The Secrets on Forest Bend Read online

  The Witch on Twisted Oak

  Voodoo on Bayou Lafonte

  Circle of Redemption

  Redeeming Santa

  Another day. . . another dead body.

  When Detective Adam Campbell learns that a WWII gun is connected to several murders he’s investigating, he hopes that tracking down the killer will be as easy as tracing the gun’s history. When he meets Jillian Whitmeyer, the last known owner of the weapon, the case becomes anything but simple.

  Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

  Adam soon learns that people who get close to Jillian have a bad habit of turning up dead. Jillian claims that the spirit of her sister, accidentally killed with that same gun, is responsible for the deaths. She warns Adam that he is likely to become the next victim. Adam’s been a lousy judge of women in the past, and this one’s obviously a nut case. Or is she? How does a just-the-facts detective deal with a ghostly serial killer and the sexy-as-hell sister she won’t set free?

  For my family:

  Those who are here

  and those who have passed on.

  September, 1989

  Jillie’s footsteps echoed in the still air. The late afternoon sun cast her shadow large against the wall, like a monster waiting to pounce if she dared stop to look back.

  Something was wrong. The house didn’t feel right. Where was everyone? Had they left her all alone?

  She tiptoed down the silent hall toward her parent’s bedroom. She wasn’t allowed to go in without permission, but the door wasn’t closed all the way. Did that count? She let out a shaky breath and poked with one chubby finger. The door creaked as it swung open. Inside, her older sister, Heather, sat cross-legged on the big four-poster bed.

  Jillie tried to swallow but her throat felt raw, scraped, like her knees when she fell on the sidewalk. Her body was hot and cold at the same time. Damp curls stuck to her forehead and she pushed them back. “You’re not supposed to be in here. Mommy won’t like it.”

  “Mommy’s not here.” Heather’s glare was even meaner than usual and Jilly almost turned around. Almost, but not quite. “She went to the store to get your medicine. I’m in charge. You should be in bed. If you get sick again and I miss my pageant, I’ll make you wish you hadn’t gotten up.”

  Jillie ignored her and climbed onto the bed. Even that little effort made her bones ache, but if Heather could do it, so could she.

  “What’re you doing?” Jillie clamped a hand over her mouth when she saw the gun in Heather’s lap. “Umm. Daddy said never touch that. Grandpa brought that home special from the war. You’re gonna be in sooo much trouble.”

  Was that possible? Just this once could Heather be the one Mommy fussed at?

  Heather rolled her eyes. “You don’t know anything. Daddy said I could look at it because I’m a big girl. Thirteen is almost grown.”

  “I’m big.” Jillie straightened her shoulders. “I had my birthday, and Daddy said six was big.”

  “Not where it counts.” Heather poked her in the stomach and said in the sing-song voice Jillie hated, “Silly Jillie, jelly belly.”

  Jillie bit her lip. She wouldn’t cry. Heather always got a funny smile when she cried. It made her want to run and hide.

  “Let me see it.” Why should Heather have all the fun? “I want my turn.” Jillie reached for the gun, but stopped and wrinkled her nose. “You smell funny. Did you get into Mommy’s perfume?”

  “I did not. This is my perfume. I won it at my last pageant.”

  That wasn’t right. Jillie only paid enough attention to Heather’s pageants to know if she needed to stay out of her sister’s way, but she never came home with anything except another stupid trophy. Now she remembered. “You didn’t win last time. You came in second.”

  Jillie sat back. Her eyes went wide. “You stole that perfume, didn’t you?” She couldn’t prove it, but she knew that’s what happened because Heather wouldn’t look at her.

  Heather’s face went through a kaleidoscope of colors before settling on a frightening shade of magenta. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you fat little brat.” She waved the gun in Jillie’s direction. “If you say one word, I’ll take this gun and shoot that kitten you have hidden in the woods. The one you think nobody knows about.”

  Jillie’s heart froze, like the first sip of a Slushy, so cold you could hardly breathe. Not her kitten. She couldn’t let Heather hurt the one thing that loved her no matter how much trouble she was in. She reached out to grab the gun, but as soon as her fingers touched the cold metal Heather gave her a hard shove.

  Jillie tried to cry out, but her head hit the bedpost with a loud crack and the air rushed out of her chest. She slipped to the floor, landing with a thud. Her eyelids felt heavy and her head hurt something awful. If she could just sleep for a minute…

  A giant firecracker shook the room and her eyes sprang open. Heather collapsed onto the floor beside her. Heather’s shirt was all dirty. She must have spilled strawberry jelly on it. Mommy wouldn’t like that. The room went dark, but that was okay because then her head didn’t hurt anymore.

  Suddenly a cloud of perfume enveloped Jillie and a breeze stirred her hair as Heather seemed to float above her. Jillie’s breath came in short gasps and her skin prickled.

  Heather leaned down and whispered in her ear with that mean voice she used when Mommy wasn’t close. “Look what you’ve done. I’ll miss my pageant, and it’s all your fault. I’ll make you pay for this.”

  April, Twenty-six years later

  “Another day, another dead body.” Detective Adam Campbell immediately regretted his words. He might be bone tired, but that was no excuse. As soon as he reached the victim, his adrenaline would kick in and he’d be his usual self. He took one last swallow of stale coffee and pushed out of his city-issued Taurus.

  Hours past the end of his shift and he was still on the streets. Three long days in a row with no partner to share the load. And now this case, smack in the middle of Montrose, the most difficult section of Houston to work. A grab bag of museumgoers, fancy restaurants, gay bars, and vagrants.

  He nodded to the uniformed officer nearest the body. “Hey, Fredericks, what’re you doing here this late? Aren’t you supposed to be working days?”

  “It’s the fucking economy. My wife got laid off. Now I have to take all the OT I can manage. What about you? Are you sure this is a case for Homicide? Looks more like one of those misdemeanor killings to me.”

  Adam struggled to keep his face impassive as heat raced through his body and begged to be released in one fiery blast. How he despised that saying and the lazy cops who used it. I must be worn out if I’m letting a little attitude like that get under my skin.

  Stepping closer, he draped his arm around the young officer’s shoulder and pitched his voice low. “In my book, there’s no such thing as a misdemeanor killing. Every victim—prostitute, drug dealer, or church deacon—deserves my best efforts. And the perp, dealer or deacon, deserves my worst.”

  He patted Fredericks on the back with a hearty laugh and a wink. Let Fredericks wonder if he’d been chastised or punked, as long as he showed more respect in the future.

  Adam shifted and scanned the area for first impressions while the wind played havoc with his unruly hair. As he approached the crime scene tape, his eyes registered every detail. Fatigue drained away with each step.

  Despite the steady breeze, the area reeked of garbage and urine. Evening traffic roared overhead while red and blue flashing lights reflected off the walls and ceiling of the overpass like the neon lights of a fancy club. Chains rattled as a police wrecker prepared to tow an ancient clunker held together by rust and unfounded hope.
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  Ahh. This was where he belonged. These were the sights and sounds of his job. The one thing in his life he hadn’t screwed up.

  He shoved his glasses back into place, cursing the flimsy wire rims as he shifted to get a better view. Worn, dirty clothes, arms covered with tats, and an old sleeping bag beside the body probably meant the victim lived under the bridge where he died. Adam’s gut clenched when his eyes reached the head. He confronted the ugliness of death every day, but few things trumped a gunshot to the face.

  Runoff from the afternoon rain formed a moat around the body. At his first step, water sloshed over his feet and wicked up his socks. Christ, what a day to wear new shoes. At least it smelled better over here. Too much better in fact.

  He glanced around quickly. Were any women working the scene? They weren’t supposed to wear perfume on duty. The two uniformed officers guarding the location were both male, and the CSU van was parked on the far side of the overpass. Maybe it was his imagination, but the feeling of being watched, coupled with the cloying scent of perfume, had the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention.

  Shaking his head, he shifted his focus back to the crime scene. An old Luger lying beside the body was a surprise. Maybe the wound was self-inflicted. About time he caught an easy case.

  He took a step forward and his foot squished. Water traveled up his pant leg and the clammy fabric stuck to his shin. No, things weren’t looking up. With the luck he’d been having lately, ten bucks said the gun would turn out to be more of a roadblock than a short cut. Old guns were impossible to trace. He’d been banging his head against a wall for months on a similar case with a World War II weapon.

  “So, Detective Campbell,” Fredericks stammered. “Looks like you’ve had a long day.”

  Adam didn’t take his eyes off the evidence as he mentally catalogued it all. “Series of long days, actually.”

  “Shit, man. That sucks.”

  “Nature of the job.” Adam shrugged. No point worrying about it. The only thing he had to go home to was a frozen dinner and a sick cat. He checked his watch. After nine o’clock. He needed to give Rover his shot in less than two hours. Time to get to work. He knelt on the wet pavement beside the body. “Okay, Fredericks, what can you tell me about this?”

  “White male named Manny Dewitt, age forty-five according to his ID. The guy over by the patrol car claims to have been driving by when he spotted the body, but his driver’s license puts him living in the same run down motel as the vic. Not to mention the cash and Ecstasy crammed in his pockets was covered in blood.”

  Fredericks tapped the notebook against his pant leg. “You want to talk to him?”

  “Well, I don’t want to, but my boss might think poorly of me if I didn’t. What’s his name?”

  Fredericks consulted his spiral. “Eddie Coleman.”

  Adam groaned as he glanced toward the patrol car where Eddie stood in handcuffs. He remembered Eddie. During his days in uniform, he’d regularly peeled him off a barstool and sent him home.

  To call Eddie an unattractive man was doing him a favor. His nose was the size and shape of an antique glass doorknob and covered with broken blood vessels. His entire physique suggested a man who’d spent a lifetime courting a bottle or a needle, probably both. He could be thirty or ninety. He hadn’t changed since the day Adam first saw him.

  As he neared the patrol car where Eddie was being processed by a crime scene technician, Eddie spotted him and called out, “Campbell, thank goodness it’s you. You know I wouldn’t hurt nobody. Sure, I told the other officers I didn’t recognize the guy, but that’s ‘cuz he didn’t have no face. I’ve known Manny for years. In fact, I was driving around looking for him. He disappeared from his room a couple of days ago and I was worried about him.”

  The technician, finished with Eddie, left, and a uniformed officer sat him in the back of the car, then moved a few feet away so Adam could begin his interview.

  “You were innocently driving past and spotted your good friend’s body beside the road.” The absurdity of the statement made him smile. Was that the first time today? Surely not.

  “Yeah, I didn’t see nothing. I didn’t even know it was Manny till they told me. I guess that shows I was right about it being dangerous to live here. I heard a gunshot, drove around the corner, and saw him there. I was only checking for a pulse when the officers drove up and found me leaning over him. I woulda called 911 myself, but I don’t have no cell phone.”

  If Eddie was in a talkative mood, Adam wanted all his bases covered. He grabbed a card from his pocket and read Eddie his Miranda rights before continuing. “What about the gun? Have you seen it before?”

  “Manny showed up with it a few months back. I mighta touched it, just to move it out of the way.”

  “Okay, but I understand you had one pocket full of Ecstasy and the other bulging with cash, and both were covered in blood.”

  “I musta cut myself shaving.” Eddie squirmed behind the metal divider. “I did take the X, but only to keep it outta the way of kids ‘till I could turn it in to the proper authorities.”

  “You haven’t shaved in a week.” Adam sank into the front seat of the patrol car as Eddie’s aroma hit him. Or taken a bath. “And you could have given the X to the first officers on the scene.”

  Eddie shrugged. “Hey, they pointed a gun at me. I got a little nervous. Is this what I get for trying to be a good citizen?”

  “Eddie, if your story holds up, and I honestly hope it does, I’ll buy you a medal myself.”

  Adam rubbed a hand over his chin, rough with stubble. He didn’t put much stock in intuition, preferring to let the facts speak for themselves. Of course Eddie had taken the X and the cash, that was a given, but he’d always liked Eddie and had never known him to carry a weapon of any kind. He’d hate to see him go down if there was any way his story could be true.

  This case wasn’t going to be the slam-dunk he’d hoped for.

  A few hours sleep and Adam was a new man. He could even shut out most of the racket in the squad room. The constant ringing of telephones, the voices, even the beeping that signaled a paper jam in the printer, were white noise that floated at the back of his mind. Two Times Tommy, sitting six feet away, was another matter altogether. Tommy leaned back in his chair, one foot resting on an open desk drawer, and rocked back and forth while he read an autopsy report. The chair protested each time he moved. Squeeak, squeak. Squeeak, squeak.

  “I’ll give you fifty bucks right now if you’ll stop that.” Tommy was so cheap the bastard might actually take him up on the offer.

  Tommy looked directly across the aisle at Adam and rocked forward slowly, causing the chair to emit a painful squeal.

  A low growl escaped from somewhere near the back of Adam’s throat.

  Tommy laughed and dropped the report on his desk. He twisted his chair and called across the room to Frank Nelson. “Two minutes twenty-seven seconds. You owe me ten bucks. Ten bucks.”

  Adam slammed a file folder on his desk. Why had he agreed to take the case? He’d been off duty and heading home. Eddie, the only witness, still claimed he hadn’t seen anything, the lab work wasn’t back, and a copy of the victim’s records should have been on his desk hours ago.

  He did have hopes for some type of information on the gun, but that might be days away. Now he was stuck in the office with a bunch of jokers placing bets on how long it would take to make him growl. Did that say more about them or about him? He almost growled again, but stopped himself in time.

  “Campbell. You close the DB under I-59 at Montrose last night?” His boss, Lieutenant Harvey “Hard Luck” Luchak, appeared beside Adam’s desk, as if out of smoke.

  “I’m waiting to hear from Records, sir. They should be here shortly.”

  “If you can’t get information from Records in a reasonable amount of time, that’s your hard luck. You brought it on yourself. Next time look a little farther from home for your entertainment.”

  Adam s
hifted uncomfortably, his chair designed for a shorter man. He immediately felt the need to rearrange the papers on his desk. Months since his breakup with Mai, the sexy Records clerk he’d been so infatuated with, and the repercussions still echoed through his world. How long would it take for the gossip to run its course? Until someone else made a bigger fool of himself, that’s how long. Why did sexy and crazy always seem to come in the same package?

  “Wrap this one up fast, Campbell. I don’t want it hanging around. Remember, you’ve already got your limit of open cases.” Hard Luck disappeared as silently as he came.

  Adam glanced around the squad room. Ignoring the two jokers, his eyes settled on the statuesque frame of Tommy’s partner, Tenequa. She was chewing gum and using one finger to hunt-and-peck on the computer keyboard. He tried to stroll over casually, but the snickers behind his back said he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “I’ll bring you coffee and a donut from the break room if you’ll call Records for me and get the information I need.”

  Tenequa blew a bubble and studied him. “Make it a Diet Coke and two donuts, and you’ve got a deal.”

  Within the hour, he had a rap sheet on the vic. Manny Dewitt had been in and out of jail for drugs and petty theft for thirty years or more. The only surprise was that he lasted as long as he did. It looked more and more as if the only way Eddie hadn’t seen anything was if he closed his eyes when he pulled the trigger.

  A good lawyer could argue that Eddie’s prints on the weapon and the gunshot residue on his hands resulted from moving the gun and checking the body. His inability to ID the vic as someone he’d known and associated with for years could be explained by the fact that Manny no longer had a face. But face or no face, Manny’s arms were intact, and they sported full-length sleeves of intricate, geometric tattoos that should have been recognizable to anyone who knew him. And even a lawyer like Racehorse Haines couldn’t argue away blowback blood spatters on top of the grime that was Eddie’s shirt.