The touch of murder, p.1
The Touch of Murder, page 1
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The Touch of Murder
A Veronica Shade Thriller
Book 4
Patrick Logan
Prologue
PART I – Angel
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part II - Demon
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Part III - Sinners
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Epilogue
END
Author’s Note
For Ashley.
It’s the troughs that illuminate the wonder of the peaks.
The Touch of Murder
A Veronica Shade Thriller
Book 4
Patrick Logan
Prologue
Sweat poured down the man’s face, stinging his eyes. He kept his head down as he walked, making sure that the black hoodie he wore was pulled low. His movements were labored, a strange shuffle followed by a large step, followed by another shuffle.
Despite squinting, everything was too bright and aggressive, even with the hood casting a large shadow over most of his face.
“Hey, man, you okay?” a voice called out.
The man looked up and glimpsed part of a face, old clothes, gloves with holes in them. Despite squinting, everything was still too saturated, too real.
“Jesus.” The stranger pulled back. “Get the fuck out of here, freak.”
The man turned quickly, lowering his head once more. The streets changed around him; the sidewalk beneath his feet became cracked and broken, the walls were covered with increasingly thick layers of graffiti, and what little windows there were, were more broken than not.
His blood pumped hard in his ears, and his breathing was labored.
An alley—an alley appeared on his right, and he glanced down it. This proved to be a mistake.
Three men stood around a burning barrel, warming their hands. They all had scraggly beards and pockmarked skin, but the man barely noticed them. It was the fire that caught his attention. It was bright… impossibly bright.
He groaned and covered his eyes. His skin, his face, felt strange, clammy, thickened, somehow.
Like it wasn’t his face, but someone else’s.
He kept moving and his shoulder struck something, and a man cried out.
“Watch where the fuck you’re going.”
The man had prominent cheekbones that accentuated gaunt, hollow features, and sunken eyes. His cheeks, like those of the homeless men in the alley, were pockmarked.
“Sorry…”
He looked up and stared at the man… the sinner… he’d bumped into. Their eyes met, and the man in the hoodie’s vision exploded with red splotches.
“Sinner,” he whispered and then lunged.
***
The boy wasn’t supposed to be out after dark. He was supposed to be sleeping. But he had the nightmare again, the one with the monster coming to tuck him into bed. When he had this nightmare, he was never able to get back to sleep—no matter the time, he knew he’d be awake until his father came in to rouse him for breakfast.
So, he snuck out, although leaving silently through the front door could barely be considered sneaking out. More like leaving without asking permission.
The City of Greenham looked different at night. The boy was amazed at how much a place could change when the sun set. During the day, it looked like every other city: tall gray buildings that the sun only occasionally managed to peek through, people in matching suits, cars… so many cars. At night, the sun was lost, the buildings went dark, and suits were exchanged for long coats or dirty rags.
The boy usually didn’t travel far, but today, the nightmare chased him into an area he’d never been to before. The night also made everything look the same, and before long, he had a creeping suspicion that he was lost.
All the shadows were the same: long and deep.
I went this way, the boy thought. I know I did.
But with every step, things appeared even more foreign. There was a white tarp hanging from the girders of a building that was in the process of being renovated.
That, he didn’t remember. The boy was about to turn around, head the other way when he saw a shadow through the translucent white tarp.
It was the outline of a man.
There was something familiar about the way the shadow moved. Something… strange.
He knew better than to talk to strangers, but the shadow was a good twenty feet away. The boy, even though he was small and thin, was fast. If the man tried anything, he could outrun him.
He knew he could.
The boy used the blade of his hand to push the tarp back, just a little.
The figure was indeed a man, his back to the boy. He was wearing a dark sweatshirt and his shoulders were hunched and rolled forward. With the tarp out of the way, the boy realized that the man was mumbling something under his breath. One word, over and over again.
What was it? Spinner? Dinner? Why was he talking about dinner?
The boy couldn’t quite make it out, the man’s voice was too low and gravelly.
Thinner?
There was something terribly unnatural about this scene, something wrong with it, and the boy knew he should leave.
Only, he couldn’t.
It was like the time he’d watched “Friday the 13th” with his dad. His father had warned him that it was too scary, but he’d acted brave. Said he wanted to see it. When one of the campers had been stabbed in the stomach with the huge knife, he tried to close his eyes, tried to stop watching.
But he was compelled to see.
That single scene haunted his nightmares for weeks. But nothing he saw in that movie or any of the others compared to the scene before him now.
Grumbling and twitching, the man in the hood reached down and dipped his hand into something dark and wet. Then he put two fingers on the wall and started to draw.
The boy loved to draw, and he quickly realized that this was no image, but a word.
“Sinner.”
That’s what he had been saying all along.
“Sinner… sinner… sinner.”
The man in the black hoodie turned and the boy realized he’d made another mistake, one of many this night.
The hunched form wasn’t a man at all.
It was a monster. A real-life monster.
The boy’s bladder let go and warmth spread across the front of his jeans.
“Sinner… sinner… sinner…”
The boy turned and ran. He was fast, but never in his life was he this fast.
And he would never be this fast again.
PART I – Angel
Chapter 1
It wasn’t a hangover… not quite. It was the mild brain fog you got when you had one drink too many and woke up not feeling one hundred percent. It would be gone by mid-morning, but even armed with this knowledge, you still wanted to lie in bed a little longer than usual.
This is exactly what City of Greenham Detective Veronica Shade would have done if it hadn’t been for a soft purring sound by the side of her bed. She opened one eye and saw her adopted cat Lucy staring at her accusingly, the way only cats could.
“All right, all right,” Veronica grumbled, swinging her feet over the side of the bed. “Hold your horses.”
She walked quietly out of the bedroom loft and down the stairs. After grabbing a can of fancy cat food from the fridge and plopped it into a bowl, Veronica gave Lucy some fresh water. While the cat ate, she made coffee.
Veronica didn’t mind the mild brain fog from drinking last night. In fact, she almost wished it would last a little longer. It kept her mind blank and stopped her thoughts from racing, bouncing from what could have been to what was in a vicious and nonsensical circle. But the hot coffee started to sharpen her wits, and as soon as she started thinking about anything of real substance, Veronica made her way back upstairs.
She showered with hot water in the en-suite bathroom. When she was done shampooing and conditioning her shoulder-length brown hair, Veronica turned the dial all the way cold. The icy water took her breath away, and she stood under the faucet for as long as she could manage. It felt good—it felt damn good. The first time she’d tried this, Veronica lasted only a few seconds. Now, she could stay under the water for upwards of a minute, soaking her face with the cool spray before allowing it to cascade over her back and the rest of her body.
When she was done, Veronica toweled herself off and stood in the doorway of her bedroom, her eyes falling on the man who still slept in her bed. He was handsome, with a well-defined jaw, which was covered in a neatly trimmed and expertly manicured dark beard. Despite his angular face, his features were somehow boyish, accentuated by the way his hair was splayed messily on the white pillowcase.
It wasn’t the man’s looks that Veronica had been initially attracted to.
It was his kindness.
Initially was also a stretch. She hadn’t always thought of him in a positive light. Quite the opposite.
The man’s eyes opened and when he saw her, a smirk appeared on his face.
“This isn’t creepy at all. Not one bit,” he said.
Veronica looked skyward as she pulled the towel from her body and used it to dry her hair.
“Now that’s more like it.”
“Now who’s being the creep,” Veronica shot back. She returned to the bathroom to finish her morning routine.
“Today’s the big day, huh?” he called out.
Veronica looked at her face in the mirror, pulling the skin below her eyes down. She was slightly dehydrated from the drinks she’d had last night, but over the last six months or so, her skin had regained some of its color and elasticity.
“The big day,” she agreed.
Veronica observed her body next. She’d put on a few of the pounds that she lost following her showdown with The Dollmaker. Her thighs were muscular, her shoulders just a little broader. Even her breasts appeared fuller.
In a word, Veronica Shade looked healthier than she had in a long time. And despite the clinging remnants of her hangover, she felt healthy, too.
“So, what’s this guy’s name? Should I be worried about him talkin’ to my girl?”
Veronica chuckled.
“His name is Ethan Blake, and if the rumors are true, he’s got a twelve-inch cock.”
When there was no reply from the bedroom, Veronica wrapped a towel around her body and leaned out of the bathroom.
“You mean like this?”
The man was no longer in bed. He was standing beside it, completely naked, his arms out at his sides. His body was well-sculpted, muscular, and lean, like a runner’s. And what hung from between his legs was equally as impressive.
“No,” Veronica said, shaking her head. “You must have misheard. I said twelve inches not a twelfth of an inch.”
“I’m a grower, not a shower.” The man gestured toward the bed. “Come lie down and you’ll find out.”
Veronica rolled her eyes again and ducked back into the bathroom to finish applying a little bit of eyeshadow.
“You’re just trying to make me late for work.”
“Do you blame me? I mean, my girlfriend, the big shot detective, is getting teamed up with Ethan Blake who, apparently, has a lethal weapon for a penis. You know what I would give to have a partner with a twelve-inch cock?”
Veronica stopped applying her makeup.
“What?”
“I don’t know—but a lot. Hell, I’d give a lot to work with a eunuch—anything beats working alone.”
Veronica finished getting ready, then dressed in her daily attire: gray slacks and a white blouse with a flat front to hide the buttons.
Her boyfriend had since gotten back into bed and his body was covered by a thin sheet. The man wasn’t lying, he was a grower all right.
“You know, if you’re not happy at work, you can always look for a new job. Selling just a single pair of your fancy shoes would hold you over for months,” Veronica remarked.
“Can’t sell them, they’re monogrammed,” the man replied with a chuckle. “Besides, what would I do? Become a computer engineer?”
Veronica’s suggestion had been offhand, but his response made her stop and think.
“Well, what is it that you wanted to do before getting into law enforcement?”
The man considered this for a moment.
“Honestly? I wanted to be a private investigator.”
Veronica shook her head.
“No, I’m serious,” he continued. “I’m good with people, and while I might not be as good as you when it comes to telling if someone’s lying, I can read a person. I think I’d be good at it.”
Veronica couldn’t argue with that.
“I can see it now, PI of the year.” The man raised his hand above his head as if imagining a marquee.
Veronica walked over and kissed him on the forehead. He tried to pull her down on top of his growing bulge, but she spun away.
“A man can dream, right? Unfortunately, there are no awards for internal affairs officer of the year. The best thing I ever got was a bag of steaming dog shit burning on my front porch.”
“You mean my porch.”
The man shrugged.
“Details, shmetails. Cole Batherson, internal affairs officer of the decade, how’s that sound?”
Veronica smiled again.
“Why don’t you just start by getting dressed so you still have a job?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
On the way out, Veronica grabbed a coffee to go and pet Lucy one final time.
“Good luck with your partner and his huge cock!” Cole yelled from upstairs.
Veronica laughed, a real, genuine laugh. Like the weight she’d lost, this too had returned with time. Regrettably, so had the realization that, given her line of work, such moments of happiness were not meant to last.
Chapter 2
Freddie Furlow was breathing heavily, his thick chest heaving. He put his hands on his knees, drawing in huge breaths.
It was getting easier.
It wasn’t easy—Freddie doubted that it would ever be easy the same way he doubted that he would ever enjoy exercising or running in particular. No, he hated running. Absolutely loathed it. But that was why he’d chosen it. After his heart attack, the doctors suggested walking on a treadmill set to a slight incline or using a stationary bike for cardiovascular exercise.
Those weren’t painful enough. His penance was to run. And he hated it. But it was getting easier.
Freddie had made it two miles without stopping, his longest distance yet. No David Goggins-level feat, and he wasn’t breaking any land speed records, either, but it was progress. Running every day—no breaks, not even on the Lord’s Day of rest, Sunday—combined with a more balanced diet had resulted in him losing nearly seventy pounds in just under six months. And for part of that time, because of his recent coronary event, he was under doctor’s orders not to do any exercise at all.
Still, Freddie was no specimen and had no illusion of ever becoming one. But Freddie’s goal had never been to look good. He simply wanted to stay alive.
And now he had reason to.
When he first decided to punish himself by hitting the pavement, he did so aimlessly, sticking close to the parks near his home. But now, his route was different. It was specific. From his door to theirs, it was nearly exactly four miles. One day, he hoped to run there and back without stopping—a pipedream, but you never know.
Freddie raised his head and wiped sweat from his brow as he stared at the house. When he’d lived there, the door had been black. Now it was a deep burgundy. Susan had also painted the small front porch white, even though Freddie much preferred the natural look of the wood beneath. All in all, however, it looked pretty much the same.
It wasn’t often that he spotted them inside—Freddie liked to run early in the morning, and Susan and their two sons, Kevin and Randall, were late risers. But every once in a while, he would catch a glimpse of his ex-wife’s swirling blonde hair or see a shadow of someone standing in the kitchen like a ghost of his past.
