The Collectors (Karma Police Book 3)

by Sean Platt

  I look up at Detective Jimenez, who’s giving me a thumbs-up.

  I got a confession of a relationship, which was the heavy lifting. Now, if I can get her to admit she slept with Chelsea before she was eighteen, the detectives will have what they need.

  I tread slowly, “Um, there’s just one thing that doesn’t make sense.”

  “What’s that?” Ms. Valencia asks, her voice betraying frazzled nerves. She can sense the hook. I need to be careful, or I’ll lose her.

  “Well, you said you all didn’t get together until she was eighteen, but Chelsea told me something different, and she wrote something else in her diary — saying it began four months ago, which would be a month before she turned eighteen.”

  A long pause.

  I’m not sure if this means she’s busted, and she was, in fact, sleeping with Chelsea before she turned eighteen, or if she’s surprised that Chelsea would lie. Maybe she’s doing the math in her head? Or, a third option, she knows this call is being recorded.

  What do I do if she asks if she’s being recorded? I can’t remember if the detectives covered that scenario or not.

  They must have, right?

  But I can’t remember.

  Shit.

  The longer her silence stretches, the more certain I am that she’s busted me.

  Nothing.

  Come on, talk!

  Finally, she speaks. “I don’t know why she’d say that. Chelsea was eighteen. We specifically waited. She wanted to be with me on the night of her eighteenth birthday, you know, to celebrate, but she said you were bringing her to dinner at her favorite restaurant, Christopher’s Steak House. It was a school night — a Tuesday if I recall — so we waited until the following weekend.”

  Now I’m the one who is quiet.

  She was so specific, and her details match Chelsea’s diary. They waited. I don’t think she’s lying, and I don’t want to push her or trick her into a false confession. This is her life on the line and could be the difference between her just being fired and going to jail, registering as a sex offender, or whatever other punishment she’d face for sleeping with a minor.

  I don’t look at Detective Jimenez. I say, “Maybe I’m mistaken. Sorry. Listen, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you some other time to arrange picking up the stuff Chelsea wanted you to have.”

  A beat of silence. Then, “Um, okay. Thank you for calling.”

  “Thank you,” I say, hanging up.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 3

  I wake up in a room so dark and cold it feels like a tomb. Given my hangover, maybe it’s fitting.

  It takes a moment for the cobwebs to clear, but I soon realize I’m inside Carla Valencia, Chelsea’s art teacher.

  I sit up, head pounding as fragments of last night’s memories rush through my head: Carla getting the phone call from Jack Caldwell, trying to keep her cool, then breaking down in tears the moment she hung up. The feeling of absolute loneliness as she lay on the floor crying, knowing that her career was over; and the walls were closing in.

  And then the walls did close in — two detectives at her front door, asking her to come to the station and answer some questions. Before they left, they presented a warrant to search her premises. They didn’t take her away in cuffs, but may as well have. She felt a deep shame as her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Abrams, watched the detectives escorting Carla to their cruiser from her porch.

  This was everything she’d feared from the moment her relationship with Chelsea crossed the line from friendship to more.

  She’d waited until the girl was eighteen, but that wouldn’t spare her from losing everything — her career, her reputation, the possibility of ever teaching children again. No one would trust her. They’d all think she was some kind of pervert, deviant, a monster.

  The police let her go after five long, excruciating hours of questioning, attempts to trip her up, to get to some “truth” they felt she was hiding. They were at turns nice, understanding, and accusing. Carla felt like she was being interviewed by schizophrenics, and by the end of the five hours, barely knew which way was up. She was reasonably certain that if they kept her any longer, she might slip. Not that she’d let out some incriminating truth — because she hadn’t slept with the girl before she was eighteen — but in her confusion, she might make a mistake, say something that wasn’t true, or which they could use against her. She was close to asking for a lawyer a few times but was afraid she’d look guilty the minute she did. Carla thought the cops believed her, but you could never tell, especially when they were all over the place throughout the questioning. She couldn’t tell what they were saying to persuade her, or play on her emotions, versus what was real.

  No matter what the police believed, this would still go public. And nobody would ever see Carla the same. All the good she’d done as a teacher, all the students she’d helped by going the extra mile, showing them the beauty of art. She’d done a lot of good. She’d changed lives. Some of her students would go on to great careers because Carla had lit that fire inside them.

  But that would all be meaningless once this story was public.

  And while Carla could see why people wouldn’t understand why she’d throw her career away for a “child,” as the detectives described Chelsea, those people didn’t know the girl or understand their connection.

  She went to bed afraid — afraid for her career, afraid for her life, afraid the police might return with charges to arrest her. But even more than all of that, she was afraid for Chelsea, that she might not make it out of this.

  After she got home, Carla had to call her mother and tell her everything — not an easy conversation. Her mother had been surprisingly supportive. She cried, said she didn’t understand how a woman in her thirties could fall for a child. The conversation had many parallels to when Carla came out to her, also by phone, in her first semester of college, at the urging of Carla’s first love, Laura. Mom was resistant, at first, but eventually supported her daughter’s decision. And while she didn’t advocate Carla sleeping with a student, she did offer to pay for her legal support, should it be needed.

  I finish showering and get dressed, choosing sweat pants and a long T-shirt, as I have no intentions of leaving the house as Carla. I have no idea who knows what and don’t want to do anything that might screw things up, either for her or the investigation.

  Her apartment is small but nice.

  I go into the second bedroom, which has been turned into an art studio. Framed on the wall is an almost photo-realistic colored pencil sketch of an eye. Not just any eye; it’s Carla’s eye, drawn by Chelsea.

  This was sketched early in their relationship, during the phase where they both knew there was something happening between them, but neither would move. Chelsea was too scared. Carla was still in denial, trying not to act on her feelings.

  Carla thought she’d never love again, not after cancer had taken Laura five years ago.

  She certainly didn’t think she’d fall for a student. But Chelsea was the first person since Laura whom Carla felt such an instant connection with.

  As a kid, Carla had never been one to believe in soul mates. It seemed like the stuff that romance novels, movies, and greeting cards were built around, but which didn’t exist for everyday people. Of course, at the time, Carla was still in denial thinking she simply needed to meet the right boy. Who knew the right boy wouldn’t be a boy at all, but rather a girl she’d meet as a college freshman, a girl who would change her every notion about love and fate.

  Laura had been the one. An artist and poet. She even played guitar. She saw things nobody else saw and said them in ways that no one else could. It was as if Fate had sought what Carla’s soul had been craving and decided to make a person for her alone.

  Carla could truly be herself with Laura. She helped Carla to realize her potential, made her want to be something, to inspire others. Laura had been so full of life until Fate snuffed her out across six cruel months.

  Forg
et love, Carla never thought she’d smile or laugh again. Only through teaching did she find any joy, and for a long time, that was enough. She would live in honor of Laura, inspiring others.

  Then Carla met Chelsea, the last person in the world she’d expect to be so perfect for her. Chelsea was the daughter of a religious self-help guru and conservative mother, an uptight girl afraid of life. But over time, she slowly left her shell in such a way that Carla couldn’t help but take notice. She started coming to class after school, at first under the pretense of extra tutelage. Soon, instruction gave way to long conversations. Chelsea wanted to know about Carla’s life, the things she enjoyed in her off time, and what she thought about big subjects.

  And as ridiculous as it seemed at first, Carla found herself wanting to know the same about the girl.

  She’d tried to talk herself out of her developing feelings. Asked herself a question her mother would later ask: What could a high school student know about anything to make her interesting? What life experience could she possibly have? And for a while, that argument worked. Chelsea wasn’t like Laura, full of all these crazy experiences, bold and daring, unafraid and unapologetic in her approach to life. No, Chelsea was more like Carla as she’d been when she’d met her first love. And Carla was now the one with experiences, who was (somewhat) bold and unapologetic. It was almost as if Carla had somehow gone back in time and reversed roles, except now she was the one helping another girl to discover herself, and, eventually, her sexuality.

  But it wasn’t all the reanimation of a relationship gone by. Carla was genuinely intrigued by Chelsea. She had original ideas about art, in all its forms. For a girl living with such repressive parents, Chelsea had one of the most creative minds Carla had ever seen — but hidden beneath layers of fear and insecurity.

  Chelsea was a beautiful, rare flower waiting for someone to tell her just how beautiful and rare she was.

  And even though she tried to fight the feeling, Carla wanted to be that person.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Chelsea, wondering what she was doing, wondering what sort of conversation they’d have next, what new layer of the onion the girl might reveal. She was a mystery, a lovely forbidden mystery.

  After feeling Chelsea’s love, Carla wasn’t sure she could live without it.

  I look around the studio and notice a half-finished painting in the corner, sitting on an easel. It shows a woman’s shoulder and the nape of her neck, brown locks of hair cascading down her back. A nude of Carla draped beneath a white robe, which Chelsea had been in the process of painting. Chelsea was more skilled with a brush than she was with a pencil, but you could see her raw talent just looking at the composition, brush strokes, and palette. Art wasn’t just what you decided to focus on, but often just as much about what was left out. And in this instance, the framing of Carla’s body and the placement of her robe were different from how most artists would’ve painted her.

  I reach out to touch the painting, and a crushing realization hits me: Chelsea may never finish the portrait.

  Tears sting my eyes.

  Being inside Carla is too intense. Her feelings too raw. It’s hard to separate myself from her, harder still to feel the anger I felt before when I was in Billy and Jack. Then, I was angry at this woman for stealing my sister, stealing my daughter, for taking advantage of a child.

  But being inside Carla, I don’t get the sense that she was some dangerous predator looking to take advantage of naive students. She wasn’t looking for sex. She wasn’t even looking for love. She fought it. No, not hard enough, but I find it difficult to blame her as much as I did before.

  Yes, she was wrong to sleep with a student. She likely destroyed her life and may have contributed to Chelsea’s death, but I no longer feel like she exploited or took advantage of Chelsea. In many ways, you could make the argument that she helped her become a strong young woman, no longer hiding from her true self — embracing her sexuality instead of denying it as a Devil’s temptation.

  If only you hadn’t slept with her.

  And there is Carla’s fatal flaw — a weakness, a loneliness she wasn’t strong enough to overcome.

  I’m not sure how I would feel if this were to happen to my child. I doubt I could ever understand it. Doubt I could ever forgive. If Carla hadn’t slept with Chelsea, hadn’t been so careless as to be seen by someone who had somehow managed to record video of the two of them in Carla’s bed, then Chelsea would never have been blackmailed or bullied. She would never have tried to kill herself.

  None of this would’ve happened if Carla had kept her distance, at least waited for the girl to graduate.

  Being inside Carla, I feel pity and compassion for what her life is about to become. If Chelsea dies, the guilt will kill her.

  As I stare at the paintings, I can’t take any more.

  I need to get out of Carla’s place, take a drive, do something to take my mind away from all of this shit.

  I change my clothes, putting on a blue skirt and matching top. I slip on some flats, grab Carla’s purse, phone, and car keys, then head out the door.

  In the hallway outside of Carla’s apartment, a skinny white man in a baseball cap is approaching me.

  At first, I don’t recognize him.

  By the time I do, it’s too late.

  He’s suddenly on me, shoving a rag against my face.

  **

  My head is pounding, my vision blurry as I wake up to the sound of footsteps echoing off walls in what sounds like a large empty space. I’m sitting in a chair, hands tied behind my back, a gag in my mouth preventing any cries for help.

  I open my eyes to a blinding light, and can’t see anything of my captor, save for a shadow behind the light.

  “Well, well, well, look who decided to wake up and join the party,” says a voice I’m all too familiar with.

  I squirm, trying to loosen the binds.

  “Hey, hey, did I say you can move?” Jack Caldwell approaches me with something in his hand.

  I don’t see what it is, but feel the jolts as they enter my body.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 4

  I wake in a chair, startled.

  I’m in Susan Caldwell’s body. Beside me, in the hospital bed hooked up to machines and life support, is Chelsea.

  I’m stunned to see her there sleeping.

  I’m seeing her not only as having been in her body, in what feels like ages ago now, but also from the perspective of her father, her brother, her lover, and now her mother. A current of helplessness ripples through me. I’m so close, yet unable to help her, or nudge, her out of unconsciousness.

  Wake up, Chelsea. The world needs you.

  I reach out to touch her hand, and tears well up in my eyes. I think of all the hell she’d been through, all because of some invisible, anonymous coward.

  Poor girl.

  And then, after too long of a moment, I remember what happened: I was in Carla’s body — Jack had gone nuts and kidnapped her.

  I look at the phone.

  It’s still Saturday. I jumped into Susan’s body the second time Carla passed out.

  Thankful that Susan nodded off at her daughter’s bedside, I need to make good use of the timing. I find the phone in her purse and dial Jack’s number hoping like hell he’ll pick up and I can talk him out of doing anything stupid. Well, stupider.

  No answer.

  Shit.

  Come on, Susan, give me some memory that’ll tell me where Jack took her.

  After a year, I still can’t figure out how to tap into a host brain to get exactly what I need when I need it. I suppose it’s miraculous that I get anything, let alone enough info to pass off as the person I’m pretending to be on any given day. But at times like this, I would love some sort of indexed database where I could plug in a few keywords or a question like places Jack might take a kidnap victim, and get a response.

  I’m getting a vague memory about a cabin in the woods, but nothing that provides a lo
cation. I suppose I can go home and search the house to see if we have a deed for a cabin in the woods, but that would take forever, assuming they even had anything readily accessible.

  Think, Ella, think.

  Waylon! Maybe he even knows what Jack is up to, though I doubt something like this would’ve earned his sanction.

  No, Waylon would not approve.

  Jack must’ve lost his mind. I wonder how much he remembers from when I was in his body — the police station, the phone call, the conversation with Waylon. From what I can tell, people usually retain most of their memories. It’s almost as if the brain removes me from the equation. It calls up the history and presents it all to the host as if it happened while they were still on duty. There might be some disassociation, but not enough to where anyone knows they were gone from their body. The brain has a marvelous ability to trick the self.

  I have to imagine that when Jack woke up, he remembered what happened, maybe called the police only to learn that they let Carla go, pending investigation. And then he lost it.

  Susan’s memories confirm my suspicion. She overheard part of a heated call with Waylon this morning, after which Jack hung up and said, “I can’t believe they let her go!”

  He didn’t stick around to explain things. He said he was going for a run, as he often did when agitated — far better than turning to the bottle as he’d done for so many years.

  I call Waylon.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you with Jack?” I ask, voice filled with an urgency he can’t help but notice.

  “No, why?”

  “I think he’s done something awful.”

  “What?”

  “I think he’d kidnapped Chelsea’s teacher, Ms. Valencia.”

  “What? What do you mean you think he did? Did he say something?”

  “I can’t explain how I know. Can you think of anywhere he would’ve taken her? Somewhere maybe without too much furniture?”

  He’s quiet for a second, then says, “We have that fishing lodge in the mountains. It’s still not furnished.”