine addict. Had that already been in the cards for her? Or had her life been twisted on that horrible night?
“Poor Hannah, yes. Nobody deserves to have their life stolen,” Tyler assured Davey. “Nobody,” he repeated firmly. “Had you—seen her?”
Davey shook his head gravely. “My mom doesn’t let me go to strip clubs!” he said, almost in a whisper. Then he smiled again. “Tyler, I have a girlfriend. She has Down syndrome like me.”
“Well, wow! That’s cool. Got a picture?”
Davey did. He pulled out his wallet. He showed Tyler a picture of a lovely young girl with a smile as magnificent as his, short brown hair and big brown eyes.
“She’s a looker!” Tyler said.
“Megan. Her name is Megan.” Davey grinned happily.
“That’s wonderful.”
“Sarah set me up on the right kind of page on the internet. It really is cool.”
“I’ll bet it is! Leave it to Sarah.”
“She loves me. And, you know, she loves you, too.”
“Of course. We all love each other.”
By that time, Renee Cray had made it to the door. She was a tall, thin, blonde woman in her late forties, with big brown eyes just like Davey’s. “Tyler!” she exclaimed.
And then she, too, threw her arms around him, as if he was the lost black sheep of the family being welcomed back into the fold.
Maybe he was.
“Tyler! How wonderful to see you! We knew, of course, that you’d joined the navy. And I know Sarah had heard you’re living in Boston, working there as some kind of a consultant. Police consultant? PI? Something like that?”
“Exactly like that,” he told her.
Renee continued to stare at him. “You’re here...because of Hannah Levine, right? But...what can you do? What can anyone do? Is it horrible to say I’m glad her parents died in a car accident years ago? But what...” Her voice trailed off, and then she straightened. “Where are my manners? Come in, come in—you know the way, of course!”
He entered the parlor; Renee and Davey lived in a charming little two-story house in Brooklyn that offered a real yard and a porch with several rocking chairs. Renee was a buyer for a major retail chain and was able to keep up a very nice home on her own salary. Since the death of her husband, she had never done much more than work—and care for Davey. Tyler doubted she had changed. She was, in his opinion, a wonderful mother, never making Davey too dependent and never becoming codependent herself.
“Sit, sit,” Renee told him. “Davey, get Tyler some tea, will you, please? You still like iced tea, right?”
“Still love it,” Tyler assured her.
When her son was gone, Renee leaned forward. “Oh, Tyler! It’s been so hard to listen to the news. I mean, bad things happen all the time. It’s just that...you all escaped such a terrible thing, and now Hannah. Of course, her lifestyle...but then again, no one asks to be murdered... They haven’t given out many details. We don’t know if she was raped and murdered, but she was...decapitated. Beheaded. Just like—”
She broke off again, shaking her head. “It’s like it’s the same killer—as if he came back. Oh, I’ll never forget that night! Hearing what had happened, trying to find Davey, trying to find you children... Oh, Tyler! Hannah now...it’s just too sad!”
“It’s not the same killer,” Tyler said quietly. “I saw Archibald Lemming die. I saw him with a wooden table leg sticking straight through him. He did not miraculously get up and come back to kill again. Hannah had demons she dealt with, but they were in the way she looked at life. It’s tragic, because no one should ever die like that. And,” he reflected softly, “she was our friend. We were all friends back then. We haven’t seen each other in a while, but...we were friends. We knew her.”
Renee nodded, still visibly shaken.
Maybe they hadn’t seen Hannah in a long time, but she had still been one of them.
“Tyler, I guess it’s been in the media everywhere, but...you weren’t that close with Hannah, were you? Had you talked to her? How did you come to be here?”
He smiled grimly.
Sarah. Sarah was why he had come. He thought back, hardly twelve hours earlier, when he had heard from her. He had received the text message from an unknown number.
Hi Tyler. It’s Sarah. Have you seen the news?
Yes, of course he’d seen the news.
And he’d been saddened and shocked. He’d been there the night of one of the most gruesome spree killings in American history, and then he’d gone on to war. Not much compared to the atrocities one could see in battle. Between the two, he was a fairly hardened man.
But...their old friend Hannah had been brutally murdered. And even if her life had taken a turn for the worse lately—which the media was playing up—neither she, nor any victim, should ever have to suffer such horrors.
While Tyler hadn’t seen Sarah in a decade, the second he received the missive from her, it felt as if lightning bolts tore straight through his middle and out through every extremity.
They said time healed all wounds. He wasn’t so sure. He never really understood why he’d done what he’d done himself, except that, in the midst of the trauma and turmoil that had swept around them that night in a long-gone October, Sarah had still seemed to push him away. She always said she was fine, absolutely fine. That she needed to worry about Davey.
She had rejected Tyler’s help—just as she had refused to understand he’d been willing to make Davey his responsibility, just as much as Davey was Sarah’s responsibility.
They’d all had to deal with what had happened, with what they had witnessed.
Tyler had always wanted her to know he loved Davey, and he never minded responsibility, and he didn’t give a damn about anyone else’s thoughts or opinions on the matter. They had to allow Davey a certain freedom. When they were with him, they both needed to be responsible. That was sharing life, and it was certainly no burden to Tyler.
But Sarah had shut down; she had found excuses not to see him.
And he’d had to leave.
Maybe, after that, pride had taken hold. She had never tried to reach him.
And so he had never tried to get in touch with her.
But now...
Now Sarah had reached out to him.
He’d kept up with information about her, of course. Easy enough; she kept a professional platform going.
He liked to think she had followed him, as well. Not that he was as forthcoming about where he was and what he was doing. He had become a licensed investigator and consultant. Most of his work had been with the Boston Police Department; some had been with the FBI.
He knew she hadn’t gone far. Her parents had rented out their Brooklyn home and moved to California. Sarah was living in Manhattan. She’d found a successful career writing fiction—he’d bought her books, naturally. Her early romances reminded him of the two of them; they’d been so young when they’d been together, so idealistic. They’d believed in humanity and the world and that all good things were possible.
Her sci-fi novels were fun—filled with cool creatures, “aliens” who seemed to parallel real life, and bits of sound science.
Part of why he’d never tried to contact her again had been pride, yes. Part of his efforts had actually been almost noble—her life looked good; he didn’t want to ruin it.
But now...
Yes, he’d seen the news. Hannah Levine had been murdered. The reporters had not dealt gently with the victim because of her lifestyle. They hadn’t known her. Hadn’t known how poor she’d grown up, and that she had lost both parents tragically to an accident on the FDR. They did mention, briefly, that she’d survived the night of horror long ago.
As if reading his mind, Renee said, “They’re almost acting as if she deserved it, Tyler! Deserved it, because of the way she lived. I’m wishing I had tried harder. Oh, look! If she hadn’t been an ‘escort,’ this wouldn’t have happened to her. I feel terrible. I mean, who ever really understands what makes us tick? Not even shrinks! Because...well, poor child, poor child! She never had much—that father of hers was a blowhard, but he was her dad. Both dead, no help...and she was a beautiful little thing. She was probably a very good stripper.”
That almost made Tyler smile. “Probably,” he agreed. “And yes, she was beautiful. Have the police let anything else out yet?”
“We know what you know. Her body was found...and then a few hours later, her head was found. First, we heard about the body in the river. Then we heard that it was Hannah.”
The front door opened and closed. Tyler felt that same streak of electricity tear through him; he knew Sarah was there.
Renee frowned. “Sarah must be here.”
“I’m sorry. I should have said right off the bat that she was meeting me here,” Tyler said. “That’s why...why I came. She didn’t tell you?”
“No, but...that’s great. You’ve been talking to Sarah!” Renee clapped her hands together, appearing ecstatic.
“We’ve exchanged two sentences, Renee,” he said quietly. “Sorry, four sentences, really. ‘Did you hear the news?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Will you come and meet me at Aunt Renee’s?’ And then, ‘Yes, I’ll come right away.’”
Renee just nodded. Davey was coming back in the room, bearing glasses of iced tea. “Sarah is here,” Renee said.
Davey nodded gravely. “Of course she is.”
Tyler watched as she walked into the parlor. Sarah. Whom he hadn’t seen in a decade. She hadn’t changed at all. She had changed incredibly. There was nothing of the child left in her. Her facial lines had sharpened into exquisite detail. She had matured naturally and beautifully, all the soft edges of extreme youth falling away to leave an elegantly cast blue-eyed beauty there, as if a picture had come into sharp focus. She was wearing her hair at shoulder length; it had darkened a little, into a deep sun-touched honey color.
He stood. She was staring at him in turn.
Seeing what kind of a difference a decade made.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Hey!” she replied.
They were both awkward, to say the least. She started to move forward quickly—the natural inclination to hug someone you held dear and hadn’t seen in a long time.
He did the same.
She stopped.
He stopped.
Then they both smiled, and laughed, and she stepped forward into his arms.
It was impossible, of course. Impossible that they had really known what the depths of love could be when they hadn’t even been eighteen. Then he’d felt as if he’d known, right from the first time he’d seen her at school, that he loved her. Would always love her.
That no one could compare.
And now, holding her again, he knew why nothing had ever worked for him. He’d met so many women—lots of them bright, beautiful and wonderful—and yet nothing had ever become more than brief moments of enjoyment, of gentle caring, and never this...connection.
Sarah had called on him because a friend had been murdered, and he was the only one who could really understand just what it was like. This didn’t change anything; whether he loved her or not, she would still be determined to push him away when it came to relying on him, sharing with him...
Back then, she hadn’t even wanted him near.
They drew apart. It felt as if the clean scent of her shampoo and the delicate, haunting allure of her fragrance lingered, a sweet and poignant memory all around him.
“You are here,” she said. “Thanks. I know this is crazy, but...Hannah. To have survived what happened that October, and then...have this happen. I understand you’re in some kind of law enforcement.”
“No. Private investigator. That’s why I’m not so sure how I can really be of help here.”
“Private investigators get to—investigate, right?” Sarah asked.
“Why don’t you two sit down?” Renee suggested.
“Sit, sit. Have tea!” Davey said happily.
Once again, Tyler sat. For a moment, the room was still, and everyone in it seemed to feel very awkward.
“I’m glad you came,” Sarah said. “Not that I really know anything. I belong to a great writers’ group that brings us down to the FBI offices once a year for research, but...I really don’t know anything. I don’t think the FBI is involved. New York police, high-crimes or whatever they call it division... I just—The killing...sounds way too familiar!”
Tyler nodded. “Yeah. Though psychopaths have beheaded and sliced up victims many times, I’m sorry to say. And, of course,” he said, pausing then to take a breath, “well, we were there. We saw the killer die back then.” He looked over at Davey and smiled tightly, still curious about how Davey had sensed so much of what had gone on. “We were all there. We saw him die. Davey was a hero.”
“My dad. My dad was with me,” Davey said.
“In all he taught you, and all you learned so well!” Renee said, looking at her son, her soft tone filled with pain for the husband she’d lost.
“The police may already have something,” Tyler said. “When a murder like this occurs, they hold back details from the press. You wouldn’t believe the number of crazy people who will call in and confess to something they didn’t do, wanting what they see as the credit for such a heinous crime. I have friends in Boston who have friends in New York. Maybe I can help—all depends on whether they want to let me in or not.”
“Sarah has friends, too!” Davey said.
Sarah looked at him. “I do?”
“Kieran!”
“I haven’t talked to her in a while,” Sarah murmured.
“Who is Kieran?” Tyler asked.
“A friend, yes,” Sarah said, looking at him. “She and her brothers inherited a very old Irish pub on Broadway—downtown, near Trinity and St. Paul’s. The oldest brother manages, Kieran works there sometimes.”
“You worked there!” Davey said.
“I did—I worked there through college,” Sarah said. “Anyway, Kieran is a psychologist who works with two psychiatrists, Drs. Fuller and Miro. They often work with the police—they’re geniuses when it comes to the criminal psyche. And her boyfriend is a special agent with the FBI. So, yes, if I asked for help...”
“That’s excellent,” Tyler told her. “And it could really help, as far as finding out whatever information there is forthcoming. Other than that... I’m not law enforcement.”
“But people hire PIs all the time,” Renee said.
“When someone is missing, the family might hire someone. In murder investigations that go cold...”
“We can hire you!” Davey said happily.
“We’re not her family,” Sarah said.
“That doesn’t matter. We were her friends,” Davey said. He was quiet a minute and made one of his little frowns. “She was mean to me sometimes, but she was my friend, too. Mostly she was nice to me.”
They all fell silent.
“I’ll figure something out, and I’ll keep you posted. I do have a legal standing as a private investigator, but it’s a lot nicer if the police want me involved.”
Sarah nodded. Again, they were all quiet.
“So, what’s happening in your life, Tyler?” Renee asked. “It’s so very long since we saw you. Davey has missed you.”
“I know what Tyler has been doing! I follow his page,” Davey said. “He dated a model! Pretty girl, Tyler. I think, though, Sarah is prettier. But I saw the pictures of you.”
“She’s very nice,” Tyler said. “She’s—in Romania now. Shooting a catalog, or something like that.”
“You must miss her,” Davey said.
“We were casual friends.”
“BFFs. That’s friends with benefits,” Davey told his mother, certain she wouldn’t know.
“Davey!” Renee said. “Please, Tyler came as a favor. Let his private life be private.”
Davey had lowered his head. He was chewing on a thumbnail, something he did, if Tyler recalled rightly, when he was nervous—or hiding something.
“You’ve got to be able to help somehow,” Sarah said, as if she hadn’t heard any of their exchange. “I’m so frustrated. I feel so worthless. And I feel terrible that I didn’t keep up with her. I mean...we were friends once. I don’t know what that night did to her. We all dealt with it differently. But...” She paused, inhaling a deep breath. “Sean suggested there was something—”
She broke off again. He knew what she was going to say. In the confusion with police and parents—and the horror that seemed almost worse when it was over and the garish lights were on—both Sean and Hannah had suggested there was something weird about Davey.
That it was downright scary, the way he had known something was really wrong.
“We talked. Davey told me. I think the police understood, but others didn’t. My uncle taught Davey to watch people—to have excellent situational awareness, like an operative or a cop. Because people can be so cruel and mean. My uncle wanted Davey to be able to protect himself from that. Davey knew when kids wanted to—to make fun of him. He was good at avoiding such people. He was amazing at looking out for bullies. He saw that man...Archibald Lemming. He’d noticed him earlier. And he’d seen him go into that particular haunted house, and that was how he knew. But...”
“I told them,” Davey said, nodding grimly. He brightened. “But they lived!”
“You were a hero,” Sarah assured him.
Davey’s smile faded and he looked grim. “But now Hannah is dead. And I’m afraid.”
“You don’t need to be afraid, Davey,” Sarah assured him quickly. “You’ll never be without one of us.”
“Or my girlfriend!” he said brightly. “Megan,” he reminded Tyler.
“Trust me, young man. Megan’s mom and I will make sure you two aren’t in any danger. Someone will be with you,” Renee said.
“Can we still kiss and all?” Davey asked.
“We’ll look away,” Renee promised. She shook her head. “We’re trying to keep it real—they have ten-year-old minds in grown-up bodies.”
Davey giggled. Then again he looked grim. “It’s scary. Sarah has to be with somebody, too.”
Sarah smiled and reached over and patted his hand. “Davey, I won’t be out late at night. I won’t be anywhere without friends.”
“You live alone.”
“You could come stay here,” Renee said.
“Aunt Renee,” Sarah said, “I need to be near the universities. And here’s the thing. We know Archibald Lemming is dead. What happened to Hannah is tragic, and one of those horrible events in life that happen to mirror another. I’ll be careful. But I’m always careful. I grew up as a New Yorker, remember? I’ve been savvy and wary a long, long time. Besides...” She paused and looked over at Tyler. “This must be...random. The act of some horrible, twisted thing that parades as a human being. Tyler...Tyler went to war. He knows very bad things happen.”
“We followed you when you were deeped,” Davey said.
“Deployed,” Aunt Renee said.
“We were afraid you wouldn’t come back,” Davey said.
“Well, I am here, and I will find out what I can to help see that this man who killed Hannah meets a justice of his own, I promise,” Tyler said.
He rose. He did need to get checked into his hotel room. And he needed to find out if the people he knew had been able to pull any strings for him.
“You have my number?” Sarah asked him.
He smiled at her curiously. Of course he did. They had been texting.
“Same number, right?”
She shook her head. “Well, it’s the same as about five years ago?”
Tyler frowned. “But...you have my number?”
“Has it changed?”
“Never. It’s the same one I’ve been texting you on.”
“I—I didn’t get a text. Davey told me you were coming.”
Davey was up on his feet and running out of the room.
“Get back here!” Sarah commanded.
Davey hadn’t quite made the door. He stopped and turned around.
He looked at Sarah.
“He needed to come. Tyler needed to come. I...”
“You pretended to be me,” Sarah said. “Davey! You must never do things like that!” she added with dismay.
“Davey, I should cut your texting time with Megan!” Renee said firmly.
Davey sat down, crossing his arms over his chest, his lips set stubbornly. “Tyler is here. He needed to be here.” Then he threw his arms out dramatically. “Do what you will!”
“Just don’t do it again! Ever!” Sarah said, horrified.
She looked at Tyler. “I’m so sorry. I never would have twisted your arm, made you come here. I mean, it was on national news, you’d hear about it, but...”
“I need to be here,” Tyler said softly. “Davey is right. I’ve got some things to do. I’ll be back with you later. We may need help from your friend.”
“Kieran,” she said. “Kieran Finnegan. And she’s living with a man named Craig Frasier. He’s—he’s great. I don’t know if the FBI will be investigating this, but...”
“We’ll talk to him.”
He wanted to hold her. To pull her to him. But she was already trying to back away. She hadn’t done it—hadn’t contacted him. Davey had. And Tyler needed to remember that.
“I’ll be in touch later tonight,” he said.
He didn’t hug her goodbye. But as he went to the door, Davey raced to him. “I’m sorry, Tyler. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay. You’re right. I need to be here. The police might already have a lead on this madman, okay? But I’ll be here.”
He nodded to Renee and Sarah, then headed out of the house. He imagined Sarah might follow him, tell him that the years had been wasted for her, too, that she knew, just seeing him again, that...
Didn’t happen.
He drove into the city and checked himself—and his car, which was as expensive to park as booking another room!—into his hotel. He had barely reached his suite before his phone rang.
And this time, it was actually Sarah.
“Tyler,” she said excitedly. “We’re in!”
“What?”
“This makes me feel worse than ever, but...I just got a call from a lawyer. Tyler, Hannah left a will. She has me listed as next of kin. She didn’t have much money—barely enough for her funeral,” Sarah said softly. “But that means that I can hire you, that it can all be legitimate, right?”
“I can work the case—even work it as if you’ve hired me. That’s not the point. I have to form some relationships, step carefully, keep in with the police. We need everyone working together.”
“But I am next of kin. You will stay, you will—”
“I will stay,” he promised her softly.
And a moment later, he heard her whisper, “Thank you. Thank you!”
And then...
“Tyler?”
“Yes?”
“I am so sorry. I don’t know why...I lost everyone. I should have been her friend. I really should have been her friend.”
He didn’t know what to say.
“Time doesn’t change things like that. You were her friend. And...you’re still my friend, Sarah. I still love you. I will see this through, I promise.”
And he hung up before she could say anything else.
Chapter Two (#u1dc1a16a-4f77-5924-b6dc-11974310841d)
“Survivor’s guilt,” Kieran Finnegan said softly.
Kieran was a good friend. While the hectic pace of her life—she worked as a psychologist for a pair of psychiatrists who worked frequently with the police, FBI and other law enforcement agencies, and helped out at the family pub—often kept her in a whirlwind where she didn’t see much of her friends, she was the kind of person who was always there when she was needed.
Sarah had called her that morning.
It was Sunday noon. Hannah’s body had been discovered the morning before; last night, Tyler had come to Aunt Renee’s house.
And while Finnegan’s on Broadway was doing a sound weekend business—they had a traditional roast entrée every Sunday that was very popular—Kieran was sitting down with Sarah. Of course, Finnegan’s was in good shape that day as far as staff went, and since Sarah had once worked there, she could probably hop back in to help at any time herself, just as Kieran would do if the need arose.
Kieran had assured Sarah she would be there to spend some time with her, talk to her. As a very good friend would do.
That made Sarah feel all the worse about the lousy friend she had been herself.
“Survivor’s guilt?” she repeated, shaking her head. “Honestly, I don’t think so. I mean, what happened years ago...all of us survived. We survived because of Davey, though, honestly...some of the guff he had to take afterward! People wanted to know what kind of a medium or seer he was. ‘Down Syndrome Boy Sees Evil.’” She was quiet for a minute. “Well, I have to admit, I was young and easily irritated, and Hannah...” She bit her lip and shrugged. “I was annoyed. She liked to have Davey around for the publicity, but then wanted me to leave him home if we were going out for the night or clubbing. She would use him when it seemed he was drawing a lot of attention, and then be irritated if we were spending any real time with him. But now...”
“From what I’ve gleaned through the media, her murder was brutal,” Kieran murmured. “And far too similar to the method of the massacre at the theme park. Here’s the thing. You’re experiencing terrible guilt because Hannah is dead, and she was your friend—even it was a while ago. You both survived something horribly traumatic. But now she is dead. And you are alive. And all that happened before is rushing back. But, Sarah, you’re not guilty of anything. Hannah survived that night—along with your other friends—because of Davey. You felt protective of Davey. That was only right. So quit feeling guilty. Hannah did choose to live a dangerous lifestyle. That doesn’t mean what was done to her isn’t every bit as horrid and criminal. But she may have put herself in danger. You have done nothing wrong. Of course, you could learn to be a bit more open to the possibility there are good people out there, and good things just might happen—and most of your friends truly love Davey.”
Sarah leaned back and picked up her coffee cup, grinning. “Do I have a really big chip on my shoulder? I’m not sure whether I should enter therapy or say ten Hail Marys!”
“Do both!” Kieran suggested with a shrug. She let out a sigh. “Sarah, if you weren’t really upset, you wouldn’t be human, and I’d have to worry about you. Or rather, you would be a sociopath and I would have to worry about you.” She shook her head. “Craig was saying that it was uncanny—the remarkable resemblance to what happened before.” She hesitated. “In the actual killing, that is. Archibald Lemming found himself an amazing venue in which to carry out his bloodlust—what better than a haunted house? But it isn’t him.”
“It could be someone who studied him or knew him.”
“Possibly.”
“And someone like that doesn’t stop, right?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Kieran admitted unhappily. “When such a killer isn’t caught and the killing stops, it’s usually because he’s moved on, been incarcerated for another crime or he died. This kind of thing...”
“It’s not just someone who wanted Hannah dead?”
“I doubt it. What was done was overkill. Now, overkill can mean just the opposite. You see it with victims who are stabbed or bludgeoned over and over again—their killer was furious with them. Or sometimes, with someone else—and the victim they choose is the substitute for the one they want to kill. But again, remember I’m going from what was in the news. The way that this was done...”
“You think there will be more victims.”
Kieran was thoughtful. “Yes—if we’re talking a copycat killer who had a fan obsession with Archibald Lemming. I am afraid there will be more victims. Then again, people are clever. Maybe someone had it out for Hannah and wanted her dead specifically. Make it appear there is a psychopath or sociopath on the loose. There have been cases where several people were murdered in order to throw off suspicion when just one was the real target.”
“Archibald Lemming was a psychopath, right?”
“Yes, the term applies to someone who is incapable of feeling empathy for another human being. They can be exceptionally charming and fool everyone around them—Ted Bundy, for instance. There are, however, psychopaths who turn their inclinations in a different direction—they become highly successful CEOs or hard-core business executives. They will never feel guilt. A sociopath, on the other hand, reaches his or her state of being through social factors—neglectful parents, bullying, abuse. Some function. They can be very violent, can show extreme bitterness or hatred along with that violence, but they’re also capable of feeling guilt and even forming deep attachments to others.”
Sarah nodded, listening to Kieran. It was good, she figured, to have a concept of what they might be dealing with.
But dead was dead. Hannah was gone. And it didn’t matter if she’d been viciously murdered by one kind of killer or another. It had been brutal.
Kieran smiled at her grimly. “I know what you’re thinking. But when hunting a killer, it’s helpful to have a concept of what you’re looking for in his or her behavior.”
“Of course! And thank you!” Sarah said quickly.
“So...Tyler Grant has come back to help?” Kieran asked. “And you were listed as Hannah’s next of kin. That’s good. It will allow him a lot of leeway.”
“The FBI hasn’t been asked in yet, right?”
“No, but Craig has a lot of friends with the police.”
Kieran was referring to Special Agent Craig Frasier, FBI. They were living together—sometimes at Craig’s and sometimes at Kieran’s. He had the better space in NYC, so Kieran would eventually give up her apartment, most probably, and move in with him. They were a definite duo; Sarah was sure marriage was somewhere in the future for them, especially since Kieran’s brothers—Declan, Kevin and Danny—seemed to accept him already as part of the family.
“Do you think...” Sarah began.
“Yes, I think!” Kieran said, smiling. She inclined her head toward the door. Tyler must have arrived. Sarah found herself inhaling sharply, her muscles tightening and her heart beating erratically.
Why? She wanted him here; she wanted...a solution. Hannah’s killer caught and put away for life. She wanted...forgiveness.
Maybe it just seemed that their lives—so easy a decade ago—had come to an abrupt break. It had become a breach, and she wasn’t sure things could ever be really right for her if she didn’t come to terms with that.
Once upon a time, she had been so in love with him. High school! They’d been so wide-eyed and innocent, and the world had stretched before them, a field of gold.
Kieran stood, waving to him.
“You’ve met Tyler?” Sarah was surprised. She hadn’t known Kieran in high school.
“No,” her friend said, shaking her head. “He called about meeting up with Craig. I looked him up after—found some pictures online. Rock solid, so it seems.”
Rock solid.
Yes, that had always been Tyler.
“But how...?”
Kieran laughed. “How do you think?”
“Davey!” Sarah said. She wasn’t sure whether to be exasperated or proud of her cousin. Devious! No, being devious wasn’t really in his nature. Pretty darned clever, though!
Tyler reached the table. Sarah stood, as Kieran had. It was still awkward to see him. He’d grown into a truly striking man with his quarterback’s shoulders and lean, hard-muscled physique. There were fleeting seconds when they were near one another that she felt they were complete strangers. Then there were moments when she remembered laughing with him, lying with him, dreaming with him, and she longed to just reach out and touch him, as if she could touch all that had been lost.
He was obviously feeling awkward, too. “Sarah,” he said huskily, taking a second to lightly grip her elbow and bend to kiss her cheek—as any friend might do.
That touch...so faraway and yet so familiar!
“Hey, I hear Davey has been at it again,” Sarah said. “This is Kieran, of course.”
“Of course,” Tyler said, shaking her hand.
“Craig should be here any minute. He had to drop by the office,” Kieran told him.
“Thanks,” Tyler said.
“Coffee? Tea? Something to eat?” Kieran asked. “We are a pub. Our roast is under way.”
“I’m sure it’s wonderful,” Tyler told her, smiling. “I’ve heard great things about this place—you’re listed in all kinds of guidebooks.”
“Nice to know.”
“I would love coffee.”
“I’ll see to it. Black?”
“Yep. It’s the easiest,” he told her.
Kieran smiled pleasantly and went to get a cup of coffee for him.
Tyler looked at Sarah.
“Craig is great. You’re going to like him a lot,” Sarah said. “I can’t believe Davey is making all these connections.”
“The kind we should have made ourselves.”
Kieran was already heading back with coffee. And she was indicating the old glass-inset, wood-paneled doors to the pub.
Craig had arrived.
He hurried to the high-top table where they’d been sitting. “Hey, kid,” he said to Sarah, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. He looked at Tyler. “Tyler, right? Grant?”
“Tyler Grant. And thank you, Special Agent Frasier.”
“Just Craig, please. And sorry,” he added, watching Kieran arrive with coffee, “you’re going to have to slurp that down. We need to get going. The man on this particular case is a Detective Bob Green. He’s a twelve-year homicide vet—he worked the Archibald Lemming case years ago. You might know him when you see him, though he wasn’t the one doing the interviews back then, his partner was. He’s senior man on his team now. Good guy. We can join him for the autopsy.”
“That’s great! Thank you,” Tyler told him. “I know you have other cases.”
“This caught up with me in the midst of a pile of paperwork,” Craig told him. “My partner is handling it for me, and my director knows where I am, so it’s all good.”
“What about the site where Hannah was left?”
“I can take you there.” Craig turned to Kieran, slipping an arm around her. “Save us supper, huh?”
“You bet.”
The affection between them wasn’t anything overt or in-your-face. It was just that even the way they looked at one another seemed to be intimate.
“Okay, we’re on it,” Craig said. He turned and headed toward the door. Tyler looked back and nodded a thanks to Kieran. He glanced at Sarah and gave her something of an encouraging smile.
She remembered his words from last night. He would stay on this.
He loved her still.
Friends...
Yes, sometimes friends loved each other forever. Even if they couldn’t be together.
* * *
AUTOPSY ROOMS COULD be strange places. It was where doctors and scientists studied the dead and did their best to learn from them. The NYC morgue downtown was huge; the body count was almost always high. It wasn’t that so many people were murdered; New York had had less than a hundred homicides in the past year—a large number, yes, but considering that it was home to eight million-plus people, and double that number came through almost on a daily basis, it wasn’t such a massive amount.
But the homeless who died so sadly in the street came to the morgue, as did anyone who died at home or in hotel rooms, or anywhere else about the city other than with a doctor or in a hospital or directly under a doctor’s care and with a known mortal disease.
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Heather Graham
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A love rekindled… Or a deadly reunion?Sarah Hampton is still haunted by a night that nearly ended in a bloody massacre and destroyed her romance with Tyler Grant. Now the horror has returned. This time, Tyler must protect Sarah from the killer hiding in the darkness…