But he had. Something in the way she’d looked through the viewfinder of his Canon, and later out of the photos that he and Meg had taken, had haunted him. And still did. And something haunted her as well.
What had she seen when he’d called her name?
“You can’t imagine what it’s like to have someone look at you like that,” he said.
His voice was so soft it was almost as though he were speaking to himself. He couldn’t suppress the shiver that spidered up his spine.
Cindy regarded him for a long moment; then her eyes warmed, and she laid her hand on his where it rested on the tabletop.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But the way she looked at you—she was so scared. It was like she was seeing a ghost.”
Jim nodded slowly. He played the scene back in his mind yet again, but this time with a photographer’s eye, focusing on any details he might have missed before.
“I don’t think she even saw me,” he said finally.
“What do you mean?”
“She was looking at me, but she saw someone—something else.” He tapped his hands against his chest. “I mean, look at me. Do I look that scary to you?”
Cindy shook her head.
“That girl’s up to her neck in trouble,” Jim said then. “Don’t ask me how I know it; I just do.”
“I think maybe you’re right.”
Jim sunk back in his chair and sighed. “God, everything was just going great.” He met her gaze. “I was having a really good time.”
“Me, too.”
“And now it’s all changed. There’s this edge to everything.”
“There doesn’t have to be,” Cindy said. “Let’s get our bill and go back to Meg’s place. She said she was going to be out until around eleven so we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
There was no come on in her voice, and for that—oddty enough, considering how he’d been feeling about her earlier—Jim was grateful. He wanted to be with her, wanted the comfort of her company, but he didn’t want to complicate their relationship beyond that for the moment. Not while he could still feel Niki’s gaze fixed on him, the terror in her eyes.
What had she seen?
He thought of what Cindy had said earlier.
It was like she was seeing a ghost … .
Jim didn’t believe in that kind of thing. Ghosts were just a way that some stupid people dealt with their dull lives. At least that was how it seemed from his only point of reference—the supermarket tabloids. He didn’t think Niki was stupid. She hadn’t seen a ghost, but she had seen something that terrified her. He also got the feeling that she was all on her own, facing whatever it was that scared her.
Nobody, he thought, should face that kind of terror on their own.
“Jim?” Cindy said.
He focused on her and remembered what she’d said about going back to Meg’s:
“Sounds good to me,” he said, trying to keep his tone of voice light, even though right then he felt anything but lighthearted.
ELEVEN
The money she’d ripped off from the horny businessman who had accosted her by the Pier was burning a hole in Chelsea’s mind, but she didn’t know what to do with it. There was no point in getting a decent meal since she was still full from the breakfast that Jammin’ had bought her earlier. She could always get some new clothes, she supposed, but she didn’t really need more stuff to lug around in her backpack, and if she got anything exceptional, it’d just get ripped off. A squat wasn’t exactly the best place to leave lying around anything that you really cared about.
She wouldn’t have minded getting together with Jammin’, but all she knew was that he was rehearsing with his band at this George guy’s place. She’d made plans to join Jammin’ at the club where The Jah Men were playing tonight, but that wasn’t until nine or so. Until then she had no idea how to go about finding him.
Nothing to do and nowhere to go. It was the story of her life.
The good feeling that had come from pulling one over on the smarmy lecher back at the Pier slipped away as she roamed aimlessly through the streets of Newford’s downtown core. She wandered into Gypsy Records on Williamson Street and spent a while flipping through the records and CDs, but that just ended up making her feel more depressed.
She didn’t have a sound system, not even a Walkman, to play anything on. She supposed she could pick up a cheap machine at a Radio Shack or some discount store with the money she had in her pocket, but the damn things fed on batteries, and while she had the cash to buy them now, it’d be gone quickly enough. It was hard enough to scrounge up eating money some days; who needed the hassle of trying to feed a Walkman as well? Besides, tapes cost money, too, and the player would just get ripped off anyway, so what was the point?
She tried to strike up a conversation with one of the girls working in the store who looked pretty cool, but it was just too busy to get much past asking what the record was that was blasting from the store’s sound system.
“It’s the first Divinyls album,” the girl said, but before she could go on, some little kid interrupted to ask where they kept their cassette singles; then on her way back to where Chelsea was standing, someone else stopped her to return a defect.
While the girl was dealing with that, Chelsea wandered out of the store. The loud music combined with the push and bustle in the crowded aisles had started to get on her nerves. Outside, the sidewalk was crowded as well, so she finally retreated back to the lakefront, after first cutting over to a less crowded street.
She found herself a relatively deserted spot under the Pier and just sat there with her legs splayed out on the sand in front of her. If it hadn’t been the weekend, she might have gone to see about registering for school—it’d be starting up in just a couple of weeks and she had to get moving on it—but she didn’t have anything together yet. She needed a place to stay; she needed to get some kind of deal together with welfare. And then there was this crap with her old man … .
Just thinking about him gave her the creeps. She could see the face of last night’s victim again, staring up at her from her high school photo in the newspaper—a look of accusation in her eyes.
I didn’t do it, Chelsea thought. It wasn’t my fault.
Suddenly, under the cries of the kids running around on the beach, the people talking and moving around on the Pier above her, she could hear the faint icy murmur of his voice, calling her.
You can’t hide from Daddy … .
His voice seemed stronger than ever today, dark and cold like the midnight wind that had carried it to her where she’d been huddling in her squat last night. Goosebumps lifted on her arms, though the day was warm.
Shivering, she tried to put him out of her mind.
Think about what you’re going to tell the welfare worker on Monday, she told herself.
Like she could do anything, with him prowling through the city, looking for her.
She should just run. Maybe he’d follow, but maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe if she moved quickly enough, she could get far enough away that the cold chill of his voice couldn’t find her.
She thought about the money she’d ripped off from that guy this morning, wondering how far it would take her and how far she had to go. Then she found herself wondering why the guy had been wandering around in a three-piece suit with his briefcase on a Saturday morning.
You have to ask? she thought.
He’d have told his wife that he had to work a little overtime, when all he was really working on was how he could get himself a little bit of underage tail, because the little girls made him feel so good. Just like little girls and boys made Daddy feel so good.
She could feel tears press up behind her eyes.
Jesus, she told herself. Just leave it. Just—
“Hey, pretty girl,” a stranger’s voice said.
She started and almost bolted before she realized that it wasn’t her father, or some jerk like the guy she’d ripped off, but just a kid who’d c
ome up on her so quietly. The sand had muffled the sounds of his footsteps as he’d approached.
The guy sat down on his ankles in front of her, rocking a little bit, to and fro, as though his body was moving to some music that only it could hear. He was probably older than he looked, she thought, as she looked more closely at him—maybe in his early twenties—but he was still just a skinny little black guy in baggy, brightly colored shorts, an armless T-shirt, hightops, and shades. His hair stood straight up in tight black curls on top while the sides of his head were shaved to just stubble about two inches above each ear.
“What’s doing?” she asked.
She didn’t particularly want to hang out with him, but talking to anybody just about now was better than being by herself.
“You want to buy some goods?” he asked. “I’ve got weed, I’ve got crack. Whatever you need, Jimmy’s got it.”
She was tempted. It was a way to cut through the blues. But it wouldn’t last. All the crap in her life would still be there waiting for her when she came down, except it’d be just that much harder to deal with it.
“I’ll pass,” she said.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
She knew exactly what she was missing, Chelsea thought.
“I said, I’ll pass,” she told him, irritation creeping into her voice.
“What, you don’t think my shit’s good enough for you?”
“Why don’t you take a hike?”
“It’s a public beach, girl. I want to hang out right here, nobody can tell me shit.”
Chelsea sighed. She got to her feet and started to leave, but the guy caught her by the arm.
“Hey, why’re you so uptight?” he asked. “I got just the thing to make you feel good. All it’s gonna cost you is—”
She didn’t let him finish. She just moved in close and brought her knee up into his groin. Hard. His shades shot off as he jerked his head with the sudden pain. She saw his eyes go wide, his features tighten in shock. She gave him a shove, and he toppled over onto the sand, hands cupped around his groin. She stepped forward and drew back her foot to give him a kick with the toe of her big Doc Martens, but then realized that the fight had already gone out of him.
Shaking her head, she let him lie there and walked away.
“You fucking bitch!” he shouted once she’d got a few yards away from him.
Her hand went to her purse, fingers curling around the handle of her switchblade, but when she turned around, she saw that he was still kneeling there in the sand, not making a move. It was hurt pride talking. Macho shit. His eyes looked scared.
“What a crappy day this is turning out to be,” she muttered as she continued on down the beach.
It didn’t get much better. She stayed at loose ends for the whole day, just wandering through the city. She found if she kept moving, the cold whisper of her father’s voice couldn’t seem to find her.
When the night finally started to crawl closer, she had a big, expensive meal in one of the trendy restaurants just north of McKennit. The food tasted like sawdust and she left it mostly uneaten. Her father’s voice found her again, but the noise of the restaurant—the sound system with its yuppie music and all the happy little jerks who sat around her laughing and talking and mooning into each other’s eyes—made it possible for her to, if not ignore, at least deal with it.
Nursing a coffee, she pretended she belonged in this place. She watched the clock behind the bar as its hands snailed toward eight-thirty. When they finally reached the magic half-hour mark, she paid her bill and followed Lee Street up through the Market.
All she wanted to do was be with Jammin’. He was the only person she knew in the city who—
An image of her father’s face swelled in her mind. The wind called her name and woke goosebumps up her arms. She shivered and wrapped her arms tightly around herself.
She was suddenly aware of just how alone she was. Though there were crowds all around her, she could disappear into a crack in the sidewalk and no one’d know or even care. Except maybe for Jammin’, and he’d probably forget her in a day or so anyway.
Only one person wanted her—really wanted her.
Look what Daddy’s got for you, the wind whispered. Or maybe it was only a memory.
But he was going to find her, she realized now. He was going to find her, and this time he wasn’t going to pull down the zipper of his pants. This time he was going to drag that big knife out of his pocket, the one he was using to kill all those girls. This time—
A man suddenly stepped out of the door of the restaurant she was walking beside. He looked right at her, seemed to recognize her, but she’d never seen him before in her life. Then he called out to her and everything went black inside.
“Niki!”
Panic flooded her.
Niki, Niki, Niki … . the midnight wind echoed.
That’s not my name, she wanted to scream. Not anymore. I’m not her, I’m not her, I’m not her … .
But it was no use denying it. The whispering voice of the wind laughed in her head.
Nikinikiniki … .
The wind knew it was true. And the man who’d called out to her …
He’d stopped dead in his tracks, turned immobile by she didn’t know what. Maybe he heard the wind that she thought was only in her head. Maybe he’d realized his mistake: He didn’t know her; her name wasn’t Niki.
Because it wasn’t—not anymore.
She didn’t care what had stopped him. She just stole the frozen moment and fled into the night. Running, running. Away from him. Away from the sibilant whispering of the midnight wind that carried her father’s voice.
Pain stitched her side and her breath changed to a jagged rasp. People stared at her as she ran by, but no one tried to stop her. No one tried to follow.
Only the wind. Only the voice that wouldn’t get out of her head.
Nikinikiniki … .
All she wanted to do was hide. The night was big. Surely she could find some place where he couldn’t find her, where she wouldn’t be able to hear that awful sound anymore.
But while she might be able to outrun a physical presence, there didn’t seem to be any escape from the voice that had taken up residence in her head and was gnawing away at her courage.
Just give up, it told her. Let’s get it over with.
Look what Daddy’s got for you … .
“Fuck … you … ,” she cried.
Tears streamed from her eyes, and still she ran, on and on into the endless night, until suddenly the voice was gone.
She stumbled at the mouth of an alleyway, utterly disoriented and lost, and fell sprawling onto a small mound of green garbage bags. The sweet-sour smell of the refuse seemed to coat her lungs as she sucked in badly needed air, but she didn’t even have enough strength to roll over and away from it.
She lay there, panting, tears burning in her eyes, until finally her mind-numbing fatigue caught her in a grip that was too strong to break. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she couldn’t stop herself from slipping away into an exhausted sleep.
TWELVE
Frank Sarrantonio took a left off McKennit, heading north on Lambton until they reached the alleyway in which Mike Fisher said he’d hidden last night while the Slasher was taking down his fourth victim. He brought the unmarked police car to a stop and leaned a little over where Thomas was sitting in the passenger’s seat, to get a better view of the alley. Neither man said anything until Frank began to inch the car farther up the street.
Thomas laid a hand on his arm. “I want to walk it,” he said.
Frank put the car into park, then shut off the engine. A moment later he had joined Thomas on the sidewalk. The two men gave the alleyway a cursory glance, then slowly made their way up the street. They paused at the bloodstains enclosed by a chalk outline that were all that remained of last night’s investigation, then continued on to the end of the block.
Thomas looked back the way
they’d come. There was no way a man could have run from the end of the block, back to where the murder had been committed, in the time frame that Fisher had given them.
“It’s just like we remembered it,” Frank said as they started back. “No doorways.”
Thomas nodded. “And no windows low enough for him to have dropped down onto the Wilson girl.”
The only windows were enclosed in steel mesh and began, on this side of the street, on the building’s second floor, a good eighteen feet above the street.
“No fire escapes either,” Frank added.
Thomas nodded again.
“So,” Frank said. “Either we’ve got a perp who can fly, or maybe walk through walls—or Fisher’s lying to us. I know where my vote’s going.”
“Or he was just mistaken,” Thomas said. “It’s not as though a man like Fisher would he used to this kind of situation.”
“I suppose.”
“And he did come forward. He didn’t have to.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “But still.”
“We’ll be talking to him again,” Thomas said as he headed back to the car. “You can push him a little harder then—see what comes up.”
The Lone Wop and Tonto, Billy Ryan thought as he watched the Buick carrying the two plainclothes detectives pull away from the curb. He was familiar with both of them, seeing how the better part of his business took place in their precinct. They’d been after his ass on more than one occasion and still had some investigations pending that could mean trouble if the wrong person talked.
He slouched lower in his seat as the car passed him.
No imagination, he thought. That was their real problem. No imagination and too goddamn squeaky clean. If there was anything Ryan didn’t like—and especially distrusted—it was clean cops. There was something not quite normal about them.
He watched their Buick in the rearview mirror until it turned the corner; then he straightened up in his seat once more.
He’d wanted to check out the scene, thinking the cops would be long finished with it by now. If Tonto and his pat had come a moment later, they’d have found him out on the pavement, poking around just like they’d been doing. He was just as happy they hadn’t spotted him. He had nothing to hide—Christ he was alibied up to his ass for last night—but it still would have meant a session downtown, and he didn’t have either the time or energy for that kind of crap. Not with Mickey on his ass.
From a Whisper to a Scream Page 9