Killing Me Softly

He wanted to hear her voice right now even more than he wanted to quell the waves of nausea battering his stomach. But that wasn’t going to happen. He and Dawn hadn’t spoken in five years. There was too much space between them now. Too much hurt. Too little effort to remedy or even address it. He couldn’t call Dawn, even though hearing her voice on the phone would make things better in a way nothing else could.

No. Not even Dawn could fix this.

He opened the car door, sat down inside and stared for a long moment at the dark, hulking shape in the distance, where the waterfall that gave this town its name shot off the end of a rocky ledge and tumbled down. The craggy flat-topped beast of a cliff was positioned in such a way that the waterfall itself was nearly always in shadow, making it dark and ominous looking, rather than cheerful or sparkly, the way most waterfalls seemed. Shadow Falls, the landmark, was not beautiful. It was downright spooky. But Shadow Falls, the town, had been the place with an opening on the police force after he’d finished college. And it was only an hour from what he considered home. And so it was perfect.

Or he’d thought it was.

But the town seemed far from perfect right now. Because it concealed something in its shadowy depths. Something evil. A cold-blooded killer was lurking here. And he’d never even known.

Sighing, Bryan called his father, fifty miles away in his hometown of Blackberry, Vermont.

2

Nick Di Marco was a big man. And it wasn’t entirely a physical thing. He was tall enough at five foot eleven, and his shoulders were wide and solid, even though he was lugging around some extra belly fat these days. His once raven-black hair was streaked with silver, his intense brown eyes lined with crow’s-feet that made his smiles more infectious, and his frowns downright scary. Beneath all of that, he was the best cop Bryan had ever had the honor to know. Retired or not.

And he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Di Marco was a hero cop, and everyone in Shadow Falls knew it.

So Bryan felt a little lighter when he saw Nick get out of his black, big-as-a-boat, old Crown Victoria and come striding toward him. Bryan got out of his own car, whose payments were as much as his rent, and tried to hide the fact that his knees were shaking. It was warm outside, the summer sun already beating down on them.

Nick threw his arms around Bryan, and it was no pat-on-the-back “guy” hug; this was a full-blown, real thing that squeezed the air right out of his lungs. “You okay, kid? You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.” Nick clapped a big palm to the back of Bryan’s head and crushed it to his shoulder for a second, then released him and backed off enough to search his face. “You call your dad?”

“Yeah. He’s on his way.”

“Good. That’s real good, Kendall.” Nick turned his head as another vehicle came skidding to a halt along the roadside. Chief MacNamara had driven the Bronco with the Shadow Falls Police Department logo—a black waterfall inside a circle made up of the words themselves—on the front doors, and the bubblegum lights on the roof. At least those lights weren’t flashing.

Chief Mac got out, thick shocks of unruly white hair sticking up all over. His face showed all the ruddy puffiness of a lifelong drinker, and his belly backed up the story. He was fat enough that he sort of swayed heavily from side to side when he tried to walk fast, which was what he was doing now.

“Somebody want to tell me just what the hell is going on here?” he demanded a little breathlessly.

Nick nodded. “Tell him, Kendall. Tell us both.”

Bryan took a deep breath and nodded once. “I had a party last night. To celebrate getting the okay to go back on the job Monday.” He nodded at Nick. “You were there—you can vouch for that part.”

Nick nodded and glanced at the chief. “It was no big deal. A few twelve-packs and some chips. Mostly cops, a few faces I didn’t know. A dozen, maybe eighteen, people at most.”

“You left early,” Bryan said, eyes lowered, gaze turned inward. “A few more people showed up later on. I think I remember most of them—I don’t know. I must have drunk way more than I thought. I woke up on the bathroom floor. Everyone had gone. I headed to the bedroom, wanted to get a few more hours of sleep—and Bette was there. And…” He lifted his head, looking the men in the eyes, first Nick and then Chief Mac. “She was dead,” Bryan said. He had to force out that final word, and his voice broke when he said it. “She was already cold. And there are ligature marks around her neck.”

The chief gaped, his jaw dropping as if its spring had broken. He took a step back, turned to stare at the house and pushed a hand through his crazy white hair. Then, swearing a blue streak, he started forward, hurrying toward the house with that swinging gait of his.

Nick clapped Bryan on the shoulder to get him moving, and in spite of his resistance to the notion, Bryan fell into step, the two of them following close behind the chief.

“You didn’t hear anything?” Chief Mac asked without looking back.

“No.”

“Careful, don’t touch a damn thing,” the chief went on as he stomped through the house and into the bedroom. Just inside the bedroom door he stopped, and his voice, when he spoke again, was lowered. Maybe out of respect for the dead. “In fact,” he added, “stay out of this room, Kendall. Di Marco, get in here. But be careful.”

Nick went into the bedroom with the chief, while Bryan stood in the doorway, his eyes riveted to the blue-tinted skin of Bette’s face, those sightless red eyes, the grotesquely twisted mouth.

The chief looked closely, not touching anything. “Strangled. Sure as shit. And she— Holy fuck.”

“What?” Bryan asked from the doorway, even while the chief gripped Nick Di Marco’s wrist and nodded at the nightstand.

Bryan followed their gazes and saw what was sitting there. A shot glass with a black scythe painted on it, a red rosebud above, severed from its stem by the blade and trailing tiny red droplets.

It was a design the three men had seen before.

“That can’t be,” Di Marco whispered. “There’s no way.” And despite the whisper, his voice trembled. “Sniff the glass, Chief. Check—”

“Whiskey,” the chief said after leaning over and in haling. He turned to Nick. “Check her mouth.”

Nick nodded and leaned close to the dead woman, his face so near hers it might have seemed to an outsider that he was about to kiss her. Without touching the body at all, Nick sniffed, and then he jerked upright again. “Whiskey,” he said. “God, this can’t be happening.”

“What?” Bryan asked. “What…what the hell is going on, Nick?” But he had a sinking feeling that he knew.

“Is that your shot glass, Bryan?” Nick asked.

“No.”

“It’s a trademark, Kendall,” the chief said. He came out of the room, flipping open his phone as he did and hitting buttons. “Calling card of the Nightcap Strangler.”

Bryan blinked in shock, processing that, along with all that he knew about the old case—which was probably a lot more than either of these two men realized, considering that all the files and all the evidence was currently taking up space in a storage bin in his garage. The three of them walked out of the house and stood in the driveway again, and the chief ordered up a crime-scene investigation unit and an ambulance.

When he hung up, Bryan faced him. “Chief, how can this be? The Nightcap Strangler was caught, what? Sixteen years ago? Nick, you caught him. You put him away. You solved it. It was the biggest case of your entire career. He’s in prison.”

“Not anymore, kid,” Nick said softly.

Bryan blinked, puzzled for one terrifying moment before he remembered that the convicted serial killer had died in prison three weeks ago.

“He bought it in a fight,” the chief said. “Didn’t you see it in the papers? So there’s no way this was him. Unless…” He looked at Nick, not finishing the thought.

“No way did I bust the wrong guy, Chief. No way in hell.”

“You’re confident about that?”

Nick was offended by the question. He looked mad enough to punch something, Bryan thought. “He was guilty as hell. And you know that, Mac. You know it as well as I do!”

The chief nodded, keeping his trademark calm. “I also know that we never released certain details to the public. No one knew what the design on the glasses was, Di Marco. Or the specifics about the kind of whiskey he used. No one but you and me. Unless you told your protégé here,” he added with a look at Bryan.

“I never discussed the details of the Nightcap case with the rookie, Chief.”

“Right. You’re his mentor, and you never talked to him about the case that made your career? He never asked? You wrote a book, Di Marco. They made a freaking movie. You telling me you never talked about it with Kendall here?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.” Nick braced himself, getting in the chief’s space, his chest thrust out, chin up, challenging. “Now why don’t we get to what you’re telling me? Are you saying a rookie cop turned into a copycat killer just ’cause he took a couple of classes from the retired cop who solved the case? ’Cause I think that’s a stretch, even for you, Mac.”