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

  “That’s all you had to go on?” Mrs. Berns said skeptically. “After three years? What’s FBI stand for—fully brainless imbeciles?”

  I kept my face smooth, but it wasn’t easy.

  Agent Lee also looked like he was struggling to keep the smile off his face, but Briggs studied Mrs. Berns with eyes that had probably forced life-hardened gangsters to confess. “Our profilers knew that our killer had been a foster kid, and we had just found out that a River Grove woman who ran a daycare had her grandson and granddaughter spend every December with her. The rest of the year, they lived in foster homes. Both the River Grove and White Plains victims attended that River Grove daycare as a child.”

  Tina had called the FBI, I thought, and the FBI had done their work. I owed these people.

  “The foster kids’ grandmother and the owner of the daycare, Ginger Lewis, was a brutal psychopath if there ever was one. Unofficially, of course. None of the charges against her ever stuck, but if one-third of them were true, she was the devil on earth. We’d unearthed the killer’s connection to her and nearly had a name on him when I called you. Only me, my closest people, and the killer knew he had lived in River Grove at that time. When you told me De Luca had shared that nugget with you, I knew he was our man, and you were gonna be his number four.”

  I remembered his doll eyes as he swung the knife at me. “What set him off? Back in Chicago, I mean.”

  Briggs ran a hand through his bristly hair. “As near as we can tell, he started online dating in Chicago three years ago and came across the profile of his sister. Because of things Auntie Ginger had done to both of them, he had very strong feelings against women exposing themselves in public in that way.”

  “He’d prefer we hid?” Mrs. Berns asked.

  Briggs shrugged. “I’m not the killer. I don’t think it was like that for him, though. He seemed to think he was protecting the women from something worse by killing them. Auntie Ginger must have done a number on those kids. We’ll never know for sure, however, as she hung herself a decade ago, though we have reason to believe that De Luca had a hand in that. It might have been his first killing.”

  “How’d he choose his future victims?” I asked.

  “His sister, I already told you about. The other women, with the exception of the two from his daycare, seemed to be random women he found online who had features similar to his sister. With his connections and considering how close to home they’d ended up, it was easy for him to track down the residences and current photos of Natalie Garcia and Lisabeth Hood, as well as a number of other adults who’d attended Auntie Ginger’s as children. After he knew what they looked like and where they lived, he began trolling online dating sites searching for them.”

  “That’s how it starts, I guess, by thinking you know what’s best for someone else and imposing your will on them.” I tried to remember the last time I’d had a pain pill. The stitches in my arm were beginning to throb. “Did he tell you all that? How he chose his victims, and that he wanted to protect us by killing us?”

  Briggs walked to the window. I hadn’t been conscious when he’d shown up at my mom’s house last night. She’d told me that she couldn’t bear to leave me passed out near the killer, and so she’d held me there with Luna, trying to bind my wounds and rouse me so we could go inside to phone for help. She’d heard the sirens before she’d seen them, lonely, howling whoops echoing across the empty country roads. Two police cars and a sedan had shrieked into her driveway, men and women exiting, guns drawn. It was Briggs who had flipped the killer with his foot, studied his face for a moment before performing life-saving CPR and mouth-to-mouth on him.

  A female police officer was the first to reach me. Mom had to restrain Luna so the officer could assess my wounds. She’d finished my mom’s work of staunching the bleeding in my arm while Agent Lee called for an ambulance. I came to shortly after that, but in a distant way. I remember the violent cherry snow cone my blood had made of the landscape. Adam’s blood was mixed in, and the thick metal smell of it amplified by the pristine winter air had made me throw up.

  My mom had cried a lot, holding tight to Luna. They’d bundled Adam into a different ambulance than me, but we’d both ended up at the Paynesville Hospital, a surprisingly large and modern facility. Adam had two armed officers guarding him. I had Mrs. Berns and my mom, neither of whom had left my side.

  “De Luca’s not talking, literally and figuratively,” Briggs said. “You stapled his throat pretty good with your left hook.” He walked over to me and leaned in close, suddenly, fiercely. “I’m proud of you, kiddo. You did what you needed to save yourself. And I owe you one.” He paused as if he was going to say more, then he stood abruptly and looked around the room. “Any other questions? I’ve got work to do.”

  I fumbled at the loose threads in my brain. “Are you really originally from the Midwest?”

  “Des Moines,” he said.

  I filed this away. I had to admit—only to myself—that I’d considered him as a suspect at one point. “Sharpie Trevino was not connected in any way to the case?”

  “Sharpie Trevino is what he appears to be,” Agent Lee offered. “A business owner and traveling salesman, an honest one, without a record.”

  Mrs. Berns shot me a smug look which I brushed off. “Was Lynne Bankowski really working the night Samantha Keller was killed?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I considered the creepy look she’d given me when I left her in the hardware store. “What was she doing in Orelock the day after Samantha was murdered?”

  “She’s a ghoul,” Briggs said, echoing Adam’s word choice. I shivered.

  “Was De Luca really Jewish?” Mrs. Berns asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Is nothing sacred?”

  Agent Lee actually laughed at this. Briggs flipped his card on the table beside my bed. “You know where to find me if you need me,” he said, and he left, his broad back nearly blocking the light shining in through the door.

  “One more thing,” I called after him.

  He stopped, but did not turn.

  “Am I on the FBI watchlist?” It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Mr. Denny, just that I didn’t want to believe Mr. Denny.

  He turned, his face carved from stone. “If you weren’t before, you are now.” Then he made the cough-laugh sound that I realized was how he expressed humor before striding out. Lee followed.

  “They seem nice,” my mom said. She’d been stroking my hair on and off all morning.

  “Can you stop it, Mom?” I said, light annoyance in my voice. It was nervousness. Sometime in the middle of the night, after the painkillers had settled me into a nice, purple buzz, she’d revealed that she’d been dating a guy named Hank for over six months. He was a good man, she’d said, a regular church-goer, retired plumber, a widower with three grown children. His was the apartment I’d seen her slip into the day I’d left the Paynesville newspaper offices. He owned a house in Florida and rented an apartment here where he’d come in the summer to fish and catch up with friends. Once he’d met Mom, he decided to stay year ’round. I also learned he’d been in the hospital waiting room since shortly after we’d arrived. She’d called him while I was getting sutured and he’d come right over in case she needed him. I’d agreed to meet him after the agents left.

  “Sorry,” my mom said. “It’s not every day that I see my daughter get sliced by a serial killer.”

  I laughed against my will. “Was that sarcasm?”

  She put her hands in the air, palms up. “What can I say? We all change.”

  I nodded, chewing on those words. “I’m ready to meet Hank.” I hoped he didn’t resemble my dad. That would have made me sad for some reason I couldn’t name.

  I needn’t have worried. When he entered, a worried expression dominating his face, I realized Hank was the broad-shouldered, salt-and-peppered man with the gold filling whom I’d passed on the stairs in the Relax Inn. He looked nothi
ng like my father, the small, quick Irishman. Hank was actually quite handsome, and solicitous of my mom in a way that warmed me from the inside out. We made slightly awkward small talk for about thirty minutes before the discharge nurse entered. Mom and Hank stood outside to give me some privacy while I got examined.

  “Hank seems decent,” Mrs. Berns said in a suspiciously normal tone. “A little boring, but that’s not a bad thing. For someone like your mom, I mean.”

  I looked away as the nurse changed the bandage on my arm. Some blood had seeped through the mummy wrapping, leaving obscene red patches on the surface that crusted to a deep burgundy on the edges. “I agree.”

  “You know who else is decent?”

  “You?” I asked doubtfully.

  She flicked me in the forehead. “Johnny Leeson. You call him yet?”

  I sighed. Man, had I wanted to call him. Almost as much as I’d wanted to break up with him. He was too good a guy to chain to my roller coaster life.

  “I can read your thought bubbles,” Mrs. Berns said. “They’re pitiful. ‘I’m a dumbass’ only has two ‘m’s, by the way.”

  “What do you think he could do if I called him? Worry? He’s all the way away in Texas.”

  Mrs. Berns crossed her arms. “‘That’s how it starts, I guess, by thinking you know what’s best for someone else and imposing your will on them,’” she said, mimicking what I’d recently told Briggs about Adam.

  “No fair, throwing my words back at me. I’m on prescription painkillers!”

  “Don’t rub it in,” she said. “The rest of us have to make do with liquor and coffee.”

  The nurse finished changing the bandage on my arm. Her movements had been gentle, but the wound still pulsated. It’d be painful to drive. Hell, it was going to hurt to get dressed. “It would be nice to have help,” I said, in a quiet voice.

  She handed me her cell phone. “That’s a girl. I actually called him around 2:00 AM. His plane landed an hour ago, so you should expect to see him soon. I promised him you’d do the no pants dance with him as soon as you’re healed, by the way. If you go another month without screwing that guy, I’m giving up on you.”

  The nurse wore her poker face perfectly. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but you’re good to go. You’ll want to give that arm as much rest as possible. Make an appointment with your regular doctor to get the stitches removed in 7 to 10 days, and call us if the pain in your shoulder or arm gets worse or the stitches start to feel hot or swollen. Here’s a care sheet that outlines what you’ll need to do to keep that wound clean and dressed.”

  I took the sheet and the extra bandages she offered me and let her help me out of bed. I felt a little woozy, but happy to be standing. My shirt had been cut away from me on the scene. I wore the hospital gown top which would have to do for now. And in a move that should only be practiced among the best of friends, I let Mrs. Berns help me into my jeans.

  “Wouldn’t kill you to buy these in your size,” she grunted, yanking them over my hips.

  “I am a size 8!”

  “Maybe your feet. These hips need a little more dancing room.” She buttoned the top clasp and zipped.

  “Thanks. You’re a good friend.” The emotion in my voice surprised us both.

  She cocked her head, studying me. “I guess that makes two of us.”

  Mom and Hank looked up as we walked out the door. Mom beamed at me as if I’d just awoken from a coma. “Here,” she said. “Hank brought you a spare jacket. It’ll be roomy, which is probably best with your arm.”

  “Thanks,” I told him sincerely. “Could you do me one more favor?”

  “Anything,” he said. I liked the concern in his eyes.

  “Could you take Mrs. Berns home and check on my animals? I have something that I want to do with mom before we go back to her house.”

  Everyone shot me a quizzical glance, but to my great relief, no one questioned me.

  Mom and I stepped into the snowy morning, and the whole world looked as if it had been scrubbed and decorated with a clean batch of snow. A couple walked by across the street, pulling two giggling children in a blue plastic sled. It was cold out here, and it felt wonderful, clean, bracing. I sucked in deep lungfuls, trying to scrub myself from the inside out. I let Mom put her arm gently around my waist and guide me to the car. I made sure I was looking away from her face when I told her the destination. I didn’t want to see her expression. I wasn’t ready to cry just yet.

  The cemetery was on the edge of town, a neat little plot of land surrounded by wrought iron fencing and gracious, sleeping oaks. The narrow road through it was freshly plowed. We parked at the chapel and started walking. Natalie’s grave was mounded over the top, so fresh that it didn’t have as much snow as the rest. I set the red roses we had bought at the hospital gift shop on the bed of snow. It constricted my heart to stand at her graveside, but it wasn’t what I was here for. I kept walking until I reached my dad’s gravestone. It was plain gray quartz. Mark Daniel James, it said, deep grooves etching the years he’d been alive. I hadn’t seen it since we’d buried him.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said, my voice cracking. My mom stood directly behind me, and I could hear the warm sounds of her tears. “Sorry I haven’t visited.”

  I thought of what I’d written on the scrap of paper I’d handed Jules, the feelings or memories or mistakes I wanted to burn so I could start the year fresh. I’d scrawled one word: FEAR.

  “I guess I just stopped by to say that I could use you around, you know? I miss you.”

  The hot tears flooded my face, a decade’s worth of wet, scared, hiding. Hiding from my past and hiding from the good things life offered me because I’d been afraid I didn’t deserve them. I’d been wrong, all that time.

  Epilogue

  It’s scary to finally bury your dead; you get so used to carrying them around that you don’t know who you’d be without them. I’m proud to say that I sent a lot of ghosts to rest that Christmas in Paynesville, fears and warped memories that I’d been carrying around for more than a decade. I even let my mom hold me as we both cried next to my dad’s gravesite. Later, I walked toward my new life, feeling bruised and strong.

  Mrs. Berns invited Sharpie over that night, and with Johnny there, we had a comfortable evening of quiet laughter, everyone holding those they loved a little tighter. Johnny was lean and gorgeous, tanned from his trip to Texas, and smelling masculine and clean. He was solicitous, not smothering me but making sure I was as comfortable as possible. Over champagne for those not on painkillers, Sharpie shared the good news that he had just cut a deal to build his new factory in Fargo. I immediately gave him Kent’s contact information, and Sharpie said he’d be thrilled to hire an experienced foreman to work for him. Hank and my mom held hands all night, sneaking glances into each other’s eyes and sharing those looks so personal they would have made me blush if she didn’t seem so happy.

  Later that night, when Sharpie and Hank had left, and Johnny was sleeping on the couch and mom and Mrs. Berns were in their beds, I tiptoed downstairs. I couldn’t sleep. I was too tired, my mind racing, my arm aching. Johnny was awake, too. I took him by the hand and led him back to my childhood bed. His eyes were questioning, hopeful, tender. I touched his cheek. He brushed his lips against mine. The spark was instant and hot. Trembling, I kissed him, feeling the hardness of his body pressed against mine.

  His strong hands glided over my body, but I felt him holding back, taut with passion yet worried about hurting me. Finally, he laid me gently on the bed and undressed me, never taking his eyes from mine. Then he unbuttoned his flannel and pulled off his white T-shirt, revealing his muscled chest. Next came his button-fly Levi’s, then his plain blue boxers. He stood over me, naked, the most glorious, sculpted picture of desire I’d ever laid eyes on. His shoulders were broad, his hips lean, his stare hungry. I smiled. I couldn’t help it. This was really going to happen, and under the watchful stares of Jimmy Page and Kevin Bacon no less.

  “
Are you sure?” he asked. A muscle twitched in his chest.

  By way of an answer, I tugged him on top of me, whimpering only slightly when I had to adjust my arm. He smelled like cinnamon and love. He kissed my face, my neck, my body, whispering the sweetest promises. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I pulled his face to mine and whispered yes. I felt rather than saw his smile, moving slowly across his face and then down the length of him.

  Except for my stitches and my mom sleeping downstairs, it was honestly as I’d always imagined it: love, rockets, and bliss. He held me in his arms afterward, and we talked in giggling whispers until the sun rose, despite my exhaustion. I finally drifted off in mid-sentence, the morning light streaming through my curtain. I remember falling asleep with a smile on my face, thinking about all our plans for our life in Battle Lake.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jess Lourey spent her formative years in Paynesville, Minnesota, a small town not unlike the Murder-by-Month series’ Battle Lake. She teaches English and sociology full time at a two-year college. When not raising her wonderful kids, teaching, or writing, you can find her gardening and navigating the niceties and meanities of small-town life. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Loft, and Lake Superior Writers.

  Author photo by Jane Bailey Photography, Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Information

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one