Читать книгу The Memory Killer - J. Kerley A. - Страница 12

My inability to contact my brother – combined with his odd behavior – sparked strangely concocted dreams rooted in childhood, and this night was no exception. I dreamed of my father tied to a kayak I was paddling across my cove, screaming as sharks ripped away his flesh. I turned to my deck to see a two-headed man there, one face Jeremy’s, the other mine. The three of us exchanged looks of approval as my mother sat knitting silently in a chair on the strand, never acknowledging the blood-stained water moving her way.

I was enjoying the show when my phone turned the dreamscape into a shadowed pillow. I blinked my eyes, realizing I’d overnighted at the Palace, my empty glass on the bedside table with my phone. The clock said 5.48 a.m. and the phone’s screen was showing MORNINGSTAR.

“Why did I buy an alarm clock when I have you?” I mumbled.

“I stopped in to see Dale Kemp,” she said. “He’s regaining consciousness.”

I snapped upright. “What’s he saying?”

“Where? What? Water.”

“I’m on my way, Doc. Gracias.”

Wondering about Morningstar’s sudden fixation with the hospital, I found her sitting beside Kemp like a mother, her eyes scanning the chart on her lap. The heart monitor played a soft tone into the room.

beep … beep …

“He was just here,” Morningstar said, patting the hand and setting it on the sheets. “A minute ago he drifted off.”

“I’ve got to talk to him,” I said, fearful Kemp might again tumble into the cavern of his mind.

“He needs to stabilize. I’ll leave word with Dr Costa. Then when Kemp is—”

“I hear people talking about me.” Dale Kemp’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hi, Dale,” I said. “I’m Carson Ryder. I’m with the police.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t do anything, Dale. You were drugged and abducted. But you’re safe now.”

Morningstar frowned and put her lips to my ear. “I’m not sure this is the best time for—”

“What do you remember, Dale?” I said, pressing ahead.

He tightened his eyes. “I was … getting ready to go out to a bar, uh, the Scarlet Fox. I’m trying to decide what shoes to wear. And then …”

“What?”

“Jesus,” he whispered. “They’re coming.”

“What?”

… beep … beep beep …

I heard the heart rate monitor blip more rapidly.

“Dale? Memories?”

beep, beep, beep …

“They’ve got wings.” He eyes were getting wider and he tried to push to sitting. “They’re … insects. Ahhhh SHIT!”

beep beep beep beep

“Easy, Dale,” I said. “It’s over. You’re safe.”

He looked down at his arms. “They’re eating me! Oh, Jesus … HELP ME!”

beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep …

“What the hell’s happening here?” We turned to see Costa, the attending physician, fortyish, dark and slender with angry eyes. “What are you doing to my patient?”

“I just asked a couple questions,” I said.

“SAVE ME,” Kemp howled, tubes pulling from his arms as he raised them to fend off invisible creatures. “THEY’RE EATING ME!”

Costa scrabbled in the bedside cart and came up with a syringe, deftly plunging it into Kemp’s arm. Kemp’s eyes rolled back and he sank to his pillow. Costa checked his vitals and looked between Morningstar and me, his eyes holding on her.

“Who’s idea was this?”

“It was my fault,” I said. “Dr Morningstar was against my questioning the victim. I pushed ahead anyway.”

He aimed the eyes at Morningstar. “I’m not sure you should be spending so much time here, Dr Morningstar. What can a pathologist add to my patient’s care, if I may ask?”

I objected to his conveniently impaired recollection. “She’s the one you called in to identify the toxins,” I reminded him. “When you and your people came up short.”

“My patient needs to sleep,” Costa snapped. “I want no one here but hospital personnel. You can question him when I say, but only when I say. Got it?”

We glared at one another for the required time, then Morningstar and I retreated to the lobby. “Sorry,” I said, leaning the wall by the exit. “I should have listened. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“I should have protested harder. And I was afraid it might be your lone chance to get some information.” She sighed and turned her eyes skyward. “I guess I just burned Costa as a reference.”

I was about to ask what she meant by “reference” when my phone rang, Roy.

“Another victim with symptoms similar to Kemp entered MD-General a half-hour back. A young male found in the Glades west of Miramar. Whoops … here comes the vic now.”

I paid closer attention to background sounds and heard voices and clattering wheels, a gurney, probably. “You’re at the hospital, Roy?”

“You got me interested in this thing.”

“Roy … can you stop things long enough to look at the vic’s back? It’s important.”

“Hey, Doc …” I heard a hand cover the phone, voices. Twenty seconds later Roy was back. “The victim’s in front of me, Carson. He’s as limp as a wet rag. What am I looking for?”

“Check carefully between the shoulder blades.”

“They’re lifting him. Uh … it looks like a figure eight with some scratching under it.”

I blew out a long breath. “It’s the same perp. I’m gonna head to the scene and see what the techs found.”

I called Gershwin and gave him directions to the scene. It took me fifteen minutes to arrive beside a lock separating a pair of drainage canals a few miles west of Miramar, the landscape flat and thick with swamp grass and mangrove, the sound of birds and insects as thick in the air as the scent of water.

I saw a taped-off section along a rise between the road and the canal. The crew supervisor was Deb Clayton, a pixyish woman in her mid thirties whose button nose, large bright eyes and close-cropped sandy hair would make her a perfect Peter Pan on Broadway. But instead of Pan’s tight green uniform Clayton wore a white tropical shirt, baggy brown cargo pants and red sneakers. She flanked a forensics unit step van, labeling evidence bags. One held a fishing bobber. Gershwin pulled up in a motor-pool cruiser.

“Who found him?” I asked Deb.

She walked us to the edge of the canal, green and still. “Two guys in a boat. The victim was only visible from the water.”

“Any eyes nearby?”

She nodded to the east. “The nearest house is back on Highway 27. All the perp had to do was pull off the road and drag the victim over the rise.”

I checked the sightline from the road. All you saw was wild grass. I turned to Gershwin. “The guy was probably supposed to die from exposure.”

Gershwin shook his head. “Not if the perp knows the area. This lock is where the Big Miami Canal intersects the South New River Canal. Heavily fished, more traffic on the canals than on the road. He was on display.”

“You’re sure?”

“At daybreak this becomes a parade of fishing boats.”

I crouched beside the shallow water, seeing a dark garfish hunting the shoreline for minnows. It seemed we’d just gotten a glimpse into our quarry’s mind.

“He incapacitates his victims and assaults them, Zigs. But maybe our boy doesn’t need to kill.”

“Didn’t you tell me these freaks never ramp down,” Gershwin said, looking into the flat expanse of sawgrass. “Only up?”

Debro was lazily reconnoitering bars and bistros in the near-Miami area, gauging escape routes. He’d visited most of the places, studying the seating, the lighting. The crowd. It used to anger him, the skinny little twinks finger-flicking hair from their glistening eyes as they minced from one clique to another. They’d look at him once and ignore him.

He was invisible then, too. This way was better.

Debro turned toward downtown. He’d finished his morning’s work – up before dawn, take the package to the Glades, dump it.

Buh-byee, Brianna. Did the boats dock enough for you, bitch?

He drove carefully, signaling turns, stopping fully at signs, avoiding speeding through yellow lights. If he drove poorly, his invisibility would falter. But with proper care, he could remain invisible for ever.

He saw a street sign. The comic-book shop was five blocks away, too close to let the opportunity pass. He tossed his knit cap to the seat beside him and turned the corner, pulling to the curb a dozen feet from the window glowing with neon signs. He reached for the outsize sunglasses in the glove box, but paused. He had his own mask, he realized. Right here in his hands.

Even better, he could flash the sign.

Debro pulled the cap low and strode to the store. He paused beside the building, pinched his thumbs and forefingers together before lifting his elbows skyward. The mask in place, he stepped to the window and leered inside, seeing a shape behind the counter. He pushed his groin against the window, his belt buckle clicking against the glass. If the clerk wasn’t looking before, he was now.

He turned and walked calmly back to his vehicle and climbed inside, pulling to the curb three blocks away. He pulled off his cap, set it on the dashboard, and once again made the mask with his hands.

Do you see us now?