Dads pulled his arm away from her and she checked the time. Just twenty more minutes until her morning rounds. His wounds had scabbed over nicely and she didn’t think that he was in any danger of infection. Thank goodness for small miracles, she thought as she rubbed her sore, red eyes and wished she could call in sick. It felt like she fought off the anxiety every other moment, and part of her didn’t care anymore. So what if everyone knew she had an anxiety disorder? What was the worst they could say? She glared at Dads and wished he would just die already.
“You must be as scared as I am,” Lou said. He kept staring straight ahead. “Did you feel the presence last night? It was so weird, I couldn’t move my body at all.” She had no idea if he heard or understood her, but it felt good to say it out loud.
She got up and headed for his pills. She had been so tired yesterday that she forgot to give him his morning dosage and had to rush back between rounds to make sure he got it. He would never remember to do it on his own.
She poured two into the palm of her hand and held them out for him. He took them from her obediently and took a sip of water. If she was going to make it to Doreen on time, she needed to hurry up with her morning routine. She turned away from Dads and headed for the bathroom when a knocking interrupted her. Who could it be at this hour, she thought and was afraid that it would be Diane with another death.
When she saw Barney standing in the hallway, she smiled at him in relief. However, much she disliked the man, he was much better than the alternative.
“Is she available?” Lou asked him before he said anything.
“She said she could do it tonight,” Barney said and looked past her at Dads.
“How’s his arm doing?”
“It’s healing nicely, thank you for asking.”
“Has he said…” He trailed off when she shook her head.
“That’s why we need her,” Lou said. “Thank you for arranging this.”
Barney shifted from one foot to the other. “We need to do it in Barbara Monroe’s room,” he said.
Lou couldn’t believe her ears. “NO! We need to do it in here. Dads was attacked here, not in her room. I thought you said we were dealing with Irene Lentz.”
“Babs was murdered as well, and I think she’s our ghost. Plus her death is more recent and I think we’ll have an easier time contacting her,” he said but Lou didn’t believe him. She knew he had been in love with the woman and understood his pain, but her need was greater than his. Something attacked Dads.
“If you’re so afraid, why don’t you leave? Move out. You don’t have to be here like we do,” Barney said, sensing her weakness.
Her hands balled up into fists. “I can’t move. I WON’T. I’m going to get to the bottom of what’s going on here. We’re doing it in my room.” She widened her stance and stood taller. He wouldn’t bully her into an unwanted decision.
“What if Sara doesn’t make contact?”
“Then maybe we don’t have a ghost.”
“Someone or something is killing everyone,” Barney said.
“It didn’t kill Dads and if you’re speaking of Barbara, there is still no indication that her death was anything but a heart attack, unless you know something I don’t.”
“I don’t know why Dads was spared, but I don’t believe any of the others died from natural causes,” he said and looked past her at Dads. “He must have a strong heart.”
“What time is she coming tonight?” she asked and closed the door a crack to protect Dads from Barney’s prying eyes.
“Nine o’clock tonight in Barbara Monroe’s room,” Barney said and stuck his foot in the cracked door.
“No. Here,” she said and felt as if she were a child again.
Barney sighed. “Fine. What about this? We start here, and then we go to Babs’, I mean Barbara’s room. I’m sure Sara wouldn’t mind,” he said.
“That will work for me,” Lou said.
“What about Dads?”
“What about him?” Lou kept her voice neutral.
“You think he should be there tonight?”
“I want him there.” Lou tried to edge his foot out of the way of the door but he held his ground.
“Why?” Barney said and stood on his tiptoes to see past her. She pressed her body into the crack and blocked his view.
“He’s central in this,” she said and wished the conversation was over.
“He shouldn’t be there, Lou,” he said, taking his foot out of the door and turning on his heel.
“Asshole,” Lou muttered to herself and slammed the door shut.
Sara Caine hummed the Pixies’ tune Where is my mind? as she made coffee. Barney’s phone call both surprised her and got her excited. Fredrick and the gang, in discussing ways of breaking into the Bockerman, concluded that they made terrible criminals and they had lost their chance at the once famous hotel.
She called Fredrick after she got off the phone with Barney and told him about the séance, and that they had another shot. They both agreed someone else had to have been attacked. Fredrick couldn’t believe that Barney, not a believer in the supernatural, asked for a séance of all things.
With a small smile hovering on the corners of her mouth, she picked up the phone to call Johan. To her knowledge, he had no idea of how she felt about him and she wanted to keep it that way. He saw her as someone to be mentored and protected, and she was fine with that for now. His admission about discovering Luther was the first time he shared his real obsession with her. This shared intimacy gave her hope that their relationship was headed for something more. She jumped when he answered.
“Sara.” The way he said her name made her body tingle.
“Johan, how are you?” She kept her voice cool. “I’m on a case with some real spirits. One of my—“ She paused. What was Barney? A client? “Um, one of my clients called me requesting a séance.”
“Is it the real deal?”
“I went to the Bockerman…”
“You got into the Bockerman?”
“Yes, with Fredrick and the boys. Fredrick’s father knew this new client. Anyway, we went there, and the initial places we investigated were not haunted. Don’t get me wrong, the ghosts of silent era Hollywood definitely haunt the place. But, we were called in for something else. Anyway, I got that special pull. The disturbing one.”
“The one that makes you go places you shouldn’t?” The amusement in his voice annoyed her.
“Right. A ghost pulled me to the eighth floor, and I watched a woman getting murdered.”
“An echo of the murder or the real thing?”
“Yes an echo. I believe the ghost was a woman murdered there a week ago. With Ritchie’s help, I dug into the death records and found a bunch of unexplained deaths. Ritchie did, I mean.” She paused.
Johan cut in before she could continue. “If I’m hearing you correctly, you got pulled to a recent murder and unofficially started investigating and found even more murders. Does Fredrick know any of this? And now, you want me there as backup? Or do you want to use my cleaner services? Because it doesn’t sound to me as though you want to help this ghost pass yet.” He paused. “Did I get that right?”
“That’s right,” she said, bristling at his tone.
“You need to call the cops,” he said. “How many deaths did you discover?”
“About ten to twelve that are suspicious.”
“Wait, how many?” he asked.
“Ten to twelve,” she said more loudly.
“Cops, Sara. Call the cops. That’s way too many deaths for you to be investigating. What’s the time frame?”
“About 4 months.”
“Jesus, if you don’t call, I will,” he said.
“May I remind you that you got me into this business? I could be working in film production, but YOU convinced me to use my talents to help people. You remember that, right?”
“Not when there are so many murders, Sara. Use your head. This is way too big for you. You can�
�t protect yourself from someone like that.”
“I’m not a child, Johan and I want my PI license. This case can get me in the door of most PI agencies in town. They won’t take my phone calls right now, as you well know. I’ll bring my gun if I need to. You, Fredrick and Jerry will be there as well,” she said. When he stayed silent, she knew he would be there.
“Why this one Sara?” was all he said.
“Because the ghost can help us, and the cops won’t believe me when I tell them how I know. I don’t need to remind you of this. The woman who runs the place doesn’t think there’s a problem, and I have to believe she must know she has a murderer on her hands. I don’t think Barney is the killer, but something is going on over there and he’s involved.” Her words came out in a rush. She didn’t want to give him a chance to interrupt. “All they have is us.”
“This is a very active serial killer, Sara, and we should let the police deal with it,” he said.
“Since when is any of this a problem for you, Johan?” she asked, confused by the whole conversation. “What’s going on?”
“This is too much, Sara. Ten to twelve deaths? This isn’t a missing girl or someone who died years ago and came to you to help find his body. This is an active predator who is smart enough to have gotten away with it. That’s what’s causing me to pause.”
“I’m going, Johan,” she said.
“I can’t change your mind?”
“NO!” They sat on the phone in silence for what felt like an hour.
Johan broke the silence. “What time should I come get you?” he asked, and Sara frowned. He knew her too well. If they went together then, they’d have to leave together, and she’d have no way to investigate on her own. Not with him at her back. He wants you safe, she reminded herself but her irritation grew.
“Pick me up at eight o’clock tonight,” Sara said. “We’re supposed to meet Fredrick there at nine.”
“See you then,” he said.
She hung up before he could say anything else, and pressed her palms to her flushed cheeks. He’d been her partner for the last four years, and he’d never questioned a case like this before. That alone gave her pause. What if he was right and she was putting all of them in danger. She shook the thought off. They were just going to do a séance, she thought. They would be fine.
Lou Fairbanks watched the people gathered around the small, round table and wondered if they felt as excited as she did. Dads sat on her left, and Sara Caine was on her right. Johan Luken, Sara Caine’s friend, sat on the other side of her. Pitch-black hair and a permanent six o’clock shadow made the man look dangerous although he dressed and carried himself like a Venice Beach surfer. Lou could see he was more than a surfer though. She recognized the intense light in the man’s eyes as they flicked from face to face, studying them all. Fredrick, the lead ghost hunter, was seated next to Mr. Luken and then came Barney, Mary Ann, and Doreen.
“I don’t always work like this,” Sara explained to the table. “I’m a medium, but I can’t just call ghosts up at will. If the ghost or ghosts want to contact me, they will show themselves. I wasn’t expecting so many people…” She trailed off as the dark man squeezed her hand. Lou wondered if the two were more than just colleagues and wondered what it felt like to be cared for like that.
Sara closed her eyes, took a deep breath and became still. Lou held her breath in anticipation and noticed the others did the same. They all sat as still as stone.
Sara emitted a small sound, and Lou saw Barney staring at the medium with a fierce intensity. Sweat ran down his face, and he shifted back and forth in his chair. Maybe they should have done the séance in Babs’ room first, Lou thought, concerned the man might keel over at any moment.
Sara opened her eyes. “I’m not getting anything from this room,” she said and gave a small nod to Fredrick. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any here, but they are choosing not to show themselves.”
“Wasn’t the attack on Dads some sort of message? Doesn’t she want to tell us what she wanted from him?” Lou knew she sounded sharp and combative, but she didn’t care.
“I don’t know. If it was this ghost, it doesn’t want to make contact with me tonight.”
“What else could it be?” Barney asked.
“A demon.” Johan Luken spoke for the first time. His baritone voice was gruff.
“You can’t be serious?” Barney asked.
“Very. Demons are more powerful than ghosts. I find it implausible that a ghost caused Mr. Fairbanks’ wounds. A demon is more likely to cause such bodily harm.”
They all stayed silent. The room grew hot and uncomfortable.
Barney cleared his throat. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked. Doreen and Mary Ann nodded in agreement. Lou thought the same. She was not a religious person and if evil existed in the world, it did so in human form. Who needed to make up demons?
Johan Luken’s words really disturbed the ladies, both of who looked as though they had just sucked on sour lemons. “What kind of cockamamie people are you?” Mary Ann sputtered.
Sara held up her hand, and Lou wondered how she would save the night. “Wait. I think…” She cocked her head. “I feel something. I feel…” The woman’s eyes closed and Lou noticed the others not entirely buying her act. She, on the other hand, was mesmerized.
In her excitement, she grabbed Sara’s hand. “Is it her, is it Irene?” Sara Caine convulsed as if electrocuted. Sara grasped Lou’s wrist as her eyes flew open and rolled into the back of her head. She turned to Lou, and the world around them disappeared. Sara Caine’s blank eyes stared directly into Lou’s soul.
Lou tried to loosen Sara’s fingers from her wrist, but the medium held fast. Lou felt the woman inside her head and screamed.
Someone pried Sara’s fingers off her wrist, and Lou shuddered as their connection was broken. She was only vaguely aware of Sara slumping away from her. Lou hovered above their small gathering and she watched Johan take the now unconscious woman’s pulse.
“Call nine one one,” Johan yelled to Fredrick who sprang into action and sent Lou crashing back into her body. “I have a pulse, but it’s faint,” Johan said as Fredrick dialed 911. Lou’s senses returned, and she was back into the middle of the chaos.
“A woman, my friend, passed out at the Sunshine Assisted Living Facility,” Fredrick yelled into the phone as Mary Ann began to cry. He listened for a moment. “That’s correct. On Ivar, the former Bockerman Hotel. Big sign on top of the building. She has a pulse but won’t wake up.”
Fredrick hung up the phone and joined Johan at Sara’s side. “Paramedics should be here in less than five,” he said as Johan cradled Sara in his arms, his eyes focused on her face. Lou heard him whispering her name. When he looked up at Lou, his brilliant blue eyes were replaced almost entirely by the blacks of his pupils and made Lou shiver in fear.
Sara Caine woke up to Johan’s concerned face hovering above hers. Her surroundings swam in and out of focus, and her head hurt like the day after a weeklong bender. She attempted to lift herself up, but sparks of pain shot through her eyes and forced her back down to the pillow.
“Sara? Sara? Can you hear me?” Johan’s voice faded into the distance as the darkness swallowed her back up.
Sara opened her eyes again and found herself in the back of an ambulance with Johan holding her hand as an orderly took her blood pressure. “Johan?”
“I’m right here, Sara,” Johan said and squeezed her hand. Her eyelids drooped, and she wanted to go back into the quiet. Johan’s voice pulled her back into the ambulance, and she used every ounce of strength to open her eyes for him.
“Sara, Sara?” Johan said and shook her arm.
“What happened?” she croaked through her parched lips. She felt his breath on her cheek as he leaned in to hear her over the whine of the ambulance sirens.
“You lost consciousness and were out for way too long, fifteen minutes or so,” he said. “Has this ever happened before?”
A hand pushed a door open onto a bright, sunny apartment. A blond, laughing woman stood in front of her and held up a letter. It flapped in the breeze as the woman said something Sara couldn’t hear. The woman pushed the letter into her hand, and Sara looked down and saw she held an acceptance letter from the California Institute of the Arts. Sara heard the woman laugh, and the image shifted.
Sara stood in the same apartment, moonlight casting a silvery light on the coffee table and illuminating a strange assortment of tools neatly laid out on top of it: a hammer, a syringe, different size scalpels, medical gloves, and two empty jars. A whimper came from somewhere to her left. Sara turned to the sound and felt pain blossom at the back of her head. Her world turned black again.
The darkness was cold and quiet except for the consistent sound of water dripping from somewhere in front of her. Sara rubbed her face and her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. Then she saw her. The same blond woman lay on a mattress, legs splayed open with a bloody mess where her vagina and stomach should have been. Blood dripped from the bottom of the woman’s foot onto the floor.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Sara stepped closer to the body and saw something carved into her body. Was that what she was supposed to see? She memorized the carving that resembled a crude trident. It consisted of a single vertical line that cut from her sternum to her bellybutton with two additional diagonal lines that started a third of the way down the vertical line and cut through each breast. The line ended at the mess that was her stomach.
The Elk (A Caine & Murphy Paranormal Thriller Series Book 1) Page 12