Valhalla Page 15

  He grabbed the back of my head and guided me gently to the floor. As our blood mixed, I remembered all that I’d lost over the years. I remembered everything about Kerr, and everything about Gregory. I touched his smooth face and tried to smile. "Thank you for freeing me Gregorios. Your dreams were right. I should not have doubted you. I’m sorry that I left you. I loved you, so…."

  "Val, no, don’t you come back to me and then die." He pulled me to him and hugged me tight.

  "I’ve got go, Gregory. I have to make amends for what I caused to happen here. I’ll be back, a friend told me so, and you’ll have something to do with it."

  I tried to reach for him, but the darkness swallowed me as my body gave out. I began my descent into hell.

  THE END

  Unedited Excerpt from Misfit in Middle America by Mandy M. Roth

  Chapter 1

  I turned and looked at Jonathon Williams. I’d known him since I’d come to North Maple Ridge ten years earlier. I never dreamt that accepting the job of Chief of Police in a tiny, rural Midwest community would amount to this. If Jonathon’s brother, Robert, hadn’t been a witness to the crime, I’m not sure I’d have believed the body was Jonathon’s.

  The boy had grown into a man before my eyes. It seemed like only yesterday that he was coming over to build a fort with my son, Justin. I could still hear the two of them smacking sticks together, pretending to be defending the universe from the evil invaders.

  Jonathon had been two weeks shy of his nineteenth birthday when he died. His life had been senselessly cut short, and it was my job to figure out who did it. I cursed silently to myself as I walked back to my jeep. Some days I really hated my job.

  "Chief, do you need to see anything else, or can we bag ’em up?"

  I turned and looked at Officer Braun. He was new to police work. He’d only been in it a year now. The pay here was decent, but he could have done much better in the city. His father had been an officer with our department, and that meant something. Braun looked a little green. I couldn’t say I blamed him. The prospect of bagging up a body that’s in pieces will make the best of men fall to their knees. This wasn’t our first, and I feared it wouldn’t be our last, so I nodded my head for him to finish up. Might as well learn to handle it now, I thought to myself as I walked away.

  I opened my jeep door to head to the Williams’ house to inform them of their son’s death. Robert would need their support now, and I was pretty sure Mr. Williams would be able to offer it. Mrs. Williams, on the other hand, would more than likely be too distraught over the loss of her oldest boy to be much good to Robert. The boy had managed to survive a brutal attack and make it to the highway to flag down help. The paramedics were amazed that he was doing as well as he was. He’d lost a ton of blood. If he survived the night, it’d be a miracle.

  "Excuse me, Chief Sisel, can I ask you a few questions?" I heard Beth Murray’s voice before I saw her. I thought about jumping in my jeep and driving off, but that would only add to the hysteria. The last thing I wanted to do was be cornered by her. Beth was the town’s lead reporter. Come to think of it, she was the town’s only reporter.

  She’d been born and raised here, and she knew everyone. I knew that she had gone to some fancy college on the east coast for a while, but after graduation, she headed home. I wasn’t a native here, but I knew the area’s appeal. I also knew that in Beth’s world I didn’t exist. I was a primary source for fact verification and that was it. If the town had had automated police records I was sure she’d never bother to speak to me, she’d skip me and look it up herself.

  "You can ask. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer."

  "I’d expect nothing less, Chief," she said, smiling. "I’ve learned to lower my expectations when dealing with you." I wasn’t sure if she was being serious or not.

  I watched her coming towards me with her blue jeans and tan sweater on. My eyes scanned the length of her body. I wished that she’d wear clothes that fit her better. I’d accidentally seen her once wearing a tiny black bikini. She was sun bathing in her backyard, and I had responded to a call about a missing dog. I leaned over the fence to see if he’d run that way and found Beth lying there with the strings undone, leaving her pink nipples partially exposed to me. I could still remember the curve that her hip took, and the way her navel wanted to poke out, but didn’t. Maybe if she showed off her figure a little bit more it’d hide that the fact that she had some serious personality quirks. I doubted it though.

  By the looks of her now, she’d been awakened out of a deep sleep to try to get the scoop. I had to laugh when I saw tiny wisps of her blonde hair come loose from its hair tie. During the day, she was always so put-together, but in the middle of the night, she was as real as the rest of us. That was good to know, although I had fantasized many a night that she slept in tiny black silk panties with a garter belt and fish net hose, but hey, what guy didn’t think about that?

  Beth was nine years my junior, but that didn’t stop me from thinking about her—obsessing to be exact. Karen, my wife, had been gone since Justin was three. She said that we’d married too young, and that she needed her freedom. I agree we did marry too young. We were both just eighteen when she got pregnant. She saw it as the end of our lives. I viewed it as the beginning. It was hard for the first couple of years.

  I’d enrolled at the Academy and was taking classes all day and working security at night. When I wasn’t at school I was working. It was hard for us, but I knew it’d be better on us in the long run. Two weeks after I started my first police job, Karen walked out on me. She dropped Justin off at the sitter’s and I hadn’t seen her since. Now, Justin was about to turn eighteen and getting ready to graduate, and I was Chief of Police. Maybe it had been for the best that she’d left.

  As I watched Beth come closer to me, I wondered why I wasn’t dating more. I wasn’t old by anyone’s standards. I’d just turned thirty-six and had a better build than most of my son’s friends. Still, I didn’t feel right dating. Karen was gone, and I didn’t love her anymore, but I’d never gotten a divorce. At least I hadn’t yet. It hadn’t seemed important to me. My job consumed most of my time, and Justin was too high a priority to make room for a woman. I wasn’t a monk either. I’d had sex since Karen walked out on me, but I’d never had a relationship. Until Beth, I never thought that I wanted one. Something about that feisty little blonde made me want to force her to commit.

  My mind raced back to a week earlier when I’d run into the city for a seminar. It was a two-day planned event that left me having to get a hotel room for the night. A few of us had decided to go to a bar for a drink. I ended up meeting a hot little number whose boyfriend was out of town for the weekend. I could still feel her lips around my cock. She was one of those women with extra full lips. The kind that make you wonder what sort of work she had done to achieve such perfection.

  She spent most of the night on her knees making remarks about how ‘gifted’ I was. I grinned thinking about it. She’d been one of the rare few who begged me to come all over her face. I did, of course.

  I tried to exchange names and numbers with her, but she’d been the one to insist on not doing it. Turns out her boyfriend was really a husband and she was just looking for a good time. I wasn’t into being a home wrecker, and it had been eating at me since I’d returned home. I should have been pleased to finally get some action. I’d been on a two-year dry spell. It was hard to find someone willing to have a one-night stand in North Maple Ridge. The town was small, and I didn’t need my character to come under assassination for banging the local women. Besides, I’d had my eye on one local since I’d arrived, and I wasn’t even sure she knew my first name.

  Beth shot me an odd look. I forgot that I was still staring at her. I looked away quickly and tried to pretend that I hadn’t been ogling her. She stumbled right in front of me, and I reached my hands out to catch her. I felt her toned arms in my hands, she moved slightly, leaving my fingers resting on her full breasts. I drew a br
eath in and let my eyelids fall lazily closed. It was all I could do to keep from going instantly hard. The last thing I needed was to sprout a full erection while her body was pressed against mine. The woman already had a low enough opinion of me. I didn’t need to add to it any.

  "Damn, why can’t these things happen near flat land?" she said under her breath, looking away from me and to the crime scene.

  "Well, those of us with hearts wish they wouldn’t happen at all."

  She looked up at me. I knew what she meant, yet I put her in the hot seat. I could tell I’d caught her off guard. Damn. I hadn’t wanted to make it any harder to be around her. It already seemed like the battle lines were drawn the moment we laid eyes on each other. It was her job to try to pry information out of me, and mine to keep everyone’s private matters just that, private.

  Beth pulled her body away from my grip a little slower than I would have expected. The edge of my mouth curved upwards. I wasn’t grinning so much as I was sneering. I had to shake it off. I didn’t want to be that guy, the one that creeps women out.

  I did my best to push the thoughts of fucking Beth out of my head and looked around the scene. We had the place lit pretty well, considering it was in the middle of nowhere and at night, but it wasn’t the same as daylight. I could clearly make out what was going on, and my men had things under control. Beth let out a small noise when she saw one of the blood soaked sheets laying over a piece of the body. I turned to make sure she was okay. I didn’t need anyone else throwing up all over my crime scene. The artificial light reflected off her eyes. I knew from sneaking peeks at her during a town meeting that her eyes were blue. I wondered if she ever bothered to notice mine. I had my doubts.

  Beth seemed to live an active social life. She was definitely different from me in that respect. I’d seen her around town with her new boyfriend. He was one of those guys who like to look like they pumped gas for a living. Somehow, he’d managed to make the grunge look work for him. I’d never gotten onto that bandwagon. I liked people to know that I showered and cared what I looked like. This guy that Beth had been shacking up with was from the city and more than likely a musician of some kind. No, I didn’t measure up in that area. I couldn’t carry a tune to save my life. I could carry her if need be, though. My six-foot tall body was fit. Running every day saw to that, but I’d never seemed to be able to catch her eye. Sure, I managed to catch enough backlash from her to keep me up at night, but that was it.

  "So what do we have?" she asked.

  I looked over at the area marked off with yellow tape. What we had was a set of murders. Three to be exact. They were all related, without a doubt. We had some psycho running around, tearing the youth of our community to bits --that’s what we had. I didn’t think it wise to put it in those terms, so I softened it up a bit.

  "We have another one."

  Her eyebrow rose. "Another one? You mean, like Becca and Christian?"

  I nodded my head and thought of Becca Townsend and Christian Martin. They had been the first two murder victims. Three weeks ago, we’d found Becca’s body near the edge of the river. She had been in the same state as Jonathon—decapitated, disemboweled, and then mauled. It was still up in the air if she’d been raped. There wasn’t a lot of her left, and we’d had thunderstorms blow through the area the night she was killed.

  A week after that, Christian’s body was found further out in the woods. He’d just been accepted to State College with a full ride for football. He was the Martin’s only child, and the last I knew, they were planning on moving closer to the college. Guess that wouldn’t be necessary now. I hadn’t spoken with them since I delivered the news of their son’s death. I’m sure they blamed me for it happening. No, I hadn’t been the one to commit the act, but I had been the one who neglected to catch the murderer after Becca’s death.

  Three gruesome murders in three short weeks had drawn the attention of the Feds. I’d received a call from them yesterday, letting me know that they’d be sending some men down. I welcomed the help, and was happy to see more resources coming in. I think my positive tone had caught them off-guard.

  "Who was it?" Beth asked.

  I frowned at her. She knew I couldn’t release that until the next of kin was notified. She looked over at Braun kneeling in the bushes throwing up.

  "It’s bad then?" she asked. I looked down at her and wanted to shake her. Hell yeah, it was bad. One of the three worst crime scenes I’d ever seen. It wasn’t her fault. "Off the record," she said, looking worried.

  Now that was one I hadn’t heard from her before. Beth liked to be the one who kept the town up to date. Promising to stay off the record was a big step for her.

  "One of the Williams boys," I said.

  She grabbed her mouth as a tiny gasp came out. I’d forgotten that her mother was a Williams. That made the boys her cousins. I reached out my hand to her. She moved past it and seized hold of my waist. Her hands slid up my back and she pulled on me tightly. I stood there, too shocked to hug her back, with my arms out in the air. I looked like I was being held up. I’d waited for ages to get her this close to me and then just stood there looking like Deputy Doolittle.

  "Oh God, Adam. Aunt Maggie, does she know yet?"

  I had to swallow. In all the years I’d known Beth, she’d only ever called me Chief Sisel. Hearing my name on her lips was magical, in lieu of the events surrounding the last few weeks.

  "No. I’m on my way over to tell her and John now."

  "I’m coming, too," she said as she ran around to the other side of my jeep. I didn’t have the heart to turn her away. They were her family, and if she was promising to keep this off the record, then it was fine by me. Besides, having her close wasn’t turning out to be altogether that bad.

  Coming to NCP Aug 2004!

  To read more excerpts from Mandy M. Roth please visit www.mandyroth.com