When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)(102)

The older woman moves. Reaches down. Lifts up. Suddenly she has a fire poker gripped in her man-sized hands.

D.D. remains focused on her phone, tapping away.

I open my mouth, but of course, no sound comes out.

The big woman closes the gap between them.

D.D. hits another button on her phone.

The big woman raises the poker over her head.

Too late, I realize her colors aren’t blue and gray. Instead, she swirls with voids of black, screams of red. She is sadness, pain, rage.

She and the demon, they have the same colors.

I try to scream. Silent. Horrified. At the last second, my brain fires to life. I stop wasting effort on my useless throat, rap on the wall instead. Three knocks. Hard, urgent.

D.D. glances up. Just as the fireplace poker whistles down.

D.D. throws up her forearm, tries to twist away. A sickening crack as metal meets bone, then her right arm falls limply to her side.

The poker rises back up, the grandmother woman not looking anything like a grandmother anymore.

I move. I throw myself against the edge of the huge oak table, ramming it straight into D.D. and the woman, because there’s no way to hit one and not the other.

D.D. gets knocked forward, straight into the tunnel, while the hulking sheriff’s lady tumbles sideways, poker clanging to the floor as she tries to catch herself.

Then I feel it. Something cold and dark gathering behind me.

The house tried to warn me. Go, it had moaned. Go, go, go.

But of course, I didn’t listen to it any more than I listened to my mother so many years before.

And now . . .

I turn. He stands in the middle of the wood-framed doorway. He holds his favorite serrated blade in front of him.

He grins.

And I know exactly what’s going to happen next.





CHAPTER 40





FLORA





I’M DREAMING OF JACOB. I know it’s a dream, because he’s smiling at me.

“So you met my old man, huh? Tough ol’ coot. Guess the apple didn’t fall far from that twisted tree. Microgreens, huh? Never woulda thunkit.”

We’re sitting outside the cabin where he held me. In the meadow, on a red and white checked tablecloth. Before us is a fast-food buffet. Fried chicken, hamburgers, pizza, waffles. Jacob isn’t eating, though. He looks younger, more relaxed, with his favorite ketchup-stained T-shirt barely covering his flabby gut.

“Home sweet home,” he says, gesturing to the dilapidated cabin behind us. “Miss it?”

I open my mouth, but no words come out. Then I realize I’m not sitting on the picnic blanket. I’m back in the box, daylight filtering through the crudely bored air holes, taunting me.

“Now, now, I told you what would happen if you disobeyed. You got away once, Flora. You shoulda stayed away.”

No, I’m not in the box. Because I can see him, which would be impossible. But all around me is dark, with just specks of light. I try to lift my hand to the lid, then discover I can’t move my fingers. My arms. My legs. I’m trapped. Weighed down, a terrible pressure crushing my chest.

I’m in a grave. A shallow grave with just my face exposed, watching Jacob from the edge of the picnic blanket.

“You always thought you’d die here,” this new, happy Jacob tells me. “I used to hear you whimpering to yourself in the box. ‘Gonna die, gonna die, gonna die,’” he mocks. “You never were a strong one.”

I try to wiggle my toes, lift a single finger, turn my head. Nothing. I feel a whimper building in my throat, just as he said. Then, I feel moisture on my face. A single tear tracking down my cheek.

Jacob moves till he’s leaning right over me.

“Never shoulda come back.”

I can’t move.

“But you missed me, didn’t you, Flora? You had to see, you had to know. Because the more you learn, the closer to me you become. And now you’re gonna die in my backyard. Just the way I planned it.”

He grins at me.

I hate him. All over again, even as he leans down and gently wipes the tear from my cheek.

“I loved you,” he whispers. “And you’ll always be mine, cuz deep down in your heart, you know you love me, too.”

Then Jacob is gone and Kimberly looms above me. “Wake up! Wake the fuck up!”

She slaps me across the face.

I wake up.



* * *



—

THE WORLD IS DARK, AND once again I’m disoriented. I can’t see, but I realize I can move. Arms, feet, head. Dear God, what the hell happened to my head? I moan, and Kimberly nearly slaps me again.

“Shhh!”

The urgency in her tone brings me around as much as my throbbing temple. She’s crouched behind a considerable boulder, peering at something before her. I’m lying in the dirt, where I’ve apparently been dropped like a sack of potatoes. My face feels wet and sticky. I touch my cheek gently. Not tears. Blood.

I have a vague memory of rocks falling and a rifle cracking. I’m not sure which of them got me, but at least I’m alive. Mostly.

I try to sit up. The world swims, then my stomach. Concussion, most likely. Kimberly has her .22 in her hands and is clearly on guard against some immediate threat. I’m going to have to do better than lounge at her feet.