Shades of Deception

by Piper Dow

  David could see Mark mentally retracing his steps in the house. His face stilled. “The lights in Jill’s bedroom. The lamp is on a timer so that it looks like there’s still movement in there. It didn’t go on last night - when I went in this morning, the wall switch was off. They were definitely in there. Shit!”

  David shoved his phone into his pocket. He had tried to warn her, but he’d known when he saw her at the library he was too late. He’d taken the chance when her brother called her name to get away, but he’d been worried that she wouldn’t quit. He leaned back against the car and watched as Mark picked up his pacing again. He would have to be very careful if he was going to be able to keep the kids safe without blowing his own cover.

  “I’m going to have to pay those kids a visit,” Mark said. He leaned on his hands over the hood of the car, nodding to himself. “Stupid kids shouldn’t be messing around with things that have nothing to do with them anyway. I need that book, and either Sam took it before she left, or they took it during their visit. If I don’t make my deliveries, then people come looking for me, and I can’t have that.” He shook his head. “I knew that Sam was going to end up being trouble.”

  David didn’t answer. He watched as Mark stared off toward the campus. He’d seen this side of Mark before, and as uncomfortable as some of his actions made David, nothing unnerved him like this side of Mark.

  A car pulled off the street onto the access road and rolled toward the parking lot, bass speakers thumping. Mark’s eyes narrowed as he followed it’s progress. “This guy is late. If he doesn’t have the money he owes me, he’s going to wish he had called instead of coming in. I’ve got no patience for this today.”

  David watched as Mark straightened and stilled, eyes bright. He’d seen Mark like this when he thought he had been crossed. He hoped for the driver’s sake, he had brought some money.

  Mark tossed his head, shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes. He braced his legs and crossed his arms over his chest. David knew Mark wouldn’t walk over to the car, he would make the driver come to him. Ten seconds stretched into a minute. The heavy thumping from the car’s speakers was beginning to grate on David’s nerves. He glanced in at the driver, then quickly back at Mark. David wanted to see Mark’s face, to see if there were any signs that would give away what might happen in the next few minutes.

  The driver’s door opened. The engine was still running, its radio still blaring its jarring racket, made louder with the opening of the door. A blonde girl with green streaks pieced into her hair closed the door quietly and strode confidently around the car to stand in front of Mark.

  “Cory had an appointment he had to keep, but he asked me to bring you this,” she said, wiggling one hand into the front pocket of the skin-tight jeans she wore and pulling out some wadded up money.

  Mark stared at her, his face impassive. No muscles twitched at his jawline, no pulse beat at his temple. His eyes slowly scanned the girl’s face, moved down to the bills in her hand, and back up to meet her eyes. The girl suddenly looked wary.

  “Look, I’m just doing him a favor - he asked me if I had class today and could I come a few minutes early to see you and give you this money he owed you, and I said I would. He said he had to go to have a test done at the hospital, and it’s one of those you have to have an appointment for - a cat scan? No, an MRI, I think, the one with the tube and the loud noise, and he was afraid to go because he’s a big guy and he doesn’t like tight spaces, and they gave him a prescription for something to relax him so he could go in the tube.”

  She was babbling. David was never sure how Mark was able to do it - he watched carefully, but had never seen anything that he could detect that would make people start spilling their guts, but they nearly all did. Mark would be utterly still, his eyes intelligent and interested, and something -- something, but David couldn’t figure it out - would cause people to bubble over with whatever Mark wanted to know.

  Mark smiled, uncrossing his arms and reaching forward to touch the girl’s shoulder. “Hey, I hope Cory is OK! He hadn’t said he wasn’t feeling well, I would have waited for the money. I mean, he knows I needed it back, my dad’s been so sick and out of work so much, but I could have figured something out.” He was friendly and apologetic, his body relaxed.

  The girl’s smile lit up her face. David thought she looked relieved but knew if he were to talk to her later she would not remember feeling uneasy in the first place.

  “Oh, he hasn’t been sick! He said he was goofing around with his roommate and fell down the stairs. His shoulder’s pretty messed up - that’s why the MRI, to see if his rotator cuff is torn or something. Anyhow, he asked me to give you this, and said to say he’ll catch up with you later.”

  She held out the money a second time. This time, Mark reached forward to take it. He smiled again.

  David had seen that smile before, too. He closed his eyes, willing the girl to remember she had a class to get to. Apparently, it worked.

  “Shall I tell him to call you, then? ‘Cuz I’ve got to get to Dorsey Hall before class starts,” she was moving toward the car. “I’ve got too many questions to get answers to about finding the outliers in statistics before the midterm next week!”

  David watched Mark as Mark watched the girl drive Cory’s car out of the lot and head for the back of campus. He met Mark’s eyes as Mark turned from the car’s taillights.

  “I could use a new alibi,” Mark said. One side of his mouth curled up slowly, but then his eyes hardened, and his jaw clenched. “First, though, I need to get that book back.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Kelly slid her notebook out of her bag and showed the picture of the man in the sweatshirt to Sam.

  “Do you know this person?”

  Sam was sitting up in the hospital bed, leaning against the raised head of the bed. She looked at the picture, then reached out with one hand and took it from Kelly, slowly bringing it closer. She glanced up at Kelly and back at the pad in her hand. “This is David. Well, that’s who it reminds me of - David has darker stubble, and his nose is a little wider, here, and something is different about his mouth - maybe David’s is a little fuller? His jawline maybe a little wider?” She looked back at Kelly. “If this was just a picture you drew of someone, I would say you are an amazing artist - this is really fantastic. But this is too close to David to be coincidence, which means - did you see this guy while you were in Bridgeville? Oh, Kelly.” The last was said in a near whisper. Sam looked close to tears. “Kelly, if David saw you, then Mark must know you were there. David is one of Mark’s closest friends. This can’t be good.”

  Kelly pursed her lips. Sam was looking and sounding so much better than she had last night, able to use complete sentences and thinking more clearly. Kelly realized she hadn’t told Sam all of the details about the trip to Bridgeville. She didn’t want to set Sam back since she was finally beginning to sound coherent, but she really wanted a way to make sure the family was safe again.

  “Sam, help me make the picture more accurate. I wanted to bring it to the police station. If they have a picture of him, they’ll have a better chance of finding him - and if they can find him, they can find Mark, right?” She gently pulled the sketch pad free of Sam’s fingers. Digging into her backpack, she pulled out her case with pencils and a paper stump. “You think the jawline is wider, and the lips might be fuller?”

  She moved the pencil over the surface of the paper, darkening here and there, rubbing with the stump on occasion and pulling out her kneaded rubber eraser to lighten or remove other details. She darkened the shadows on his chin and widened the nose. She agreed with Sam, this was looking more like the man she had seen in the halls of the hospital and following her in the library at Sam’s school. The thought made her pause.

  “Sam, he was here. I did run into him in Bridgeville, but first I saw him here, in the hospital,” she said, her hand hovering over the picture. She looked into Sam’s eyes. “I was in the chapel - it’s on th
is floor. I had gone for coffee, and I saw a sign pointing the way to the chapel. While I was in there, I saw him walk past the door. I tried to follow him, but I lost him when I ran into a guy in scrubs coming around the corner. I told Dad, but I don’t think he believed me. He said I couldn’t be sure - there were other explanations for the things I had found, like a slip of paper with our address on it. But I’m sure it was him. He was here.”

  Sam closed her eyes and rested her head back on the pillow. Her voice was quiet. “When Jill first started going with Mark, they would hang out in the living room. I didn’t much like him, so when they were over, I would study in my room, or go to work or the library. Jill had already changed - remember over the summer, I had told you that she had gotten quiet and looked like she wasn’t eating enough, and she was sleeping a lot. I didn’t like it, and when she started going with Mark she sort of got better, so I should have liked him, but there was something about him. I just got this feeling in my heart whenever he was around. And even though Jill was more outgoing and was eating again, she was just, I don’t know, something wasn’t right.”

  Kelly sat on the side of the bed, listening. Sam was picking at the edge of the blanket. Kelly noticed her fingernails were rough and jagged at the edges like they’d been chewed.

  “David didn’t hang out with them, but he would come around to talk with Mark at different times. I didn’t get the same feeling that I did with Mark, that uneasiness, but when I walked through the room, I could feel their eyes on me. I started seeing him around town, at the bookstore, near my classes - I had never seen him in those places before so it couldn’t have been a coincidence. He was following me - stalking me.”

  Kelly felt an iciness in her stomach. “Sam, did he - did he do anything to you?”

  Sam shook her head, her eyes still closed. “No, that was part of what made it all so weird. He hardly even talked to me, and barely looked at me when I was in the room. He never touched me. He just was there, more and more, when I would turn around. And then, he was there when those, those things, took Jill.” Her voice faded away as she pressed her lips together. A tear slid down one cheek from still closed lids.

  Kelly reached out and grasped Sam’s hand, squeezing it and holding on. “Sam,” she said, not sure what else to add.

  Sam opened her eyes. Misery pooled and spilled down her cheeks in hot tears.

  “How could this have happened? Those things, how could they be real? And Jill! How could she be gone?”

  Kelly dropped the sketch pad to the chair at the side of the bed and used both hands to pull Sam into a crushing hug. Wrapping her arms tightly around her older sister, she dropped her head onto Sam’s shoulder and breathed a prayer that God would grant his peace because this was beyond her understanding.

  The door to the hospital room opened. Wayne walked in, backpack in hand, and reached to move the sketchpad so that he could sit in the chair. Glancing at the drawing, he looked up at Kelly, surprise evident in his open mouth.

  “Kel, this is that guy! The one in the car with Mark! What did you draw him for?”

  Sam drew back from Kelly’s embrace, wiping the tears from her wet face with the hand without the IV.

  “I wanted to give the police something to go on when they look for him,” Kelly said, looking down at the drawing again.

  Wayne was frowning, a small crease forming between his eyebrows. “I thought we were done,” he said. “We gave the police the information we got from going to Sam’s apartment. Dad said we need to let them do their jobs now.” He lifted the sketchpad as though it was contaminated and thrust it back at Kelly. “You are going to keep at this, aren’t you? You’re going to keep pushing.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kelly raised her voice, stung. “How is my making a sketch - a sketch to give to the police, mind you - how is that not letting them do their jobs? How is that me keeping at this? And, really, why shouldn’t we keep at this - if by keeping at this, you mean make sure the police keep working on it and trying to figure out who these people are and what is going on, and, more importantly, keeping us safe?”

  Wayne was shaking his head. “No, Kelly. I know you. You push and push, and you become the distraction that derails things because you won’t let other people do what they need to do. If you keep getting involved in their investigation, the cops are going to lose focus on what they need to focus on, and instead, they’ll be focusing on you getting in the way all the time. Remember that time Gramma wanted to surprise Mom and Dad with a weekend away, and you kept trying to make everyone do things the way you thought they should be done, and in the end, Mom and Dad ended up with dinner and a movie?”

  Kelly stood up, opening her book bag and putting the sketch pad back inside it. “Oh my word, Wayne, let it go. I did not push, and I am not going to be getting in the way of the cops doing their jobs. You sure weren’t this concerned yesterday, when you called your buddies to throw the police off the trail. What I’m trying to do would actually help them!”

  “Guys, stop it!” Sam was gripping the blanket in her hands, her head swiveling back and forth between the two of them. “Wayne, Kelly’s sketch really could make a difference. I doubt I got any photos of David because he didn’t hang around with Jill much. If I did, they wouldn’t be close-ups. This picture is a good likeness. Why do you think it would be wrong to bring it to the police?”

  Wayne shot a dirty look at Kelly’s bag before turning back to Sam. “You were sleeping, so I’m not sure how much you heard about what happened while we were in Bridgeville the other day. Those guys threatened us - this guy didn’t talk, but he was with Jill’s boyfriend - Mark’s the one who said something about my sister being gutted like a deer - so no, I think it would be better to just leave it with the police now!”

  Sam’s mouth dropped open as she turned to Kelly in disbelief. “You didn’t tell me they threatened you! Kelly, maybe Wayne is right - I do think the sketch is good, and I don’t see how it will hurt to bring it to the police, but we need to focus on staying safe. You drew David, which means you have probably been thinking about him all day, right? Kel, you know how you get - no, don’t get mad, Wayne’s right. You don’t think straight when you’re stuck on something. I don’t want you getting hurt, too!”

  Kelly ground her teeth. “I am not stuck on anything. I’m going to bring this sketch to the police, and then I’m going to head home to work on my sociology report. Can you stay here until Mom and Dad get back from dinner?”

  She grabbed her backpack and swung it over her shoulder, knocking over a cup of water that had been sitting on the bedside table as she did so. “Crap!”

  As she moved to grab a towel, Wayne waved her off, already having picked one up from a stack on the top of the built-in chest of drawers near the bathroom door.

  “I’ve got it. You’re like a wrecking ball with that thing,” he said. “And I’ll stay, but I’m not sure they’ll be happy you went home without them.”

  “They’re the ones who said we need to keep up with the workload. I’ll be fine.” She turned to look at Sam, who was watching her with a slight frown. “Really.” Kelly turned more slowly this time and walked across the room to the door without knocking anything else over. She knew they were watching her. She refused to look back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  David turned his face to look at the trees flashing by on the side of the highway and mulled his options. He had offered yesterday to get the book by himself, but Mark was so beside himself with rage at Sam and her whole family that he wouldn’t let go of the idea of watching their faces while he threatened them. He had agreed to have David accompany him there today, but David wasn’t sure what good he was going to be able to do.

  “That girl is going to be more trouble than her sister was,” Mark said. He was tapping the steering wheel to the beat of a classic rock song, but clearly his mind was not on the lyrics. “Sam was quiet, and more moldable because of that. You weren’t around a few years ago, but there wa
s this girl, Amy. She was a treat, that one. She thought she was going to swoop in and stop me, like she was some sort of super hero coming to save the day. Ha! Should have seen her face when she saw what she was really up against! Ah, man, it was epic.”

  He tapped away on the steering wheel some more, smiling at the memory. David grinned and shifted in the passenger seat so that he partially faced Mark.

  “OK, but seriously, what are we going to do when we get to Meldon? I think it might cause more problems if their whole family goes missing. Sam is in the hospital, the cops are looking into what happened. If the kids told the cops anything about coming to Bridgeville, it could be followed back to our backyard. That’s just inviting unnecessary problems, in my opinion,” David said.

  “Nah, they can’t go missing, you’re right, there. I’m thinking of showing the little sister what sort of person I am. If she gets a good enough scare, and she finds out what could happen to Sam if I don’t get what I want, she’ll cooperate. She and the brother went to a lot of trouble to stick their noses in to try to defend their sister. That kind of person can be manipulated easily with the right leverage.”

  Mark drummed the steering wheel harder with the chorus. His grin returned. “Oh, man, I can’t wait to see her face!”

  “You think that changing in front of her and threatening her sister is going to dissuade her?” David was thinking of the determination he had glimpsed on Kelly’s face when she grabbed his shirt outside the library the other day.

  “Oh, that won’t be a threat. Sam’s going down whether I get the book back, or not. She should have kept her nose out of my business in the first place.” Mark was serious now, the grin replaced by a stubborn scowl. “And her actually still being in the hospital is perfect for that part of the plan.” He tapped the pocket of his leather jacket. “This stuff will mix right into whatever they’ve got in her IV, and send her right off the cliff. I don’t have to kill her, I just have to ruin the rest of her life. Psych wards are filled with people who have come out the wrong side of a fight with my kind.” The grin inched back into place on his face. “I’m actually looking forward to this. It’s going to feel great to be able to stretch again.”