The Monster of Farewell (Blacklighters Book 1) Read online

  In the den, Sid and Paige continue to cram as much information into my ear as they can manage, and I'm smiling, happy to listen as they regale me with tales of high school angst, but that all comes to an end when Griffin claps a hand around both their shoulders and they fall mute. I don't like the power he seems to hold over them with a single touch, but I brush it off. He didn't just step up as their older brother when I went away. He stepped into Dad's shoes as well.

  “Give us a minute.” His voice is light but full of authority.

  The twins offer me one last smile and four more hugs before they leave. We weren't close before, but that seemed normal at the time, especially considering the age gap between us, but I vow to fix that. I make a silent promise to fix everything I've broken.

  When two doors quietly latch closed, Griffin leads me down the hall to his old room which Dad converted into a home office as soon as he graduated. My brother is the last person I want to be alone with right now, but the look on Griff's face is one I've never seen before, and I'm intrigued.

  “After you.” He waves for me to enter, his words flat and lifeless, much like his personality.

  The metal folding chair creaks beneath my weight, just like it did back in high school when my father would call me in to discuss my mediocre test scores. Griffin takes the only other seat—the one where our father sat to balance the checkbook and write love letters for Ma—and I don't like it. Not one fucking bit. Seeing the way he's claiming our dad's space like he deserves to sit there has my blood boiling. But I reign it in. I take a breath and force myself into a state of peace as I look around.

  The room hasn't changed one bit. My little league trophy still sits proudly in the window sill. A photo of Griffin the day he graduated from the academy still adorns the wall. And there are still more framed snapshots than I can count of the twins taking up every available surface. But what really draws and holds my attention is the one thing I missed most about this office: The shadowbox my father gave my mother on their first anniversary.

  The top holds a photograph of their wedding day—their first kiss as man and wife—flanked on both sides by the sterling silver cuff links my father wore that day. And beneath that, my mother's veil, which once belonged to her great-grandmother. The case is nothing grand, just a glorified frame, but growing up I used to stare into that glass and wonder if I'd ever find that. The magic my parents shared. The spark that lit their eyes each time they walked into the same room. The way the air seemed to electrify when they reached for each other. Every damn day, they somehow fell deeper in love, and it was an incomprehensible phenomenon. Still is. Their love was a fantasy in my eyes—the ultimate goal. But today? Today it's just an illusion. Because one fuck up came along and blew their epic love story to shit and the magic died. The spark and electricity faded. I know it did because I watched it leak out of my mother's eyes from the other side of a glass partition.

  “You know, I assumed you'd die in that cell.” Griffin places a square bottle and two glasses on the desk between us like we're old chums about to share a nightcap, instead of siblings at odds with one another.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” I snap. Then, just to be an even bigger ass, I grab one of the glasses and flip it over. “I don't drink.”

  Griffin openly glares at me, but he doesn't comment, which is good. I don't think I have the restraint to take any more shit from him tonight. As a younger brother, there's a certain amount of heckling I'm accustomed to, but our entire dynamic has changed. Now, he's a golden boy, I'm a screw-up. He's a cop, I'm a con. We've been on different paths for so long, it doesn't matter how many genes we share.

  “I'd tread very carefully if I were you.” Griffin's words hold a warning, one I brush off as he puts the extra glass away and settles into his chair, drink in hand. “You owe this family far more than what you're capable of paying.”

  I stiffen. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  I know exactly what it means. He's reminding me that I broke this family, and there's nothing I can ever do to fix it. But he's damned well going to do everything in his power to assure I get as close as possible. It's how he's wired—to push, push, push until you're standing over a ledge, empty and disoriented, while he weighs your pound of flesh.

  “It means you owe her.” He points a finger, aiming toward where I imagine our mother is standing at the kitchen sink. “You're not just gonna come back and make things harder than they already are.”

  A throbbing headache erupts behind my left eye. There's only so much prodding I can take, and even though he's a cop, right now he's just my brother. No gun. No badge. If it came down to it, I could knock him on his ass and never break a sweat. But I can't react, and I sure as shit can't take a swing, because I'd be proving him right. My mother doesn't have an easy life. Neither do the twins. It's taking everything they have to keep their heads above water financially, and the last thing they need from me is trouble. Meaning that, when it comes to Griffin, I have to play nice.

  “I'm not out to make anyone's life harder.” Even though it's the truth, I hate bending to Griffin's will. Fucking. Hate. It.

  “Good,” he chirps with a clap of his hands. “In that case, I have something for you.”

  A drawer screeches open and Griffin produces a thick, unmarked manila folder. He slaps it down between us with a flourish that echoes throughout the small room—dramatic, this one—and a flip of his hand reveals the contents. He pushes it forward and I begin to sift through each individual page, even though I have no idea what I'm looking at.

  It's mostly photos. Men in nondescript clothing, driving black SUVs or ducking down secluded alleyways. Small baggies or large wads of cash changing hands. Hospital photos of women and men with busted up faces, lacerations, bruises so dark they look blacker than black. Mixed in with the glossy prints are pages filled corner to corner with text. Scanned rap sheets from arrests and alias' I've never heard of before.

  Unease rolls through me as I look up to meet his eyes. “The hell is this?”

  Griffin pours another drink once his first is gone. “Your new job.”

  I bark out a laugh. “Yeah, try again.”

  The look he shoots me is all cop, communicating that I need to shut up and listen as he stands and strides around the desk, coming to a stop in front of a map of the state. It's been there so long it's sun-bleached, and I worry it'll tear when he circles a finger around a patch of woods straddling the Missouri-Arkansas line, roughly thirty miles away from where we sit. “Farewell, Missouri. No grocery stores, gas stations, or residential housing. Just thousands of trees and two structures, both on property owned by Daniel Havenworth.”

  Curiosity gets the best of me. “Who's that?”

  “No clue.” He tosses his hands in the air, then shoves them deep in the pockets of his dress slacks. “Other than the deed to this property, I can't find so much as a credit card registered to that name.”

  “Great police work, Griff.”

  My brother bristles, staring me down. Whatever. He's got nothing on the guards back at the correctional facility, and we both know it. Still, he angrily bends over the desk, pulling two aerial photos forward and slapping them down between us. He taps a finger to the two silver blocks in the dead center of what has to be hundreds of acres of woods. “This...is the Blacklighter property.”

  The second he says it, I groan.

  I grew up in southern Missouri, so I know all about Blacklighters. Their little commune is basically the ironic love child of Woodstock and Fight Club, meaning the New Liberty Police Department thinks they're all Satanists. In fact, I seem to remember hearing Griffin and his buddies theorizing about the place—saying it was operated by a trifecta of female sex traffickers, drug cartels, and professional killers. They were rumored to rake in more money per year than every oil tycoon in the country. Combined. It's a load of shit—an urban legend—and Griffin knows it. The reality of their existence is much simpler. Chicago and Seattle have their undergro
und fights, and Farewell has the Blacklighters; female cage fighters who beat each other to a pulp every Saturday night. The idea of bleeding for money is hardly a new concept. “Dude...c'mon.”

  One finger taps the glass he's holding but Griffin doesn't say a word.

  “So they fight. Big deal. Y'all have been up their ass for years. If you haven't called them out on a legit crime by now, chances are you never will.”

  My brother's face slowly transforms, and the shift makes me uncomfortable. At first, I don't know why, but then I realize it's because the fucker is smiling. Big and wide. And he's still smiling when he does a little digging and hands over a photo of a woman with faded eyes and long black hair.

  Blood dots her full lips. Her head rests on a silver table. Clearly, the broad is dead.

  “Did you seriously just hand a civilian autopsy photos?”

  Griffin bangs a fist against the desk. “Just look at the damn thing!”

  With an insane amount of reluctance, I do. The first thing I notice is a series of oblong bruises stretching across her neck, telling me the poor woman was strangled with some kind of chain. Beneath the mark that killed her is a design, one I don't recognize. At first glance, it looks like a tattoo, but the skin is raised, puckered like a scar. “What is that?”

  “A brand, indicating the person belongs to the Blacklighters.”

  It's a sun painted black. Intricate but gruesome. Each ray stretching outward is a crooked knife, but the ink work is messy, like the needle couldn't follow the rough terrain of burned flesh.

  Griffin spreads out the remaining photos, patiently waiting as I take it all in. Men and women with the same brand, just in different places. Neck, chest, arms. All the exact same design. “Each of these was taken in a town surrounding Farewell.”

  I look up. “So?”

  “So, they're not just fighters. This is a fucking cult,” Griffin seethes. “No one wants to be branded like cattle, but these people were marked all the same.”

  “Marked.” I'm careful to keep my tone even. The last thing I want to do is excite him further. “Marked as what?”

  Griffin leans in close, the scent of whiskey so strong on his breath it gives me an instant headache, but he keeps coming until we're practically nose-to-nose and he has one sausage finger shoved right against my clavicle. “Property.” He says it slowly—as if each syllable holds hidden meaning, but even if I fed into this fantasy of his, it's late. I'm fucking tired. And I have better things to do than hole up in my dead father's office with the brother I can't stand.

  “Alright. Level with me, Griffin. What the hell do you want?”

  I don't mince words. But neither does he. “I want you. You help me infiltrate Blacklighters, help me find out who this Jane Doe is and why she was killed, and I'll let you start over.”

  My eyes bulge and I can't help but laugh. What an arrogant fucker. “You'll let me start over? Griff...mom already offered me my old room. I don't need to go knocking down bar doors, sticking my nose where it doesn't belong.”

  “What about work?”

  I shrug. “I don't know. I'll find a job.”

  “Oh yeah? Just like that?” He says it like it's the most unthinkable thing imaginable. “You think the people around here are ready to welcome you back with open arms? You think they're jumping at the chance to employ a felon? A murderer?”

  That word.

  That...fucking word.

  I cringe at the sound of it, and dammit, Griffin notices.

  “Kessler, I need you to think about this, and think hard, brother.” He towers over me where I sit, holding a hand to my shoulder to stop me from moving. “If you do this for me, I'll pull whatever strings need to be pulled. If you can find what I'm looking for, you're set. Whatever you need, consider it yours. Job, house, rig. You name it, I'll get it.”

  “Just like that, huh?” I scrub my face to stifle a yawn. There are so many other things I'd rather be doing right now than feeding my brother's delusions.

  “Yeah. Just like that.” He moves away and starts organizing the file, tapping each sheet back into place. Then he holds it in the air between us. “You really want a fresh start? Here's your ticket.”

  Slowly, it dawns on me that I'm no one's first choice in anything, and when it comes to my brother, he's wishing I was still behind bars. So this isn't a one-sided proposition. There are strings. Lots and lots of strings. “What makes you think I can help you?”

  Without making a single sound, Griffin plucks a photo out of the very back of the file and lays it right on top where I can see. Hesitantly, I lean forward to take it in...and instantly regret it. It's a man buying a pop from a vending machine; an attractive redhead standing by his side. It's innocent enough upon first glance, but when I lean in close and scan the man's face, disbelief rockets through me.

  He's buffed up, looking far more dangerous than anyone with his background should, but it's clear he's the same guy who befriended me on our first day of kindergarten, which means he's the same guy who tried to talk me out of getting behind the wheel the night I murdered my father. And now, he's sporting a black sun on the side of his neck.

  “Looks like the Blacklighters have your BFF by the balls. I was hoping he owed you a favor.”

  I stare at Eric's picture, remembering all the times I fished him out of the dumpster behind school or let him cheat off me so he could pass Chemistry. He owes me a shit ton of favors, really, but I'm not sold.

  “Okay, so, let me get this straight...I just got released from prison, just promised our mother that I'd never get so much as a parking ticket ever again, and you want me to drive out to the middle of nowhere and beg a man I haven't seen in years to let me into a—for lack of a better word—cult, which is rumored to run guns, drugs, and women, and is somehow connected to a murder. Is that right?”

  Griffin scratches the stubble at his chin, nodding. “Yeah. That about sums it up.”

  “You're insane.”

  “No,” he smiles, holding a finger in the air. “I'm ambitious. We've been investigating Blacklighters for years. Every time a girl goes missing, we know—we fucking know where they are—but we can't do a damn thing about it without evidence beyond reasonable doubt. And if I'm the one to bring this down? Well...It's a win-win for both of us.”

  Prestige. That's Griffin's driving force, his only motivation, always has been. The asshat dreams of being revered and respected, cast in a heroic light the people of New Liberty will never let extinguish. Sadly, for him, I don't care how many zeroes he'd have added to his paycheck or what kind of promotion a takedown like this would warrant. I'm not doing it.

  “Sorry, Griff, but my answer's no. This has 'life sentence' written all over it.”

  I stand and head for the door, dead on my feet. My retreat, however, is cut short by the sound of metal slamming against metal, and the explosion of sound stops me in my tracks. I know I shouldn't do it, but I turn around anyway.

  “Actually, this has 'life sentence' written all over it.” Smiling like the fucking cat that got the canary, Griffin points to a clear bag housing a length of thick, rusted chain. The autopsy photo flashes to mind.

  “Why the hell do you have evidence from a murder investigation in our house? What else do you have in that desk?”

  Griffin ignores my concern. “I lifted three prints, Kess. One of which belongs to your bestie.”

  “No. He wouldn't do that.” I shake my head, but even to my own ears, I'm unconvincing. Because the truth is, I don't know Eric anymore than he knows me. I'd like to think he's still the clever, even-tempered guy I knew in my youth, but people change.

  “Maybe not, but someone did, Kessler, and if I can't bring them all down, then I have to bring someone in, and Eric's the only lead I've got.”

  “And what if he's innocent?”

  Griffin shrugs. “I've gotta feed someone to the wolves. You know how this works.”

  Yeah. Sadly, I do.

  I sigh, hard and loud, far past the
point of wanting to rip my hair out in frustration. This is the last thing I need right now, but at one point in time, Eric was more than just a friend. He spent more nights at our dinner table filling his belly with homemade fare and playing basketball in the driveway with my father than I did. And my dad adored him. He was one of us. He was family.

  Fuck me for having a conscience. “What do you need?”

  Griffin's smile turns my stomach. “Just intel. Something solid enough for a warrant. Once we're inside, the rest is cake.”

  “And Eric?”

  I don't know why I'm bartering for a man's freedom, especially when he could be guilty, but that pesky voice in the back of my head is telling me Eric's innocent. And if there's one thing that eight years in prison taught me, it's that the number of men who are wrongly convicted and sentenced to heavy time is astounding. I don't want that for Eric.

  “If you help me prove the Blacklighters have anything to do with any toxic happenings whatsoever, the two of you can walk. Full amnesty.”

  “Hold up.” I lift a hand between us, stopping him. “Why the hell do I need pardoned? I haven't done anything wrong.”

  “Not yet.”

  Blood drains from my face with those two words.

  Well fuck me running.

  I know Griffin, so I know what lengths he'll go to ensure he comes out on top. Whether or not I agree to this cockamamie plan of his, he'll have no problem offering me up as the sacrificial lamb, blood or not. And we both know it would only take a single cake-sprinkles' worth of doubt to put my integrity into question at this point. If Griffin wants this enough, he won't hesitate to throw me under the bus if I don't offer him my full cooperation.

  So this is how he expects me to pay—to fix what I've broken and atone for my sins. Either I play his game and win, offering him a claim to fame on a silver platter...or I fail and land my ass back behind bars for taking part in something that was his idea in the first place. No matter how it ends, Griffin comes out smelling of roses, and there's not a doubt in my mind that he manufactured it that way.