Night Terrors Read Free Page A

that he’d gotten my number from the Pittsburgh Police Department.
    And that his call was urgent.

Chapter Three
    The house loomed up out of the wash of the storm like a ship emerging from a North Atlantic fog.
    â€œThat’s it,” Wes Currim said, gesturing with both cuffed hands toward the isolated structure. “Just pull up on the lawn there, Harve. Won’t have so far to walk.”
    Randall growled under his breath, but didn’t reply.
    Under Chief Block’s baleful gaze, the sergeant manuevered the Range Rover across the uneven, snow-layered yard. I heard the tire chains crunch and pop as they struggled for purchase on the slick new snow.
    â€œStop right here, Harve,” Block said, the nose of our vehicle about a dozen feet from the sagging, mesh-enclosed porch. Randall cut the engine, but left the headlights on.
    The house was low, wood-framed, its ranch-style contours blurred by the hurtling snow. Windows glistened dully with frost. Roof gutters sagged under the weight of packed old snow and the accumulation of fresh.
    Then, unsure that I was seeing correctly, I leaned up and squinted through the windshield. Given the purpose of our journey, what I saw was as tragic as it was surreal.
    The house was strung along its eaves and around its front windows with multi-colored Christmas lights, twinkling forlornly in the blur of the storm. There was even a lopsided snowman on the front lawn, three lumpy balls of dirty rolled snow, with sticks for arms and a wind-battered hat jammed on top.
    Randall leaned forward in his seat as well, using the palm of his gloved hand to clear fog from the windshield.
    â€œAre those Christmas lights? Damn!”
    Beside me, Currim ducked his head between his thin shoulders and giggled.
    â€œOkay, then.” Block sniffed once, which Randall somehow interpreted as his cue to get out from behind the wheel. Which he did, coming around to open the rear door for Currim.
    A blast of frigid air hit me square in the face as that door opened. Grunting from the effort, Currim pulled himself out into the storm, helped to his feet by Randall’s firm hand on his elbow.
    I got out on my side, meeting Chief Block at the front of the Range Rover. Within moments, I could feel the cold wetness of the cascading snow on my coat. The bite of the wind on my cheeks.
    Randall and Currim joined us, indistinct figures trudging up into the light of the twin highbeams.
    I nodded at the house. “This your place?”
    â€œNah,” Currim said. “Belonged to my uncle, died a couple years back. Me an’ my brothers use it all the time, though. For huntin’, fishin’ in the Shenandoah.”
    â€œWe don’t give a shit ‘bout your life story, asshole.” Randall’s shoulders hunched as he shoved his gloved hands in his coat pockets. “Right, Chief?”
    Block didn’t answer, just stepped a few feet away, boots crunching on the snow. Shivering, our breath coming in crystallized clouds, the three of us stood looking at him. Waiting.
    Finally, Block turned to Currim.
    â€œYou do all this? The lights and everything?”
    â€œIt’s Christmas, Chief. I always decorate the place for the holidays. In case my brothers and their wives wanna come up. Bring the kids.”
    â€œAny o’ the family come up here this year?”
    Currim shook his head sadly. “Nah. Had the place to myself. No reason not to make it look nice, though. Right?”
    Randall tugged on Currim’s elbow again. Hard.
    â€œEnough o’ this shit. Where’d you bury Meachem? Out back somewheres?”
    Currim pulled himself from the sergeant’s grasp. “In this weather? You got any idea how hard the ground is, Harve? Hell, I’d break my back tryin’ to put shovel to earth this time o’ year.”
    I stepped between Randall and Currim.
    â€œLook, Wes, you brought us all this way. You said you wanted to give Meachem’s family