Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Mark
E very day I did something to show Layla I noticed things about her, remembered things from the past that she liked, to prove I cared. Some of it had backfired spectacularly, and others had worked perfectly.
I was currently sitting in our training/meeting room, grinning down at my phone, while the others filed in and took their seats.
Me: Do you still snore? X
Layla: I’ve never snored. I just breathe loudly while I sleep, so people know I’m still alive. It’s an act of caring so they don’t worry about me.
“Wow, check out that smile,” Reid muttered as he sat beside me. “Have you met the new guys yet?”
We’d had four new starts arrive today. They’d been training for five months before they started because of a new initiative Hurst and DB had decided to try out. As part of the mandatory academy training, they spent a month working with some of the experts who came to do refresher courses and new police technique rollouts with us, hence the reason for the delay.
“Okay, folks, I’m helping out on this one this morning,” Hurst said as he came into the room and shut the door behind him.
I didn’t miss the glare he shot at me as he walked to the front of the room, and I had to figure no one else had either.
“As you’ll no doubt see, we have the new guys with us now,” DB took over. “Obviously, y’all will already recognize Major Crew.”
Major was the older brother of Katy Klein, Reid’s brother’s wife.
“Hey, why the hell didn’t you tell me this was why you were missing most of the time,” Reid yelled across the room.
Smiling widely back at him, Major raised an eyebrow. “Bet it drove you nuts not knowing.”
Something blindingly obvious about how Major was dressed should have told Reid he’d misread the situation, but he was too focused on what he assumed was going on.
“I could have helped you out. You’re meant to hate Jarrod, Bond, and Canon, not me. I’m the lovable Klein that everyone likes.”
DB sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. “Regardless of what Reid thinks, Major isn’t here to join the department—although it’d be nice if he did. The mayor has appointed Major as the town’s legal counsel, and we want him to sit in on the welcome briefings from now on. Not only are they a welcome to new members, but they’re a reminder for ones who’ve worked with us for a while.”
Going to where the new recruits were seated at the far end of the table, DB began introducing them. “Here we have Spencer Walters. Spence previously worked for the British Army before joining his local police force in England.”
Moving to the next guy, he said, “Gareth Hughes, formerly of New South Wales Police Force in Australia.”
Gareth seemed more relaxed than Spence had because he waved his hand and smiled at us all while DB moved on to the next guy in line.
“Now onto Zeke Lancaster, whose former job involved working for the military.”
“Ten bucks he was a defense contractor or one of those guys who designs special parts for weapons,” Carter mumbled. “We’ve got some of the best technology thanks to them, but that work can drive you insane.”
“No way I’m taking that bet when I agree with what you’re saying,” I whispered back, watching as DB moved onto the fourth guy.
“Finally, we have Carson Dalgleish, from Edinburgh, Scotland. Carson is also former military, having served with The Royal Highland Fusiliers before joining the police.”
It was slightly awkward for both groups to go through this. We wanted to make them feel welcome and learn about them, but there was only so long you could hold a smile. On the flip side, having been in their shoes, it was hard to know the best response while you were being introduced.
Carson, though, well, he got it right.
“Nice to be here, great to meet you, and no, I didn’t have to wear a kilt while I was in the army. It’s also personal preference if you wear your boxers under it and if you’re comfortable with the possibility of flashing your bits at wee kids and poor old ladies when the wind blows. Any other questions?”
We all raised our hands and then lowered them again when DB cleared his throat.
“You can interrogate him after we’re done.” Turning to the mayor, he gestured with his hand. “Your turn, Hurst.”
Hurst frowned. “I had questions to ask Carson, too.”
DB rubbed his forehead. “You can also do that later.”
“Fine.” I swear the man was pouting. How he could get away with doing it at his age and not look absurd was something I’d never understand.
“So, as you’ll now know, I’m the mayor of our great town, but I’m also a resident, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, and a human being. I dislike being called the mayor and prefer being called Hurst. With that out of the way, I took over the position after the former guy used the town like a game of Monopoly.
“The corruption and greed almost drove us to our knees financially, morally, and physically, so I take all of those responsibilities seriously. To put it mildly, I give a damn about the people here and the ones who are looking to move here. They all matter, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, or anything that can be used to discriminate against them.”
I’d only ever seen him this serious on rare occasions, but seeing the juxtaposition between this Hurst and the normal Hurst was kind of scary.
“Your position as a police officer for these people is one you should feel honored by. They will trust you, look to you for help and support, and I will not have that trust broken. In short, your ability to be impartial is sacrosanct.”
I glanced over at the recruits to see them watching him thoughtfully. All I was looking for was a flicker or even a minute reaction to what he was saying that might have given away any underlying issues, but there were none.
“If you cannot do this, please be honest and let DB know. We have Major Crew in with us because if you do prove to have a bias against a certain group of people, we can stress that you were warned to be upfront and honest. We aren’t here for you to hide behind, we’re here to support you while you work for the town. That might sound cold, and that’s not to say you don’t have our full support if and when you need it, but I’ve had about enough with people letting power get to their heads and them abusing it. Not in this town, not ever!”
Reid shifted beside me. “Damn, I might need to change my underwear.”
DB took over. “If any of you have any moral or religious preferences—for example, halal, kosher, you can’t have pork near you, or you even take part in Ramadan—please, please let us know so we can make sure it’s respected by everyone here.”
We all made noises of agreement with this request. “You will all undergo refresher training for de-escalation techniques, and Alex will roll out up-to-date rules and regulations. We understand that the job is stressful and full of unknown situations, but the better your training is, the safer you and the residents will be.”
Carson raised his hand. “I come from a police force that doesn’t arm all its officers. For us to be able to work on call-outs effectively and safely, we had to use de-escalation techniques constantly. This isn’t anything to do with your right to bear arms here because I respect that hugely, I’m just saying it can and does work.”
“What he said,” Gareth agreed.
“Excellent!” Hurst clapped his hands. “Now that the uncomfortable part’s out of the way, when you leave here, if at any point you decide you can’t be impartial, please be honest with us.”
They all nodded. Hurst’s expression changed from serious to his customary jovial grin. “Anyone want a donut?”
I should have been firmer or threatened my brother when I said no to the Luminol. Somehow, he’d managed to get some and was now waiting on my doorstep with a spray tank strapped to his back. Cole was also standing next to him along with Tom.
Getting tiredly out of my car, I strolled toward them. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” They all shifted to look at me, and I saw identical tanks on all of their backs. “Are you fumigating the place?”
I stopped once I was close to them, just as Cole took a step forward and pointed his finger in my face. “I want you to know I’m still pissed off with you—like, really pissed off—but I’m too curious to pass up the chance to do this, so I’m going to be the bigger man and drop it for now.”
“You’re going to be the bigger man and drop it?” I repeated slowly. “For now?”
He nodded his head once. “Exactly.”
Looking behind him, I saw my other brother joining us. “Sorry, I was curious about where Mr. Mitchell died. Plus who could ever pass up the chance to see that pool.”
“Someone who knows what they got up to in it,” Luke muttered under his breath. “Can you let us inside?”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I looked around them all. “What exactly are you doing?”
Tom turned and gestured to his back. “We got some Luminol, and we’re going to see what we can find. Luke was telling us about what Mrs. Keegan said, and now we’ve got to know.”
I felt my upper lip curl. “No fucking way. I don’t want to know what you can find in there with that stuff.”
My other usually serious brother shook me slightly while wrapping his arm around my neck. “Come on, wouldn’t it be good to know where you shouldn’t lean or touch in the place? The areas you should get sterilized before you decorate or just knock out altogether?”
Now that Adam mentioned it, I’d been scared to touch anything since the discussion yesterday, so knowing where I could and couldn’t touch would be a relief.
“I even brought my GoPro.” Tom tapped the small device attached to his cap.
“Me, too.” Cole pointed to one I hadn’t seen because it blended in with the strap of the contraption on his back.
Groaning, I dropped my head to glare at the small covered area in front of the entrance, only just noticing that some of the plaster had come off and needed to be repaired. Damn it.
“I’m going to regret this. I just know it.”
“Nah, you’ll be grateful for the peace of mind,” Cole chuckled, copying what Adam had done previously and throwing his arm around my neck. This time, there was a slight tightening before he caught himself. “I still hate you, though, and fully intend to kick your ass.”
Pulling the keys out of my pocket, I unlocked the door and gestured for them to come in.
“I’m going to get a beer and sit outside while you do it. Don’t touch my shit, don’t break anything, don’t knock down any walls, and”—I glared at Cole—“don’t drink out of the toilet.”
He gasped and glared at me but wisely said nothing. I had to figure his excitement and anticipation about what they were doing was too much for him to ignore, and getting kicked out of my house would mean he wouldn’t get to see the Luminol results.
I doubted they’d find anything, if I was being honest, because it was unlikely there’d been an undocumented murder in there, which was what the chemical had been designed for.
With beer in hand, I settled in the backyard and took in how different it looked now that the lawn had been cut and most of the weeds were gone. It looked tame, normal… almost quaint. Well, for a potential porn palace.
I couldn’t wait for Layla to see it.
The shouting from inside the house snapped me out of the happy place I’d gone to once I’d finished my beer.
Getting up, I poked my head around the door, making sure not to let it touch my face. I had no idea how you’d get bodily fluids that high, but I wasn’t risking it.
“No, no fucking way. That’s not right! God, I need a shower.”
“Maybe you mixed the Luminol up incorrectly? Did you follow the instructions?” Tom asked, running to catch up with Adam, who was storming toward me.
My brother’s mouth was tightly pinched, and he looked almost pale. “I didn’t mix it, Cole and Luke did.”
Tom stopped and bellowed over his shoulder, “Yo, Cole, did you follow the directions on the Luminol?”
The sound of feet walking quickly followed, and then Luke and Cole appeared, both of them wiping their arms with wipes.
“Yeah, of course I did.”
“Well, are you sure it’s Luminol? I’m not sure it’s meant to do that,” Tom pressed.
“I got it from the normal guy, Tom, and… and…” Cole’s mouth opened and closed, and then he did a full body shudder.
Confused, I waited for one of them to tell me what they’d found, but they just stared blindly into space. “Wait, what did you see?”
“I don’t- I can’t- We….” Luke swallowed loudly as he sagged against one of the kitchen countertops and then moved like he’d been burned when he realized he was touching something in the house.
Walking to the fridge, Tom pulled out four beers and gestured to where I’d been sitting outside. “I recognize that garden set from your parent’s place, so we’re safe to sit on it. Why don’t we go out there, and I’ll fill you in.”
After we’d all filed out and taken a seat, Tom pulled off his cap and detached the GoPro from it.
“The recording on this one uses my cellphone data to go to a cloud storage place, so I can show you on my phone what we saw. You might want to brace yourself.”
After he turned the screen to face me, I watched as they joked around while they closed the curtains and began spraying the surfaces. Once they were done in the first room, two of them left to spray another room, leaving only who I assumed were Tom and Adam from the sounds of it.
What fucked my mind up was when they turned the black light on, and I could see random areas glowing. It was gross but not as bad as I’d thought.
“That’s it?” What a bunch of drama queens.
“Wait for it,” Cole mumbled, taking a healthy mouthful from his bottle and swilling it around his mouth. “I feel dirty.”
They moved through each room, and bit by bit, areas were lit up and here and there.
“This is really disappointing,” Luke sighed on the screen.
Luke in real life whacked his head repeatedly. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
It wasn’t until they were in the main bedroom and got the same results that shit changed.
“We’ll each take a wall and see if that makes a difference,” Tom suggested on the screen.
That’s what did it. For some reason, they’d only pointed the light at small patches, expecting the whole room to light up as they did it immediately. With them all pointing the lights at an entire wall, they got the results they were looking for.
The exact ones I’d been dreading. It looked like someone had smeared glowing paint along each wall and then used something to splash it around.
It was when they all pointed their lights at the ceiling that I almost lost it.
“Please tell me they tried painting the universe and each constellation we know about on that ceiling?”
“It gets better,” Tom sang, and I’m not going to lie, I kinda wanted to punch him.
By the end of the video, I knew I was going to have to gut the whole place and likely hire a specialist company to clean it before I painted or had anything installed.
“This is what freaked us out,” Luke said as he looked over my shoulder, just as they went into my bedroom.
“Ah, fuck it,” I groaned, leaning back in my chair. “I don’t wanna know.”
Cole shook his head. “Trust me, you need to know.”
Adam cleared his throat. “You really need to know.”
This time, when the room lit up, smeared patches lit up all over the place.
“There’s no way all of that could come from a penis or a vagina,” I bit out. “Or am I being na?ve?”
I mean, I knew what my own was capable of, and I knew what Layla’s was, too, so maybe we were the exception to the rule. Wasn’t there a whole section of porn dedicated to that shit? I was deliberately making out that I didn’t know that there was indeed an entire section of porn dedicated to it—one I’d never be able to look at again after this.
Hitting the screen to pause it, I squinted and leaned in to get a better look at something.
“Is that a body on the wall next to the door?”
“Yup,” Cole confirmed, taking another swig from his bottle. “Keep going.”
Sure enough, you could make out the tits on it. Tom tapped his screen to restart the video.
As it happened, on another wall were clear prints of ass cheeks, along with what I assumed were balls. Admittedly saggier balls than I was used to.
Tom whimpered, “They always looked like such a nice couple.”
“Right?” Adam groaned, covering his face with his hands.
And then there were the bathrooms.
Turning my head away, I waved a hand at Tom. “Turn it off. I can’t look anymore.”
“You, uh, might not want to use the toilet again, man,” he suggested, making my head snap around just in time to see them examining the damn bathroom I’d used for over a year. “I don’t know if that’s pee on the seat and all around it or if it’s other things, but you might want to change that seat.”
Burning the whole place down seemed like a great idea all over again.
I couldn’t get the mental image of the room I was sleeping in out of my head.
“Do you think all that stuff on the walls and floor in my temporary bedroom was just…” I stalled as I tried to think of a description of what I was thinking.
“Sex juices?” Luke supplied unhelpfully.
Tom grimaced. “A spray party?”
Cole sat up straight. “Oh, what about a—"
“ No !” we all yelled at the same time.
“For the love of my sanity, please, please stop with the descriptions now,” I begged. “I don’t think my stomach can take it either.”
Rubbing his chin, Luke watched me for a moment. “This started as something I thought would be funny. We’d find a few areas that lit up, I’d be able to tease you about it, and that’d be it. Given what we’ve just seen… I think you need to call it in.”
“Agreed,” Cole said seriously. “I don’t see Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell killing someone and bathing in their blood, but you never know what goes on behind closed doors. Most of the killers who got away with their crimes for the longest were normal looking people.”
Sighing, I leaned so I could get my phone out of my back pocket and hit the number for DB.
He answered almost immediately. “Mark, is everything okay?”
“You know how I bought the Mitchell place?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, my brothers got their hands on some Luminol and sprayed the place down with Cole and Tom.”
DB sighed. “Listen, if you’ve found a couple of spots, that’s norm—”
“My house lit up like the forest in Avatar at night, man. Serious as shit, it’s everywhere.”
“I’m never watching that movie the same way again,” Tom muttered.
My boss made a noise that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a laugh. I knew what I was about to say would change that completely.
“DB, in the room I’m sleeping in, there’s a body print that lights up on the wall. You can even make out the tits and nipples. Next to it, it looks like someone used their hands to smear whatever it was across the wall.”
“Jesus,” he breathed.
“I’m not kidding about it being like the shit out of Avatar . I thought they’d tried to paint every star and constellation we know of on the ceiling.”
He finally groaned. “Okay, seal it off. I’ll call Bailey and get Palmerstown to send their crime scene techs.” I nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see me. “Keep your brothers and the Townsends there so we can get their statements and ask them some questions.”
My eyes focused on one of the GoPros. “Wait, they’ve recorded it all, from the moment they went in, through all the spraying, and when they discovered it all.”
“Fucking awesome,” he said dryly. “Hang tight, and we’ll be with you soon.”
“You might want to tell them to bring extra swabs with them, like a crate of the things.”
“That bad?”
Given that he sounded like he didn’t believe me earlier when I’d mentioned Avatar , I told him to hang tight while I found something for him. It just happened to be a screenshot from Tom’s phone that I’d already taken and a picture I found online of the forest from the movie.
“Aside from the glowing shit coming from the plants in the movie, how much of a difference do you see between the two?”
“Are you serious?” he breathed. Then, not waiting for an answer, he groaned. “Okay, I’ll tell them to make sure they’ve got enough swabs. Do not go back inside that house.”
I didn’t need to be told twice, that’s for sure.
Hanging up after I assured him that wasn’t a problem, I chewed on my thumbnail. I’d bought this place hoping to give Layla her dreams. What if all I’d brought us were nightmares?
Cole sat forward and grinned evilly at me. “So, what are you going to do if you find out they’re just love juices?”
Thankfully, I knew a couple of companies in the area that specialized in cleaning bodily fluids. I also wasn’t attached to any of the décors—obviously—so that wasn’t a problem. I just needed to find out if it was possible to do some sort of brain cleanse, too, so I wouldn’t have the memories stuck in my head.
Fuck, I needed Layla.
With what followed, I became a believer in manifesting. Turns out that if you said something often enough it happened.
Because I got just what I’d asked for.