Walk among us (2 page)

He recognized the navy pea jacket the sniper had been wearing. It was too much of a coincidence to think that there would be two men wearing the exact same coat in a nearly deserted graveyard at this time of night.

A smart man would have turned around and gone back to the others. A smart man wouldn’t have stood there and stared, wondering why a killer would stick around or at least not run when it was obvious he’d been spotted.

A smart man wouldn’t have returned to a hometown where he was obviously not welcome.

Calvin stepped slowly, cautiously, careful to try and keep his steps as quiet as possible. He approached the man like he would a rabid dog he needed to catch, but each pace stripped away another ounce of fear. The man was as tense as he was. Though his hands were empty, he seemed ready to vanish on the wind, as soon as it chose to take him.

Twenty feet away, Calvin stopped. That was when he saw the slight bulge beneath the man’s arm. His heart pounded at the risk he was taking.

“Looking for someone?” He fought to keep his voice even. Maybe he was mistaken about the man’s identity, though in his gut, he knew he wasn’t.

The seconds it took the stranger to respond echoed with the rustling leaves. “Not anymore.” His voice, soft and deep, electrified the space between them.

Calvin’s blood chilled. This was insane. He had his confirmation he hadn’t been seeing things. He didn’t need to stick around.

Venturing a step backward, he drank in every detail of the sniper. His assessment of the man’s height had been correct. He was easily six-two and solidly built, broad shoulders that filled the pea coat the way it was meant to be worn. A mouth too generous for its own good sat beneath a strong, straight nose, and faint lines creased the corners of his deep-set eyes. Strands of silver shot sporadically through the black hair, though there was no way the guy was older than thirty-five. Maybe he had kids. Ted had always joked that he didn’t have a single gray hair until he became a father.

The sniper never made a move to follow him.

“The police are coming,” Calvin warned. “They’re on their way.”

The man’s shoulders seemed to sag, as if someone had added an invisible fifty pounds to them. For a moment, his gaze flickered to the horizon, only to return and settle back on Calvin.

Even from that distance, shadows haunted his face.

WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

“Were you looking for someone out here?” the sniper asked.

“Yeah. You.” Calvin frowned. Even an admission that he’d sought out the sniper wasn’t enough to trigger anything more than a blink. “Didn’t you hear me? They called the cops.” No reaction. “Who are going to be here any second.” Still nothing. “Aren’t you going to run?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Calvin gaped. “You shot someone.”

“No. I shot some
thing
.”

“The cops aren’t going to see it that way.”

“The cops aren’t even going to have a body by the time they get it to the morgue.”

The implication hung heavy in the air. Calvin withdrew a few more steps, watching warily for any sign of danger. He shouldn’t have approached. He’d lived in New York for how long, and he didn’t know the first lesson about a crime scene? Leave it to the professionals. Get the heck out of Dodge. Trying to help only left you in bigger trouble than before you poked your nose in where it didn’t belong.

Before the darkness swallowed him up again, the man spoke. “Who died?”

“You mean other than the guy you shot?” Inwardly, he winced as soon as the words slipped out.
Yeah,
that’s smart. Use sarcasm on the crazy man with the gun.

The sniper seemed unfazed. “Whose funeral was it?”

What did it matter? “My father’s.”

The sadness deepened in the man’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh. Was he sick?”

“No. Just an asshole.”

Distant shouting made both of them jerk. The cops had arrived.

“Don’t trust what you see,” the man said behind him. When Calvin looked back, he was already melting into the darkness. “And make sure you see what you trust.”

Then the night devoured him whole.

WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

Chapter Two

By the time the cops finished their questions, Calvin was starving. Everybody else had long deserted the cemetery, disappearing as soon as they were given the go-ahead from whatever policeman was interrogating them. Even the minister was gone.

The detective in charge had ordered the diggers to delay covering the coffin until after they were done investigating the area, and Calvin had had to sign off on paperwork to allow the funeral director to take the body back to the mortuary.

“So I can go now?”

Detective Griesler nodded. In the decade Calvin had been gone, the second-string football player turned cop had lost half his hair and gained another roll to his midsection. “You have a cell phone so we can reach you at your dad’s?”

“Yeah, but I’m not staying at my dad’s.”

“Why not?”

“I got a hotel room in Chicago next to the airport.”

Griesler’s thick brows knitted together into one long mass, as he clearly tried to figure out why any sane person would pay for a hotel when there was a house in town that was perfectly free. “Well, I need you around here.”

“For what? I answered all your questions.”

All but one. When he’d been asked if he’d seen any sign of who could’ve done the shooting, Calvin had lied.

He wasn’t sure why. The only reason that didn’t make him feel like the biggest schmuck on the planet was he didn’t want to be embroiled in a long murder investigation and have even more ties to Watson Park, Illinois. If he didn’t see anything, they couldn’t call him as a witness. End of story.

“Because I might have more.” Griesler snapped his pad shut and shoved it into his coat pocket. “Besides, WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

you’ve got to be around to authorize moving your dad again. Unless you plan on leaving him at the mortuary.”

Calvin rattled off his phone number. The faster he got away from Griesler’s derisive tone, the happier he was going to be.

As he trudged out to his car, only one thing plagued Calvin’s thoughts. This was one of the worst days he’d ever had. When he finally got back to New York, he was burning every reference he could find to this godforsaken shithole. But he suspected even that wouldn’t be enough to scrub this day from memory.

The sight of Eli leaning against his rental made it official. Worst. Day. Ever.

“I thought you’d be home by now,” Calvin said, going around to the driver’s side door.

Eli followed. “Griesler give you a hard time?”

“No more than he did the rest of you.”

“I thought he might’ve.”

Calvin paused where he had the door open. “Why?”

They both knew the answer to that, but Eli had the grace to squirm under his faux-innocent gaze. “Oh.

You know. Because you…left town.”

With a shake of his head, Calvin slid inside. He didn’t want to have this conversation. “Well, I’m not leaving again tonight. He’s making me stick around. Just in case.”

Eli held the edge of the door, making it impossible to close it without looking rude or catching his fingers.

Rude wasn’t nearly as far away as it could have been, not with how short-tempered Calvin was at this point. But then he remembered that hand coming to rest on his shoulder, the mockery of camaraderie he’d maintained when all he had to do was shrug it off. Eli was an old man who’d just lost his best friend. The least he could do was show some compassion.

“Look, do you still have the keys to my dad’s place? I’m going to crash there for the night.”

Eli brightened at the possibility of being useful. “They’re back at the house. We can have supper together.”

Eating with Eli would ruin his appetite for good. “Actually, I was going to…” His mind scrambled, latching on to the most remote restaurant in town. “Krauss’s.” At Eli’s crestfallen face, he added, “But you could swing the keys by, right?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. I could do that.”

Calvin smiled and pulled at the door, just hard enough to prompt Eli to let go. He’d done his share.

Watson Park wasn’t quite a suburb but thanks to the psychiatric hospital, it wasn’t quite a four-way stop on the map, either. It took a little while to navigate through streets that were both familiar and not. The whole town looked like a double exposure. One half was the bare bones he remembered. The other was new and just different enough to mess him up once or twice. The tattoo parlor on the corner of Carpenter was gone, for instance, replaced by a Circle K. Without the familiar landmark, Calvin completely missed turning onto Wheaton.

WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

It took him nearly forty minutes to pull into Krauss’s parking lot. When he coasted to a stop, he sighed when he saw Eli hop out of one of the two pickups parked along the sidewalk. He hadn’t expected Eli to beat him there. Now he might have to actually eat with the man. Maybe he should have suggested finding a bar and drowning in beer as they ate, but that would have turned dinner into an all-night affair.

He didn’t quite have the stomach for that.

“Here you go,” Eli said, holding out a thick key ring before Calvin even stepped out of the car. “That’s got everything. The house, the garage, the work shed. There’s a few on there I never did know what they went to, but then that was Ted for you.”

Calvin hefted the weight of the keys in his hand. Yeah, that was Ted. He didn’t have the heart to tell Eli half the ring was useless. Ted carried so many just to have a weapon on hand should he need it. Calvin still had the scar on his back from the last time Ted had thrown it at him.

When he didn’t speak up right away, Eli took the initiative.

“Took you long enough to get out here.” He shoved his gnarled hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the cold. “You forget how to find the way?”

“No,” Calvin said automatically. “Just, you know. Been one of those days.”

“Food’ll do you good.”

The near paternal tone made Calvin finally focus on Eli. He looked like he’d stepped out of the Goya painting, the one of the wizened old men hunched over their bowls. Broad strokes against a black canvas that still managed to create skeletal outlines. Add a spoon to Eli’s claw and they’d pass for brothers.

It didn’t exactly encourage Calvin to accept the comfort he offered.

“I think I just need some time to process it all.” Calvin hooked his thumb toward the diner. “Do you mind if I eat by myself? Everything reminds me of him.”

He didn’t need to utter the appellation he couldn’t wrap his tongue around for Eli to know who he was talking about.

“Sure, sure.” The hands were out again, clapping him on the back. “But you know, if you feel like you want someone to talk to—”

“I know. I appreciate the offer.”

Eli chuckled. “Wasn’t actually talking about me. That other truck belongs to a guy who helps out at the Y

every once in a while. Mostly, he just helps with peewee football, but I’ve heard he’s talked to some of the kids. Listened to their problems.”

The last thing he needed was some pseudo-shrink telling him he hated his father for negating his sense of self, but Calvin nodded anyway, eager to just get away from Eli once and for all. He gave Eli a wave and headed for the brightly lit entrance without looking back.

A bell tinkled overhead as he pushed open the glass door. Krauss’s was long and narrow, with a counter running one entire length of the restaurant and booths lining the other. Since it was so close to the highway WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

exit, it was popular with truckers, and the décor reflected that. The green and white tiled floor was clean but well-scuffed, and more than one vinyl seat was held together with clear, wide tape. It held the air of a favorite grandparent, slowly creeping into old age. Stepping into it was the first warm feeling Calvin had had since arriving.

Then he saw who sat in the far corner booth. His eyes widened as the sniper from the cemetery bowed over a bowl of soup and blew across its steaming surface.

The harsh fluorescent lighting wasn’t nearly as forgiving as the dusky light from the graveyard. It highlighted every shadow under the man’s eyes, betraying his lack of sleep. It put flesh on bones that could have been a trick of the night, and then made that flesh strain against the V-neck black sweater molded over it. A silver cross nestled in his throat. The irony made Calvin softly snort.

Either he was louder than he thought he was, or the man had super-hearing. He glanced up from his meal and caught Calvin’s eye. Both froze.

Being watched was like getting his clothes peeled off him in strips in the middle of a sauna.

Nobody else was in the diner. Calvin tore his gaze away to look over his shoulder at the parking lot. The bright interior lights turned the plate glass window into a dull mirror, but it was still possible to make out the pickup parked near the doorway. Only one. Not Eli’s.

Maybe Eli was mistaken about Krauss’s lone patron. Because considering the peewee football coach was a murderer felt too much like talk-show territory.

When the lone waitress in the place tried to approach, Calvin grabbed a menu from the counter and slid onto a stool, his back to the window. He didn’t want to turn his back on the sniper. Not that the man still wore the holstered gun he’d had in the cemetery, but he’d have to be an idiot to think he was safe.

The waitress carried a coffeepot to the rear booth, refreshing the sniper’s cup. She smiled and laughed at something he said to her. Nothing about her manner suggested fear or anxiety. If anything, she looked like she might even be flirting with him, though his response was merely polite.

The man met his eyes again once she’d moved off, stirring his spoon absently in his soup. He nodded once, but it wasn’t until he gestured toward the seat opposite him that Calvin recognized the invitation.

Common sense told him to find somewhere else to eat.

Another voice whispered,
What’s he going to do to you in such a public place?