Cause to Kill (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 1) (21 page)

She placed a hand on the back of the minivan and stared at the
side of the house. No lights were on. The interior was slightly visible through
the first and second floor windows. Basement windows had been painted black.

Her fingers ran over the license plate and instantly felt an
extremely sticky substance around the edges. Minivan, she thought. Fake license,
taped on.
Family
. Villasco had talked about. The dark house loomed
above. In one of the windows, she spotted a gray cat.

Probable cause.

Avery drew her gun.

Edwin Pesh was having a tormented weekend. The All Spirit refused
to leave him alone. No sleep had come on Saturday night; the voice in his head
had continually asked for
more, more
, and the many responsibilities he
still
had to deal with on his own began to take a toll.

Beaten down and weary, he sat in one of the rooms on his second
floor surrounded by cats. Cats of all shapes and varieties purred and tried to
sit in his lap. There were at least ten of them in that room alone. Some stared
out the windows. Others slept in corners or on the single bed, or they ate from
one of the many food dishes available on the wooden floors.

Wanda Voles…the name of Wanda Voles was repeatedly mentioned by
the All Spirit, so much so that Edwin knew what he had to do. Pick yourself up,
he thought. Take care of the cats, walk the dogs, and then go back to Bentley
and
get Wanda Voles.

No!
his mind screamed.

Yes!
he screamed back.

A bark came from downstairs, and then multiple barks.

Instantly alert, Edwin stood up and looked out the windows.

The backyard was empty.

On the side of the house, someone was crouched behind his minivan.

Police, he thought.

An initial moment of fear slipped away from his thoughts and Edwin
prepared to become the vessel of the All Spirit, a living body inhabited by a
god.

Eyes closed, he took in a deep breath, opened his arms wide, and
pressed his hands together above his head. A simple squat, performed three
times, and he opened his eyes anew, lit by an internal fire.

In his mind, he imagined the All Spirit had taken control of him;
the celestial being was inside of his body, forming his fists and directing his
thoughts and actions.

I accept you wholeheartedly, he swore.

No traditional exercise had ever appealed to Edwin. Instead, he
typically performed a series of hops, flips, and taut-muscle motions that had
been mentally provided by the All Spirit to prepare him for hunts and in the
event of an outside attack.

After years of practice within his home—and now with the All
Spirit inside of him—Edwin was sure that he could overtake any foe.

They threaten our cause,
the All Spirit moaned within Edwin’s mind.
We cannot allow
them to thwart our plans. Go, my fledgling. Go…
and hunt.

* * *

Dogs barked from inside the house. There had to be two or three of
them. One was a large pit bull that kept appearing in the first floor window.

Shit
, she thought.
Move
.

Crouched low, Avery ran into the backyard.

The dogs followed and barked.

A basement door was painted blue. She tried to open it. Locked.
There was a porch and a back door. She shuffled up and peeked inside.
Instantly, the pit bull’s face appeared again. The barking turned ferocious.
There were two other dogs, both tiny: a pug and what appeared to be a tea cup
poodle. She also spotted numerous cats.

The back door was locked.

She hammered her gun onto one of the glass plates near the lock.

The glass shattered.

The muzzle of the pit bull snapped in the opening. Avery stood up
and tracked the movements of all three dogs. When the way was clear, she
reached in and unlocked the door.

A squat took her down low. With her back protected by the wooden
door, Avery put one hand on the knob. The gun was in her other hand. She
listened for the timing: the pit bull barked and jumped, stayed on the floor
for a bit, then repeated the process.

When the pit bull was about to jump, Avery opened the door.

The dog rushed out. A light tap with her foot and the pit bull
stumbled down the steps. The two other dogs appeared and grasped for footing so
they could turn and reach Avery. She simply held the doorknob, spun inside the
house, and closed the door.

Barking continued, but it no longer bothered her.

Avery was in.

A cat purred against her leg.

The kitchen was beside her. To her left was a small dining area,
and straight ahead were a living room and two more cats. A few plants dotted
the kitchen windowsills. They seemed like the easiest variety to maintain:
cactus and pothos.

Gun held low, Avery moved through the house.

Stay alert, she thought. He has to know I’m here.

“Edwin Pesh!” she yelled. “This is the police. Make your hands
visible and step into view. There are two other officers outside,” she lied.
“Backup is on the way. In a few minutes, this entire block will be crawling
with cops.
Edwin Pesh
!”

Around a corner was the staircase to the second level. More cats
lined the steps.

Avery crept up the carpeted stairs, gun pointed straight ahead and
above, where she could see a wraparound banister. Cats continued to get in her
way. She gently nudged them aside.

The second floor was empty, but she found even more cats. No
pictures lined the walls. No photos of any kind. Only two spartan bedrooms that
were completely blanketed in cats. Every closet was opened. She looked under
beds and in nooks. Edwin Pesh was nowhere.

The basement door was in the kitchen.

Beside the door was a phone.

Avery picked it up and dialed 911.

“This is emergency services,” a woman said. “How can I help you?”

“My name is Avery Black. I’m with the Boston A1,” she replied and
offered her badge number. “I’m in the house of a possible serial killer and
need support.”

“Thank you for your call, Detective Black. Can you please…”

Avery left the phone hanging.

The basement was dark. A light switch to her right illuminated another
door at the bottom of the steps. She made her way down. The walls were lined in
bare wood.

At the bottom of the steps, she opened the second door.

Another hallway was perpendicular to the staircase. More dim
lights hung from the wooden ceiling and lit the space. She turned left, and was
forced to make another quick left into a much longer passageway.

Every square inch of the walls in the longer passage was lined in
pictures, hundreds of pictures. The pictures seemed to be arranged
horizontally. If she followed one all the way to the right, it told a story. A
black cat was in one frame, just sitting on a ledge. In the next frame, the cat
was seemingly dead on the ground. In the next, the cat was partially opened to
reveal its interior. Each consecutive picture showed the cat in some stage of
taxidermy.

Doors interrupted the walls on both sides.

It’s like a maze, she thought.

“
Edwin Pesh!
” she yelled. “This is the police. Make
yourself known! Put your hands where I can see them and step out into the hall.”

She listened for a response.

Nothing, only dogs barking from a distance, and the motion of an
orange cat that had followed her down into the basement.

The first door on her left was opened. Darkness obscured the room.
Avery clicked on her flashlight, held it in line with her gun muzzle. She spun
inside. Jars were visible along the back wall, row after row of jars with
multicolored substances. A silver medical table was to her left, along with
medical equipment and embalming fluid and tools.

Holy shit.

A cat rubbed against her leg.

Startled by the contact, Avery pointed her weapon down and nearly
fired.

“Jesus,” she whispered.

For a moment, her eyes closed.

Floorboards creaked behind her. In the second that it took for
Avery to rouse herself and spin, she felt a sting in the back of her neck and
heard someone run farther down the hall.

Shit!!

Wooziness spread through her.

Not like this, she fought. I can’t go out like this.

Energized by the thought that she only had moments before some
strange concoction took effect, Avery screamed a muted, barely perceptible howl
and stumbled up the hall. She slammed against walls on her way. Pictures flew
off and smashed to the floor. Every door she found was opened. The flashlight
whipped from one side to the other.

Blindly, she fired.

Images appeared in a dreamy blur: a room that was more like a
holding cell with bars and a straw floor; another room full of stuffed cats and
dogs.

When she reached the last door, Avery sank to her knees.

The flashlight dropped from her hand.

She turned the doorknob and pushed it open.

Edwin Pesh could be seen on the outer edge of the flashlight’s
glow.

Avery sank to her chest. She held the gun ahead of her and
prepared to fire. Suddenly, as light as a feather, Edwin hopped from one side
of the room to the other, again and again, in fast, catlike bursts that made
him difficult to target.

Woozy. Avery’s mind was woozy and fading fast. The gun was heavy, too
heavy to hold up. She lowered the weapon to the ground. Her cheek touched the
cold floor but she continued to watch Edwin Pesh.

Edwin settled into his low crouch, yellow eyes illuminated from
the flashlight.

Avery could feel herself slipping out of consciousness.

Edwin stood to his full height and walked toward her.

“Shhhhh,” he whispered.

Not like this, Avery thought.

With great effort—and her wrist balanced on the ground—Avery
raised the muzzle of her gun toward Edwin’s groin and fired three times.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!

The gun dropped from her hand.

Edwin’s feet were in front of her. She could see his legs buckle.
Suddenly, he dropped down and sank to the side.

Edwin lay there, collapsed, beside her. His face was but inches
away from hers. The two of them lay beside each other, each frozen, each dying,
eyes locked on each other’s.

His eyes locked on hers. In the dreamy haze of whatever drug had
poisoned her system, his eyes appeared incredibly large, wide open pools of
darkness. A smile curled on his lips.

“More,” he whispered. “
More
.”

Nothing else came out of him, nothing else moved. The lips
remained in a partial curl, and his eyes, fully open, burned into her soul.

In her mind, Avery heard,
More. MORE!

A male voice resounded through the halls.

“Avery!?”

A hand touched her neck and checked for a pulse. Someone cursed
and then spoke in a warped, barely recognizable voice: “Talk to me, Black. Can
you hear me? Try to stay alive. Help is on the way.”

But she felt herself weakening.

His voice came again, this time panic in it.

“Shit, Black, don’t die on me now!”

Avery awoke in a hospital bed, groggy with a very dry and painful
sore throat. Everything in her body ached, as if she’d had all of her blood
flushed out and replaced with some kind of heavy, toxic fluid. An IV bag was
hooked up to her arm. A heart monitor bleeped from somewhere outside of her
view.

The room was filled with balloons and flowers.

On a chair beside her, slumped over in sleep, was Ramirez. He was
just as relaxed and perfectly dressed as the first day they’d met. A shiny blue
suit adorned his form; the white shirt was bright and highlighted his tan and
his slicked-back dark hair.

A nurse walked in.

“You’re awake,” she noted in surprise.

Avery opened her mouth.

“Don’t try to speak just yet,” the nurse said. “I’ll call the
doctor. You must be hungry. Let me see what I can rustle up.”

Ramirez roused himself from sleep and yawned.

“Black.” He smiled. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Avery whispered a very painful, scratchy question.

“How?”

“Three days,” he said. “You’ve been out for three days. Oh, man.
That was some crazy shit, I can tell you that. You’re at Watertown General
Hospital. You OK? You want to rest more? Or do you want me to talk?”

Avery never felt so vulnerable in her life. Not only was she laid
up in a hospital bed practically unable to move, but she could barely speak.

She nodded and closed her eyes.

“Talk.” 

 “Well, you are one crazy
loca
, Avery Black. At least
somebody
gave you the good sense to call me, and to dial 911 when you were in the house.
Now, if you’d waited, maybe you wouldn’t be here today. But that’s for another
time.

“You got him,” he said.

The smile came again.

“Three shots, every one of them hit. One in the groin, one through
the heart, and the last one in the face. He’s dead. No more girls for him.

“You’re lucky to be alive.” He whistled. “You know that? He pumped
you full of some real nasty stuff. Paralyzes the body for about six hours and
it slowly eats away at your insides until you die. Doctors had never seen
anything like it, but they were able to concoct an antidote based off the
syringe he used. Still, it was touch and go there for a while.”

She glanced at the flowers and balloons.

“You had a lot of visitors,” he said. “Cap came by, Connelly. Even
Finley. Wasn’t a big deal for them, really. They all followed me to the house.”

She gave him a look.

He smirked.

“You might be crazy,” he said, “but I’m not. I called Connelly the
second you got off the phone with me.
I
needed backup!”

Avery gave him a deep, curious look. His dark brown eyes, typically
playful and inquisitive, reached out to her with a warmth and care, as if to
offer more.

“You?” she asked.

A blush painted his face red.

“Well,” he mumbled and had a difficult time getting the rest out.
“I’ve been here for a while, that’s true. Just wanted to make sure my partner
was all right. Besides,” he shrugged, “I still have to rest up the wound,
right? I just thought: why not just do it here? Gets a little lonely sometimes
in my apartment, you know? Anyway, I’m glad you’re all right,” he said and had
trouble meeting her gaze. “I’ll leave you alone. Doctor keeps saying you need
rest.”

“No, ” she whispered.

Meekly, she reached out her hand.

Ramirez gripped her fingers and held them tight.