glared. âWe get to work now.â
Rosario did. Thankfully, her mother soon got too wrapped in getting beer stains out of the living room carpet to yell at her anymore. Sheâd escaped, at least temporarily, into another room.
It was while halfheartedly scrubbing the office floor that Rosario found a pile of dusty-looking envelopes against a wall. Several pieces of unopened mail had fallen from the desk. Mail Rosario was supposed to deliver to Mr. Winchesterâs secretarial company. Sheâd forgotten. Forâ¦uhâ¦weeksâ¦surely no more.
The postmarks said the items were a year old.
As she rifled through them, she thought quickly, fighting back panic. âSales circularsâ¦thatâs okayâ¦oh no, bills. Paid now,â she muttered and thrust them into a garbage bag. That left a few personal-looking items, including a thick manila envelope with a jack-oâ-lantern sticker on it. âMaybe heâll think itâs for this Halloween.â Her voice held a pathetic note of hope.
âWhat you are doing?â
Caught! âSome mail fell back here,â she whispered.
Grandmama muttered a wicked-sounding curse that would likely result in black hairs sprouting out of Rosarioâs back. Or warts on her chin. Again. Then she stalked over and seized the mail. Sighing, she shook her head and raised her eyes heavenward, a picture of visual piety. âWe leave it in Godâs hands.â
Grandmama, however, apparently thought Godâs hands were full enough with piddling issues like world peace, the stock market and the prayers of hopeful lottery players. She seemed to want to help him out. Reaching into the bucket Rosario had been using to wash the floor, she retrieved a sponge full of dirty water. Rosario watched, shocked, as her grandmother smeared the sponge over the exterior of the remaining envelopes.
âNo telling when they came,â the old woman said. âLost. Ruined by bad weather. He throws them out himself. No blame.â
Her grandmama was helping her? Not calling to Mama to come and deliver more shouts or bruising swings of her handbag? Rosario clutched her grandmotherâs skirt. âThank you.â
In response, she got a smack in the head with a wet sponge.
âYouâre fired.â
1
A few days later
JARED WINCHESTER wished the weather was warm enough to merit the brilliant blue of the autumn sky. But in spite of the clear dayâsuch a change from the dark Russian skies heâd seen for the past yearâthe temperature was brutal. Too bad. Heâd have loved to put down the top on his convertible for the drive to Derryville.
He settled back in his leather seat, one hand on the steering wheel. God, heâd missed his car. Almost as much as heâd missed the sunshine.
His trip to research the Glanovsky serial killer case had come to an end a few months early due to interference from the government. But not early enough. Heâd returned a couple of days ago just in time to go from freezing cold Russian autumn right into freezing cold Chicago winter. Itâd been more than a year since heâd felt warm.
Perhaps it was appropriate, considering heâd soon be writing a book about one of the coldest crime sprees the former Soviet Union had ever seen. The Soviets hadnât liked to admit to such western aberrations as serial killers, so theyâd done some covering up over the years. Jared had uncovered a lot. Enough that the present officials had gotten antsy and stopped cooperating. âLet it go,â he murmured, not wanting to let frustration over bureaucracy affect his drive to his cousinâs party.
With a tap of a button, the car filled with a blast of good old head-banging hard rock from the good old U.S. of A. His favorite music, though few would believe it. Damn, home felt good. Put a six-pack of real beer in the trunk, and a fast-food burger made of real beef in his hand, and heâd be set. It was time to reclaim his normal life. Get out of the world of a serial killer, at least until he had to begin writing the book he was contracted to deliver next spring. Beer and burgers would help.
âSome mind-blowing sex wouldnât hurt, either.â
Not that heâd been celibate in Russia. Heâd had a little fling with a detective who had a thing for cowboys. It had been fun, though sheâd been disappointed that heâd refused to have sex while wearing boots and a ten-gallon hat. Not to mention spurs.
But it had been too long since heâd enjoyed slow, sensual sex with someone who liked to curl up together afterward. Martina, the cowboy groupie, had preferred to go arrest people after a hot romp. Jared was out of the arresting people business. Way out. And he had no interest in returning to it.
Since he had no serious woman in his life, and hadnât kept in touch with any of the less serious ones, that need would have to wait. The difficulty with relationships was one of the toughest parts of his job. Not just because of the travel, but because most women couldnât take what he did. The crimes he researched, his ability to reconstruct horrific eventsâ¦well, he hadnât met a woman yet whoâd even tried to understand. And the fact that he tended to be a pretty introverted guy could throw a woman off. He spent nearly all his time doing research and writing. His social skills were pretty rusty.
Sure, women understood the paycheck, the penthouse, the cars, the cash. But not the man. Never the man.
That probably wasnât too surprising. His own family had a tough time understanding the way his mind worked sometimes. When his parents had asked why he was leaving the bureau a few years back, heâd tried to explain. Being raised in a family of cops had made him develop a fascination with crime from a young age, even though Derryville hadnât exactly been crime central.
The fascination, however, wasnât so much in solving crimes, but rather in understanding the psychology behind them, in putting the pieces together to figure out not only what had happened, but why it had happened. And, perhaps, in preventing something similar from happening again.
That pretty much summed up why the FBI hadnât been for him, while writing true crime novels was.
Glancing at his open briefcase, he ignored the stack of files and photos from the Russian case, which he should have left at home. Instead he focused on the smeary padded envelopeâthe reason for this trip. âMick, you are one crazy son of a bitch.â
Leave it to his cousin to plan an outrageous Halloween party. A murder weekend. Complete with thrills and chills at a bona fide haunted house. Right up Jaredâs alley. Time had, after all, recently called him the Stephen King of the nonfiction world. As a big fan of King for years, heâd taken it as a huge compliment.
The key wasnât the murder, thrills and chills. Knowing Mick, this weekend would be pure fun. Low stress. And with Mickâs love for practical jokes, a lot of laughs. Just what he needed.
The plans for the party were intricate. The envelope contained realistic-looking fake ID, and a dossier on his character. There were maps, coded messages, even a photo of the bad guyâan international arms dealerâhe was allegedly pursuing.
Jared looked the part, too. Heâd dressed all in black. And heâd found props,
