The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Read online

  Kate absently touched at the round pendant under her blouse. She wished Jessie had something to protect her from the darker things.

  She did.

  Jessie had a loving mother and step father. They didn’t need Craig, who had brought this all on them in the first place.

  We’re coming for you, baby. Hold tight.

  Dolan felt like tearing his hair out, only he didn’t have much of it left anyway. Always better to take one’s frustrations out on someone else. It never paid to do self-harm.

  The soldier standing in front of Dolan’s desk had turned the color of chalk. The young man must have heard how Dolan dealt with setbacks. But mortals were too squishy. The kind of agony Dolan preferred to inflict was better directed at a supernatural.

  “You lost my ghost?”

  “Not…not me sir. He went off the grid.”

  “Of course he did you fuckhead. He’s a ghost. Do you know how long it took me to manifest that thing? Bringing mortal spirits back from beyond the veil is nearly impossible.”

  “But I thought we were going to raise—”

  “Never mind what you thought. Your thinking is based on a tiny sliver of the whole picture. Your thinking is irrelevant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve suffered a good many setbacks these past few days. That’s my fault. I expected this to go more easily, but I should have known Mr. Lockman would give us trouble.”

  “Why not send a mortal unit to obtain him, sir?”

  Dolan spun in his office chair so that he faced away from the soldier. The replacement view consisted of a stack of water-damaged cardboard boxes filled with indiscriminate plastic parts. Another pile of relics left behind by this once prosperous institution. Another reminder of the casualties under the rule of the corrupt and inept government. The jobless, the hopeless, the ignored. He would lead them all to a new era of prosperity and simultaneously reveal to humanity what really lurked in the dark corners of their world.

  This last was, of course, only a bonus. But an important one. He had grown so tired of the ignorance. People deserved to know what power was out there for the taking.

  “Sir?”

  Dolan grunted. No time for reverie. Big plans required bigger effort. He spun his chair back to face the young soldier. “We have to destroy the ghost before we do anything. I can’t have a rogue spirit out there wreaking havoc. Not yet, anyway.”

  The chalky-faced boy broke into a sweat. “How do you kill a ghost?”

  “You destroy what brought him here in the first place.” Dolan opened his desk drawer and drew a set of keys. He tossed the keys to the soldier. Despite the obvious fear, the young man caught the keys smartly.

  “Room fourteen B. There is a woman in there. Kill her.”

  The soldier swallowed. “Who is she?”

  “The ghost’s living wife. I promised him a meeting with her when I brought him over. I’m reneging on our deal.”

  “How will that destroy a ghost?”

  “You’re an inquisitive young man. Usually, that would annoy me, but I appreciate your thirst for knowledge about the supernatural.” He stood and walked around his desk until he came within a foot of the soldier. He leaned in like a drill sergeant about to chew out a boot. He whispered instead.

  “Remember the golden rule. Everything can be destroyed.”

  The soldier’s quick intake of breath betrayed his discomfort.

  Dolan slapped the young man on the shoulder. “Go kill her. And make it nasty. The more gruesome and painful, the faster our ghost will be driven back to where he came from. When you’re done, Father Eberly can hear your confession if you’re into that kind of thing.”

  Alec drove. He parked the car across the street and down one house. Kate turned to him. “Why don’t you pull into the drive?”

  “Because this is safer, trust me. I’ll wait in the car and watch the house.”

  “You sure you weren’t a private eye in a former life or something?”

  “Just be careful.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  When she got out of the car, her stomach tumbled like a stone in an avalanche. She didn’t know what to expect when she knocked on the door. Probably Ryan’s unpleasant mother made all the more unpleasant by Kate’s return visit.

  She set her jaw and marched up to the front door, knocked, waited in the quiet morning. Her face felt tight from lack of sleep. A baseball-sized knot had lodged itself in her lower back.

  Please let me get Jessie safe and have this whole nightmare over with.

  No one answered her initial knock. She tried the doorbell, but couldn’t hear any chime, so she hammered at the door again. Probably harder than she needed to.

  Nothing.

  Now what? She never thought they might not be home. She could wait in the car with Alec until someone came back. As she turned, she spotted the car in the driveway. It didn’t mean much. They could have had a second car. But hadn’t Mrs. Whitaker made it clear her husband was out of the picture? A single mother with two cars didn’t jive.

  She turned back to the door and knocked once more with the same morning silence in response. So she tried the knob. It turned. An easy push and the door swung open.

  The metallic scent hit her first as her eyes adjusted to the dark house. Then she saw through the living room, into the kitchen, and the body lying on the floor.

  Kate’s throat closed. She gasped, stumbled back.

  “Is everything okay?”

  The sudden voce made Kate cry out.

  The woman standing on the cement approach stared up at her with suspicious eyes. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Kate put a hand on her chest, felt her heart thumping hard against her palm. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  The woman had gray streaks running through her thick mane of hair. The gold pantsuit and Dolce Vita shoes outshined the lines in her face, taking a handful of years off without need for Botox. “I’m the next door neighbor. Are you looking for the man and young lady that were here earlier?”

  Craig and Jessie? Could it really be he’d found her? Did that mean he had something to do with the still body on the floor? “You saw them?”

  The woman nodded. “They left in quite the rush. I don’t usually spy on my neighbors. I just happened to see them is all.” The woman stepped up on the porch.

  Kate instinctively took a step backward. If the neighbor did see Jessie leave here with Craig, she would assume the worst if she also saw inside the house. Kate reached behind her and pulled the door shut.

  The woman eyed Kate, her face cold and unreadable. “Are you friends with the family here?”

  Strange. Why phrase the question like that? Friends of the family here? As if the woman didn’t know their names. Not that Kate knew all of her neighbors personally, but she at least knew most of the family names for the houses closest to her.

  “My daughter dates the Henderson boy.”

  The woman smiled, but her eyes had no part in the expression. “Ah, yes. He’s a sweet kid.”

  A loud buzzer sounded in Kate’s mind. Wrong answer, lady. A bead of sweat rolled between her shoulder blades. She glanced toward the car and could barely make out Alec’s silhouette inside.

  “Are the Henderson’s home now?” the woman asked.

  “It doesn’t look like it, no.”

  “But you were about to let yourself in. Are you sure they aren’t inside?”

  “I don’t want to be rude. Maybe they’re sleeping in.”

  The woman stepped closer. “You say your daughter dates the Henderson boy?”

  “Actually,” Kate said and tensed, “she dates the Whitaker boy. Ryan Whitaker.”

  The woman’s brow furled. “I’m sorry?”

  “You don’t know these people. You don’t even know their real name.”

  A smile cracked the woman’s face. “Busted.” Then she had a butcher knife in her hand with the blade’s point aimed at Kate’s belly. “Why don’t we step
inside?”

  “Who are you?”

  “If the girl is your daughter, then I suppose I am a friend of your husband.”

  “You mean Craig? He’s not my husband.”

  “Does it really matter? Get inside before I gut you right here.”

  Kate shot another look at their car. With the woman’s back to the road, Kate didn’t know if Alec realized she was in trouble or not. She tried to think of some unobtrusive way to signal him, but the woman poked the point of the knife against Kate’s stomach and forced her back.

  “Okay. Easy.” She opened the door and they both stepped inside.

  The woman kicked the door closed with a heel. She pointed with the knife into the kitchen. “You’ve already met with Mrs. Whitaker I take it?”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I killed her. And that’s the last question I’m answering for you. You have to answer for me now.”

  “Who are you?”

  The woman lashed out. The knife slashed at the air in front of Kate’s face, and at first she thought that’s all the woman had cut—air. Then the sting welled up on her cheek. She touched at the painful spot with her fingers and the tips came away bloody.

  “Sit down,” the woman said and gestured to the couch in the living room.

  Kate didn’t think she could move. Her joints had locked. Her brain had turned to a whitewashed blank.

  You have to move or she’ll cut you again. You have to move. Move. Now.

  With all her will focused on putting one foot in front of the other, she made it to the couch and sat down.

  “Now, you’ll answer my questions or I’ll fuck you with this knife, understand?”

  Kate trembled so hard she felt she might shake apart. Her limbs felt cold. Shock setting in. But the shock did not numb the pain from the cut on her face, nor the blood’s sticky wetness on her cheek.

  “Do. You. Understand?”

  Kate nodded. All she could manage.

  “The man and girl you came looking for? Craig Lockman and his daughter, correct?”

  This time Kate tried to answer aloud, but her constricted throat squeezed her voice. She swallowed the knot in her throat and nodded again.

  “Where are they?”

  Kate shook her head.

  The woman put the knife tip inches from Kate’s nose, close enough for Kate to see her own blood on the blade. “Speak up. Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know,” Kate finally blurted and felt like her stomach might drop out of her mouth with the words.

  “Where are they?”

  “I just told you. If I knew where they were, I wouldn’t have come here.”

  “But you knew they would come here.”

  “I thought they might. I didn’t know for sure.”

  “Good.” The woman drew a circle with the blade’s point in front of Kate’s eyes. “We’re making progress. Now tell me where they might have gone from here.”

  Every part of Kate’s body felt like quivering gelatin. A virulent cold seeped through her. She rubbed her arms to work some heat into them with little effect. “I honestly have no idea.”

  “You must have some idea. This is your daughter and her father.”

  “I haven’t seen Craig in nearly fifteen years before today. I have no idea what he’s involved with or why you people are bringing my family into it.”

  “What people?”

  “You. And those masked men that kidnapped us. If you wanted to ask me questions, why didn’t you do it then?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You were kidnapped and questioned already?”

  The uncertainty in the woman’s voice set Kate on edge. Wasn’t she involved with whoever had taken her and Craig? None of this made any sense. “My husband and I were kidnapped. They questioned him, but not me.”

  The woman’s lips twisted to one side while she seemed to stare through Kate at some distant thought. “Interesting.”

  “Who are you? What do you want from us?”

  “They took you, then let you go?”

  “Yes.” Kate tried to scoot back on the couch and put distance between her face and the butcher knife. “I don’t know where Craig went. I just want my daughter back.”

  “If you’ve already been taken and released…” The woman’s gaze seemed locked on the thought in her mind even as her eyes continued to aim at Kate. It made her look like a blind person. “He thinks I’ve failed. He will betray me.”

  Kate didn’t understand a word this woman uttered. She didn’t care. While the woman was distracted by her arcane thoughts, Kate had an opportunity she might not get again. She batted at the woman’s hand holding the knife, knocking it aside to give her the space to launch off the couch and around the woman.

  The woman shouted in surprise, but recovered quickly. Kate no sooner cleared the couch when the woman grabbed Kate’s hair.

  Her balance already shaky, Kate felt her feet kick out from under her as her head snapped back. She pounded to the floor, her scalp on fire.

  The woman kept her grip on Kate’s hair, tugging it tightly so that the pain cut Kate’s struggles. “I’m not finished with you.”

  “He might have gone back to my house.” Tears welled in her eyes at the pain crackling across the top of her head. She reached up and tried to pull her hair back to at least relieve some of the tension on her scalp.

  The woman jerked hard.

  Sparks flashed across Kate’s vision.

  “I don’t care about Lockman anymore. I need you for something else.”

  The tension on Kate’s scalp released. She shrieked at the sudden freedom and flipped to her hands and knees, ready to defend herself against whatever the woman had in mind. As she shot to her feet, she anticipated a slash from the knife and staggered backward to put space between them.

  The attack never came.

  The woman stood still, arms loose at her sides. The knife dropped to the floor. Her eyes widened. She went rigid and gasped as if someone had slipped an ice cube down the back of her shirt.

  Then her skin began to glow like a green traffic light.

  The woman’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she dropped to the floor. Standing in her place—the impossible. A transparent figure. A man. With sunken eyes and deep cracks in the skin around his lips. But if she stared straight at his chest she could see through him to the spot on the couch where she was just sitting.

  Kate could feel her mind tear itself in half. One half denied the existence of any such thing as ghosts—which was what this looked like to her. The other half simply presented the facts as her senses processed them. She could see the ghostly figure standing in front of her. She could feel the cold wetness like an autumn fog wafting off his body. And that faint smell of earth and rot.

  He smiled, deepening the cracks around his mouth. “After I make sure Dolan doesn’t do anything foolish, I think I might find your daughter and have the two of you do nasty things together.”

  Even with her mind split, Kate realized that this thing had possessed the woman now lying on the floor, and that he intended to do the same to her. But a split mind did not make for quick reactions. Between the battle going on in her head and the fear gripping her body, she could not make herself turn and run. And both halves of her mind had a feeling running wouldn’t do any good.

  The ghost reached out and put his spectral hand into Kate’s chest.

  Kate felt his cold fingers caress her heart much like a living man would caress a breast.

  “So strong,” he said, an addict’s shudder in his voice. “So alive. I remember what it was like to live. To love. When I was at rest, I did not have to think about these things. Now, they consume me.”

  Somehow Kate found her voice. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “He is going to kill my wife. You are the only hope I have of stopping that now.” He stepped closer. Then closer still. So close now, Kate could feel him stepping into her.

  Nothing in her lif
e had felt so cold.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  They sat on Creed’s back porch, the wind chimes a soothing background noise in an otherwise massive silence Lockman hadn’t experienced since camping in the California desert. Creed had even brought out a pitcher of lemonade which sat nearby on a wicker end table between matching chairs. Jessie rocked gently on the porch swing attached to the overhang by a pair of chains. All three of them stared out at the open land before them as if looking for a sign on the horizon.

  When Lockman finally dared oppose the silence, his voice felt craggy in his throat. “You’re going to have to make a damn good case, Victor.”

  The old man nodded, his gaze still fixated on the distance. “What other explanation is there?”

  “I already gave you one scenario.”

  “I thought we’d cleared the air on that.”

  “How can I trust you? After all that’s happened?”

  “You’d rather suspect me, even if the pieces to fit, than your best friend. I understand that.”

  “The pieces don’t fit for Tanner, either. What possible reason would he have for siccing Dolan on me? The man saved my life.”

  Creed shook his glass, clinking the ice cubes together. He sipped some lemonade while still not turning to face Lockman. “Toward the end, when we realized the Agency was losing support to more conventional anti-terrorist operations, Tanner grew bitter. Something had changed in him. Though it probably started earlier, after his sister committed suicide.”

  “Wait. He had a sister?”

  Creed lifted his glass to eye level and squinted at the contents as if reading something there. “You surprised he didn’t tell you?”

  “A little.”

  “You never told him about Kate.”

  Lockman picked up where Creed was headed. “Because we weren’t supposed to share personal information.”

  “Now you know why.”

  “Only he knew more about me than I did about him because you had him spying on the team.”

  Creed set his glass aside and finally looked at Lockman. “Our operation was privy to the world’s darkest of secrets. Part of my job was making sure my people could be trusted with that kind of intel.”