Deathscape

by Dana Marton

  “Swore to protect the innocent and all that.”

  “I’m sure they’re not going to waterboard her in there.”

  Yeah, but they would push her, push her hard, and she had enough stress on her already. She needed somebody on her side. She needed a damn lawyer. Why the hell didn’t she hire one?

  For the hundredth time, he considered just marching in there. Trouble was, he wasn’t sure if that would really help her.

  Bing’s eyes narrowed. “Ashley Price and the Feds are not your concern.”

  “What else is going on, then?” Better take the captain in another direction before he kicked him out of the station.

  “Still the damn string of break-ins, a handful of shoplifters, two domestic violence cases, and a parole violation, none of which you’ll touch. You’re on desk duty. Try not to forget it.”

  The interrogation room door opened, and Agent Hunter stepped out, apparently to take a call. Jack caught a glimpse of Ashley through the gap in the door. He didn’t like her distressed expression.

  “Be back in a sec.” He jumped up and strode forward. By the time he reached the agent, the man was putting his phone away.

  Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. “Anything new?”

  The man flashed him a cold look. “I’m not at liberty to say. However, I do need to see you, Detective Sullivan, as soon as we’re finished here.”

  “Regarding?”

  “I understand you’ve paid Miss Price several visits lately.”

  “She saved my life. I owed her a proper thank-you.”

  The agent quirked an eyebrow. “Then you wouldn’t be, by any chance, investigating?”

  “Interfering with an FBI investigation could cost me my badge,” he deadpanned.

  “Let’s not forget that, Detective.”

  * * *

  The interrogation room was small, drab gray, and oppressive. It made her anxious. Then again, what didn’t? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been as far from her house as the police station.

  Ashley steeled her spine. She refused to live the rest of her life in fear.

  “When was the first time you met Detective Sullivan?” Agent Hunter asked.

  “The night I found him.”

  “But you didn’t know who he was at the time?”

  “No. He was unconscious for the most part.” Except when he’d forced her to drive back to her house.

  “When was the first time you heard the name Brady Blackwell?”

  “A few days later, when the police asked me about him.”

  The agent threw more questions at her, his voice becoming more clipped with each, his shoulders growing stiffer. In a way, she understood him. He wanted a solution, a bankable lead. He wanted a victory and probably the promotion that would come with it, and he didn’t like that he wasn’t getting what he needed from her.

  She pulled her neck in and waited for the bomb to drop.

  But as the questions kept coming, he didn’t ask about her paintings. In fact, he sounded like they hadn’t discovered any leads lately, which was why they were going back, covering old ground.

  So maybe Jack Sullivan hadn’t betrayed her after all but kept her secret. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  “People say you keep to yourself. Why?” Agent Hunter kept pushing. He was like a robot. He was checking off checkboxes in his head, marching forward, going for the win.

  Jack was just as determined but not as detached. The case was personal for him. Blackwell had put him in the grave.

  “I work a lot,” she answered the question.

  “And you have no idea who might have buried Detective Sullivan on your land? You had nothing to do with it?”

  “No.” She’d said that over and over again. “Am I an official suspect?”

  “Yes.”

  She closed her eyes for a second. A suspect. Not even just a “person of interest.”

  Agent Hunter was hungry for a win. Jack had a personal vendetta. Captain Bing hated her guts to start with… Her future looked bleaker with every passing minute.

  The agent pinned her with a cold look. “You had opportunity. The grave is on your land.” He shot the words at her.

  “But I didn’t put Jack Sullivan into that grave. He can tell you I didn’t.”

  “You could have helped Blackwell after Detective Sullivan had lost consciousness.”

  She gritted her teeth. Painting her latest vignette of horror and Jack’s interrogation the night before had left her drained. She didn’t have enough for another fight. “What possible motive could I have?”

  He waited, held out the silence. “Am I correct that your mother died in a mental institution?”

  And craziness could be hereditary. Crazy people didn’t need a motive. A chill ran through her. Was that what they were going to run with?

  “That has nothing to do with me,” she protested.

  “Doesn’t it?”

  She stared at the man. Were they this desperate? Did they care more about the win than the facts? Maybe they did. It wasn’t like the innocent had never been made to pay for crimes they didn’t commit. She’d seen plenty of shows on TV about people who’d been wrongly convicted and were only recently released, saved by DNA. Some had been in prison for decades.

  And if Agent Hunter won…

  He wouldn’t. She was going to beat the FBI, beat Jack Sullivan, return her life to normal, and get her daughter back. She wasn’t going to lose Maddie over this. Whatever she had to do—

  “I would like to call my attorney,” she said, although she was no longer sure that would be enough.

  But the possible solution that suddenly burst into her head scared her as much as the false accusations, maybe more. Her entire body went cold. She considered the idea anyway.

  What if she didn’t resist her visions?

  What if she embraced them? Would she see more? Would she see how Sullivan had come to be in the grave? Would she see Blackwell? Could she lead the authorities to him to end this nightmare?

  Did she dare willingly walk into the abyss? And what if she did and couldn’t find her way back? Would she end up like her mother and lose everything?

  She needed to think this over, needed to get out of here. “I want to call my lawyer,” she repeated.

  The agent closed his notebook and rose. “You’re entitled to an attorney, but we’re done for today.”

  She swallowed hard. “I was going to stay with my father in Philadelphia for a few days, if that’s okay.” If the Feds released her, Jack Sullivan couldn’t do anything. She held her breath for the answer.

  But the man shook his head. “I’d rather that you stuck around for the time being.”

  Disappointment washed over her. She’d talk to her lawyer about this too. She had to see Maddie.

  She walked out to the main area of the police station, thinking about the lawyer and how she could force a vision somehow, if she could make that work. Her gaze caught on Jack Sullivan. He hadn’t been in earlier. Now he was watching her from behind a desk, across the room.

  He pushed to his feet. Then Captain Bing appeared at the door of his office, stared at Jack, and Jack sat back down with dark thunder on his face.

  Ashley took advantage of the reprieve and hurried out, but came to a screeching halt in the parking lot. Agent Hunter had brought her in. She didn’t have her car.

  He appeared in the doorway behind her before she could turn back in. “I’ll have one of the uniformed officers drive you home, Miss Price. Just give me a minute.”

  But before she could thank the man, Sullivan came hurrying around the building. He must have come out somewhere in the back.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I need to talk to you,” the agent told him with a scowl of disapproval.

  He didn’t look too concerned. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

  “See that you are.” Agent Hunter went back inside as Sullivan strode up to her.

&nb
sp; “I’m not up for another interrogation, Detective. I’d just as soon call a cab.” Ashley steeled herself for more accusations, but none came.

  Instead, he said, “Call me Jack. No more interrogation today. Just a ride, I promise.”

  She flashed him a doubtful look.

  “I could recommend a couple of decent lawyers,” he said. He looked tired around the eyes. Maybe he had as much trouble with sleep as she did. “You shouldn’t be alone when they question you.”

  She found the sudden concern suspicious. “You came to my house and badgered me when you had questions. I don’t remember you recommending a lawyer then.”

  He didn’t have a comeback for that.

  “I have an attorney. I had to get one after the accident,” she informed him as he walked to his black Crown Victoria and opened the passenger door.

  She thought for a couple of seconds before she got in. Only because spending some time with Sullivan, Jack, now, might make bringing back the vision later easier.

  “What did the FBI want?” he asked once he’d gone around and folded his lean frame behind the wheel.

  “Same thing as you do, to prove me guilty.” She closed her eyes for a second. “It’d be easiest for everyone.”

  “Yes.”

  “Except for me.”

  “Except for you,” he agreed and drove out of the parking lot, pulling into traffic.

  Since the town was old, the streets at the center of it were pretty narrow, made narrower yet by the cars parked on either side. Just as they crossed the first intersection, a truck stopped in front of them to make a delivery. Horns beeped as Jack maneuvered around it.

  She grabbed the sides of her seat and held on tight. On the way to the police station, she’d sat in the back and closed her eyes for most of the trip. In the front seat, it was more difficult to ignore that she was out and about in town, away from her safe place. Sweat slicked her palms.

  Jack glanced at her.

  “So, weird thing the other day,” he said conversationally as he turned his attention back to the traffic, none of his usual intensity in evidence for the time being. “Call comes in about an accident. Thirty-two-year-old guy fell out of the window of his pickup on Route 30 with his pants down.”

  That caught her attention. “How do you fall out of the window of your car while driving?”

  He shook his head, one corner of his mouth tilting up into an almost smile. “Turns out one of his buddies was driving. Our genius was mooning the passing cars out the passenger-side window, squatting on the seat. His buddy swerved, and the idiot fell right out. Broke his shoulder and a leg, on top of some pretty nasty lacerations.”

  She stared at him, trying to picture the scene. “Nobody can be that dumb, can they?”

  “Not the stupidest thing I’ve seen on the job, by far,” he said and started into another outlandish tale.

  He fell silent when they stopped at a red light, looking at the mushroom factory on the corner.

  She followed his gaze. “What is it?”

  “The boss’s car is up front. I’ve been trying to catch him. I’ll do it on the way back. After I drop you off.”

  “You can talk to him right now, if you want.” If this had to do with Blackwell, the sooner they caught him and cleared her, the happier she was.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, and when the light turned green, he pulled up in front of the place.

  She went into the main office area with him, waited while he talked to the secretary, then while he went back to talk to the owner. More than a dozen paintings of various mushrooms hung on the walls. She walked around and checked those out. They were pretty good, actually.

  “These weren’t here last time I was here,” Jack commented when he came back out.

  “Greg Shatzkin,” she said. “Local artist.”

  “He spent days here, taking hundreds of photos for those,” the secretary put in proudly.

  Jack went still. “When?”

  “Oh, that’d be over a year ago now, I think.” The woman smiled at him.

  Oddly enough, Jack seemed to find the information captivating. “How would I reach him?”

  “I’m not sure. We worked with him through the Lanius Gallery. Graham arranged everything.”

  “What was that about?” Ashley asked as they walked out. Maybe he had a thing for fungi.

  He shook his head, lost in thought for a second before he answered. “Something that might or might not lead to something.” Then he went right back to entertaining her with various cop stories as they drove away.

  They were in her driveway before she knew it. She’d even forgotten to be scared to death. And as she watched his stark, masculine profile, she suddenly realized that had been his intention.

  The sudden kindness unsettled her. She didn’t know what to make of it. For the first time, she didn’t find him threatening. And she didn’t want to find him attractive. Which part of her did already. God, of all the stupid things she’d ever done…

  “Thank you, Detective,” she said, eager to see him driving away.

  “Jack,” he reminded her.

  “So how does it work? The agoraphobia?” he asked, plunging straight into her most private business.

  “It’s not really agoraphobia.” She jumped to defend herself. “I go to the store. I go to places. I just don’t like to leave the house.”

  “It started after the accident?”

  She hesitated for a moment, but then she nodded. All her craziness did. “I’m dealing with it.”

  “Hey, you drove out to save me. I’m grateful for that.” This time, he sounded more sincere than the first time he’d thanked her. “It couldn’t have been easy.”

  “Nothing’s easy.”

  He held her gaze. His usual intensity was tempered with something softer today, something that made it hard for her to look away as he said, “No, nothing is, is it?”

  She filled her lungs. “I’m going to get better.”

  “I have no doubt you will.”

  The way he said it, with full confidence, unsettled her. The support felt good, and for a moment, she almost liked him for giving her that. So she made a joke of it.

  “Are you all right?”

  He arched an eyebrow.

  “We’ve been together for at least half an hour, and you haven’t accused me of anything yet. Has crime stopped in Broslin?”

  His lips curved into a half smile. “I was just getting to it.”

  He looked dangerously handsome when he smiled.

  “So his name is Burt Johnson,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “The guy in the closet you painted.”

  And just like that, the relaxed moment was gone from between them.

  He went on to tell her about the old man and his nephew, the neighbors who called in that he’d been missing.

  The stark reality of the story shook her. Always did.

  The thought of another vision frightened her. The idea that she should try to force one on purpose made her question her own sanity. She needed to be alone. She needed to think. She needed to get away from him, even if talking like this wasn’t too bad. Or maybe especially because of that. She refused to like him.

  “I have to go. Thanks for the ride.” She bolted from the car and practically ran for her front door.

  She locked up behind her, slipped out of her boots and coat, listened to the sounds of his car driving away while pushing the images of that last body from her mind.

  She would think about it, whether or not she could do what she needed to do, but later. Right now, she had to take care of something else first. She strode to the kitchen and poured a glass of water, looked at Maddie’s drawings on her refrigerator.

  When she regained some equilibrium, she pulled her cell phone and dialed her father.

  A moment passed as Bertha answered the phone and passed it on to Mr. Price.

  “Something came up. I can’t come today,” Ashley told him.
“I’m really sorry.”

  Silence stretched on the other end before her father said, “She’s been waiting by the window for the past half hour.”

  Her eyes burned. “It’s not something I can help. Could you come out?”

  “No, we can’t. I called together a small dinner party with your old friends to celebrate your visit. If you’re not here, at least I ought to be.” Her father hung up on her before she had a chance to ask for Maddie.

  She stood there, in the middle of the room, her jaw clenched. Moisture filled her eyes. She blinked hard. No. She was done with crying. She let the anger come, set her jaw, and marched up the stairs. She would do whatever she had to do. And do it as soon as possible.

  She’d wanted to think more about the idea she’d had at the station, but suddenly she knew that if she thought too much, she might lose her nerve. She needed to be brave for once. She needed to leap.

  She needed to force a vision.

  She grabbed her stained palette and squeezed crimson red in the middle, half a tube, then black, then brown, mixed a sick gray, mixed all the colors of decay. There.

  “I want to see,” she said to the empty room. Then shouted, “I want to see!”

  She visualized Jack’s face, the way he’d been wrapped into that shower curtain, the way he’d looked in the dark and cold grave. She wished she still had the original painting. It might have helped to remember the exact details.

  She stared at the canvas so hard, all her muscles bunched, that she was giving herself a headache. She was so focused, when her doorbell rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sharp ring.

  She set the palette down and went to the door, expecting it’d be Pete with some mail, or maybe Eddie, just letting her know he’d be out back. Either way, the interruption wouldn’t take more than a minute.

  But instead, Graham Lanius leered at her.

  “I was in the neighborhood. I thought I’d pop in and see what you have for me.”

  The art dealer wore a crisp suit with a Van Gogh Starry Night tie. He’d come in an Audi, pristine despite the slush on the roads, quite a trick. He stood at the same height as Ashley, freshly cut hair, meticulously clean-shaven face that he stretched into a smile. “May I come in?”

  She stepped back. Graham was the last person she wanted to see right now, but sending him away would have been inexcusably rude. The way her career was going, she probably couldn’t afford to alienate anyone in the business.