Missing (The Cass Lehman Series Book 3)

by Melanie Casey

  ‘Leave Mama alone! No strangers allowed in the storeroom! Off limits to visitors.’

  Shocked, I didn’t move at first, then I scrambled across to Ed to see if he was all right. He was blinking and shaking his head. His eyes were glazed. As I stared anxiously into his face his vision cleared and his eyes widened. He reached for his gun.

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Detective.’

  The voice was cold and calm and right behind me.

  ‘Stand up, Miss Lehman.’

  I stood up and tried to turn around.

  ‘Don’t move.’

  I felt the prick of cold steel against the nape of my neck.

  ‘If I cut you here, I’ll sever your spinal cord. You’ll be paralysed but completely aware of what’s going on.’

  ‘You’re a monster,’ I said.

  ‘No, I’m a success story,’ Mrs Jacobs said. ‘I give food and shelter to countless homeless men every year. I’ve been doing it for over twenty years and I’ve kept doing it despite cuts to government funding and dwindling corporate donations. Do you know how hard it is to feed and house so many people every day? Without me they’d be on the streets starving.’

  Ed had recovered from his tumble and was glaring up at her.

  ‘You’re a paragon of virtue, aren’t you? You’ve had everyone fooled for years. And you know what really makes me sick? You get your son to do your dirty work for you. You’ve turned your own child into a killer,’ Ed said.

  ‘Dirty work? What I do isn’t dirty.’

  ‘You’re killing some of the most vulnerable men in our society and feeding them to others.’

  ‘The men who die are making a noble sacrifice. They die so the others can live.’

  Ed blinked. His brows knitted into a fierce scowl.

  ‘They’re not dying in battle, Mrs Jacobs. It’s murder.’

  ‘I sedate them. They simply go to sleep none the wiser. I always choose the ones with dementia. They have no future. I’m doing them a favour.’

  ‘Where is my partner, Mrs Jacobs?’ Ed asked.

  The steel blade pressed into my neck. I felt the prick and sting as the point pierced my skin and I flinched in pain.

  ‘Mama?’

  I could just see Jonathan in my peripheral vision. He was rocking from foot to foot in agitation.

  ‘Quiet, Jonathan,’ Mrs Jacobs said.

  ‘Don’t hurt the pretty lady, Mama,’ Jonathan pleaded.

  ‘Be still!’ she snapped.

  ‘No, Mama.’ He crossed the room towards me. ‘Jonathan doesn’t want Mama to kill anyone else.’

  ‘Stop!’ She yelled the word at him.

  He kept walking. His hand shot out. I yelped, but it wasn’t me he was grabbing. The pressure of the knife on my neck disappeared and I spun around. Jonathan had grabbed his mother’s hand and forced her arm into the air.

  ‘Drop the knife!’ Ed yelled. He’d scrambled to his feet and stepped up next to me, pointing his gun at them both.

  Jonathan’s attention snapped to Ed. In that moment Mrs Jacobs reached behind her with her free hand and grabbed another knife off the wooden bench.

  ‘Cass!’ Ed shouted.

  Mrs Jacobs lunged for me. I jumped back, pressing myself into a corner. Jonathan spun around, not realising what was happening. The knife in Mrs Jacobs’ hand sank into his belly. Jonathan grunted in surprise and let go of his mother’s arm, looking down with stunned incomprehension at the hilt of the knife sticking out of his stomach. Mrs Jacobs looked at her son and screamed. Her face twisted and she raised the knife that was still in her other hand and screamed again, launching herself at me. There was nowhere for me to go. I closed my eyes and braced myself. The roar of Ed’s gun filled the air.

  ‘Cass?’

  I opened my eyes. Ed was standing in front of me. I looked down. Mrs Jacobs was lying on the floor. There was a hole in the middle of her forehead and her eyes were staring up into nothing.

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Mama?’

  We both turned. Jonathan had pulled the knife out of his belly and lay curled in a ball on the floor, a pool of blood spreading in front of him. The knife lay discarded next to him.

  Ed went over and crouched down. He shoved the knife out of the way then reached down and put his hand over the wound.

  ‘Shhh, Jonathan. It’s going to be OK.’

  ‘Cass, call Phil. Call an ambulance.’

  ‘Phil’s already sent for backup.’

  I fumbled with the phone in my pocket and punched the emergency services number. The dispatcher’s calm efficiency steadied me. I hung up and moved to Ed’s side. Jonathan’s face was the colour of parchment. I knew that look. His lips were moving.

  ‘Jonathan’s sorry.’

  ‘Shhh, it’s all right,’ Ed said.

  ‘Mama’s going to be mad.’

  ‘No, she won’t,’ Ed said.

  ‘Too much killing. Jonathan doesn’t like the killing.’

  ‘It’s all right. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t want to kill anyone.’

  ‘Jonathan didn’t kill anyone.’

  Ed caught my eye and frowned.

  ‘You killed the homeless men.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not Jonathan. Special secret. Jonathan and Mama’s secret. Not allowed to tell.’

  He tried to sit up and slipped in his own blood, falling onto his back and staring up at us.

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t move. It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘Mama?’ His eyes fluttered shut.

  Ed’s hand reached for his neck. He felt for a pulse then looked up at me and shook his head.

  We both stood up. Ed wiped his hand on his shirt. Our focus turned towards the cold-room door.

  Ed stepped around the bodies and grabbed the handle. With a yank he tugged the heavy door open and a whoosh of cold air escaped into the room. He reached around the doorframe and flicked on the fluorescent lights, then stepped inside. I followed. There, hanging upside down from a meat hook, was Dave.

  CHAPTER

  36

  Curtains of drizzle swept across the huddle of people as jostling umbrellas shouted their colours at the grey sky. I brushed moisture off my face, unsure if I was wiping away tears or rain or both. I’d shed so many tears my eyeballs felt like someone had taken to them with a cheese grater.

  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

  The priest spoke in carefully modulated tones. I still wasn’t sure about the choice of a traditional service. It didn’t seem to fit. But Ed had told me that funeral services were for the living, not the deceased, and there was comfort in the familiarity of a traditional service. I didn’t have the will to argue.

  Mum punctuated the priest’s words with a barking cough every minute or so. There was no way she should have been standing out in the rain, but short of drugging her and tying her to the bed there was no way I could have stopped her.

  Mum was standing on my left. Ed was on my right. His face was set in rigid lines of forced self-control. It wasn’t that he didn’t cry. He did, and he had. He just wasn’t prepared to do it in public. Claire was standing next to Ed. I could feel her eyes rake over me at regular intervals.

  My eyes came to rest on the smooth mahogany casket at the centre of our circle of grief. The rain was beading on its surface and running in haphazard rivulets down the sides. A massive teardrop bouquet of roses sat on top. I didn’t understand the flower thing. The person they were for never got to appreciate them. Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks and a muffled sob exploded from me.

  Ed put his arm around me and pulled me towards him. I gratefully rested my head against him and reached my hand out for Mum. She grabbed it and squeezed.

  A few shaky breaths later I was back in control. My eyes wande
red around the crowd. I recognised most of the people there. Phil and Grace were standing opposite us. Grace’s hair was still missing in action so she was wearing a black beanie to keep her head warm. Phil’s shocking red hair and white skin were a dramatic contrast to the black suit she was wearing. I’d never seen her in a suit.

  Arnott and Sorenson were standing a short distance from Phil and Grace. Arnott wore a black suit that looked like it’d come kicking and screaming from the back of his wardrobe, where it had probably been stashed sometime in the eighties. It was alarmingly tight. Sorenson, on the other hand, was all class. Her charcoal pantsuit was understated and elegant. I didn’t look at her face. I didn’t want to see the emotion on it.

  The tone of the priest’s voice changed and then he stopped. My attention switched back to the coffin. It was being lowered slowly into the ground. My lip trembled. I bit back the torrent of emotion that threatened to burst out of me.

  ‘Miss Lehman? Mrs Lehman? Would you like to join me in saying goodbye to Gwen?’ The priest held out his hand to us. I linked my arm through Mum’s and we walked over to the side of the grave and stared into the gaping brown gash in the earth. Green carpet had been placed around the hole. I took a pink rose out of the basket offered by one of the funeral directors and tossed it into the grave. It fell awkwardly on top of the bouquet. Mum repeated the process. I stood there, staring, trying to come to grips with the finality of it.

  ‘Cass?’ It was Ed. He’d moved over to my side.

  I took his hand and we walked away. There were no answers in that hole in the ground.

  The ticking of the kitchen clock seemed unnaturally loud, probably because the usual chorus of accompanying sounds was absent. Shadow wasn’t eating from his bowl. He was curled into a miserable ball on Gran’s chair, his normally sleek pelt dull and sticking up at weird angles. There was no hum of activity, no opening and closing of cupboards and drawers, no chinking of plates and utensils, no pots bubbling on the stove. Even the birds in the garden seemed quieter than normal.

  ‘She’s just so … absent,’ I said.

  Mum nodded. ‘She filled this house for so long.’

  ‘How are we going to cope without her?’

  ‘We’ll cope because she wouldn’t want it any other way.’

  I reached for the pot of tea that was sitting in the middle of the table and topped up our cups.

  We’d suffered through an hour of tea and sympathy at the funeral home. Almost every person who’d ever bought herbs from Gran or been healed by her had come up to us to share their memories. The cup of tea someone had thrust into my hand had been stone cold by the time I got a chance to drink it.

  The heartfelt outpouring made me realise how much of herself Gran had given to others. And I hadn’t even been there for her in her final moments. The guilt was like a knife in my gut. Every so often I gave it a twist, creating a fresh stab of pain.

  The thought brought images of Jonathan Jacobs into my head. Was he better off dead? Maybe. Without his mother to look after him he could have ended up homeless himself. Still, if given the choice between helping his mother kill and butcher old men or going into an institution, I wondered which he would have chosen.

  ‘How’s Dave going, Ed?’

  ‘Physically he’s getting there. He’ll be out of hospital in a day or two.’

  ‘No lasting damage?’

  ‘No, thankfully. He’s lucky to be alive. The drugs she gave him and the hypothermia nearly finished him off.’

  ‘And mentally?’ I asked. ‘Is he coping?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s not himself. It’s going to take him a long time to get over it. PTSD, they’re saying.’

  ‘I don’t know if you ever really get over something like that,’ Mum said, erupting into a fit of coughing.

  ‘Why don’t you go and lie down, Mum?’ I said. ‘We’ll be OK here.’

  ‘No. I cough more when I’m lying down. Besides, we need to talk about it.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That tonne of guilt that’s sitting on your shoulders and weighing you down.’

  I frowned, annoyed that she could read me so easily.

  ‘I shouldn’t have left to go to Adelaide.’

  ‘Yes, you should have. Mum wanted you to go. Has it occurred to you that maybe she didn’t want you here when she passed?’

  ‘You think she knew?’ I smacked my cup down in shock, slopping tea.

  ‘Yes, I think she did. Cass, I know you might not want to hear this, but I think she was ready to go. She’d been so tired. She died happy.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘She was sitting in her favourite room, looking out at her garden with Shadow on her lap. She had a smile on her face.’

  Mum had told me that already. But I didn’t like the idea that Gran had been happy to leave us.

  ‘She left this for you.’ Mum reached into her pocket and passed me a folded piece of paper.

  ‘Why didn’t you give it to me sooner?’

  ‘She told me not to.’ Mum waved her own piece of paper at me.

  I opened the page with shaking fingers. The words were simple.

  Cass my darling,

  I love you with all my heart and, if I can, I’ll always watch over you. Don’t be sad. You have so much to look forward to. Ed is a good man and your future together will be a happy one.

  Talk to your mother about what’s been missing. I think she’ll be able to help.

  Gran

  PS The kitchen’s yours now. Enjoy!

  Ed and Mum were both staring at me as I read. I sniffed and wiped away the fresh torrent of tears that had bathed my cheeks. I looked at Mum.

  ‘You were right.’

  Mum took my hand and squeezed it. I tried to smile, though the effect was probably more alarming than reassuring.

  ‘Did she say anything else?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Yes. She told me to talk to you about my talent.’

  Mum shook her head, confused. ‘Your talent? We talk about that all the time …’

  ‘No, this is different. I was talking to her about it just before she died. I think it’s gone.’

  ‘What do you mean gone?’

  ‘I mean it’s not working anymore. I’ve been in places where I should have had visions but I haven’t.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The hospital, the ambulance, Mrs Jacobs’ house of horrors.’

  ‘I still think maybe it’s just that no one had died in those places,’ Ed said.

  ‘I might believe that no one had died in the ambulance, or that I got lucky in the hospital, but Mrs Jacobs’ house? We know she killed lots of people.’

  ‘Nine, ten if you count her husband. I still can’t believe she kept him trussed up like a turkey in the back of the freezer for all those years. I think poor Jonathan was just her patsy,’ Ed said.

  ‘Ten people and I didn’t get one vision.’

  ‘But your talent only works when they died violently. She said she was drugging them. They just went to sleep,’ Ed said.

  ‘Ed has a point.’ Mum looked at us closely. ‘But there is another possibility. Tell me, what was Gran’s reaction when you told her?’

  ‘She took my hands and smiled and told me to enjoy it,’ I said.

  Mum threw her head back and laughed. The sound was so unexpected and so shocking I didn’t know how to react. My mouth fell open. I looked at Ed. His expression clearly said he thought Mum had lost the plot.

  ‘Cass, my love, I don’t think there’s any mystery at all,’ she said.

  ‘There’s not?’

  ‘No. There’s one small fact about our gifts that Gran and I probably never told you.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘They go into hiding when we’re expecting.’

  ‘Expecting?’ The word tumbled from my mouth before my brain had processed it. Realisation hit me a few seconds later. I stared at Mum. She laughed again.

  ‘Congratulations! You and E
d will make wonderful parents.’

  I turned and looked at Ed. His eyebrows were so far up his forehead they were threatening to join his hairline. He looked at me, then Mum, and then without warning he exploded out of his chair with a loud whoop that sent Shadow scampering and made me jump in my seat. He grabbed me and tugged me up out of my chair, wrapped me in his arms and hugged me so hard he forced the air out of my lungs with a whoosh.

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  Hindsight

  Craven

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  EPILOGUE

  Cass rolled over and peered at the glowing numbers on her bedside clock. Her eyes widened in surprise. It was nearly 7am. She’d slept for ten hours straight. A rush of anxiety, coupled with the agony of rock hard breasts propelled her out of the bed. Ed mumbled something in his sleep then turned over and settled again.

  She slipped her feet into her slippers and padded across the hallway into the closest room. Daylight was pushing its way around the outline of the blind, casting the room into a half-light she could easily see by. She crossed over to the wooden cot in the middle of the room and peered into it. Ella lay there, half uncovered, eyes wide open, peering up at her. In her mouth was a bright pink dummy, wiggling up and down as she gave it a work out.