Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Read online

  Drake sneaked behind the couch without even looking at John. As he made his way to the stairs, he thought he could pick out the man’s slow, rhythmic breathing, and considered that maybe he had passed out already.

  Two days, Drake thought. Two days and I’ll be out of here. Away from this… whatever this is.

  For a moment, Drake considered asking Ray if he wanted to come with him, if he needed to take a break from everything. And he also wondered what his dad would say.

  Probably not, but I’ll ask. It can’t hurt to ask.

  Drake put a foot on the landing and peered upwards.

  Click, whoosh, moan.

  He tensed and then started up the stairs.

  ***

  Drake awoke to the sound of shuffling feet. He hadn’t expected to fall asleep given how early he’d gone to bed, but evidently, he had. The good news was that the headache that had been bothering him all day was gone. The bad news was that so was Ray. And his throat… he was so parched it was unbelievable.

  Ray’s sleepwalking again, Drake thought, trying hard to swallow. What the hell? Am I allergic to something?

  If nothing else, his constricted throat served as a welcome distraction to other, more ominous thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him.

  Weeds or… rabbit, maybe? It could be rabbit. Mom’s allergic to rodents and a rabbit is a rodent, isn’t it?

  Drake rubbed his eyes and found them surprisingly puffy. After stifling a dry cough, he stood and quietly made his way to the door.

  Rabbits. Definitely allergic to rabbits. To killing rabbits, that’s for sure. Maybe their fur, too.

  He could still hear Angelina’s respirator, but now the sound was punctuated by John’s loud snoring from the family room below.

  Something’s not right, Drake thought unexpectedly as he stepped into the hallway. Shaking his head, he tried to push this nonsense aside and think of his potential allergy again, but the word ‘rabbit’ now conjured images of blood and brains and hissing wounds…

  Still struggling to swallow, he rubbed his eyes and stared ahead.

  The door to Angelina’s room was open again, and even from more than a dozen feet away, he recognized Ray’s shape hovering over.

  No, come on. Not again. I just want to sleep for two days until dad—

  Drake brought a hand to his mouth and stifled another cough.

  Two more steps and he realized that something was different about his friend. He was by the head of Angelina’s bed again, but it must have been earlier than yesterday, as the moonlight shone directly on his pale body.

  And he was naked. Completely naked.

  “What the fuck?” He whispered.

  Drake slowly crept toward his friend, realizing that the only thing that made sense in this scenario was that Ray was sleepwalking again.

  He had to be sleepwalking.

  As Drake watched, Ray took a drag from a cigarette, then put it to his mother’s pale lips.

  This is fucked up, he thought, gritting his teeth. I gotta wake him this time. I have to. I have to get him—and me—the fuck out of here.

  Drake strode toward his friend, trying to take in the scene.

  Angelina was on her back, the mask pulled down to her chest. Once again, the machines that helped her breath had been unplugged. On the bedside table was a tall glass of water, beads of condensation coating the glass.

  Seeing that water, Drake struggled to swallow again and then ran his tongue across tacky lips.

  Beside the glass was not one half-empty bottle of pills as there had been yesterday, but five or six containers that appeared mostly full.

  No longer giving a shit about the myth of waking someone who was sleepwalking, Drake reached out and gently laid a hand on Ray’s shoulder.

  The boy’s skin was so cold that he reflexively drew back and gasped.

  Ray turned to him then, bringing the cigarette to his mouth as he did.

  There was a hollowness to his eyes, but this wasn’t due to his transient state; in fact, it was apparent that Ray wasn’t sleepwalking.

  He was just empty.

  “Ray?” Drake whispered. “Ray, you okay? What are you doing?”

  Ray took another large drag of the cigarette before answering.

  “Go back to bed, Drake.”

  Drake tried to reply, but another coughing fit took him then. His eyes flicked to the glass of water on the bedside table.

  “Have some,” Ray offered.

  Drake wanted to say, No, I’m alright, we just need to get you out of here, but his throat was so constricted that he couldn’t manage anything more than a croak. He reluctantly grabbed the glass and took a tentative sip. The water felt so good in his mouth that he nearly gasped. Unable to stop himself, he took a huge gulp and swallowed.

  “Shit,” he said, putting the glass back on the table. Then he looked up at Ray. “Why are you naked? And why are you giving her a cigarette? You know what the doctor said and what John—”

  Ray interrupted, his voice as calm as it had ever been.

  “The woman is suffering, Drake, and all she wants is a cigarette.”

  Drake’s face twisted.

  “What are you saying, Ray? What do you mean ‘the woman’? That’s your mother, for Christ’s sake. You can’t give her a—”

  “Go back to bed, Drake,” Ray repeated. It was only then that Drake noticed the BB gun at his friend’s side.

  Drake took a step backward.

  “Ray? What’s going on? What’s happening to you? What’s happened to us?”

  Staring into his friend’s hollow eyes, Drake suddenly felt dizzy and had to brace himself against the wall. He wasn’t sure if this was a symptom of his newly diagnosed allergy or if his anxiety had just raised its ugly head again. Whatever it was, he felt a cold sweat break out all over his body.

  “Go to bed,” Ray said again. His words were drawn out, and Drake shook his head, trying to focus.

  It didn’t work. If anything, it only made things worse. The scene before him started to blur, and Drake stumbled into the hallway.

  “Wwwwhaat’s happennnning,” he moaned. His blinks were slowing, and he found that he had to keep a hand on the wall as he moved back to his bedroom to prevent from falling. “Whhhhat’rre you doooinnng, Rrrrrray?”

  His neck flopped and he literally stumbled and then collapsed into his bed. He didn’t want to sleep now; he wanted to get Ray out of his mother’s room, but the urge to sleep, to just shut his eyes and allow the warm blanket of unconsciousness to tuck him in, was too great to resist.

  “Whaaaat’sssss—”

  Drake passed out mid-sentence, and yet part of his mind remained active just long enough to pick up on his friend’s words as they echoed up and down the hallway.

  “We’re all suffering… we’re all suffering… we’re all suffering…”

  Chapter 15

  The sun beat down on Drake’s body and yet when he finally managed to open his eyes, he discovered that he was shivering.

  With a groan, he managed to pull his aching body into a seated position. His throat was raw and his eyes were swollen to the point of barely being able to open. And his head… his head pounded.

  “Unghh,” he moaned, rubbing his temples. This helped a little and as his headache eased, a patchwork of memories came flooding back.

  He remembered needing water, being incredibly thirsty, and his friend helping his mother smoke again. He remembered orange medicine containers. John’s snoring.

  But that was about it.

  Drake continued to massage his temples, trying to cajole his headache into submission. Part of him felt as if he was going mad, as if he’d lost his mind.

  Just over a week ago when he had arrived at the Reynolds farm, Drake had been looking forward to spending time with his friend and exploring the wilderness, doing the things that teenage boys did: smoke cigarettes, swim, have a few drinks, scan the pages of Hustler, get a sunburn.

  He had never expected to se
e the squirrels, their tiny, ravaged bodies, which was when all of this craziness seemed to begin.

  Wincing after another dry swallow, Drake rose to his feet. He staggered and braced himself on the bedside table for a moment until the dizzy spell passed.

  “I don’t feel that good, Ray,” he said. But Ray wasn’t in his bed. “Ray? Where are you?”

  Speaking made his head hurt even more, so Drake clammed up and listened.

  He heard nothing.

  That’s odd.

  Drake listened even more closely, trying to hear over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears.

  Nothing; he heard nothing at all. Normally, this would have been relaxing, a relief even, but there was always sound in the Reynolds farm.

  Angelina! His mind suddenly cried.

  Drake stepped into the hallway and then moved as quickly as his unstable limbs could carry him to Angelina’s room.

  When he looked inside, his breath hitched and his heart seemed to skip several beats in a row, bringing on another dizzy spell.

  The woman’s bed was empty.

  The sheets had been heaped on the floor, and the machines were all dark. The accordion respirator had sung its final lullaby.

  And then there were the pill containers; there were at least six of them, Drake saw, half of which were on the floor, while the others were lying on their sides on the table.

  They were all empty.

  Fear vanquished Drake’s headache and he hurried down the stairs, taking them two at a time. His foot slipped on the final rung, and he stumbled forward. He braced himself against the back of the couch to avoid cracking his swollen head off the floor.

  “Fuck,” he swore, pulling himself to his feet again. He was about to make his way to the kitchen when something caught his eye.

  The couch; it too, like Angelina’s bed upstairs, was empty.

  And yet, he distinctly remembered John Reynolds lying on it the night before, his eyes and chin pointed to the ceiling, his snoring loud and labored.

  Drake’s fear was palpable now.

  Where is everybody?

  “Ray? Ray, where are you? John? Angelina? Anyone?”

  Desperate now, his mind trying to make sense of what was going on, his eyes flicked about the farmhouse.

  She was feeling better Angelina was feeling okay today so they decided to go outside to do a little gardening to get fresh air because it smells stale inside and John took the day off work again and I overslept and they didn’t want to wake me and I understand

  Drake made his way toward the front door and then stepped outside. The sun was impossibly bright. Drake would have squinted, but his puffy eyes were barely open as it was. He scanned the driveway first and saw that John’s truck was still parked awkwardly as it had been yesterday. The barn door was also still open, but it appeared empty.

  It’s been so long since Angelina has been outside that she wanted to go for a walk to pick some nice flowers that would look good on the kitchen table and then maybe

  Drake staggered across the dirt path, nearly tripping over the empty bottle of Ballantine’s. Without thinking, he eventually found himself at the edge of the forest.

  Angelina wanted to go for a swim and the water is nice and cool she was overheating because the blankets were too hot and the machines generated to much heat all that electricity was giving her a headache

  Sticks and stray branches scratched Drake’s bare chest as he made his way through the forest. At one point, his toe snagged on a rock and he twisted his ankle something fierce, but he continued onward, driven by equal parts desperation and confusion.

  After less than five minutes, the forest thinned, and just a few minutes after that it opened up to the pond.

  “No,” he gasped, feeling his shoulders fold inward.

  They weren’t there.

  Ray wasn’t there.

  John wasn’t there.

  Angelina wasn’t there.

  It was only Drake and—he spotted something white on the grass and walked over to it—a skull.

  About the size of a walnut, it had been completely cleaned and bleached by the sun. It could have been from any animal—a rabbit, a small fox, a groundhog, a chipmunk—but it wasn’t.

  It was the skull of one of the squirrels Ray had thrown in the water.

  Drake started to sob, a reaction so sudden and visceral that he barely noticed as a head of dark hair surfaced on the other side of the pond.

  Wiping the tears away, he watched as his friend used his elbows to pull himself onto the bank with considerable effort. Then Ray rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, his narrow chest heaving.

  Drake struggled to swallow as he made his way over to his friend. As he neared, he realized that Ray’s eyes were still closed and considered the possibility that he was sleeping.

  That maybe, just maybe, he was still sleepwalking.

  “Ray? Are you okay?” Drake sobbed. “What happened? Where is everybody?”

  Ray’s eyes slowly opened and he turned his head to look at Drake.

  “I’m fine,” he replied in a monotone voice.

  “But… but where’s your mom?” Drake asked, picturing the empty medicine containers strewn about her room. “Where’s John? Where’s Angelina, Ray? What happened to everyone…”

  Ray’s eyes slowly closed and he moved his head back to the center, his skin slowly drying in the hot sun.

  “They won’t suffer anymore,” Ray Reynolds said quietly. “Mom and Dad won’t suffer anymore.”

  PART II – A Crown of Bones

  Summer, 2018

  Chapter 16

  “You must have felt that one.”

  “No, I don’t think—” Drake’s eyes suddenly bulged. “Yeah! Yeah, I felt that! For sure, it’s a boy!”

  He removed his hand from Jasmine’s belly and then pressed his ear against it.

  “That was—there it is again! I felt him kick!”

  Jasmine leaned back against the couch and laughed.

  Drake couldn’t help but chuckle himself. He turned his eyes up to her pretty face then, and the smile on his lips held. There was pure joy in Jasmine’s eyes, and after all that had happened, it made Drake feel pretty damn good. He had no idea how to be a father, hadn’t a clue how to be, well, whatever he was to Jasmine, and definitely was at a loss when it came to Suzan. In fact, the only thing that Drake knew for certain, was that for the first time in forever, he felt happy.

  The news that Jasmine was pregnant with his child had been more than shocking, and was further complicated by his feelings for Chase Adams. But now that Chase was out of the picture, that she had since moved on to greener pastures, he had had time to focus. And after a few weeks of heavy thinking and heavier drinking, Drake did the honorable thing. He did what he always did, or at least what he continually tried to do: the right thing.

  Which was why he found himself here, living with Jasmine and looking after her as she looked after their child. And now, six months along, the fruits of both their labors were playing dividends.

  And it was also Jasmine herself. Drake liked Jasmine. Liked her a lot.

  “There it is again!” he shouted, not bothering to temper his excitement.

  He slid his face up higher on Jasmine stomach, chasing the sound, and she winced.

  “I hope you shave that stuff off your face before the baby’s born,” Jasmine said as she reached down and scratched Drake’s beard.

  Drake pulled his head away from Jasmine’s stomach, and looked up at her.

  “What? You don’t like it? I think it’s growing on me.”

  Jasmine shook her head.

  “Oh, Damien Drake, to think that all this time I thought you were just a depressed alcoholic with PTSD. Who wouldathunk that there was a budding comedian buried deep inside?”

  Drake could only shake his head. Over the past few months, he had grown accustomed to her dry—no, dry wasn’t the word—desiccated sense of humor, but it still caught him off guard every onc
e in a while.

  He sat and stretched his legs. After a marathon Netflix session, he felt the urge to move.

  “You think Suzan’s gonna come by?”

  Jasmine shrugged.

  “I don’t think so. Exams and all that.”

  Although his relationship with Suzan would never be perfect, nor did he have any desire to replace her late father, the young woman’s stance on Drake had clearly softened since the fire.

  Saving someone’s life was a good way to get them to like you, Drake had learned.

  “I can talk to Beckett, see if—”

  Jasmine shook her head.

  “No, you won’t. Just let her—”

  Drake’s cell phone buzzed, cutting off Jasmine mid-sentence.

  “Hold that thought,” he said as he picked up his phone. The number was unlisted, and he hesitated before answering.

  It had been some time since he had last received a call from an unlisted number, and it would be a lie to say that it didn’t excite him a little. He’d taken some time off from Triple D, putting Screech in charge after returning from the Virgin Gorda, and while he enjoyed the down time, a little excitement never hurt anyone.

  Much to Jasmine’s displeasure, he answered it.

  “Hello? Drake here.”

  All he heard was breathing.

  “Hello? Who’s this?”

  Drake was about to hang up when a voice that sounded familiar, but one that he couldn’t quite place, spoke up.

  “He’s back, Drake.”

  Drake, who was making his way toward the kitchen, stopped cold.

  “Who is this? Who’s back?”

  From the family room, Jasmine asked if everything was alright, but he ignored her.

  “Drake… The Skeleton King, he’s back.”

  Chapter 17

  Sergeant Henry Yasiv somehow managed to collect himself after hanging up the phone. He hadn’t been part of 62nd precinct when the Skeleton King had first started terrorizing the city, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t well versed in what had happened.

  Seven bodies in seven days… each with the finger bone of the next victim cemented to their skulls. The final victim sporting a complete crown of bones.