“Honestly, I’m not sure what they would’ve said.” The inflection in his voice belies his words.
“When I woke up this morning and was completely blind again, I didn’t know what to do. How can I go back to work this way?” I sob once and catch myself.
Seth hands me a tissue. “You can’t. You need to inform Lieut. Frost as soon as possible.”
“If I do that I’ll be off the case for good and probably out of a job.”
“What alternative is there? You can’t fake having vision forever.”
“I know, but I need some time to figure this out.”
Seth groans. “I won’t say anything, but I won’t lie for you either.”
“I’m not asking you to lie for me. Just don’t shut me out, Seth. I need to see this case to closure and I need you.”
He kisses my forehead, my left cheek, and my lips. “I’m not going anywhere, and we’ll continue to work the case together from my place.”
His words bring me solace, but the task ahead keeps my heart grounded. “Good. Can we start by going to the morgue now? I still need to see Cara’s body.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me first?” A hint of accusation mires his soft tone. “Are you holding anything else back?”
Everything in my storage unit comes to the forefront of my mind. “No.” I tell myself that this lie is for his own good, but waves of guilt thrust my heart against the rocks and tear me apart inside. I vow to never lie to him again.
Ten minutes later we arrive at the City Morgue. They’re conveniently located right across the street from St. Thomas Medical Center. I remember it being a drab red brick building with a small blue sign next to the front door that reads “City Morgue.” I guess people prefer to forget these kinds of places exist. I don’t blame them.
Seth moves around the car and helps me out. We walk over to the front entrance and Seth presses the button for assistance. Someone’s always here working, but normal visiting hours are eight to five. A few minutes later, one of the morgue attendants comes to the door.
I assume Seth flashes the person his credentials because the door creaks open. “Welcome, Detective Ryan.” It’s a woman’s voice. She sounds Russian.
“Evening, Sasha.” Seth leads us through the door and down a long hallway toward the positive temperature cold chambers. Goosebumps form on my arms. I should’ve brought a jacket or sweater with me. I always forget how cold they keep this place, but it makes sense.
We reach the cold chambers and another morgue attendant greets us. “Ah, Detective Ryan. I’ve been expecting you, and your timing is impeccable.” This man has a Boston accent. It’s surprising how much you can tell about a person just by their voice.
“Mr. Massey. It’s good to see you again. I gather you have everything prepared for us?”
“I do. You’ll find the body of Cara Strum in exam room three. I’ve just completed the autopsy report on her. I’ve also taken the liberty of leaving a copy of it for you in the exam room.”
My stomach aches with nerves. “Thank you, Mr. Massey. Will you be joining us?”
“No, Detective Bergman. You and Detective Ryan will be on your own.”
Breathing becomes a bit easier. “Very good. Busy night?”
“Quite so. An apparent turf war left thirteen dead. Sasha and I will be working through the night.”
“I heard about that,” says Seth.
I nudge Seth. “Let’s get this over with, Detective Ryan.”
We exit the cold chambers and make our way down the hall to exam room three. Seth closes the door behind us. Nausea swirls in the pit of my stomach and my hands are shaking. What if my experience with Sarah Johnson was an anomaly? Or what if she created the link and not me?
Seth leads me over to a table and sets my hand on its troughed, metal edge. “Everything’s covered except for her head.”
I hug myself, chilled from both the room and the thought of touching this young girl’s corpse. With Sarah it was different. I could see her, and she became someone to me, not just some cold vessel of flesh and bone. But I don’t know Cara.
Seth touches my shoulder. “Are you ready?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Now that we’re here I’m not sure I can do this.”
“I can leave the room if it would help.”
I reach up and put my hand over his. “No, please stay. I need you here.”
He kisses the top of my head. “What can I do then?”
“Tell me about her. What does she look like? What is she wearing? Anything at all that will help me connect with her.”
“In the photos her dad showed us, she was one of the most beautiful young girls I’ve seen. She has a rich brown complexion and a starfield of brown and black freckles on her cheeks. Her round face is complemented by poufy lips, a short but cute nose, and big brown eyes.
“Her hair is styled in a bob just above her slender shoulders. Her entire body is slender, even for her age, but the expressions she produces in her photos tells you that she’s one ornery girl. You’d never know from the photos that she was visually impaired.”
An image of Cara forms in my mind and settles my nerves. “Thank you, Seth. That helped me more than you know.”
I lower my arm and latch onto the lip of the table. The cold steel bites at my fingertips, but I push the thought of it to the back of my mind. “You might give me some room now. I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”
Seth’s boots echo on the tile floor as he steps back several feet. “Do your thing.”
I take a pair of latex gloves from my pocket and snap them on. I hate their rubbery smell and the fact that my hands sweat in them within seconds of donning them, but I’ve yet to find an alternative.
Even though I can’t see, I close my eyes. I slide my palms across the table until I reach Cara’s shoulders. They’re covered by a sheet that feels more like a shower curtain than anything else. I move my hands closer together and touch her cold, slender neck. My fingers move up her neck, to her jaw, and to her round cheeks. It feels like I’m holding a large ice cube between my hands.
Show me Cara. Let me feel what he did to you. I lean forward and rest my forehead against hers. Seth gasps and I don’t blame him. I’d gasp myself if I were in his shoes.
Cara’s skin softens, and her cheeks warm my hands. As with Sarah, I feel that unexplainable shift in myself again. I open my eyes and know that I am no longer myself.
I am Cara Strum.
* * * * *
I always know when he arrives. The room blooms with garlic and pickles and cigarettes. I smell them now. I smile at the corner of my room, where the shadows are the darkest, because that’s where he always comes from and it’s the polite thing to do.
His visits have become more frequent and he stays longer each time. I wonder why that is. What’s so fascinating about a girl like me? I guess it doesn’t matter because he’s the only friend I have.
Sometimes I speak to him, but he never replies. In fact, he never makes a sound. My silent friend could be a mute, but I’m doubtful of it. Sometimes I wonder if he exists at all.
My bedroom door whines and clicks shut. I sit up straight in my bed and pull my covers up to my mouth. My bed squeaks and bounces and I turn into a pillar of stone.
I finally find my voice, but it’s shaky, stuttered, and little more than a whisper. “Ha-ha-have you c-come out of the sh-sh-shadows?”
He sits right behind me on the bed. His mouth is right next to my ear and his hot breath tickles when he whispers. “Yes, Cara.”
I cannot keep from shaking. “Who are y-you?”
His hands wrap my waist, work themselves underneath my shirt, and slide up the sides of my ribcage, pulling my shirt up with them. They’re rough hands, like sandpaper. Terror grips me so completely that I cannot open my mouth to scream. I cannot even cry.
His hands are on my breasts and then under my armpits and then around m
y throat. He squeezes so hard that I cannot breathe. My survival instinct kicks in, but is it too late?
My arms flail over my head as I try to grab, scratch, and claw anything I can. I snag something on a broken nail and pull back as hard as I can. I feel it pull like the finger of a rubber glove and then it rips.
“You’ll pay for that.” He squeezes harder until something pops in my throat.
He shoves me forward on the bed and smothers my head in the covers. Something sharp slices my back and my arms and legs go limp. He rolls me over and my arms flop like a ragdoll. I can breathe again, but it hurts so bad. I try to scream, but no sound comes out.
He strokes my head. “You want to know who I am? I’m the exterminator. I rid the world of cancerous freaks like you. You don’t deserve to live. You make those like me feel special until you know what we look like and then you laugh at us just like the others. You’re the birth defect, Cara, not me. The proof is on your wrist.”
Tears streak the sides of my face. I feel his hands on my abdomen. His fingers under the top hem of my panties. He grabs them and rips them off of me. I am helpless to do anything but wheeze and whimper.
He takes my hand, lifts it to his face, and rubs my fingers against it. It’s smooth and slick. “You see? You girls smile for this.”
I doubt anyone smiles for him.
My hand slides down to his neck and I feel a ridge across it like a scar. He curls my fingers underneath the ridge with his and we pull upward together. I don’t understand what’s happening at first, but then I realize he’s been wearing a mask.
He shoves my fingers against his face again but this time it’s leathered and pockmarked. “No more smiles. She has no more smiles for me.”
In some sick and twisted way I feel sorry for him. I know what it’s like to be rejected.
My hand flops back on the bed when he lets it go. He pounds on something that sounds hollow. Then I hear the strike of a match and smell it. Then the smell is replaced by that of a cheap cigarette.
He moves away from me and pushes my legs apart. I beg God to make whatever is about to happen stop, but He cannot hear me without my voice.
I cannot move but I can still feel pain. The inside of my right thigh erupts with scorching pain. I scream in my mind as the stench of burning flesh fills my nostrils. Again and again, he burns the inside of my leg. I beg God to make it stop and this time He listens. The pain dies out and a peace like I’ve never known fills me until I’m overflowing with joy.
The darkness surrounding me turns into a light so brilliantly bright that it rivals the sun. I reach toward the heavens and beg to be taken home.
* * * * *
I straighten and gasp as my spirit returns to me. Seth’s right there to catch me as my legs give out.
“I’ve got you, Alice.”
He pulls me to the examination room floor and holds me in his arms until I gather back my strength. I’m a wretched mess, covered in a film of sweat and tears and chilled to the bone.
I said I wouldn’t cry again, and I haven’t. The tears falling from my eyes aren’t mine but hers. Ones she never had a chance to shed. The bastard is malevolent and more sadistic than I could have ever imagined.
“Seth, we can’t let him kill again. We’ve got to stop him.” He wipes the tears from my eyes, but new ones replace them.
“You know we’re doing everything we can. Hell, I brought you to a morgue so that you could experience the last moments of the victim’s life.” His voice tells me he still doesn’t believe. “What more can we be doing?”
I swallow, but the large lump of guilt lodged in my throat makes it difficult. “I don’t know, but I did learn something from this experience.”
“You did? What’s that?”
“He wears masks. I can’t be certain, but I think they’re made of latex.”
“And you think that’s why no one’s seen the man based on the picture Yolanda drew?”
“Exactly. She doesn’t know what he looks like any more than we do. That’s why he didn’t fear her living. In fact, I don’t think he ever intended for her to die.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he’s targeting blind girls for a specific reason. He wears the mask to hide his deformed face.”
“So we’re looking for someone who’s physically deformed… but what if he wears a mask all the time? How will we ever find him?”
I squeeze my head between my knees. “I don’t know. We’re definitely missing something.”
“A lot of things. Like motive.”
“He burned the inside of Cara’s right thigh. Is it braille like what we found on Sarah’s left thigh?”
Seth leans back. “How did you know it was her right leg?”
“Dammit.” I glare up at him even though I can’t see him. “What will it take for you to believe me?”
“Give me time. It’s a lot to take in.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
The inside of my left wrist itches something fierce. When I start to scratch it, I notice it’s raised again like it was the day I became Sarah. What in the world does it mean? It must be related to the visions, but I can’t fathom how or why.
It reminds me about what the Braille Killer said to Cara. “Does she have a birthmark on her left wrist?”
Seth gasps. “You really did experience something?”
He makes me want to scream. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”
“Yeah, but I don’t recall what it looks like. Want me to check?”
I sit up straight. “Did Sarah have one too?” I don’t remember the coroner’s report saying anything about a birthmark, but it could’ve been missed. In my mind I return to her room again and see her arms crossed over her abdomen. Damn.
“I don’t know. Is there some significance to it if she does?”
I shrug, but the answer is clear if she does. It would tie her and Sarah to me in another way besides being blind. Its meaning is beyond me though.
We sit in silence for several minutes before Seth speaks again. “I don’t understand how it’s possible, but I believe you now. And, to answer your earlier question, there was a word on Cara’s thigh. It says B A L I N G.”
“Baling? As in evading responsibility?”
“I guess so.”
“Amerce baling…” I tap my fingers on my leg. It helps me think sometimes. “…to punish with an arbitrary penalty and to give up on or abandon something, as to evade a responsibility.”
Seth slaps the floor. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are these words supposed to be some sort of label or brand? Sins of their parents or something like that?”
“Like in the movie Seven?” I ask.
“Yeah, like that. Maybe he’s a religious nutcase or something.”
The meaning of the two words punches me in the gut and takes my breath. I know the Braille Killer has directed them at me. It’s another way of him telling me that he killed these girls because of me. In his twisted mind I’ve evaded taking responsibility for Denise’s death for a decade.
A new revelation hits me even harder. He’s targeting blind girls because I was blind when Denise died. Those girls represent what he despises most: me.
What I can’t figure out is his affinity for Denise. What created such a strong bond between them that would drive him to kill? I must get back to my storage unit and study the notes more. I need to ditch Seth and I feel horrible about it.
“He may very well be a nutcase, but I’m starting to feel like one too. Can you drop me off at Veronica’s? This whole dead body vision thing has wiped me out. I think I could sleep for several days right now.” But there’s no time for sleep.
Seth stands and helps me to my feet. “Sure you don’t wanna crash at my place? I don’t mind.”
He puts his arm around me and we head out of exam room three. “Any other day I’d jump at the chance to sleep with you, but I can�
��t tonight. Those visions of what he did to Cara are haunting me already.”
“Veronica’s it is then.”
Veronica’s…
Ahead of me is a road I don’t want to travel: revealing the truth that I’ve kept concealed for a decade. A truth that leaves my skin crawling every time I think about it. A truth that shames me to the core. A truth that has already left one girl dead. A truth that I am a killer even if I didn’t physically commit the crimes. No matter how much I scrub my hands, they will never be clean again.
I’m not looking forward to filling Veronica in on all the details of my stalker, the Braille Killer. I hope she’ll forgive me for keeping her in the dark for so long when I do though. I already feel bad about unloading on her and we haven’t even arrived at her place yet. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any other way to continue my investigation without her. She’ll be my eyes once again, just like she was in high school.
We’ll be the real life Cagney & Lacey. Kinda.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I lay back in Veronica’s wicker papasan chair and I can feel the threads of sleep pulling me down. Guenter’s fast asleep on my stomach and chest. The poor little guy must’ve had a rough day to be so zonked out. I stroke his head and back. She had him groomed earlier today and now his fur is soft and fluffy like cotton candy and clouds.
Veronica works the graveyard shift during the week at St. Thomas Medical Center as a NICU nurse, so she’s used to being up all night. I expect her to emerge from her bedroom like a vampire soon. When she does, I’ll spring the news about being blind on her like a fully-wound jack-in-the-box.
Guenter wags his tail and whimpers. He’s probably dreaming of chasing a dirty old cat. He loves hating cats almost as much as I do. He reminds me so much of Artemis, the guide dog I used to own. Not in shape or size but in personality. Guenter’s one of the gentlest dogs I’ve ever met. Artemis passed away four years ago. That day was one of the hardest of my life. She was my best friend for so many years and my eyes still mist every time I think about her.
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