And Davey struck him. Struck him hard, with all his strength.
The man went flying back. He slammed into the wall, and the impact sent him flying forward once again.
He tripped on a dead girl’s leg...
And crashed down on the table.
Right on top of Tyler and Sean and Hannah, who had already been slammed down there. It was too much weight. The table broke with an awful groaning and splintering sound.
Shards and pieces flew everywhere as what remained of the table totally upended.
Tyler let out a cry of fear and fury and gripped the man’s shoulders, shoving him off with all the force of a high school quarterback.
To Sarah’s astonishment, the man, balanced for a matter of seconds, staring furiously at Davey—and then he fell hard. And didn’t move again. She saw that he’d fallen on a broken and jagged leg of the table.
The splintered shaft was sticking straight through his chest.
Tyler got up and hunkered down by the man carefully, using one of the plates off the table as a shield.
“Dead,” he said incredulously. He looked up at the others. “He’s dead... He fell on the broken table leg there and...oh, God, it’s bad.”
“Out of here! It’s evil!” Davey commanded. “It’s still evil.”
They were all shaking so badly no one seemed able to move. Davey reached for Hannah’s arm and pulled her up. “Out!” he commanded.
And she ran. Suzie followed her, and then Sean, and then Tyler met Sarah’s eyes and took her hand, and they raced out, as well, followed by Davey—who was still carefully wielding his plastic sword.
They heard sirens; police and security and EMTs were spilling onto the grounds.
The medics were struggling, trying to find the injured people among the props and corpses and demons and clowns.
When the group of friends reached a grassy spot, Sarah fell to the ground, shaking. She looked up at Davey, still not beginning to comprehend how he had known...
Or even what it was he had known.
“I told you—that house is evil,” he said. “I told you—my dad. He taught me to watch. He stays with me and tells me to watch.”
* * *
IT HAD BEEN the unthinkable—or easily thinkable, really, in the midst of all that went on at a horror-themed attraction at Halloween.
Archibald Lemming and another inmate had escaped from state prison two weeks earlier. They had gotten out through the infirmary—even though he had been in maximum security. News of the breakout had been harried and spotty, and most people assumed the embarrassment suffered by those who had let them escape had mandated that the information about it be kept secret.
Archibald Lemming had been incarcerated at the Clinton Correction Facility for killing four people—with a carving knife. The man had been incredibly sick. He’d somehow managed to consume some of the blood in their bodies—as if he’d been a damned vampire. He’d escaped with a fellow inmate, another killer who was adept with a knife and liked to play in blood—Perry Knowlton. Apparently, however, Lemming had turned on the man. Knowlton’s body had been found burned to little more than cinders in the crematorium at an abandoned veterinary hospital just outside the massive walls of the prison.
Sarah knew all that, of course, because it was on the news. And because, after the attack at Cemetery Mansion, the cops came to talk to her and Davey several times. One of them was a very old detective named Mark Holiday. He was gentle. His partner, Bob Green, was younger and persistent, but when his questions threatened to upset Davey, Sarah learned she could be very fierce herself. The police photographer, Alex Morrison—a nice guy, with the forensic unit—came with the detectives. He showed them pictures that caused them to relive the event—and remember it bit by bit. The photographer was young, like Bob Green. He tried to make things easier, too, by explaining all that he could.
“Archibald Lemming! They found his stash in prison. Idiot kept ‘history’ books. Right—they were on the Countess Bathory, the Hungarian broad who killed young women to bathe in their blood. The man was beyond depraved,” one of the cops had said that night when he’d met with the kids. He’d been shaking, just as they had been.
People were stunned and angry—furious. If there had been better information on the escape, lives might have been saved. Before the confrontation with Davey and his friends, the man had killed ten people and seriously injured many more. He’d managed to escape at a time when it was perfect to practice his horror upon others—Halloween. He had dressed up and slipped into the park as one of the actors.
But many survived who might have died that night. They had lived because of Davey.
It did something to them all. Maybe they were in shock. Maybe denial. Guilt over being the ones who made it out. And confusion over what it meant, now that the normal lives ahead of them seemed all the more precious.
Sarah was with her cousin and her aunt when Tyler came to say goodbye.
He was leaving the school, going into a military academy and joining the navy as soon as he could.
Sarah was stunned. But in an odd way, she understood. She knew she had closed in on herself. Maybe they all had, and needed to do so in order to process that they were alive—and it was all right for them to go on.
She, Tyler and their friends had survived. And it was too hard to be together. Too hard to be reminded what the haunted house had looked like with all the dead bodies and the blood and things so horrible they almost couldn’t be believed.
So she merely nodded when he told her he was leaving. She barely even kissed him goodbye, although there was a long moment when they looked at each other, and even this—losing one another—was something they both accepted, and shared, and understood.
Sarah gave up cheerleading and transferred to a private school herself, somewhere that hadn’t lost any students in the Cemetery Mansion massacre.
When college rolled around, she decided on Columbia and majored in creative writing, veering away from anything that had to do with mystery or horror. She chose a pseudonym and started out in romance.
However, romance eluded her. She was haunted by the past.
And by memories of Tyler.
She turned to science fiction.
Giant bugs on the moon didn’t scare her.
Except...
Every once in a while, she would pause, stare out the window and remember she was alive because of Davey and his Martian Gamma Sword.
Still, by the time she was twenty-seven, she was doing well. She had her own apartment on Reed Street. For holidays she headed out to LA—her parents had moved there as soon as her dad had retired from his job as an investment banker. Of course, they always tried to get her to join them with a permanent move, but she was a New Yorker and she loved the city. Sometimes she guest-lectured at Columbia or NYU. Upon occasion, she dated. Nothing seemed to work very well. But she was okay. She had college friends, and since she’d worked her way through school waitressing at an Irish pub, she still went in to help out at Finnegan’s on Broadway now and then. The Finnegan family were great friends—especially Kieran, who happened to be a psychologist who frequently worked with criminals. He always seemed to know when Sarah wanted to talk a little about what she’d been through—and when she didn’t.
It wasn’t the happiness she had envisioned for herself before the night at the Halloween attraction.
But it was okay.
She hadn’t seen Tyler—or any of her old friends—for over a decade.
Sarah had been living in the present.
And then she heard about the murder of Hannah Levine.
Like it or not, the past came crashing down on her.
And with it, Tyler Grant reentered her life.
Chapter One
“Tyler!”
Davey Cray greeted Tyler with a smile like no other.
He stepped forward instantly, no hesitance after ten years—just a greeting fueled by pure love.
It was as if he had expected him. Maybe he had.
Tyler hugged Davey in return, a wealth of emotions flooding through him.
“I knew you’d come. I knew you’d come!” Davey said. “My mom said you were busy, you didn’t live here anymore. You work in Boston. But I knew you would come.” His smile faded. “You came for Hannah.” Davey looked perplexed. “Hannah wasn’t always very nice. And I watched the news. She wasn’t doing good things. But...poor Hannah. Poor Hannah.”
Yes, poor Hannah. She’d disappeared after leaving a bar near Times Square.
Her torso and limbs had turned up on a bank of the Hudson River.
Her head had come up just downriver about a half mile. She had been savagely cut to ribbons, much like the victims ten years past.
According to the news, Hannah had become a bartender, and then a stripper—and then a cocaine addict. Had that already been in the cards for her? Or had her life been twisted on that horrible night?
“Poor Hannah, yes. Nobody deserves to have their life stolen,” Tyler assured Davey. “Nobody,” he repeated firmly. “Had you—seen her?”
Davey shook his head gravely. “My mom doesn’t let me go to strip clubs!” he said, almost in a whisper. Then he smiled again. “Tyler, I have a girlfriend. She has Down syndrome like me.”
“Well, wow! That’s cool. Got a picture?”
Davey did. He pulled out his wallet. He showed Tyler a picture of a lovely young girl with a smile as magnificent as his, short brown hair and big brown eyes.
“She’s a looker!” Tyler said.
“Megan. Her name is Megan.” Davey grinned happily.
“That’s wonderful.”
“Sarah set me up on the right kind of page on the internet. It really is cool.”
“I’ll bet it is! Leave it to Sarah.”
“She loves me. And, you know, she loves you, too.”
“Of course. We all love each other.”
By that time, Renee Cray had made it to the door. She was a tall, thin, blonde woman in her late forties, with big brown eyes just like Davey’s. “Tyler!” she exclaimed.
And then she, too, threw her arms around him, as if he was the lost black sheep of the family being welcomed back into the fold.
Maybe he was.
“Tyler! How wonderful to see you! We knew, of course, that you’d joined the navy. And I know Sarah had heard you’re living in Boston, working there as some kind of a consultant. Police consultant? PI? Something like that?”
“Exactly like that,” he told her.
Renee continued to stare at him. “You’re here...because of Hannah Levine, right? But...what can you do? What can anyone do? Is it horrible to say I’m glad her parents died in a car accident years ago? But what...” Her voice trailed off, and then she straightened. “Where are my manners? Come in, come in—you know the way, of course!”
He entered the parlor; Renee and Davey lived in a charming little two-story house in Brooklyn that offered a real yard and a porch with several rocking chairs. Renee was a buyer for a major retail chain and was able to keep up a very nice home on her own salary. Since the death of her husband, she had never done much more than work—and care for Davey. Tyler doubted she had changed. She was, in his opinion, a wonderful mother, never making Davey too dependent and never becoming codependent herself.
“Sit, sit,” Renee told him. “Davey, get Tyler some tea, will you, please? You still like iced tea, right?”
“Still love it,” Tyler assured her.
When her son was gone, Renee leaned forward. “Oh, Tyler! It’s been so hard to listen to the news. I mean, bad things happen all the time. It’s just that...you all escaped such a terrible thing, and now Hannah. Of course, her lifestyle...but then again, no one asks to be murdered... They haven’t given out many details. We don’t know if she was raped and murdered, but she was...decapitated. Beheaded. Just like—”
She broke off again, shaking her head. “It’s like it’s the same killer—as if he came back. Oh, I’ll never forget that night! Hearing what had happened, trying to find Davey, trying to find you children... Oh, Tyler! Hannah now...it’s just too sad!”
“It’s not the same killer,” Tyler said quietly. “I saw Archibald Lemming die. I saw him with a wooden table leg sticking straight through him. He did not miraculously get up and come back to kill again. Hannah had demons she dealt with, but they were in the way she looked at life. It’s tragic, because no one should ever die like that. And,” he reflected softly, “she was our friend. We were all friends back then. We haven’t seen each other in a while, but...we were friends. We knew her.”
Renee nodded, still visibly shaken.
Maybe they hadn’t seen Hannah in a long time, but she had still been one of them.
“Tyler, I guess it’s been in the media everywhere, but...you weren’t that close with Hannah, were you? Had you talked to her? How did you come to be here?”
He smiled grimly.
Sarah. Sarah was why he had come. He thought back, hardly twelve hours earlier, when he had heard from her. He had received the text message from an unknown number.
Hi Tyler. It’s Sarah. Have you seen the news?
Yes, of course he’d seen the news.
And he’d been saddened and shocked. He’d been there the night of one of the most gruesome spree killings in American history, and then he’d gone on to war. Not much compared to the atrocities one could see in battle. Between the two, he was a fairly hardened man.
But...their old friend Hannah had been brutally murdered. And even if her life had taken a turn for the worse lately—which the media was playing up—neither she, nor any victim, should ever have to suffer such horrors.
While Tyler hadn’t seen Sarah in a decade, the second he received the missive from her, it felt as if lightning bolts tore straight through his middle and out through every extremity.
They said time healed all wounds. He wasn’t so sure. He never really understood why he’d done what he’d done himself, except that, in the midst of the trauma and turmoil that had swept around them that night in a long-gone October, Sarah had still seemed to push him away. She always said she was fine, absolutely fine. That she needed to worry about Davey.
She had rejected Tyler’s help—just as she had refused to understand he’d been willing to make Davey his responsibility, just as much as Davey was Sarah’s responsibility.
They’d all had to deal with what had happened, with what they had witnessed.
Tyler had always wanted her to know he loved Davey, and he never minded responsibility, and he didn’t give a damn about anyone else’s thoughts or opinions on the matter. They had to allow Davey a certain freedom. When they were with him, they both needed to be responsible. That was sharing life, and it was certainly no burden to Tyler.
But Sarah had shut down; she had found excuses not to see him.
And he’d had to leave.
Maybe, after that, pride had taken hold. She had never tried to reach him.
And so he had never tried to get in touch with her.
But now...
Now Sarah had reached out to him.
He’d kept up with information about her, of course. Easy enough; she kept a professional platform going.
He liked to think she had followed him, as well. Not that he was as forthcoming about where he was and what he was doing. He had become a licensed investigator and consultant. Most of his work had been with the Boston Police Department; some had been with the FBI.
He knew she hadn’t gone far. Her parents had rented out their Brooklyn home and moved to California. Sarah was living in Manhattan. She’d found a successful career writing fiction—he’d bought her books, naturally. Her early romances reminded him of the t
wo of them; they’d been so young when they’d been together, so idealistic. They’d believed in humanity and the world and that all good things were possible.
Her sci-fi novels were fun—filled with cool creatures, “aliens” who seemed to parallel real life, and bits of sound science.
Part of why he’d never tried to contact her again had been pride, yes. Part of his efforts had actually been almost noble—her life looked good; he didn’t want to ruin it.
But now...
Yes, he’d seen the news. Hannah Levine had been murdered. The reporters had not dealt gently with the victim because of her lifestyle. They hadn’t known her. Hadn’t known how poor she’d grown up, and that she had lost both parents tragically to an accident on the FDR. They did mention, briefly, that she’d survived the night of horror long ago.
As if reading his mind, Renee said, “They’re almost acting as if she deserved it, Tyler! Deserved it, because of the way she lived. I’m wishing I had tried harder. Oh, look! If she hadn’t been an ‘escort,’ this wouldn’t have happened to her. I feel terrible. I mean, who ever really understands what makes us tick? Not even shrinks! Because...well, poor child, poor child! She never had much—that father of hers was a blowhard, but he was her dad. Both dead, no help...and she was a beautiful little thing. She was probably a very good stripper.”
That almost made Tyler smile. “Probably,” he agreed. “And yes, she was beautiful. Have the police let anything else out yet?”
“We know what you know. Her body was found...and then a few hours later, her head was found. First, we heard about the body in the river. Then we heard that it was Hannah.”
The front door opened and closed. Tyler felt that same streak of electricity tear through him; he knew Sarah was there.
Renee frowned. “Sarah must be here.”
“I’m sorry. I should have said right off the bat that she was meeting me here,” Tyler said. “That’s why...why I came. She didn’t tell you?”
“No, but...that’s great. You’ve been talking to Sarah!” Renee clapped her hands together, appearing ecstatic.
“We’ve exchanged two sentences, Renee,” he said quietly. “Sorry, four sentences, really. ‘Did you hear the news?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Will you come and meet me at Aunt Renee’s?’ And then, ‘Yes, I’ll come right away.’”