The Dead Don’t Lie: An Unpredictable Psychological Crime Thriller: Mind Games, #3

CHAPTER

ONE

Gauzy sun slithered through the early fog and cast murky shadows along either side of the path. Each pulsing thud of Lindsay’s sneakers sent the brittle leaves crackling, the twigs snapping like tiny bones, the sparse grass wetting her ankles with dew. It was eerie, she decided, like walking over your own grave. But Lindsay didn’t mind. The high-pitched screech of birdsong and the prickling flesh along her back only urged her to run faster over the rutted dirt.

She wiped sweat from her already dripping brow. Three weeks until school was out for good—three weeks until graduation and summer. In Fernborn, Indiana, the city to her west, and the neighboring town of Tysdale to her east, that meant state fairs and trips to the lake. Scary stories around a campfire.

And Jeff. Possibly without his shirt. But for now… she had this.

The fork in the road approached like a mirage, first shimmering lazily, then vanishing when her focus wavered. Straight ahead, dappled sunlight filtered through the canopy and cut the darkness with hazy gold. That was the way others would go—the only path, so far as most knew. But she wasn’t most. Heavy moss cloaked the entrance of the second path, the low-hanging branches so dense with wild kudzu that she could not see any glint of daylight beneath. The contrast was so stark that Lindsay hesitated, her feet still pounding the earth, her breath panting from her lips. Then she tightened her ponytail and hooked a right, ducking beneath the slippery vines and into the dark.

The path here was choked with weeds and spiky sweet gum pods—more brittle crackling, more snapping bones, the damp scent of rotting underbrush in her nose. Lindsay gritted her teeth. Unless she wanted to run back and forth over the same path, she had no choice but to take the trail that wound over the steeper hills closer to Fernborn. This last cross-country meet was supposed to be a doozy, and better runners than her had wound up puking on the curb. If she trained hard enough through these unmanned briars, the hilly—but weed-free—track of the actual race should be a cakewalk.

The fog condensed as she made her way along, the darkness more insistent. Fingers of chill crawled along Lindsay’s spine like witches’ nails, but she ignored the prickling and pushed on. She was not some character in a horror novel, some vulnerable girl who’d be easy pickings for a machete-wielding serial killer. She was Lindsay Dash Harris, soon-to-be winner of the Indiana Cross Country Meet—again—and a kickboxer on the weekends. Besides, what kind of serial killer would be roaming the woods at eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning? That was not how killers worked. A dark city alley, a van on a long, lonely road, a strange man at a college bar, the Supreme Court—those were the real threats. But out here? Not nearly enough victims passing through for anyone intent on harm. This was a place for high school students skipping first period so they didn’t have to skip the movies with their boyfriends later. What was she going to use trigonometry for, anyway?

But as the trail veered left, Lindsay squinted at the path ahead, her feet throbbing in time to her heart, her back sticky with sweat. She blinked away salt, her eyes stinging. What the heck was that?

Lindsay slowed as she finished rounding the gentle curve, then resorted to jogging in place. Not a killer, not a human at all, though that didn’t make it any less intrusive—she could have kneed a strange man in the balls and been on her way. This was not so simple. A wall of greenery stood before her, the massive trunk taller than she was and barely visible through the thick foliage. Branches waved like kicking legs, each with enough leafy boughs to block the sun. From the black gouge along the trunk far down to her right, the giant oak had been struck by lightning and collapsed. Quitter.

Lindsay glanced back the way she’d come, debating. She could turn around and head back to the main path, then follow it around to her car. But she hadn’t won a bookcase full of trophies for taking the easy way out.

Decision made, she approached the tree. She could not climb through—the branches were so thick, so haphazard and mean, that she wouldn’t make it to the other side without getting wickedly gouged. To her right, the trunk reached who knew how far, the roots surely a minefield. And she was already in the upper boughs. Surely those leftward shadows led to the top of the tree, and the damaged earth where the oak had fallen carved out a passable aisle. She’d go around, pick up the path on the other side, and loop her way back to the fork when the time came; she knew where to cut through. Plus, she’d have a story to tell her coach, though she’d leave out the part about skipping school.

Her thighs burned as she jogged over the uneven ground, jumping the occasional extra-long branch and skirting dewberry and thistle. Above her, the canopy cleared, admitting the filtered dawn—the oak had taken some of the smaller saplings with it when it collapsed. The musk of mud and the wet heat of endurance filled her nose. It smelled like success.

Lindsay smiled. She ran on, and on, and on, letting her heart mellow into a steady ache, her lungs adjusting to the strain, her legs going numb. Euphoria rarely came easy, but once that runner’s high kicked in, it was… well, even better than being with Jeff, and that was really saying somethi—

The earth vanished, her body hurtling through space. The ground smashed into Lindsay’s shin like a freight train covered in broken glass. A loud snap echoed off the trees—another broken branch?

For a moment, she lay on the earth, panting. Stunned. She’d fallen, she knew that. Tripped. The shadow of the oak made the sweat on her face go cold, chilling her to the bone. She tried to force her hands beneath her, tried to push herself up, but she was shaking too badly. She collapsed in the mud, cheek against the ground, grit worming its way into her left nostril.

Then the pain hit.

It ripped through her consciousness, shattering her runner’s high, a white-hot blast of pure agony. Lindsay shrieked, suddenly very aware of her solitude. She was miles from either town—she could scream for days without being heard. Perhaps she had been wrong about that serial killer lurking in the quiet woods. Maybe some murderer had set a trap and would come back for her at nightfall. The thought was delirious and irrational, but she clung to it with everything in her soul, letting it focus her.

The hell he’ll come back to get me. I’m getting out of here!

Lindsay ground her teeth together hard enough to make her roots ache and shoved herself to seated, moaning, then tenderly shifted onto her butt. Her ankle was cocked at a weird angle, the bone not right—definitely not right. Her toes were hot, her shin a blistering fire poker that jabbed clear through her knee.

She snorted the grit from her nostril, gagged, choked back a sob, and blinked at the earth—too dark. Lindsay paused. She gaped at the blackness. The ground… wasn’t there.

Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. Was she imagining things, mad with pain? No. The earth near the tree was there, but several of the branches poked down into nothingness. A sweet gum pod, teetering on the edge, slipped away into the chasm. And fell.

And fell.

And fell.

She listened, frozen, waiting for the pod to hit the bottom…

Silence from the hole. Above, birds twittered, laughing at her. Blood pulsed frantically in her ears, dread tightening her chest. Was she sitting on top of the hole, protected only by the sparest tangle of dried vines? One wrong move, and she’d be swallowed up, hidden forever in the bowels of the earth.

Lindsay reached behind her, grabbing the oak’s branches for leverage—for safety—and yanked, her face slick with sweat and tears. She sobbed harder as she pulled herself away from the opening, easing back to stable ground. But the hole. She was still so close to the hole, her bad foot extending over the void as if begging some underworld creature to reach up and drag her, flailing, into the abyss. She grunted and moved again, her thigh grating against the ground—that wasn’t dirt. Something hard, frigid, a little damp. Stone?

Lindsay shifted back again, catching her injured leg, crying out so loudly that the twittering birds took flight with a burst of staccato squawking. Her ankle burned. She hissed another inhale, panting with pain and exertion and terror. She’d calm down, just calm down, and then she’d fashion a cane. She’d limp back to her car. She would not be beaten by a friggin’ hole—she would not be, literally, beaten by nothing.

With a final guttural heave, Lindsay hauled herself fully into the spiked web of branches, the ground beneath her solid. She blinked at the rocks, trying to catch her breath. The cavity in the muddy earth was guarded by a few rotten planks, their jagged splinters stabbing over the hole. The stones that bordered the opening were too uniform to be natural. Eroded, but stacked neatly at a concave angle. A… well?

The burst of focus might have been a distraction, her brain trying to ignore her misery, but Lindsay remained still, branches jabbing at the flesh of her back, staring. Though her leg was throbbing, fire shooting from toes to thigh, adrenaline pulsing in jagged bursts through her veins, she couldn’t help but look.

Lindsey slowly shifted onto her good hip, tears coursing down her cheeks, and leaned over, craning her neck, clutching a branch for support. She squinted. At first, the foliage from the downed tree cast murky shadows into the hollow of the well. But as she watched, a shimmering beam of morning pierced the dim, blades of glitter cutting through the darkness at the bottom.

The images came to her in flashes, pulsing in time to the pain in her leg. The world stopped moving. And though she knew no one could hear her, Lindsay screamed again.

This time, she couldn’t stop.

CHAPTER

TWO

Come on, Maggie. Why not? Reid blinked, the rings around his amber irises glinting gold in the early sun. His red pocket square almost perfectly matched her red corduroys as if they’d planned it. A year ago, she hadn’t imagined they’d end up here. Not because she consulted with the police department to catch serial killers, but because she and Reid hadn’t started out as friends.

Maggie removed her reading glasses—dark cat-eyed frames. Because you’re a doofus, Reid, and I don’t like you. Only part of that was true, but she tended to surround herself with doofuses, geeks, and spazzes on purpose. As her best friend Sammy would say, it takes one to know one. Even her glasses screamed "librarian with a penchant for D&D," which was pretty close to accurate.

Reid raised an eyebrow, the barest hint of stubble on his square jaw glittering. Light bounced around the items under the office window, too—her father’s old sofa table, her brother’s baseball still inside its leather glove. Aiden’s photo shone beside it, his picture invisible behind the glare.

Really? Reid said. And here I thought the chai might butter you up.

A birthday card might have worked better. Her business partner had a meeting with his lawyer, but Owen had still left her a cupcake and a fancy new ballpoint pen. Maggie tucked a long red curl behind her ear and glanced at the paper cup. She didn’t need another celebration—she’d already had jalapeño toast and donut holes with Sammy and Alex, her nearest and dearest. They’d purchased a fountain for her backyard, too: cherub-esque Sesame Street characters peeing into a birdbath. A real childhood ruiner, but she’d been in a battle of wits with the squirrels for months, and them drinking from a muppet toilet made her smile. It had been a good day so far. Until now.

She met Reid’s gaze—so hopeful—and suppressed a sigh. Do I look like I’d fit in at a police department gala? Large groups of cops made her skin itch, and not because her father had taken an officer’s bullet in the rib while protecting his suicidal patient. Nor was it because her mother was currently under house arrest.

Okay, maybe it was a little of those things. Maggie was the only one in the family who had yet to end up on the wrong side of the law. And Reid didn’t know that she worked with an underground organization that helped domestic violence victims disappear. Not illegal, but she was riding that line pretty hard.

Reid crossed his ankle over the opposite knee. They all want to meet the woman who’s helping Ezra—the psychologist who solved several high-profile cases. I think they’re hoping you’ll work with others in the department.

I’d rather shove a cactus up my nose. Serial killers are dramatic enough without having to break in a new partner.

He grinned and laid his hand over his heart. You sweet-talker.

She rolled her eyes, then went on: "And I’m only treating Ezra as a favor to you. I’m certainly not seeking notoriety from the Fernborn PD." The boy was making progress; he was better at identifying emotions, better at conforming to the required behaviors at school. She’d never forget that Ezra had killed her pet tarantula, but he hadn’t killed anyone else’s pet; hadn’t murdered any new humans either. Bully for him. And for Reid, too—Ezra’s biological father was buried in the Fernborn cemetery, courtesy of a serial killer who’d enlisted Ezra’s help. If only the boy hadn’t taken to the task so enthusiastically.

Reid nodded to the cup on her desk—mostly cold now. I knew that chai was good for something. Wait, what had they been talking about? Reid took a sip of his coffee, then leaned over to toss the empty cup into the can beside her desk. Just think about it, okay? I know those things can be tedious, but I could use a friend. It might even be fun.

Right. A friend, not a date. Being coworkers made things sticky in the least fun sense of that phrase. Maggie shook her head. Ask Tristan to go with you. He’s a consultant too. A rich tech-businessman consultant who didn’t need the job, but a consultant none the less.

Reid’s gaze darkened. Instead of responding to the suggestion, he pressed his hands together, suit cuffs touching. Begging, complete with puppy dog eyes.

"You look like Elon Musk trying to get the universe to just love you a little more." Though Reid was cuter in his tall, broad-shouldered way. Not that things like that mattered to co-working friends.

If the universe doesn’t love him, it’s certainly been kinder to him than he deserves. Reid dropped his hands to his lap. I’m not asking for a favor without compensation. I’ll give you anything you want.

Anything? Interesting. She laid her palms on her desk. Fine. I’ll go to this party with you, if you and Tristan have a guys’ weekend together. No electronics, no work, just you and him, alone in the wilderness.

His brown eyes widened. He sat back in his chair in slow motion. Are you serious? He’d spent years trying to arrest his half-brother, until Maggie had helped to prove the man innocent. Tristan had been her patient at that time; it was how she and Reid had met.

Serious as a mathematician on speed.

He opened his mouth as if to respond, then closed it again. His brow furrowed. A… what?

A squirrel during nut season?

He frowned. When the hell is nut season?

As serious as you after three bran muffins, stuck in an elevator during a power outage. She slid her hands from the desktop and locked her fingers in her fiery curls, miming tear-her-hair-out frustration. I don’t care what metaphor you use. Even if you don’t have brotherly barbecues, I think it’s time you two buried the hatchet. Hopefully not in one another’s heads.

That is a sneaky shrink trick, using your company as a bargaining chip.

Maggie sat back and shrugged. It was a little sneaky, sure, but she had the best of intentions—she wasn’t even benefitting in this bartering scenario. She was basically a saint. I have to deal with you both every time I take a case, and it’ll be easier if you get along. Tristan consulted as often as she did, taking the technical side while she worked the psychological.

Reid’s eyes crinkled at the corners; he uncrossed his legs. He had this habit of crossing one ankle over the opposite knee if he was even a little anxious, and as a homicide detective, he was usually on edge.

Fine, he said slowly. You convince Tristan that we should go camping together, and I’ll get the tents. But this is going to end badly. With a final sniff and a nod, Reid pushed himself to his feet. In the meantime, I better get to work.

Have a good one. And if you need a consult about something besides partying, I’ll be free first thing in the morning. Because today is my birthday, and I’m taking the afternoon off. She never took days off. Would he recognize this as a deviation in behavior?

Reid smiled and headed for the door. Thanks, Maggie. I appreciate it.

Some detective you are. Reid?

He turned back.

One tent, she said. Make it a small one.

CHAPTER

THREE

I shouldn’t be here.

Maggie stared through the windshield at the strip mall. Two fast-food restaurants hulked out front, hiding the buildings in the back of the lot. A furniture store—closed down these days—sat to her left. Behind it was another building that appeared abandoned, and it almost was. Almost. The sign for psychic readings was always lit, a garish pink neon, but there was no palm reader, and no crystal balls waited behind the darkened glass. The flip sign on the door always read CLOSED. But a single stairway to the side of the building led to the basement, and beyond that…

She blinked.

Nothing said happy birthday like a few hours in an underground sex club. It was anonymous, and everyone had to submit routine physicals complete with STD tests—safer than a one-night stand picked up in a bar. Plus, in the latter scenario, she’d have to go to a bar and talk to strangers. Gross.

Her fingers clenched, her knuckles white around the steering wheel. So why wasn’t she getting out of the car? It was too early for others to have arrived, but she’d known what time it was before she drove down here. And she’d purposefully made plans with her friends this morning so she’d be alone tonight.

Maggie sighed. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her friends. Not even that she didn’t want to celebrate. It was…

Her chest tightened. It was her second birthday without Kevin. The first had swum past in a haze of grief without her even realizing it was her birthday, but this one…

Yeah, this one. Thirty-seven, and she was fully aware that Kevin wasn’t with her. Fully aware that no one had made her breakfast in bed or given her some silly gift—an RC car, a kite, an assortment of bouncy balls—while she was still in her pajamas. To be fair, it was hard to get over someone who drove themselves off a bridge when you turned down their marriage proposal. An accident? The police had ruled it as such. But when it was quiet, and the world was dark, Maggie wasn’t sure.

She blinked at the psychic reading sign, the path that led to the stairwell. No one in this anonymous place would launch himself into a river because of her—no one here knew her well enough. And imagining Kevin’s face over those of the masked men had eased the grief… for a while. When she’d closed her eyes, they even smelled like Kevin.

But it was dangerous to get attached, like choosing a pet at a chicken processing plant. And once she’d started seeking out the same man, once she’d begun putting Tristan’s face over his leather mask, imagining that the man smelled like Tristan instead of Kevin…

None of that was healthy. She’d called it grieving when it was just Kevin’s face, but it was obsessive to fantasize about an ex-patient like that. And she felt saner when she was away from Tristan and from this club; she should probably leave before she started to backslide.

The bobblehead on her dashboard stared at her: Beaker from The Muppet Show, his plastic eyes glaring—judging her. She had bobblehead Bert in her drawer at work. Bobblehead Ernie had watched Kevin drive off that bridge, had watched him die, nodding the whole time.

Maggie loosened her fingers and wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. What are you doing, Mags? Go home. Call Sammy. But she didn’t want to fight the tightness around her heart, the sickness in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to eat cake and pretend that she wanted to be there and not wrapped in Kevin’s arms. The dissonance was exhausting.

That’s why I’m here. I don’t want to pretend.

She glared through the windshield at the pink neon—PSYCHIC READINGS—the flip sign underneath