Colony 04 - Wicked Ways

by Jackson, Lisa

  “Oh, my God . . . oh, my God . . . oh, my God . . .” the mother was saying over and over again, cradling her son and rocking him in her arms.

  Get out.

  Elizabeth stepped toward the door next to the shattered window. A crowd had gathered outside under a sky fraught with dark clouds and softly falling rain. A police car jerked to a stop and an officer stepped out. A woman. Officer Maya.

  She saw Elizabeth the same moment Elizabeth saw her. “You were here when this happened?” Maya asked, surprised.

  Elizabeth looked for her partner, DeFazio, but the officer was alone.

  “He just accelerated,” a man nearby said, catching Maya’s attention. “Goddamn. I think he hit the gas instead of the brake.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” a young woman with short red hair agreed. “That’s what he did.”

  A chorus of voices followed, echoing the sentiment. Elizabeth moved away.

  Get out. Get away. Get to your daughter.

  She slipped away and walked rapidly across the parking lot back to the burger spot. She would have broken into a run except that it would have called too much attention to her. She was still thirty feet away from Lots Of Beef when Chloe burst outside and ran to her, heedless of anything but her mother’s arms.

  Elizabeth scooped her up and Chloe pressed her face into her mother’s neck.

  “What happened? What happened?” Tara babbled. She’d come outside with Chloe and was standing with a growing number of other patrons who’d heard the crash and slowly worked their way outside. Bibi was clutched to her side.

  “An accident. I heard it happening,” Elizabeth said.

  “How?” Tara asked, wide-eyed.

  “They think this elderly man hit the accelerator instead of the brakes,” she said, ignoring the question.

  At that moment, an ambulance pulled up outside Uncle Vito’s and two EMTs jumped out.

  “My God,” Tara said.

  “I wanna go home,” Chloe said on a gulp. Tears threatened.

  Elizabeth said to Tara, “I owe you for dinner.”

  “God, no. Forget it.” Tara suddenly reached over and hugged Elizabeth and Chloe. “I’m so glad you’re safe. When you ran out like that . . . and then we heard the crash . . .”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I was scared. I just saw what was happening, and I had to get there.”

  “I thought you heard it.”

  “I did. I heard it.” Elizabeth clasped Chloe’s hand. “Thank you. So scary. We’ve gotta go.”

  Tara nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Us, too.”

  “I’ll call you.” Elizabeth didn’t have to tell Chloe to hurry as her daughter was practically dragging her away toward their car.

  Chloe climbed into her seat and buckled herself in. “Mommy, I’m scared.”

  Elizabeth could feel herself trembling as she adjusted her own seat belt and switched on the ignition. “We’re okay.”

  “But that man in the car . . . he’s going to die, isn’t he?”

  Elizabeth gazed at her sharply. “Not necessarily.”

  “He is,” Chloe said, a hitch in her voice. “I saw it, Mommy. I saw it. . . .”

  An hour and a half later, Elizabeth lay beside her daughter in Chloe’s twin bed, her arms around her, her cheek resting on Chloe’s blond crown as her daughter fell into a deep sleep. It was early, but Chloe had gone straight to bed, which said a lot about her frame of mind. Elizabeth stared through the soft darkness that was kept at bay by the night-light.

  For years, she’d managed to stop the visions of pending danger by keeping a tight rein on her own emotions. At least, that’s what she believed. She could get mad, but not too mad, scared but not too scared, frustrated, but not too frustrated. It was something she’d learned as a child, a way to combat the strange sensations that had overwhelmed and frightened her, and it had worked most of the time.

  But when she’d seen the footbridge collapse, she hadn’t yet learned to hide her ability. She hadn’t realized how people would react. She hadn’t known they didn’t possess the same ability, so she’d shouted and shouted about it. No one listened until it actually fell, but when it did, her father and mother looked at her closely in a way that frightened her. She overheard them talking.

  “Who are her parents?” her mother had demanded in a quivering voice. “We didn’t ask enough questions.”

  “You’re making too much of this,” her father had answered, but Elizabeth heard the awe and concern in his voice.

  Her father started questioning her, and then he wanted her to do it again . . . to predict something, anything. That had sent her mother over the edge and the fights between them escalated until her mother moved out and left them. She made a half-hearted attempt to take Elizabeth with her, but Elizabeth didn’t want to leave her school and truthfully, Joy Gaines seemed just as happy to leave her.

  Her father had wanted her with him, seeing some get-rich-quick scheme with his psychic daughter, but she never saw another vision, as far as he knew. He grew impatient with her. His money-making scheme had gone up in smoke and she’d sensed that he’d grown to resent her. Whether he knew that she’d purposely started hiding her reactions to such visions, she couldn’t say, but he definitely lost interest in her as a person . . . if he’d ever really had any.

  She’d stayed with him because she didn’t know what else to do, and even through community college and the last two years at UC Irvine, she’d kept in touch with him. But after that they drifted apart. He didn’t want her unless she was special, and she didn’t want him.

  Court wooing her with no knowledge of her past had been like throwing a lifeline to a drowning person. She’d loved him for it. Or at least thought she had. She wondered if it had been more gratitude than love, but it didn’t matter. Their union had produced Chloe and as soon as she was born, everything had been better. Court had wanted to meet her father, and though Elizabeth had been reluctant, she’d made the effort. But the two men hadn’t liked each other.

  Takes one to know one, she thought.

  Elizabeth hadn’t had a vision throughout most of her marriage and she’d begun to think she was cured of the ability. But then Little Nate had nearly fallen off the jungle gym and she hadn’t been able to sit by and let that happen. Jade had known Elizabeth couldn’t have seen Nate falling from her angle of vision, especially seconds before it happened, and had mentioned it in front of their friends. But Elizabeth had brushed it off and everyone thought Jade was making too much of it.

  All was well again, but then the deaths started occurring. And now the car through the restaurant . . .

  Slowly, Elizabeth removed her arm from beneath Chloe’s sleeping form and eased herself from her bed. She tiptoed out of the room and paused in the doorway, looking at her for long moments.

  But that man . . . he’s going to die, isn’t he? He is. I saw it, Mommy . . . I saw it. . . .

  She sees things, too, Elizabeth thought, her arms prickling with gooseflesh.

  Knock, knock, knock!

  Elizabeth gasped and her heart lurched. The sharp staccato sound made her damn near jump a foot. It came from her front door. Someone was on her porch. A hand at her chest, she glanced at the kitchen clock and saw it was only a little after eight. God, it seemed like a year since the accident at the restaurant and she and Chloe had raced home.

  She walked quickly toward the door before they could knock again and peered through the peephole. Her heart lurched in fear. Detective Thronson stood on her front porch again. For a moment, Elizabeth thought about not opening the door, but she had a feeling Thronson knew she was home. Being cowardly wasn’t going to help. She would just be putting off the inevitable.

  Drawing a deep breath and exhaling it slowly, she flipped on the outside light and opened the door a crack, blocking entry to her house with her body. No more playing nice with the police. She had Chloe to consider, and she didn’t trust this detective or any of the police, for that matter. They were trying to force the facts to fit the s
upposed crime rather than the other way around.

  “Yes?” Elizabeth said, schooling her expression though her pulse was pounding in her ears.

  “You don’t want me to come in.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “My daughter’s asleep. I want to keep her that way. Whatever you have to say, just say it.”

  “I talked with Officer Maya. You saw her at the restaurant accident this evening.”

  Elizabeth hung onto the edge of the door with a death grip. “That’s what this is about?” she asked, hearing how squeaky her voice sounded. She’d suspected that it was. The people in the restaurant were bound to give her away and Officer Maya had recognized her. “Not the polygraph test?”

  “No. Officer Maya interviewed a couple who say you saved their son and them from injury, maybe death, by your quick response.”

  “I just saw the car coming, that’s all.” She had to bite her tongue not to say more, some kind of explanation that would just backfire and incriminate her.

  “Before anyone else saw it.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Before the car was in sight, according to a dozen eyewitnesses.”

  “I’ve heard eyewitnesses are the worst at recall.” Elizabeth could feel hysterical laughter bubbling up and held it back with an effort.

  “Sometimes they’re incredibly accurate.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. . . .”

  “Why don’t you start with the truth? You know something about all of this. I don’t know what it could be, but I’ve been around a long time, and I know when people are lying or covering up, and I think you’re doing a little bit of both.”

  “I just saw the car coming. I heard it.”

  The detective stared at her. “What happened to your husband?” she asked, changing direction.

  “I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t on that freeway. . . .”

  “You know something. Something you’re not saying.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Tell me what you know,” the detective suddenly urged. “Get it off your chest.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me,” Elizabeth said on a half laugh. “You wouldn’t.” She could feel herself cracking apart, wanting to confess, needing to let it all out.

  “Try me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Just say it.”

  “I wished them dead, okay? All of them. Court . . . and Mazie . . . and even that officer that gave me the speeding ticket. Daniels. I was angry at all of them, and I wished them dead. And now they’re gone. They are dead.”

  Thronson was staring at her, her expression unreadable.

  “And that’s not all,” Elizabeth whispered, her legs feeling like jelly. “GoodGuy. He cut me off in traffic and flipped me off and it infuriated me and . . . and I . . . wanted to kill him. Just drive him off the road.”

  “Good guy?” the detective asked carefully.

  “His name is Channing Renfro. I didn’t know it at the time. His license plate is GoodGuy.”

  A deep line grooved between Thronson’s brows. “You’re talking about the homicide at Fitness Now!? You’re saying that was you?”

  “God, no. I just wished it! All of it! Do you understand? I wish things, and they happen!”

  Detective Thronson stood up straight and rested her hand on the butt of her gun. She stood frozen for several moments, apparently unsure quite how to proceed.

  The hysteria that had been building inside Elizabeth finally spilled over and she bent forward and started to laugh. Great, sobbing gulps of crazed mirth that she knew would dissolve into tears eventually. She was dizzy with exhaustion. She didn’t give a damn what the detective thought, or Jade, or anyone else who knew the truth from here on out. She was glad she’d said it. Glad.

  It took several minutes before she pulled herself together, and it was only the thought of Chloe and what she would think if she should awaken and find her lunatic mother losing it. Straightening, she heaved a deep sigh and faced the detective wearily. “So arrest me if you will, if wishful thinking is a crime.”

  “You’re saying you did not cause your husband’s death, but you—”

  “Wished it. Yes. And Mazie’s accident. And I didn’t shoot Officer Daniels, but it wasn’t long after our court date that he was shot and killed.”

  Thronson was clearly nonplussed. “To be clear, you feel responsible for these deaths, but you didn’t actually act on them. That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you saw the car coming at the restaurant, or heard it, even though no one else did.”

  “Yes. I knew it was going to hit.”

  “You say your daughter is asleep?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “So, you’re not going anywhere tonight.”

  “Detective Thronson, if you want to arrest me, you’re just going to have to do it. Otherwise this conversation is over. I’ve told you the truth about what I know and what I feel, and I know it sounds crazy, but there it is. That’s all. That’s all there is. I’m sorry Court’s dead. I’m sorry they’re all dead. I don’t know how it’s my fault, but it kinda feels like it is, even though I did nothing to hurt them.”

  “Except wish them dead,” the detective repeated slowly.

  Elizabeth nodded. “That’s right.”

  Thronson was clearly having a very tough time with everything Elizabeth had said, and why not? When she heard the words escape her lips she knew how crazy they sounded.

  “I’m going to leave you,” Thronson said. “I’d like to do that polygraph test soon. Maybe tomorrow. I’ll put it together and call you.”

  Elizabeth lifted a hand and let it drop. She felt as tired as if she’d run a complete marathon.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” the detective warned as if she thought Elizabeth was suddenly a flight risk. “Or, I’ll find you and I will arrest you—on suspicion of homicide.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Thronson slowly turned away from the door, and then seemed to hesitate a moment, looking back, but she finally stepped down the porch stairs and crossed the road to her black Chevy Trailblazer.

  Elizabeth closed the door and hesitated a moment herself, then she headed for the wine rack and a bottle of chardonnay.

  Dear Elizabeth, my love,

  I watched you tonight. I saw what you can do! You are amazing and so beautiful. Are you receiving my mental messages? I’m sending them to you. Concentrating. I know you can hear me. Should I send this pile of missives so that you know how I feel? I love you so much I ache inside. We’re connected, you and I. Almost like family except my emotions run so much deeper than that. Desire . . . yes. I’m consumed with it, but there’s a spirituality between us, the kind that exists only through purest souls. Soon the unveiling will happen and we will be transcended.

  My love . . . I don’t deserve you and yet, there is no one like me for you. We have always belonged together . . . always.

  Chapter 24

  Rex and Ravinia headed back to the Brightside Apartments about ten the next morning. Ravinia had been up and ready to go at the crack of dawn, but Rex explained that ten was a more civilized time for making interviews, especially with little old ladies like Marlena, the one person who seemed to remember the elusive Ralph Gaines.

  They were seated on a sagging floral couch, next to each other, the old lady across the room in her chair, a La-Z-Boy with worn arms and headrest that she must’ve owned since sometime in the previous century.

  Though Rex had watched Ravinia in action following Kim Cochran at the Ivy and again at Casa del Mar, and he’d been impressed at how fast she’d found out the information from Mrs. Holcomb at Wembley Grade School, he couldn’t bring himself to really think of her as an investigator. How could he? She was only nineteen and her experiences in the world were practically nil. Still, she hadn’t been made yet. No one had found her out. And well, she got results.

  He certainly wasn’t planning on brin
ging her into his company. If he wanted a young woman as a sort of business partner, he already had Bonnie, which wasn’t all that comforting a thought, the more he considered it.

  As he observed Ravinia speaking with Marlena, he had to admit the kid had a knack for digging out information. People either didn’t notice her—she could make herself blend into the surroundings—or if they did spy her, they didn’t find her intimidating. Her refreshing directness coupled with her youth was somehow nonthreatening.

  Ravinia handed Marlena a small red box of special truffles they’d purchased at a See’s store on the way—her idea. The elderly woman accepted the unexpected gift of chocolates readily, sliding the slim box to a side table next to a lamp and a worn copy of the Bible. She made no indication that she planned to open the gift or share any of its contents.

  Yep, the ploy was masterful.

  Ravinia started in on her lie. “It’s just that our family has become so splintered,” she was saying, holding Marlena’s attention in the airless room. In a long-sleeved T-shirt, jeans, and boots, without a speck of makeup, Ravinia appeared younger, fresher, and more ingenuous than she had in her tight dress and short heels when she’d followed Kim Cochran.

  “It’s a bad thing,” the older woman was agreeing. “All these families splitting up the way they do nowadays.” She reached to the table, her fingers touching the worn, leather-bound Bible. “A sin, if you ask me.”

  Ravinia nodded. Her blond braid moving gently between her shoulder blades, she leaned forward as if rapt. “That’s why it’s so important I find Elizabeth. For my family.” She actually blinked as if she were on the verge of tearing up and Rex had to cough into his fist to hide a smile. “My mother is very upset by it. I don’t know how many candles she’s lit.” Bald-faced lies tripped off her tongue so easily.

  Marlena hitched her chin toward Ravinia, but spoke to Rex. “She’s your client. Right?” This fact had already been established, but obviously the older woman didn’t completely trust that Rex had been honest with her. “You shoulda brought her with you the other day.”

  “He shoulda,” Ravinia agreed. “I came down from Oregon and hired Mr. Kingston to help me find Elizabeth.”