Thicker Than Blood

By Matthew Laliberte

Agent Seana Crean had run from her past and abandoned her daughter Patty. She throws herself into her work and doggedly pursues Inge, who is leaving a bloody trail of young bodies as he crisscrosses the country. During the chase, he pulls Crean from a hotel shower, slits her wrist and threatens much worse for Patty. Crean's anxiety heightens with the discovery of each mutilated victim and skyrockets when Patty gives her bodyguard the slip, disappearing into the night. When Inge abducts Patty, Agent Crean must confront the demons of her past while she frantically searches for the daughter she left behind before Patty becomes the latest body on Inge's bloody trail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Laliberte
• Release date: Jul 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465882172

Matthew Laliberte

Matthew Laliberte currently resides in Connecticut but was born and raised next door in Rhode Island. He is married, and he has three children, two dogs and two cats. He has worked full-time as an investigator/supervisor/specialist for medical professional and psychiatric liability companies for more than twenty years and has pursued his love of fiction writing each time he finds a minute. You might be able to find him somewhere in the cyber world if he frees up another minute or two to drag himself into the 21st century.

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Thicker than Blood

the Smashwords Edition of

a Moosfield Press publication

Copyright © 2011 Matthew Laliberte

Smashwords License Notes

 This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. All rights are reserved. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the same bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction, a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Credits

 Cover photo, formatting and cover design by Harvey Stanbrough.

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Thicker than Blood

Chapter One

Patty Crean palmed her soul like a magician’s coin and knocked on yet another stranger's door.

She took stock of her five foot eight inch frame, ran her hand over a tight white cotton half-shirt that showed her lean, taut belly. Low-rider black jeans publicized the lacy top of white thong panties and took the long trip from her butt all the way to her ankles. Red painted toenails lay garishly against the thick wedge soles of black t-strap leather sandals. The catalogue from which she'd bought them advertised the wedge sole as leg enhancing.

She was well acquainted with the odd mixture of pride and humiliation that washed over her like sudden applause and pushed it away with practiced ease.

The door opened. A squat, shirtless, middle-aged man with curly, graying chest hair and a prodigious overbite stared at her breasts.

Back again?

Patty's trips to Raleigh had become more frequent, now including some weekdays.

Can we just go in? She had never learned the man’s name.

Hmm? Yeah, sure we can. He raised his gaze, met hers briefly, lowered them to her chest again then turned and headed up a steep set of narrow stairs.

Following behind, Patty straightened her auburn hair with her thumb and index finger. It curved only at the ends, shone with youth and just touched the tops of her shoulders. There was no hint of the innocent curls that had defined it only months ago.

How old are you, honey? The man asked over his shoulder. He was nearly at the top of the flight of stairs. He was panting heavily.

Patty noted the shiny beginnings of sweat on the pale skin of his broad back.

Does it matter?

He stopped on the landing and faced her. No. A slight grin pulled at one corner of his mouth and the eyebrow on that side arched.

Patty smiled despite herself. The man’s lopsided expression made her wonder who he was. Is he someone’s father or someone’s grandfather? Do the people who love him know what he likes to do with his free time?

Where do you- He took a couple of deep breaths. Go to school?

She tilted her head. Really? You care?

Again with the lopsided grin. No.

She went to Barden Girls Academy. On weekends most of the other girls went home to see their families. It quickly became clear to Patty that nobody gave a crap where she was or what she did with her weekend time, as long as they didn't have to think about it. That included her ex-FBI agent bodyguard Jazz Cormier.

Her smile faded. What bodyguard has sex with his sixteen-year-old charge? And what kind of a name is Jazz, anyway? She followed the man in through a thickly painted pea-green door with a tilted, chipped mocha casing. Every time she entered one of these places she experienced a strange mix of nostalgia and weightlessness, like she was stepping off a cliff and falling into the dark pit of her past.

The kitchen’s that way. The man pointed to his left. There’s some food and drinks on the table in there if you want something. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his sweatpants, yanked them down and off. He stood up straight facing her. Behind him, where the hallway opened into what was probably a living room, Patty saw the white sole of a foot whose heel rested on the arm of a brown corduroy couch. Its toes squeezed and relaxed in a lazy rhythm.

Patty kept eye contact but saw his pallid, tree trunk legs in her periphery and his brown sweatpants pooled at his feet. A familiar nauseating burn rose to the back of her throat. It was, as usual, accompanied by an impossible warm rush of blood across her breasts and a squeezing ache between her legs.

You wanna start here? He slapped both of his thighs and waited.

A familiar mix of beer, sweat and musk dominated the apartment.

He might as well be selling shoes. Are you looking for something with a wide sole? We have a special on socks. Would you like to see something made of skin? Perhaps something with nerve endings and a conscience?

She lowered her gaze to his pale penis and then lowered herself to her knees.

Seana Crean awoke with a start.

You’re all sweaty. Nightmare? Henry leaned away, looked down his nose at her.

Don’t look at me like that. I’ve seen you sweat just from blinking too fast. Beside, it’s stuffy in here. Are we almost there?

Should be, you’ve been out for about an hour and a half, so…

She looked out the window. They were in the clouds. There was no view of the ground. Not that it would matter. I still wouldn’t know how far we are from Atlanta even if I could see the ground.

Man, I hate connecting through Atlanta.

You wanna tell me about your nightmare?

No, I don’t. How many of those has the stewardess cleared away?

These? He held up a half-finished nip of Dewars Scotch. I think it was around…none of your damned business, yeah, somewhere around that many. He gulped down the rest of the nip, spun the cap back on it and stuck the empty in the pocket of the seat in front of him.

Seana’s nap had not been restorative at all. She did have a nightmare, the same one she’d been having since last month when the monster they’d been hunting had assaulted her in her hotel room in New Orleans, the place she was headed to now.

The thought of returning to New Orleans did not thrill her but this guy had led them around by the nose through several cities and they really had no choice but to follow until he made a mistake.

You’re thinking about Dallas, aren’t you? Henry’s eyes were bloodshot and his breath was pungent.

I’m sick of this prick and his games. He’s slaughtering young girls and acting like he’s playing treasure hunt.

Henry held his left hand out, palm down, and put his right index finger to his lips.

Seana cringed. Sorry, she whispered you know how I get.

He arched an eyebrow and smirked. Unfortunately.

Shut up, you asked. She scanned the other passengers, most of whom were asleep on the red-eye flight, then settled back on Henry.

Do you think going to New Orleans is prudent? I know, I know. He left my parking receipt from the hotel we stayed at on the dresser in that poor girl’s room but, I don’t know, don’t we have to change this up a little? That receipt doesn’t mean he’s headed back to New Orleans. She shook her head. He’s controlling everything.

Seana, you know darn well we don’t have a choice. The receipt is the only thing telling us where he might strike next, even if it’s just misdirection. We have nothing else. Guys like this, attention seekers, they eventually either make a mistake or get caught on purpose. So we follow until that happens.

Seana felt her neck heat up and blood rise to her face. That, she said is not good enough Henry and you know it.

He sighed heavily and patted her hand. Look, I know he threaten-

She pulled her hand away. Don’t patronize me. I’m not desperate to catch this guy only because he threatened Patty.

I know, but you’ve been more insane than usual since then.

No, really? You think? Just forget it Henry.

You’re no help when you’re drunk.

Seana turned back to the window. But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

She could still vividly recall the weightlessness in her stomach when the killer snatched her from the shower in her hotel room.

Patty is looking delicious these days, just delicious. That’s what he had said to her while he held one knife to her throat and slit her wrist with another. Then he used her blood as lubrication to assault her as he described exactly what Patty looks like.

I should kill you right now. The memory of that cold, smooth voice chilled her.

He was exceptionally strong and, even with her training she knew her chances of escape were slim. Her strength was quickness and she never got to use it. She had grown weaker by the second from blood loss. Finally, he squeezed her forearm hard and the world went purple into black.

The maid had found her a short time later. She reported that a call had been placed from Seana’s room for immediate maid service.

That’s how much of a game this is to him. He needs me alive to keep on playing. But why me? If I was dead he could continue this craziness while being chased by some other agent.

The only person who knew about the attack was Henry, and he was putting his career on the line by keeping his mouth shut. More than that, she had used him to keep Huang in the dark by lying for her while she recovered. But there was no way she could let Charles Huang find out about it. The Special Agent in Charge at her field office in Baltimore would yank her from this case before she knew what hit her. She liked and respected him, but Huang was known for his strict adherence to policy and procedure, an adherence that had earned him the nickname Anchor, if only behind his back.

She rationalized her decision to thumb her nose at Huang's precious policies and procedures. After all, it was he who had given her the big speech about catching this guy and providing a positive story for the public to latch on to. She wasn't about to be pulled off of the case and trust someone else to stop this maniac who had Patty on his radar. Patty was the most important part of this.

Then why aren't you with her? A little voice asked, and she expertly pushed it away.

Sondra Nguyen drove slowly down route twelve in Plainfield, Connecticut. A repeating mantra intruded on her thoughts. Matt died on his Birthday. In practiced form, she nudged it away and thought instead of the night ahead. Don Henley's New York Minute breathed its tale of lost love and hope into the small compartment of her 1996 Chevy Cavalier.

She passed an assortment of cottages, duplexes and old Victorians that sat on the right close to the two lane road. Behind them was a long, steep slope that fell away to a giant white sandpit here, a green valley there. Tired shops and stores with pitted, rolling parking lots and outdated signs hung on for dear life on the other side of the road.

A metallic gray hue surrounded the sun, giving the cool, gusty spring day an autumn feel. She closely followed a scrapheap pickup as it rattled a drunken weave between the fading painted lines. Its black and white bumper sticker proclaimed, 'My other ride is your momma’.

Matt died on his Birthday. Nudge.

Her street came up on the right and she turned onto it. Her house hunkered a full fifteen feet below street level and about a hundred and fifty feet back in the center of a three-acre plot that was wider than it was deep. It consisted mostly of thick, tangled morning glories that had overtaken everything in their path and a combination of tall, straight, rough-barked oak trees and squat maples with fat ground roots and budding green leaves. There was lawn only in the front. The sides and back of the house endured a constant onslaught by the growth systems abutting them.

She started up the drive but remembered the key in the mailbox. A strong gust of wind pressed her slight frame back into the seat when she attempted to exit the car. She pushed herself back up and breathed in the cool gusts.

The setting sun was quickly sapping the remnants of the day's warmth. Fading light fought through the trees guarding the boundaries of her backyard. Thready, white clouds raced across the sky as though fleeing the oncoming darkness.

She tried to calm the butterflies in her stomach. She and Charlie would have the house to themselves for the entire night. She spun her keys around her right index finger, consciously ignoring the bluish fingernails and the purple-hued fingers of anorexia. Thank God her mom and stepfather didn't drag her to Uncle what's-his-name's funeral, instead deciding that she was old enough to stay home by herself overnight. That way she could feed the fish and do other bullshit that they deemed important.

There were to be no visitors.

She laughed at that and at the solemn way her stepfather had said it. Charlie was coming over soon and Sondra planned to have him sleep over. They had never actually slept in the same bed overnight.

She headed for the mailbox to get the house key.

It had been awhile since Sondra had felt happy. The last few years had been tough with Matt's death and her parents divorce and, of course, her brain relentlessly attacking her body. She still couldn't face Matt's death full on, instead glancing at it cautiously from time to time to test what she saw there.

Matt died on his Birthday.

The day he died, Sondra had bought him a red nylon bracelet with his name sewn on it in white letters. For some reason he had to have that bracelet. He could be obsessive like that. He had stolen it from her drawer before she got the chance to give it to him.

She looked down at her right arm. Maybe it’s time to take it off. Maybe I’ve punished myself long enough.

The bracelet brought back the flashing red lights at the boat launch in the clearing that led to Wilson's Pond; the crowd of people standing around looking toward the water; the guy she thought must be a fireman walking to the shore carrying something in his arms. A thin white arm hung down, lifeless fingers pointing to the ground and, of course, the red bracelet circling the small wrist.

Sondra had learned at that precise moment with the lights flashing across her vision what it meant to be heartbroken. Her mind had closed up shop right then and there.

I was late picking him up at baseball practice.

The final determination was that he had gone swimming by himself, used the rope swing and landed awkwardly in the water, injuring his neck to the point that he couldn't swim to shore. Nobody was there to help him. I wasn’t there to help him.

The following year was a blur of tears, confusion and anger. Her mind became a vacant lot, the garbage of her thoughts and other people's words casually blowing through every now and then, meaning nothing. The perimeter of the lot was guarded by bars of guilt, stubborn and stout, keeping her trapped until she could figure how to get by.

Her unfortunate solution was to slip through unnoticed. She dropped 33 pounds, from 110 to 77, yet she still felt too fat to attempt escape.

She looked inside the mailbox. Where the hell's the key? Goddammit! How am I supposed to get in now?

She cursed herself for not putting her house key on her key ring like her mom had reminded her to do about a thousand times until Sondra had finally snapped at her to just drop it. I can remember one stupid thing! She had said. 'I'm not a baby! She had said.

She stomped back to the car, snatched her cell out of the console and dialed her mother's number. No answer. How would she get in? Could she go through the basement window, something she absolutely hated doing? It was the one window that she knew was always unlocked.

She dropped back into the car, slammed the door and sped down to the house. I’ll find a way in if I have to break a stinkin’ window.

She got out of the car and looked up at the sky. Daylight was quickly fading and a strong chill was setting in. Goosebumps broke out on her arms and she hugged herself.

Okay, there’s no way am I going in through