News vans were already arriving, their telescope-mounted cameras trying to get a look at the action taking place.
I heard a car door slam to my left and turned in that direction.
Stanton’s Crown Vic was parked a couple driveways over, and he stood next to it now, watching. His face was carefully blank, and I wondered what was going on behind those eyes.
Wondered, too, what this was all about.
“What are the charges, officer?” I asked, as the two patrolmen got into the front seat.
Now it was their turn to play dumb. One of them looked back at me, the move revealing his badge and the name tag above it. Bartlett, it read.
I filed the name away for future reference.
Evidence teams from the forensic unit showed up as we were leaving. Good luck, I thought to myself, considering the state the doppelganger had left my house in. I had no clue what they were looking for, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t going to be easy to find in that mess.
39
THEN
To this day I don’t remember how I managed to get back to my house, never mind inside. If I had to guess, I’d say that the instinct for self-preservation took over. I’d never before made that walk without being able to see, but my body must have known where it was going and taken me there when I needed it to.
However I got there, I woke up to find myself stretched out on my kitchen floor, though at the time I had no idea where I was. It was dark and it took several moments of frantic thrashing about, touching everything nearby, until my hands found the kitchen sink and I figured out where I was.
My eyes burned for days.
Nothing I did would stop it. I tried flushing them with water. I tried putting a cold compress on them. I tried to sleep with an ice pack tied around my face. Nothing helped. It felt like a blowtorch had been turned on at the heart of my eyeballs and was burning them up, millimeter by millimeter, from deep inside.
More than once, I wanted to claw them out of my skull.
I cursed the Preacher for deceiving me, swearing over and over again that if I ever got my hands on him I’d tear him limb from limb. I cursed myself for being stupid enough to listen to him in the first place.
But the anger was just a cover for what I was really feeling.
Fear.
Cold, stark terror, to be exact.
With every passing second I was excruciatingly aware that they were out there.
Watching.
Waiting.
My fear of them nearly consumed me.
I spent every waking moment in utter terror, sleeping only when I absolutely had to, and then in fits and starts that did little to ease my frayed nerves. I was certain that at any moment they were going to burst into my home, determined to seek out and devour the stupid human who had been audacious enough to pierce the veil that hid them from view. I cringed at the slightest sounds, from the creak of a floorboard above me to the tap of a branch against the window in a light breeze. Every sound was a threat, every silence the mask behind which a fiend from hell was creeping up on me.
Imagine suddenly realizing that everything you’d ever feared as a child was real. Every demon, every ghost, every hideous thing you’d ever seen at the movies or watched on television, everything you’d ever read in a book or conjured up in your fevered mind was, in truth, a reality. The bogeyman not only existed, but was coming to get you. That was how I felt every second of the day, and I knew I’d either go crazy or die of a heart attack before long if I didn’t find a way to control it.
In the end, I couldn’t save myself.
I needed Whisper to do that for me.
She just showed up a few days after I’d lost the ability to see in the sunlight. I don’t know what called her to me or how she found me, but I’ll be forever grateful that she did. I didn’t see her arrive, couldn’t in fact, but I felt her sudden appearance the same way you feel it when someone is watching you. That tingling sensation along your spine, that crawling feeling that you are no longer alone.
To be honest, I thought I was done for. I thought one of the things I’d seen outside that first night had finally come to claim its reward.
I’d been hiding away in a crawl space inside my bedroom closet, as far from the outside windows and doors as I could possibly get. I hadn’t dared venture out and was weak from hunger and thirst. One minute I was alone and the next I felt her there with me. I tried to push myself deeper into the narrow space, frantic to get away, and I’m not ashamed to say I let out a shrill scream when I felt her hand on my shoulder.
Pain exploded in my head—fierce, pounding pain—and the world around me spun down into darkness as I passed out in fear.
When I awoke, I could see.
Not the way I had before, for my own vision was forever lost to me, but in that strange new way I’ve taken to calling ghostsight.
My salvation sat in front of me, rocking back and forth, her eyes wandering vacantly.
I don’t think I can express the sense of wonder I felt in that moment, the sheer gratitude that poured out of me when this little dead girl reached out and ran her fingers across my face, memorizing my features by touch because she had loaned me her eyesight. If it hadn’t been for her, I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it out of that first month.
With time, I learned to call her when I needed her. We couldn’t really communicate, not in any useful sense of the word, as she either wouldn’t or couldn’t reply to anything I said, but she was more than willing to listen, and I enjoyed her company. She was always so quiet, so gentle, that I began to call her Whisper and after a while the name stuck. It was as good as any, I guess. It was Whisper who taught me, through simple trial and error, that I could use the senses of the other ghosts around me as well, but I have never been as comfortable with them as I am with her. Maybe it is simply because she was my first.
Or maybe it is because she reminds me so much of my missing daughter.
I don’t know.
I’m just glad she’s here.
40
NOW
“Where the hell is he?” Dmitri asked.
Denise shook her head; she didn’t know. The agreed upon meeting time had passed more than an hour ago, and Hunt still hadn’t showed up. Nor had he called. She was starting to get worried.
He’d been adamant that the fetch was holed up in the crumbling remains of the old Danvers State Hospital, known to many of the locals as the Castle on the Hill. Denise had to agree; if you were looking for a spooky old place to hide out in, you couldn’t do much better than that place. When she’d objected to the three of them facing off against the thing alone, Dmitri had taken Hunt’s side. They needed to get a look at the thing, see what they were actually up against, and the best time to do that was now, before it discovered that they were on to it. Reluctantly, she’d agreed.
And now Hunt was missing.
They passed another ten minutes in silence.
Finally, Dmitri had had enough.
“Fuck him,” he said. “We can do this alone.”
“I don’t know, Dmitri,” Denise said. “Maybe we should check the hospitals or something.”
“Nyet!” the big man replied, and his slip into Russian let her know just how upset the entire situation was making him.
“If he is in the hospital, then there isn’t anything more we can do for him. But every minute we waste is another moment in which that thing could kill another of us, maybe someone you or I know personally. We have to find out what we are up against, and we have to act on that information as soon as possible.”
He snagged the duffel bag of equipment he’d assembled earlier and turned for the door. “We don’t have any more time to waste.”
His reached the door and turned back to face her. “Besides, what good is a blind man on a combat mission anyway?”
As much as she hated to admit it, Denise realized Dmitri just might be right.
41
NOW
They le
ft me sitting in the interrogation room for close to two hours. I’d watched more than my fair share of Law & Order episodes and I knew the drill, knew that they were trying to soften me up for what was to come. They must have thought that being left alone, blind and unable to see, would just heighten my anxiety and make me more willing to talk.
Thing was, that kind of approach just wasn’t going to work with me. Number one, I wasn’t guilty of anything. We could sit here for weeks on end and nothing would change that. Number two, the blind spent an awful lot of time alone in the dark or, in my case, the light, and it didn’t make us uncomfortable the way it did the sighted. And, number three, the room wasn’t anywhere near as empty as they thought it was.
I had the dead for company.
There were three of them. I could see them sitting there, watching me, waiting for heaven knew what. The room felt heavy with their anger and sorrow, and the weight of it made me wonder how many confessions had been influenced by their unseen presence. I understood how people could get very uncomfortable with them hanging around.
I resisted the urge to steal a look through their eyes, as I was tired enough already and knew this was likely to be a long session. Instead, I leaned back and thought things through. I went over everything I’d done since Stanton had called me out to that first murder scene. I considered every detail, no matter how trivial, looking for a reason why they’d dragged me down here in the middle of the night like some common criminal, and I came up empty.
Or at least empty of charges serious enough to warrant such treatment. Sure, I’d taken a piece of evidence from a crime scene without informing Stanton. And I’d broken the seal on the Marshall apartment so I could get that piece of evidence. So sue me, okay?
But none of that was worth arresting me over. And it certainly didn’t deserve the hard-core treatment that I’d been subjected to since they’d showed up at my door.
Just what the hell was going on?
Eventually, I heard the door open and caught the scent of Stanton’s usual brand of cheap cologne. The click of the lock as the door closed behind him was loud in the silence.
I heard the scrape of a chair against the floor tile and then the creak of the joints as Stanton settled into it. He fiddled with something on the tabletop for a moment and then began speaking.
“11:55 p.m., November 6. Interrogation of Jeremiah Hunt. Present with the suspect is Detective First Grade Miles Stanton, Homicide.”
His fury was evident from his very first word and I knew I was in serious trouble. His formality also meant that he was taping the session; the sounds I’d heard must have been him turning on the tape recorder.
“The subject has received his Miranda warning and has waived his right to speak to an attorney.”
That made me sit up a bit straighter. I’d been Mirandized back at my house during the initial arrest, that much was true, but I sure as hell hadn’t waived my right to speak to anyone, least of all my attorney. Something wasn’t right, wasn’t right at all, and Stanton’s next words really hit home.
“It’s over, Hunt. We’ve got you cold.”
I was honestly too surprised to answer him.
“Save yourself some trouble,” he continued. “Spit it all out, every last detail, and maybe the judge will have some leniency. I’m certainly not going to recommend it, but hey, you might get lucky.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have any idea what you are talking about, Stanton.”
“Right. And I’m the tooth fairy. Start writing, Hunt.”
“I’m not kidding, Stanton. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Cut the bullshit, Hunt. I’m sick of listening to it.”
I did what I could to hold my temper and tried to reason with him. “I’m not bullshitting you, Stanton. Why the hell am I in here?”
Stanton had less control of his temper than I did and he’d finally reached his limit. “Don’t act stupid with me, asshole!” he shouted, his spittle peppering my face. “Did you think you could just keep stringing us along?”
There was a loud clatter as he kicked the chair out from behind him, and the next thing I knew he was right there on my side of the table, rage coming off him in waves. He leaned in close so that the recorder couldn’t hear and whispered, “We’ve got you on video, asshole, and I’m going to do my best to see to it that you fry for what you’ve done.”
Stanton’s anger was so intense that I was suddenly certain he wouldn’t wait for the trial. He was going to take things into his own hands and become judge, jury, and executioner right then and there.
That’s when the second voice spoke up.
“That’s enough, Detective. Go get some coffee. Leave Mr. Hunt to me for a bit.”
The other man had been so quiet, or I’d been so focused on Stanton, that I hadn’t even known he was there.
I heard the door slam as Stanton left the interrogation room. I wondered how much of his anger had been an act. Was the newcomer supposed to play the good cop to Stanton’s bad?
I didn’t have long to wait to find out.
“My name is Robertson, Mr. Hunt. Special Agent Dale Robertson.”
He paused, as if waiting for me to say something. What did he expect me to do? Break down and confess the minute I learned he was with the FBI? The guy had apparently been watching too much TV.
I had to restrain myself from laughing.
“You are under arrest for the murders of Brenda Connolly, James Marshall, and Hector Morales. I suggest you cooperate now. If you wait too long, I won’t be able to help you.”
It was standard cop talk, but I decided to play along and see what I could find out.
Acting indifferent to his proposal, I asked, “Since when is murder an FBI affair?”
“When it involves the deaths of more than one individual in more than one state, Mr. Hunt. But I’m sure you know that. What don’t you just make everyone’s lives easier and tell us why you did it. We have you on videotape, after all.”
Videotape?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You have me on what?”
Robertson sighed. It was actually pretty good; he even sounded like someone who was tired of all the shenanigans.
“Didn’t Detective Stanton tell you? At one thirty-five this afternoon we caught you on camera entering the building where Hector Morales lived. According to witnesses, you took the elevator to his tenth-floor apartment. A second camera just outside Mr. Morales’s apartment picked you up again as you rang the bell. When he opened the door, you slit his throat. The camera caught every minute of it.”
The FBI agent chuckled. “You might have gotten away with it at that point, given the wide-brimmed hat you were wearing, but like the stupid fuckup you are, you looked right up at the camera and gave us a perfect view of your face.”
He tossed something across the table and when I picked it up I could feel the extra smoothness of the paper that told me it was a photograph.
I didn’t have to ask who was in it.
“Stanton was right, Hunt. You’re going to fry. So why not help us out and tell us what you did to the other forty-seven victims?”
42
NOW
It was obvious to me what had happened. The doppelganger, or fetch, had assumed my appearance to commit the next murder and made sure that the surveillance cameras had gotten a good look at him while doing so. I would have bet my left hand that the latest victim was unrelated to all the others, too, that he’d been chosen on the spur of the moment and wasn’t part of the larger scheme the killer was following.
But how could I explain that to the police? There was no way they would believe me. They were already ignoring the fact that in the previous murders there were no obvious signs of a struggle nor an apparent cause of death, while this one had both. And it just happened to have been caught on camera, too? Did they think the killer suddenly had a lobotomy overnight? And if they couldn’t see the obvious right before their eyes, how on earth did I expect them to ma
nage the truth? Shape-changers and ghosts? Humans with magical powers?
I could hear them laughing already.
The doppelganger had managed to take me out of the picture and throw the cops off the scent, all in one fell swoop. The creature was more intelligent than I had given it credit for.
It had brought me into the investigation, kept me running around in circles for days with false leads, and then, when the three of us—Dmitri, Denise, and I—had begun to close in on the reality behind the smoke screen, it had set me up as the fall guy with one carefully chosen crime scene.
I ground my teeth in frustration.
When I refused to say anything more, Agent Robertson informed me that I would be arraigned in the morning, an experience I wasn’t looking forward to, and I was led off to a holding cell for the night. It seemed it was an open-and-shut case, at least where the latest killing was concerned. They’d have to jump through hoops to link me to the others, but I had no doubt that Robertson would find a way to do it, even if he had to bend the truth a little bit to make it work. He clearly thought I was responsible for all of them.
They gave me my phone call around seven that night. I called the only person I could think of. Denise. She wasn’t in, so I left a message on her answering machine, letting her know what had happened. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t imagine calling Anne after all these years and wouldn’t want to drag her into this anyway. She’d gotten on with her life and didn’t need me screwing it up again. I wasn’t expecting the judge to grant me bail anyway, not with the evidence they had against me and the brutal nature of the crimes of which I was accused.
I was in very deep shit, and I knew it was going to be a long night.
That’s why I was surprised when a guard appeared at the door to my cell just after nine. “Your attorney is here to see you,” he said, as he took out a key, unlocked the door, and led me down the hall.
Eyes to See Page 21
