Killing Me Softly

“A tasty, tension-packed read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Thicker Than Water

“Tense…frightening…a page-turner in the best sense.”

—RT Book Reviews on Colder Than Ice

“Mystery and danger abound in Darker Than Midnight, a fast-paced, chilling thrill read that will keep readers turning the pages long after bedtime… Suspense, mystery, danger and passion—no one does them better than Maggie Shayne.”

—Romance Reviews Today on Darker Than Midnight

(winner of a Perfect 10 award)

“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She satisfies every wicked craving.

—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster

“Shayne’s haunting tale is intricately woven… A moving mix of high suspense and romance, this haunting Halloween thriller will propel readers to bolt their doors at night.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Gingerbread Man

“[A] gripping story of small-town secrets. The suspense will keep you guessing. The characters will steal your heart.”

—New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner on The Gingerbread Man

Kiss of the Shadow Man is a “crackerjack novel of romantic suspense.”

—RT Book Reviews

Maggie Shayne

Killing Me Softly

To my critique group, the Packeteers: Cactus Chris Wenger, Micki Malone aka Michele Masarech, Gayle Callen aka Julia Latham, Laurie Lance “Bugs” Bishop, Theresa Kovian and Ginny Aubertine. I couldn’t have written these books without your brilliance and brainstorming. More importantly, no writer could dream up friends as beautiful and as true as all of you. You are loved, and deeply, deeply appreciated.

Contents

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Prologue

It had been sixteen years since I’d killed anyone. But I was going to kill someone tonight.

It had also been sixteen years since I’d taken the Thunderbird out of the garage, where I kept it under lock and key. Garage, hell, it was more like a crypt. I’d thought the killer inside me would die, given time. So I’d buried him in my subconscious, and I’d buried his car in my garage, even covered it up with a death-shroud tarp. I’d covered up the trophy wall, too. I’d told myself never to set foot inside that garage again.

But I had.

Every now and then, his voice would get to me, and I’d go in, start the T-Bird up, let it run, listen to it purr and feel that old thrill I used to get when we had been on our way to take another victim. Sometimes I would even slide the phony pegboard wall aside, to look at the cinder-block it covered. To look at all their faces. So pretty. Always smiling. Always young.

I’d taken the T-Bird out tonight. And the kit. I’d brought the kit along, as well, though I had no intention of using it. I nearly always had the kit at hand. It was a way of testing myself, I think. A way of making sure I was the one in charge, the one in control. That I could resist the urges of the beast within.

I was going to kill the rookie cop, yeah. But it would be a simple kill, just a bullet to the back of the head and a scene made to look like a home invasion gone bad. It wasn’t the nemesis within me committing this crime. It was me, all me, this time. And I had no choice.

But my alter ego was with me, coming along for the ride, getting a hell of a thrill out of the whole thing. He loved killing. He loved it way more than I did. And that was saying something, because I’d come to relish it myself. There was no other rush quite as potent.

Still, this wasn’t going to be like the others. This wasn’t about the rush; this was about necessity.

Getting inside the house was easy. It would’ve been easy even for a virgin without any kills under his belt. For me, it was child’s play. The small brick house’s door wasn’t locked. There was no security system. Every light in the place was turned off. A cop oughtta know better. Even a rookie like him.

There had been a party earlier in the evening, but the guests had cleared out. The doorknob turned easily in my hand, and I stepped inside, into inky darkness. I paused there, just inside the door, giving my eyes time to adjust. It was darker inside than out. A different kind of darkness. Heavier. Denser.

Still, I managed to see a little. And I could tell what I would have been seeing, had there been any light, just by the smells permeating the place and assaulting my sensitive olfactory receptors. Overflowing ashtrays. Half-filled beer bottles, some of which had been used as ashtrays, so the scents of sour beer and wet tobacco mingled in the air, nearly making me gag on them. Stale potato chips and spoiling dip melted together in plastic recyclable bowls, adding to the pungence.

My senses were always heightened when I was getting ready to kill. They were heightened to hell and gone tonight, maybe because it had been so long. I was shivering with it, feeling everything. Even the rub of my black clothing against my skin was arousing to me.

I moved carefully, slowly, taking my time and knowing I had plenty. All I wanted. The rookie wasn’t going to wake up. So I took my time, enjoying every second of it. Walking soundlessly through his darkened home I felt, I thought, like a hunter must feel when stalking prey through a dense jungle. But not just any prey. I’m talking an elephant or a lion. Something that could kill you just as easily as you could kill it. Something dangerous.

Though you might disagree with me, given the nature of my victims, I’ve never believed there is any animal more dangerous than a human being. I never will. It’s the intelligence. It’s the mind that makes it so. Be it a young, beautiful woman, or tonight’s prey—a young man in his prime. A cop.

I made my way to the bedroom, measuring every step I took. It didn’t feel as if it had been as many years as it had—sixteen since my first time. Her name was Sara, that first one. I remembered every detail of her face—and of her death. I was as sharp and as tight tonight as if I’d killed only last week. Or last night. Maybe the years had mellowed my nerves and honed my skills. I wasn’t even shaking or sweating the way I usually did when I got into the same room with the evening’s chosen one.

Silencing my thoughts, I listened, and heard slow, steady breathing from beneath a mound of blankets on the bed. My heart pumped a little faster. The compulsion came to life within me, like a fire in my blood. I felt that dark, hungry twin, alive inside me. I’d kept him silent for a long while, trapped in some kind of induced coma—until now. Now he was wide-awake. I closed my eyes and reminded myself—and him—that this was going to be different. We were not going to start up again. Not like before. It would be just this once. It was necessary.

We had no choice, really. He knew, you see. Or, at least, he suspected.

Gently, we pulled the covers back.

And the dark twin within my soul roared in delight, even while I shook my head in denial. For the person in the bed was not the man I had come here to kill.

A young woman was lying there instead. She was sound asleep and reeking of beer, but still, beautiful. In the darkness, her skin appeared pale and flawless. Her hair was long, straight and sleek. Just the way I liked it. It looked to be light brown.

It had to be, my newly awakened twin whispered to me. That’s your favorite shade, isn’t it? She’s here for us. I knew she would be. So did you. Come on, don’t deny it. You knew.

What I knew, I reminded myself, was that the voice, the twin, was not real. It was nothing more than a part of my mind, a twisted part, the part I’d managed to ignore all this time. Though I’d never silenced him entirely. Even while he’d slept, I heard him in my dreams. Maybe he only slept while I was awake, and vice versa. I wished he would shut up now, though, because this was not what I wanted. Not now.

You knew she would be here, he pressed. Sooner or later, she had to be. That’s why you used the T-Bird tonight. It’s why you brought the kit in with you.

But he was wrong. I carried the kit as reminder—a testament to the power of my will and my ability to control the impulse. To control him.

Bullshit. You brought it for this. You brought it in hopes of finding this very moment—this moment we both knew would come. It’s a gift! You’ve been waiting sixteen years for this! Take it out. Come on, take it out. You know you want to.

No.

Yes. And you know you will. We will. Why fight what we are?

My hands trembling, I slid the backpack off my shoulders and, reaching inside, pulled out the leather bag. The one that hadn’t seen use in the sixteen years since I’d taken my final victim and framed another man for the crime. It was about the size of a shaving kit, with a zipper on three sides. I felt alive again as I slowly unzipped it, careful not to make too much noise and yet exhilarated at the risk that I would be heard. I leaned over her. I felt passion I hadn’t felt in a decade and a half. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, as my skin heated and my hands tingled. It seemed as if my other half melded with me as I crept to the head of the bed and stood between her and the wall behind me. So I could get her from behind and watch her face in the mirror that topped the dresser on the opposite side of the room.

I took the black silk stocking from the kit and slid it carefully beneath her neck, all without disturbing her drunken sleep. Her skin was warm against my gloved fingertips. I heard the twin inside me groan in delicious anticipation as we pulled the stocking into position. As we began to pull it tight. And then tighter. And tighter still.

She came awake fast. Her eyes flew wide, and her hands rose to clutch at her throat. I pulled the stocking even tighter, lifting her upper body off the bed as I did, so that she, too, could see the entire game play out in the mirror.

As I’d hoped, the sight enhanced her terror. Seeing me there, behind her, all in black, big and powerful, steadily choking the life out of her. She knew there was no hope. She thrashed in the bed, mouth opening wide, face turning red. A rush, not unlike the one produced by a hit of Ecstasy, only much, much better, washed through my body like a warm, vibrant, all-encompassing wave as we slowly, steadily, squeezed the life out of her. She wasn’t so pretty anymore, with her tongue swollen and filling the space between her parted lips.

When her eyes rolled back in her head, I let go of the stocking and turned to the case again. I took out the two custom-made shot glasses, with the artwork on them that so seemed to reflect the predator inside me. The crimes we committed together. I took out the copper flask, as well, and I poured both shot glasses full of whiskey.

After a moment, she started to rouse. Her eyelids trembled rapidly, before they fully opened, then widened as she realized I was still there. She opened her mouth to speak, and I gripped her chin with one hand, forcing her teeth open. I poured her shot of whiskey into her throat. She couldn’t swallow; she began to choke. Without letting a second tick past, I dropped the glass and grabbed the black stocking again, and this time I pulled it tighter, jerking it harder, twisting it with all my might and easily crushing her throat with that soft bit of black silk.

I heard the gurgling as she drowned in the whiskey. I saw the foamy spit running over her lower lip and her chin. Her eyes bulged as if they would pop, tears running from the outer corners. Her entire body jerked and spasmed. A single purple vein in her forehead expanded and pulsed beneath her blue-tinted skin.

And then it stopped pulsing.

There was a palpable change when they died. I always knew the very moment when it happened. There was no more awareness on their part, no more struggle or shock or fear. There was just a sudden absence of…of everything, really. And, with it, came a rush of release within me that made an ordinary orgasm pale in comparison. There was nothing like this feeling. Nothing.

As life fled the girl’s body, as I felt it flee, the sensation continued trembling through me. It lit me up. I felt it in every nerve ending, in every deliciously sensitized inch of my skin, in the quivering of my stomach and the aftershocks convulsing my muscles. I eased the pressure on the silk stocking, my head tipping back, my eyes falling closed as I sighed and shuddered in delectable bliss.

Then slowly, cell by cell, my brain came back online, like a computer being rebooted. The lights came on in order. The hard drive began to whir. The pleasure ebbed into a warm glow that filled my body and would last, I knew, for days. But the delight receded enough to allow rationality and practical considerations renewed access to the forefront of my mind.

I hadn’t accomplished what I had set out to do tonight. Not precisely. But I could still achieve the end I’d intended. I’d just need to take a slightly different, and perhaps more torturous, path to get to the same destination. I could still do it. I knew how.

And besides, this way was so much better.

You’re right, I told my twin, alive and wide-awake inside me now. It was. God, it was. It’s been so long.

Sixteen years too long.

I nodded. Then quickly stopped myself. It won’t happen again, though. As good as it was, I can’t let it happen again. I won’t.

Oh, who the hell are you kidding? You’re back, my friend. You’re back, and you’re glad of it. You’ve missed this. You know you have.

Ignoring the one who, in that moment, felt like my oldest and dearest friend—and the only one who ever had or ever would understand me—I released the stocking that had seen so many throats before, slid it from around her neck and returned it to the case. I had other work to do this night, to make this go the way I needed it to. But first, there was one more thing.

I picked up the second shot glass, from where I’d set it on the nightstand, put it to my lips and tipped it up, swallowing my celebratory drink.

My nightcap.

It was tradition, after all.

1

Bryan Kendall awoke with a crushing headache that turned into blinding dizziness when he rolled over. It was only then, as his hand swung out and hit something cold and hard, that he realized he wasn’t in his bed.

He was on the bathroom floor.

“Hell,” he muttered. “Must’ve been some party.”

He tried to think back but remembered nothing, and really didn’t care all that much at the moment. He had a case of cottonmouth that made anything short of the house being on fire uninteresting in comparison. He needed liquid. Any liquid. Now.

He opened his eyes, then squeezed them shut against the morning light slanting in through the bathroom windowpane. The sun seemed unreasonably bright this morning. Gripping the sink with one hand, he pulled himself up onto his feet, then leaned over it and cranked on the taps. He bent closer, cupped his hands and drank. The lukewarm water wet his mouth but was nowhere near enough to quench his thirst. His head was spinning and pounding, his stomach churning, and it occurred to him that this didn’t feel like an ordinary hangover.

He’d never been drunk enough to pass out on his own bathroom floor.

Lifting his throbbing head, he peered into the mirror and then closed his eyes again. This was too much effort. He needed to drink a vat of water, take a handful of aspirin, crawl into bed and sleep for another eight hours or so. Then he could try again.

He turned in the direction of the door and shuffled through it, feet dragging, because the percussion of actual steps was too painful. It was only a few feet to the bedroom and a few more to the bed, and then he was sinking gratefully onto the queen-size pillow-top mattress, pulling the covers over himself as he rolled onto his side. His arm hit Bette before he remembered she was there.

“Sorry, babe,” he muttered, closing his eyes and letting his head sink into the pillow.

She didn’t answer. Good. He hadn’t woken her. Feeling cold, he tightened his arm around her waist and snuggled up a little closer. But she didn’t move. Didn’t roll up onto her side and press her back to him the way she normally would. Didn’t stroke his forearm where it draped over her.

And she felt cool.

Colder than he did.

Frowning, he lifted his head and looked at her in the early-morning sunlight that was just beginning to stream in through the tiny gap where the curtains didn’t quite meet. She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, eyes open wide. Something hit him as he stared at her, and it felt as if he’d stuck his finger into a live socket. It slammed into the middle of his chest, just like a shock, and woke him entirely. Bryan blinked to clear the haze from his vision and sat up straighter. A chill ran up his spine, as if some part of him knew what he was seeing before his mind caught up.

“Bette?” He reached out to touch her cheek and found it unnaturally cold. Not cold as if she’d been outside in a snowstorm, but cold like raw meat. There was a huge difference. And that was when his brain caught up to what his instincts had already known.

Bettina Wright was dead.

Dead!

Bryan scrambled backward out of the bed, suddenly more wide-awake than he’d ever been in his life. He stood there for a moment, staring at her, gasping for breath. “Bette?” he said. “What the hell? What the hell?” Finally the cop in him kicked in. He ran around the foot of the bed, to her side and bent to feel for a pulse, but stopped himself when, again, he felt how cold she was. His brain was ten steps ahead of him now, thinking, telling him to drag her off the bed, onto the floor, start CPR, call the EMTs. But he didn’t do any of those things, because reality had outshouted training. She must have been dead for several hours. There was nothing he, or anyone else, could do for her now. She’d been lying here, getting stiff and cold, while he’d been passed out in the bathroom. Useless.

He struggled to remember anything that might have happened last night that would have given him a clue something like this could happen. He didn’t think she’d seemed sick or particularly tired. She hadn’t complained about anything. He knew she didn’t do drugs, nor would he have had any at the party. Hell, most of the guests had been cops.

Had her heart given out without any warning at all? Had this been some kind of allergic reaction or alcohol poisoning or—

“Oh, no.” He spoke aloud, as his gaze settled on her neck. On the ligature marks there. They were obvious, even in this feeble light. “No no no…” Backing up two steps, he jerked the curtain wider and let the sun pour in on her body. The angry, bruised ring around her neck was unmistakable, as were the still-protruding tongue and dried spittle on her chin. Bettina Wright had been strangled to death in his bed while he slept, drunk, in next room. She’d been murdered while he’d been ten feet away, too plastered to help her.

He was a cop, for God’s sake, and he’d—

Hell. Oh, hell.

He looked around the room again, spotted his cell phone and picked it up, then he walked back through the house without touching anything. He was wearing jeans, and nothing else, and he didn’t grab anything on the way. His home was a crime scene now. Jesus, he couldn’t believe it. Bette. Dead.

He opened the front door, using a sock he found on the floor and only two fingers to turn the knob, trying not to smear any prints. Then he left the door open and sat on the front steps, where he flipped open the phone. There were two men who were more important to Bryan than anyone else in his life: his father and his mentor, retired cop Nick Di Marco, and he wanted to phone them both at the same time, but since he had to make a choice… Of the two, Di Marco was physically closer and could get to him faster. Decision made.

He called Nick, then held his head in his free hand while waiting for him to pick up.

“Di Marco, and this better be good, being 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday, pal.”

“Nick?”

“Kendall? You sound like hell.” The older man paused. “Are you okay?”

“No. I… It’s Bette—”

“Who?”

“The girl I’m…sort of seeing. She’s…she’s dead, Nick. She’s fuckin’ dead.” Bryan’s voice broke, but he kept forcing out words. “Strangled, I think. In my bed. Damn, Nick, she’s—”

“Whoa, hold up, hold up. Where are you right now?”

“Sitting on the front step. She’s inside. She’s dead. How could I not have heard something? How could I—”

“You sure? You do CPR? You check for a pulse?”

“She’s cold, Nick. She’s ice fucking cold.”

Nick swore under his breath. Then, “Have you called anyone else?”

“No. I—”

“Okay, okay, we do this by the book. It’s the only way to go here. You’re a cop—you do this right. You gotta be beyond suspicion, you got that?”

“Sus-suspicion? Shit, Nick, why would I—”

“You’re there, aren’t you? You woke up with her. You’re the last one to see her alive, the one to find the body. You know how this works, kid. You’re a cop.”

Everything in Bryan tightened until he thought he was going to break. “Yeah. I mean…yeah.”

“Hang up and call your father. I’m gonna call the chief, and I’ll get there by the time he does. You just wait for us. Don’t call anyone else—don’t, for the love of God, call her family. Just your dad. Tell him to get here A-SAP. I’m on my way. Don’t go back inside. Don’t touch anything. Don’t take a shower or change clothes. Just sit there, you understand?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I just—”

“I know, kid. You hang in. I’m on this. I’m gonna be there in a matter of minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Just breathe. It’s gonna be all right.”

“Okay.”

“Where’s your sidearm, Kendall?”

Bryan blinked as he thought for a second and remembered where he’d put the gun the last time he’d had it out. It had been a while. He’d been on paid leave since a recent hostage standoff, waiting for the department shrink to give him the all clear. “In the lockbox, hall closet.”

“You sure no one else is in the house?”

Bryan’s head came up slowly, and he looked behind him through the still-open door. “I didn’t really check.”

“Don’t. Get yourself a little distance away, but maintain line of sight, just in case.”

“Okay.”

“Be careful, kid. I’ll see you soon.”

Bryan closed his eyes, disconnected and felt as if his world had turned upside down. He got to his feet and looked back inside the house, feeling a little more certain there was no one lurking inside. Then again, a few minutes ago, if asked, he would have been fairly certain he wasn’t going to find a dead woman in his bed.

So he walked several steps down the driveway, but only got as far as his brand-new, candy-apple-red Mustang Shelby GT, before he had to stop and throw up. And he didn’t think it had anything to do with the alcohol he’d imbibed the night before. Dammit, how could Bette be dead? Much less strangled? Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he’d imagined the marks on her throat. Maybe the chief had been right to put him on leave, and he did have some kind of PTSD or something going on, and he’d just imagined all of this. Maybe if he walked back into the house right now, he would find Bette sitting up in bed and griping about being late for whatever early-morning class she had.