Jackie nodded. “Me too.” She wiped her suddenly tear-filled eyes. “I guess this is a test. Master wants you to convince him.”
“But how?”
“You need to convince him he’s dead. Master said that when he arrives, he will try to convince you that both you and he are still alive, and try to take you through the portal. If you do—” She stopped.
“What?”
Jackie looked at her. “If you go through the portal without permission, you will be torn limb from limb, over and over, for eternity.” Her voice cracked. “At least here there is no physical pain. I-I don’t think I could take that.”
Sarah shook her head. “But what if I can’t convince him?”
“If he goes through the portal, he will suffer unbearable pain for eternity.”
Bile filled her mouth as she pictured Frank in agony.
“But what if I can’t?”
Jackie smiled, reaching behind her back. “If all else fails”—her hand came from behind her back and Sarah gasped—“you use this.”
Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as she shook her head. “No, no, I can’t.”
“You must.”
Sarah continued to shake her head, but she knew the woman was right. It’s the only way. A sense of calm swept over her. She had the power. The power to save him, to save the man she loved from an eternity of agony.
Aynslee watched as the new NYPD tech, Bryan, attacked the keyboard. It didn’t take long before he had what he was looking for, but unlike Frank, he didn’t seem willing to share anything. She watched, frustrated, as video after video displayed, each quickly replaced by the next, as he made notes on another screen, hiding them each time.
“Whoa.”
She leaned in. “What?”
Bryan looked at her then back at the screen. “Umm, nothing.”
“Come on, how about a little quid pro quo here? We’re letting you use our equipment so you can bend a few rules and possibly save some lives. The least you can do is let me know what ‘whoa’ means.”
Bryan frowned, then pointed at the screen. It appeared to be some sort of directory listing. “What about it?”
“We’ve been looking at files in this directory”—he pointed at one of the cryptically named folders—“all of which seem to be related to the case we’re currently working on.”
“And?”
“Woah!” This time it was Reggie.
“What?” Aynslee was getting frustrated.
Bryan pointed at the other directories. “I just managed to access the root of their system, something I don’t think they expected us to be able to do.” He pointed at a folder and clicked on it. “Some of these directories contain videos as well. He clicked on a file and it opened a video, showing what appeared to be the same long room Sarah was held in. But this time, it was definitely not Sarah. This one had a much slimmer, but still naked, woman.
“Oh my God, you mean there’s more than one victim?”
Bryan nodded, closing the video and pointing at the directory listing. “And not only that, look at the date.”
Aynslee leaned forward and gasped. “That’s two years ago!”
“It gets worse.” A few clicks and they were looking at the list of directories again, along with the dates they were created.
“Worse how?”
He pointed at the first directory.
“They go back ten years.”
“Hey, Shakes, Walker here, I don’t think we’re going to get much until morning.”
Shakespeare looked at his watch. 3 a.m. “Yeah, you’re right. What’s the status?”
“We’ve got calls into every voice mail in the area where we could see cameras that might have a shot of the phone booth, but almost nobody is open here.”
“Okay, you two get some sleep then follow up in the morning. I think tomorrow is going to be non-stop craziness.”
“Okay, Shakes, but remember, you need some sleep too.”
Shakespeare yawned as if on cue. “Yeah, tell me about it. Okay, goodnight.”
He ended the call as he pulled into the NYU Public Safety parking lot. It looked deserted. He turned off the engine and climbed out, shivering as the cool air snapped at his body. They better be here. He went up to the door and found it locked. To the right there was a buzzer. He pressed it. After a few moments, he heard a burst of static then a voice. “Security.”
He leaned into the speaker. “NYPD, Detective Shakespeare, I’m expected.”
“Come on in.”
A buzzer sounded and he pushed the door open. He walked into the empty office, looking about, but found no one. Something tweaked in the back of his mind. The door. He turned around, not having heard the door close behind him, and found a young woman standing there, tears on her face.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, then paused. Tears gushed and she shook her head. “No, I’m not okay.”
Immediately Shakespeare assumed rape. It was a university campus after all. A young girl thinks she’s going out with a nice guy, one thing leads to another, she thinks he’ll listen when she says they’ve gone far enough, and testosterone combined with alcohol and a libido that demands to be talked about publicly with his friends, takes over. Minutes later it’s rape, and she’s usually too scared or embarrassed to come forward, blaming herself for putting herself in the situation.
He showed her his badge. “Maybe I can help. Did somebody hurt you?”
She shook her head. Denial?
“It’s not me, it’s my roommate. She’s missing.”
“Not you again!” Shakespeare spun toward the voice, finding a short, rotund woman glaring at the girl, her ruddy cheeks flaring even more. “I thought I told you there was nothing we could do before forty-eight hours?”
The girl nodded and turned toward the door. Shakespeare held up a finger. “Wait for me. I want to talk to you before you leave, but I need to talk to security first.”
The girl’s head bobbed up and down, a look of hope spreading across her face as her eyes opened wider and a slight smile tried to break through. She looked about and found a chair. Sitting down, she pulled her knees up and hugged them, her flip flop covered feet now on the seat.
“Detective Shakespeare? I’m Officer Stewart. Follow me.” He followed the woman down the hall and into an enclosed office. She closed the door and waddled around her desk, dropping into the seat that creaked in protest. “That girl has been there all damned day. She won’t go away.”
“What’s the story?”
“Claims her roommate went out to meet someone yesterday, never came back this morning. Happens a thousand times a week, but most don’t bother phoning us for a couple of days. Usually ends up the roommate met a guy, or forgot to tell someone they were visiting the parents for the weekend. You know, innocent stuff.”
“She seems pretty upset.”
“They all do.”
Shakespeare nodded. “I suppose.” He clapped his hands against his legs. “So, what have you got for me?”
“What do you mean?”
Shakespeare frowned. “I called ahead about several students here?”
Stewart shrugged her shoulders. “Hey, I just got on shift. The outgoing shift said you were coming at some point tonight, that’s all I got.”
Shakespeare sighed. He hated dealing with amateurs. “Okay, I need everything you have on three students: Angela Henwood, Jackie St. Jean and Samantha Alders.”
“Why?”
Shakespeare flushed with a burst of anger. “Because two are dead, and one is missing,” he said curtly.
The woman bristled, leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Have a warrant?”
Perhaps a little too curtly.
“There’s no time for a warrant. We have a kidnap victim who we believe could be killed at any moment.”
“That may be, but there are privacy laws that I can’t just break. I could lose my job.”
“She could lose her life!”
Shakespeare shook his head in frustration. “But I was talking to somebody earlier who said they’d give me the information. Scott Powell.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, his shift is over and now I’m the night supervisor, and no rules get broken on my watch.”
Shakespeare sprang up, his heart pounding, face flushed. He leaned on her desk and glared at her. “If this kid dies because of your delay, it’s on your conscience.” He stood up and headed for the door. “And hug your kids as often as you can, lady, because someday, somebody might make the same decision you just did, and they may die.”
He stormed from the office and down the hallway. He shoved the door and burst out into the cold of night, sucking in a lungful of the crisp air then slowly exhaled it. I can’t believe what just happened! When a life is at stake, you bend the rules, break them if necessary. Who gets hurt by looking at the files of two dead girls and one missing girl?
“Excuse me, sir?”
Shakespeare spun on his heel to find the girl from earlier standing in the doorway, he having forgotten her. He took a deep breath. “Sorry, I forgot you were there.”
“That’s okay.” She looked at him closely. “You don’t look very happy.”
Shakespeare waved his hand. “You have no idea.”
“Does that mean you won’t help me?”
Shakespeare shook his head. “No, no.” He shivered. “But let’s get in my car so I can warm up. I may have a built-in Arctic layer, but I still get cold.”
She giggled and followed him to his Caddy. He held the door open for her, then he climbed in the driver’s side, firing up the engine. Heat from the still warm engine began to fill the interior and Shakespeare sighed. He pulled out his notebook and turned to the young girl who had curled one leg up under her and now sat facing him.
“Give me a minute, I need to phone in for a warrant.” A few minutes of details fed to the poor bastard on the nightshift at the DA’s office had him a promise of a warrant in the morning, noon at the latest. Believe it when I see it! They were waiting on warrants for Tate’s city and country homes, which he didn’t expect to get, for permission to track Frank’s phone, along with Frank’s, Tate’s and Sandy’s phone records, video footage along where St. Jean may have made a phone call, cab company and masseuse company records just in case they weren’t cooperative, and finally for permission to hack the webcam sites so anything they found at the television studio might in fact be admissible in court. And they were all coming, hopefully, this morning.
He turned his attention to the young girl beside him. “So, what can I do for you?”
“Can you help find my roommate?”
Shakespeare held up his hand. “First, what’s your name?”
“Antoinette Ayers.”
He smiled at her. “And I’m Detective Shakespeare. You’re a student here?”
“Yes.”
“And your roommate?”
“Yes, she’s a med student and I’m drama.”
“Med and drama. And you’re roommates?”
She smiled slightly. “I know, odd couple, but it works out well. With her long hours, I get the apartment to myself and can practice.”
“So you live off campus?”
“Yes.”
He handed her the notebook and paper. “Please write down the complete address and your phone number.” She quickly complied and handed him back the notebook. Shakespeare read the address. “Just off campus I see. And you think she’s missing?”
“Yes. She went last night on a medical call, and said she’d be back in a couple of hours. That was over twenty-four hours ago.”
“And you’re aware that NYPD requires a person to be missing more than forty-eight hours before you can even file a report?”
“Yes, I called them first, but they wouldn’t do anything. So I thought I’d try campus security instead, since she’s a student here.”
“And they told you the same thing.”
She nodded.
“How do you know she didn’t just meet up with some friends, or go visit her parents?”
“Well, this morning the hospital called where she does some of her training, looking for her.”
Shakespeare frowned. He knew med students. They wouldn’t miss a shift unless they were dead or dying. “And her name?”
“Alexa Ryan.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what. I’ll put the paperwork in today to speed up the process a bit.”
Her eyes opened wide and she jumped across the seat, hugging him and sobbing. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!” she cried. “I’ve been so worried, especially with all the disappearances here lately.”
Shakespeare pushed her away gently, still holding her by the shoulders as he looked directly into her eyes. “What do you mean, disappearances?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
Shakespeare let go of her shoulders and shook his head. “No, enlighten me.”
“Three students from my drama department are missing.” She paused. “Well, one is officially missing, I guess, the other two I just assume are missing.”
That makes four. Maybe this kid is just a little paranoid. “What makes you think that?”
“We had an important dress rehearsal for a play this morning and three people didn’t show up.”
“Hung over?”
She shook her head. “No way, this is the type of thing the Prof fails you for. Two were leads in the play, one was the set designer.”
He returned to his pad, pen poised above the page. “And their names?”
“Ross Brennan, he’s playing Romeo.”
“As in Romeo and Juliet?”
Her head bobbed furiously. “Exactly, you see, he would never miss the rehearsal!”
“And the others?”
“Mrs. Bryant. She’s actually a senior student, I mean, old, like you.”
He raised his eyebrows and her hand darted to her mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say you’re old, I meant—”
He raised his hand, cutting her off. “Don’t worry about it. I am old.” Especially compared to you.
“And the set designer?”
“She I know has been missing since Friday afternoon because apparently she didn’t show up to finish the set, so the others had to do the work and were complaining about it this morning.”
“Her name?”
“Oh, sorry. Angela Henwood.”
ELEVEN
Frank watched the cab pull away into the empty street. This was the warehouse district. There wasn’t going to be any more cabs to hail if he was sent to another location. He looked at his phone’s GPS. He wasn’t at the coordinates, but he was close. He began to walk toward the location indicated on his screen, and soon found himself standing in front of one of the warehouses. Large freight doors spread to his left, and to his right, one normal sized one with a small glass window in the top half crisscrossed with embedded steel mesh, its glass covered from the inside, blocking the view. His phone vibrated.
TICK TOCK
LITTLE TIME ON THE CLOCK
OPEN THE DOOR
THEN LIE ON THE FLOOR
He debated risking a text message to Shakespeare, but his instructions sent a few minutes after the initial message were crystal clear. No contact with anyone. And they’d know if he tried. He had had a lot of time to think about that part. How would they know? There was the possibility he was being followed, but he hadn’t noticed anything, and there certainly weren’t any vehicles in sight now. He had settled on his phone being hacked. When he was drugged, there would have been plenty of time to plant a piece of software on his phone that could send copies of his text messages to another number, could track his GPS location, could even allow them to listen in on his conversations. For Sarah’s sake he hadn’t risked it. And for the same reason, he decided not to test his theory now.
He grasped the handle
in front of him and turned the knob. Pulling on the door, it opened silently. He took a tentative step inside, but could see nothing but an inky blackness. Not even a ray of light from the street lamps, or the constant glow of light pollution from the huge city, broke the solid sheet of nothingness in front of him. He stepped inside further, the door closing behind him, the quiet hiss of a hydraulic door closer doing its job. Now he was completely enveloped in the black soup.
He listened. There was nothing. Not even a drip of water, the scurry of a rat, the creak of a chain. Nothing.
The snap of something hard tapping on concrete sounded in front of him, followed by another, then another. Footsteps! As they neared, his heart raced, his chest tightened, and his ears roared in fear. He was unarmed. He didn’t have a vest. He was alone. And no one knew where he was. What was I thinking? The door was right behind him, only a few steps away. He could find it in the dark, he was sure of it. He took a step backward, but it didn’t help. The terror still gripped him, and the steady, rhythmic steps continued to get closer. How can she see me? And he twigged. She! It was high heeled shoes he was hearing. Not a man’s steps, but a woman’s. A woman is doing this? It made no sense. He knew enough to know female serial killers were rare. But did she think she could take him by herself? If she was armed, he might have no choice. But what if he jumped her? Maybe he could take her by surprise, then he might be able to save Sarah.
The steps stopped. It seemed like she was only feet away. If he reached out, he was sure he would touch her. He reached for his phone in his pocket and raised it in front of him. He swiped his finger across the screen, lighting up the area in front of him.
He gasped. “How can you be here?”
She smiled then he felt someone grab him from behind as the woman in front of him, a woman who couldn’t possibly be there, stepped forward, disappearing once again in the dark as his phone clattered to the floor. A foul order filled his nostrils as whoever had him from behind held a cloth over his face. He reached to grab the hands but he felt his legs kicked out from under him as the person behind lowered him slowly to the ground, his hands instinctively grasping for the floor he slowly dropped to. By the time he was lowered, he felt someone’s knees drop on his shoulders as whatever was held over his mouth started to take effect. As he drifted off, one thought consumed him.
Tick Tock (A Detective Shakespeare Mystery, Book #2) Page 21