by Lee Driver
“We’re not getting anywhere.” Sherlock pulled off his glasses and set them on the coffee table. He stood, clasped his hands behind his head and paced. “What about all those computer searches? I thought you were supposed to be good?” The professor settled his gaze on Dagger.
“Hey,” Marty yelled. “We don’t need to get on each other’s nerves, here.”
Dagger nodded toward the stacks of reports on his desk. “If this Addison family has been covering their tracks for two hundred years, what makes you think Paul Addison is going to make it easier for us now?” Dagger thought about what he just said. “Jezzus, two hundred years. Listen to me.”
Padre pulled his tie off and tossed it on the coffee table. “I’m just about ready to call in the National Guard and have them comb the forest. That’s where he seems to be hanging out.”
“Can’t do that,” Sherlock said. “He’ll flee and we’ll never find him.”
“I agree,” Marty said.
“The computer reports are a dead end.” Dagger said. “Our guy is too smart to use his real name let alone his real birth date. We don’t have the manpower to check every person who moved into Illinois and Northwest Indiana since March of ninety-eight. We have to bring him to us.” He searched the faces of the three men. “Any ideas?” A movement by the bar caught his eye. Sara had drifted off to the kitchen and now was pushing open the pass-through. He could almost read her mind. She would be the perfect one to draw Addison’s attention. But Dagger didn’t want to use Sara as bait. He was supposed to protect her, not hang her out like a piece of meat for the taking.
Dagger moved to the couch and settled on the arm near Padre’s feet. Marty was slumped in a chair, Padre was two seconds away from snoring, and they weren’t any closer to an answer than the first night Marty and Sherlock showed up on his doorstep.
To Sherlock Dagger said, “There has to be something else in his movement patterns. Does he sleep in a coffin during the day? Frequent new age shops? Steal blood from blood banks? Can’t you with all your damn charts come up with anything?”
Padre lifted his hands that were shielding his eyes. “Enough already, you two!” He swung his legs around and sat up. “We’re boxing shadows here. I think our main problem is some of us are still in denial and the rest of us seem to have enough belief to carry us all through. Marty, what is it that you said about his mother? What happened in ninety-eight?”
“Paul killed her three years prior and kept her in a bedroom in an isolated farmhouse.”
“And your theory on the purpose of that?”
“He had a scapegoat,” Marty replied. “She had been the one charged with the murders of her husband and children twenty odd years prior so it was only natural she would be the prime suspect seeing that she had been released a couple years prior to the Purdue murders in eighty-seven. No one knew she was already dead.”
“So,” Dagger looked at the three men, “where’s his scapegoat this time?”
“J.D.,” Padre offered.
“That’s only good for Lisa’s murder.” Dagger studied their faces. No one had any suggestions. One by one all their gazes shifted to the clock on the wall.
Out of curiosity, Sara was at the computer checking the progress of the wayward Mick. Their guests had left an hour ago and Dagger had just retired. The screen showed darkness. It was difficult to tell if the hat was still in the van or if it was lying somewhere in the thief’s house.
She walked over to the aviary to find Einstein in front of the window again. But this time he was asleep. Dagger had placed the medicine, which he called bird valium, in Einstein’s water so he would sleep the night.
After switching off the lights, she trudged upstairs and changed into leggings and a baseball jersey, her latest sleeping attire. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and tumbled into the cool sheets. Her windows were open several inches to let in fresh air and it was warm and cozy under the cotton blanket.
Sleep surprisingly came easy and within ten minutes she drifted off to a dreamless slumber. She didn’t know how long she had been asleep when she was jarred awake. Maybe it was a sound outside, maybe Einstein, maybe Dagger was up. Turning over on her side, she blinked lazily and was just about to drift off when she heard it again.
Saraaaaaaaaa.
The sound was long and drawn out. Sara smiled. Why would Dagger be calling her? Her eyes fluttered open. In the shadows she saw her arm stretched across the bed. Her arm. She hadn’t shifted. So how could she hear Dagger’s voice? Did she dream it?
Saraaaaaaaa. Where are you?
It was a sing-song voice, taunting, eerie, sounding as if it were coming from inside her bedroom. But it wasn’t. The voice was in her head and it wasn’t Dagger’s!
Sara bolted to a sitting position. She felt her heart pounding against her rib cage and a cold chill swept through her body. She tore out of the room and down the stairs.
Dagger’s bedroom door crashed open and it only took him two seconds to reach under the pillow next to him and pull out a Sig Sauer 9mm. The laser sighting fixed a spot of red between Sara’s eyes.
There was sheer terror in those eyes and her chest was heaving beneath her baseball jersey. She ran out of the room as quickly as she had run in.
“JEZZUS, SARA. DON’T DO THAT.” Dagger fell back against the pillow, his hands shaking as he put the safety back on and buried the gun under the pillow. What could have spooked her?
He jump out of bed, struggled into his denims and ran after her. He found Sara sitting at the computer, her fingers racing over the keyboard.
“What’s wrong?”
She pointed at the computer screen where she had typed:
He’s talking to me
By the absolute fear in her eyes and the trembling in her fingers he knew she wasn’t imagining it. But then that would mean Sherlock’s theory was correct—there was another shapeshifter out there. And he was able to communicate with Sara.
Sara typed:
What do I do?
Dagger realized she was afraid to speak for fear he could hear her. “Sara?” He grabbed her hands and held them. “Answer him.” Her head shook frantically back and forth. “Sara.” He placed one hand behind the back of her neck. “Sara, listen to me.”
Her eyes filled and she blinked away the tears, staring wide-eyed like a child waiting for instructions from a parent, trusting the parent to tell them exactly what to do.
“The only way you can tell if he can hear you talk or hear you mentally is to test it. Now ask him, ‘Who are you?’.”
Sara took a deep breath to conjure up the courage. “Who are you?” She waited a few seconds.
Saraaaaaaaaaa. I’m waiting for you.
“I don’t think he heard me,” Sara said. “But he just said he’s waiting for me.”
“Okay, now I want you to answer him telepathically.” Her eyes, wide as orbs, never left his face.
“You can do it, Honey.”
She turned back to the keyboard to type their conversation for Dagger.
Who are you? She said in thought only.
Sara? Is that you?
How do you know my name?
My god, it is you! I saw you today.
Sara swung her head toward Dagger who just motioned for her to keep communicating with him.
Where at?
The animal hospital. I saw what you can do. Are you like me, Sara?
Like you?
“Good, play dumb,” Dagger said, reading her typed conversation.
We can be so good together.
I know self defense, nothing more.
I don’t think so. I can feel your energy. We belong together, Sara. My sweet, sweet, Saraaaaaa.
“Don’t let on that we know his name or anything about him,” Dagger cautioned.
You still haven’t told me your name.
In time, my sweet Saraaaaa. But I did something for us. You’ll be so pleased. Now I have to go. So little time, so many victims.
S
ara clamped her hands over her ears as if that would turn him off. She turned to Dagger. “He must have heard us the other night at the warehouse. Maybe he’s been listening for years. What if he knows where we live? What if he’s outside right now?” Her entire body started to shake and he watched as she ran around the room turning off the ceiling fan light, the light over the bar, the desk lamp.
“Did he stop talking, Sara?”
She shook her head yes as she wedged herself into the corner of the couch and hugged a cushion, her eyes searching the skylights.
Dagger picked up a remote and pointed it toward the wall of windows. He spoke in a calm, logical voice. “He probably can only communicate with you during the time frame Sherlock mentioned, the five days leading up to a full moon. You would have heard from him sooner if it were any different. And if he’s like you, he can only hear you when he has shifted or when he’s going through this transformation Sherlock mentioned.”
Blinds slowly moved downward. Dagger did the same to the kitchen windows then went upstairs and closed Sara’s windows. Shafts of moonlight filtered in from the skylights. Dagger retrieved his Sig Sauer from the bedroom and set it on the loveseat. After pulling the coffee table away from the couch, they pulled out the king-sized hide-a-bed. Stumbling in the dark, Dagger retrieved sheets, pillows and a blanket from his bedroom and made up the hide-a-bed. After checking on Einstein who was still snoozing like a baby, he crawled into the bed with his clothes on and opened the blanket for Sara.
“Come on. Talk to me. Tell me all about your grandmother.”
She crawled over by him and he held her close. Sara rambled, telling him about growing up on the reservation and her grandparents and life on the road.
She finally drifted off to sleep. He could feel her body slowly rising and falling with each breath. He had so easily accepted Sara’s unique gift, mainly because he had first-hand knowledge of her shifting and regeneration. If he hadn’t witnessed it, though, he might not have been convinced. But if there was another one like her, one with destruction on his mind, why was it so hard for him to believe? Even now, with Sara hearing the killer’s voice in her head, he was still not convinced. It could just be Sara’s over-active imagination fueled by Sherlock’s theory.
But Sara didn’t have an over-active imagination. Inquisitive maybe, but she definitely wasn’t prone to conjuring up fairy tales.
And one thing was undeniable…Dagger’s gut instincts. Something was gnawing at him. Maybe the fact that easy cases just didn’t drop into his lap. They were always something a little over the edge, cases clients would be embarrassed to take to your average detective. Probably for fear of being laughed out of the office. And word had gotten around town. Have a relative abducted by aliens? A house being haunted by previous owners? A relative that just won’t stay dead? Chase Dagger’s your man.
Dagger chuckled in the dark and felt Sara stir, her arm uncurling from under her and stretching across his chest as she settled in closer. It was going to be difficult to sleep. He could feel every curve of her body and it fit oh so perfectly and felt oh so right.
He stretched on the roof of the high-rise and let the moon bathe him in its energy. It had been so easy to enter the condo of the blonde slut. Crawling up the side of a building was child’s play, especially since she left her balcony window open. How stupid to feel so safe ten floors up. Crawling back out and onto the roof was just as elementary.
If only he hadn’t lost Dagger and Sara when they had driven from the animal hospital. Lucky for them the gates at a train crossing came down after they passed. He couldn’t find Dagger’s name in the phone book, not by a last name or a business. Probably wasn’t his real name. Probably some macho made-up name like fuckin’ Rock or Slade. He’ll be taken care of tomorrow and then he’ll be able to find Sara. The town wasn’t that big and he knew how to reach out and touch her. He laughed at his joke, a sick maniacal laugh that was carried on the wind.
CHAPTER 19
Wednesday, October 11, 8:14 a.m.
“What is it, a break-in? That’s impossible. Security is tight here.” Sheila charged down the marble hallway, spotting Andrea, her cleaning lady, seated on a brocade settee, a tissue pressed to her eyes, a police woman kneeling in front of her.
Leyton grabbed his daughter’s arm. “Maybe I should go in first.”
Two uniformed officers stood like sentinels as they approached. Sheila’s heels clicked along the polished floor. Before they reached within ten feet of the doorway, a man in a tailored navy suit and tie, and a pink shirt careened around the corridor carrying a cup of coffee. Hardened criminal came to Sheila’s mind. His face was scarred, eyes piercing and unsmiling, dark features. Although he would have scared the daylights out of her in a dark alley, he did have great taste in clothes.
“Miss Monroe?” His voice was emotionless. He may as well have said, “Hey you.”
“Yes, I’m Sheila Monroe.” She grabbed her father’s arm. “And this is my father, Leyton Monroe.”
“I believe the department called you over an hour ago.” He was working a piece of gum around his mouth, a slow chew as if there was still flavor left and he was going to savor every last drop.
“I had to shower and wash my hair.” Her gold bracelets jangled as she ran a hand through her hair. “What is the problem, Officer…” She looked at his I.D. picture badge. In her years as a reporter, she had interviewed a number of prisoners, and his picture, to her, looked like he should be holding a number under his face.
He glared at her, took a sip of his steaming coffee. “It’s Detective Joe Spagnola.”
With another glance at his convict-type picture she mumbled, “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Sheila, for godsake, will you let the man talk?” Leyton huffed, taking his typical, in-charge stance—chest puffed out, suitcoat open, fists jabbed at his waist, legs apart. A king-of-the-world imitation at its best.
“Why isn’t Sergeant Martinez working the case?” Sheila demanded.
“This isn’t the dating game. You don’t get to pick.” The detective led them back down the corridor, away from the penthouse, toward another cushioned settee where he encouraged them to have a seat. “Do you know a Caroline Kirby?”
“She’s my,” Sheila stopped and sank down onto the plush bench. “Oh, damn. I was supposed to meet her last night to work on a story. I gave her the keys to my penthouse.”
“What time did you tell her to arrive?”
Bracelets jangled again as she waved her hands. “Whenever. She was going to go home and pack a bag first since we expected to work into the night. I completely forgot about it and spent the night at my parents’ house.” Sheila looked down the hall at the sentinels standing guard. “Don’t tell me she robbed me blind.” With a swirl of platinum hair, she pushed past the detective and stormed down the hall with the two men in pursuit.
“Miss Monroe,” Detective Spagnola called out. The men reached the doorway a few seconds after Sheila.
“Oh my God!” Sheila lifted a shaking hand to her mouth as she braced her body against the doorjamb. Leyton gasped and struggled to prop his daughter up.
The living room looked as if someone had held a can of red paint in each hand and spun like a top spraying red from one corner of the room to the other, on the walls, drapes, and furniture. Sprawled in front of the fireplace was the body of Caroline Kirby.
“Oh my God,” Sheila cried again. “My new carpeting!”
Leyton released his daughter, letting her drop to her knees. Even he was appalled at her callousness. “For crissake, Sheila. One of our employees has been murdered in your penthouse.”
Spagnola casually looked around the room. Years of experience had hardened him to the most gruesome of crime scenes. “To help you put it in perspective, Miss Monroe. At least your furnishings are replaceable.”
Ten thousand for the carpeting, another twenty thousand for the couch, chairs, lamps. Sheila mentally added up the money. Just like some peop
le laugh at funerals or make jokes at the worst of times in an effort to handle the shock, Sheila had her own methods. Nature had eliminated tear ducts from her DNA a long time ago. Dagger was the only person who could force out a few drops every now and then. And now, to handle the horror of it all, to try to erase the image of Caroline’s body, she focused on the furnishings, the replacement value, where she might shop next. Maybe the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. She was making mental lists to avoid the inevitable—the realization that someone had been murdered in her home. How could she ever sleep here again? Now she started to make a mental list of realtors as she twisted her father’s hankie. A hand reached out holding a glass of water. She looked up to see Spagnola’s unsmiling face.
“Hard, rich bitch. That about cover it?” she said, just as unemotional as he was. She took a sip of water and set the glass on the marble floor. Spagnola sat next to her, crossed an ankle over one knee revealing socks she knew were only sold at Neiman Marcus. She imagined him being the black sheep of a Sicilian family, the only one who didn’t go into the family business but still reaped the cash rewards. It was either cop or thug, cop or thug, eeney-meeney-miney-moe. Now he was snapping the gum like some truck stop waitress.
“Do you know how positively annoying that is?”
After a few more snaps, Spagnola replied, “Yes.” He balanced a notepad on his crossed leg and opened it, saying, “People handle grief in various ways. I need to ask you a few questions. I would ask if you are up to it but being a reporter and being used to sticking microphones in the faces of grieving family members, I’m sure you are definitely up to it.”