by Heidi Angell
About a mile from the studio, Grant flipped the sirens off and a block from the studio he turned the lights off. They cruised slowly past the studio and there were lights on. Grant drifted to a stop.
“I don’t know if you should come in,” he murmured.
“Of course I should.” Clear looked at him in confusion.
“It could be dangerous.” Grant eyed her.
“And when has that ever stopped me before?” Clear smirked.
“I know. I also remember what happened last time,” Grant said very seriously.
“You need me in there. If this guy is the guy, I’m the only one who will know for sure.”
“Yeah? And how will I know?” Grant asked.
“Follow my lead.” Clear slid out of the front seat. She closed the door gently.
Grant jogged to catch up with her. He was strung tighter than a guitar string. Clear was a little worried about him. As they walked up to the front door of the studio, Clear leaned in before Grant could knock. She held her hand up to stop him and listened for a moment.
Classical music was playing very loudly. She could hear a whispering sound, almost like a conversation, but no matter how hard she focused, she could not make out the words. She stepped back and knocked.
“Let me talk,” she whispered as they waited.
It took surprisingly long for footsteps to sound outside the door. A moment later the door opened and a handsome young man stood holding a glass of wine and looking a little harried.
“What do you want?” The man glared at the two of them through hazy eyes.
“Hello,” Clear said sweetly. “We were looking for Louis Lando? I am a dancer here in Chicago and.. well, a friend of mine told me to come and see you, to experience a true genius.” She smiled brightly.
The man watched the two of them for a moment. “And you?”
Grant smiled. “Another fine patron of the arts,” he murmured, placing his arm casually around Clear’s waist.
The man studied Clear for a moment. “Well, I was in the middle of a project… but, who could possibly resist such a lovely woman as you?” He stepped back, swinging the door open and ushering them into the studio.
Clear was immediately struck by a very heavy incense. The cloying smell clung to her nostrils and coated her skin. She leaned into Grant as they walked in.
The room was a large open area with recessed lighting along walls of paintings and photographs. There was not a single mirror in the room. There was a couch against one wall and a desk against another wall, but the remainder of the floor was completely bare. They followed him across the room, where he pulled open a cabinet and turned the music down.
Clear moved to a large portrait photo and touched the gilded frame and was sucked into a back room in this studio where there was photography equipment and the young woman stood in preparation to perform a pirouette. Louis was walking around her, camera at his chest, clicking like crazy.
“Go ahead,” he murmured and she began to spin. He took pictures as she spun, then stopped her and had her sit on the ground with one leg arched back behind her and the other in front curled under her. He adjusted her head toward the skylight and took two pictures, then leaned in to re-adjust her hair. He gently pushed it over her collar bone and then leaned in to her ear….
She was brought back to the present as he walked up to her. “Quite lovely, yes?” He smiled at her in a distinctively seductive manner and she had to really try to resist cringing.
“Amazing,” she whispered around the bile in her throat. “Did you take it?”
“But of course.” He spun with his arms out indicating the room. “This is my joie de vivre. Some of the greatest dancers I know… and have trained.” He cocked his head toward her then looked at Grant out of the corner of his eye. Grant was quickly perusing from the other end of the room. “So, Cherie,” he whispered. “Do you wish to be a great dancer?” His eyes smoldered and Clear felt ill. This was the man from her vision at the performance. There was no mistaking the bad accents or the suggestive tone.
“Of course. Why else would I come?” She smiled back, reminding herself that Grant was just across the room with a very big gun and she was not as trapped as she felt.
“Indeed…” He stared at her intensely and it took everything she had not to break the contact and look away. She instinctively knew that he wanted her to break away and would not give him the satisfaction. After nearly a minute he clapped his hands, grinning in delight. “Well, my dear, you certainly have the spirit. A bit old… but that has never stopped anyone.”
Clear was almost certain she was supposed to be offended by the age comment, but instead she smiled. “Older and wiser,” she offered cryptically. “So… tell me about some of these lovelies?” She indicated the wall.
“Ah, yes. Well, many of them were simply photographs, but some of them… some of them I made great.” His eyes had taken on a slightly dreamy quality. “But, then I am sure you know many of them. You are a dancer here in Chicago?”
Clear smiled, thinking quickly. “Ahh, not yet. I hope to be! I recently moved here from Seattle. Better opportunities,” she bluffed.
“Well, that would explain why I have not seen you yet.” He stroked his chin. She noticed that his five o’clock shadow was perfect, indicating that it was intentional. His nails were perfectly trimmed and caught the light. Clear realized that they were painted with a clear gloss.
This man was obviously very full of himself. She linked her arm in his and moved on to the next pictures. He had many little stories about each woman, but after a time they all began to blend together for Clear. All these rail-thin dancers in similar poses with similar black leotards. She wondered if he felt the same.
Then they came to a very different picture. This was of a young woman on a stage. Her costume was bright and elaborate and he had captured her in a leap. Clear looked very closely. Something was niggling in her mind. She brushed the edge of the frame and was once again in that hot theatre back stage, but this time she could see onto the stage and watched Bella dancing. The heavy camera around her neck told her that she was seeing this through Louis’ eyes.
His body was damp from the hot lights and he had to dry his hands before he could grip the camera. Raising the lens to his eye, he watched her graceful elegance. The arch of her neck as she performed a perfect arabesque caught his eye and he quickly zoomed in snapping several pictures, hoping desperately that at least one turned out well. When her ridiculous and awkward partner joined her, he let go of the camera again. He had to suppress the rage engulfing him as the silly boy clumsily performed a lift that nearly dropped her on her head. Oh, it looked well enough thanks to Bella’s incredible balance. Only a true genius such as himself would have seen the wobbling. He flicked a sheen of sweat off of his brow before it could drip into his eyes and had to quickly step behind the curtain as a flock of so-so dancers moved off stage. He waited patiently for Bella to exit. He knew that they needed to talk about her lovely new friend. It was hard to imagine that he had found another beauty as near perfection as his Bellissima!
He stepped out and was lucky to catch Bella in another remarkable photo as she leapt across the stage. He smiled with deep satisfaction and once again ducked into the shadows of the curtain as he waited for her to come off stage.
Clear had to forcefully pull herself back from the vision, knowing what was going to happen next. She couldn’t linger too long over Bella or he may become suspicious. She could not let him become suspicious, because she was now absolutely certain that he was the one responsible for Bella’s disappearance and from his thoughts she was also fairly certain that he was involved in Kat’s disappearance as well.
She turned and smiled up at him. “It is an exceptional photo.” She watched carefully for any concern, but found none. She continued. “You are really an amazing photographer. That shot could not possibly have been easy, yet you bring out the absolute thrill and beauty of the dance.”
H
e smiled under her praise. “Yes, well it requires a phenomenal dancer to achieve such success. Most cannot do it.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Were you looking for photos of you in action?” The implication in his voice turned her stomach. The mental images associated with his thought had nothing to do with dancing.
“No!” she yelped, unable to help the fear coursing through her veins. At his startled look, she tried to look demure. “I.. I mean.. I don’t think I would look so lovely.” She released his arm and moved on to the next several photos. All back to the boring portraits. She moved through them rather quickly, despite his intense desire to discuss them.
She stopped again before another artistic photo. This was of a very petite dancer performing a glissade en arriere and her head was tilted down so that her hair covered her face and the shadow blocked the rest. This photo was not taken on a stage. Without knowing how she knew, Clear knew that this was Grant’s daughter Kat.
She wanted to touch the picture frame and get more from it, but suddenly she became very afraid. She looked to Grant across the room and when he met her eyes, he immediately came over. He put his arm around her shoulder and smiled at Louis.
“Finding everything alright?” he asked Clear. She nodded, hoping her tension didn’t show. She saw him glance at the photo and immediately felt the tension in his arm around her. He had recognized his daughter. She peeked up at him and felt an immense sense of relief that he still looked as cool and calm as before. She could only hope that she was doing as well.
“Isn’t this amazing?” Clear asked, casually indicating the photo.
“Hmm… quite elegant. Too bad you can’t see the dancer. Not really what you are looking for, is it?” he asked, miraculously maintaining a calm tone.
“Oh, well, not for me.. but still. A picture like this would look great on the mantelpiece, don’t you think?” She moved forward to brush the photo frame, praying Grant would keep Louis busy.
She was immediately sucked into the image. This time she was not seeing from Louis’ frame of mind, but from Kat’s.
The girl was absolutely terrified! Clear’s heart broke. She was in a windowless room and her sense of reality was warped. Clear couldn’t tell if it was from drugs, lack of sleep or perhaps lack of food. The poor kid was barely able to stand. There was a bright light directly overhead, which prevented her from really seeing her captor. She only knew where he was when the camera flashed. The room echoed strangely and Clear couldn’t tell if it was truly because of the room or if it was because of drugs in Kat’s system.
“Please…” Kat murmured. “Please let me go? My mom… my mom must be.. so worried…”
“You cannot leave. How can I bring about your full potential if you leave? You do want to be brilliant don’t you?” The man asked. Clear couldn’t be sure that it was Louis. Kat tried to peer through the gloom and see her captor. Clear growled in frustration, because Kat’s mental image of him was still the strangely deformed, creepy old man. This was not right! She looked harder past Kat’s attempts, but Clear could not see anything.
“I don’t even care!” Kat yelped, almost collapsing. “Where is Bella?” She dropped to the floor, refusing to do what he wanted anymore.
It felt like inhuman speed, but suddenly her captor was directly behind her, squeezing her throat and preventing her from turning to look at him. He whispered harshly in her ear. “Bella failed to embrace her gift. She is no longer with us.”
Kat began to tremble with fear. She knew that Bella was dead, but she had to ask. “Did you let her go?” she whispered, fighting back the tears.
He chuckled in her ear. “I removed her atrocious flailing so that it will never besmirch another person’s eyes!” He caressed her cheek with the other hand and leaned in so that his cheek was pressing against hers. Hard, angular. The light beard tickled in an uncomfortable way. “But we don’t want to do that with you. You… could be so much greater. But it requires sacrifice, my lovely. A large amount of sacrifice.”
His breath was hot and cloying and smelled of death. Kat cringed trying to pull away, but his grip was iron fast.
Suddenly Clear realized that this was a different person from the one who had been speaking earlier. Kat had not made this connection, because of the haze she was in. Kat’s last thought was ‘my dad is gonna kill you!’ As she squeezed her eyes shut against the man groping her.
Unexpectedly Clear was knocked out of the vision. She looked around trying to figure out what had happened, and still feeling disoriented from the jump. Grant had Louis slammed up against the wall and the photograph of Kat was lying on the floor, having been knocked off the wall. Clear pulled away quickly as Grant continued to slam Louis against the wall. She was absolutely horrified. She had never seen Grant so angry, so full of malignance and hate. More terrifying was that although Louis’ face was flashing between fear, confusion and terror, she felt absolutely nothing from him. Crap!
Chapter Fifteen
Grant had realized almost immediately what Clear was doing. She was looking to get a premonition. He tried to continue a conversation with this man, but it was hard, knowing that the picture was his daughter. “You know this is a lovely image, but I think she really needs something more like this.” He indicated the next photo. It was a standard portrait. Louis began to follow, but hesitated.
“Please, don’t touch that,” Louis said to Clear. “It is a part of my private collection.”
“She is a tactile learner,” Grant muttered through grinding teeth. He was only barely keeping himself in check.
Louis reached for Clear. “Ma’am, please, you cannot touch that!”
Grant lost it. He snatched Louis up by the back of his shirt and slammed him into the wall. “She can and will touch it, you sick little bastard!” he growled and he rammed into the man against the wall. The look in Louis’ eyes made Grant hesitate for just a second. It was a feral vicious look that a cat gets when playing with a mouse. That moment of hesitation found Grant sitting on his ass. Louis went after Clear again and Grant scrambled to trip him up. Louis hit the wall face first, his arm bumping into Clear and the picture. By that time Grant had scrambled back to his feet and pulled the man up, pinning him against the wall with his feet barely scrabbling against the floor. He held his forearm across the man’s throat and got right in his face.
“Your private collection is my daughter!” Grant slammed him into the wall again and then pulled him up. “Now, I want to know where the hell she is right now! You tell me and I might…” he slammed him against the wall again. “Might let you live!”
The man’s face became a mask of terror and confusion. “I… I.. don’t know what you are talking about!” he shouted, clawing at Grant’s arm.
Grant snapped and began slamming the man as hard as he could against the wall over and over and over. He heard snapping and cracking and didn’t care if it was the wall collapsing or the man’s spine cracking.
The fog of mania began to lift when he heard Clear whimper. She was clinging to his arm. “Grant… please, Grant.. you have to stop. If you kill him, we won’t find your daughter. Please Grant!”
Grant stopped banging Louis against the wall and relaxed the arm Clear was clinging to. “So he does have her?” Grant spoke through gritted teeth, still pinning Louis with his other arm. He risked a glance at Clear.
“I.. I don’t know,” Clear whispered. “But he has been with her since she disappeared. He knows who is holding her, if he isn’t the one holding her. He took that picture after she was taken.”
Louis eyed her coldly and calculatingly. Grant slammed into him. “Don’t you dare look at her! Don’t look at anyone or anything but me because I may very well be the last thing you see in this life, unless you tell me where Kat is!”
Clear reached into his pocket. “I need to call Bryce. He cannot let this man’s father go… I think… I think they are in on it together and have been from the beginning.” Clear visibly shuddered.
She moved to t
he middle of the room to call Bryce. Grant couldn’t really hear her conversation. He leaned in on Louis, who unnervingly showed absolutely no fear at his threat of death. “So, got anything to tell me?” Grant growled menacingly.
“You’ve got the wrong guy?” Louis cocked an eyebrow at him condescendingly.
“Wrong answer.” Grant pressed hard against his windpipe making it impossible for the prick to breath. As the man’s face turned red, Grant slowly released the pressure. Louis was taking short gasping breaths.
“Wanna try again?” Grant offered.
“Do you?” Louis asked, if anything even more arrogant than before.
“You must have a death wish,” Grant muttered under his breath. Then he pulled out his gun and pointed it at Louis’ head.
“I don’t have a death wish at all,” Louis replied casually. “And until I tell you what you want to know, I am sure to remain alive and well. Well enough, anyway.”
Clear gasped in exasperation. “I don’t have proof! I know that, but please you absolutely have to believe that I know what I am talking about when I tell you that Louis is the guy. The photo proves that. He and his dad have to be working together. If you let that man go, he will kill Kat. Is that what you want?”
Bryce growled over the phone, “Of course not! But if he isn’t everything you just claimed then it is my ass on the line! You’ve got to give me something. There is a reason that we have laws in this country!”
“I will get you something! But it is going to take some time. Louis is a psychopath. A clinically verifiable psychopath. In other words he has no fear of being caught, no remorse for the harm he has done, and no conscience. It will take a lot of work to get him to talk.” She groaned. “I think his father is the same.”
“You’ve got until tomorrow evening. How are you going to do it?” Bryce challenged. At that point Clear glanced over and saw Grant with his gun to Louis’ head.