by Andrew Mayne
Gladys’s eyebrow shoots up. “I see.” Her tone is chilling. “If I’m no longer needed here, then I guess I should be going home. Give my regards to her family. Again.” The last word punctures the air like a knife.
Gimbal chases after her to try to calm her down. It’s obvious she feels like she’s on trial here. I reach her first. I can see the hurt in her eyes.
She turns to me. “Who are you?” The question is cold and clinical. I feel like I’m on her autopsy table, about to be dissected.
“Special Agent Jessica Blackwood. But that’s not important.” I try to find the right words. “We need your help. There are two murders here and a killer to catch.”
Shannon is just over my shoulder. “We haven’t established that it’s a murder investigation yet.”
I wheel around to him. “Of course it is. You have two murders. The one two years ago and the one of this girl. The real question, besides who did this, is which girl was the real Chloe McDonald.”
I’m speaking my gut. It’s the only logical conclusion. Someone has to say it.
Shannon is about to say something, then stops. The words are soaking in.
Gladys’s expression softens a millimeter when she realizes I’m not attacking her.
To be perfectly honest, I spoke without thinking. I’m missing something. We’re watching a magic trick, but only seeing part of it. There’s something more. The Warlock wanted us here to see this. He probably stood right where I’m standing, just a few hours ago. Everything is planned. From the code on the FBI computer, the two killings two years apart, to this moment. We’re his intended audience. The show is only getting started.
I turn around as two county techs are preparing to pull Chloe’s body out of the ground.
Something is wrong.
I scream, “Stop!”
8
ALL EYES ARE on me. A deputy reflexively puts his hand on the butt of his gun. I sound like I’m insane. My voice is shrill and panicked.
I ignore the looks and run back to Chloe’s body.
“Just step back,” I tell the techs in a calmer voice.
They set down their plastic shovels and move away from the body, not sure if I’m making a threat. One of them looks for a supervisor to tell them how to handle the crazy woman yelling at them.
“What the hell, Blackwood?” Agent Shannon’s face is red with fury as he runs over to us.
“The body.” I point to her as I try to find the words to explain. “There are only two possibilities. It’s either Chloe McDonald or another girl. Either way, we know this girl only died a few hours ago. But we’re supposed to think that this is the same girl who died two years ago, yet miraculously came back to life and crawled out of her grave. Which we know is bullshit. We know it’s not Chloe.”
Shannon shakes his head. “How?”
I point to her bloody fingers. “Because her fingerprints would show us that. That’s why he made it look like she shredded them climbing out of the ground. So there wouldn’t be any. It’s misdirection. It’s the weakest part of the illusion, so he eliminated it.”
Something is still nagging at me. It’s the easiest way to explain why they shouldn’t touch the body. I still haven’t wrapped my mind around what’s really going on here. It’s bigger. So much bigger . . .
“The blood matched.” The ponytail tech’s voice is almost condescending.
I spin around. “So what? How much blood did you find in Chloe when you pulled her out of the bay? What do you want to bet we’ll find an IV somewhere on her body if we look closely enough. Maybe even inside a body cavity. Whoever killed Chloe took blood from her so he could put it in this girl’s veins.”
It’s just a theory, maybe one of many, but I have to stall them.
Gladys is shaking her head. “But we’d figure this out during an autopsy.”
I bite my lip as I stare down at Chloe’s, or whoever’s, face. It’s still screaming silently. “I know. He knows that. That’s why he doesn’t want it to happen. If it does, it destroys the illusion.” I step back and point to the body. “If it were me, I’d do something to the body. Rig it so that when you moved it, after you got the effect, it would somehow destroy the evidence. If it’s not her body, he doesn’t want us to find that out.”
Gimbal doesn’t even hesitate. Put in simple terms of bombs and booby traps, he gets the point. “Everyone step back.” He raises his radio to his mouth. “Get the bomb squad here stat!” He looks back at me.
I nod. “It might not be a bomb. Something.” I turn to Gladys. “What would you do?”
She’s about to speak but stops at the sound of rushing air. The fake Chloe’s mouth emits a rumbling sound and orange sparks begin to shoot out. Her cheeks glow bright red and thick smoke pours from her lips and nostrils. Instantly, her whole body is engulfed in flames and turns into an inferno. We all leap back as it blazes into a fireball.
I shield my head with my arms and try to avoid the heat. I take Gladys’s hand and pull her away. She’s too stunned to move. The fire spits up into the gray sky, raging twenty feet into the air. A pillar of smoke climbs even higher.
I throw my jacket on the body, only to watch it melt in seconds. Shannon pulls me back as a fire crew rushes from the street with extinguishers and starts spraying.
Gladys snaps out of her shock. “Use the chemical extinguishers and watch for acid burns!”
A fireman nods and runs off to get more equipment. They fight it for several minutes. Despite the foam, the body continues to burn. Her face is a black cinder. A ghastly angel spewing dark smoke and fire. The dried flesh turns to ash and begins to disintegrate in the wind.
The plume is a hellish spire reaching into the sky. Cameramen across the street climb on top of their news vans to film the conflagration.
I look at Gladys and can tell what she’s thinking. There will be some forensic evidence left. Maybe enough to prove there could have been another girl, but not enough to prove this wasn’t Chloe’s body. Even her parents were fooled.
And that’s the point of this cruel illusion.
Uncertainty.
To plant doubt in people’s minds.
The magician never wants you to look into his pocket or up his sleeve. Great illusionists would take axes to their old equipment before they’d give a rival a chance to dig through the trash pile in the alley in back of the theater and steal those secrets for their own.
The Warlock needed to make his deception perfect. If we had absolute proof the girl wasn’t Chloe, he’d just be another charlatan. He wanted us to watch as he destroyed the illusion before our eyes. Even still, something is missing . . .
Grandfather used to call it the long burn. It’s a setup within a setup. It’s how you fool the smartest ones in your audience. It’s the kind of thing you do to destroy just one person. It was how he bested his rivals.
I’m letting myself get too distracted and forgetting the present. I need to focus on the here and now. We’re still in the middle of the Warlock’s show.
Shannon turns from the fire and squints at the buildings around the cemetery. We’re all having the same thought. Someone is watching us. The fire could have been live-triggered.
At the back of the cemetery there’s an ivy-covered fence. Just beyond is a row of warehouses. I’m sure the police cleared the area, but there’s something too convenient about the location. Shannon notices me looking in that direction.
I almost miss the figure at first. Hard to see against the night sky, there’s an outline of someone lying flat on the roof of a building.
I’m about to suggest that we quietly call it in to the local police when Shannon shouts, “You on the roof, freeze!”
I don’t wait to see if they follow orders. I know he’s about to bolt. I take off running to try to reach him before he has a chance to climb down and get away.
Shannon and Gimbal are behind me, far behind me, by the time I make it to the fence.
I thank God for yoga as I slip my body over the top ra
il and land in a crouch without hurting myself. I should wait for them to catch up, but time is everything.
I slip my Glock from my holster and run to the other side of the building. Footsteps echo from the alley. I can’t tell if they’re running away or running toward me.
9
THE WATCHER WHO was on the roof can only be a few hundred feet away. On the other side of the building I reach a narrow alley between the warehouse and a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Wild grass and torn-up garbage bags litter the empty lot on the other side.
The sun has set and the alley is lit only by stray streetlights and the dark silver sky, hiding the moon. My knee bangs into a broken crate that slams into a metal Dumpster. I have to keep my eyes on the ground to avoid tripping on the abandoned machinery.
I can’t see anyone moving, but I decide to shout anyway. “Freeze! FBI!”
I’m answered by the sound of wind whipping at tattered newspapers. I step forward, keeping my gun trained on the darkest corners. I know I saw someone on the roof, I just don’t know who. It could be our perp or some kid who wanted to get a better look and was scared off by Shannon’s shout. I proceed carefully, more afraid of shooting an innocent person than for my own safety.
My eyes adjust a little to the shadows. I can’t see where anyone could be hiding. The rusty door on the loading dock looks as if it hasn’t been opened this century. I continue along and hear the sound of Shannon climbing over the fence. The metal makes a rattling sound, followed by a groan as he lands.
He catches his breath and shouts to me, “Anything?”
I keep my eyes trained ahead. “Negative.”
I reach the end of the alley without seeing a thing. At the back end of the warehouse is a fire escape leading to the roof. Gimbal approaches from the other side with his gun leveled at the ground.
The street in front is empty. Rain-filled puddles are still rippling from the drizzle. Across from us are a few more buildings like this one and a trailer park several blocks over that we passed on the way in.
The wail of squad cars grows louder as they try to cordon off the area. I think we’re too late. I holster my gun and look up at the ladder. The rungs are rusty. It’s doubtful they’ll get a print off of it. But I decide not to climb up. I don’t want to chance it. Besides, they might get something from the metal sidings on the top.
Gimbal holsters his gun too. “You sure you saw someone?” he asks us.
Shannon nods.
“I know, I’m positive,” I reply. “I saw the shape and watched it move.”
Gimbal scratches his chin. “Could it have been a bird?”
Shannon and I ignore the question. His eyes scan the ground and come to a stop. Almost invisible in the darkness, it’s little more than a triangle.
Shannon squats, takes a pair of tweezers from his pocket and holds the object up to the street light. Blue cardboard, torn at the edge. He gives me a look. We both recognize it. I use the same brand.
“What?” asks a confused Gimbal.
“Memory card packaging,” I explain. “Everything was being recorded.”
Gimbal finally understands. “Reporter?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe our perp. Maybe a gawker.”
Shannon stands up and takes another suspicious glance across the street. “We need to check with all the drugstores around here. If they needed to get a card, it means they probably filled up the other one.”
A cold wind blows down the street as a police car races by. The rain has soaked through my sweatshirt. My FBI jacket is somewhere in the cemetery, a pile of ashes on a corpse.
Shannon makes a gesture to give me his jacket. I wave him off. I’ve dealt with worse. Cold doesn’t bother me. It’s only a sense. When Grandfather and Father first refused to teach me how to perform escapes, telling me that I was too young and that it wasn’t appropriate for a girl, they found me later that night in a motel bathtub, half frozen from all the ice cubes I’d packed in there to practice an endurance stunt.
“We either teach her, or we have to come up with a convenient explanation for her suicide,” Grandfather had remarked after they dragged me out of the tub.
I look back at the roof and think about the fact that we were being watched the whole time. Our reactions, everything. Somebody was studying us.
I hope there’s enough evidence in the body to tell us if it was a timed fire or something remotely activated. If it was done by remote, then I’d bet everything on our voyeur being the Warlock.
The problem is that he would be cutting things very close. He’s seemed smart so far, why would he risk being this near to us? One of the first things investigators do is scan the scene for potential suspects.
Maybe it’s the thrill.
Or maybe it’s part of a bigger deception. He might just want us to think he’s that predictable. I’m overthinking things, but I can’t get the idea of the long burn out of my head.
Gimbal calls into his radio for someone to come bag the piece of cardboard. Shannon and I walk back to the fence, still the shortest path to the cemetery. He asks if I need a hand over the fence, but I’m already on the other side before the words leave his mouth.
A moment later he lands next to me, trying to hide the fact that he’s out of breath.
“Yoga” is all I can say.
Fire crews have managed to put the blaze out or it burned itself out. Gladys is still standing there, trying to make sense of it. As I get closer I can see her eyes are scrutinizing every detail. The fire marshal says something to her and she nods her head.
There’s an acrid tang in the air. “Potassium permanganate?” I ask.
She nods. “You study chemistry?”
“No. Only the kind that makes pretty flames.” Our garage was filled with many wonders for a child. Magic cabinets, costumes, props from a dozen different shows. My favorite part had been the workbench where my father has tinkered away on projects. Next to the tools and cans of paint was a rack of chemical compounds used to make puffs of smoke and magic flashes. Through trial, lots of error, and dog-eared science textbooks that belonged to Grandfather when he was a boy, I learned the basics of chemistry.
Her face has a pained expression. “I think he probably filled the poor girl’s stomach with the stuff and the body with glycerol.” She shakes her head at what’s left of the body. “Wants to make it look like spontaneous human combustion or something equally ridiculous.” She waves her hand at the body. “Of course, it’ll just be our word against theirs.”
“Theirs? Who do you mean?” I ask.
She points to the masts of the television trucks. “The people who want to believe this sort of thing. The ones that think you can talk to the dead or that ghosts are real. My niece even watches that garbage. We’ll try to explain what we think happened, but they won’t listen. I’m sure some of them will even accuse us of trying to destroy the body to hide the truth they think we’re hiding.” She gives me a frustrated look.
I don’t know what to say. In my mind it’s clear, or at least mostly clear, what we saw. But I think I understand. The Warlock only needs to create enough doubt. Tomorrow’s headlines are going to be filled with news about a dead girl crawling out of her grave and then erupting into flames in front of an army of helpless FBI agents. It’s a story too sensational to ignore.
The discussion is going to be about what happened. Not why. A girl was murdered just hours ago but the story is going to be on whether or not we’ve witnessed a miracle.
It’s a dirty, evil, vile trick.
The Warlock turned one girl’s death into a publicity stunt, killing another.
I search the rooftops again for any sign of someone watching. I know he’s long gone, but part of me still has that feeling that I’m being watched. This dark show has only started.
10
OUR JET LEAVES Michigan a little past 4 a.m. When I check my phone there’s a message from my ex-boyfriend. He’s in from New York and wants to know i
f I want to grab a late dinner.
I send him an e-mail explaining why I couldn’t return his call and tell him maybe next time. Secretly, I’m thankful I didn’t have to turn him down over the phone. Our breakup was long and awkward. A campaign fund-raiser for a New York senator, he seemed like my workaholic match until I caught him reading the CNN closed captioning in the middle of sex. I may not be the most imaginative girl in the bedroom, but I have to draw a line somewhere.
By the time we land, there’s already a meeting scheduled for later that day to fill in the rest of the bureau on what happened. I make it home long enough to get a shower and take a three-hour nap. While I change into something more suitable for the office, I watch the news for the media reaction from yesterday.
What should be a quiet Sunday morning is filled with high-def video of the flames from the body over the iron gates of the cemetery. The fire looks like a stretched-out tornado as it twists into the sky and ends in a dark plume of smoke.
Photos are already popping up online. Some people saying they can see ghastly images and spectral eyes looking down on them. A commentator flicking through different images calls attention to the most striking ones. I have to admit that some of the freeze frames are ominous-looking. No matter what I know about statistics and psychology—you’re bound to get some photos that can be anthropomorphized into faces—it doesn’t change my emotional reaction when I see a dark skeletal image leering at the camera.
I send a quick e-mail to Ailes while I put on my makeup, something I never learned properly until a college roommate showed me how. All I knew up until then was show makeup, designed for bright lights and big theaters. I used to either look like a drag queen or wore none at all. Now I go for a simple not-made-up-unless-you-look-closely style. It takes just as long as anything else.
We’re so image-obsessed, if the Warlock really wanted to mess with us, it would be simple for him to Photoshop an image or digitally manipulate some video and then post it somewhere online. It would be the twenty-first-century way to leave a calling card.
