For a brief second, curiosity broke through the mounting pain. Grant heaved his head off the cool comfort of the tile.
“How?”
“It’s kept me a prisoner for two weeks, and I still don’t know anything about it.”
“Because you’re always unconscious when it shows up.”
“And when it’s all over, my client’s gone and I don’t have a clue about what happened. Tonight will be different. We’re going to make a video of the whole thing.”
“With what?”
“My phone. I’ll leave it on the dresser. There’s no reason my client will think to look for it. His mind will be on other things.”
Grant considered this. Concrete visual evidence was exactly what they needed, and not just for themselves, but for any help that eventually showed up. At the very least, it was more of a plan than anything they’d had up until now. But the idea of watching his sister with another man was beyond what he could handle. Listening to them last night had been hard enough.
“That’s good,” he said finally. “We need intel on what we’re dealing with.”
Grant struggled onto his feet, went to the stove.
“Coffee?” he said.
“Please.”
He pulled two mugs down from their hooks underneath the cabinets and slid a coffee filter over the top of each one. Lifting the pot, he poured over the paper, careful to avoid a scalding splash as the grounds collected and the holy, black liquid passed through the paper.
“Smells like coffee,” Paige said.
He carried the warm mugs over to the island.
“This is how the cowboys rolled,” he said, placing one of the cups in front of his sister.
“We even have a whorehouse.”
“Can’t stop yourself, can you?” he asked.
“From what?”
“Pressing every last button you see.”
“You do have a lot of them.”
They drank, not minding the bitter grinds that had escaped the filter.
“Not bad,” Paige said.
“It’ll do in a pinch.”
“We’re in one.”
For just a moment, the simple act of holding the steaming mug made things feel slightly better. A small, familiar thing in the midst of an alien chaos. Their world may have been upended, but he could still make a cup of coffee.
He said, “It might not work, you know. Video might show us nothing.”
“Pessimistic much?”
“I’m not saying we don’t do it. We just can’t hang our hat on one thing. We need to do more.”
“Like what?”
“There was this woman we brought in on a murder case several years ago.”
“You mean like a psychic?”
“No, she got really upset if you called her that. She billed herself as a trance medium, whatever the hell that means. And yes, she’s even weirder than it sounds.”
“Did she help?”
“I don’t know. She seemed to think so, although the case was never solved. I might call her.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re desperate.” He slugged back a big swallow of coffee. “You know, if this were a haunted house movie—”
“It’s not.”
“But if it were, our job would be to find out what happened in this house.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how some tragic event always precipitates a haunting? Like a murder?”
“I can’t quite believe we’re having this conversation. Those are film tropes, Grant. What’s happening to us is real.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
She stared at him, frustrated. Shook her head finally, said, “I don’t know.”
“Then let’s at least do something. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn’t. At least we’ll be trying. Isn’t that the whole point of your video?”
“Fine.”
“So what do you know about this house?”
“Nothing. I moved in two months ago.”
“Well, we need to find out everything we can.”
“You mean like if the prior resident was an insane caretaker who murdered his entire family?”
“Yes, that kind of thing. We’re sort of stranded here, but I have a friend I can call.”
“Who?”
“He’s a private investigator.”
“Grant, I know we need a little outside help, but this isn’t going to come back to bite me in the ass, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t have people digging into my private life.”
“Paige, this guy’s a friend.”
“Still.”
“And more importantly, the last guy in the world to cast a stone.”
“Okay. I trust you.”
“Then let’s make some calls.”
Grant picked up the battery to his phone, reassembled everything, and powered it up.
“I thought they could track you with that.”
“I just need to get those numbers for the PI and the freakshow.”
As he scrolled through contacts, the phone began to vibrate in his hand.
“Damn,” he said.
“Who is it?”
He set the phone on the tile, Sophie’s name burning across the screen.
Paige said, “You got the numbers. Turn it off.”
He shook his head.
“I’m thinking that’s not the right play. Sophie isn’t going to stop. It’s not in her programming.”
“So what are you going to do?”
He picked up the phone.
“I’m going to talk to her.”
Chapter 19
Sophie walked through the entrance gate and up the paved walkway into the garden. She’d made it a habit last summer of coming here on pretty Sundays, but despite the patches of blue sky above, in its present state, the garden felt a far cry from the lushness of July. Winter had muted its color to shades of grey and evergreen, and something inside of her hated seeing it this way—like staring down at her mother in the casket—there but not.
A groundskeeper stood under a leafless Japanese maple, a bulging trash bag at his feet. Sophie opened her wallet as she approached, but the man didn’t bother to examine her credentials.
“Detective Sophie Benington,” she said. “I understand you discovered Mr. Seymour this morning?”
The groundskeeper leaned against the handle of his rake, sweat stains reaching from his armpits down the sides of his uniform.
A tall, skinny kid with ropey dreads and gentle eyes.
“He was sitting on the bench by the pond when I got here.”
“And you’ve never seen him in the garden before?”
“No, we keep this part of the arboretum closed in the winter. We occasionally have to chase out a few homeless and freegans, but mostly this place stays dead.”
Sophie moved on past the groundskeeper toward Officer Silver. He stood fifty yards up the path in his dark blue uniform, and as the sound of Sophie’s Frye boots clicking against the pavement pulled within range, he turned and watched her approach.
The man was tall but he looked about eighteen years old, with the creamy complexion and boring good looks of a high school jock.
“Hey, new guy,” she said.
Silver smirked. He’d actually been with SPD longer than Sophie, but as bad nicknames are wont to do, his had stuck.
“Seymour’s right out there?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Just beyond where they stood, the trees opened up. There was the pond—brown and still—with a little bridge going across the middle. Sophie could just see the back of a head poking up from behind a cluster of bushes.
“What are you gonna do?” Silver asked.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Something’s off with this guy. Want me to come with?”
“Not yet.”
“He could be dangerous, Sophie.”
“Jeez, he really creeped yo
u out, huh?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“Hang back, but stay close.”
Sophie followed the meandering path along the north bank of the pond. The garden was steeped in solitude, and except for the distant murmur of traffic, Sophie’s footfalls were the only noise that violated the serenity of the place.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was wrong to be here with the trees skeletal and devoid of color. Even worse to be here on the job.
She stopped.
Ten yards ahead, past a grove of rhododendron, she spotted a pair of benches.
One was empty.
Benjamin Seymour sat motionless on the other.
He could have been a garden feature, his stillness matched by the Zen landscape. After three days of staring at photographs of him taken in better times, it was strange to see him sitting there in the actual like a statue.
She reached into her jacket and unsnapped her holster, let her palm rest on the stock of her G22. After coming on board with CID, she’d had belt loops sewn into all of her pants since the hip rig dragged them down. Much preferred the way this belted holster rode on her hips.
She hailed the man from a few paces away—better to make her presence known than risk startling him.
“Mr. Seymour?”
He didn’t move.
“I’m Detective Benington with the SPD. Everything okay?”
Seymour casually stretched his arm across the back of the bench but made no response.
“I’m coming over, Mr. Seymour.”
Sophie entered the rhododendron grove.
From a distance, Seymour could have been any park patron stopped for a contemplative moment by the pond. In proximity, the red flags began to wave. His custom-made suit was soaked through, and his hair had long since lost its gelled structure. It would have taken hours for the light Seattle rain to do this level of damage.
“Can you hear me, Mr. Seymour?”
He looked over at her and blinked, a galactic distance in his eyes.
“Where have you been for the past three days?” she asked.
“Here.”
“You’ve been sitting on this bench for over seventy-two hours?”
“The gardens are beautiful in winter.”
“They’re also closed. You’re trespassing.”
“I didn’t realize. I apologize. I’ll leave.”
He started to rise.
“Wait a moment. Just stay where you are. Are you injured?”
He sat down, looked back at the pond. “No.”
“Are you on any drugs right now?”
“No.”
“Are you carrying any weapons I should know about?”
He shook his head.
“People have been looking for you. They’re worried.”
“That’s very kind.”
Sophie ventured a step closer.
The man was shivering imperceptibly.
“What are you doing out here, Mr. Seymour?”
“Thinking. It’s a good place for it.”
“What are you thinking about?”
He didn’t answer.
The wind kicked up.
A scrap of paper in Seymour’s right hand twitched in the breeze. In his other hand, he held a pen.
“What’s that paper, Mr. Seymour?”
No response.
Sophie edged closer.
“Could I take a look?”
When he didn’t respond, she slowly reached down and eased the paper out of his grasp. Sophie took several steps away from the bench and glanced back toward the main path. Silver had moved closer, now standing only twenty yards away, watching intently.
She looked down at the crumpled paper in her hand—a receipt for a twenty-five-dollar pour of Highland Park at a downtown bar called The Whisky.
The time stamp was 5:11 p.m., three days ago.
She looked up at him again.
Seymour stared past her into oblivion.
Sophie flipped the receipt over.
In rain-smeared ink, the visage of an old man stared back at her. What the portrait lacked in artistic flair was counterbalanced by a staggering detail that reminded her of a facial composite. It was an expertly-executed sketch, but as impersonal as a mugshot.
“Did you draw this, Mr. Seymour?”
“Yes.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see this man somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In my head.”
“Did this man hurt you?”
“No, I’ve never met him.”
Sophie slid the receipt into an inner pocket of her jacket.
“What do you remember about being at The Whisky three nights ago?” she asked.
Seymour started to rise.
She took a step back and touched her gun.
Silver shouted, “Everything okay?”
“We’re fine,” she yelled, her eyes never leaving Seymour.
Seymour buttoned his jacket.
“I’m sorry for any trouble I’ve caused.”
“What happened to you?”
“The gardens are beautiful this time of year, aren’t they?” he said with an empty smile that was completely disconnected from his eyes.
He started up a slope of browned grass.
Sophie followed.
“Mr. Seymour, please. You need to go to a hospital.”
The man reached the path and continued walking toward the entrance gate.
“What happened?” Silver asked.
“I have no idea. Walk with me.”
“You’re letting him go?”
“What exactly would you propose we bring him in on?”
“Trespassing.”
“Please.”
“At least you’ll get a chance to talk to him.”
“He isn’t giving anything up. I got stonewalled.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“Nervous breakdown? Drugs? Some kind of trauma?”
“So we’re just going to watch him walk away?”
“Of course not.” Seymour passed through the entrance gate to the Japanese garden as Sophie dug her phone out of her purse. “I’m going to follow him.”
Chapter 20
“Don’t,” Paige said.
Grant touched his finger to the screen.
“We have to buy ourselves some time.”
Paige clenched her jaw.
“Fine. Put her on speaker.”
Grant swiped the screen, activated the speaker, and set the phone back on the island.
“Sophie,” he said.
“Jesus Christ, Grant. Wanger’s practically interviewing for your replacement. Where are you?”
“On my way home from the hospital.”
The words had left his mouth before he’d even given it a thought—a reflexive lie.
“Oh my God, what happened?”
The concern in her voice shot a hollowpoint of guilt through his chest. He felt it mushroom center mass. He’d never lied to Sophie before. Never had a reason to. Six months into their partnership, she’d had Grant down so cold she could have reconstructed him from junk parts. Now, after sharing a desk for two years, he could say as much. They operated on the same frequency, and that was the problem. Her bullshit meter was a finely calibrated tool. If his performance wasn’t Oscar material, she’d know it.
He glanced at Paige, her eyes gone wide, head slowly shaking like what-are-you-going-to-say-now?
“Let’s just say that the Spicy Italian is no longer my favorite sandwich.”
Something like a snort crackled over the speaker.
“Was that a laugh?” Grant said.
“No, I promise,” Sophie laughed.
“You are so cruel.”
“I just can’t believe you got food poisoning from Subway. That’s just ... wow. Do you need anything?”
“Rest.”
“You should’v
e called me.”
“Kind of hard when they’re pumping your stomach.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry.”
Paige raised an eyebrow.
Grant rolled his eyes.
“Can I bring you something?” Sophie asked. “Your favorite sub? I’m sorry, that was too soon.”
“No, I’m drained. Just going home to crash. Might take the next few days off. “
“That’s not a bad idea. You sound awful.”
“Would you tell Wanger for me?”
“Sure, but you’re going to hate your timing.”
Grant looked up at Paige.
“What’s going on?”
“We found Benjamin Seymour.”
Porcelain and coffee exploded on the floor beside Grant’s feet.
Paige’s eyes filled with terror, hands still clutching the shape of the mug that lay in pieces on the hardwood.
Grant mouthed to his sister, What?
She shook her head and pointed at the phone.
“What was that?” Sophie asked.
“Sorry. Hit a pothole.”
The pool of coffee was expanding toward Grant’s socks.
Paige collected herself, grabbed the dishcloth from the oven handle, and began blotting the liquid.
“Alive?” Grant asked.
“Yes.”
“Where’d you find him?”
“At the arboretum. I’m here now. He’d apparently been sitting on a bench for days before a groundskeeper found him and called it in. I tried talking to him but the guy’s a space cadet. Virtually catatonic. Could barely respond. Just sat there staring at the water.”
“So he was on something?”
“I don’t think so. It was more like he was sleepwalking.”
“So you’re bringing him in?”
Thinking, He’ll lead them straight to me and Paige.
“No. I’m going to follow him. Something’s up. He was holding a drawing he’d done on a receipt. A hyper-realistic portrait of an old man’s face. I’ve got it with me. This thing is amazing, Grant. Our boy’s an artist.”
“Seymour drew it?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Who’s the old man?”
“He didn’t know. Said he’d never met him.”
“That sounds like eight kinds of strange.”
Paige had finished soaking up the coffee, now picking up fragments of the mug.
“Well, don’t figure it all out before I get back,” Grant said.
Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set Page 88