Linger: Dying is a Wild Night (A Linger Thriller Book 1)

by Edward Fallon

  “Look, Natalie, you’re not in trouble, okay? And you won’t be, if you tell me the truth. Just say what you want to say.”

  Natalie considered this, then nodded. “It’s just he comes off all smooth and stuff, but he’s a complete creep. I’ve got a friend who works a corner a couple blocks over and he threatened to arrest her if she didn’t give him a blow job.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “She pointed him out to me one night. He’s always harassing her and her friends.”

  Kate felt something shift inside her. Could this be true? Linkenfeld had always struck her as one of the good guys.

  “Are you saying you think he might be the one Bree shouldn’t have been messing with? That he might be Kojak?”

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe. All I know is what Bree told me.”

  “Which was what?”

  “That the guy they had on the hook was a cop,” Natalie said. “She told me he’s a fucking cop.”

  ∙ ∙ ∙

  A cop.

  Chat name Kojak.

  Confirmation that Christopher’s “feeling” had been dead on.

  Confirmation Kate didn’t want.

  Especially if that cop was Jake Linkenfeld.

  Because, until now, she’d been able to pretend that Christopher had somehow gotten it wrong. That it was one of his misses. A scrambled transmission. A guess that had grown out of the confusion of his surroundings.

  Kate wasn’t forgetting that she herself had put Bob MacLean on the suspect list, but she’d never truly believed it.

  And now that Linkenfeld’s name had been floated, she couldn’t believe that either. Even if he was doing what Natalie’s friend had accused him of—as disgusting as it was—that didn’t make him a murderer.

  Did it?

  Whatever the case, Kate had been forced to confront the idea that he or MacLean or one of a few dozen other policemen—someone she knew, someone in the very building she inhabited for a good part of the day—could well be the killer she sought.

  So what was she supposed to do now?

  ∙ ∙ ∙

  After questioning Natalie for several more minutes and failing to get anything new out of her, Kate let her dry her tears and switch her camera back on, then went outside to the reception area, where Linkenfeld and MacLean were waiting.

  She couldn’t help looking at them both in a different light.

  “Any luck?” Linkenfeld asked.

  Confirmation or not, Kate was no more inclined to share Natalie’s accusation than she had been when Christopher had made it. Especially if one of these men was her suspect.

  She shook her head. “What about you guys?”

  “Blonde’s name is Crystal Hatcher,” MacLean said, “And either she’s a pathological liar or we both read her wrong. She swears up and down she never saw or met the Branford kid, and we pushed her pretty friggin’ hard.”

  “Okay, so maybe we’ll get lucky with the data on the website server. It has to be here somewhere.” Kate looked around. “What happened to the girl with the tattoos? Dark Angel?”

  “I think she had a date with a demon vibrator,” MacLean said. “But don’t sweat it. Crystal showed us a closet in the employee break room that she says houses the main computer. Problem is, it’s locked tight and the manager, Freddie, is the only one with the key. I tried calling her, but got no answer.”

  “And apparently she’s a real stickler about warrants,” Linkenfeld added.

  Kate sighed. “This time of day, I was hoping we’d be able to finesse that part. So it’s a waiting game at this point.”

  MacLean spread his hands. “Isn’t it always?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Linkenfeld said. “I know a guy who’s clerking for Judge Takane, and I can probably twist his arm into expediting a search and seizure. We can be back here by tomorrow morning when Ms. Freddie walks in the door.”

  Kate considered this and wondered if Linkenfeld’s willingness to go the extra mile was a sign of his lack of culpability.

  Then again, maybe he knew there was nothing incriminating on that server.

  This situation was screwed up in more ways than she could count, but without any concrete evidence, what could she do but wait to see how it all shook out?

  “I guess that’ll have to do,” she said. “I just wish it were tonight.”

  MacLean snorted. “And I wish my new friend Crystal would park that cute little butt of hers on my bed.” He headed toward the elevators. “But like they say in France, wishes don’t fill the bag.”

  36

  _____

  IT WAS DARK BY THE time Kate reached the Circle Eight motel.

  As she pulled into the lot she noted with some concern that there was no sign of the Rambler and wondered if it hadn’t yet been delivered from the impound garage, or if Weston had decided to ignore the boy’s wishes and take off anyway.

  She went to the room she’d left them in—number 148 this time—and didn’t see any lights in the window.

  Shit.

  She tried knocking on the door anyway, not expecting an answer, but was surprised when Christopher’s melodic voice filled her head.

  I’m here, Kate.

  Then the door opened and Christopher stood in the darkness, no sign of Weston anywhere.

  Kate stepped inside and flipped on the light. “He left you?”

  Just for a little while. They brought our car and he went to get us some food.

  “I can’t believe he left you alone.”

  Why shouldn’t he? Because I’m blind?

  “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  I’m not a baby, Kate. The Haneys used to leave me all the time.

  “Based on what I’ve heard about them, that doesn’t make me feel any better.” She closed the door and dropped her bag on the dresser. “He shouldn’t have left you alone, and when he gets back he’s gonna hear about it.”

  Chris crossed to a chair in the corner and sat.

  You need to be nicer to Noah. He takes good care of me. And I don’t like it when you guys fight all the time.

  She again felt like a chastised parent, and thought about her conversations with Dan and Rusty. “If people just did what I want them to, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

  Nobody does what we want them to.

  She laughed and sat on one of the beds, a little unsettled that she’d accepted this unorthodox form of communication with Chris so easily. Less than a day ago, the idea of telepathy—for lack of a better word—had been a joke to her.

  “I guess that’s true,” she said.

  But I’m glad Noah left me here, because I knew you’d be coming soon and I wanted us to be alone.

  “How did you know I was coming?”

  I felt it. Just like I feel the change in you.

  “Change?”

  You didn’t want to believe me before about the man who killed those people. Even though you know what I can do, you were starting to doubt it, and you were hoping I was wrong.

  “Can you blame me?”

  No, but that’s changed, hasn’t it? You believe me now.

  “And wish I didn’t,” Kate said. “Life would be a lot less complicated that way.” She looked at him. “But why do you want us to be alone?”

  Because I didn’t tell you everything.

  “About what?”

  I told you before I was born this way. But that isn’t true. What I was born with was more like what you and Noah have. A strong sense of intuition.

  “Okay,” Kate said. “So then how did you get like this?”

  “It happened the night I died.”

  ∙ ∙ ∙

  Kate felt a draft of cold air and had no idea where it was coming from.

  She shivered involuntarily. “Died?”

  Yes.

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  I know Noah told you about what happened to me and all of my friends. At the home we lived in.

  “Yes, bu
t he didn’t go into much detail.”

  Because he didn’t know that many. And what he didn’t know until tonight is that the man with the tattoo didn’t just leave me for dead. I was dead. He strangled me and threw me down and when he was sure I was gone, that I had no heartbeat, he cut out my tongue.

  Images of Christopher being thrown to the floor filled Kate’s mind and she closed her eyes and tried, without success, to will them away. She couldn’t be sure if they were products of her imagination or were coming from the boy himself.

  While the Beast was busy cutting me, I went to a place that was dark, and warm, and safe… And there was someone waiting for me.

  Kate opened her eyes. “Who?”

  A stranger. A woman I didn’t know, but who said that we were bound together by this man’s violence. Connected by our shared experience. I couldn’t see her, not even in death, but I felt her. And I heard her voice.

  “Who was she?”

  Someone you love, Kate, and who loves you with all her heart. She told me her name was Cassie.

  Kate’s throat went dry.

  Cassie was a name she knew all too well. What everyone had called the beautiful young cop’s wife, the police dispatcher who had been taken from them far too early.

  Cassandra Messenger.

  Kate’s mother.

  ∙ ∙ ∙

  The room around Kate began to sway.

  No. No. This was too much. Too much for any human being to absorb in a single day. She gripped the edge of the bed, hoping she wouldn’t teeter to the floor.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  I knew you’d resist, Kate, but it’s true. I can feel her in you. And she’s in me, too. She’s who I look for when I go into the haze. And she helps me see the pictures when I’m gathering. That’s why the signal is so much stronger when I send them to you.

  “No,” Kate said, and she couldn’t stop shivering.

  When I died that night, Cassie told me it wasn’t my time. That I had to go back because the Beast wasn’t done killing. That he would never be done unless someone stopped him. She said my blindness would help me see without filters, and that others would help me understand what I saw. People who knew the pain he caused…

  “No…” Kate said.

  She stayed with me and held me and told me about her little girl. And about the boy who was still with her.

  “…What?”

  She was carrying your brother inside her the night she was killed. Your baby brother. I could feel his heartbeat as she held me.

  Kate got to her feet. “Stop. Stop right now.”

  You need to hear this, Kate. You need to know what he took from you. All of it.

  “STOP!” she shouted. “Please stop!”

  He’s a beast. That’s what she called him. The Beast. And when I woke up in the hospital and realized I was still alive, I knew that she was right. That he had to be found. That he couldn’t be allowed to go on, doing what he’d done to her and her baby and to me… And to you.

  Kate said nothing, her mind reeling, her heart thumping.

  She was done asking how any of this was possible. She was done talking at all. The thought that her mother—her pregnant mother—was the catalyst behind all this had crippled her, rendering her speechless.

  I’ve been trying to find you ever since that day, Kate. To find Cassie’s little girl. But she’s never told me how. She’s never even told me your full name. She helps me see things, but it’s like she wants me to find my own way, too.

  Kate was stunned. Still unable to speak.

  Then a few nights ago when Noah left me in our room in Reno, I heard a news report about the Branford murders. And even though I knew those murders had nothing to do with the Beast, I heard a policewoman on TV asking for viewers to come forward with information.

  And I recognized her voice. It felt and sounded just like Cassie’s voice.

  But I knew that wasn’t possible, so I told Noah to bring me to Santa Flora, and I could feel that alley calling to me. And the moment we went there I knew that my instincts had been right. That that alley was where the Beast had killed Cassie. And that the voice on TV wasn’t hers—wasn’t Cassie’s—but her daughter’s.

  I had found Cassie’s daughter.

  And that’s why I’m here, Kate. That’s why I’m here.

  They heard a beeping sound and the door opened and Weston came into the room with a key card in one hand and a bag full of take-out boxes in the other.

  He stopped when he saw them, took one look at Kate’s face and said, “The British have a name for that expression. They call it gobsmacked.”

  37

  _____

  “I WAS ALL SET TO leave the moment they brought the Rambler,” Weston said.

  They sat across from each other on opposite beds, Christopher in the bathroom with the door closed.

  Kate’s mind was still reeling, but her heartbeat had slowed to a manageable pace. She felt distracted, not quite in the room, thinking about her mother’s pregnancy—her brother on the way—and wondering why her father had never mentioned it. Wondering why it wasn’t mentioned in the autopsy report.

  “I didn’t care what Chris wanted,” Weston said. “There’s too much drama here and I wanted to put you and this town in our rear view mirror.”

  Kate blinked at him. “So what stopped you?”

  “Chris told me what he just told you. About what happened the night he died. He’s never shared that with me before.”

  “I almost wish he hadn’t shared it with me.”

  Weston shook his head. “Don’t talk like that. You aren’t some random victim in all of this. You’re part of it. That’s clear to me now. You were destined to be.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “I didn’t say I like it. You’re rude and you’re stubborn and you jump to conclusions like every other cop I’ve encountered. But I understand why he came looking for you.”

  A toilet flushed and a few seconds later the bathroom door opened and Christopher came out wiping his hands on his pants. He looked small for his age, and defenseless, but he was proof that what you see is not always what you get.

  He fixed his eyes on Kate. I want to help you.

  She still felt off-balance. “…With what?”

  I want to help you find the man who killed those people.

  Kate hadn’t given the Branfords and the Sorianos a single thought since she got here. That part of her world had been relegated to her work brain, the section that understood and processed all that was mundane, like sex and blackmail and cops nicknamed Kojak who went off the deep end and committed multiple homicides.

  “I told you, I don’t want to expose you to that.”

  And I told you I’m not a baby.

  “No, but you’re eleven years old.”

  (Although at the moment he seemed like the old man in the room.) That doesn’t matter. Let me help you find him, Kate. I know I can do it. We can do it together. Take me back to the place where those two men were killed.

  She shook her head. “Even if I agreed, there are people who live in the other apartments and the media is probably knocking on their doors as we speak, so there’ll be cameras all over that place. And if someone sees me take a kid into that apartment—”

  Then take me to the house instead. The Branford house.

  Kate paused, remembering the first moment she saw him through the window, standing in their living room. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since that moment, yet she felt at least a decade older.

  I was already there once. What will it hurt to go again?

  “He’s got a point,” Weston said. “You interrupted him before he could do much in the way of gathering, so another try might give you exactly what you need to find this guy. Especially if you can process the images the way you did today.”

  Kate shivered. “I’m not sure I want to go through that again.”

  “It isn’t a matter of what you want. Do you think I
wanted to be painting pictures on my living room wall?”

  “You’re saying I don’t have a choice?”

  “There’s always a choice. But the wrong ones tend to come back and bite us in the ass. And you know what Chris is asking is the right thing to do. This nonsense about traumatizing him is just an excuse.”

  “For what?”

  “To keep from going to a place in your mind that scares you. Because that’s the bottom line, here. You’re afraid of all of this. Believe me, I know exactly how you feel.”

  Christopher approached her now, then reached out and found her hands.

  Let me help you, Kate. Let me help you catch him. There’s more than one kind of beast out there, and we should always do what we can to stop them.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “Where do you come from?”

  He smiled and squeezed her hands.

  The only thing that matters is where we’re going.

  38

  _____

  THEY TOOK THE RAMBLER, WESTON looking pleased as he slid behind the wheel, as if he’d been reunited with an old friend.

  They said very little on the drive into Oak Grove, as Kate tried to put the night’s revelations into some kind of perspective, knowing the task was futile. What was happening to her could not be analyzed or catalogued or weighed with any real logic. She was in an emotional and intellectual free fall now, where anything was possible.

  They took the 33 into the valley past Amelia’s Oak, then made the turn onto Cartham Road, which wound through the woods thick with oak trees. There were only a few houses in here, the Branford home the most isolated of them all.

  Kate wondered what had compelled Thad and Chelsea Branford to transform themselves into Mike-n-Maisey, and decided to chalk it up to a case of simple economics. She had no idea what kind of money a custom cabinet maker pulled in, but all of the businesses in the area had been hit hard by the recession. And during the slow, laborious recovery that followed, the extra income may have been crucial to their survival.

  Bree’s involvement, on the other hand, was still a cypher. Her “good girl” act was clearly just that, but Kate had to believe that, like any sixteen-year-old, she could be easily manipulated by the right guy.