The Sullivan Gray Series Box Set

by H. P. Bayne

  Eva’s eyes, ordinarily more almond-shaped, made a significant move toward round. “I don’t suppose he gave you any clue where to start looking?”

  Dez shook his head slowly as he mentally calculated the number of boxes and drawers in front of them. “I wish.”

  Sully hadn’t intended to fall asleep, didn’t realize he had until a nightmare woke him.

  He was unnerved to see her standing next to the mattress, watching him with those large, pained eyes, blood ever-present on the front of her white nightgown and turning her purple hair black on one side.

  Sully sat up, sliding himself back to sit against the wall facing her. She wasn’t fully solid like she so often appeared, but filmy, enabling him to see the edge of the door through her body.

  Ordinarily, the sight of her unsettled him, even scared him in those instances where he hadn’t been expecting her. But here, in this place, locked in this small cell with nothing but a spider for company, he greeted her as a friend.

  “I wish you could talk,” he said. “I could use the conversation.”

  As expected, she didn’t respond, instead holding him in that wide-eyed stare he was trying very hard to ignore despite his unbroken track record of failure. It occurred to him he’d never looked for other ways to converse, never really wanting to go too far down that path. Today—or tonight, if that’s what it was—felt different. Today, he needed her in a way he’d never felt before.

  “If I ask you questions, can you nod or shake your head? Or can you respond some other way?”

  Her answer came in the form of a slow nod and, for the first time since he’d been brought to this place, Sully smiled. It might not be a traditional conversation, but right now anything was better than nothing—even if that anything was talking to a dead girl.

  “I know you can’t tell me your name, and I can’t even begin to guess it. If I go through the alphabet, can you nod when I get to the right letter?”

  Her head moved slowly side to side this time.

  “You don’t want me to know your name?”

  Another slow shake, no.

  “Okay. How about your age? Can I ask that?”

  Another no. Sully moved on.

  “Do you know how long you’ve been dead?”

  Again, she shook motioned the negative. Sully believed he’d been about four or five when he first saw her—or at least when he first remembered seeing her, and it seemed to him she’d be impossible to forget. That meant she’d been in this form for at least twenty years. How time passed for a ghost was something he’d never got his head around. Did they feel time like everyone else, or did it pass in some other way? Did twenty years drag on or did it blink past like the bat of an eye? In those moments when they weren’t seen, heard or felt, did they still exist somewhere, or did time and space in that other world bend and unfold somehow, pulling them from one location to the next? If so, did they control it, or did it control them?

  He’d given those ideas a lot of thought over the years, but now wasn’t the time to ask. He had bigger fish to fry.

  “Am I in danger here?”

  This time a nod, up and down.

  “Bad?”

  He regretted the question immediately, the reply a yes.

  “There are just two of them?”

  She shook her head, no. The answer surprised Sully, only two people having attacked him in the park. It was possible, of course, someone had been waiting in the van, or even back here, wherever this was. Or it could be the people who grabbed him had done so under orders from someone else. Were that the case, he was left with even more questions, since Brennan was not—at least from what Sully could tell—capable of orchestrating anything like this on his own. But if someone else was in charge, where were they? What did they want from him?

  That brought him to the question he’d been dreading asking.

  “Is one of them Gerhardt?”

  He blew out a breath as she shook her head.

  “Hackman?”

  Another no.

  That was something at least, an indication his darkest fear hadn’t been realized. He wasn’t back at Lockwood and, if things were to go seriously sideways in the course of this, at least it wouldn’t happen while he was subject to a drug that forced him to relive someone else’s brutal end.

  What he didn’t have were further answers as to what he was doing here and, without a better idea, he didn’t have the right questions either.

  With nowhere else to go on this particular fact-finding mission, he set off on another, taking advantage of this newfound form of communication to learn more about the girl who had repeatedly popped up in his life.

  “You’ve been trying to protect me, haven’t you?”

  She watched him a moment, then nodded slowly.

  “I know you were trying to help me earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I was worried about my brother. I know I need to stay out of Gerhardt’s path, but it’s this other person I’m worried about, the one in the mask from the blue room. Do you know who it is?”

  Another slow nod. Unlike the other physical responses, which had at least provided some form of answer, this one left Sully reeling under the weight of everything he didn’t know and couldn’t uncover. She knew. She had the answers he needed, and he had no easy means of pulling them from her. And, in a way, that was worse than learning she was just as ignorant to the truth as he was.

  “This other person, the one in the mask. Is he responsible for what’s happening to me now, for me being here?”

  This time, she shook her head, no.

  “And this isn’t all about Brennan, is it?”

  Another head shake, another negative.

  Sully gave it a moment, deciding whether he wanted to ask the next question, whether he could live with the answer. He decided it would be worse to live without one.

  “Is it Lowell Braddock? Does he know I’m alive?”

  He’d asked two questions, but a response to one would do for both. The head shake dispelling that thought came as relief while bringing with it even more confusion, and he cast his eyes down to his hands, as if looking away from her might help steady him. It didn’t, his thoughts still roiling within his brain as he searched for something further he might do, something he could ask. Anything to get to the answers she held. But there was nothing, and he found himself studying a scar on the palm of his hand, on the meaty section between wrist and thumb. It was one of several on his body, but this one meant something, had come at a turning point in his young life, taking him from darkness into the light. Received at age seven, the injury was a lasting, physical reminder of the discovery of his own courage and strength. He’d been left scraped, bruised and bloodied trying to pull Dez from the river. A part of him had been healed even as he’d bled over himself and his new foster brother. Since that day, Dez had returned the favour again and again.

  Sully didn’t know if or how his brother would manage it this time, but he knew Dez would move heaven and earth to find him. The truth of it was so deeply embedded within him he’d never question it.

  But, for now, he was on his own. Just him and this murdered kid consisting of little more than loosely packed energy, consciousness and a swiftly fading light. She was almost gone from his view again, taking with her any hope for additional answers. At least for now.

  He asked the next question, needing the answer, but wary of her response just the same.

  “If none of them are the reason I’m here, then who is?”

  Staring up into her face, he watched her eyes until they faded away into the shadow.

  Sully let his head fall back against the wall with a light thud, closing his eyes and searching for calm through the heavy weight of anxiety he’d carried since regaining consciousness. He took a few deep breaths, trying to quiet his mind, give it a temporary break from dark thoughts and predictions. Failing at mental escape failed, he opened his eyes, and spotted something that could help.

  A subtle light—not from the
dim bulb—had fallen on a deep crack in the corner opposite, running from near the ceiling midway to the floor. Sully watched for a moment, long enough to see the light fade from the spot just as the Purple Girl had disappeared from his view not two minutes before.

  Ordinarily, a crack in cement wouldn’t have been enough to draw his attention but he needed a distraction, particularly one that appeared to have been shown to him deliberately. He approached it and ran his fingertips along its length.

  Thinner near the top and bottom, it widened in the middle, allowing him to slide his fingertips inside. There, they brushed against something solid and smooth. Maneuvering carefully, he was able to secure the object between his index and middle fingers and draw it from the crevice.

  It was a pen, one of those cheap ones, the kind you could pick up at any dollar store. It appeared to have been well-used, the clear plastic tubing revealing most of the ink had been depleted.

  The find had him returning to search the wall with more urgency, trying to be careful as he dug back within the crack created by time, settling and perhaps some human intervention. His fingers touched on something else, something like a thick folder or notebook. Once again he eased his fingers around the object, one on each side, until he had a firm grip. Wedged in as it was, his fingers slipped several times before he was able to withdraw it.

  It was a ruled notebook, similar to those he remembered from his grade school days. The dull cover might have lost some of its original colouring with the wear of time, but the shade was all but lost behind drawings, which covered both front and back. They were eyes. All of them. Just eyes, of varying shapes and sizes, staring unnervingly from the cover. They were different, some round, some almond-shaped; some youthful, some lined with age; some calm, some narrowed in the heat of rage, and some expanded in terror.

  Perhaps worst of all, they were lifelike, as if the artist had been putting them to paper while studying a subject right in front of them.

  The effect was unsettling and had Sully quickly turning his attention to the notebook’s insides. As he flipped through the pages, he could see tiny writing filling it, not sticking to the wide lines favoured by school teachers with students learning to print. Rather, the writer had created rule of his or her own, fitting two or three lines of minuscule print to every one ruled space, as if expecting this to be the only paper they’d ever see.

  He hoped to find one answer immediately, and he closed the book and searched within the eyes for the name and subject lines usually included on the front covers of students’ notebooks. This one didn’t disappoint. While the subject line had been left blank, filled in only by several glaring eyes, something was written next to “Name” in big, looping letters.

  Lucienne Dule.

  19

  Lachlan likely had a hidden method to his madness, to this mess that was his collection of files and various other information.

  But what it was, Dez had yet to uncover.

  File folders appeared to collect pieces of paper relevant to each other—one, as an example, containing names of people believed to be members or associates of the Red Jacks motorcycle gang, along with any and all other information Lachlan was able to obtain on them. And there were folders for other criminal organizations, whether affiliated by ancestry or race or by common interest, and even one for loose groupings of individuals brought together by nothing more than a desire to make big money in drug and weapons trafficking.

  One of the boxes was dedicated solely to the Co-ed Killer case Lachlan had been key in cracking, while another contained all the information he was able to gather on six-year-old Michael Kilbarton, one of the city’s most heartbreaking missing persons files.

  Eva stood next to a filing cabinet, flipping through the contents of its drawers, while Dez sat crosslegged on the rug, digging through box after box in a search for anything with Sully or Lucienne’s name on it.

  “This is incredible,” Eva said.

  Dez’s head shot up, his neck cracking with the sudden movement. “You find something?”

  She met his eye and winced slightly, telling Dez he must look as hopeful as he’d sounded. “No, sorry. Just thinking of the amount of work Lachlan sunk into this. I mean, back at HQ, we’ve got access to a pile of information on the police central information system, but Lachlan has everything short of fingerprints and DNA. He’s got birth dates, family and friend relationships, criminal connections, last known addresses and phone numbers, criminal records, even drugs of choice and what restaurants and bars these people frequent. This stuff would be invaluable down at headquarters.”

  “Lachlan was invaluable down at headquarters,” Dez said. “And no one knew it better than he did.”

  Eva chuckled and went back to work. “I wish I could figure out how he’s got this organized. I mean, it’s Lachlan. He’s got this in some sort of order, don’t you think?”

  “He’s not going to come in here and waste three hours digging for one document, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s got this sorted the way he wants it, no doubt and, knowing him, it’s arranged in a way that makes sense to no one but him. Let me know if you crack his code, huh? You’ve always been the smart one.”

  “Sucks for you. That means I got the brains and the looks.”

  Dez was about to open another box when his eyes wandered to a dresser covered by plastic wrapping. Lachlan had advised him to play his cards close to his chest on this one, suggesting the man was plenty aware he’d landed in something sticky. He wouldn’t have left the files in with the others; he’d have added a layer of protection. While potential intruders wasted their time digging through boxes and filing cabinets, the subject of their search would be just feet away, waiting them out. Lachlan would anticipate the moment where patience ran out, and the search was abandoned.

  Staying on the rug, Dez slid himself over to the piece of furniture, taking some satisfaction in what was looking to become a correct read as he noted the plastic wrapping was simply tucked under in front. At some point, the makeshift cover had been sliced through at the bottom, a detail visible only to those who specifically went looking for it.

  He lifted the plastic in front, exposing the dresser’s drawers and allowing him to pull them open. There, in the middle one, tucked beneath a pile of folded sweaters, old T-shirts and a thin piece of plywood meant to appear as the drawer’s base, were two folders.

  “Eva,” he said, heart thumping against his chest wall as he read the names on the pop-up tabs. “I found them.”

  Lachlan hadn’t used both given and last names on the folders themselves, restricting himself to just the former—his way, no doubt, of further protecting the subjects from those who might happen upon his files.

  Not that it mattered much, the folders’ innards containing plenty more information than just full names.

  Dez was sitting now in Lachlan’s armchair, Eva settled next to him on one of the plush armrests while Pax sprawled at their feet. Neither Dez nor Eva wanting to miss the information contained in either file, they’d settled for flipping through both together. Anyway, two sets of eyes were far more likely to spot important details and find the significance in them.

  They went through the file on Sully first, Lachlan having written a short biography of sorts as a title page, outlining details like approximate birth date, known family—both birth and foster—and life history as it was known. Lachlan had never come to Dez with questions about Sully, but the information was all here nonetheless, right from his discovery on that doorstep to his supposed death in the cave collapse. There was mention of the abuse he’d endured in his pre-Braddock years, the suicide attempts that led to his committal to Lockwood, even his little-known ability to see the dead.

  The contents beyond those first handwritten pages appeared to be, more or less, in chronological order, starting with a copy of the social services file launched at the time of his abandonment.

  “How do you think Lachlan got a copy of the file?” Eva asked.


  Dez flipped a page and found the answer, tapping at it with his forefinger. “It helps when you’re the first officer on the scene.”

  Eva leaned in closer, and Dez felt her breath on his cheek as she spoke. He tried to ignore the resulting pleasant shiver, but wasn’t surprised when he failed. “Seriously? God, that must have killed him, not getting to the bottom of that one back then.”

  “No wonder he clued in so fast when Lucienne came to him to find her son,” Dez said. “He didn’t need to go digging for a pile of info or do a whole lot of adding up of what he found. He already had everything right at his fingertips.”

  “You don’t think there’s any chance he worked to make the pieces fit on this, do you? I mean, the man was probably driven half mad by the idea of leaving a major case like this unsolved, not figuring out the baby’s identity or finding his mother.”

  Eva’s answer was on the front page of Lucienne’s file.

  “She told him Sullivan was a family name, and he put together a tree that confirms it,” Dez said. “I can’t imagine there were a whole lot of babies named Sullivan left on doorsteps that year, can you?”

  “Let’s not lose track of something. The case made the news for weeks; Lachlan has all the clippings right here. Everyone in KR—hell, everyone in the country—knew the name Sullivan back then. Are you one hundred per cent sure the woman you met is who she says she is?”

  “I get what you’re saying, and I’d be suspicious if it wasn’t for the fact she knows what Sully can see. Barely anyone knows about that. I’m not sure I trust her. Come right down to it, I really don’t. But that’s nothing to do with her identity and everything to do with her intentions. It’s weird, her turning up right at the moment Sully comes back from the dead and then disappears again, don’t you think? I mean, it could be coincidence, but I’m thinking it’s more likely Lachlan started asking questions and someone besides him—someone he talked to—put two and two together and acted on it. Maybe someone’s trying to keep Sully and Lucienne apart.”