Читать книгу Tidings of Fear - Ericka Scott - Страница 7

Chapter 2

What a nightmare!

Lia Morgan rubbed her temples. Of all the calls she had ever envisioned receiving about her sister, this one didn’t come close to anything she’d expected.

When the police officer introduced himself and told her Sylvie was missing, the words almost didn’t register. Missing? Impossible. But instead of opening her mouth to argue, she’d listened.

“Yesterday morning, Sylvie and her two-year old son, Deion, left their home at approximately eight-thirty. According to statements we’ve taken, they had planned to go to Pier 39, have lunch and return home by five o’clock. When your sister’s friend, Margaret Fletcher, called at five, no one answered,” the officer stated.

He then went on to tell her Margaret had called at five-thirty and then at half-hour intervals until eight o’clock. When there was still no answer, and Sylvie couldn’t be reached on her house or cellphone, Margaret drove to the residence. Finding no one home, she’d reported Sylvie and her son, Deion, missing.

As the story unfolded, Lia’s disbelief increased. Sylvie had a son? And what had happened between Sylvie and Margaret that they were no longer living together?

“When did you last see your sister?” the officer asked.

“Seven years ago.”

A pregnant silence greeted her statement.

“My sister and I weren’t close,” Lia finally added. Now that was the understatement of the year.

“Then you wouldn’t know if she’d voluntarily left the area? Is it possible she planned to visit you for the upcoming holidays?”

“No, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t know anything about her plans. But just up and leaving isn’t something my sister would do. You’re aware that she’s a bestselling author of a personal security book, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The officer intoned. “Right now, we’re considering all the scenarios.”

“Of course. Thank you for letting me know.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am. If you do hear from your sister—”

“I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Lia laid the telephone receiver back in its cradle. Her thoughts were so jumbled that the sudden loud ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall made her jump. Had time really stood still? Perhaps. Something else infeasible had occurred. Her staid and respectable, older and wiser sister had disappeared.

The thought still felt foreign. For ten years, Sylvie Morgan worked as a security expert for some top secret government organization. According to the little Sylvie had been able to say, she had kept numerous presidents and foreign dignitaries safe by working behind the scenes. Whatever that meant. She knew the ins and outs, hell, she’d written the book on keeping your person and identity safe. Lia had bought it last year and taken it to heart. As a freelance photographer, she traveled a lot, and needed to not only to feel secure but to be safe. Even now, Sylvie’s book dominated as a hot topic of discussion on talk shows and sat prominently displayed in every bookstore Lia frequented. So, what had happened to her sister?

Margaret? Lia conjured up a vision of her sister’s partner, or were they ex-lovers now? Margaret was exactly six feet tall, just like her sister. Sylvie’s ebony complexion sharply contrasted Margaret’s lack of any pigmentation. Black and white bookends. To complement the comparison, they wore their hair in short bobs. Both had curves and legs that seemed to go all the way up to their necks. Many men admired the women from afar; however, none were allowed any closer.

Even if they weren’t together now, Margaret couldn’t have been complicit in Sylvie’s disappearance. According to the police, she had called in the missing person’s report. A niggle of doubt called to mind all the other cases where once lovers had murdered their partners. Lia pushed the thought away impatiently.

Instead, she focused on the other tidbit of information the officer had dropped. Sylvie had a son. Wow. What a shock. Sylvie had always professed never to want children and often joked that she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. Well, something had changed.

Lia twirled on the kitchen stool where she’d perched to answer the phone. Amazing that her small efficiency apartment could be so crowded and cluttered. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes and, off to left, a pile of laundry mounded up the side of the washer. Luckily, she’d finished a photo shoot and submitted all the shots to her publisher, so she could take off at a moment’s notice. However, she’d probably better clean the place up a bit.

She picked up the receiver to place a call to the airline. With her finger poised over the buttons, a series of beeps startled her. It sounded as if someone were already dialing a number. She hung up the phone and took a deep breath. Were the sounds real, or were they a sign she needed to pay attention to? Damn it, she hated when she couldn’t tell reality from a psychic impression. She picked up the receiver and again, the sounds repeated. This time, she left the phone off the hook. The call never connected, the tones simply repeated, two, perhaps three more times. Too bad she’d never memorized what sound went with which number. Perhaps if she hummed the tune, she’d remember it. She tried and then gave up.

Unexpectedly, tears flooded her eyes. Having unique psychic abilities weren’t good for anything if she couldn’t utilize the clues presented. “Dammit,” she shouted into her empty apartment. “At least give me something I can use.” She slammed the receiver down and slid off the stool. On one last hope of being able to call the airlines for a reservation, she picked up the handset. The now-familiar tune played in her ear.

With a sigh, she put the receiver down. Gently this time. Laundry, dishes, then pack. She’d make airline reservations via the internet.

By eleven that evening, Lia’s apartment sparkled. Well, not really, but it looked cleaner, anyway. She had been able to book a seat on the first flight out in the morning, which meant she’d have to be at the airport before dawn.

Before going to bed, she gathered all her unread newspapers to throw into the apartment complex recycling bins. She really should consider canceling her subscription, but having a newspaper delivered made her feel informed and connected.

Informed, my ass. That only works if you read the darn things.

Huge blue, green and red bins were kept at the bottom of the stairwell. Taking a page out of her sister’s book, she tucked the papers under one arm. After locking the door, she placed her keychain with its accompanying can of mace into her pocket and kept her hand in the pocket. Not that she really worried. She lived in a secure building, a doorman limiting access to residents and their guests. But still, this was New York.

The stairway smelled musty, rather like dirty socks left too long in the quarterback’s locker. She made it all the way down to the first floor before the overhead fluorescent light flickered. It dimmed and brightened eight times, then it went out. As she continued down, she found herself counting the steps. Eight between each landing. Granted, she’d never counted them before, but it struck her as odd. What was it with the number eight today?

She hefted her load of newspapers and prepared to throw them into the big blue bin when she noticed something odd. Every paper in the bin appeared to be folded identically. Not rolled, as if they’d never been opened like hers were. But opened to expose page twenty-three where the horoscopes, a few black and white cartoons, and a large crossword puzzle resided. Lia shifted the top layer to the side. The papers below were all the same, and she had the suspicion that if she searched all the way to the bottom of the bin, she’d not find one paper out of sync.

She dumped her armful on top and turned her back. On impulse, she reached back into the bin and pulled out one of the folded papers. It might not mean anything, but she’d learned never to ignore the signs.

Those cryptic messages sent from who-knows-where had saved her life on more than one occasion. Was it her turn to save someone else? However, after the things Sylvie had said to her in the past, her sister probably didn’t want her help.

Stifling the memory, she trudged back upstairs where she locked the door, undressed and then crawled into bed. The sheets were cool and smelled of fabric softener from their recent romp in the dryer. She fluffed her pillows and tried to relax, clearing her mind and preparing for sleep. Unbidden, thoughts and snippets of past conversations, make that arguments, with her sister kept intruding.

Although eight years older, Sylvie had been her best friend. Even after they’d grown apart, Lia still admired her tall, beautiful, smart sister. Their parents had treated them the same. Although she knew in her heart they worried just a little more about their youngest daughter, Lia, who couldn’t remember to turn in her homework, and who spent more time dreaming than studying. Then came the summer she turned twelve. She began having odd experiences. Her mother and sister wrote it off as imagination, or worse, to the onset of her menstrual cycle. Lia, sensing that there were some things a girl didn’t talk about, began hoarding the impressions to herself. If she were a skeptic, she’d write all those things off as coincidence or happenstance, especially when the clues came in signs. A dead bird on the sidewalk, a dog barking three times right before she heard the same song repeated three times on the radio, or seeing blood dripping from the exhaust of a car.

Lia shuddered.

It had all come to a peak the summer she turned twenty. Lia attended college and her sister worked full time in DC when their parents set off to Italy for their second honeymoon.

The signs that morning came fast and furious. A line of dead flies on the window sill, blood pouring from the water fountain, an icon weeping blood in the local church, the sound of an airplane engine sputtering every time she walked out the door. Lia tried to ignore them, tried not to piece the clues together. She almost convinced herself it was only imagination, that nothing bad lurked over the horizon. The minute her parents’ flight took off, the odd occurrences stopped and Lia sighed in relief. The call came later that evening. Her mom and dad had been robbed and murdered within hours of stepping off the plane.

She could have stopped it.

A headache burned behind her eyes. Lia rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom after aspirin. She looked at the bedroom clock as she passed. Eight. What? She squinted out the window. Still dark. Shaking her head, she swallowed the tablets and made her way back to bed. She picked up the alarm clock. The display now read three thirty-three. How had she gotten an eight out of that? She put the clock back down and curled up on her side. Somewhere, a cricket chirped. She found herself counting along with the sounds. One, two…the insect fell silent at eight. Although she strained to hear something further, no more chirps broke the silence. Had it died. Or…

Dragging her mind back to the present, she sighed. Morning would come far too early. She had to get some sleep or she’d be useless in helping to find her sister.

When sleep finally took hold, dreams made her toss and turn. The number eight danced through everything—sometimes typewritten and sometimes in fancy script on a door or wall. In one dream, the animated number ran up and down stairs resembling the blocks of a crossword puzzle. She even dreamed of taking a picture of the number, immeasurably pleased with the print. Then the dreams morphed, and she returned to the big pink house where she’d grown up.

Her childhood home, a lovely Victorian painted lady that had been her mother’s pride and joy. After their parent’s death, neither Lia nor Sylvie could bear to live there. Conveniently, Sylvie had an apartment in Washington DC, and Lia wanted as far away from home as possible. But neither of them could bear to sell the house. Instead, they’d hired a reputable management company to take care of the property. The last time Lia had checked, a bed and breakfast had been in residence. In her dream, Lia walked through the house. It looked exactly the same. She began to run through the rooms, frantically looking for something. In the distance, she heard her mother calling her name.

She jumped awake. A shrill beeping notified her that morning had finally arrived. She needed to get moving if she wanted to catch her plane.

Despite the early hour, the airport buzzed with activity. With the new security measures put into place since that fateful September 11^th, she found herself singled out for additional security checks. Bored security guards picked through her carry-on bags and had her take their picture with her digital camera. She suffered it all in good grace. As a photo journalist, she’d traveled through war-torn countries where death lurked around every corner and an unattended bag could result in having not only her personal affects, but also her person, shredded by shrapnel. The extra scrutiny was worth the hassle.

All the while, she looked for signs. To her surprise, there were none. No eights, no weirdly folded newspapers. Nothing.

What did that mean? She shuddered. The last time the signs had disappeared, it meant her parents were dead. Was she too late? Unable to follow that thought all the way through to the grim conclusion, she boarded the plane.

Glancing down at her boarding pass, she frowned. Triple eight. She sighed and resisted the urge to sing “They’re back.” The narrow aisle was crowded and no flight attendants were in sight. She made her way all the way to the back of the plane. Before she hit the button to call for assistance, she looked back down at the ticket. The numbers now read B28. Fate’s cruel sense of humor struck again. Hell, the seats didn’t even recline back here.

She hefted her carry-on into the luggage bin and then sank into her seat. Closing her eyes, she fell asleep within minutes. Luckily, this time she didn’t dream.

* * * *

Professor Trimble’s phone was ringing…again.

Priscilla, the office secretary, sighed. She wished he would just answer his damn phone. When it rang for the third time in half an hour, she stalked down the hallway, the staccato tapping of her high heels sounding loud and vicious. At Dr. Trimble’s open office door, she paused. At first glance, she saw no sign of him, only piles and piles of journals, boxes, books and file folders.

Jesus. The man was a pack rat with a Ph.D.

Grabbing the knob, the temptation to slam the door shut was strong, until she saw him. Dr. Jared Jerome Trimble. A rush of emotion flowed through her as she studied his features. She’d never thought she’d be attracted to a man with a beard, but the professor’s goatee looked sexier than the stubble that had made George Michael’s fame. And Jared’s eyes! She’d never seen eyes the color of his, gold with a few brown flecks. Yes, indeed, his six-foot tall muscular frame certainly caught the eye of many a female student and visiting faculty member. She’d never admit that he’d caught her eye too. Nice to look at, but a heartbreaker.

Contrary to the rumors, though, Dr. Trimble didn’t chase skirts. Women chased him. They didn’t hang around long, though. Most women didn’t have the patience to put up with a man like Dr. Trimble. After the second or third time he’d stood them up, women gave up on him.

There were only two things that kept his interest. Anthropology and crossword puzzles.

Priscilla smiled, picturing a woman waiting impatiently at a cafe table, until the phone fell silent. Good luck to that poor woman. She pulled the door shut quietly and left the professor sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of pictures.

* * * *

Jared glanced up when the door closed, but then went back to work. When the phone rang again an hour later he was examining a pile of skulls. Well, only a photograph of the mound, but the image spoke volumes to him.

Spread out over every surface of his office were graphic pictures of destruction and dismemberment, some ancient and some all too recent. All of them concerned with one thing. Death.

When attendance in his class had fallen off a few years ago, Jared had decided to add some popular elements back into the curriculum. Anthropology consisted of much more than simply digging up ancient civilizations, it comprised a way of understanding man and his evolution. Taking a page out of popular television shows, he’d come up with new components to his syllabus.

His new program scored a hit with the students, and had gained him tenure and a bit of notoriety among his peers. The school staff thought the concept macabre, but they couldn’t question its appeal, especially when other instructors at area colleges copied his methods. His latest topic had been the most popular and most gruesome. Death trophies.

Crime profilers were all too familiar with killers who took items from their victims, especially since the type of objects taken were as individual to the killers as their fingerprints.

Jared knew the practice of taking trophies had existed long before modern day serial killers made the concept popular. Ancient Aztecs took the heads of the conquered, stacking them in macabre displays in their temples. The Nazis stole the wealth of their victims. Mostly money, gold and artwork, but their quest to profit from their crimes caused them to harvest the hair, skin and teeth. Even more common trophies were the victims themselves. The victorious often made slaves of the residents of the countries and communities they conquered. In fact, in relation to this lecture, he should do some additional research on modern day slavery, of which there were many kinds: sex slaves, and recently, a case of involuntary servitude of maids in a ritzy New York neighborhood.

When he’d started college, he’d envisioned himself digging up pottery and old skeletons, coming back to a safe office and typing up long, scholastic reports. He’d never dreamed that part of his job would be dissecting of the whys and wherefores of genocide, He loved routine and concrete answers, not peeking into the minds of insane, power hungry individuals. If he had known, he would have promptly changed his major to something more mundane, like underwater basket-weaving. In the end, though, he couldn’t complain. The work might have tended toward the gruesome, but was certainly never boring.

A shrill peal pulled him out of his reverie. Would that damn phone never stop? He stretched to press the speaker phone button. “Hello?”

“Professor Jared Trimble?” a male asked.

“Speaking.”

“I’m special agent Mark Powers. Your name came up as an expert in your field.”

“I’m honored, sir, but there are other faculty members on staff with more experience and expertise in anthropology—”

“Oh, this isn’t about anthropology,” Mark interrupted.

“Then what is it about?”

“Crossword puzzles. It seems I have a serial killer with a fondness for cruciverbalism.”