A Whisper in the Dark (8 page)

He released her and unsnapped a cell phone from his belt. “The police will be able tell us if this is human or animal.”

Julia hadn’t wanted the police involved any more than they already were, but she was smart enough to know she no longer had a choice. The situation had just taken a hard turn left into dangerous territory.

“What will the police do?” she asked.

“They’ll file a report. A minor crime like this—trespassing and vandalism—doesn’t warrant much attention from PD. We’ll be lucky to get a crime scene team out here to dust for prints. On the other hand, if the blood turns out to be human, they’re going to want to know where it came from.”

The thought made her shudder. “Let’s hope it’s not human.”

“I’ll give Mitch a call, see if he can help get a CSI out here.”

“Mitch as in Mitchy?”

John grinned. “He’d probably prefer if you didn’t call him that.”

She smiled back. “He’s a cop?”

“A damn good one. If we can get someone to dust that book for prints, Mitch can help us cut through some of the red tape. Get the prints entered into AFIS. If our perp’s in the system, we’ll I.D. him.”

Hope swept through her at the thought of the police catching the stalker.

John punched keys on his phone and slipped into cop mode as he reported the crime. Watching him, Julia suddenly realized that he had probably been a very good cop. That he missed police work. That he was a hell of a lot more disturbed about what had happened in Chicago than he was letting on.

He snapped the phone closed. “A unit will be here in a few minutes.” He glanced at the book and frowned. “In the meantime, I thought we’d see what this sick son of a bitch had to say.” Removing a small pocketknife from his slacks, he opened it and used the tip to slide the paper from its nest.

Julia watched, not sure she wanted to know.

The paper appeared to be the same expensive linen as the others. Using the knife, John unfolded it on the counter.

Something went cold inside her when the words came into view.
The harlot’s ink is her lifeblood. Bleeding sin onto the page. Words that maim the hearts of the innocent and taint the souls of the weak. Soon the blood will be hers. The world will be purged of her sins. And vengeance will at last be mine.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, “I think the crazy bastard really
did
write this in blood.”

She stared at the perfectly executed red calligraphy, aware that her heart was pounding. She could feel her breaths coming too short, too fast. And for the first time since the letters began, she acknowledged the fear that had taken up residence deep inside.

“Do you recognize the book?” John asked after a moment.

Julia closed her eyes briefly, pressed her hand to her stomach against the slow curl of dread. She didn’t want to tell him about her book. She wanted that part of her life to remain private. But there was no way she could continue to downplay the situation.

“Maybe,” she whispered.

“What do you mean ‘maybe’?” He looked at her sharply, his thick brows knit with impatience. “If you know something, Julia, now would be a good time to enlighten me.”

When she said nothing, he used the tip of his knife to open the cover flap of the book and turn to the first page, where the title and author’s name were visible. “Elisabeth de Haviland.” He turned his attention back to Julia. “Are you familiar with this author?”

“Yes.”

“Is she a friend of yours? What?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?” He looked at the book. “Can you think of any reason why this book might upset someone? Why they would take that anger out on you?”

She nodded. “I can think of several.”

“Is it controversial? What?”

Heat rose in her cheeks. She could feel the guilt on her face, the rise of panic in her chest, her brain scrambling for a lie. But she knew there was no way she could keep her secret and still hope to find the person responsible. As much as she didn’t want to acknowledge it, the two were as intertwined as the blood and paper of the pages inside the book.

John closed the book and turned stormy gray eyes on her. Within their depths, Julia saw questions, cool suspicion, and an impatience that was tempered with the resolve to satisfy both.

“You’re not telling something,” he said. “Come on, Julia. Talk to me. Who is Elisabeth de Haviland?”

She met his gaze levelly, refusing to drop her eyes or look away first. She didn’t have anything to be ashamed of, she told herself. Damn it, she didn’t. But she could feel the burn of a blush rising into her cheeks . . .

“Me,” she said and tried not to think about what the confession would set into motion.

FIVE

John hung back and watched the single CSI work the
scene. Big city police departments were invariably stretched tight with regard to manpower. Dispatch had sent only one investigator. At his brother’s prodding, no doubt. John didn’t miss the politics or the bullshit, but he sure missed being a cop.

It had been over two months since he’d worked a crime scene. In the past he’d always felt at home among the chaos, the pain and death and bad jokes. Tonight he felt like an outsider. A civilian. But then standing on the sidelines had never been his cup of tea. John figured he’d better get used to it. In his current state of mind there wasn’t a police department in the country that would hire him.

Julia sat at her desk, looking pale and frazzled even through the smile she’d worked up for his younger brother, Mitch. But John knew from experience the facade wouldn’t last much longer. She might put up a brave front, but he’d seen the fear in her eyes. She was scared—and rightfully so.

Why had she been so reluctant to tell him about the book she’d written?

He liked to read as much as the next guy—thrillers and police procedural mostly—but for the last few years his life had been too busy for such indulgences; it had been months since he’d read a novel. He wondered what kind of book she’d penned. More to the point, he wondered why some sick son of a bitch had seen fit to slink into her shop after hours, put a knife through the cover and drizzle it with blood.

“You got a sec?”

John turned to find his younger brother standing behind him. An unexpected frisson of pride swept through him at the sight of the uniform. Mitch Merrick might be a rookie, but you couldn’t tell by looking at him. John had watched him work the scene, and his younger brother was as competent as any veteran detective.

Both he and Mitch came from a long line of law enforcement. It was in their blood. Both boys had wanted to be cops as long as John could remember. Their father, Carter, had tried to break the tradition by urging them to pursue other careers. But John and Mitch had no interest in anything but police work. After their father was killed in the line of duty when John was eighteen and Mitch was sixteen, there was never any question as to which profession they would choose.

“Sure,” John said.

Taking a final look at Julia, he followed his brother to the front door.

“So what do you have?” John asked.

“I thought we were dealing with a simple B and E and vandalism until the CSI told me the blood is human.”

“Damn.” He hadn’t wanted to hear that. “You think someone’s been hurt?”

“Tech said there’s not enough blood to indicate serious injury or death.”

“Guy definitely made a statement.”

“No shit. Tech’ll type it. We’ll run DNA, see if we get a hit in the database, but it’s a long shot.”

“Did the tech get latents off the book or knife?” Running prints through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) was routine.

“Whoever handled that book and knife wore gloves.”

“Pretty careful for a vandal, don’t you think?” But John figured both men knew they were not dealing with an ordinary vandal.

Mitch looked over his shoulder toward where Julia sat at her desk, pretending to do paperwork. “So what’s up with Julia? How did you end up here?”

John thought about Benjamin Wainwright and shook his head. “Long story. I’ll fill you in later.”

“Looks like the little bookworm is all grown up.” Mitch grinned. “Last I recall, she had one hell of a crush on you.”

John didn’t smile back. “Yeah, well, she’s older and wiser now.”

“Someone hassling her?”

“She’s been receiving threatening letters. Weird shit.”

“Stalker?”

“Yup.”

“So you going to keep an eye on her, or what?”

John frowned, not liking the insinuation in his brother’s voice. Not liking it even more that he’d somehow ended up in the middle of a situation he wanted no part of. “Something like that.”

“Or maybe you’re worried she’ll put a crimp in your style. God forbid you might have to come back to the land of the living.”

John shot his brother a warning look. “What I do is my business, bro.”

“For chrissake, John, it’s been two months—”

“I know how long it’s been.”

“If you think drowning yourself in a bottle every night is going to help, you’re sorely—”

“I killed a man, goddamn it,” John ground out.

“It was an accident. You were cleared.”

The radio strapped to Mitch’s hip crackled, saving John from having to respond. It wasn’t the first time they’d had the conversation. He hoped it was the last. The way John saw things, a good man was still dead and John still had the man’s blood on his hands.

Mitch spoke into the radio clipped to his lapel. When he looked at John, his expression was all business. “I gotta run. I got a domestic over on Rampart.”

“Thanks for getting the CSI out here. I know that took some doing.”

“I’ll let you know if we get a hit on that DNA.” Mitch started for the door. “Good luck finding your stalker.”

John watched his brother walk out the door, wishing like hell he’d never returned Benjamin Wainwright’s call.

 
It was nearly midnight by the time the CSI left. He’d
bagged the book and knife, along with a sample of the blood and several fingerprint strips, to take back to the lab. John stared at the blood that remained on the counter, wishing the CSI had cleaned it up. But, of course, that wasn’t his job, so John had asked him to leave a pair of rubber gloves. Julia provided the bleach. He spent ten minutes scrubbing the counter.

“I could have done that,” Julia said.

Peeling off the gloves, John tossed them into the trash bag and tied it off. “Where do you put your trash?”

“There’s a Dumpster in the alley.” She reached for the bag, but he frowned at her and carried it to the back of the shop. He opened the rear door to a narrow alley lined with scarred metal doors, garbage bags and an array of trash cans. A beat-up Dumpster with a broken lid stood just to the left of the door. John tossed the bag and walked back inside.

He found Julia standing at her desk, looking exhausted and frazzled—and like she’d rather be anywhere but here with him.

“Look, I know it’s late,” John said, “but I think now is probably a good time for you to tell me about this book you’ve written.”

Her eyes skittered away and he got the feeling the book was the last thing she wanted to talk about. But why?

“It’s a novel,” she said. “A love story.”

“Love story?” He sighed, sensing there was more. “You want to elaborate on why you think a love story would set someone off?”

“It’s not the first time a book has sent someone into a tizzy.”

Wondering why she was stalling, he motioned toward the counter. “A butcher knife stabbed into one of your books and drizzled with human blood is a hell of a lot more than a tizzy.”

When she didn’t respond, he sighed with impatience. “Julia, if you want me to help you, you’re going to have to level with me.”

She fidgeted. “It’s called literary erotica.”

“Literary erotica, huh?” He was no scholar when it came to books, but he had a pretty good idea what she was talking about. “You mean you write about sex?”

“I write about a man and a woman having a consensual and loving sexual relationship.”

Not knowing what to say to that, John scratched his head and tried to imagine what this rather benign woman could have written that would anger someone to the point of stabbing a bloody knife through one of her books.

“Do you think your book is the reason this guy is sending you letters?” he asked.

Her eyes met his. Within their depths he saw knowledge and the kind of fear a woman like her should never have to feel. “If you read the letters in that context, it makes sense.”

“Any ideas who you might have offended? A religious zealot? What?”

“I think it’s someone who feels that, perhaps, sensuality shouldn’t be part of literature. That maybe I’m perpetuating something sinful.”

Sensuality, he thought, was the politically correct word for sex. Jesus. “So, this could be based on religious beliefs.” He let the idea roll around in his head for a moment. “But then I guess the Puritans were always cramping the sinners’ style.”

“Certain kinds of literature have been controversial since man began scratching symbols onto the walls of caves.”

“Do you think this might have something to do with your father or Eternity Springs Ministries?”

“I don’t know.” Turning away from him, she sank down into the chair behind her desk. “Probably not.”

“What’s Benjamin’s take on this?”

She looked away, sighed. “I haven’t exactly told him.”

“You told him
something
, because he called me.”

“Claudia told him someone was leaving notes. Thankfully, she didn’t tell him about my book.” She pursed her lips. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“You can’t possibly be that dense.”