Rachel pointed at the little rocky chunks lodged into the milky skin. “That’s asphalt.”
“Indeed,” the coroner replied. “He is malnourished as well.”
Rachel noticed the boy’s yellow buckteeth, black and rotting at the root. She examined his tattered pants and bare feet with crooked, curling toenails. He looked like a POW.
Peak shoved his hands in his windbreaker’s pockets. “There are strong signs of captivity. That, or he’s homeless.”
“Unlikely,” Rachel replied. The quant town of Highlands didn’t have any homeless people, or at least anyone that the police didn’t already know about.
Suddenly, she felt a cold chill slither up the back of her shirt. She straightened her posture and felt thousands of little invisible hands pulling her to the dark cold water of the pond. Peak noticed her strange reaction but kept his mouth closed.
Rachel slowly approached the pond, feeling the Sense grow stronger and more oppressive. She found it harder to breathe the closer she got to the ice. Her vision tunneled. She walked around the rim of the deceptively deep pond, paying little mind to the shattered portion of the ice. Something prompted her to stop. Her olive-colored eyes scanned the frost-covered surface. A few feet away from her, a bubble drifted up from the abyss-like water just below the cracked, two-inch ice.
Another bubble rose.
There was something in the water, calling to Rachel. Wanting her to dive in.
With a thump, a pale face smashed against the other side of the ice.
Rachel took a step back.
The face was that of the cadaver, freckled and with sunken brown, veiny eyes and rotting buckteeth. Its long red hair drifted weightlessly in the water. A crack in the ice seemed to sever the man’s face in two as he tried to talk to Rachel from underneath the water. Bubbles escaped his tongue-less jaw.
3
Number One
Locking eyes with the submerged Orphan, Rachel knew she was Marked.
“Rachel!” Peak shouted.
Rachel broke her gaze and turned to her partner. He beckoned to the cadaver. Rachel glanced back to the pond.
The face was gone.
Rachel’s joints ached. She felt the eyes on her from every direction, but no one was looking at her. Hesitant, she left the dark, shattered pond in her wake and returned to the body. Gates had opened the cadaver's jaw, revealing the snipped tongue stub.
“A clean cut,” the coroner explained. “By the scarring, it happened years ago.”
“Disturbing,” Rachel said, distracted from the odd feeling that seemed to shake her to her core. She kept an eye out for the Orphan, though she only saw snow-covered trees and forensic photographers.
Flashing a mag light into the cadaver's mouth, Jenson seemed more intrigued than grossed out.
“Roll him over,” Rachel commanded the coroner, wanting to get a full profile of the body before they sent it to the morgue for a closer examination.
Gates lowered to his knees and very gently turned over the body. He cursed when he saw the scar on the boy’s back.
Peak’s eyes widened. “I didn’t expect that.”
Rachel covered her mouth. Everyone was treated to a clear look of the large number “1” carved into the body’s spine. The number was an inch and a half wide, a foot long and perfectly straight. Someone spent time carving this into his flesh.
A long shadow fell upon Rachel. She traced it to the standing, shirtless, twenty-something year old glaring at her, his brown irises surrounded by millions of red veins. His long red hair tumbled down his shoulders and mid back. A scar interrupted his left brow. He chattered his rotting teeth together and let out an angry groan. Rachel caught a whiff of his horrid stench and almost gagged. No air misted from his mouth. He was the cadaver in front of her, but seemingly so much alive.
She wanted to talk to him but couldn’t. Not with Gates and the other officers around. They would think she was crazy. The only person who believed her was Jenson, an atheist who only believed because he couldn’t discount Rachel’s investigative results.
Rachel gestured for Peak to follow and hiked up the slope away from the others. The Orphan walked so close behind Rachel, he practically stepped on her ankles. He stank of sweat and seemed to radiate cold air. Peak didn’t feel it, but he had worked with Rachel long enough to know there was a cause behind her neurotic actions.
When they were amidst trees and out of earshot from the other law enforcement officers, Rachel addressed the Orphan.
“I want to help you,” she declared. “But you need to tell me everything.”
The boy opened his mouth and groaned. He flexed his fist open and close.
“What’s he saying?” Peak asked uncomfortably.
“Nothing,” Rachel replied. This wasn’t the first time Rachel had dealt with a case like this. The Sight, or the ability to see the dead, could only see an Orphan in their final living state. For this nameless soul, that was cold, lost, leaking blood from his side, and silenced by the lack of a tongue. When she confronted the Highlands Roper many months ago, she had a similar issue with the victims’ crushed esophagi.
This felt different. Unlike the Roper, this murder wasn’t a buried memory forty years ago; this was yesterday while Rachel was drinking eggnog and hooch with her family. The scars on the boy’s body were years old. The number One, also an old wound, carved into his back could mean a million different things.
The horrifying revelation that the sick freak that did this was walking scot free struck Rachel like a lightning bolt.
She pulled out her notepad and pencil and put her years of artistic talent to practice as she drew the bucktooth Orphan standing in front of her. She captured his malnourished body, his wounds, the scars on his face and chest and whatever other minute detail may help with the case. She tried to keep her eyes on the stranger, knowing that he would vanish the moment she looked away.
Midway through the sketch, however, the boy took off in a sprint deep into the woods. Without hesitation, Rachel chased after him. Cold jets of air punched her face. She ducked below low-hanging bushes and hurdled over a felled tree. The Orphan’s movements were unpredictable and spastic, zigzagging through the trees. Peak followed after Rachel.
They passed by a tree stained with a bloody handprint.
“Call that in!” she commanded Peak.
The Orphan was much faster than he looked. Whenever he passed by a tree, he’d blink out of existence and then be seen sprinting out from behind another oak twenty feet away. The Orphan beelined for a drop off in the distance. He leaped from the tree line and vanished as he fell. Rachel kept going after him. She saw the ledge and used her heels to skid to a stop as a semi-truck raced by two feet from her face. Her raven-black hair swooshed over her eyes.
She glanced down the three-foot drop off and winding two-lane road climbing up the mountainside.
“Hello?” Rachel called out, resting her shoulder against the rough bark of a nearby tree.
The Orphan was gone. All she could see were mountain vistas rising and falling like mammoth waves.
What are you trying to show me? Rachel thought, trying to decipher the Orphan’s motives.
After a few minutes of looking around, Rachel shambled back to the crime scene. The body was in a bag and the forensic unit was making their final sweep.
By the size of the hand, the bloody print was made by the victim after he was shot. However, they had yet to find a shell casing.
At the Highlands Police Department, Rachel sipped a cup of steaming black tea in the back of the briefing room. With the two sets of rectangular plastic tables facing a whiteboard, projector, and podium, it had all the charm of a high school science class. Lieutenant McConnell stood in front with a pointer in hand. He was a tall man with long sideburns straight from the 1970s. His face was long but understanding. A golden band was wrapped around his ring finger. Most notably, he ran the precinct like a band teacher.
“I hope everyone’s having a
Merry Christmas,” McConnell said unenthusiastically.
A few groans and murmurs replied.
“I know the feeling, gang,” McConnell replied. “But while the rest of the world eats gingerbread houses and gets disappointing stocking stuffers, we’re obligated to our duty. So let’s find John Doe’s killer so we can be home for New Year’s. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” the crowd replied back.
“Fantastic. Let’s get started. Gates, tell me about Mr. body…”
Seated in the back, Rachel and Peak went through the motions of every high-priority case.
“Harroway, Peak, theories?” McConnell asked after Gates had finished.
Peak stood up and addressed the room. “The victim was chased and gunned down. Probably tossed into the water post-mortem. He appears to have been living in a hostile environment for months, possibly years. I’m guessing this was his failed grand escape. That, or he was released and hunted like game.”
A sickening silence lingered in the room. It was not a thought people wanted to have on Christmas
Peak sat down. Rachel rose from her seat and focused on the facts, “The number on his back is the most intriguing factor. We’ve gone through the serial killer database and found no signature that matches it.” She gestured to the photograph of the victim’s back. “This could either be the beginning of our killer’s spree, a countdown, or something else entirely. At this point, we have nothing definitive.”
“Keep working and that will change,” McConnell said optimistically. “That’s it for now, gang. Stay bundled up. The weather is only getting worse from here on out.”
Rachel and Peak reconvened in the bullpen. Both of their desks had old monitors and a stack of case files and months-late DNA reports. As a detective, Rachel never worked just one case at a time. She had four currently: a hit and run, domestic dispute where the husband was obviously the killer, the Jang case going to court, and this one. Rachel imagined this newest killing would take priority over all of the others.
She flipped through her sketchbook, skipping past the image of a strangled girl, a boy in a raincoat, etc., before stopping on the skinny man she had just encountered. Everything about him spoke of years of torment and depravity; mankind’s cruelty at its finest.
She glanced up, noticing Peak looking at her from his desk, the one directly ahead of hers. The rest of the bullpen was quiet and small.
“You should do that thing,” Peak said, bouncing a pencil in between his fingers.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” A pit formed in Rachel’s stomach.
“Do you want to work through New Year’s? Scratch that, I hate rhetorical questions. We are going to work the holiday if this isn’t solved.”
Rachel deadpanned. “It won’t matter if I’m dead.”
“I’ll pay for the whiskey,” Peak bargained.
Rachel groaned. The last thing she wanted to do was use the Reality, the third and most powerful aspect of her gift. Nonetheless, Peak made a good point. One glimpse at the killer and case closed. “Fine, but if I don’t come back up, my blood is on your hands.”
“I’m not forcing you to do it,” Peak replied earnestly.
“Sure, buddy.” Rachel stood up and slung on her leather jacket. “You taking me to the liquor store or what?”
Peak tossed the pencil on his desk and stood up. He gestured for her to go first. “I’m serious though. This isn’t peer pressure.”
“Uh huh,” Rachel replied with a flat tone.
For all the years they’d known each other, they’d always had a somewhat antagonistic relationship. Nonetheless, Rachel wouldn’t want anyone else watching her back when things went sour.
“Medical Examiner” was on the carved sign outside the inviting and well-maintained coroner's office. Though it was winter, an air conditioner chilled out the interior. Everything smelled sterile within white-washed walls footed by glossy tiles. Rachel had two shots of whiskey in her before she passed through the glass doors. For some unknown reason, she learned the Gift worked better while intoxicated. That kept her away from the drink most days, seeing how the Gift wasn’t something one just turned on and off. The more she used it, the stronger it grew and, if she wasn’t careful, she would start seeing Orphans everywhere. The only remedy was a smoothie made from a rare blend of roots and herbs that were toxic on their own. In most homicide cases, Rachel would hold off on drinking her smoothie until the killer was behind bars.
With an outstretched arm, Gates held open the door for the examination room. He wore blue scrubs. His thin white hair was combed over the bald spot on his head. He eyed Rachel and Peak as they stepped inside and then closed the door behind them.
The body lay on a metal slab. A sheet covered him fully, giving him a mummy-like appearance. A number of body lockers were built into the wall. There was a desk nearby that supported a neatly organized stack of files.
Gates fished out a few disposable gloves from a tissue box and handed them off to Rachel and Peak.
The plastic felt chalky and dry against Rachel’s skin.
“Any identification?” Rachel asked, pulling back the sheet from the cadaver’s face. His eyes were half closed, his jaw was slack, and his sunken skin was the color of old milk.
“No. I checked under his fingernails, in his throat, and other orifices. Nothing. No sign of sexual assault either. However, he did suffer extreme physical abuse days before his death. Most of the bruises were on the torso and thighs. By the scarring on his body, it wasn’t the first time. We’re calling him Number One.”
Number One, Rachel let the name sink in. A human being reduced to a number. It was a nauseating thought.
“Got a confirmed age?” Rachel asked.
“As I said before, somewhere between 19-27.”
“That’s a big age gap,” Peak pointed out.
The coroner agreed. “It’s hard to determine exactly, but he still has wisdom teeth.”
“Do you mind if Peak and I examine the body?” Rachel asked, keeping her gaze on the smiling cadaver.
“I do, actually,” the coroner replied. “I seem to remember you had a seizure the last time I left you alone with a cadaver.”
“And I appreciate you not telling the lieutenant,” Rachel replied, recalling the Highlands Roper case when she used the Reality to see Maxine Gunther’s death. Even though that Orphan had passed on, Rachel still felt an odd connection to the teenage girl. Almost like Rachel had lost part of herself when the girl passed on. Being the only person Rachel knew who had the Gift, apart from her mother, she was unsure of the spiritual implications of experiencing such an intimate connection with an Orphan. The physical consequences of the Reality were much easier to comprehend: it felt like skiing on the fringes of death.
“Our methods are strange, but we get the job done,” Peak said. “You don’t want to spend New Year’s embalming corpses.”
Gates eyed him suspiciously.
“Five minutes,” Rachel said.
Gates directed his scrutinizing gaze at her. “No funny business--”
“Thank you.”
“And don’t touch my body.”
“Scout’s honor,” Rachel lied.
Gates didn’t seem convinced, but he locked his doubt behind pursed lips. Without a word, he stepped out of the room.
“I wonder what he must think of us?” Rachel thought aloud.
“He probably thinks you’re a freak,” Peak said apathetically.
Rachel crossed her arms and raised a brow. “And you’re the epitome of normality?”
Peak shrugged. “Perhaps.”
They stared each other down. A smile broke through Peak’s demeanor.
Rachel removed the plastic glove from her right hand. Her palm trembled slightly, feeling the outerworldly pull to the body.
She noticed an old man with bile at the corner of his mouth and a large woman with a tilted head pacing about the room. They murmured nonsensical words. Rachel averted her eyes. The last th
ing she needed was for more Orphans to Mark her. Once that happened, there was no way to get rid of them until their case was closed. Don’t take on too much responsibility, she told herself, yet felt convicted each time she neglected an Orphan, no matter how pressing the other priorities in her life were.
Taking a deep breath, Rachel placed her palm on the cadaver’s forehead. Its cold, clammy skin kissed her own, but she didn’t pull away no matter how disgusting it felt.
“That’s odd,” Rachel said, not feeling the Sense anymore. “It’s not working.”
Everything went black.
The sound of tires on the road filled Rachel’s ears.
The black box rumbled as the vehicle moved under Rachel’s feet, only she wasn’t herself, but a nameless boy with a cramping stomach, freezing body, and raging headache.
A small light breached through the gap at the bottom of vertical sliding door. Number One clawed at it like a dog in his cage. The gate’s latch wouldn’t hold, Number One knew. He had spent weeks loosening the latch’s bolts with his bare fingers when Father allowed him to walk outside.
The truck came to a harsh stop, sending Number One flying back and smashing his spine against the back of the truck. He gasped for air as the truck started up the mountain. He knows I’m trying to escape. His mouth became dry. His teeth chattered. Be brave, one voice told him. No! Survive! another argued. He squeezed the side of his temples and clenched his eyes shut as the internal conflict worsened. Shut up! He wanted to scream the words, but his lack of tongue betrayed him.
The truck climbed and the air became colder. If he didn’t act, there might not be another chance. But Father loves you. How could you betray him? Number One gnashed his rotting teeth. Lies. It’s all lies. You are nothing to him. Save yourself.
But what was there to save? Number One had no name. No voice. No recollection of his age. Father was his life. Father was everything. Without him, Number One was just a smelly sack of meat. All of his memories were from Father now. He fed Number One. He clothed Number One. He comforted Number One. All lies. No! The affection is real. Number One remembered nothing of the world outside of Father’s house and Father’s truck. Who would care for him? Who would guide him? No one.
The Lost Orphans Omnibus: A Riveting Mystery Page 3
