Husk

Beside him, on the passenger seat, an open laptop with GPS linkup displayed a mapped layout of the region, highlighting the directions that would lead him to the Judge’s neighborhood. If Melissa wouldn’t look into finding Kane’s resting-place, at least he could check the proximity of the two crime scenes. He’d gotten the name Patterson from an old contact at the same television station that aired the news announcement of the murders in Corcoran, and his Internet search turned up only one Patterson couple listed in that county.

He pulled back onto the road, giving the engine an extra burst of fuel to make up the lost time.

Oddly enough, every time he repeated the Judge’s directions to himself, the list of turns and road names triggered an unsettling bout of deja vu, leading him to the same creepy conclusion.

He’d been there before.

???

In the living room, Melissa scooped up her phone and gave the Damerows’ home number another try, dialing the buttons by memory.

This time, the phone rang twice, and then nothing.

Melissa waited. It didn’t sound like the call had been answered, but she got the unsettling feeling the line had indeed connected, that someone was listening to her.

“Hello?” she asked.

Silence.

“My name is Melissa Humble.”

Still nothing.

“I’m a police detective investigating a murder. Two people were killed near your house, and I’m trying to find anyone who may know something about it. It’s probably nothing, but I had to check. Oh, hell, I guess I’m just wasting my time here. Actually, I know I’m wasting my time. I mean, let’s face it, for every scumbag I bust there’s fifty more to take his place. Isn’t that what humanity is, one big cesspool teeming with psychopaths? How the fuck can one cop change that? I can’t. There, I said it. Shit, I might as well put an end to this whole thing right n—”

Her pager went off, stopping her in mid-sentence.

“Wha-what was I…” She shook her head, unable to complete the thought.

She became aware of a strong buzzing in her ears and what sounded like whispering coming from the phone. Overpowered by dizziness, she staggered toward the couch but hit the wall instead. She dropped the phone. It clattered on the floor.

She slid to a sitting position as the room cantered around her for another few seconds, raising a hand to her forehead—

To discover that she now clutched her .40 Smith & Wesson in a white-knuckled fist.

She couldn’t recall crossing the room to her desk or pulling it from its holster.

“What the hell?”

The safety was off, a round in the chamber.

Setting the weapon on the coffee table, Melissa maneuvered herself to the couch. She looked to the phone on the floor, remembering the venomous sound of her own words and the volume at which she spoke them.

She picked up the handset and put it to her ear. An electronic voice was suggesting she try her call again. She terminated the message and hit redial. After three rings, she got the Damerows’ answering machine.

She hung up.

Her spell of light-headedness had passed, but she still didn’t trust herself to stand. Instead, she looked to the item that had interrupted her outburst—her pager—and saw the latest message was a weather update from her service provider: severe thunderstorms were coming.

She erased the bulletin and tossed the pager on the coffee table.

“Get a grip, Humble,” she whispered.

Finally, she got up and returned the phone handset to its base. On the built-in answering machine, she found the light-up display blinking, indicating a new message. She hit the machine’s “play” button and listened to her own words echo from the speaker.

“Isn’t that what humanity is, one big cesspool teeming with psychopaths? How the fuck can one cop change that? I can’t. There, I said it. Shit, I might as well put an end to this whole thing right n —”

Her mouth hung agape. Along with the lost memory of retrieving her pistol from the desk, she’d apparently hit the phone’s record feature, capturing every disturbing word she’d spoken. Most unnerving of all, the agitated voice on the recording sounded eerily like someone speaking their final words before ending their life.

“This is nuts.”

Standing by the phone, she found herself reflecting on the clawing words of Frank Atkins.

“There are going to be more bodies, and soon.”

She didn’t know what had just happened, but after her long day of one frustration after another, the incident had drained the last of her patience and left her thirsty for answers.

Melissa slid back into her shoes and snatched her car keys off the end table in the entry hall. She knew she wasn’t crazy. Though she couldn’t remember it, she’d spoken to someone at the other end of the phone line.

Now she wanted to find out who.

CHAPTER 25

Lori sat with BJ on the floor of the living room, poised over the half-completed layout of a small Lego city they’d constructed while watching Monsters Inc. on Blu-ray. She enjoyed babysitting the boy. He was well behaved, fun to watch, and boasted an impressive imagination. He’d not only made a collection of buildings and vehicles from the construction blocks, but had also given them certain roles to fulfill within their fabricated community, including a police force, a taxi service, a grocery, and a postal system. Lori found that to be the funniest bit of all, especially since he claimed all the citizens were dinosaurs.

While BJ finished up the last touches on his latest creation, she glanced out the window to where the light had been replaced with darkness.

Getting up, she said, “Okay, trooper, almost time for bed.”

BJ looked shocked. “No way. I’m not tired.”

She frowned. “Sorry, the rules are the rules. I’ll bet once you’re under the covers, you’ll fall—”

“I’m not going to bed until my dad gets home,” he interrupted.

He glanced to the hall leading to the staircase, and she noted the unmistakable look of fear in his eyes.

She smiled. “I think I know where this is going. Are you afraid of monsters coming out of the closet, like in the movie?”

He simply stared at her.

“I thought so,” she said. “Well, there’s nothing to fear, because I’m a federally-registered monster exterminator with a black belt in butt-kicking. Just tell me where to find this goon, and I’ll scare him so bad he’ll jump out of his underpants!”

He didn’t smile like she’d hoped, but he also didn’t resist when she took him by the hand and started toward the stairs.

Moments later they stood in the middle of BJ’s room, the young boy at her side. They faced his closed closet door, ready for a showdown with whatever lay within.

Without saying a word, the two attempted to perceive any faint noise that might give away an interloper hidden within the walk-in closet. In that labored calm, the empty house downstairs seemed miles away. Lori marveled at the lack of common sounds she expected to hear in such a quiet background: the settling noise of the house’s foundation, crickets chirping on the outside windowsill, a wind-rattled screen.

Yet, nothing.

“Well, kid, what do you think?” she asked.

In no more than a whisper, he said, “I guess he’s not here right now.”

She squeezed the boy’s hand, holding back a smile that threatened to destroy her look of sincerity. She