Speak the Dead

by Grant McKenzie

  He powered on the cellphone and opened its electronic address book. There wasn’t a single stored entry. Next, he switched on the iPod and dug into its menu for a list of contacts that would have been synced from a computer’s address book. Again, the list was empty.

  Jersey scanned the room again. There was no sign of a desktop computer or portable laptop. He walked through the apartment once more, but if Sally owned a computer, it was also missing.

  “Where are you, Sally?” he asked the room.

  Despite knowing his partner would call him ridiculous, Jersey slipped Sally’s driver’s license and keys into his pocket before walking back through the living room to the front door. The cat stopped eating and followed him with her large green eyes. They reminded Jersey of her owner’s.

  “I’ll check in tomorrow,” he said and jangled the keys. “Maybe she’ll be back by then.”

  The cat continued to stare as Jersey left the apartment and locked the door.

  30

  Home to less than two hundred thousand people, the city of Spokane spread itself across fifty-eight square miles on both sides of a once salmon-rich tributary of the Columbia River. From the freeway, however, it possessed all the bleak box-store charm of a discount mall.

  When Aedan showed no sign of slowing down, Sally rattled her chains. “Are we getting something to eat?”

  Aedan turned his dark eye upon her, but didn’t speak.

  “You promised,” Sally pushed. “And I really have to pee again.”

  “We’ll stop soon.”

  “I have to pee badly,” Sally insisted, not wanting the lights of civilization to fade behind them. “It’s been hours and I’m cramped up.”

  Aedan flicked on his signal light and veered the car off the freeway to a row of competing gas stations, all advertising the same price per gallon.

  He picked the station furthest from the off-ramp and with the least amount of cars parked outside its small restaurant and smaller convenience store.

  “I’ll order us two salads with chicken,” said Aedan.

  “I’d prefer a cheeseburger,” Sally said, “but I really need to pee first.”

  Aedan stepped out of the vehicle and looked around at the mostly empty lot. Three pick-up trucks and a rusted Honda were parked on the far side of the restaurant and none of the pumps were being used.

  When he was satisfied, Aedan walked around to Sally’s door and yanked it open. He knelt down until his singular gaze was level with hers.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “I don’t want to harm you, but I’m not someone you mess with. Do you understand?”

  Sally nodded and lifted her shackled hands.

  Aedan stared at her for a moment longer before pulling a small silver key from his pocket and unlocking both cuffs.

  Sally slipped out of the car with her head lowered to hide her excitement at finally being free of her bonds. She only wished she had her pearl-handled straight razor with her because with the anger she felt, she had no doubt she would use it.

  Aedan wrapped one hand around her upper arm and squeezed. Sally flinched at the strength of his fingers as she felt her muscles being crushed under the iron grip. Aedan leaned in close to her.

  “The washroom is outside,” he said. “We’ll get the key from the store. You won’t say a word.”

  Before Sally could answer, Aedan forced her into step with him and they crossed the asphalt lot to the convenience store. A scattering of neglected streetlamps buzzed like hungry insects as though growing impatient with the day’s dull light.

  An electronic alert on the reinforced steel and heavy-glass door twittered their arrival. Looking up from a lightly thumbed copy of US magazine, a top-heavy woman in a red T-shirt greeted them with a gap-toothed smile. A pithy slogan on the shirt read, Got Gas?

  The woman’s smile faded when she saw Aedan’s damaged face.

  Sally tried to catch the woman’s eye, but her attention was so focused on Aedan’s deformity that Sally doubted she even noticed there was another person.

  “Washroom,” said Aedan.

  “Uh-huh.” The woman reached under the counter and produced a steel key attached by an eight-inch length of chain to a long wooden shoehorn. The horn had a generic image of leaping salmon etched on its smooth surface. “Jus’ passin’ through?”

  Aedan accepted the key. “We’ll also want food.”

  “Restaurant is jus’ through that door.” The woman indicated a second set of glass doors off to her right. “My Bobby’s on tonight an’ he makes a real nice burger with American cheese and a special Jack Daniels BBQ sauce. Our reg’lars love it.”

  “Mmmm, that sounds—”

  Sally moaned as Aedan squeezed her arm with fingers of constricting steel.

  “You okay, honey?” asked the woman, her attention suddenly focused where Sally wanted.

  “She needs to pee,” Aedan said abruptly. He spun and dragged Sally back through the glass door and outside.

  “I’m sorry,” Sally blurted. “I’m just hungry, and it did sound—” Sally squealed as Aedan’s grip tightened even more, and she feared her bicep was about to be ripped from the bone.

  “Don’t!” Aedan hissed.

  Sally was led to the side of the building opposite the restaurant where Aedan used the key to open the lone door.

  “I’ll be right here.”

  He tossed her inside and the door banged closed behind.

  In the dim light of the cramped room, Sally rubbed her sore arm and quickly took in her surroundings. One toilet, one sink, one urinal, one mirror, and a disgusting stench. There was no wooden plunger or any caustic cleaning products that she could use as weapons, and the mirror was fastened to the wall with four large bolts. There wasn’t even a window to escape through.

  Crap! She said to herself. Crap, crap, crap.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Fine!” Sally shouted back. “It’s just—” She had an idea. “It’s my period. Could you get me pads or Tampax? I’m sure I saw some at the store.”

  A heavy silence followed by “I can’t—”

  “I’m bleeding here, Aedan,” Sally whined. “I can’t travel around with bloody jeans. You think people won’t notice that? It’s not like you gave me a chance to pack.”

  Another silence.

  “Look,” Sally continued, making her voice less angry in supplication. “It’s light flow, so if you could get some pads that will be fine, but I need something.”

  “Don’t move,” Aedan warned. “If you move—”

  “Lock me in if you don’t trust me. You have the key.”

  A heavy hand slammed against the door and Sally jumped, her heart leaping into her throat. Had she pushed him too far? Her lungs stopped pumping and nervous sweat beaded on her forehead as she waited for the inevitable. But the door didn’t open, and Aedan didn’t enter.

  Sally released her breath slowly as the sound of the lock turning in the door was followed by heavy footsteps walking away. Sally waited several seconds, her heart thumping in her chest, her breathing still faster than she wanted, then she simply turned the lock.

  She didn’t think Aedan had believed the lock couldn’t be opened from the inside, but he must have trusted that she was too scared of him to bluff.

  Pushing the door a crack, Sally hoped he wasn’t calling her bluff, too. When nothing happened, she opened the door further and poked out her head. She spotted Aedan’s back as he vanished into the store. At best, she would only have minutes before he returned. At worst, seconds.

  She scanned the parking lot, desperate for anything that would help her escape. There were no people, no idling cars, and definitely no cops. Then she saw it. A short distance past the entrance to the store was a public telephone box. She would only have one chance.

  Gathering up all her courage and strength, Sally ran for the telephone as fast as her legs would carry her. As she flew by the door to the conven
ience store, she prayed Aedan wasn’t looking out. If he was, there was nothing she could do.

  When she reached the telephone, she punched in zero.

  “Operator,” said an unexpected human voice. “How may I—”

  “Reverse charges to the following number,” Sally blurted, her voice on the edge of hysteria. “It’s urgent. Vitally urgent.” Sally read out the number and began to pray as she waited for the operator to connect her.

  The phone started to ring. One ring. Two rings. Three ri—

  The phone was picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “This is the operator call—”

  “It’s Sally,” she broke in. “Listen.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  “Where are y—”

  “Sister Fleur,” Sally gasped. “Seattle. Hur—”

  A knuckled fist slammed into the side of Sally’s skull and sent her sprawling onto the tarmac. She hit the road with a heavy slap, her hands and knees stinging from the impact. Her head felt separated from her body.

  With a groan, she rose onto skinned knees, her head spinning in a nausea-inducing cyclone. Her ears were ringing, her vision blurred, and her stomach churned. She had never been hit that hard before in her life.

  As Sally fought against the nausea, a man’s voice called out her name from a distance so far away it could have been a dream. She tried to shake her head, to bring her vision back into focus. She had been hit with a sledgehammer. Her tongue was bleeding; her teeth felt loose.

  Sally looked up toward the sky and her vision was suddenly filled with Aedan’s angry face. This was not the same face she thought she could escape, the face she could outrun. This was the terrifying visage of her nightmares.

  Sally whimpered and raised her hands in pleading self-defense as Aedan drew back his arm. But there was nothing she could do as his fist drove forward in a blur. Sally’s head snapped back and everything went black.

  31

  “Operator!” Jersey screamed as the sound of a one-sided scuffle sent shards of ice slicing through his veins. “What’s happening there?”

  “I assure you, sir, I don’t—”

  “I’m a cop,” Jersey snapped. “I need to know where this call is originating from. Now!”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Now, goddammit!”

  But by the time he was told the address of the truck stop in Spokane, it was too late.

  Sally was gone.

  32

  Jersey frantically worked the phone and computer in a search for anything that could connect him with the woman from Sally’s desperate plea: Sister Fleur. Why Sally wanted him to find a nun in Seattle, Jersey couldn’t fathom. And with no last name or known religious order, it was proving difficult.

  When no matches popped up on a large scale inter-agency database query, and even an Internet search came up empty, Jersey also worried that it was his own Catholic upbringing that made him instantly think of the church when Sally used the term sister. As his partner liked to remind him, he didn’t know enough about Sally’s background to understand her references. Sister could be a salutation for any number of things outside of the nunnery.

  When the report arrived from the Spokane cops who had responded to his request and rushed to Sally’s last known location, Jersey’s fear deepened.

  The only witness to her abduction—a convenience store clerk with a distrust of the police and a pending trial for drunk driving—hadn’t noticed the make of vehicle. “It was a big one, but not a four door” or its plate “I don’t think it was from Washington if that helps,” but her description of the disfigured man, “He gave me the creeps let me tell you,” with the shorter woman, “She did look kinda scared, but I figured she jus’ needed the toilet, you know?” matched Sally’s description of the mystery man in Higgins’ car. The same man, Jersey suspected, who had left the disappearing message on the driver’s corpse.

  After coming up empty with the Catholic Archdiocese, Jersey began scrolling through online directories of various religious orders in the Pacific Northwest. Of the ones he managed to contact, no one had a Sister Fleur registered or had knowledge of a Sally Wilson.

  Cursing his lack of progress, Jersey picked up the phone and dialed his partner.

  Amarela answered with a sleepy, mumbled groan.

  “Who do you know in Seattle?” Jersey asked without preamble.

  “Jersey? That you? What time is it?”

  “Don’t you have a contact at the SPD?”

  “Yeah. Kameelah Steele, she’s working sex crimes up there. Why?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Sally’s in trouble.”

  “You think or you know?”

  “She called me. She’s been abducted by the same man she saw in the car with Higgins when he drove over his wife.”

  “Abducted? Why?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I need a favor.”

  “Give me five. Where are you?”

  He told her.

  Jersey’s desk phone rang five minutes later.

  “I’ve got Kameelah on conference,” said Amarela. “Go ahead.”

  “Kameelah?” Jersey began, “I’m looking for someone, possibly a nun.”

  The voice that came on the line sounded alert and professional, but with the sultry, rhythmical hint of an educated South African accent.

  “I’m sex crimes, detective, not missing persons, but I’ll do what I can.”

  “Her name is Sister Fleur.”

  There was an audible intake of breath.

  “Kameelah?” Amarela asked.

  “I know where she is,” said Kameelah.

  “Holy crap!” gasped Amarela. “Am I good or what?”

  “Where?” Jersey asked.

  “If it’s the same woman you’re looking for, she’s at Harborview Medical Center. Last I checked, she was in critical care but the doctors had high hopes.”

  “What happened?”

  Kameelah took a breath. “Last week, two nuns were assaulted on the outskirts of the city. Sister Fleur had been selling religious knickknacks to passing tourists outside a country store with another member of the same order. They were attacked in the woods a half-mile from the Immaculate Heart Mission as they walked home. There were no witnesses and the attack was brutal. Both women were strangled into submission and beaten. The other nun didn’t make it. Her rosary beads were embedded a full half-inch deep in her neck. Sister Fleur was luckier, but not by much.”

  “And you were called in because—”

  “There were signs of rape,” Kameelah finished. “Sister Fleur had been stripped naked and there were some very nasty contusions all around her pubic region, but the sadistic bastard stopped short of actual penetration. He wasn’t interested in sex. I believe he tortured her. After killing the first nun, he took his time with Sister Fleur. There wasn’t an inch of her body that wasn’t bruised.”

  “He wanted information,” Jersey said, his voice distant.

  “About Sally?” Amarela asked.

  “Who’s Sally?” demanded Kameelah.

  “I’ll tell you when I get there,” said Jersey.

  After Jersey hung up the desk phone his cellphone rang.

  “What the fuck?” Amarela asked. “You’re going to Seattle?”

  “This is the only clue I have to where Sally is being taken.”

  “If she’s been taken, Jersey. You barely know her.”

  “I know fear.”

  “What if she’s playing you?”

  “She’s not.”

  “Christ, Jersey, you’re naive. It’s one of the things I love about you, but—”

  “She’s not playing. This is real, and she needs me.”

  “Okay, pick me up. I’m not letting you do this on your own.”

  “No,” Jersey said. “I need you to stay here and cover my ass with the lieutenant.”

  33

  Sally awoke in a dark, cramped
space, but this time she knew where she was. That knowledge, however, did nothing to quell her fear or quiet the terrifying voice that rang so loudly in her mind: He’s going to kill you.

  Her body rolled as the Cadillac rounded a sharp turn, and her restricted movements told her that Aedan had reattached the nylon straps around her wrists and ankles.

  Sally reached up her bound hands to feel the side of her face. A painful bruise stretched from lower jaw to forehead, and from ear to nose. She touched her skin gently, the slightest contact making her flinch. The bastard had a powerful punch, and he hadn’t even attempted to pull it. She could feel deep-tissue bruising in the shape of each knuckle.

  Her fingers found her nose. It was numb and fragile, but not broken. A splash of blood had sprayed from the nostrils and dried on her cheek. Her right ear was still ringing and her eye was swollen half-shut. She checked her mouth and found her upper lip was split, but like her nose, the bleeding had stopped. Her jaw ached, and there was a clicking sound when she tried to move it, but it didn’t feel like any teeth were missing.

  Perhaps, worst of all, this time she really did need to pee.

  Sally rolled onto her left side, being careful not to move too quickly as her brain felt balanced on a pin, pulled up her scraped knees and lashed out in an awkward mule kick.

  A dull thump echoed from the barrier between seat and trunk. To Sally it sounded pathetically weak, but it did the job. Through a small rip in the carpet, the brake light flashed a bright red to briefly illuminate one corner of the otherwise empty space.

  As the car slowed, Sally eased onto her back and tried to look as submissive and frightened as possible. It wasn’t difficult.

  When the trunk lid swung open, the outside sky was a dark blanket punctured by a thousand stars. Sally couldn’t remember the last time she had seen so many stars. When the lid reached its apex, however, a bright light clicked on to kill the sky and reveal Aedan’s misshapen face. He glared down at her with the same menacing scowl that had preceded her savage beating at the phone box.

  “I-I need to pee,” Sally stammered.

  “You’ve tried that before.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I… I really have to go.”