Freaky Hearts Read online

  “My name is Poet Parker. This is my associate, Kade Denton. We’re with the Mystic Caravan Circus.”

  “So?”

  I ignored his sour attitude. “Are you Melvin Jackson?”

  “Not if you’re selling something.”

  “We’re not selling anything.” I forced myself to remain calm despite his attitude. “We’re looking for answers regarding an old mystery.”

  Melvin rubbed his chin as he narrowed his eyes. His expression didn’t lighten in the least, but he stopped trying to force my foot out of the opening. “You’re here because of those missing kids, aren’t you?”

  “We found both of them,” I answered. “We did a little digging and your name came up in a missing child report from twenty years ago. We’re here to ask if you’re some sort of demented pervert who is stalking and stealing kids.”

  Kade’s mouth dropped open. I ignored his incredulous expression as I started poking in Melvin’s mind.

  “Well, you’re direct,” Melvin muttered. “I have to give you that. I don’t like it, but I respect it.”

  “Great,” Kade said. “Can we come in and discuss the situation with you?”

  “I don’t allow strangers in my house,” Melvin replied. “Anything you want to say to me you can do it right here.”

  “Do you really want your neighbors to hear this discussion?” Kade didn’t look convinced.

  “I really don’t want strangers in my house,” Melvin stressed. “Besides, you’re with the circus. That means you’re freaks by nature.”

  “We can have the discussion here,” I said, grabbing Kade’s wrist when he tensed. I was sure he was going to say something mean, but that’s the last thing I wanted now that Melvin had let his guard down a bit and was talking. “What can you tell us about what happened to the boy twenty years ago?”

  “I can’t tell you anything,” Melvin replied. “The cops focused on me because I was hunting in the woods that day. My truck was parked by the side of the road. They were waiting for me when I got back. They asked me a bunch of questions – none of which I could answer, mind you – and then they hauled me in about four times over a two-week period to question me. That was before the big interrogation, which seemed to go on forever.”

  “The online reports suggest they grilled you for almost a week straight at one point,” Kade noted. “Most people would’ve broken under sustained questioning like that whether they were guilty or not. You didn’t.”

  “That’s because I was innocent.” Melvin released the door and it fell open, giving me a decent glance inside the home. It wasn’t overly ornate. The only homey touch consisted of a series of photos hanging on the wall over his shoulder. I focused on the photos as I wandered the maze of his brain. “Listen, I’m not going to pretend I’m a perfect man. I’m not even sure I’m a good man. But I don’t steal children. I have no reason to do it.”

  “Did you see anything while you were in the woods that day?” Kade asked.

  On the surface, Melvin seemed to be exactly what he purported. He wasn’t lying – and he clearly didn’t like us – but I couldn’t find anything malevolent in the dark corners of his mind. I decided to dig deeper.

  “I didn’t even see any deer,” Melvin replied. “I was minding my own business. Hell, I fell asleep for a good two hours because I was so bored. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I got back to my truck. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

  “You fell asleep?” For some reason, that part of the tale intrigued me and I latched onto the memory when Melvin focused on it. The memory was cloudy and unrefined, although Melvin didn’t appear to be purposely obscuring anything. Whether that had anything to do with time or the fact that he’d been drinking heavily back then, I couldn’t say.

  “I took a flask with me and drank too much,” Melvin admitted. “The cops thought I had some sort of drunken psychosis and killed the boy without realizing it. They confiscated my rifle, which hadn’t been fired, and clothes. They didn’t find anything.”

  “What do you think happened to him?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “I think he wandered away and died a horrible death in the woods,” Melvin replied. “It wouldn’t have been a pleasant way to go, starving to death alone out there.”

  “Probably not,” I mused, glancing at Kade. Melvin’s mind was clean. If he had killed the boy, he was a master at shielding his thoughts. As for the recent abductions, the man had knee and back problems. I had serious doubts that he could climb through windows and tromp through the woods while carrying a struggling child. “Can I ask you one more thing before we go?”

  “Would you refrain from doing it if I said no?”

  I shook my head.

  Melvin let loose with an exasperated sigh. “Get on with it.”

  “That photograph on the wall behind you, is that your family?” I inclined my chin in that direction.

  “That’s my wife and sons,” Melvin replied. “None of them live here any longer. My wife died two years ago. My sons are old and have families of their own. That photo was taken almost twenty years ago.”

  “You’re all holding hunting rifles,” I noted. “Did your sons go with you that day?”

  Melvin realized where I was going before I could ask the obvious question. “They weren’t with me. They both worked at the time. I was in the woods alone. We hunted together quite often, but not that day.”

  He was telling the truth, but there was something familiar about one of the boys in the photo. I couldn’t put my finger on it. “Where are your sons now?”

  “And we’re done,” Melvin said, reaching for the door. “Listen, I understand you’re trying to solve a tragedy. My guess is the police are focusing on you because that’s what they do when they don’t have a suspect. They zero in on one person and forget about everyone else.

  “You guys are camping out close to those woods, so you make easy targets,” he continued. “You’re probably innocent and searching for answers. I did the same thing for a few weeks after I was a suspect. It didn’t help.”

  “That wasn’t really an answer to my question,” I pointed out.

  Melvin made a low growling sound in the back of his throat. “My boys are good men. They weren’t even around that day. I know you’re desperate to find someone to blame, but you’re looking in the wrong place. We’re innocent.”

  He was positive he told the truth, even annoyed that I would dare question the culpability of his children. Either he was oblivious to what kind of men they were or they really were good people.

  “Okay, well, I’m sorry for wasting your time,” I offered, taking a step back. “I’m sorry all of this happened to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be a suspect until the day I die. Hopefully that won’t happen to you.”

  I waited until we were back in the truck to speak again. Kade kept his gaze on the house as he inserted the key in the ignition.

  “He’s telling the truth.”

  “So what’s bothering you about the photograph?”

  “I don’t know. My attention was drawn there. It was as if I couldn’t look away. It might be nothing or … .”

  “It might be something,” Kade finished. “Did you recognize the people in the photo with him?”

  “No. I feel like I should’ve recognized them, though. Does that make sense?”

  “Not really.”

  I heaved a sigh. “What do we do now?”

  Kade shrugged. “I’m leaning toward letting Nellie loose in the woods with his ax.”

  “There’s always that option,” I agreed. “Let’s head back. There’s nothing for us here. This was a waste of time.”

  “It wasn’t a waste of time,” Kade countered. “We ruled out Melvin Jackson.”

  “And we have no suspects to focus on.”

  “I didn’t say we were in a good spot. I merely said it wasn’t a waste of time.”

  That at least was something.

  27

  Tw
enty-Seven

  I paced trailer row for a full hour. Kade was calm as he dropped a kiss on my forehead and started his security rounds. He made a big show of acting as if everything was okay, even though I knew he was worried.

  Something wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t fit the pieces of the puzzle together without the correct nudge, but I had no idea where to look for that nudge. So, without any direction to follow, I paced.

  That’s where Max found me shortly before eleven.

  “I take it your morning excursion didn’t go well.”

  I snapped my head in his direction and scowled. “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “If I was trying to be funny I would’ve opened with ‘knock, knock.’” Max was in a droll mood, but I refused to smile no matter how hard he attempted to cajole one out of me. “That bad, huh?”

  “How much do you know?” It was a weird question to ask the man in charge, but Max had been absent for almost two weeks and I couldn’t keep up with his knowledge base.

  “I know that two children went missing and were both found in close proximity to us,” Max replied. “I know that Naida fought something in the woods yesterday – although we have no idea what. I also know that you and Kade are acting like infatuated high-schoolers. Did I miss anything?”

  I deepened my scowl. “I am not acting like a high-schooler.”

  “Of course you would latch onto that,” Max teased, sitting at the picnic table bench and watching as I resumed my pacing. “What are you missing, Poet?”

  “That’s just it. I can’t figure it out. I know I’m off by one little piece, but I can’t figure out what that piece is.”

  “Run me through it from the beginning,” Max suggested. “What’s the first inkling you had that things were off in Brigham City?”

  “The day after we arrived we went to the Great Salt Lake,” I answered. “Naida wanted a swim – you know how she gets – and I was feeling morose, so Luke insisted we take her. It was just the four of us – Nixie was there, too – and I felt fine all afternoon until I sat in about a foot of water, my back to the trees, watching everyone have a good time.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I felt someone … actually, some dark thing … watching me,” I replied. “I didn’t trip over a soul when I felt it. The images from the brain would’ve been reflected back at me if I had. There was something there, though, even though I couldn’t see any memories or thoughts reflected back at me.”

  “Something paranormal?” Max leaned forward, curious.

  “It had to be, right?”

  “There are different levels of magic,” Max noted. “You didn’t see anything? Not so much as a shadow?”

  I shook my head. “The feeling passed. Luke distracted me with something funny, and when I turned back the feeling was gone. We were alone again.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then we went into town and some locals made us feel unwelcome because they’re convinced we’re immoral sinners.”

  Max smirked. “Which we are.”

  “Which we are,” I confirmed. “Then that night I went to bed and had a nightmare. Kade heard me screaming and burst in. I had weird marks on my neck, but the dreamcatcher never alerted. The next morning we noticed the problem with the screen, and Kade and Luke headed to town to fix it. When they came back they told me about Joshua’s disappearance.”

  “Go back to the marks on your neck,” Max prodded. “Did you feel drained the next day? As if you were tired from blood loss?”

  “You think it was a vampire?”

  “I’m merely trying to catch up.”

  I held my hands palms up and shrugged. “I felt drained, but I was kind of depressed over the Kade situation so I’m not sure if that was a physical ailment or a mental one.”

  “And Joshua had marks on his neck when you found him in the field,” Max noted. “Did he say who took him? Did he tell anyone – including the police – what happened to him?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” I answered. “Detective Ashburn said that he either didn’t remember or refused to let himself remember. I’m not sure I blame him. He was chained to a metal rack in the middle of the woods.”

  “That was the cabin, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Tell me about the cabin,” Max pressed. “I talked to Naida this morning. She described the salted earth and the layout. I would like to check out the area myself, but we don’t have much time.”

  “I’m not sure what I can tell you that she hasn’t already shared,” I hedged. “The cabin is in the middle of a clearing. The ground outside is salted to the point where nothing grows. There are no trees or stumps in the clearing, which makes me think that nothing ever grew there.”

  “Do we know who owns the property?”

  I nodded as I shifted my eyes to the parking lot. “There’s a local legend around here about Brother Brehem. He was a grifter from California who moved to the area to preach the word while lightening people’s wallets.

  “At some point he realized that he needed to embrace Mormonism given the area. He started collecting wives,” I continued. “Kade found messages in a chatroom that suggest he might’ve been a pedophile. He disappeared at some point, and his body has never been found.

  “What’s interesting about all of that is that one of the pickets is named Lorelei Forrester.” I inclined my chin in the direction of the parking lot. “I met her the other day. She feigned confusion when I asked about Brother Brehem. Some people think his ghost still haunts the area, and because his hunting cabin is so close … .”

  “Naida mentioned that she believed someone tried to trap a spirit in the cabin,” Max said. “It’s not there now, though. You would’ve recognized the phenomenon when you went inside. If something was trapped in that cabin and managed to escape, that could be what we’re dealing with now.”

  “You think it’s Brother Brehem?”

  “I’m not sure what to think,” Max clarified. “The creature Naida described fighting at the river clearly wasn’t a ghost.”

  “No. What if it was a golem, though?”

  Max stilled, surprised. “I never considered that. That practice went out of vogue two centuries ago.”

  “Yes, but everything is circular. If bell bottoms can make a comeback, so can golems.”

  Max pursed his lips. “I honestly don’t know what to make of that, but it answers quite a few of our questions,” he said after a beat. “If it is a golem, they’re easy enough to destroy. We can head into the woods after dark and eradicate the beast, probably draw its creator to us in the process, and end this thing before we pull out tomorrow morning.”

  “There was something weird about the way the creature looked,” I supplied. “It was misshapen and had weird skin.”

  “So it could’ve been a golem,” Max mused. “Perhaps Brother Brehem created it to feed his unnatural desires and when his wives killed him they didn’t realize the creature existed. Golems aren’t known for their intelligence, but perhaps Brehem figured out a way for the golem to carry his spirit out of the cabin.”

  “To what end?”

  “That’s where I run into a wall,” Max replied. “Spirits aren’t my realm of expertise.”

  “So we’re back to nowhere,” I grumbled, rubbing the back of my neck.

  “Not necessarily,” Max corrected. “There is someone here who knows a great deal about spirits.”

  “Who?” I realized who he meant the second the question left my mouth. “You’re talking about Raven.”

  “I understand your relationship is on shaky ground these days, but she could probably offer some help.” Max’s voice was gentle, but his eyes were lit with mirth. “She’s quite knowledgeable on certain things.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to deal with Raven,” I whined. “She’ll be mean and nasty.”

  “That’s her way.”

  “But … .”

  Max shook his head, firm. “Do you want to leave this area un
protected because your ego can’t take a showdown with Raven? That’s exactly what will happen in less than twenty-four hours.”

  He had a point. Still … .

  “Fine.” I blew out a sigh. “But if she’s a pain in the butt I’m totally going to pull her hair.”

  Max chuckled. “That seems fair. Keep me updated. I’m going to check out the cabin in the woods. I need to see it if I expect to get a feel for it.”

  “So we’ll meet back here when we have more information?”

  Max nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  THE HOUSE of Mirrors was empty when I let myself in, my feet echoing on the wooden surface as I moved to the bowels of the structure. I found Raven in her office, her face screwed up in concentration as she studied a ledger.

  I cleared my throat to get her attention, even though I knew she was well aware of my presence. We both have magical cores, so our minds brushed up against one another once I entered.

  Raven shifted her eyes to me. She didn’t look happy to find me hovering. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” I replied, treading into the room and sitting in the chair across from her desk. “I need help with determining the nature of a spirit. You’re the one who has the most knowledge on the subject.”

  Raven arched a dubious eyebrow. “Are you trying to pump up my ego so we can make nice?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I sighed, annoyed that this may devolve into yet another confrontation. “Raven, I don’t really care about us being friends. You know that.”

  “I do.” Raven bobbed her head, her silver hair brushing against her shoulders. “We’re never going to be friends. Constant competition won’t allow that.”

  “I’m not in competition with you,” I reminded her. “You seem to think that’s the case, but it’s not.”

  “Is that because you believe you’ve won?”

  Frustration threatened to derail the information train, so I had to suck in a steadying breath to calm myself. “Kade is not some prize in a mean girl contest. The fact that you think he is only proves that you don’t understand him and never had a chance.”