Carson Ryder - 08 - Her Last Scream
J.A. Kerley
Her Last Scream
Dedication
To the amazing Miz Linda Lou and
the deliciously evil Nurse Jane
(here insert the author’s wicked laughter)
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
1
Treeka Flood counted the Beef-a-Roni cans in her shopping buggy…
2
Spring in coastal Alabama is a violent time, weather-wise. Two…
3
Most folks checked in at the morgue, but I was…
4
Treeka lay in bed holding a bag of frozen peas…
5
Harry and I spent the next few days working the…
6
It was Saturday, sneaking-into-Boulder-day. Treeka crouched in a stand of…
7
The reunion ended two hours later, wrapped and bagged for…
8
Over the next couple days Harry and I tracked down…
9
Liza Krupnik gathered a dozen academic theses for The Famous…
10
I entered the Homicide department at eight a.m., a convenience-store…
11
The peaks of the Rocky Mountains rising around her, Treeka…
12
We had nothing on Larry Krebbs. That meant studying him…
13
Harry and I spent the next day investigating Krebbs, finding…
14
The next morning Harry and I figured we’d find who…
15
“An underground railroad?” Harry said, after Sal’s brief overview. “You…
16
I called Detective Amica Cruz of the Colorado State Police.
17
Professor Thalius Sinclair had left his office at the university…
18
Our bizarre case took a one-day sidetrack to a court…
19
We called Sal and told her we were brainstorming and…
20
Kavanaugh was at the department when Harry and I arrived…
21
“No way,” Harry said. “Not a chance. None, nada, nyet.
22
“You missed the target entirely!” Harry roared as Rein stood…
23
Our training days passed in what felt like minutes, Harry…
24
Liza Krupnik entered the scarlet-carpeted, high-ceilinged room at seven-fifteen p.m.
25
“You have your action clothes?” I asked as Rein pulled…
26
Setting his briefcase and laptop on the desk, Sinclair fired…
27
A half-hour later Rein and I parked in front of…
28
We met with Cruz the next morning. Perhaps knowing our…
29
Professor Thalius Sinclair was still muttering as he arrived home,…
30
“Sondra?” a voice said. “Sondra, wake up.”
31
Nine a.m. and I stared at my phone in disbelief.
32
Cruz called the cell company for tower locations – one…
33
This must be what an alien abduction feels like, Treeka…
34
Gd mrng! Dprt this am.
35
Professor Sinclair stared down the hall. Music came from Krupnik’s…
36
“Got a make on the plates,” Cruz said on the…
37
In the too-early morning I drove a sullen Harry to…
38
“Hardcore radical feminists, secret society, sisterhood of death?” I repeated…
39
His day over, Dr Thalius Sinclair filled his briefcase with papers…
40
Cruz sat cross-legged on the lumpy bed, phone to her…
41
“Good morning. The Women’s Crisis Center of Boulder, Liza Krupnik…
42
Richard Salazano’s home was on the rural side of the…
43
Rein’s driver wore a formless tie-dye dress, cowboy boots and…
44
Reinetta pushed the door open, said, “Hello?”
45
During their meal at the kitchen table, Rein started crossing…
46
Rein never had a chance. The man named Tommy made…
47
The medical wagon was backing to the victims when Teemont…
48
It was almost ten thirty p.m. Mountain Time and Liza…
49
“T. Nathaniel Bromley?” Walls said. “He’s outta my league, Harry. I’m…
50
Cruz and I were in the motel. It was mixed-feelings…
51
Liza Krupnik sat in her one-room rental in a local…
52
Nautilus sat in the parking lot beside the restaurant, shaking…
53
Hours passed in the moving trailer. The pain in Rein’s…
54
“Come on, Treeka, I need you to pull my pants…
55
Harry called with the news that Rein’s fading sprinkle of…
56
Our caravan rolled down the labrynthine canyon guided by a…
57
Cruz and I studied shreds of rope at the base…
58
“This horror is inside the system now?” Sinclair said after…
59
Her captor seemed to move in and out of the…
60
We figured Bromley and Trotman were in league, having met…
61
We stood outside the school as Cruz checked with her…
62
Cruz and I raced to Nederland at a hundred miles…
63
The helicopter skimmed the treetops, the snow-covered peaks of the…
64
We followed the road, the pilot ascending to avoid a…
65
The punch I made for the party at my place…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by J.A. Kerley
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Treeka Flood counted the Beef-a-Roni cans in her shopping buggy for the third time, one, two, three. She rounded an aisle without noticing, busy counting jars of tamales, one, two, three. Boxes of macaroni, one, two –
Treeka froze. Counted again, one, two …
Treeka saw the final macaroni box under the packs of tortillas – three! – and sighed with relief. The macaroni was Mueller’s Large Elbows, the only kind Tommy would eat, saying smaller sizes felt “wormy” in his mouth. Count the tortillas again to be safe: One, two, three. There had to be three of everything: One for the meal, one for the back-up in the pantry, at least one more for the food cache in the basement. If Tommy saw something missing, she’d have to wear the big sunglasses.
Checking her list, Treeka absent-mindedly wheeled to the next aisle. Sardines in mustard sauce. One, two, three. Bumble Bee Tuna in oil …
Last month Treeka had forgotten to buy more canned hams after Tommy used two on a fishing trip. He’d noticed the open shelf space – he looked for infractions – and Treeka had to wear the big sunglasses for a week to hide her blackened eyes.
At the end of the aisle Treeka saw chubby, red-haired Brenda Mallory chattering with a supermarket employee. Treeka froze and angled her face away, becoming an anonymous shopper checking a label. Mallory was Treeka’s apartment-b
uilding neighbor from two years back, before Treeka’d gotten married and moved from Denver to the ranch near Estes Park, Colorado.
Mallory pushed her buggy toward the checkout lanes and Treeka relaxed. Talking to Brenda would only cause trouble. And what could Treeka possibly say when Brenda asked about Treeka’s new life?
Treeka counted every item again, then backpedaled one aisle, expecting to see Tommy. The only inhabitants of the corridor were a college kid with a six-pack of Red Bull and a tall and white-haired elderly lady pushing a buggy.
No Tommy.
Panic slammed Treeka’s heart and she yanked the buggy back another aisle. Tommy wasn’t there, either. How had she gotten so far ahead?
Oh Jesus, please no … where is he?
There! Tommy jogged past the far end of the aisle, eyes knifing down the lane, his hands bunched into fists. He glowered up at the aisle number: Six. Tommy must have been back in five when Treeka somehow wandered ahead to aisle eight.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit …
Tommy strode to Treeka, the metal plates on his cowboy boots ticking like a bomb. They were alone in the aisle and he grabbed Treeka’s arm. “Where were you?” he hissed, pushing back his gray Stetson, cold green eyes daring Treeka to lie. “Where did you go?”
Treeka let her mouth droop open, trying to appear puzzled. Dumb was the best place to hide.
“I’ve been right here, hon,” she said, lifting a box of crackers like she’d been in aisle six all the time. “Didn’t you see me? I got my shoppin’ dress on.” Tommy made Treeka shop in a bright yellow dress because it made her easier to see in a crowd.
Tommy slapped the crackers to the floor. “I goddamn asked where you were,” he repeated. “You too stupid to understand English, or what?”
Treeka laughed like Tommy was making a joke. “I been here all the time, babe,” she said, stooping to retrieve the crackers. “You must have been going around an end same time I was and we crossed past each other.”
Tommy studied the items in Treeka’s buggy, then did something to run blades of ice down Treeka’s spine: He smiled. It was the same smile Treeka had fallen in love with twenty-six months ago, wide and thin-lipped and brimming with teeth. But now Tommy’s smile terrified her; it meant the snakes in his head were heated up and moving.
“What’s this?” he asked, reaching into the buggy and tapping a can of tuna. Treeka instinctively started counting tuna cans. One, two … Then she saw what was wrong.
Oh Jesus no. Oh shit.
“Tommy …” Treeka whispered. “I didn’t mean to –”
“It’s tuna, Treek. From aisle eight, right? How many numbers is five from eight?”
“I got ahead of myself, Tommy,” Treeka explained as her breath ran out. “I thought you w-was right behind me.”
“I asked how many numbers from five to eight, Treek?”
“Th-three.” Treeka felt her heart pounding in her chest.
“How close do I tell you to stay to me?”
“One aisle, Tommy. But I thought you were right behind me. An’ I got on my shopping dress.”
Tommy’s eyes tightened into slits. “You thinking about running off, Treek? Finding some lesbian to live with? I saw one over by the produce.”
Treeka shook her bright, artificial curls. Keeping her hair looking like Taylor Swift’s bouncy ’do took an hour a day, but it was the style Tommy demanded. “Jeez, Tommy. I dunno where you get this stuff. I just got ahead of myself. Gimme kiss, babe.”
Treeka puckered. Tommy stared. “You lied to me, Treek. But the tuna told the truth.”
Treeka tried another smile. “You’re so smart, sweets. Like a detective. But I wasn’t lying, I forgot where I was.”
Tommy grunted as an elderly woman entered the aisle, pushing her buggy toward them. Up close the woman didn’t look so old, mid-sixties maybe, dressed in a blue sweat suit and pink running shoes, smooth in her motions, like she really did run. The pair fell silent as the woman walked by, shooting a look their way. When she was past, Tommy’s hand lashed out to the soft skin beneath Treeka’s breast, pinching it between thumb and forefinger.
“N-no, Tommy. Please …”
He squeezed hard, a hot burst of instant agony. Treeka clenched her teeth. If she made a sound he’d pinch again. If she stayed quiet, one would be all she’d have to endure. After several seconds Tommy’s hand fell away and Treeka let out a gasp.
A surprise voice from the side. “Excuse me, miss. Are you all right?”
The older woman had seen or heard something.
“I’m fine as I can be, ma’am.” Treeka forced a smile, thinking Please go away, lady. You’ll only make things worse. “My dear hubby and me is jus’ talking.”
The woman gave Tommy a flinty appraisal. “You don’t sound fine, miss,” she said. “You sound like you’re about to cry.”
“Oh no, ma’am,” Treeka said. “That’s how my voice always is.”
Tommy got tired of the woman. “Get the fuck out of here, you old dyke,” he snarled. “This here’s private bidness between a man and his woman.”
The woman nodded to herself like a judgment had been confirmed. “I’m going to find the manager,” she said, looking at Tommy like something a dog had left on the floor. “I know what you are, mister. I know exactly what you are.”
The woman left her buggy in the aisle and strode toward the store’s office. Tommy grabbed Treeka’s forearm and yanked her toward the exit. “Look what you’ve done to me this time,” he whispered as they crossed the parking lot. “Now I gotta teach you a real lesson.”
2
Spring in coastal Alabama is a violent time, weather-wise. Two inches of tumultuous, lightning-driven rain an hour is not unusual, nor is it rare for blue to rule the sky minutes thereafter, as if all has been forgiven. Gulls return to the air and the whitecaps on Mobile Bay settle into a mild green chop beneath warm breezes built for sailing.
I drove to work from my beachfront home on Dauphin Island, thirty miles south of Mobile, still stuck in the first movement of the meteorological symphony, purple-black clouds laced with bolts of jagged lightning and rain sweeping down in roiling sheets. Smarter drivers took shelter in coffee shops and donut joints. I was doing fifteen miles an hour, squinting through my windshield and trying to recall when the wiper blades were last replaced.
Three years ago? Four?
A semi raced in the opposite direction, sloshing another gallon of water over my windshield. I peered into rippling gray and slowed to ten miles an hour. My cell phone rang and I pulled it from my jacket pocket, the word HARRY on the screen. Harry Nautilus was my best friend and detective partner in the homicide division of the Mobile, Alabama, Police Department. Harry kept me grounded in reality and I kept him … I’m not sure, but it’ll come to me.
“I’m at the morgue, Carson,” Harry said. “There’s a situation here.”
I was ticking my head side to side like a metronome, trying to see through the split second of clear behind the wiper blade. “What is it?” I asked. “The situation.”
“Just get your ass over here, pronto.”
“My wipers are shot, Harry. I’m stopping.”
“You and that damned ancient truck. Where you at?”
My truck was old but not ancient, perhaps suggesting antiquity by being the color of the pyramids, roller-coated with gray ship’s paint. Say what you will about aesthetics, I’ve never been bothered by rust or barnacles.
I said, “I’m just off the DI Parkway near the city limits sign. I’m pulling into the fish shack.”
“Hang tight and I’ll send the cavalry.”
“The what?”
Harry hung up. There was a coffee shop past the fish restaurant, but getting there meant crossing twenty feet of open pavement. Lightning exploded above and I sank lower in the seat.
A minute passed and I heard a howling. I thought it was the wind, until it turned into a siren, followed by lights flashing blue and white in my mirror. I sat up a
s a Mobile police cruiser pulled alongside. I wiped condensation from the window with my sleeve and saw a face on the driver’s side, a hand gesturing me to lower my window.
Rain whipped in and a pretty young black woman in a patrol cap and uniform yelled, “Stay on my bumper. But not too close, right?”