Something Wicked: HarperImpulse Romantic Suspense (19 page)

A young woman with shocking blue hair and wearing blue lipstick stared back at them on the computer screen. “Wicked awesome.” She seemed to look right at Dylan. “Whoa, mama! Double hottie alert.” She waved. “Hi there. You must be bossman’s brother.”

He waved in reply. “Dylan.”

“Spider. Wassup, gorgeous?”

Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t help but smile. She seemed like an interesting character.

Zach asked impatiently, “Is Hannah there?”

“Yep.” The screen moved and a very pretty woman with long dark hair smiled back at them. “Hi.” She bit her lip and focused on Zach. “I’ve got the boys right here. Which one do you want?”

For the first time since he’d seen Zach again, his brother seemed to relax. “Which one do you think?”

“Be right back.” She stood, and Dylan asked, “That’s Hannah?” Zach nodded. “Alexandra told me about her.”

The computer screen angled back toward Spider. “Your darn dog is humping my leg right now, boss. I deserve a raise for this.” She angled the computer to show a dog standing on stubby legs gripping her thigh and panting heavily.

Dylan squinted at the screen. Looked like a Golden retriever, but different. Maybe a corgi or something. “What the devil kind of dog is that?”

“Mutt. Dumb as a brick.” Zach focused on the animal. “Costello, quit humping Spider.”

The dog looked at the screen, tilted its head, and damn if it didn’t give a toothy grin. The screen moved back into position, but then Spider squawked as another dog seemed to come out of nowhere and jump in her lap, almost knocking her and the computer both over.

Zach cursed. “Charlie, get off Spider! Down, buddy.”

The dog—far too large to be a lap dog—immediately obeyed. Spider blew her long hair out of her face and rolled her eyes. “Seriously, we need to talk about that raise when you get back.”

“Done.” Zach pulled the laptop closer. “Where’s Abbott?”

“Here,” Hannah said and came into view again holding a black and white cat. “Sorry. He was hiding.”

Zach arched an eyebrow. “Of course he was.” He blew out a breath and rubbed his hands together. “Okay, Abbott. We need your help. I’ll bring you a fresh tuna right out of the ocean if you make this easy. Is my mother still there?”

Dylan shifted his attention between the cat and the man sitting beside him. Zach’s brow furrowed even as his shoulders straightened again. “What?” Dylan demanded.

“She’s not there.”

Dylan swore.

“She’s here, with you and me.”

The hairs on the back of his neck rose. He glanced around, even though he knew they were alone in the room. The cat’s eyes seemed to be watching something off to the right.

Zach swallowed hard and turned his head that way. “Mom, we need your help. We need to know how to find Alexandra. Do you know where she is?”

The cat stared so intently into the camera it started to give Dylan the creeps.

“Some kind of theater. Lots of red. Does that mean anything to you?” Zach asked Dylan.

Dylan’s entire body tensed. “Alexandra had a dream about the Dock Street Theater. We checked it out, but couldn’t find anything.”

“Is she still alive?” Zach asked loudly. Seconds passed as he and the cat looked at one another. “She’s alive. He’s drugged her.” Zach’s eyes narrowed on the screen as if he was listening. “How do we stop it?” After a beat, he turned to Dylan. “Alexandra visited someone from the Bellator. We’re gonna need his help.”

How did his brother know that?

“Thanks, Mom.” Zach pushed the computer away. “Hannah, we gotta go.”

“Please find her,” Hannah said, lowering the cat. “Please be careful.”

“I’ll let you know what happens.”

Dylan stood, feeling a sense of urgency. He hesitated, leaned down toward the screen before Zach could close it. “Hey, Spider?”

She appeared. “Yeah?”

“What’s your real name?”

She frowned and seemed reluctant to answer. “Emma.”

“Emma, I could kiss you right now. Thank you.”

She turned red. “Just bring Alexandra home, okay?”

“Count on it.”

The faint touch of a hand against her shoulder helped pull Alexandra back toward consciousness.

“Alexandra? Wake up. For the love of Pete, wake up.”

Her eyelids felt glued together. She struggled to pry them apart. Dim light flooded her vision once she did, but as dim as it was, it still hurt her eyes. She lifted a hand to block the light, and George’s familiar features blurred into focus.

“W-what?” She moved to push herself up. A sharp pain in her head wrenched a groan from her chest.

Migraine.

“We don’t have much time. He’ll be back.” George was leaning over her, his expression dire. The glimpse of red material at her arm tore her attention away from him.

“George, why am I wearing a red dress?” She hadn’t been wearing this before. She felt down her body. It was a clingy fabric that seemed to flare at her waist.

“He put it on ya while ya were half seas over.”

“Half seas what?”

“Ya know.” He frowned. “Knocked out.”

His words made her skin crawl, imagining a stranger’s hands touching her while she was both unaware and helpless to resist. George glanced toward her again, no trace of humor in his expression. “He’s made ya up to favor Nettie.”

“Who?”

“She died here, long time ago.”

Alexandra’s senses were beginning to clear. She looked around. “Where is she now?”

“Hidin’ from yer ole woman. They all are.” He stood and moved to the door. “I’m the only one fool enough to be here.”

She pushed herself to her feet. The room she was in was familiar. White-trimmed windows stood out amongst the dark red walls. At least the carpet at her bare feet was mostly gray.

So much freaking red everywhere.

“I dreamt about this place.” She took an unsteady step forward, and George hurried to catch her when she lost her balance. Instead of finding support in his arms, she fell through him, collapsing onto her knees on the carpet.

“Sorry, love. That stink done somethin’ to me. I’m not as strong as I usually am. If I were, I’d unlock that door.”

She lifted her gaze to the windows. They were shaded, but dark.

How long had she been here?

She swallowed the foul taste in her mouth. “Tell me about Nettie. How did she die?”

The killer was keen to recreate ghosts’ deaths. She rubbed the palm of her hand against her right eye, where the pain was strongest. Maybe knowing what he, what Dr. Watkins, had planned would give her an advantage. She gave herself a minute, tried to will the migraine away, before moving to stand again.

“Nettie?” she reminded when George said nothing.

“Well, now, she was…ya know.” George gestured at her dress and then tugged at his collar.

“No, I don’t know.” She looked at him. Then something clicked in her brain. “Wait. She was a prostitute?”

“If the scuttlebutt’s to be believed.” He moved around the room, glancing up and down as if he were searching for something. “A bit of a sad story really. This used to be a hotel back in the day. One night, poor Nettie was out on the balcony during a storm. Got struck by lightning. Killed her instantly.”

Think, Alexandra
.

The killer had been murdering his victims by injecting them with chloroform, but he liked to stage their bodies afterward to reflect someone else’s death scene. If Nettie had been electrocuted on the balcony, that must be where he planned to take Alexandra.

But Watkins hadn’t yet killed Alexandra, and he could have easily done so.

Her death was meant to be different somehow.

“Do you know where he is now, what he’s doing?” Alexandra asked as she checked the first window she saw. Tree limbs blocked her view of everything.

Maybe she could climb out if she could get the stupid window open. The windows were tall, old. She tried to lift up on the bottom but was too weak to budge it.

Dammit.

“He’s downstairs,” George grunted. “Puttin’ somethin’ together under the stage.”

“The stage?” That didn’t seem right. He should have been setting up something on the balcony. She tried to think harder and squinted against the pain in her head. “What are you looking for?” She moved to the only other window in the room and lifted the shade. There was only an empty alley.

George reached his hand toward her. “Com’ere.” He was standing in front of a desk in the corner of the room. She hurried to join him. He pointed at a paperclip lying on the surface. “Grab that. We can use it to pick the door’s lock.”

She snatched the paperclip and rushed to the door. It was an old door with a large keyhole. “I don’t know how to pick a lock.”

“I’ll tell ya what to do. Hurry.”

Kneeling, she followed George’s instructions. The first try, nothing happened. The second time, a slight metallic click was heard.

Alexandra turned the knob and the door creaked open.

“Run to your left. He’s coming up the stairs.” George hurried in front of her, using hand gestures to guide her along the dark hallway. He pointed to another door. “Quick. Hide in here.”

It was a closet! Alexandra pushed against the clothes hanging inside, tugging the door shut behind her as quietly as possible. She stilled and tried to calm her breathing. She couldn’t see anything. The closet was too dark.

The creak of footsteps nearby echoed eerily in the small space. They stopped suddenly.

“Alexandra?” A man’s voice bellowed her name from somewhere nearby. In a softer tone, she heard him say, “You smart girl.” Louder, he called in a sing-song voice, “Alex-an-dra? Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

The floor creaked again, and again, coming closer.

Sweat coated her palms, and the doorknob began to slip from her grasp. She pulled on it, keeping it shut. He wasn’t getting into this closet without a fight. She’d rather die than let him touch her again.

“I’m impressed!” The man yelled, alerting her that he was standing on the other side of the door. Another creak in the floorboard. “I thought Collins might come and try to rescue you, but I was getting impatient. I never counted on you freeing yourself!”

All movement on the other side of the door stopped. Alexandra swallowed, struggling not to move, not to breathe. Then, a loud thump in the distance was followed by the man’s muttered, “Dammit!” She could tell by his heavy footfall that he was running back the way he’d come. She closed her eyes and listened. The thump of his feet seemed to be going down.

“Someone’s come to help.” George’s voice whispered in the dark. “Hurry.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, she released the doorknob and pushed it open. George stood on the other side, but he wasn’t alone.

Rebecca Collins stood beside him.

Alexandra freed a sigh of relief and stepped toward Dylan’s mother. She must have made the noise downstairs to distract Watkins. Bless her heart.

George tilted his hat toward Rebecca in greeting. “Nice thinkin’, ma’am.”

“I’m so sorry, Alexandra.” The other woman shook her head. “Dylan and Zachary know you’re here. They’re on the way, but we have to get you safe.”

Alexandra started to move but stalled at the unexpected information. “Zach is here?”

“Come on now, ya need to light a shuck this way. We’re not safe yet.” George ushered them both back down the hall, opposite of the way Watkins had run. With very little light to guide her, Alexandra held onto Rebecca’s hand and ran through a doorway, then another, trusting George completely. Light began to pour into the hallway, and Alexandra instinctively ran toward it.

The theater’s interior was lit with stage lights. She was standing in the balcony section above the stage.

Oh no. The stage.

Something had been drawn on the stage. A circle. She was too far away, it was too dark, to see it clearly.

Rebecca tugged at her hand. “We shouldn’t be here.”

George nodded, his expression panicked.

Boom.

Alexandra spun around at the sound of a door being slammed behind her. She rushed to try the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge. She couldn’t go back the way she’d came.

“George?”

But George was no longer there. Neither was Rebecca.

Boom.

Another door slammed on the other side of the room.

Down. I need to go down.

The red glow of an EXIT sign above a door beside the stage beckoned to her. Alexandra hurried along the wall, behind the seats, ignoring the slamming doors, one after another, in front, behind and below her, in every direction. She finally found a doorway that led to a set of stairs.

Alexandra nearly tripped over the skirt of her dress as she rushed down the steps, clinging to the brass handrail for balance in her bare feet. At the bottom, she could see large, open windows leading to the street. That way. She needed to go that way.

A man’s shadow fell on the wall.

She couldn’t go that way. That had to be Watkins approaching.

She turned and ran through a dark hall that led her into the well-lit orchestra section of the theater. Casting anxious looks over her shoulder, she moved toward the illuminated EXIT sign.

“Not safe. The stage. Hide under the stage.”

The whispered words in her ear sounded familiar. Feminine. Rebecca? Dylan’s mother was still trying to help.

Alexandra glanced toward the emergency exit, hesitating. It made the most sense. She started that way again.

“That way isn’t safe. Hide under the stage.”

The door began rattling, as if someone on the other side were trying to enter. Alexandra turned and clambered for the stage. Watkins might not expect her to hide there. Maybe she could find a spot behind something, somewhere. Just long enough for the police to get here.

Her feet had just touched the stage when the overheard lights shut off, pitching her into darkness again.

The flicker of candlelight lit part of the stage, casting shadows that danced eerily on the curtains and across mannequins draped with costumes.

It was the only source of light, so Alexandra’s feet slowly moved in that direction.

As she grew closer to it, she could see it was a pentagram drawn in white on the stage’s floor. Seeing that was all it took for her to turn and get out of there.

It hadn’t been Rebecca’s whisper she’d heard. It had been the demon, manipulating her.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

Alexandra spun around at the sound of hard-heeled shoes walking behind her.

Click-clack.

The sound stopped.

The old woman stood a few feet away, her eyes as dark as night. A menacing smirk curved her mouth upward.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Alexandra.”

Alexandra took a step back as her fingers curled into fists at her side. All she could seem to think was
Crap!
What am I supposed to do now?

***

Dylan looked over to make sure Zach’s flak jacket was on right as he secured his own. They’d set up a barricade a block away from the theater. Patrol cars and officers obstructed it on all sides. The FBI had been called in, but the two agents seemed happy to let Dylan keep the lead on this operation.

“Ready for this?” Dylan asked his brother.

A SWAT team was in position to move, awaiting Dylan’s order. He planned to be with them, and Zach had made it clear he was going, with or without the police’s consent. It had taken the threat of handcuffs and the reminder that Dylan’s reputation was on the line to convince him to fall back.

Dylan nodded toward the barricade where Connor Manning stood, watching. “Zach, you’re waiting here until I give you the clear to come in with him. Got it?”

Zach’s expression was stoic. “I’ll give you five minutes after you enter the building. If I haven’t heard from you then, I’m coming in. Just so you know.”

Shaking his head, Dylan lifted his radio and gave the command to move forward, discreetly. Last thing they wanted was to alert Watkins they had the building surrounded.

Graham had discovered that the medical examiner had been volunteering at the theater for almost six months. That meant he probably knew his way around and hadn’t raised suspicion going in and out at all hours. He’d probably stolen or copied someone’s key and would know well enough that there were no auditions or rehearsals tonight.

Dylan had never been inside, but he’d familiarized himself with the blueprints while his team had been getting into position. He and Zach had agreed Alexandra was probably being held in one of the private upstairs rooms, or one of the dressing rooms behind the stage. Those places were his priority to search first.

He followed a man in full SWAT gear across the street, ducking behind trashcans and clinging to the side of the building, praying Watkins wasn’t keeping an eye on the street. Dylan gestured to the first SWAT officer, and the large man entered the building.

The lobby was substantial, with elegant spiral staircases leading up to the balcony on two sides. His men branched off, and Dylan motioned to McCormick to follow him up the service stairs. They’d start there first.

Gun drawn, Dylan entered one room, then another.

In the second room, McCormick pointed toward a chair. Alexandra’s clothes were draped across the furniture. Dylan’s shoulder muscles tightened.

She’d been here, but she wasn’t now.

Advancing back into the hallway, he nodded to his left. They would access the balcony, move down and check the dressing rooms behind the stage.

The balcony seemed extremely dark as he stepped into the area. There was some light, very dim, coming from the stage.

Alexandra stood, tall and straight in a red dress, staring intently at something in front of her. Dylan saw no one on the stage with her.

The door behind him suddenly slammed shut.

He spun and saw Watkins dart from the shadows toward a row of seats further down. The man rounded the section as Dylan gave chase, weaving in and out of rows of seats.

“Dylan!” Alexandra yelled his name, but he didn’t take his eyes off Watkins.

Where the hell had McCormick gone?

Watkins was headed toward a doorway. Dylan sprang over the row of seats, pushed his foot off the back of a chair, and launched himself at the man from a sideways angle.