by Alex Hughes
Two more turns and we’d be at Cherabino’s.
“Thanks for driving me,” I told Bellury.
He brought the car to a complete stop at the sign. “Couldn’t exactly let you take a cop car out by yourself.” He looked at me. “’Sides, I didn’t have anything better to do this afternoon anyway. Good day for an errand. You good for clothes? We need to go out again?”
I was looking out the window, trying to see Cherabino’s house. Huh? Um, there was…“I could probably use another couple of undershirts.”
“Maybe we’ll pick those up on the way back, then.”
For the next few minutes, Bellury started humming an out-of-tune country song as he drove. He kept humming it all the way up Cherabino’s street and as he parked on the right side of the street in front of her house, a little bit down from her parked car. He kept humming as we got out and started walking up the driveway.
About halfway up the driveway, he stopped humming.
Cherabino’s driver’s-side car door—opposite side from the street—was open. Just standing open.
I ran around the car, quickly, Bellury following. The car door was gaping like an open wound. There were a few small spots of red on the ground and the car window—blood?—and a couple of dents in the side of the car, like there’d been a struggle.
Worst of all, her purse lay half open, abandoned, on the ground.
My legs gave out. I crab-walked back, back, until my hands hit the grass of the next yard over. I kept looking at that scene, at the evidence left behind by my failure—at what I’d done at abandoning her, and worse, talking myself out of that feeling, letting it go this long—and fought dry heaves.
Bellury went over and checked her door, still locked. He rang the doorbell, waited. Nothing. He didn’t seem surprised.
Then he trotted back to the car. He opened the door while I sat there, unmoving, gave me an odd look, and then pulled out the radio. His presence in Mindspace was worried, worried and strangely calm, as if all his years of experience as a cop, a beat cop, an interviewer, and briefly a detective—as if all of them combined all at once into heavy, steadying weight.
I couldn’t hear the conversation, not with my ears, but in my mind I could hear him reporting the scene: It looked like an officer had been taken, probably alive. A few blood spots. Evidence of foul play.
The dispatcher started asking questions, and Bellury gave what answers he could. He looked at me when he ran out of details. I took a deep breath, looked back at the scene, and started feeding the answers he needed back into his mind.
He finally put the radio down and closed the door. Walked back to me.
Bellury thought about mentioning the pictures that had appeared in his head—the pictures that felt like me, somehow—but decided against it. It got the job done, and there was a hell of a job to do. “You’re going to have to pull yourself together, kid.”
Forensics was crawling all over the scene.
Paulsen took me aside, to a corner of the front porch. “You didn’t tell me you had a feeling.”
I had my arms crossed, doing my best to look annoyed instead of cold, too cold. “I told everybody about the vision. Didn’t seem to matter before—nobody did anything. Not for weeks. Just got obsessed with the aircar tracks and getting interview permission from the Guild.”
She pursed her lips. “There’s process. And you did have an incident.”
“That’s exactly it. You didn’t look like you were going to listen.”
She grabbed my face and turned my head toward her, very unexpectedly. For a long painful moment, our minds half merged. I saw how lonely she was, how badly she wanted a hug—a real hug—from somebody friendly, and her overriding sense of Responsibility. I saw her immediate, pressing need to find Cherabino; to catch Bradley; and her Duty, her greater Duty to the department and the city. After a second of adjustment, she looked me straight in the eye without letting go. I wasn’t getting off that easy.
Next time you make me listen, genius, she thought, knowing I would overhear it. And I could feel how much she meant it. Whatever it takes.
And then she let my chin go, her eyes narrowing.
I was too much of a trained telepath; I couldn’t just let it go. I opened my arms, small invitation to a hug.
She snorted and turned away, walking off the porch.
I put my arms down, awkwardly, feeling dumb. And responsible. We had to get Cherabino back. And she was right; I should have told her.
I should have made Cherabino stay. I should have made her listen, whatever the cost. This thing Bradley had out for me—well, it had to be personal, now. It had to be. Otherwise, why kidnap a cop? I had a bad feeling that this was a message to me, that this was my fault.
I wanted Satin. I wanted it all to go away. But it wouldn’t, and now I’d have to fix it or die trying. Perhaps literally.
I found a quiet corner in the back of Bellury’s car and tried to think. To calm down. But my mind kept unfocusing, like I was being pushed into a dense fuzzy cloud.
The second time I got wise and fought my way out. I sat, blinking at the light, trying to figure out what had happened. The link? It must have been the link.
“I think she’s drugged,” I finally told Bellury.
“Tell the lieutenant,” Bellury said.
The entire department moved into action as suddenly and completely as a kicked anthill.
Every cop in the force gathered in the main room, sitting on desks, standing around them, three and four deep. The pressure of all those buzzing, angry minds was giving me double vision and the beginnings of a pressure headache. But I had to fix this.
Branen was standing near the door, knowing he’d have to leave at any second for the press conference, but still wanting to show support. The head of Electronic Crimes was next to him.
Lieutenant Paulsen was standing at the front of the room. Or should I say, Paulsen was standing on top of the receptionist’s desk at the front, giving herself an extra three feet of height so everybody could see her.
Paulsen held up a finger on each hand and brought them together. “Focus, people. We’ve got an officer to find and a case to solve, in that order. And we all know that every hour here hurts our chances of getting our girl back. So, let’s move.”
She started handing out assignments, pointing to sections of the crowd as she came to them. “We all think this is related to the multiples case, but just in case it’s not…” She put about fifteen people on tracking down likely suspects from Cherabino’s other open cases. Then another five on various old grudges—Cherabino had been a cop for a while, and a good one; she’d made enemies. Paulsen put one mean, hulking ex-military cop on the issues around Cherabino’s husband’s death. Then she portioned up the rest of the room on following up Cherabino’s movements over the last few days, her electronic work, and every conceivable angle of the serial case.
“If you have an assignment, go ahead and get started,” she said. “The rest of you, come up a little closer.”
People scattered; I stayed back, trying to take advantage of the momentary clear space in the room.
As the room tightened up around her, Paulsen accepted Brown’s help down from the desk. Then she addressed the remaining dozen or so officers. “The fastest way to find Cherabino may be to find our perps. As of this morning, the multiples case is our highest priority—now, just behind getting our officer back. The captain is on the phone right now getting help from additional zones to search door to door if necessary. What we need to do,” she said. “What we need to do is get these guys off the street and hope they lead us to Cherabino. The profiler thinks it’s likely they’ve taken her as retaliation for the bad press lately, or for her searching the killer’s apartment. Maybe she got too close.”
She fielded a few questions and then portioned up a hell of a lot of investigative work between the right four detectives. Then she said, “You, you, and you,” pointing to the three department lawyer-types. “Find me a way
around this Guild jurisdictional crap so we can talk to his coworkers. Invent something.” She overruled an objection. “We have an officer’s life on the line. Find me a way.”
Lieutenant Paulsen then identified four of the remaining five. “You all are ex-military, ex-tactical, that sort of thing. I’m asking you to come back and give us some additional support for today’s raid. It’s not mandatory, but we could be facing Guild training on the other end with only a couple Guild telepaths as support in kind.” After a few questions, all four buzz-cut military types agreed.
She dismissed them, then turned to the last guy and me, waving us forward. My head was spinning from all the decisions made so quickly.
I realized suddenly that the other guy was Andrew, Cherabino’s cubicle neighbor, and that he had a slight Ability. I didn’t understand how I hadn’t realized that before. Was I not paying enough attention?
“Andrew, I need you to do your finance thing and find the money moving here. This is our primary interviewer—I’m sure you’ve heard of him—for the interview transcript I already gave you. He’s also ex-Guild. So if you run into any trouble, or want to get subtext, this is the guy to talk to. He also has access to the case files.”
“We’ve met,” Andrew said.
I nodded. “Most of the information is at Cherabino’s cubicle. I have the codes to her computer.”
Neither Andrew nor Paulsen asked me where I got them, and I didn’t volunteer.
“I’ll meet you there, then,” Andrew returned.
He reached over, touched Paulsen on the shoulder—probably not even realizing why, just knowing on some level that she needed it—and headed in that direction.
Paulsen had actually just treated me like a real person, no accusations, no mistrust, no warnings. Suddenly I was nervous. “What exactly did you see in my head?” I asked her.
She laughed out loud. Hard. “That self-obsessed, are we?” Then she laughed some more, calming slowly. She shrugged. “Get out of your head for the next few hours. We’ve got an officer missing. I’ve already got people covering every angle I can think of. It’s your job to cover the ones I can’t. Pull strings at the Guild, read minds, do hocus-pocus crap in the conference room for all I care. But find her. Get her back in one piece. Preferably, before any of us have a chance to finish the to-do’s I just handed out.”
I shifted uncomfortably, feeling like I had to say something. “I—”
“Question?”
“Well, no…”
“Then get to work. The SWAT team leaves in less than an hour, and we need to be ready.”
CHAPTER 24
I talked to Andrew, went over my notes and the files, called Kara. I even called Sanchez, the detective from the scene behind the hardware store—the warehouse was on the south end of his territory.
After that, I was out of things to do.
So, I locked myself in the coffee closet, turned off all the lights, made sure there was a sign posted outside to keep people away. I sat in the darkness and took a breath. I was going to try to find Cherabino the creepy way. I was going to do what I’d promised her in the beginning I’d never do—use our interactions, our connection, against her. The exact opposite of “keep your hands and mind to yourself.”
Our link—that slow-growing link I’d been worrying about for weeks—was a blessing now. I could find her mind no matter where she was. I didn’t know if she would trust me enough, now, to let me rummage around in her mind, to get the physical location. But I had to try.
I thought of Cherabino. Beautiful Cherabino, strong, angry, quiet, sad Cherabino. The woman who’d brought greenhouse-grown lilies to her husband’s grave. The one who’d taught me that being beaten up wasn’t the end, and how to fight back. The woman who’d dragged me kicking and screaming into a healthy life, again and again, with no regard for the consequences to herself. The woman who’d called me a failure and meant it. Cherabino in the living room with the silky robe, her hair loose and beautiful, her body…I moved that one aside. Cherabino.
And I found her. Her. Still half drugged. Her mind was fuzzy, slow, and her cheek hurt. Her ribs hurt. And the duct tape around her wrists was pulling at the tiny hairs on her arm, which ached. But the pain was good; the pain was slowly bringing her back into herself.
The whole world smelled sickeningly sweet; if she hadn’t been so fuzzy, she would have thrown up. She’d been trying to put a name to the smell, for an interminable time, trying to put a name to it. She thought…chloroform.
She’d been drugged with chloroform, and she couldn’t quite open her eyes.
Where are you? I asked.
Where am I? she echoed, fuzzily, fuzzily.
The hard surface under her check had little bits of something on it—gravel? I suggested—maybe gravel—one of which was pushing right into the bruise on her cheek. Her hip had something else digging into it, and the sprawl of her legs was starting to make her back ache. Getting old, she thought fuzzily.
Her mouth was a little open, and when she breathed in, she breathed in dust. It tasted of chloroform and fine chalky dirt, the gray stuff. It tasted metallic, too, like there was something else in the dirt. She couldn’t tell what past the taste of the chloroform.
Oh, hello. She realized there was someone else here—she knew it was me before she even registered telepath. Hi. Can’t get up right now. Have to carry me.
I’m not really there, I told her.
Don’t really hate you.
I paused on that one. I tried to figure out whether that was her or the drugs talking, and decided it didn’t matter. Not right now. Where are you? If she knew where she was, this would be so much easier.
Not Georgia dirt, not red. Tastes bad. Don’t know.
How did they take you?
Suddenly, a flash of a furious struggle. Hatred. Embarrassed. She hadn’t seen them; so angry. Dropped her purse on the driveway—they ran in. Furious struggle, judo, elbows, teeth, anything—them slamming her against the car. Hurt. Fight, fight!—but they had the drug. She had to breathe, and the fuzzy air rushed over and over and she was gone.
Embarrassed. Her cheek hurt.
I found you with the link, I said, feeling obligated to say it. I’m going to need you to cooperate—let me find your location from your mind.
The link? Anger. Too close. Out of my head!
I can’t, I’m sorry. We need to find you—you need to let me find you. I’m not going to hurt you, not like this. Is it Bradley who took you? Did he take you to the Guild? To the warehouse? Somewhere else?
Just woke up. You can’t…You can’t…
Above the fuzzy chloroform thoughts, beyond the pain of the rock digging into her hip, she heard a sound. A voice, two voices. I paused to listen, hoping they’d give me the information I needed.
“You kidnapped a cop? How could you—”
“She knows too much. Bitch was sniffing around the warehouse this morning. Same bitch at the apartment—they’re taunting me. He’s taunting me. She was thinking about him the whole time, pretending to be angry with him. I couldn’t just let her snoop around, could I? And Golden Boy needs to be taught a lesson.” A man’s voice, annoyed, sharp. Vaguely familiar.
A shuffle as the woman took a step forward. “A lesson? What, you kill her, just to get back at him? This is stupid. She’s a cop. They’re not going to stop until they find her.”
“So what? We just need a couple of days, then we’re out of town. Doesn’t matter what they know. The Darkness has teeth. We’ll be fine.”
“This is stupid, Jason. We need to get rid of her—alive—and get the hell out of town. On our own.”
So it was Bradley. Good, where were they?
“And turn down the money? I’m not walking away. Not going to let you walk away. Remember what happened to Neil, Tina. Remember. Two days and we’ll be scot-free.”
The woman’s voice lowered in volume and took on a soothing tone. “I’m not fighting. I’m not walking away; I’m in this just
as much as you are. I just want to know what we’re going to do if they find us. Just a plan. That’s all I’m asking for.”
His voice was angry. “I’m tired of talking to you. They won’t find us. Our guy at the Guild won’t let them. Two days, we load up the trucks. That’s what we’re going to do. And you can either go along with it, or…”
“I understand,” the woman said in a very small tone. “Can we at least move the cop somewhere else?”
Bradley made a frustrated noise, and footsteps sounded, closer and closer. A boot crunched gravel right by Cherabino’s ear. I shivered, feeling her fear increase through the link.
Cherabino was lifted by two blocks of fuzzy force. She was confused—it didn’t feel like hands, like feet, like arms. She was panicking. Telekinesis, I told her, recognizing the feeling from too many student pranks. Calm down. The more you struggle, the worse it gets. Calm down. Let me in. We have to find where you are!
Hauled up against a body—thin, a man—Cherabino gasped with rage as he grabbed her breast. She struck out; still weak from the drug, still blind, but improving. Bastard!
Let me in, I repeated. Should I force it?
“Stop that,” the man said, and struck her—pain!—across the cheek. The same cheek from before. Tears rolled. The voice was Bradley’s.
I decided to pull at the information….
Meanwhile the man got a better grip on her, and suddenly…
The whole world turned inside out like an Escher staircase. Immense, unthinkable pressure. Cherabino gone. My mind ripping, pulled a hundred directions at once, pressure, pulling, Möbius strip turning inside out and crushed—until…
I dropped forward out of the chair and vomited on the clean linoleum floor.
I breathed, on my hands and knees, tasting sour bile, back in the “real world,” while Mindspace wobbled and settled around me. Then, all at once, the headache hit me like a gale-force hurricane.
