Never Fear (3 page)

“
And you?”

He paused again for a long moment, and
then shrugged.

“
Fifteen years ago, give
or take a day or two, I was a student at the University of Florida.
My girlfriend was driving down here to meet my sister, Linda—my
twin, actually. Linda and Marissa were friends and that’s how
Marissa and I met. Anyway, Marissa had come down—right about this
time of year, they had done some Christmas shopping together—and
then she’d left my folks old home and headed back to Gainesville on
a bright, beautiful morning. We were both due to come back for the
holiday in a week. But, Marissa left that day and...”

“
And?” Dakota asked
softly.

“
It’s a drive that should
have taken about an hour and a half. She never showed
up.”

“
What—what happened to
her?”

“
Her car was found in a
pond just the other side of the woods behind the church. Marissa
was never found.” He hesitated then. “One day, I will find out what
happened to her.”

“
You never mentioned a
sister—a twin,” Dakota said.

“
Because she left after
Marissa disappeared. My parents were gone... Linda left. She had to
forget. I couldn’t.”

He turned toward the bar. Dakota ran
after him quickly. “Declan!”

He stopped.

“
Anything might have
happened to her.”

“
But, it didn’t. There are
devils in the woods,” he said.

She stared after him, disbelieving.
Then she ran to catch up.

The bar was truly rustic and looked
like an old, decaying fishing shanty. That had not deterred the
proprietors from the spirit of the season. The front door was
festooned with a huge wreath and loaded with decorations. A cheap
plastic Santa waved hello from one side of the entrance while
cheerful plastic elves played on the other side. It was daytime,
but dozens of strings of colored Christmas lights sparkled from
rakish, anywhere—anywhere hanging around the windows, from the
roof, and over whatever foliage ringed the place.

Declan opened the door to the bar. And
then he froze.

“
What...?” Dakota asked,
trying to get past him.

He was solid. The best she could do
was look over his shoulder.

There were body pieces everywhere.
Blood everywhere.

But, this time, it hadn’t been wooden
mannequins that had been hacked to pieces.

And it wasn’t stage blood.

Flesh, blood, bone, and brain matter
was splattered everywhere.

And it was real.

“
Time to call in the
county,” Declan said. “And every damned forensic expert they
have.”

*

Before they had even entered the bar,
Declan was on the phone with a representative from the Alachua
County Sheriff’s Department and the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement. Despite appearances, they had to enter to assure
themselves that all were dead, even though ambulances were on the
way. The bartender lay behind the bar—no way to help him. His neck
had been so seriously sliced that the head was nearly severed. What
appeared to be a young woman—shapely legs emerged from a battered
torso by one of the rough wood tables—looked upward with one eye.
Her face had been so severely slashed she looked like a Halloween
ragdoll. Four customers had been in the bar: two at a table, two at
the bar.

All had met similar fates. It was
tricky to assess the room and avoid the pools of blood.

“
Look,” Declan said, and
pointed, indicating an old mirror over the bar.

She looked. Someone’s blood had been
used to write a message on the glass.

Merry Christmas, Hanging
Tree. Old St. Nick is coming—for you!

“
I guess people do come to
hate small town life, huh?” Declan murmured.

Dakota swallowed. Even at Metro
Miami-Dade, she’d never seen anything like this.

“
You know these people?”
she asked.

He nodded. “Gus Farley, bartender.
Good man—intended to retire to the Keys next year. Lou Troy and
Mitch Robinson at the bar. Old-timers—just like Jerry Simms and Mel
McCarthy, the guys at the tables. I didn’t know the waitress; she
just came down here, kicked out of school, University of Florida,
up in Gainesville. Name was Kerry Reed, I think. Poor thing. God!”
he exclaimed suddenly, betraying a moment’s deep emotion. “What the
hell.”

She saw that his fists were knotted at
his side and that he was straining to fight his emotions and his
rage. “What the bloody hell, who the bloody hell...?”

The tinny scent of the blood was
getting to her, too. She felt her stomach roil. This was the kind
of sight that called upon everything in the human heart—it was a
scene that hurt, and she was grateful that she had been in town
only two weeks and yet to know its inhabitants well at
all.

The devils in the woods!
She thought.

No devil had done this. A
human hand—
a human hand they could
catch!—
had done this.

And yet... how?

How had these people all been taken
down? Had none of them fought back?

It was while she was pondering the
question that Dakota thought she heard the sound of a sob. Soft,
like a child’s cry.

“
Someone’s in here,
somewhere!” she said.

And—trying to make sure that she
didn’t slide across the blood slick floor—she hurried around the
bar. There was a door there, ajar now. It led, she quickly
discovered, to a storeroom and office in back.

At first she saw nothing. She moved
forward right before Declan nearly plowed into her back, having
followed in her wake.

There was a desk across the room; she
hurried around and looked beneath it. And there she saw the
child.

It was a little girl; she was perhaps
ten, with long blond hair. She was curled into herself under the
desk, shaking and crying.

“
Hey! Hello,” Dakota said,
reaching out a hand to her. She had dealt with survivors before,
but it wasn’t her forte. Most homicide detectives would tell anyone
that dealing with the dead was easier than dealing with survivors.
The dead needed justice. Survivors needed help and
empathy.

This survivor was a child.
What did she say?
It’s all right? It
wasn’t all right. How did she even get the child out of there
without bringing her past the scene of all the carnage?

Declan was right behind her; he
quickly hunkered down to talk to the child. “Sweetheart, hi, I’m
the local police chief. And this is Dakota—she’s a police officer,
too. Were you here with someone—like your mom or your
dad?”

She girl just trembled. Declan reached
out to him. She hesitated, and then took his hand. He looked at
Dakota. “Your jacket?” he asked.

“
Yes, yes, of course,” she
said, quickly removing the jacket. She handed it to him. “I’m going
to get you out of here; this is going to be over your head for just
a minute, okay?”

The little girl just stared at him.
She was a beautiful child, wide blue eyes, platinum blond hair, and
an angel’s face.

Declan eased her out from under the
desk, draping the jacket over her head so that she wouldn’t see. He
hurried out and Dakota followed him.

By the time they were outside, sirens
were screeching. A man named McSween introduced himself; he was a
lead detective with the county. He listened to Declan’s report on
their strange discoveries. Forensic crews and a medical examiner
had arrived; they were moving with admirable speed. McSween
promised to secure the scene and collect all possible forensic
evidence to get going on the investigation. “Not to be offensive,”
McSween, a tall, slim man with a sympathetic manner told him. “I
don’t mean to imply—”

“
You wouldn’t be implying
anything, McSween,” Declan told him. “We don’t have the facilities
you have. I’ll get this girl down to our office and see if we can’t
find out something from her.”

“
The kid is probably in
shock.”

“
We’ll see that she gets
to child services—maybe they’ll have doctors who know how to get
to... to talk. To tell us something. I’ll start on the
locals—seeing if I can’t get something.”

“
Good then; you know your
town here; me, I know bodies,” McSween said. “And, as soon as
it’s... decent, we’ll talk to the kid.”

“
Her parents?” McSween
asked.

“
I don’t know,” Declan
said. “She doesn’t belong to any of—to any of the victims in the
bar. I know them all.”

Dakota turned away from the bar, glad
that a host of out-of-towners had arrived to make all the proper
moves. She saw that a county M.E.’s wagon was among the
arrivals.

Declan was already moving across the
street. She ran after him.

He headed to their car, emblazoned
with the town logo—an image of a great oak and the words, Hanging
Tree.

As she reached the car,
she found it sadly ironic that choir practice had apparently begun
at the church. Someone was singing
Joy to
the World
.

*

The shifts at the station ran from
eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, four in the
afternoon to midnight, and midnight to eight, with Declan and
Dakota straddling the hours, usually from about nine to six or
seven at night, later when needed, or any hour when
needed.

When they arrived at the station with
the little girl who wouldn’t talk, Chancy Buell and David Lassiter
were on duty; they naturally knew what had happened already and
that the county detectives were on it.

The station, too, seemed
garish at the moment—though it had been warm and festive when she’d
left, Dakota realized. A tree was in one corner, loaded with
ornaments, and a fine star topped it off. Streams of fake holly
lined the windows. And here, too, playing softly, was a Christmas
carol. Here,
Deck the Halls.

Chancy Buell was nearing retirement;
she was a small woman with iron gray hair, a gentle manner—and the
ability to scare anyone into good behavior when pushed. Small—but
mighty, Dakota had decided. She’d seen Chancy propel a few hulking
football players into the holding cell, barely raising the tone of
her voice.

But, seeing the child, Chancy
immediately turned into grandmother mode. “What have we here? What
a darling child. Honey, where’s your mommy?” she asked
gently.

The little girl just shook her
head.

“
Have they called child
services?” Chancy asked Dakota. Declan had already headed to the
coffee pot where he was deep in thought, pouring himself a
cup.

“
We got her out of there;
country folks had just arrived,” Dakota said. “I’m sure that
McSween—the county detective—had done so, but, I’ll make
sure.”

“
Phones are out,” David
told her, shaking his head. “Old lines and old wires. You’ll need
to use your cell.”

“
Phones are out?” Declan
said sharply, turning to look at David.

David was young; he’d just transferred
over from the Gainesville department. With wild straw colored hair
and a big hulking body, he really did make the perfect small town
cop. He was unerringly polite at all times.

“
Yep—tried to patch into
you just as you came back. One of us was about to walk over, but we
knew both of you were on the scene, and ...” His voice trailed.
Either he hadn’t wanted to add more confusion to such a scene, or,
he simply hadn’t want to see the awful gore, not when he didn’t
need to. County detectives were always called in on
murder.

“
I’ll use my cell
outside,” Dakota said.

“
Yeah, get someone here,”
Declan said, heading out before she could do so.

“
Where are you going?” she
called, hurrying after him.

“
Whoever it
is—
whatever it is
—is out there. I’m going to find the devil.”

“
There is no devil in the
woods!” Dakota shouted.

“
I’ll get our little
princess some hot chocolate, how about that?” she heard Chancy say.
Chancy apparently hadn’t heard Declan’s insanity. “Then,” Chancy
continued, “Maybe we can talk and find out who you are and where we
can find your mommy or your daddy. And you can tell me what you
want for Christmas, little princess!”

Dakota continued on out and let the
door close. She pulled out her cell—it was hard to get cell service
inside, the building had been constructed of heavy brick during the
eighteen-hundreds—she noted with aggravation that Declan was
heading in much the same direction from which they had come. The
town had a square—and the church and the graveyard and then forest
sat across the expanse of the square while the bar was across from
the church at the end of the square.

She dialed the division of child
services at county and watched Declan go. He was headed back the
way they had come, but he hadn’t bothered with the car. He was
walking fast—quickly eating up the half mile or so to the
church.