Cold Summer Nights (15 page)

The detective studied him without moving.
“Into who?”

Rusty’s head snapped to the detective. “
Summer
,” he said faintly.

Rodriguez weighed the response in his head. “Summer Parker?”

Rusty snatched the cup of water and slammed it back without using the straw. Water trickled out the corners of his mouth, soaking the shoulders of his flimsy hospital gown. The shadowy female with the dead skin shot through his unfolding mind. His eyes nervously darted around the room. “Nick said it was her.”

Rodriguez followed Rusty’s wandering gaze around the room, as if something might be standing right behind him, but there was only an empty recliner. He turned back to Rusty and took a step closer.

Rusty rubbed his face with both hands.

“Who was it, Russ? Who did this?”

Rusty shook his head. “It was too dark,” he said, swallowing. “She had this clay-like skin, and thick, yellow toe nails.” He turned to the detective with frightened eyes. “You didn’t catch her?”

Muffled pages took over the PA system outside the door.

Rodriguez stared at him. “We caught you.”

“Me?”

“Listen to me, Russ, and listen
good
,” he said calmly. “There are at least three news crews outside every door in this place, all wanting to know why you did it.”

Rusty gulped. “Me? They think I did it?”

“
Shhh
, they think you were despondent over your job loss at The
Des Moines Register
, and, subsequently, you flipped out and strangled your two best friends after a few beers. Channel 13 claims you owed Nick money.”

Rusty gasped. “What?”

Rodriguez put his index finger over his lips. “Take it easy. I don’t know where they got that from,” he said, pulling out his tablet and poking the screen.
“Maybe a Stacey Halverson.”

Rusty groaned. “I’m writing a book and don’t care about that lame job.”

“Try telling that to them,” he snorted. “Your
Facebook
photo has already been plastered on every channel in town.”

Rusty turned his head to the side, trying to quell the pain the morphine was now missing. “I knew I should’ve never joined
Facebook
. All people do is brag about where they went for dinner.”

“Hey,” Rodriguez said, resting a brown skinned hand on Rusty’s bruised arm. “I know you didn’t kill your friends,” he whispered. “The Chief on the other hand is a different story. He wants to give those news crews a killer, because he sure as shit can’t have one running loose on his streets.”

Rusty turned to him with a frown. “How do you know I didn’t do it?”

Rodriguez glanced to the closed door while pulling a small baggie from his coat pocket. He unrolled it and Rusty stared at the broken fingernail inside.

“Found it inside Hubbard’s
Prius
. Didn’t think much of it at the time,” Rodriguez said, pulling another bag from a different pocket and glancing to the door again.

Rusty squinted at the similar looking fingernail in the other bag and turned to Rodriguez with starry eyes.

“Found this in Nick’s living room,” the detective told him.

Rusty stared at it, his mind trying to piece together his next question. But there were too many to pieces to choose from and Detective Rodriguez beat him to the punch.

“How do I find this
Summer
?”

Rusty snorted. “I don’t think you know what you’re messing with here,” he said gravely.

Rodriguez stuffed the bags back into his coat and zipped the pockets shut. “I know that Hubbard’s gas pedal didn’t stick, and I know he didn’t drive it into a wall at seventy-five miles an hour on purpose just because he didn’t get a raise this year. None of us got a raise this year!”

Rusty watched the detective straighten his leather coat and compose himself.

“I also know that Ron Hubbard was a good cop,” he said, with a softer voice. “And an even better friend, and when he says he’s getting warnings from complete strangers just before they die, I’m smart enough to listen. He may have had a penchant for donuts but not for booze or drugs. Something scared the living shit out of him,” he whispered. “And to top it all off, I also know that your buddy’s girlfriend was abducted five years ago and never found.”

They studied each other for a moment, both considering which track to take next. Rodriguez finally broke his gaze and sighed. “Mi
abuela
told childhood stories about the dead using people on the edge of death as temporary portals back into this world.” He paused. “I always thought they were more than just stories and so did my grandma. And I think Hubbard is proof.”

Rusty inhaled deep pulls of sterile air. “If I hadn’t seen what I saw tonight, I’d say you and your grandma were bat-shit crazy.”

Rodriguez didn’t laugh.

Rusty squinted at him. “Your grandma told you childhood stories like that?”

Rodriguez shrugged. “We couldn’t afford Dr. Seuss,
ese
,” he smiled. “So tell me exactly what happened. Start from the very beginning,” he said, holding up his tablet.

Rusty took a deep breath and let it out. “In second grade my dog, Jasper, got loose and was run over by a UPS truck…”

Rodriguez raised a hand into the air and stopped him. “Not that far back.”

A puzzled expression took over Rodriguez’s face. “So how did Nick know it was
Summer
?”

Rusty wiped his eyes, where tears were making an appearance as the shock wore off. Weakly, he shook his head.

“
This her
?” Rodriguez asked, holding up a picture Rusty hadn’t seen before.

His gazed sharpened at the photo of
Summer
smiling brightly with two other pretty girls she stood arm in arm with. The three wore colorful summer dresses while holding red margaritas. Rusty nodded with a sniffle.

Rodriguez exhaled tiredly. “Only thing we know for sure is she went missing after going for a jog through a wooded park five years ago. They never found a body. I contacted her mom in Rockford and she debunked the whole mafia story. Said
Summer
hadn’t been dating anyone, let alone someone in Chicago. Either way, she’s on her way here tonight and wants to speak with you, although I doubt she’ll have any luck in that.”

Rusty’s forehead folded. “Me?”

“She just wants some closure and I don’t blame her. If my daughter had been missing for five years, I’d be a wreck too.”

“Well, don’t tell me she thinks I had something to do with it.”

“What would you think if you were her?”

Rusty dropped his head back into the pillow and scanned the hospital room with unfocused eyes while gingerly rubbing the inside of his arm.

“Rusty,” he said, finding his eyes. “Something got the jump on Hubbard, and it wasn’t any damn mobsters because they would’ve been dead with him. There was nothing left of that car.”

Rusty took a beleaguered breath. “Whatever that
thing
was, I’m telling you it wasn’t human!”

Rodriguez put a finger to his lips and Rusty leaned back down.

“I think you’re exactly right when you use the word
thing
," the detective said. “I can feel it.”

Rusty gazed at him with incredulous eyes as relief washed over his entire body. Suddenly his head felt clearer. “You should have seen the way it moved,” he whispered gravely, rubbing both his arms. “Nothing human moves like that.”

“What do you mean?” Rodriguez asked with a hint of fear in his voice.

“It was like…it was floating on a conveyer-belt. It moved but it didn’t move, not its legs anyway.”

Rodriguez looked down and punched something into his tablet.

“So what do we do now?” Rusty asked, sitting back up. “How do we stop it? What about your grandma or
abuela
or whatever? Can she do some voodoo shit on it or something?”

Rodriguez snorted. “My
abuela
has been dead for over ten years now, amigo.”

“Damn.”

“But don’t worry, I just might have a couple of her tricks up my own sleeve,” he said with a slight grin.

Rusty’s eyes widened.
“Seriously?”

“Let’s just say, we’re going to make this bitch pay for what she did to our friends, but first we have to get you out of here. If I’m going to have any chance of calling her back, I’m going to need your help.”

Rusty’s eyebrows sank. “Call her back? Fuck that, dude! I’m not going anywhere near that thing. I’m lucky to be alive as it is.”

Rodriguez shrugged. “I’m sure she can reach you in jail, which is where you’ll be tomorrow after they discharge you from here. I’m not sure your cell-mate will be much help defending you, but it’s your choice.”

Rusty looked around the room and swallowed. “How do we get out of here?”

Rodriguez smiled and glanced to the closed door. “There’s a laundry cart right outside. We’ll wait for Tammy to disappear on her rounds and then I’ll wheel you down to the exit in the basement. It’s for staff and emergency vehicles only. My car is already by the door.”

Rusty smiled.
“Then what?”

“Then,” Rodriguez started. “Then we’ll go back to Nick’s and take another look around. I want you to show me exactly how things happened. And then we try my tricks.”

Rusty stared into the detective’s intent eyes, knowing that he now had a fighting chance to live a long, full life outside prison walls, instead of remaining shackled to a life of punishment for crimes he didn’t commit. Crimes he couldn’t commit. “I can’t believe you believe me,” he gushed.

Rodriguez chuckled. “If you’d seen half the things I’ve seen growing up, you wouldn’t be so surprised.”

Rusty nodded with his mouth open as one of the room’s two overhead fluorescent lights flickered and then went out. The other light dimmed, casting thick shadows that masked the color leaving Rusty’s face.

“Oh shit,” he mumbled.

“What is it?” Rodriguez asked, puckering his brow.

“It’s happening again.”

Rodriguez scanned the room with hurried eyes and turned back to Rusty who had pulled the bed sheet up to his chin. “What’s happening?”

Rusty inhaled sharply and Rodriguez turned to follow his wide gaze over his own shoulder. His tablet slipped through his fingers and fell to the tiled floor below, shattering into pieces. He stared in disbelief at the woman standing bare foot in the corner behind him. She faced the corner as if being punished for something by an angry teacher or unhappy parent. Rodriguez took a blind step backwards and bumped into Rusty’s hospital bed. He opened his mouth but no sound came out.

“It’s her!” Rusty shrieked.

Without moving the rest of her body, she slowly turned her head around and stared at them with black eyes that seemed to have no end.

Rodriguez squinted, but the shadows from the one dim light overhead made it difficult to make out anything other than her pallid legs.

Suddenly, her body began taking jerky steps backwards, her dark eyes keeping them in her sights.

Detective Rodriguez gasped and drew his station issued nine millimeter in a flash but she moved faster. Her body spun around to realign with its head and a dead hand shot out and picked Rodriguez up by his throat, lifting his shoes off the ground. His gun dropped to the shiny floor with a loud clatter as his hands began fighting with the vice like grip around his neck.