by Diane Hester
Lindsay nodded.
‘But why would her mother’s disappearance all those years ago stop you from running away now?’
‘One of Shaunwyn’s biggest fears was that her mum had been kidnapped.’
He eased closer. ‘So with the same thing happening to girls on campus you figured it would stir up unpleasant memories for her.’
‘Not just that. Her second greatest fear was that her mum had abandoned her. If I’d taken off, it might have felt to her like I was doing the same. And at a time when she really needed me.’
She ran a finger over the image in the frame, then looked about her in despair. ‘Mac, I’ve been through this entire room and I didn’t get the slightest impression from anything. This is going to end just like with Adelle.’
He took her shoulders. ‘Listen to me. You are not responsible for what happened to any of these women. Just because …’
But she wasn’t listening. She’d bent to pick something out of the rubbish bin and now straightened with a paper in her hand.
‘What is it?’
‘A print-out of an airline booking. Shaunwyn told me she wasn’t planning to go home over break, but clearly she was. This is a booking to go to her dad’s place in Port Lincoln.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘She stayed because of me. If she’d just gone home like she was planning to she’d be safe now. She never would have …’
Her eyes slowly glazed. The paper fluttered from her hand to the floor.
Mac bent into her field of vision. Her gaze seemed fixed on the spot where the bloody carpet had been.
‘Lindsay?’
A chill went through him at her lack of response. The last time he’d seen this look in her eyes had been when she’d fainted in the empty classroom. When she’d come out of that spell, her head had been bleeding. Two nights earlier, in this very flat, she’d had one that had left her hands needing stitches. Suddenly her seeing what was happening to Shaunwyn wasn’t the best idea he could think of.
‘Lindsay, snap out of it.’ He took hold of her shoulders. If anything had already happened to Shaunwyn … If she’d injured herself trying to escape …
‘Lindsay, wake up.’
She stared at the floor.
‘Damn it, come back!’
Her eyelids fluttered. For a moment she gazed about in confusion then she fixed on his face.
‘I know where she is.’
***
Lindsay paced the cluttered bedroom, filled with a sudden uncontainable energy. She’d done it! She’d seen something. Something that might actually help save her friend. ‘Shaunwyn is in one of two places.’
‘Two places.’ Mac seemed to choose his next words carefully. ‘You tried all this time without seeing anything and now we’ve got two possibilities? How can that—’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he moved her. Maybe she was in one place and now she’s in the other. Maybe the two are totally unrelated. All I know is that I saw them both.’
‘All right, let’s hear it.’ He grabbed some paper and a pen from the desk.
‘You remember I said I saw Jen Dawson running through some kind of deserted building? Well, I saw it again. The exact same hallway where Jen was running. Except …’ She frowned. ‘It was empty this time.’
‘Empty.’
‘Yes. The hallway was empty. No-one was there.’
‘What does that mean?’
What indeed? She put her bandaged hands to her face, paced a few steps, but nothing would come. Time was running out for Shaunwyn, she’d sensed that as well. She had to unravel this and fast.
‘All right, forget that one,’ Mac said. ‘Tell me about the other place.’
She shifted her focus. ‘It’s just … an ordinary house. On an ordinary suburban block. Single storey, a bit run down. The lawn’s mostly weeds and hasn’t been mowed in a while. There’s a low cyclone fence in front with a shrubby tree overhanging it next to the driveway.’
‘Any other houses or buildings nearby?’
‘None that I could see.’
‘Is there anything distinctive about it?’
Her frown deepened. She felt that there had been. She paced a few steps.
‘Lindsay, you realise that without some way to identify the place—’
‘A letterbox.’ She whirled to face him. ‘There’s a letterbox under the little tree. There’s a number on it—twenty-eight. And some letters. S, U, T.’
‘That’s all, just three?’
‘There was a name plaque but half of it’s gone. Only those three letters are left.’
‘Well, that gives us something at least.’ He pulled out his phone, punched a number and started back to Lindsay’s room as it rang.
When Sam picked up, Mac gave him details of the situation and said to meet him in the police-station car park in twenty minutes. He hung up, stuffed the phone in his pocket, sat on the bed and reached for his shoes.
Lindsay watched him from the doorway. All this time she’d been talking to the man and hadn’t even noticed he was only half dressed. She took up his shirt from the back of a chair and handed it to him as he pushed to his feet.
‘So you’re actually going to this place?’ she said.
‘If we can find it. We’ll do our best with what you’ve given me.’
‘What I mean is …’ She swallowed. After last night—a night she never truly thought would take place—his answer was even more important than ever. ‘You actually believe me that the house exists? That Shaun might be there?’ She held her breath. Would he realise all she was asking with the question?
Deep in thought, Mac stood jamming his shirt in his waistband. ‘Might as well. It’s the only lead we have at the moment.’
Not the answer she’d been hoping for.
She shelved her reaction. Unimportant. Right now, Shaunwyn was all that mattered. ‘Well, I’m coming with you.’ She grabbed up her handbag.
‘No, you stay here. Your best hope of helping us is still in this flat. Keep going through Shaunwyn’s things, try to get another impression. I want to know where that factory is.’
He grabbed her, kissed her full and deep, then raced from the room.
Chapter 39
The sack pulled tight about her head reeked of mould and rancid flour. The gag was worse, tasting of sweat and motor oil. A rag he’d wiped his filthy hands on? Or used to silence another of his victims?
With her heart rate climbing, Shaunwyn fought to suck in the air she needed, but couldn’t get enough through the coarse material. She clamped down hard on her gag reflex as dust and fibres caught in her lungs.
She forced herself to lie still on the bed. Slowly the flour dust cleared from her throat and breathing got easier. Her panic receded to manageable levels.
The only thing worse than a fit of choking had been the one time she’d let herself cry. Her nose had quickly started to block, cutting off her air even further. Those frantic moments, waiting for her airway to clear again, had been a torture she’d never before experienced. They’d quickly taught her to limit her movements in her efforts to break free of her bindings. As well as to control what she let herself think about.
She turned her head, straining to peer through her stifling shroud. The room had been dark for many hours. She’d even dozed a couple of times, exhausted from her efforts to free herself. But in the last few minutes a thin line of light had slowly appeared in the wall to her left. Dawn seeping around the closed curtains?
Panic nudged her spine once again. Did that mean he would soon be waking? Coming back? Would he rip off her hood as he had before and stand glaring down at her in silent rage?
She shuddered so violently the bed rocked beneath her. His appearance hadn’t been what she’d expected. By the way he’d dragged her into the house, hauled her up and thrown her on the bed, she’d imaged a huge, muscular brute. Not a forty-ish nerd with thinning brown hair and hawkish eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. No, not her image of a killer at all.
Until he’d got angry.
> Then those thin lips curled in a sneer, the small eyes bulged. And a body she would have called average at best, grew with the power of unvarnished hatred.
His silence made it all the more horrible. Why didn’t he speak? Why hadn’t he told her what he wanted, what she must do to gain her freedom? Why leave her lying here all night if his ultimate intention was …
Faces flashed behind her closed eyes. Martha Daniels. Bethany Willas. Jen Dawson. Was this what they’d gone through? What had they done to deserve such a fate?
What had she done?
Smothering the cry that rose in her throat, she resumed her efforts to loosen her bindings. The cord bit deeper into her wrists as she picked at the knot with her bleeding nails.
***
In the station car park, Sam climbed into the front seat of Mac’s Prado and slammed the door. ‘I checked directories for all names starting with S-U-T. Of the list that came up, only one has a house number of twenty-eight. It’s on Waverley Terrace, Para Vista.’
Mac instantly shifted gears and sped through the car park, heading for the road.
‘Property’s listed as belonging to an Aslan Sutcliff,’ Sam said, filling him in. ‘He doesn’t currently live in the place, he’s renting it out. So far we don’t have a name on the tenant. Sorry.’
‘You got more than I expected you would, mate. Good work.’
‘So where’d this half-an-address come from?’
Mac cleared his throat. He’d been hoping they wouldn’t get into this. ‘Lindsay.’
‘Cavenaugh? She knows the tenant?’
‘I’d say that’s unlikely.’
‘The landlord, then?’
Mac drove in silence.
‘I don’t get it. How could she know a street number and not the suburb?’ Sam’s frown deepened then suddenly cleared. ‘This is from one of her visions, isn’t it.’
Mac winced at the sound of the words. Was he really about to chase down a lead given to him by a woman in a trance? However much he might be falling in love with her.
‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ Sam shook his head. ‘And you believed her. I’ll be buggered.’
‘I don’t believe or disbelieve squat. Just makes sense to follow all leads, since we have no others.’ Mac shot the man a disgruntled look. ‘You got something better to do?’
‘Me? No way.’ Sam gazed out the windscreen and smiled. ‘Next thing I know you’ll be having hunches.’
Chapter 40
Lindsay threw the crumpled paper in the bin and rose from the chair at Shaunwyn’s desk. She’d tried to receive another impression from the discarded object but it had apparently relinquished all it had in the way of psychic energy. She resumed pacing the room.
Her agitation was rapidly building beyond endurance. She felt so helpless. So utterly useless.
What if she was wrong? What if she’d sent Mac on a wild goose chase and Shaunwyn wasn’t at the house at all? The prospect of his never believing another of her insights didn’t worry her a fraction as much as what could be happening to Shaun in the meantime.
At her flatmate’s dressing table, she snatched up a scarf and held it to her face. Instead of the familiar perfume she’d expected, the stench of mould and dust filled her head.
She drew back in horror, spat out the vile taste in her mouth. Shaunwyn wasn’t dead, she could sense that at least. But her time was rapidly running out.
She swung round and paced in the other direction. Dust. Mould. An oily taste. A mask or something over her face. These signs meant something, she knew they were real. But what bloody good were they?
‘Damn it, show me something I can use,’ she said to the empty room. Who on earth was she talking to? ‘This isn’t going to happen again, you hear me. I won’t let it. I won’t—’
And at once she knew.
The dog. That’s who she was talking to. All her life it had been the dog. The booking might have given her a piece of the puzzle, the scarf some vague olfactory impressions. But the hound had always shown her things. And the last place she’d seen it was …
She rushed from the room, down the hall and into the lounge. At the table where the doll’s house sat she pulled up a chair. No time to figure out how this worked, just make contact.
She leaned down and wrapped her arms around it, feeling a fresh wave of apprehension. She’d always shunned the wretched beast, done everything she could to drive it off. Now, for the first time, she was about to summon it. Would it come at her bidding? Help her when she truly needed it? Or would she fail Shaunwyn as she had Adelle?
***
Slowly he lowered his hand from the lock and stared at the door. The uncertainty he’d known in his dreams the night before had spilled over into waking reality, making him hesitate when the situation called for decisive action. Ruining what he’d so long anticipated as being a deeply liberating act.
He clenched the hand that had failed to obey him. It was all her fault. She had kept him awake through the night. Playing with his mind, making him doubt.
He’d been in no hurry to sleep initially. For hours he’d happily lain awake reliving the moment of her capture. How wondrous it had felt to snatch her in his arms, cover her mouth and drag her behind that rubbish bin. The thrill of feeling her body go limp when he struck her unconscious and stuffed her into the boot of his car.
That elation had filled him all the way back. To the moment he’d dragged her into the house and onto the bed, and pulled off her hood. But upon actually seeing her face, looking in her eyes when she’d finally come to, he’d known his first doubt.
He’d managed to push it aside for a time, determined to savour his moment of triumph. But with sleep that resolute will had deserted him. And that single insidious reservation had returned to play over and over in his mind. A tape loop for which, in the throes of his dreams, he’d been unable to find the off switch.
Well, he wasn’t asleep anymore. Awake and in control of his thoughts, he could see his doubt for what it was—purely and completely a thing of her doing. Of course she looked different. She’d changed her appearance. Deliberately to try and evade him. It was nothing more than her pitiful attempt to sway him from his sacred mission.
He opened the lock and stepped through the door.
Instantly alert to his presence, she lifted her head, tried to sit up. But the give of the mattress and hands bound behind her made that impossible. She could do nothing but flounder in her terror.
As he stepped towards the bed, she tried to speak. But the words, muffled by the gag and hood, were unintelligible. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t interested in anything she had to say. He only wanted to get it done.
Another step and her struggles grew frantic. She kicked and grunted, thrashing wildly in the centre of the bed. He derived no pleasure, no thrill from the sight; that wasn’t his thing. At the same time he would remove her hood. He needed to see her face while he did it, the look in her eyes. To know she knew who he was and why this was happening.
At the edge of the bed he stood gazing down at her, surprised by a sudden rush of mixed feelings. In a moment it would all be over. His vengeance spent, justice served. And then he would know the sharp cut of regret.
That he couldn’t kill her more than once.
Chapter 41
The letterbox perched on a crooked post. The name plaque that had once adorned it was partly missing, and only three letters showed on the bit that remained—S, U, T. On the box itself the number twenty-eight was barely discernible below the slot.
Mac looked up into the shrubby tree that overhung the driveway. Then down at the weed-choked yard beyond the waist-high cyclone fence. A sensation not unlike crawling ants moved up his neck.
‘So is this the place?’ Sam leaned forward to peer around him.
‘It certainly fits the description she gave me.’
‘You mean to tell me Cavenaugh saw all this in one of her spells?’
‘Right down to the holes in the lawn.’ Mac shook
his head. Bloody incredible.
‘Well, if she was right about that much, isn’t it possible …’ Sam sat back. ‘Mac, if there’s the slightest chance our guy is inside, shouldn’t we—’
‘And tell them what? That a person of interest in a possibly related multiple homicide saw this address in a vision? No judge in the state would give us a warrant. We do this ourselves. Knock on the door, ask a few questions, see what we can see. If anything looks out of the ordinary we take it from there.’
Sam nodded. ‘Let’s do it then.’
They climbed from the car.
In a move they’d enacted a hundred times, Sam ran around to the back of the house while Mac walked up the drive to the front. At the top of the steps, he waited for Sam to get in position, then knocked on the door.
***
Lindsay stood in the doll’s-house living room. Her fear for Shaunwyn had been so distracting she’d found it much harder to enter her special world this time. As she walked towards the door at the end of room she prayed she wouldn’t lose her focus and be yanked out again before she could accomplish her purpose.
She opened the dining-room door and stepped through.
The factory hallway stretched before her, empty but for a veil of shadows. The familiar smell of dampness and decay swirled around her. A rash of goosebumps rose on her arms.
Lindsay waited. Several long minutes passed with no change. She felt her anxieties mounting again. Come on, come on.
Up ahead, the shadows stirred. The hound slunk forward and stopped before her, fixing her with a look of calm expectation.
For a moment she couldn’t speak the words. Then she focused on all that was at stake. ‘Help me. Please.’
The dog stared back. She fought down the urge to scream at the thing, instead stating her request more plainly. ‘Please. Show me where Shaunwyn is.’
The animal turned and started up the passage away from her. She hurried after it. When it broke into a canter, she jogged to keep up. ‘Wait. Not so fast.’
A shaft of light pierced the darkness ahead. As she drew nearer, she saw it was coming through what remained of a shattered window. The dog stopped before it.