by Theresa Weir
Lying in his palm was a fake gold ring. The kind of ring kids bought from gum machines, the kind whose size could be adjusted simply by squeezing.
Fresh doubt crept in.
Had the past five minutes been nothing but an act too? Had he finally fallen for her bullshit the way everyone else in town had?
He turned to go after Cleo, and his foot came in contact with the cold metal of the broken chain. He snatched it up and ran down the hall toward the living room.
She was gone.
Outside, heavy, icy raindrops hit him in the face, the sidewalk cold and wet under his bare feet.
He stopped and stared down the road. “Cleo!” he shouted into the darkness. “Don’t you want your ring?”
There was no answer. Only emptiness and the lonely patter of raindrops on the leaves above his head. He wouldn’t go after her. She would just elude him, the way she’d eluded him from the beginning. Maybe she did know something none of the rest of them knew. Maybe she could make herself disappear and appear at will.
He heard footsteps coming from the opposite direction and swung around, expecting to see Cleo emerging from the darkness. Instead, Beau appeared, Premonition at his heels, a smile on his face, the blue Tastee Delight cap turned backward. “Daniel!” he said, his voice holding joy at seeing his brother, as if Daniel’s presence were some remarkable treat. “What are you doing out here?”
Daniel curled his fingers around the ring. “Waiting for you,” he told Beau. “Waiting for you.”
Seeing Cleo’s dog-because he could only think of it as Cleo’s dog now-brought a fresh wave of misery to Daniel. Had he taken one of the only things she cared about?
Beau was too wired to sleep, Daniel too confused. Instead of going in the house, they sat in the wicker chairs on the front porch, Premonition at Beau’s feet, and listened to the rain.
Beau told him about all the hamburgers he’d prepared, and all the shakes he’d made, and how Matilda had let him clean out the shake machine after they closed.
Then he hit Daniel with something Daniel had never expected.
“If I had kids, would they be like me?”
Daniel’s heart almost stopped. He wiped a hand across his forehead, thinking fast. “Good-looking?”
Beau didn’t waver. “You know what I mean.”
Daniel did know what he meant.
The great security that came with growing up in a small town meant everybody had accepted Beau. Everybody liked him. Even though Beau knew he wasn’t like other people, Daniel had been thankful it had never seemed to bother him. Oh, there had been the time in second grade when Beau had been held back while his friends and classmates moved on. That had been tough.
In third grade it almost happened again. Instead, by some silent agreement, Beau moved on to the next grade with his new friends. He stayed with that class through middle school and high school, earning a diploma just like everybody else. That never would have been possible in a big city.
“Will they be different, like me?” Beau asked.
When Beau had a question, he wouldn’t let it go until he got a satisfactory answer, an answer he felt was fair. He would settle for nothing less than the truth. “When you were born, your oxygen was cut off for a little while. That changed something in your brain, so you have to work harder to learn things. But what happened wasn’t genetic. It isn’t something you have to worry about passing to your kids.”
That seemed to satisfy Beau.
A little later, when Daniel was lying in bed unable to sleep, his mind jumping from Cleo to Beau and back, a thought came to him. Was Beau thinking about getting married?
Chapter Twenty
Rain pounded the dark street, cooling the asphalt, running down Cleo’s face, plastering her hair to her head. She liked the feel of the cold rain on her skin, liked the way it absolved her of Daniel’s touch, erasing the imprint of his lips, his hands, his body. Why had she gone there?
You wanted him. You know you wanted him.
Yes.
As a child, she’d had urges to jump off high places. She’d wanted to experience the sensation of flight. But even at a young age she’d understood that there were risks involved. She understood that she could break a leg, or both legs. Or worse, die. You don’t jump off a high place just because you want to.
Down the block, a car turned her direction, twin headlight beams cutting through the rain. Cleo stepped behind a tree, hiding until the car passed. When it was gone, she returned to the edge of the road and continued walking in the direction of the motel.
Her feet slipped and squished in her sandals, and her jeans were heavy with the weight of the water. But she wasn’t cold.
At the motel, she dug the key from her bag and stuck it in the lock.
Why had she come back? Why didn’t she just keep walking? Walking until she was out of Egypt, out of Missouri.
You can’t walk away from your nightmares. You can’t walk away from your fears.
There had been a brief moment back there at Daniel’s when she’d forgotten who she was, when she’d forgotten the bad things, forgotten the dreams that haunted her and the guilt that stalked her. There had been a moment when she’d felt alive.
For someone who moved through her days trying not to feel, it had been a little like a rebirth, like being born all over again. Like so many things in life that were good, the feeling had lasted only long enough to leave her with an emptiness, a black, bottomless void that scared her.
She’d pushed him away. She was aware of that. But it was the only way she knew.
She stepped inside, closed the door behind her while flipping on the light switch-and let out a small shriek of alarm.
Dr. Campbell was lying on the bed, one hand behind his head, his feet crossed at the ankles. He wore a crisply pressed white shirt tucked neatly into a pair of belted dark jeans. On his feet were loafers and a pair of patterned socks. The soles of his shoes were barely scuffed.
“You scared me to death,” she said, hand to her heart.
He smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “That makes us even.”
“Excuse me?”
In one smooth motion, he swung his feet to the floor and sat up. “You’ve been scaring me.”
She tried to make sense of his words and failed. The plop-plop of water dripping from her hair and clothes measured out a steady beat, a foundation of confusion, of dreaded anticipation.
He got to his feet. “Don’t you know?”
She shook her head.
He mirrored the motion with a headshake of his own. “I tried to talk Jo out of hiring a psychic, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“I thought you were backing her up. You seemed so interested.”
“When I realized there would be no talking her out of it, I gave her my support. I expected you to spout a bunch of bull, take your money, and leave.”
He was mad because she hadn’t gone out with him. “It’s nothing personal,” she explained. “You’re just not my type.”
He waved her words away. “Then you started talking about barns and digging a hole. What did you see in that hole?” he asked. “Something scared you, didn’t it?”
“Nothing. I didn’t see anything.” She wouldn’t tell him about the pumpkin. She wouldn’t tell anybody about the smashed, broken pumpkin.
“I know you saw something.”
A thought, an image, flashed in her brain. It was like one of her dreams, but not a dream, because she was wide awake. A man. Holding a knife.
Drip, drip, drip. Blood hitting the carpet, falling on her feet.
The man in front of her had done something bad, something very bad, something he’d kept a secret for a long time.
“I don’t know anything.” She watched him with the intensity of a cat. When the moment came, she would fling open the door and run, all in one swift motion.
She watched him. Empty eyes in a face that was perfect angles, a face that should have been handsome, but wasn’t. She
watched him. Watched the lids droop to cover his pupils.
She spun and grabbed for the doorknob.
In the way of nightmares, her body became sluggish and heavy, and no matter how her mind screamed at her to run, her legs were no match for the quicksand.
She opened the door. A hand above her head shoved it shut. Campbell ’s body slammed into hers, smashing her against the door. Lights flickered in front of her eyes.
A knife came down. But then the knife changed, turning into something else. A hypodermic needle. She opened her mouth to scream. At the same time she felt the needle plunge into her neck.
The scream died in her throat. The only sound she could emit was a choking gasp, pain robbing her of air. This room-it had warned her from the beginning, foreshadowing this very moment.
She gulped at the stagnant motel air, but couldn’t seem to pull in an adequate supply. She sank. Down, down, to the orange carpet. Down, down, until she was lying in a puddle on the floor, her face against the abrasive, stinking orange she so hated and feared.
Dr. Campbell loomed over her, smiling his dead smile. He had something in his hands. The orange bedspread. He brought it over her head. She tried to struggle, tried to scream, but the darkness swallowed her.
“She’s gone.” Jo’s voice barked from the cell phone Daniel held to his ear.
Daniel turned left on Main Street, cruising at patrol speed. “Who?” he asked, even though he knew damn well who.
“Cleo! I went to the motel to pick her up this morning and she’s gone. Her suitcase. Everything.”
Daniel felt sick. Guilty. Responsible. But it wasn’t his fault, he told himself. She was an adult. He couldn’t feel responsible for everything and everybody, couldn’t blame himself for everything that happened.
“This is where you’re supposed to tell me you were right all along.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Good. Then while you’re on patrol, why don’t you swing by The Palms and pick up the bill? I was so upset this morning that I forgot to get it.”
“Sure.”
Daniel disconnected and hung a right, heading in the direction of The Palms.
Before getting the bill from Willie, he decided to stop at room six.
Empty, just as Jo had said. Cleo’s suitcase plus all of her clothes were gone. He checked the bathroom.
Except for a bar of soap in the shower, it was empty too. He checked the drawer next to the bed. The pill bottle was gone.
On his knees, he looked under the bed, expecting to find the bedspread where he’d stuffed it two nights ago. Instead he found nothing but a pair of orange curtains. He got to his feet and made another perusal of the room. No bedspread.
Ordinarily he’d just think she’d taken it. But she hadn’t wanted the bedspread anywhere close to her. You don’t swipe something you hate.
In the harsh light streaming through louvered windows that probably hadn’t been washed since Millie and Babe owned the place, the room looked tackier than ever. The stains on the carpet were more obvious. The walls were smeared with handprints, grease left by a million previous occupants. He’d been against Cleo’s coming, but Christ, why hadn’t they found her a decent place to stay? A room at somebody’s house or something.
He examined the space thoroughly, not really knowing what he was looking for. Every time he passed the bed, wet carpet squished under his feet. He spotted something on the door, and leaned closer.
It looked like dried blood.
It could have been there for years. For all he knew, this could be the room where the prostitute had been murdered.
He felt something hard under the sole of his boot. He backed up, then dug in the matted carpet. Caught under the orange fibers was a clear plastic cap, the kind used to cover the needle of a syringe.
It could have been there for years too.
He left the room, closing the door behind him. At the lobby desk, he found Willie. “I need a list of phone calls made from room six,” he said.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Willie said. “Invasion of privacy and all that.”
“Cut the crap,” Daniel said wearily. “Just get me the numbers.”
Willie went to the handprint-smeared computer and clicked a few keys. The printer hummed, then Willie tore off the paper and handed it to Daniel.
It wasn’t exactly a list. There were only two phone numbers on the paper-Daniel’s, and one with a Washington state area code. “Don’t clean room six,” he told Willie. Then he thought he’d better clarify that. “And don’t rent it to anybody.”
“That’s a waste of a perfectly good room,” Willie griped.
“The police department will pay for it.” Willie couldn’t refuse payment on a room nobody was using.
Back in the squad car, Daniel pulled out his cell phone and punched in the unknown phone number.
An answering machine. A man’s voice.
“You have reached the home of Adrian, Mavis, Macy, and Carmen Tyler. Please leave a message.”
Daniel hung up. Brother? Almost had to be.
What a strange feeling, to have made love to a woman he knew absolutely nothing about.
He started the car and headed for the police station.
Chapter Twenty-One
Drugs sang in Cleo’s veins. If she’d cared to lift her head, she couldn’t have done it.
So tired. But it was a good kind of tired, the kind of tired that was the door to oblivion, to a numbness that was deeper than the deepest sleep. That numbness welcomed her. It wrapped its arms around her, pulling her down…
Daniel took the steps in front of the police station two at a time, so preoccupied with Cleo’s disappearance that he didn’t see Burton Campbell until he almost smacked into him.
“Heard your psychic skipped town,” Campbell said.
“Maybe,” Daniel said curtly. The last thing he wanted was to chitchat with Campbell.
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“I’m not convinced she left of her own free will.”
Campbell ’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Yeah?” He aimed his eager Boy Scout curiosity at Daniel. “You think somebody made her leave?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who would do that? And why? I’ll bet she skipped town. She was a flake. A con artist. You said so yourself.”
“I don’t seem to recall you backing me up on it.”
Campbell shrugged.
“I gotta go. I’ve got some calls to make.”
“If you need any help, let me know.”
Cleo tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. Her body ached from lying in one position for so long. Her skin hurt.
She opened her eyes.
Total darkness.
She rolled to her stomach, stirring up the straw beneath her, along with the smell of age and mold and dead mice. She waited for the pain to subside before shoving herself upright on bare feet. Blindly she reached out, her fingers coming in contact with rough, weathered wood. Searching for a door, her hands moved over boards and seams and corners.
No door.
She must have missed it.
She felt the walls again, panic increasing with each step, with each turn, counting four walls, going around again.
No door.
She dropped to her knees and dug through the straw, sweeping it away until her fingers scraped cold, damp earth.
She was underground.
Daniel checked out the phone number he’d gotten from Willie and found it had a Seattle prefix. Now, in his office, he tried the number again. This time Adrian Tyler answered.
“This is Daniel Sinclair,” he began. “I’m a police officer in Egypt, Missouri.”
“Cleo,” the man said immediately, almost as if he’d been expecting Daniel’s call. “Something’s happened to Cleo.”
“Nothing’s happened,” Daniel said quickly, hoping to reassure him. “Are you her brother?”
“Yeah.” The panic was still he
avy in the man’s voice. “What’s going on? Is Cleo all right?”
“It looks like your sister left town before fulfilling her obligations, but I’m just making sure that’s all there is to it. Have you heard from her?”
“Not for several days. What do you mean, left town? You’re talking about my sister as if she’s running some kind of scam. Tell me what you know, tell me what’s going on.”
Daniel told him about the empty motel room, leaving out the blood and syringe cap since he didn’t know if there was any connection.
“Cleo wouldn’t just leave without good reason. There had to be some reason. Something you’re not telling me.”
Daniel thought about the night before, about how upset Cleo had been when she’d left his house. He should have gone after her. “There were some reasons, things I won’t go into right now, but I know she wanted to leave. It was no surprise to find her room empty.”
“She would have called. She always leaves a number where she can be reached.”
“If you hear from her, call me,” Daniel told him. He gave him three different phone numbers, then hung up.
Cleo heard scraping, like the sound of wood being dragged across wood. Suddenly the hatch above her head creaked open and light seeped into the small, underground room. Her heart beating frantically in her chest, Cleo played dead as she lay on the floor, watching from under her arm as a ladder was lowered.
Burton Campbell climbed down the ladder. He wore the same shiny shoes he’d worn in the motel room, the same dark jeans. He bounced a little when his feet hit the straw, and he made a rustling sound as he approached.
“Cleo?” The voice was near, just a few inches away. He shook her arm. He slapped the side of her face. He rolled her to her back.
She moaned, but didn’t open her eyes.
Let him do something stupid. Let him make a mistake.
“I brought you some clothes.”
She heard the rustle of a paper bag.
“And something to drink.”
