A Gift for Dying

by M. J. Arlidge

  ‘Kassie!’

  She was astonished to hear her name. She was even more surprised to see that it was Adam Brandt driving the car.

  ‘I can’t talk now, Adam.’

  ‘Get in the car, Kassie.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’

  She could still glimpse Jan up ahead, but he was nearly at the next intersection. It was vital that she didn’t lose sight of him.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Kassie. And it has to be now.’

  Still the car kept pace with her. Adam had one eye on the street and one eye fixed on her. He looked wired, even a little unstable.

  ‘How did you even find me?’ she replied, keeping her pace steady.

  ‘Found your laptop. Used “Find my iPhone”,’ he replied, utterly unrepentant about rifling through her possessions.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,’ she mumbled, then broke into a run, dodging shoppers in her desperation to keep up with Jan.

  Adam now sped up, roaring away from the kerb and for a brief, wonderful moment, Kassie thought she had got rid of him. But to her horror his Lexus now pulled over twenty yards ahead of her. Ignoring the fact that his car was in a tow zone, Adam leaped out and hurried towards her. Kassie tried to dodge him, but he reacted quickly, blocking her way.

  ‘Please, Adam,’ she begged, suddenly tearful. ‘I can’t stop –’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death.’

  ‘You’ll stay and you’ll talk to me.’

  His tone was so fierce, his gaze so intense, that Kassie suddenly felt a little scared. She tried to brush past him, but he gripped her right shoulder, pushing her hard against the wall. Passing shoppers looked intrigued, even a little concerned, but they gave the pair a wide berth, leaving Kassie trapped.

  ‘What did you say to Faith?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘During your conversations together, what did you talk about?’

  ‘Please, Adam,’ Kassie whimpered. ‘Why is this relevant?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Kassie slumped against the wall, angry and upset.

  ‘We talked … about Annabelle. About what happened at the hospital. About everything that has happened since …’

  ‘What else?’ Adam barked.

  ‘I don’t know … we talked about the murders. About you. About my mom …’

  ‘Did Faith talk about herself?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What did you say to her?’

  ‘I tried to comfort her.’

  ‘Did you talk to her the night before she died?’

  Kassie hesitated. Now she knew exactly why Adam was asking these questions. This was a conversation she hoped she’d never have to have.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she replied, quietly. ‘We couldn’t sleep, so she asked if she could sketch me.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She drew, we talked.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About babies, families, how she was dreading Annabelle’s funeral –’

  ‘Did you talk about the future?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess –’

  ‘Her future?’

  ‘Yes …’

  Her words were barely audible. She knew where this was leading and she wanted it to stop.

  ‘What did she ask you?’

  Kassie dropped her eyes to the floor.

  ‘What did she ask you?’ he demanded, louder.

  ‘She asked me … if she was going to have kids one day, a baby …’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  ‘Please don’t do this, Adam.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’ Adam repeated grimly, tightening his grip on her jacket.

  ‘I didn’t want to answer her, but she kept on and on at me. She told me she had to know.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And … I told her she wouldn’t.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  The word erupted from him, flecks of spittle landing on Kassie’s face. He released his grip and turned away in anguish, clawing at the air in his exasperation and fury. A woman passing close by paused, as if debating whether to intervene, but her husband hurried her on, casting wary looks at them. As he did so, Adam rounded on Kassie once more.

  ‘Why? Why would you say something like that?’

  ‘I didn’t want to, but she begged me.’

  ‘But how could you know that? How could you possibly know?’

  Adam’s eyes were boring into hers, challenging her to respond.

  ‘You know how I know,’ Kassie responded, bleakly.

  Adam stared at her, as if his worst fears had been confirmed.

  ‘Did Faith understand what you meant?’

  ‘Not at first. But she could see I was getting upset, which unnerved her. She wanted to know why I was so sure, so certain.’

  ‘Did she … did she ask you directly if you knew when she would die?’

  A sob seemed to escape Kassie, then:

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I refused to answer her … but it was too late by then. She saw it on my face.’

  ‘Saw what?’

  ‘She realized why I never looked her in the eye, why I avoided talking about the future, why I didn’t want to answer her questions.’

  ‘What happened?’ Adam demanded angrily.

  ‘I tried to leave the studio, told her I didn’t want to talk any more, but she grabbed me, told me she had to know if her death was imminent.’

  ‘And?’ Adam asked, desperately.

  ‘And …’ Kassie could barely say the words, but she knew she had to. ‘… I told her the truth … that her time was nearly up.’

  Adam slammed his hand against the wall behind her head, making Kassie jump. She backed away, but he was no longer looking at her. She could see his mind was elsewhere, turning frantically, as certain pieces of the puzzle finally slotted into place.

  ‘We argued,’ he breathed, angrily. ‘That last morning we argued. She was upset, hostile, because of what you’d just told her …’

  Kassie could barely look at him.

  ‘Jesus Christ, is that … is that why you were so keen that I should go home? When we were out playing detectives at Lake Calumet, you were trying to get me to go home. Because you knew what she was going to do.’

  ‘It wasn’t going to happen until the next day. I thought that we … you would be back in time, that maybe you could do something to help her. I didn’t know we would get arrested, questioned. If they had let you out even an hour earlier …’

  Adam let out a sound, a nasty inhuman sound that was half scream, half roar.

  ‘I should have turned you away,’ Kassie continued quickly, ‘made you go home. I had the opportunity to do so and I didn’t. Because I’m selfish. Because I wanted to save Madelaine, save myself …’

  ‘You looked her in the eye,’ Adam insisted, seeming not to hear her. ‘You looked a vulnerable, grieving woman in the eye and you told her …’

  For a moment, he seemed as though he wouldn’t have the strength to finish the sentence, but then:

  ‘… that she was going to die.’

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do,’ Kassie pleaded. ‘She would have known if I’d lied to her.’

  ‘You made her do it. By telling her that, you made her kill herself –’

  ‘No, Adam, that’s not how it works.’

  ‘You pushed her over the edge.’

  ‘No, no. I don’t have any power, any influence over events. Things happen for a reason –’

  Adam raised his hand and for a moment Kassie thought he was going to strike her. But instead he jabbed a finger at her.

  ‘Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare say that …’

  But even as he gestured at her, the violence was ebbing from him. He looked washed out, hollow.

  ‘Why could you not …’ His voice was reedy and broken now. ‘Why could you not just have lied?’


  Kassie hesitated, before responding. She didn’t want to say it, but she had to.

  ‘Because … the result would have been the same.’

  A handful of simple words, which had a devastating effect. Adam’s gaze was still fixed to hers, but his expression was changing fast, as if a terrible realization was taking hold.

  ‘Please believe me, Adam, I never wanted for any of this to happen.’

  But he was backing away from her now, looking horrified and bewildered. He crashed against passers-by as he stumbled back to his car and instinctively Kassie wanted to reach out and help him. But there was no chance of that. She had lost him.

  Just as she had now lost Jan.

  126

  ‘Look again. We must have missed something.’

  Gabrielle’s voice was harsh, insistent.

  ‘I’ve run it three times,’ Albright protested. ‘Nobody at the Phone Shack has a criminal record.’

  She and Suarez had returned to CPD headquarters, clutching armfuls of personnel files. Immediately the team had set about investigating the male members of staff. They prioritized those who matched the description given by Kassie Wojcek after the Calumet inferno, but that placed over a dozen people in the frame, including Jason Schiffer himself. The cavernous Phone Shack seemed to be a haven for middle-aged white men with bad facial hair who couldn’t find jobs elsewhere. When they had drawn a blank running criminal-record checks on those names, they ran them for the rest of the male members of staff, but had no more success. In desperation, they had run the female names, but the result was the same.

  ‘What about freelancers or short-contract guys?’ Gabrielle replied, more in hope than expectation.

  ‘They don’t do that,’ Suarez piped up. ‘They contract staff up, do everything in house. It’s cheaper that way, more reliable.’

  ‘So, do we think we’re wrong, then? That we’ve got this all sideways?’

  ‘Well, on paper it looks a good fit,’ Suarez answered. ‘Someone who’s tech savvy stalking these people, targeting them … but if we’re not getting any hits …’

  ‘Let’s stay with it,’ Gabrielle said defiantly. ‘Odds on, this guy was a stalker or a housebreaker first. He’s too good to be an amateur. So he’s probably got form for that and possibly violence or indecent exposure. He’s gonna have a rap sheet, we just need to find it.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ Montgomery asked.

  ‘Well, he obviously gained employment at the Phone Shack under a false name. So, we’re going to have to do detailed background and ID checks on every Caucasian male who works there, checking for aliases, known –’

  ‘Talk about a needle in a haystack. That’ll take days,’ Albright moaned.

  ‘So, let’s stop talking and get on with it, shall we?’

  Shrugging, Albright hurried off to do her bidding, gathering the team around him. Despite her frustration, Gabrielle felt a small spike of satisfaction as her officers snapped into action. Her back was against the wall and she was running out of time.

  But she wasn’t beaten yet.

  127

  Leaning against the door, Jan breathed a long sigh of relief. His journey home had been uneventful, which was a blessing after his distressing day. Pulling off his hoodie, he shook it out, then hung it up on the peg next to the front door. He would get into trouble with Marsha, for not leaving it outside, but what the hell …

  Crossing the hall into the kitchen, he pulled a beer from the fridge and cracked it open. Taking a deep swig, he let the cool lager wash over his tongue, before swallowing it down. Instantly, he felt refreshed and revitalized. He loved this beer, which he bought at the Slovakian shop around the corner for a dollar fifty. Tipping up the bottle, he emptied it in one go, before casually tossing it in the trash.

  He was very tempted to have another. Laying a hand on the fridge door, he was about to pull it open, when suddenly he paused. A small movement on the periphery of his vision had caught his attention. The blind over the kitchen window, which was fully lowered, was flapping slightly.

  Puzzled, Jan crossed the room. Raising the blind, he noticed that the window was fractionally open, a tiny gap visible just above the sill. Immediately he felt his body tense up. Marsha had been the last one out and there was no way she would have left it open. She was paranoid about security, about living in a big American city, always checking and rechecking windows and doors before going out. And he knew he had not opened the window this morning, so …

  He examined the lock. This had always been flimsy – another source of concern for Marsha, who’d urged him to buy a new one – but now it came off in his hand altogether. Seriously alarmed, he opened the window to examine the sill and found a telltale scuff mark where some of the wood had splintered. Someone had used a crowbar or a chisel to gain access. Someone had been in the flat.

  Crossing to the kitchen unit, he pulled open the bottom drawer. He kept all his tools in here and now removed a hammer, before sliding it shut once more.

  His heart was beating fast, but slowly, cautiously, he crept from the kitchen, before darting his head into the living room. The sight of the TV and DVD player relaxed him, as did the pristine state of the furniture. Had someone gained access and then been scared off? Leaving the small room, he edged along the hallway towards the back of the flat. Their home was tiny and he felt sure he would know if there was someone in here with him, but still he had to check.

  Teasing the bedroom door open with his foot, he looked inside. Everything seemed in order, so he entered carefully. The room was quiet and seemed deserted, but he checked behind the door, in the closet, even under the bed. Relieved, he crossed the landing to the guest bedroom. Already he felt better about things, there was nothing of value in here.

  This too seemed unmolested – there was nobody under the bed, behind the door – so lowering his hammer and breathing a long sigh of relief, he opened the closet door.

  To find a man in a ski mask looking directly at him.

  128

  Her lungs were burning, but still she kept running. Her progress was clumsy but swift, shocked shoppers leaped out of her way, as she hollered at them to move. The crowds were parting for her, save for a couple of bystanders who looked angry and affronted, but even they stood aside when they saw the wild teenager tearing towards them. Was it her flailing, auburn hair, her crimson, sweaty face or the desperation in her voice that made them retreat? It didn’t matter, just as long as they got out of her way.

  She had been deeply shaken by her encounter with Adam and had remained rooted to the spot for several minutes afterwards, leaning against the wall for support. But in spite of her crushing guilt and her very real concern for Adam, her thoughts had slowly returned to Jan. To an innocent man who was living on borrowed time.

  She had little to go on, but tugging her phone from her pocket, she had typed his name into Searchbug. To her relief, she discovered that there was a ‘Jan Varga’ living in a block in the Ukrainian Village, not ten minutes from where she was. Peeling herself off the wall, she looked intently to her right, at the female jogger who had spent an awfully long time examining the front window of an electrical-appliance store, then turned and walked away in the opposite direction. And, with each step, her pace increased, as the urgency of the situation sank in, until eventually she was sprinting.

  This time she felt sure she would be in time. Jan had probably only just got home, so even if he was being attacked, the assault was in its early stages. If she could get there quickly, gain access somehow, there was still a chance she could save him. The thought gave her a boost of adrenaline and even brought a smile to her face. Was this the moment when she broke the curse? When she proved that if you can foresee the future, then you can change it? Was it still possible that she might be saved?

  She raised her speed another notch. Though she had never been an athlete at school, she was lithe and swift. Her feet slapped the concrete, her balance constantly shifting as she weaved in and out of the
office workers who were beginning to emerge now. She was in the zone, her running rhythmic and intense, never allowing herself to let up, even though every part of her ached. And ten minutes later, she found herself outside Jan’s shabby apartment block.

  Hurrying to the main door, she yanked at it, but it refused to budge. Turning to the intercom, she ran her finger down the list, until she found Jan’s name, next to a buzzer for the third-floor. She was about to press it, when suddenly she paused. If the killer was already inside, was there any virtue in alerting him to her arrival? Instead, withdrawing her finger, she hammered on the main door, pressing her face to the glass panels to peer inside. A gloomy hallway stared back at her, devoid of light, movement or any human presence.

  Cursing, she stepped back and scanned the apartment windows, hoping against hope that someone might be standing there, but there was nobody. Immediately she started moving towards the side of the building. Was there an alleyway she could access? A fire escape perhaps? But as she moved off she heard the front doors swing open.

  ‘What’s all the banging about? Where’s the fire?’

  An elderly man in worn coveralls had pushed open the doors. A chipped ID badge on his chest identified him as the janitor, though he could hardly be mistaken for anything else.

  Kassie didn’t bother explaining, pushing past the startled man and haring inside. Tearing down the dimly lit hallway, she swung round the bannister at the end and raced up the stairs. She took them two at a time, bouncing lightly off the wooden boards as she went up, up, up. In under a minute she was outside Jan’s apartment, breathless but exhilarated. She could hear the old janitor wheezing up the stairs below her, but she didn’t have time to wait. The door in front of her was cheap and old, the lock rusty. Taking a few steps back as a run-up, Kassie charged at the door, launching her boot at the lock.