Blood Red

“Are you two off?” Bobby Munro asked, coming in from the kitchen. “I’m not sure this is such a great idea. Don’t be gone for more than a few hours,” he said firmly.

Maggie laughed. “Don’t worry, Bobby. I have to be back before church camp ends. My kids,” she explained to Lauren. “I have three. And I wouldn’t leave them at all right now if it weren’t for church camp.”

“Call,” Bobby said. “If you need me.”

“You bet,” Maggie assured him.

With a wave, she started out the door. Lauren gave Bobby a cheerful wave, as well, and followed.

Mark made a U-turn. A minute later he saw the place Bobby had been talking about. It was dark, two storied, and looked as if it had been built in the Victorian era. There had once been a wrap-around porch, but most of it was gone now. There was still evidence of ginger-breading on the trim. One step leading up to the front door was gone.

But the lawn showed signs of activity.

A rum bottle. Two beer cans and a half dozen beer bottles.

As they walked across the lawn, Mark noticed that someone had recently created a makeshift barbecue; an old oven grill had been placed between sticks over a bed of coals.

“Are they cooking their meat?” Jonas murmured.

“I don’t know what they’re cooking,” Mark muttered in reply and stared at Jonas. “Are you ready?”

Jonas lifted the flashlight, heavy hammer and the shoulder bag of stakes he was carrying, taken from the trunk of Mark’s car. Mark was similarly armed.

“I take it you always travel with these?” Jonas asked.

“Always.”

“What happens if you get pulled over for a traffic stop?”

“So far, it hasn’t happened,” Mark told him. “Let’s go.”

He looked up at the sky, glad that it was one of those days when the sun was brilliantly shining. The house was close to the water; the ground underfoot was soft. When they reached the porch, he lifted his foot and checked his shoe.

The sole was covered with marshy mud and strands of grass.

Just as Leticia’s white nurse’s shoes had been.

“Go on,” Mark said.

Jonas stared at him, shaking his head ruefully. “Sure, I’ll go first. Though if I were a traitor, that would just make it easier for me to warn the others.”

“Maybe. But you alsowouldn’t be behind me, ready to trap me,” Mark replied. “Go.”

Jonas preceded him up the stairs, ably—and silently—leaping over the missing step. He landed on the porch. When he tried the door, it was locked.

He looked back at Mark, who came up beside him and nodded.

“Count of three?” Jonas asked.

“Why not?” Mark said quietly.

Jonas mouthed the count, and then they rammed the door together. It opened, and they were in the house.

An eerie darkness rose to meet them, along with the fetid stench of death.

16

H eidi was asleep, and yet…

She felt as if she were awake.

Awake and…

Being seduced. By someone—some thing —deliciously wicked. Something unknown, that couldn’t— shouldn’t —be. Something tainted with an irresistible touch of sin. It was as if the covers had been drawn back and a stranger had joined her. A known…stranger. She felt the air, warm and arousing, against her flesh as the covers were stripped away. She fire against her flesh as his hands teased along her thighs, fingers dancing delicately across her flesh. He spread her legs, and she couldn’t believe the things he did to her then, the intimacies that were being taken. But, oh, God, the excitement that was growing in her, the heat rising in her center, hot, wet…

All while she was sleeping.

“Let me,” came a voice.

And she knew she couldn’t bear it if she didn’t.

It was a dream, she told herself, only an erotic dream.

More and more intimate as that husky whisper repeated the words. “Let me…Let me…in. Let me into you.”

She burned. Ached. Writhed.

“Let me,” came the whisper against her flesh.