Page 32 of Bone Echo

He couldn’t face her. Not now. Although his daughters would be fast asleep, he didn’t want to see them, either. The murder scene clung to him like pollen he couldn’t wash off. He felt tainted by it, sickened, as if he had a contagious disease his children might catch.

He drove until he found saw the blinking neon sign, Big Jim’s Brews. Open 24-7.

He sat in his car, wrestling with his need and his conscience. Charlie was out there in the rain. Lost.

Need won.

Dudley got out of his car, ducked his head against the downpour, and hurried into the bar. It was almost empty. He slid onto the bar stool. Three stools down a woman with purple hair was crying into her whiskey glass. He knew her. She worked Beale Street.

She glanced up at him. Cringed. “You after me, cop?”

“Not tonight, Brenda.” Big Jim, himself, approached, and Dudley told him, “One for the road, Jim.”

“Where’s your brother tonight?”

The question ripped through him like shrapnel. That was the question.Where was Charlie?

He rubbed his hand over his face as if he might physically remove the fear and the rage that were tearing him apart. There was no way he could—or would—explain to Big Jim what had happened in Charlie’s workshop.

“He’s not coming.”

He wouldnevercome again. The realization tore a hole in Dudley’s heart, and he sat there, feeling love and hope and belief in mankind leak out of him, fall to the floor, and drain through the cracks in the ancient floorboard. Without his brother, he was half a man.

CHAPTER FOUR

Somewhere in the Dark

The blood would never come out of the clothes.Too bad.It had been a favorite pair of slacks.

The driver turned the windshield wipers on high and drove through the darkened streets, every thought, every memory, hidden by the curtain of rain. It was peaceful, soothing. Just as tightening the garrote around his neck had been, feeling the body jerk in reaction, feeling a surge of power akin to an electrical current.

The garrote had been only the beginning of a cat and mouse game that used every tool in the workshop to its fullest advantage. The victim fought. Oh, how he fought. But hornet spray in his eyes, the knife slashes across his arms, and the screwdriver wedged into his left thigh made it impossible for him to land a solid blow or pin his assailant down.

The hooded raincoat, plastic rain pants, and rain boots had provided protection from much of the blood. But the amount on the floor and walls had been more satisfying than sitting down to a banquet table and eating every single item on it.

Who knew killing could be such a natural high?

The urge to share the jubilation was so great it almost burst through the driver’s skin, almost spilled over and turned the expressionless face into a maniacal grin.

It had been a slick job. A secluded house. An unsuspecting man. A perfect alibi.

Nobody would ever find the killer or the victim.Ever.

CHAPTER FIVE

Dudley’s House

The minute he drove up, he saw the lights ablaze in the living room. Dudley’s heart sank. He had hoped to sneak into his house, take a quick shower and then finish the night on the sofa, as he often did of late, especially after a murder that required the homicide squad to work into the wee hours of the morning.

He told Gloria Jean he was being respectful of her. There was no need to disturb her night’s sleep just because he didn’t get one. She always countered that he was avoiding her, he didn’t love her anymore, he was married to his job.

Tonight, he was too bone tired and heartsick to face that kind of confrontation. As he got out of the car, he prayed that she had just left the lights on for him.

He slid the key into the lock and eased open his door. His luck had run out. There she sat, his wife, perched on the edge of the sofa, arms crossed over her chest, a frown marring her face. The fact that she was still beautiful, even when angry, made him want to try harder to save what they’d once had.

He still marveled that a dark eyed beauty with cherry lips had fallen in love with an ordinary man you’d never notice on the street. Dudley had a plain, uninteresting face, brown hair that refused to conform to any style except a buzz cut, a cowlick that made the front of it stick up as if he were constantly startled. He was shaped like a refrigerator. No broad shoulders and trim waist. Just a boxy man with powerful arms and legs as strong and sturdy as fence posts.

“Do you know what time it is?”

---