Blood Dahlia - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries)

by Methos, Victor

  47

  Giovanni drove Sarah to Lancaster County. They hardly spoke at all. She wanted to tell him what she was feeling, what memories she was reliving right now, and what impact this would have on her. But she couldn’t bring herself to talk. And her mind was tightly closed—the one thing she knew for certain right now was that she didn’t want to see Star’s death.

  When they arrived and parked outside the home, the coroner’s people were hauling the bagged bodies and a few sheriff’s deputies were meandering around the property. Sarah sat and stared at the house for a long while. Long enough that Giovanni finally said, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

  “No, I want to.”

  He looked at the home. “How long has it been since you’ve been back?”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t been back.” She opened the door and stepped out, her eyes never leaving the house that she was born in. The house where she’d felt the greatest pain: her father withdrawing his love and telling her to leave.

  Giovanni followed her inside, and the deputies didn’t say anything. Even though she was just an assistant, she was one of them now, part of the brotherhood. They gave her the courtesy of silence without question.

  The home hadn’t changed. The furniture was the same, built to last a lifetime. The rugs, the curtains… even the dishes were the same ones she remembered from childhood. As she stepped across the living room to the two forensic techs bent over the living room rug, she felt tears on her cheeks again as she took in the two large bloodstains on it. One of the techs looked up at her, stared for a moment, and then turned back to what he was doing.

  She felt Giovanni behind her.

  “How did they die?” she asked the techs.

  One of them, the one who had stared at her, said, “You’re the sister, right?”

  She nodded.

  “They were… the same as the others.”

  Sarah’s hands came up to her face and covered her mouth and nose. The tears wouldn’t stop flowing. When she felt Giovanni’s hand on her shoulder, she instinctively pulled away. “I need to get out of here,” she gasped, turning around, and sprinting for the door.

  Before she was even outside, she saw him: a bear of a man in dirty pants and suspenders, his hair permanently sculpted by the hat he wore from sunup to sundown. Her father.

  “Daddy,” she whispered.

  He grimaced. “I thought,” he said quietly, “that by throwing you out of here the devil would leave us alone. But we were cursed, weren’t we? The day we had you was a curse.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, sobbing, “no, Daddy, don’t say that.”

  “You killed them… You killed them as surely as sticking the knife in them. You’re a damned monster.”

  “No,” her head slumped down. She didn’t have the strength to lift it. Everything he said was true. She was a monster, and her mother and sister were dead because of her. Everything that had happened to their family was because of her.

  She ran out of the house, past her father, and into the arms of darkness.

  Sarah ran until she couldn’t run anymore, until her heart was pounding and she tasted bile in her throat. The darkness here wasn’t like in the city. There were no street lamps to light her way, no car headlights giving her a brief flash of the road ahead. There was nothing but the dark, and the trees and the fields.

  Up ahead was a stream that ran right through the county and over into the next one. This was her place, where Sarah would come as a child and sit on the stones. She would dangle her feet in the ice-cold water and sometimes walk barefoot over the rocks that were slick with moss. The Amish frowned upon doctors, and people had to look for natural remedies. For foot injuries, Amish children would be brought to the stream and allowed to walk on the stones that would somehow take the swelling down and help with pain.

  Sarah collapsed next to the stream, crying uncontrollably now. Every memory she had of her sister raced through her mind. The first day of school, staying up late talking about boys, holding hands as they raced through the fields and chased rabbits. Encasing the memories, as if it were some horrible lens that she could never remove, was blood. Every memory was now painted with the blood of her family, who were dead because of her.

  She heard footsteps behind her and felt arms on her, lifting her off the ground and enveloping her. Though she couldn’t see him, she knew Giovanni’s scent, and she allowed herself to be held by him.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”

  “They died because of me, Giovanni. They’re dead because of me.”

  “Hey,” he said sternly, lifting her head so their eyes locked, “you did not do this. This is not your fault.”

  “Yes it is… if I hadn’t—if I hadn’t been the way I am, they never would’ve died. They’d still be alive.”

  “Look at me, Sarah,” he said calmly. “Sarah… look at me. This is not your fault. There are things in this world that we don’t understand and that throw us around. This is one of those things. It was out of your hands. Blaming yourself doesn’t help your family… It only helps him.”

  He said him with such venom that it shocked her out of her sobbing. And the only thought in her head was that he was still out there somewhere, watching, waiting, hunting. No one could stop him. He was too smart, too careful. Patience could win out over almost any other virtue. Sarah instinctively knew he didn’t need to kill. He wanted to kill. And because of that, he could wait until the perfect moment.

  That was when she realized something: they would never catch him.

  “We need you,” Giovanni said. “This guy…. We need you here. That thing inside you that’s unexplainable… we have to accept it, just like we have to accept the horrible things that happen to us. Because we don’t have a choice.”

  Sarah pulled away from him, forcing the sobs back; the tears slowed and then stopped. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. A decision had been made, though it wasn’t conscious. It was deep in her mind, radiating out of her guts and telling her it was the only way.

  She needed to open herself fully. To not hold anything back. To submit to whatever it was the universe had given her.

  She closed her eyes a moment and then said, “I need to go to the morgue.”

  48

  The morgue was just as awful to Sarah as the first time she’d been at one: fluorescent lighting, floors that made her shoes squeak, and a strong odor of cleaning supplies and what she thought was formaldehyde. A man in jeans and a T-shirt met them at the door. He had a turkey sandwich in one hand and a layer of mayonnaise caked on the sides of his mouth.

  “You here for the two Amish women?” he said.

  “Yes,” Rosen said sternly. “Her mother and sister.”

  “Oh. Sorry. No disrespect.”

  “Please, just take us to them,” Sarah said.

  They followed the man down the hall and to a room. The room was lined with sinks and tools around her mother’s and sister’s bodies on two metal gurneys. Blue sheets covered both of them, but somehow Sarah knew which was which.

  “I’d like to be alone, please,” she said.

  “Well, we ain’t supposed to leave anyone alone with the bodies. Even law enforcement. You know we had this deputy once who—”

  Rosen took out his cuffs. “You’re gonna get the hell outta the room, or I’ll arrest you for obstructing a federal investigation.”

  “Whoa, easy, man. I was just saying that’s policy. Shit, no need to get all crazy.”

  The man left, and Rosen said, “Take all the time you need.”

  When she was alone, she took a slow walk around the room, touching the tools and listening to her shoes on the linoleum floor. Once she’d circled the room, she stood at the feet of the bodies and pulled down the sheets.

  Her mother’s and sister’s bodies, yes, but neither had a face. Sarah didn’t flinch. She’d known to expect this. She closed her eyes and opened her mind.

>   Any thought that came to her, she let take hold. Anything and everything her mind wished to throw at her, she allowed. She saw fires, raging infernos that burned entire buildings. A crimson sky with rain so putrid it would make people gag. She saw floods and tornadoes, wars and men dying. But she focused herself on what was in front of her, drew herself in, and then opened her eyes.

  Her sister was sitting up. She was nude and breathing quickly. Sarah felt her eyes well up with tears again as she saw how frightened Star was.

  “Sarah?” she said. “Where am I?”

  Sarah held her hand. She felt the skin, the ridges of it, the fine detail. In some ways, it felt even more real than the hand of the living.

  “I’m sorry, Star. I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry for what? What’s happened?” Sarah didn’t respond, and Star shook her head. “No. No, please don’t tell me that. Please tell me this is just a dream. That I’m asleep right now in Ma and Pa’s house.”

  Sarah squeezed her hand. “Who did this to you, Star? Who came to the house?”

  “Where—where am I? What’s gonna happen to me, Sarah?”

  “You’ll find peace eventually, sweetheart.” Sarah wanted to throw her arms around her sister and cry, but she resisted the urge. It would help neither of them. “I have to stop this man. Tell me what you saw.”

  “He… he came to the house askin’ for you. Askin’ all sorts of questions about what you were like as a child. And then he—he took out this knife, Sarah. He took out this knife, and I tried to run, but he stuck it in my chest and I couldn’t breathe. And he made me watch while he took mama and…”

  “It’s okay. Shh, it’s okay.”

  “I am… am I… am I dead, Sarah?”

  Sarah looked down at the floor. “Yes.”

  Her sister sat quietly a long time, and Sarah held her hand. Neither spoke or moved. The only sound in the room was the soft hum of the fluorescent lighting.

  “Do you know what happens now?” Star asked.

  “No. Sometimes I can see you for a long time, and sometimes you cross over. I don’t know how. It just happens.”

  “So you was tellin’ the truth, weren’t you? That you can talk to the dead?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “And no one believed you.”

  “Pa believed me. That’s why he threw me out.”

  “And he wasn’t the same, ever. He was always sad after that. Always hated himself for it. He thought about goin’ out and findin’ you, but people would talk him out of it. He never stopped loving you, Sarah.”

  Sarah wiped away her tears again and tried to appear strong for her sister’s sake. “What else can you tell me about the man that did this?”

  “I don’t know nothin’. I don’t know why he was there, and he never said his name.”

  Sarah nodded. “Okay. That’s okay. You rest now, sweetheart. You get some good rest.”

  Sarah jolted awake. Her mother and sister lay lifeless on the metal gurneys. She realized her eyes had been closed the entire time, though she was holding her sister’s hand.

  The sheets felt cold in her hands as she pulled them back over the bodies. She bent down before pulling her sister’s all the way and kissed her head. “I’m sorry, baby. Find peace now.”

  Sarah stayed with her sister for awhile before taking a deep breath and backing away. She was going to leave, and then a thought hit her. Not a thought really, a feeling. That she was going to have to do something she didn’t imagine she would ever do.

  She stopped at the counter and picked up a scalpel. She placed it in her back pocket, looked at her sister and mother one more time, and then left.

  Rosen and Giovanni were waiting for her in the hallway. Sarah walked past them and toward the exit without saying a word. She didn’t want to be in this building any longer.

  Once outside, she put her hands on her knees and just breathed, letting the cool night air fill her lungs to capacity before slowly pushing it out again. She stood straight and looked at the men who were anxiously waiting for her to say something. “The first victim, Michelle Anand. I want to go to her grave.”

  Rosen nodded. “I’ll take you there.”

  Mount Hope Cemetery was one of the largest cemeteries in Pennsylvania, with a little red chapel on the grounds and elaborate headstones as far as Sarah could see in this light. Rosen had called ahead and gotten one of the junior agents to pick up the groundskeeper and bring him here to pinpoint Michelle Anand’s grave.

  The groundskeeper was leaning against the fence when Rosen pulled up. He opened the gates for them, and they drove through, down to the red chapel, about in the middle of the cemetery. Rosen left the car on, soft chamber music coming through his speakers, as they waited for the groundskeeper.

  When he arrived, they got out. “Thanks for coming out on short notice,” Rosen said.

  “Didn’t sound like I had a choice.”

  “Not really.”

  The groundskeeper shrugged. “No biggie.” He pulled something up on an iPad. “Which grave you need again?”

  “Michelle Zullie Anand.”

  The man tapped a few times on the iPad and then said, “She’s over here, not too far. We can walk.”

  As they followed the man, Giovanni held her hand. He didn’t say anything or ask what she had seen at the morgue—which was good, because she was on the verge of breaking down and crying right there, and talking about seeing her sister that way would’ve pushed her over.

  The grave had a large headstone with flowers by it. Sarah pulled away from Giovanni and stood in front of it. She bent down then, watched the grave a moment, and then thrust her hands into the dirt.

  A small shock of electricity went through her, and she closed her eyes.

  When she opened her eyes, Michelle Anand was sitting down against her headstone.

  “I didn’t think I would die like this,” she said. “I thought I would grow old. With a husband.”

  Sarah was silent a moment. “Sometimes that just isn’t in the cards.”

  Michelle nodded. “I don’t know if you can stop him. He’s too smart.”

  “I can stop him. But not without your help.”

  Michelle looked up at the stars and then down again at her grave. She ran her fingers over the dirt, a move that should’ve left traces in the ground, but nothing happened. “I saw my mother today,” Michelle said. “I was screaming at her that I was right there. That I was all right and I was right there with her. But she couldn’t hear me. How can you hear me?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Will you do something for me? Will you tell my mother that I’m all right and that she doesn’t need to be sad anymore?”

  “I will. Michelle, who did this to you?”

  “He called himself Professor Davies, but I know that wasn’t his real name.”

  “Last time I saw you, you were wearing a Penn State sweatshirt. Is that where he’s a professor?”

  She nodded. “He has another girl picked out.”

  “I’ll stop him before he gets her.”

  “The other girl is you.”

  Sarah was silent a long time and then stood up. The pain was intense, and she could feel her nose bleeding again. She simply wiped it away and said, “Not if I get him first.”

  49

  As Wolfgram walked onto the university campus early in the morning, he was struck by just how antiquated Penn State really was. Some of the buildings were so run-down they looked like they could fall over any second. But there was grandeur to it, too—something about linking with the past that Wolfgram found pleasant.

  His Introduction to Differential Equations class began at 7:30 a.m., and it was a timeslot he preferred. That early in the morning, mathematics was the last thing the students wanted to think about, but every once in a while, there would be a student who would be genuinely interested in the subject matter, even that early. Someone like himself, who found comfort and wonderment in numbers. Those were
the students that Wolfgram taught for, and those were the students that he ended up wanting to be close to.

  As he rounded a corner into the quad on his way to grab a cup of coffee from a cart set up in the student building, he saw something that made him stop in his tracks. He wasn’t one to be startled, and so, other than stopping, he had no physical reaction to what he saw.

  Sarah King and several men in black suits were speaking with someone whom Wolfgram recognized as the dean of undergraduate studies.

  He jumped back and hid around the corner. Without a weapon, he was vulnerable. He leaned back around the corner and watched the dean speaking to them before leading them through the quad to the administration building.

  Wolfgram had been fascinated with psychic phenomena as a curiosity. But now that he saw it, saw what it had brought on him, he thought Sarah King was an even bigger monster than he was. He looked around, unsure what to do for the first time that he could remember. Something akin to panic had taken hold.

  He glanced back once more at Sarah and watched her walk into the building and disappear with the other men. Then he dropped his satchel with his notes and ran—he wouldn’t be needing them anymore.

  50

  The morning had been spent at the Penn State campus. Sarah had led them to Professor Daniel Davies. He was an associate professor of mathematics, someone the dean of the college of science had informed her was well on his way to becoming one of the top mathematicians in the country.

  “You sure this is him?” Rosen had asked.

  When Sarah had seen his photo on the campus website, she knew it was him. She saw him again, nude and in a dark basement, a terrified girl chained to his wall. The image caused her pain, but she’d found that she could ignore it. “Yes, that’s him.”

  “Well,” the dean said, “he should be in class right now.”

  When they had gone to the classroom in the mathematics building, they found a group of students sitting and chatting or playing on their phones.