“No. I can’t lose you. No. Mommy is here, girls. I’m here,” she yelled, through tears streaming down her face.
Adaline tugged at her hair and stood. Kicking her purse, she screamed and let the rage in. Her mind remembered this very feeling as a kid. She continued to scream. Her tears drizzled along her face, forming a stream of sorrow.
Her mother spitting on her face and telling her to go away, to never come back, filled her mind. She screamed then, too. And…he was there—her friend. Why? What else happened?
Wiping her face dry, she sniffled and gazed at the home again. Adaline’s feet crunched in the snow as she shuffled to the back door and turned the knob. It opened, and she coughed at the dust that blew in her face. Inside, an old furnace was placed in the corner, and a large cage hung next to it. Walking closer, Adaline peered into the cage at a stuffed owl. She froze and continued to stare, fascinated at the beauty it held. The owl had golden life-like eyes that made her feel as though this bird already knew her. Adaline spoke to the bird with her own eyes, hypnotized, waiting for it to converse, but it still sat…trapped. Its broad wings floated with stiffness in the confined prison, barely room to expand to their fullest extent.
She flinched and gasped. “I remember you. How did I forget that?” Adaline smiled, remembering the day she met the owl for the first time.
“You have an owl in that cage?”
“I do. Isn’t she a beautiful creature?” he said.
“Why do you keep her caged?”
“She never had a chance to be free or to soar away from here. Something held her back.”
Adaline held on to her necklace.
Something is holding me back.
The owl belonged to her friend, and he was the man who gave her the necklace. His eyes were the key to finding out who “he” was, and Sam’s dad wasn’t who they should be looking for. She’d seen these eyes…recently.
She covered her mouth and stepped backward.
He couldn’t have been the one to kill her parents. But, if not him…who?
Adaline touched different kinds of jars filled with rocks, dirt, and other random contents that hung on the dusty shelves. She turned the corner to a little room. A bed with a blue ruffled skirt held cobwebs and a teddy bear.
“Mr. Speckles. Have you been here all alone?”
Sitting down on the bed, Adaline clung to the little bear that used to give her comfort. The last time she held the stuffed toy was twenty-five years ago, the same night she realized she was a ghost and no one wanted her.
Her friend came to take her away from her home. She went freely. He’d always been kind to her, but something changed that evening. He started panicking and calling her Emery multiple times. The care he usually showed her was replaced with anger when she told him she wasn’t Emery. He didn’t see her anymore…but wanted someone else. After being called a liar, and him throwing a chair at the ground near her feet, she fled, stopping only once to catch her breath, and didn’t look back to see if he was chasing her. Corn husks hit her in the face as she ran through the cornfield and came to an opening toward her home. Her mother stood on the porch…waiting.
My mother does care about me.
She ran barefoot up the porch steps and flung toward her mother with open arms.
“I’m home, Mother.”
No embrace. Her mother spat on her face and told Adaline to never come back. Adaline’s feet gave out from under her, and she knelt on the ground.
“Mother, please. I can change.”
“You’ll never be the daughter I wanted,” she said, sneering. “My daughter died a long time ago.”
“Why? What have I done to you?”
“Goodbye, Adaline.” She smirked and went inside.
Raging anger boiled inside her, and she screamed until her throat stung. What happened after was a daze. Flames engulfed the porch, like a snake slithering its way into the cave and swallowing it whole.
Her friend ran behind her. “What have you done?” He caressed her face and held her hand. “It’s okay, Daisy. I’ll take care of you.” She glanced into the smoke and stared at the place where her nightmares lived. It was over.
Adaline dropped the bear and rocked back and forth.
There was a little owl
High in a tree
She tried to fly away
But couldn’t get free
She jumped up from the bed, shaking.
She killed her parents. She killed Cache’s parents. It had been her.
Fifty-Four
Cache Rushner
Friday, November 12th
10:45 a.m.
Glancing around at his surroundings, bright lights made him squint with discomfort. Cache stood up and the room spun, but he knew he was home. The front room’s décor was only an Adaline invention. She called it her Mosaic abyss, with blue and yellow printed pillows that meshed with the turquoise, tiled tables. In the center of the room, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, a large mosaic mural made of tiles, enchanted the wall.
How did I get here? How long have I been out?
He vaguely remembered feeling drowsy and hearing Sam talk to someone on the phone once they were in the car. Cache gazed out the window again to see what he already knew. His car was gone. He reached into his pocket for his phone.
Empty.
Hunching over, Cache took a deep breath. The last thing he could recall was talking to Sam about his parents’ death at Adaline’s childhood home.
Who was Sam talking to on the phone?
Cache cracked his neck and walked around the room for a minute to gain composure.
Dr. Lynchester.
It had to have been her.
Sam said doctor on the phone, and they both were part of Adaline’s past, but what did they have up their sleeves? Dr. Lynchester’s cryptic questions didn’t fool him. She clearly was involved somehow. All the info he needed to clear up the missing pieces, she’d have, and he knew she could contact Adaline for him.
He walked through the front door, trying to steady himself, one step at a time. What started as walking moved into running toward the direction of her office. Cache didn’t have time to think about what he would do or say. He needed his wife, and fast.
The vacant parking lot held only one car, odd for a Friday afternoon. He took the elevator to the fourth floor and stepped out as the door opened. The receptionist wasn’t at her desk, and no one sat waiting for their turn to express themselves to death.
Chuckling at his own joke, he gazed at the large, round clock on the wall.
11:00 am
Cache continued to move past the front desk toward Dr. Lynchester’s office. The door was cracked open, but not enough to see inside. He knocked on it lightly.
“Dr. Lynchester. It’s Cache Rushner. I found the connection between Adaline and myself. We need to talk.” He paused, waiting for a response. “Adaline’s in trouble. I need your help.”
He didn’t receive a reply and opened the door anyway. File folders and documents were spread all over the floor. Broken table pieces and glass scattered around the room, and books hung off the bookshelves. A lump of soil sat in the center of the room, and a gold planter lay on the ground a few feet away. Multiple, lavish rugs had been nicely positioned in their proper spots this morning. Now, they were ransacked to one side of the room.
“Doctor? Are you in here?”
Oh good. She’s gone. Maybe for good, along with Sam.
He’d thought about killing both of them off multiple times in his mind, and even went into detail about how he’d do it. If they were out of the picture, he could handle Adaline on his own terms without all the other roadblocks.
Moving inside, he peered from one corner of the room to the other and walked toward Dr. Lynchester’s desk. A crinkle noise sounded. Glancing down, a photo clung to his boot. He tried to kick it off, but it held firm. Cache bent down to grab it and examined the picture of a woman holding a young girl with blonde hair. His fingers twitched and h
e gasped for breath. The lady, without a doubt, was a younger version of Dr. Lynchester . . . the woman who grabbed him in the cornfields and told him to go home.
He clenched the picture in his hand and punched the air. She lied to him. His parents never came home. Cache had a session with this woman, sat in this hideous room right across from her, and he could’ve easily strangled the life from her. Re-opening the piece of paper, he took a good look at this con artist and the young girl who stood near her, smiling with glee. His oldest daughter, Leora, resembled this girl that he knew had to be Adaline.
Cache gripped his chest.
He’d never seen this portrait before. Bracing his hand on her desk, a sharp pinch greeted him, and a piece of glass fell out from beneath his hand. Cache grabbed Kleenex from the tissue box on the table and pressed it on his cut. Bending down to retrieve the shard of glass that dropped, he stumbled backward and lost his balance, sending him sideways to the ground. Punching the floor for his carelessness, he halted to view a path of pearl beads, rolling back and forth on the hard surface. A thin thread held a few in place.
A necklace.
The strong metallic scent hit him, and his eyes followed the trail of beads that led to the decorated rugs in the middle of the room. A red liquid dripped in a puddle, and the beads were swimming to it.
Blood. Lots of it.
Cache put pressure on his shaking arm and slowly got up. Red stained fingernails creeped out from beneath the rug, and a muscular arm, bent backward, was yanked behind a man’s back.
Covering his mouth, he retched and looked away. Two bodies. One woman and one man, but not Dr. Lynchester.
How was Dr. Lynchester involved? Why was she so invested in his life, as well as Adaline’s?
I should leave and call the police.
He went to exit the room, and a loud thud halted him. Cache froze, listening to the direction of where it came from. The banging had a repetitive rhythm, much like a metronome. Cache remembered from their session about the closet around the corner when Dr. Lynchester took their coats. He carefully moved toward it and paused before turning the doorknob. Grabbing the handle, he twisted it quickly. A broom swung out at him, falling on the floor, and a coat swayed with the motion of the fall. Cache moved the coat with his hand to look behind it. Something flung out at him and hit the floor with a bang. He jumped to the side and peered down at bloodshot eyes staring up at him. Rope coiled her neck and legs. Cache turned around and bent down, hoping to not regurgitate his breakfast, but the smell was too pungent. Wiping at his face, he stayed stationary, praying the body would be gone once he got back up.
She’s dead.
Dr. Lynchester is dead.
He clung to his knees, breathing in deep. His wife was in even more danger than he realized, because of him. Standing up, Cache ran out of her office and didn’t look back.
Fifty-Five
Officer Abbott
11:30 a.m.
After hearing about his wife’s involvement with Lieutenant Stalk, he couldn’t even look at the picture of his family on his desk without bitterness clenching his heart, where love used to be. He felt sick to his stomach all morning. He wanted to throw up all the memories he’d had over the years with them. Be rid of all the toxins that slowly infested inside him. In his mind, neither his wife nor the lieutenant were the kind of people who would do this. That hurt the worst. Who the hell did he know? They were strangers now, which meant his life to a point was a complete lie. He trusted them more than anything, and they betrayed him. How long had he walked around blind?
The lieutenant’s office hadn’t been occupied all morning, and he didn’t answer any of Abbott’s ten calls. He bunched his fist and hit the dashboard in his car.
Fuck.
His speaker suddenly crackled as the dispatcher’s voice came through. “All officers near Main Street and Ivy Lane, 10-84 with possible survivors. Please respond.”
“Affirmative. I’m arriving at the scene now,” Abbott said.
“10-4. Sending back up.”
Abbott pulled up to the building and got out of his car. He scanned the street for anything or anyone suspicious before grabbing his kit from the trunk. Another police vehicle drove into the parking lot, and Officer Keaton, his partner, tipped his head at him.
“I began thinking you fell off your rocker for good this time. Glad to see you’re still kicking.”
“Very funny, brother. We need to check the perimeter. Make sure the suspect’s not on the premises.”
Officer Keaton nodded. “I’ll check down here. Go save the people upstairs.”
Abbott maneuvered through the entrance and went up to the 4th floor. He laid his kit on the ground and pulled his gun from his holster. Stepping around the receptionist desk, he saw heels on the outside patio. Picking up his pace, he trudged into an office and held his back up against the door. “Salt Lake Police. Put your hands where I can see them.”
Silence spoke back to him. Pearls rolled at his feet, and he stepped over them quietly to get inside. The room inside resembled an earthquake scenario. All the furniture and decorations, even the picture frames on the wall—tilted. Papers and file folders lay in every direction, and more pearls lingered in a pool of blood near two bodies. A male and a female.
Abbott put his fingers to their necks, checking for a pulse.
Dead.
Abbott halted.
Dr. Lynchester’s body lay frozen near an open closet with a broom and coat flung next to her. Blood smears decorated the carpet where her body lay, and one noticeable impact splatter appeared on the right side of the wall. Gripping his neck, he trudged out to the reception desk.
The therapist is dead.
“Keaton. What’s your twenty?”
“We’re all clear here. You?”
“No survivors. No sign of the suspect,” Abbott said.
“Affirmative. I’ll tape the area and mark a path for responders coming in and out. Do you want me to stand guard outside to let them in?”
Abbott unlocked his kit. “Yes.”
“Hallswell just got here. I’ll have him call in other resources.”
“Deal. I’m getting some pictures of the crime scene before the CSI get here.”
“Okay,” Officer Keaton said.
Pulling out his phone, he huffed.
Sam,
Thought you should know. The doctor’s dead. This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.
He pushed “send message” and placed latex gloves on his hands. Abbott took the camera out of the box and put a notebook and a few plastic bags in his pocket before heading back toward the office. Breathing in, he cleared his mind, ready to take in the scene fully.
Walking in, a musky scent lingered. Cologne. He glanced at the clock and wrote down the time in his notebook, then checked the thermostat on the wall.
69 degrees.
He tugged at his collar and wiped his bald head. The room seemed warm to him, but his own anxious body heat was apparently the culprit, not the thermostat. Abbott pulled out a plastic bag, bent down, and retrieved some of the blood-stained pearls with tweezers.
Closing the bag, he set it on the desk. Dr. Lynchester’s arms had been tied down, and only her left hand had remnants of blood, mostly in her fingernails. Wire wrapped around her neck and a puncture wound appeared on the right side of her collarbone.
Abbott assumed she’d been left in the closet, but who opened the door?
Her face was waxy, and streaks of black flowed from her eyes.
She’d been crying. The black spots are mascara.
The doctor’s mouth gaped. From choking? No…something else.
Abbott snapped a picture of her face and paused. Her eyes had petechial hemorrhages—red dots in the sclera—from the pressure within the veins of her neck rising suddenly. They also captured panic and understanding. He looked back and forth at her mouth and eyes and hunched over. She knew the killer.
Surprise.
Shock.
> Horror.
All said through her eyes. Could’ve been any one of her angry patients, but the other two dead bodies didn’t add up quite yet. Abbott glanced at the file folders all over the office, tempted to see who had regular visits with the doctor. The other dead bodies took priority though.
Stepping over a broken planter, he squatted down to see how a man of this man’s build and stature could possibly be tangled up like a pretzel. His arm bent back behind his back, and blood spilled from his head. A sharp object glinted from under the man. Abbott reached to grab the item—a wrench covered in the crimson liquid. If someone pushed his face to the ground suffocating him, while they hit his head multiple times with the wrench, that’d keep him down.
Abbott shook his head and placed the wrench in a bag. He could feel a headache coming on.
Moving toward the other woman, he could tell she was young, maybe early to mid-twenties. Blood drizzled from her wrists, appearing to be a suicide. He snapped a few more pictures and stood up.
“CSI and Homicide have arrived. They’re coming in now.”
“Copy,” Abbott said.
Peering down at the bodies one last time, he saw a wallet under the man’s arm, a picture of a child slightly exposed.
Poor kid lost their dad today.
He bent down to get a closer look at the photo, and a little girl stared at him.
Abbott’s hand shook and his body convulsed. His little girl’s picture was in this man’s wallet. He grabbed the wallet and hid it in his coat before attempting to stand up.
Medical examiners came into the office and nodded at him as they made their way around the bodies and set up their equipment. Abbott picked up the bag of pearls he collected from the desk and placed them in his pocket before rushing out of the room. He moved down the hall past other badges, looking straight ahead. Getting into the elevator, Abbott waited until it began to move downward, and he pressed the “stop” button to hold it in place. Abbott pressed his face against the wall and bunched his fist together, punching the elevator. Fighting back tears, he punched two more times before his fist held blood. He fell to the ground and covered his face, cradling the wallet in his hand. His senses went from denial to rage, giving him clarity and impulsiveness as he re-opened it and searched through all the pockets. The man had been carrying only $20, a lottery ticket, and a few business cards. An auto body repair shop, a pizza delivery service, and a real estate agent’s card stared at him. No identification to be seen, but two receipts had phone numbers scribbled on them. Abbott pulled out his phone and dialed the first number on the worn piece of paper. It rang three times and went straight to voicemail at Phil’s Auto Body Shop.
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