Soul Thief (Blue Light Series)

by Mark Edward Hall

  Doug had replied, “The plan. The purpose. Something in the future. Something important.”

  “What do you mean by that, Doug?”

  “They’re pure of heart and they’re all really smart. He needs them to be both. But being smart is most important. It’s why he takes them.”

  “They’re pure of heart and they’re all really smart. He needs them to be both. It’s why he takes them.”

  Was it possible that Doug had unwittingly given him a clue that had taken him all these years to finally understand? At the crime scene today Spencer told him that those who had known Ariel, the child who was taken, said that she was a brilliant little girl, a savant actually who had a kind heart and a pure soul. Holy crap. Was there a connection or was it just a big damn coincidence?

  Rosemary finally answered Jennings’s call. “How did your day go,” she asked. When Jennings told her about it she was just as blown away as he had been. He gave her the name of the missing girl and asked her to do some digging into the Callaghan family, see if she could find out about the child’s academic record and any other associations.

  “First thing in the morning,” Rosemary replied.

  “Great,” Jennings said. “One more thing. This might be a little more difficult but I also want you to go back twenty-five years and try to find the same info on both Tommy and Savannah Ricker.”

  “What’s this about?” Rosemary asked.

  “A hunch. I don’t know where it will lead. Maybe it’s a wild goose chase, but I think it’s worth a shot. I’ll explain in the morning.”

  When Rosemary hung up Jennings tried to find a telephone number for De Roché in Florida. He had no idea where in Florida they lived so he did a web search. I’ve got to talk to Doug, he thought. Let him know what’s going on and warn him. If he’d been more interested in Annie’s past he wouldn’t be having this problem. Christ, why hadn’t he been? He could not adequately answer that question. Perhaps it was a testament to his own insensitivity. Maybe that’s why Emily had screwed around on him. He was an insensitive bastard. Don’t think about that, damn it! You don’t ever want to go back there. You might start seeing through all the bullshit. And you don’t really want to see through the bullshit, do you?

  The search came back with several numbers listed for De Roché in Florida, but none for an Édouard. He tried the numbers anyway, without luck. Jennings hung up the phone in frustration.

  The liquor cabinet beckoned. He tried to avoid it. It had been locked for more than a year, since his doctor had warned him about his liver, his cholesterol, blood pressure, elevated sugar levels, all conspiring to put him in an early grave. His co-workers had been avoiding him. He wondered why until one day Rosemary took him aside and said if he didn’t smarten the hell up he’d be either dead or unemployed.

  Jennings had stared at her, uncomprehending.

  “You think I like being an asshole?” She’d said with a pained expression on her face. “The truth is you stink like a brewery. Every morning you come staggering in here with your eyes glazed over smelling like stale booze.”

  Jennings head buzzed all that day with the things Rosemary had said. He didn’t drink that night, or the next night, or the night after that. He didn’t go to AA. He didn’t need any twelve step programs. He hated organizations. He hated meetings. He hated confessions. But mostly he hated whiners. This was something he could do on his own. Three weeks into it he thought he might die. The shakes had him by the nuts and he couldn’t sleep. But he was stubborn. He persevered. Unfortunately he had never lost the craving.

  With two doubles already under his belt and his resolve weakening by the minute he located the place where he had hidden the liquor cabinet key more than a year ago. Gingerly he opened the door and pulled out a bottle three quarters full of his favorite bourbon, now another year older and infinitely mellower. He didn’t fall into bed until he saw the bottom of the bottle. His dreams were populated with victims; frozen, fossilized, some had eyes that were wide open and staring, others had no eyes, or ears or even mouths. None had souls.

  Chapter 33

  Jennings came awake with a start, his head pounding, his stomach sour and churning. Staggering away from his bed he made his way to the bathroom. By now his entire body was thumping like a vast heart. More than a year without booze and he knew he had poisoned his entire system. He went to his knees hugging the bowl as the wretched undigested whiskey spewed up from the center of his being like liquid fire. He hated puking. He hated whiskey. On this morning he hated everything and everybody, but mostly he hated himself.

  It was past nine by the time he reached the office. Emily stared balefully at him as he staggered past her desk on the way to his office. He’d cut himself six times while trying to shave. His face was a battleground.

  A moment later there came a knock on his door. He was sitting with his head in his hands. “Come in,” he said, trying to compose himself.

  Rosemary came in, gave him a reproachful look but never said a word about it. He saw the disapproval and the disappointment written in her expression.

  “It was De Roché’s jet that picked up Doug and Annie yesterday morning,” she said.

  Jennings nodded and accepted the sheet of paper she offered him. It was a schedule of the flight plan from Tampa to Portland and back again.

  “And by the way, Annie’s mother was murdered.”

  Jennings jaw dropped. “Oh, Christ,” he said. “When?”

  “Yesterday morning. About two hours before Doug and Annie’s house blew up.”

  That was it, Jennings knew now that the shit had definitely hit the fan. They killed De Roché’s wife and simultaneously tried to kill his daughter. Things were starting to make a little more sense. But he still didn’t know why, or how. He didn’t know anything about anything. “Where?”

  “Where what?”

  “Where was she killed?”

  “At their home in Florida. It’s all over the news. Evidently an intruder somehow got past security. That’s the story the police are telling anyway. No motive was given. Of course there’s a lot of speculation.”

  “What town do they live in?”

  “A little place called Stone Harbor, north of Pinellas County on the Gulf Coast. A small Greek community. They have no listed phones.”

  “Greek?” Jennings said. “I thought De Roché was a French name.”

  Rosemary looked at Jennings askance. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know. Why would a Frenchman be living in a Greek community?”

  Rosemary threw her hands up in frustration. “Maybe he liked the view. Just because he has French ancestry doesn’t mean he’s French. He was born in the United States. He’s as American as you and I.”

  Jennings ignored Rosemary’s sarcasm. Just the same, something didn’t feel right. “I want you to look into his past, find out everything you can on him.”

  “You mean like official, on the record?”

  “On or off. Go as deep as possible, see what kind of dirt you can dig up.”

  “Sure.”

  “You say his wife’s murder is all over the news,” Jennings said. “You mean local, down there?”

  Rosemary shook her head. “I mean the news, big time, CNN, Fox, the big three.”

  Rosemary could see that Jennings was confused. She decided to give him a few minutes to stew. “You want some coffee?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

  She marched smartly from the room and was back in a minute with a steaming cup. He took a careful sip. It was good. Black and strong, just the way he liked it. Deciding it wasn’t going to make him puke, he took another sip, and then another. Rosemary sat in the chair opposite his desk, her legs crossed, glaring at him.

  “I don’t get it,” Jennings said, and it was the truth. “Why is the national news media covering a local murder? Why do they even care?”

  “Have you been living under a rock, Rick?”

  Je
nnings reddened. “What are you talking about?”

  “In financial circles, De Roché is one of the most powerful men in the world.”

  “I know he’s a businessman, but—”

  “Not only that,” Rosemary interrupted, “he’s done diplomatic work for several presidents, all the way back to Ford. They say he’s very effective, very persuasive. And he’s also involved in some very cutting edge scientific projects.”

  “Scientific projects? Like what?”

  Rosemary frowned. “Some of it’s not even legal in this country so it’s being done off shore. Stuff like human cloning, gene splicing and the like. There are those who say he’s obsessed with the guided evolution of man.”

  “Sounds like he has a God complex.”

  “He’s also involved in private space exploration,” Rosemary said. “He’s working on long duration habitat and cutting edge rocket propulsion systems.”

  “He is busy, isn’t he?”

  Rosemary nodded. “You didn’t know any of this, huh?”

  Jennings frowned. “I knew they were rich but . . .”

  “Jesus, Rick.”

  Jennings bristled. “Listen, Annie never talked about her family. Just an occasional passing remark that led me to believe they had money and a certain amount of influence. Doug didn’t talk about them either. He didn’t care, so why should I? According to Doug, Annie hated her father. So did Doug. Her parents didn’t even attend their wedding. I know, I was there.”

  “Wow, that’s some estrangement.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “So she never mentioned . . .”

  Jennings stared at Rosemary. She had a coy look on her face. “No, I told you, I know nothing about them.”

  “You didn’t know that De Roché is thinking about running for president?”

  Jennings was stunned. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “No.”

  Rosemary shot Jennings an intensely annoyed look. “It’s been all over the news for the past six months.”

  “I don’t watch the news.”

  “No shit, Dick Tracy.”

  “Jesus, that explains a lot.”

  “The jet landed in Tampa four hours after leaving Portland yesterday morning,” Rosemary said. “Doug and Annie were on it.”

  “So when’s the funeral?”

  “They’re not wasting any time. According to the news it’s today.”

  “Today? Christ. Book me on a flight.”

  “I’m way ahead of you. Only problem is I can’t get you out of Portland until tomorrow morning.”

  “What? You’re joking.”

  Rosemary shook her head. “Spring break. Those flights have been booked for six months.”

  “What about Manchester?”

  “Same thing.”

  “God damn it!” Jennings raved. He knew that Spencer would be way ahead of him. The son of a bitch didn’t need airline tickets. The feds had helicopters, and private jets. Evidently he hadn’t given Spencer what he’d wanted so he was out.

  “Oh, and by the way, your friend Spencer called,” Rosemary said, as if reading his thoughts.

  “He’s no friend of mine. What did he want?”

  “To talk to you as soon as possible. He gave me this number.” Rosemary handed it to Jennings. He stared at it. It looked like a cell phone number. “Did you get the chance to do the things I asked you to do?”

  “You mean check those kid’s academic records?”

  Jennings nodded.

  “I did and they were all brilliant. Tommy and Savannah Ricker’s IQs were off the charts. And that little girl yesterday in New Hampshire, Ariel Callaghan. Turns out she was a savant. She’s been playing classical music on the piano since she was old enough to reach the keys. She was so interested in astronomy that her father built her a small observatory in the back yard where she studied the heavens, and she was working on formulas to disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity.”

  “Holy Christ,” Jennings said.

  “Not only that, she was a kind and compassionate little girl who collected money for the needy and was working to erase animal cruelty. She was too smart for elementary school and colleges were already trying to recruit her.”

  “Jesus,” Jennings said. “She was only eight years old.”

  “Yeah, a big loss to the community and maybe to the human race,” Rosemary added.

  Jennings was now convinced that there must be a connection. There must be a reason that creature was targeting and taking smart kids. He suspected that Spencer also knew. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe the thought had never occurred to him.

  Rosemary stood up as if to leave but spoke to him over her shoulder. “You knew she was pregnant, right?”

  Jennings cocked his head at Rosemary. “Pregnant? Who?”

  She turned back around now, facing him. “Damn, Rick, you have been living under a rock. For a couple you’re so close to, you sure don’t know much about them.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Your friend Doug’s wife, Annie, she’s pregnant.”

  Jennings almost fell out of his chair. “How the hell do you know that?”

  Rosemary stuck her nose haughtily in the air. “Woman’s intuition,” she said. “Last week when they came in to take you to lunch, well, it was written all over her face. A woman just knows those kinds of things. And him, well he was about as proud as a new daddy can be.”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Jennings said. “Are you sure?”

  “Trust me, she’s pregnant.” Rosemary turned and marched out of the office.

  Chapter 34

  “Teach us, Good Lord,

  To love thee as thou deservest

  To give, and not to count the cost,

  To fight, and not to heed the wounds,

  To toil, and not to seek for rest,

  To labor, and not to ask for any reward,

  Save that of knowing---that we do thy will,

  Amen.”

  —Saint Ignatius Loyola

  Following the short Jesuit prayer, the six priests in the black robes rose somberly from their places of worship and filed one by one toward the stairway door beside the altar. They had all arrived within the past two hours, most were tired from their journey and tempers were heated. The discussions thus far had been impassioned and vociferous, as Redington suspected they would be. Talk of the Collector and his intentions always elicited passion even in the most diffident among these scholarly holy men. Discussions about the artifact brought passions to a fevered pitch. Its rightful place in the human scheme had always been a deeply contested issue. They all believed, as did Redington, that the object was some sort of path to God, a sacred and rare artifact that, in the right hands, had the power to bring peace and stability to a troubled world, or in the wrong hands, upset humanity’s balance, causing chaos and destruction.

  But whose hands were the right hands? Ah yes, this question had always been at the center of a very long and troublesome debate. History had been witness to the object’s fickle powers and none wanted the church to relinquish it to the wrong custodian, someone that, for all they knew, would use its magic for his own ends, or worse still, allow it to find its way to a much greater evil. Careful guardianship of the object had always been the key to a stable future here on earth. Or so these men passionately believed.

  Now Paul Redington’s guardianship was being questioned, a plot twist in this long and convoluted drama he had never expected, and he was reeling with the implications of it, trying to decide how he would pursue this new angle and appease these men long enough to do what he believed deeply needed to be done.

  “McArthur is the one the object was meant for,” Redington insisted. “Or rather, his unborn child is. But McArthur is the one who must tend the artifact until the child is old enough to know the path. Don’t forget, I have seen two separate visions of the future.”

  “So you say,” one of the elders said, cutting Redington off. He was a small, bent, white-ha
ired man named Jacob Dougherty.

  Redington glared at the man. “Starbird entrusted the object to me and to me alone, because he understood that my visions were the truth and had faith that I would make the right choice when the time came. Well, the visions are becoming more vivid and I am strongly suggesting that the object be passed before it is too late.”

  “But there’s no proof, other than these so-called visions of yours, that McArthur is the intended recipient,” Dougherty said.

  “Correct,” said Redington, having to hold his temper in check. “No proof, other than my so-called visions. It appears that you gentlemen are just going to have to put your faith in these . . . so-called visions. Remember, proof was never a prerequisite. Don’t forget, I have always been free to entrust the artifact with impunity.”

  “We have not forgotten,” Dougherty said icily, “and that’s what worries me.”

  “What’s going on here?” Redington said. “You men all know McArthur’s history. We’ve been watching him since childhood.”

  “As have others,” Dougherty said, his small beady eyes drawing down on Redington in suspicion. “Lord knows his . . . escapades are no secret.”

  “I would hardly call them escapades.”

  “What then? He was hit in the face by a young friend. That’s when he supposedly began seeing the Collector. And it didn’t take him long to go public—”

  “He did not go public,” said Redington. “Lord, he was just a child. The incident made national news and the press ran with it.”

  “No matter,” said Dougherty. “The entire world soon knew about the cursed child with the terrible sight. Something the church has been successfully keeping secret for nearly seven-hundred years was suddenly and inexorably thrust into the spotlight. How do we know—how do you know—it wasn’t some sort of trick?”

  “Trick?” Redington said, unable to believe Dougherty’s level of skepticism. “He was seven years old.”