Dan Padavona
The Darkwater Cove
CHAPTER ONE
The dark.
This is where monsters lurk.
The loss of light forever terrified Darcy Gellar. When she was a child, she begged her mother to read her one more story, and after she finished, another tale. Anything to delay the inevitable darkness that followed. No amount of checking for monsters in the closet and under the bed comforted little Darcy. After the lights went out and she was alone in the bedroom, every shadow became a clawed witch or a man with a knife.
Now the dark is an unexpected ally. It conceals Darcy even as it traps, working in her favor.
The FBI agent’s hands tremble as she swings the gun across the upstairs hallway. Four open doors bleed shadows across bare hardwood. One door leads to a bathroom. Darcy sees the sink and a drawn shower curtain. The others open to bedrooms.
He is here. Hidden in the shadows and following her with his eyes.
For over a year, Darcy and her partner, Eric Hensel, followed a trail of North Carolina murders. All girls in their teens and early twenties, women with their entire lives ahead of them, butchered by a serial killer the media refer to as the Full Moon Killer. Forensic evidence at the murder scenes proved scarce, and the few hair fibers and fingerprints the crime scene investigators discovered drew blanks. The Full Moon Killer was a ghost.
Until tonight.
Darcy realizes she is a fool. No way should she be here alone. Though she competently handles a gun, she is not a marksman like her fellow agents. Nor is she a strong or skilled fighter. Her value to the Bureau is as a researcher and profiler. She’s hunted killers across the country and entered their minds to predict their next moves, but never has the duty of capturing a dangerous criminal fallen on her shoulders.
She grabs the radio off her hip before a squealing floorboard silences her. Gun raised, Darcy throws herself flat against the wall. Her breaths freeze in her chest as she searches the upstairs for movement. The noise could have come from anywhere inside the old bungalow. Sounds echo through the walls and down the vacant corridors like water droplets inside a tomb.
Darcy is here to interview Janelle DeLee, a friend of Marcy Abraham, the twenty-four-year-old office temp the killer murdered last month. No reason she couldn’t question DeLee alone. But when she arrived, Darcy found the front door open and a note taped to the mailbox.
I’m upstairs, come inside.
After DeLee failed to answer Darcy’s calls up the stairs, a thud shook the walls, loud enough for Darcy to fear the woman had fallen and required medical assistance. She took the stairs two at a time. At the top of the staircase, the lights shut off.
A trick. The fly had crawled into the spider’s web.
That’s when she knew the killer was already here.
Another moaning floorboard gets her moving. Saucers for eyes, she slides along the wall and reaches the jamb surrounding the bathroom entryway. Something grabs at her shirt. Darcy almost cries out before recognizing the light switch digging into her back. Her heart thunders with the frenzied rhythm of a rabbit caught in the wolf’s gaze. On the silent count of three, she spins past the jamb and aims the weapon into the bathroom.
Clear.
Pulls the shower curtain back.
The tub is empty. A moth flutters past her face.
The bathroom door is flimsy, but the knob and lock set are new. She considers throwing the door shut, twisting the lock, and radioing for help.
Her flashlight rests on her hip. If she flicks the light on, she’ll draw the madman to her location. Instead, she edges into the hallway and walks toward the first bedroom.
The darkness sharpens her senses, attunes her to the creaks and groans of the old house. The scent of wood polish is thick, and she smells the flowery soaps and perfumes behind her on the bathroom counter.
Scratch.
The tree branch scraping the house makes her jump. Outside the window at the end of the hall, the bough extends clawed branches and dances when the wind blows.
Still blinded by the pitch-black, Darcy reaches her hand out and touches the bedroom door. A little nudge will swing it all the way open, but this is foolhardy. Better to slip into the room without alerting the killer.
But the spare bedroom is empty. Just a made bed and a wooden dresser set against the far wall.
“Darcccccy.” The whisper drifts down the hallway. “Come out and play.”
Darcy throws herself inside the bedroom and waits. It’s difficult to hear over the pounding pulse in her ears. She crosses the room and slinks down to one knee beside the dresser. The killer’s breaths rasp in the hallway as she yanks the gun back and hides in the shadows.
Footsteps approach. Emboldened, the killer no longer conceals his whereabouts. He’s hunting her now.
The footsteps stop outside the bedroom door. Seconds pass.
Then the steps continue through the darkness, moving away from her now.
When she hears him descending the stairs, she rips the radio off her hip. Lowering her voice, she gives her location to the dispatcher. He can’t make out her words, and she repeats herself. A moment later, he confirms her whereabouts. Help is on the way.
The door slams open and blasts against the plaster. The killer outsmarted her again.
Reaching around the dresser, she squeezes off two shots, but in the deep gloom, she can’t see him.
Ears ringing from the blasts, she pulls the gun back and prays her aim was true. Darcy’s hands shake until she can barely maintain her grip on the weapon. In her mind, she pictures the killer on his back, bullet wounds streaming blood onto the throw rug. Yet she never heard him fall.
Fear holds her in place amid the silence.
Minutes tick away.
Maybe he retreated into another room.
Her shivers cease, and Darcy regains control of the gun. When she tries to stand, her leg cramps from kneeling too long. Listening for the killer, she rubs the feeling back into her leg and creeps out of hiding.
The silhouette of the bed stretches before her. Almost coffin-like. An empty closet with two clothes hangers beckons as a potential hiding spot. And beside the door, a coat rack she hadn’t noticed before.
But it can’t be a coat rack, because the looming shadow moves.
She cries out and fires the gun. But he is too fast.
She twists her body out of the way as the knife plunges into her arm and tears flesh from shoulder to elbow. The agony paints stars across her vision.
A hand grips her neck and squeezes. Choking. Pulling her down to the floor.
Three hours ago, she’d argued with her son over concert tickets. Hunter’s last words were angry and hurtful after she told him he wasn’t old enough to go with his friends. His door slammed. He locked her out of his life and tossed away the key.
Darcy won’t die with Hunter hating her, nor will she force her teenage son and eleven-year-old daughter to bury their mother. They already lost their father and know too well of life’s cruelty. She can’t fail them.
Survival instinct takes over as the corner of the dresser clips her spine. She kicks out, fighting a monster she can’t see. The force drives the wind from his lungs. He totters back a step and comes at her again. But she’s ready this time.
The wicked blade slices at her belly as she pulls the trigger. The knife tears into her stomach. Screaming, she fires the gun again.
He pinwheels backward and collapses against the corner of the bed. The killer clutches the mattress, holding himself up, before he topples off and pulls the covers off the bed and over his body.
The pain catches up to her. She grasps at the bubbling wound and slumps against the wall, desperate to halt the pumping lifeblood. The ceiling, the walls, the crypt-like bedroom darken as the gun tumbles from her hand and cracks against the floor. She finds herself on her back, no memory of how she got there. Eyelids droop shut and blink open. Labored breathing fills the room. Her own or the killer’s?