by TL Schaefer
But whatever they may have thought, when push came to shove, they didn’t find squat on my body, clothes, in my house or on the polygraph. My switchblade would be held in evidence and I mourned its loss. We’d been together a long time. When Davis released me—and my Expedition—I’d head home. A home that had now been invaded, when the only thing I’d ever really wanted was my privacy.
Tomorrow, I’d look into finding another job because even though the cops here hadn’t liked Hiram all that much, he was one of them, and I wasn’t. It was that simple. My little outburst earlier today hadn’t helped my case with these guys one little bit, and the only allies I had left in this division were Roney (maybe), Lisa and—improbably—Davis.
The chief finally walked out of his office.
“You’re free to go, Covington. You know the drill. Don’t leave town without letting us know, that sort of thing.” He paused, as if weighing his next words. “You know I didn’t necessarily agree with Hiram’s argument. But as department head, I had to acquiesce until he could be proven wrong.”
I understood what he was saying, but his support of Hiram had hurt more than I wanted to admit. Davis had been almost a mentor of sorts over the years, someone I looked up to.
I met his gaze before standing. “Can I ask how he died?” I hadn’t liked Hiram at all, but no one deserved to have their life cut short so brutally.
Davis nodded, and I could see regret in his eyes. Because he was a good man, I knew it was for Hiram...and for what he’d had to subject me to. “It’s already on the news. I don’t see any harm in it. He was sliced, like our red ball.”
“So now we’ve got three vics with the same signature? That’s serial, Chief,” I blurted.
“Three?” His eyebrows rose, and he became all business. “Something you’re not telling me?”
“Um,” I fidgeted. I hadn’t meant to let that slip, but it was too late. I could actually feel the ears of any cop within hearing distance perk up. “Check with Monica Foudy over at Southeast. She had one the same night as Councilman Williams, identical signature.”
“And you know this, how?”
“I was asked to take a look.” If I could, I’d keep Roney’s name out of this, though God knew why; it was my ass on the line. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told Davis about the dots we’d been connecting. Still, Hiram’s murder was only hours old, and Roney didn’t know he’d been killed in the same manner. “Remember, I am an independent.”
He conceded my point with a nod, but pressed anyway. “And you didn’t think to bring this to my attention?”
That stung, especially after his little speech this afternoon. “Foudy was in the loop on Williams. It’s up to her boss to bring it to you, as I was strongly reminded of today. Chain of command and all that. Take it up with her.” I turned on my heel and stalked to the door, hoping like hell I’d made a dramatic exit. Mentor or not, he deserved that little jab.
I sat in the darkness of my loft and nursed a beer, staring moodily out the window at the activity on the street below. Xena was curled up next to me on the sofa, letting out little snorts as she dreamed.
Hiram’s death weighed on me. If I’d come forward after Councilman Williams’s murder, could I have prevented Hiram’s murder, or the girl’s? Logic told me no...the perp was picking and choosing his targets, and I couldn’t have possibly known who the next vic would be. But my conscience damned me, regardless of logic.
And beneath my battle of heart and mind lay a purely selfish thought.
I didn’t want to run and hide again, dammit. No matter what I’d said to Davis in there, the chances of picking up another shooting gig in Texas under the name I’d assumed were slim to none now. Like I’d told him, the grapevine worked frighteningly well, and as soon as I signed my name, any application I made would go straight to the circular file.
I knew, to a penny, what was in my bank account, and it wasn’t going to last more than a year. That sounded like a long time, but in reality, it wasn’t. I’d lived on the streets long enough to cherish the concept of having a sure thing, be it a job or a roof over my head.
Even if I managed to get my degree and do something with it, it was under my Sara Covington name, and I didn’t think I’d be able to apply it to a different persona, no matter how much cash I plunked down. Getting a new identity in this post-9/11 world presented significant problems.
When I’d assumed the name of Sara Covington all those years ago, it had been easy. Pick a dead girl from Phoenix approximately my age, get a copy of the birth certificate, then a Social Security card and driver’s license, and you were in business. The fact I’d done it at sixteen only made the process easier. No one in authority assumed a kid would be doing something so ambitious, at least not in those days.
It came down to a simple decision. Did I want to bail and recreate myself again—which would take all of my ready cash—or hit the pavement and find a real job?
I remembered what it was like, alone in a strange city, scrounging in the gutter, sleeping in a discarded refrigerator box. Defending my space from the other homeless people with a shiv I made out of a shard of glass and a broken broom handle. Scared, tired, hungry, looking over my shoulder for the shrinks from CASI with their long, long needles and prying eyes.
I took a slow look around the loft. This was my place, my home. I ran a hand down Xena’s back, letting my fingers curl into her luxurious coat. My damn dog. I was finished with running and hiding, like I’d vowed over ten years ago.
Tomorrow I’d start looking for a job, even if it was at Walmart.
When my cell rang the next morning, I was on the Net, looking for gainful employment, even though it was Sunday. Pickings were slim, but I’d sent resumes out to everything that looked decent. I’d even placed a call to Monica Foudy at Southeast—yeah, pure, blind optimism, but I’d’ve been a fool not to try. Unfortunately, she was out working a case.
I thumbed open the phone without looking at the readout. It would either be a prospective employer, Roney or Davis. I was hoping for door number one.
“Covington.”
“Sara Covington?” The voice on the other end was young, girlish. And hopelessly, down-to-the-bone frightened. I recognized that tone of voice, understood it in a deep, dark way I didn’t want to acknowledge. It chilled me to the marrow.
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Um, my name is Amy. Amy Singleton. You’ve got to help me.”
I’d never heard of her, but I was getting a really, really bad feeling about this. I typed her name and “Dallas junior high schools” into a search engine as I spoke. She could be a high schooler, but I doubted it.
“How do I know you, Amy?” Anything to keep her on the line. Her name popped up on the computer and I clicked the link to the social networking site. Honors student, daughter of a prominent Baptist minister. Her homepage showed a cute, freckled kid of about thirteen trying to look older than she was.
“You...you don’t,” she stuttered. “He says I’ve only got a minute.”
“Are you hurt? Who is ‘he’?”
“He said his name was Williams, Brock Williams. I can’t even see him, only hear his voice. I’m scared, Sara. He sounds crazy. What is he going to do to me?”
Jesus. He’d assumed the identity of the red ball. I took a deep breath and strove for calming, comforting. “We’ll get you out of this, okay? Now where are you? And why did you call me?”
“He gave me the phone, told me who to ask for. It was already ringing. I don’t know where I am, only that it’s dark and smells kinda funny. You’ve got to help me.” Her voice broke. She’d been trying so hard to be brave.
My mind spun. For some twisted reason, the serial was taunting me, using me as a conduit to the police. And he was changing his MO. He had a live victim. Bastard. My heart rate accelerated and my breathing went shallow. I needed to calm down and find out as much as I could, but without my special talents, I was as clueless as a normal human. It sucked ass.
“He
says I’m supposed to tell you that I’ll be fine as long as you understand the game.”
“What game, Amy?” Dammit, I wished Roney were here. I wasn’t qualified for this. Not on the phone at least. In person, I’d kick this guy’s ass after looking at him once.
I opened a fresh page on my computer and began to transcribe everything I could think that had been said as we spoke. My fingers flew as she continued speaking.
“The CASI game. But only you understand the outcome. Oh God, help me, he has a knife...” The line went dead.
Shit, shit, shit. I *69’d the number and got a steady ring, but nothing else. No voice mail, no nothing.
I plucked Roney’s card from the corkboard and paced as I dialed, my heart thumping loudly in my chest.
“Roney.”
“Brian, it’s Sara. I need you over here right now.” My voice was threaded with panic. Not surprising, given the circumstances.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but the bastard upped the ante.”
“Who?” He sounded like he knew the answer even as he asked the question.
“Your serial. Get over here now.”
“On my way.”
I flipped the cell shut and returned to the computer. Finished typing in everything I could remember. There had been no sounds other than Amy’s frightened voice. I racked my brain, trying for something, anything that would help, and tried like hell to avoid thinking about her last words...and failed miserably. Even worse was that what kept ringing in my head wasn’t “knife”, but “CASI”.
How had they found me? And what did they want? If they’d found me, they should have been at the door, needles in hand, as they had when they’d gone searching for me all those years ago.
No, it couldn’t be CASI itself, but rather someone aware of my time there. A fellow inmate? Or had someone else infiltrated their records and tracked me down some way, somehow?
Whatever had happened, it filled me with a fear so sharp I felt like I’d explode.
God, what in the hell was happening?
Chapter Six
Before
I spent the next few days studying and everyone I saw and putting them into a category. They ranged from the joyous greens who seemed to leave the scent of evergreen on the air to the sickly sulfurs, who I avoided like the plague on an instinctual level. I even met a yellow nurse on staff; I’d never met anyone like her.
But there was one student in particular, an obnoxious little turd named Dave, who’d made it a point to torment me from the moment Wes left our table that first fateful day. If I could have stood looking at him for more than thirty seconds, I would have cold-cocked the little bastard. The girls were no better. Not one had made an overture of friendship...not that I would have reciprocated it, but it would have been nice.
Through those days, Wes was there with me as we navigated the waters of this new reality together. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been alone in all this. Maybe died of loneliness, or maybe offed myself, like I considered before. But I didn’t (obviously), and instead tried to make the best of what was a weird situation.
My first day of classes was...interesting. Nothing like I’d attended back in the Springs. Apparently I’d scored well on the IQ test, because the stuff they were throwing at us was light years away from anything I’d done before. Part of the morning’s indoctrination was getting myself fingerprinted. Weird, but it wasn’t any stranger than what had happened so far.
It was after lunch that everything changed and I got a crystal-clear picture that I was indeed in a mental institution...but like none I’d ever heard of before.
Dr. Green’s speech the first day, about how I could be “normal” again, was so much bullshit. They didn’t want me to be normal. They wanted me to flex my freak muscles.
I talked to the first shrink again (the guy having an affair with his nurse), and he wanted to know about the things my mother had apparently told them prior to my admission. I stalled, telling him she was an alcoholic (true), who was looking to get me out of her hair (probably true as well). He wasn’t buying it and pressed me, hard, to tell him what impressions I got about the people here.
I responded, probably in a smart-ass voice, that I was sure they were all very nice people.
When that’s all I said, I got my very first taste of what being alone really was.
Isolation was worse than anything I could ever have imagined. I was jailed in the basement of the hospital, isolated in the truest sense of the word. No voices answered my questioning shouts. No footsteps echoed against the concrete walls. And it was cold, so very cold. My breath plumed out like the steam from a bellows, and only a thin blanket was provided to cover me.
The lights were always on, and meals didn’t come at any regular intervals, so I had no idea how much time had passed, only that it stretched into what seemed like years. Then Dr. Green came, and when he left with nothing more than obscenities from me, they brought in the needles.
Now—Sunday, 10:00 a.m.
I’d just hit “print” when Roney banged on my front door. I opened it after looking through the peephole—just to be sure—and found Foudy on his heels. I barely had time to push my glasses on. Foudy was in rare form today, and given what had happened, sensory overload wasn’t something I wanted to deal with. Hell, even Xena was cowering beneath the computer desk.
I held up a finger and walked to the computer, printed a second copy, and handed one to each of them without a word.
In the time that passed between my call to Roney and his arrival, I clarified everything I’d jotted down haphazardly, including a screen shot of Amy Singleton’s home page. What I didn’t include was any mention of CASI. They didn’t need to know about that, even if I was condemning myself down the road with Roney because of the omission. Amy said I had to figure it out alone, and if her abductor was aware of my past, God only knew what both of us were dealing with.
If it had been Roney, alone, I might have... No, I wouldn’t have. At least not right now. Whoever was out there had called me with a very specific purpose, and it wasn’t to kill Amy, at least not yet. I knew, intuitively, the baddie’s threat with the knife was designed to frighten...both of us. Whatever his agenda was, he’d selected me to be the harbinger of it.
“Jesus, Sara. Why you?” Roney’s eyes pinned me in place.
“I told you he lingered at your site,” I jerked my head at Foudy and gave them the most easily believable scenario. If not for the mention of CASI, I might actually believe it myself. “I’m sure the local newsies had no problem picking up the fact I was the numero uno suspect in Hiram’s murder.” It wasn’t as if the esteemed members of the press didn’t know me after seeing me at crime scenes for ten years, and they always had someone on the inside who would give them an exclusive. I hadn’t looked at the paper or the tube this morning for that specific reason. I didn’t relish the idea of my DPD ID picture (envision the DMV, but worse) plastered all over the airwaves. No reason to get even more depressed.
Foudy looked down at her sheet of paper, then stared at me. When she spoke, her voice was hard. “This is all very neat, Covington. Looks like a police report.”
I nodded, heart still thumping painfully. “It should. I’ve seen enough of them. I didn’t want to forget anything. What do we do next?”
“We don’t do anything. Roney and I will do a trace on this number and check on Amy Singleton. If it pans out, we’ll send someone over to put a tap on your cell.”
I nodded again. Why was Roney letting her take the lead on this? When I met his eyes, they were stony, implacable. A cop’s gaze. A second later something flickered and I knew. He was letting her run with it because he’d kissed me. Because I was a suspect in Hiram’s murder. Because that’s what good cops did.
“Afterward,” Foudy continued, “we’ll bring the task force up to date.”
“Task force?” Not that I was overly surprised. Foudy’s boss had probably been the
first person Davis had contacted after I dropped my little bombshell last night.
“Yeah,” Roney finally spoke. “We geared up after they found a vic in North Central with the same signature.”
Foudy shot him a dirty look and he shrugged.
“Another one?” My gut knotted. “What time? Where? Did he leave any forensics?”
“Over by the Galleria, while you were safe and sound, giving your statement. And you know as well as I do he didn’t leave a damned hair.” I could hear the relief in Roney’s voice, and so did Foudy, if her raised eyebrow was any indication. As much as he tried to put on a cop’s façade, he’d been worried about me, whether I could be implicated in this. Though it made me all mushy inside, I was wary. I wasn’t that good a kisser.
My sense of being set up, railroaded, swept back with a vengeance. Could the serial have orchestrated something, his call to me pulling me even deeper into a spider’s web?
Granted, the relief in Roney’s voice pretty much negated his opinion of my involvement in the whole matter, but that emotion wouldn’t matter squat if some evidence against me were brought to bear.
Foudy cleared her throat and gestured at me with the printout. “Be that as it may, in three of our four cases, discounting this phone call, since she’s theoretically alive, you are the link.”
My mouth dropped open. “Me?” I hated the fact I sounded squeaky and stunned. While I knew I was the common factor, I was less than happy they had come to the same conclusion without even knowing about CASI...or my suspicions about this being a set-up. There was only one entity that could be behind this, that could make everything head south so fast.
“You. Our resident psychic.” Foudy started ticking off points on her fingers. “You shot the scene of the first vic, visited the second on invitation and had a personal relationship with Hiram.” Now Foudy’s eyes had gone calculating. If I got over my shock long enough to drop my glasses, her aura would be pulsing scarlet. “Anything to say about that?”
The stark images of the kills I’d seen, of how I imagined Hiram had looked and the unknown, unnamed fourth victim flashed through my head. And even as I said “no” to Monica’s question, Amy’s words rang in my head and made my heart thump in terror...for all of us. CASI.