by L. T. Ryan
There was a scraping noise and she looked up. In front of her, there was a white vehicle with a large green sticker on the side that read Savannah Non-Emergency Medical Transport Van. A man with his back to her was opening the side doors. He was tall and well-built with brown hair. He was wearing dress pants and a collared shirt, but she couldn’t see his face.
Cassie swayed on her feet and looked in the direction of the breeze. Although she couldn’t see the street, she realized she was several stories off the ground. It was nighttime and the moon hung low in the sky. She could barely make out whooping and yelling from below.
A touch at her elbow alarmed Cassie. She turned back around, and she realized the man had left the van and was by her side, guiding her toward the vehicle. Something felt off, but in her confusion, she didn’t know what to do. As the car got closer to her, her vision started to fade.
In a panic, Cassie tried to look over at the man next to her, but her vision faded, and she was back in the cemetery.
She blinked against the bright Georgia sun, staring in the face of an elderly woman who had her hand on Cassie’s elbow.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked.
Cassie didn’t know how to answer. She was still unsteady on her feet and she couldn’t remember where she was or what she was doing there. When she turned back to Jessica’s grave, the memory of the woman’s ghost came back to her, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Sweetheart?” the woman said. “Are you okay? Do we need to call someone?”
Cassie processed the woman in front of her. She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and large sunglasses. A man, presumably her husband, stood behind her, shading his eyes from the sun.
“I’m okay,” Cassie said. Her mouth was dry and her tongue heavy like a ten-pound weight, but her senses came flooding back to her. She felt steadier on her feet. “Thank you.”
“The sun is brutal this time of day,” the woman said. “You should wear a hat, dear.”
Cassie forced a smile. “You’re right. I’ll go sit in my car for a minute. Cool down in the AC.”
The gentleman looked down at the gravestone covered in flowers and trinkets. “Did you know her?”
“Dear,” the woman chastised. “Don’t be nosy.”
“We were acquaintances.” Cassie said. She was surprised when it didn’t feel like she was lying but being inside another person’s head to witness their last moments of life had a bonding effect.
“Tragic,” the man shook his head. “Everyone deserves to live as long as we have.”
His wife, satisfied that Cassie wasn’t about to pass out, let go of her and patted her husband on the arm. “Even short lives can burn bright.”
He looked up at Cassie as though pulled from his reverie. “You look a bit pale, kiddo.”
“That’s my natural state.” She smiled again, and this one felt more natural. “Thank you again. I hope you have a good day.”
“You too, dear,” the woman said. “Drink some water.”
Cassie waved her acknowledgement and, taking a second to make sure her feet were steady enough, walked back down the path toward her car. She felt like she had been hit by a truck and spun around until she didn’t know which way was up.
She had experienced visions in the form of flashes or insane dreams she had to decipher. This one was clear, if not brief. It lasted ten seconds, but the images were burned inside her brain. Jessica had spent a great amount of energy ensuring Cassie saw the medical transport van and the parking garage.
If only she had been able to see the man, too. She saw he was average in height with brown hair. He wore nice clothes. Add it together and that described half the men in Savannah on any given night.
The van was a different story altogether. She hadn’t seen a company logo on the van, but the green sticker was enough to go on. Maybe there was credence to Harris’s doctor theory. It still didn’t give them the why, but it did point them in the right direction as to the who.
But finding the van would be another story. She knew it was, at least at one point in time, parked in a garage several floors up. The sounds made her think it was in the downtown Savannah area, and though that spanned several blocks, it gave her a place to start.
Jessica had spoken the same words as Hannah, too. Cassie still didn’t know what they meant, but now more than ever she felt like time was ticking away. Four women had been killed, including the latest victim, Sage Washington. If this was a ritualistic killing, their killer needed their hearts and blood for a purpose. Once he fulfilled that purpose, would he keep killing, or would he be gone forever and fade back into society like a normal person?
Cassie couldn’t let that happen, even if Detective Harris wanted to keep her out of the way. The women she connected with deserved to be laid to rest, and the women of Savannah—herself included—deserved to go outside without fear that they would be the next victim.
Cassie had made up her mind before she got back to her car. She wasn’t going to let Detective Harris’s warning stop her from doing her own investigation.
She wanted answers.
And there was only one way to get them.
Twenty-Three
Detective Harris sat in her car and aimed the AC vents at her face. She took a deep breath and held it. The Georgia heat still gripped her lungs. She’d lived in Savannah for six years, but doubted she’d ever get used to the summers. Growing up in Montana made her resilient to thin air, bitter winters, and several feet of snow over the course of just a few hours. But heat and humidity together? Forget it.
She didn’t regret leaving Missoula behind, even if she did miss her parents. It took some time to get used to the pace of the South, but the people were kind, and she was proud to serve the Savannah community.
But days like today were the most difficult. Putting her car in reverse, Harris backed out of the precinct parking lot and drove to the east side, searching until she found the address she was looking for. Sage Washington’s house, where she had lived with her mother and two younger brothers.
Not one to delay the inevitable, Harris got out of her car, walked up to the front of the house, pulled the screen door open and knocked on the front door. She took a step back and let the screen door fall shut. It was silent inside, but after about thirty seconds, a bolt slid back, and the door opened enough for the security chain to be drawn taut.
A young man of about fifteen peered at her from the crack. He stayed silent.
“Hi there, my name is Detective Adelaide Harris. I’m looking for your mother, Mrs. Washington? I spoke with her on the phone earlier.”
The boy closed the door in her face, and for a second, Harris thought the boy had ignored her. But when the sound of the scraping chain came from inside and the door opened once more, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Mama’s in the living room,” the boy said.
Harris considered that her formal invitation. She pulled open the screen door and stepped inside the tiny kitchen. It smelled like roast beef and mashed potatoes, and the savory scent reminded her she had yet to eat that day. But the thought of what came next was enough to make her forget her hunger.
The boy led Harris around a corner and into the living room. It was neat and tidy and stuffy and warm. The house didn’t seem to have any air conditioning, and it was late enough in the day that keeping the windows closed would be more practical than letting the heat in just for what little breeze might make its way through the rooms.
A plump woman sat on the couch fanning herself. A cane rested against her leg, and there was a wrap around her knee, partially visible just below the hem of her dress. Another boy sat next to her in a tank top and shorts. He was younger than the first boy, maybe twelve. He stared at cartoons on the TV.
When Harris walked in, the woman looked up. Her expression was unreadable.
“Mrs. Washington?”
“Yes.” Her voice was deep and even. “You’re that detective then?”
“Detective
Harris, ma’am.”
Mrs. Washington didn’t break eye contact for a long moment. Harris felt like she was being scrutinized, but she expected nothing less. This woman’s daughter had just been murdered, and she knew they didn’t have any current leads. Would she cooperate, or would she send Harris packing?
“Boys, go to your room.”
“But mama—” the young boy said.
“Don’t you talk back to me.” Mrs. Washington passed her icy stare from Harris to her son. “Don’t come out until I tell you to.”
“Mama, can I—”
“Both of you,” she said. “You don’t need to hear none of this. Go.”
There was no arguing, and both boys seemed to understand that. The older one switched off the TV as they made their way to the back of the house. Harris waited until she heard a door click shut before she turned back to the woman in front of her.
“Mrs. Washington, I’m so—”
“If you’re about to tell me you’re sorry, you can turn right back around and leave.” The woman’s eyes were hard. “I don’t need your apologies, Detective Harris. I need answers.”
“Of course.” Harris gestured to an open chair. “May I?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the woman nodded and then shifted in her seat, giving Harris her full attention. She waited for the detective to make the first move.
Harris sighed. She didn’t know where to start. These things were never easy, and there was no single right way to do this. Some people wanted to be eased into the conversation, while others wanted to know every detail of how their loved one had died. Each person mourned in their own way.
“I’m here to ask you a few questions about your daughter. If we can get a clearer picture of her daily life, it could help us determine a pattern and catch the person who did this.”
“So, you still don’t know then?”
Anything other than the straight, hard truth wouldn’t go over well with this woman. “No, ma’am, we don’t. We have a few leads, but not enough viable evidence to pin this on a suspect.”
“My baby was a good kid.” Mrs. Washington’s voice wavered for the first time. “She never got into trouble. She was a hard worker. Always did well in school. Why would anyone want to do this to her?”
“This might be a strange question, but was Sage’s blood type O Negative?”
“Yeah.” Mrs. Washington’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”
“We think that could be one reason why she was chosen.”
“Chosen.” The other woman echoed Harris’s words and a distant look came over her face. “But why?”
“We’re still trying to figure that out.” Harris leaned forward. “The night before she died, did you know where Sage was? Who she was with?”
Mrs. Washington’s face hardened again. “My baby was a good kid.”
“I’m not suggesting she wasn’t.” Harris worked to keep her voice gentle and even. “But if we know where she was or what she was up to, then it might help us narrow down our search area.”
“She was downtown. She’s older than my boys. A lot more responsible. She stayed home to save up money and help us around the house. She was never a big partier, but she liked to go downtown time to time, you know.”
“With her friends?”
Mrs. Washington nodded her head. “Carla Rigsby and Sherri Coleman. She usually went out with them. Sometimes Lani Rodriguez.”
“Do you have contact info for them?”
“I gave that to the first officer I spoke to.”
“Any men in her life?”
Mrs. Washington laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. “No. She’d been trying online dating for a while. Never had much luck. She was too smart for any of them. Didn’t want to settle.”
“Smart girl.” Harris offered a weak smile, and it was not returned. “Do you know if she had a date on Friday or if she was just going out with her friends?”
“Like I said, she tried online dating, but it didn’t work for her.” She took a moment to calm down. “We didn’t really talk about it. She was a private person. Never kept anything from me, I guess, but she was shy. Liked to wait until she was sure before she said anything. She always said it wasn’t worth bringing anyone home if they weren’t going to stick around for a while.”
“Do you know what kind of guys she was into?”
“Sage was smart. Careful. She wouldn’t have gone out with anyone who could’ve done this—who could’ve—” A sob escaped her mouth, and the woman looked away.
“Sometimes it’s the people we least expect. This man could be charismatic. Unassuming. Completely ordinary. Boring, even. Sometimes we might act against our better judgment when we’re attracted to someone.”
Mrs. Washington looked back at Harris. The hardness had returned to her eyes. “I don’t know who she was seeing. I don’t know where she was. Talk to her friends.”
“Ma’am—”
Mrs. Washington shouted toward the back of the house. “Jimmy! Get out here.”
“Ma’am, please.”
The other woman grabbed her cane and pushed herself to her feet. “I appreciate you coming out here, Detective Harris, but I have to continue making arrangements for my daughter’s funeral.” Jimmy entered the room and looked up at his mom expectantly. “Walk the detective to the door. Then we have to go.”
Harris stood and produced her card. “If you think of anything else.”
Mrs. Washington looked down at the card, back up at Harris, and then turned and ambled from the room. Young Jimmy pulled the card from Detective Harris’s hand and tucked it in his pocket before leading her back through the kitchen.
At the door, Harris looked down at him. There was a sadness in his eyes that would take years to disappear, if it ever did. “Do you know if your sister was seeing anyone?”
Jimmy looked over his shoulder before he answered. “No. But Carla would. She was always getting Sage in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
His eyes widened. “Nothing bad. Just coming back late. Sometimes she was drunk. But she never drove when she was like that.”
“She sounds like she was a good big sister.”
“Yeah.” His voice was far away. “She is. I mean, was.”
Detective Harris didn’t know what else to say, so she just thanked him and left, feeling like she was no closer to an answer than she was when she had arrived.
Twenty-Four
True to her word, Cassie did not call Harris over the next week. She half-expected the detective to call her to look at Sage’s body, but several days passed with radio silence. Cassie had worn out her welcome.
The police department had bigger problems on their hands.
Ms. Campbell, the reporter who was always one step behind the police department, had confirmed with an “unidentified source” close to the investigation that the four women found over the last month had indeed all died in the same tragic manner—with their throats slashed and their hearts ripped out.
Of course, the public went wild. Every news station was talking about Savannah’s latest serial killer. While the media played guessing games as to who could be behind these gruesome executions, the police department was busy dealing with nonsensical hotline tips and the press following Harris wherever she went.
David had called Cassie halfway through the week to give her an update, but there wasn’t much to say. They hadn’t found anything new or different about the latest crime scene, and while it was confirmed that each woman’s medical records had been changed to cover up their blood type was O Negative, they were no closer to finding out who did it. The women had doctors at different hospitals so whoever was changing the records was able to hack into multiple systems across the city. David said they had their best people on the breach, but that it wasn’t going to be easy to trace if the hacker knew how to cover his tracks.
Cassie told David about seeing Jessica Tran and getting a vision of her less than an hour before her death.
He had taken note of what the medical van looked like but said vans like that were issued to several different hospitals in the area and that their own employees drive them. He searched through any missing vehicle reports, but there were none for medical transport vehicles.
Cassie had begged him to tell Harris to look at parking garages around the city to see if any of them housed medical vans, but she had refused to waste manpower on what she called a wild goose chase.
So, Cassie took matters into her own hands.
Every day that week, she picked a different parking garage and spent hours going through every level looking for something that matched up with what she saw in her vision. She knew it was a long shot. The driver could’ve changed where he parked the vehicle or changed what the van looked like by swapping out decals. But going on that wild goose chase felt a lot better than doing nothing.
And every day, she was disappointed. Parking in downtown Savannah wasn’t cheap, even when she didn’t stay long, and it hurt more when she continued to come up with nothing. There were plenty of white vans, none of which were medical transport vehicles. The ones that looked similar weren’t enough of a match to warrant calling Harris or David.
When Friday night rolled around, Cassie didn’t bother going home to change out of her work clothes and started her usual route around the city. With a Hardee’s burger in one hand and a coffee in the other, she spent the next several hours trolling the streets of Savannah hoping and praying she could spot the van before the killer picked out his next victim.
What astounded her the most was that the nightlife in Savannah had not let up. The weather was warm without being oppressive, and Friday nights were always bound to be packed with tourists, students, and locals. She didn’t expect the city to shut down because of a serial killer but was mildly surprised by how many people were out and about, enjoying a drink and a night on the town.