The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(121)

She didn’t see a camera.

Unease began to scratch along her nerves. She’d made enough noise that she should have gotten a response of some kind by now. She pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket and called the house number. As the phone rang in her ear, she could hear it ringing in the living room a second later. Six rings, and the call went to voice mail.

Slowly Nikki moved off the steps and onto the grass. She tried to see through the partially open blinds and into the living room. She could see a lamp on an end table, a corner of the sofa, the television sitting on a console.

Around the corner, she could see into the dining room, where a pair of small lamps glowed on an antique sideboard. The soft white under-cabinet lights were on in the kitchen.

Where were Evi and Eric Burke? Why weren’t they answering the phone? Why hadn’t one of them come to the door?

Maybe they were otherwise engaged, Nikki thought again as she made her way to the back of the house. Maybe she was thinking like a cop while the Burkes were thinking like a happily married couple on a Friday night. Eric Burke was a firefighter. He worked a twenty-four-hour shift and then had two days off. The night was young, and they could sleep in tomorrow.

What would I be doing if I had a hot fireman husband and no work tomorrow? she asked herself.

Yeah.

She almost turned to go back to her car, thinking she should just go home and have that hot bath she had promised herself. Tomorrow was another day.

She decided she would complete the circle around the house, and if she didn’t catch a glimpse of someone inside, she would leave.

The backyard was awash in moonlight that came and went as clouds sailed across the sky. The wind had picked up, brisk and cold. The temperature would drop below freezing tonight. The tree branches rattled like bags of bones. The swings on the little swing set were swaying, chains squeaking. At the back of the property sat a child’s playhouse.

A wooden deck that overlooked the backyard ran the length of the house. The hulking shape of a gas grill filled the near corner. The wind rattled a patio umbrella in its stand and bumped it against the house’s siding.

Nikki rounded the end of the deck and stopped cold at the sight of a body sprawled head-first down the steps.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, turned on the flashlight, and pointed it as she crept closer, lighting up the bloody face of Eric Burke.


*



“WHO ARE YOU? Why are you doing this to us?”

The demon didn’t answer. He shoved her forward, up the stairs.

Evi’s heart was quivering like a frightened bird trapped at the base of her throat. Her legs were so weak with fear she could hardly lift her feet. She tripped going up the stairs, and had to catch hold of the railing or fall on her face. Her assailant shoved at her back with the hilt of the sword.

A sword. This had to be a nightmare. Had she passed out? Had she lost her mind? This couldn’t possibly be happening.

I’m here for you, Evangeline. Aren’t you lucky now?

It all worked out for you . . .

As she stumbled into the hall at the top of the stairs, she turned and hurried past Mia’s room, hoping and praying her daughter stayed asleep. Even as she hoped that, she heard Mia call out in a sleepy voice, “Mommy?” and her nightmare memories of childhood flashed through her mind: hiding in a closet, trying not to cry while she listened to the sounds of what men did to her mother for money, for drugs, for punishment, for fun.

The monster shoved her through the open door of her bedroom. She tripped and fell, and then scrambled to her feet, backing up until she ran into the wall.

Downstairs, someone was knocking at the front door.

Down the hall, Mia called again, “Mommy?”

Her assailant stepped close, the bloody sword held across its chest. The voice hissed behind the hideous mask. “I’ll cut your throat like I cut your husband’s. Then who protects the pretty little girl?”

Evi bit down on the urge to sob, the terror lodging in her throat like a fist. It was all she could do to keep from choking on it.

Was Eric dead? She had seen his blood spray across the laundry room. She had felt it hit her face and arm.

She touched a trembling hand to her face as the demon stepped back. Her fingers came away smeared with her husband’s blood. She pressed her hands to her mouth to keep from screaming.

“It doesn’t matter who it is,” her tormentor mumbled, taking a step back from her. “This is your destiny. You can’t escape who you are. You can’t escape what you’ve done.”

Evi wasn’t sure if the words were meant for her or for the monster, who began to pace in front of her. Dressed all in black from head to toe, with a wide cloth belt banding the waist, a long knife in a scabbard hung from the belt, this looked like a character from a movie, but it was all too real. She had seen her husband fall. Her throat was raw from screaming. Her child was crying down the hall.

The knocking came again.

Had someone heard her screams? Could Eric have gotten to a neighbor’s house?

The phone on the nightstand rang like a sudden alarm. Evi jumped and looked toward it. If she could pick it up, she could yell for help. But she couldn’t get to it. It was too far away. She would die trying, leaving her daughter at the mercy of a madman.

Somewhere there was a person on the other end of that call sitting in a comfortable chair waiting for her to pick up. Maybe a friend. Maybe a telemarketer. Whoever it was, it would never occur to them that she wasn’t answering because a masked assailant would hack her to death with a sword if she tried.