Black Adagio

by Potocki, Wendy

  Intently shifting his eyes, he made sure that no one else was around. Crouching, he made eye contact with her. Signaled to hurry, he raced to her. Kneeling down, he did his best to untangle the knots in the thick rope binding her ankles. Seemingly professionally made, they were impossibly difficult to work through.

  “Here, let me do that,” Foster said, abrasively pushing him to the side.

  “I’ve got it,” Todd insisted, keeping his voice low. Playing it on the safe side, there was no telling where the person or persons responsible for the murders were hiding. Not backing off, his buddy persisted, angering him and hindering his attempts to free her. He yanked Angela’s gag down.

  “Is anyone around?” he whispered.

  “No, he’s gone. Went up the stairs, I, I, don’t know where,” she stuttered.

  “Who was it? Do you know?” he asked, trying to get the necessary information out of the shaken agent.

  “Szelak,” she answered in a hush.

  Todd remembered what Melissa had told him. Anna had been so sure.

  “Hang in there. I’ve almost got these,” Todd assured.

  Foster again strong-armed him, his torso used to batter him away.

  “Knock it off!” Todd barked, keeping the volume down.

  “I can do it quicker!”

  “Let him do it!” Angela demanded.

  “But …” Todd objected.

  “Let him do it! That’s an order!”

  “Fine!” he blurted, clearing the way for Foster to finish what he’d started. Fumbling, the older man made no headway. Resisting the urge to break rank, Todd had received a direct order. It was her decision, and he needed to follow it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Angela demanded, starting to realize she’d made a big mistake.

  “I’ve got it!” the senior officer insisted, his fingers making a mess of things.

  He was nervous. The most serious crime he’d ever handled were kids stealing hubcaps. This crime spree out of his league, a pile of human spillage was near enough to touch. Todd cooled his jets. It wasn’t going to help to start a fight over untying a bunch of knots. He needed to calm him down.

  “Just think about Key West, buddy,” Todd suggested.

  “What?” he said, not looking up.

  “Key West. You know, the book, the visits, the warm temperatures.”

  “Oh, yeah. Your book. Yeah, it’ll be fun visiting you there. ”

  Todd froze, his face taking on the look of a death mask. What the hell had he said? The eerie stillness of the basement getting to him, the blood pooling on the ground lent a demonstrable hand to the tenseness. His head swimming, he fought upstream trying to understand.

  “Yeah, I always wondered why you didn’t think of retiring there,” Todd inquired, Angela listening to the outrageously banal conversation that had nothing to do with the exigent nature of the situation.

  “Me?” Foster replied, his fingers apparently not trying to do more than pick lint. “I hate hot weather, but a visit out to see you won’t be that bad.”

  It was all Todd needed to know. The strange misidentification of voices, Melissa thinking she saw Zoe, Midge believing she saw her daughter, and Carol sure she’d picked up Jack Harris hitchhiking. It was a pattern, but so outrageous as to be unbelievable.

  Standing up, he slid his revolver back out. Holding it with both hands, he pointed it directly at Foster.

  “Back away … NOW!” he yelled, his focus on the man who was identical in every way to Foster except in memory.

  “Cavanaugh, are you crazy! Drop that weapon!” Angela ordered. Ignoring the command, she could do anything she wanted to him, but he wasn’t going to back off.

  “You don’t understand. It was Foster planning on retiring in Key West. He was the one that was going to write the book, not me.”

  “So?”

  “So, that isn’t Foster.”

  Foster’s eyes inherited a look of malevolence out of thin air. Twin pools of evil, they caught him in a deadly fire that threatened to split him apart if given the chance.

  “Are you crazy?” Angela lashed quietly

  “If you don’t believe me, ask him something. Something that only he would know. Like his mother’s maiden name.”

  “You are insane,” Foster hissed, as he ignored Todd and tried again to unweave the rope web by effectively doing nothing more than twisting errant fibers.

  “Well, what is it?” Todd pestered.

  Angela was becoming increasingly concerned about the poor job being done. It was almost as if he didn’t want her getting loose. The almost-retired officer sighed. Doubt crept into the federal agent’s thoughts. Anyone should have been able to work through those knots by now. Todd had almost finished until she … Christ, why had she interfered? After all, it could be Foster in on everything. Maybe he was friends with Viktor … or members of that cult.

  “Tell him,” Angela ordered, addressing Foster. “Tell him her maiden name, Foster. Then he’ll go away.”

  Foster sighed, dropping the pretense of even trying. Grabbing the cloth, he tugged it back over her mouth, silencing anymore interfering directives. Angela did her best to fend him off, but she was only making firing off a shot impossible. Todd quickly repositioned himself. His back to the stairs, he had Foster in his sights.

  “Sorry, buddy,” he whispered as he pulled back on the trigger.

  A blow from behind knocked him to his knees. His shot hitting the ceiling, he crumpled forward. Landing in front of Angela, his gun fell from his hands.

  * * * * *

  Melissa waited in the hall, clearly out of her depths. Paralyzed by fear, she pressed the keys so hard into her palm that they left marks. Feeling as if Todd had been gone way too long, she couldn’t trust her judgment. A dancer and not a member of the police force, she debated about calling for help. No longer feeling safe, she reached a hasty decision. The best thing she could do was leave it to the Holybrook police to handle things. She could phone them as soon as she reached the highway.

  Making a dash for the door, she grabbed the handle.

  “Melissa! Melissa, help!”

  The deep voice stilled her movements. Stopping, she cocked her head.

  “Todd?” she cried, turning.

  Her hand letting go of the knob, it dropped by her side. Wondering why he was calling her, how could she possibly do anything? Wait! That was it! If he were calling, it meant she could help. Todd would never involve her in something that would place her in danger. He just wouldn’t. She knew that as well as she knew her own name.

  Swallowing hard, she sprinted towards the basement. Second guessing her decision every step of the way, he’d given her the phone and keys for a reason, hadn’t he?

  The feeling of her losing her life rose up in her like an inflating balloon. Cramping her dreams in dark clouds of smoke, the smothering feeling killed her concept of what she felt she was. Internally repeating her own name so she wouldn’t forget it, the door to the basement had been left open. The light shining through the portal, she glanced at the cell phone in her hand. Slipping it in her pocket, the keys jangled as she entered. Trying to see down the stairs, the elemental structure seemed ominous, but she’d been down them before and nothing had happened. Nothing would this time either, but the storm kicking up within her was doing its best to convince her that she was wrong.

  “Todd?” she called out. Perhaps things had changed. Maybe it was no longer safe. Maybe that’s what he was trying to tell her by his silence. She paused, waiting and listening. If she didn’t hear any response, she’d turn around and run the other way.

  “Melissa, down here,” came the answer.

  Todd’s head splitting, his body did its best not to succumb to going under. Hearing his voice call out, the pertinent point was that it wasn’t him. Realizing that whoever was impersonating him was leading the girl he loved into the basement, it spelled disaster. He had to save her.

  “NO, MELISSA, GO BACK! IT’S A TRAP!”


  A hand clamped over his mouth. Someone climbed on his back, pinning him down. His face pressed into the cement, he heard her hurried footsteps scurrying in retreat.

  Melissa didn’t need to hear anymore. Running up the stairs, her heart was beating out of her chest. Not understanding what was going on, that last message had been crystal clear. With two more steps before her, she was almost free. Shocked by the door slamming shut, her eyes were level with a pair of booted feet before her. Looking up, she peered into the grinning face of Alexei Rubino.

  “Going somewhere?” he queried, arching one brow.

  Reaching for the banister, her eyes never left him as she backed her way down the staircase.

  “What do you want? What!” she screamed. “Todd! Todd, where are you!”

  “Here, Melissa,” the creature on top of Todd answered.

  Doing his best to get whoever was impersonating Foster off of him, Todd tried to toss him to the ground. Angela looked on helplessly, regretting her foolhardy decision to put one of the perpetrators in charge.

  On hearing Todd’s voice, Melissa spun around, taking the phone out of her pocket. Galloping down the stairs, she turned the corner, coming face-to-face with the spectacle. Screaming, she dropped the phone, the pieces scattering in all directions. Todd felt the weight lift off of him. Turning his head, Melissa stood in the middle of the basement looking as if she were about to go insane from fear.

  “Missy,” he groaned.

  “Todd!” she yelled, running to him. Kneeling, she hugged him, propping his torso up against her.

  Alexei applauded, the fake Foster standing to the side.

  “How touching! The little ballerina has grown up and fancies herself in love! She doesn’t know that everything is temporal and will soon end.”

  “No!” she retaliated. She wouldn’t let him kill her dreams. Not even in this dire circumstance. “You killed Una … and Anna! Why? How could you do something so horrible?” she fired, her anger exploding. He had no right.

  “It was nothing personal; it was only their time. It wasn’t like it is with you.”

  “With me?” she breathed heavily, her hand going to her chest.

  “Yes, you. You’re what this is all about.”

  Exchanging glances with Todd, she checked to see if he had any idea what Alexei was speaking about. Todd shook his head, blood dripping down from the wound on the back of his head.

  “Why did you call me, Todd?” she asked, directing her question at the man that had asked to marry her. “And why is Foster helping him?”

  “I didn’t and that’s not Foster,” Todd managed, his strength rapidly depleting. Rather than recover, he was becoming weaker.

  “Help, Melissa, help!” the creature mimicked.

  Shaking, she couldn’t believe her ears. Sounding exactly like Todd, she’d been tricked.

  “But if you’re not Foster, then what are you?”

  Laughing, his features blurred, morphing into Viktor Szelak.

  “Viktor! Anna was right!” she shouted.

  “No, I’m afraid she wasn’t. Viktor is dead. He’s somewhere under there,” he said pointing to the pile.

  Glancing at Angela, the federal agent shifted her eyes, getting Missy to look down at the keys that were still in her hand. Understanding the subtle signal, Angela wanted her to pass the keys so she could cut through the frayed rope. As good as any plan she could have thought of, she had to keep the attention on herself. It should be easy.

  “No!” she shrieked, looking behind Alexei.

  Falling for the ploy, Viktor and Alexei looked away. Melissa tossed the keys to Angela, who cupped them, quickly resuming her position.

  Alexei suspiciously looked back at Melissa.

  “I’m sorry. You’re freaking me out so badly, I thought I saw something.”

  He smiled.

  “It’s alright, Melissa. You will get used to it.

  “Look, I don’t understand! I don’t understand any of this! How? How am I involved? How can this all be caused because of me?”

  “Because you are my partner!”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been dancing alone for centuries. Do you have any idea how lonely that is? Dance needs a partner and I’ve found mine and it’s you!”

  Her black eyes widening, she was so confused. “Are you saying that, that, you’re …” she stopped, unable to speak the improbable words.

  “Death. Yes, I am the skeleton you saw dancing in the woods. The one that Irwin Belmont worshipped. He was part of The Innocents in Europe, but came here to help spread the word. He bought the land and started a faction in Holybrook, only for it to be disassembled when that wretched girl went missing.”

  “Then the story Zoe told was right?”

  “Some of it was, but it wasn’t that motley assemblage that decided to end her pitiful existence, it was me! It was her time and it was I that demanded respect! And the fear generated was grand! When people spoke of me, they trembled! They began to understand that they weren’t immune!”

  “No, this is impossible! I won’t dance! I won’t!”

  “Oh, but you will! It’s all you ever wanted! To dance! To be the best! And that’s what I will give you, My Queen! I will never dance with another, but you? You will dance wherever you desire! On stages all over the world! You will never grow old and you will dance forever!”

  “He lies,” Todd spoke, his voice raspy as a thinned violin string. “Belmont worshipped him, and, and yet he died.”

  “It’s true!” she screamed, picking up on the insinuation. “You’re promising me all these things, but Irwin Belmont died! You betrayed him by killing him!”

  “You don’t understand. I never go back on my word. I gave him what he wanted. See for yourself.”

  Viktor stepped out of the shadows. Like a wave, a ripple passed over him. Another change taking place, before her stood a replica of the man on the web. The one that Joan had found. It was Irwin Belmont.

  “No, it can’t be!”

  “Yes, it is Irwin. Not Foster, not Viktor, not Zoe—Irwin. It was he that you saw in the halls, and not who you thought you saw. After all, this is his home and he was as fascinated with you as I am. Even he understood your potential. Irwin, why don’t you show her what you wanted. Reveal your true appearance.”

  Irwin Belmont’s features altered as if underwater. Stretching to a ridiculous height, the hairy, loathsome creature stood before her, his eyes glowing. They were the eyes she’d seen in the forest.

  “Yes, Irwin is a Leshy. He loved the forest so. Not only because it masked me, but because of its intrinsic beauty. I rewarded him for his obedience and love for me, and I can do the same for you.”

  “No!” she cried, trying to see if Angela had made progress. The rope was cut, her hands were free. All she needed was the gun.

  “Think about this, Melissa. Todd would only leave you. And your career? You’d dance a few years and get hurt, or grow old. And what about your father? He’d become involved with one alcoholic after another. He’d never change. You’d become disappointed and become like your mother.”

  “No, it’s not true!” she said eyeing the gun. She was starting to get that feeling in her stomach. The one that told her she was going to lose.

  “It is true. Think of your mother and how she rejected you. Think of how you felt when the police unfairly accused you of being behind the disappearances. And remember the hurt that was brought about when that hideous Viktor Szelak criticized you and promoted lesser talent because he’d never gotten over Una leaving him. And then there was Una herself, did she not betray you? How dare she take money over choosing you? You were relegated to playing a rat, when you deserved the lead? How fair is the world, Melissa? Remember that I was the one that pulled you out from the ranks—and not the ones that should have embraced your talent.”

  The sadness of those moments overwhelmed her. They ate into her, amassing with all her other hurts. Her who
le life had been one big exercise in futility.

  “I’ve tried before to find someone. It was me at Palace Ballet. I’d heard their dancers were the best, but there was no one that could dance my steps. And I tried again with Una’s mother, Maya, but she was not anyone near what you are. When you told me of your dreams, I knew we were fated to be together. I was so happy that I could have cried. Don’t you understand that I am giving you the chance to be worshipped! And I am not bad. I am a leveler. It is what The Innocents understood, and they will spring up again! Already there is a youth trying to collect kindred spirits. These deaths will ignite true believers to come together once again!”

  Staring ahead, her mind was going blank. Although she was denying it, dance was what she’d wanted all along. Looking at Todd, his eyes blinked open and then shakily closed. She did love him, but there was something in her that only loved so much.

  “Melissa, they had to die. No one can know the steps to my opus. They conceal the secret of death.”

  “But Brandi …”

  “Brandi was a little nothing! She interfered in my plans! Una was going to give your part to her! I couldn’t allow that! And I needed to see the steps on you—to see how they fit! And they fit like a crown!”

  “But Larabee and Hotchkins and …”

  “Irwin must eat, my dear. He can’t always rely on the animals to sustain him.”

  “Then he was killing those animals?”

  “Yes, for food, and to leave at my altar.”

  “But what about Todd?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Todd will be part of the audience. He will watch you and applaud.”

  “Missy, he’s trying to get into your head. Nothing he says is true,” Todd muttered, his head shaking. “I love you, Missy. Can’t you see that I love you?”

  “Do you? For how long?”

  “As long as I’m alive.”

  “You don’t know that, Todd. No one can see around corners.”

  “I do. I want to marry you. Have children. Grow old.”

  “And what if you change your mind? What if I do? What if you die?”

  “That’s what life is, Melissa. It’s filled with things we can’t control.”

  “And that’s the point,” Alexei interrupted. “Isn’t it, Melissa?”