The Lost Orphans Omnibus: A Riveting Mystery

by J. S. Donovan

  Rachel put the sketchpad in her laptop bag and slung it over her shoulder. She opened the door for Jason. “Let me walk you out.”

  Police officers and consultants flowed throughout the bullpen, some coming, some going, others talking on corded phones while a few were tacking up fliers on the post board. At the far side of the bullpen, in a room with an interior window, forensic analysts brushed their gloved hands through mounds of Halloween candy covering a multitude of tables. Their existence since the October 31 attack had been dedicated to unwrapping and analyzing each and every chocolate bar, Pixie Stix, and whatever sweet taken on Halloween for signs of cyanide rocks and other toxins. They had discovered one hundred and fifty-two instances of tampering and counting with each confiscated bag.

  The Highlands Poisoner had transcended serial killer and child abductor; he was an international icon of fear. Some even branded him a terrorist.

  From the outside steps of the Highlands Police Department, Rachel watched Jason Winslet waddle to his car.

  With her hands buried in the pockets of her saddle-colored leather jacket, Rachel gave him a curt nod and watched the vehicle jet down the road. A cold breeze that brushed her black hair against her cheek reminded her of the approaching winter. Another year had nearly come and gone, and the end of Rachel’s road was nowhere in sight. More death. More broken lives. More Orphans to send home.

  For a moment, she was back in the house on Spring Street, staring into the black eye of a pistol barrel. The bittersweet taste of seeds and burst fruit of the deadly nightshade berries gummed up her jaws and stuck in between her teeth. Beyond the barrel of the Glock 22 stood the man in the cracked jack-o’-lantern mask. The shiny staples that sutured the crack across the mask were splitting, creating a black tear down the orange face. Rachel had punched in his nose and cratered his triangular eyes. The detective and the killer had been whaling on one another for a good while, but the tables had turned in the Poisoner’s favor. Rachel recalled sirens howling in the distance—her last flutter of hope before a .20-caliber round would explode her skull across the abandoned house’s floor.

  The kill shot never came. The Poisoner lowered the weapon.

  “Not like this,” he whispered and vanished out the back door.

  The memory ended, but the dread remained. Since then, waking up in the morning felt wrong, as if Rachel shouldn’t be alive, as if she were living on borrowed time. Her mind raced during those slow times during the day. What did he have in store for me? she asked herself, but no one replied. She glanced at the handsome sketch that would soon be plastered all over the news. Where are you now, Mr. Caro?

  Despite the death toll that might have been prevented if piggish Jason Winslet had gotten to the sketch artists sooner and Rachel’s unanswered question about the Poisoner’s sinister motives, something greater happened Halloween night. After years of solitude, Rachel discovered she wasn’t the only person with the Gift. Someone else could see the Orphaned spirits of the dead. Her name was Mallory Stix, and she was eight years old.

  Rachel bounced down the department’s steps and trailed down the off-kilter sidewalk. It was almost noon. A smoky haze shrouded the distant Appalachian Mountains, dressed with trees holding fast to their fiery autumn leaves. Highlands, North Carolina, was built on a plateau over four thousand feet above sea level. Nearly everywhere she turned, Rachel saw the rise and fall of towering mountains as if looking at the earth’s rigid spine.

  The roads in Highlands dipped and rose. Rachel walked by dozens of inactive street lamps and by an old antiques store with a cheery skeleton and happy pumpkin. The owners must’ve missed the memo that Halloween was over. Stapled to the face of the telephone pole were the pictures of eight smiling people. Seven of them were between the ages of four and sixteen. Only one was an adult.

  In Remembrance read the text above their heads, along with the listed date of a vigil that was few days away. The community gathering had been postponed until everyone was out of the hospital. The day after the Halloween poisoning, the line to the small-town clinic stretched for blocks, and traffic cluttered the streets as parents rushed their kids to the hospital a town over. By some miracle, the government was able to send enough medical supplies and volunteers within less than forty-eight hours. Halloween PSAs were blasted across the nation, warning against the consumption of any candy, but Rachel knew it was only a local horror. With a town as small as Highlands, little over a thousand residents in the main section, it was no surprise the Poisoner was able to distribute his laced candy so adeptly. Most people were lucky enough to only consume a single piece. The adults vomited it up rather quickly. It was the children that took the hit. Some injuries they’d carry with them for the rest of their days.

  Rachel reached Chan’s, her favorite cheap Chinese restaurant. She pushed through the door, listening to the little bells jingling before taking a seat in a booth. Under the dim glow of the ceiling light, she ordered chow mein, hot-and-sour soup, and a cup of black tea. She withdrew her laptop and booted up Skype.

  At the center of the screen, loading screen bubbles raced in a circle before the call connected to Janet Hicks, a Houston local and Mallory Stix’s last remaining relative.

  The quality on the screen was horrendous, but Rachel could make out the woman’s long face, leathery skin, low-cut tee, and smoking cigarette.

  “Mrs. Hicks?” Rachel said, putting in ear buds.

  Shirtless kids screamed and ran by in the dirty kitchen behind the woman. Hicks whipped her head back and shouted, “What did I say about running?”

  The kids giggled and ran back the other way. Hicks turned back to the camera, taking a long drag from her cigarette. The smoke escaped her chapped lips and rolled up the side of her hard right cheek. She tapped away her cigarette ash into an empty glass cup. “You that detective that keeps calling me?”

  “I am,” Rachel said plainly and professionally. “We need to talk about Mallory.”

  “You’ve been on about her for weeks,” Hicks replied.

  “Your brother—”

  “My brother died three years ago, thanks to that dimwitted wife of his. I love this nation, Detective, but I would never have asked my husband to go back for another tour of duty.”

  “I’m sure Martha meant well.”

  “She wanted Tony to die so she could get that life insurance. I know about that big house she has in North Carolina. I ain’t blind to it.”

  “You are aware that Martha Stix is dead?” Rachel asked. “She has no siblings, and her parents are deceased. You, Mrs. Hicks, are the legal guardian of her daughter, Mallory.”

  The woman snapped back to the running children. “You stop that running, or I’ll slap you silly!” She turned back to Rachel. “I got six rats of my own. Three of them have different fathers. You think I want to take in another bastard?”

  Rachel felt her blood pressure rise. “Mallory is staying at a local orphanage, waiting for you to pick her up. Days ago, she spent a week in captivity with Highlands’s most notorious killer.”

  Hicks took a long drag on her cigarette and hammered her upper chest to stop her fit of coughing. She tapped the embers into the empty glass. “Let me level with you, darling. I don’t want that child. She’s a troublemaker with mental issues, and after her whole abduction thing, I can’t be bringing that kind of stress under my roof.”

  Rachel set her jaw for a moment before saying, “Then who’s going to take care of her?”

  Hicks glared at Rachel with saggy, apathetic eyes. “Not me.”

  Rachel balled her fists under the table.

  Hicks blew out a ring of smoke. “Send the paperwork I need to sign to surrender custody.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Hicks,” Rachel said, masking her frustration with a neutral face and tone.

  The conversation ended as the food arrived. The savory smell of stir-fry pork and noodles wafted from the steaming dish. Rachel lost her appetite. She requested a to-go box and left her tip on the table.


  On her way to Sunny Pines Orphanage, Rachel felt somewhat relieved that Janet Hicks wouldn’t be taking Mallory into custody. The girl had suffered enough. An environment like Janet’s would only add to the trauma.

  Rachel felt her stomach turn as she pulled up to the three-story orphanage with a large front yard, basketball court, hopscotch game, and other exterior children’s amenities on one side of the building. In the far corner window, a little pale face watched the other children play. You’ve neglected her, a voice told Rachel as she stepped out of her unmarked white Impala. She needs your guidance.

  Rachel combatted the internal dialogue. Just because they both had the Gift didn’t mean that Mallory was under Rachel’s charge. Right? The thought left a sour taste in Rachel’s mouth. She hadn’t seen Mallory since Halloween night. Orphans, naked, bloody, young and old, weeping, screaming, chaotic, all stopped their antics to encircle Rachel and Mallory outside of the house on Spring Street. Rachel was still reeling from the encounter with the Poisoner when a new can of worms opened before her.

  Rachel struggled to say words when they escaped the Poisoner’s grasp. “How many do you see?”

  Seated on the back of the ambulance and surrounded by the restless dead, the child in the dirty pink princess dress had looked up at Rachel with big blue eyes. “All of them.”

  Rachel shuddered. The EMTs told her it was time to depart, that Mallory needed immediate medical attention. Words, sights, and sounds of that night blurred around the eight-year-old girl. Mallory was in clear focus. Her very existence rocked Rachel’s foundation in a way she had not experienced since her first encounter with the dead.

  “I’m not alone,” Rachel mumbled to herself as the girl was led into the ambulance and sent down the road. “I’m not alone.” She didn’t believe her own words. The only other person with the Gift was her psychotic mother. Rachel never knew the origins of the power, but if she had to guess, she would have said it was genetic. But Martha, Mallory’s mother, was mundane, and Mallory and Rachel had no connection, physical, mental, or otherwise. Was the encounter with the girl just pure coincidence, as her partner Detective Jenson Peak would have her believe? Or had fate or a higher power ordained this meeting long before either of them had entered the world? If so, what did that mean for Rachel? The questions nagged at her like a deeply rooted splinter.

  Walking down the stone path, Rachel approached the mouth of the orphanage. Oaks lined her trek. Crusty and cracked leaves gathered at the feet of their trunks. With skeletal fingers, barren branches waved at Rachel. Just like at Rachel’s house, the trees stripped their leaves before any other in Highlands. Keeping her hands in her jacket pockets, Rachel entered the facility.

  The wooden floor of the orphanage was recently waxed and shiny, capturing Rachel’s muddled reflection and that of the ceiling light. The entrance hall quickly led to the receptionist’s desk, and beyond that was the mess hall with a number of adjacent rooms centered around arts and crafts, music lessons, and special needs. Rachel grabbed her temporary visitor pass. A few of the caretakers, younger women with nursing backgrounds, sat at the far table of the mess hall, eating a 4:00 p.m. snack. They glanced at Rachel and the visitor pass around her neck before smiling falsely. Rachel slipped by them, picking up pieces of their conversation.

  “Shouldn’t the new girl be in a mental hospital?” the plump one with a warted nose asked.

  “I heard that she hasn’t said a word to the therapist,” said the skinny blonde with a horse face.

  The pretty one checked her makeup in her cell phone camera. “You notice how she just stops in the middle of the hall sometimes and stands there for, like, minutes at a time? Poor thing, especially after her mother died. I bet she’ll never recover.”

  Rachel left the gossip behind and hiked up the stairs. Her knees ached, reminding her of how rough the last couple of weeks had been. She was still bruised from her encounter with the Poisoner, and from escaping his burning rent-a-house days before that. The home that burned was a woodland estate originally rented to Jason Winslet until he left Highlands and passed the lease to one of the Poisoner’s aliases, Marco Blanco, though in Rachel’s mind, he’d been referred to as Giovanni Caro because it was the first name discovered.

  Flanking the upstairs hall, most of the doors to children’s rooms were ajar. Rachel headed to dorm number seven. Most the children were outside, playing, or doing after-school activities. Rachel reached the threshold to Mallory’s room, unsure why she felt so nervous. Putting on a friendly face, Rachel stepped inside. The eight-year-old was seated at the upper edge of the bed, with her profile to Rachel and her head turned to the window. She wore a long-sleeve denim jacket, jeans, and black boots. Her lush brown hair tumbled down her back. Her little hands rested on the knees of her overlapping legs. She didn’t seem to notice Rachel.

  Rachel knocked on the open door. “Hello? Mallory?”

  The girl remained in her fixed position. Though Rachel couldn’t see her eyes, it appeared the girl was watching something in the yard below. Gingerly, Rachel stepped into the dorm room. It had all the furnishings one would expect: dresser, nightstands, short bookshelf, and small desk.

  “Mallory?” Rachel asked again.

  The girl mumbled.

  Rachel neared, listening intently as the girl repeated herself. “Come here.” Her voice was soft and ethereal, like a wayward soul.

  Stopping by the window, Rachel gazed at what Mallory saw standing at the center of the basketball court: a child unlike the rest who played tag or hacky sack nearby. He wore tiny farming boots, overalls, and a full-headed pumpkin mask with three blocky teeth and triangular eyes. Invisible insects scurried across Rachel’s skin as she stared into the boy’s black triangular eyes three stories below.

  “Do you feel that?” Mallory asked, keeping her attention on the boy.

  A tiny invisible hand pulled at the bottom of Rachel’s shirt, tugging her toward the boy below. Rachel replied soberly, “Yes.”

  Mallory pressed her tiny hand on the window. “I always feel it when they are nearby.”

  The boy in the jack-o’-lantern mask mimicked the girl’s gesture by raising his right hand. The other children ran by him, not paying him any mind.

  “It’s called the Sense,” Rachel said. “It allows us to feel them when they’re nearby. Also, when danger comes our way.”

  “Ah,” the girl said, her attention still on the boy.

  Rachel changed the subject. “I talked to your aunt Janet today. She won’t be taking you into custody at this time. I’m sorry, Mallory.”

  Rachel’s words didn’t faze the girl.

  “He wants to go home,” Mallory said, turning to Rachel. “But he’s trapped.”

  The girl had an angular face with a little nose and big blue eyes that pierced the soul. When she spoke, she never broke eye contact, immediately absorbing Rachel’s full attention.

  Rachel sat down on the bed beside the skinny child. “How long have you seen them?”

  “Ashton?” the girl asked, referring to the boy outside.

  “Any of them,” Rachel elaborated.

  “Ashton only for a few weeks,” Mallory replied. “The rest… years.”

  Rachel broke eye contact and looked about the room while chewing her lip. She had millions of things she needed to tell this girl but didn’t have a clue where to start. When Rachel discovered she had the Gift a decade ago, her mother’s leather-bound journal taught her the essentials. To Rachel’s knowledge, Mallory didn’t have that luxury. She might not even understand she was talking to the dead. Focus on the case, Rachel reminded herself before her wandering mind could consume her.

  Mallory broke the silence. “What do you call them?”

  “Orphans,” Rachel replied, failing to steer the conversation.

  Mallory smiled sadly and looked at her hands. “Like me.”

  “Only for a little while,” Rachel said. “I know it’s painful, but I need you tell me about your captivity.”
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  Mallory pursed her lips. She squeezed her little hands into fists for a brief moment before turning to Rachel. “After Mr. Caro took me from my mother’s house, I woke up in a basement.”

  Rachel turned to a blank page on her sketchpad. “Describe it to me.”

  Mallory closed her eyes. “Dark. Dry. There were bottles on shelves. They had dust on them.”

  “A wine cellar?” Rachel guessed out loud.

  “There were other children. Ava, Ethan, Hailey, and Emily.”

  Before Mallory, the Poisoner had abducted four other children after poisoning their mothers with deadly wine. The first was Ethan and his mother, Anastasia, nearly ten months ago. “They’re still alive?” Rachel asked, excited by the first bit of good news in a long while.

  “They had all been there for a long time,” Mallory explained. “I was only there for a day.”

  “Why?”

  “Mr. Caro wanted to show me a humble beginning,” Mallory painfully recalled.

  Rachel jotted down a note. “Those were his exact words?”

  Mallory nodded. “Then he made me sleep. I woke up in Ashton’s house. It was scary at first, but Mr. Caro fed me once a day, cooked meat and salad. Ashton kept me company the rest of time.”

  “Did Mr. Caro tell you anything?” Rachel asked.

  Mallory opened her eyes and looked at Rachel. “He only said, ‘This is your home.’”

  A sudden breeze struck them both. The hair on Rachel’s neck stood up. Mallory pulled back her sleeve, revealing the goose bumps across her arm.

  Splat!

  They both turned to the window, seeing a locust smashed against the outside glass.

  In the distance, a half dozen more locusts charged the glass like bullets. Their beady black eyes locked on Mallory. With a series of thumps, the insects hit the window and exploded into guts and broken wings.

  Rachel felt a spider crawling up her neck, but there was nothing there. Mallory looked at the entrance of the room and tugged on Rachel’s shirt.

  A procession of people formed a semicircle around the bed: a tiny Dracula, seven-year-old Belle from Beauty and the Beast, a teenage boy in a football jersey, a fourteen-year-old girl in a dress, an adult male in a straw hat, an African-American boy dressed as a superhero, a chunky kid with a striped white shirt and two black eyes, and a five-year-old boy wearing a plastic lion mask. The strangers shared two things in coming: all of their eyes were lifeless and dry, and they were killed by poisoned candy Halloween night.