Haven of Nightmares (Littlemoon Investigations Book 5) (33 page)

‘Nyx is distraught. I’m taking her home. We’re hopping a flight at six and going back to Delta Falls. She can’t hear the spirits, and this place is upsetting her.’

Tori got it.

Her gift, while a pain in the ass as first, was now something she loved. It gave her that advantage, and she didn’t want to lose it either.

Most of that had to do with finding Trey, and even Bethany. She loved them.

“Bad news?” he asked, watching her face. Tori didn’t look happy.

Tori showed him the message.

“I feel horrible. We brought her here. If she didn’t come here, maybe she’d be safe.”

Yeah, she was feeling it too.

This whole thing sucked. The only good part was Roman was happy. As the man approached from the building, he was holding Mattie’s hand, and they looked to be at peace.

That was saying a hell of a lot, considering what was going on around them.

“Sorry it took so long. I changed all the building codes, but left the gate the same—incase Beau or the detective have to get in.”

“He’s on his way, and Beau is heading home with Nyx.”

Tori told them the bad news.

“I’m so sorry,” Roman said. “If she never gets her gift back, I’m to blame.”

“No, you’re not,” Tori offered. “You didn’t cause this, and she would never blame you, Roman. You need to stop blaming yourself.”

He nodded. “Thank you for that.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Mattie.

“Well, I thought we could search the grounds.”

He whistled. Roman knew how hard that was going to be. The grounds were huge. “Are we splitting up?”

“No,” they both answered.

“This place is a hot mess. He’s dead,” Tori stated. “I can hear him screaming in pain.”

They stared at her.

“Trey and Bethany are searching for him, and they already confirmed it. He’s been killed.”

That shocked Roman. “Who would do that to him? What kind of animal are we dealing with?”

She had an answer to that, but Tori didn’t think he’d want to hear it.

Not far away there was a commotion.

The gates began opening, and they could hear them in the distance. It looked like the detective was on his way up the drive. The whole night was creepy. There was a mist settling over the fields, and it looked…haunted.

Perfect.

Talk about setting the mood.

“I’m guessing the killer is someone who didn’t want the man helping us,” Tori offered.

Roman looked confused. “I’m still new at this. How was he going to help us? He was a harmless man. If anything, Elbert was only dangerous to weeds and trespassers.”

Tori waited for her employee to get it.

“Ohhhh, you think he might have seen something while working here, don’t you?”

“If you were a killer,” she offered, “and you hid bodies around here, who would you worry about most?”

He thought about it.

“Not me. I don’t wander around.”

“Yeah, exactly. The killer, if he buried them the last few days, will have left a trail. You can’t hide ground that has been disturbed. They were likely killed before we got here, and he didn’t know we were going to be investigating.”

Julian continued as the detective headed their way. “We’ve already located six of the nine, and that has to be making him nervous.”

“What are we discussing?” Hart asked as he reached their sides. “Why does he look freaked out?” he asked, pointing at Roman.

“Elbert is dead.”

“You found him?”

She looked over at him and tapped her head. “Not quite.”

“Oh, I see.”

Julian filled him in on all the things they just discussed.

“Okay, so that means he wasn’t the killer, and he was offed to keep us off his trail. The groundskeeper will know the grounds.”

That was exactly what Tori had just stated.

Once a cop, always a cop.

“He would have led us to the last victims,” stated Tori. “Only, our killer didn’t realize that now he can still take us to them. All we have to do is find him, and then ask.”

Hart knew who would be doing the questioning, and it wasn’t going to be him.

“Okay, well, it’s weird, but who am I to question it? All night, I had this sick feeling that something bad was coming. I was hoping I wasn’t going to get shot—or something worse.”

She got it.

Every cop and Fed had that feeling of dread. You woke up, headed to work, and prayed the entire shift that you weren’t going to die on the job.

It was the same when you were a soldier.

“We should get started,” he offered. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Tori called for Bethany and Trey. She could hear them in her head.

“Not really. He’s at the citadel. We need to head there.”

Hart stared at her.

“You’d be handy in Vegas. Do you want to take a trip there?” he asked, grinning at her.

“Want me to feed you your spleen?” Julian asked, possessively holding his wife’s hand.

“Not particularly. I don’t think it would taste good at all,” he replied, trying not to laugh.

“Then forget about Vegas,” Julian stated. “Let’s go.”

As they walked away, he glanced over at Roman. “He can’t take a joke.”

“When it comes to Tori, you have no idea.”

Well, he was beginning to get one.

And fast.

       
         
* * *
  L   i   t   t   l  e  m  o  o  n  * * *

Beau tucked her possessively beneath his strong arm as they headed into the airport. At the check in, he took care of everything so Nyx wouldn’t have to worry.

When they took their seats outside the gate, she rested her head on his shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay, Nyxie. I swear to you that we’ll get through this.”

“I feel like an ungrateful brat.”

He looked down at her. “Why?”

“For all those years, I hated this curse because I thought of it as the parting gift to what happened to me, and lately, I’d come to grips with it. I was beginning to see it as something that made me part of the team. It was special, and now I don’t have it.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m going to love you less because you don’t have it anymore.”

She didn’t speak.

“Oh, Nyx,” he stated. “That’s not true. How could you even think that?”

She sniffled, but didn’t look up.

“How can I prove to you that I love you more than anything in this world, and the fact that you no longer channel Trey will never change that?”

“You don’t have to prove a thing.”

Beau thought she needed something.

“Hold that thought.”

Standing up, he looked around. The waiting area outside the gate was starting to fill up with early morning commuters and passengers.

It would be perfect.

Hopping up on the plastic chair, he whistled.

EVERYONE
looked up at him from what they were doing.

Nyx looked horrified. She was low key, and didn’t like drawing attention to herself.

This was going to be bad.

She could tell.

“Hello and good morning, everyone. My name is Beau Christensen, and I’m a soldier in the US Army.”

They all watched him.

“I wanted to tell each and every one here that it has been a pleasure and honor to serve my country, but there’s something even bigger in my life. This is Nyx Nightingale, and she’s agreed to be my wife. She’s made all of it worth it.”

Everyone began clapping.

She couldn’t believe it.

As people began congratulating her, she was stuck deaf, dumb, and confused as hell.

When he hopped down, Nyx stared at him.

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m crazy for you, Nyxie. I don’t care what people think, or if you’re hearing voices or not. You’re going to be my wife, and that’s all that matters to me. We’ll go home, regroup, and see what happens. I know you’ll miss it, but Trey will still be around, and I know he loves you too—not as much as I do, since that’s not possible, but he does.”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“You’re dangerous, Beau Christensen.”

He grinned. “Nah, I’m a pussy cat.”

Nyx didn’t believe that at all. Still, he owned her heart and always would. Her soldier was one hell of an adventure, and he was right.

They’d survive this.

One way or another.

       
         
* * *
  L   i   t   t   l  e  m  o  o  n  * * *

Citadel

He hated this part of the school.

His father had ended his life there.

As they approached the building, the dome with the stone soldiers looked eerie in the lighting.

At night, this place was creepy.

It always had been.

As they headed past the one Archangel standing guard, Tori looked around.

“He’s inside.”

Detective Rose went for his gun.

“Yeah, he’s dead, and that’s not going to save you,” she stated, still not turning around.

She was very familiar with the sound of gunmetal coming out of a holster.

She could pick it up anytime it happened.

“It’s more for my peace of mind. I don’t need a killer jumping out at us.”

“Trey, is there anyone alive inside?”

She could hear him chattering in her head.

“We’re alone.”

He stared at her. “That’s weird.”

“Welcome to my world,” Julian stated. “She’s safe. Her brother would die, again, before he’d let anything happen to Tori. You can trust him.”

“Trey said thank you, and he’s growing on you.”

“Like moss on a dead tree,” stated Julian. If he started accepting everything, the Christensens would roll right over him.

He knew it.

At the door, Roman pointed to the keypad. “Wait. This locks at sundown. How did the killer get in here?”

They looked around.

There weren’t windows.

The ones that were there were barred.

That meant one thing.

“How long have the codes been the same?”

Students used to have to enter their own codes, and then it would log them. The family had a master code.”

“Who knew it?”

“Family, Elbert Barber, and anyone we gave it to.”

Well, that narrowed it down.

Slightly.

This might help them in the end after all. Someone had to punch in a code, and since they knew that Elbert was taken at his home, he either gave the abductor the code, or he knew it.

“Can we tell what code was used?”

“Anyone have a tablet?”

The detective pulled out his phone, and it was big enough to be a tablet.

“What? I don’t like staring at a small screen. Don’t judge. I’m getting older and the eyesight is the first to go.”

Julian smiled. “Paranoia is a bad sign.”

Roman took it and logged into the security website. “It was a master code. The same one the family used.”

“We need to figure out who had it.”

Roman laughed. “That’s going to be a very long list, and since my family is dead, we can’t ask them.”

He looked at Tori.

“Well, we can, but…will they remember?”

“Let’s head in,” Julian stated.

Roman entered the new code. Whoever had used the old one was in for a shock. They weren’t getting into the building. Only the people right there had the new code.

As they climbed the circular stone stairs to the top of the citadel, Tori could smell it.

“Blood.”

Julian and Hart picked it up next. It was really strong, and they knew what that meant.

There had to be a lot.