Possession

by J. R. Ward

  She had Googled him.

  As soon as she'd gotten back to her house, she'd gone to her laptop, fired up Internet Explorer, and typed in "Duke Phillips, Caldwell, NY." The good news? No articles about him murdering or stalking anyone, no mug shots, no crime-blotter mentions--and there was a picture from an old Union College yearbook that indicated he had at one point been premed. No address or phone number, but he could be a renter and only have a cell phone. No LinkedIn profile. Nothing on wife or children or parents.

  She'd even gone on Facebook and searched under the name. No profile that matched him.

  G. B. Holde on the other hand? After doing a search on him, she found that the guy had nearly nine thousand followers on Facebook--almost ten thousand on Twitter. No college profile for him, but plenty of articles on his singing, shows, and fans.

  Cait frowned. The club's entrance was being manned by two guys, and as one of them walked over to address somebody, she realized ... it was him.

  Her mystery man.

  Okay, not hers.

  And yeah, big surprise--he was not taking any lip from the Goth aggressor who'd stepped out of line, literally. He marched right up to the vampire wannabe, his arms hanging loose, his jaw clenched, his height acerbated by the ass kicking he was clearly prepared to dish if that was the way things went.

  Except what do you know. Mr. Darkness Personified with the walking cane and the pseudo-Victorian leather duster backed down, his eyes dropping away as Duke got up into his face and stayed there.

  Cait braced herself for a fight, but there wasn't one coming--once Duke had established his dominance, the drama was over. He went back to his post, and the guy with the mouth turned into a pussycat with an anachronistic collar.

  Pulling herself out of stalker mode, she got back on the right path, heading down Trade and navigating Caldie's grid pattern of one-ways. Her second foray through the Palace's parking garage wasn't quite as successful as her first. The only vacant spot she could find was waaaaaay up on the top floor that was open to the elements, and when she got out, a stiff, cold wind shaved her head. Burrowing into her coat, she hurried for cover, jogging around to the way she'd just come up because that was closer than the stairwell.

  Sure, the ramp was for cars, but she was not going to ruin her blowout by staying in that stiff breeze any longer than she absolutely had to--

  Shoot. She was turning into a chick.

  As she emerged onto the level below, she was at the far end, the red Exit sign to the stairs and elevator glowing in the distance. But at least the wind-tunnel effect wasn't happening down here.

  With any luck, she'd gotten back in plenty of time. She'd be waiting for G.B. in the lobby if she could get inside, or the outer foyer if she couldn't--

  A second set of footsteps joined her own.

  Cait frowned and looked over her shoulder. Someone had come down the ramp also, the dark figure about ten yards behind her.

  She could not make out the face ... or much of anything else. It was almost as if a haze had settled in and thickened the air between them.

  Cait picked up her pace, the sound of the hard soles of her loafers like a heart beating faster and faster. Glancing around, she realized there was no one else in the vicinity--and there wasn't going to be for a while. The concert didn't end for a half hour, and no one was going to be parking or unparking a car anytime soon.

  The person behind her sped up, walking more briskly. Keeping up. No, zeroing in.

  As she broke into a jog, she felt a little paranoid--she'd probably been dwelling too much on Sissy Barten's story. But then she looked back again...

  They were coming even quicker.

  Panic surged, and as she wrenched back around, she locked eyes on that Exit sign like it was a safety hatch--except if she got into the stairwell, what then? Would they chase her down it?

  Even faster. She went even faster, her shoes smacking into the concrete, her arms pumping--and right behind her, whoever it was sped up, too. Terrified, she took her purse off her shoulder, and held it in front of herself because it was the only "weapon" she had--wait, she should go for the eyes, right? The groin of the head--

  Was she really channeling Dwight Schrute at a time like this?

  Just as she came up to the heavy steel door of the stairwell, the elevator next to it binged and opened. No one was in it. No one had punched the down button, either.

  Who the hell cared?

  Cait tripped as she jumped inside, and threw herself at the lineup of buttons on the panel to the right. Punching the number "1" over and over again, she looked out of the open doors. The dark figure was running, closing in on her--

  "Please, please ... please..." she gasped.

  Cait hit that lit numbered button with both hands, her purse smacking against the elevator's wall, her breath exploding out of her mouth.

  "... please ... shut ... oh, God..."

  Her eyes shot to the row of numbers that glowed up above. The number "4" was lit--

  Abruptly the wind shifted direction, hitting her in the face even harder than it had up top--as if that figure, racing for her, coming at a dead run, was a menace from the Old Testament, its presence marshalling the elements, and sucking the illumination from the fluorescent lamps that glowed on the columns--

  The lights flickered over her head, strobing everything as the parking lot ahead of her abruptly went dark.

  Evil was coming for her.

  Blinded by the blinking lights above, she couldn't see its form, but vision was unnecessary. Her bones, her very soul recognized the threat as time slowed to a crawl and reality twisted into a nightmare.

  Was this how it went down for people? When a victim was struck, did they all feel this careening terror, this tunnel vision, this sense of, No, not me, not now, how is this happening?

  As if her brain were retreating to safety, flashbacks of earlier in the night flickered through her consciousness, images of her in her car, of her at a stoplight, of her in front of the Iron Mask ... of her turning into the parking garage one hundred and twenty seconds ago ... tantalized her with the false idea that she could somehow go back in time.

  If only that ticket had been waiting for her at will-call, this would not be her destiny. She'd be safe in the theater, listening to music along with five thousand other people who didn't have a clue about what she was actually facing.

  Tragedy was about to happen.

  If only she had not stopped to look at that man at the club. Or if she had decided to try to park on the street. Or if--

  "Please, God ... close--"

  The doors abruptly got with the program, shutting so fast it was as if they were spring-loaded. Thump. Ding.

  Whoosh.

  The elevator began its descent.

  Backing up against the poster-size ad for the theater's new season, she focused upward on those numbers overhead, praying that the lift didn't misfire again and stop at the floor below. One flight down the stairs was no big distance to cover...

  Every creak of the car was magnified until her ears burned like she was at a concert. Each foot down was like a mile at walking speed. Moments stretched into hours, days. Hands cramping up, fingers cranked into claws, her body was in full fight-or-flight--

  The phone, she needed to get her goddamn phone. With a jolt of action, Cait fumbled in her purse, things falling out; she didn't care what--

  Ding.

  Bump. Halt.

  Cait's head jerked up to the doors as the "3" lit up, and the descent stopped. "No ... no...!"

  Lunging forward at the panel, she hit the bright red stop button. As a ringing alarm exploded into the enclosed space, she had no idea whether she'd shut down the opening mechanism.

  Phone--where was her phone! Shoving her hand back into her purse--with enough force to break one of the straps--she rummaged around until her fingers ran into the thing. But she couldn't keep hold. As she brought the cell out, it slipped away from her, bouncing across the floor, sending her on a goo
se chase as she fell to her knees to catch the--

  Are you sure you would like to make an emergency call? the screen asked her as she got it and began working the screen.

  "Hell, yes!" She nailed the green button and put the phone up to her ear, staying frozen in that crouch, her eyes locked on the double doors as she prayed they'd stay shut--

  "Yes!" she shouted over the din as she plugged her free ear. "I'm in an elevator in the Palace Theatre's parking garage." What was the address? What the hell was the-- "Yes! On Trade! Help me--there's someone trying to--"

  Above her head, the inset lights in the ceiling started to flicker again.

  "I'm alone, yes--I'm in the elevator!" She kept shouting, because the alarm was still going off loud as a jet plane--and because being scared shitless really wasn't conducive to library whispers. "I've stopped it at the third floor--what? That's the alarm, ringing--no! It wasn't a malfunction--I stopped the elevator! There was someone chasing me and I ran into--excuse me?" She actually took the phone away from her cheek and glared at it. "Are you kidding me--lady, no offense, but he would have just followed me down the stair--no! My car was on another level."

  Was this woman on the other end actually critiquing her choice of escape?

  "Thank you--yes, I would like the police!" Much preferred over an embalmer at the end of all this. "Thank you!"

  As they went around in circles for what felt like an eternity, Cait told herself to try to reel in the frustration. Not a good idea to fight with the source of the cops. But for godsakes...

  "No, there's no telephone--wait, there is a call button, yes." Why hadn't she noticed it on the panel? "Yes, I'm hitting it now."

  A buzzer cut in through the alarm. And then ... a whole lot of nothing but that screaming, ringing sound. Maybe the security guard was on break?

  "No, no, answer--oh, God, please just send someone--"

  Pounding on the double doors made her scream.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  As Sissy stood in the center of her parents' living room, she held on to the only thing that seemed solid in the world.

  The man who had returned her home.

  And it was strange. Even through her hysteria, she had some vague thought that he was hard all over: His back was as unforgiving as stone, his arms like bridge cables, his chest a table to rest her head on. He was strong, so very strong; she could sense it in the way he held her to him. If she fainted again? He was going to do what he'd done before with ease.

  Pick her up. Carry her somewhere safe.

  But was there any true safety to be had anymore?

  Probably not. And that was another reason she'd locked herself away all day long.

  She hadn't been sleeping; that was for sure. Nope. She'd been reliving the past--and not as in distant history, not the happy or sad or poignant stuff she could recall from her real life. No, she'd passed those solitary hours mourning the prosaic trip out of the house that she'd made however many evenings ago: She'd replayed in her head everything she could remember about the night she had been abducted ... in the kitchen, going to the fridge, looking for ice cream. None. Calling out to her mother, who was in the family room, watching TV and cross-stitching.

  I want to go to the store--can I have the keys?

  Her mother's reply: They're in my purse. Take some money, too. And can you pick up some ...

  She couldn't remember what her mom had asked her for. Broccoli? Bath soap ...? Something that began with B.

  The next thing she remembered was going out the front door and getting in the car ... and thinking that as usual, it smelled like Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum and coffee--which might have been nasty, but was actually wonderful. Talk about straight out of childhood. Her mom had always taken a travel mug with her whenever she was in the car in the mornings, and in the afternoons, she was all about the gum. When Sissy had been in middle school and the seasonal rotation of field hockey/swimming/dance, etc., had required a nearly constant juggling of rides, the sweet, earthy smell in that Subaru had been all about home.

  God, that hurt to think of right now...

  And strange that on the night everything had changed she had noticed it one last time--and had smiled to herself as she'd backed out and gone at the speed limit down the road they lived on. She had been saving up for her own car, and looking forward to the summer break when she could pull big hours at Martha's, an ice-cream place across from the Great Escape theme park near Lake George. If she bunked in with a couple of friends and worked pretty much around the clock, by the time September rolled around, she would have been able to buy her own beater and go back and forth more easily from school.

  The drive had been less than four miles and taken maybe eight minutes, tops.

  After pulling into the parking lot at Hannaford, she'd left the car about five spaces up from the handicap reserves, and walked quickly to the entrance with its shopping carts centipeding in rows. Inside ... she had lingered over picking out the ice cream. In the end, it had been all about the Rocky Road--because she liked the crunch of the nuts and the chocolate chips and the smooth, super-sweet veins of marshmallow.

  Rocky Road. How fitting.

  At the self-checkout, she'd scanned the two things in her basket, the ice cream and the B whatever it had been that her mother had wanted. She'd paused to check out the new issue of Cosmopolitan, but she hadn't gotten permission for it, and it felt wrong to buy the trashy magazine without having asked first. At that point, she'd gone for her cell to call and see if it was okay, but no-go. Having been in a rush, she'd only taken her wallet and the twenty-dollar bill her mom had let her have.

  No way to phone home--or for help either, although she hadn't been thinking about that at the time.

  She could remember putting the ice cream in one of the plastic bags that was held open by struts on a Ferris-wheel scale.

  Out toward the automatic doors. Into the parking lot.

  Everything after that was hazy. Someone had stopped her? Someone who'd needed a...

  She'd tried throughout the day to get her brain to cough up the goods, give her what she wanted, show her the steps that had led ... to Hell.

  All it had gotten her was a migraine.

  Turning her head to the other side, she saw the curtains that hung by the bay window. Her mom had picked out the material about two years ago and made the panels herself. She'd needed help putting them up, and she and Sissy's father had gotten a stepladder out and worked together for an hour, changing the hardware that was screwed into the walls, anchoring the rod, clipping the tops of the drapes into the hooks.

  Sissy and her sister hadn't paid any real attention to the efforts or the result--Sissy had been on her way out to a friend's house and had offered only a passing, "It's great!" as she'd run out the door.

  Now she wished she'd been a part of the whole process.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself back from the warmth she'd taken advantage of. And then she stepped away from her savior. Like the relentless searching of her empty data banks, getting stuck in neutral in the middle of this room was going to get her nowhere. She had come to see her parents in their slumber, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

  Except first she looked around again. Inhaled deeply. Went over to the bookcase with all the family photographs on it.

  She had to blink away the tears, but she made herself stare at each of the images: If she couldn't handle two-dimensional photographs, how the hell was she going to get through standing over her family?

  "This is easier than that."

  "What?" came a deep rumble from behind her.

  Okay, guess she'd said that out loud. "The wall. However hard this is, it's got nothing on that prison. I have to ... remember that."

  After a moment, Sissy squared her shoulders and walked over to the base of the stairs. Gripping the handrail, she felt the smooth wood and leaned to the side. Down at the base of the balustrade's footer, there was the dipsy-doo, as her father
had called it, the little ring around where the fixture curved into a circle. At the center of it, there was a space on the floor that was uncarpeted and hidden unless you looked down from this angle.

  Every year, her parents had insisted on doing an Easter-egg hunt in the house for her and her sister--and that tradition, which had started in their toddlerhood, had continued even as they'd gotten older. It was always done inside--after all, in upstate New York, outdoors was usually not an option, assuming you didn't want to wear a parka with your Sunday best. And her father had always used "live eggs" as opposed to those hollow plastic casings that you could fill with stuff. Didn't seem right otherwise, he'd maintained.

  Everything had usually gone well ... except for that one year. Within a day or two of the hunt, an incredible stench had lit off in the house, the nose-curling horror worsening by the hour and permeating throughout--talk about your once-more-with-feeling on the hunt thing.

  It had been to no avail, however. No one had been able to find the egg.

  They'd had to have the place fumigated and were about to start knocking through the Sheetrock to see if some critter had taken one of her father's "live ones" into the walls of the living room when an unlikely solution had presented itself.

  On four legs.

  The neighbor's dog had discovered the dead body. Brought in as a Hail Mary, with no hope anything would help, the terrier had zeroed in on the offending item immediately--and found it in that two-square-inch space at the base of the dipsy-doo.

  They'd had a good laugh about that for years.

  Sissy looked over her shoulder. Her savior was standing pretty much where she'd left him--except that he'd turned to face her.

  "They can't hear us, right," she said.

  "I don't think so, no."

  Yeah, probably not given the whole Chillie situation from this morning.

  Sissy walked up the center of the stairwell, listening for the creaks that always happened when she'd done that before. The fact that there were none made her grab the shirt she was wearing and twist the fabric over her heart.

  None of the living could hear her voice ... and she didn't leave footsteps in any tangible sense...

  Never before had the division between the quick and the dead seemed so real.

  At the head of the stairs, she looked left. Right. Straight ahead.