My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(91)

The light was especially bright because it was coming from a bare bulb. The lamp shade had been removed and it rested on the floor beside a rust-colored armchair that was facing away from her. An orange extension cord snaked along the floor and down a darkened hallway. Tracy stepped in. She stopped when she saw a crown of gray hair protruding just above the back of the armchair—someone was slumped in the seat. She detected no reaction to her presence. Tracy stepped in farther, angling around the side of the chair, the floor continuing to betray her presence. She stepped past the side table, the face of the chair’s occupant coming into view from behind the wing of the chair.

“Jesus,” she said, as the chin lifted, the eyes opened, and he turned his head to look at her.

It was Parker House.





[page]CHAPTER 56





Parker House gave Tracy a startled, wide-eyed stare. It was not a look of surprise. It was the unmistakable lingering look of fear that Tracy had seen too often in her job, one that came from victims of violent crime. Blood saturated the arms of the chair where the metal spikes had been driven through the back of each of Parker’s hands. Two more spikes pierced the top of each of his boots, driven through Parker’s feet into the floor boards. A pool of blood flowed from beneath each sole.

Tracy pried her eyes from Parker’s ashen face and quickly looked about the room. She noted the darkened hall just to the right of a wood-burning stove and switched on the flashlight. Heart racing and her head spinning, she fell back on her training as she crept down the hall, gun extended, flashlight sweeping left to right. She braced her back against one side of the hall, swung around a door frame, and danced the light over a rumpled bed and cheap dresser. Tracy swung back out and repeated the maneuver into the second room, finding it to also be empty, but for a single bed, dresser, and nightstand. She returned to the living room, trying to make sense of it.

Parker had closed his eyes. She knelt, touching him gently on the shoulder. “Parker. Parker.”

This time, when his eyes opened, they remained hooded, half-closed, and he grimaced as if the small act brought him pain. His lips moved but emitted no words. He took in short rasps of air and swallowed with seemingly great effort. The words finally came in ghostly gasps. “I tried . . .”

Tracy leaned closer.

“I tried . . . to warn . . .”

His eyes shifted from her face to something above her, but she realized too late her mistake. The light had been a ploy to draw her in, a moth to the flame, the hum of the generator meant to deaden sound.

Tracy sprang to her feet but was unable to turn before she felt the dull impact against the back of her head. Her legs buckled and the gun slipped from her hand. She felt arms around her waist, catching her, keeping her upright. Breath blew warmly against her ear.

“You smell just like her.”



Roy Calloway and Finlay Armstrong carried Finn and the closet door through the house and out the front entryway. With the storm gusting, they had to be careful it didn’t catch on the door and pull it from their grasp like a kite.

“Take it slow,” Calloway said. He could feel his boots slipping on the ice-covered front walk and shortened his steps, shuffling his feet until they’d managed to maneuver the door into the ambulance.

“Let’s move,” Ronkowski said.

Before stepping from the ambulance, Calloway leaned down and whispered in Finn’s ear. “I’m going to finish this,” he said. “I’m going to finish what I should have finished twenty years ago.”

“We got to go, Roy,” Ronkowski said. “His vitals are nose-diving.”

Calloway stepped away. Ronkowski slammed the ambulance doors shut, and the vehicle lurched forward, fought for traction, and finally got moving. It plowed through the snow, lights rotating. Calloway watched it go with the remaining firemen. They stood beside Finlay as if frozen. Snow covered their gear and ice crystals clung to their facial hair.

“Is anybody’s cell working?” Calloway asked.

Nobody’s was.

He stepped to Armstrong. “I want you to take your car and get on over to Vance Clark’s house. Tell him I said he and his wife are to go with you. Tell him I said to bring his gun with him and keep it close by.”

“What’s going on, Roy?”

Calloway grabbed his deputy by the shoulder but kept his voice even. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I heard.”

“Then I want you to go to my house and get my wife. You bring all three of them back to the police station with you and you wait by the radio.”

“What should I tell them?”

“Just tell them that I insisted. My wife can be stubborn as a mule. You tell her I said it is not open to discussion. You understand?”

Armstrong nodded.

“Go on now. Go on and do as I say.”

Armstrong’s boots sank into the snow as he struggled to reach his patrol car. When he’d driven off into the swirling snow, Calloway slid into his Suburban, pulled the Remington 870 shotgun from its clip, opened the breach, and loaded five shells. He shoved a handful more into his pocket. If these were to be his last remaining days in office, he was going to go out doing his job.

He started the car, about to pull away from the curb when headlights approached, aimed directly at his front bumper. A Tahoe plowed to a stop, sliding sideways the final few feet. Dan O’Leary jumped from the driver’s side in a heavy jacket and hat. He left the door open, the lights on, and the engine running.