by Jory Strong
“It will be all right, child. She’s promised to come without the press or anyone else knowing that she sought my help. I haven’t advertised my services in years, and with so many others courting the media and drawing attention to themselves…”
“Ilsa, it’s too dangerous.”
“She’s already on her way. Can you come here, or should I bring the object to you?”
Aislinn’s attention shifted to Sophie, noticing that her friend had moved farther away, but hadn’t yet opened the pouch and brought the necklace out. There was safety in numbers, Aislinn knew. She didn’t really believe that the killer would strike immediately. If she hurried, and her gift allowed, then she would be able to find the child and make sure Ilsa left immediately. Sophie might never miss her.
“I’m close to your home now,” Aislinn said. “I’ll walk over.”
“Thank you, child.”
Aislinn contemplated leaving a note for Sophie, but when she checked the car, she found only paper scraps and a dried-up ink pen. Torn between involving her friend and not wanting Sophie to worry, Aislinn decided to call Sophie’s cell and leave a message, saying only that she’d be back to the car as soon as possible. That done, she dropped the phone onto the driver’s seat and took off at a brisk pace toward Ilsa Fontaine’s small beachfront house.
* * * * *
Conner’s cell phone rang as they were finishing up at the crime scene. The Captain’s direct number showed on the display. “Conner here.”
“Looks like the perp is varying his style,” the Captain said without preamble. “Bruner just got off the phone with the mother of the Kirby kid. She swears she didn’t have any contact with the latest vic. Says Ava called her, but she never returned the call. Just an aside, Bruner got the impression Sandra Kirby might be in contact with another psychic, but for quote ‘obvious reasons’ he couldn’t get jack out of her.”
“He got anybody watching her?” Conner asked.
“Yeah, got a plainclothes on her and a patrol car.”
“Good.” Conner shot a look at Trace and breathed a sigh of relief. At least Aislinn was under wraps and not involved in this one. “Any chance of setting a trap?”
The Captain’s bark of laughter was anything but amused. “Ran that by Bruner. He said ‘no way in hell’ was the mother steady enough. Just wants her son back and already half blames the cops for him going missing. If we get lucky, maybe whatever psychic she leads us to will be willing to help.”
“Yeah, that’d be something. Anything on the kidnapping?”
“Somebody thinks they saw a van. So it may be the same perp who took the Morrison kid. We also got a match on a set of prints found at the house where the Morrison kid was being kept. Information’s on your desk. Match is to some junkie with no violent priors—name’s Maurice Houser—goes by the street name of Winky. Figure out what you want to do with it. Talk to who you need to talk to, and if you need some uniforms, you got it. The whole department is getting dragged through shit. For once you don’t have to worry about stepping on anybody’s toes. Even Bruner’s almost willing to beg for help.”
“Will do, Captain. We’re about to head in.”
* * * * *
“Child, thank you for coming so quickly,” Madame Fontaine said as she wrapped Aislinn in a fierce hug.
Aislinn returned the embrace. “Please tell me that you’ve packed your bags and you’ll leave as soon as we’re done here.”
Ilsa laughed softly. “Always the worrier. I’ll leave as soon as I know the little boy is safe. Come now, the mother is already waiting.”
“I don’t want her to see me.”
Madame Fontaine shook her head. “There’s no time to hide your presence. The mother brought a worn comic book. I handled it only slightly and felt a terrible darkness when I tried to reach into the future. I was afraid to touch it further and destroy what you might need in order to find the child.”
Aislinn felt as though a fist had plunged into her chest and wrapped around her heart, tightening its grip with each step toward Ilsa’s darkened consultation room. She had no choice but to try and help the child, yet she knew that there would be no hiding what she’d done from Trace. Would he ever see that with her gift, she was able to help people, just as his skills as a policeman enabled him to do?
The painful squeeze of emotion didn’t relent until Aislinn stepped into the consultation room and saw the parent of the missing child. Then there was no room for any thought but to try and find the boy.
“This is a friend of mine,” Madame Ilsa informed the woman. “She’s come to help.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she added, “Please remain very still and quiet.”
Aislinn briefly took in the dark shadows and pinched face of the mother before her eyes were riveted to the comic book spread out on the table. Violent hues swirled from the pages, a hurricane of particles resonating with terror. Bracing herself, Aislinn reached out and took the opened comic book in her hands.
She was plunged into hot, stifling darkness, unable to sit up or move more than a few inches. The child’s fear swamped her for a few seconds, and then her own fear increased as she heard the conversation taking place just inches above where the boy was being kept.
“Fucking kid saw my face when I brought him in here! I’m looking at three strikes if I get caught.” The voice was a man’s voice, but high-pitched, whiny…scared.
A hard-voiced woman answered, “You’re looking at the death penalty if you kill him.”
“Not if it looks like an accident. What if this building gets burned down? Maybe there’s nothing left, and even if there is, what’s to say the kid wasn’t hiding out from his old lady, maybe playing with matches.”
“And then we can kiss the money goodbye.”
“What money!” the man shrieked. “Where’s the guy who wanted this kid kept on ice?”
“Keep it together, okay? I’ll go over to Winky’s place and see if he’s gotten a down payment yet. We get paid, then we can decide what to do with the kid.”
“I don’t like this,” the man whined.
“You like opening your ass to anybody that wants to fuck it better? The money we’ll get can buy a lot of inventory. There’ll be enough goodies for you to use as much as you want with plenty left over to sell and keep the money coming in. Now let me worry about it. Here, this’ll keep you busy while I’m gone.”
There was the sound of footsteps, then scraping, like a chair had been pulled away from a table. The floor creaked as though a weight had settled above and to the left of the tight, dark space that was the boy’s reality. Aislinn’s heart ached for the child, for the terror he was experiencing, but her presence was outside of his awareness, and she couldn’t offer him any comfort.
She concentrated on the boy’s thoughts, on what he’d seen. What he’d heard.
Chapter Nine
“Sure, I know who Maurice Houser, aka Winky, is. If his prints were at the house it’s probably because some john took him there,” the vice cop on the other end of the phone told Conner. “Too cheap to book a room. Or maybe the john was embarrassed that his trolling caught a bottom-feeder like Houser.”
Conner sighed. It was a long shot, but what else did they have to go on? “Know where Winky hangs out?”
“Corner of Fifth and Davis. Flops sometimes in that abandoned building over on Thames. The blue one behind the old gas station.”
“Thanks.” Conner stood up and looked around. The only one in the bullpen was Trace. “I’m heading over to Thames, want to ride along?”
“The junkie?”
“Yeah.”
Trace studied the rap sheet on his desk so he’d recognize Houser. Probably a waste of time, but sitting around rereading what little there was in the case files was making his gut churn. For the last half hour he felt like his skin was shrinking and the pressure was building. Twice he’d started to call and check on Aislinn, only to hang up before hitting the last digit of Sophie’s cell number. Shit, he f
elt edgy, tense. Something had to break soon.
* * * * *
“He’s still alive,” Aislinn said, her soft voice sounding as though it was far away. “His wrists and ankles are bound with something, duct tape maybe. There’s something over his mouth so he can’t yell for help. It feels like he’s in a compartment just below the floor. He’s frightened because he saw one of his kidnappers. There’s a man and a woman. They were just talking. The woman is leaving to see someone named Winky.”
The connection faded briefly as the mother’s sobs lessened the grip of Aislinn’s vision. Ilsa’s low whispering began to filter into her consciousness as she tried to calm the mother.
Slowly the woman’s sobs grew quiet and the fear and grief swamping Aislinn subsided. The connection to the boy strengthened enough that she could be with him and know what he’d experienced.
“When he woke up, he was in the backseat of a car. There was a blanket over him. Its smell overwhelmed him and he was afraid that he’d vomit. He struggled to get it away from his face and the blindfold slipped around his neck. When the car stopped and the backdoor opened he saw a pockmarked man standing in front of a rundown wooden building.”
Aislinn stilled the moment in her mind’s eye, desperate to see something that would lead them to the child.
The vision blurred and faded for a moment, then sharpened. “He saw an address! One, zero, there’s a hole where someone has broken the glass, then three, two, six, Griffon. It’s printed on the glass above the front door.”
Aislinn released the frozen scene and watched as the rest of it unfolded, as the pock-faced man recoiled in fear at having been seen, then quickly wrapped the child back up in the blanket and hauled him into the house, depositing him in the space beneath the floor before leaving for what seemed like ages to the boy. When the man returned, he paced back and forth, growing more agitated with each step. The boy’s fear mounted with each footfall until the pounding in Aislinn’s heart and ears drew her back to Ilsa’s house, to Ilsa’s frantic conversation with the police.
It took a few minutes for Aislinn to reorient herself, to separate herself from the vision. When she did, panic set in. The boy’s mother was no longer sitting at the table.
“Ilsa! She’s going to the house!”
Madame Fontaine put the phone down. Her hands were trembling as she began frantically searching through a desk drawer. “I don’t think they believed me. But we can’t let her go alone.”
On unsteady legs Aislinn moved to the phone and dialed 911, insisting that she be put through to the homicide department. Whether it was the panic in her voice or the mention of Trace’s name, the dispatcher forwarded the call. She almost cried when she got Trace’s voicemail. It would be too late if she left a message.
Ilsa pressed a card in Aislinn’s hand and she didn’t stop to question how her friend had come by Miguel’s card, she just dialed his direct line. When he answered, Aislinn almost wept.
“This is Aislinn, please, you’ve got to hurry. The missing child is in a rundown building. He’s in a small dark space under the floor. The address is written on glass over the front door. One, zero, there’s a hole where someone has broken the glass, then three, two, six, Griffon. Please, Miguel, hurry. There’s a man there and possibly a woman. The boy’s mother is on her way there.”
“Where are you?” Miguel asked.
“At a friend’s house. I’ll leave now. I’ll be with Sophie in a few minutes.”
“Get back to Trace’s house!” Miguel ordered, then added in a softer voice. “I’m on my way to Griffon now.”
Shaking, Aislinn put down the phone and hugged Ilsa. “We’ve done all that we can. They’ll find the boy in time.”
Ilsa returned the hug. “I’ve already packed a few things. My neighbor will give me a ride to the station. I’ll stay with my nephew for a spell.”
Aislinn stayed long enough to ensure that Ilsa’s home was locked up and she was safely belted into her neighbor’s car. “I don’t feel right leaving you,” Ilsa said, but there was no room in the small two-seater, and Aislinn didn’t want Ilsa to be alone in her home for even a moment.
“It’s just a short walk,” Aislinn said, “and Sophie’ll be there.”
Reluctantly Ilsa nodded to her neighbor and he backed out of the driveway. Aislinn began walking along the beach frontage road, thinking to make better time on the hard surface rather than fighting for traction in the sand. She couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiousness that assailed her. Twice she slowed, wondering if she should return to the house and take the comic book, but each time she resisted temptation. The less it was handled, the more powerful a tool it would be if she had to search for the child again.
There were still a few cars parked along the road and on the beach, their occupants lingering down near the surf or stretched out on towels. A van pulled over in front of Aislinn, straddling the line between hard surface and sand, as though its driver was contemplating whether or not he dared to drive on the beach.
Aislinn veered to go around the van just as the side door opened. There was only a second of awareness, an instant of seeing tanned arms extending from the dark interior and holding a small blue hand towel. Then the cloth was pressed to Aislinn’s face and there was darkness.
* * * * *
Miguel didn’t waste any time. He slowed just long enough to call Bruner, figuring the other cop had a right to be in on it.
“Thanks,” Bruner said. “She lost the uniform, but my guy in plainclothes followed her to some psychic out by the beach. Saw some other broad show up, then the mother hightailed it out of there. Lost my man at an intersection. I’ll radio him and tell him where we think she’s heading.”
“I’m on my way.”
Dylan stood, checking his gun and reaching for his jacket as Miguel hung up the phone. “I’m with you,” he said.
“You’d better call Trace,” Miguel told him as they hurried out of the room. “Tell him to check on Aislinn.” A bad feeling was starting to settle in Miguel’s gut. He whipped his phone out and called Bruner again to find out which psychic the kid’s mother had gone to, but the other cop was already moving and the call forwarded to voicemail. “Fuck.”
* * * * *
“Damn this place stinks!” Conner said as he and Trace approached the rundown building. “Makes me think of when I was a beat cop.”
Trace grunted in agreement. The smell of urine, garbage and stale bodies was just about to make him gag. “I’ll take the back,” he said, drawing his gun. He didn’t expect trouble, but he wasn’t fool enough to let the odds get stacked against him. Junkies weren’t the only kind of people who hung out in buildings like this one.
From the other side of the building he heard Conner yell, “Police, Houser, we want to talk to you.”
Trace stepped inside and listened for movement. When he didn’t hear anything, he yelled, “Make this easy for yourself, Winky, come on out.”
Still no movement.
Trace edged to the doorway and stepped into the hallway. Conner was peering into a room close to the front door. With the shake of his head, he stepped in Trace’s direction. Trace moved forward, checking the room closest to him. The doors had been used for firewood or stolen, which simplified things.
“Place feels empty,” Conner said, nodding toward a stairway.
Trace took a position to the side. “I’ll cover you.”
Conner took the stairs, moving quickly and silently for a man his size. As soon as he got to the top, Trace followed.
They moved down the hallway, choking as the stink seemed to get worse. When they hit the last room Conner shifted his gun back into its holster. “Fuck!”
Trace stepped forward and did the same. “Shit. Looks like Winky got into some bad stuff.”
“Not very accommodating of him to kill himself before we could ask him what his prints were doing at the house where the Morrison kid was,” Conner said.
“Goddamn convenient for someone th
at he can’t tell us anything,” Trace muttered as he walked over to where the junkie’s body lay, a syringe on the floor next to it.
Conner pulled out his phone. “I’ll call it in.”
* * * * *
Storm knew something was breaking just by the level of energy she felt as soon as she walked into the police station. “What gives?” she asked the first cop she saw.
“Word’s out that some psychic called in a location for the missing kid. Dispatch just got a call for a fire in the same building. There may be cops trapped in there.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know. Somebody said a couple of homicide cops were at the scene.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Probably got every reporter in town there as soon as they heard the kid might be there.”
“Where’s the fire?”
“Over on Griffon.”
“Thanks.” Storm hustled out of the building, more upset than she wanted to admit. The thought of any cop being trapped in a burning building—let alone a child being there—was horrible enough, but she’d gotten fond of the homicide cops, and it scared her to think one of them might not make it out of the flames alive.
* * * * *
Dylan’s call came in as Conner was calling in the stiff. “What you got?” Trace answered as he squatted down to see if there was any evidence that Winky might have been killed by anything other than some bad dope.
“You want the good news first or the bad?” his partner answered.
“Well, considering I’m looking at Winky the Dead, better give me the good first.”
“Winky’s dead? That’s convenient.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too. Looks like an overdose, but him being a possible loose end and dead is a bit of a coincidence.”
“I hate coincidences.”
“Me too, partner. So what gives on your end?”
