Guardian angels, his mind said.
Ridiculous! Was his response to the thought he was sure was not his own.
David’s voice fought for his attention. “I can’t believe this. We’re not alone—I wonder how many of us there are?”
“Look,” said Jon, getting exasperated, “this is great and all, but I’m a little preoccupied right now. I’m not really looking at the big picture. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Yeah,” said David, snapping out of his reverie. “So, I’ll—ask them to check the locker?”
“I guess.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll just wait in the car,” he said, looking around to see if their exchange had caught anyone’s attention.
It had. An officer was standing just inside the glass doors of the police station, looking out at them. He was joined by two more officers and the three started talking.
“I have to go!” Jon bolted for the driver’s door.
“What? You can’t go.”
“I have to go.” He fumbled with the door handle. “They know I’m here!”
“Then I’ll go with you,” said David.
You don’t have to run anymore, Jon’s mind whispered. He locked up.
“Come on!” said David, running around the car.
“No,” said Jon, watching in horror as the three officers exited the building and headed straight for them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
David looked over the smoked glass moonroof of the Porsche at Jon’s look of horror. “Get in! Let’s go!”
“No. I have to stay,” said Jon, though he looked like he wanted to run.
Had he seen a message? Was it telling him to stay? David understood all too well the young man’s discomfort.
“Jon Blake!” called one of the officers. “Put your hands where we can see them and place them on the roof of the car.”
David twisted around. All three officers had drawn their revolvers and were creeping in.
“Don’t shoot!” he screamed. “He’s turning himself in.”
“Hands on the car!”
Did they mean David as well? His hands shot up. “Okay! Okay!”
“Hands on the car!”
David spun and slapped his hands on the roof. Jon had done the same. David saw intense fear in the boy’s eyes and wondered if he would bolt. “It’s okay, Jon,” he spoke low. “You can trust the messages. They’re never wrong.” He felt an officer come in behind him, and soon both of his hands were locked in cold hard steel.
They did the same to Jon, then led them up to the police station where two more officers were waiting. They were ushered through the doors and into the lobby where even more people were standing, including Karen Knight and Agent Collins.
“That’s David Chance! He’s with me!” said Karen over the commotion. “He brought Jon Blake in!”
The sergeant turned to her. “We need to process him and get his statement. He’s not under arrest.”
“Then why is he cuffed?”
The men shuffled around. Jon was taken from the room, and David was released from the cuffs.
The sergeant spoke over his shoulder. “I’ll give you a minute, but then we need to get a statement. Do you understand?”
David nodded. Karen leaped toward him. He thought for a moment she might hug him. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his wrists.
“This is unexpected. Not only did you find him, you brought him in.”
“Actually, he brought himself in.” And me, David thought.
Collins stepped in beside Karen, and gave David a silent greeting.
“Well still,” she said, “here you are. This is amazing. So what’s next?” She rubbed her hands together, clearly having fun. “Did the messages tell you how we’re going to help clear Jon and his father of these charges?”
“You think they’re both innocent?” interrupted Collins with a lift of his brow.
“You tell me,” she said, with a glare.
David noticed the tension between them. “Is there—something I should know about?”
Collins turned a cool face toward him. “Karen has a theory that there might be extraterrestrials involved in this case.”
She laughed his comment off. “Agent Collins thinks he can cover up his agency’s secret research into weapons-grade psychotropics with charming subterfuge.”
Air puffed from Agent Collins’ mouth. “Is that your new theory?” he said, sarcastically. “I like it. It has headline flare. Not necessarily broadcast news headline flare, but definitely tabloid flare.”
She gave a snide tilt to her head. “Oh I see how it is. Well, we’ll see how smug you are when they seal you in your cell at Fort Leavenworth and flush the key down a toilet.”
David interjected. “You two need a room?”
“No,” said Karen. “We’re just working out a few diplomacy bugs. We’re all set.”
Collins looked almost like he was enjoying himself.
“So,” said Karen, looking at David expectantly, “what’s next?”
Could he come right out and say it? Would the police give him access to the locker room, or would they attempt to search it on their own? For all he knew, the mole was already heading to the locker to move the evidence. “I know where the murder weapon is,” he said loudly. The room quieted. “It’s here, in the police station.”
Karen immediately caught the implication. “Someone tampered with the evidence?”
David addressed the room. “Someone in this station took the weapon from the crime scene and hid it here.” He hoped for a noticeable reaction, or, even better, a guilty departure, but there was none. Everyone just stared.
He addressed the sergeant who was waiting to get his statement. “I need immediate access to your locker room. He looked around at the puzzled faces. “And I need witnesses. The mole could be anyone in this room.”
“A mole?” The sergeant looked doubtful. “What is your source for these allegations?”
“I’m not at liberty to reveal my source.”
“You said in the locker room? Where? Inside a locker?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a locker number?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t give you that. I have to show you.”
The sergeant considered the volatile nature of the situation, and finally turned and addressed the officer behind the counter. “Call the captain.”
“He’s on his way,” he said.
Within seconds Captain Jackson pushed through a set of doors on the right side of the lobby with a suited man following on his heels. “Bring me up to speed, Sergeant,” he said, assessing the occupants of the room.
“This man works with Karen Watson.” The sergeant indicated David with his hand. “He says someone removed evidence from the crime scene and hid it here, in our locker room.”
“Does he, now?” said the captain, leveling his eyes on David. “And how would you know that, Mr. Chance?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Are we going to be host to more of your party tricks?” His lip curled under his burly mustache.
“I came here with Jon Blake. I think I’ve more than proven myself.”
“Young man, you haven’t even begun to prove yourself to me.”
David stuck his chest out slightly. “Are you afraid of what we’ll find in that locker?”
The captain’s face was devoid of humor. “It is a matter of protocol. We don’t make it a habit to allow civilians into our locker area. And it is a matter of security. You need evidence or a source to back up your claim. But I’m guessing all you have are weird psychic readings to share.”
David was inclined to continue pressing the captain, but there was a chance the captain would shut him down out of spite. So he kept his peace.
Captain Jackson let out a sigh. “I want you to know, I don’t take the invasion of my
officers’ personal space lightly. If we don’t find what you claim is there, things are going to get very uncomfortable for you.”
David gave a less-than-confident nod.
“What locker do you claim this evidence is being hidden in?”
“I’ll show you when we get there.”
“I’d like to have the officer in question present at the inspection.”
It seemed like a reasonable course; having the guilty man in the room would keep him from fleeing. David leaned in and said, “2881.”
The Captain walked over to the desk. “Call up the record on 2881.”
After a long and painful pause, the desk officer said, “Sergeant Gram.”
The name immediately sent David back to his run-in with Sergeant Gram at the crime scene. It made sense. He had acted suspicious the whole time.
“Where is Sergeant Gram right now?”
“In with Jon Blake.”
The Captain waved David to follow, and picked up two officers on his way to the holding room. Karen and Agent Collins trailed behind. Through a one-way glass, they could see the tall, muscular Sergeant Gram sitting across from Jon Blake with a note pad. The Captain leaned into the room. “Would you come with me for a moment, Sergeant.”
David could see the sergeant’s expression. He was stoic, yet curious. He slid back from the table and came out of the room.
“Follow me, please,” said the captain.
An officer stepped in between David and the sergeant, but the sergeant caught a glimpse of David over the officer’s shoulder. “What’s he doing here?!”
“This way,” said the captain.
The officer behind the sergeant gave him a nudge, and they continued down the long, thin hallway to another hallway, and then around a corner to the locker room.
“Take a position by your locker, Sergeant.”
“What’s all this about?” he protested.
“It’s probably nothing, but I need to do a quick inspection of your locker to avoid a media backlash. We’ll keep it private.” He stood in front of the locker and looked back at the doorway where David and the rest were standing. “You all keep back.”
The sergeant’s eyes became wild. “This is an invasion of privacy!”
“No,” said the captain, slipping on a pair of medical exam gloves, “this is a routine inspection between you, me, and Officer Walsh here. If the locker is clean, you’re free to go.” The Captain slid the master key into the center of the combination dial and twisted.
Sergeant Gram craned his neck to see. The motion was curious, like Gram himself was wondering what was in the locker. It was hardly the action of a man who had been caught red-handed.
With a squeak the door opened, and the Captain’s hands disappeared inside the cavity of the locker. Sergeant Gram and Officer Walsh both attempted to catch a glimpse inside. There was something that sounded like sliding hangers, followed by a shifting of materials at the bottom of the locker.
The captain pulled his gloved hand out, revealing a plastic evidence bag containing a hand gun. He turned to the sergeant, whose face was in a frenzy. “Officer Walsh, take Sergeant Gram into the next room and read him his rights.”
“My rights!” said the sergeant, struggling against Officer Walsh.
“I’m sorry, Tom,” said the captain, placing the bag back in the locker.
The sergeant pulled away, and Officer Walsh lurched forward. There was spittle in Gram’s mouth. “You’re sorry?!” His voice rose. “YOU’RE SORRY?!”
The Captain’s hands slammed into the sergeant’s chest and held him back as two other officers ran in to help subdue the large man.
Gram’s right hand pulled free and swung at the captain. “You’re sorry!” The fist missed its mark as the captain leaped back against the locker.
Officers piled on top of Gram, but he continued to stand. “You did this for him?” There was an eerie sound in the sergeant’s voice, an anguish David could not have imagined in his worst nightmares. “We did what you said, and you betrayed us for him?!”
One of the officers managed to get his billy club out and struck the sergeant just above the knee. Gram shifted his weight and threw the officer back five feet, using only one free arm. David danced out of the way and crouched near the corner.
“Get more men in here!” screamed the captain.
Collins, who had moved in to assist the officers, ran back and hollered out the door. “We need more men in here!”
“Betrayer!” screeched Gram through spit-covered lips, his eyes like a wild animal’s. “We were promised!”
The interwoven mass of officers undulated like a mound of blue snakes slithering around Gram, as he continued to bash them against the walls. Several billy club strikes hit their mark, but the sergeant remained standing. Three more officers filed into the room and joined the snake pile, filling the locker room aisle.
A blood-curdling scream filled the air and reverberated off the hard, metal locker room walls. One of the officers fell back, gripping his arm. There was blood on it, and blood on the sergeant’s mouth. Another man screamed, and a spray of blood splattered across the locker wall.
David scurried toward the door. Collins had his handgun out and stood in front of Karen, protectively. He aimed the weapon at the sprawl of men. Is he going to shoot him?! thought David. Collins’ eyes sighted down the barrel, and there was a loud crack! It wasn’t the sound of a bullet. Perhaps a dart? There were two more cracks, and the heap of men collapsed to the ground. One by one they climbed off the pile, revealing the body of Sergeant Gram, lying still on the tiled floor.
“What was that?” said one of the men, clearly shaken.
“Get him into holding,” said the captain.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said another officer.
They cuffed him, and three of the men, who hadn’t been bitten, dragged Gram from the room.
Karen pushed out from behind Collins. “You care to tell me what that was?”
Collins sheathed his weapon. “Looks like drugs to me, maybe bath salts.”
“Bath salts?” she said incredulously. “An on-duty police officer on bath salts?”
“Well, it was some kind of adrenaline enhancing agent. We’ll know more when they do a toxicology report.”
Karen’s eyes flared. “And you just happen to carry a tranquilizer gun?”
David’s eyes flicked down to the agent’s holster, and up again. That was a good point! Why was Agent Collins carrying a tranquilizer gun? Was this sort of thing common for him? If so, he hoped Karen would pry the truth from him. If anyone could do it, she could.
He gave her a serious look. “We don’t carry firearms. Our mandate is to take the extraterrestrials alive.”
“Extraterrestrials.” she said, clearly disgusted by the absurdity of his answer.
“It’s a good thing, too. If there were bullets in this thing, that junkie would have tore this room, and everyone in it, apart.”
The Captain left the two wounded men and came over to them. He was carrying the plastic bag with the handgun. “Whatever’s going on, we’re going to get to the bottom of it. Here,” he said, handing the gun to an officer. “Take this to the lab and get me some prints.”
David watched as the officer passed by with the bag dangling from his grip—and a single question formed in his mind. If Sergeant Gram took the weapon to hide the identity of the killer, then why did he put it in a plastic bag to preserve the fingerprints?
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jon Blake didn’t have to imagine what was happening down the hall from the holding room; the voices wouldn’t shut up about it. There was a level of hysteria in his head which had ended with one voice repeating over and over, “Deepest darkest, deepest reaches, sacred trust abandoned us.” Jon sat listening to it for several minutes, repeating its loop, until eventually he built up the nerve to pose an inward question. Who abandoned you?
“Not us. Them,” said a strong voice.
The chanting voice ceased its lament.
Who was abandoned?
“They don’t listen. They don’t understand.”
Who!
“They know the rules. They cannot be broken.”
Jon’s hands squeezed into fists. “Who?!” he said out loud.
There was a long pause—which made Jon very uncomfortable.
“It is unlawful for us,” said the strong voice.
What is?
“Flesh and blood, and mortal breath,” it said.
“But he is different,” said another. “He is open.”
“True. He is for us. But flesh and blood and mortal breath.”
“He wants to know. What can we tell?”
There was dissension among the voices? This was a new thought for Jon. But why not? There were many of them. Why wouldn’t they have different opinions and personalities? He had imagined they were a concoction of his own subconscious, and therefore all uniquely him. But now he was seriously beginning to question that hypothesis.
“Things of earth,” said the strong voice.
“Tell him his life was slated for misery, and we have been allowed to rescue him.”
“This is acceptable.”
“Tell him that, even now, Elliot James is hunting him.”
Jon interjected his own thought. Here? In the station?
“He tracked you to his thorn.”
Tracked me to what?
“He doesn’t know you are drawn to her.”
Canary? He realized as the name leaped into his mind, unrestrained, that he was, indeed, very drawn to her. She was beautiful, and seemed smart. And even though she had watched him for years, she still liked him, maybe even more-than-liked him—though that was probably just wishful thinking. Regardless, there was no denying that he was drawn to her.
Is she in danger? he thought.
“We are moving to protect her, but Elliot James has many operatives.”
Talk to her. Warn her!
“We cannot.”
Why not?! You talk to me!
VOICES: Book 2 in the David Chance series (Suspense, Mystery, Thriller) Page 16