Cassandra (Scruples Book 2)

by Ditter Kellen

  The emergency line lit up seconds later, and Michelle took a deep breath in anticipation of what was to come. “Walton County 911. Do you need police, fire, or ambulance?”

  “Hello?”

  “Yes? What’s your emergency?”

  “You can hear me?” a distant voice asked in obvious surprise.

  “Barely. Can you speak up?”

  There was a long pause. “A small child is trapped in one of the burning houses at Westwind.”

  Michelle’s heart squeezed with anxiety. “I’m sorry, sir. I can hardly hear you. Did you say a small child is trapped in one of the houses that is on fire?”

  The masculine voice began to fade, sounding as if he stood a great distance from his phone. “Tell them to hurry.”

  “Can I get your name?” Michelle asked as she continued typing instructions for the other dispatchers to pass on to the firefighters on scene. “Hello? Sir?”

  Silence.

  Michelle glanced over at Kristin, noticing her face had turned white. She watched with bated breath as the other dispatcher conversed with the chief on duty about the possible child in danger.

  “He didn’t say, sir. All we managed to get from the caller was a trapped child in one of the burning houses in the subdivision, and then his phone disconnected. I don’t know, sir. Stand by and I’ll find out.” Kristin looked back at Michelle. “Did you try calling him back?”

  Michelle was currently doing that very thing. “I’m trying, but there is no log of his call.”

  “There has to be,” Kristin cried. “Check again.”

  “I am checking again, but it’s not there, I tell you. I’ve gone back into the log thirty minutes just in case there was a glitch or something, but it’s not there.”

  Kris brought the receiver back to her mouth. “I’m sorry, sir. Yes, we’ll keep looking, and I’ll also have Marsha pull the tapes.”

  “I don’t understand how it could have just disappeared like that,” Michelle whispered, scrolling through the calls once again. “I just talked to him, Kris.”

  The red emergency light lit up once again, and Michelle quickly pressed the call button. “Walton County—”

  “I got her out. She’s lying in the backyard under a copse of trees. Hurry, she’s barely alive.”

  “Can you yell out to one of the firefighters there, sir?” She was met with silence once again.

  Jumping to her feet, Michelle recited the caller’s words verbatim, ending with, “He said she’s barely alive.”

  Kristin passed on the information to Chief Colbert before turning back to Michelle. “How did he know she was in there? Better yet, how did he get to her without being seen by any of our guys? Why not just tell one of the firefighters which house she was in?”

  “I have no idea.” Michelle pinched the bridge of her nose and picked up a landline. “Marsha? Can you come in here, please?”

  “Let me guess,” Kristin added. “His number didn’t show once again?”

  Michelle only shook her head. She’d checked the second the call came in. “Not even an unknown caller showed up on the log. It was just blank as if it never happened.”

  Marsha barreled through her office door and into dispatch. “What’s going on?”

  “I received two separate calls from the same man about a small child in a structure fire in Freeport,” Michelle rushed out. “I’ve gone back and looked several times, and there is no number associated with that call.”

  “Not even an unknown number notification shows up on the caller ID,” Kristin finished for her.

  “So you didn’t get a name?” Marsha glanced at all the faces in the room before stopping her gaze on Michelle.

  “He didn’t give a name. He said—”

  “Medic five to Walton Control,” the radio interrupted.

  “Michelle leaned forward and pressed the green key. “Go ahead, medic five.”

  “Launch Careflight. I repeat, launch Careflight. The landing zone will be set up in the parking lot of the elementary school.” He rattled off the coordinates. “We have a six-year-old female suffering from smoke inhalation and third degree burns on both legs. Copy?”

  “Control copies.” Michelle repeated back the landing zone coordinates as well as the patient information.

  Kristin moved to the console reserved for the air ambulance and sent out the tones for the flight crew. After logging their takeoff time, she remained in her seat to follow the flight coordinates until they could arrive safely on the ground. “How did your caller get inside that house and rescue the child without being noticed? Better yet, why would he rush in there with all the firefighters on scene?”

  Michelle turned toward Kris, understanding completely where her co-worker’s thoughts were. “I wish I knew. I’ve never had this sort of thing happen in all the years that I’ve been working here. You heard the call come in, right?”

  Kris just stared back at her before dropping her gaze and turning back to her console to answer the radio traffic.

  Marsha spun toward her office. “Give me half an hour, and I’ll have the tapes pulled. I’m sure S.O. will be requesting them shortly anyhow.”

  “What makes you think the sheriff’s office would want a copy of the call?” Michelle called out to Marsha’s retreating back.

  The supervisor stopped inside her door and glanced back over her shoulder. “Like the rest of us, they will want to know why he would disappear after moving the child to safety and why his call didn’t show up in our CAD either time.”

  “Do you think he may have had something to do with the fires?” Michelle couldn’t wrap her mind around something so heinous.

  “Who knows,” Marsha quipped. “Anything is possible. All I can tell you is that I think it’s awfully suspicious that he knew she was in there but didn’t approach any of the crew on scene. Instead he calls 911 and runs inside the house himself, saves the little girl before dumping her body in the backyard and not in an ambulance. Sure sounds strange to me.” She softly closed the door behind her.

  As much as Michelle hated to admit it, she knew Marsha spoke the truth. Everything the man had done thus far had been weird. And the fact that his number had mysteriously vanished was even more perplexing.

  * * * *

  Utah Baines gritted his teeth as the world around him spun out of control. He braced himself against the side of a building, waiting for the agony to recede and the screams to stop.

  He had been experiencing the unnatural wailing almost daily for the past three years. Saving a life seemed to be his one reprieve from the nightmare…the only time the cries stopped haunting him.

  The pain gradually faded along with the screams, allowing him to breathe again. His legs buckled beneath him, and he slid to the ground in relief.

  She could hear him. The woman who’d answered his 911 call had heard his voice. But how was that possible? He’d been dead for three years now, and no one had ever responded to him, no matter how hard he’d tried. Until her…

  He honestly hadn’t thought it would be possible to connect with a person’s mind from such a distance, especially since rescuing the victims always drained him of precious energy. But he’d connected with her.

  Utah had always been taught that upon dying, a soul left the body to travel to its forever home. So why hadn’t his? He seemed to be trapped inside his skin, wearing the same clothes and reeking of the same smoke he’d inhaled on the day he’d died.

  And why couldn’t he see other dead people? Was he destined to remain in his current form, lost and alone for eternity?

  A vision of his younger sister suddenly took shape behind his eyes. She’d been gone for eight years, and the pain of her disappearance haunted him still.

  Leanne Baines had been listed as a runaway for months before Nolan Delaney, a homicide detective from Bay County, Florida, discovered evidence that tied Leanne’s case to several other missing girls in the area.

  After years of investigating the disappearances of more tha
n twenty-three women, Delaney hadn’t found a single body until an unidentified female washed ashore on the Choctawhatchee Bay only weeks before the fire that had claimed Utah’s life.

  Extensive DNA testing had identified Jane Doe as Cara Perez, Leanne’s best friend and the girl she happened to be with the day she’d vanished all those years ago.

  Utah abruptly stood. He couldn’t allow his mind to linger on his sister, not in his weakened state.

  He slowly pushed off from the wall and staggered toward the one place he could find solitude…the shipyard. Something about the water felt serene and harmonic. Perhaps the murky shoreline would be the only place he would ever find peace in his nightmare of an afterlife.

  He threw his head back and cried, “Why have you forsaken me?” The silence that followed was deafening. As with all the times before, he wasn’t really expecting an answer.

  Utah had been taught from an early age that when a person died, their soul either went to heaven or hell. Not someplace in between where you wandered the earth aimlessly, cold and alone. His body shivered in response to his thoughts. No matter how many fires he continued to run into or how many bodies he saved, he could never seem to feel warm.

  It stopped the screams though, he numbly admitted to himself. He’d take the cold any day over the endless screams, the soul-wrenching cries for help.

  Enigma: What Lies Beneath

  Available on Amazon

  Prologue

  “Abbie, wait.”

  Henry’s voice could barely be heard over the thundering of waves crashing in the distance.

  An endless stream of tears streaked down Abbie’s face as great, racking sobs seized her small body. Pain welled up from her chest until it became impossible to breathe. Still, she ran.

  Her father’s shouts faded with every step she took until they disappeared altogether.

  Branches grabbed at her arms like the bony fingers of a thousand skeletons, cutting into her skin. She welcomed the sting of every scratch; anything to relieve the pain in her heart.

  Her mother’s cold, pale face burned behind her eyes, frozen and empty. Gone were the laugh lines, the sparkle…the life.

  Abbie couldn’t bear to see her mother lying in a box for hundreds of people to pass by and say words over. She might be only seven, but she was old enough to know it meant goodbye. A coffin, they’d called it. Resting place. Final.

  A wail wrenched from her small chest. It ricocheted off the trees, scattering birds in different directions. She’d give anything to have wings in that moment, to fly away and never look back.

  Abbie burst onto the beach without slowing. Her little legs ate up the sand as she ran straight for the water.

  Memories of swimming with her mother lit through her mind in sorrowful detail. The laughter, splashing around and exploring the unknown.

  A storm was coming, but she didn’t care. She needed to feel her mother’s presence, to beg God to give her back.

  “Abbie, do you know why the ocean is salty? It’s all the tears God cries when someone passes away.”

  “Mama, what does ‘passes away’ mean?”

  “Well, it means when people die, they leave this earth to become angels.”

  “If they get to be angels, then why does God cry?”

  “For the ones that are left behind who will miss them after they’re gone.”

  Abbie sailed headlong into the waves with her sights on the second sandbar. She would swim out as far as she could to be sure her prayers were heard. If God cried enough to create an ocean, maybe He would take pity on her and give back her mother.

  The weight of her skirt wrapping around her legs made it hard to move in the churning water. She used her arms to pull herself along in a rowing motion until the current became too strong, forcing her to dive under and swim. Her eyes stung from the salt, but she held them open while memories of her mother’s voice whispered through her mind.

  “Abbie, did you know that dolphins can communicate with humans?”

  “What is commu… Commu—”

  “It means talk to them.”

  “Have you ever talked to a dolphin?

  “I sure have.”

  “Really? What did he say?”

  “He said for me to tell my daughter to stop peeing in the water where his kids play.”

  Her mother’s tinkering laughter echoed through her heart as she fought the tide in search of the sandbar.

  Abbie’s arms eventually grew weary and her lungs began to burn, leaving her no choice but to kick her way up for air.

  Her head broke the surface to a wall of water so high it blocked out the sun. She opened her mouth to scream a second before a powerful wave crashed down on top of her, taking her back under.

  Her body spun head over heels along the gulf floor, leaving her powerless to stop the undertow. Panic gripped her as sand scraped her face, entering her mouth and eyes. The need to breathe became too strong, and Abbie gave up the fight. Pain. Darkness.

  * * * *

  Cold. Abbie felt chilled to her bones. Her chest burned, and something was caught in her throat. A spasm gripped her, and she heaved.

  A voice she didn’t recognize. She screamed for someone to help her, to remove the heaviness from her neck.

  Something slid along her arms to her hands. Tingling warmth. Heat spread out from her palms through her stomach and legs. The shivering stopped.

  “Salutem.” The strange word came from a deep voice above her. Was she dead?

  She slowly lifted her heavy lids and stared up into the brilliant green gaze of a teenage boy. His eyes were a color she’d never seen before, resembling a few of the marbles she’d been recently collecting.

  “God?” she wheezed.

  He cocked his head to the side as if he didn’t understand.

  She tried to lift her arm, but he held it down. His hands were covering hers, palm to palm. He tilted his head to the other side, and more tingling heat pulsed through her skin. The pain in her chest receded.

  The boy peered down at her in open curiosity, similar to the way she’d seen her dog do when he spotted an insect crawling through the grass.

  “Who are you?” Abbie whispered, realizing the boy had saved her life.

  He glanced up at something in the distance before returning his gaze to her once again. She wondered if maybe he didn’t speak English, and pulled one of her hands free of his to point at herself. “Abbie.”

  “Abbie,” he repeated in a strange accent.

  “Yes.” She touched her finger to his chest. “And your name?”

  Shouts could be heard over the crashing of the waves, and the boy suddenly stilled. Abbie watched in wonder as he sprang away from her and dove into the water.

  She pushed up onto her elbows in time to see him swim out toward the sandbar with the speed of a dolphin before disappearing from view altogether.

  “No, wait.” She rose to her knees at the edge of the gulf. Her gaze flew over every wave of the rolling water, but there was no sign of her angel. Fear gripped her, and she forced herself forward. She had to find him.

  “Abbie!” Her father’s terrified voice shouted in the distance. “Abbie, sweetheart, don’t move! Daddy’s coming.”

  How could the boy stay under the water so long? she wondered, searching the sandbar and beyond for signs of her angel.

  Henry was suddenly there, scooping her up into his arms. “Somebody call 911.”

  “Daddy, we have to help him.” Abbie tried to wriggle free, but he only held on tighter.

  “Help who, sweetie?”

  “The boy.”

  Her father turned in a half circle, scanning the beach without slowing his steps. “What boy?”

  “The one who pulled me out of the water.”

  “There’s no one there, honey. And don’t ever scare me like that again.”

  He began to run toward the dunes where a small crowd flocked in their direction with cell phones in hand.

  “Is she all right
?” an older woman with bright red lipstick yelled as she stumbled along the sand. But Abbie was no longer listening.

  She twisted her head around, frantically searching for the boy who had magically disappeared in the great pool of God’s tears.

  Chapter one

  Twenty-five years later

  “You really should eat better, young lady. Your mother would have my ass if she were alive to see some of the dreadful things you consume.”

  Abbie hid a smile at her father’s scolding. “I’m thirty-two years old, Henry. I doubt she would go all June Cleaver on me.”

  “You shouldn’t call me Henry, you little brat. It makes me sound old and boring.”

  “If the toupee fits.” They both laughed a moment before falling into a comfortable silence.

  Abbie’s mother had died from cancer twenty-five years earlier, and Henry had never remarried. He hid his loneliness behind a mask of indifference and immersed himself wholly in his work.

  Being the lead epidemiologist for Winchester Industries had become Henry’s proverbial crutch, and he spent entirely too much time alone at the lab.

  Abbie worried about him constantly and planned evenings such as the one they had tonight to spend quality time together. It didn’t always work. She knew he saw her mother every time he looked into his daughter’s eyes. The exact replica of the only woman he’d ever loved.

  The trill of a phone broke the silence, and her father excused himself to take the call.

  Work, no doubt, Abbie thought, taking a bite of the burger she’d just made to her liking.

  He reappeared a moment later with a guilty look in his eyes. “That was the lab, honey. They need me to come in.”

  “What could be so important that it can’t wait until morning?”

  He avoided her gaze. “I’m not sure, but I’ll call you later. Don’t wait up. It’s going to be a late night.”

  Something in his voice kicked her curiosity up a notch. He never could hide things well, and the whole no eye contact? Yeah, he was definitely keeping something from her.