MESSAGE in the BLOOD, page 1
MESSAGE IN THE BLOOD
Messages of Murder Book 6
Dawn Merriman
TV reporter, Lacey Aniston, has been an enemy to Gabby since high school. When Lacey calls Gabby for help, she wants to say no at first. But Gabby uses her psychic gift to help people, that includes Lacey.
Lacey's sister has been kidnapped and it will take Gabby and her gift along with Dustin and Lucas to find her. After this case, nothing will be the same.
Book 6 in the Messages of Murder series.
Book 1: Message in the Bones
Book 2: Message in the Fire
Book 3: Message in the Grave
Book 4: Message in the Snow
Book 5: Message in the Box
Chapter 1
LACEY ANISTON
The roof of my mouth is burned from the hot cheese of the pizza I ate earlier. I rub my tongue across the rough flesh and finish off my glass of wine in an attempt to cool the scorch. The sweet liquid cools my mouth, but does little to stop the wave of anxiety sizzling beneath the surface. I smooth my hand over my no longer grumbling stomach and look for the hundredth time out the front window of my apartment. I hope to see my sister, Aubry, hurrying up the sidewalk. I can imagine her coming to my door, her overlarge purse bumping against her legs.
I squint and I can see her.
I open my eyes and the sidewalk is empty. As I watch, a scrap of paper blows across the vacant concrete, dances in the air.
I pour another glass of wine, but leave it untouched next to the half-empty pizza box.
I'd waited for my sister, Aubry, to come over as we planned and help me eat it, but she never showed. It wasn't like her to miss our usual Sunday night dinner at my apartment. It was one of the few things I looked forward to during the week. When she was late, my grumbling stomach got the better of me and I reheated the delivered pizza in the microwave. The extra pepperoni, extra cheese, extra sauce deliciousness is another weekly indulgence relegated to Sundays. As a woman who makes her living in front of a camera, I have to be careful about what crosses my lips. My pizza dinners with my sister give me the strength to face the carrot sticks and salads the rest of the week.
By the time I finished off the third piece and checked my phone for the twenty-fourth time for an answer to my texts to Aubry more than the roof of my mouth is aching.
I know something is wrong.
My fingers furiously type another text. “I'm not kidding around now. Either get back to me or I'm coming over. If Brent is behind this, I'll kill him.”
I stab the phone and send the text. Before the phone can whoosh the send sound I'm on my feet and reaching for my purse.
Aubry has never missed a Sunday dinner with me without calling first and letting me know. In all the world, she is the one person I trust most. The one person I would never expect to stand me up.
If Brent is behind it, I swear....
I swear what? I've warned her before, and it has led nowhere. What can I do besides warn her that I know what he's done to her. Tell her to leave? Beg her to come live with me?
For a shiny moment, I imagine Aubry living with me. Another person to fill the emptiness of my apartment, of my life. Anyone. I'd love to have anyone. When my young son went to live with his dad permanently, it left a hole in my heart.
I start the car, roll down the window a few inches and light a cigarette. The smoke bites the back of my throat and the nicotine rushes my blood, mixes with the pizza I over-ate and the two glasses of wine.
As I drive to Aubry's apartment, I will my phone to ring, to chirp, to do anything to let me know she's okay.
I know she's not.
Sometimes I just know things. I don't want to be able to, but there you have it.
I suck down the cigarette and toss it out the window just as I turn onto Aubry's street. I park behind Aubry's Prius and look up at the house. The three story home was lovely in a previous life, now it has been chopped into four different apartments. Aubry's is the basement level, windows peek into the flower beds. The whole house is dark except one dim light glimmering from deep inside her apartment.
I wish I had come earlier, before the spring sun dipped below the horizon. The looming house gives off an energy I'd rather not face.
I want another cigarette and I'm not sure what to do now that I'm here. Brent's truck is parked in front of Aubry's Prius, so both of them are home, presumably. If they are having some sort of lover's spat, she won’t want me to get into the middle of it, but I will.
If he's laying hands on my sister again, I will stop at nothing to get him off her. I roll the window of my Camry down and listen. It is eerily quiet. No arguing, no crashing plates, nothing to denote an argument.
The feeling that something is terribly wrong overwhelms me and I climb out of the car. My feet drag up the weed choked sidewalk and down the four steps to the basement door. I knock, my fist loud on the wood.
No sound comes from inside.
“Aubry? You here?” I call, too loud.
Still nothing.
The green paint on the door is cracked and I run a fingernail under one of the chips, not sure what to do. The chip falls away and lands on the toe of my black sneaker. Annoyed, I brush it away.
“Aubry?” I call with more desperation. “Brent?” I cup my face and press my nose against the glass of the small window in the front door. My breath fogs up the glass and I can't see in.
I pull my face away, wipe the glass and try again. The interior of the apartment is too dark to see anything beside the basic shapes of furniture. Next to the door is a smiling frog with a fake flowering plant in it. I know Aubry hides a key under the frog. I've told her how unsafe that is. It's the first place anyone would look for the key. As a reporter for the TV news, I've learned a few things.
Aubry, in her usual easy manner, brushed off my concerns. “If anyone really wanted to break in, they'd just smash a window,” she'd said. “The key is for people like you, non-criminals who just need in.”
I tip the smiling frog and retrieve the key, glad she didn't listen to me.
The key glides in easily, but there was no need for it. The door is unlocked.
A sick sense slides into my belly, the special sense I try desperately to avoid. The pizza I ate earlier flops sickeningly.
I push the door open onto the dark room.
The first thing I notice is the smell, the heavy, metal smell that I know instinctively is blood. I scream Aubry's name and scramble for the light switch. The room floods with light.
The body lies near the center of the room, in front of the couch, the legs spread across the colorful rug. Face-down, I only see the blond hair. Blond hair like mine, just not as long. I blink in shock, staring at the hair. One section is matted and red, a pool of blood spreading out from the head. Under the couch is a bat, red staining the business end of it.
The face is turned away from me. The black t-shirt and jeans could be worn by a man or woman. As the initial shock begins to fade, I realize the shoulders are too broad, the hair is long and blond, but not as long as Aubry's.
Brent wears his hair like that.
I drop to my knees near the body, but not too close. “Brent?” I whisper, knowing he won't be answering. With shaking fingers, I do the only thing that seems appropriate, feel for a pulse.
His neck is cold to the touch.
I snap my hand back.
The pizza flip flops in my stomach, rushes to be released.
I run for the front door and barely make it to the bushes before the pizza comes up. I drop to my knees as I vomit. My stomach empty, my mind is full of one thought.
“Where is Aubry?”
I climb onto shaky legs and go back into the apartment. I run from room to room, but Aubry is not here.
I close my eyes and focus, hoping to get some kind of idea about what happened here.
Nothing.
All I know is Brent is dead and Aubry is gone.
Desperate, I call her number again, begging her to answer.
A phone rings in the distance, outside. I follow the sound and find her phone in the bushes, not far from where I lost my pizza.
My legs finally give out and I sink onto the steps leading down to her apartment. This doesn't look good for my sister. There can only be two stories here. She either killed Brent and took off without her phone or her car.
Or she's been taken and is in major trouble.
Aubry is not a murderer. Of that I'm sure.
But if Brent was coming after her, if he attacked her and she fought back?
I can't call the police. They will immediately think she did this. I look at her phone in the bushes and at her car parked on the curb.
If she was running from the cops, she'd have taken both.
I light another smoke and rack my brain for who can help. Only one person comes to mind. Someone that might be able to tell me what actually happened here.
The one person I dislike as much as I love my sister.
With tears threatening and my voice choking, I dial Gabby McAllister.
“I already told you, I don’t want to be interviewed,” she barks into the phone.
I swallow hard against the tears, “Gabby? I need your help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My sister has disappeared and I’m afraid to call the cops. You have to help me find her.”
Gabby hesitates, I'm sure wondering how desperate I must be to call her. “You do know I'm with both Lucas and Dustin right now.”
I hadn't thought that far ahead. “You can't tell them,” I snap. “At least not yet. Please, Gabby. This is my sister, we're talking about. I need help. You know I'm out of ideas if I'm calling you.”
Another long moment of silence as Gabby thinks. “Where are you?” she finally asks.
My shoulders slump in relief as I give her the address. “You'll come alone?”
“For now. That's all I can promise.”
Chapter 2
GABBY
My mouth hangs open in shock as I slide the phone back in my pocket. My entire family stands in Grandma Dot's kitchen, all eyes on me.
“Who was that?” Grandma asks with concern.
I fiddle with the necklace Lucas gave me for Christmas and say, “Lacey Aniston.”
“That reporter lady that ambushed you the other day?” Mom asks.
I nod, my mind scrambling for a way to leave the dinner Grandma has planned without telling Lucas and Dustin where I'm going. Lacey doesn't want the cops involved. Maybe she shouldn't have called someone so closely involved with the only two detectives in River Bend, Indiana.
“Uh, I got to go.” I direct the words to Grandma, hoping she'll be the easiest to convince. “Lacey needs my help with something.”
“Why would she ask you? I didn't get the feeling you two are friends,” Mom pipes in, not helping at all.
“They're not.” Lucas's voice is firm. “What's going on?”
I wrap the chain of my necklace around my finger then realize how nervous the act makes me look and drop it. “She just needs me. Please, its work. I can't tell you.”
My brother, Dustin, makes a sound of disgust. “When we try to block you from our work you get all upset.”
He's right, but I won't admit that now. Instead, I use him as a target to get me out of Grandma's kitchen without having to answer any more questions. “Crap on a cracker, Dustin, then you know what I'm talking about don't you? Can you give Lucas a ride home after dinner?”
“You're actually leaving for Lacey?” Lucas says. “That must have been some phone call.” His hand is already digging his car keys out of his pocket to hand to me, trusting I know what I’m doing.
I love this man.
“I'll drive your handsome detective home if he needs a ride,” Grandma says, breaking the tension in the room. “First, eat a bit of something. You know how you get when you’re hungry. Can't have you attacking Lacey because you skipped dinner.” She hands me a roll and a piece of fried chicken. I drop a kiss on her thin cheek and whisper, “Thank you.”
Lucas walks me out onto the porch. “You'll bring the car back tonight?”' he asks suggestively.
I give him a kiss totally different than the one I gave Grandma. “Wouldn't miss it.”
“Be careful, Gabby. I know Lacey asked for your help, but you two together makes me nervous. I wish you'd tell me what was going on.”
“Honestly, I'm not completely sure.” I take a bite out of the chicken leg Grandma gave me. “Wow, this is good. Wish I could stay.”
Lucas looks about to say I can, but thinks better of it. He, of all people, should understand about being called out of family dinners to work.
I wave the chicken leg at him and climb into his car, secretly a little upset that Lacey called me and not the police. Although if she'd called the cops, it would be Lucas and Dustin's dinner that was ruined as well, not just mine.
I find Lacey sitting on a set of steps leading to what looks like a basement apartment in a large Victorian age home in the oldest part of town. The house is dark and looming, Lacey's unnaturally blond hair glows against the gloom.
My sneakers sound loud on the sidewalk as I make my way to her. Half way up the walk, I smell the smoke. I hadn't realized Lacey was a smoker. A drinker, sure, but not a smoker.
She hears me approach and looks over her shoulder so fast, her bright hair swirls around her. She must wear expensive mascara because, it's obvious in the pale light that she has been crying, but her makeup hasn't run down her face. Besides the red rims around her eyes and the pinkness of her running nose, she looks as beautifully made up as ever.
A surge of jealousy is quickly followed by a pang of self-consciousness. I run a hand over my wild curls and wish I had at least put on some lip gloss. I had applied a minimal amount of eyeliner before going to Grandma's, just enough to make me look like I tried, but that’s it.
I chew on my bare lower lip nervously. I don't know the last time Lacey and I have ever been alone together. She usually has a cameraman with her when she ambushes me. Or that time I saw her at the store, she was with a friend. I'm not sure how to act under these strange circumstances.
When Lacey sees me, she stubs out her cigarette and adds the butt to the small pile on the step next to her. She gives me a quick once over from unruly curls to scuffed sneakers, then jumps to her feet.
“Gabby, I'm so glad you came.” She flies up the steps and throws her arms around me. I go stiff at the sudden embrace, terrified. If Lacey is shook up enough to actually touch me, to hug me, then things must be really bad.
I remove myself from her as delicately as possible. “I told you I would come,” I say lamely, unsettled. “Why don't you tell me what's going on.”
“My sister Aubry didn't show up for our regular Sunday night pizza dinner,” she starts. I have trouble imagining Lacey with family and eating pizza. I have trouble picturing her as a human woman at all. “I got a, a feeling, that something was wrong, so I came here to her apartment.” She motions to the door. “And I found him. Brent. He's - .” She twists a long lock of her hair around her finger then lets it fall. “Aubry's not here, but her car and her phone are here.” She twists the hair again, lets it fall, twists it again. The feverish motion is making me anxious. “I'm hoping you can, you know, do what you do, figure out what happened to Aubry, where she is.”
At the moment, I'm more concerned with the mysterious Brent. I turn my back on the crazy hair twisting and hurry into the apartment. I find him on the floor of the living room, his blood pooled next to his head, seeping into the colorful rug.
“Lacey,” I shout. “You didn't tell me you found a dead man. We have to call Lucas and Dustin.”
“You promised, no cops. At least not yet. They will think Aubry did this to him and I know she didn't.”
“But we can't just leave him here.”
“We won't. He's not going to get any deader than he is. Please, take a look around, touch things or do whatever you need to. Nothing matters except finding Aubry.” She has stopped twirling her hair and is staring me down with a determined expression I'm more familiar with on her face.
I take a step away from her, holding up my hands. “Okay. I'll do what I can.” I look around the room, the crime scene. “We shouldn't be in here, messing with things. Did you touch anything earlier?”
“No. Well, I mean, I tried to find a pulse on Brent, but he was cold.”
“You didn't touch anything else?”
“I just looked around quick for Aubry.”
“That's good.” I scan the room, note the bat with blood on it under the couch. The murder weapon.
“Are you just going to stand there looking around or are you going to do something? My sister is in danger and you're wasting time.”
I know what I need to do, but getting visions is a very personal and vulnerable thing, especially when a murder is involved. I loathe the idea of doing it in front of Lacey.
I stall, “Not to be indelicate, but you do know I don't do this for free, right?”
“For God's sake, Gabriella, Daddy will pay you anything you want, just get busy.”
I lower my voice to a growl. “You call me Gabriella again and I'll walk out that door and call the police. Understand?”
Lacey takes a deep breath and blows it out. With an effort of will, she says politely, “I understand. We will pay your fee. Now please, do something.”
I’d hoped mentioning money would make her change her mind. I would give anything to be back at Grandma Dot's with my family, not kneeling before a murdered man about to see his death, witnessed by the person I dislike the most in the world. I pull off my left glove.
“God, please give me the strength to help her and not lose my cool,” I pray silently. Out loud, I say. “Let me see what needs to be seen.”
I touch Brent's cold hand and the vision jolts into me.
