by Dale Mayer
She's a beaut and she's a charm,
Love her, leave her and no one to release her.
Back where she belongs - free
Even better, she's where she should be
Now, it's on to round three"
"Oh God," she whispered.
"Does that mean anything to you?"
Kali shook her head, incapable of speaking for a long moment. Finally, she cleared her throat. "The 'no one to release her' part, I'm presuming means she's contained in some way. As I search for buried victims, I can only assume she's also been buried. And, yes," she added bitterly, "I know we can't assume anything with this psycho. Back where she belongs? That could mean all kinds of things - and none of them nice. But free? Since when is death, death through being buried alive as the other victims were, an avenue to freedom? And what does it mean that she's where she should be? She should be buried? Dead? She should be dead?" She stared wordlessly at Grant. "Chances are good that no one will find her because I don't even know where to begin looking for her - so she will be dead."
"Do you recognize the earring?"
Kali shook her head, studying the emerald design. "I don't remember it." She shifted her position, trying to see from a different angle. Have I? When was the last time she'd even noticed other women's clothing? "Sorry. I'm not really one that notices that type of thing."
He nodded. "Understood. What about the note? The killer must think that means something to you."
"Sure. It means this asshole has taken some poor woman and I'm supposed to help her. But I can't. I don't know how," she cried out. She gave her cheeks a quick scrub. "Sorry. I didn't mean to lose it."
"Shh. It's understandable. Stop kicking yourself for it. Let's focus on what's here. See if we can find anything useful. The earring has older styling, like something worn by a mature woman. The jewels, if real, are expensive. Someone had money."
"Or had a friend who could afford it. Not to mention it could have been a family heirloom piece handed down."
"True."
Kali stared at the plate with morbid fascination. As much as she wanted to turn away, she couldn't. The cheerful seasonal print contrasted so sharply to its contents. "Does the plate have any significance?"
He shrugged. "Possibly. It may have been a convenient way to deliver the item, or it could signify something much darker, uglier. Does anything here give you an idea of where you'd go to look for a person?"
Kali glanced at the plate, then away again as her stomach roiled. "No," she whispered in despair. "Nothing."
Grant gave her a brief hug. Energy warmed and sparkled between them, not energizing but soothing. For a moment, the chaos faded. Warmth, security, safety surrounded her. Then he dropped his arms as if realizing what he'd just done. "Let's change tracks. Who has keys to your home?"
She barely tracked the conversation. Bereft of his warmth, so brief and so tantalizing, Kali couldn't help but wonder if he felt anything of the energy that hummed between them. How could he when he'd stepped back so casually. Did he hug all the women?
"Kali?"
Blinking, Kali focused on his face, grateful for the momentary shift back to reality. "What?"
"Who has a key to your house? Who would know you weren't home tonight? Who knows the layout of this house?"
Kali's mind raced to grasp something concrete. "Many people have been in here over the years but I haven't given out spare keys to friends and lovers, if that's what you're asking. I don't do that. I'm gone constantly and Shiloh always goes with me. I don't have plants that need to be watered or other animals to be taken care of, so I don't need anyone to check on the place when I'm not here."
"What about Stan? Does he have keys?"
Kali frowned. "Sure. I'll have to ask him if he still has one. I stored a bunch of stuff for him while the center was undergoing renovations. Most of the boxes were kept in the garage. The financials were stored in the spare room."
"I'll check with him. That thread leads us back to the center again." He paused. "Do you think this," he pointed to the earring, "could have been worn by someone from the center?"
Her gaze followed the movement, nonplussed. The question had to be asked. She understood that. Really, she did, but to contemplate who might have been the wearer of the earring meant acknowledging that someone she knew could be the victim...waiting in eternal darkness for rescue. That the murderer was likely to be another person she knew was beyond thinking about. Too much had happened recently. Kali couldn't wrap her mind around it. She didn't want to. She wanted it all to go away.
Not that it was going to.
"Of course she could be from the center. If you're asking in a roundabout way if I know who the wearer was - the answer is no."
"What about anyone else from the center? Julie? Brad? Jarl? Do any of them have keys?"
She reared back. "No. I don't think so." Bringing up Brad's name just brought up the fear. She took a deep breath and asked, "I can't help but wonder if Brad could be the missing victim. He was working the Sacramento disaster with me, but has been missing ever since."
Grant opened his mouth to respond, but it was his beetled brows that had her rushing in to say, "I know he goes on benders after a rescue. So I know it's probably nothing, but..."
Grant reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "Take it easy, we don’t know what - if anything - has happened to Brad. Stan told me and I have alerted the local authorities in Sacramento. If he's there, we'll find him."
A nerve twitched in her cheek as she struggled to hold back the sudden tears. "I didn’t even know that he was missing until today. I would have found out yesterday, if I hadn’t slept the day away."
He nudged her toward the double glass doors and outside. "Let's go sit on the deck until the team comes."
Kali let him lead her onto the deck and her favorite chaise where reality hit her all at once. "Oh God. The bastard probably taunted them. Saying I'd be looking for them. They'd have been waiting for me. Hoping I'd come to save them. And I never even knew they were missing." Tremors washed over her. Grief brought tears to her eyes. "Now there could be another one."
Grant swooped down and grabbed her by the shoulders, giving her a light shake. Energy flipped off them at his movements. Yet he didn't appear to notice. "Take it easy, Kali. You can't blame yourself. You didn't know."
"But maybe we should have." Bitterness colored her voice. "You already said that the Sacramento victim was likely to have been his first." Haunted, she stared into the night, as if the surrounding darkness would offer up the answers she needed. "Do you think the earring is from the round two victim or from the round three victim?"
"Stop. It's. Not. Your. Fault. Got that?"
With effort she tried to listen to him. Not just listen, but hear his words. Rationally, she knew it wasn't her fault. And that didn't matter one bit. She bowed her head, rested it against his chest, letting his confidence, control seep into her soul.
And with it came anger. A deep down pissed off fire that ripped through her, burning, cleansing, firing up her soul. She lifted her head. “You’re right. He’s responsible. He’s been playing on the fact that I consider the center as much mine as Stan does. I’m not there out front like he is, but it’s my life’s work. Any failure at the center or any loss of life feels personal. Like I should have done something to stop it."
"But you couldn’t."
"Exactly."
After a moment she glanced toward the kitchen, then she asked, "It would help if we had a timeline. Like when the victim went missing. To narrow down which SARs workers were where, although I can't imagine any of them being involved. I slept for a day and a half to recover. There's no way another of the rescuers could have kidnapped and murdered someone in the same time."
"Unfortunately, a couple of hours would have been long enough." Grant checked the time on his cell phone.
She dropped back into her deck chair, her emotions churning inside. She needed her sketch book or, at least a piece of pa
per. Something to dump the tension winding up inside. "Would you get my sketchbook bag? It's hanging in the hall closet." As Grant walked back inside, Kali let her body relax slightly, there was no relaxing her mind.
Shiloh nudged her hand, a soft whine escaping. "Hey, girl. I know, someone was in there who didn't belong. Not nice, huh?" She gently scratched the dog's head. "If only you could talk. I wonder what you could add to this."
Her blue cloth bag landed in her lap. She dug through it, withdrawing the sketchbook immediately.
Grant eyed her curiously. "What are you going to do?"
Her art was deeply personal and not something she cared to share. Need clawed at her. The need to dump the images in her mind. The need to find a peaceful center again in the midst of the chaos. "Doodle. It helps me to calm down when I'm feeling overwhelmed." She shrugged dismissively, hoping he'd take the hint and leave her alone. "No big deal."
Choosing a pencil, she opened the book to the first page. She loved a new sketchbook with its pristine blank pages waiting for her creativity. Within moments Grant ceased to exist. She let her fingers flow and move, transforming the page to a jumble of emotions. She knew the result would be garbage. That wasn't the point. She needed to pull the plug and let her mind drain. Once she paused, arrested by sounds in her house. Twisting, she could see Grant in conversation with several men. The team had arrived. Fear, pain spiked again. Kali picked up her pencil again, her hand moving at a furious pace.
"Kali?"
She stopped and tried to refocus on the face in front of her. "Grant. Are they done?"
"Not yet. A team is searching the property, but we need you to do a walk-through to make sure nothing else was disturbed. Are you up to it?" He held out a hand. "We'll also need your fingerprints to rule them out from the ones collected tonight."
With Grant's help she stood, her stiff muscles a sure sign she'd been in one place for too long.
Kali stretched, closed her sketchbook and dropped it on the table. She followed Grant into the house. Putting on gloves, she went systematically through each room, standing first at the doorway, then walking in and checking drawers and cupboards. Everything appeared normal and undisturbed. At her bedroom, she opened dresser drawers, night tables, even her cedar chest at the foot of her bed.
Her walk-in closet appeared normal, disorderly and disorganized...but normal. "I don't think anything has been disturbed," she said. "Everything looks untouched."
"Okay, that's good. Let's check the rest."
They moved downstairs to her studio. Shit. She hadn't considered they might need her to go into there. The door was also closed. Again. "I normally leave the door open. Lately, I seem to have been forgetting." The possibility that the killer had been inside and closed the door on her made her skin crawl. She shoved the thought away.
Uneasy, though she didn’t know why, she opened the door and stood still, her gaze sweeping her small studio. Her painting stood on the easel, a drop sheet draped over the top. She tilted her head. Had she done that? She might have. The rest of the room appeared undisturbed. The paints sat where she'd placed them. The spills and smears had been there before. She really needed to clean up in here. Checking the door, she found her paint smock hanging on a hook where she'd left it.
Kali pivoted to return to the kitchen, hoping to avoid her easel.
"Don't you want to check that the painting is untouched?"
Double shit. No, she really didn't. Kali glanced at it, then at Grant. "No. I don't really care if the intruder touched the painting, and if he didn't, then nothing has changed."
"Please. We need to know where he's been and what he might have done."
Kali bowed her head briefly, then sighed. He was right. She walked to the easel and lifted the cover. She flinched. It was the same as before. She dropped the sheet and walked out. "He didn't touch it."
Grant didn't say anything. "Can I see?"
She froze. "Why?"
"Your reaction as much as anything. I want to know what caused that pained expression." Not necessarily true.
"Maybe I'm just a bad artist." She tried to quell her nervousness. When that didn't work, she nibbled on her lower lip. Would he understand the significance? Or would it throw suspicion on her.
"Please."
Kali knew she could refuse. The painting certainly didn't come under his jurisdiction - at least she didn't think it did. A refusal would arouse suspicion. She didn't want that. Neither did she want to explain the picture. She couldn't. Finally, she walked over and flipped the drop cloth over the top, turning so she could see his instinctive reaction.
Confusion. Intensity. Then comprehension.
He stepped closer. "Bloody brilliant, yet bloody horrible at the same time."
"Now you have the explanation for the look on my face," she said lightly, reaching for the drop sheet.
His hand stalled her movement, his gaze never leaving the painting.
"You must have awful nightmares." He retreated a step.
"You have no idea." She stared at the victim in the painting, knowing a second person could be in the same situation even now. Bile crept up her throat.
She could sense him studying her and the painting, shifting back and forth. Yet he didn't ask. It surprised her, but she was grateful. It was a temporary reprieve. He wouldn't be able to leave it alone. Not forever.
At least he didn't know she'd painted this before her Sacramento trip.
CHAPTER TWELVE
An hour later Kali sat on the porch and hugged a cup of fresh coffee while Grant’s team worked over her house. She'd lost track of time. Surely bedtime had come and gone hours ago. She wrinkled her nose at Grant and yawned. His energy clung close to his body. He was tired, too. "What? Sorry, I was miles away."
"I asked if I could look at your sketchbook," he asked gently, sitting beside her. "That painting you did was damn powerful. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Remember Stefan Kronos, the consultant that came with me a couple of days ago? He also uses art to purge his demons."
She paused, uncertain where this conversation was going. "I imagine many people do," she said cautiously.
"Of course he's different in another way, too. He's a psychic. He often paints his visions. It helps him set the details."
Her breath caught and held. "He left me his card. Something about him being a psychic consultant?"
Grant nodded. "And famous. His success rate is phenomenal. He works with law enforcement all over the world." He shifted casually in his seat. "Of course, that very work is often the source of his demons."
She considered the point. "The disasters are the reason I paint. Occasionally I paint for pleasure, but it's more an outlet for my pain, instead. If I draw something, it's concrete and clear and real. Once it’s on canvas, it's out of my mind. If I leave the stuff in my head, it rolls around in an endless rewind."
"Sounds like the system works." He reached for the sketchbook, paused, and looked at her.
She nodded, returning to blowing gently on the hot brew in her hand.
He flipped back the cover to the first page and stopped.
"Kali?"
"Huh," she looked over at him.
"Is this the picture you worked on today?"
"As it is the only picture in there, yes, I'd say so. Why?"
Grant quickly leafed through the rest of the pages before returning to the front of the book.
"Do you remember what you drew?" His curiosity was palpable enough to make her uneasy.
"I didn't draw anything. It's just doodles. An outpouring of pent-up images and emotions."
"Where do these images come from?" His voice held an odd tone.
She looked over at him. "Like I said, my SAR work supplies a never-ending film of horror stills. Why?"
He stared at her intently, ignoring her question. "Do other people know about your art?"
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Surely there was something more productive for him to do. "Pro
bably. It's no big deal. Artists are everywhere."
"Kali?"
She opened her eyes to find him holding the sketchbook in front of her. At first glance in the poor light, she couldn't make anything out. "I can't see in this light."
"Sit up. Look." Urgency threaded through his voice. He changed the angle of the sketchbook.
Shifting forward, she took another look.
And froze.
"Oh my God," she whispered.
In stark black and white, dominant strokes depicted a woman curled in a fetal position, jammed inside a box of some sort, and buried under the ground. A pipe extended upward to the surface to let in fresh air. Blood dripped from a head injury. The woman appeared to be unconscious or...dead.