Immortal Eyes (PI Assistant Extraordinaire Mystery Book 2)

by Lotta Smith

  I gasped. “That must have been really difficult.”

  I wasn’t sure if I could cooperate with the authorities if I were in his shoes. Theft and murder were unjustifiable, but if it turned out to be Mrs. Yarborough, my Physics III teacher back in high school, I might have been tempted to turn a blind eye on her mistake in exchange for an A-plus.

  “Not really. Later, this professor thanked me for turning him over to the feds, saying he was torn between what little was left of his conscience and the mixed feelings of greed and frustration. Not to mention, he felt truly terrible about killing a person. So I felt little remorse for my actions, except it blew off the faculty position I was supposed to land after getting my degree. Obviously, people in the ivory tower didn’t appreciate a young scholar who ratted out his superior. And in the world of academics, when you screw up with your first step, you’re screwed forever.”

  “That’s why Agent Henderson recruited you to the FBI.”

  “Yeah. Nothing fancy. The only funny part was Henderson found out I hadn’t yet reached legal drinking age after buying me a tequila sunrise. Before he was able to snatch it back, I hit the bottom with one gulp. I was fine with getting a misdemeanor, but he didn’t want any trouble with the ethics committee, so we sort of made a deal: I wouldn’t mention the incident and he gave me whatever help I needed anytime. I used the card immediately, not a smart move, I guess. I was young.”

  “Wow, I knew you two had a long history.”

  “A history? Come on, Kelly, stop referring to it like a relationship,” Archangel complained with a grimace. “He was partly responsible for screwing up my academic career; he owed me big.”

  “Still, you and Agent Henderson seem like very close friends.”

  “Then you should see an ophthalmologist. You should thank me for including vision and dental coverage with your health insurance.”

  “My vision is fine. It’s just we have different points of view.” I smiled. “Anyway, thanks for covering me with a nice insurance plan.”

  “Hey, wipe that grin off your face,” he snapped.

  “Okay, let’s talk about another topic. Why did you leave the FBI?”

  “I don’t remember,” he said.

  “Yes, you do. You never forget anything.”

  Indeed, one of the things that attribute to Archangel’s brilliant detecting skills was his uber-human memory that came with eyes that never missed any subtle unbalance, disorder, or mismatch of anything. Maybe that came from his expertise in art.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I got bored,” Archangel mumbled.

  “Bored? No, you weren’t bored. If you were really bored, you wouldn’t be a PI who consults with the feds.”

  “Kelly, I suppose you’d make a good interrogator. The thing is, I got bored with all the politics and drama. There was an ugly case that changed many things… like everything.”

  “Like your engagement to that congresswoman being called off?” I blurted out before giving it much thought. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I apologize; that was a personal question. I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

  “That’s all right.” He shook it off. “Perhaps being my assistant involves a certain entitlement to ask me personal questions. And you’re right. Seems like I’m not her favorite person after all these years. She’s grudgy, or what?”

  “It did look like she still has a grudge on you,” I agreed. Though I didn’t mention I also sensed something fiery within Bitchtricia, for example, smoldering passion or… love. “But life goes on, right?”

  “Yeah, life goes on.”

  “So who dumped whom?”

  “I’m not authorized to discuss the matter with third parties on the account she insisted we sign confidentiality clauses, which I surrendered to sign. You know what I mean?”

  “I see.” So she’s the dumpee. “She surely seemed like the kind of person who likes to sign confidentiality clauses.”

  “Enough of the past. Let’s focus on the current issue.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Okay.”

  For a moment or two, neither of us spoke. Then I found myself itching to ask if Bitchtricia had played an important role for my employer to start wearing women’s clothes.

  “Mr. Archangel—”

  “By the way, Kelly—”

  We started talking simultaneously.

  “Go on, ladies first,” he interjected. “But don’t forget about the ‘no mentioning the past’ part.”

  “Well…” I struggled with words. “Oh my, I guess what I was going to say slipped my mind. So…after you.”

  “All right, there’s a Chinese restaurant around the corner.” He cleared the throat. “If you promise you’ll stick to not digging into my past, dinner’s on me.”

  “Can I order a crab rangoon? And maybe a shrimp chow mein?”

  “Be my guest. Throw in pork dumplings, if you like.”

  “Deal,” I said and we high-fived.

  Digging about the mystery of his past was intriguing and tempting, but I was famished and could use a free dinner.

  At the same time, it felt completely out of the ordinary that I was thinking about food minutes after witnessing death. Anyway, hunger tended to stop me from thinking well.

  Chapter 10

  “How well are you sleeping lately?”

  “Not well,” I admitted.

  “Can you tell me more about your sleep problem?” the shrink prompted, with something resembling concern in his voice.

  But somehow, I sensed he showed that just because it was a part of his job.

  After a brief period of silence, I said, “I wake up in the middle of night, after a brief sleep, every night. Then I have problems going back to sleep.”

  After asking me how long I had been experiencing this problem and what time of night it usually happened, he said, “Are you aware of anything that might be causing you to wake up in mid-sleep?”

  “Well, Doctor…” I grumbled. “I have a dream.”

  “A dream?” He parroted the word with so much interest that it almost felt ridiculous.

  “More like a nightmare,” I corrected myself.

  “Can you tell me more about it?”

  “Oh, it’s just a silly dream, you know.”

  I tried to laugh it off, but he wasn’t fooled.

  “No matter how silly it may seem, dreams often portray our feelings and thoughts in our subconscious.” Rubbing his jaw, he said, “Mr. Reynolds, you can rest assured that whatever we discuss in this room never gets out of here.”

  “It’s a dream about a woman.” I shrugged. “In the dream—or the nightmare—she is pregnant.” Following the shrink’s inquisitive look, I added, “I can tell because her inflated belly is just like a balloon.”

  “Is she someone you know?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I can’t see her face. She is something like a dark shadow.”

  “I see.” He nodded, encouraging me to continue the story.

  “All of a sudden, she’s dead. And she is glaring at me grudgingly, except her eyes are no longer with her. She stares at me from dark, bloodied, empty holes that are supposed to accommodate her eyeballs.”

  I was sweating and huffing as I regurgitated my nightmares.

  “Are you okay? Would you like some water?” He looked at me with concern.

  I declined his offer with a shake of my hand. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  After taking a deep breath, I continued. “The worst part is, I’m holding the bloodied eyeballs in my hands. Not just hers, but the fetus’s. The unborn baby has somehow emerged from her. Her, I mean, the mother’s abdomen is ripped open. The baby’s strapped to his mother with just the umbilical cord, but I know he has his own will. And he doesn’t like me. No, doesn’t like me is an understatement. It’s obvious he hates me. ‘You idiot! You killed us, you killed us, you killed us!’ he accuses me, finger pointing, his empty eyeholes full of rage… Then the woman joins the chant with the baby, and the eyeballs I’m holding start chant
ing at me, saying Murderer, murderer, bloody murderer. I tell you, it’s horrible.”

  I touched my cheek and felt the moisture. At first, I thought it was sweat; then I realized I was sobbing.

  Offering tissue paper, the shrink asked, “Do you think this particular dream is anyhow related to your real life experiences?”

  “I don’t know.” The doctor cast me an inquisitive look, so I added, “Just in case, I have searched my home and studio for stray eyeballs that do not belong to me. I’m happy to announce I found none.”

  I didn’t mention that some peculiar words kept surfacing in my consciousness and bothered me badly.

  I failed to understand the reason why, but I was afraid to tell him. A complication is the last thing I wanted to add to my already bad situation. At least I was aware of the jeopardy of sharing my obsession that involved the word “eyeballs” nowadays. I had no idea the meanings of “Eyes of the Dragon,” “Dragon Lady,” or why I was so obsessed with this phrase.

  The shrink acted like he knew it all. “I see,” were his words.

  “Do you by any chance suspect that I’m the serial killer called Eyeball Snatcher?”

  “What makes you ask me that question?” He answered my question with a question, as if to avoid actually making a reply to my question. Then he continued. “Sometimes, for sensitive people, information from the outside world, such as TV, newspaper, and the internet, is too much. And when your brain is overwhelmed with external stimuli, the borderline between reality and virtual reality often gets blurred.”

  “Hmm, that’s interesting.”

  “Do you use alcohol before sleeping?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t drink.” I stopped drinking after the crash.

  “How about recreational drugs?”

  “No,” I denied profusely. Maybe, a little bit too profusely. I tended to get sensitive when someone asked me about drug use, not to mention the little concoction I was currently using was not the kind of drug he was talking about. So I used a little bit of this and that to help me get numb, but that didn’t make me a junky, right?

  The psychiatrist furrowed his brows skeptically. “How about using them in the past?”

  “Well, I did used to use…a bit.”

  “How much do you define as ‘a bit’?”

  “I prefer not to answer that question.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, Doctor.” I tried to chuckle breezily in a lame attempt to lighten the mood, but the shrink didn’t perk up.

  “No offence, but from my point of view, it seems like you are not 100 percent confident regarding drug matters. And I strongly recommend you quit the bad habit immediately. Drugs destroy not only you, but the people around you, including but not limited to your loved ones.”

  “I understand.” I didn’t tell him my ‘loved one’ had already left me.

  “I can arrange a proper treatment in a rehab,” he offered. “What do you think about that?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t want to go to rehab. It’s a waste of time. I’ve already quit using drugs.”

  He stared me in the eyes. “Then, Mr. Reynolds, can you promise me never to lay your hands on drugs?”

  “Of course. I mean it.”

  He nodded like he was satisfied with my answer. “By the way, about the people in your dream, is there anyone you know?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” I said through gritted teeth. “Though I told you I couldn’t identify the dead woman in my dream, but I fear she might be Carla.”

  “Your late fiancée?”

  “Yes, my best friend, my fiancée, the one and only woman I loved… and killed.”

  “Mr. Reynolds, you didn’t kill her,” the shrink said firmly. “It was an unfortunate accident.”

  “But I was driving the goddamned vehicle!” I snapped. “She was pregnant with our baby. We were so happy. I was such an idiot to drive after drinking. I thought it was okay, just a couple of beers, but it wasn’t…”

  “I can imagine your suffering,” said the psychiatrist with a grim expression. “However, what happened is the past. We cannot restore the past.”

  “I know. But I just can’t get over it. Every moment, I can’t help thinking what if I had gone more slowly, what if we took a taxi instead of driving myself, what if I had firmly objected to going out to dinner and ordered pizza or Chinese instead.”

  “Remorse is a tricky emotion. Anyone else you recognize in that particular dream?”

  “You know, I told you about the woman in my dreams.”

  “Right. The woman who might be your late fiancée.”

  “Yes. I know it sounds irrational, but I can’t help feeling that the woman in my dream represents the shadows of my mother as much as Carla.”

  “You mother passed away when you were a student, is that correct?”

  “Yes, she died of a heart attack when I was studying in Vienna, Austria.”

  “How was your relationship to your late mother?”

  I had answered this question in a previous session.

  Trying to hide annoyance, I admitted, “I have mixed feelings about her. She was the harshest piano teacher. It’s true I often loathed her. But…”

  “But?”

  “It’s also true, without her, I would never have emerged as a musician in the first place, which I completely screwed up by causing the accident.” As I bitterly admitted that, the haunting image of shattered glass and crooked and bloody wrists with bones sticking out flashed before my eyes. The accompanying pain that came with the memory was followed by numbness and despair.

  Gritting my teeth, I moved my hands. The hands that will never fully recover.

  “I can imagine she’s really pissed off at me, if she sees me from up above.”

  “I doubt it, Mr. Reynolds. As you have mentioned, it’s true you had an accident that resulted in the death of your fiancée and the expected baby. You sustained a severe injury to your hands, ending your career as an internationally renowned pianist. Still, you have achieved great success in the popular music industry. As a singer and songwriter named Yves, you are one of the most successful emerging musicians. It’s amazing, like the pianist Frederick Reynolds has been reborn into Yves.”

  I cocked my head. It was awkward how he described me as some kind of a star. People talked about me like a fucking phoenix or something, but in my heart, I was just a poor, stupid bastard who ended up killing his loved ones because of his own stupidity. I knew that fact never changed. So being Yves, I got a lot of money. Money can buy many things. Then again, even if I collect all the money in the world, that cannot buy Carla and our baby back.

  “Let me interpret your persistent dream. It is a mixed reflection of your inner love, loathing, remorse, and the lack of self-esteem that’s causing conflicts within your subconscious. I see your inner conflict as the source of the bad dream in which you end up killing your mother, your late fiancée, and the baby. I strongly recommend you cut yourself some slack.”

  “That’s impossible, Dr. Springer.” I cracked a dry laugh.

  “Mind you, anything is possible.” The doctor smiled assuredly. “First, you need to believe in yourself. Also, I strongly recommend that you cut off media like TV and internet that come with violence, murders, and other creepy things from your life. Shall we get started?”

  For the millionth time, I reclined on the couch, lying flat on my back.

  “Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and relax your muscles.” The shrink started with his signature deep voice that induced sleepiness. “Imagine a peaceful, warm, and calm place. You are completely relaxed…”

  Following his instruction, I felt my body gradually relaxing.

  As I lay on the couch, feeling comfortable, my consciousness sank into the deeper place.

  The session had just begun.

  Chapter 11

  Four days later, we went to a posh, Beaux Arts-style condo in Kalorama Triangle, Washington DC. The second victim had been identified this mor
ning, and Henderson summoned Archangel to see her residence in hopes of him picking up anything about the murderer.

  At the entrance of the condo complex, there was a doorman—a big guy in his mid-fifties with white hair—who gave us a well-concealed but apprehensive onceover. He looked like all the doormen I’d interacted with in the past. I greeted him and explained the purpose of our visit. He led us into the entrance hall where we were met by the concierges, a beautiful Nordic woman who made a phone call before showing us to the elevator and advising us to go up to the thirteenth floor.

  “Hey, you have something in common with the victim,” Archangel said to Henderson as soon as he stepped out of the elevator. He had been waiting for us in front of room 1313, which was the same number as his office on Capitol Hill. “Maybe that gives you some big clue to solve the case pronto.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s just a coincidence, and what we share in common is limited to the room number,” Henderson replied with his signature scowl. He seemed extra-grumpy.

  “I don’t think the room number is the only thing the late victim shared with you,” Archangel said. “She’s divorced, just like you, as I said.”

  “What are you, a psychic?” Henderson’s frown got deeper.

  “No, it’s just a guess. So, what do we know about this newly identified victim?”

  Henderson sighed. “Her name was Alice Sinclair, a thirty-three-year-old columnist, leisure and travel writer. Her work had appeared in publications including Vogue, New York, Marie Claire, Travel and Leisure, and various newspapers. And, indeed, she got divorced just a month ago. The former husband, Anthony Klein, is a hedge fund manager. Right now, Klein is based in Manhattan. She obtained this condo and a handsome asset division through the divorce settlement. Her parents live in Orange County, California, and she lived here alone. It was only this morning that a local dentist reported the second victim’s dental records matched his patient Alice Sinclair’s.”