When the Shadows Come Read online

  The bar had been lowly lit and she’d been sitting alone drinking something fancy. He’d been nice to her, but she just had to be a bitch. She couldn’t blame anyone but herself for her fate. His cock pressed against his zipper as he thought about how she had struggled while he forced himself between her legs. Yes, she had been strong, but still no match for him. The woman had tried to use psychology on him, tried to tell him about her life and her family. But she shut up after her backhanded her a couple of times.

  “Keep quiet, and I won’t hurt you. Do you understand?”

  She’d nodded and then the tears started.

  Why women thought they could use that to bend men to their will, he would never understand. He held her hands together above her head and wrapped the silver duct tape around them. The more she cried, the harder his dick got. He took her rough and hard.

  She stopped resisting and turned her head and stared into the woods.

  He smiled knowing that’s where he would bury her. After he came, he sat on her chest and wrapped his hands around her throat. The bite of her nails scraping his skin fueled his rage and he’d squeezed harder. His teeth ground against each other with the effort.

  Her arms flailed as she scratched at him and at her own neck. Her eyes bulged and watered and her tongue protruded grossly from her mouth. Her heels dug into the dirt as she tried to buck him off her body. But to no avail. When he set his mind to something, he followed through.

  It took about two minutes of him squeezing her throat with both hands before she stopped moving, and he felt the bone in her throat give. Her eyes went vacant, and her lips turned a weird but pretty shade of lavender.

  NATHAN CLAIBORNE STARED at the chalkboard in the conference room. He appreciated that not all law enforcement agencies had the resources and training that the state police had. The Romance Police Department’s lead investigator in the disappearance of Mallory Kramer scribbled a list on the blackboard, detailing the woman’s last known whereabouts. Dave Singleton wrote the names of Mallory’s family, friends and co-workers who’d been interviewed already. Sitting there for the past two hours, Nathan was ready to take charge. The Arkansas State Police were often called in when serious crimes occurred in small towns that lacked the vast resources the state had. He glanced at his watch. Lunchtime would be rolling around soon. After everyone was fed and a little more docile, he’d take the lead. For now, he was absorbing the information they had and assessing the quality of the information obtained so far.

  Nathan opened the brown file folder his lieutenant had provided to him and studied Mallory’s picture. She was attractive with straight, white teeth and dark brown hair. It was obvious the family had provided a professional headshot of their daughter instead of a candid snapshot. According to her driver’s license, Mallory was twenty-three years old and stood five feet-seven inches tall. She weighed one hundred twenty pounds and looked a lot like Nathan’s ex-girlfriend who’d left him a Dear John letter last week.

  His peripheral vision picked up movement on the other side of the glass of the conference room. A petite, blonde woman spoke to the officer at the front desk. Her cheeks were pink, and her lips moved fast. She apparently had a lot to say. The officer nodded his head and gestured to the conference room. With a quick glance toward Nathan, the woman sat in a chair next to the door.

  She wore shiny, red rain boots with a yellow sundress that hit just above the knee. Her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail and a large, brown leather bag hung off her shoulder. Black framed glasses accentuated round blue eyes. Nathan put her somewhere between nineteen and twenty-five, about five-four, a hundred thirty pounds. From years of experience, first as a beat cop in Los Angeles and then as a homicide detective, he assessed people. Everyone was a suspect so he always made a mental note of a detailed description.

  After a stint in the California National Guard, Nathan had taken his military police experience and applied at the LAPD. Five years in the fast-paced, crime-ridden City of Angels, and he’d reached a burnout. He’d kept in touch with another guy that he’d gone through basic training with. While on vacation visiting George in Little Rock, he’d applied for a lateral position with the State Police on a whim. The rest was history.

  The officer from the front desk stepped inside and rolled his eyes when Dave turned around. “Carolina Sinclair is here.”

  “What does she need?” Dave set the chalk on the time-worn table. He sat down and steepled his fingers together.

  The young man laughed and cleared his throat. “She says she has information about Mallory’s disappearance.”

  “Another sighting by the Romance ghost whisperer? Perfect.”

  The front desk officer shrugged. “She says she needs to talk to you about it.”

  “Please tell her that I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to listen to her campfire stories.”

  “Hold on,” Nathan interjected, sitting forward in his chair. “You have someone who claims to have information about the biggest case your department has ever seen, and you’re not interested in hearing her out?”

  “Wait outside for a minute.” The front desk cop was dismissed with a flick of the wrist while Dave began stacking and straightening papers on the table.

  “Detective Claiborne, let me explain a little bit about Miss Sinclair. Her daddy was in the oil business and was a prominent figure in these parts until he passed about six months ago. I’ve known Carolina since she was a child. A troubled child, I might add. She’s had emotional problems most of her life. Been in and out of mental hospitals and such. She claims to see and talk to dead people. She’s been delusional for years. I simply don’t have the patience to indulge her. Not today.”

  Nathan watched the pretty woman fidget in her seat. She didn’t look crazy, just a bit eccentric. He also knew that it was nearly impossible to pick a serial killer out of a crowd, but he wasn’t ready to dismiss her as quickly as Dave was. Nathan didn’t leave stones unturned.

  “Surely, you can appreciate why I’m not interested in her ramblings today. The pressure is on for this department to find Miss Kramer and find her soon.”

  “Dave, with all due respect, your chief brought us in to help because your department lacks the resources and manpower to handle this investigation on its own.” Nathan looked at his watch. “It’s lunchtime. Why don’t you go eat something, and I’ll speak with Miss Sinclair just to make sure she doesn’t have any information that would be important to the case.”

  Dave nodded. “Have it your way.” He opened the glass door and motioned for the young woman to come in. She walked into the room and smiled nervously, her blue eyes darting from side to side.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Sinclair.” Dave put his hat on.

  “Hello, Officer Singleton. How’s your wife?”

  “Tammy is doing just fine. I’m afraid I don’t have time to take a statement from you just now. This is Detective Nathan Claiborne with the Arkansas State Police. They’re helping us with the case. He has a few minutes to spare.”

  Nathan stood up and extended his hand to Carolina. She gave a firm handshake and made direct eye contact. Up close, he noticed the light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and the haphazard condition of her ponytail with little bunches of hair that hadn’t quite made it into the rubber band. Her breathing was a little heavy.

  “Have a seat, Miss Sinclair.”

  “Please, call me Carolina.”

  “All right, Carolina. I need to collect some background information from you.” To each of his questions, she rattled off her address, phone number, and driver’s license number, and he wrote down all the information on his yellow legal pad. Later, he would run her through NCIC to check her criminal history, though he was fairly sure she would come up clean. Dave wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to include felon in his list of undesirable traits he’d assigned to her.

  “I understand you have some information that may be helpful to our investigation regarding the disappearance of Mallory Kr
amer.” He tapped the end of his pen on the notepad while he watched her body language. Her fingers trembled slightly. He was pretty good at determining when someone was being dishonest. Being nervous didn’t necessarily make one culpable.

  She inhaled, exhaled and shook her head. “You’re not investigating a kidnapping anymore, Detective Claiborne. Mallory is dead.”

  Well, that wasn’t exactly what he expected to hear. “What makes you think Miss Kramer is dead?” Wanting to keep her talking, he kept his tone even and soft.

  “Okay, I know this is going to sound crazy but Mallory told me.”

  Nathan’s eyebrows rose, and he shifted in the uncomfortable chair, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward. “So, you’re telling me that the alleged victim told you she’s dead?”

  “Yes, sir.” Carolina removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. He believed she was telling the truth. Now, the truth was subjective. If a person believed what they were saying, their body language would reflect such. That was how people passed polygraph exams and also why they weren’t admissible in court.

  “I know that everyone in this town thinks I’m bat-shit crazy, and I’m sure that Dave told you just that before he left. I told Mallory this was a bad idea. The only reason I’m in here right now is because Mallory believes that someone else is in danger.”

  Nathan tried to keep an open mind. “Who does she believe is in danger?”

  “She doesn’t know exactly who. She said that he told her he’s done this before, and he will do it again. Mallory wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last.”

  “Did she tell you the name of her killer?”

  “No. She doesn’t know his name.”

  “Did she say how she met him?”

  “She met him at Cookie’s. She said he came on to her in the bar, and she rejected him. Then he attacked her in the parking lot when she was leaving and forced her into his car.”

  “Can you describe him for me?”

  The woman shook her head. “She didn’t tell me what he looked like other than he was normal looking. Not the kind of guy that would raise suspicion.”

  “Okay. What do you know about the murder? Did she tell you how he killed her?”

  Carolina’s eyes welled up. His educated mind said that this poor girl needed psychological treatment, but his gut told him this was real, that he shouldn’t dismiss her just yet.

  Her hand went to her throat, and she swallowed hard as a single tear slipped down her cheek. “He strangled her.”

  Nathan stepped out and retrieved a box of tissues from the front desk and placed it in front of her. “I have to admit that your story is rather incredible. But I have an obligation to follow up on every lead we receive. Now, did Mallory tell you where her body is?”

  “She said he buried her in the woods. She said she could take me there.” Carolina sniffled and pulled two tissues from the box.

  “Okay. Perhaps we should go take a look then.”

  “She’s not here right now. I would have to wait until she comes again.”

  “Okay.” Nathan reached into his jacket pocket and handed her a business card. “Call me when she comes back. My cell phone number is on the card.”

  “Thank you.” She wiped her eyes and extended her hand.

  “Anytime.” He gave her hand a light squeeze and she walked out.

  He’d dealt with his fair share of nut jobs back in Los Angeles. There were fortune tellers who offered information for money and psychics who claimed to know where bodies were buried. Not one of them had panned out and this one probably wouldn’t either. But he’d do his job and follow up if Carolina ever called back. But he wasn’t holding his breath. She probably just wanted some attention, and he’d given it to her. People like that usually faded into the background.

  Chapter 3

  Carolina smiled at the solemn dog with the new haircut and bad attitude. He looked away and out the window of the Honda. If he stayed true to form, Douglas would snub her for the rest of the day. He didn’t like having his hair cut or his nails clipped and polished. If he had it his way, he’d look like a homeless pup.

  “Don’t be mad. You look awesome. I bet if Stellaluna was a dog, she would totally want to be your girlfriend.” Carolina rubbed the dog’s head, and he continued to refuse to make eye contact with her.

  She angled her car down the private road toward her house. Set back in the woods, the house her father built was two stories of handcrafted wood and brick. Her bedroom took up the second floor next to the library. That’s where she spent most of her time curled up in front of the fireplace with the book du jour. Floor to ceiling bookshelves covered the walls with no empty spots. She had a special affection for first editions and old books in general.

  Carolina scooped Douglas out of the passenger seat and tucked him under her arm. The hardwood in the foyer gleamed and smelled like lemony soap. The housekeeper had been there while she was gone. Setting Douglas down, his shiny nails clicked across the floor where he went to his bed in the living room to sulk. Carolina made some coffee and climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor. She pulled off her boots and changed into a pair of shorts and a tank top and retreated to the library.

  She cracked open “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” again. Sometimes she felt like Randall McMurphy, before the lobotomy, of course. She wasn’t really crazy, but everyone believed her to be, and she was kind of okay with it. It was just easier that way. Her mind wandered back to Detective Claiborne. She wondered if he questioned her mental status, too. Of course, he did. How could he not? If she wasn’t the one seeing the ghosts, she probably wouldn’t believe her either.

  Carolina stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace and tried to focus on the book. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the shadow creep up the wall and settle into the corner above the mantle. She looked up at the blurry, dark figure that resembled the shape of a small child that had been crudely cut from a piece of black construction paper. The faceless creature hummed, mimicking the sound of a mosquito buzzing near her ear. It was looking to feed. Like a vampire, sucking energy, instead of blood, from an oblivious host.

  They never fed on Carolina, probably because she could see them. She knew what they were, and they were sneaky bastards. Mostly, they attached themselves to a person, like a tick. Sucking what they needed to stay sated. But they had the potential to open a vein of energy and take it all. Carolina wondered if they weren’t responsible for those deaths where no one could figure out what happened to some poor soul who dropped dead out of nowhere.

  The shadows had terrified her as a child, but they’d never physically hurt her. She would cry and curl up into a ball, and the ghosts comforted her, protected her. Her doctor diagnosed her with hypnagogia and night terrors. He explained that she wasn’t really seeing anything at all, but that her subconscious mind created illusions as she slipped into sleep. He patted her on the head and prescribed a sleeping pill.

  She wasn’t sleeping now and the shadow didn’t disappear when she looked directly at it. It clung to the joint where the crown molding met in the corner.

  “Watcha reading, bookworm?”

  The sudden break in the silence startled her and the book slipped out of her hands. The edge of the spine landed hard on her thigh.

  So engrossed in the shadow, she hadn’t sensed Mallory sitting in the overstuffed chair behind her.

  “Damn it, Mallory. You scared the crap out of me.” Carolina set the book aside and sat up. “We need to establish some ground rules. First, you can’t sneak up on me. If you give me a heart attack, I can’t help you.”

  “Sorry, honey. I thought you had that sixth sense thing. Like you knew I was here, even if you weren’t looking at me.” Mallory smirked and crossed one long leg over the other and bobbed her foot up and down while examining her fingernails. “And what the fuck is that thing you’ve been staring at? It’s creeping me out.”

  Carolina had never seen a ghost shiver, but Mallory did.
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br />   “It’s just a shadow.”

  “Shadows are attached to people or things. They don’t crawl on their own.” Mallory looked up in the corner.

  Carolina shrugged. “It’s a shadow person.”

  Mallory looked at Carolina and tilted her head. “Come again?”

  “They’re like astral vampires. They feed on people’s energy.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that. That can’t be a good thing.”

  “Well, in small doses, it might make you feel tired and run down. But if the shadow decided to go all out, it could kill someone. They basically suck all the energy out until there’s nothing left and the body shuts down. Over and out. But I’ve never seen anyone die from it myself.”

  “Aren’t you scared with that thing hanging out in here?” Mallory shifted in her seat.

  “No. They’ve never bothered me. They scared me when I was little. You know, when you’re a kid, everything bad in your imagination is shadowy and dark and hides under your bed or in your closet. That’s what they were to me. The scary unknown that lurks in the recesses of dark corners, but they’ve never hurt me.”

  “Oh, no way. That is too fucking freaky. I would have had a heart attack as a kid.”

  “They actually seem to study me, to watch me. I think maybe they’re afraid of me because I can see them straight on. They can’t sneak up on me like you just did.”

  Mallory continued to stare at the shadow in the corner of the ceiling. “So, how’d it go with the coppers?”

  “Well, needless to say, Singleton didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. You lived in this town. You know what people think about me.” Feeling self-conscious, Carolina ran her finger over the fluffy, green pillow she sat on. The braided edge was time-worn where she’d rubbed it with her thumb over the years.