December Dread (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) Read online

  “Not since you left,” she said. She cut the cards and shuffled them with a whirring snap. “But don’t worry. I’ve still got some tricks up my sleeve.”

  She won the first round. I won the second. We were on our rubber match when I ran up to the question I’d been too scared to ask and threw it at her before I could change my mind. “Do you really miss Dad?”

  A deep furrow appeared between her eyes. She rearranged her cards, and then rearranged them all back. “Every day.”

  “Even after what he did to us?”

  She set her cards on the table and looked at me with her clear blue eyes. I was startled at the number of wrinkles around them. She looked closer in age to Mrs. Berns than to me. When had this happened? “Your dad made mistakes. He also loved us. Do you remember the October weekend he packed you and me up in the Chevy Caprice station wagon and drove us to South Dakota? I think you were in fourth grade, and you’d come home crying because you had to write a report on Mount Rushmore and didn’t know what to say. We toured the whole park, and he spent the money he’d been saving for a motorcycle to pay for the motel and gas.” Her eyes had a faraway look. “You earned an ‘A’ on that report.”

  I dug a little and remembered that trip, though faintly. “Why’d he drink so much?”

  She sighed. “His dad taught him that. He also beat him every day of his life, until your dad ran away from home and joined the army as soon as he was old enough. I consider it a great achievement that he never raised a hand to either of us. He loved you completely, honey. For that, I will always love him, and I’ll always miss him.”

  I knew he’d had a tough childhood. I’d heard bits of it all through mine. I still didn’t understand why he chose to drink so much when his life finally got good. I shuffled my cards.

  “There’s something else I need to tell you, sweetheart. Something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for a while now.”

  Her voice was laden with regret and an odd note of excitement. The combination made me uncomfortable. I was grateful when the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” I said, hopping up.

  Luna followed me to the phone in the kitchen, her bone in her mouth.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Hello. I’m looking for Miranda James.”

  “Speaking.”

  There was silence on the other end for a moment. “This is Agent Briggs. We need to talk.”

  Forty-five

  His voice had an urgency that chilled my skin. “What is it?”

  He sighed on the other end, followed by a shuffling of papers. The faint whisking noise echoed oddly, as if he was in a large empty space. “You heard that they got the wrong guy in Agate City.”

  It wasn’t phrased as a question, so I continued to hold my breath.

  “You’re not making this easy on me, are you?” The background noise ceased. “I’m sorry I came down on you so hard in Orelock. You were in my way, no doubt about it, but this case has gotten under my skin and I overreacted. I don’t even know who I am some days.”

  The odd familiarity of the exchange was unsettling. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Hey, Merry Christmas to you, too.” He either chuckled or coughed. “Here it is. De Luca told me about the Greg/Craig guy you found online, and I need to hear everything you’ve got on that. Everything.”

  “What’d Adam tell you?”

  That chuckle-cough again. “Just like you did in River Grove, you posed online in Orelock as a woman whose physicals met the killer’s MO. You did a backward search as if you were that woman looking for a man in the area. In both towns, you came across a profile of a man without a photo, with different handles and physicals, but with a similar phrase used in both profiles, something about sheep shaking their tails.”

  “That’s right. That’s the meat of what I know.” I’d wanted him to hear the information and to take it seriously. I hadn’t expected him to call me. Mr. Denny’s words hammered in my head: Don’t let a position fool you!

  “You sure? This is important.”

  I teetered on a line so thin it was a shadow. Something in the light camaraderie of his voice was all wrong. I was also hyper-aware that he wasn’t my biggest fan, and that he seemed the type to shoot the messenger. In the end, though, the possibility that he really was the good guy and close to catching the killer forced my hand. “I know that the Candy Cane Killer lived in River Grove when he was younger.”

  The silence on the other end was so profound that it was almost a vacuum.

  “Hello?”

  “Who told you that?” His voice was deep, as dangerous as an iceberg scraping the underside of a boat.

  I didn’t want to get Adam in trouble or compel him to reveal his sources. I also couldn’t sit on information that might help this case, and if what Adam said was true and Briggs didn’t know it, he needed to. “Adam. He didn’t tell me his source.”

  A crackle of a walkie talkie shocked its way through the line. On the other end, Briggs’ voice had gone from dangerous to urgent. “You’re there with your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lock your doors, stay away from the windows, and don’t let anyone in. I can be there in 20 minutes.”

  He was barking into his walkie talkie as he slammed down his end of the phone. I hung up mine, my body light with fear. It was the exposed terror of a lightning-slashed nightmare, the kind where you wake drenched in sweat and paralyzed with fear as all the terrors of the night shamble toward you and you are too scared to call for help. Only I very much needed to find my voice and get my mom’s attention so we could escape. It had all clicked into place, right there on the phone. I finally knew who the killer was, so help me, and we needed to escape before he arrived.

  Forty-six

  “Mom?” It came out as an empty husk of a sound. “Mom.” A whisper. It was no good. I’d have to force my legs to carry me to her. Outside the kitchen window, the yard light reflected a tiny plate of light off of each snowflake. They swirled in a dancing confusion, miniature searchlights fighting a black night. Against all predictions, a Christmas storm was descending. I could see nothing beyond the hill that hid the road. Black trees rimmed the house, remnants of a windbreak planted when this had been a working farm. Their branches moved in the blustery weather like skeleton fingers and their trunks hid and manipulated shadows. The nearest neighbor was over a mile away.

  Luna nuzzled my hand. I glanced down. She was looking at me with a fierceness that I hadn’t witnessed before. She was by my side, and she wasn’t going to leave me. Her faith spurred me to action. I shuffled forward, into the dining room. Mom had taken up her knitting while I was on the phone. She set it down when my shadow spilled into the room.

  “I hope you’re prepared to lose the Christmas rubber match!” she said. The happy expression fell off her face and clattered to the ground when she caught sight of me. “What’s wrong? Is it Mrs. Berns?”

  “We have to get out of this house right away. We need to take your van. Don’t ask questions.” My tone was mechanical.

  My mom stood and crossed the room, her hands on my shoulders. “No. You’re going to tell me what’s going on. Finally.” Her voice was firm.

  Oddly, I gained a mote of strength from her command. “I know who the serial killer is, and he’s on his way.”

  Her eyes widened, but she chose action over words. She ran to the kitchen to grab her purse, searching for her keys. I followed, my brain racing. How much time had I spent with the killer, how much information had I given him, not even suspecting? The hints to his identity were little things, certainly, but little things that when added up were overwhelming. Who else was at the scene of every murder? Who overheard me hearing the story of the orange begonias at the funeral home before threatening me off the case with an orange begonia shipped to the Battle Lake Recall? Who’d specifically called me here when I’d asked him to call me at the hotel or on Mrs. Berns’ cell, indicating he was tracking my whereabouts? Who else could travel near the m
urders without causing suspicion? Who’d said to me only hours before, “a leopard can’t change his spots,” a phrase almost as clunky and dated as “two shakes of a sheep’s tail?” And finally, who’d told me a piece of information so rare, so intimate, that only the killer and possibly the FBI agent who was about to capture him would know?

  Don’t let a position fool you.

  Adam De Luca was the Candy Cane Killer.

  Dammit. I’d allowed myself to be so intimidated by Briggs’ judgment that I hadn’t told him information I should have been feeding him all along, regardless of how unprofessionally he’d behaved. Adam really was unraveling, everything about his appearance at the gas station today had revealed that, but I was certain he wasn’t going to quit until he’d murdered his fourth victim. The fact that he had told me the secret about the killer-who-was-Adam growing up in River Grove made clear that he didn’t intend for me to live long enough to reveal it to anyone else, and that he was banking on my fear of Briggs and my ability to sit on secrets.

  Briggs was gambling that he could beat De Luca here. I had more on the table than Briggs. Mom, the animals, and I were getting out of here immediately. Only Tiger Pop wasn’t answering my call. Mom had her keys in hand. Luna was sticking close to me.

  “Leave Tiger Pop,” my mom said.

  I shifted my scared eyes to her. She also looked frightened, but resolute.

  “He’s a cat,” she said. “He’ll be fine. We’ll come back for him tomorrow. Come on, honey.”

  She was right, but I called out for Tiger Pop once more. No answer.

  “Grab a knife,” I said as we made our way to the garage. She slid a chef’s knife out of the block without slowing her forward movement. I wanted to keep my hands free. Master Andrea had made it clear in the self-defense class that any weapon you hold can be used against you, so don’t grab it unless you know how to wield it or have no other defense. I figured the latter described my mom.

  The attached garage was cold but flipping on the single overhead bulb revealed that it was also nearly as clean as my mom’s house. The lack of clutter and shadows was a relief. If we could just all get in the van and get the windows and doors locked, we were safe, even if we had to crash the car through the garage wall to escape. Outside, the wind howled.

  “Hurry,” I told my mom.

  She slipped into the driver’s side. I opened the side door to let Luna in, and closed it.

  That’s when the lights went out.

  Forty-seven

  My breath escaped in a huff, as if I’d been punched in the stomach. The immediate drop from brightness to dark was blinding. I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust, and slammed my back to the van. I heard only a silence so absolute it was like death.

  My mom opened her door. “Mira?”

  “Close it, Mom. Close it, lock it, start the car.” I had my fingers curled under the icy metal of the side door handle when the shadows shifted in front of me. A crushing blow followed, numbing the arm that was holding the door handle. Strong hands caught me by the hair as I fell toward the ground.

  Time and sound slowed. I tried to remember the name Mr. Denny had given this sensation, but then that thought slipped away like an eel. I heard Luna raging and thrashing against the door of the van. My mom was yelling, but it seemed very far away, each wave of sound splitting and arcing around me. A tiny filter of snow-spangled moonlight slipped through the cracks of the garage, allowing me to make out shapes. Dark. Hulking. Raging. The smell of cinnamon chewing gum. I shot a hand in the air, hoping to connect with flesh, but it glanced off my captor. I twisted, and a big chunk of hair was ripped from my head.

  I could hold only one thought: draw him away from my mom.

  I stood and charged through the door that led from the garage to the mud room. I hesitated for only a moment. I knew I shouldn’t enter the house. I’d be trapped. Ripping open the outside door, I charged into the night. The ground was icy, and I fell to my knees. Loud breathing tore through the air, slow and distant but somehow echoing like a hammer pound in my head. Was it his? Mine?

  I struggled to my feet and charged across the snow, but he was faster. He hit me from behind. We rolled to the ground, his arms squeezing me like a constrictor. I couldn’t draw a breath. I felt the paralysis settling onto me just like it had at the gym. Why fight? It would be over quicker if I just let it happen, and this grinding terror could finally end. He had already murdered eleven women, one of them his own sister. I was no better than them, no smarter, no quicker. I wasn’t going to get away. I thought of my mom, and Mrs. Berns, and it made me sad that I’d be leaving them. My vision blurred, and then narrowed, and I felt almost sleepy.

  And then, from deep in my gut, I yelled.

  I didn’t scream for anyone, or out of fear. I yelled because it hurt, and I was suddenly angry, and it turned out I did want to fight after all. The noise reset time and sound. My head flew back, and the rear of it cracked him on the nose. He swore and loosened his grip for a moment. That’s all I needed to pull away. I twisted and connected again with his now-bloody face, with my forehead this time. He recoiled from the force of the head butt and kicked at me, grazing my wounded shoulder. We both stumbled to our feet. Greedy flakes of snow swirled around our bodies and stuck.

  I was facing him now, within arm’s reach. Our chests heaved in ragged, tearing breaths. His face was an evil slate of blankness, the only life in it the blood coursing down from his cracked nose. His eyes were vacant, shifting glass. He looked not like Adam but like someone wearing an Adam mask. Metal glinted in his hand.

  I swung, and my punch went wild. Momentum pulled me toward him, and he stabbed as I fell, grunting with the force of it. My unexpected shift robbed the knife of its target. The blade burned through my coat and the flesh of my upper arm instead. He must have thought I’d taken the cut in a vital area, because he let down his guard for a split second. Catching myself before I hit the ground, I used the technique I’d learned in self-defense class to make a rock out of my left hand. I repositioned my weight and stood, hurtling my fist toward his throat, a bullet from a gun. It connected. He made a noise like an air mattress popping, and then fell to his knees. Drops of blood from his broken nose startled the snow around him.

  My attention was drawn by a brutal growl from the direction of the garage. Luna, a raging wolf creature, appeared in the doorway held open by my mom. She charged in a four-legged blur. The force of her pushed Adam from his knees to his back, and she stood on him, her weight pinning him as he tried helplessly to reach his crushed throat.

  The world became suddenly loud, a roaring wave of finally freed sound crashing around my ears: my searing, sharp breaths, my mom crying, Luna’s feral growls terrifying even to me. After amplified sound came pain. My right arm throbbed, and the coldness I felt washing over my hand was my own blood gushing from my arm. Exhaustion, empty desperate tiredness, followed the pain.

  I wanted it to be all over. I wanted someone to rush in and drag the bad guy away, tell my mom it was all going to be okay, and get me to a hospital. But that wasn’t going to happen. Nobody was going to do that for me.

  “I need rope, Mom.” My voice was hoarse. I may have been yelling the whole time of the attack.

  She stood in the doorway for a moment with her hand clutched around the knife, the whites of her eyes as big as eggs. Her mouth kept opening and closing. Luna snapped at Adam’s face, and the slicing click of her teeth woke my mom from her shock. She disappeared into the garage and came out with a circle of clothesline.

  I took it in my left hand. “It’s okay, Mom.” My voice sounded unfamiliar.

  My arm was stiff, my hands beginning to claw from the cold. I rejected the pain, begging Luna off Adam. She moved but kept her snout to his head, her teeth bared, a low rattlesnake noise in her throat. I rolled Adam onto his stomach. He was still scrabbling for his throat, but his movements were weakening. I knew I’d probably crushed his trachea and that he might be dying. I wasn’t willing to risk
my mom’s or Luna’s life to save him. I tied his wrists behind his back, and then I passed out.

  Forty-eight

  Wednesday, December 26

  “How long had you known he was targeting women through online dating?”

  “Since the third murder,” Briggs said affably. “We’re the FBI. Unfortunately, millions of people are dating online. De Luca struck four times in Chicago and was gone. By the time we figured out it was the same guy in Wisconsin last December, we only had two weeks to capture him, then he stopped killing. We were quicker in Minnesota. As soon as he struck in White Plains, we were there. Our specialists were running phrase recognition software on all online ads and came up with the ‘two shakes of a sheep’s tail’ connection about as soon as you did. It was the only slip up De Luca had.”

  I shifted in the hospital bed. “That English degree finally paid off.” The statement was meant to be ironic. I had a dislocated shoulder, and in the same arm, 15 ugly stitches holding two sides of my brachium together. The left side of my face was swollen and as bruised as a dropped apple. My pain level would probably be a 12 on a scale of 10 if not for the delicious Vicodin they’d been feeding me. As it was, I felt like I’d been hit by a motorcycle rather than a bus.

  Briggs grunted. He and his partner were paying me a courtesy by being here, and he’d made sure I knew that. He also carried himself like a chained man set free. Three years on this case, and the murderer had been caught. He could go home to his family.