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

  “Damn. He must have ate good.”

  Jessie twisted in her seat to face Lockman. “Ate good?”

  He sat forward and dropped his guns to the car floor. “Ammo’s out. Time for me to drive.” He lifted her over his lap as if she weighed nothing, then slid behind the wheel and set her in his place in the passenger seat. He turned the key, got the engine started. “Say what you want about foreign cars.” He peeled out just as the man in black reached the intersection.

  Jessie turned to look out the back in time to see the man raise his machine gun and start firing at them.

  Chapter Six

  “Hi. I’m Kate Cohen. Jessie’s mom.” She held her hand out to shake with the woman who had answered the door.

  The woman looked down at Kate’s offered hand as if it held canned botulism. “I’m sorry, who?”

  “Jessie. Ryan’s girlfriend?”

  The woman’s lip curled. It did not flatter her one bit with all the wrinkles around her lips from what had to be a life-long nicotine habit. Not to mention the stench of smoke that had wafted out when the woman first opened the door. The inside of the house smelled like a bowling alley.

  “Ryan ain’t got a girlfriend.”

  Oh, nice. “Well, I have met him. He’s been to our house many times.”

  The woman shook her head. “Nope. Not my Ryan.”

  Kate forced a smile. Looked like her daughter had about as much taste in men as Kate had when she was younger. Of course, she never had anything close to a boyfriend until high school. She had not been at all pleased with the label when Jessie first used it to introduce Ryan Whitaker. But the boy had seemed nice enough, and Kate made sure they were in sight whenever he came to the house. If they did any making out, they would have to do it somewhere else.

  “Can I see him?”

  “Ryan? What for?”

  “I’m looking for my daughter. I thought he might know where she was off to.”

  “She ain’t here.”

  “Please, Mrs. Whitaker. I only want a few minutes.”

  Her curled lip twisted to a thoughtful frown. She shrugged. “Whatever.” She stepped aside and let Kate in. The stench grew twice as thick once over the threshold. She tried to stop herself from coughing and made an even worse gagging sound.

  Mrs. Whitaker eyed her wearily. Then she screamed, “Ryan.”

  Kate started.

  From down a nearby hall came a muffled response. “What?”

  “Someone here to see you.” Her shrill voice sounded like it could shatter the glass to a nearby display case featuring a collection of ceramic dolphins. Dolphins and a bowling trophy, complete with golden figure wielding a bowling ball ready to launch down the alley.

  “Nice house,” Kate said and tried to hang onto her smile.

  The woman grunted as if calling out Kate on her false compliment.

  They stood in the living room under one of the more awkward silences of Kate’s life. When Ryan finally came out, Kate almost gasped with relief. His hair was tousled as if he’d just rolled out of bed. He looked bleary-eyed at Kate and his jaw dropped.

  “Hi, Ryan. I’m glad to finally meet your mother.”

  Mrs. Whitaker gave her son that same botulism look she’d given Kate at the door. “You going out with her daughter?”

  Ryan ducked his head, shrugged.

  “You fucking her?”

  Kate started for the second time.

  “Mom, come on,” Ryan whined. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Well, are ya?”

  “No.”

  The answer didn’t seem to relieve Mrs. Whitaker. And now that the subject was out there, Kate had to admit she wasn’t too sure herself. She couldn’t watch her daughter at all times. Why did they feel the need to hide their relationship from Ryan’s mother? Did Mrs. Whitaker know something that gave her reason to suspect they were…? Kate squeezed the thought out of her mind. She hadn’t come here to find out about Jessie’s sex life. Not that she wouldn’t file this conversation away for a later date, once Jessie was back home safe and grounded for life.

  “Look, Ryan. Jess didn’t come home last night. I was hoping you might have an idea where she is.”

  He shrugged again, his gaze still aimed at the floor.

  Mrs. Whitaker slapped him upside the head. “You look at the lady when she talks to you.”

  Ryan scowled, but he lifted his gaze to meet Kate’s. “I don’t know.”

  He said it with a straight enough face. Still, something tingled at the back of Kate’s neck. Call it Mother’s Intuition. She sometimes referred to it as her spider sense. Basically, it boiled down to knowing your kid well enough to know when they were lying. And sometimes that skill translated to her friends.

  “Are you sure?” Kate asked.

  “I haven’t seen her, sorry.”

  Hands on her hips, Mrs. Whitaker turned to Kate. “You want me to search his room?”

  “For what?”

  “Condoms.”

  “No. That isn’t necessary. I…” How could she put this? “Ryan, I know Jess shares a lot with you. You two might think I don’t have a clue, but I know you care about her as much as she cares about you.”

  “Oh, miss, I think you’re giving my boy too much credit,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “He’s a good kid and all, but he’s a dog like his father was, too. A dog who doesn’t know when to keep it in his pants.”

  Kate tried to ignore the queasy feeling growing in her stomach. “You really have no idea? Maybe a friend’s house? Someone I haven’t met?”

  His eyes shifted back and forth. He obviously wanted to look away. Which just bolstered Kate’s suspicion he wasn’t telling the truth.

  Mrs. Whitaker made a disgusted huff and marched down the hall Ryan had come out of. “I’m checking for condoms.”

  Ryan whirled around. “Mom, no. There isn’t any…” He threw up his hands and turned back to Kate. “We aren’t having sex. My mom thinks I’m having sex with everyone ever since dad left. I was ten when he left. She’s a little messed up in the head.”

  Kate didn’t know what to say to that. The kid really shouldn’t talk about his mother like that, but he wasn’t exactly exaggerating either. “Where is she, Ryan?”

  He scratched the back of his mussed scalp. He made a low, hesitant sound.

  “Please, tell me. I promise not to say how I found her.”

  “That won’t matter. She’ll know anyway. Besides, I’m not sure you can find her.”

  A cold wave rolled over her skin. She didn’t like the sound of that one bit. She grabbed Ryan by the shoulders and shook gently until he looked her in the eye. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know the details. She wouldn’t tell me. Probably because she knew you’d ask me and knew I wouldn’t be able to lie about it.”

  “Tell me what you do know.”

  “Something she hinted about a lot lately. This crazy plan she had cooked up about… Look, she’s going to come back. She promised me she would.”

  Kate wanted to shake him again, a lot harder, shake the answer right out of him. The flash of temper made her cheeks flush. She released Ryan’s shoulders in case her anger got the better of her. Deep breath. “Where did she go, Ryan?”

  He sighed, hung his head. “She said she knew where to find her dad. She said she was going to meet her real father.”

  Craig? She’d found Craig?

  Impossible.

  Wasn’t it?

  Chapter Seven

  Lockman shoved the girl’s head down as the first burst of machine-gun fire struck the back of the vehicle. “Stay low and don’t get up until I tell you to.”

  “How can he be alive? How is that even possible?”

  He shook his head and jammed the gas pedal to the floor. “You don’t want to know.”

  She started to say something else, but another group of rounds snapped and zipped through the car. The windshield cracked into several web patterns. Lockman hunched in his seat to make
himself as small a target as possible. The last of their group had obviously given up trying to take Lockman alive. Now the vamp just wanted to get even.

  Lockman checked the rearview, saw the vamp running and gunning. It would slow him down and make his shooting inaccurate, vamp or not. The beast had given over to his lesser instincts. That was the problem with hiring supernaturals to do a mortal’s job. Apparently Dolan still hadn’t figured that out.

  The girl mumbled something that sounded like a chant or prayer. He tried to make out words and missed them under more gunfire. Had she snapped? He’d seen people go crazy after learning monsters really did exist. He needed to get her somewhere safe, talk her down, then get her back to where she belonged—in a normal life where the supernatural seldom thrashed its forked tail.

  Lockman sped toward the next intersection, weary of driving so fast in a suburban area. They would have to get to a highway if they wanted to avoid heat from either more of Dolan’s men or law enforcement. He shook his head at the thought of those poor cops the vamps had eaten. That would be a hell of a thing to clean and cover. Dolan had grown even bolder with public displays of supernatural power. That did not bode well for homeland security. The Agency had its work cut out for them on this one.

  What did he care? They’d decommissioned him. Wasn’t his job to worry about that sort of thing anymore.

  Just get the girl safe and get relocated. Let the Agency worry about the rest.

  He cranked the parking brake and sent the back end of the car swinging around just as they entered the intersection. He slammed the brake handle back home and gassed the engine, speeding down the new street. He would work his way north to the San Bernardino Freeway. From there, he could shoot straight east until he met up with the I-15. Then they could make their way north to Vegas. He knew a safe house there connected with the Agency. But first they had to find a fresh set of wheels. They wouldn’t get far in a bullet-ridden Honda.

  He just hoped, after fifteen years, the safe house was still active.

  Lockman checked on the vamp, saw it come around the corner where they had turned. It had abandoned its weapon, probably empty. With its hands free, it went down on all fours. Its back bent. Its spine became a hard ridge almost like a fin from neck to tailbone. Its back legs also changed, knees hinged more like a dog. This new form allowed the vamp to travel even faster.

  He looked over at the girl, hunched with her head between her knees, still muttering something. This time he could pick out some words. “Matrix…Gladiator…Schindler…Gump.”

  “Hey. What are you saying? Snap out of it.”

  She turned her head, looking at him through her smeared make-up. “Movie titles. When I get nervous, I just start naming off movies.”

  Distracted by her explanation, Lockman didn’t notice the vamp had caught up until it leapt onto the back of the car and ripped away what remained of the safety glass in the window.

  The girl started to lift her head. Lockman pushed her back down. “Don’t look.”

  He gunned the engine, but the Honda had already given him all it could. Behind him, the vamp clawed its way into the back seat. Lockman tried to swerve hard, shake it loose, but vamp made it inside.

  Doing fifty on a road marked for thirty made it near impossible for Craig to react as the vamp grabbed at his neck and squeezed.

  The girl screamed.

  The vampire leaned forward, its cold breath touching the side of Lockman’s neck. Blood frenzy. The thing had lost complete track of any mission. All it wanted now was to feed.

  “Hang on,” he shouted, hoping the girl had enough presence of mind to do what he said. He smelled iron and flesh on the vamp’s breath, probably from one of the cops. In real life, a vampire’s bite was anything but sexy. They sunk their fangs in and tore a chunk out of you before drinking from the gaping hole in your neck.

  Lockman wrenched the wheel to the right and floored the gas, a second later smashing into yet another parked car.

  The vamp sailed over the seatback and straight through the windshield. Its limbs flopped and snapped as its body rolled off the hood and somersaulted over the top of the car they’d crashed into.

  Lockman himself thumped into the billowing airbag. Despite the cushion, the wind rushed out of his lungs and left him gasping a moment.

  The girl had thankfully buckled her seatbelt and hung onto the shoulder strap as if it were a lifeline. Her face had gone pale and her expression frozen in horror. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  When Lockman regained his breath, he asked. “Are you okay?”

  She trembled. Her knuckles turned white where she strangled the seatbelt across her chest.

  Lockman touched her elbow. “Are you still with me?”

  Her mouth moved, lips forming silent words. Then her voice picked up. “White Christmas. Kramer Versus Kramer. The Godfather. Private Benjamin. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Her gaze floated away from him while she continued to rattle off what sounded like secret code. Then she went quiet, gasped.

  Lockman followed the direction of her gaze. The vamp stood on the hood of the car they’d hit. The beast cocked its head to one side as if studying the girl. The mouth-less ski mask made the stare all the more disturbing.

  Lockman looked around for some kind of weapon. He could go hand-to-hand with a vamp and maybe hold his own—at least in the old days—but only if the vamp hadn’t fed in a while. This one had just fed. But it also had a few silver rounds in it, had changed form, run after a speeding car, and been thrown from a crash. It had to be a little worn out by now. Besides, Lockman didn’t have much choice. Fight or die.

  He snapped off his seatbelt and climbed out of the car. He waved his hands over his head. “Hey, over here. You want to eat something more filling than that scrawny girl.”

  The vamp afforded Lockman a glance, but its focus returned to the girl.

  The girl whimpered. “I really don’t like the way he’s looking at me.”

  “Hey,” Lockman shouted. He hefted himself up onto the hood of his Honda and stood between the vamp and the girl. He felt a warm trickle by his ear. He wiped his fingers through it, saw the blood.

  The vamp’s head turned slightly. It was hard to tell with the wraparound sunglasses, but Lockman thought he had the creature’s full attention now. For good measure he held out his bloody fingertips.

  “Smell that?” He grinned. “Come get some.”

  The vamp leapt at him too fast for Lockman to dodge. Instead he moved with the impact, using the energy of momentum to throw the vamp off of him and onto the Honda’s roof. He followed up with a hand chop meant for the vamp’s throat.

  The vamp rolled off the car, avoiding the strike.

  “Hey,” the girl called.

  “Stay in the car,” Lockman said and dove off the hood onto the vampire.

  The vamp caught Lockman around the waist and tossed him to the ground. Then the beast was on top of him, pinning his arms with its knees. Lockman kicked and thrashed, but he couldn’t shake the vamp off. Stupid to think he could take on this powerful creature. He’d only lasted a matter of seconds. Now he and a girl he was almost certain was his daughter were about to die horribly.

  “Hey, you.”

  The voice came from behind the vamp, and it turned to look. Lockman saw the glint of sunlight off the silver cross.

  The vamp screamed and leapt off of Lockman. It scampered away on all fours for a handful of yards before turning back.

  The girl stepped forward and jabbed the cross in the vamp’s direction. She trembled like a branch in a windstorm, but held her ground.

  Lockman was impressed.

  The vamp howled, its voice almost in tune with the approaching sirens. It gave Lockman a long stare, then turned and ran off on all fours like a frightened cat.

  The girl dropped to her knees. “Oh my God, it worked. Was that really a—”

  “Yes.” Lock
man stood and helped the girl back to her feet. “Nice job there. I owe you my life.”

  “I’d say we’re about even.”

  The sirens grew in intensity. More than just a couple squad cars on the way. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Why? Sounds like the police are almost here. We’re safe.”

  Lockman snorted. “You want to explain to them what just happened?”

  “Well, no, but…” She gave him a helpless look, her face a mess of tears and smeared make-up.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jessie.”

  “Hi, Jessie. I’m Craig. Craig Lockman.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  Chapter Eight

  Otto Dolan stared at the screen on his Smartphone and the single line text message stared back at him.

  Contact with tactical unit lost.

  He realized he was squeezing the phone only after the screen cracked. The display flickered and went black. It took all of his self-control to keep from throwing the device across the room.

  That wouldn’t do, of course, in current company.

  Detroit Mayor Colson Wills set his forkful of linguini and clam sauce on his plate and inquired, “Is everything all right?”

  Dolan smiled. “Of course.” He slipped the dead phone into his suit coat pocket and folded his hands on the table. Before him sat a half empty glass of water, room temperature, no ice. Despite the Mayor’s insistence that everything on the menu was exquisite, Dolan had no taste for Italian cuisine. Too many carbohydrates and cream sauce made for a flabby belly. Anyway, he’d come to negotiate, not eat.

  “Mr. Mayor,” Dolan said and took a sip of water for dramatic effect. “We need to come to some sort of understanding soon, or our window of opportunity will close.”