Lost Souls

by Kelley Armstrong

When he finished, she said, "So this seemingly bright professional, who has not completely lost his marbles, actually calls the cops and says he picked up a disappearing hitchhiker? That is weird."

  Gabriel exhaled. "There's more. Patrick compiled--"

  "Patrick?"

  "He's the one who brought this to my attention. For book research, apparently."

  "Patrick brought this to you."

  Olivia's tone hardened. She had issues with Patrick, ones that Gabriel couldn't quite comprehend. She didn't appreciate the fact that they'd had to uncover the secrets of Cainsville--the truth about the fae--on their own. Of the elders, though, she blamed Patrick the most. Perhaps because he'd been the most outwardly helpful. She'd trusted Patrick, and he'd betrayed that trust, and really, after dealing with Gabriel, she had quite enough betrayals and not nearly enough trustworthy allies.

  "He's been stopping by ever since I left, hasn't he?" she said.

  "Yes, and I realize he brought me this case because it provides an excuse to get to know me better. Wriggling into my good graces. Which would be so much more productive if I had any."

  She sputtered a laugh at that, and he could imagine her relaxing.

  "True enough," she said. "So, in the meantime, if he's intent on currying favor, you might as well fleece him for it. I presume he's paying for this research?"

  "Silly question."

  That got a real laugh from her, and now he relaxed.

  Gabriel continued, "He's paying me to investigate an intriguing case, one that provides a break from the rather dull caseload we're dealing with."

  "Fair enough."

  "And you'll be home in a couple of days, so if you find it interesting..."

  "It is definitely weird."

  "Weird good? Or just weird?"

  She chuckled. "Weird is always good."

  The last bit of tension drained from his shoulders. "Then, if you have a moment, I'd like to get your opinion on one particular bit of weirdness."

  "Go for it."

  "I'm sending a photo. Let me know when you have it."

  A moment later, she said, "Tire tracks through thick brush. Is that where he drove?"

  "It is. The road curved, and Lambert kept going. Driving a luxury SUV."

  "Make and model?"

  He told her, and she said, "Yikes. That baby is not made for off-roading. Especially through that brush. I'd hate to see his vehicle."

  "It's quite scratched, according to the report."

  "I hope you didn't drive the Jag in there."

  "Certainly not. The question is, why did he drive in here? How did he? I can understand missing the turn, given the darkness and the rural setting, but he drove through a hundred feet of brush without realizing he'd left the road."

  "Yeah, that's not possible. I've done off-roading. I remember hearing the suspension hitting the ground and the trees scraping the sides. Vehicular sadism. On a car like that, it should be a criminal offense."

  "And from what you're suggesting, 'I didn't notice' would not be a viable line of defense."

  "Not unless you could manage to convince a jury that it was still raining. Like a torrential downpour. Or that there was a nearby airfield that covered the sound."

  "There isn't. It's the same time of evening, and it sounds like this..." He held out the phone.

  "Yeah, no defense there. Is it possible he fell asleep at the wheel?"

  "My research suggests this particular vehicle is equipped with features that should have alerted him if that happened. While they could malfunction, that would mean not only a technical failure but a man who slept through a very rough ride while dreaming that he picked up a hitchhiker. And, given that the only reason he left the highway was to drop her off, and then he drove almost an hour from there..."

  "That's a whole new level of sleepwalking."

  "Also, that hour itself is interesting. His passenger claimed her friend lived only a few miles off the regional highway. Yet, while he said it seemed farther, he was shocked to realize he'd gone nearly thirty miles. He did say that at one point, while tracking the odometer, he seemed to have traveled twelve miles in a few minutes and thought he must have mistaken the initial reading."

  "Time lapse, then. Which is more commonly something people report with alien encounters." She paused. "Really hope this isn't aliens."

  "There's no such thing as aliens. Or ghosts. Or fairies."

  "Don't we wish. I'm drawing the line at aliens, though. I do think I've heard of time distortion in ghost stories. Not that I'm jumping to that conclusion yet. What else have you got?"

  He told her what Patrick had uncovered: a pattern of similar reports in the region, stretching back for decades. Gabriel didn't have details. As eager as Patrick had been to provide the stories, Gabriel wanted facts, which he would use to find commonalities and connections before he dug deeper.

  The facts were this: in the past fifty years, twenty-three people had reported picking up a hitchhiking "woman in white." That meant twenty-three had filed a police report or gone to the newspapers with their story. Online, Patrick had found many more who'd claimed to have seen the woman or knew a "friend of a friend" who had. Most of those could be dismissed as attention-seeking. Even some of the actual reports could be dismissed on the same basis. That still left a sizable number.

  The dates were also of interest. Seven reports had been made in the last two years, meaning almost one-third fell within four percent of the time frame.

  "Which does not mean increased occurrences," he said to Olivia. "It's more likely increased awareness. Reports causing more people to step forward."

  "Who are either making false reports or are emboldened by the others and coming forward to give their stories. That doesn't explain this Lambert guy--he reported it right away, didn't he?"

  "Yes. He walked until he had cell service and called the police."

  "Which is weird. Especially when you had cell service in the same spot. I suppose it could be a different provider but... Still seems weird. Are you going to talk to him?"

  "I am."

  "Anything you'd like me to do?"

  Just come home.

  "Nothing that will delay your return, as I know Don needs Ricky back. The case will be here for you, if you want it."

  FOUR

  GABRIEL

  After his call with Olivia, Gabriel took a moment.

  Take a moment.

  A favorite phrase of his, as Olivia had discovered. When a client started to become overwrought--as they were wont to do when facing life in prison--he would tell them to take a moment. He used to say the same to Olivia in her moments of emotional turmoil.

  Take a moment.

  Clients appreciated this, a gesture of kindness and consideration from a man who seemed incapable of either. Proof that Gabriel was not nearly as cold and detached as he appeared.

  Olivia knew better. She'd figured it out from the start.

  Do me a favor? Erase those words from your vocabulary. At least with me.

  "Take a moment" wasn't a thoughtful invitation but an impatient "get it over with." Work past this inconvenient emotional turmoil so we may return to the business at hand.

  Right now, Gabriel was taking a moment, not to recover emotional equilibrium, but to enjoy the recovery of it. Olivia was pleased with the case. She was heading home. She seemed happy about that, ready to start work without hesitation.

  He'd feared that in her two weeks away, she would decide not to return to work for him. She could easily go back to waiting tables at the Cainsville diner, and in a few months, her twenty-fifth birthday would bring a multimillion-dollar trust fund from her adoptive family. She didn't need the job he'd given her.

  And it's not as if she'd have any reason to regret taking it...

  Gabriel rolled his shoulders, sloughing off that damnable voice. Gwynn's voice. An unwanted reminder of so many things. Particularly unwelcome when it spoke the truth. After Gabriel's spat with Olivia--

  Spat? I
s that what you'd call it?

  All right, after he betrayed Olivia's trust--again--he'd told her not to come into work. That had been petty. Bratty, even. Selfish and immature, exercising control in the only way he could.

  I am displeased, and so I will hold your job hostage.

  The job you love.

  The job you don't actually need.

  Misplayed. Terribly and shamefully misplayed. He'd let his emotions run roughshod over his common sense. Unforgivable.

  Take a moment.

  Good advice, even for someone who did not normally suffer from emotional turmoil. No, especially for someone who didn't normally suffer from it...and therefore lacked the tools to deal with it.

  Gabriel leaned back against a tree and closed his eyes to recover his equilibrium.

  Olivia was fine. She was happy with the case. She was coming home.

  Listing the positives. The reassurances. An old remedy to cure old anxieties, ones that didn't stay as firmly in the past as he'd like. It'd been over a decade since he'd left the streets, yet he would still lie in bed, waking from a memory, and mentally list his security blankets.

  Gun taped under the dresser. Knife under the drawer. Cash under the bed.

  I have enough money. I have enough food. I am big enough and strong enough and successful enough that no one and nothing can threaten me.

  His mind tripped back to a time when his security blankets had been far more threadbare, worked threadbare by him constantly sorting them in his mind, pulling them out to remind himself that his situation was not as dire as it seemed.

  A hundred dollars in my shoe. Another thirty in my pocket. Two dented cans of stew and three of Coke in my backpack. A school to attend. No one there is suspicious. I'm just another quiet student, keeps to himself, his mother sick at home. A good student who doesn't cause trouble, so there's no need to dig deeper and discover he doesn't have a home, doesn't have a mother. Not anymore, which is just as well.

  Yes, add that to the list of positives.

  Seanna is gone.

  "Are you lost?" The voice sounds in his memory, and Gabriel surfaces in it, the closest he ever comes to dreaming: replaying old memories.

  This memory came from a time not long after Seanna disappeared. A time when Gabriel had begun to realize her departure was not as positive as it seemed. At least with Seanna around, he'd had shelter. Now the landlord had figured out rent wasn't forthcoming...nor were the sexual favors his mother often paid in exchange.

  It'd also been growing harder to fool Rose. Gabriel had been taking taxis to Cainsville--saying Seanna dropped him off on Main Street--but that cost far too much to do often, and when he called with excuses, Rose got suspicious.

  He'd held out until school ended for the summer. Then he took off. Now he needed to find a place where he could squat long term, so he could re-enroll in a new school for September. Searching for a place made him realize how unprepared he really was. Weak, soft, sheltered even.

  However bad things had gotten with Seanna, he'd never spent more than a night or two on his own, staying in a house where the occupants had gone on vacation and not bothered with more than rudimentary security. But he couldn't expect to find a house left vacant for months. Nor could he pickpocket enough to rent a room. As for just accepting transiency and quitting school, that wasn't an option. Seanna had stolen enough from him. She wasn't taking his future.

  What Gabriel needed was a neighborhood with enough bolt-holes that he could rotate among them. Searching for that, though, proved how ill-equipped he was. Like a boy from the countryside thinking rural life prepared him for a year in the Alaskan wilderness. He'd been wandering from neighborhood to neighborhood, losing track of landmarks as night fell and--

  "Are you lost?" the voice asked again.

  A woman stepped from the ruined doorway of the empty building he'd been picking through.

  "No," he said. "I'm fine."

  "You seem lost."

  She was young, perhaps in her early twenties. Light brown hair worn long and loose. Dressed in a blouse and long skirt. No visible purse or pockets, which meant she'd make a poor target for his light fingers.

  "Are you lost?" she repeated.

  He pulled himself upright. He was tall for his age, skinny but learning to compensate for that through bulky clothing, a broad stance and squared shoulders. He surreptitiously knocked mortar dust from his sweater.

  "I am conducting an examination of local architecture as a summer project," he said. "This is an excellent example of the period."

  Her lips twitched. "That sounds very proper. All grown up, are you, boy?"

  He tensed at the lilting mockery in her voice. Her phrasing seemed odd coming from someone so young. The kind of thing an old man might say. Well, don't you speak all fancy, boy.

  Gabriel's diction was one of the few things for which he could thank Seanna. She might not even have graduated high school herself, but she'd had no patience with baby talk. He'd also discovered an advantage to speaking above his age: it elevated him above his station as well. Like a chimney sweep with an Oxford accent. He might have a drug-addled part-time prostitute, full-time con artist for a mother, but he didn't sound as if he did.

  "If this is your building, I apologize," he said. "I'll leave now."

  "And where will you go?" she said as he headed for the door. "Where will you stay?"

  He hoped he didn't look too surprised at that. He had never been recognized as a street kid before. He had a rough look to him, but he overcame it with careful attention to dress and posture and grooming.

  "I will go home, of course. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

  Her lips curved, a smile somewhere between pity and mockery, and he wasn't sure which jabbed harder. He fixed her with a steady gaze. That usually did it--people found his eyes unsettling. Too pale a blue. Spooky, kids said, when they thought he couldn't hear them.

  The woman only looked him straight in the eye and said, "Oh my, you are lost, aren't you?"

  "You are mistaken," he said and brushed past her.

  As he headed through the building, she followed, saying, "I'm sorry if I offended you, child."

  Child? That was even worse than boy.

  "I only want to help you find your way," she continued.

  "I know my way, thank you."

  "Do you?"

  Yes, he did. Seanna's disappearance required a slight detour in his life's plan, but it changed nothing. He would adapt. He would persevere. High school. College. Law school. Success.

  Money. Security. Peace.

  "I know my way," he said again.

  "Is it the right way?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you certain?"

  He turned and fixed her with that look again. "Quite certain, and while I appreciate your concern--"

  She touched his arm, and he jumped. An instinctive reaction to being touched, one that he'd learned to overcome. Failing now proved his agitation.

  Go. Just go now.

  "Let me show you the way out," she said.

  "It's right there." He nodded toward a broken window.

  "I can show you a better way. Put you on the right track."

  He let out a snort that made her give a start. "Oh, now I see."

  "See what?"

  "Child services? Social worker? Or is it religion? I do hope it's not religion. That's passe. Please tell me it's a cult. I have always wanted to be recruited by a cult."

  She stared as if he'd begun speaking in tongues. Again, nothing new. Sarcasm, he'd learned, was not something people expected from him. He just didn't seem the type.

  "What are you?" she asked.

  "A teenage boy who is not nearly as gullible as you seem to think. Whatever you are selling, I do not wish to purchase. Find easier prey."

  With that, he'd walked off. Walked more quickly than he'd liked. More unsettled than he'd liked, and while he told himself he'd been right--she was some social worker, some religious do-gooder--his sixth sense for
trouble kept his feet moving as fast as they'd take him, out of that building and onto the next city bus, heading for parts unknown. Away from her. That was all that mattered.

  Are you lost?

  Gabriel started awake, his feet scrabbling against the ground as he narrowly avoided landing flat on his ass. Which was what happened when one drifted off to sleep while leaning on a tree. He blinked and gave himself a shake.

  You're lost.

  The voice seemed to echo from his memory, leaching into the real world, and he growled under his breath as he straightened.

  He looked around. Was there anything else he needed to do here? He'd examined the tire tracks, which proved that Lambert had driven his SUV through thick brush before getting stuck--

  Yes, getting stuck.

  You're lost.

  Gabriel pushed his mind back on course. Not as simple as it usually was. Even as he bent to examine the end of the tracks, he kept hearing that voice from his past, prodding at him.

  Yes, yes, I understand. Lambert got himself lost. It is a poor analogy. Poor indeed.

  He took photographs of the tire treads and then poked at them to determine some rough measurement of depth. A couple of inches? No sign that Lambert had struck anything that made the SUV stop. Simply wet ground, and if his all-wheel drive had left him mired in two inches of mud, he ought to demand a refund on the option.

  Lambert had postulated a malfunctioning system, but the police report said his mechanic found no sign of that. The car had simply gotten stuck. In two inches of mud.

  Gabriel looked around. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of movement to his left and spun, his eyes narrowing against the darkness.

  It was night now. A check of his phone said an hour had passed.

  Lambert mentioned time shifts.

  No, Gabriel had fallen asleep. Standing up. While his teen years meant he'd perfected the ability to sleep anywhere, that did seem extreme.

  He squinted into the night. Again, he caught a glimmer of movement just beyond his field of vision, making him spin and--

  A pale figure darted through the trees.

  "Who's there?" he said.

  His voice echoed in the silence. He strode forward and pushed aside a bush to see a pale birch tree, the branches and leaves waving in the breeze.

  He shook his head and started to turn back.

  You're lost.

  Gabriel squeezed the bridge of his nose. A soft sigh echoed through the night. He didn't even look up. The wind in the trees. A white birch in the shadows. A voice from his past. All adding up to nothing more than his own nerves, which was, yes, unnerving. Not like him at all. He felt unsettled.