Page 1 of Go Alone

PROLOGUE

Tuesday, March 9th

Patrice Mullen pulled her Lexus RX300 to a stop in front of Leonard Odum’s house and checked her reflection in the vanity mirror. Like her SUV, Patrice was aging, but in spite of the wrinkles deepening at the corners of her eyes and mouth and the gray in her hair that dye could no longer completely drive away, she still cut a fine figure if she said so herself.

“And I do say so myself,” she said aloud, smiling as she checked her lipstick. “Besides,” she opined, pulling the stick out and popping the cap, “Leonard’s no spring chicken himself.”

Leonard was also a confirmed bachelor and had shown no interest in Patrice other than the occasional daytime conversation on one of their front porches. Most recently, it was her front porch when she asked him to bring over a casserole dish in exchange for sharing some of the casserole with her.

Tonight, she intended their conversation to take place inside his home, preferably in his bedroom. She was old, but, as the saying went, she wasn't dead. And he must have some desire left in his old bones.

She grabbed the casserole dish and stepped out of the car. She shivered once as she walked to his front door. The day wasn't particularly cold, but a couple of inches of snow remained on the ground, and as it dissipated, it always seemed to chill the air above it a little more. March really was a frustrating month. Like Leonard, it warmed up reluctantly and seemed too content to hold onto the chill of winter. April was much better. Only a trace remains of snow clung to the darker corners cast by homes and trees in Akron's outer suburbs.

And May? Ooh, May. Well, by May, Patrice would either be very familiar with Leonard's bedroom or she would have written him off and begun to search elsewhere for companionship.

She rang the doorbell, standing straight with her chin slightly lifted to show off a body that thankfully had aged far more slowly than her face. She waited thirty seconds, and when no answer arrived, she rang again.

She waited another thirty seconds. Still no answer.

Another chill ran through her spine, this one having nothing to do with the March evening cold. She heard a soft tapping noise and looked around for the source before realizing it was her own left foot.

She stilled it and rang the doorbell a third time. Maybe he wasn't home. Leonard was a homebody, and in his own words, never left the house, but obviously, he couldn't have meant that literally. He had to buy groceries if nothing else. Well, she supposed he could have them delivered, but the fees were so exorbitant. She couldn't see him paying for those when he groused at length about the price of stamps.

She swallowed when no reply came. Three rings. He wasn't home. If he were home, he would have answered. It was time to leave and try again later. She'd text him that she had tried him at his house, but he wasn't there, and ask when he'd be home again.

Instead of leaving, she remained rooted to the spot, held there by a premonition for which she had no name, only a feeling, a deep, rumbling terror that smoldered in the back of her mind, whispering to her that something had gone horribly wrong inside of her friend’s house.

A rustling noise sounded directly behind her. She spun around with a cry, just in time to see a pigeon dodge a second attack from the peregrine hunting it. The pigeon looped under the peregrine and over the roof, flapping and cooing as it fled from the flummoxed falcon. The pigeon’s cries were almost certainly of fear, but to Patrice’s ears, they sounded like laughter.

A single feather, whether from prey or predator, Patrice couldn’t tell, drifted slowly to the ground, coming to rest on a small drift of snow. Patrice watched it fall, heart thudding in her chest. An odd scent filled her nostrils, a must that she recognized dully as the pheromones released by the pigeon when it came millimeters away from death.

She turned back to the door with sudden force and knocked hard. Her fist impacted the door twice before shaking in empty air as the door—the unlocked door—pushed inward.

For the second time in a single minute, Patrice stood, transfixed with terror.

He just forgot to lock it when he left. That’s all. After all, he would have heard this commotion, especially the little squeak you released when the birds fought.

Another thought, cold and blunt, followed that one. Or he’s dead in that house, and he can’t say or do anything in response to your greeting because his blood’s drained from his head and pooled in the corner of his kitchen to congeal and dry and—

With a hoarse cry, she pushed the door open and thudded into the house. She would get to the bottom of this. She would put her casserole dish in the sink, look around the house, satisfy herself he wasn’t there, laugh at her foolishness, leave—making sure to lock Leonard’s door behind her—and text him about what a silly old girl she was. She—

She stepped into the dining room, and once more, her instincts reacted before her senses identified the threat. She shrieked and dropped the casserole dish. It shattered on Leonard’s granite tile floor. A thick shard of glass sliced her ankle deeply enough that she would need four stitches later, but she didn’t feel it at that moment.

When her senses caught up to her instincts, her lips formed the first syllable of Leonard’s name. Her voice died before she made it to the second.

That wasn’t Leonard, and the musty smell wasn’t pheromones. The man sitting at Leonard’s dining room table with his palms flat on the table, right hand over left, and his head resting atop them, eyes shut as though in slumber, was Leonard’s next-door neighbor, Howard Greer.

The musty smell emanated from the potting soil stuffed into Howard’s gaping mouth.

Her senses clicked the rest of the way on, and the scream she released this time was enough to alert the neighbor across the way, who promptly called the police. They arrived four minutes later and found Patrice huddled in the corner of the kitchen, staring at the body and muttering that the pigeon hadn’t gotten away after all.

CHAPTER ONE

Wednesday, March 10th

Kate Valentine rubbed her chin, half expecting to find stubble there. She chuckled at that thought, but she couldn’t hold onto the levity the image brought.

On the kitchen table in front of her were the scattered photographs, files, and notes accumulated over months of research into her father’s life and any possible connection he might have had to Elijah Cox, the Lawgiver, a killer who remained at large and remained the head of an unknown number of disciples murdering victims who transgressed the Ten Commandments.