Night Fall

by Nancy Mehl

  “At first I assumed he chose victims near trains because it’s easy to tag boxcars and hide bodies inside,” Alex said. “But after hearing the poem, I think he had a fractured childhood. Confusing, especially if his parents never told him whether he was a demon or an angel. I remember wondering the same thing when my aunt first started telling me this stuff, but I got past it soon enough because I didn’t believe any of it. I wonder if ‘The Train Man’ was read to our guy when he was a child.”

  She paused for a moment, letting everything they knew so far click into place in her mind. “Obviously, Adam Walker decided he was a demon. And not only that but the demon who’s supposed to bring about destruction on the earth.”

  “It seems to me that believing he belonged to the world of demons didn’t give him his own, personal identity,” Logan said.

  “Exactly. And at some point in his life, he identified with the Train Man. Maybe he was originally presented to Walker as someone terrifying, but then our killer decided to face his nightmares by becoming the thing he feared most.” She met Jeff’s gaze. “I’m probably jumping the gun a bit. This is just my initial reaction.”

  “Sounds right to me,” Jeff said. He looked at Logan and Monty. “You have anything else to add?”

  When they both shook their heads, Jeff said, “Okay. Start with that. Give us more when you can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jeff turned and left the room. They followed quietly behind him, no one saying a word. Alex was sure they were all thinking about the Train Man. Hopefully, something in the file would help them find him. An inner voice told her they needed to work fast, because this guy was already several steps ahead of them.

  Another voice, one that troubled her even more than she cared to admit, told her no one could understand the Train Man more than she could. They were connected by the past, and that connection terrified her.

  4

  Adam opened the refrigerator and scanned the contents. “Why can’t we have something to snack on in this house?” he said loudly. “Some cheese. Crackers. Anything.”

  “You told me not to buy stuff that isn’t on your diet.”

  Adam jumped at Sally’s voice. He hadn’t realized she was standing in the doorway. He closed the door to the fridge. “You’re right,” he said with a smile. “Sorry.”

  “If you want me to buy you snacks, I will,” she said.

  Adam gazed at his wife. Her shoulder-length blond hair was tucked behind her ears, and as she looked back at him, he could see the love in her eyes. Before his father died, he had encouraged Adam to find someone he could be happy with. Then not long after he passed away, Adam met Sally. He’d felt so alone with Father gone. Sally came along at exactly the right time. Adam truly believed she was “the one.” The perfect woman for him. They’d been married almost nine years now, and he loved her more today than the day they tied the knot.

  “No, you’re right. I don’t need them.”

  He walked over and took her in his arms. “I’m so glad I have someone who takes such good care of me.”

  “You shouldn’t be on a diet anyway,” she said softly, melting into his embrace. “You’re too thin as it is, you know.”

  He squeezed her lightly and laughed. “You’re great for my ego.”

  Sally kissed his cheek. “Pot roast with potatoes and carrots for supper? Your favorite.”

  “You’re too good to me. Next you’ll be telling me we’re having apple pie for dessert.”

  It was Sally’s turn to laugh. “I’ll make sure we do. Not a problem.”

  “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, you know that?” he said. “I wish you could have met my father.”

  Sally nodded. “I’m sure I would have loved him.”

  “Yeah, and he would have felt the same way about you. He was a wonderful man. Taught me everything I know.”

  Adam got a glass out of the cabinet and turned on the kitchen faucet. He quickly downed the water, then put the glass on the counter. As usual, he remained thirsty. “I still think there’s something weird about our water,” he said. “It’s . . . well, it’s not refreshing.”

  Sally laughed. “You have quite an imagination.”

  “I guess so.”

  Just then Gabby and Trey came into the kitchen. Their beautiful twins. They were out of school today. Teachers’ meetings.

  “When’s lunch, Mama?” Gabby asked, her blues eyes sparkling. She had blond hair like her mother, but it was naturally curly while Sally’s was straight. Neither Adam nor Sally had curly-headed relatives. Adam used to tease his wife whenever he saw a curly-headed man. Maybe he was Gabby’s real father? Although Sally always laughed, he could tell the jokes bothered her, so he’d stopped them. Gabby was clearly their child. She had Sally’s blue eyes and his nose. Just like Trey.

  “You two go wash your hands,” Sally said. “Then come back for your lunch.” The twins scurried away, giggling as they ran down the hall to the bathroom.

  Sally turned toward Adam. “What do you want for lunch?”

  He shook his head. “I have to work today. I’ll probably be home late. Can you hold supper off until eight?”

  “Sure. I’ll feed the kids earlier, then put them to bed and eat with you when you get home.” She smiled. “I’m so glad you got rid of that apartment. I know you needed a place closer to work, but now you can be home more. We all missed you.”

  “I missed you too. I need you and the kids more than I can say.”

  As she began preparing lunch for the children, Adam watched her. She was perfect. The children were perfect. Even this house was perfect. His father had put the old family home in Adam’s name, and after he died, Adam completely remodeled it. Today, no one would even know it was the same place. Except for the basement. He hadn’t changed anything down there. He was also the only one allowed to go downstairs.

  Adam’s arms itched. He scratched them, but it didn’t help much. Maybe it was this wool sweater Sally bought him. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he might have to stop wearing it.

  “You’re still itching?” she asked. “This has been going on for quite a while.”

  He nodded. “Not sure why. Just dry winter skin, I guess.” He paused a moment before going downstairs to get what he needed. “You’ll read to the kids before they go to bed?”

  She stopped making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and looked at him. “Of course. We’re getting close to being halfway through The Book. I’m so glad we have your father’s copy. He taught you well. And I think it’s time to tell the children their daddy is called to bring destruction to a third of the earth, don’t you?”

  Adam smiled slowly. “Yes. I think you’re right.”

  Sally took a slow, deep breath, and her eyes grew shiny. “They’ll be so proud. I know I am.”

  “Thank you, dear,” he said as he unlocked the door to the basement and prepared to step into his destiny.

  With the threat of a possible deadly pathogen being released on the public, FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group sent a small plane to get Alex and Logan to Wichita as soon as possible. Monty took the plane Alice Burrows ordered to Kansas City.

  The Kansas Bureau of Investigation had been alerted to the situation and requested permission to approach Alex’s aunt themselves given concerns about time. Their request had been denied. Alex made it clear she had the better chance of getting Willow’s copy of The Book quickly. They were sending an agent from the resident agency in Wichita to pick them up at the airport. Hopefully, Alex and Logan wouldn’t have to deal with bruised egos with any agency, the FBI or otherwise.

  To be honest, Alex wasn’t convinced she’d be able to get The Book either. She hadn’t talked to Willow for years. She’d forced herself to call from time to time, but Willow rarely answered her phone, and her landline wasn’t set up for voice mail.

  As their plane approached Wichita, Alex’s stomach tightened, and she began to feel nauseated. She was disgusted with hersel
f. She was a trained behavioral analyst with the FBI. She’d faced the worst the world had to offer. Murderers, rapists, child molesters. Terrorists intent on killing large groups of innocent people. Human traffickers. She’d looked into the eyes of evil many times and had learned to control her reactions. But since seeing words from The Book painted on the sides of train cars, the fear she’d overcome in her twenties was trying to make a reappearance. It was silly. She was afraid of a woman in her sixties who had never hurt anyone that Alex was aware of. Was she being unfair? Was she taking her pain out on Willow?

  An incident she’d almost forgotten flashed in her mind, making her wonder if Willow really was harmless. Suddenly Alex wasn’t so certain. Maybe that was why she was so apprehensive about seeing her again. She pushed away the memory and instead thought about the day she first met Willow—her mother’s only sibling. She knew her mother had an older sister with whom she’d once been close. But her mother told her they’d simply grown apart. That Willow was sweet but had “emotional problems.” They’d never visited her aunt, and Alex never thought much about her.

  Then her mother died.

  The caseworker assigned to Alex must have realized that her aunt was nuts as soon as they arrived at the house. Living in dirty, messy surroundings and dressed like some kind of hippie from the sixties, Willow LeGrand was clearly living on some other planet. One Alex had no desire to visit, let alone stay there until she was eighteen. But the caseworker had just dropped her off and walked away, even though Alex had pleaded with her not to leave her there. It was obvious the woman couldn’t have cared less. Just another case checked off her list.

  It took Alex weeks to get the house clean and figure out how to feed both of them. Willow had been existing on candy bars, chips, and pop, but she gladly gave Alex money from her disability check so she could go to a neighborhood grocery store and buy food. Within three months, Alex had become the adult in the house. Cleaning, cooking, and paying bills that had been neglected for quite some time. Eventually, things began to run more smoothly . . . until Willow started talking about some crazy book with aliens, demons, and angels.

  Then came the meetings. Alex was instructed to lock herself in her room, forbidden to come out until Willow’s Circle guests left.

  Alex realized she was digging her nails into the armrests. Her fingers hurt as she straightened them. She reminded herself that there was no other way to find a copy of The Book and attempt to get ahead of a man who may have the power to kill thousands if not millions of people. She had no choice but to approach her aunt.

  The plane landed at the airport. When she’d left Wichita, it was called Mid-Continent Airport, but in 2014 it was renamed the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. As she peered out the small window next to her, she noticed the main building had been given a needed facelift. She wondered what else had changed, but she didn’t plan to stay around long enough to find out. She had to get that book and get out. It needed to go to the lab at Quantico so they could look for fingerprints—although there wasn’t much chance they’d find any but her aunt’s.

  Alex and her team were convinced they weren’t looking for an unknown subject now. They were confident Adam Walker was behind both the train killings and the virus threat. And Monty had been right—trying to stop a potential mass murderer was different from looking for a serial killer.

  Alex was grateful her colleagues weren’t treating her strangely. After sharing her past, she’d been afraid they would see her as weird—and different from them. She’d fought hard to free herself of the odd little girl she used to be. The fears that had controlled her. The nightmares that struck terror into her heart. She could feel the beginnings of a panic attack, so she concentrated on her breathing. In, out. In, out. It had been years since she’d had to deal with one of these attacks. She couldn’t allow them to come back now.

  “Kansas City won’t give us long to get that book,” Logan said as they waited for their pilot to tell them they could disembark.

  “I know.”

  The cabin door opened, and Special Agent Keith Corbin came out. Keith was not only a pilot but a member of the FBI’s Emergency Response Team, working out of the Washington field office. Well respected throughout the FBI, he was called upon when agents needed to get somewhere fast or if evidence needed to be delivered to Quantico. Keith was a handsome man with prematurely gray hair and an easy smile.

  “You can disembark now,” he said as he lowered the outside stairs. “I’ve been told to wait here for you. Must be an important assignment.”

  Alex and Logan rose from their seats and grabbed their go bags.

  When they reached the door, Logan shook Keith’s hand. “They’re all important, I guess, aren’t they?”

  Keith grinned. “The perfect response. Well, whatever’s going on, I’m praying for your success.”

  “Thanks, brother,” Logan said.

  Alex nodded at Keith and mumbled her thanks before they headed down the stairs to the tarmac. Was Keith a Christian too? It felt as if Logan and Keith were part of a club she wasn’t a member of.

  She and Logan had just entered the terminal when they heard someone call out their names. They both turned to see a man approaching them. They stopped as he came near them with his hand extended.

  “Special Agents Donovan and Hart?”

  “Special Agent Monroe, I assume,” Logan said. “Nice to meet you.” They shook hands, and then Agent Monroe approached Alex, who shook his hand as well.

  “You look so familiar,” she said. “Do I know you?”

  Monroe laughed. “You certainly do. In fact, you’re the reason I joined the FBI.”

  Alex frowned at him. She never forgot a face. Why was she having trouble with this one? In just seconds, as if a rotten wooden door sealed for years broke open, she remembered. She felt dizzy and fought hard to steady herself.

  “You used to call me Googly,” he said with a big smile. “It’s me, Mike. We lived down the street from each other for years. Rode the bus to school together.”

  Alex tried to speak, but no words would come out. The past was scratching and clawing its way into her carefully constructed life. No matter what she had to do, she was determined to catch the creep who’d opened the door and let it in.

  5

  Alex now seemed more relaxed in the front seat of the car, but Logan could tell something was wrong on the plane, and he’d also seen the way she’d reacted to Mike.

  He wasn’t sure what it was, but something was still off. He could feel it. What kind of life had Alex endured here? Sure, her aunt sounded a little weird. Okay, very weird. But so what? The idea that a trained FBI behavioral analyst would fall apart when reminded of an uncomfortable childhood didn’t make sense. He’d been around Alex awhile now. She was sharp. Hard. Professional. Why was she so affected by this place?

  She turned to face Mike. “Why did you say I was responsible for your decision to join the FBI?”

  Mike chuckled. “You used to tell me all the time that someday you were going to join the FBI and catch all the bad guys.”

  “All the bad guys?” Logan said from the back seat. “You don’t plan on leaving any for the rest of us, Alex?”

  She actually laughed. He hadn’t been sure it was possible.

  “Since then I’ve decided to leave a few for people like you, Preacher.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Mike looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Your nickname is Preacher? You got off better than me. After I graduated from high school, I discovered contact lenses. Thankfully, my days as Googly are behind me.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll lose my nickname as easily, but don’t worry. I have other things on my mind today. I won’t be trying to convert you.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that,” Mike said, grinning.

  “So tell me more about your aunt, Alex,” Logan said.

  Alex was so quiet Logan wondered if she’d heard him.

  “Like I said back at the of
fice, my aunt took me in when I was twelve,” she finally said. “After my mother died. She didn’t hesitate. I believe she really wanted me.”

  “She was always kind to me,” Mike said. “She was just . . . different.”

  “What does that mean?” Logan asked. He knew the larger details surrounding Alex’s aunt, but he wanted to hear more. Who was she really? Why didn’t Alex want to see her? Why hadn’t she visited her in all these years?

  Another silence. “Look,” Mike said. “This is kinda tough for me.” He looked over at Alex. “I don’t want to . . .”

  “Stop,” Alex said. “This is just like any other case. Be honest. It won’t bother me. We have to find that toxin before it’s too late. Hurt feelings are the least of our worries.”

  Mike took a deep breath. “Okay. Well, she was a nice lady who wore flowery dresses and ballet shoes. Her hair was usually messy, and she would lose concentration in the middle of a sentence. I met her before Alex moved in. I was selling candy for my school once and went to her house. She asked me to come in so she could find some money. When she opened the door, the odor overwhelmed me.” He glanced at Alex again. “She didn’t seem to know how to clean a house. Something like a dozen cats were running around. And a big pot of cabbage sat on the stove that could have been there for days.”

  He shook his head. “At least I think it was cabbage. How she ever got custody of you, Alex, is beyond me. I didn’t know anything about The Book or the Circle she was involved in until I was given all the current facts of this case. When I got wind you were coming and why, I asked to be assigned to help you here in Wichita—and to bring you the warrant you might need.”

  “I appreciate that,” Alex said. “My aunt got custody because she was my only living relative. The social worker didn’t care what Willow or her house were like. Apparently, neither did the court or child services. They just sent me there so they could close their case in an overloaded child welfare system.”

  “Wow,” Logan said. “I can’t imagine living in a place like that.” He couldn’t keep the compassion out of his voice even though he knew Alex wanted to keep the conversation professional.