Devil's Business by Caitlin Kittredge Read Free Book Online Page A

little more than similar, if Mayhew’s photos are to be believed,” Pete told him.
    Jack caught sight of a stairway leading to an upper level, a loft ringed in ornate iron railings. He slid down the hall, Shaver’s and Pete’s voices echoing off the two-story cathedral ceiling. His sight screamed the moment he mounted the stairs, vibrating and red-rimmed. Shavers was giving Pete the brush off, but there had, at the very least, been a real murder here.
    “Listen,” Shavers was saying. “You have to understand something about this town—it’s almost as obsessed with death as it is with movie stars doing each other up the ass. You know how much James Dean’s Ferrari wreckage went for at auction? Point is, every tabloid and sleazy blog has sources in the ME’s office and in the LAPD. The details could’ve gotten out through a dozen pinholes. At worst, we’ve got a very dedicated copycat. But not a serial. Not ten years apart, with no activity anywhere in VICAP in between.”
    “You seem very sure,” Pete said.
    “I am sure,” Shavers rumbled. “I’m sorry you came all this way, but this is just going to be another cold case. Only difference is it’s in my file instead of Ben’s this time, and I’m a lot better at letting things go.”
    “I understand, believe me,” Pete said. “I used to be on the job. Can you just walk me through the scene, so I can tell Ben something ?”
    “Yeah, sure,” Shavers said. “Not like I got anything better to do, like pursue cases I can actually close, right?”
    Jack pushed open the first door, keeping his ear tuned to Shavers and Pete. An office, done in bloodred wallpaper and black carpet, a layer of dust thick enough to draw in over it all. Not here.
    “There was no forced entry,” Shavers said. “But we didn’t think too much of it at the time. Rental properties, the gate code never changes and a dozen staff have it, plus the family that lived here. The Herreras,” he added. “Mom, dad, son, and unborn daughter. Just in town for a few months while he produced a film.”
    Jack tried the next door. A kid’s room, baseball memorabilia pasted up over the rock ’n’ roll walls, toys scattered across the floor.
    “They killed the boy first.” Shaver’s voice echoed. “I say they, because we decided there had to be at least two. One to subdue the parents and one to go after the kid.”
    The tile floor of the bedroom was stained, old blood trickling along the grout like vines breaking through stone.
    “Cut his throat,” said Shavers. “Quick and clean. He bled out in a matter of minutes.”
    “And the parents?” Pete’s boots clacked on the tile.
    The last door was really just an iron lattice with more of the demon head motif. The pulse of his sight got worse when he pushed it open, and Jack ground his teeth against the sensation of a spike being driven through his skull sideways.
    “They killed and mutilated the father in their bed,” Shavers said. “Knocked the mother over the head and dragged her down here.”
    The mattress was bare, and marks of a crime scene team were still in place. There was much more blood this time—almost all the blood that a person’s body held, Jack wagered.
    The psychic feedback was strong and bloody, but it wasn’t anything unusual for a murder scene. He backed out and looked down at the top of Shaver’s bald head as he bent over the Bahopmet rug. “She was here. They, uh … they did the final mutilation here on the tiles.”
    “And the fact that her unborn baby was cut out of her on an image that’s been widely co-opted by Satanists the world over didn’t trigger any alarms?” Pete said.
    “Come on, Ms. Caldecott,” Shavers said. “You were on the job. You know the shadowy Satanic cabal is just a myth fundamentalists and shrinks looking to make a buck conjured up to amuse themselves. Satanic Panic in this country is not something the LAPD is ever going to buy into.”
    “Yeah, fine, the Satanist angle is