Текст книги "Fear the Dark"

Автор книги: Kay Hooper

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

THREE

Jonah ran his fingers through his hair, trying to think. “Shit,” he said again. “Did you say you were still there?”

“Judge’s fishing spot, yeah. I knew you wouldn’t want crime scene tape around the area, but I also figured you’d want to see it the same way I did. Only a few cars have gone by this morning on the way to church. Nobody’s appeared to notice anything strange about me being here, and I’m leaning against the car all nice and natural. Just looking at the view. I’ll stick around here. You can get to the Diner before church lets out. Have breakfast and talk to Clyde.”

“Anything else?” he asked politely.

“Yeah. Bring me a coffee, will you?”

“See you in a few.” He didn’t wait for a response but cradled the receiver and fought free of the remaining covers so he could get out of bed. He had been told he was an extremely restless sleeper but had no idea why, since he could never remember his dreams.

In less than half an hour, he was showered, shaved, dressed, and out the door. Like the judge and even though both were bachelors, Jonah owned a house not far from the downtown area, with a small front yard, a garage, and a fenced backyard where the latest thing in barbecue grills lived on a spacious patio.

Though Jonah had never asked, he figured the judge owned a house rather than a condo for the same reason he did: a dislike of neighbors being too close.

They each knew more than they really wanted to about their neighbors through their respective jobs. There was no sense finding out more details they didn’t need to know.

The Diner held only a scattering of customers, since church hadn’t yet let out, so Jonah was able to claim his usual stool at the counter. Am I becoming predictable? And is that a bad thing?

“The usual, Chief?” a fresh-faced waitress named LaRae Owens asked cheerfully as she poured coffee for him.

Definitely predictable.

“Yeah, thanks, LaRae.”

She nodded, smiled, and went off to serve somebody else, calling out Jonah’s order as she passed the serving window to the kitchen, a bit quieter than usual because it was Sunday. And because Waylon and Johnny weren’t singing back in the kitchen.

Jonah sipped his coffee and looked at nothing, his mind racing. Phillip Carson wasn’t the sort for a joke, not like this, not when he knew how worried Jonah was about the kids disappearing. How worried the town was. So he hadn’t vanished just to have fun. He didn’t have family to speak of, at least not in Serenity, and if he’d been called away for a family emergency or because of his duties as a judge, Sarah would have known about it because the station was always notified of any change to his schedule.

If he had vanished as the kids had vanished, then victimology was not going to help find either the judge or the kids. Two teenagers attempting an elopement, and then a highly respected judge in his late forties who liked to fish at night? What did they have in common? Why would both be targets to be . . . taken?

They all lived in Serenity. They were all white, which was the majority demographic for the town, so possibly not something important to victimology. They had all been taken, apparently, sometime before the sun rose.

Jonah didn’t know that the latter mattered; if he’d wanted to abduct someone, he probably would have chosen the darkness as a cover himself. And so late, between midnight and dawn, there was certainly less chance of being seen or heard, especially in a little town not exactly famous for its nightlife.

But . . . the unsettlingly weird aspects were true of all three disappearances. It was as if those three people had simply vanished in an instant. No signs of struggle. In the case of the kids, there had been footprints that had seemed decidedly strange when Jonah had seen them with his own eyes; the fact that the camera had not shown them at all just added to the eeriness of his memory of them.

The fact that both his watch and his cell had apparently been affected at the site where the kids had vanished, just as Sarah’s and Tim’s had been affected, was decidedly weird.

Jonah mentally kicked himself for not having asked Sarah if the same . . . situation . . . existed at the judge’s fishing site. Though he’d find out soon enough, he supposed.

He hadn’t realized he’d been lost in thought so long until a steaming plate of eggs, hash browns, and bacon slid in front of him, along with a smaller plate of toast.

“What the hell’s going on, Jonah?”

It was Clyde, and he kept his voice low.

Jonah glanced back over his shoulder toward the kitchen.

“Alec’s minding the griddle. Kid’s a fair cook—and nobody can screw up breakfast anyhow. Where’s the judge?”

“I have no idea,” Jonah replied honestly, keeping his own voice low, his tone determinedly casual.

“So he’s just gone? Gone like those kids last weekend?”

“That’s how it looks. I’m going to meet Sarah at the stream as soon as I finish up here so we can put our heads together and try to figure it out. Wanted to ask you if he’d said anything to you recently. If he’d noticed anything odd, strange phone calls, a car he didn’t recognize parked near his house or office, anybody following him.”

Clyde leaned an elbow on the counter, looking very casual until Jonah met his very level, steely gaze—and reminded himself that even though he was only a few years older than himself, Clyde had served in Iraq back in the beginning.

“Not a word. Nothing out of the ordinary. And you do know, I hope, that he didn’t talk to me about those kids going missing, not the way he must have talked to you, about details I imagine you’ve mostly kept to yourself.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“I know how to keep my trap shut too, Jonah. Do me a favor and keep me in the loop about the judge as much as you can, okay? We’ve known each other a long time.”

Jonah nodded.

“Appreciate it. Now eat your breakfast. You don’t look much better than you did last night.”

Without bothering to comment, Jonah merely dug into his meal, knowing he needed to eat even though he had absolutely no appetite. He was aware of Clyde returning to the back and his griddle, joking normally with the two waitresses working this morning and talking to Alec. And then he cranked up Waylon and Johnny—though a few notches lower than normal in deference to its being Sunday.

At least, Jonah figured that was it.

He finished his meal, also aware that more people were coming in for breakfast or brunch or lunch as the area churches were letting out. He ordered two coffees to go, paid his bill and left a generous tip, then managed to leave the Diner without anyone saying anything to him except good morning.

He had learned long ago that a preoccupied expression on a cop’s face was enough to keep all but the most determined busybody from asking questions he didn’t want to answer. He had perfected that preoccupied expression, though it certainly wasn’t faked now.

He drove his Jeep roughly half a mile to the narrow side road that ran along the stream for a stretch, parking behind Sarah’s cruiser. She was leaning against the front fender, hands in the pockets of her jacket, looking down toward the stream with a frown.

“Anything new?” he asked as he joined her and handed over her coffee.

“No,” she said, gloomy. She took a sip of the hot coffee. “I just keep asking myself why the judge. Why those kids. What the hell’s going on, Jonah?”

“I wish I knew. They’re all white, they all live in Serenity, and they all disappeared sometime between midnight and six, as far as we can tell. All disappeared during the night. Those are the only commonalities I can think of.”

“Shit.”

He hesitated, then said, “Your watch—”

“Not wearing one.” She didn’t look at him. “But as near as I can figure, my cell lost the time I was here earlier, and the time I was down there using the camera. Seems to be working fine, it’s just . . . about forty-five minutes off what it should be.”

Jonah hesitated, then looked at his watch. He’d bought a new one rather than having the other one repaired. He was inordinately relieved when it was clearly working just fine. And then Sarah had to offer an explanation.

“I’ve been thinking, and I think there’s some kind of perimeter. Because standing here, my cell hasn’t lost any time. But it did lose the time I spent down there around his chair. Not sure exactly where the demarcation line is, assuming I’m right. Maybe your watch can tell us when you head down there.”

Jonah wasn’t exactly in a hurry to test her theory.

“You really didn’t notice anything at all odd down at the stream? Other than whatever happened to your cell?” He could see from their position the judge’s low beach chair and other things a few yards from the stream.

“Nothing. Looks like he just got up and left, peacefully. Leaned his pole against his chair, left his catch in the water, his tackle box and bait can closed. And just . . . left. How long do you think we can keep this quiet?”

“If we have to start asking questions, which we do? The whole town’ll know by suppertime.”

“And then?” Sarah sounded like she dreaded the answer.

“And then,” Jonah said, “this place is going to go from uneasy to downright scared. It won’t be pretty.” He straightened away from her cruiser. “Before that starts, I want to get a look for myself. And then I want to get Sully’s dogs out here, checking both sides of the stream at least half a mile in each direction.”

He didn’t want to even mention the idea that had occurred to him on the way here. That maybe the judge wasn’t missing. That maybe they’d find him quickly enough. In the water.

Then Sarah said, “He wouldn’t have waded out into the stream to fish, and I can’t think of another reason he’d have willingly gone into the water. I looked as closely as I could and didn’t see any sign of blood on any of the rocks, like if he’d lost his balance and fell.”

“Still,” Jonah said.

“Yeah. Still. With all the big boulders downstream, and the trees felled by last winter’s storms, if he did fall in, his—he’d likely be caught somewhere along the way.”

Jonah could hear in Sarah’s voice that part of her would prefer to find the judge—in whatever condition—than have another inexplicably missing person.

He didn’t blame her. He felt the same.

“Okay,” he said finally. “We can be sure of a few things. The judge didn’t leave a car parked by the side of the road. He wouldn’t have left all his equipment and his catch behind, and he wouldn’t have done that and accepted a ride from anyone.”

“Maybe he got hurt,” Sarah suggested. “He got a hook through one finger last summer, remember.”

“Yeah. But if something like that had happened, he would have made sure to let you or me know about it. That’s something I’m absolutely sure of. The only way he left here hurt and without letting us know would be if he was hurt . . . bad. Unconscious.”

“And a Good Samaritan helped him but didn’t report it?” Her voice was steady. “Doesn’t sound likely.”

“No,” Jonah said grimly. “It doesn’t sound at all likely.”

As he took a step toward the stream, Sarah said, “You gonna test my theory?”

Jonah didn’t want to, but he didn’t admit that out loud. He just held his wrist up and pushed the cuff of his sweatshirt back so he could see the new watch, efficiently ticking away, then walked slowly down the path toward the judge’s abandoned things.

When he was approximately six yards away from the little fishing site, his watch just . . . stopped.

May 30

Lucas Jordan scrolled through the last page of the report on his tablet and looked across the big desk at his boss with lifted brows. “And the police chief is only now calling us in?”

“It’s happened in pretty short order,” Bishop, Unit Chief of the Special Crimes Unit, said, calm as always. “A little more than three weeks, and the first disappearance had all the earmarks of an elopement, possibly set up in such a way as to throw off pursuit. No solid evidence there had been an abduction. The second, almost exactly a week later, the district judge—who likes to fish at night and knew all the details of the earlier disappearances. But an adult, and there was absolutely no sign of a forced abduction. Wherever he went, it could have been willingly.”

Samantha Jordan, who hadn’t even opened the tablet in her lap, looked at Bishop from her curiously dark eyes, unblinking. “The chief doesn’t think he did that, obviously.”

“No. But he could find no evidence to the contrary, just like with the teenagers. Then, three days later, on a Tuesday night just after ten P.M., a young woman named Luna Lang vanished. She left her husband at home with their sleeping infant daughter, to walk to the opposite side of their apartment complex, through an enclosed courtyard, to borrow a couple of jars of baby food from a friend and neighbor. She never got there. And, again, there was absolutely no sign of an abduction.”

“Any of these places have security cameras?” Luke asked.

Bishop half nodded. “At the apartment complex. Grainy images the FBI lab is trying to enhance, but it looks like Mrs. Lang was visible, walking briskly, then passed into what’s apparently a security blind spot. She never reappeared on the security cameras.”

“How big was the blind spot?” Samantha asked.

“According to the chief, no more than fifteen feet.”

Samantha blinked. “Damn.”

“Whatever happened, happened fast,” Bishop agreed. “And also according to the chief, in that blind spot were no windows or doors, or even shrubbery. No place for an assailant to hide.”

“An enclosed courtyard.”

Bishop nodded. “Pretty sturdy, tall iron fencing at the walkway out of the courtyard, with a gate requiring a keycard and a code. All entrances and exits are recorded on the main security computer. Now.” He paused, then added, “This complex advertised itself as safe for young families just because of the general layout; it was designed with a few tricks to deter burglars or anyone else thinking about breaking in. From very thorny and well-lit shrubbery preventing any access to first-floor windows to first-rate door and window locks with individual security for each unit, plus excellent lighting all around the perimeter and inside the courtyard. Each apartment door is well lit all night, as are the open walkways on each of the four floors within the courtyard. No shadowy spots. And there’s a two-man security team at night, one to watch the monitors and the other to patrol.”

Luke lifted his brows again. “They worry much about security in a little place like Serenity?”

“They do now,” Samantha murmured.

“Sam.”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” She looked at Bishop.

“It would probably be more accurate to say they’ve become obsessive about security. This apartment complex, for instance, had the fencing reinforced and the keypad code added, and began the process of updating the security system two days after Judge Carson vanished.” He paused. “They were scheduled to update or replace security cameras and add several more to eliminate all blind spots in the courtyard and all around the exterior of the complex later in the week. Mrs. Lang disappeared before that could be done.”

Samantha shook her head slightly, but said only, “And the next person to vanish?”

“Sean Messina, a car salesman, on the following Monday night.” There was both a closed tablet and a stack of folders on Bishop’s neat blotter. He never glanced down at them. “Messina and his girlfriend went to see a movie; there’s an old-fashioned but renovated theater downtown and a multiplex out near the highway.”

“They chose downtown?” Luke guessed.

Bishop nodded. “Messina’s girlfriend told the chief it was because they could walk, on well-lit sidewalks, from their condo to the theater. They walked there without incident. The theater was about a third full, which Chief Riggs says is entirely normal on a Monday night when there’s a new movie playing. The adults tend to leave the theater to the kids and teenagers during the weekends. Anyway, about halfway through the movie, Sean Messina left his seat and headed to the lobby, to use the restroom and get snacks at the concession stand.”

Luke said, “Please tell me they have surveillance cameras in the lobby.”

“They have. But Sean Messina never shows up on any of them. The entire lobby is covered, including the entrances to the theater and the doors of the restrooms. There is footage of him and his date arriving, getting sodas, and going into the theater. Sean Messina is never visible again.”

Samantha said, “I suppose the emergency exits have alarms?”

“They do. And as far as Chief Riggs’s technical people and the theater owner could determine, they were not tampered with at any time.”

“When did his date realize he was gone?” Samantha asked.

“Approximately ten minutes after he left her. The movie was still running, but she left her seat and went in search of him. She went straight to the theater owner, who apparently also acts as projectionist and usher when needed, and together they searched the lobby and restrooms. Then he wisely locked the front doors, interrupted the movie to raise the house lights, and when there was still no sign of Messina, he called the police.”

Slowly, Lucas said, “The first fully contained crime scene.”

“Yes. Except that there was no sign a crime had been committed. No sign of a struggle, no exterior door opened—and no sign of Sean Messina. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since. The chief even brought dogs in to clear the theater before he allowed other moviegoers to leave. They were very cooperative. And very shaken by what happened.”

“And the dogs found nothing,” Luke said.

“According to their handler, who was as baffled and uneasy as everyone else, as far as the dogs were concerned, their behavior clearly signaled that Sean Messina had never been in the theater.”

Samantha frowned, the expression making her look even more sulky than the normal expression nature had given her. “He disappeared after he was never there?”

“Just telling you what’s in the chief’s report, Sam,” Bishop said, still completely calm.

“Well,” Lucas said after a pause, “it definitely sounds like our kind of case.”

Samantha was still frowning, her unusually dark gaze on Bishop. “Give,” she said.

He answered her readily enough. “There’s a page missing from your reports. Not because I withheld it, but because I don’t have it yet. All I have is the verbal report from Chief Riggs when he called me a couple of hours ago. Sometime after midnight last night, ten-year-old Vanessa Tyler apparently got out of bed to get herself a glass of ice water from the kitchen, which was not at all unusual for her. When her parents got up a few hours ago, they found a half-full glass of water on the kitchen counter, along with Vanessa’s favorite stuffed bear. Her grandmother made it for her, and she always slept with it.”

Bishop’s gaze remained steady, but his voice had taken on a very soft, even, steely tone both the agents in front of him recognized. Like the scar twisting whitely down his left cheek standing out more than usual now, his tone was an indication of an intensity of emotion he very, very rarely showed in any other way.

“All the doors and windows in the house were locked from the inside. The security system, a good one, was active and showed no signs of having been tampered with. No screens were cut, no glass broken. But Vanessa Tyler is gone. She’s the sixth victim to go missing this month. The first child. And so far, there is absolutely no evidence to indicate what happened to her. Or to any of the others. They’re simply gone.”

After a long moment, Samantha said with something of Bishop’s almost preternatural calm, “Definitely a case for us.”

–

ROBBIE HODGE LOOKED up from the tablet she’d been studying and frowned a bit at Miranda Bishop. Who, as was her usual habit, was sitting on her desk rather than behind it in the chair.

“You said two teams would be going?”

“Yeah. You two, plus Luke and Samantha Jordan.”

Dante Swann, sitting in the other visitor’s chair, looked up at Miranda and frowned as well. “Is Bishop briefing them?”

Miranda nodded, wearing a faint smile.

“Why?” Robbie demanded.

A little chuckle escaped Miranda. “Generally speaking, the newer agents find me . . . less intimidating. At least in the beginning. And a briefing isn’t much more than relaying information. The four of you can go over everything on the jet. You should just about have time to do that before you land in Tennessee.”

Dante glanced at his partner; they hadn’t worked together for long, and it showed. As did something else, at least to Miranda’s experienced gaze.

“Your abilities,” she said calmly, “will only improve with practice. Field practice. We can only go so far in the lab, and experience has taught us that agents adapt quicker and with far more control when working in the field. Maybe because then it counts.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Dante muttered.

“Seen any spirits yet?” she asked him.

It was Robbie who said, “He has his shields up. Full strength. Can’t you feel it?”

Miranda smiled faintly again. “I can. Don’t push, Robbie.”

“I’m not sure I even know how,” Robbie confessed.

“You need to be aware,” Miranda told her. “Your instincts are to reach out, even through your own shields. Born psychics tend to do that without thought or intent. It’s a sense that’s natural to you; your mind, at least at the unconscious level, doesn’t operate with the same constraints most of us consciously impose on ourselves.”

“Hey, were you trying to read me?” Dante was frowning at his partner.

“No. Not trying. I just knew your shields were up, that’s all.”

Matter-of-factly, Miranda said, “Dante has the stronger shield between the two of you. He also has a tendency to keep it up as much as possible.”

It was Robbie’s turn to frown at her relatively new partner. “You can’t keep that up all the time. It takes too much energy, for one thing. And for another, with shields in the way, how will you communicate with spirits?”

“I’m really hoping there won’t be any,” he said with some feeling. “Spirits would mean our victims are dead.”

Robbie looked back at Miranda. “Are you going to tell him or shall I?”

“Tell me what?”

Miranda said, “Serenity is an old town, Dante. Generations have lived—and died—there.”

“So,” Robbie finished, “the place is probably teeming with spirits, no matter what happened or didn’t happen to our missings. Are you having fun yet?”

“With six missing people including a kid, no,” he retorted. Then, to Miranda, he added, “I don’t have spirit guides. A whisper here, a glimpse there; that’s about it for me. I’ve never even had a helpful spirit point me in the right direction. Why send me?”

“You and Robbie need time to work together as a team,” she answered readily. “And it’s our practice to put a new team with a more experienced team when we can. We don’t have many teams as experienced as Luke and Samantha.”

“They could do this without us,” he objected. “Samantha is scary powerful as a clairvoyant, and Luke’s whole thing is finding people who are lost.”

“We like to cover all our bases,” Miranda said. “Luke’s ability usually hinges on whether those who are missing are frightened or in pain; if they aren’t, that sense is fairly useless to him. Sam is powerful, but there have been cases where her clairvoyance wasn’t helpful. That happens, to all of us. As for you two . . . You may encounter a helpful spirit or spirits this time. And Robbie’s an exceptionally strong telepath; that’s not only one of the most reliable of psychic abilities, it’s virtually always a good ace to have whenever gathering information by talking to people.”

“It’s cheating,” Robbie muttered.

Miranda was unsurprised by the comment. Being one of those psychics born with her abilities, she had learned at a very young age to keep them hidden. Even though other telepaths here at the Special Crimes Unit at Quantico had worked with her for months now, she still struggled with the discomfort of “invading someone else’s mind,” as she called it.

“It’s cheating,” she repeated. “If they don’t know. If I don’t ask permission. It’s an intrusion.”

Deliberately, Miranda said, “Six missing people. Two of them teenagers. A judge. A young wife and mother. A young man with a frightened girlfriend. And a ten-year-old child.”

After a moment, Robbie finally looked up and met her gaze. “The end justifies the means?”

“That’s not what this is about. Your abilities are just tools, like the investigative and profiling techniques you’ve been taught. Like marksmanship, and interview techniques, and how to pick a lock if you have to.”

Robbie smiled wryly at that.

Miranda nodded, more to herself than to the younger woman. “We never really know what tools will come in handy during an investigation. Or which psychic abilities decide to go AWOL just when they’re needed. You may not need to even try to pick up someone else’s thoughts, with or without permission. Because it isn’t necessary—or because you tap into your abilities without even trying. That happens too. To the best of us.”

Dante said, “Does this Chief Riggs know anything about our abilities?”

“Well, he was up here about a year ago, taking some of the courses we offer law enforcement officers around the country. He seems the type to make friends easily, and he talked to quite a few agents here. None of ours, I think, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t find out about the SCU. In fact, we’re reasonably sure he did.”

“Why?” Dante asked.

“Because he asked for us. Not a first-response team, not the BAU, not even the child abduction unit. Us. The SCU. And he was adamant about it. He called Noah directly.” She paused, then added, “Noah and I both believe there’s more to this than what’s in Chief Riggs’s reports. He struck us both as being shaken, and he’s just not the type to easily shake. People disappear, it happens. Especially in the mountains. These disappearances seem odd, certainly, but what we’ve been told so far could easily indicate that these people, at least except for the little girl, just decided to leave and managed to do so without being seen.”

“All within the same month?” Robbie said skeptically. “All in a little town that probably hasn’t seen an unexplained disappearance in most if not all of its history? And all leaving when they were apparently in the middle of very ordinary, routine activities?”

“That does stick out,” Dante agreed.

Miranda nodded. “We agree. Something very strange has happened—and may be still happening—in Serenity. Something the typical law enforcement officer isn’t trained to understand or cope with. It’s clear Chief Riggs knows that. How much he knows about the SCU . . . Well, you’ll all find out soon enough. Grab your go bags. The jet’s standing by.”