Authors: Kylie Brant
Waking Evil 02 (19 page)
She reached out a hand, clutched at his shirt. And indulged in the hard hot pressure of his mouth for a few more seconds. Returned it.
He nipped and stroked with teeth and tongue, pressing her lips open to draw a response. Because she wasn’t dead, he succeeded. She drew him closer, went on tiptoe to get nearer still. To warm herself at the flames flickering between them.
He eased his mouth away to nip at her throat. A rocket of heat shot straight up her spine. “I don’t have to go out tonight.”
Ramsey was having trouble comprehending the words, accompanied as they were with the stinging kiss he placed on the cord of her neck. “You . . . what?” She shoved her free hand in his hair as her throat arched beneath his teeth. And felt her heart straining like a long-distance runner on the last lap.
His palm cupped her butt. “I could stay.” His lips did a slow, thorough search along her jaw and settled to worry her earlobe. “So could you.”
The offer was pure temptation. Every nerve in her body quivered with the need to accept. There was more here than she would have imagined. More than she’d
let
herself imagine. And that in itself was the impetus she needed to reach for reason, which seemed strangely fragmented.
let
herself imagine. And that in itself was the impetus she needed to reach for reason, which seemed strangely fragmented.
“No.” Because the word sounded on a moan, she tried again. “No.” And released the grip she’d had on his shirt. Withdrew the hand she’d had in his hair. Strove to quiet the inner chorus of disappointed hormones.
“No?” Since his hand showed no inclination to leaving her bottom, she stepped away from him. Would have tripped over one of his blasted cases if he hadn’t steadied her with a hand to her arm.
“Listen . . .” She had no idea what she should say. But clearly something was in order. “I don’t do this.”
He cocked a brow, clearly intrigued. “Ever?”
Ramsey felt her teeth grind. Obviously the easiest way to diminish his appeal was to allow him to talk. “I mean when I’m working. It would be a mistake to mix business with pleasure.” Hadn’t Matthews found that out just the other night in a sort of divine kismet?
His mouth was quirking. “Even if I don’t mind bein’ the pleasure part?”
There was a zing to the pit of her belly just thinking about it. And it hardened her resolve. “Especially then.” More cautious this time, she took another step away. And then another. And when he went to follow her, a little thrill of alarm zipped through her veins.
Obviously seeing it, he stopped. “What? I was just gonna walk you to your car. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“I walked from it to the house without incident.” She doubted the same could be said if he insisted on accompanying her back to the vehicle.
He stopped and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Okay.”
“And you can drop that easygoing affable bit,” she informed him, feeling surer of herself now that there was some distance between them. “I know it’s just a facade to get what you want.”
“Just because it gets me what I want doesn’t make it a facade,” he pointed out.
Ramsey waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever. It doesn’t work with me. I’m not going to sleep with you, so you’d be wise to save your energy for . . .” She gestured to the equipment. “Your work.”
“Good advice.” He let her walk through the door. Get as far as the porch before adding, “Thing is, though . . . you kissed me back. I want you to remember that, Ramsey. ’Cuz I’m gonna have a heckuva time forgettin’ it.”
Up t’ no good, the man was. Yessiree.
Ezra T. peered from behind the cool mossy tombstone at the person crouched in the center of the cemetery. That’s what people said ’bout him sometimes, out in them woods. Up t’ no good. He liked the sound of that. Made him feel like one of them spies in that show on TV.
He squinted his eyes. The man was too far away to tell who it was. But he seemed to be alone.
Disappointment surged. So it wasn’t the couple he’d seen here once, he could tell that much. He’d watched them havin’ butt sex in one of them little buildings with the dead people inside. Crept up real close, so he saw the whole thing. Got himself a good ol’ stiffie, too.
Ezra T. knew ’bout butt sex. You got it when you was bad or done somethin’ wrong. He and some of the other boys at the home in Memphis was bad sometimes. When he was, one of the workers, Tommy Lee, would creep in his room late at night. And would put a pillow over his head while he was hurtin’ him, all the time whisperin’ that was what happened to bad boys. Yessiree. And he’d get worse, lots worse, if’n he ever told anyone.
He’d never told. But when he got bigger, Tommy Lee started leavin’ him alone, even when Ezra T. was very bad. And one time he’d been walkin’ by and seen the man mop-pin’ the floor real close to the big ol’ steps leadin’ up to their floor. Ezra T. had reached out quick as a snake and pushed Tommy Lee, hard. And stopped to watch him bounce and roll down to the bottom of the steps. Everyone said later that somethin’ musta attacked Tommy Lee’s heart and that’s why he died. But Ezra T. knew better. ’Cuz that’s what you got when you was bad. Yessiree.
He crept closer, quiet as a fox sneakin’ up on a rabbit. The man wouldn’t hear him, neither. Ezra T. could imitate any animal in the woods. The calls they made. The way they moved, all silent and quick. He was fast, though not as fast as the deer or the rabbits. But faster than the boys who chased him sometimes, chunkin’ rocks at him and callin’ names. Those boys didn’t know what could happen to ’em when they was bad.
The man had set up some sort of light. That was stupid. Dead people didn’t need lights. And he was takin’ a bunch of stuff outta bags and turnin’ them on with clicks and whirs. Ezra T. remembered that stuff. He’d seen it down at Ashton’s Pond.
He’d seen that man there, too. Stryker, Duane had said his name was when Ezra T. told him ’bout it. Said the man chased haints and goblins and stuff.
That was stupid, too. Ezra T. coulda told the man dead was dead. He’d seen dead before, hadn’t he? He oughta know.
Growing bored, he looked back toward the fence he’d climbed to get inside. He could go home. Or back t’ the woods.
He gave a little shiver. But at home, Mary and Duane would be smokin’ the smelly stuff and yellin’ at him to get on outside. And the woods . . . he hunkered down behind another tombstone and wrapped his arms around his middle, rocked a little. He didn’t want to hear the screams again. It was gettin’ harder and harder to tell if they was in his head or comin’ from deep inside the woods.
All he could be sure of was that woman they’d found—the one in the pond—had been very, very bad.
Yessiree.
Chapter 10
If he hadn’t stopped that afternoon and looked at a map of the cemetery, Dev would have been reduced to stumbling around for hours, shining a light on tombstones to find the one he wanted. As it was, he’d had little problem finding the first ones he was interested in located in one of the oldest parts of the area.
He wore a camper’s light on his cap to keep his hands free. He shone the light on the stone in question. Despite their violent parting, Harold Bean and his wife Wilma rested for eternity side by side, sharing one stone. Squatting down to read the faded inscription, he realized with a jolt that the couple had been younger than he when they’d died. Wilma had been—he did a quick estimation—twenty-two and her husband eight years older. There were no children listed.
He scooped up the multifield meter and the temperature sensor. Neither had picked up anything out of the ordinary remaining stationary at the gravesite, so he’d walk around a bit to see if he got any activity.
With the Beans being the first identified victims associated with the pattern of the red mist, he’d figured they were the likeliest place to start. But before the night was over, he’d take a reading at the gravesite of each victim Donnelle had mentioned.
Including his daddy’s.
There were many in town who wouldn’t list Lucas Rollins in the victim column, but until Dev was finished with his own investigation here, he’d reserve judgment on that himself. Regardless what anyone else thought of him, or of his profession, he was first and foremost a scientist. He was interested in proof. What constituted that just differed a bit from what satisfied the law.
He stepped surely around the overgrown graves, headed by pitted and crumbling headstones. The cemetery was located on the outskirts of town, with the newest area on the other side of the site, its markers gleaming and shiny. But he’d always preferred this section, with the huge old trees seeming to spread their branches protectively over the dead.
He’d played here as a kid, he recalled, with friends from town. They’d fought their fair share of Indians and waged more than a few intergalactic battles before invariably being shooed away by the groundskeeper.
The memory brought a smile. Eddie Hammonds had been in charge of the place then, and he’d always pretended to turn a blind eye to their presence for a couple hours before chasing them off. The new guy he’d met this afternoon had gotten all pinch-faced and disapproving when Dev had shown him the note from Mark, typed on sheriff’s department letterhead, requesting he’d be allowed access to the place tonight. But there had been little he could do, other than to snappishly demand that Dev lock the old iron gates behind him when he left.
It was a pretty certain guess that kids weren’t allowed in here to play these days.
Lora Kuemper hadn’t been listed on the plot chart he’d checked this afternoon. But ninety years ago, people were as likely to bury their dead on their property as in town in a cemetery, especially farm dwellers. Cal Hopkins’s name, though, had been found, and it was to his grave that Dev made his way now.
He’d spent his fair share of nights in cemeteries over the years, but this was the first time he hadn’t had to drag along machines specifically to detect hidden sound or technological equipment. He didn’t have to worry about disproving alleged hauntings this time around.
As he walked, he idly played the laser pointer of his infrared digital thermometer around the area. The temperature sensor gave an instant reading, and more than once it reflected a relative cold spot, what some would insist indicated a spiritual presence. Dev would have liked to investigate the spots further, but he forced himself to stay on task. It really wasn’t important whether former residents of Buffalo Springs were resting peacefully. What mattered was whether those associated with the red mist still felt the need to make their presence known.
In the end, he found no signs that Cal Hopkins’s spirit was raising paranormal hell. Lucien Tarvester hadn’t been buried here, so he made his way across the graveyard to a slightly newer section.
To the section that housed his daddy’s grave.
He stopped at the sites of Jessalyn and Sally Ann Porter first. Paused a long time, watching the illuminated dial of the multifield meter intently. Interestingly, there was a bit of activity, with the needle swinging slowly back and forth before settling into a normal setting. Which made him wonder whether that was . . .
“What do you think you’re doing?” A hard cold hand landed on his shoulder.
“Jesus!” Dev jumped like a flea off a wet dog. Logically, he knew it wasn’t Jessalyn Porter demanding he state his business. But he was startled enough that he stumbled backward a bit, landing against a body that was all too solid.
Swinging around, recognition flickered. The person was only slightly more welcome than had it been one of the long-time residents of the cemetery resurrected to accost him. “Ah . . . evenin’, Reverend.”
Reverend Jay Biggers glared at him, shielding his eyes from the glare of the illuminated lamp on Dev’s cap. “Stryker.” Somehow he’d always managed to make the name sound like a curse. “What are you up to sneakin’ ’round here in the middle of the night? Decent people are sleepin’ at this hour, not out desecratin’ the graves of others’ loved ones.”
“You’ll be happy to know I only desecrate on the third Wednesday of the month. The graves are safe for the time bein’.” Dev shifted a bit to avoid stepping on the nearest plot as he put a little distance between them. Biggers had the dour demeanor of a revivalist preacher at an atheist convention and had always smelled, Dev thought fancifully, a bit of brimstone.
The man stared distrustfully at the instruments he still held. “Tell me you aren’t despoilin’ this hallowed ground by your ghost-huntin’ antics. This is an abomination, Stryker. I demand that you leave immediately.”
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