“Or run for president?” George said as a joke that fell completely flat. He quickly recovered from his failure. “This thing actually wants us to find out. So why doesn’t this evil fuck just spell it out? Why screw around like this?”
“I don’t know, George,” Gabe said as he again sat down.
“I know a way we can cut down the research time on this,” John said as he intentionally looked away from Jennifer.
“No. You promised—no more. Summer Place almost killed you,” Jenny said as she tried to get Lonetree to look her way. He held steady.
“There I bucked up against the entity itself. Hadley here is the vessel, not the force behind all of this.” He looked at Gabriel. “I think I can get in and back out again without the entity becoming aware that I am inside Hadley’s head.”
“No. Not yet anyway. We’ll wait and see what Leonard comes up with.”
“In the meantime, we lose more innocents? This thing isn’t going to stop, Gabe. You know it and I know it. In some ways, this entity is more powerful than the evil spirit that haunted Summer Place. It’s like this thing has been waiting and somehow it has awakened and it wants Hadley back. I can find out in a fraction of the time it would take Wonder Boy there to put a page of his research together,” Lonetree said with a nod toward the computers.
“Wonder Boy? What the fuck?” Leonard protested.
“I’ll think it over,” Gabriel took a long pull of the water bottle. “If whatever this thing is finds out you’re trespassing, I don’t think it would be very forgiving.”
“It’s inviting us to come in. I want to accept the invitation. It just may let me find out what we need to do for it to get what it wants most—and that is the return of Hadley—to God knows where.”
“George, do you think you can contact physically with our former First Lady and get a feeling for her motivation in all of this?”
“Just get me in the same room with her. Her mantra puts out enough vibe I could read her in ancient Chinese. Yeah, I can see what she’s up to.”
“And while he’s doing that,” Leonard said as he hit the Print key and the copier started up in the corner, “I do have a lead on a portfolio of investments that never went over to the family funds in general. It will take awhile, but I think I can get into their systems.” He pulled a piece of paper from the printer, read it, and then handed it over to Gabriel.
“What is this?” he asked when he read the page.
“A list of former holdings by the Hadley Corporation. Sold off years ago.”
“So?” Kennedy asked as he passed the page to John and the others.
“The properties were never relinquished. Hadley’s father sold the assets to himself under an assumed name and corporation—three businesses that I have yet to track down. I have one, I think,” Leonard said as he returned to his computer screen. He tapped the glass. “Right here. A small security company that is listed as privately owned, but if you read the small print”—he turned and smiled at the others around the table—“which I always do, you’ll see a firm called Sacramento Security, and the name on the bottom line is that of D. Hadley. It’s based in Pomona, California. I can start there and see if anything correlates with the Hadley Group of companies and why their sale was a farce.”
Gabriel nodded, pleased that Leonard had given them a fighting chance without risking John’s life in a dreamwalk with Hadley. He looked at his old college roommate.
“Sorry, John, but I’m not risking you just to get a lead. We’ll go with Leonard for the time being.”
Jennifer closed her eyes as she silently thanked Gabriel for deciding against John’s idea.
That decision didn’t sit well with Lonetree. John wanted to meet the true members of the Crypt Kicker Five.
8
VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE
As others took breaks and ate, Leonard kept at it. All his meals were wheeled in on a small cart and left the same way, usually without the food being touched. Gabriel was quickly becoming concerned at this different vibe coming from Leonard. As the others filed out of the study for dinner and a break, Leonard stayed behind, and this time, so did Gabriel. He pulled up a chair and sat next to Sickles, who had no less than five large-screen monitors in front of him. The technical group headed by the FBI computer crimes division was astonished at the setup and now cast a wary eye on Leonard, who demonstrated capabilities sometimes seen in cyber terror attacks against large corporations. Nothing was said, but many an agent left Leonard’s company with a feeling this man needed watching when all of this was said and done.
“Pushing it a little hard, aren’t you?” Kennedy asked as he leaned in close to get the man’s attention.
Leonard looked startled at first, as he hadn’t realized Gabriel had sat down. He looked around and saw that the room had emptied out. He rubbed his eyes and then fixed Kennedy with bloodshot whites. He seemed not to have heard him speak, and then he smiled. It was a sad-looking effort, and Gabriel allowed Leonard to talk it out his way.
“I always looked at this thing that we do as a challenge, a kick, not meaning much to the real world compared to what corporations want me to do. I took this ghost-hunting thing with a grain of salt, with the one notable exception of Summer Place.” He sat back in his chair and then placed his small hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “But I learned this morning that this is some serious stuff we’re playing with here.” He opened his eyes and then glanced at the man who had saved him from a meaningless life of gang-related crime, and for that fact alone the psychiatrist had earned Leonard’s lifelong loyalty. “I guess over six years of finding out just how devious people are when it comes to ghost hunting has colored me to a point to where I was becoming beyond merely skeptical of the science. Maybe I was phoning in my research after the fiftieth time we uncovered untruths of a reality show.”
Gabriel was about to respond to Leonard’s guilt complex when one of the monitors flashed.
“Ah,” Leonard said, reading the incoming message. He once again hit the Print button, and the copier went into action. He stood and went to the copier and retrieved the printer page and then handed it to Gabriel.
“A start—not much, but a start.”
“What is this?” Gabriel asked as he scanned the page.
“Account listings for Sacramento Security. Personnel records and complete client access.”
“I don’t get it. This is a small print investment by Hadley Corp and the only one thus far that you’ve been able to uncover. Why would they not have been able to hide this asset from their portfolio?”
Leonard smiled and then tapped the middle of the page. “Well, it was just a small company that had only one contract since 1973. But the kicker here is what I am interested in. Look at the outlay for Privileged Client Number 45624. That payroll outlay is for security at a site that is in operation 24-7. That’s serious security for something not listed in the property protection contract. And twenty-four-hour-a-day security, seven days a week, means that they have an on-site security team in place at that location. Why?”
“Cut to the chase here, Leonard; you’re losing this mere human being.”
“It seems that the security company only handles three accounts. Well, only one now, because two of clients have canceled their contracts in the past year.”
“So, the security company has how many clients?”
Leonard smiled. “One. At least that’s all I can see. Now that kicker I said was coming. Two large properties the company had contracts for were canceled. The reason listed on the duplicate contracts stated they were taken over by a certain county I have yet to find. Just what the two properties were that were once guarded by the Hadley family, that were taken over by a local government, and who that local government is, I will discover soon. As I said, it’s a starting point. I made a hole in the ground; now I can see if I can expand upon it.”
Gabriel handed the sheet of paper to Leonard and slapped him on the back. He stood just as the doo
r to the study opened and John was standing there.
“Gabe, you have to see this,” he said and then vanished.
With a look at Sickles, Gabriel left the study and saw the activity on the stairs leading to the basement. He noticed the forensic doctors were there at the top of the stairs, and all of them looked as white as ghosts.
“What in the hell is this?” Kennedy asked as John held up a hand.
“Listen,” he said as the room quieted from the thirty-five voices coming from scared government workers.
The voices were heard, but they were low and indistinct. Gabe tried his best to hear but couldn’t. He looked from the open doorway to the chief pathologist. “What are you doing up here?”
“Because no one pays us enough to sit through that,” he said, pointing down the stairs. “I’ve got two nurses that have fainted. Hell, even security doesn’t want anything to do with this.”
Gabriel looked at the pathologist as if he had lost his mind, and Gabe angrily pushed by him and headed down the stairs. Julie, John, George, and Jenny all followed. The other men and women looked uneasy as the strange group vanished down into darkness.
Gabe passed one of the Secret Service agents coming up the stairs and stopped him.
“I waited as long as I could, but I just can’t stay down there anymore.” The man pushed by Kennedy and the others like a salmon swimming upstream. Gabriel continued down.
He reached the bottom step and then reached for the light switch and hit it. There was nothing. A flashlight came on, dimmed, and then flashed on once more. John was there beside him, and Gabe was thankful for it. Then, just as Julie, Jenny, and George arrived, the flashlights died once more, leaving them in total darkness. George remedied the situation by pulling a lighter from his pocket and holding the flame up high as they saw the curtained-off morgue area. As the light flared to life beyond the glass, they could see nothing with the plastic curtain pulled over the viewing glass.
“Feel it?” George said as he stepped into the enclosed viewing area. He wanted to grab the curtain and sling it back but was terrified about what horror would be waiting for him. He swallowed and then stepped back as Gabriel relieved him of the lighter. John reached for the plastic curtain and, with one look at Kennedy, was ready to open the partition. The mumbling beyond stopped. John also swallowed his fear and then quickly pulled back the curtain.
They all jumped as one. The thing staring at them was right in front of the glass. There was no fogging of the window as the visage of Kelly stared at them through the viewing window. As the flame played light over the frightening image, they all saw the Y-shaped autopsy scar and noted that her hair was wet and clean after the pathologists were finished with her. Her mouth moved, but no words came out. Her eyes had turned a milky white, and her wounds were leaking clear and watery blood. Kelly tilted her damaged head first right and then left. The eyes fixed on Gabriel. The mouth tried to move again. Gabriel stepped closer to the glass.
Jennifer felt cold and had to turn away. Then an old and very familiar feeling came over her senses. It was dreamlike and frightening as she realized her conscious being was being pushed aside. Bobby Lee was in there, and he wanted to see and hear. She didn’t fight it. This was where they would decide if the former songwriter would be a help on this case or if he would be his normal useless self. Gabe felt Jenny step up to the glass, and John reacted first by taking her by the arm.
“Unhand me, Chief!” came the male voice emanating from Jennifer’s beautiful mouth.
Lonetree immediately let go with a look of distaste.
“Now that there is something I would find hard to get used to,” George said as Jennifer placed her ear against the glass.
“No offense, Doc, but I have better hearing than you do,” Jenny said. “I particularly didn’t like that chick at first, but she grew on me, so let me meditate on this thing for a minute.” Jenny looked up at Gabriel with an ugly expression as the professor stood there not knowing what to say to the ghost that had once tried to drive his friend insane. “Please.”
Gabriel, with a look at the others, moved back to give Jennifer / Bobby Lee some room. Kelly stood there. Her mouth moved again, and this time, Jenny smiled and then stepped back and looked at the others.
“Nothing worse than talking to dead people. This baby girl is scared. Her soul is frightened. Just like I was when they offed me in New York. Angry, but mostly afraid.”
None of them would ever be able to get used to Jenny talking with a male’s voice.
Again, she leaned close to the glass as Kelly’s hand came up and caressed the coldness there. They could see that her hand had been broken during the assault, and seeing the damage made Julie feel queasy. Bobby Lee / Jennifer lost the arrogant smile as he listened to words only he could understand.
“She says she has a message for Gabriel.” Bobby Lee straightened and then stepped back. “She won’t tell me, only you.”
The lighter flamed out, and Kennedy cursed as he tried three times to get the flame to catch. It flared to life on the third try, and everyone, including John and the ghost of Bobby Lee McKinnon, screamed in abject fright as Kelly had somehow moved from behind the glass to the viewing area. She stood right in front of Gabriel, and he felt his knees go weak. Kelly reached out and took Kennedy’s collar and pulled him close to her upturned face.
“They weren’t supposed to do that,” came the whisper through the fetid breath of the dead. “He is to be punished, not her or them.” Kelly turned away, and the hand that was broken and twisted shot toward the glass and the corpses beyond. “They were not supposed to die. I want Dean. Give him to me or suffer the children as I did.” Kelly turned to face Gabriel just as the lighter once more went out. Then they all jumped and yelped once more when the bright fluorescents of the basement sprang to full glory. They looked into the makeshift morgue and saw that Kelly’s body was on its gurney where it had been before, and the sheet that had covered it was lying on the cold cement floor. Everything was as it should have been with the exception of the sheet coiled at the foot of the gurney.
“Did that just happen?” Jennifer said as she felt herself once more after the very brief invasion by Bobby Lee.
“Feel it?” George asked as he looked around.
“What?” Gabriel asked. He knew George was more in tune with the other side than they were.
“Remorse. I get the feeling of remorse here. It’s like—”
“Like whatever we’re facing has a specific target in mind, and Kelly and all the others were accidents in the attempt to get at Hadley. So, the real question here is, why doesn’t it just kill Hadley? If it hates the man so much, why not do it and get it over with?” Jenny said.
“Exactly,” George said as he peered into Jennifer’s face to see if it were truly her or not.
“Jenny, what are you coming away with? What does Bobby Lee say or even feel?”
Jennifer smiled up at John. “Feelings. Hard feelings, and they are memories, I’m sure of that. Bobby Lee knows the anger, but this is far beyond even what he felt about his death.”
“What are his feelings?” Gabe persisted.
“That whatever this thing is, Bobby Lee thinks it was another woman overlaying those words Kelly spoke. He thinks it’s another woman speaking through Kelly and that Dean Hadley murdered her.”
The room became silent as they realized that their suspicions on the sanity of Hadley may have just been confirmed.
“My God,” Gabriel said. “His wife may be right. Guilt may have sent Hadley over the edge.” He faced his people. “We may have to consider it is his mind doing all of this. He’s trying to get forgiveness for what he’s done, and that may be driving him into a psychosis of massive proportions.”
“We have to look deeper, Gabe. I don’t trust that woman as far as I can throw her,” Jennifer said as she took John by the arm. “This is too convenient a diagnosis for our friend Catherine Hadley.”
“We can’t hide what could
be the truth. Maybe Hadley will have to be placed into an induced coma to stop this killing. We just may be out of options at this point. Kelly’s death changed the equation for a lot of us.”
“What about the warning that Hadley is wanted by this … this … thing?” George asked, his fear clearly showing on his dark features.
“One way we can confirm it,” Gabriel said as he looked at his watch and moved toward the stairs. “We check the EKG upstairs. If it spiked during this or any of the other attacks, we can assume it may be Hadley himself doing this.”
The Supernaturals were frightened that the man they were there to help was nothing more than a killer who sought forgiveness at the end of his life. There was more than one documented case of the mind’s ability to produce supernatural phenomena through sheer willpower. If that was the case, Catherine Hadley would get her way and the former president of the United States would basically be put down like a rabid dog. He would be put to sleep for the remainder of his days in an induced coma just to stop the killing.
They hoped it wasn’t him.
MORENO, CALIFORNIA
Bob and Linda sat at the old stools of the lunch counter. Most of those stools refused to function as designed and didn’t spin. They studied the old fifties-style architecture of the fountain counter and were amazed that Harvey had kept it up as well as he had. But they knew that his time, as well as their own, was coming to an end in Moreno. They had watched the last of Moreno’s residents leave that morning. Harvey was so saddened by this fact that he offered dinner, and they had accepted. They turned and saw that another had joined the last supper for Moreno. Casper Worthington had finished with the mechanical shaking and the collecting of walnuts from his stubborn grove, and that would be the last of his business in the dead town. He had decided that walnuts were not the way to earn the last of his fortune. He was going to sell the small farm and buy a condo in Ontario.
In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II Page 16