Kitabı oku: «Possessed», sayfa 3

Her? In the dream, she’d seen her grandfather. But she’d always been able to block his connection. It had been so long since he tried that she thought he might have given up, if such a thing was possible of the dead.

The door to her room slammed open. Cass struggled to brace herself for the energy to hit her, but the image that was forming beyond the door had her gasping for breath. It wasn’t a man or woman.

It was a monster.

With a piglike snout and horns that burst out through its head, it reared back and shouted with a horrible reverberating baritone voice. It was the size of a man, had a powerful chest and stood on two legs. But hooves replaced hands, and fangs replaced teeth. It shouted again and the sound was as crippling as the pain of impact. In the room, Cass dropped to her knees.

When she looked up, she saw it was moving toward the door. The certainty that if that thing reached the entrance it would do what no one else had done and cross into her room filled her with a strange panic.

Struggling against a lethargy that pulled at her, Cass pushed to her feet and forced herself to move across the empty space. She reached for the door and watched as the thing on the other side stepped closer and closer, the whole time shouting indecipherable words at her. Instinctively, she did the only thing that seemed logical. She shut the door in its face.

As she let out a heavy sigh of relief, the white room faded away.

Cass woke up with a start, clutching the covers to her chest.

Someone had brought a monster from the beyond. Who? How?

The questions assaulted her, as did the essence of danger, which meant she needed to stop for a second and regain her mental balance. Using techniques she’d learned through yoga, she took a cleansing breath in and then let it out slowly.

Cautiously, she sat up in bed, wondering what the physical effects of the strange encounter would be. Although the pain was in her head, her body always manifested physical evidence of the contact. A bruise here or there, a bloody nose. This time the energy that had overwhelmed her had been intense. Her mouth hurt. With her tongue, she stroked her bottom lip. It was swollen as if she’d been hit.

Checking for her cats, who routinely slept at her side, Cass noted their absence. It was morning, early morning based on the hazy quality of light outside her single bedroom window, and earlier than she normally would have awoken. Typically, the girls never left the bed until she did. This morning they were gone. She wondered if she’d thrashed about during the strange dream.

“Spook? Nosey?”

No morning meow to signal they had gone in search of the dry stash that she left out in the kitchen. No galloping feet to suggest they had been caught napping on the new futon during what was supposed to be their nightly vigil. The silence was disconcerting. The memory of what she’d dreamed…experienced…made it that much more unsettling.

Cass rolled out of bed. Dismissing her discomfort, she found a robe in her closet and made her way from the bedroom down the short hallway to the living room.

She found her girls in the foyer, sitting silently, motionlessly, in front of the locked door. As she came to stand behind them, their two heads turned, one clockwise, the other counterclockwise, in her direction.

There was a message conveyed in their feline eyes. Cass thought maybe she was being dramatic, but, after what had happened, she didn’t think so. The lingering sense of evil still shook her, and she knew without a doubt that death waited for her on the other side of the door.

Chapter 4

Cass stood unmoving as she and her cats stared at the door. She was certain there was something wrong outside. She didn’t need any kind of psychic ability to know that. This was pure gut instinct.

Someone had brought that monster into contact with her. It was the only way her gift worked. The monster was on the other side so there had to be someone on this side. Someone living. Someone close.

Was that person still out there? Was he waiting for her? More important, could someone who had been touched by something as horrific as that monster in life not be a possible threat to her physically? Because whoever had brought that thing to her room last night had known evil. Had lived with or had been connected to evil.

It stood to reason that a person like that had a pretty good chance of being evil, too.

Backing away from the door, she considered hiding in her bedroom for a time, waiting until she was sure the person was gone. However, as soon as she found herself hesitating, Cass pushed herself into action. Because there was another possibility.

What if the person the monster was trying to contact needed her help?

With hands that were less than steady, she undid the series of locks and opened the door. Her bare feet made contact with cold concrete and she winced, reminded that she was still dressed in a robe, panties and nothing else. Bolting back to her bedroom, she threw on a pair of sweats, a tank top and some flip-flops that were the first pair of shoes she saw.

It was early and the narrow city street was still thick with parked cars on both sides. A cyclist sped past, and an old woman bundled in a coat and a blue wool hat walked her dog. Cass could hear the sound of the pooch’s claws tapping the pavement, as well as the occasional yap, but nothing else.

No one cried out for help. No one leaped out from among the cars to attack her.

She stopped halfway down the road and shook her head. Maybe it had been a dream. Maybe the monster hadn’t been real. After almost twenty years, she thought she had a grasp on her gift, but she’d never experienced anything remotely close to that beast. Yes, there had been impatient messages, sad messages, even angry ones. Mean spirits.

Cass was never sure what name to apply to those who made contact. Ghost, spirit, soul. To her they were people. They just happened to be dead. Wasting time on semantics or philosophizing on the religious implications of what her gift was about didn’t interest her. Getting the messages and giving them to the right people so that the dead would stop hassling her and the living would know some resolution—so she could go on with her life—that interested her.

But this thing last night had been different. Angry, yes, but the anger swirled around it, mixing and blending with other emotions. If she closed her eyes, she could remember the fear she’d felt because she knew that on the other side of her door was everything that was wrong with the human element. Hatred, rage, greed, power and pain. Pain that it liked to inflict on others.

And it had almost come inside. A trickle of unease had sweat pooling under her arms and dampening her palms despite the coolness of the crisp fall morning. Part of the purpose of her mental room with the single door had been to keep the dead at a certain distance. Cass lived with the very real fear that one day contact wouldn’t be enough for them, that only possession would suffice as a way to express their message.

What if the monster was some kind of foreshadowing? What if the images from last night, the sense that it was getting closer, were a way of letting her know that the dead were coming for her?

She wouldn’t allow it. Mentally, she was too strong to let herself be used. Wasn’t she? A lingering memory of a night about a year ago flashed behind her eyes. She and Dougie on a bed. Entwined. Connected. And Claire, his dead wife, in the shadows of her mind just beyond the door…watching. Instantly, Cass quashed the remembrance. She didn’t want to go there. It was too disturbing and opened up too many questions she didn’t want to have to answer.

The small dog that was being walked by the old woman broke loose from its leash and took off down the quiet street, yapping frantically. The shrill sound snapped Cass out of her thoughts, reminding her what she was doing outside in the first place.

There was something wrong out here.

Following the dog’s direction, Cass jogged down the street after the woman, who was desperately calling her pet. The older woman was moving as fast as she could but was losing ground to the animal, which had an impossibly speedy gait considering how short its legs were. The dog rounded the corner and descended steps that led to a brick apartment building similar to Cass’s. The old woman came to an abrupt stop on the sidewalk in front of it.

The woman’s stillness was unnerving—and it wasn’t because she was simply out of breath. Cass came up behind her and circled her so she could meet her head-on. The old lady’s mitten-encased hands covered her mouth and her eyes were wide. She was so pale Cass feared she might faint.

“Are you all right?”

The woman merely pointed to the steps that dipped below the level of the sidewalk. Two slim, bare feet stuck out from around the bend of the cement steps. They didn’t move. The dog, out of sight around the corner along with the rest of the body, continued to bark.

“Call 911.”

The older woman shook her head. “I…don’t…I don’t…have a cellular phone. My daughter wanted to get me one, but I said I didn’t want one. I don’t like cell phones very much and…”

Cass put a hand on the woman’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her before she carried on about the evils of cell phones in general.

“Down the street a little farther, there’s a convenience store,” Cass pointed out. “It’s early, but they sell coffee in the morning so they should be open.”

“I buy my Powerball tickets there,” she muttered.

“They’ll have a phone. Tell them to call the police. Tell them they need to get in touch with Doug Brody. Can you remember that name? Detective Doug Brody.”

“Doug Brody,” she repeated mindlessly.

“Good. Go on now.”

“Is that girl dead? Is that why Muffy won’t stop barking? I’ve never heard him bark that way.”

“I’ll watch Muffy. You go.”

The woman hesitated but seemed ultimately to understand that she didn’t want to have any part of walking down those stairs. Swinging her arms as if to speed up, she took off down the sidewalk for the convenience store.

Cass took the stairs slowly, watching to see where she stepped, knowing from what she’d seen on TV shows more than anything else that even a flip-flop can mess with evidence. By the time she got to the bottom, she could see around the bend of the brick portico that framed the apartment door.

Muffy, a brown cocker spaniel, barking unceasingly, stood steadfastly at the head of the victim, who unfortunately could no longer hear him. The woman wore only a sheer nightgown. It wasn’t ripped or torn to suggest the attack had been sexual, but there was no doubt that it had been deadly.

The stranger’s eyes were open in a death gaze that, for all her experience with the dead, Cass had never seen. The worst, however, was the blood. It was smeared all around her mouth and face and underneath her body. Cass could see that the welcome mat was saturated with it. She thought about what McDonough had told her earlier about his sister and shuddered. So much blood.

And why?

Not wanting to disturb the scene any further, Cass moved around the body to the dog and plucked him up and into her arms. She stroked him until he calmed down, limiting his barks to about one every other second.

Backing out and up the stairwell, Cass and Muffy waited for the old woman, the police and, most important, Doug. He would understand what this meant. She could only hope he would know what to do about it.

A light from a street-level window above the stairwell caught her eye.

Palm Reader—Fortune Teller.

It was a red neon sign with the outline of a crystal ball in its center. Cass could see that it belonged to the same apartment whose doorway the woman lay in. Guessing from the nightgown, Cass had little doubt that it was the dead woman’s apartment, which meant that she was likely the palm reader. Not that Cass could ask her.

Cass turned back and stared down at the still motionless feet.

“I’ll bet you didn’t see this coming,” she mumbled, more to break the morbid silence than anything else.

There was no reply to the bad quip. Not that Cass expected one. She never communicated directly with the dead. Except in one case, which was completely different altogether.

Of course, there was the monster to contend with, but the resolution of what that thing was, was still too far off to consider. Was it connected to the woman at the bottom of the steps? Was it too much of a stretch to believe that it wasn’t?

Cass wasn’t ready to think about it. Better to wait for Dougie and let him decide what had happened before she started leaping to conclusions she couldn’t back up with facts. She trembled involuntarily and Muffy squirmed in her arms. She set him down, careful to keep a firm grip on his collar so he couldn’t return to the body. Turning to her right, she spotted the older woman scurrying down the sidewalk as fast as her aging body would carry her.

“The police are coming. They’re coming,” she huffed as she came within hearing distance of Cass.

Cass nodded in thanks, then handed her back her dog. The woman reattached Muffy’s leash and together they all stood in front of the stairwell like sentinels standing guard over the body.

Minutes later, sirens broke through the early-morning quiet. Two cars screeched to a stop as uniformed officers popped out and started barking orders to one another.

“Do we need an ambulance?”

Cass shook her head at the stocky officer who approached her first. “No. Maybe to take her to the morgue…”

The cop’s face didn’t change with her answer. “Right. We’re going to ask you to wait over there. We’ll need to ask you some questions in a little bit.” He was pointing to a stoop a couple of feet away and numbly Cass nodded. Sitting suddenly seemed very necessary. She tugged on the arm of the woman, who was trying desperately not to look down the steps as the uniformed officers secured the area.

“Come on. We should get out of their way.”

From the third step of the stoop, Cass watched as two standard-issue city cars pulled up. She wondered how it was that detectives were always so shocked when they were made so easily by the criminal element. The car reeked of cop.

Dougie’s long form emerged from the vehicle and instantly he spotted her. Ignoring her for the moment, he checked on the scene. The uniforms had taped off the stairwell, and soon the techies would be by to snap photographs and collect evidence from the apartment and from the victim. Evidently satisfied with the progress they were making, Dougie made his way to where she sat with the old lady at her side.

“How…”

“I don’t know. I think she was stabbed.”

“No, I meant how are you here?”

Cass knew what he meant, but there wasn’t an easy answer. She certainly didn’t want to elaborate with the woman, Ethel, she’d come to learn was her name, and her dog sitting next to her.

“My Muffy found her. My Muffy was very brave,” the woman interjected.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dougie replied politely. “Very brave. The PPD thanks you very much for calling this in and for waiting so that we can question you. If you would head over to the officer with the blond hair, he’s got some questions for you.” Dougie pointed to one of the uniformed cops, who looked to be just out of school. Surely someone so young wasn’t able to handle the responsibility of standing between evil and the rest of society? Someone with a job like that should at least be shaving, Cass decided. Then again, given her youthful appearance and the fact that Ethel called her honey as if she were soothing a child, she guessed she couldn’t throw stones.

“Just tell him everything you saw and heard. And don’t leave anything out,” Dougie said.

Ethel nodded slowly as if to suggest that she took her civic duty very seriously. “Of course I will.”

Cass stood and reached for the woman’s elbow, helping her to her feet even as Dougie reached for the woman’s other arm. On legs that probably weren’t as steady as they had been when she’d set out that morning, Ethel managed the few cement steps until she was back on the sidewalk. “You’ll catch the person who did this? That’s your job.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied, Ethel led Muffy to the blond kid in the blue uniform.

Once she was out of earshot, Cass asked, “Does the PPD thank me, too?”

“No,” he growled softly. “The PPD wants to know what the hell you’re doing here.”

How could she tell him? What would she tell him?

There was a monster in my mind.

To her it sounded a lot like having one under your bed or one in your closet. Like the kind of nightmare a child might have. Only she wasn’t a child and it, whatever it was, hadn’t been a nightmare. She was pretty sure of that now.

She was afraid that Dougie, despite all his good intentions to be open-minded where she was concerned, wouldn’t get it. He might believe she spoke with the dead, but this was asking too much of anyone.

“I think you must be grumpy because they got you out of bed.”

“Absolutely I’m grumpy but not because of a lack of sleep. It’s the lack of answers that’s annoying me right now. Talk to me, Cass.”

She took a breath and tried to explain. “I had a thing. A weird thing. I felt…”

Fear. A deep and gut-wrenching fear of the dead, something she’d never felt before. And a darkness. She’d felt that, too. Beyond the beast, there had been inky blackness rather than the hazy fog she’d become used to.

As if the horns hadn’t been sinister enough.

No, there was no point in telling Dougie this. Not when she couldn’t explain what it meant.

“I heard a dog barking,” she said. “I came out here, followed the sound and there she was.”

“That’s not even remotely convincing.”

Cass shrugged. “It’s the best I can do for now. Let’s just say…I had a gut feeling.”

“Right.” He snorted somewhat disgustedly. “Look, I’ll let it go for now until I can pull all the facts together. But we’re eventually going to have to talk about this. Whatever happened to this girl…”

“She had her tongue cut out, Dougie.”

He didn’t bother to issue the standard police line that nothing was certain and that until evidence was gathered and analyzed nothing would be accomplished by leaping to conclusions about the relationship between two seemingly unconnected victims. She knew better.

“I don’t have to tell you to keep this quiet.”

That made her laugh. “Who am I going to tell?” Her world consisted of about three people, one of whom was standing in front of her.

“I’m just saying we don’t need the press…”

“Dougie? It’s me. I’m not going to talk to the press. Ethel you might have to talk to.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Two women, a few blocks apart, both missing their tongues and no signs of sexual assault. This doesn’t smell right.”

“At least one thing is for sure,” she reminded him. “You know now that Malcolm McDonough didn’t kill his sister.”

“Great,” Dougie muttered unenthusiastically. “Mr. Connections goes free, but there’s a wacko loose in the city.”

“A psycho-city wacko,” Cass repeated, recalling his description from last night.

Dougie looked back to the stairwell where they were finally bringing the body up. That they had tried to be careful with her was obvious, but the body bag was still covered in the woman’s blood.

“Definitely.”

Chapter 5

Cass walked through her front door and instantly started shivering. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d been, almost numb from it, until the warmth had started to creep back into her skin. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking, running out of the house barely dressed late in October.

Actually, that was the point. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d been reacting and she found the idea unsettling.

To combat the cold, she found a sweater in her bedroom and then went back to the kitchen to make some soothing lemon tea. Five minutes, that’s all she wanted. Five minutes to not have to think about anything.

But that wasn’t going to happen. The image of the woman’s body being carted off haunted her. Then, as people came outside ready to start their day, a crowd had gathered around the scene, as tends to happen when there is trouble. Neighbors spoke about the woman, talked about suspicious characters that she called customers. Apparently there was no boyfriend in the picture, no obvious enemy. Nobody that anyone could instantly finger as a murderer, anyway.

After an hour of Cass sticking to her story about simply hearing the dog, Dougie had relented and let her go. It wasn’t as if telling him about the monster was going to get him any closer to the person who did this. Trace evidence, detective work, finding out whatever link there was between Lauren and the palm reader—that would be helpful to him.

Ghostly monsters in her head…not so much.

Cass dipped her tea bag and sighed. She was lying to herself and she wasn’t very good at it. The real reason she hadn’t told Dougie about it was because she didn’t want there to be a connection. She didn’t want to believe that she was ever going to have to see that thing again. Shame descended on her as she considered what she’d done. If the monster was related to the murder and she was ignoring it because of that god-awful fear that she’d experienced during contact, then she was nothing better than a coward.

What had the palm reader suffered? What had Lauren? Certainly more than mere fear.

Thinking about Lauren brought Cass back to the night when Lauren had been killed. There hadn’t been any monster then. No unusual dreams at all that she could recall. Did that mean that the monster and the murders weren’t related? Or did it mean that maybe Lauren’s murder and the palm reader’s death weren’t related?

No, that didn’t make sense. They had to be. Dougie had said so. Two women, blocks apart, both stabbed and both with missing tongues. Philadelphia could be a dangerous city, but such gruesome deaths weren’t exactly standard fare.

Who the hell cuts out a tongue?

“A sick bastard,” she told the empty room. Who the hell else cuts out a tongue?

Cass thought about the serene young woman who had made contact through her to reach out to her brother. Lauren was beautiful. And there was an aura around her spirit that suggested sweetness and gentleness. Two qualities that her half brother obviously didn’t share. To have her life end that way—so abruptly, so brutally—was wrong. Unjust.

Of all people, Cass knew better than to expect fairness in life. She hadn’t been born cynical. Growing up with television and movies, where the good guy always won, the bad guy always got caught and the right thing, whatever that was, always happened in the end, had given her a rose-colored view of life and the people in it. Being raised by old-fashioned grandparents who believed in things like trustworthiness and honor only reinforced those lessons.

But that all ended the night the nurse locked her into her room at the asylum.

A phone ringing startled Cass out of her memories. There was no point in going back there, not when it only brought sadness. She put down her cup of tea and reached for the phone, but stopped when she recalled that Dr. Farver now had her new number. She waited for the three rings to pass and for the answering machine to pick up.

Only it wasn’t Dr. Farver—it was Kevin, the manager from the coffeehouse.

“Uh, hey, Cass, I heard about what happened last night from Susie. Look, I hate to do this, especially over the phone, but…you don’t need to come back to work. It’s just…nobody will work a shift with you. You’ve wigged them all out and if it’s a question of you or everybody else…well, I’ve got to let you go. If you could mail back your apron and keys that would be cool. I’ll mail you your final check. You don’t have to worry about stopping by. Uh, well, see ya.”

Fabulous.

She didn’t have to worry about stopping by. Translated: please don’t show your face around here anymore. Fired. By a kid who she knew carried a fake ID.

Cass took her tea, flopped down on her futon and waited for her cats to come and comfort her, which they did in short order. There was no point in getting upset over it. It wasn’t as if this was the first time she’d lost a job because of her gift; it was just that jobs in general weren’t the easiest things to come by for her. She didn’t have a college degree; for obvious reasons, she never had good references to offer a prospective employer; and if anyone looked too closely into her past, there was that whole “committed to a mental asylum” strike she had against her.

Fortunately, her lifestyle didn’t require much money. The minimalist style she’d adopted helped to keep costs down while giving her flexibility if she needed to leave in a hurry, as she did when she’d decided to leave Dr. Farver and the institute in D.C. Not to mention, she wasn’t the type of person who needed things. Cass imagined that came from a very intimate understanding few people had: possessions didn’t follow you to the other side.

Luckily, this time she would have a check for her consulting work, which would be enough to tide her over until she found something else. Maybe another coffeehouse or an ice-cream parlor. Something where she could connect with people because she believed it was important for her to do that, but not so many people at once that the connections overwhelmed her. Like at the waitressing job she’d taken last year at a popular roadhouse. She’d been so bombarded by energies knocking at her door that she’d ended up dropping more plates than she’d served.

Better to wait and find something that fit. If she had to, she could always go back to doing readings for money.

Cass cringed. The thought of using her gift to make a living had always made her uneasy. Oh, she knew others who had done it, had in fact grown rich as a result of their talent. She didn’t resent them, but to her it too closely resembled selling herself. Not unlike a hooker.

“Get over it,” she mumbled to herself. “You’ll do what you need to, to survive. You always have.”

A knock on her door had the cats bolting off the futon in opposite directions.

“Let’s see,” Cass said as she stood and made her way to the door. “This day started with a monster, then a murder, then being fired. What do we think is behind door number two, Stan?”

More than likely it was Dougie coming to bug her again for answers she wasn’t ready to give. Cass checked the peephole and gasped in surprise at the ominous presence of Malcolm McDonough.

This just wasn’t her day.

Cautiously, she opened the door. “What do you want?” Instantly, she found herself on the defensive. Considering his prior verbal assault, she decided it was the smart place to be.

“To talk.”

“We talked last night. I heard every word you said.”

As she moved to shut the door, he put his hand against the frame. Part of her felt no qualms about slamming the heavy door against his fingers. A few broken appendages might teach him a lesson, but it wasn’t her style.

“Let me rephrase. I need to talk to you.”

And that’s when it occurred to her why he had come. He knew about the second victim.

“Someone told you.”

“I have…”

“Connections,” she finished.

“Yes. Can I come in?”

Against every reasonable instinct she had, she backed away from the door and let him inside. “For a few minutes. That’s all.”

Malcolm came in but stopped short as he took in her apartment. “You don’t believe in furniture, or you can’t afford it?”

“Don’t need it,” she answered quickly, remembering his comment about her coat. She took note of the Rolex watch on his wrist. Even his blue jeans sported a brand name that probably wasn’t often found on construction sites. This was a man who believed in having things. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “Don’t worry. I’m not a destitute waif.” Just jobless and short.

“I’m not,” he said quickly. “Worried that is. What happened to your lip?”

“Bit it. You wanted to talk.”

Malcolm hesitated. Staring down at her in her pajama bottoms and oversize sweater, he was immediately seized with the realization that the idea that had brought him rushing to her door could very well be absurd.

Suddenly agitated, he moved inside the spartan room.

It’s just that when he received the call about the second attack, his contact at the police station had told him that the body was found by the same woman who had questioned him at the station the night before.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. Instantly Malcolm had phoned Brody to let him know that he wanted her brought in for questioning regarding the murders, but he’d been practically laughed off the phone and assured that he was wrong.

He should have suspected as much. Detective Brody had seemed quite friendly with her. The two of them must have some sort of relationship. He concluded that they were sleeping with each other. Maybe she had seduced the detective to protect herself from suspicion. Or possibly to get close to the case. To know every move the police made. It didn’t matter.

What did matter was that she was involved in his sister’s death. There was no question about that in Malcolm’s mind. He knew it because she had obviously known Lauren. She’d spoken with her, learned about her life and her history with him. Heard the story about the nurse from her.

It was the only explanation. If she knew Lauren, had gotten close enough to her to extract such insignificant details like that story, then why hadn’t she said as much to the detective?

The only reasonable answer was that she’d had something to do with her death. If the police weren’t going to arrest her or even question her about it, then he was.