The smell forgotten for a moment, Ray stepped inside the classroom and went to one of the desks with books stored in it. He pulled the textbook out and looked at the inside cover. Someone named Thomas Winter had been the last owner and his name and year had been scrawled in some thin shaky hand. 1981. Ray closed the book and put it back.
“This is damn weird,” Gil said. His voice made Ray jump.
“You got that right,” Ray said and moved to the teacher’s desk.
He opened a drawer and saw a stapler and some old pencils. The next drawer held a ruler and some paper. A graded history test sat on the top of the stack. Paula Stamos had gotten a C+. He shut the drawer and went to the windows.
These were not broken. They were dirty, but that was to be expected. Ray could see the Mustang parked outside of the fence. Nothing else moved in the dark.
The smell came back to his senses and he walked to the door.
“Come on.”
He left the relic classroom behind and walked purposefully down the hallway toward the end. Gil and Mel followed. The smell grew stronger.
Ray’s flashlight shone on the floor a few feet in front of him so he could see what was going to block his path and he periodically lifted the beam higher to see what was further down the hall. He did that now and when it struck the bloated face attached to the bloated body sitting against the wall, he froze. Mel screamed.
Ray covered his mouth and nose with his shirt and moved closer. Flies buzzed around the corpse in a cloud and the noise seemed very loud in the echoing hallway. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed it before.
The body was sitting upright against the wall at the end of the hallway. Dressed in slacks and a button-up shirt, it was hard to distinguish whether it was male or female except for the fact it wore men’s shoes and its hair was cropped short. It was so bloated the shirt buttons were straining against the forces beneath it.
Mel was crying into Gil’s shoulder and then she turned and vomited on the floor. Ray knew exactly how she felt and he was having a hard time keeping his dinner down. He kept swallowing, but every time his throat clenched and his Adam’s apple worked up and down in his throat, the greasy, slick stench that encircled all of them seemed to physically slide down his throat. He could taste it.
“Do you know who it is?” Gil said in a weak voice barely above a whisper.
“No idea.”
“Does he have ID?”
Ray didn’t want to check.
He didn’t want to get anywhere near the thing. As a matter of fact, all he wanted to do was run out of this building and never look back. Very uncop-like, he knew, but his rational mind was buried beneath all the revulsion he was feeling.
He knelt in front of the corpse and the smell seemed to hit him like a living thing. It crawled across his skin and lips, and his eyes could feel the stench lingering in the air like a mist. Even his hair felt as if things were crawling through it and he shook his head as if to shoo them away. He gagged.
The arm that was not holding the flashlight dropped the shirt and Ray could see it moving toward the body. He didn’t want that arm anywhere near it, but it had a life of its own. He watched in detached amazement as it reached behind and into the body’s back pocket. Somewhere in some distant part of his mind, he felt a lump there and watched as a wallet emerged grasped in his hand.
A rat’s head popped up from behind the body, and squeaked at him.
Ray leapt backward as shock shot through him like a bolt of electricity. He wasn’t sure but he thought he may have cried out. The light fell from his grasp and rolled away. Darkness filled in around him, and Mel screamed again.
He got it together and crawled to the flashlight laying a few feet away. He picked it up and stood. Shining it back toward the body, he watched as the rat, huge and bloated itself, scampered away through another hole in the wall. He cursed at it and grabbed a piece of broken furniture, throwing it after it in a rage.
He felt like he was losing his mind and the physical act of violence toward the thing that had scared the crap out of him seemed to ground him back in reality. He breathed in and out heavily despite the stench. Slowly, he started to calm down.
Ray walked back to where Gil and Mel stood and shined the light on the wallet. He opened it and saw it belonged to Dirk Samuels. The name meant nothing to him.
“Isn’t that Bethany’s fiancé?” Gil asked.
“I don’t know. Jaxon would know.”
Ray flipped through it and saw some credit cards, a few pictures and about $12 in cash. A piece of paper was folded and stuffed in one of the slots. He pulled it out and written in looping purple handwriting was a set of lat/longs.
“Thank God,” he said. “I thought I was going to have to dig around that corpse more to find the cache.”
“Let’s get out of here, please,” Mel said. “I can’t stand it.”
Ray nodded and turned to leave. His light shone down the hall and sticking half out of one of the doorways was an arm and leg. It moved quickly back inside the room out of the light. Mel screamed again. Ray pulled his weapon and crouched low, quickly moving toward the room.
“Freeze!” Ray yelled.
Glass shattered and then silence. Ray ran to the room, panned the light around with the gun and seeing no one, ran in and to the window.
Outside, a figure ran off into the distance and out of sight. Ray could not understand how he had gotten down to the ground from the third floor. He leaned out of the window and discovered a rope dangling from it. He cursed and holstered the weapon.
Gil and Mel stood at the doorway. “He’s gone,” Ray said.
“Who was it?”
“I have no idea. He used a rope to climb down so he was planning on being here.”
“Did you see his face?” Gil said.
“No. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Ray led the way to the stairs and when they reached the landing, he smelled smoke over the stench of decay. Shining the light down the stairs, he could see it just starting to rise from below.
“Come on!” he yelled and pulled them down the stairs.
As they made it to the bottom floor, flames lit the walls down the hallway to their right as the fire quickly spread. They ran from the building and stood outside as the left half of the structure became engulfed in flames.
Ray got on his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. He reported the fire and then hung up when they asked for his name. He knew they could trace the call if they wanted, but he wasn’t worried about that now. They needed to get the heck out of there before all the activity delayed them.
They ran to the Mustang, jumped in, and he squealed the tires as they left quickly. The stench of death followed them down the road.
CHAPTER 27
Jaxon drove south on I-95, the headlights from the oncoming traffic like bullets to his head.
The pain behind his left eye had grown to more than an annoyance and he wondered if he was having a stroke or something. Maybe even a brain tumor. He shook four more aspirin into his hand from the container he bought at the gas station and swallowed them with the giant coffee he had poured there also. His stomach wanted to rebel but he wouldn’t let it. He had things to do.
He was a few minutes away from West Palm Beach and had just gotten off his cell with Ray. He confirmed that Dirk Samuels was indeed Bethany Hope’s fiancé and had gone missing shortly before all this started. He wasn’t surprised. He really hadn’t expected him to turn up alive. He was beginning to think Bethany wasn’t going to survive either. In fact, she may already be dead despite the fact her 72 hours were not up.
Victoria was doing a little better. She was going to take a nap and then check in with Jaxon and see if she could help with anything. He was glad she was going to rest. She was probably in worse shape than she was admitting and he knew she needed it. Being blown up was a lot more traumatic than she was letting on.
Jaxon pulled into a parking lot at a local grocery store and saw Gil’s Must
ang parked in a quiet part of the lot. He parked next to them and got out. Ray stepped from the driver’s seat and Gil and Melanie followed. Mel looked pretty shaken. He walked right up to her.
“Are you ok?”
She shook her head and started to cry. Gil pulled her to him and held her. He looked a little worse for wear too and Jaxon wondered if they were all pushing it beyond what they were capable of handling. He touched Mel’s shoulder and tried to comfort her. He felt useless.
He turned to Ray and said, “You look like shit.”
“Feel like it too. And you look about to collapse. Do I need to worry about you, old man?”
“I’ll run rings around you any day.”
Ray chuckled but couldn’t seem to muster much more energy than that.
He pulled Jaxon over away from Gil and Mel and spoke in a low voice.
“It was pretty rough in that abandoned school. She took it well while we were in there, but I don’t know if she’s going to be able to continue. Maybe we should send those two home. We’ve got your car. I’ll turn the other way and let him drive.”
“You sure you’ll be able to live with that?” Jaxon said sarcastically.
Ray just gave him a look.
Jaxon nodded.
“All right. I agree. Fanucci is locked up and it should be safe for them to go home. I just hope we won’t need Gil’s expertise.”
“I think between us, we’ll be able to figure it out.”
“We’re not leaving,” Gil said loudly from where they stood. Either they had overheard them or they could tell what they were talking about. Jaxon and Ray walked back over to them.
“She’s been through enough, Gil,” Jaxon said. “It’s time to take her home.”
“I’m all right,” she said, but her face betrayed her words.
“I don’t think so,” Jaxon said. “What you guys went through would be traumatic to me and I’ve seen a lot in my career. Ray and I will be fine without you. Really.”
“We’re not leaving,” Gil repeated.
Jaxon sighed and looked at Ray who shrugged.
“You’re a lot of help.”
“Mel. What can I do to convince you to go? We’ll be all right without you.”
She got herself under control and shook her head. “There’s nothing you can say. I’m not giving up on Bethany. All I can think is that she’s probably going through so much worse. I’ll be fine.”
Jaxon couldn’t argue with that so he just touched her on the shoulder and said, “Anytime you’re ready to go home, you tell us. You can leave whenever it gets to be too much.”
She nodded her head and even smiled.
“Ok,” Jaxon said. “Where to?”
Gil pulled out the GPS and showed Jaxon the map. “It looks like a neighborhood. It’s right around the corner from here.”
“We’ll take both cars and I’ll follow you. Hopefully, it will be easy.”
“I’m just praying for a nice neighborhood,” Ray said.
“This is West Palm. All the neighborhoods are nice,” Jaxon said. “I grew up here.”
“That neighborhood with the school wasn’t nice,” Mel said.
Jaxon paused for a beat and then said, “The school. It wasn’t Nathan Forest High was it?”
“Yes. Why?”
“That’s where I went. It closed down a couple of years after I graduated. I can’t believe it’s still standing.”
“Well, part of it probably isn’t. That fire we left burning was going pretty strong.”
“The neighborhood was shit?”
“A deserted slum.”
“Great. I lived there. Guess things change.”
“Always.”
Jaxon got in the car and followed the Mustang out of the parking lot. Ray drove slowly and made a right turn into a ritzy neighborhood with a manicured entrance and an award-winning golf course. At least that’s what the sign said. Ray was going to get his wish.
The road wound around in the dark and then Ray turned right at a cul-de-sac. The houses lining the street were very nice; brick and stone fronts with lush landscaping, columned entrances, and fancy outside lighting. BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis sat parked in the drives. Screened-in pools could be seen through the sides of the yards and most on the right side backed up to the golf course. The street was deserted at this late hour and nobody noticed two strange cars cruising the neighborhood. That was good.
They came around a curve in the road and the cul-de-sac ended directly in front of them. The house at the end was probably the largest on the street and as Ray pulled up to it, Jaxon noticed smoke wafting up from the roof. He jumped out of his car as Ray, Gil and Mel got out and he pointed.
“It’s on fire!”
“Shit!” Ray said. “This is the waypoint.”
“Call 9-1-1.”
Ray got his cell out as Jaxon ran to the front of the house and banged on the door. His old training took over.
“Police! Open up!”
Gil and Mel stood behind him looking lost and he pointed to the side yard.
“Go around and see if anyone’s in the back. I’m going in.”
Gil and Mel took off and Jaxon slammed his shoulder into the front door. It shifted but held. He stepped back and kicked with everything he had and it gave way with a loud crack. Ray came up beside him.
“They’re on their way.”
Jaxon nodded and stepped into the house. It was filling rapidly with smoke.
“Police! Is anyone here?”
He pointed to the massive spiral staircase directly in front of them and Ray headed up shouting. Jaxon went right, into a kind of study, and found nothing. He backtracked and passed the staircase heading toward the back of the house. He could hear Ray shouting above him. Jaxon added his own voice, but no one responded.
He entered the kitchen. It was empty. The smoke was thicker here, but the fire had not shown itself. Jaxon continued through the kitchen into a long hallway with doors on one side. Floor to ceiling windows filled the other wall with a view of the pool and surrounding landscaping. He saw Gil and Mel making their way to it. He waved his arms at them but they didn’t see him. Flinging doors open as he moved down the hall, he found the rooms empty of people. Maybe no one was here.
“Police! There’s a fire! You need to evacuate the building!”
Jaxon’s throat was burning and his eyes were tearing up. He was having a hard time finding his way as the smoke thickened. The place was huge and he would never be able to get to all the rooms before the smoke overcame him. He wondered how Ray was doing upstairs. The smoke was probably worse there.
No one responded to his shouts and he began to wonder if the place was empty.
He came to the end of the hall and tried to open the door. It was locked. He banged on it and shouted but could hear nothing. The door felt warm. He knew he wasn’t supposed to open a hot door in a fire, but he had to see if anybody was trapped. He stepped back and kicked the door in.
A blast of heat wafted out as the door flung open. The fire was along the back wall of the room and was contained within it but was producing a lot of smoke from the carpet and drapes. He tried to cover his face and nose as best he could when he entered but it was still difficult to see with his eyes tearing so much. He coughed hard and thought he’d never be able to take a deep breath again.
The room was some kind of game room and bar, as a pool table sat to the right against a wall of windows facing the pool. The bar was centered along the left wall and as Jaxon turned toward it he saw a woman bound in a chair, unconscious. He stepped to her and worked to untie her. It was not going to be easy. He worked a few of the knots, but at that rate, they were both going to die from smoke inhalation. He already felt as if he was going to pass out. Suddenly, Ray was next to him.
“I can’t get her untied,” Jaxon shouted over the fire. “Let’s pick her up.”
Ray nodded and went behind her. They lifted her and backtracked out of the room.
Back in
the hall it was no better. The black, billowing smoke snaked along the ceiling and began descending along the glass walls lower and lower. The air was so stifling, Jaxon had resorted to holding his breath. He didn’t think he was going to make it. He stumbled and almost dropped the woman, but regained his feet and had to take a breath.
The pain was worse than he could imagine as his lungs tried to reject the smoke combined with the panic his body was feeling as the oxygen in his blood stream plummeted. His brain was screaming for it. He started coughing and couldn’t stop. Ray was having his own difficulty with breathing and Jaxon could see his eyes bulging from their sockets as he struggled to hold his breath. Just a little farther.
The door at the end of the hall burst open. Gil and Mel came through it in a rush just as Jaxon went to his knees. He was blacking out. Somebody grabbed under his arms and half dragged him along the hallway as he worked through the fog in his head to make his legs move. They didn’t want to cooperate. He stumbled forward, trying his best to maintain a grip on the girl, but she was pulled from his hands and he thought he dropped her. He stopped and fumbled around, but then a voice shouted close to him.
“I got her! Come on!”
He looked up to see someone helping him and Gil holding the girl. They wavered in and out of his vision as he coughed uncontrollably. He had never coughed so hard in his life. The air started to clear a bit and he was able to choke in small gasps of cleaner air between his fits of coughing and soon he could walk on his own.
He was guided out of the house just as the fire trucks pulled up and a paramedic put a mask over his face. The cool oxygen blowing past his lips helped but the burning in his throat continued to make him cough. At least he was alive.
He held the mask to his face and nodded to the paramedic as he sat on the ground. He coughed hard again and felt as if his lungs would rip from his chest. He hacked up black phlegm and then seemed to be able to breathe a little easier. He glanced up and saw Ray, Gil, and Mel all with oxygen on their faces and the firemen trying to free the woman in the chair. They were administering oxygen to her with some kind of bag they squeezed as a mask was pressed to her face. The rest of the firemen were working to get the fire under control.
Cache 72 (A Jaxon Jennings' Detective Mystery Thriller Series, Book 2) Page 19