The Last Victim
Page 7
“Defensive wounds?” Bartoli asked.
Haney shook his head. “None. Two knife wounds to the chest. Either would have been fatal.”
“Where was the woman found?” Charlie asked as an excuse to turn away from the pathetically small outline on the floor, and was proud of how cool and steady her voice sounded. Inside, her stomach was roiling.
“Master bedroom,” Bartoli answered. “Husband, too.”
With Haney in the lead, they were all on their way out of the room when the TV came back on. A glance around told Charlie that the kid was once again ensconced in his chair, controller in hand, his thumbs as busy as the rest of him was still.
“Goddamn thing,” Haney muttered, abruptly changing directions to head for the TV. This time, after he turned it off, he yanked the cord out of the wall for good measure. “Driving me crazy,” he said shamefacedly as he turned to find both Charlie’s and Bartoli’s eyes on him.
Trev—the kid—continued to sit in the chair, his face a study in concentration as he worked the controller as avidly as if the game was still on. Which Charlie supposed it probably was, for him. The dimension he existed in was governed by an alternate reality that Charlie didn’t perfectly understand, but in it she was sure the video game still played. Certainly he worked the controller as if it did. He showed no evidence whatsoever of being aware that she, Bartoli, and Haney were in the room. Just like most people didn’t see ghosts, she had realized over the years that most ghosts didn’t see living people. Which had its good points and its bad.
“He’s just a little kid.” The words escaped her throat of their own volition. Impossible not to feel something for the murdered boy, no matter how hard she tried to remain detached. Damn it.
“We’re going to catch whoever did this,” Bartoli told her as Haney once again started moving toward the door.
“Fucking sick bastard.” Haney’s voice was hard with agreement.
Even as she and Bartoli followed Haney from the room, the kid got that terrified look on his face, jumped from the chair, and ran toward the closet again.
A loop was what she was seeing, Charlie realized. Trevor’s traumatized spirit was caught up in re-experiencing the last moments of his life over and over again.
A lump formed in Charlie’s throat. Goose bumps chased themselves over her skin.
Kid shouldn’t have died like that.
“The boy hid in the closet,” she said as she and the men crossed the landing toward another door. Haney was slightly in front, while Bartoli stayed beside her. “He was sitting in the chair playing a video game, heard or saw something that terrified him, jumped up and ran for the closet. Probably the killer found him in there. Either the boy tried to run for it when the door was opened, or the killer pulled him out. Either way, you should check for forensic evidence in the closet.”
Both men stopped walking to stare at her. The look Bartoli gave her was sharp with curiosity. Haney’s face creased into a frown.
“You got some basis for thinking that?” Haney inquired.
“It’s what I do,” Charlie replied. “Believe me, I’m not wrong.”
“I’d believe her,” Bartoli advised. “She’s the expert.”
“Yeah.” Despite the fact that his voice was heavy with skepticism, Haney turned away from them to walk to the top of the stairs. Cupping his hand around his mouth, he bellowed, “Baldwin!”
“Yeah, boss?” The reply from downstairs was faintly muffled.
“You and Rutledge get up here. Bring your stuff.”
Another answer floated up, followed a moment later by the thud of ascending footsteps. Charlie realized that a pair of hazmat-suit-wearing cops lugging bags of equipment were climbing the stairs to join them, that they were talking with Haney, that they were looking hard at her and talking some more before disappearing into the kid’s bedroom, but she was only peripherally aware of any of it.
That was because, through the master bedroom’s open doorway, Charlie was caught up in watching Julie Mead rise up from the far side of the stripped king-sized bed, then glide around it and float across the room toward her. Transfixed, Charlie saw that the woman was drenched in fresh blood. Whatever she was wearing—some sort of sleep shirt that ended just above her knees—was wet with it. Streaks of glistening scarlet matted her badly mussed, chin-length blond hair. Her throat was cut from ear to ear. It looked to have been freshly slashed, because blood still streamed from it, pouring down over her shoulders and chest, adding to the gore on her shirt. Her mouth worked. Her eyes were wide with horror—and then they fixed on Charlie.
She knows I can see her. An electric frisson of connection ran down Charlie’s spine. Her heart thumped. Her breath caught.
“You’ve got to help us,” the woman begged, flying toward her with her hands outstretched. “Please!”
Several things happened at once: Charlie felt another onslaught of nausea slam her. A terrible flashback to Diane Palmer’s murder all those years ago made her go weak at the knees. Even as she thought, They’re the same, a wave of freezing cold air blasted her as Julie Mead’s spirit reached her. The sheer force of emotion surrounding the spirit made Charlie take a couple of staggering steps backward.
She fetched up against Bartoli, who was standing behind her. His arm came around her waist.
“Are you all right?” Bartoli asked in her ear. Charlie heard him, felt the hard strength of his body, registered the steadying grip of his arm. She was able to do this because Julie Mead was no longer around to rivet her senses. As it had reached the threshold of the master bedroom, the specter had vanished into thin air.
Charlie found that she could breathe again.
“I’m going to be sick,” she said, because she was. There was no holding it in this time. She could see just a glimpse of the en suite bathroom off the master bedroom. “I’m sorry, excuse me, I have to—”
Breaking off because she really couldn’t say another word, she pulled free of Bartoli’s hold and darted into the master bedroom. Closing the door behind her, she locked it, then ran for the toilet.
She barely made it in time.
When she was finished, she flushed the toilet, rinsed her mouth, then walked on shaky legs back into the bedroom. She was sweaty and weak, and her head ached like someone was pounding on her skull with a hammer. What she wanted more than anything else in the whole wide world was to turn her back on the horror into which she had been plunged, whisk herself home to her safe little house in the mountains, and do her serial-killer-analyzing from a safe distance while pretending she knew no more about what happened after this life than … Bartoli, for example.
Oh, grow a pair. No one else here can do what you do.
Grimacing as she faced that inexorable truth, Charlie turned to the second reason she had locked herself in the bedroom. Chalk outlining a shape on the hardwood floor beside the bed showed where Julie Mead’s body had been found.
Knowing she didn’t have much time—Bartoli wouldn’t wait passively in the hall forever, and for all she knew, Haney and the others were now there, too, throwing a hissy fit because she’d locked them out—Charlie stood beside the outline and whispered, “Julie? Can you hear me? I’m here to help.”
Julie Mead materialized in front of her. The blood, the gore, the gaping wound in her throat were as real-looking and gruesome as if Charlie were seeing them in life. There was no trace of the meat-locker smell usually associated with a new kill, but the blood appeared so fresh that it almost seemed to steam in the chill of the air-conditioning. When the apparition reached out its hands in an attempt to clutch at her, it was all Charlie could do not to back away. The dead hands passed right through her flesh with a sensation that felt like a cold mist making contact with her skin. Even then, when every instinct she possessed shrieked at her to draw away, the anguish in the other woman’s eyes held her in place.
“My babies. Trevor. Bayley. Something terrible has happened, hasn’t it? Oh, please, you have to help me!”
She kept her voice at a whisper, hoping it could not be heard beyond the door. “I’m going to do my best. You have to tell me who did this to you.”
Julie Mead wet her lips. “A man—it was dark—I couldn’t see. He—he hurt me. Cut me. I’m bleeding. Oh, God, I’m bleeding! Where’s Tom? Oh, where are my children?”
The anguish in her voice cut Charlie to the heart. Every instinct she possessed urged her to tell Julie Mead to look for the light and go into it, because once the woman did that her spirit’s suffering would be at an end. But as long as Bayley was missing, Julie Mead, in whatever form she now existed, was still needed here on earth.
“Julie,” Charlie whispered the woman’s name forcefully, hoping to keep her grounded in the present for long enough to provide what answers she could. “Where’s Bayley? Did you see what happened to Bayley?”
Julie Mead looked bewildered. “Bayley—Bayley’s asleep. Isn’t she?”
The bedroom doorknob rattled as someone tried to get in … or was warning that her time was almost up.
“Isn’t she?” Julie Mead’s voice went shrill. Her eyes began to dart around, and Charlie felt a change in her energy. “She came home. She went to bed. Bayley! Bayley!”
“Can you describe the man who attacked you?” Charlie tried her best to keep the spirit focused. Mindful of the possibility that she might be overheard, she kept her voice so low that it was scarcely louder than a breath even while trying to project calm insistence.
“I didn’t see him. I told you. He was strong. Tall. Oh, God, he has a knife!”
Her voice went shrill again on that last, and the abject fear in it told Charlie that Julie Mead was once again on the verge of getting caught up in reliving the nightmare of the attack.
“How old was he?”
“I told you I didn’t see him.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. Nothing. I woke up—and he was stabbing Tom. Tom! Tom! My God, Tom’s dead!” The rising hysteria in Julie Mead’s voice made Charlie’s chest tighten. It seemed pretty clear from the widening of her eyes and flaring of her nostrils that the spirit was re-experiencing a sighting of her husband’s murdered body.
“What do you see? Anything about your attacker that might help us find him,” Charlie commanded urgently.
“I tore his glove—surgical glove. He wore surgical gloves. He has a heart—a red heart—on the back of his hand.” Julie Mead looked sharply around. “Oh, my God, no!” She vanished with a terrified shriek that made every tiny hair on Charlie’s body catapult upright.
Left alone with Julie Mead’s scream still ripping the air, which was made all the more terrible because no one else could hear it, Charlie had to take deep, steadying breaths to keep from screaming right along with her. Finally, when the last shivering note went silent, she was able to summon the fortitude to push the experience away, turn, and answer the now-determined knocking on the door.
Unlocking it, she pulled the door open to find herself practically nose to nose with Haney, whose fist was raised to pound again.
“What in the name of all that’s holy was that?” Haney verbally pounced before she could say anything, his fist lowering as he glared down at her. “You call that professional behavior? You just compromised a major crime scene.”
“I had to throw up. Would you rather I’d done it all over the floor? That would have compromised the crime scene.” Still battling the headache from hell, a chill that permeated her bones, and a pervasive, all-over feeling of utter bodily weakness, to say nothing of the wrenching sorrow for the victims that clawed at her heart, Charlie rallied to cover any suspicion that there was more to her bolt into the bedroom than that. She shot Haney a stick-it-where-the-sun-don’t-shine look to boot as she walked past him. Bartoli was right there, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for her. As soon as he saw her his arms dropped and he moved toward her. Something in his face as he looked at her told her that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with her version of what had gone down, but instead of piling on along with Haney, he shifted his eyes from her to clash with the cop’s.
“Back off, Haney. She didn’t compromise the crime scene any more than she would have done if we’d taken her in there.” Bartoli put himself between Charlie and the cop. Ordinarily Charlie didn’t need anyone springing to her defense, but at the moment she was feeling decidedly sub-par, so she appreciated any help she could get.
“She touched the knob. She touched the lock. She touched the goddamned toilet handle.” Haney practically bristled with indignation. “At a minimum.”
“So? If your people did their jobs, all those surfaces have been tested for fingerprints,” Bartoli countered. “I know our lab’s already working on the trace evidence that was recovered in there.”
“A killer of this type would wear gloves. Probably surgical gloves,” Charlie said, with Julie Mead’s words in mind. “I doubt you’ll find any fingerprints, although if the gloves were ripped it’s possible.”
Haney gave her a hard-eyed stare.
“Detective!” A shout-out from the kid’s room interrupted before he could say anything, making them all glance that way. “You want to come in here a minute?”
“Yeah,” Haney called back. With a dark look at Charlie and a glare for Bartoli, Haney growled, “She’s your expert. In the future, I suggest you keep her under control,” before heading that way.
“When they find forensic evidence in that closet, you can thank me,” Charlie called after him.
Haney replied with a dismissive wave of his hand before disappearing into the kid’s bedroom.
“Way to be tactful.” Bartoli gave her a faint, wry smile.
“I don’t think he likes me,” Charlie said, making an effort to lighten the atmosphere.
“I doubt I top his favorite person list, either. He’s one of those local cops who resent us being here. He thinks it’s his investigation, and we’re hijacking it. Happens sometimes. Plus, word is he suffers a lot of pain from his leg. Smashed it up pretty bad in a car accident years ago.” Bartoli slid a comprehensive look over her. “You sick or something? That’s the second time today that you’ve tossed your cookies. What’s up?”
She managed what she felt was a truly commendable casual shrug. “I’m thinking I might have a touch of food poisoning. Or the flu. Hard to say, really.”
“Yeah.” Bartoli’s eyes slid over her again. “You up to the girl’s bedroom?”
No was the honest answer. But it had to be done, so Charlie braced herself and nodded.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In the end, there wasn’t anything to see. Just a small bedroom with a stripped double bed. Pale blue walls, white wicker headboard and chest. No bloodstains, no sign of a struggle. Clothes and other belongings already carted away by the FBI. Since the house was a vacation rental, Charlie wouldn’t have expected to find anything of Bayley Evans’ personality in the room, and she didn’t. What she also didn’t find was Bayley Evans’ spirit.
Which didn’t necessarily mean that the girl was still alive, although Charlie hoped it was the case. Charlie hadn’t seen Tom Mead’s spirit, either, and he was definitely dead. Some souls, no matter how violently they had died, crossed over peacefully without lingering. Although it was always possible that Tom Mead’s spirit was still earthbound and was just not attached to anything in the house. In her experience, spirits forcefully ripped from their bodies were unpredictable in what they attached to. She’d encountered one attached to a neighbor’s cat.
“Come on, let’s go,” Bartoli said as they emerged from the bedroom. His eyes slid over her, the expression in them making Charlie question what she looked like. If the way she felt was any indication, she was as white as Wonder bread, huge
-eyed, and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Chalk it up to meet-the-ghosts anxiety. Although, of course, he had no way of knowing that. “Time to wrap it up for the night.”
Charlie wasn’t sorry to precede him down the stairs. She’d had the day from hell several times over, and right now what she needed was to put as much distance between herself and the spirit world as she could.
There was just one problem with that.
“Bayley Evans is still out there.” Her voice was flat as she spoke over her shoulder to Bartoli, who followed her out the French doors. Letting herself think about what might be happening to the girl was the worst thing she could do, Charlie knew. If she did, she would devolve into a mass of quivering despair, which would do no one any good. As difficult as it was, she had to stay strong, had to stay focused, had to keep the horror at arm’s length. It was the only way she could do her job.
Anything else was counterproductive.
This time, when the brisk sea breeze hit her, she shivered like it was an arctic blast. She was glad for her jacket. Sliding it on as she walked across the deck and down the steps to the walkway below, she was still freezing as she buttoned it up and had to fold her arms over her chest in an effort to get warm. Everywhere she looked, the night was dark and forbidding. The beach was deserted, the sea oats blew almost double, the tide rolled in with a crash, and the weathered planks beneath her feet seemed to stretch out endlessly into the shadows. Even the stars seemed small and cold and distant.
She was, Charlie realized, still suffering from her reaction to the gruesome visions of Julie Mead and the heartbreaking ones of her son.
God, you’ve got the wrong woman here. I’m not tough enough for this.
Bartoli said, “We have teams of agents working twenty-four seven to find her. You’ve done everything you can for today. You are officially off the clock.”
Charlie sighed inwardly. She was so exhausted, so cold and queasy and headache-y, that her thought processes were affected. For the moment, coming up with a good lie to explain how she knew what she knew was probably beyond her, but still there was something that she had to tell him.