Never Let Me Fall Read online

  Normally, Thomas didn’t get called out on cases this close to home, but Sheriff Robert Malone had called the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and specifically requested Thomas. Fucking interagency cooperation.

  There was something more than a little suspicious that Mom’s memorial service was tomorrow. Especially since Malone knew the only way to get Thomas to interact with him was on the job. Was the guy going to try to talk him into some public show of family solidarity for the service? Screw that. When it came to Malone, the only emotions Thomas could find were shame and hatred.

  He should leave. Drive off before anyone noticed him. But there was the greater good to consider. Solving a murder might prevent another murder. Then there was his more selfish motive—every case he helped to solve, every perpetrator held accountable, eased a tiny bit of the anger and hurt that Malone would never be brought to justice for what he’d done.

  Thomas sucked in a slow, resigned breath, got out of the truck, and walked past the first of the parked patrol cars. A snowflake caught in his eyelashes, melted to a droplet, and fell onto his cheek like a frosty tear.

  Across the expanse of squad cars and flashing lights, he spotted Malone in the crowd and wished he hadn’t. His shadow loomed large and dark and roiling like the blackest of smoke—a warning to stay away.

  Thomas’s heart jogged around his chest, his lungs felt like they were in the middle of bench-pressing four hundred pounds, and his body superheated from bad expectations. Muscle memory. After all these years, Thomas still reacted to Malone with the terror of a frightened child.

  His footsteps faltered. He froze, buried under an avalanche of bad memories.

  Get over it. Grow up. He should be used to the fear of having to be near Malone by now. He wasn’t. Just seeing the man made him feel like a helpless child. Yeah, he had four inches and forty pounds of muscle on the guy, but that cowering child inside him could not be reasoned with.

  “Thomas?” A gnarled, old man’s voice spoke from beside him. “Are you all right?”

  Thomas recognized the voice—Pastor Audie, who the kids had called Pastor Oldie when Thomas was a child. The man wasn’t just old; he was ancient. And a dead ringer for Gandalf the Grey.

  Thomas turned his attention to Audie. The old man’s thick, gray beard reached halfway down his chest, and his long, gray hair was cut the same length. Thomas half expected him to be wearing a wizard’s hat and carrying a staff. Instead, Audie wore a long, baggy coat that looked way too big for his slight frame. A thick, knitted cap with a jaunty yarn ball covered his head, and a bulky scarf wrapped his throat.

  The thing Thomas liked most about Audie was the light, ethereal shadow that flitted and swirled around him like dancing butterflies. It was the kind of shadow that Thomas could watch all day for its beauty.

  Audie’s face was a weathered map of life, but carried a calming acceptance. He reached out with a thickly mittened hand to touch Thomas’s arm and looked him directly in the eye instead of at the scar covering half his face.

  The old injury covered his cheek, ran up his temple, and spanned a portion of his forehead. Despite age fading the brightness, most people still stared. Thomas didn’t mind. He wore the scar proudly. It was a blazing condemnation of Malone and his actions. Didn’t matter that no one else saw it that way. Malone knew. That was enough for now.

  “Are you all right?” Audie repeated the question.

  Thomas’s gaze wandered to Malone and the darkly dangerous shadow of death writhing around him. Was he all right? “No,” he answered truthfully. Audie was one of those people you couldn’t lie to. Who would have the audacity to lie to an elderly pastor, Gandalf look-alike or not?

  The old man squeezed Thomas’s arm gently, bringing his attention back to him. “I know this is hard for you.” An understanding that shouldn’t exist lived in his eyes.

  For a flash of a second, Thomas thought Audie meant it was hard for him to be near Malone. But no one knew his painful secret. As a child, fear of Malone had superglued Thomas’s mouth shut. What Audie really meant was that it was hard being out here working a murder scene when tomorrow they were burying his mother. Audie didn’t know that Thomas’s mother hadn’t given two shits about him. If she had, she wouldn’t have let Malone beat him.

  Thomas didn’t know how to reply to Audie’s heartfelt words, so he opted for a subject change. “What are you doing out here?” It wasn’t exactly the middle of the night, but it was cold and snowy and no place for a man who had to be pushing ninety.

  “I ask to be called every time there’s an unexpected death in the county…to offer comfort and guidance to those in need.” The pastor’s voice contained a latent sadness.

  Thomas couldn’t help it; he looked at the party-like scene playing out in front of him. No one needed comfort here, except for himself, and just by his presence and concern, Audie had done the job.

  “I don’t drive at night anymore.” The old man’s teeth began chattering on the last word. “I caught a ride with one of the deputies.”

  Thomas reached into his coat pocket and took out his keys. He hit the remote start on his truck and unlocked the doors. “How about you wait in my truck while I work, then I’ll drive you home?”

  A smile fired on Audie’s face, shaving decades off his appearance. “I’d very much like that.”

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Thomas called over his shoulder, threading his way between the parked patrol cars. From this distance, he could see the body lying on display in the middle of the road. Something about that felt wrong. It was hard to put his finger on what. Maybe it was how everyone seemed to ignore it, and no one seemed to care that a life had been stolen.

  Malone walked up to the body, gazed at the ground for less than two seconds, then headed back to a pack of officers.

  “Looks like a full moon tonight.” Malone’s voice came out deadpan and flat. The officers didn’t laugh. Nope. They guffawed. The sound of their merriment was wrong—so fucking wrong—when a human being lay dead on the pavement.

  Thomas glanced skyward at the thick padding of clouds blowing bits of snow over them. Malone had said, Looks like a full moon tonight. Full moon? The thing wasn’t even visible. The joke wasn’t funny. The words didn’t make any sense.

  Yeah. Cops were masters at dark humor, but this went beyond that. Where was their indignation that a life had been taken? But he shouldn’t expect anything less. These were Malone’s good ole boys.

  Malone and the officers were in a huddle, not paying attention. Good. If Thomas was lucky, he might be able to get in and get out before anyone noticed him. If he was unlucky, which seemed to be his norm, Malone would notice him and try another male-bonding exercise on him. Wasn’t that a crack to the nuts? The guy who’d caused all Thomas’s problems now wanted them to be best buds. If it was his way of seeking forgiveness for what he’d done… Fat fucking chance.

  A portable light was aimed down at the dead guy. All around him, a nebulous and faint shadow of death hovered. Thomas was going to commune with the fading residue. Though that wasn’t the official explanation of his ability. His superintendent simply thought he was able to make accurate extrapolations from minimal evidence. Wasn’t like Thomas could explain communing with the shadow of death. That’d only earn him an all-expenses paid vacay to a locked-down psychiatric facility.

  As he neared the body, the musky scent of unwashed flesh, pot smoke, and those death scents—urine and feces—hit him like an invisible wall. The dead guy wore a dark sweatshirt with jeans, both covered in splotches of something. Dirt? Without color, it was hard to tell. He lay on his side in a slightly stretched-out version of the fetal position.

  Thomas walked around the body, careful to stay away from the fading fragments of the shadow of death.

  The dead guy’s complexion was grimy and smudged as if he were a few weeks over due for a shower. His jaw hun
g open just enough to make out blotchy, rotten teeth. Bushy, greasy, light-colored hair topped the guy’s head. He either had a wicked cowlick or was suffering from a chronic case of bedhead. His pants had slid down, revealing the white globes of his ass.

  So that was the reason for Malone’s full-moon comment.

  Every one of those cops who laughed was a degenerate. A low-life scum sucker who deserved to have his testicles popped like a pimple.

  Thomas crouched next to the body, entering the shadow of death. An odd heat settled over him. A sensation that mimicked the feeling of sunshine, or maybe that was the fires of hell reaching across space and time to warm him on this frigid night. He couldn’t know for sure.

  It was against procedure and protocol, but he grabbed the waist of the guy’s jeans and hiked them up over his ass—the only bit of dignity he could offer.

  He’d also just contaminated a crime scene. But Malone shouldn’t have called him in if they hadn’t already bagged and tagged and logged everything into evidence. Thomas’s analysis called for a hands-on evaluation. By the time he got done, the integrity of the scene would be fucked to hell from his sweat and touch DNA.

  It was time to work.

  Thomas went down on his knees near the guy’s face. His heart revved, on the verge of overheating. He inhaled slowly to calm himself, but nothing other than leaving the shadow of death would help. Bad shadows always made him feel bad, the same way that good shadows like Audie’s eased him.

  His hand trembled as he placed his palm alongside the guy’s temple. Ring finger and pinkie on the guy’s forehead, thumb and first finger on his cheek, middle finger hovering over the guy’s closed eye.

  Heat burned into Thomas’s fingers, then his hand, and up his arm, expanding into an inferno. Sweat oozed from his pores, a bead of it slipping down the channel of his spine. He braced himself. Clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t cry out. Then pressed his middle finger to the man’s eyelid.

  An inferno of agony shot from the guy’s eye up through Thomas’s body and into his own eye framed by the scar. A grunt of animalistic pain ripped out of him. Misery bounced off the walls of his skull. A kaleidoscope of color exploded in his vision. Why was it that only during these pain-filled moments did he finally see color? The unanswerable question drove him mad.

  And then the shadow of death shared the man’s life with Thomas.

  It was like watching a time-lapse video, except deeper and more real. Images, thoughts, and feelings flowing through him as if all this man’s experiences from birth to death were now Thomas’s.

  Thomas could feel the carefree joy of a child on Christmas morning. The innocent arguments with an older brother. Learning to ride a bike, falling off, skinned and bloody knees, but getting back on. Learning to drive. The pain of a first heartbreak. College. A good job as an accountant. Then the tearing, burning, searing agony of a car accident that should’ve killed, yet left him alive with a destroyed body. A body that couldn’t function without pills. And when there were no more pills, he’d turned to heroin to survive. A decade of being enslaved to the high. The terrible things he did to get his H. Lying. Stealing. Selling himself.

  One last score, and he would be done. His mother and brother would be so happy, and this time, he wouldn’t let them down, and he wouldn’t let himself down. But first, a goodbye to his greatest friend and worst enemy.

  A man in a car, face hidden in shadows, but holding out a baggie full of his favorite flavor as an offering. Sex for H was no big thing, especially when his medicine made him feel no pain. He climbed in the vehicle, dosed up as the man drove them out into the country. Didn’t care about anything. Nothing. Enjoyed the high as long as it would last, and it never lasted long.

  Needle after needle, high after high. Until they all blended together into a floating euphoria. And when he was too weak to dose himself, the man did it for him until…

  Nothing. Blackness.

  Thomas ripped his hand off the guy’s face.

  The pressure in his own eye eased, but this time, something was different. He still felt connected to the shadow. No. No. No. Impossible. No way. He never had this reaction after taking his hand off the body.

  He lurched to the side to escape the remnants of the shadow and the fires of hell raging inside him.

  Suddenly, he felt the frigid ground on his palms and through the knees of his jeans. The coldness was such a relief that if a body hadn’t been lying there, he would’ve stretched out right there in the middle of the road and luxuriated in the soothing coolness.

  The heat burning inside him faded.

  “Tommy.” Malone’s voice came from behind him.

  Thomas’s heart seized, then started shivering. His innards shook, and he gulped air. Adrenaline laced with the urge to fight or flee galloped through him. But he could do neither. He wasn’t strong enough yet. What the hell was wrong with him?

  And he fucking hated being called Tommy.

  “Tommy, are you all right?”

  Audie had asked the same thing, but with Audie, the question had come from genuine concern and caring. From Malone, it meant Thomas needed to get his shit together and not give the man an opening.

  “Tommy…” And there was the stepfatherly concern in his tone.

  Thomas sat back on his knees but didn’t look at Malone.

  Get up. Get out of here. A heaviness in his limbs prevented him from moving.

  Time to divert Malone’s attention. The last thing he needed was for the guy to touch him or try to help him. There was something especially awful about Malone’s shadow of death. It penetrated somehow, kinda like this dead guy’s had done.

  Thomas gestured with his free hand toward the dead guy. “Heroin.” When Malone didn’t say anything, Thomas finally looked up at him. The shadow of death around the man undulated and pulsed like a living thing. Thomas tried to ignore it, but his mind transported him back to all those times when he’d been a child and Malone had loomed over him, about to hurt him.

  His heart moved from shivering to vibrating. He fought back the irrational fear that kept trying to take him down.

  Malone’s eyes never deviated from Thomas. They roamed over him, taking in his face, lingering on the scar, then going to his hair. “I figured as much.”

  Huh? So much time had passed with Malone staring at him that Thomas couldn’t even remember what the original question had been. He pointed at the corpse to force Malone’s attention there, but the guy’s focus remained fastened on Thomas.

  Thomas started to stand. His legs jangled, but he got upright. Probably couldn’t take a step without falling on his face, but at least now he could meet Malone as an equal. Actually, more than an equal, since he was so much taller. His heart calmed as he looked down his nose at the smaller man.

  He was going to tell Malone the basics, then get the fuck out of here. The guy could read the rest in his report. And then there were the things he wouldn’t include in the report. Things like how sad it was that drugs had stolen another life. This guy had a mother and brother who loved him. Who would’ve done anything to help him get clean. This guy had potential. He might’ve gone on to do great things. To contribute to the world in a positive way.

  But Thomas didn’t tell Malone any of that. “This guy’s name is Jeremy Tucker.” Thomas sketched in the most pertinent information about Jeremy being an addict seeking one last high and the man who kept to the shadows and forced Jeremy into an overdose. “This was murder.”

  “Murder?” Unfiltered shock sounded in Malone’s voice. He finally looked away from Thomas to the body, scanning the dead guy as if he should be able to see evidence to corroborate Thomas’s words. There was none.

  “Yeah. Mmmuurrrrddddeeerrrr. Why the hell else would you call me out here?” Thomas didn’t rein in the attitude. “You’ll find enough heroin in this guy to kill five other people.” It was a little weir
d that Thomas could know such things without the benefit of a tox screen. But that was why he was considered a special consultant. “The guy who bought his sexual services was careful to keep his identity in the shadows. Which makes me think murder was his intention all along.”

  Malone’s gaze swept Jeremy Tucker top to bottom, looking for evidence. “How could you know any of this just from looking at the body?” His words weren’t the challenge they should be but were curious more than anything.

  “Trade secret.” This wasn’t the first time Thomas had been asked how he knew things, and it wouldn’t be the last. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” His tone conveyed a little too much glee to be a joke.

  Thomas dropped his volume so only the two of them would be able to hear. His lips and mouth ripped back over his teeth in a snarl of pure disgust. “Quit with the devoted stepfather routine. Don’t think that just because Mom’s memorial service is tomorrow, we’re going to pretend to be a happy family. We’re not. We never will be. I fucking hate you.” He sounded childish and didn’t care.

  Malone’s expression crumpled as if Thomas’s words had wounded him.

  Something about that, about the man’s absolute inability to recognize the harm he’d inflicted, was a match to the powder keg of rage Thomas carried inside. He drew his fist back, prepared to rain down a lifetime full of pain. Give the man a beatdown that would probably land him in the hospital and Thomas in jail. It would be worth it. Oh, so worth it.

  A movement from the corner of his eye caught Thomas’s attention. Audie slowly made his way between the cruisers. Even at this distance, Thomas could make out the look of concern on the old man’s face. Thomas half expected him to yell out some profound words and bang his staff on the ground. If only he lived in a fantasy world instead of reality.

  Thomas’s rage died. Whatever he wanted to do to Malone, he couldn’t do it with Audie watching.

  He turned away from Malone but spoke over his shoulder. “Say a prayer of thanks to God and Gandalf… Audie just saved your life.”