I Am Mayhem — Excerpt
Chapter 1
“Some day the earth will weep, she will beg for her life,
she will cry with tears of blood.
You will make a choice, if you will help her
or let her die, and when she dies, you too will die.”
— John Hollow Horn, Oglala Lakota
Sunday
7:00 p.m.
While Edgar led a crew to track down the next target, Mayhem sat on the edge of the bed with Kimi’s love letter printed out, his shaky hands rattling the paper.
Poe perched on his thigh, his bill hung to his chest feathers, a deep keening emanating off every feather.
“I’d prefer not to read Mom’s final words, too, buddy, but we owe it to her to forge ahead.”
Poe yelped out a mournful cry, and Mayhem’s eyes bloomed with tears. He lowered his gaze to the letter.
My love,
The thought of living without you pains me in ways I didn’t think possible. But I cannot allow the ALS to steal our happiness. It’s taken too much from us already. You deserve a full life, rather than one that revolves around my illness. The Creator blessed me with an incredible, loyal, loving, funny, handsome, caring husband, and I will love you for eternity.
Even in death, I shall never be far. But I also cherish you enough to let you go. Cheyenne, Jude, Poe, and the rest of our beautiful family will need guidance, your guidance, so please do not grieve my passing for too long. Instead, celebrate our amazing life together.
Poe jerked off Mayhem’s thigh, took flight, and flew to the windowsill. When Mayhem twisted around, Edgar was standing on the other side of the glass pane—a window he had to replace due to Ms. Daniels’ blatant disregard for other people’s property.
Bouncing on his talons, Poe urged Mayhem to open the window. He set the letter on the quilt and turned his attention to Edgar. When he slid open the window, the pane waned under duress. “Did you find him?”
Edgar caped his magnificent wings and cawed, and Poe soared through the opening, flying in circles, imploring Mayhem to follow him outside.
“No better time like the present, I suppose.” His gaze flicked toward the letter on the hospital bed and then returned to his loyal murder, now engaged in an outstanding aerial display.
Magnificent beings, crows.
Though Mayhem wavered on whether to leave without notifying Cheyenne about her mother’s sudden demise, he quick-stepped down the hall, the stairs, and into the foyer, where he snatched his fedora off the coat rack.
Mayhem hustled around the side of the brownstone.
In the back parking lot, he scanned the sky. Allan had joined his brothers, three awe-inspiring creatures riding the thermals, their wings soaring, sunlight illuminating stunning black feathers—dark and gleaming. Because the sun hadn’t yet turned in for the night, he set two fingers on his lips and whistled. Poe glided down to the Caddy’s hood, followed by Edgar. Allan took a few moments longer to land.
Three bills tipped upward toward Mayhem’s face—eager stares waiting for the go-ahead.
“Thank you for your promptness. Shall we proceed, then?” As he slipped behind the wheel of his Cadillac CTS, his beloved crow companions leaped off the hood and took flight.
While he followed close behind, Poe glanced over his shoulder every few minutes to ensure Dad kept up the pace. “I realize you would not approve, my darling,” he said to Kimi’s spirit, “but Ms. Daniels must pay for the brutality committed against our family. Against you—the most amazing woman to ever walk this great land. No one will walk away unscathed. Our family certainly didn’t, so why should she? That is not how this game is played.”
Gazing through the window at Poe, leading the others, his hands wrung the leather steering wheel. “I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive a few indiscretions on my part. Make no mistake, my love, Ms. Daniels’ actions unchained this beast inside me. What happens next is on her, I’m afraid.”
Chapter 2
Monday
6:00 a.m.
Within a week after I broke into Mr. Mayhem’s brownstone, Poe started an all-out crow versus cat burglar war, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I swear he flashed a mental snapshot of me to every compadre within fifty miles because they wouldn’t let me rest, even for a minute. Man, that bird harbored some deep resentment. Lucky me. Who knew crow could go to such extreme lengths to torment their target? And by target, I meant me.
Scanning the sky for anything black, I jogged down my front stairs. My shift at the Revere Police Department didn’t start for another forty-five minutes, but if I left the house early, I might have a shot of avoiding Mayhem’s murderous freakshow. I’d made it halfway to my jeep when Poe rocketed out of a nearby tree, and I froze. Circling above my head, his gold ankle band glinting in the sunlight, he opened his talons in slow motion and out dropped a velvet ring box.
Maybe Mr. Mayhem had finally figured out I didn’t kill anyone, especially a member of his family. It’s that type of warped thinking that caused me to pull the twine bow and flip the lid.
Centered on a wad of fluffy cotton sat a severed nose. Human, not animal. Blood coated its rough edges. The golden skin tone sent my mind reeling in nine different directions. Numb, the box slipped from my grasp, crashed on the asphalt of Lyndsey Lane. From under the cotton slipped a folded photograph, which flapped open when it rolled across the driveway.
I leaned in, staring at the close-up of a black man’s bloody face, my eyes bulged from the sockets. The dead man had the same haircut as Levaughn, same amber eyes, same complexion, same full lips and strong jawline.
Please don’t tell me I got my boyfriend killed. Why didn’t Mr. Mayhem kill me? I sucked in a sharp intake of air. Did he want me to suffer the same pain, to experience what he felt losing his wife?
I fished my cell out of my back pocket and thumbed the digits. Come on, Levaughn. Answer the damn phone.
His voicemail picked up, and I punched OFF.
Called again.
The phone rang four times.
Fuck! I clawed a hand through my hair. No, no, no, no, no. This can’t be happening. Poor Levaughn. He didn’t deserve this.
Tears built in my chest, grew higher and higher and spilled over the rims of my eyes. Oh, my God. If I couldn’t pinpoint where Mayhem snapped the photo, I couldn’t save him. By the condition of his injuries, Levaughn’s probably dead already.
Who would Mr. Mayhem target next? My gaze crawled to the front door, my heartbeat soaring higher than Poe’s fluttering wings. Nadine! If I didn’t get her out of the house right friggin’ now, Mr. Mayhem could kill her, too. But where could I stash her? No place seemed safe. Nadine’s relationship with Christopher ended the night he confessed to cheating with her sister, so it’s not like she had any plans to move out.
Poe glided down to the pavement, gripped the photograph in his beak, and raised it to eye-level. If I didn’t know better, I swear that bird winked at me. The psychotic fowl reveled in my torment as I squinted at the string of numbers on the back of the photo.
“GPS coordinates?” I snatched the photograph out of his beak. “Is he alive?”
Poe’s dead stare never wavered.
Why would Mr. Mayhem give me a chance to save him? Or would I be walking into a cleverly designed trap? Didn’t matter. Even if I had only a one-in-gazillion shot, I gotta try to reach him in time. Crap. I squeezed my forehead. What about Nadine? If this was a ploy to get me to leave her alone in the house, I’d be playing into his hands. I chewed my bottom lip, my weight shifting from leg to leg, my mind weighing all possible scenarios.
Poe winged me in the face. The sudden blow snapped me back to the urgency of the situation. I didn’t have time to mull over every angle. Once Mr. Mayhem sliced off Levaughn’s nose, he started losing massive amounts of blood. Every second counted.
As if Poe could read my thoughts, his black beak tapped his gold ankle band. Tick, tock.
“Message received, asshole.”
Gagging, I swept the nose into the box and stuffed the so-called gift in my leather jacket pocket, then took off, sprinting toward my jeep. I wiped my bloody hand across the leg of my jeans, whipped open the driver’s door, and slipped inside. Turning the key, Ol’ Bessie took the opportunity to assert her independence.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
“Not now. C’mon, girl.” I rubbed the dash. “I really need you to obey.”
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
“Dammit! Why do you always punish me at the worst possible moment?” I sweet-talked her, made promises I couldn’t keep, and tried one last time to start her engine.
Vroom, vroom.
“That’s my girl. You just earned yourself a tune-up.” I meant it, too… if I lived long enough to bring her to the mechanic.
Gas pedal pinned, I banged the corner at about forty miles-per-hour, and Ol’ Bessie’s tail-end fishtailed on the sandy shoulder. Spinning the wheel out of the turn, I slowed long enough to regain control and veered on to US Rte. 1 South. I set my cell phone in the suctioned-cupped dash holder and punched the coordinates into the GPS. When the app narrowed in on the location, dread rained down in torrents.
Mr. Mayhem left Levaughn on Shirley Avenue. Which may not sound like a big deal, until you factor in the street gangs, drug dealers, and junkies who all called that section of the city home. If I didn’t get there soon, they’d pilfer his body of anything valuable, including his clothes and shoes. And once they found his badge and service weapon, those scumbags wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a cop with his own gun, especially a wounded homicide detective who wasn’t in any condition to fight back.
Just last week, a father strolled down Shirley Avenue with his young son when some dirt-bag beat him unconscious with a lead pipe, breaking both his legs for the sole purpose of raiding his wallet. Another dude got stabbed thirteen times for refusing to hand over his hard-earned cash and credit cards. That’s the type of criminal element stalking “The Ave,” as it’s known to the locals. Never mind the drive-by shootings committed almost nightly.
The area wasn’t the safest place to get caught after dark. Even daylight hours didn’t bring peace. Street gangs supplied a steady stream of heroin, crack, cocaine, fentanyl, and prescription pills twenty-four-seven ’round the clock.
I slammed the brakes with both feet seconds before I missed the exit. Re-accelerated on MA-60 East toward Malden/Revere. Still nine miles to go. C’mon, Ol’ Bessie, move your ass!
At the traffic circle, I punched the horn to warn some biker dude to get the hell out of my way. But did he listen? Oh, hell no. So, I cut the bastard off and took the second exit, my feet working the pedals, Ol’ Bessie speeding toward Revere Beach. Veering in and out of traffic, I finally hit Beach Street and banged a hard right on to Shirley Ave. Then slowed. Gaze bouncing left and right, I skimmed both sides of the litter-infested neighborhood.
Up ahead, a crowd gathered near an alleyway between two rundown tenements, the paint cracked and chipped, the siding riddled with bullet holes and spray-painted graffiti. All the gangbangers around here tried to one-up the others by tagging the most buildings in a lame attempt at a turf war. I pulled curbside, snatched my mace and air horn from under the driver’s seat, and slammed the door. Thumbed my new key fob as I backed away.
Bleep, bleep.
No way would I leave Ol’ Bessie unlocked in this neighborhood. With my luck, the thieving bastards would steal the tires before I returned.
Yeah, yeah. The irony was not lost on me.
“Excuse me.” I elbowed through the crowd of onlookers, but they pushed back, refusing to allow me to break through the front line. Aiming the air horn at the sky, I held down the button—an incessant, ear-splitting tone. “Move it, people!”
When the crowd parted, I caught a glimpse of Levaughn sprawled on his back next to the dumpster, his lifeless eyes staring at the heavens. As I neared, I slowed. A wide gash exposed the double-holed sinus bone of his skull where his nose should be, crimson oozing down the sides of his face and traversed the crevices of his ears. A blood pool haloed around his short-cropped hair, his bare chest slashed open from the lower ribs to pubic hair. Disemboweled, Mr. Mayhem bowed the intestines around his neck, the asphalt beneath him bathed in violence.
I fell to my knees, and tidal wave of tears soaked my face. Hands trembling, I held back my hair and leaned over his mouth, gaped open in a silent scream. No breath escaped. Though death seemed obvious, I pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, praying for a hint of life. Nothing, not even the faint sputter of a stalling heartbeat.
How did this happen? It’s me he wants. I should be lying there, not Levaughn. He never harmed Mayhem or his psychotic fowl. Hell, Levaughn didn’t have a clue Mr. Mayhem even existed other than his epithet. When confronted, I lied and ID’d a dead man. Look how well that turned out. I killed the one man I would die to protect.
“Please don’t leave me.” A whimper squeaked through my wet lips. “Not like this. If I had known… Dammit, I shoulda known. Babe—” I bawled harder, my shoulders rolled forward— “our love can’t end this way. Please wake up.”
A sharp pang caved my chest, and I cradled my face in my hands, my insides twisting in torment, my soul shredded like meat through a grinder. When I raised my head, I blinked at the carnage, the savageness. Mr. Mayhem did this to punish me, to force me to feel his pain.
I clawed a hand through my hair. Stared at my empty palms. Where would I go from here? How could I live without the only man I’d ever loved? Rocking, I curled my arms around my waist.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
All at once, breath emptied from my lungs, and I leaped to my feet, my gaze in a continual scan around the alleyway. If the cops found me here, they’d ask how I found the body. What could I say, a crow gave me GPS coordinates? No sane person would believe that story. My cell phone belted out Put the Gun Down by ZZ Ward. The sudden disruption almost catapulted me into cardiac arrest, and I clutched my shattered heart.
What now?
***
As bloody, severed body parts show up on her doorstep, Shawnee Daniels must stop the serial killer who wants her dead before she becomes the next victim.
But can she solve his cryptic clues before it’s too late? Or will she be the next to die a slow, agonizing death?
With crows stalking her every move, Shawnee can barely function. Things worsen when body parts show up on her doorstep. An unstoppable serial killer wants her dead. Mr. Mayhem threatens to murder everyone she loves, sending Shawnee a piece at a time.
As Mr. Mayhem sits in judgement, his cryptic clues must be solved before the final gavel drops. The game rules are simple—win the unwinnable or submit to a slow, agonizing death.
When Shawnee tries to fight back, she discovers her very existence is based on lies. But the full impact of the truth might become the headstone on Shawnee’s grave.
All the books in the Mayhem Series can standalone, but if you’d rather catch up first, read the opening chapters of Wings of Mayhem #1, Blessed Mayhem #2, and Silent Mayhem #3.
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