by Dana Marton
“Officer down,” Mike said on the other end and rattled off an address.
“Harper.” Bing ran for his car. “He went out on a domestic-violence call earlier.”
Jack was right behind him, the boys already forgotten.
~~~***~~~
Chapter Eight
“I booked you at Maximilian’s for the end of May,” Isabelle said on the other end of the line as Ashley pulled her dinner from the microwave, General Tso’s chicken.
At five o’clock Monday afternoon, this was probably the last call her agent would make for the day. Which meant there was more coming. Isabelle hated giving bad news to her artists. Good calls went out first thing in the morning. Rejections were left until the last minute, as she usually would work throughout the day to make another booking, secure a review in a top newspaper, or otherwise soften the blow.
So Ashley asked, “But?” and waited for her agent to tell her the rest.
A long moment of silence passed.
Ashley brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
“If it’s not a sell-out show, I’m not sure if I can book you again. And you need to be here,” Isabelle told her. “I’m sorry. With the economy… Galleries are losing money. I can’t book shows like I used to. They want a sure thing. They want the big names, the heavy hitters.”
She understood. The last two shows, not only had she not been able to send as many paintings as she’d promised, but she hadn’t been able to force herself into making the trip. Her anxieties had turned her into a prisoner. Which would change. She would have to go this time. Too much was riding on the line.
She had to conquer her fears, as simple as that. And she had to get the FBI off her back. But forcing a vision hadn’t worked. She had tried again after Jack had left after his brief but bewildering visit, tried until she’d nearly been in tears from frustration. Nothing happened.
The first time she’d seen him in the grave, he’d been on the brink of death. Did he reach out to her? His theory—as crazy as it sounded—made more sense than anything she’d come up with so far.
Maybe the reason why she hadn’t been able to bring back that connection was because currently the man was very much alive. And messing with her head.
He knew her darkest secret. He believed her. He’d held her in his arms, and it’d felt so good she’d wanted to stay there forever. She needed to snap out of that foolishness.
Even if his strong arms around her felt better than anything in a long time. Even if he made her feel alive, whether with anger or awareness or need, but always alive. Even if part of her was beginning to wish for things that could never be.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Forget Jack. He was trouble with a capital T, at a time when she couldn’t afford complications.
“Graham Lanius stopped by,” she said to channel her thoughts into another direction. “I told him he needs to talk to you.”
“Good. We’re a little concerned but not desperate yet. You need to be in better galleries than his. He might think he’s some hotshot dealer, but he doesn’t have the best of reputations at the art shows.” She hesitated. “Maybe it’s more about the money for him than the art. I’ll deal with him if he calls.” The sound of a keyboard clicking came from the other end. “Now the most important thing. About the pictures you sent this morning.”
Ashley held her breath as she waited for the verdict. Even after all these years, this part never got easier.
“The raw pain is gone.” Isabelle paused. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. The accident wasn’t your fault. You almost died trying to save that boy.”
Isabelle could read artists from their paintings like Freud could read people from their dreams. And she could read clients from their clothes, the cars they drove, how they wore their makeup, how they spoke. She knew the perfect art for every gallery, for every client. She was amazing at what she did.
“There’s something else going on here,” she said now. “Some new tension. Want to talk about it?”
Ashley hesitated, not sure what to say. The FBI thinks I’m aiding and abetting a serial killer, didn’t sound like something that would advance her career.
“All right. We’ll talk when we meet,” Isabelle said on the other end. “So about the paintings—the work is good, which is the most important thing. Very moody. I like it. Fantastic colors. Good negative space. Good everything. The rhythm of the brushstrokes is mesmerizing. I really like the new energy.”
Ashley let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Maximilian will want titles. I don’t suppose you changed your mind about that.”
She didn’t title her work, as a rule. She felt like it would be too much of an imposition on the viewer, getting in the way of letting the painting say whatever it wanted to say, which would be different from person to person.
“I want dialogue. Art shouldn’t be a one-way conversation. Let the viewer decide what the painting means to them.” A piece either spoke to you or it didn’t. If it had to be explained, it wasn’t worth bupkis.
“And you know I agree.”
“You think it will be an issue?”
“You’re the artist. They’ll ask, but ultimately they’ll respect your artistic vision.” Another pause on Isabelle’s end. “So about the last photo you sent this afternoon, the one with the unfinished work. Is this a new direction? That one has a different tone than the others. There’s hope in it. And some kind of masculine energy. Is there a hot guy in the picture you neglected to mention?”
Ashley looked at the painting on the easel. Soaring swirls of blue dominated the canvas. She’d started it that morning. She had no idea where the image had come from, what it meant. Hope? No, she didn’t think so. This one time, Isabelle had to be mistaken.
Her ruling emotion when it came to Jack Sullivan was definitely confusion. “Staying away from men until I have other things straightened out.”
So what if there was a certain attraction? So what if the blue in her painting matched his cerulean eyes exactly? She itched to paint those eyes, the shadows and pain at their depth, the planes of his face that often turned sharp and hard. A portrait of Jack Sullivan.
Except, for a good portrait, the artist had to know the subject, know him truly and well, know what lived behind the eyes. And she knew precious little of Jack Sullivan. He had as many secrets as she did, or more, she was sure of that.
Did he really believe her? Or was it a ploy to get through her defenses, get her to let her guard down so he could find some dirt on her?
He’d said he believed her.
Did she dare believe that?
She wanted to. It would have been nice to have someone in her corner who knew the worst about her and accepted her regardless.
He’d brought her a shovel, whatever that meant. At least, she was pretty sure he’d been the one to bring it. The man was a puzzle.
“So, what’s new with you?” she asked.
“I’ll come down the last week of March. We’ll catch up,” Isabelle said. “If you could have a few more works finished by then, it would be great.”
“I will.” Unless something unforeseen came up, like the FBI arresting her. She didn’t like the way Agent Hunter’s interrogation had gone. But unless they found another lead, she would remain the focus of the investigation.
She had to give them a lead. Whatever it cost her. Her mind was full of fear of what that meant, as she said good-bye to Isabelle and hung up at last.
Simply wishing for another vision hadn’t worked. How did other psychics control their dubious “gift”? The only thing she could think of was a documentary she’d recently watched about a psychic who visited crime scenes to help solve murder cases. Her visions seemed to have been triggered by some magical “vibes” violence left at the scene of the crime.
Ashley looked out into the twilight. If her “sensitivity” could be used the same way… She knew only one place connected to Blackwell, on
e place where the man had done something terrible. She thought of the shallow grave where Jack had been buried alive. What if some vibes had been left behind?
Maybe if she went out there, she could pick up something. The psychic on TV had talked about years and years of effort to develop her skill into what it was today. So if the “skill” could be developed, that meant Ashley might get better at it if she kept trying.
If she could bring back the vision, if she could expand it instead of fighting it… If she could see Blackwell put Jack into the grave, she could draw the man.
Tomorrow, said the voice of fear in her head.
It always said, tomorrow, whether it talked about going to the grocery store or starting a new painting. Tomorrow you’ll be brave, fear whispered. Tomorrow you’ll be normal. Just give me today.
That was how fear stole whole lives away.
But she had to stop letting fear win.
She had to do it for Maddie. Her daughter needed a real mother, not the shadow of one. She needed to reclaim her life. Starting right now. Because if she didn’t do it right now, she might never do it, and she wasn’t willing to lose her daughter over stupid cowardice.
So she dressed as warmly as she could, got into her car, and drove down Hadley Road, without looking once at the reservoir, pulled over at the exact same spot as she had before, and forced herself to step out of the car.
Fear, like the night, surrounded her completely. An owl hooted somewhere in the woods, making her jump. She almost got back into the car.
But then she thought of her daughter and marched forward.
Memories of the night she’d first come out here to search for the grave flooded her. She put one foot in front of the other mechanically, ignoring the bushes that tore at her pants. At least this time her legs and feet were covered.
Soon she could hear the creek up ahead. She pushed through a jumble of branches, and there loomed the solitary boulder twenty feet or so in front of her. A pretty impressive gravestone, she thought.
Finding the grave was easy, even in the dark. Police tape flitted all around it, pale moonlight reflecting off the yellow plastic.
She stopped outside the circle and drew a deep breath, looking up to the stars. Waited to feel something, see something. Come on.
Nothing happened.
She looked down at the grave then and tried to think back to the time when she’d been on her knees next to it, clawing at the dirt with bare fingers. The images came back easily enough, but nothing else, nothing new.
Frustration battled with anxiety inside her.
She lifted the police tape and stepped under it, moving all the way to the grave, stared down into the black hole and shivered. She stared hard, trying to see shapes, movement, an image.
And she did get glimpses of a man, hidden by shadows, and Jack, but they did not feel true. They weren’t like her visions. They were images her brain was making up because she was forcing it.
She tried to focus harder. Closed her eyes.
The hand settling on her shoulder made her scream into the night.
She spun around, her heart racing so hard she could barely catch her breath.
Not a hand, she realized, still on the verge of a heart attack. Just a branch dipping in the breeze.
She drew back, nearly falling into the grave, caught herself before she would have tumbled.
“Okay, enough craziness for one night,” she said to herself and began walking back to her car, feeling like an utter failure.
No. She didn’t fail until she gave up. And she wouldn’t give up.
Visiting “the scene of the crime” obviously didn’t work for her. She had to find something that would.
She thought about that all the way back to her car, unaware that she was being observed from afar.
* * *
Jack came close to smiling as he drove back out to the old firehouse Tuesday morning. Full, active duty. Finest three words in the English language, he’d ever heard. He got a new service weapon and a new badge, and he swore he’d die before he’d let anyone take them away from him.
Harper was in the hospital with a bullet wound to the shoulder, the poor bastard. A jealous husband had clipped him. The idiot was currently cooling his heels at the county jail. Bing and Jack had taken him in.
The jerkwad was out of circulation and would be out for a long time, but the shooting left the department one man short, which meant Bing had to bring Jack back to active duty.
He’d passed his physical first thing Monday morning, then did whatever he had to so Dr. Beacon would sign the psych release. By noon, he’d been reinstated and was interviewing burglary suspects. He was in charge of that now, officially. And only him. Harper had Joe working with him, but Bing moved Joe over to looking for a runaway teen. The captain wanted to keep Jack busy enough so he’d stay out of the FBI’s way.
So he’d read the burglary case files, then reinterviewed the victims. Then, since he was on that side of town, he decided to swing by to see the old firehouse again. It matched his criteria for location for the place where he’d been tortured. Maybe he’d missed some hidden basement entry before.
The place was connected to Eddie Gannon; he kept the big plow there. And Eddie Gannon spent time on Ashley’s land. He would know the lay of the property, the best spot to hide a body. He went there for wood all the time. For a woodstove?
There’d been a woodstove in the torture chamber.
Jack pulled up in front of the building, his pulse kicking up as he noted the open door. He checked his gun down below the dashboard without being too obvious about it.
Eddie was coming outside by the time Jack pushed out of his car.
The man held a tire iron by his side, but his expression was friendly enough. “Hey. Looking for me?”
They knew each other by sight but hadn’t interacted much in the past.
“Running down some leads.”
“Out here?”
“Looking for the place where I was kept.”
Eddie turned somber. “That was a messed-up business. You think he’s still around? They said on the news that he moves from state to state.”
He shrugged, keeping his arms loose, making sure his weapon was in easy reach. “I hear you recently bought a shovel.”
Eddie’s face went blank, then surprised. “That’s why you here?”
“Just running down some leads.” He kept his tone neutral. “Mind if I come inside?”
“No, man.” Eddie stepped aside immediately. “You look at whatever you want.”
“After you.” Jack gestured. He wasn’t about to let Eddie get behind him with that tire iron.
The big plow was in the middle of the bay, some tools lying around the front tire. Eddie must have been working on that. He plodded back there now and dropped the tire iron next to the other tools. “I can get you the shovel.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Jack stared at the woodstove in the back. He hadn’t seen that when he’d looked through the windows before. It had been covered by a partially open door.
But this was not the place where he’d been kept. The sound wasn’t right, the echoes different as they walked and talked, the high ceiling affecting the sound.
He checked but couldn’t find any place a basement entry could be hidden. He asked anyway, “Basement?”
Eddie shook his head as he brought him the shovel. “Old rock foundation. It’s actually sinking a little at the east corner.”
Still in the wrapping, the tool didn’t have a speck of dirt on it. It had never been used, at least not out by the creek where the rocks would have scraped it some if it had been pushed into the ground.
Okay. The building and the shovel weren’t a match. Jack moved on to the next item on his checklist. “Can you tell me where you were the first three days of this month? From the first to the third?”
The man had to walk over to his calendar to check. He scratched his head. “Right here. Working on Gerty.” He glanced towar
d the big plow. “She had a few small problems. They were predicting some weather. Wanted to make sure she was ready for it.”
“Day and night?”
“No, man, I went home to sleep.”
“Alone?”
“Unfortunately.” He gave a good-natured grin.
He lived in a one-bedroom apartment above the diner on Main Street. Jack had already checked into that. No basement there either. He made a mental note to ask the neighbors if they’d seen him coming and going during the three days he was interested in.
Blackwell had stayed with him nearly the entire time in that basement.
One more question left. “Captain Bing said you were out there on the roads, down Hadley Road the evening of the third. Have you seen anything out of place?”
The man didn’t strike him as Blackwell. He was too relaxed, too happy-go-lucky, even with Jack up in his face, in his business. Blackwell had plenty of piss and vinegar in him.
But even if Eddie wasn’t Blackwell, he might be a witness.
“Nope. Thought about that a hundred times since. The FBI asked too. I’m sorry, man.”
He thanked Eddie for his cooperation, then moved on to the next burglary victim, the Blackwell case always in the back of his mind, the puzzle pieces in constant shuffle.
The middle-aged shopkeeper he popped in on was missing some of his power tools. The next, an old woman, had her jewelry taken. Another guy had his entire DVD collection booted. The woman after that, her laptop. And it kept going like that. Relatively small items, items that could be easily sold online and shipped. Nothing terribly valuable, not even the jewelry. At a few places, the beer in the fridge and some smokes had also gone missing.
Didn’t seem like a serious burglar with serious connections. Plenty of high-value items had been left behind. Harper had already lifted prints, but none of them were a hit in the police database.
When Jack went back to his car after the last home visit, he pulled out an old-fashioned map from the glove compartment and took a good look at the streets where houses had been picked. They were all over town and outside of town. If there was a pattern, he sure didn’t see it.