Fatal Mercy by Dan Padavona (freenovel24 .TXT) 📗

yelp escaping her throat as she turned in a circle. She was lost. As crazy as that seemed, she had no idea where she was in the cemetery.

Then she spotted his headstone. It stood fifteen feet away, nestled amid flower arrangements. Grief rushed at her, and she dropped to her knees and cried into her hands, her forehead leaning against the headstone, as if Lincoln, himself, supported Kay in her time of need. Her face reflected in the polished stone and looked cruelly aged.

“I can’t do this without you,” she cried. “Nobody told us it would be this hard.”

In Kay’s head, his comforting voice spoke to her. She was strong, and their family needed her.

As she curled beside his grave, not caring if she fell asleep and the caretaker found her in the morning, she glanced at the empty plot beside his. This would be Kay’s someday.

The moon shone a spotlight upon her. This was the first time she’d experienced true comfort since the night the ambulance took Lincoln away. She closed her eyes and hummed as she did when Ambrose was sick as a child, and Lincoln sat beside her on their daughter’s bed. The night sounds grew feint and blended with her own breathing until she didn’t hear them anymore.

She imagined Lincoln whispering in her ear. Telling her not to fear death. That they’d be united soon.

Only it wasn’t Lincoln’s voice.

Her eyes snapped open to the dark. Heart thundered inside her chest. She grasped hold of Lincoln’s headstone and dragged herself to her feet. The moon was wrong. Its location in the sky seemed too low, the glow almost to the tree line. And something hid inside the dark.

“Is someone there?”

Her eyes swept the grounds as footsteps skittered among the trees.

Kay placed a hand over her heart and realized she didn’t want to die. A tree branch snapped. Then a shoe crunched brittle grass. The noises came from all directions, the sounds echoing through the graveyard as she held a defensive hand in front of her. She remembered the phone inside her pocket and pulled it out, fingers trembling and stumbling over the keypad. Before she could call the police, a figure emerged from the shadows. It slithered from stone to stone. A wraith come to life, intent on dragging her into a shallow grave.

“Don’t cry, Kay. It will all be over soon.”

That voice. She recognized it from somewhere.

Kay punched in the last number for the sheriff’s department when the killer strode into the clearing. The phone rang. A man answered on the other end before she dropped the phone.

“Not you,” she said in disbelief as the knife glistened in the moonlight.

She stood quivering, her feet cemented to the ground, as the killer approached.

“I’m sorry for what I did to your husband. But he no longer suffers, and you don’t have to suffer, either.”

The knife slashed across Kay’s throat as she plunged into the dark. The night was forever, and its depths were black and endless.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Saturday, July 18th

11:55 p.m.

 

Five minutes until midnight.

Thomas sat beside Aguilar in the cruiser, thinking about his F-150 in the Nightshade County Sheriff’s Department parking lot and how tired he was. He wanted nothing more than to curl up under the covers with Jack lying at the foot of the bed.

The lights were off inside Carl Middleton’s cardinal-red ranch house. The pickup that almost ran Thomas off the road, parked in the driveway and collected moths. The moon fell behind the tall pines, darkening the neighborhood, and a dog barked down the road. Headlights flashed at the end of the block as a car turned down a side street.

“How many people murder their best friends and sleep soundly?”

Aguilar glanced across the car.

“I bet Jeremy Hyde slept well after he murdered Erika Windrow.”

“You’re probably right,” Thomas said, shifting in the passenger seat, unable to get comfortable.

They’d surveyed the house for fifteen minutes. No lights shone inside the house. It was dead quiet.

“Let’s wake him up,” Thomas said, checking his weapon.

Their shoes scratched along the cement walkway to Middleton’s front stoop. A wilted flower leaned in the corner, and the mailbox regurgitated bills and catalogs. Were it not for the Middleton Construction truck in the driveway, Thomas would have guessed Middleton fled Wolf Lake days ago. Aguilar radioed their position to dispatch as Thomas pressed the buzzer. Thirty seconds later, he jammed his thumb against the button again, listening as the bell rang through the house. A light flashed in the bedroom. Aguilar’s hand drifted toward her gun. It took a full minute for Middleton to drag himself to the living room. The door opened, and Middleton rubbed the grogginess out of his eyes.

“Carl Middleton,” Thomas said. “Were you at Hattie’s bar between the hours of eight and nine o’clock?”

Smelling like a distillery, Middleton glanced between the two deputies, still half-asleep.

“Hattie’s?” He massaged his belly and stifled a burp. “I guess so. Why?”

“We understand you had an altercation with Garrick Tillery inside the bar.”

Suddenly awake, Middleton raised his hands at the deputies.

“Now, hold on. You can’t arrest me for shouting at Garrick. It was just two friends disagreeing.”

“The server says you shoved a table into your friend,” Aguilar said.

“I don’t recall.”

“Where did you go after you left Hattie’s?” asked Thomas.

Middleton glanced behind him, as though the living room furniture would provide an answer.

“Home. I came home and crashed.”

“Did you take Marcellus Street?”

The construction worker scrunched his face in thought.

“That would have taken me to the opposite side of the village.”

“So you had no contact with Garrick Tillery after you left Hattie’s.”

“None.”

A pair of work boots sat on a mat inside the door. Dirt flecked off the treads and littered the entryway.

“Those your boots, Mr. Middleton?”

He stared down at the work boots.

“Yeah, why?”

“Could you show them to me?”

“I’m not giving anything without a warrant. Those are Timberland Pro work boots, and they don’t come cheap.”

“Just pick them up and show me the treads.”

Middleton shot Thomas a doubtful stare before he bent over and hoisted