Page 5 of Their Haunted Hearts
Needing to know what they’d discovered, Jenna looked at Raven. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“Nope.” Raven leaned forward. His hands loosely gripped the table. “No one saw anything. We spoke to the assistant manager, Wendy, and the coffin has been there since Friday last. It’s an automaton, with motion sensors. The door opens to display a vampire with red glowing eyes. She didn’t notice anything unusual until about half an hour before the shooting started. She figures she smelled something bad.”
Jenna pushed her hair from her eyes and retied it at the nape of her neck. “Most of the displays remain outside all night. They’re too heavy for one person to move. I can’t imagine someone carrying a body along the sidewalk, removing the mannequin, and replacing it with a corpse without being seen.”
“They might have been seen.” Kane dropped into the chair beside her. “The thing is, no one would pay much attention to someone setting up a display. I saw someone carrying a headless body just before and went to check it out but no one was taking any notice. It’s Halloween and people are setting up their displays. We all know they do this the week before. In this town the Halloween festival lasts about ten days.”
“Yeah, they like to make it last.” Raven chuckled. “Although, I can’t buy enough of the pumpkin pies from the bake-off. I’m first in line every year.”
Jenna smiled at Wendy when she delivered the meals. “This looks great. Thanks.”
“If I’d come in the front door when I arrived this morning, I’d have noticed something was wrong with the display.” Wendy’s brow creased into a frown. “I wonder how long she’s been there. It gives me the shivers knowing that poor woman has been there all morning.” She looked at Kane. “I’ve checked the CCTV footage for last night right through until nine this morning. I see shadows moving, is all.” She pulled a thumb drive from her pocket and handed it to Kane. “I saved it for you just in case you can get anything from it.”
“Thanks.” Kane slid the drive into his jacket pocket.
When Wendy headed back to the counter, Jenna turned to Kane and Raven. “We need to check the displays and make sure there are no other surprises.”
“Already done.” Kane bit into a sandwich and moaned. “Aw, man, this is amazing. Mine has a honey glaze sauce with apples in it.”
“Mine too.” Raven chewed slowly. “I could become addicted to this.”
Looking from one to the other, Jenna laughed. “You two will be moving in here soon.”
“Nah.” Kane grinned. “I’m addicted to you.”
Four
He watched in amazement as chaos erupted in town. Standing in the crowd of onlookers and seeing the ruined corpse angered him. He wanted to make a statement, send a warning, and now it had become a sideshow. Almost as bad as the so-called amusing ghouls and other blood-soaked atrocities the townsfolk wheeled out each year. It didn’t matter in which town he spent Halloween, the people ignored everything as if the vampires had used their glamor on them and bent them to their will.
All this weird exhibitionism—the costume-wearing and the need to outdo the graphic brutality each year—was the result of the vampires. They waited patiently for this night and snatched people from the streets. Once bitten, they become slaves, willing to do anything their masters tell them. It wasn’t like the movies. Vampires moved through time and they don’t catch fire in the sunlight. He’d seen them and understood what it was like to have the woman he loved seduced by one and taken from him.
He could read the signs. They snuck into town at night, always wore dark clothes and had pale skin. Many faked a problem. They’d lost their money, were hungry and homeless, or escaping from abuse. If these terrible things had really happened to them, rather than being wary, they were the opposite. He’d found them easy to talk to because they believed they could manipulate him. Luckily, he understood their glamor—the way they mesmerized people with their eyes to make them believe their lies. They figured they had their target in sight and would follow him home. He understood their intention to strike the moment he shut his eyes, but luckily, they never made it that far.
He’d destroy them before they rose on the second night to wreak havoc in Black Rock Falls. If the vampires were left to run free, many innocent people would be taken—and no one would know until it was too late. It needed to stop. Not a soul would listen to him—and nobody could stop him. He would deal with the problem by sliding into the role of a vampire slayer to take them down before they infected everyone in the town. He smiled to himself. Each one was a thrill. The discovery, the chase—and the execution.
Five
That afternoon, Jenna stepped into the brightly lit corridor leading to the examination rooms in the medical examiner’s building. Behind her, she could hear Kane’s and Raven’s boots clattering on the tile floor. The air had a strange aroma of vanilla and formaldehyde as she led the way to an alcove where they changed into scrubs and PPE. Once ready, they moved to the door with the red light glowing above it and Jenna swiped her identification card across the scanner. The door slid open in a whoosh and the faint smell of decomposition oozed through her face mask. Cold immediately seeped through her clothes, raising goose bumps and instilling a feeling of unease. Autopsies were a necessity, but she hated attending them, sometimes unable to push the sight of a murder victim from her mind. She guessed being here made her more determined to catch the killer.
Trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, she blinked into the brightness of the overhead surgical lights, reflecting in the stainless-steel surfaces, over the neat rows of instruments and the array of screens. Wolfe stood beside an instrument tray, his white-blond hair partly covered by a surgical cap, his face masked and covered with a plastic shield. He nodded to Jenna and turned to greet them.
“There y’all are and Raven too.” Wolfe’s gray eyes twinkled. “Almost ready. Emily will be along soon.” He removed the tops from specimen jars filled with liquid and lined them up.
Jenna moved to stand under the air-conditioning unit. The constant flow of fresh air made being in the autopsy suite a little more palatable. She leaned her back against the counter. “Have you completed a preliminary examination?”
“I’ve taken the body temperature, swabbed the exterior for any hairs or trace evidence, and taken a good set of prints. I figure she died around eight to twelve hours before her body was discovered.” Wolfe sighed. “Emily is running a DNA sample in the sequencer, but unless she or any of her relatives are in the database, it will be no use until she shows on a missing person’s file and we can test a relative.”
The door whooshed open and Emily Wolfe, the new medical examiner, came through the door in a squeak of shoes. She dumped an armful of specimen jars on the counter and turned to look at them.
“Hello, everyone.” She arranged the jars within reach. “Hi, Raven. It’s good to see you again.”
“I couldn’t miss watching you work.” Raven gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s been a long road for you but it’s finally happening. Your dad must be so proud of you.” He glanced at Wolfe.
“I’m just about bursting.” Wolfe’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled behind the mask. “But it makes me feel terribly old. It seems only yesterday I was bringing her home from the hospital.” He looked at Emily. “Okay, we’d better get to work.” He walked over to a bank of drawers, slid out a body on an autopsy table and then pushed it under the lights.
“I have everything we need.” Beside him, Emily pulled down the microphone and positioned it in front of her father.
Jenna pressed her face mask tighter over her nose as the distinct smell of bodily fluids wafted from the corpse. When Wolfe removed the sheet, the acrid sweet smell of decomposition became overpowering. The victim was sheet-white, and the tips of her toes and fingers had turned blue. A bullet hole in her cheek showed white teeth. “What have you got, Shane?”
