by J. K. Zimmer
“All right, man in the moon, you’re going to be my guiding light tonight,” he whispered, stepping off the road to start his walk down through the wet, waist-high grass. Halfway through, Kevin realized the grass served as a natural camouflage before he reached the line of tall trees behind the garden area that served as a second barrier. He slipped in among the tangled mess of vines, a thin barbed branch catching his cheek and ripping at his skin.
“There goes the flawless face,” he said as he wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand. He lowered his body as he worked his way to the wall. Kevin stopped. “What stinks?” He looked down at his boots. They were covered in a grayish muck. A rotting animal stench rose around him, stinging his eyes and nose with each step he took. “Hope this crap doesn’t make me sick,” he muttered. Then déjà vu hit. He remembered what Theresa had read to him from the diary. It was about the outer places. The gardens and beyond. He scanned the area. That’s where he was right now. Anya had said that the stench came from decaying vegetation. She had used it as a vivid description of death. Kevin struggled to raise his boot. It gave way, making a deep sucking sound. His gag reflex kicked in. Funny, he’d never considered himself to be the squeamish type, but this mess was testing what his stomach was really made of.
His thoughts turned to Sophie as he stood behind a thicket of bushes. He could see his breath as he exhaled. His eyes didn’t move for several minutes, fixed on what could be the front doors of the castle. She had been behind those doors just a short time ago. He needed to act. His detective mind had been engaged on the mission at hand for the past twenty-four hours. Now all he could think about was Sophie in the hands of Gipson, of all men. He had hoped the department’s suspicion of his former partner was false, but things were looking pretty bleak for the detective. And then there was Smith—that psycho with the anger issues toward women. He rubbed his eyes, not wanting to jump to conclusions.
Kevin shook his head. Concentrate, stay on top of your game, he thought. He immediately dismissed the negative thoughts running through his head and stepped carefully through the barbed branches into a dimly lit courtyard. “Talk about naked,” he said out loud as he pulled his gun, keeping it close to his body. He ran quickly and slipped through the open front doors, not moving a muscle except for the rise and fall of his chest. “No greeting party?” He stood quietly a few seconds longer. ”Good, lucky break number three,” he whispered. Kevin immediately thought of Anya’s bedroom. In the diary, she had described it as being at the top of the stairs and on the left. That would’ve been the first place Sophie would have gone. He gripped the rail. Something moved under his boot, making a cracking noise. Kevin slowly bent down, moving his foot slightly. It was Sophie’s phone, obviously destroyed before his boot finished the job. It was broken into several pieces, the crystal shattered. Someone intentionally broke it, he thought as he tucked the pieces into his pocket.
Kevin looked up the long staircase again, more determined than he’d been seconds ago to find some answers. “I hope you had your intellect on high power tonight, Sophie. I need a clue or something.” He pulled in a long breath. “Where did Smith take you?”
He doubled the steps and opened the bedroom door. The room was dimly lit by three small lamps; two mounted about eight feet up on one wall and one sitting on a dresser near the mirror. His eyes traveled to a large set of windows where the breeze filled the long silky drapes, forcing them to billow into the room. Sophie had stood near the open window. He knew it without even thinking. She loved the seasonal breezes, and he loved the way it tossed her hair about and put her in a playful mood. Kevin moved to the opened window and scanned the garden. “She looked out here,” he breathed. “But what did she see?” Hopefully nothing, he thought as he started to turn from the window. Just then, his eyes caught something far to his right. He squinted. “What’s that?” He leaned over the windowsill. Something glimmered in the moonlight. It appeared to be tread marks on the blacktop. He pulled a small pair of binoculars from his side pocket and focused in. He was right. The ground was damp, damp enough to leave tire tracks. He gave the room one last look then hurried down the stairs. Quickly surveying the outer grounds, he ran to examine the tracks. They were definitely left by a small car and at a high rate of speed. The car had headed north from the castle. There was a second set of tracks, too. “Those had better be yours, Taylor,” Kevin said, hoping the young FBI agent knew what he was doing. He tracked his way back through the grass to his car and headed north.
Chapter Eighteen
Kevin
Sophie woke to throbbing pain between her eyes and up her forehead. Instinctively, she reached to touch her head, hoping for relief. She felt only a matted mass of hair. She lowered her hand and squinted in an attempt to focus, to see what was on her fingers. She couldn’t. Her eyes were too swollen to see. But she didn’t need to see to know that it was blood on her fingertips.
Sophie shut her eyes, leaning forward to steady herself. The last thing she remembered was Professor Smith pushing her into the car and a needle prick to her arm. She cupped her hands to her ears. “This is insane. It hurts so badly,” she groaned. The pain was so intense that every part of her body hurt, and on top of that, the room was spinning and her stomach was making its way up into her throat. Where am I? she thought, moving her legs so they fell to the side of the bed. Sophie slowly stood. She turned her head, trying to make out objects in the room. It seemed somehow familiar, but how? She stretched her arm out, reaching for the door handle. Locked? Why was she locked in a bedroom? What was going on? She leaned against the door, trying to navigate through the thick fog in her head.
Subdued voices came to her from the hall.
“She’s probably still asleep. I gave her a full vial of Ketamine. It hit her harder than I’ve ever seen in anyone else. She fell against the window, mumbled something, and was out.”
“Good, she won’t remember how she got here then.”
Got here? Where was she, and who were those people? She steadied herself, pressing her ear tightly to the door and trying to process the voices. No luck, her head was too thick with pain. She staggered back to the bed. “Kevin, you told me to be careful,” she said, lying back, knees tucked tightly to her chest. She buried her face deep into a pillow. “I guess I didn’t listen, did I?” Her words were muffled as tears escaped her eyes.
***
Gates’ phone vibrated in his pocket. Finally, a call. “Taylor, do you have Sophie?” he demanded, pulling the car to a hard stop on the side of the road.
“No, I lost ’em. Smith outgunned me.”
Kevin gave the steering wheel a solid blow with his hand, his pulse racing at top speed. The line got quiet as he tried to think.
“Gates, are you still there?”
He took in a breath and exhaled. “Taylor, where are you right now?”
“I’m along a county road about fifteen minutes north of Goregoo Castle. Do you have any idea at all where they may have taken her?”
Kevin turned his head and looked out the window, his neck settling back on the headrest. “Not a clue, Taylor,” he said, eyes pinned on the moon. “I was just at the Castle Goregoo. All I found was Sophie’s smashed phone and an open window. I think she may have seen something she wasn’t supposed to see.”
“Gates, we need to head back into town and conference this with the guys in charge. We’ll have a chance to look at a map, maybe get an idea where they might be hiding her.”
Kevin closed his eyes, experiencing emotions foreign to his seasoned FBI mind. What had happened to his better judgment? The girl had done more than get under his skin. She had taken root in his brain. “I’ll meet you at Folks Pub.”
Just a few miles away from Kevin, Taylor put his car back in gear.
“Got that, Gates,” Taylor said, pulling into a driveway. His headlights swept across a small sign. The Regal Castle—New Hope for the Mentally Impaired. “Huh, must be something new,” he breathed, backing the car up
to turn around. He looked again. “Maybe not,” he thought out loud. This was unfamiliar territory, so what did he know about what was old or new?
Taylor and Gates met for the first time, deciding on a booth near the fireplace for privacy. They scoured maps, read landmarks, road numbers, anything that may signal a break in the case.
“Taylor, that extra help you referred to, when can we expect it?”
“Any time now. I texted a message to New York as soon as we hit the road back into town. Our cyber link should be online. It’s activated by a call from the communications office, so we’ll wait until they show.”
Kevin leaned back in his chair, “Great, more waiting. There’s nothing on this table that we haven’t seen before, Taylor. None of this is making sense to me.”
The light on Taylor’s phone blinked, signaling an incoming call. He touched the speakerphone. “Taylor here.”
“Taylor, we’re ready to connect the visual communication link. Push the go button on your phone.” Within seconds, the detectives in Dool could see and hear A. J. and his team in New York City.
“Gentlemen,” A. J. said. “I want you to concentrate specifically on the northern part of the province. Give my team any information that is unfamiliar to you, and they’ll check the data and relay updates and suggestions back. Now do we know what Smith was driving?
“Yes, sir,” Taylor said, looking over at his partner. Gates had a disengaged look on his face. He was a million miles away.
“What about Gipson? What type of vehicle was he in?”
“Not sure on that, sir. When I saw him, he was on foot. I didn’t see him get in a car.”
“Could he be holed up at Goregoo Castle?” A. J. asked.
“Highly unlikely, sir. The castle is privately owned, and Smith rented it only for the evening,” Taylor said, waving his hand near Gate’s face, trying to get him to look at a note he had scribbled on a napkin. “Gates, pay attention,” Taylor whispered, poking him with his pen.
Gates nodded with closed eyes, continuing to make plans in his mind for Sophie’s rescue. The last thing Kevin wanted to do was sit in on a conference call when he should be out doing something, anything.
“Hey,” Taylor said in a quiet voice.
Kevin opened his eyes to a napkin in his face. “We’re going to Sophie’s cottage when we’re done with this, so pay attention!”
Kevin met Taylor’s determined look. His heart picked up a couple extra beats. The kid had an idea. He could see it. The guy wasn’t only the best looking thing on the force, but he was smarter than average, too. Good thing they were on the same team. They were going to need every brain cell they had to help with this case. Especially now that one of their sharpest agents was officially a suspect.
***
“So what’s your plan, Taylor?” Kevin asked, trying the front door handle.
“First thing, we need to get into Sophie’s cottage without making it look like we broke in,” Taylor said as he examined the doorjamb.
“It’s too tight to get in without destroying it, Taylor.”
“I thought you big city boys knew how to do this. Guess not,” he said, flashing a smile that would have most women at his feet. Taylor turned the corner, pulling a screwdriver out of his pocket. He went to a window, removed three screws, and lowered the top window pane to the ground. He pushed the bottom one up, climbed in, and opened the front door. “Ah, nothing broken, and no bills to send to the agency,” he said, stepping aside for his partner to enter.
“Nice work, Taylor,” Kevin said, flipping on the light. They were standing in the kitchen. Kevin looked around as Taylor started going through the rest of the cottage, room by room. Normal economy-size kitchen, Kevin thought, as he assessed the brightly colored walls of green and yellow and some very outdated flowered wallpaper in the dining area. He stopped as his eyes caught hold of something in the next room. It was a pale yellow robe, draped over an easy chair near a picture window. He touched it, lifting it to his face, closing his eyes. It smelled of Sophie’s perfume. He buried his face, desperately wishing she were in that robe right now. His eyes circled the room. Everything about this place cried out her name. It was perfect for her. She belonged here. Stop thinking about her, he told himself firmly. You don’t have time to wrap your mind around her.
Kevin returned the robe to its resting place and started back to the kitchen. Standing near the table, he began to shuffle through the small piles of paper that Sophie had arranged neatly in three stacks. “What’s this?” he asked, exposing a thin book that had been lying under the third pile.
Taylor entered the kitchen from the back porch. “So what’d you say we were looking for?” Kevin asked, knowing the answer could be in his hand. He opened the book. It was Sophie’s personal journal.
“We’re looking for stuff.”
Kevin’s brows lifted, “Stuff? What do you mean by stuff?”
“I’ve read Ms. Hanes’ profile,” he said, looking out the small window above the sink. “She’s a smart woman.” He hesitated. “But then again, she’s been dating you, so I do question her common sense.” He waited for a retort from Gates.
Kevin gave a quick laugh. “Nice try, but keep your hands off her,” he said, thumbing through the journal.
Taylor continued. “Kevin, the talk I had with her earlier suggests that—”
Kevin looked up from the journal. Taylor had a comfortable but serious look on his face.
“Gates, she really is something,” Taylor stopped. “Too nice to still be single,” he said. “I expected more of a sassy, sophisticated American image, but she’s not that at all. In fact, she didn’t talk about herself or what she does for a living the entire time we were together,” he said, sounding a little wistful. “You know, Gates, I don’t even think she knows how beautiful she is. There doesn’t seem to be a vain bone in her body.”
“Hey, Taylor, stick to the facts,” Kevin said. “She’s spoken for, remember?”
Taylor flashed a glance Kevin’s way. “She talked a lot about the diary she found with the language from my country. Gaelic. I also noticed that the diary was listed in her profile as the main reason for her visit to Dool.” He sat on the edge of the kitchen table, his voice as serious as the look on his face. “Earlier, when Sophie talked about the book, I got a strong impression that there was something more, someone she’d made a connection with in that diary. Do you know who it would have been?”
“Yeah, there are a lot of characters, but Anya was the one she was drawn to.”
“We need to find that diary, Gates. That’s the kind of stuff we’re here for. I need to look at that book.”
They searched through Sophie’s belongings one more time, trying not to disturb the way she’d left them.
“It’s not here. She must have it with her,” Kevin said, thumbing through the last of the papers in her carry-on bag. “I don’t have the original, but I have a translated copy if you think that’ll help,” he offered, glancing at Taylor as he gave Sophie’s bedroom one last look.
“I’d really like to have the original, you know, just to make sure Smith didn’t add anything or misinterpret the language.” Taylor checked his watch. “There’s nothing here. Let’s get going. We can start with your translated copy. That is, if you’re ready to pull an all-nighter. Do American guys in their thirties need more sleep than Irish guys in their twenties?” Taylor asked, a wide grin emerging on his face.
Gates laughed. “You’re on, boy,” he said, looking around one last time.
“I’ll put the pane back in the window, and you make sure everything is shut off in here,” Taylor said, stepping outside and disappearing around the corner of the cottage.
Kevin still had Sophie’s journal in his hand as he shut and locked the front door. He ran his hand over the cover, opening it to the last entry.
“I know now that you are real, Three, but I’m not wanting to admit it. You have asked me to believe without doubt. Even though I cannot see you wi
th my eyes, I hear your words in my ears. I have taken great pains in denying that you could guide or direct me, a mere spirit. You could have been real for Anya, even if only in her mind, but not for me, not in my mind. But today I give in to you, Three, for what length of time I’m not sure. So you must align me to yourself as I experience things that are foreign to me, just as Anya experienced things she knew little of. Help me in my fear. And when I doubt you, know that I don’t really doubt. Or do I?”
Kevin turned the page.
“You said you would send good people on my good path. Good people? I thought Trey was good. He was on my path, Three. I didn’t expect to be deserted by him. And now Kevin is in my life. Could he be the good one for me? I think I’ve grown to love him, but I’m unable to tell him. Is it more doubt that separates my mind from my words? He will not be on my path here. So if I am to trust you, then you will send someone else. I will trust you in this as well. You sent Olivia to Anya. There must be someone for me.”
His face bunched in fear as his mind filled with emotions that were hard to contain. “What’s going on, Sophie?” came quietly from his lips. He closed his eyes, fighting the thought of losing her. “I’ve got to find you,” he whispered, tucking the diary into his jacket.
***
Taylor stretched long and hard and rubbed his eyes, trying to fight sleep. He tossed the interpreted diary onto the table. “This book reads like a vicious tragedy, Gates. It’s hard to imagine this Sean guy would use his own sister as a prostitute to become wealthy, not to mention for revenge against his own father.”