we know for sure.” — “Tell me!”
Daniel looked at the floor.
“Kathy Bryant called about an hour ago.”
“Kathy B” — Tamara’s throat went dry, and her stomach felt as if a
fist had been driven into it.
“It’s Jamey, isn’t it?”
Daniel nodded.
“The school officials claim he left at the normal time, but… he never
made it home.”
“Jamey? He’s missing?”
Jamey sat very still, because it hurt when he tried to move.
His arms were pulled tightly behind him, and tied there.
A blindfold covered his eyes and there was some kind of tape over his
mouth.
It felt like duct tape, but he couldn’t be sure.
He’d left school to walk home just as he always did, cutting through
the vacant lot behind the drugstore.
Someone had grabbed him from behind.
A damp cloth had been held over his nose and mouth and Jamey had known
it was chloroform.
He hadn’t recognized the smell or anything, but he’d seen enough movies
to know that’s what they hold to your nose and mouth when they grab you
from behind.
Never fails.
Chloroform.
It stank, too.
He’d felt himself falling into a black pit.
Now he was here, although he had no idea where here was.
He couldn’t see, and he could barely move.
He assumed he was inside, because of the flat, hard surface he sat on
and the one at his back.
A floor and a wall, he guessed.
He was in an old kind of place, because he could smell the old, musty
odors.
Inside or not, though, it was cold.
Breezes wafted through now and then and he felt no kind of warmth at
all.
He was glad he’d zipped his coat and pulled on his hat when he’d left
school.
He sure couldn’t have done it now.
He couldn’t do much of anything now.
Except think.
He’d been thinking a lot since he had come around and found himself
here.
Mostly what he thought about was who had grabbed him.
He’d felt a clear sense of recognition flash through his mind the
second the guy-and he was sure it had been a guy—had grabbed him.
He’d been on the brink of total recall when the chloroform had got to
him.
If he’d had just a few more seconds.
But maybe it would come to him later.
Right now his main concerns were two—his empty stomach, and the
dropping temperature.
Tamara listened, numb with worry, as Daniel related the details of
Jamey’s disappearance.
He’d left school to walk home at three-thirty.
His mother had been over his route, as had the police, and found
nothing.
His friends had been questioned, but nothing of any use was learned.
She knew she should remain where she was and wait for Eric.
He could meet Daniel when he arrived, and then she’d explain what had
happened and ask him to finish the talk another time.
He’d help her find Jamey.
Rationally she knew that would be the wisest course of action.
But her emotions wouldn’t allow it.
Despite Kathy Bryant’s lack of panic when Tamara phoned her, she felt
it building within her own mind.
Kathy had the assurances of the police, who saw this type of thing all
the time, that Jamey would turn up safe and sound within a few hours.
But Tamara had her own, sickening intuition that something was terribly
wrong.
When she closed her eyes and tried to focus on Jamey she felt nothing
but coldness and fear.
She had to find him, and she couldn’t wait.
He was cold, afraid and alone, and.
“I can see you want to go. Tam,” Daniel said, placing a gentle hand
on her arm.
She shook her head.
“I can’t. Eric will be here before long, and I know how nervous you
are.”
He shook his head.
“To tell you the truth, I was thinking it might be better for the two
of us to have a private talk.
You go on, go see to the boy.
I’ll explain to Marquand when he gets here.
” She hesitated.
“Are you sure?”
“Go on,” he repeated.
She hugged his neck.
“Thank you, Daniel.”
She pressed her trembling lips to his leathery cheek.
“I love you, you know.”
She whirled from him and rushed to her car, then changed her mind and
took his, knowing he wouldn’t object.
It would be faster.
She got the same story when she talked to Kathy face to-face.
The poor woman seemed to grow more concerned each time she glanced at
the clock.
Her confidence in the official prediction that Jamey was perfectly all
right must be fading, Tamara thought.
Tamara ignored the gathering darkness, knowing Eric would soon meet
with Daniel, and probably come looking for her as soon as he was told
the reason for her absence.
She wasn’t worried about his ability to find her.
He’d know where she was without thinking twice.
She wished her psychic link to Jamey was that strong.
If she could just close her eyes and know.
She shook her head.
She couldn’t, so why waste time wishing?
She spent some time in his bedroom, going through things to see if
there was a note or some clue.
knowing all the while there wouldn’t be.
He hadn’t left of his own accord.
Her link was strong enough to tell her that much.
She had Kathy draw her a map of his usual route home, and she went to
the school, parked the car and walked it, all of her mind honed for a
hint of him.
The police had been over the path he would’ve taken, and found
nothing.
Kathy had, as well, but Tamara felt certain she would find something
they’d missed.
and she did.
Something made her pause when she began to walk along the sidewalk past
the drugstore.
She stopped, lifted her head and waited.
Her gaze turned of its own accord to the lot behind the store, a weedy,
garbage-strewn mess that any parent would forbid her child to cross.
Just as Kathy had probably forbidden Jamey.
Yet she detected a meandering path amid the snowy brown weeds, broken
bottles and litter.
From her bag she pulled the flashlight she’d asked Kathy to lend her,
and checked the hand-drawn map.
To cross the lot would save several minutes of his walk home.
She folded the map and pocketed it, aimed the beam and moved along the
barely discernible path.
Little snow had managed .
to accumulate here, and the wind that whipped through constantly
rearranged what there was.
Bits of paper and rubbish swirled across her path as she moved behind
the flashlight’s beam.
Crumpled newspaper pages skittered, and a flat sheet of notepaper
glided past.
She sought footprints but saw none and knew that if there’d been any
Pastel bits of tissue blew past, and then a tumbling bit of white that
looked like cloth.
She frowned and followed its progress with the light.
Not cloth.
Gauze.
A wadded square of gauze.
The breeze stiffened and the scrap tumbled away.
She chased it a few yards, lost sight of it, then spotted it again.
She picked it up, careful to touch only a corner of the material, and
that with her nails.
She turned it in the beam of light.
It hadn’t been used on an injury.
There was no trace of blood anywhere.
Slowly, like a stalking phantom, the odor made its way into her
senses.
She wrinkled her nose.
Was that.
late.
Refreshments have already been served, as you can see.
” Eric glanced up and saw Curtis Rogers standing in a darkened
corner.
“You,” he growled.
He lunged at the man, but Curtis ducked his first attack, flinging
something warm and sticky into Eric’s face.
Blood.
And he’d tossed it from a glass.
Automatically Eric swiped a sleeve over his face, and an instant later
he had the laughing little bastard by the throat.
A sharp jab stabbed into his midsection.
Not a blade, he thought.
It was.
Oh, hell, a hypodermic.
He flinched at the pain but caught himself, withdrawing one hand from
Curtis’s throat, clenching it into a fist and smashing it into his
face.
Rogers went down, toppling a table on the way, breaking a lamp.
Eric walked toward him, aware now that.
Roland had come inside.
He felt his friend’s hand clasp his shoulder from behind.
“It’s a trap, I tell you. We must go, now, before” — “No!”
Eric shook Roland’s hand free and took another step toward the man on
the floor, who made no move to get away.
Suddenly Eric knew why.
A wave of dizziness assaulted him.
He fell to one knee as Rogers scurried backward like a crab.
He felt his mind grow fuzzy, and his head suddenly seemed too heavy to
hold upright.
Vaguely he felt Roland gripping him under the arms.
He saw Rogers get to his feet and pull another hypodermic from
somewhere.
He tried to mutter a warning, but couldn’t hear his own slurred
voice.
Roland let him go with only one hand when Rogers approached.
He backhanded the bastard almost casually.
Curtis sailed through the air, connecting with a bookshelf before
slumping to the floor amid an avalanche of literature.
Even drugged, Eric marvelled at Roland’s strength.
“He’s drugged you, Eric!”
Roland’s voice came from far away.
“Fight it, man. Get up.”
He tried, but his legs seemed numb and useless.
Roland lifted his upper body and half dragged him to the window.
Eric knew his thoughts.
He suspected Rogers would have an army of DPI agents, possibly all
armed with syringes of this new drug, converging on the place at any
moment.
Yet in his hazy mind all Eric could think of was Tamara.
Why wasn’t she here?
Could she bear the grief of losing St Claire this way?
My God, she adored the man.
But she was here!
His mind was suddenly pummeled with her aura.
He tried to call out to her, but Roland was already pulling him through
the window.
“Nnno,” he tried to say, unsure if he’d actually made a sound.
As Eric felt himself pulled to the ground he heard her steps, and the
opening of a door.
He lifted his head and tried to see her.
He did.
She appeared unfocused, a blurry silhouette, but her eyes found his and
connected, just for an instant.
Then they moved downward, and he heard her agonized screams.
“Have … to … go … to her.”
He slumped into unconsciousness as Roland carried him away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN amara felt the shock like a physical blow.
She’d glanced up automatically when she’d opened the library door.
She’d felt Eric’s presence like a magnetic force on her gaze.
She’d seen him.
He’d looked at her briefly, and his face had been smeared with
something red.
She’d glimpsed scarlet stains on his normally pristine-white shirt
cuff, as well, before he’d moved away from the window.
She let her puzzled gaze travel downward, drawn there by some inner
knowledge she couldn’t credit.
The scream of unbridled horror rose in her throat of its own volition
when she saw the spreading pool beneath Daniel’s body.
the gaping rent in his throat.
She threw herself to the floor, heedless of the blood, and drew his
limp head into her lap, stroking his face as her vision was obscured by
tears and her mind went numb, unable to face reality.
She mumbled soft words of comfort, unaware of what she said.
Her mind slipped slowly, steadily from her grasp.
Curt’s hands on her shoulders gripped hard, and shook her.
He said something in short, harsh tones, but she refused to hear or
acknowledge.
“Call an ambulance,” she told him with the slurred speech of a drunken
person.
“He’s hurt, he needs help. Go call an ambulance.”
“He’s dead, Tamara.”
He released his hold on her, and tried instead to move Daniel’s head
from her cradling arms.
She clung to him more tightly, closing her eyes as her vision
cleared.
She didn’t want to see.
“He’s dead,” Curt repeated loudly.
She kept her eyes closed and shook her head.
“He’s only hurt. He needs” — Curt’s hands closed on either side of
her face, tilting it downward.
“Look at him. Open your eyes, dammit!”
The increased pressure made her comply and she found her gaze focused
on deathly gray skin, suited, already glazing eyes and the ragged tear
in Daniel’s jugular.
She shook her head, mute, her mind trying to go black.
Her body slowly went limp and Curt jerked her to her feet the moment
she relaxed her grip on Daniel.
She slipped and nearly fell.
When she looked down she saw that the floor was wet with blood.
Her clothing soaked in it, Daniel’s body drenched.
Insanity crept closer, its gnarled hands gripping her mind and
clenching.
“I told you this was how it would end.”
She blinked and looked at him.
“You saw him yourself. Tam. It was Marquand. When I heard Daniel
scream I kicked the door in. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Marquand
was… he was sucking the blood out of him. I jumped on him, but he’d
already severed the vein—tore it right open. Daniel bled to death
while I fought with Marquand.”
Her face blank, she looked again toward the window, recalling her
fleeting glimpse of Eric.
the blood on his face.
No
.
It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be.
Mentally she cried out to him, closing her eyes and begging him to tell
her the truth, to deny Curds’s words.
He didn’t respond.
His silence drove her beyond control, and while she felt curiously
detached, she watched as a blood-soaked woman wearing her body gave way
to insanity.
She tore at her clothing, raking her own face with bloodied nails, tore
at her own hair and screamed like a banshee.
Curtis had to backhand the woman twice before she crumpled to a
quivering, sobbing heap on the floor.
He left the room, but returned in a moment and injected her with
something.
The proportions of the room became distorted, and voices echoed
endlessly.
She had to close her eyes or she knew she would be sick.
When she opened them, the unmistakable glint of early morning sun
slanted through her window and across her bed.
Her head throbbed, but she was clean and dressed in a soft white
nightgown.
Her face hurt, and a glimpse in the mirror showed her another deep
purple bruise complementing the one on her jaw.
This one rode high on her cheekbone.
She shook her head, dropped the hand mirror onto the stand and slipped
from the bed.
The bruise came from Cult’s knuckles, landing brutally across her face
when she’d lost her mind last night.
But none of that had been real, had it?
It hadn’t really happened.
Silently she moved through her doorway, over the faded carpet in the
hallway and down the stairs.
All the way she kept thinking it had been a nightmare, or a delusion.
She stopped outside the tall double doors to Daniel’s library, and
paused only a moment before she pushed them open.
Her eyes moved directly to the carpet in the room’s center.
A pungent, metallic odor reached her at the same instant she recognized
the bloodstains, and saw the masking-tape outline of Daniel’s body.
“Tam my?”
She turned and looked up at Curt, wondering why she was so numb.
Why wasn’t she wailing with grief?
Daniel was dead.
“Honey, I don’t want you to let yourself be consumed with guilt. You
had no way of knowing he was using you all along. The bastard must
have planned this for months.
Even Daniel believed him.
” That’s right, she reminded herself.
Eric had never loved her.
He’d seduced her.
He’d used her to get to Daniel and then he’d brutally murdered a
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