by Linda Ladd
It didn’t take Tee long to realize that this woman was smarter than the other people he’d screwed around with, and that she obviously suspected him of some major wrongdoing. So slowly he began to plan how to knock her out of his way before she really did uncover all the things he had been doing. First off and after their first meeting, he researched her on his trusty, invaluable Internet. And whoa, mama, she had some kind of sordid past. She had to be a loony tune case extraordinaire inside that pretty little head of hers. According to the news stories, there were lots and lots of dead relatives and other traumatic events strung out along her life’s path, lots of gruesome cases, so there had to be lots of pent-up anger. She was a dream come true for an evil scientist like him. When he’d found out she’d lost her only child, a little toddler, the die was cast. He knew he had her.
And he searched and planned and got to her when she least expected it. Tricked her, slick as a whistle. She had come in to the clinic to interview them, and he watched her poke around the place through a well disguised two-way mirror. She was obviously intrigued by his revolutionary techniques and asked around with lots of questions about how they worked. That’s when he got her. It was so easy; a lot easier than he’d expected when dealing with a woman as strong willed as she was. He offered her something to drink, an innocent enough gesture, and she accepted a bottle of water, as if she’d been cued.
What she didn’t know was that he had injected a syringe of sodium pentothal for use on one of his young patients that he was experimenting on. Little Miss Policewoman was a goner now, and never even had a clue that he’d managed to implant a number of false memories and worries deep inside her mushed-up brain. Most effective by far was the suggestion that she should dwell on the death of her baby boy, and that she did. Second, he’d gotten another kid to commit suicide at Bagnell Dam, which would be a major distraction for her and another case on her desk. It had been spectacular, too. He’d watched Cleo blow herself up on KY3. Man, it rocked.
Best of all, though, he implanted a very good way to get rid of Miss Detective for good and forever. If she got too close, messed up his plans too much, all he had to do was give the trigger and she’d be dead and gone. And, if he was any judge of character, she wouldn’t give up until she nailed him. So he would just have to nail her first.
TWENTY-ONE
The big digital numbers on the clock on the bedside table showed 3:30 in big green numbers. Blinking away sleep, I reached out, turned it toward me, and peered blearily at it again, just to make sure I was reading it right. What was with this three thirty crap? It seemed every time I looked at a clock it was three thirty. Black slept beside me, but this time we were in his gigantic bed in his gigantic penthouse at gigantic Cedar Bend Lodge, and I wished I was asleep, too, because it didn’t take two seconds before Zach’s face came barreling down the darkest corridors of my memories and blasting into my brain. Okay, get up, think about the case, figure it out, add it all up, forget about Zach, forget about wondering why he was constantly on my mind now, after so many years of lying dormant and repressed under a misty shroud inside my soul.
Man, Black was really out of it, and he should be after the wild and uninhibited lovemaking we enjoyed earlier that evening. Certain parts of me were still tingling. Yes, we dug each other considerably. You’d think our sexual spark would diminish after time, but it was only getting stronger, roaring up into bonfire levels, in fact. But that was definitely a good thing.
Black didn’t move, even when I sat up on the side of the bed, and I knew he had a long day tomorrow with patient rounds and several important business meetings and a transatlantic phone conference or two, and that’s the primary reason we stayed at his place instead of mine. So I eased carefully out from underneath the black satin sheets and tried not to disturb him. Jules wasn’t in bed with us, which was a little odd, but sometimes Jules was an odd little dog. I didn’t hold it against him, though. He likes to explore Black’s palatial digs; it had more nooks and crannies than my cozy little cabin on the lake. And the furniture was softer and had plusher fabrics with names like chenille and damask. Jules is French, you’ll remember.
Both autopsy reports, the one for the oven female victim and the one for Mikey Murphy, had come in on the fax before we got home from the funeral, and I’d skimmed through them and didn’t find anything that jumped out at me and solved these bizarre crimes. Poking one arm into my robe, I picked up my Glock 9 mm and headed downstairs. Sorry, but even in Black’s security conscious, super-protected hotel, I didn’t go unarmed. You just never know.
I found Jules asleep, perched atop a pile of velvet tasseled pillows, to be exact, and he didn’t particularly like the fact that I was switching on lights and disturbing his slumber on that very soft and luxurious black velvet and damask sofa. He got up, yawned, stretched in dramatic fashion, made a couple of rounds on the mound of said pillows, then plopped down, shut his eyes, and gave a put-upon sigh. I wondered what Zach would have thought of the funny little dog, then was sorry I did. My baby would have loved him, loved playing with him, loved everything about him, just like Lizzie did.
I found my way into Black’s immense, luxurious kitchen with all its shiny stainless-steel everything and lustrous cherry-wood cabinets and black granite counters, went over to a fridge that would hold, say, about six months of food for a military Antarctic expedition. I leaned on the opened door and stared at the bottles of water, not the Ozarka that we used at the sheriff’s office and that I’d found so plentiful at Oak Haven Clinic, but some hoity-toity brand imported from some super, and no doubt especially clean and clear, creek in the high meadows of the Alps. I figured that’s where it came from by the bearded yodeler in lederhosen on the label. There were also lots of bottles of apple juice, orange juice, pomegranate juice, which is really yucky, believe me. Where the hell did he keep the Pepsi? I could call downstairs to the restaurant and have them bring me up a cold six-pack, but hey, I wasn’t going to rouse the night shift just because I was thirsty for a soda. I’d make do with healthy stuff, just this once, since I had to.
I grabbed a small bottle of V-8 juice, twisted the cap, and dribbled some into a white coffee mug stamped with the Cedar Bend logo. It tasted good and cold and healthy. Maybe this would make up for the twenty-one days I’d gone without eating vegetables. Black liked fruit and vegetables, had even brought over a fruit basket to my house. It was still sitting on the counter with the yellow cellophane shrink-wrap intact. Black worried too much about my stomach and vitamin intake.
Switching on the fancy track lights over the shiny black kitchen table, I sat down and spread out the two autopsy reports in front of me. Maybe I’d missed something. The crime scene photos were not pretty to look at, none of them. Especially the female vic’s. We were back to square one on that one, and I wondered if my new friend and suddenly potential suspect, Khur-Vay, might be able to help me out. She seemed to know the Asian population of Branson, each and every one and by heart. There was something about her that bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, especially since I had liked her initially. Usually, I could pick out jerks and murderesses and dislike them from the first second—not so in her case.
I read through both reports once, then twice, then three times, because I still wasn’t the least bit sleepy. I wondered if Bud was having any luck with his end of the investigation and started to dial him up, then realized what time it was. The thought of Bud made me hungry, so I got up and walked over to the counter. There were lots of large glass apothecary jars full of snacks. Black liked snacks you could pick up in your hand and toss in your mouth. Unfortunately, most of them were healthy and thus unpalatable to me. I looked at flavored rice cakes and grapes and pecans and trail mix and then I zeroed in on the Oreos and packages of M&M’s and miniature Snickers all thrown together in one big jar at the very end, just for me, no doubt. Okay, now you’re talking, nothing better than chocolate after an eight-ounce dose of celery and tomato juice. A sugar fix was called for, al
l right. Maybe it’d cheer me up.
I dumped a whole pack of plain M&M’s into my palm, tossed back a couple of them, and heartily enjoyed the taste of one of my favorite things. I do love my M&M’s, almost as much as my Snickers. I looked up when I realized Black was standing at the kitchen door.
“I heard your phone ring,” he said. “Something else happen?”
“No, you didn’t. My phone didn’t ring.”
“The phone rang. It woke me up. You answered it. I heard you.”
“No, I didn’t. You must’ve been dreaming.”
Black frowned and looked annoyed, so I held out my hand with the M&M’s as a peace offering. He was cranky; he just woke up. I could be understanding.
“No, thanks, I don’t need any. I feel fine.”
I had to laugh at that one. “Well, I don’t need any either, but they sure taste good.”
Black said, “What the devil are you talking about? And how many of those things are you going to take? You must have one doozy of a headache.”
We certainly were not connecting on the same wavelength here. I tossed another piece of candy into my mouth. “I’m in the mood for chocolate, what can I say? You know I always eat the whole pack.”
“What chocolate?”
“Black, get with it. Splash some cold water on your face.”
When I picked up another M&M, Black grabbed my wrist and stopped me.
“You’ve had enough, Claire.”
“For God’s sake, Black, give me a break here. So I like freakin’ M&M’s. Since when are you the food police?”
“What the hell are you talking about? Those aren’t M&M’s, they’re the Darvocets I gave you for pain, and you’re taking too many.”
“Darvocets?”
He took my wrist and held my palm toward my eyes. “Yes, Darvocets. Your hand is full of them.”
I stared down at my open hand, shocked to see the small white tablets piled inside my palm. “Where’d those come from? What happened to the candy?”
“There’s no candy, Claire. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
We stared at each other a long, silent moment, then he turned my hand downward over the sink. I watched the pills bounce on the bottom of the shiny stainless-steel sink. Black ran water over them. “You planning to take the whole bottle and check out, or what?”
“I thought they were M&M’s, I tell you. They tasted like chocolate.”
Black said, “Who was on the phone?”
“It didn’t ring.”
“Why are you saying that? I heard your cell phone ring. I heard your voice talking to somebody, just a few words, and then you hung up.”
Laughing a little, I shook my head, but it wasn’t much more than an uncertain chuckle, believe you me. This little episode was freaking me out. “I don’t understand.”
“Me, either. But I can tell you one thing, M&M’s sure as hell don’t taste like Darvocets. Let me see your phone.”
Handing it over, I leaned against the counter and watched him punch up recent calls. “The last call is from an unknown caller.”
“What?”
“It says the call came in exactly six minutes ago.”
“You’re kidding me, right? This is some kind of joke.”
“Not even close.”
I took my phone back and thumbed in the last call. I took a few paces away, a bit unnerved, oh yeah.
“So what’s going on?” Black asked me again.
“I don’t know. I just woke up, at three thirty again, as a matter of fact, which fits into this Twilight Zone episode, and came down here to look over the autopsy reports.”
“And you don’t remember the phone ringing or taking those meds?”
“No, I don’t. It didn’t happen.”
Black came around the counter and picked up the bottle full of Darvocets he’d given me when I’d had that gunshot wound in my foot. I hadn’t taken them because I hated taking any kind of drugs, but I’d kept them in my purse, just in case. He shook the bottle, then opened the top. “Well, it doesn’t look like you took very many, not with the ones you had left in your hand. It’s still almost full. I guess we won’t have to pump your stomach.”
I decided to make light of this until I figured it out. I grinned. “Well, that’s good to hear. They ought to take care of any aches and pains I have till I solve this case.”
Black decided to make dark of it. He frowned. “This is not normal behavior, Claire.”
“I’ve never been a normal sort, true, but this is a little freaky, even for me.”
Black sat down on one of the high mahogany and black leather stools and stared at me, or maybe it was a glare. Yeah, it was definitely a glare.
I shrugged. “Hell, if I know, Black. Maybe I was sleepy and not paying attention and picked up the wrong thing. I’m distracted by the case and was concentrating on the reports.”
“Yeah, that’s a good theory, except for the fact that we don’t have any M&M’s right now, and you said Darvocets tasted like chocolate. I have a pretty good idea what might be going on with you, and it’s not good. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it, either, but go ahead and hit me with it.”
“You’re acting like somebody who’s been hypnotized.”
I smiled at that one. “Come on. I’ve never been hypnotized, ever.”
“What if you just don’t know it? You’ve heard of posthypnotic suggestions, haven’t you?”
“Well, sure, that’s what Collins’s book’s about, but there’s no way. I would’ve known. I’m not stupid, Black, and I won’t even let you put me in a trance.”
“Think about this, Claire. If I hadn’t heard the phone and come down here, you might’ve eaten that whole bottle of pills and never even known you’d done it. It’s the only explanation.”
“I am not hypnotized. That’s downright stupid, impossible”
“Tell me about your meetings at Oak Haven. That’s their whole thing out there. Did any of the doctors do anything strange or have you do anything unusual?”
“No, of course not.” Hesitating, I said, “Well, you know about Collins’s new play toy, you know, the one with all the lights and sound waves.”
“You interacted with that?”
“Yes, but not long enough to be put under. Trust me, I’d know.”
“It doesn’t take long.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Claire, you’re still not seeing this for what it is. You could be dead, if I hadn’t come to check on you when I did. You could’ve died from an overdose of pills, and we would’ve called it an accidental overdose or a suicide.”
I began to see the whole picture then, and it didn’t have roses coming up in it. “He wouldn’t have the guts to try this. Not on a police officer.”
“Yeah? Think again. And just wait till I get my hands on that sonofabitch. If he did something like this, I’ll have his license and make sure everybody in the United States knows he’s a fraud and a quack. And then I’ll beat the holy hell out of him.”
“If this’s true, which I still don’t believe, what could he have done to me?”
“Remember that movie I told you about, Claire, The Manchurian Candidate? There’s two of them, an old one with Frank Sinatra and a new remake; both concern brainwashing and hypnotism and making patients commit murder.”
“I haven’t seen them. Bud liked the new one, I remember. Denzel Washington’s in it, and he’s Bud’s favorite actor.”
“Damn it, Claire, forget Denzel Washington. This smacks of mind control, pure and simple. The Chinese have been researching this kind of stuff for decades.”
“The Chinese? That fits in with my case pretty good. My God, is that how they got Mikey to hang himself? And the girl in the oven, that could explain why she climbed inside like she did?”
“Yeah, true to all, maybe. They’ve been experimenting out there with all sorts of untested drug and light/sound therapies. It’s difficult, if not impossible
to do. It’s unlikely, but it’s the only explanation for what just happened. I’m more concerned about you and how this affects you. If he was able to control your mind, having you do something like this to yourself tonight, he might be able to make you do anything he wants.”
I frowned, still skeptical of the whole scenario. “I still can’t believe it. This could’ve been an accident. I might’ve just been sleepy and got mixed up. Can you prove he messed with my head?”
“I don’t know. I’m more concerned that you did these things and don’t remember and are trying to pass it off as something else. What if it happens again and I’m not around to stop you?”
I sat down, no glib answers for that one. “Come on, Black, this is all just a little too far-fetched to believe. You know good and well that nobody’s gonna hypnotize me without me knowing it. I was very careful not to stare at his light box too long. I wouldn’t fall for something like that.”
“About a third of the population is highly suggestible. You might fall into that group. Another third is fairly suggestible. Another is unlikely to go into a trance at all.”
“Trust me, I’m behind door three.”
“This is not funny.”
“I know.”
“There are whole shows in Las Vegas centered around this kind of thing. Entertainers who pick audience members out of the crowd and make them do stupid but harmless things. There’s a show in Branson that does that, too.”