Darker Than Midnight

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Jax stared at the pages, but she wasn’t seeing the print. Instead, she was recalling the look in the man’s eyes last night. The desperate, haunted look about him. No wonder—if he’d killed his wife, and couldn’t even remember doing it—hell, that would be enough to haunt anyone. But why would he have risked prison by busting out of the state hospital?

By killing an orderly and then busting out, her inner voice reminded her.

There was more, reams more in the folder, and she turned to a new page and read, and read, until her eyes grew so weary that they drooped slowly closed, and her head fell to one side.

Then there was a sound—a soft sound, like weeping. A woman weeping—and then it changed, and became the gentle coo of a very young baby crying. That snuffly, congested newborn bleat. The smell of smoke touched her nostrils, and a strangled voice whispered….

Help me! Please!

She sat up fast, her eyes flying wide.

The living room was perfectly empty. There were no sounds. No whispers. No babies crying. No smell of smoke. She’d fallen asleep.

No such things as ghosts, she reminded herself, rubbing down the goose bumps that had risen on her arms. Hell, she was letting Kurt Parker’s spook stories get to her.

Jax stretched her arms, folded the file and got up from the sofa. She was letting her imagination take hold, and that was totally unlike her. Maybe she’d better call it a night. She turned for the stairs, but stopped in midmotion at a sound—a real one this time. It sounded like something dropping to the floor.

Frowning, she turned her head in the direction from which the sound had come, the kitchen. “Yeah. It’s probably a whole troop of ghosts,” she taunted herself. “Who you gonna call, Jax?” Sighing, she moved slowly. Because while she didn’t believe in spooks, despite her new colleague’s tales, she did believe in escaped mental patients. Her gun was hanging with her coat in the living room closet—not her choice of a permanent spot to keep it; just where she’d happened to hang it when she came home. Her mother hated seeing it on her. Jax supposed it was a reminder of how dangerous her job could be, and the thought of her only remaining daughter at risk was a little too much for her to handle.

Mariah was delicate. More so than she let on. There had been far more of her in Carrie than there had ever been in Jax.

Jax took the shoulder holster and pulled it on. She didn’t need to check the gun to know it was loaded with a full clip, but there was no bullet in the chamber and the safety was on. She knew her weapon as well as she knew her own body. She kept her hand on the butt as she moved through the house into the kitchen, where she flipped on the light and then stood still, watching, listening.

The room was spotless. The dishes done, leftovers put away, the white ceramic-tiled counters gleaming. The back door was closed and still locked, its new windowpane still in place. Nothing seemed unusual or alarming.