Disturbance

by Jan Burke

  I was safe, wasn’t I?

  By the time I went to bed, though, I could believe that for only a few minutes at a time. I tried to sleep. After an hour of tossing and turning, I switched on the light and grabbed a book of crossword puzzles. I was still awake when the alarm went off.

  I kept telling myself I had nothing to fear.

  I was wrong.

  TWO

  Kai Loudon pointed the Smith & Wesson at the blurred photo on the computer screen. Not a great photo of her face. Just one of those small, low-res images from the newspaper’s Web site. The same one appeared next to all of her stories. Irene Kelly.

  He took aim between her blue eyes.

  He made a popping sound with his lips as he clicked the mouse in his other hand, setting the computer to sleep mode. The image disappeared as the screen blanked.

  He sighed and set the gun down on his desk. Not even close to the real thing. She was alive.

  Kai seldom used guns anyway. They were good to have on hand for unexpected trouble, or to let someone know you meant business, but he thought them an unsatisfying way to kill. He had never actually shot anyone. He would rather use his own body to demonstrate his power over others. He was young and strong.

  He stood and began to move restlessly around the basement. He paced past the bookcase, distractedly running his long fingers lightly over the spines of one row of books. He paused before a second set of shelves and touched various little mementos displayed there. Most weren’t biological, but the few items that had once been parts of living things were the most exciting to him.

  He picked up a lock of hair and inhaled. The shampoo scent had faded in all but his memory, where it came back to him now as clearly as the night he had captured the dark, silky curl. The woman who had been sitting in front of him in the theater hadn’t even known he’d taken it.

  At least, not at first.

  He carefully replaced this small treasure and kept walking until he reached the computer again. He stared at his reflection in the darkened monitor.

  He had been using the Internet to search for more details on the big story. The newspaper and television reports hadn’t told him much. If you entered “Nicholas Parrish” in any news search engine, you got thousands of hits. Since this morning, when the story came out in the Express, the number had increased.

  The recent stories started with the predictable phrases. “Convicted serial killer … perhaps as many as fifty victims, including six members of the Las Piernas Police Department …”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forced himself to relax. He glanced at his watch. His mother was upstairs, waiting for him to make dinner. She would have to wait a little longer.

  He smiled to himself, savoring his rebelliousness.

  Others had always seen his mother as a docile creature, but he knew that she had a way of getting what she wanted. His very conception had epitomized her acts of passive aggression. She used to be fond of telling him that it was a miracle she had not miscarried after the beating his father gave her on learning of the pregnancy. One of these days he would ask his father and find out if that story was true. He was inclined to believe it. To him, the story was just another indicator of her ability to endure hardship in order to get what she wanted.

  He did not consider this trait to be heroic in any way.

  He paused, wondering if she had what she wanted, these days. She couldn’t make it down the stairs now, which made him savor his hours in the basement all the more. Still, it was time to have dinner. He locked the room and slid the false wall back into place.

  He climbed the stairs with some anticipation, but not for the meal, which would be something he would prepare without real effort, and would be exactly like the meal he had prepared the previous day, and the day before that.

  His anticipation came from the knowledge that today’s issue of the Express would be upstairs. His mother had been a subscriber for years. He didn’t usually read it, but this morning he had noticed the name Parrish in the headline, and instead of his usual routine of putting the paper straight into the recycling bin, rubber band and all, he took it to the kitchen and opened it carefully, with something approaching reverence.

  This regard was not for the newspaper itself, of course. Not the reporting, not the photos, not the layout. It was the subject of the article that entranced him: Nicholas Parrish.

  The story had changed his whole day.

  Kai grinned and took the stairs two at a time. He went to the freezer, removed a frozen dinner, and put it in the microwave. He grabbed a can of a nutritional shake from the refrigerator and fitted it with a straw. The evening meal would be the usual silent affair. Afterward, he would read the story about Nicholas Parrish aloud to his mother. Her current state of health would force her to listen to it, like it or not. She would not. For him, this would be as good as dessert.

  He stood in the kitchen, listening to the hum of the microwave. The air began to smell of steaming broccoli, melting cheese, and warming plastic.

  He felt contentment as he looked out the window and watched dusk fall. It would be dark soon. As pleasant as his dinner plans were, he didn’t expect to spend an evening at home. He had a game to begin.

  He got a hard-on just thinking about it.

  THREE

  I dozed off just before the six o’clock news came on. I had caught about fifteen minutes of sleep before Nick Parrish’s name was mentioned by a talking head—that woke me up enough to do some math. Fifteen minutes of sleep in the last thirty-eight hours.

  Not good.

  I listened to Parrish’s surgeon, full of pride in his medical accomplishment. Parrish had jokingly told him he wanted to run a marathon. “Other than his incarceration, there is really no reason why he couldn’t do so one day,” the doctor said. He pointed to a diagram of a spine and indicated sites of injury, talked about the repair rate of nerves, and quoted statistics on central cord syndrome. I couldn’t stop myself from wishing that he had found some other—any other—paralyzed individual to be his miracle man.

  The newscast changed focus to the patient’s notoriety, and Nick Parrish’s face filled the screen. I aimed the remote at him and sent him off into television oblivion. If only it were so easy to ship him off to real oblivion.

  But in real life, Nick Parrish clearly wasn’t ready to sign off.

  Despite my lack of sleep on Monday, I was at my desk by eight Tuesday morning. The room was buzzing—apparently someone on the Moths’ blog had said that I’d soon be hearing from the friends of Nick Parrish, and that I’d recognize the message when I got it. The phone started ringing with interview requests. John asked me to write a follow-up exclusive for the Express but promised other outlets I’d be available the next day at a press conference. The paper had its own need for publicity. But at least I’d be spared one day of repeating empty phrases:

  “Yes, I heard his doctor say that Parrish wants to train for a marathon.”

  “No, I know he’s not getting out anytime soon.”

  “No, I don’t know what the Moths have in mind, and I’m really not too anxious to find out.”

  “No, I don’t think I would feel better talking it over, but thanks all the same.”

  I understood why John wanted the story and why I had to write it. What would have been a small item in other papers, one more bizarre note in the bizarre life of Nicholas Parrish, would take up most of the A section of the Express. Parrish had taken his victims from a number of communities, including several in other states, but no city had suffered as much horror at his hands as Las Piernas.

  Writing the story brought back more memories, of course. Of being hunted by Nick Parrish. Of bodies. Of bones. Of betrayals.

  It took me all day—most of that time spent staring at a blank computer screen, or fending off overly protective colleagues. After about the tenth “Are you okay?” I picked up my laptop and scouted the building. I found an empty desk in a place full of empty desks—our now almost vac
ant features department. But it was a sunny, airy room where I could hide out while I wrote, so I finished the story there.

  Just before I left, Lydia Ames offered to come over that evening. But Lydia was recently engaged, and I knew her life was crammed with wedding plans. My mood wasn’t exactly going to be a good match to hers in any case, so I told her not to worry. On the way home, I tried calling my therapist, the one who had helped me deal with my PTSD after my first experience with Parrish.

  She was on vacation. “Is this an emergency?” her answering service asked.

  “No,” I said quickly.

  Not yet.

  I could handle this.

  After forsaking the news, I distracted myself by watching old Marx Brothers films. When I’d reached my limit with that, I thought about playing games on my computer but knew that would only keep me wired. So instead I went through the newspapers in our recycling pile, pulled out the crossword puzzles, and took them to bed with me. Before long, I grew drowsy and dozed off.

  At one in the morning, I awoke again. I had heard a sound—a dull thump.

  I turned the lights on, checked the locks again. Twenty minutes later I was back in bed in the darkness, berating myself for being a spineless wimp and wondering if I could hope to fall back to sleep.

  I did, but a little after two my slumber was disturbed again. This time, the sound was continuous. Not what had roused me earlier but something different. Not unfamiliar but out of place.

  It took me a moment to recognize it—water running through the pipes. Not at high volume but enough to make me certain that was indeed what I was hearing.

  I swore, stumbled out of bed, and went into the bathroom, expecting to discover that the toilet was running. I jiggled the handle, then woke up enough to realize that wasn’t where the sound was coming from. The shower, the sink—those faucets were off.

  Southern California was in the middle of one of its too frequent droughts, and residents of Las Piernas were on mandatory rationing—overusage of water was illegal and expensive. Hell of a time to spring a leak as big as the one I was hearing.

  I pulled on a robe and turned on some lights.

  Kitchen faucet was off, too.

  No problem with the dishwasher.

  I went out into the garage, half expecting to find a flood.

  The sound was louder here, but to my relief, everything was dry. Including the washing machine.

  I stood still and listened. The backyard sprinkler system controls and a faucet were just on the other side of the garage wall. The sprinklers had been off for weeks. But was the sound coming from a hose that had been left on?

  I made my way to the door leading to the backyard, reached for the dead-bolt lock, and hesitated.

  I hadn’t been in the yard at all that day. There was no way on earth that I had been the one to leave the water on. Staying inside, I flipped on all the outdoor lights.

  The water sound stopped.

  I swallowed hard. How strong was the dead bolt?

  I waited, standing still, straining to hear any sound from the yard. I heard nothing.

  I tried to work up enough nerve to open the door, couldn’t. I ran back inside the house and relocked the door between the house and the garage. I stood inside the kitchen, unsure of what to do next. I saw my cell phone on the counter, reached for it, and sent a text message to Ben Sheridan:

  Are you awake?

  The phone rang less than a minute later.

  “Hi,” I answered. “Things are going bump in the night and I’m scared shitless. Would you be willing to bring the dogs over?”

  “Okay if Ethan and his dog come along, too?”

  This is what I love about Ben. Call him after two in the morning and his only question is not “Are you nuts?” but “How about reinforcements?”

  FOUR

  I felt better after making the call, better yet when they arrived. At different times, Ben Sheridan and Ethan Shire had each lived in our home. In many ways, they were the brothers I’d never had. Ben, a forensic anthropologist, also handled search dogs. Ethan, currently his roommate, worked at the paper with me.

  I received a warm greeting from their shepherds, Altair and Bingle, and from Bool, the bloodhound. Cody leaped from a counter to the top of the refrigerator and gave me a look that had the accusation “traitor” written all over it.

  The dogs seemed puzzled when they realized our own mutts weren’t present, but the moment Ben and Ethan took out Bingle’s and Altair’s working harnesses, their focus changed and they were all business. Ben gave me the bloodhound’s leash—Bool wasn’t being put to work yet, but there was always the chance they’d need him later. Or maybe Ben knew I’d feel a little better going outside with a big dog next to me. Bool is as friendly and harmless as they come, but whoever was out there wouldn’t know that.

  “Let’s have a look around,” Ben said, unlocking the sliding door that leads to our patio.

  I walked a few yards behind Ethan and Ben. We soon discovered that my garden hose was stretched over to the house next door—not Jack’s house but the one on the other side, the one just north of mine.

  “What assholes,” Ethan said. “Stealing your water! Let’s go have a word with them.”

  “We wouldn’t get far,” I said. “That house has been empty for just over a month. It’s in foreclosure.”

  We broke off conversation because it was clear the dogs were interested in a scent. We hurried with them as they made their way down the street, away from the beach. They came to a halt at something one doesn’t find too often on a June night on a Las Piernas beach street—an empty parking space.

  “Don’t suppose you remember what kind of vehicle was parked here earlier?” Ben asked.

  “No, sorry.”

  He looked back toward the house. “I think the …” He made a motion with his hand, as if stirring the air would help him find the word he wanted.

  “Hosers,” Ethan supplied.

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Whoever is trying to play tricks on you—they were probably parked here.”

  “More than one?” I asked.

  “No way to really be sure. From the behavior of the dogs—just a guess, mind you—I suspect just one. But that’s a guess. It could have been however many could fit in the missing car.”

  “Wouldn’t take more than one to stretch a hose over a fence,” I said.

  “No. But it might take more than one to work up the nerve to play a prank.”

  “The Moths … you know who I mean?”

  “The idiots who blog about Parrish?”

  “Yes. They posted something saying I’d get a message from them. Do you think this is it?”

  “Could be,” Ben said, “but what the hell is the message?”

  We ignored Ethan’s various attempts to find a humorous interpretation and walked back down the street, looking for footprints or other signs of the prankster—or pranksters—but didn’t find any.

  Back at the house, I thanked them for coming over and said I’d be fine. Ben wasn’t fooled. “Ethan, you can take the guest room. I’m taking the couch.” He looked at me. “You, try to get a little sleep.”

  I started to protest, but Ethan interrupted to say they had brought overnight gear. “Including stuff for the dogs. Ben’s even brought what he needs for his classes tomorrow.”

  “And you?”

  “My classes are all online.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “I’m going to ride in with you in the morning.”

  “And who’s going to take you home at the end of the day?” I asked.

  “You. We’re staying here until Frank gets back.”

  “He’ll be back tomorrow night.”

  “Okay, we’ll be here at least until then.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked all these decisions being made without my input, but I couldn’t deny a sense of relief. Still …

  Seeing my hesitation, Ben said quietly, “I got a call from an Aaron Mikelson t
oday.”

  “Shit. I did not give him your number.”

  “I know you didn’t. I can imagine how you felt about getting that call yourself.”

  I looked at him, saw what I hadn’t registered before—he hadn’t been sleeping, either.

  Ben and I were among the few who could say we’d survived an attack by Nick Parrish. It was an extremely small club. The dues were damned high.

  Ethan and I had been through a separate hell. Once a hard drinker, he had caused a scandal at the paper that alienated his fellow reporters—I was one of the few who stood by him when he returned from rehab. He returned the favor when we were taken captive one night—he saved my life, although he suffered a near-fatal gunshot wound in the process. So there was a bond of survival with him, too. He was the slightly pesky younger brother, I suppose. The one who shared my ability for finding trouble.

  I wouldn’t trade either of them for the world.

  “Well, we’re staying here,” Ethan said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I felt safe. Until the first body showed up.

  FIVE

  Donovan Cotter checked the locks on the door to the studio and stepped carefully on the paving stones that led back to the house. His boots stayed dry, but he wiped their soles on the rough mat all the same. He moved inside, sliding the glass door shut behind him. He locked it and listened for a moment.

  The house was quiet.

  He liked that so much.

  It had not been quiet when his second wife lived with him. She had been unhappy, and what she would not say to him directly she expressed by loading and unloading the dishwasher in a noisy way, by banging pots and pans on the stovetop, by starting the vacuum cleaner when he would lie down for a nap.