The Darkness Inside Us (A Detective King Suspense Thriller) (A Detective King Novel Book 3) by Jeremy Laszlo

fear in my demeanor. Because honestly, the common denominator here isn’t me. It’s Kelly. This bastard is trying its hardest to get to Kelly and if I don’t stop it, she’s going to become another one of its victims.
    “You want the case?” I ask him with a furrow on my brow.
    “I just want some answers from a cop that thinks he can play cowboy with a murder investigation,” Agent Halbert says out of the corner of his mouth like he’s in some sort of western. “I want to know why taxpayer dollars are being wasted on a CDC investigation into this school when it should be spent investigating you.”
    “Well, partner,” I look at him with disdain. “Go ahead and find out. But I promise you, the killer is selecting its next victim and the more time you waste on me, the more bodies will fall and now that’s blood on your hands.”
    “We’ll see,” Agent Halbert shrugs apathetically. “I have a sneaking suspicion that the killer isn’t working alone and we’ll see if the killer slips up now that you’re not in the investigation anymore.”
    “No problem,” I growl. I turn and walk toward my car. If I’m not part of this investigation anymore, then there’s no reason for me to stick around. Pulling the door open, I can still feel Agent Halbert’s gaze still on me. “It’s all yours, Agent.”
    “Wasn’t asking,” he answers. “Nice car.”
    “Fuck you,” I answer, slamming the door behind me.
    I don’t make it very far before my thoughts drift toward my daughter. Kelly is in great peril right now and with myself off the case, then it’s up to Agent Halbert to stop whatever this thing is. From my experience with both the demon and Halbert, he’s not going to stop it in time. I don’t think he’ll be able to draw the entity’s attention to possibly pull my daughter out of its gaze, and I don’t think it’ll stop working its way toward her. I feel sick, like I’ve failed on so many levels. Three dead, in a matter of minutes and all of it is on my hands because I was too slow to act. All of this, it is my doing. If I hadn’t antagonized the creature it might have remained on its calculated course through the city, killing slowly, without a purpose, but now I’ve done it. Now I’ve set it loose.
    Pulling my cellphone out of my pocket, I know that I have to call her. I have to warn her.
    “Hello?” She answers after three rings.
    “Kelly, it’s your father,” I inform her.
    “Hello, Steven,” she replies with a timid sort of apprehension in her voice. I don’t like it. It makes me feel like a monster prying into her life. “I was meaning to call you,” she says after a moment of sharp silence. “I’ve heard about the killings at the school. It sounds horrible. I’ve been crying all afternoon. I knew all three of the victims. I can’t believe this is happening, Steven. He really is after me, isn’t he? Are you still at the school?”
    “No,” I answer. I look in the rearview mirror, I can’t even see it in the distance. “I just left,” I lie to her, not wanting her to know that I’ve given up the case to the FBI. There’s a moment where I try to picture her face, picture what she looks like right now. I can’t. I can’t even imagine what my own daughter looks like. I decide that I don’t want to lie to her. I don’t want to fill her life with more reasons to suspect that I am not an honorable man or a man she can trust. There are enough of those reasons plaguing her. I stare at the trunk of the car in front of me, my eyes going up to the rear windshield. There’s a white picture of Calvin pissing on the cross. “They’re calling in the FBI now,” I tell her, twisting things only slightly. I don’t want her to think that I was kicked off and a suspect now. “I’m probably just going to be acting as support now.”
    “Oh,” she answers. “Well, maybe that’s a good thing.”
    “I don’t know,” I tell her honestly, not trying to frighten her. “I don’t