by David Jobe
He raced out of the room, almost stumbling into Grimm as he did.
“Office reports that there are signs of a struggle at the morgue. Burn marks and some blood. They are bringing in a forensic team to have a look around.” Panic shown in Grimm’s eyes. “You think the alien dogs got her?”
“We will check on that in a minute,” Lanton said. He turned to the nearest guard. “Take me to Allison’s cell now.”
The guard blinked. “Sir, we were told to only escort you to-“
“NOW!” Lanton found himself mere inches away from the guard’s face.
“I’d do what he says.” Grimm stood beside him. “Man’s got some serious pull with the mayor and such. Got me transferred to this shit detail in less than ten minutes.”
The guard looked at Lanton for a moment, then to Grimm. He gave a sigh and said, “Technically if we took you by the breakroom, it would go by her cell. Feel like a soda?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and motioned for his fellow guard to follow him.
“Shit detail?” Lanton raised a brow at Grimm.
Grimm laughed. “These men guard violent psychopaths all day. An old dude yelling in their face probably happens every day before breakfast, and those guys have rap sheets that make them scarier than you. Saw him start to go into Stonewall Stance, so I figured I’d save your bacon. What’s going on?”
“Got a gut feeling the girl is in trouble. I just hope I am not too late.” He remembered how Chris had said he had tried to save people, but he seemed to have a knack for arriving a minute too late.
Grimm took a look at Lanton’s face and nodded. He called out to the guard. “Is there a bathroom in this breakroom. I think that Mexican burrito for breakfast was poisoned. I can feel and awful case of the squirts coming on.”
The guard looked over his shoulder at Grimm with a look that might have been dismay, shock or revulsion. “Come on.” They quickened their step to where they were just under running by the time the hit the next branch of cells.
Lanton just shook his head and chuckled. “You are an odd bird, Grimm.”
A sly wink and a whispered, “effective though.”
Lanton couldn’t fault him on that. As they came to about the center of this stretch of hallway, the guard stopped and stared into a cell to the left. Lanton rushed to stand next to them. Inside, Allison hung from the ceiling from a rope made of sheets.
Inside, Allison’s feet still twitched.
“Open the fucking door!” Lanton pounded on the cell door.
It took him fumbling a few seconds, but he managed to open the door.
Lanton raced in, scooping Allison up and taking the pressure off her neck. She gave a ragged intake of breath and began to sob. Lanton unraveled the rope around her neck as she clung to him. “What were you thinking?” He could see white cables drifting up from her body. He still had no clue what it meant, but he was starting to get an idea of what the end result would always be.
“I..” She just stared at him.
“Shhh,” he told her. “Have a seat.” Turning to the guard. “Please go get your commanding officer. I’m taking this woman into my custody, effective immediately.
“I don’t think I can allow that.” A woman stepped into view, wearing a sleek business suit. “Dr. Landers.” She extended a hand to Lanton. “And Ms. Knox is my patient.”
Lanton shook the woman’s hand, but his eyes were on the white lines rising from her. They weren’t like the cables that bound Allison or Mr. Swandon. No, these rose in gentle arcs and were far too many. Both Allison and Mr. Swandon had around eight to ten lines rising from them, where this woman had hundreds. “What in the hell?”
“Excuse me?” Dr. Landers frowned at him. “I was saying that I can’t allow you to take her.”
“Ma’am,” one of the guard piped up, “her release papers were on the desk when I was asked to escort these two to Mr. Swandon’s cell. I was about to come get her and put her on the bus.”
“No need for a bus.” Lanton kept a hand on Allison’s shoulder but his eyes on Dr. Landers. “And I am taking her.”
Dr. Landers frowned. “Then I must demand that she see me at my office at least twice a week until trial.”
“That’s going to be a no.” Lanton continued to stare at the white lines pulsating as they rose off the woman.
“I don’t believe you have that kind of authority, officer.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I am sure that the courts will back me up on this.”
“Then you should hot foot it over to the courthouse, missy. The man said no.” Grimm stood affixed, arms crossed with a serious look on his face. Lanton suspected this is what Stonewall Stance looked like.
Dr. Landers rounded on the guards. “You going to help in any way?”
The guard Lanton had yelled at looked from Dr. Landers to the still crying Allison. His eyes seemed to focus on the bruising already starting to show around the young girl’s neck. Something seemed to click in the man’s eyes. “I’ll go get your paperwork lined up, Sir.” He made it clear he was addressing Lanton. “By the time you get up there, everything will be ready.” He turned, gave Dr. Landers a long hard look before walking away.
Lanton knew he would have to have a talk with that man when he got things sorted out.
Dr. Landers glared at them. “We are not done.” She turned and stormed off.
“Not by a long shot,” Lanton agreed. After the woman was out of earshot he turned to the remaining guard. “How many suicides have you had this month?”
The guard seemed to ponder it. “Six, maybe seven. Seems suicide is popular these days.” He gave a shrug.
Lanton nodded. This was true on the outside, but Lanton had started to clue in that maybe this was Truer on the inside. “How many of them were Dr. Lander’s patients?”
The guard stared at him for a moment. Then, like the other, this one seemed to click. “All of them.” He gave a long whistle through his teeth. “You think she? That bitch.”
Lanton sat next to Allison. “Hey. I need you to watch this.” He stumbled with his phone until he could find the video he had taken of Mac. It was the height of cheesiness, but he knew the girl needed something to latch onto.”
As soon as she saw the boy’s face, “Mac?” Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, but when Lanton thought better of it and tried to take the phone back, she growled at him and refused to give it back.
He watched as the white lines rising from her began to unravel. It was a start. He turned to the guard. “Can you have your people put a suicide watch on the people she sees?”
The guard shook his head. “Too many people, and we are already short staffed.”
Lanton sighed. He found he had no doubt that the woman was guilty, but he had no way to make an arrest off of it. Was he supposed to go before the judge and say he was seeing visions? Hell, he hadn’t believed Chris when he had been saying that. Why would anyone believe him? Then he remembered the other part of Chris’s vision. He turned to Allison again. “You want to go see your boyfriend?”
Eyes wet with tears but as bright as he had ever seen them looked up at him. “Can I? Really?”
Lanton nodded. “Straight there,” he promised.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here before the wicked witch of the east block returns.” Grimm stood at the door, watching down both hallways as if he expected to be attacked at any moment.
Lanton nodded, “Something tells me that it is going to be a busy night.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Not a Loser
“People are afraid of the devil, and they’ve never seen him. I’ve met the devil, and I’m afraid of your father.” Stephen’s mother had first said that to him as they had hunkered down in the pantry, hiding from the drunken rage of his father. She had held him close and whispered, “Don’t you ever end up like him. Promise me, my boy.”
And Stephen had promised all those years ago that he wouldn’t be like his father. His mother had died not long aft
er, a victim of one of his father’s more violent rages, fueled by the fiend vodka. They had shuffled Stephen off to one foster home after another until he had finally become old enough to move out on his own. He still kept his promise. His father had been a loser who couldn’t cope with the fact that his life had added up to meager livings and a final stint in prison for murder that ended with getting shivved in the prison yard. Turns out there were meaner fish in his new pond. Ones that didn’t respond to rage with running.
“I’m not my father,” he told his reflection. He straightened the red tie he wore, then smoothed out the jacket of his suit. “I’m not a loser.” This would not be the first time that he had uttered this mantra. It had become his soothing chant over the years when he risked it all to score the next big story. Today’s gamble would be played out in much the same manner, but for different stakes. If he failed this, he might find himself in the very same yard that his father had died in. “I am not a loser.” He gathered up his suitcase and moved out of the restroom.
The Diamond-Brunch building stood a towering thirty stories over the downtown landscape of Indianapolis. The top floor had been reserved for the first part of the namesake, Mr. Theodore Diamond. Just as his name suggested, Mr. Diamond stood at the top of a large conglomeration of jewelers that even now put out ads calling for two months salary to any schlub that wanted to prove he was man enough to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage. Poor saps, all of them. But, one of the best marketing schemes in history had made Mr. Diamond a multi-billionaire. Even now, on the top floor of the building, Stephen took in all the decadence a man could ask for. Black and white marble dominated every surface. Chandeliers that cost more than cars hung from vaulted ceilings painted to mirror a cloud-spotted sky, where a golden orb, that Stephen had no doubt was actual gold, played the role of the sun.
Behind a high counter, marked with a crystal blue diamond on a field of black, sat a breathtakingly beautiful woman. High cheeks and a slender neck, her black gown appeared painted on and about to slide off at any second. Stephen resisted the urge to use his powers for carnal things. Much as the idea excited him, he knew he had to tread carefully here. If he mixed business with pleasure, he could be sure that it would come around to bite him in the end. Besides, if this worked out like he wanted, he could get any woman he wanted, without his special ability.
One final breath and a muttered, “you are not a loser” and he strolled up to the desk. “I am here to see Mr. Diamond.”
The goddess in black smiled at him. “Do you have an appointment?”
He smiled back. “I do not, but he will see me. Now.”
She nodded, her eyes getting a sort of glassy look. “He’ll see you now. Can I have your name?”
He opened his mouth to say his name, then thought better of it. Better to cloud the trail. “Mr. Icaras.”
She smiled. “That’s a lovely name.” She leaned over to click a button on the console. “Mr. Icaras is here to see you, Sir.” As she leaned over, she gave a view not yet scandalous, but enough to make Stephen have to mentally reassert that now would not be the time to deviate from his path.
“Mr. Icaras? I have no meeting with anyone of that name. Have him set up an appointment with Stanley.” A box on the desk squawked.
“Allow me.” Stephen smiled over at the woman, who nodded. He leaned over and pressed the button. It was worth testing this way. “You want to see me.” He released, then whispered to the woman. “Get something out of the bottom drawer for me. Anything.”
“Just who in the hell do you think you are?” The box squawked back.
Stephen found himself distracted by the view, but when the young woman handed him a Kleenex box he gave a soft snort. “Is the door locked?”
She nodded an affirmative.
“Unlock it.”
She repeated the gesture.
“Don’t let anyone else in.” He hurried to get through the door, just in case Mr. Diamond had it in his mind to call release. As the door closed behind him he heard the lock reengage. “Sit down,” he told the fuming Mr. Diamond.
Mr. Diamond sat himself on the floor between his desk and the door. It looked as if he had been coming to confront Stephen personally. Now he sat on the floor like a child waiting for story time. Not that it was very far from the truth, all things being considered.
Stephen gave a chuckle. “Go sit in your desk chair.” He would have to be more careful with how he worded his commands. When Mr. Diamond sat down, Stephen took a seat in one of the plush leather chairs that sat on the opposite side of the large oak desk. “Let’s get down to business.”
Mr. Diamond just stared at him.
Stephen had begun to discovered that once he started throwing commands around, the person’s own personality seemed to lose traction in their minds. They became more like soldiers awaiting their next orders. It made him smile but did seem to take away from the fun in controlling banter. “Tell me I am handsome.”
“You are handsome,” Mr. Diamond echoed.
Stephen shook his head. The man had become a parrot. “Tell me, what is the largest amount that you have in one bank account?”
“I have ten million in my main account for the company.”
“Do you have checks for that, and do they have a limit?”
“I do, and they do not.”
“Perfect.” Stephen settled in a bit more. Today he would not be a loser. Today he would walk away a winner. “Write me a check for five million dollars. Write in the reason as being for a secret investment.”
Mr. Diamond opened his desk and withdrew a large black ledger. Inside he began to fill out a check.
“Tell me if anyone needs to sign off on these for them to go through.” Stephen got up as he noticed something beyond the man that had caught his attention.
“No. My company, my decisions.” The man spoke in a monotone voice that irritated Stephen.
“Good. Good.” He slid open a balcony glass door. Outside the wind gave a delightful howl as it moved across the building. Leaning over the edge he could see straight down to the tiny green canopy below. No safety glass. No netting. He doubted the rest of the offices had balconies, or even windows that opened. He had read that after the stock market crash, companies had started making it so their windows didn’t open. Too many depressed schlubs taking nose dives. Stephen guessed it was better than getting shivved by an angry bald black man between the weights and the basketball court. He slipped back inside just in time for Mr. Diamond to hand him a check. “Perfect.” He slipped it into his inner pocket, making sure to zip the pocket closed. It wasn’t like he couldn’t do this all over again if something happened, but he didn’t want to play this game again. The girl at the desk had set his mind to different tests of his abilities. “After I leave, I want you to return to normal. You will take three more meetings that are on your calendar. Then you will cancel the rest.” He paused. “Tell me, do you have booze in here somewhere?”
“Vodka in the cabinet.” He gestured to an ornate cabinet in the corner that held a host of trophies.
Stephen chuckled. “That’ll be the death of you.” He turned back to facing Mr. Diamond. “After you cancel the appointments, I want you to take four shots of that vodka. Then I want you to go outside onto the balcony and jump. Repeat back to me what I said.”
“Take three meetings. Cancel the rest. Drink four shots. Go to balcony and jump.” Mr. Diamond watched him with glazed eyes.
“Perfect. When I shut the door behind me, you will forget I was ever here.” He pulled on the door and found it unlocked easily. Once he closed the door behind him, he found himself greeted by the receptionist.
“Did you have a good meeting, sir?” She gave him a broad genuine smile.
“I made a killing,” he replied. He stifled a chuckle. He had started to become a bit much with the puns. But at least he wasn’t a loser. He patted his jacket pocket to remind himself. He was now a millionaire.
“Great. Shall I have the valet bring
your car around?” She had already picked up the phone.
Stephen had taken the bus here, but it sounded so professional to have someone call for his car, even if they would never find one. “Sure. Knock yourself out.”
The woman nodded. She set the phone down and stood up.
It was then that Stephen noticed her eyes had gone glazed. “Uh-“ He reached out to say something, but it happened so quickly.
The woman slammed her face down on the hard black marble desk. Her face rebounded off the smooth flat surface with such force that it rocked her head back. Blood spewed from her obviously broken nose as her eyes rolled up behind her eyelids and she crumpled to the floor.
From the desk, he could hear someone on the other end of the phone asking, “Hello? Valet. Hello?”
Stephen shook his head and hurried for the elevator. He suspected that this floor had cameras that would show he hadn’t attacked the woman, but he didn’t want to be found over an unconscious woman. Especially one he wasn’t even sure was alive. There was a great deal of blood pouring out of the woman’s face. Her long blonde hair covered her eyes so he wasn’t sure if they now had that sightless gaze or not. She had gone about her task with a vigor he would not have expected of her. “Shame,” he said as the doors to the elevator closed. Then he began to laugh. “I wonder if she broke the desk.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Going Over the Mountain
The elevator doors slid open, revealing the open expanse of the third floor. Eleanor Millie hummed a soft tune as she stepped onto the floor she would be in charge of for the night. Already, at a glance, she could see that over half the rooms sat quiet and dark, only the tell-tale beep of machinery to let her know they were occupied. She began to walk down one side, getting a feel for how the floor felt tonight.
She wasn’t twenty feet before Nurse Erica Henshaw fell into step with her, holding an electronic tablet in the crook of her elbow. “You look like you had a good night.” Her tone even, but the sideways glance said more than she did.
