Текст книги "Visions"

Автор книги: Kelley Armstrong

Соавторы: Kelley Armstrong,Kelley Armstrong
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

“I’ll make it work,” he said and pulled me on top of him.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

When my phone rang, I surfaced from sleep, confused and groggy, thinking I heard a funeral toll, that slow dong that signifies a death. I leapt up, sleep falling away, Ricky stirring beside me. Then I heard the familiar tone of my phone. I checked it. Private caller.

I answered.

“E-Eden?” It was a woman, her voice pitched so high she sounded like a child. “Is th-this Eden Larsen?”

I tensed. Ricky touched my arm, telling me he could hear the caller.

“Where did you get this number?” I said.

“I-Is this Eden Larsen? Please. It’s important.”

“I don’t go by that name, and if you’re using it, you’re not someone I want to speak to, especially at three in the—”

“Wait! Please, please, wait. He told me to ask for Eden Larsen. Get to this phone. Call this number. Ask for Eden. That’s all I know.” Her words tumbled out on a wave of panic.

“I’m hanging up now,” I said carefully.

“No! Please, please, please.” Her voice broke in a sob. “I only get this one call. It was programmed in. If you hang up, I can’t phone back.”

“Programmed in?”

“To the phone. I can’t use any other number. I tried. I only get this one number and this one call. I have to speak to you and give you the message.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Macy. My name is Macy. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. I was at a party with some friends. I left with this guy, and he brought me here and … and…” Her voice broke again.

“Okay, slow down. You said there’s a message?”

“Yes. It’s that you need to come find me.” She paused. “You understand, right? You know what this is all about? Because I don’t understand any of it.” She hiccuped as she sped through the words. “Tell me this makes some kind of sense. That you know why he’d do this, and you’ll come help me.”

“Give me the whole message,” I said, speaking slowly to calm her down.

“Call Eden Larsen. Tell her to come to this address. If she comes, I will let you go. I have information she needs, but she has to prove she’s worthy of it. She must find you and she must save you. Then I will tell her the truth about her parents and her birthright. And if she does not come, I will—” Her voice cracked and she had to start again. “I will kill you.”

“Where are you?”

She rattled off the GPS coordinates left for her. “So you’ll come?”

“He sent you to that phone, correct? Meaning he isn’t there right now. So how are you in danger? You can run for help.”

“There’s nowhere to run. I don’t know where I am. There are all these abandoned buildings, and a cemetery. He’s watching, too. He’ll shoot me if I run.” She paused. “You don’t believe me. Oh God, you don’t believe me.”

She continued babbling. How cold am I if I admit I was ignoring her words and gauging her voice and her tone, trying to decide how genuine her plight was? Yet Ricky could hear, and he wasn’t saying, Come on! We need to go help her! When I glanced over, I could tell he was assessing, too.

I made Macy go over her story again, in more detail. She’d been at a party. She’d left with a man. She didn’t know who he was—it was a big party—only that he was alone and good-looking, and he’d singled her out for attention. They had a few drinks, and she was sure he must have slipped something in hers because otherwise she’d never just leave with him, especially without telling her friends.

He’d driven out of the city. She wasn’t sure which way. They’d been talking and the next thing she knew they were in the countryside. He’d taken her to what looked like an army base, with lots of buildings. Then he’d gotten out and said he had to go inside and talk to someone.

After he’d left, she realized all the buildings were dark. When she’d taken a closer look at one, she’d seen boarded-up windows and doors. She’d just started to panic when a cell phone rang. It wasn’t hers. She couldn’t find hers. That’s when she’d begun panicking for real. The phone kept ringing. She’d found it under the seat and answered. It was him.

He told her that she needed to follow his instructions and make a very important call. He gave her the directions and told her what would happen if she didn’t do as he said. She started to scream. He hung up.

She’d tried to call 911, call anyone, but the phone was blocked. Hers was gone. The car keys were gone. She’d made a break for it. When she ran past the building she was supposed to enter, he shot at her, the bullet hitting the ground at her feet.

“It’s—it’s horrible in here,” she whispered. “He left me a flashlight, but it barely does anything, and it’s dark and empty and there’s writing on the walls. Writing everywhere. Crazy stuff. I hear noises. I think it’s only rats.” A high-pitched laugh. “Only rats. I can’t believe I said that. I hate rats. Bats, too, and they’re everywhere, flying out when I walk into a room and—”

“Where are you now?”

“Inside. With the phone. He said if he sees me leave, he’ll shoot me. I can only go when you find me. You will come, right?”

“Which building are you in?”

She told me, then continued, “He said something else, too. He said to remember Ciara. I don’t know what that means. I asked him, and he wouldn’t tell me, and—”

The line went dead.

I speed-dialed Gabriel. When the line connected, I hung up. What was he going to do? This wasn’t a legal matter. I’d be dragging him into this. Forcing him to make decisions that weren’t his responsibility to make.

I glanced over. Ricky hadn’t said a word.

“We are awake, right?” he said.

“I think so.”

“Hard to tell after that call.” He paused. “Do you know what she was talking about?”

I hesitated. There was so much he didn’t know. Most of which I couldn’t share.

“Some of it,” I said. “The name she mentioned. Ciara. She’s the girl whose body I found while rescuing TC. Her death may have something to do with me or my parents. Gabriel’s been helping me look into that.”

“Do you want to call him?”

Yes. “This isn’t a legal issue.”

“Do you really think he’d tell you to handle it yourself?”

No. He’d come.

I shook my head. “I’ve dragged him into enough trouble. Did she sound as if she believed she was in danger?”

“Yes. The fact that it makes no sense actually supports it being real—she’d dream up a better fake story. But even if she is in danger, it’s almost certainly a trap, so…”

He trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking. Would I risk my life for a stranger? No. Whatever brand of heroism that requires, I don’t have it.

I looked down at the GPS coordinates Macy had given me. Macy. She wasn’t some anonymous victim. Even if she was, I don’t think I could have ignored her.

“We can go check it out,” Ricky said. “You’ve got your gun, and you’ve got me. I don’t think whoever’s doing this is expecting either.”

“You don’t have to—”

“You think I’d let you handle this while I go back to sleep?”

“We’ll take my car,” I said. “I want to explain more on the way.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

While Ricky drove, I navigated and told him about Ciara, which wasn’t easy, piecing the hole-ridden cloth into a plausible story. I told him about the body in the car, but I skipped the “head in the bed.” That’s where it seemed to cross the line to a potential legal issue for Gabriel, given that I’d had photographic proof and we didn’t report it.

When I finished, Ricky just kept driving, despite me telling him to make a left. He got turned around and back on course before speaking.

“So someone put this girl’s body in your car, wearing your clothes, dressed as you.”

“And then, while I was inside waiting for Gabriel, the killer took away all the evidence. Which sounds completely crazy, so you can’t blame him for thinking I was imagining things.”

Ricky glanced over. “I’m sure Gabriel knew you weren’t. I’m sure he told you to keep it quiet. I completely agree, and I’d expect him to do the same as my lawyer. I’ll buy whatever story you sell me, Liv.”

“I—”

“I know there’s more to it. There are things about my life I can’t share, either, because they could put you in jeopardy. I have secrets; you have secrets. I’m here for anything you want to tell me, but I’ll never push. Fair enough?”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“So clearly that corpse was a warning. Clearly Gabriel is concerned, which explains him getting you that security system. But if you were in serious danger, something would have happened by now. Instead, it’s do as I say or this Macy girl ends up like Ciara. Meaning he needs something from you. Something you can’t give if you’re dead.”

“Presumably.” I looked out the window. “Any idea where we are?”

“You’re the one with the GPS.”

“Yes, but I haven’t seen a landmark for almost ten minutes.”

We were in the countryside. That much was obvious. On a dark, empty secondary highway. About a half hour outside Chicago, if I’d calculated the distance properly.

“There’s a town ahead,” Ricky said. “Big one, judging by that glow.”

I checked my phone GPS. “Looks like we’re going to turn off before we reach it. Take the next right. We’re getting close.”

Two more turns and we were there. Wherever “there” was. We passed a laneway leading into a golf course. It wasn’t one I recognized. I’m not much of a golfer, but James is, and this didn’t look like a course we would have played. It was meant for locals who wanted to knock a few balls around a half-dozen times a year. At three in the morning, it was pitch-black.

The GPS led us past it to a laneway with gates. Huge gates, adorned with Keep Out and Private Property and Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. Also, massive padlocks.

“Let me out here,” I said.

Ricky did. I went up and checked the gates. Chains looped them shut, but the locks were unfastened. I peered through. The lane led to a group of dark buildings surrounded by empty fields. Hell of a place to drive into. Anyone watching would see us coming for a quarter mile.

I jangled the chains, then called back to Ricky, louder than necessary, “Seems to be locked tight.”

He could see damn well that the chains weren’t secured, but he said, “Think the call was a prank?”

“Maybe.” I made a show of squinting through the gates again. “Let’s drive around.”

I climbed back into the car.

“It’s too open,” I said as he backed onto the road. “But if Macy’s captor is listening, which I presume he is, I didn’t want him to think we were taking off.”

“You’re pretty good at this stuff.”

“It’s in my genes,” I said. “And I have Gabriel for a teacher.”

“No shit, huh?”

As Macy had said, a cemetery bordered the property. Cemetery on one side, golf course on the other. Both dark and silent and empty. Two routes to choose from.

We parked at the golf course, looped around, and walked in through the cemetery. We’d dressed dark. Ricky wore a light T-shirt but had zipped his leather jacket over it. Remembering our game in the cabin woods, I let him take the lead. He walked silently, as if knowing where to step to avoid cracking twigs and crunching stones. As we moved, I could practically feel the low strum of energy vibrating from him, that dark and delicious mix of tension and adrenaline. When he’d glance back to check on me, his eyes glittered, as they had in the woods.

We reached the cemetery. It was a modern one, no weathered headstones and moss-laden mausoleums. Just row after row of death. We cut our way through as if the gravestones were merely obstacles. If there was anything frightening about a cemetery at night, it was lost on me. Always had been.

A strip of woods separated the cemetery and the abandoned buildings. Ricky stopped at the edge. He glanced back to make sure I had my gun out. He nodded, took something from his jacket, and palmed it. When I leaned in to see what it was, he opened his fist to show a metal cylinder. He pressed a button. A knife shot out.

“Switchblade,” I said. “Nice. I could use one of those.”

“That’s not enough?” he whispered, pointing at my gun.

“It does the job, if the job is to kill. I need a backup that’s not always so lethal.”

“You could try getting yourself into fewer situations where you need a weapon.”

“I suspect that’s not happening anytime soon.”

A short laugh and he nodded as we carried on.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

We reached the middle of the strip of forest, which was so thin we could see the fields on either side. When I heard an almost soundless whoosh-whoosh, I looked up to see an owl passing overhead. It was huge, like the ones I’d seen in Cainsville a month ago, a pair that had ripped apart a raven. I found myself looking for a second one. I knew this couldn’t be the same owl, and I was sure they hunted alone. Yet when I looked, I saw another in a tree just ahead. The first lighted in the same one, and they sat there, watching us silently.

Oddly, seeing them seemed to calm me. Their unblinking gazes said to be alert and be safe. Stay watchful.

It took a moment for Ricky to notice them. When he did, he stopped.

“Now that’s creepy,” he said.

“Is it?”

He shivered. “Um, yeah.”

I guess we didn’t agree on everything. As we continued, he kept sneaking glances up at the owls, as if expecting them to dive-bomb us. It was cute, really. He’d just walked through a graveyard at night, accompanying me into a potential death trap, but what freaked him out was a pair of owls.

As we passed, they watched us go. Then they took off, flying overhead in the same direction we were heading.

“Hey, they’re leading the way,” I said as I pointed.

“To our deaths probably,” Ricky muttered. “They carry off children in the night, you know.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing we aren’t children. Where’d you hear that?”

“I used to read all that stuff when I was a kid. Every now and then it just pops up.”

“For me it’s omens. Someone stuffed them in my head, and they crop up at the most inconvenient times.”

“Yeah? Nothing about owls, then?”

“Only if it’s daytime. Although if you hear an owl hoot between houses, it means someone has lost her virginity. I think we’re okay there, too. And if a pregnant woman hears an owl, her child will be blessed. Again, we should be fine. At least, I hope so.”

“They didn’t hoot.”

“Excellent.”

He grinned back at me, and I returned the smile. I hadn’t planned to mention the omens, but as soon as the topic came up, I’d jumped on it, as if eager to unburden myself. When I’d confessed my mental library of superstitions to James, he’d thought it was adorable, in that slightly condescending way that made me wish I’d never opened my mouth. Ricky only said, “So I guess you won’t think my stories are so weird, huh?”

“I won’t.”

He returned to cutting the trail. He definitely must have better night vision than me, because he brought us out behind a building, where we could safely exit under cover of shadow.

We were behind a brick structure maybe half the size of the Gallaghers’ cabin. Tiny for a residence, but that’s what it looked like, one of at least a dozen squatting along a narrow road. Sterile brick boxes with barred windows and heavy doors. Cells more than homes. When I touched a brick, I shuddered.

“Can we agree this place is creepy?” Ricky whispered.

I nodded and pulled my hand back. “Macy said it wasn’t an army base, but that’s what it looks like.”

“Could be. We’re heading to the biggest building, right?”

“Yep. In the middle.”

He surveyed the landscape. Beyond the pillbox houses we could make out buildings a couple of stories tall. We stuck to shadows and silence as we made our way toward them.

I made notes of my surroundings, trying to arrange everything into a mental map. There’d been only one road leading in, but there were more here, laid out in a grid pattern. Like an army base or other “prepackaged” community. What else needed to be isolated like this? A prison? A commune? It seemed too open for the former and too industrial for the latter.

We were passing the last of the house-like buildings when I caught sight of words carved into the foundation. I touched Ricky’s arm to stop him as I bent to read. Someone had painstakingly etched a sentence into the concrete blocks.

There is no freedom from the prison of the mind.

I looked around at the tiny houses with no glass in the barred windows. With doors that could be locked from the outside.

I fought chills as I rose. We continued on, me following in Ricky’s tracks as we skirted a two-story building, circling until we could see around the front.

There was a car in the middle of the main road. The interior light was on, the passenger door open. Across the street stood a building that looked like a high school. A long three-story rectangle, saved from architectural obscurity by a tower rising an extra twenty feet over the main doors. On top of the tower was a cross with a broken arm. To the left, an empty flagpole groaned in the wind. There was a balcony on the front tower, half the railing missing.

Over the main doors, I could make out a sign, with letters big enough to read in the moonlight. Part of the first word was obscured, but I could see the rest. State Hospital.

“Hospital?” Ricky whispered. “Way out here? With cabins for patients?”

“It’s a mental hospital.”

“An asylum?”

I gazed around. Those locked box cabins wouldn’t exactly meet modern standards for mental care, but they weren’t cages, either. I took in the architecture. Early twentieth century. The rise of modern psychiatry, if I remembered my college classes. Not anyplace I’d want to stay, but past the era of treating patients like animals.

“An early psychiatric institution,” I whispered. “Not Bedlam, but not up to today’s code.”

An experiment, it seemed, in a more humane way to treat the mentally ill. Still locking them up and keeping them away from normal folks, but giving them some sense of a community. Yet I remembered those words carved in stone, and a chill ran through me, as it hadn’t in the cemetery. That was death. Final and unavoidable. This…?

There is no freedom from the prison of the mind.

I shook it off. Knowing the function of the compound helped, if only to keep my brain from whirring to solve the puzzle. Ricky motioned he was going to slip from the shelter of the building and take a look down the road. I stayed where I was and watched him as he crept along the wall. He moved three careful steps from it, staying in its shadow as he peered down the lane.

He scanned the collection of buildings. Then he gestured for me to wait as he set out, flush with the wall then crossing the gap to the next building with a few fluid steps, never pausing to check where he put his feet down, as if knowing they’d land silently. When he did pause, his gaze swept the road, his head moving slowly, deliberately.

He looks like he’s hunting.

Desire and fascination mingled unbidden as I watched him. Wind blustered past, and his blond hair whipped against his face, but he didn’t even seem to notice, just kept looking along the buildings. Then he returned to me.

“Someone’s down there,” he said. “Watching for us.”

“Third building across the road, right? I noticed a faint light.”

He shook his head. “Too obvious. That’s a decoy. Same as the building beside this one where the door’s cracked open. Both are staged. He’s in the one to the right of it. Second story. Left front corner room.”

“What’s the giveaway?”

“I drew him out, standing in the road like that. He knows you’re not alone now, which should put him on notice. If the girl’s over there—” he pointed at the three-story building “—he can’t get to her without us seeing. You can go look for her while I keep an eye on him.”

“Thank you.”

Keeping an eye on our mystery man didn’t mean staying where we were. There was no need, now that he’d spotted Ricky. So we darted to the car, using that for cover, before dashing to the three-story building across the road.

The open front door was plastered with more No Trespassing and Private Property signs, along with warnings that the building was in unsafe condition and trespassing could result in serious injury or death. Judging by the number of jimmy marks in the frame, the warnings hadn’t stopped urban explorers intent on taking a look.

The door opened into a reception room. It seemed tiny, given the size of the building. I guess they hadn’t expected many visitors. A counter extended across the room, with mail cubbies behind it. Bits of crumbled concrete and blown-in leaves littered the floor. My footsteps crunched across the debris as we walked.

I took out my phone, for both the flashlight and the directions I’d jotted down from Macy’s instructions.

“I need to go that way,” I said, pointing. There were doorways at either end of the reception area, the doors long gone.

“And I’ll go that way.” Ricky pointed opposite. “Upstairs, where I have a better vantage point. Can you stand watch while I do that? I’ll text when I’m in place.”

I nodded.

“Be careful in here,” he whispered. “Just because I know where the girl’s kidnapper is doesn’t mean he’s alone.”

“I know.”

It took Ricky a few minutes to get upstairs. Then he texted to say he could still see the guy, and I set out.