Mostly Murder Read online

  Mostly Murder

  BOOKS BY LINDA LADD

  Head to Head

  (Claire Morgan #1)

  Dark Places

  (Claire Morgan #2)

  Die Smiling

  (Claire Morgan #3)

  Enter Evil

  (Claire Morgan #4)

  Remember Murder

  (Claire Morgan #5)

  Mostly Murder

  LINDA LADD

  eKENSINGTON

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Mostly Murder

  BOOKS BY LINDA LADD

  Title Page

  Prologue - A Very Scary Man

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  A Very Scary Man

  The first time the scary man realized that he liked to frighten people was when he was twelve years old. His little sister was his favorite victim because she was only six and small for her age. Late one night, he sneaked into the room where Mandy was sleeping so peacefully, snoring with little whiffs and snorts because of her allergies, and all snuggled up under the covers with her pink stuffed Easter bunny and her three favorite Barbie dolls. Earlier that day, he had waded through the brush lining the bayou until he finally caught a tiny black garter snake. So, now, at last, it was show time.

  Grinning, trying not to laugh with anticipation, he opened up the white Kroger’s plastic sack and dumped the wriggling little reptile onto Mandy’s pink Cinderella pillow. He let out a loud hissing sound so she’d wake up, and then he took off for the doorway. But the snake had already slithered onto her and stopped right on top of her chest. He paused in the hall and waited with tingling nerves. Her Snow White night light was on beside her bed, and when she sat up, all flushed and sweet with sleep, she immediately laid eyes on the snake wriggling around on her blanket. The little girl let out a shriek like he just couldn’t believe. She probably wet her pants, too, he thought, racing back to his own room, ready to put on the best acting job of his life.

  The greatest lesson he learned that night was that if he was very careful and planned ahead, he could escape punishment for something truly horrible that he’d done. So, he was back in his own bed in his own room when his parents came rushing down the hall to see what was wrong with their little darling. He got up again, feigning sleepiness and concern like the little angel he wasn’t, but he was laughing so hard inside when he remembered the absolute terror on his sister’s face.

  Unfortunately, he thought it best to go back to bed and pretend disinterest in Mandy’s drama. So he had to miss all the screaming and sobbing and hysterics, not to mention his dad’s frantic and comedic efforts to catch the harmless little snake. Truth was, of course, he really didn’t want to hurt his baby sister. He loved Mandy a lot; she was just the most precious little thing in the world. But he loved to see the utter fear on her face even better, and that was the Gospel truth. He loved mind-boggling distress contorting anybody’s face, actually. As long as they were absolutely terrified and showed it, it was good for him.

  Keenly disappointed that he had been robbed of seeing the hourlong ordeal of rocking her back to sleep, he vowed that someday he wouldn’t have to hide his secret obsession. Someday, somewhere, he would find someone that he could torment for his pleasure and never have to miss a single tear or shriek or scrambling flight away from perceived mortal danger. He would plan and plan and plan some more, until he could enjoy himself with no fear of capture or punishment or retribution or grounding. Yeah, and that day was gonna be so sweet. Oh, yeah. He could hardly wait.

  And that day came a lot sooner than he expected, right after his Aunt Pamela and Uncle Stanley came to visit for the weekend, because they brought along their tiny little baby boy, Donnie, who was only eighteen months old. So the good thing about that was that the baby couldn’t talk yet. Not a damn word, except for babbling for his mama and dada. Yep, he was the perfect little victim with his red curly hair and big blue eyes and chubby little cherub’s face. His mommy and daddy loved him so much that they doted on him incessantly, snuggling him and spoiling him and kissing him and hugging him, as if he were the greatest kid ever born. Yeah, it was little Donnie this and little Donnie that and little wonderful Donnie, blah, blah, blah. It was downright disgusting.

  Hell, his own parents had never treated him like he was their darling little angel. Of course, he wasn’t an angel. He was a devil, really, and proud of it, or maybe he was more like the murderous demons he saw in scary movies. He had never killed anybody or driven anyone nuts, not yet anyway, but he didn’t really consider that to be out of the question someday in the future. Not little Donnie, though, not right now. He was way too little and sweet and innocent to kill, and he was his cousin, after all.

  When the adults decided they wanted to go out for dinner and dancing at the country club, he was elated and quickly offered to babysit the two little kids. His mom and dad and aunt and uncle thought that he was just so loving and kindhearted to offer, which gave him a really big edge on having two little victims to torment, not to mention how he laughed inside his head at how stupid grownups were. For obvious reasons, his sister begged to go along with the adults, but they wouldn’t let her, of course. But she wouldn’t tell on him; he had put the fear of God into her about tattling a long time ago. So, instead, Mandy ran upstairs as soon as their parents left and found a hiding place under her bed where he couldn’t get at her without poking her out with a broom handle. He didn’t care. He had somebody even better that he could make cry.

  Angelic little Donnie didn’t mind being left alone with him, not at all. In fact, he ran over to him and held up his sturdy little arms as if he wanted to be held. So he picked the toddler up and swung him around and made him giggle with joy. But then, within moments, he felt the need, the one he just could not resist or control anymore. Laughing, too, he tossed the little boy way up into the air and suddenly screamed up at him like some kind of a crazy banshee. For a second, the little kid just looked startled, but then he puckered up and began to wail. The scary man caught his baby cousin and cuddled him and rocked him until he stopped crying and was content again.

  Once the child was calm, he put little Donnie down and left the room to get something to eat. When he came back, the little kid was playing with a toy that had holes where you inserted colorful little balls to play music. He sneaked up behind the toddler and yelled Boo! as loud as he could. The baby went completely rigid and then screamed so shrilly that the boy almost had to put his hands over his ears.

  “Hey, now, it’s okay, little swe
etie pie. I didn’t mean to scare you, shh, little guy,” he crooned, scooping up the child and sitting down in the rocker by the fireplace. The baby settled down quickly; he guessed Donnie felt safe again. So he rocked the little tyke, who was really awfully adorable most of the time. But there was just something in the look in people’s eyes when he scared them that he got off on. It was like they just froze into a statue for a few seconds, rigid and stiff and shocked, and then their brain shrieked out, “Hey, kid, run, run, get outta here fast!”

  Oh, yes, he had plenty of that malice aforethought, like the lawyers on television shows always said. He liked lawyer shows, and he was smart, too, just like those lawyers. Straight A’s in every subject. Maybe he’d become a lawyer someday. Still, that particular phrase intrigued him; it rolled off his tongue somehow and made him feel good. He looked up the definition in the dictionary, just to make sure it was apropos, and there it was, laid out for him in black and white. Malice aforethought: a general evil and depraved state of mind in which the person is unconcerned for the lives and well-being of others.

  Okay, that’s exactly what he had, that evil and depraved state of mind. Maybe he should call himself Malice Aforethought, or just Malice for short, give himself a name like the villains who battled the superheroes in the comics. Because that’s what he came after people with, pure malice in his heart and mind and soul. Maybe he would call himself that, just for fun, and thus, his new moniker was born.

  Malice grinned, thinking about the exact moment when his victims knew they were in trouble, right before they screamed or took off running or wept real live wet-to-the-touch tears. That’s when that strange sense of joy erupted deep inside his gut. It was some kind of release, almost. Satisfaction, that’s what it was. A burst of great personal gratification. He wondered if that were normal behavior, or if he might be a really bad person, or some kind of psycho, even. Then he decided he didn’t care if he was or not, that it felt good and he was going to do it, whenever he knew he wouldn’t get caught.

  Yeah, he could even make it his hobby all right, just something to pass the time. He could gather scary things to use on people and figure out what kind of things gave people the creeps and watch murderers in movies and read gory books until he had his talents honed down to sublime perfection. Smiling to himself, he rocked little Donnie to sleep and then he laid the tiny boy gently in his portable crib and went to look for Mandy. After all, she was his favorite victim, and even more important, she was way too afraid to tell on him.

  Chapter One

  It was a beautiful and sunny December day, only a few weeks before Christmas, in fact, and nothing the least bit catastrophic had happened for a change. That was just fine with homicide detective Claire Morgan. So far, so good. She sat behind her new and temporary desk at the Lafourche Parish Sheriff ’s Office in Thibodaux, Louisiana and watched her new and temporary partner, Zander Jackson, trying to balance himself on a rickety stepladder while he adjusted a gauzy white angel on top of the eight-foot office Christmas tree. She had only been aboard in the law enforcement department in the bayous southwest of New Orleans for a couple of weeks, all after her true love and super psychiatrist to the stars, Nicholas Black, had flown off on his private Learjet to his London hotel/psychiatric clinic to take care of what he fondly described as a particularly rambunctious head case. He was indeed a world-famous shrink and possibly the best-looking guy she’d ever seen in her life, which was a very good thing, actually.

  Claire happened to be one of his rambunctious head cases herself, of course, but she was a lot better off now than she had been several months back. Alas, she did have a tendency to find trouble wherever she went, and Black had always been the protective sort, but especially now. Probably because she had barely survived a work-related, eighteen-day coma, and not so long ago, either. He didn’t exactly celebrate the idea of her getting back to work as a homicide detective, whether it be in the lazy bayous or at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where she had worked on the case that had put her in the aforementioned dream world for those three long weeks. But he rarely took it upon himself to tell her what to do, and vice versa, which was why they got along so famously.

  Although Claire hadn’t known Zander—actually he was Zee to his friends—long, he was a neat guy. Almost as great as Claire’s real partner back at the lake, whose name was Bud Davis. Truth was, she missed Bud like crazy, and all her other Missouri colleagues, too. But it was good to get away from the scene of some rather hairy crimes she’d investigated up that way, and the sixty-eight-degree Christmas weather was a good incentive to stay put until the summer heat rolled in. Also, said Missouri friends visited a lot, which was always something to look forward to. Now that she was back in homicide where she belonged, the utter boredom that had veritably sent her climbing the walls was long gone. Now and again, she still experienced some horrific nightmares of ugly cases gone by, but she was handling it okay. So, onward and forward, bring it on.

  “Hey, Claire, who you root for? The Saints or the Rams?”

  Claire smiled. Zee was football crazy, to say the least. “Saints when I’m here. Rams when I’m in Missouri.”

  “Well, you better root for the Saints when you’re here.”

  “So says Black, too.”

  They laughed together. Claire stood up and helped him drape some gold tinsel, which had probably been in the office storage bin since the 1980s, in and out of the fragrant branches. The tree was a spreading cedar that had been cut down somewhere way out in the surrounding bayous, one that nearly touched the ceiling tiles. She liked that, a real tree that smelled fresh and pungent. Black always insisted on getting a real tree, too, usually one big enough to fit into the nave in the St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square. And he liked to cut it down himself, hiking into the woods of his property in Missouri with an ax over his broad shoulder, like some kind of big, handsome Paul Bunyan. The guy loved Christmas, what could she say.

  Claire just hoped that he fixed up his troublesome patient and made it home by Christmas Eve. That didn’t give him a lot of time to work his magic and hightail it back home with her present, and he usually gave her one hell of a good present. What to get him was a whole different story. She had her work cut out for her. But he loved every inch of New Orleans, his hometown, and was having a ball living there again, even temporarily, so she supposed anything she got for him that was associated with his beloved NOLA would please him to no end. He had bought a hotel there, too, and a restored mansion for them to live in, but that was Black for you. He did love his real estate.

  When she’d first glimpsed the house that he’d been raving about on Governor Nicholls Street in the French Quarter, it hadn’t looked like much from the outside. In fact, it had looked like a dilapidated building in the warehouse district. Once he’d opened the plain black shuttered doors at street level, however, they’d walked straight into a spread out of House Beautiful, all modern and comfortable and beautiful. And she was talking big-time glamour.

  For instance, there were the marble grand spiral staircase and the elevator. Not to mention the eight large bedrooms, all with their own marble fireplaces, the formal living and dining rooms, a gourmet kitchen, a private courtyard replete with fountains, a small lap pool with a waterfall, a formal rose garden, and a large mimosa tree on which she could hang her punching bag. Black had told her that he’d had his eye on that particular house for years and finally snatched it up when it went on the market. And yes, sir, it had cost him a pretty penny. But he had lots of pretty pennies and was collecting more all the time. Her guy made serious bucks, all right.

  While Claire added some silvery strands of icicles, Zee stood back with his hands on his hips and admired their handiwork. “Hey, this thing’s lookin’ good. I like those gold fleur-de-lis ornaments you brought in. Know what, though? I’m gonna call Nancy and tell her to bring us down some pizzas. It’s gonna be slower than a funeral procession today, believe me. Sundays are quiet, and that’s good. We can watch the Sa
ints game without interruptions.”

  Claire didn’t like Zee’s analogy all that much. She’d seen way too many funerals in her lifetime. He had earned that nickname, Zee, running touchdowns once upon a time out at Tulane University. Zoom Zoom Zee back then—shortened to 3Z, but that was a bit much for her so Zee would have to suffice. She watched him switch on the flat-screen television on the file cabinet and then punch Nancy’s number into his beloved white smartphone. Nancy Gill was the Lafourche Parish medical examiner and the main reason Claire found herself sitting behind a Louisiana detective’s desk. Nancy had been at the lake last summer on a law enforcement exchange program and had talked Claire into coming aboard for the winter in a similar exchange, way down there in the bayous.

  Zee slouched down across the desk from her, the phone to his ear, all muscles and athletic grace, a real good-looking guy with skin the color of Hershey’s chocolate and caramel-colored eyes. She knew he’d spent most of his tenure at the New Orleans Police Department, working in their Vice and Narcotics Units. Then he’d gotten in a few more years busting bearded druggies and swamp-based meth labs in Lafourche Parish before he’d made detective grade and been transferred to homicide.

  Because of her years of experience, she had been designated lead on the few cases they’d handled together so far, which had entailed one stolen bateau, which is a bayou boat, and a missing child who’d turned out to be asleep in his rickety backyard tree house. Zee had shown some good investigatory instincts. Apparently, they did not run into a plethora of grisly murders in the bayous around Lafourche Parish, which was fine by her and sent Black a few degrees up the ecstatic scale. Maybe the local felons made the drive up to the Big Easy to perpetrate their Louisiana homicides. As Zee had intimated, today would be quiet. Everybody in the state would be watching the Saints play over in Dallas.