DF08 - The Night Killer Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  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

  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

  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

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Praise for the Novels of Beverly Connor

  “Calls to mind the forensic mysteries of Aaron Elkins and Patricia Cornwell. However, Connor’s sleuth infuses the mix with her own brand of spice as a pert and brainy scholar in the forensic analysis of bones. . . . Chases, murder attempts, and harrowing rescues add to this fast-paced adventure.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Connor grabs the reader with her first sentence and never lets up until the book’s end. . . . The story satisfies both as a mystery and as an entrée into the fascinating world of bones. . . . Add Connor’s dark humor, and you have a multidimensional mystery that deserves comparison with the best of Patricia Cornwell.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Connor combines smart people, fun people, and dangerous people in a novel hard to put down.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  “In Connor’s latest multifaceted tale, the plot is serpentine, the solution ingenious, the academic politics vicious . . . chock-full of engrossing anthropological and archaeological detail.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Connor’s books are a smart blend of Patricia Cornwell, Aaron Elkins, and Elizabeth Peters, with some good deep-South atmosphere to make it authentic.”

  —Oklahoma Family Magazine

  “Crisp dialogue, interesting characters, fascinating tidbits of bone lore and a murderer that eluded me. When I started reading, I couldn’t stop. What more could you ask for? Enjoy.”

  —Virginia Lanier, author of the Bloodhound series

  “Beverly Connor has taken the dry bones of scientific inquiry and resurrected them into living, breathing characters. I couldn’t put [it] down until I was finished, even though I wanted to savor the story. I predict that Beverly Connor will become a major player in the field of mystery writing.”

  —David Hunter, author of Tempest at the Sunsphere

  “Fans of . . . Patricia Cornwell will definitely want to read Beverly Connor . . . an author on the verge of superstardom.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Connor’s breathtaking ability to dish out fascinating forensic details while maintaining a taut aura of suspense is a real gift.”

  —Romantic Times (top pick)

  ALSO BY BEVERLY CONNOR

  Dust to Dust

  Scattered Graves

  Dead Hunt

  Dead Past

  Dead Secret

  Dead Guilty

  One Grave Too Many

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

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  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, April 2010

  Copyright © Beverly Connor, 2010

  All rights reserved

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18657-2

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  To all my cousins

  Chapter 1

  The gray sky grew darker as Diane watched. The storm was coming fast. She tried not to show her unease as she listened to Roy Barre going on about his grandfather’s collection of Indian arrowheads that he was loaning to the museum. The two of them stood beside the museum’s SUV, the four-wheel-drive vehicle she had driven to his mountain home. Diane had the driver’s-side door open, key in hand, ready to get in when he wound down, or at least paused in his narrative.

  “So, you going to put a plaque up on the wall with Granddaddy’s name?” Barre said. “He’d like that. He picked up arrowheads from the time he was a little boy. Found a lot of them in the creek bed. That big, pretty one I showed you of red flint—he was crossing the creek, looked down, and there it was, big as life right there with the river rocks.”

  Diane had heard the story several times already.

  “Yes,” she said, “there will be a
plaque. Our archaeologist, Jonas Briggs, will oversee the display.”

  Roy Barre was a tall, rounded, cheerful man in his mid-fifties with a ruddy face, graying beard, and brown hair down to his collar. In his overalls and plaid shirt, he didn’t look as though he owned most of the mountain and the one next to it. Even with the oncoming storm, had she consented, he would at this moment be showing her the property and the crisscross of creeks where his grandfather had found his arrowheads.

  “Granddaddy didn’t dig for them, even when he was a little boy—he knowed that was wrong. You know, some people look for Indian burials and dig up the bones looking for pottery and nice arrowheads. Granddaddy didn’t do that. No, he didn’t bother anybody’s resting place. He just picked up arrowheads he found on the ground or in the creek. A lot of them was in the creek, washed from somewhere. He never knew from where. He just eyed the creek bottom and, sure enough, he’d always find something. He sure found some pretty ones. Yes, he did.”

  The trees whipped back and forth and the wind picked up with a roar.

  “Roy, you let that woman go. I swear, you’ve told her the same stories three times already. A storm’s coming and she needs to get off the mountain.”

  Holding her sweater close around her, Ozella Barre, Roy’s wife, came down the long concrete steps leading from her house on the side of the hill.

  “Listen to that wind,” she said. “Lord, it sounds like a train, don’t it?”

  “Mama’s right, Miss Fallon, you need to be getting down the mountain before the rain comes. The roads can get pretty bad up here.”

  “Thank you for your hospitality and the loan of your grandfather’s collection,” said Diane. “I’m sure our archaeologist will be calling you to ask you to tell him your stories again. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Mrs. Barre laughed out loud and leaned against her husband. “How many times would he like to hear them?”

  “You know how to get back to the main road?” asked Roy.

  “I believe so,” said Diane, smiling. She got in the car before Roy commenced another story, and started the engine. She waved good-bye to them and eased down the long, winding gravel drive just as the first drops of rain began to fall.

  Diane was the director of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History, a small, well-respected museum in Rosewood, Georgia. She was also director of Rosewood’s crime lab, housed in the museum, and a forensic anthropologist. It was in her capacity as museum director that she was in the mountains of North Georgia, arranging the loan of the substantial arrowhead collection. Jonas Briggs, the museum’s archaeologist, was interested in the collection mainly because LeFette Barre, Roy’s grandfather, had kept a diary of sorts describing his hunting trips, including drawings of the arrowheads he found and where he found them—more or less. Jonas wanted to map the projectile points—as he called them—especially the several Clovis points in the collection. Unfortunately he was away, or it would be him, instead of her, up here in the North Georgia mountains trying to dodge the coming storm.

  The mountain roads weren’t paved, and they were marked by ruts and gullies. She should have left earlier. The storm brought the darkness too soon, and despite what she said, she was just a little uncertain she could retrace her steps back to the main road. She looked down at the passenger seat for the directions. They weren’t there. Well, hell, she thought. Probably blew out of the vehicle while she had the door open. Just pretend it’s a cave, she told herself.

  The trees looked frenzied, whipping back and forth against the darkening sky. Diane watched the road, looking for familiar landmarks. The rain began to fall harder. Diane turned her wipers up several notches and slowed down. With the heavy rain and fog, it was getting harder to see the road.

  A tire slipped into a rut and spun, and for several moments she thought she was stuck. She pressed the four-wheel-drive button on the gearshift, and suddenly the vehicle lurched forward and was out. Just ahead, she recognized her first turn. That road wasn’t any better. It had heavy gouges and grooves carved into it by years of wheels and weather doing their destructive work. Diane remembered the ruts from when she came up the mountain, but the only annoyance then was a rough ride.

  “Doesn’t anybody fix roads around here?” she grumbled to herself as she hit a deep pothole and again spun her tires.

  So far, she was remembering her way back, but visibility was getting worse. She turned her wipers on the fastest setting. She would have liked to pull off the road and wait for the rain to stop, but she was afraid of getting stuck. She would be on foot if her vehicle became mired in the muddy shoulder of the road; and coming up the mountain she’d discovered that the area had no cell service.

  Diane hoped she wouldn’t meet anyone trying to get up the mountain on the narrow road as she inched along, looking for the next turn. She couldn’t find it. Well, damn, she thought to herself. Did I miss it? There was no turning around. At least if I keep heading down, she thought, I’ll get to a main road sooner or later. She kept going—and looking.

  Then she spotted the road—she just hadn’t gone far enough. She turned onto another dirt road, slipping in the mud as she did. Up ahead she saw a house that she remembered on her trip up. Good. She sighed with relief. She remembered from the map that this was called Massey Road.

  The house was dark. Diane didn’t think anybody lived in it. It was run-down and, frankly, looked haunted, with its gray board siding, sagging porch, and strangely twisted trees in the front yard. Boo Radley’s house, she thought to herself as she approached.

  A flash of lightning and a loud crack caused her to jump and slam on the brakes. The cracking sound continued, and with a sudden stab of fear, Diane saw one of the trees in the yard of the house falling toward her. She put the SUV in reverse and spun the wheels. The tree crashed across the front of her vehicle, and in the strobe of lightning flashes, she saw a human skull resting on the hood of her car. A skeletal hand slammed hard against her windshield and broke apart.

  Diane let out a startled yelp and blinked at the apparition on the hood of her SUV. It took her several moments to rouse herself from the shock, turn off the ignition, and open the door. Rain poured in, soaking her clothes. Her wet shirt clung to her skin. She shielded her eyes with her left hand as she got out of the car to survey the damage, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the mottled brown skull grinning at her.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  “You all right?”

  Diane jumped at the voice. She turned to see a man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt as soaked as she. His hair was plastered to his head. His lips stretched over remarkably even, white teeth. He was in his thirties, she guessed, maybe in his forties. The years hadn’t been kind. He looked like the type of person Diane didn’t want to meet alone in a dark alley—or on a dark, rainy night on a muddy mountain road. Her already fast-beating heart sped up another notch. She eased back a step against her vehicle. She wondered, if she jumped in the SUV, could she back it out from under the tree?

  The man was the Barres’ neighbor—sort of—she told herself. He’s probably fine. He swung a flashlight back and forth down by his side. From the light it cast, the batteries were running low.

  “Oh, fine. I . . . The tree . . .” Diane tried smiling. “There’s a skeleton on the hood of my car,” she said, and grimaced at how that sounded.

  “Skeleton? Where?” he said.

  She pointed behind her without taking her eyes off the man.

  “You must of hit your head. I don’t see no skeleton.” He grinned at her.

  Chapter 2

  Diane’s heart beat loud in her ears as she eased back toward the open door. Before she could scramble in, the man grabbed at her, his grip landing on her wet forearm. She jerked away and his wet grasp slipped, scraping her arm with his nails. Diane didn’t hesitate—she struck out and hit the end of his nose with the palm of her hand. He yelled and stepped back, hands to his face. Diane ran at him, grabbing his flashlight from his loosened g
rasp as she brushed past him.

  Unfortunately he now blocked the entry to her SUV. Not that getting in her vehicle was a good plan. If she couldn’t get the SUV moving, she would be screwed. Diane ran down the muddy road, hoping to avoid anything in the darkness that would twist her ankle. She couldn’t afford to fall. She couldn’t afford a sprain.

  Diane heard the man yelling, but through the noise of the rain, she made out only the word dogs. There was more than one person, and he was telling them to get the dogs. She cut quickly into the woods. The road would be easier to negotiate, but it would also leave her out in the open. When she was hidden by the foliage, Diane stopped for a moment to catch her breath and listen. At first she heard only her heart and the rain. Gradually she became aware, through the sound of the downpour, of dogs barking.

  Diane had heard a K-9 officer speak to the Rosewood PD about dogs and their ability to track a scent. She came away with the idea that a dog’s nose was so far superior to the human nose that it was almost not analogous to the human ability to smell. And that if a well-trained dog and a good handler were on your trail, you were caught. And worse, a well-trained dog could track in the rain. Though in this downpour and on these mountainsides, she suspected the scent would be displaced quite a bit, maybe even washed away. Diane wondered if the dogs she heard were tracking dogs, or perhaps, more likely, hunting dogs. Or maybe they were fighting dogs. She had heard that some people in this county, though it was illegal, trained fighting dogs.

  Diane wiped the rain out of her eyes.

  Damn—how did I get in this predicament?

  She started at a walk, as quickly as she dared, away from the derelict house. There was no running in dark woods. The only light she had was a flashlight running low on battery power. And flashes of lightning. No, she also had her cell phone on her belt. Though she didn’t get any service here, the display had a light that could help a little in pitch-black.