Cassie McGraw Box Set: Books 1-3

by David Archer

  “We’ll see,” I said. “Somebody once told me that charities are really just a way to hide money. I don’t ever want anyone thinking that about me. I’d rather spend the money out of my own pocket. Besides, I’m not planning to get any bigger. I can afford to support a small office, with just the four of us.”

  “And I’m not going to cost her anything, anyway,” Nicole said. “I go back to work on my regular job next week, so I’m just going to donate my time, like I did at St. Mary’s.”

  “See?” I said. “It’s not gonna cost me that much to keep us all together.”

  My phone suddenly buzzed, and I looked at it. It showed me an image from inside my car, as someone stuck a piece of paper under my windshield wiper. The lettering on it was facing inward, and I could read it easily, because it was written in thick red letters.

  Ready for the next round?

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I called Pennington as I hurried out to the parking garage, and there were two squad cars at my car by the time I got to it. There was no sign of Danny anywhere, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was he who put the paper on my windshield.

  I had to wait for the crime scene guys to get there, and they took the paper off with a pair of tweezers. It was dropped into a plastic bag that was sealed, and taken away to be checked for fingerprints. I couldn’t really see the sense, since we knew exactly who had done it, but Pennington explained that it was necessary to have a recorded chain of custody for every piece of evidence. If Danny’s fingerprints were on it, it would be the first piece of physical evidence that connected him to the crimes.

  “He’s about to do something,” I said to Pennington. “We need to get ready for whatever it is.”

  “Well, I hope it’s not like the last one. I kept waiting for you to blow yourself to hell and back, that time.”

  “Yeah, well, believe me when I say that’s not on my list of things to do today. That poor girl was terrified, though, and I couldn’t just walk away and leave her in that situation.”

  He scowled at me. “I think you just have a hero complex,” he said. “You want to save everybody.”

  “Says the guy wearing the badge,” I said. “Are you gonna tell me you don’t feel the same way?”

  “Of course I do,” he replied. “But at least I get paid for it. All you would’ve gotten is a nice obituary.”

  I shook my head. “Jim, you’re such a pessimist.”

  “Wrong. I’m a realist. Alicia keeps telling me you’re the luckiest person she’s ever known, but luck don’t hold out forever. One of these days, you’re going to find yourself in a really bad situation. Don’t count on lucky saving you then.”

  He turned and walked away, and I got into my car to head back to my office. It was lunchtime, so I picked up some tacos to take with me, then parked at the shop again and went in to tell Dex about Angie, and then of course, I told him about the note on the windshield. We ate lunch while we talked.

  He grunted. “At least he’s warned us,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about yesterday, in the car. Everything he does is connected to your work, so I’ve been trying to guess at what he might do next.”

  “Any luck?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “The only thing I can think of is that he’s gotten into your client files, so all of your clients are potential targets. I just can’t see any way we can watch all of them, all the time.”

  I frowned, because he was right. Any one of my clients could be Danny’s next target, but there was no way I could imagine to guess which one. Besides, I hadn’t placed anybody in New Beginnings in a couple of months, so he wasn’t after anyone I knew. Maybe my clients were actually safe, for the most part.

  While I couldn’t watch my clients, though, there was something else I could do. I kissed Dex and went back to my office, then sat down and started calling all of them again. This time, I told them all about Danny and the fact that he was trying to hurt me with his attacks. I told them all to be extremely careful, and not to trust anyone they didn’t know. He had gotten Wanda, Connie, and Candace by using a ruse, and I told them all about it.

  I half expected most of them to tell me they were finished with me, but only a couple of them even said they wanted to take a break from our meetings. By the time I got finished with all of them, I had ten appointments scheduled, scattered over the next four days.

  It was almost three o’clock by then, and I was sitting there trying to think of something else to do when my phone rang once again. I didn’t know the number, so I answered it cautiously.

  “Cassie McGraw,” I said.

  “Okay, so are you starting to figure out any of the clues I’m giving you?” Danny asked.

  I sighed. “Danny, nothing you do is making any sense at all. Why don’t we just meet up somewhere? I’m all alone right now, you tell me where you want to meet, and I’ll come.”

  “That’s not how the game is going to be played,” he said. “You just don’t know how to listen, do you? I’m trying to tell you what you need to know in order to stop me, but you have to be smart enough to understand it. I studied you, Cassie, so I know you’ve got the brains. All you need to do is turn them on and use them. Now, are you ready for the next round?”

  I leaned back in my chair, exasperated. “Go ahead,” I said.

  “Okay, this one might point you in the right direction. If you can figure it out in time, you’ll not only save lives, you’ll probably start to get an idea of how to find me. Listen closely. You need to be able to hear your own voice, better than anyone else can, while no one else can hear it at all. Now, if you figure out what that means, then you’ll know what you have to do to disarm the next bomb.”

  “Do what? Danny, do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”

  He didn’t answer, and I realized he had hung up. I sat there, staring at my phone, and trying to figure out what in the world he had just said.

  I played it back in my mind. He said I needed to hear my own voice better than anyone else could, but it had to be while no one else could hear it at all. It made no sense, none. No matter how I tried to understand it, it just didn’t add up.

  I got up from my desk and left the office, locking the door behind me and walking around the block to the shop. When I got inside, Dex was already well into taking apart the antique Cadillac convertible we had bought. He had the seats out of it and was taking off the panels on the inside of the doors.

  Something in my face must’ve told him that I got another call. He put down his tools and looked at me, then got to his feet and walked over to stand in front of me.

  “What’s he up to now?”

  “I really wish I knew,” I said. “He called me a few minutes ago, and said that if I can figure this thing out, I can disarm his next bomb and save lives, but what he said doesn’t make any sense.”

  He walked me over to the office and set me down in one of the chairs, then took the one beside me.

  “Tell me what he said, word for word,” he said. “As close as you can remember.”

  I blew air out of my mouth in frustration. “He said I need to be able to hear my own voice better than anyone else can, while nobody else can hear me at all. Does that make any sense to you?”

  Dex looked into my eye for a second, and then he started to smile. “Maybe,” he said. “Cassie, have you ever been to the Center of the Universe?”

  I stared at him. “What? Now you’re sounding as crazy as he does. And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Did you get any kind of time limit on this? Are you supposed to solve it by a certain deadline?”

  I shook my head. “He didn’t give me a particular time. He just said if I figure it out ‘in time,’ then I’d know how to disarm the next bomb and save lives.”

  Dex got to his feet and held out a hand. I took it and he lifted me up out of my chair.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “There might not be any time to waste.”

 
; We left the shop and he locked it up, then we got into my car with Dex driving.

  “The Center of the Universe is this really weird landmark here in Tulsa,” he said. “It’s a small circle of concrete surrounded by a circle of bricks, and it’s got some really strange acoustical properties. If you stand exactly in the center and say something, you can suddenly hear your own voice a lot louder than normal. If you make any other kind of sound, it’s also a lot louder than it would normally be. Some people think it’s an echo from this round planter that surrounds the area, but there’s no delay like you get with an echo. Nobody really has any idea how it works, but one of the other interesting features about it is that anybody standing outside the circle of bricks can’t hear what you say at all.”

  I think my eyeball was trying to pop out of its socket. “You’re kidding, right? There really is such a place?”

  “Yep. It’s down by the Jazz Hall of Fame, which was the old Union Train Depot, near the corner of West Archer Street and North Boston Avenue. It’s the only thing in the world I can think of that would make it possible for you to hear your voice better than anyone else while nobody else can hear it at all.”

  It took a few minutes to make it through traffic, but we finally got to the area he was talking about. We had to get out of the car and walk across a footbridge over the tracks, and there was the insane place he was telling me about.

  “Go ahead,” Dex said. “Go right to the center of it and say something.”

  I looked at him like he was a crazy man, but I walked across the circle of bricks to the little concrete circle in the middle. I stood right on top of it and looked back at Dex, who was standing outside the circle of bricks, and tried to think of something to say.

  According to Dex, whatever I said would be amplified as far as I was concerned, but he wouldn’t be able to hear anything. I could only think of one thing I could say that would absolutely tell me if that was true or not, because there was no way he could fail to react if he heard me. I looked directly at him, and then I said, “I love you.”

  I heard it perfectly, and with some indefinable quality I couldn’t explain. And he was right, it was definitely louder. I could certainly hear my voice better than anyone else as long as I stood in that spot.

  And Dex’s face didn’t change at all. Had he heard me say that, there was no doubt in my mind that I would’ve seen some kind of reaction, but there was nothing. I was almost certain I was standing exactly where I was supposed to be, but I had no idea how this was supposed to tell me anything about how to disarm a bomb.

  I looked around where I was standing, down on the ground. There was nothing on the circle of bricks that I could see that could possibly have anything to do with the situation, so I looked around the area even further. I slowly turned in a circle while standing in that same spot, and suddenly I spotted something really weird.

  It was some kind of sculpture or something, a tall, strange-looking tower with a weird shape on top. As I looked at it, I noticed something fluttering on it, about eight feet off the ground. I walked out of the circle toward it, and Dex came to join me.

  “Well?” he asked. “What did you think?”

  “I think it’s really weird,” I said. “But you’re right, I could hear myself amplified. You really couldn’t hear what I said?”

  “Nope. I tried to read your lips, but I was never all that good at it. It sort of looked like you said something about an idiot, but I hope you weren’t talking to me.”

  I couldn’t help it, I grinned. “No, I didn’t say that. I just made some noises, that’s all. What is this thing?” I pointed at the sculpture.

  He looked up at it and shrugged. “That’s called the Artificial Cloud Statute. I don’t know if anybody really knows what it’s supposed to mean, but it’s got all these weird symbols all over it. On one side it’s got what looks like airplanes diving toward the ground and crashing, and on the other side is a bunch of people who seem to have their arms or legs cut off.”

  We got up to it, and I looked up at the thing I had seen fluttering. There was a piece of paper stuck to it, and I pointed it out to Dex. “Can you get that?”

  It was just a little out of his reach, but he managed to grab onto the sculpture and jump enough to snag it. He brought it down, looked at it, and then handed it to me. It was a sheet of notebook paper, like you find in some kids’ school notebooks, and there was a single word written on it: DESIDERATA. It had been stuck to the sculpture with a wad of chewing gum.

  It was written in the same thick, red ink as the note that had been on my windshield.

  “Desiderata,” I said. “Any idea what that’s supposed to mean?”

  “I know it was something some guy wrote, a long time ago. My mom used to have a recording of it, and she listened to it every once in a while. I can’t remember all of it, but it seemed to me that it always boiled down to the fact that the world turns the way it wants to, and you really can’t do much about it.”

  I googled it.

  Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

  Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

  Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

  Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

  Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

  Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

  Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

  Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

  Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

  And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

  I guess it could be considered some good advice, but Dex was right. More than anything else, it basically just said that life is going to happen however it happens. Other than watching what other people are up to, there just isn’t much you can do about it.

  “Okay,” I said. “Somehow, this is supposed to tell me how to disarm a bomb. Now, if only I knew where that bomb might be, I might have a chance. I’m calling Pennington.”

  I took out my phone and hit the button, and Pennington answered on the first ring. It took me a moment to explain to him what was going on, but he didn’t have any idea what I should do next, either.

  “I don’t know anything new,” he said. “If he’s planted another bomb somewhere, it hasn’t turned up yet. I guess the only thing you can do right now is wait. But, Cassie, if he calls you to tell you where the bomb is, I want to know about it. Understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said sarcastically. “I’ll call you immediately, I promise.”

  I put my phone back in my pocket and looked up at Dex. “Nothing to do but wait,” I said.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait long. We hadn’t even made it back to the shop building when my phone rang again, and I looked to
see that it was Pennington calling.

  “Okay, you’re on,” he said. “A woman just walked into the lobby of the Mayo Hotel with a bomb strapped to her, just like the other day. She told the front desk that neither she nor anyone else can leave the building or the bomb will be detonated, and that they were to call the police and say that only you could disarm the bomb.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re on the way.”

  I looked at Dex. “Mayo Hotel,” I said. “We’ve got another bomb like the one Toni Denham was wearing the other day.”

  “You think ‘desiderata’ is the password, this time?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “This is supposed to be some kind of clue, though.”

  We arrived at the hotel a few minutes later. I saw Pennington standing just outside, and the bomb squad truck was parked in the street out front. Dex and I walked up to Pennington, and he gave me a wry grin.

  “Her name is Beverly Walker,” he said, and I gasped. “I take it you know her?”

  I nodded. “She was just in my office a few days ago,” I said. “She was the very first client in my new office.”

  “Well, according to her, Danny says if the bomb squad gets near her, if we try to evacuate the building, or if she tries to leave, he’ll set it off. He’s got to be watching from somewhere around here, but if we start searching, that’s liable to be another trigger.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t absolutely have to do this, you know.”

  I made a face at him. “Yeah, right,” I said. “The other day, after I got done, the bomb squad just pulled the wires out and said it was harmless. Can I do that?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. If you try to disconnect anything before it’s disarmed, they say it will trigger what’s called an interrupt circuit and make the bomb go off.”

  “Oh, ducky,” I said sarcastically. “So be it. Let me see what I can do.”

  I walked into the building and saw Beverly sitting on a couch in the lobby. There were a couple of cops inside, but they were staying away from her. I wondered if that was because they were scared, or because they were afraid Danny was watching and didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.