Murder in Misery (Spook Squad) Read Free

Keegan braced her self for what she was afraid she may see curled up in the man’s arms. It didn’t matter that everyone else thought baby Connor was missing. Something inside of her was saying that baby Connor wasn’t missing. The way this man was laying, curled into himself, his head tucked into his arms. That was a protective pose. He was protecting something other than himself if he left that much of his neck, even the back of it, exposed. It was too vulnerable of a pose. Anyone supernatural or familiar with the supernatural wouldn’t have done that.
    Bending down Keegan grasped the arms in her hand and tugged. He was still in rigor, frozen until enough time passed. Almost everyone in the room grew tense as she tugged the arm again and grimaced at the state of rigor. She looked up for permission to pull the limb out of rigor as well as she could manage and Doctor Biggerson nodded. With steady hands she worked until the muscles popped and crunched. She maneuvered the arm until she could see the bundle of bloodied green blankets.
    “I need a tech,” Keegan’s voice was almost a whisper but Dr. Biggerson and a crime scene unit tech crouched beside her. His camera clicking away as she and the doctor worked to document this as well as they could. As soon as they moved his body away from the bundle Keegan pulled back the blankets.
    She heard someone run from the room, the tell-tale sound of someone emptying their stomach in the hallway. Connor lay wrapped in his father’s arms. His face was spattered with blood and his clothes soaked down to the skin. There was a claw like gash crossing across his chest and out of nowhere Connor let out a mewling cry.
    Her reaction was immediate. She pulled Connor from the protective hold and towards the nearest bathroom. She grabbed the towels from the rack and wrapped the baby in them. It didn’t take more than a few moments for paramedics to crowd the living room and wrap the infant in blankets as they carried him from the house and out to the ambulance barking out orders and radios crackling.
    All the crime scene techs and detectives stared after the paramedics as they rushed from the house and into the ambulance.
    “How’d you know?” Detective Hollis’ voice cracked as he spoke. Keegan could feel the guilt for not knowing the baby was there the entire time, for not doing something for him earlier. Every minute he spent wrapped in his father’s arms was another moment that he stepped closer to death.
    She could already feel death beckoning from the corners of the room. As soon as they whisked the child from the room death followed Connor to where ever he was going. One of the worst things about being a necromancer was finding a victim on the edge of the living and the dying. It was even worse finding a baby, who had not had the chance to experience life give in to the bliss that death offered.
    “I didn’t,” Keegan rolled her lips together, trying to stave off the tears, “Certain supernatural species have been known to sacrifice everything in order to save their children. The way he was curled up meant one of two things. He was trying to protect himself or he was protecting someone he loved. He wouldn’t have left his neck exposed like that if he was protecting himself, not if he and the woman had been together very long. The question is, why did they die and who or what did Connor need to be protected from?”

After submitting her clothes from the crime scene into evidence and changing into a spare set she kept in her locker Keegan couldn’t manage to sit still. She paced the square footage of the basement underneath the police headquarters that housed the SIU, Supernatural Investigative Unit. There were only four desks, and as many file cabinets but the amount of book cases housing materials on supernatural beings lined each wall of the room.
    She hadn’t quite settled down behind her desk before her cell phone was ringing and the Captain was requesting conference