Shadow Tag, Perdition Games

by L E Fraser

  Between the thick wood handles on the door was a chain with a heavy padlock. Eli hunted around the base of the mammoth boiler and found a chunk of iron pipe. He ran back to the doors, jimmied the pipe between the chains, and pulled. They held fast, the thick iron links refusing to budge. He jammed his foot against the door to gain extra leverage. After a couple of failed attempts, there was a loud crack. One of the door handles was loosening. Eli repositioned the pipe closer to the weakened handle, braced his foot against the door, and applied his full body weight to pull down the pipe. His biceps burned under the strain. He repositioned his hands, steadied his feet, and threw his upper body against the pipe. The top half of the handle pulled away from the door with a snap. He lifted the chain over the broken handle. It hit the wooden door with a clang. He cautiously opened the doors and shone his light around the confined space. A tiny blonde girl sat on the floor in the corner, tied and gagged. Eli rushed in, dropped the iron pipe beside her, and placed his fingers on her dirt-encased neck. Her eyes flickered open; the pupils were enormous in her bloodshot eyes.

  “I am here to help you,” he said. “I am going to get you out.” He gently removed the gag and she gurgled something incomprehensible.

  He took the pocketknife from his jeans and carefully sawed through the thick plastic restrains on her wrists. Her arms dropped lifelessly to her side and her head lolled against her shoulder.

  “Are you hurt?” He couldn’t see any sign of injury. Drugs would be his best guess.

  He placed the knife on the ground beside him. She was shivering and he rubbed his hands along her upper arms. “Who did this to you?”

  She whispered something that sounded like fox. He stood and thought for a moment. Based on her physical and mental condition, she wouldn’t be able to walk. He had to get her out before the man returned from upstairs.

  Eli shone his light around the room, tracing the old metal rails leading away from the door. They led to a wood-framed black hole in the back wall. Someone had piled newer bricks and large chunks of cement against the walls. Years earlier, they must have sealed the tunnel entrance, but someone—probably the sex trader or someone who worked for him—had broken through.

  The girl’s eyes followed the light. She made a strangled noise deep in her throat and reached up to grab his hand.

  He crouched down again. “It is okay,” he assured her. “We will leave together. I promise. My name is Eli.”

  “Bethany,” she whispered. “Help me. The fox is coming.”

  “Who is the fox?” he asked, but her eyes were drifting closed.

  He dropped his knife and clutched both her shoulders to prevent her from toppling over. He gently laid her on the ground and pressed his fingers on her neck again. Her pulse was a weak and rapid flutter against his fingers. He knew he had to move fast and get her out.

  Eli jumped up and accidentally kicked his knife into the rubble surrounding the mouth of the tunnel. He shone his light around but couldn’t see where the knife had disappeared. He hunted vainly for a few seconds, while his gut screamed at him to get Bethany to safety.

  Abandoning his search for the pocketknife, Eli directed his light at the hole in the wall. The tunnel slanted upwards; it was a little over two metres high and bridged with ancient logs on the walls and ceiling. The thick logs were black with coal dust, wood rot, and mould, but they appeared secure.

  The building’s original blueprint rose again in Eli’s mind. He located the sub-basement tunnel and traced the upward trajectory to ground level. From what he could discern, it was about ten metres to the surface—maybe thirty-two feet. He checked the time on his phone. Fifteen minutes had elapsed since the robed man’s telephone call. Whoever was picking up the girl wouldn’t arrive for over half an hour yet, but Eli didn’t know when the robed man would return.

  He remembered a seminar at university where a retired police chief had told Eli’s criminology class never—under any circumstances—to enter a confined space without backup. Eli didn’t relish the thought of travelling through a dark tunnel without knowing for sure if there was an exit at the end, but he didn’t see any option. Bethany’s abductor had said on the phone that he would wait with her, so he was clearly coming back. The risk of encountering him before they made it to the hospital exit and safely up the stairwell was too high. The tunnel was their best chance of escaping.

  He squatted down to lift her. Her eyes focused above his head and a strangled whimper escaped from between her dry lips. She cringed against the wall, covering her soot-covered face with her forearms. Eli’s heart jackhammered against his rib cage as he sensed eyes on his back and realized what was happening. He’d wasted too much time figuring out what to do. The fox was in the room.

  With his back still towards the intruder, and without physically reacting to the man’s presence, Eli slowly reached for the iron pipe, leaning slightly so his body blocked his arm’s movement. He had only one shot at this, he knew: he had to spin around and strike the man’s shins hard enough to take him down.

  His fingers grasped cold metal. He rotated his toe, preparing to swing with all his strength. Blinding pain filled his head. His body pitched forward. As if from a distance, he heard Bethany screaming. Wind whistled in his ear as the weapon lashed down on him a second time. A brilliant starburst erupted across his eyes.

  Then nothing but darkness and the echoes of a girl’s screams.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The Journal

  OVER A DECADE had passed since Pearl and I marvelled at the speckled rays of sun pirouetting across the mirrored surface of the Teche. Blu had long since vanished into the ethereal mist, abandoning Ophelia with a posy of rue.

  I found solace in my dreams, where I watched Pearl’s skirt float around her lithe body as she danced in the still water at dusk. I would hear my father’s dulcet baritone drifting on a midnight breeze, feel the gentle touch of my mother’s caress, and smell the fragrant coconut oil from her iridescent hair. I existed within this shadowy realm, caught between the living and the dead, where Pearl’s innocent spirit blessed me with peace.

  With only my dreams to connect me to my bayou home, I had no way of knowing that Cyril had broken the vow he’d sworn to my father, a man who had saved his worthless life. For thirty pieces of silver, Cyril had betrayed his saviour’s daughter, and Virgile’s brother had come to Toronto for his revenge.

  I hadn’t known the elder Landry son well, for he was eight years my senior. During most of my childhood in Louisiana, he was away at the finest schools money could buy. When I encountered him in Toronto, he was using a different surname and his physical features didn’t resemble his porcine father or brother, but his cruel persona was what truly deceived me.

  Basile Landry had all but disowned his elder son because of the young man’s gentle manner, which was nothing but a soulless mask he donned with artful ease. Over the years, I’ve seen the effortless way Mathias Beauregard switches on insincere magnetism and transforms into the sensitive young man I recall from childhood. He hides his limitless greed beneath a veneer of professional empathy that seduces wealthy families into sparing no expense to save their loved ones. He bleeds those desperate souls until their fragile wings of hope disintegrate to dust.

  Mathias’s presence in my life has vanquished the absolution Pearl had gifted me through my dreams. Now at night, I stare blindly through the darkness of my lonely bedroom, haunted by my failure to recognize his true face. Across the blank canvas of the white spackled ceiling, a grotesque montage plays on an endless loop. I relive Pearl’s defilement and anguish beneath our ancient cypress tree, and I see what I had missed: Virgile’s brother stands in the moonlit shadows cast by the gnarled branches.

  Mathias had stroked Pearl’s arm at the Crawfish Festival. When he’d laid his hand on her, it was then that Pearl had fallen apart. My failure to understand what she had tried so desperately to communicate has damned me to suffer the resounding echoes of her dying s
creams for eternity.

  In a macabre twist of fate, Mathias now holds the string that rules my destiny. In Louisiana, there is a standing warrant for my arrest, charging me with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Virgile, my parents, and my grandfather. If Mathias identifies me, Canadian authorities will extradite me and I will stand before my accused. Basile Landry and his surviving son will ruthlessly advocate for the death penalty and they will win.

  And so, I live on borrowed time, contorted by a puppet master’s strings, ruing the day I walked into his insidious trap.

  I didn’t know Dr. Mathias Beauregard when Serenity Clinic opened, and his unsolicited job offer came as a pleasant surprise. The private hospital was close to a bistro I’d stumbled upon that hired people with special needs. Although the neighbourhood was transforming, a Community Living residence and a Veteran’s Affairs facility still operated in the area. I found amity amongst those neglected and discarded people. Gentrification was attracting upwardly mobile millennials to the Parkdale housing market, and the favourable reviews of Cardoon Bistro were enticing a mix of privileged and middle-class visitors. I realised this was the perfect experimental group to watch interacting with those I’d vowed to protect.

  By the time I accepted the position of head nurse at the clinic, I had exterminated twenty-two entitled offenders who habitually degraded the weak and downtrodden. I had refined my techniques and had grown skillful in surveillance, judgment, and execution. I chose only the dregs of society, who maligned the blameless with impunity and exuded blatant rudeness.

  It’s easy to stalk people. I start with a chance meeting in public, which you’ll never notice, busy as you are on your phone. That tiny computer you grasp tight in your fist is your lifeline and my covert access to your world. I stand innocuously beside you for the few seconds it takes for my phone to connect to yours and download malware that wirelessly uploads to yours. My little RAT invisibly burrows snug beneath your array of frivolous apps, infiltrating your privacy. I learn everything about you. All those confidential things you share via email, text, and FaceTime, never suspecting that someone is watching.

  I am your shadow. I see inside the darkest part of you. I am your omnipotent judge.

  If you go anywhere without your phone, you might be safe. From me, at least, but if that miniature computer is rarely out of your clutch, you are prey. I alone will determine if you’re worthy of life.

  Tagging your phone’s GPS is easy. But even if you disable it and think you’re safe, you aren’t. Social media apps track your phone’s location. They want to know where you are. If you fit my profile, so do I.

  Linking your phone’s GPS coordinates to my sophisticated drone is simple, as is downloading video from the unseen drone stalking you. If, during the weeks of surveillance, I recognize a pattern of prejudicial behaviour that fits my criteria, I’ll come for you.

  I am an ingenious stalker. Yet I failed to see that someone hunted me.

  Mathias had me under surveillance for years before he made his presence known. He discovered I was a vigilante executioner and cunningly imprisoned me within an iron cage that I myself had unwittingly forged. After I terminated Annalise Huang, he told me that he’d witnessed the deed from outside her living room window.

  He had no opinion on her death—no moral outrage or victim sympathy, not that she deserved any. He simply told me that Annalise’s execution was one of five that he had videotaped. His demands, although sinister, were relatively harmless. In exchange for his silence, I was to administer drugs to specific patients. The wealthy parents would pay exorbitant fees to keep their mentally ill child at the clinic. Mathias would continue embezzling money, right under Emily Armstrong’s unsuspecting nose, and I could continue to kill, if it suited me; he didn’t care one way or the other.

  He assured me, with a counterfeit smile and serpentine eyes, that if anything happened to him, his attorneys would deliver one package of evidence to the Toronto police department and a second to the Louisiana State Police. There would be nowhere to run.

  He selects only wealthy patients who have suffered extreme trauma. There is no psychological recovery for these tortured souls. The best they can hope for is to live with their terrifying memories of unspeakable evil without succumbing to madness. Most fail. I’ve seen them turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, or self-harm to anesthetize themselves. These innocent victims suffer infinitely within a circle of hell beyond our comprehension. Shutting down their minds is a blessing, and so, I do what I must to secure my freedom.

  However, what Mathias has asked of me now, I cannot justify.

  He ordered me to his office tonight. I closed the door behind Ophelia and turned to face him as Blu. “What do you want?”

  He raised his eyebrow. “Check yourself, Blu. I own you.” He stacked papers neatly on the glossy surface of his opulent desk. “That new patient will be happy here,” he said.

  Eli Watson, the Asperger’s patient whose obtuse sister had committed him.

  “Ensure that his sister has no reason to believe he’s making progress,” Mathias said. “Try phencyclidine to start. If we’re lucky, it will cause aggression.” He stood and rubbed sweet-smelling hand cream into his manicured nails.

  “PCP could kill him,” I said.

  “Melodrama doesn’t suit you.” Disdain dripped from his tone. “I want him violent so his overwrought sister opens the bank vault to get him the best of care.”

  His casual disregard for Eli’s life warranted only one word. “No.”

  My hand was on the doorknob before he spoke again.

  “I understand, Blu,” he murmured in a saccharine tone. “Eli reminds you of Pearl. I never did tell you what happened to her after you left.” He ambled over like a surefooted lion stalking its prey. “They found her in her limestone tomb, encircled by bluehearts and Louisiana violets under that old cypress tree.”

  His breath was hot and rancid against my neck. “After they cut her apart, they threw her in a pine box fit for a whore.” He leaned close and whispered intimately into my ear. “My daddy had them burn your crazy ma and coonass pa. Then he slashed open their sacks of ashes and threw them on his compost pile,” he said with a chuckle that made my skin crawl. “Now they fertilize our sugarcane crops. Serving their betters, you might say.”

  I spun around, my hands bunched into fists at my side, but words failed me. To my horror, I felt tears sting my eyes.

  A triumphant sneer met my moist gaze. “Drug the kid, Blu, or they’ll take you home to the bayou in chains to ride the needle.”

  “No,” I said through clenched teeth.

  Mathias removed his cell phone from the pocket of his tailored pants. “One phone call, Blu. If you think your sacrifice will save the kid, think again. I’ll drug him myself.”

  I left his vile presence and stumbled down the corridor to the boardroom. I stood alone in the dark silence and closed my eyes against my tears. A sweet aroma of coconut filled the empty room, and a humid breeze caressed my neck. I opened my eyes.

  She stood just beyond my reach, and her platinum hair shimmered in a beam of moonlight from the window. Pearl held open her arms, and I yearned to let the purity of her love soothe my tattered soul, but I couldn’t go to her. A flicker of understanding crossed her aqua eyes before her spirit dissipated, leaving only the fragrant scent of coconut behind.

  I had failed Pearl. I would not fail Eli Watson.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Sam

  SAM’S EYES BURNED as she peered at her computer monitor. It was almost one-thirty in the morning and she’d been up for twenty-hours. When she’d suggested they crash for a bit, Danny’s horrified expression had kyboshed any hope of sleep.

  Eli hadn’t contacted them in hours, probably because his inane text messages had heightened Danny’s anxiety and she’d told him to stop unless it was about the case. She may not want to chat with her brother, but she kept a strained vigil as she waited for
the night to end so she could fetch him home.

  “More coffee?” Reece offered, looking remarkably fresh after a quick shower.

  Sam shook her head and rubbed her dry eyes. Her massive caffeine consumption over the past few hours had dehydrated her and made her twitchy.

  Reece stood behind her, massaging her tense shoulders. “Find anything?”

  She shook her head again. For the past three hours, she’d been hunting databases for information on Ophelia. Allegedly born in Lethbridge, Alberta, she’d attended high school there and her marks were high, especially in math and science. Nothing unusual there, but Sam had found a yearbook database and had located an online copy of Ophelia’s graduating year. The yearbook didn’t list her name among the graduating class.

  “Her background check came back clean,” Sam said. “I verified that she did graduate from University of Toronto. That’s legit, but this high school transcript bugs me.”

  “Eli just woke up,” Danny said, laying her phone back on the table. “He was napping.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I told him to rest.” Sam turned back to her conversation with Reece. “Why did Ophelia tell Eli she grew up in Louisiana?”

  Reece shrugged. “She could have moved to Louisiana and returned to Canada for high school. Why is this bothering you so much?”

  “The conversation Eli repeated is nothing like Ophelia. She sure doesn’t speak in poetic terms. And why hide a southern accent?” Sam paused to consider what was really bugging her. “Sometimes, people talk a lot about nothing, use offensive sarcasm, and become overly intense to repel their audience.” She thought about their earlier conversation in the courtyard. “When we chatted at dinner, I had the sense that her off-putting comments were intentional so I’d leave.”