Homecoming Homicides Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Praise for Marilyn Baron

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Juliette Spencer stared at the ill-mannered boor leering at her breasts like he was stalking his prey or scoping out his next meal. Like he wanted to inhale her or impale her or worse. Like she was Bambi and it was open season on single women sporting a deer-in-the-headlights demeanor.

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  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Homecoming Homicides

  by

  Marilyn Baron

  A Psychic Crystal Mystery

  Book Two

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Homecoming Homicides

  COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Marilyn Baron

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Crimson Rose Edition, 2014

  Print ISBN 978-1-62830-196-0

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-197-7

  A Psychic Crystal Mystery, Book Two

  Published in the United States of America

  Praise for Marilyn Baron

  Winner of the Georgia Romance Writers

  Unpublished Maggie Award for Excellence in 2012

  in the Paranormal/Fantasy Romance category

  First Place Winner in the Suspense Romance Category

  of the 2010 Ignite the Flame contest

  sponsored by the Central Ohio Fiction Writers chapter

  of Romance Writers of America

  Finalist in the Georgia Romance Writers

  Unpublished Maggie Award for Excellence in 2005

  in the Single Title Category

  “Baron offers a bit of everything in this superb novel. There’s humor, infidelity, murder, mayhem, and a neatly drawn conclusion.”

  ~RT Book Reviews (4.5 Stars)

  “I just finished reading UNDER THE MOON GATE and really enjoyed it. I was fascinated by the intertwining of the characters in the stories from the 1700s to present day and I especially enjoyed the segment that took place during WWII. Great writing. Marilyn did a great job of bringing Bermuda during the WWII era to life in this book.”

  ~PJ Ausdenmore, The Romance Dish

  “[UNDER THE MOON GATE] is a surefire blockbuster…a treasure trove of mystery and intrigue. It sparkles with romance…. I couldn’t recommend it more.”

  ~Andrew Kirby

  “An enjoyable read from start to finish...family, friends, enemies, intrigue and suspense...sadness, laughter, romance and ultimately love.”

  ~Romance Junkies (4 Blue Ribbons)

  Dedication

  Homecoming Homicides is dedicated to my daughter,

  Amanda,

  who was a homecoming contestant at her university

  in a small North Florida town.

  When I attended the pageant, a seemingly innocent “boy-man” approached each girl to get her autograph on his pageant booklet.

  That sparked my imagination and was the inspiration for this story.

  Prologue

  Rodney Willis inhaled the aroma of fresh blood. In his opinion, nothing else even came close to the scent of suffering. The blood was slick and sticky and velvety, and he was practically swimming in it. He’d nearly slipped on the floor this morning while he was in full clean-up mode, getting ready for the new contestant. He needed to buy some combat boots.

  The candidate on the table had been a real trooper. He had to give her credit. She’d performed superbly, even exceeded his expectations, although she was rather noisy. He’d had to muffle her screams. The bitch had bitten him, had probably given him rabies, if that was possible. He’d have to research that on the Internet. Not exactly a candidate for Miss Congeniality. He was finally forced to drug the little vixen, and after that it wasn’t nearly as much fun.

  When she’d come around again, she complained of the cold. He had to keep the temperature of his workshop near freezing, so he’d obligingly covered her with a blanket and softly soothed her with meaningless prattle while he continued his work. She was pathetically grateful, probably holding out hope that he wouldn’t kill her if he was considerate enough to cover her. It suited him to kill her with kindness for the time being. It made it easier for him in the end. He nearly swooned as he remembered the touch of his hand on her naked breast, the feel of her pulsating heartbeat as it tripped like a frightened rabbit and then slowed in resignation, finally sliding into defeat as it stopped altogether when the blood had drained from her body.

  And speaking of hearts, he was going to have to have a long overdue heart-to-heart with his big brother, Donny. Last night had been too close for comfort. The screams and moans and tiresome begging sounds coming out of his workshop had drawn the idiot to the door, and he’d had to do some fancy footwork to get him to go away. Donny knew the workshop was off limits, and yet he couldn’t help poking around. He had been looking for Traci; he wouldn’t have wanted to see what was left of her.

  Donny was dangerously fixated on that girl. Rodney had allowed him to stay for the contest and watch Traci model Queenie’s dresses, but he didn’t get to view the aftermath. Someone of Donny’s delicate nature would never understand what had to be done. He always wondered where the girls had gone, and he’d always been satisfied when Rodney had said, “They had a previous engagement.” But not this time. Not with Traci Farris.

  Donny had to be kept in the dark. Rodney needed Donny’s help in carrying the bodies, which Rodney would lovingly clean and delicately wrap, like Egyptian mummies. Donny was stronger than an ox. Donny’s father had been big and strong, too. Strong enough to beat up on his son anytime the mood hit him, which was often, when he was done using his wife, Queenie, as his personal punching bag, until she killed him with his own shotgun. Rodney’s own father had left them a long time ago, left Queenie to raise her two boys alone. Donny was special, but Queenie always said both her boys were special to her.

  Rodney had inherited his mother’s slimness and good looks. Everyone said he favored Queenie. And that Rodney took as a supreme compliment. After all, Queenie was a winner.

  He looked over at his mother’s picture and smiled. “There’s no one like you, Queenie. Never was before, never will be again. Only one even comes close.”

  He’d promised his brother another
scavenger hunt tonight, a reverse scavenger hunt. They weren’t hunting for anyone. Instead, they were delivering something. Donny wasn’t to ask what was in the package. That would ruin the fun. Rodney had picked out the new dump site, and he could hardly wait until it got dark.

  He knew the rules of jurisdiction. As long as he continued to dump the bodies on campus, the FBI couldn’t get involved unless they were invited in. And the campus police and the city cops—more like the Keystone Kops—were clueless. They had no intention of asking the Feds to their party. In the end, they’d bowed to public pressure. With the notoriety of the case, the outraged parents had demanded it. But as far as he was concerned, even with the FBI intervention, it wasn’t an even match. He was already on Contestant Number Six, and they had no idea who he was or when he would strike next or why he was doing what he was doing. At this rate, he’d rack up his goal of thirty girls in no time.

  He was rather enjoying this little contest of wits. Of course, now that the FBI was involved, he’d have to be more careful. FBI or no FBI, the campus police and city police were engaged in a pissing contest, and they were so busy getting in each other’s way they’d left the field wide open for him. Unfortunately, they had thrown a wrench into his plans when they called in Crystal Ball Kate, that psychic he’d seen all over the news. But she was no match for someone of his skills and abilities. And, just for fun, he might teach her a lesson, too.

  Tomorrow, after work, he would go trolling for Contestant Number Seven, and he would save the best—Katherine Crystal—now Katherine Crystal Hale—for last, unless an opportunity to snatch his prize came along earlier. Then he wouldn’t be able to resist her. He’d jump right on it. It would be more difficult, considering she was now a consultant for the Graysville Police Department. And that big brute of a husband of hers, Beauregard somebody or other, would be guarding her around the clock.

  But he was smarter than they were. And he was an insider, which was his advantage. He’d managed to kill Melinda Crawford right under the nose of that campus cop who had somehow transferred over to the Graysville City police force and was now guarding one of the homecoming contestants. Eventually that cop would let his guard down, and then he would make his move at exactly the right time and the right place.

  His work was done here. After a quick cleanup—which is where his janitorial skills came in handy—the newest package would be ready for its special delivery.

  Rodney hummed to the music. He enjoyed his job, not the one at the university, but this one here in his workroom. Sometimes it was backbreaking, standing over the bodies all day, but in the end, it was worth all the effort.

  Chapter One

  Traci Farris had been running for what seemed like miles. Running away from Jack Armstrong’s apartment. Running away from what easily would have been an ugly confrontation with Jack’s fiancée, Philippa Tannenbaum. Running away because she’d rather die than face Flippy and relive that look of shock and betrayal on her best friend’s face.

  “Wait,” a man’s voice called out. Traci turned toward the sound in midstride and nearly collided with a concrete bus bench.

  Gasping for breath, she stopped short and grabbed the bench post for support while her heart raced to play catch-up with her feet. She just wanted to disappear, to be swallowed up by the earth as twilight settled like a shroud over the ghostly quiet town of Graysville.

  The man at the bus stop—he was more of a big hulk of a boy—flashed her a dazzling smile that transformed his flabby face and lit up the night. It was a friendly face, and right now Traci desperately needed a friend. She’d seen him around campus from time to time. Hard to miss. He was very slow, but sweet, helpless, and harmless. He’d waved to her a number of times on her way to and from classes, and she’d waved back. She recalled helping him count out change once at the University bookstore.

  The boy fixed her with an endearing look.

  “Don’t you remember? I saw you in the show. You signed your picture for me.”

  Puzzled at first, Traci suddenly remembered where she’d last seen the boy-man. He’d approached her after last year’s homecoming pageant with his program in hand, asking for her autograph, just another star-struck fan, a backstage hanger-on. He’d been shy and appreciative when she signed his program. She’d been flattered. The boy had been lost in the crowd of people that night, agitated and confused when the cameras started flashing and the well-wishers surrounded her, almost crushing the two of them.

  “I’m waiting for my brother to pick me up,” the boy announced in a monotone. “He’s late.”

  “I’m sorry,” Traci managed, leaning against the post of the bus bench, still winded. “I really have to be going, but if you need to call your brother I have my cell phone right—” She realized then that she’d run out of Jack’s apartment without her purse or her cell phone. She wasn’t going back there anytime soon. “Well, I’m sure he’ll be along soon,” Traci said, happy to focus on someone else’s problems for a moment. “But I’ve got to be going.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Traci couldn’t answer because she didn’t know.

  “I’m going to the end of the world,” the boy announced, smiling.

  Perhaps she hadn’t heard him correctly. “The end of the world?”

  “That’s where I live,” said the boy. “Here.” He placed his right hand over his heart and then pointed a fat forefinger to a yellowing piece of paper pinned to his pitifully outdated flowered shirt. Didn’t the boy own a coat? It was freezing outside. At least she’d had the presence of mind to grab hers before leaving the “scene of the crime.” A Miami girl, born and bred in the sun, she hated the cold with a passion.

  Traci followed the boy’s black button eyes as they moved down insistently to the note. Did he want her to read it?

  “My name is Donny Willis,” she obliged. “I live at 5555 Skyline Road. Please take me home.”

  “You’re real pretty,” said Donny. “Just like my mama. My mama was real pretty, too.”

  “Thank you,” Traci said, her heart beating back to a near-normal pace. “But I really need to go now.”

  “If my brother doesn’t come, I’m supposed to take the bus.”

  Looking around, Traci suddenly felt exposed standing at the isolated bus stop as darkness got a chokehold on the sky. She’d passed a few stragglers, girls walking in pairs, scurrying home before curfew, probably packing heat. Normally the campus would have been alive with people. But nothing was normal anymore in Graysville. Every girl on campus was scared and wondering who the killer would grab next.

  If she had her cell phone she could call one of her sorority sisters for a ride home. Or one of those walking or driving student-safe-escort services. Or 9-1-1. She looked around. There wasn’t a pay phone or a policeman in sight. Where were the cops when you needed them?

  But if she went back to the sorority house, Flippy would find her and demand an explanation. Her friend, her former friend, deserved an explanation. But Traci had no excuse for her actions.

  A fresh set of hot tears streamed from Traci’s eyes. Flippy had every right to hate her. Traci knew from the beginning she’d been wrong to poach what belonged to someone else. But she’d done it anyway.

  Jack had been depressed about his football injury. He’d needed sympathy and a shoulder to cry on, and Traci had been more than available.

  Tired of Jack’s self-pity routine, Flippy was too busy now with her own life to babysit him. Once, she’d even let it slip to Traci that she wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing by marrying Jack. That she’d waited so long for love to come along and it never had. That her mother had been thrilled when Jack finally proposed. Barbara Tannenbaum was a force of nature. Flippy had spent her entire life trying to please her mother, so she and Jack had set a date. But that could have been just girl talk, pre-wedding jitters. Jitters or not, Flippy’s uncertainty didn’t give Traci a license to steal. Or stab her best friend in the back.

  It didn’t m
atter that Traci had secretly nursed a crush on Jack from the moment Flippy had introduced them and that Jack had fanned the flames by flirting with her every chance he got, especially when Flippy’s back was turned. One thing had led to another, and they’d become involved on the sly. And then Traci was in too deep, up to her neck in love with him. And now she’d lost them both.

  Earlier that evening, Flippy had walked in on them in bed, and the whole house of cards had come crashing down. The last words she heard were Jack’s, feebly begging Flippy to come back to him. He hadn’t even been concerned about Traci’s fragile feelings.

  “Are you taking the bus?” Donny interrupted her thoughts.

  “No,” Traci said softly, her eyes looking away from Donny’s beady ones, her mouth closed clam tight, her breath coming now in rapid, shallow bursts.

  “Will you wait with me?”

  Traci shrugged and began to shiver. Her body had started to shut down after the adrenalin rush. She needed time to think about what to do next. Maybe riding the bus to the end of the world wasn’t such a bad idea. No, it was a really stupid idea.

  She contemplated bolting from the bench when the blue city bus screeched to a stop in front of them and the driver cranked open the heavy steel doors.

  “Donny? Your brother late again? Hop on. I’ll take you on home.”

  “He says he lives at the end of the world,” Traci told the bus driver. “But there’s an address pinned to his shirt.”

  The bus driver chuckled. “He’s been wearing that raggedy old note for years. It’s a wonder anyone can still read it. Says his mother wrote it. He lives at the last stop, the end of the bus line. He calls it the end of the world. Probably never been anyplace else.”

  “I want to wait for my brother,” Donny said. “She can wait with me.” The boy turned to face Traci and nudged her, creeping uncomfortably closer into her personal space.

  “I—uh, need to go,” said Traci, noticing that the full moon was on the rise.

  “She can wait with me,” Donny repeated.

  Then Donny started to rock. Back and forth. And rant. And refused to get on the bus.