The Terror (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 18)

by Jonas Saul

  She headed inside The Fast Way with no idea what she was looking for. Just inside the doors, she watched people come and go. Shoppers carried bags out. Tills rang in purchases. A young man in a green apron restocked oranges from boxes suspended on a small, gray dolly. Everything seemed normal, nothing out of place. No bad guys with guns. No balaclava-clad assholes trying to shoot the place up.

  Hopefully no bombs either.

  With her sister quiet, she had no idea what she was walking into. She reached around to the back of her shirt to make sure it covered Mason’s Smith & Wesson. If this was about the unsub, she needed to have it handy, but concealed.

  To avoid unwanted attention, she continued into the store and aimlessly walked the aisles. Cereal boxes galore, then coffee and teas. Jams and peanut butter. But no terrorists.

  The utter feeling of uselessness came over her. She asked herself over and over what she was doing there. And if she was in fact being blocked from communicating with her sister, who was blocking them and why?

  Who has that kind of power?

  As she turned up the baking supply aisle, she almost bumped into an old man in a suit.

  “Excuse me,” she said as she shuffled sideways around the man.

  He turned toward her. Their eyes met. His hands were already up and motioning in the air like he was conducting an orchestra only he heard.

  Something hard in Sarah’s stomach dropped. This was new to her. Sure she’d seen the man several times in the past twenty-four hours, but never up this close.

  “What is it you’re trying to tell me?” she asked.

  His right hand fluttered, shot back and forth several times, then started again.

  A woman with a small child edged by her. Sarah moved sideways to offer the woman room. When she did, Sarah caught the look in the woman’s face. A skeptical frown, accompanied by a quick sideways glance. The woman only saw Sarah in the aisle, talking to herself. Just as Parkman hadn’t seen the man standing on the tarmac, neither did this woman see the man in the aisle, waving his arms in frantic gestures.

  What gives? she asked with her mind. Is this how we communicate?

  The man nodded, the edge of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

  Sarah stumbled backwards, reaching out to the shelf to steady herself by a box of chocolate cake mix.

  There’s more, she stammered. There’s more than Vivian? Like, I can see—

  He waved his right hand again. Then did that same motion with it. Sarah studied the motion. It was always the same thing. Up down, a looping arc, then a sideways motion, starting back near the bottom and working his way upwards. He lost her for a moment, scratched in the air, and started up again.

  A couple in their forties walked by pushing a cart. Neither one glanced at the man or Sarah.

  She was more stunned than she would have expected. After years of talking to the other side, she would have thought she could handle this scene with more confidence.

  He scratched the air again, then motioned the message. A series of letters? Or numbers?

  He nodded slightly, his hand never wavering from its path, its mission.

  It looked like a nine, followed a two or a five. Another number followed, then he scratched the air and started again.

  “Excuse me,” someone said from behind her.

  She started at the proximity of the sound. A man maneuvered his cart past her, reached close to her shoulder and grabbed a vanilla cake mix. He offered her a smile, then continued by her.

  Before he got two feet, the cart touched the man gesturing at Sarah. But it didn’t touch him. It entered him. The shopper paused to look at something on the shelf, the side of the shopping cart an inch inside the man’s—the ghost’s—suit jacket. He scanned the cake mixes, frowned, then turned away and walked directly through the old man in the suit.

  A moment later the man in the suit was whole again and the cake-mix shopper had turned the corner and was gone.

  A cool wave of sweat broke out on her forehead. She was staggered. Disbelief, wonder, amazement, joy. If she could see the other side now, the possibilities were limitless. But why did it have to block Vivian? Was this spirit malevolent? What was his goal?

  Not one to be intimidated easily, she lurched out and tried to grab his suit jacket. Her hand drifted through the man’s presence.

  A wave of understanding coursed through her. There had to be a reason he was here. Something important. Something so important that he overrode Vivian’s powerful connection, which had been forged almost a decade ago.

  Once more, she focused on the man’s message. The first gesture had to be a nine, then a five. After that, a two and an eight.

  The man shook his head.

  “Nine, five, two … six?” she asked out loud, then remembered herself and repeated it internally.

  He nodded.

  Then scratched the air, back and forth.

  “Ma’am, can I help you find anything?”

  The manager, a man in his fifties, stood a few feet behind her. Beyond the manager, the woman who had passed her with the child earlier watched from the beginning of the aisle.

  “I’m fine.” She pointed. “I’m talking to—” she stopped. That was a rare mistake. She would need to pay more attention in the future. “I’m talking to myself, trying to decide what cake to bake tonight. Is there a problem?”

  “No problem, ma’am. Just wondering if we could help you along.”

  She knew how it looked. No shopping cart. No bags. Nothing in her hands. Just a random girl, swollen cheek—no doubt bruising, too—standing by herself, talking to herself. Mothers with children would wonder. The manager was called to get her out of the store. It all made complete sense.

  She gave him a warm smile. “Maybe I’ll bake a cake another day.”

  “That sounds fine,” the manager said with a smile.

  When she turned around, the man in the suit was gone.

  As she left the store, a thousand questions filled her mind. What had happened when she died in Denmark? Did the door Vivian used to access Sarah on this plane open to allow others in somehow? Were the days of just Vivian and Sarah over? Or was this a bad turn of events?

  When she reached the cruiser, the work truck with the pitchfork was gone.

  She dropped into the front seat of the cruiser no further ahead for having come to the grocery store. Maybe Vivian sent her here to talk to that old man in the suit.

  “Nine, five, two, six? What’s that for?”

  The early afternoon breeze raised the corner of a piece of paper stuck under the windshield wiper. She snatched the paper off the window. After dropping back in the car, she unfolded it. A message was scrawled in blue ink. At the bottom, the name Thirio was scrawled in cursive.

  Many more people will die today in your name. You can’t stop what I have done. Come see me. Try to stop me. We will end this together.

  Thirio

  Sarah crumpled up the note and shouted her sister’s name. She didn’t expect a response and didn’t get one.

  A minute later, after using GPS for directions, she pushed the cruiser hard toward the Vernon hospital.

  Chapter 24

  Thirio had parked in a way that offered him an easy exit from the grocery store parking lot. He had entered the grocery store, emptied his bottle of poison on the produce unnoticed by the minimum wage staff, tossed the bottle in the garbage, then started for the exit when he saw what looked like an unmarked police cruiser pull in beside his work truck. His stomach had dropped. Could they have found him so easily? He still had so much left to do. He had walked over to the magazine rack by the front windows, grabbed an Entertainment Weekly and idly watched to see what the cop would do.

  A woman got out of the car. A tall, pretty blonde woman, her back to the store. She scanned the parking lot, her attention drawn to his truck. Thirio would swear she stared in at the pitchfork. It was like she knew everything. Who he was, where the garden tool came from, who he’d killed to get
it. Moments passed—he held his breath—then the woman faced the grocery store and started for the door.

  Sarah Roberts.

  “Not possible,” he muttered, letting the magazine fall from his hands.

  He realized how possible it actually was—she was brought in on the investigation because she was psychic.

  Thirio snatched the magazine off the floor, opened it to a random page and turned away from the front door as Sarah entered the store. He weighed the odds of attacking her right then and there and quickly deduced he wasn’t ready. He didn’t have his gun—accidentally left behind at that coffee shop—or he would have emptied it in her face. He didn’t have a knife or any other implement that could be used as a weapon. The pitchfork was in the bed of his truck.

  The last time he’d seen Sarah, she had a gun. And the woman was driving an unmarked cruiser. How the hell could the authorities offer her a car? If they gave her a car, then they gave her a weapon.

  Of course the witch is packing.

  She strolled by him, only three feet between them. Thirio pivoted slowly, watching her head toward the far aisle. He set the magazine back on the rack, grabbed a shopping cart, and headed for the aisle parallel with the one Sarah disappeared down.

  At the end of the aisle, he turned to the right and meandered along the chips and soda pop row.

  Minutes later, having walked three aisles without locating her, he turned a corner and saw her standing at the front end of the baking aisle, staring off into space.

  He edged closer, pretending to be studying products on the shelf. Halfway up the aisle, he noticed how strange she was acting. Like she was talking to someone. Maybe she was on a cell phone with earbuds hidden under her hair.

  He moved closer.

  This was his chance. She faced the front of the store, her back to him. There was nothing heavier or larger than a bag of Robin Hood flour on the shelves, so he would have to use his hands. As long as he attacked swiftly and decisively, he could possibly knock her out or at least shove her to the floor where he could stomp on her head until he crushed her skull. Then there would be no Sarah Roberts on his ass every step of the way.

  He moved closer until he stood within one foot of her. A punch to the back of the neck. Or maybe kick the backs of the knees out. Anything to drop her fast. Then jump up and down on her chest, throat, and face.

  No more pretty girl.

  He collected his breath for the attack. Clenched his fists and rose his right hand.

  A cart’s wheels squeaked behind him. People were in the aisle. There would be screams, havoc. How much time would it take to stomp her to death before people interfered?

  His right hand opened, the fist gone. He touched a box of cake mix on the shelf.

  “Excuse me,” he said from behind her.

  Sarah started. Thirio pushed his cart around her, reached up to the shelf by her shoulder and grabbed a small box of vanilla cake mix. He offered a friendly grin, then continued past her.

  Something was wrong with the way she stared at nothing. There was a look of consternation, her eyebrows squished together, yet bewilderment in her eyes.

  Thirio paused to stare at the cake mixes. If she knew it was him she was looking for, she’d do something about it. He could tell that about her with one look. They’d fight. She’d die.

  He waited a moment more, inviting the attack that didn’t come. He offered her a frown if she was watching, then turned away and headed toward the end of the aisle.

  She didn’t recognize him. She may have psychic leads as to where he had been and what he was doing, but she had no idea what he looked like. That confirmed it for him. No one knew what he looked like yet. Even though they had witnesses at the coffee shop and even though that woman who bought the chairs in Penticton didn’t die in the explosion, his description was still unknown.

  He replaced the cart at the front of the store, strode to his truck, hastily wrote Sarah a note, and then placed it on the cruiser’s windshield.

  Won’t she be angry when she comes out of the grocery store to find a note from the man she’s hunting? Questions of how he knew what car she was driving and where she was at any given time would drive her nuts. It was good to turn the tables on her for a change—like he was the psychic one.

  Back in the truck, he stared at the front door of the grocery store for a few heartbeats, then pulled out of the parking space.

  They would meet up again very soon. And the next time would mark the end of Sarah Roberts. There was no doubt in his mind that he was her exterminator.

  No doubt whatsoever.

  Chapter 25

  Sarah parked near the hospital exit, pocketed the cruiser’s keys, left the doors unlocked, and entered the building through the main admittance doors. Upon pulling into the hospital parking lot, she noticed four marked and two unmarked cruisers. Lee had followed her instructions.

  Sarah wasn’t at the hospital to meet them, though. She was there to meet two people connected to the unsub. They had a picture of the unsub. Officer Lee’s son, Nick, also had a picture. But since Lee’s issue of reconnecting with his son had not been resolved, and Sarah and Lee weren’t investigating this case together anymore, Vivian had sent Sarah to the Vernon hospital to meet two people in Room 404 so she could obtain a picture of the culprit and locate the bastard herself.

  She headed straight for the elevators, hit the button, and stepped inside when the doors opened. On the fourth floor, Sarah walked directly to room 404. At the door, she rapped softly, then opened it.

  Inside the private room, a man lay on the bed while a woman stood by the window. The woman looked over her shoulder. When it was clear she didn’t recognize Sarah as a doctor or nurse, she turned around all the way.

  “Can we help you?” the woman asked. “I think you have the wrong room.”

  The man watched Sarah from the bed, a white sheet drawn up to his neck.

  Sarah entered slowly, a kind, soft smile pasted to her lips.

  “Do you two have a minute?” she asked.

  They exchanged a glance. The woman rubbed the back of her neck, then let her hand fall to the side as she stepped closer to the bed.

  “Not really.”

  Sarah stopped walking. She put her hands up in a non-threatening way. “I’m here to talk. Just for a few minutes. Then I’ll leave.”

  “Talk?” the man said. “About what?”

  “Your condition and my condition.”

  The woman touched her husband’s hand. Their fingers laced together. She blinked, cleared her throat, then raised her head and stared at Sarah.

  “Your condition?” she asked.

  “How about this?” Sarah said. She advanced closer. “I’ll say my piece. When I’m done, we can talk more, or I’ll leave.”

  They looked at each other again. He nodded, she nodded back.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “You are Lori and John DeBeau. You’ve been together for many years, and even though there’s been ups and downs, challenges and obstacles, you always got through everything together. It’s your selfless ways, your kindness that pulls you two through.” Sarah paused to let her words sink in. She eased closer to the bed.

  “Lori, you’re forty-eight and John,” she turned to him, “you’re fifty-four. You’ve had memory loss issues and were recently diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, for which I am so sorry.” Sarah turned back to Lori. “You are a pediatric nurse. I see you take care of special needs children. Together, you and John have ten kids. I’m amazed at the kind of people you two are, the things you’ve done. I mean, I can see you read to him as he has difficulty reading now.”

  “How do you …” Lori swallowed an emotional gasp. “How do you know all that?” Her eyes watered over.

  “I’m Sarah Roberts and sometimes I talk to the other side about people like you. Good, kind people. The true warriors out there, helping with children, giving your life to bettering others.” She turned her attention to John. “Then to have
something like his diagnosis rip it all out from under you. It’s cheap. It’s mean. But I’d like to tell you, there’s hope.”

  “Hope?” John asked.

  “Hope, because this isn’t our real home.” She pointed at the ceiling. “That’s our real home. Make do down here, then go home. They’re waiting. Many speculate, many have faith. I for one know the truth because my sister has laid it out for me.” She moved closer. “We’re here, on this plane, to do what we’re supposed to do, then move on. It’s like, maybe you hate to fly. Begrudgingly, you get on that plane, land safely, and say it wasn’t all that bad after all. In fact, you’re happy you did it. That’s probably not a good analogy, but when you leave here, you’ll look back from the other side and be happy you did it—you lived that life—but wow, it’ll be so good to be home.”