Winter's Blood: A Psychological Thriller Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication Page

  CHAPTER ONE:

  CHAPTER TWO:

  CHAPTER THREE:

  CHAPTER FOUR:

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  CHAPTER SIX:

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  CHAPTER EIGHT:

  CHAPTER NINE:

  CHAPTER TEN:

  CHAPTER ELEVEN:

  CHAPTER TWELVE:

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

  CHAPTER NINETEEN:

  CHAPTER TWENTY:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:

  CHAPTER THIRTY:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT:

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:

  CHAPTER FORTY:

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE:

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO:

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE:

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR:

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE:

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX:

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN:

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT:

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE:

  CHAPTER FIFTY:

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE:

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO:

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE:

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR:

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE:

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX:

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN:

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT:

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Personal Message from the Author

  About K.S. May

  Dedication

  To Aisling, your support over the years has kept me going.

  And last but not least, for Carl, without whose unwavering belief, this book would not have been possible.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The reddish hue of Dakota Winter’s blood enveloped her fingertip, the almost translucent color flowed along the slice. She sucked on the digit and winced. Why do paper cuts hurt the most?

  She dropped the offending letter on the table beside the scalpel and glanced over her shoulder. If this guy refuses to pony up Brandon Harper’s whereabouts, Sunday will never forgive me for his attack.

  Her boots clacked on the stone floor as she paced up and down. A freezer hummed in the corner of the room, its once white veneer tarnished with red fingerprints. A tin bath brimming with stagnating water sat to its right. Electrodes connected to two car batteries lay on the table.

  Sequestered in a secret room at the back of Gaines and Son Funeral Home’s crematorium in Erie, she stared at the man, amazed by his silence. In all her years as a contract killer, she couldn’t recall a single instance of a subject remaining mute under such inhuman pressure.

  Wrist straps fastened Parker Cole’s hands to the armrests of the high-backed wooden chair. A belt tightened across his midriff. Bands protruded from the front to clasp his ankles in place. A head strap extended to hold the victim’s head; it hung unused. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling, illuminating the replica of Old Sparky, the electric chair once used at Huntsville Unit prison, Texas. The original resided in the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville.

  “Tell me where he is, Cole.” She rubbed her gloved hands together, his dried blood flaked and drifted to the floor. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand. The July heat sucked up every molecule of air. She picked up the brass knuckles and slipped them on over her gloves. At over six feet tall, she towered over him.

  His blood-soaked hands strained against the straps. The chair refused to budge.

  The next punch, fast and brutal, collided with his cheek, sending rivulets of sweat spiking into the air. Dakota removed the knuckles and gloves and placed them on the bench beside the open tool bag. Gathering up her long black hair, she captured it in a ponytail, squeezing the band around the strands until it hurt. She pinched her T-shirt and pumped it up and down.

  Dragging a chair from the corner of the room, she sat in front of the battered man, crossed her legs, and picked a speck of lint from her black pants. “Apologies for the heat, never seen the point of air conditioning. Folks tend to pass through here pretty quickly.” She glanced at her watch. “Fifteen hours, twelve minutes, and not one word. I admire your stamina, it’s impressive. Most people are begging me to let them die by now.”

  Cole tried a half smile; the blood smeared his remaining teeth. “I’m not most people.”

  Half nodding, Dakota stood. Her hand hovered over the assorted instruments and picked up an oversized pair of pliers. “Harper isn’t worth protecting.” She sighed.

  Cole’s eyes sparkled with rage. “You don’t get it, do you?” His urine-soaked jeans mocked his bravery.

  “You’re covering for a man who threw acid in my sister’s face when she was sixteen years old.” She held the implement up to the light, snapping the jaws open, and shut.

  He laughed, hysteria creeping into his voice. Blood matted hair clung to his scalp. “If he did that to her for rejecting him, can you imagine what he’d do to me?” He spit a mouthful of bloodied saliva on the floor.

  Dakota moved closer. “Right now, it’s me you need to worry about.”

  “Do your worst.” He jutted out his chin with the most defiant look he could muster.

  After his screams died down, she asked again. Kneeling in front of him, she grabbed a fistful of his hair, and stared into his eyes. “Parker, you can stop this now. It’s in your hands. You know what I want.”

  His cracked lungs wheezed in protest. A single tear streaked down his cheek. He turned his head to wipe it off with his dislocated shoulder.

  “Do good before you die.” Dakota lowered her voice to placate him.

  “He changed his name.” He rolled back his head, and gasped for air. With his last breath, he said, “Logan Taylor. Owns a casino in Vegas. You won’t get near him. Running with the big boys now.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” She sat on the chair and gazed at the dying man.

  One last strained breath, and he stopped moving. The light faded from his eyes.

  Dakota loaded the body into the cremation chamber and watched it burn.

  “Logan Taylor, here I come.” A faint smile played on her lips.

  * * *

  Dakota stood on the Lake Erie shore, listening to the Fourth of July fireworks echoing from Lawrence Park. She rolled up her sleeves and peered at the tattoo on the inside of her right forearm. The name “Henry” stared back into her soul. She shivered. Can’t believe we’re halfway through 2011 already. Where the hell has the time gone? The beep of her grandfather’s heart monitor drifting through the open French doors drew her back into the house.

  Mahogany paneling lined the study walls, accompanied by bookshelves stretching up to the ceiling. Its conversion into a makeshift bedroom fed Harvey’s insatiable hunger for fresh air. She watched him from the doorway.

  “Come closer, I have a secret for you only,” he said.

  Dakota sat in the chair, its green color almost matching his face. She glanced at the rug, its threads unraveling, threatening to trip unsuspecting visi
tors. The morphine drip embedded itself into the ninety-eight-year-old’s arm, blue veins transparent under his skin. The pungent smell of impending death hung like a scythe in the air.

  An unstoppable disease ravaged his once strapping six feet, five inches tall frame, reducing it to a shriveled breathing skeleton. Dakota inhaled a deep breath, bypassing the lump in her throat.

  A bony index finger rose, beckoning her. “You’re more like me than you know.”

  Dakota leaned over, and smoothed back his gray hair, kissed him on the forehead, and smiled. “How, Grandpa?”

  “I know about that kid you offed in the sixth grade. You were only eleven years old, and I knew it then.” He mustered up a weak smile with yellow-stained teeth caused by decades of tobacco.

  Her heartbeat danced between the chimes of the monitor. Her gut twisted into knots.

  “I know where you put him, too. Spotted you burying him in the woods. I saw you, the real you, Dakota.” He glared, his body stiffening.

  Damn, thought I was careful. She refused to meet his eyes. She rubbed the two-centimeter scar under her chin. The man who’d sliced her flesh was long gone. To have a constant reminder of such a lowlife bothered Dakota. But it was the last thing he ever did.

  Her first murder; Vincent Patterson. Fifteen years old, and he’d considered every kid in school an easy mark, including her best friend, Malcolm Gaines. After Malcolm’s botched suicide attempt, Dakota stepped up to the plate.

  Following Patterson that fresh fall day through the woods, the knowledge his life would end by her hands sent a shiver of excitement down her spine. The leaves crunched underfoot. He glanced back. She hid behind a tree, on the verge of giggling. Tiptoeing behind him, she lifted her heavy math book, and smashed it down on his head until he’d stopped breathing. She knew one day that book would come in handy.

  “I see the same hunger in your eyes mirrored in my dark soul,” Harvey said, wrenching her back to reality. “You try to conceal it, but you can’t hide from me. I want to tell you, surrender to it. Stop denying that part of yourself, Dakota. It’s only a matter of time before your demon takes control of you, too. It’s in the blood, the Winters’ blood; you can’t escape. Embrace it.” His pupils burned red hot. A dark shadow flitted across his face.

  Holding Harvey’s hand, she looked deep into his eyes. “You’re confused, Grandpa, it’s all the painkillers you’re taking. Sleep now. I’ll check on you later.” She placed his hand back on the blanket.

  Dakota stood to leave when he grabbed her arm with a force she thought had long disappeared in the dying man.

  “It was me; I was the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” he said, grinning, his eyes bulging.

  Dakota recalled a series of gruesome murders in 1930s Cleveland where an unknown assailant chopped up several men and women, leaving no clues of his identity.

  She glanced at the morphine drip and wondered if it had been spiked with LSD. “Grandpa, please, you need to sleep.”

  “Don’t you patronize me, girl.” His voice regained the booming quality she’d known and loved all her life.

  Dakota sat on the chair and leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

  With a nod, and his authority as head of the house re-instated, he said, “I started on the B&O Railroad as a gandy dancer, worked my way up to supervisor in quick time. I guess the hunger found me in my teen years. Had a chance to kill a kid but didn’t take it. Regret that one, let me tell you.” He stared at the ceiling, unblinking.

  She squeezed his hand, forcing him to re-focus.

  Harvey shook his head. “I met a wise guy, offered me cash to eliminate this fellow he didn’t want around anymore. Told me I had to make the guy suffer real bad. I said ‘why not?’” His eyes clouded over as if recalling a lost love.

  Dakota stared at him, trying to read between his words for signs of skullduggery. Her grandfather’s infamous sense of humor raised her dubious nature to the surface. He seemed lucid. His eyes refused to betray signs of mischief.

  “Look, kid, five hundred dollars was a fortune back then. Bought my first and best car with that money. Found an abandoned warehouse in Ashtabula, and that’s where I killed him. Easy, looking back. Struck up a conversation with him on the train, hopped off at his stop, bashed him over the head, stuffed him in my car, and took him to my workshop.” He held his hands up to stare at them, made a fist with one, and punched it into his flat palm.

  A creak in the foyer floorboards broke into the sentence. Dakota looked up. A fleeting shadow crossed the hall. Half standing to investigate, Harvey’s tightened grip on her hand distracted her once again.

  “I’ll be back in one minute, Grandpa,” she said.

  “Stay put and listen.” His voice rose an octave.

  Dakota nodded and stroked his hand. Drowning out the incessant ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway, she forced herself to focus. Staring at his lips working, his parched tongue protruded when uttering certain words. She shook her head, trying to jerk free of the ominous feeling descending on her the second he spoke again.

  “Like I was saying, that kill was easier than I ever imagined and let me tell you, I was picturing all sorts of stuff like that since I was five years old.” His eyes clouded over with a peaceful glistening.

  Palpable sadness wrapped its arms around Dakota, refusing to let go. Such an awful travesty, a man of his stature and intellect reduced to a jabbering fool before he dies. She could barely look at him. Her heart broke listening to his wild, ridiculous stories. As if he hadn’t suffered enough, the final indignity of turning into a loon before the end broke her heart.

  Her body heavy and laden with gloom, she clutched his hand tighter. She glanced at the half-empty I.V. bag.

  Harvey yanked her hand again, urging her to look at him.

  “A lot more work came my way because of that one kill. The bosses were impressed with my work. Aside from the pro hits, I ran a sideline in cleaning up Kingsbury Run all by myself. That place was a real dump where the scum of the earth lived, and died, thanks to me.” He pounded his chest, a hollow sound echoing around the room. “I remember one filthy hooker. The press called her ‘The Lady of the Lake.’ She was no lady, let me tell you. Name of Gretchen O’Brien, German mother, Irish father, go figure. She begged for her life.” He laughed, sparking a coughing fit. Reaching for his white handkerchief, he spat into it, his lungs wracked with poisoned phlegm.

  Dakota looked at her grandfather, half-seriously, for the first time since he started talking.

  “I heard old tales of a woman’s body found off the shores of Lake Erie in the thirties, but everybody knows that story, Grandpa.”

  Another sound from the hallway diverted her attention. Determined to investigate its source this time, she stood, leaving his empty hand flailing in the air. She stepped toward the door.

  He spoke again. “But who has her head?”

  Dakota stopped, inches shy of the doorway. “What?”

  “You heard me, Granddaughter. I still have her head, and a couple others too, stashed away.” His voice, strong, and confident, impersonated his younger self.

  Slivers of sounds echoed through the hallway. His words lured Dakota back to his side. Standing at the foot of the bed, she stared at him, a dying grinning man, grotesque in the extreme, exhibiting a strange pride she’d never witnessed before.

  “I’m tired now. We’ll talk more later, after I rest.” He closed his eyes, shutting off all communication, demonstrating the control he’d commanded over the house, and its inhabitants.

  Before she could protest, his light snoring filled the room. Sitting in the winged back chair against the far wall, with one hand covering her mouth, Dakota tried to figure out if he was yanking her chain.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jason Fulbright darted into the closet under the stairs, fearing his loud breathing would expose him. Opening the door a crack, he peered into the hallway. His eyes traveled up to a photograph of two women in Victorian clothing holding
shotguns. The caption underneath read:

  ‘If you mess with a woman packin’ a gun,

  Your intentions better be good... real good.’

  Smiling, he closed the door again. He couldn’t figure out how Dakota and Harvey failed to hear him. An expert at sneaking, he excelled in moving around undetected.

  Must be genetic. He blew away an errant blonde hair from his face and stuffed his long legs in between two musty tennis rackets and a bowling bag. Red and gold tinsel peeped over the edge of a cardboard box. A vacuum cleaner hose jutted out from its body. He tried to swat it away, but it bounced back in his face. Jason’s five foot, six-inch frame at ten years of age, along with his broad shoulders wouldn’t have looked amiss on an adult. Jason used his height to his advantage, regularly conning people with cooked-up scams.

  His foot slipped, sending a tennis ball bouncing against the closet door. They must have heard that. His pulse stuttered. He wondered if his heart would perish at that instant.

  If I died, would they miss me, mourn me, regret what they did to me? He wanted answers more than anything in his whole life. Since discovering his adoption, he’d waited for this moment. He had spied on his adoptive mother, Tina Fulbright, opening the safe. Scribbling down the code, he’d waited until her next shopping day. Jason rifled through it and instead of money, he unearthed his birth certificate, listing Dakota Winter as his biological mother, starting him on the path leading to the Winters’ closet under the stairs.

  He ached to discover the truth of his heritage, and from what he’d overheard, his great grandfather killed a bunch of people in Cleveland a long time ago. His real mother used to kill schoolboys on her way home from class.

  Aided by an internet search, he’d tracked her down to a bar she owned, ‘The Gravediggers’ on East Lake Road. He followed her home one night to Avalon behind Lakeside Cemetery.

  He loved these people already. The blood in his veins rushed around his body. His head swam. After hearing their twisted stories, the depth of his feelings grew. He needed to prove himself worthy of the Winter family name—only then would they allow him into the fold.

  Footsteps treaded closer to the hallway. A cold, damp sensation settled in the pit of his stomach. What would Dakota do if she found me hiding like a sneak thief, would she be shocked or welcome me into the Winter family where I belong? Time will tell.