Dying Breath

by Heather Graham

  “She’s here. She’s here—I’m sure she’s here,” Vickie murmured.

  Griffin looked around. A pile of wood was neatly stacked against a far wall. He closed his eyes and tried to see with his mind’s eye. Yes, there could be someone beneath it. But with just the wood piled on top?

  Had the killer changed his ways, and strangled or stabbed her first?

  He strode firmly over to the woodpile and began to toss the large and small logs to the side. He became more frantic, and then he was joined by Jackson and Vickie.

  But as they neared the bottom of the pile, he felt his frustration grow. There was no woman there.

  “Beneath, beneath!” Vickie cried. “There’s a door to a deeper pit...they used to store way more wood down here before, decades ago, long before modern heating systems came in.”

  And there was a door. Griffin saw a little metal ring in the middle of it. He jerked so hard on it that he almost ripped the thin wood portal out of its sockets.

  And there she lay. Chrissy Ballantine, covered in the minutiae of dust and chips and dirt that had fallen upon the place where she’d been entombed...

  “Get her out,” Jackson said.

  “Mom, Mom!” the ghost of Dylan sobbed.

  Griffin dropped low on his knees and lifted Chrissy Ballantine from the little pit in her own home. He was prepared to resuscitate; Jackson was shouting to the cops upstairs to get a paramedic down to him.

  Vickie stood by, silent, watching, as if she were frozen.

  Chrissy Ballantine took a deep breath and coughed and sputtered on her own.

  Resuscitation wasn’t necessary.

  Chrissy Ballantine was alive and breathing on her own.

  And her eyes opened. She looked up and smiled.

  “Vickie... Dylan.” Her eyes closed. She was alive.

  And the paramedics were hurrying down to tend to her.

  Griffin closed his own eyes for a minute, silently thankful that they’d found a second woman alive—on the same day.

  Then he realized that Dylan’s mother had said his name.

  He looked up where Vickie was standing. She stood alone, staring at him with enormous green eyes. He tried to smile and rose and moved away from the paramedics and Chrissy Ballantine. They could hear George Ballantine above, fighting with the cops to get to his wife. They could hear a policeman urging him to let the paramedics work.

  “She’ll be okay, Mr. Ballantine. She’ll be okay. You can come along. They’re going to get her to the hospital now,” one of the officers assured him.

  “We’ve got to go to the hospital, too,” Jackson told him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But first, we have to get Miss Preston home.”

  Vickie shook her head. “I should go back to my parents’ house, Agent Pryce. They need to know—I mean, I can call them, but they’re parents and need to see me, to know that I’m just fine and that Chrissy Ballantine has been found. Alive.”

  “Of course,” Jackson told her. “But we’ll get an officer to escort you.”

  “And,” Griffin added, “please assure them that we’ll have officers outside their building.”

  “Do you think Chrissy Ballantine will know what happened?”

  “Two victims were found alive today, Miss Preston,” Jackson said. “We can certainly hope that one of them is able to give us something. Mrs. Ballantine owes her life to you, and we got lucky with the other victim. We’re working to find real answers soon.”

  The med techs were getting Chrissy onto a stretcher. Boston med techs were among the finest in the country, Griffin was certain. Chrissy Ballantine already had an IV in her arm and an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. Her color was already better; she was going to make it just fine, he believed.

  When they had cleared the room, Vickie headed toward the stairs.

  Detective David Barnes was on his way down.

  He almost ran straight into Vickie.

  “Miss Preston?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Detective Barnes. You found her—you found her already?”

  Griffin wasn’t sure if the note in Barnes’s voice was amazement—or skepticism.

  “Logical, Detective,” Jackson said, stepping forward. “And thank God for Miss Preston. She went the historical and reasonable route. No one saw anything. Hard to slip the woman out in a neighborhood like this without someone seeing something. And as for the clue—where old Paul rode. This house was here. Victoria Preston was pretty amazing.”

  “Of course—and still, wow. Amazing—that’s the word,” Barnes said. “Thank you for your help, Miss Preston. Naturally, there’s paperwork.”

  “There always is,” Vickie said.

  “Miss Preston would like to get to her parents’ home and let them know that she’s fine and that Mrs. Ballantine is alive as well,” Griffin said.

  “Yes, of course. But...” Barnes said.

  “I’ll go with Miss Preston and take her statement,” Jackson said. “You and Griffin can head to the hospital and speak with Mrs. Ballantine as soon as it’s possible without endangering her health.”

  “All right,” Barnes said. Griffin was sure the man was still looking at the three of them suspiciously, as if they shared something that he wasn’t in on.

  And they did.

  “Let’s go then,” he said to Barnes. He paused and turned to Vickie.

  She looked tired, covered in sawdust and damp from exertion. Her dark hair was disarrayed and her eyes seemed incredibly large and green in the garish light of the unfinished area of the basement.

  “Thank you,” he told her.

  “Of course,” she said. “Of course.”

  That should have been it. He should have moved instantly.

  He didn’t. He stood there a few seconds longer. There was more to say.

  He didn’t know how to say it.

  When he finally turned to head out, he knew that he’d see her again.

  He had to. He had to because...

  He simply had to.

  * * *

  “Bick-bick! Vickie, Victoria!”

  Vickie was almost out the door, escorted by a nice big cop on one side and the rock of a man who was Jackson Crow on the other, when she heard Noah Ballantine calling to her.

  She turned, and it felt as if her heart melted in her chest. Though the families had stayed friends since the night of the traumatic events—they’d seen each other now and then at church or other social events—it had now been years since she had seen Noah.

  She would have recognized Noah Ballantine, now a nine-year-old, anywhere. He hadn’t changed much. His dad was a truly dignified-looking man, and somehow, Noah was just as dignified. His mother was beautiful, and Noah was still a beautiful kid.

  He remembered her. And that was truly amazing. He’d been so young the last time they’d seen one another.

  He was tall for his age, lean, with a thatch of sandy hair and hazel eyes. He stared at Vickie gravely, and yet with a look of hope that was humbling. He wasn’t a particularly big kid, but something about his face and eyes seemed way older than his years.

  His father, Vickie knew, had just headed for the hospital. Griffin and Detective Barnes would be following. She hoped that everyone hadn’t just forgotten Noah in their anxiety for his mother and determination to talk to her.

  “Noah!” she said, and she walked back to him as he raced into her arms.

  She hugged him tightly for a minute. When he pulled away at last, he looked at her and said, “I knew you would come. I knew you would save my mother. The way you saved me.”

  Vickie flushed, humbled. “Noah, it wasn’t just me, lots of people were involved.”

  He smiled at her. “But I knew you would come.” The
re was suddenly an oddly mischievous look about him. “And, of course, I know there are others involved. But Bick-bick...wow, gotta quit calling you Bick-bick.” He laughed. “I mean I’m older now. And so are you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Not that old!” Noah said quickly.

  “Thanks again. And, well, I’m not so sure you’re so grown-up they need to throw you out on the streets with the work force,” she told him. “And you may call me anything you like. Noah, it’s so good to see you.”

  “My mom...she’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”

  “I believe so, Noah. And, hopefully, she’ll be able to tell the officers what happened, and all this will be over,” Vickie said.

  Griffin Pryce and Detective Barnes came up behind Noah, waiting patiently before heading out to follow the ambulance to the hospital.

  Noah swung around and headed to Griffin to shake his hand.

  “Thank you. Thank you. Twice now. You’re really good, I figure. You knew to bring Victoria in. Somehow, sir, I think all this must be that awful man from before,” he said.

  Vickie liked the way Griffin smiled down at Noah. He apparently had a nice soft spot for kids.

  “We’re just super grateful, Noah, that your mom is going to be okay. And the man before—we made certain—he is in prison. So. What are we going to do about you right now? I think your dad was pretty eager to go be with your mom. Do you have any other family here?”

  “No, sir. My parents were kind of old when they had me. Late-life kid, I’ve heard people say. My grandparents are dead. I think I have cousins in Baltimore. But I’ll be okay. This house has an alarm system—and I watch cop shows, even though I’m really not supposed to,” Noah said. “I know as soon as he can, my dad will come back and get me so I can see my mom.”

  “You know what, Noah? If you want, Detective Barnes and I are on our way to the hospital—we’ll take you with us,” Griffin told him.

  “Really? That would be great.”

  Barnes looked at Griffin and frowned.

  “We’ll have someone from social services sit with you until you can see her,” Griffin said.

  “I can do better than that—just let me see my parents and I’ll head to the hospital and sit with Noah,” Vickie offered. She could have called them, of course. Under the circumstances, it seemed best to actually see them and speak with them in person.

  “Miss Preston, you’ve been invaluable,” Detective Barnes said. “I’m sure that—”

  “Noah and I are old friends,” Vickie said. “It will be my pleasure.”

  “It is set then,” Jackson Crow said firmly. “I’ll see to it that Miss Preston visits her parents, and then gets to the hospital. Vickie, if you will?” he asked, indicating the door.

  Vickie smiled at the others and spun around to head out the door. The big cop was patiently waiting for them. A crowd had gathered; traffic was snarled.

  News, it seemed, traveled fast. Maybe people just gathered any time an ambulance and cop cars appeared. “Duck your head—we’ll keep your involvement out of the press,” Jackson Crow told her.

  She ducked her head.

  The cop drove; Vickie was next to him, aware of Jackson Crow behind her.

  The cop stayed with the car, Jackson politely thanking him.

  Up in her parents’ apartment, Vickie was nearly crushed to death by her mom and dad. She told them happily that Mrs. Ballantine was going to be fine, they were fairly certain. She would spend at least one night in the hospital.

  “We should really visit when we can, Phil,” her mother told her father. “It is sad—we were close with George and Chrissy for so long. And then the thing happened with that maniac Bertram Aldridge. We just... I guess we just drifted apart lately. Anytime we saw one another... I guess all we could think about was that our children might have...died.”

  “Of course we’ll visit!” Phil said. He still had an arm around Vickie’s shoulders. He stared at Jackson as if daring the man to take her away from him.

  “Actually, Dad, I’m going to the hospital now. I’m going to stay with Noah Ballantine,” Vickie told them.

  “No,” her mother said. “No, no, Vickie.”

  “Mom, it will be okay,” she said firmly. “Noah is nine and he doesn’t have any family here and he might wind up hanging with child services.”

  “Which isn’t terrible!” her dad said.

  “Which isn’t happening,” she said firmly. “I came right here so we could tell you what happened and so you could see I was okay. Hey, you know how to work the Skype on your phones. I’ll keep in touch—visually!—okay? I know you’re scared, too. But we’re talking about a little boy who has to be in some real trauma right now.”

  She kissed her dad’s cheek and then her mom’s.

  Her dad stared at Jackson Crow. “Don’t you let anything happen to her!”

  “Sir, we will not,” Crow promised.

  “This is all too much. Vickie isn’t a cop or an agent or—”

  “Dad, I’m just going to hang with Noah. It will be fine,” Vickie said, determined. “Love you both. We have a cop double-parked downstairs. We have to go.”

  Her parents kissed her again. She glanced at Jackson Crow, flushing slightly. She was surprised at how overprotective her folks were behaving.

  “I’ll be in touch,” she promised.

  They managed to escape to the hallway. In the elevator, she looked over at Jackson. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’ve been away from home a long time. I’ve just moved back and...”

  “Never be sorry that you have people who love you so much,” he told her, indicating that the elevator door had opened.

  She smiled uneasily and headed out.

  They didn’t speak in the cop car; Jackson Crow received a call. When they reached the hospital, Jackson knew just which way to go after receiving clearance from the hospital’s security. Chrissy was already out of the emergency room and on a floor above.

  There was a waiting room; Griffin Pryce was there with Noah Ballantine. He rose when they arrived, nodding at them all. “Jackson, I’ll head back in. Chrissy has been in and out of consciousness. Detective Barnes is there. We haven’t pressed her yet.”

  “Great. Noah, how are you doing?” Jackson asked.

  “I’m fine, sir. Griffin talked to the doctors—my mom is really going to be okay. Whoever did this to her gave her a really good conk on the head. They want her to stay here tonight and probably tomorrow night. But she’s going to be okay.”

  Griffin looked at Vickie. She had no idea what he was thinking; he seemed to have acquired the ability to look as stoic as Jackson Crow. Maybe it was FBI training, not to give anything away.

  “So, Noah, here we are,” Vickie said. “I’m so glad—so grateful about your mom.”

  “Bick-bick,” he said, smiling. “I’m so glad you’re with me.”

  “Okay, we have some time to kill,” she said. “Tell me what’s up with you.”

  They sat in the waiting room. Jackson Crow took up a position by the door. Griffin went out.

  Noah told her about school and Little League and everything that he was doing. She, in turn, told him about school in New York and coming back and working with some of the older kids in the system. They managed to pass time—until Noah fell asleep with his head on her lap.

  A police officer in uniform came in and Jackson Crow went out. When she looked down at her lap, Vickie saw that Noah had woken up and was staring at her.

  “You see Dylan,” he said softly.

  She didn’t mean to jerk with her surprise at his words, but she did.

  He smiled. “We haven’t seen a lot of each other since you went to New York, but I know that you see Dylan! I mean, he told me that he hangs with you a lot. He comes home now and then, too.
Did he help you find Mom? He wasn’t at the house.”

  “No, he wasn’t at the house when it happened. But...” She hesitated. She had certainly agreed that she saw him. “I’m sure he’s in with her now,” she said simply.

  Noah nodded and began to whisper quickly. “I don’t tell anybody—they’d think that I was crazy. And we never got a chance to talk about it. Or, I guess we just didn’t talk about it.”

  “You were so young. And I thought that I was crazy,” Vickie said.

  “I tried to tell my dad once and then I heard him talking to my mom and they were both worried that I was still troubled subconsciously by all the stuff that happened when I was a toddler. They wanted to have me like picked apart at some institute—and I was never a dumb kid, Vickie. They meant a loony bin. I never told anybody after that. Not my friends, not my teachers...not the priest. I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t want to get locked up. And I knew that nobody else saw what I saw. But I did know that you saw him, too, because Dylan told me that he had a good time ‘haunting’ you, though he hitched a ride back up here on the train a lot.”

  Vickie looked at him and nodded and actually managed a slight smile. She’d gotten Dylan to knock—mind over matter, he’d told her. He hadn’t been so good at first, but he’d learned to make noise rapping at the door. She’d always had a bad time when he thought that she was dating the wrong guy. He had no problem telling her, and—she was quick to discover—Dylan tended to be right in his character assessments.

  “I see Dylan, yes, and he’s still my friend, and way back when, you really can’t possibly remember, but... Dylan kept us both from being killed.”

  “I do remember,” he said. “Odd, huh? They say you can’t possibly remember when you were so little. But I guess, maybe... I always saw Dylan.”

  “I didn’t, until that day. And then...after a while of seeing him, I realized that sometimes, I saw other ghosts as well. I think I realized it first when I was walking by a cemetery. Not that I’ve found that the dead really want to hang out in graveyards all the time.”

  Noah looked at her somberly.

  “Right—like, I mean, really, who would? I’m sure there are more fun places to be. But, you know, Agent Pryce sees him, too,” he said. “I know Griffin sees Dylan. He just can’t say anything. Maybe Agent Crow sees him, too. But I know for sure that Griffin does. And you know what?”