“You don’t have to. It’s written all over your face. Come to think of it, you look as though you were served bad oysters at lunch.”
“Maybe I’m worrying that nothing’s ever going to change between us.”
She quickly lowered her thick lashes. “Knock it off, Morgan. How many times do I have to tell you that you’re wasting your time toying with me?”
“Until it sinks into that pretty but thick head of yours that I’m not playing a game.”
“There is no us.”
“Right. Keep trying to convince yourself of that.” Fighting a stronger frustration than usual, Jared shoved the receipt into his shirt pocket.
Michaele slapped the clipboard back onto the workbench. “What’s gotten into you? We go through the same song-and-dance every time you come over, then you go on your merry way. Why get bent out of shape today?”
“Because, believe it or not, you’re not the only one who’s had a long day, and maybe I’m a little tired of you insisting this is all a joke, when you know damn well it’s not.”
Her laugh was brief, but confirmed her confusion and growing unease. “Of course it’s a joke. That’s why you mess with me. You know I’m not interested in a relationship with anyone. And I sure as hell wouldn’t start anything with someone who drinks!”
Jared knew that, all right, and thought her reasoning reeked worse than their creeks’ stagnant water during a dry spell. “Damn it, not everyone who has a beer once in a while is going to turn into the alcoholic your old man is!”
“Didn’t say they were. But I’m not planning to test the theory, either.”
He didn’t want to analyze it, but something that wouldn’t stay contained got the best of him. “Then start dressing like you mean it.”
“Excuse me?” Arms akimbo, she stared down at her stained denim shirt and jeans.
“Getting as dirty as a man doesn’t make you one. You know full well that my office window faces here. In the future, try wearing a bra once in a while and jeans that don’t look sprayed on, if you find my attention so offensive.”
As he headed for his patrol car, Michaele followed like a rabid terrier on the heels of a postman. “What I wear is my business, Chief Morgan, have you got that?”
Jared didn’t answer. Instead he all but threw himself into the patrol car and slammed the door shut. Tight-lipped, he gunned the engine and drove the hell out of there.
Son of a bitch. He groaned as he headed toward Split Creek High School. Of all the stupid blunders…
He’d met Michaele Ramey when she’d been a runt of sixteen, and she’d already known more about cars than most men learned in a lifetime. Even then she was going through seven kinds of hell with her family. Her inner strength, that incredible determination not to crumble, had quickly won his respect, just as her apparent disregard for—or more accurately, her obliviousness to—her exotic beauty had won his admiration. But, of course, she’d only been a kid…and he had met Sandy. Sandy, who, after his parents’ death, brought a calm and sweetness to his life—until that awful day six years ago when he’d kissed her good-night, not realizing it was goodbye.
Jared rubbed his stubble-rough jaw, disgusted with himself. This was the wrong time to think about that, just as he’d chosen the wrong moment to push Michaele. She still wasn’t ready.
Fool, she probably never will be.
Damn Garth’s phone call. Who needed old ghosts resurrected?
He owed Michaele an apology—and she would get it, right after he dealt with whatever was going on at the school. Watch that not be anywhere near as bad as Garth had insinuated, too, he thought grimacing. But then, nothing could be that bad again. Not ever.
Split Creek Jr.–Sr. High School was located right after the bridge over Big Blackberry Creek, a half-mile before the eastern perimeter of town. Jared pulled into the sprawling school’s curved driveway, eyed the near-empty parking lot, and stopped before the canopied entryway. Hurrying inside, he found Garth Powers waiting for him in the main hallway.
At 42, the six-foot-seven-inch former basketball star had served as trail master to herds of high school kids for several years longer than Jared had been a cop, and had the trim build of a man several years younger. His open-minded sense of humor had helped him sustain a more youthful attitude than many his age, so he’d proven himself to be a big favorite among students, faculty and parents. Now Jared grew uneasy as he noted Garth’s spooked countenance and the way the grim-faced man kept glancing nervously over his shoulder.
“Thanks for coming,” Garth said. “By chance did you see anyone hanging around outside?”
“No. Are we waiting for someone else?”
“I’d say he’s already been here and gone. The question is, for how long?” Garth pushed open the door to the men’s rest room, and Jared entered.
He stopped only a step beyond the threshold.
Up on the tiled wall were scrawled large letters painted in a bright red that ran the entire length of the tiled urinal wall. Garth illuminated them even more by turning on the rest of the overhead fluorescent lights. That made the message look even more insane.
I’m back! 666
3
Although every instinct told him to turn around and walk out, to climb back into his car and keep going until he ran out of gas, Jared forced himself to stay put.
“Tell me it’s not blood,” Garth said, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.
“It sure as hell looks it.”
“But surely not…?”
“Human? Considering the amount this would have taken, let’s guess against it for the moment, and hope to heaven somebody doesn’t show up missing within the next day or so.”
“Jesus, Jared.”
“If you don’t want the truth, don’t ask the questions.”
The harsh reprimand had the older man backing away a step. “Just tell me what kind of sick bastard decided to resurrect this part of our past.”
Someone who remembered what horror they’d lived through that terrible day six springs ago tomorrow. Someone who knew what it had done to the town and wanted another taste of that craziness. But he knew Garth didn’t want to hear that any more than Jared wanted to believe such a thing possible.
“It’s almost graduation,” he said, grasping for a credible alternative. “You of all people know how revved kids get at this time of year.”
“This isn’t something to joke about. Not in Split Creek.”
Amen, thought Jared, because the last time they’d been exposed to anything like this—the first time—the price had been a life, one very dear to them both, a life that had cost the town its innocence. Anyone who thought it amusing to stir up any of that was sick, pure and simple, and needed to be found.
“Who else has seen this?” he asked, unable to take his eyes off the numbers.
“Just me. I noticed the light under the door, but knew Brady had finished in here over an hour ago.”
“Brady Watts? Where is he?”
“Over in the science lab. Should I get him?”
The school’s janitor was a gentle-natured old black man, who kept to himself and wasn’t the kind to repeat gossip, let alone encourage it. But first and foremost he was a Southern Baptist. Seeing this message would shake him enough to seek out spiritual guidance,