Angel's Dance

by Heidi Angell

  “Um… I’ll get back to you on that!” She hung up and ran to Grant.

  “Stop! Grant!” She was at his side in seconds. “Give me the gun.” she said firmly. Grant was shaking with rage. How was she going to do this, indeed?

  “I was just explaining to your crazy friend here that it wouldn’t do any good to torture and threaten me.”

  Clear glared at Louis. “Oh, I am fully aware that it will do no good. You are a psychopath.”

  Louis looked slightly surprised. “Trying to hurt my feelings won’t work either,” he scoffed.

  “I didn’t say it to hurt your feelings. And it wouldn’t matter, because you have no feelings. That is why you can do what you have done. Your father is the same way, isn’t he? You learned it from him?” She put her hand on his arm and got a flash of images of other girls. Girls being forced to dance, being emotionally, mentally and physically tortured and then being disposed of like empty milk jug bottles. He may not have feelings, but he still has memories. Some of those memories are very vivid. She could tap into that and maybe find Kat.

  She smiled at him. “No man is an island,” she murmured.

  Grant had tied Louis up in a chair with Clear’s help and was now thoroughly searching the place while Clear continued to question Louis. It was excruciatingly painful for her. This man was desperately sick. He and his father had been at this since he was an early teen and Clear couldn’t even begin to imagine how many women fell victim to their charms and felt the torture of their evil souls.

  Through trial and error she had figured out how to get the information from him. But doing so required her to think and talk about unbelievably horrific things. He wasn’t saying much in response, but the images flashing through his little brain were giving her more than she could have ever hoped.

  “I get Bella. She was at your father’s studio. She was vulnerable and so desperate to make it. An easy target, really.” As she spoke, images of their manipulation and abuse to Bella kept flashing through Clear’s mind. “And really, you had been emotionally and mentally torturing her for months and she willingly came back every time. She wanted you to make her the best, just as you promised. So, what made you lose interest so quickly?”

  “Bella ran away. Everyone knows that,” Louis snapped. She suspected he was becoming suspicious as the smart and even asinine comments had stopped.

  “Of course, everyone still believed that until you took Kat. Why cut the fun short? No one was looking for you.” Flashes in Clear’s mind. Kat had talked to Bella at the recital and had seen Bella after, several times after. Bella had, in effect, run off with Louis. She had stayed in Chicago of her own free will, against everyone else’s thoughts. Bella had picked Kat, not Louis. But the new tilt had excited Louis. That was why.

  Clear could feel a migraine building. This was so emotionally taxing! Yet, she was so close. She couldn’t stop now. “What draws you to these women… girls really? You are a grown man, attractive enough. Why prey on these girls when you could have your pick of grown women?” Flashes of how much easier it was to manipulate the girls. All of them fell at his feet and did his bidding, willing to do anything for the art. And then surprisingly, Kat did not. That was his hook. Bella had shown interest in her, insisted that she was far more talented than she seemed. But Kat’s absolute and utter lack of interest in what world-experienced Louis offered on a tantalizing hook had enticed him even more.

  His dad had warned him about victims like this. They were dangerous, would lead to him getting caught. And dad was right, as always. But the danger was the ultimate allure. The other girls had gotten boring. Sure, dad still enjoyed it, but it was Dad’s game. Louis was ready for his own game.

  “Nothing?” she asked, in response to his silence. She had gotten almost more than she wanted from the question, but to build on his silence would make him even more suspicious.

  “I’ve already told you, I’ve done nothing wrong.” Another flash of all the evil things he had done to these women nearly doubled Clear over in pain. Forcing them to dance on broken toes, cutting, sexual abuse, degrading them at every turn only to have them coming back for more. She shook her head to scrub the images. This wasn’t going to help her get Kat back.

  “Where do you keep them?” She knew it was almost a waste of time to ask, but she hoped. Hoped he would let something slip in that oily little mind of his. She almost missed it, it went so fast. A house. A large white house with green shutters.

  “Grant!” Clear called out. He came running. She stepped away from Louis and whispered. “I need you to find a picture of a house.” She described it to him. Maybe there would be more attached to the photo of the house than what he was giving her.

  “Right,” Grant nodded. He held out a stack of photos. “Here are all the artistic ones I have found so far. None of them seem to be Kat. These three might be Bella, but I can’t tell.”

  Clear took the stack of photos, looking at the three he thought were Bella. Sure enough, they were. She caressed the first photo and was immediately sucked into the same room that Kat had been in.

  Bella lay on the floor bleeding from one arm. “How can you do this?” she whispered, sounding heartbroken. “I have bled for the dance. I have given my heart and my soul to you. What more can I do?”

  Louis was buttoning his pants up. He had just had a rather amusing little romp with Bella, but even that was not enough to slake his driving thirst. She had come too willingly. She had seemed to be a much larger challenge, as pure and innocent as she was. But her devotion to her craft was all he needed to have her laying on the floor after a vigorous session begging him to do more to her. He sneered down at her. “You are just not what I thought you could be. I am so deeply disappointed Bella. There is no hope for you… except..” He eyed her thoughtfully. “Perhaps if you could get that girl to come join us? Maybe seeing a true genius… it could inspire you.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  “Yet your true genius seems to elude me!” she snarled back. He put on a face of true hurt and waited just enough of a beat to make her believe she had hurt him. She was surprisingly good at the banter. There was that small consolation. “Perhaps my genius is not enough. Perhaps raw genius is what you must see in hopes of achieving it.”

  “I’m sorry!” Bella sobbed, throwing herself at his feet. “I didn’t mean to insult your talent. Of course you are talented!!” She clung to him.

  He bent down to her level and took her face in his hand. “Ah, Belissima! Of course, you were only speaking out of envy and spite. I know this. I don’t hold it against you. Not at all.” He had to keep her wanting more, after all. And like a heroin addict she licked it up. Accepting everything he said as if he were a god. Pathetic, really. “Now, I must be going to the studio. And you need to get your muse to come to us.” He rose and started to walk away.

  He made it ten steps before she called out to him. “What if I can’t? What if she won’t come?”

  “Find a way,” Louis ordered. “Or perhaps you truly are not capable of greatness.” He then continued out the door, leaving her crying in her own blood. Pathetic.

  Clear pulled back from the image. She felt cold and ill. She looked at Grant.

  “That bad?” he asked grimly.

  “It sounds like he used Bella to get to Kat.” Clear tried not to cry. She coughed to release the tightness in the back of her throat. “We will get her back,” she promised. Laying her hand on his arm, she could feel the comfort her words had given him. She drew from that comfort and then turned back to Louis.

  “I’ll find you that picture,” Grant muttered and stomped back into the back room. They could hear him banging about and Clear could see that this was causing Louis no small amount of agitation. She sat silently letting him listen to it, hoping it would make him more reckless.

  “He can’t do that!” Louis muttered. “Those are mine! He has no right to touch my things. I swear, if he has ruined or broken anything.. I swear… I’ll…”

&nb
sp; “You’ll what, kill him?” Clear asked caustically.

  Louis stared into her eyes, unflinching and she knew he meant that.

  Grant was tearing the photo room apart. He had no compulsion about knocking over camera equipment and letting it shatter on the ground. On the contrary, it gave him a great satisfaction; particularly as he found thousands more photos of dancers. The monster had hundreds of the more “artistic” photos and Grant felt sick even imagining what these girls must have gone through. Clear had told him that the artistic ones were all of his victims. Most of the images seemed to be taken in the same room… but not this room.

  Grant tore through the photos looking for a white house with green shutters, trying to block Clear’s taut features from his mind. Whatever nightmare she had seen in that last vision with the picture of Bella had left her drawn and pale. She shouldn’t be here! He chided himself. She is far too delicate for this type of work. Her empathy went too deep. But then he reminded himself that if he could feel what the victims felt then he might not be able to handle this either. In fairness, Clear was handling it like a trooper. She was the one who kept her head when he was going crazy and probably would’ve killed the bastard.

  Grant threw his hands up in frustration. He needed to focus! He was just haphazardly throwing things about. This would not do. He would never find anything at this rate. He spotted a large cabinet on the far wall and waded through the debris. Pulling open the cabinet, he found several large books. Scrap books? Personal photos not left out for the casual client to observe? He pulled down the first book and quickly scanned through the photos. It was a visual bio for the man and he had been in a lot of productions. The playbills, pictures of rehearsals and performances. No good.

  He moved on to the next book. This one had pictures of dancers in rehearsal. Louis instructing, Louis and Ms. Chofsky. Hmm…. He continued to thumb through the pictures. He stopped at a picture of Louis and his dad in front of a white building. There was only a corner of the building in the picture. It looked like white clapboard, but there was no evidence of a shutter. He pulled it out of the book and kept flipping. Further along he found a picture with Louis, Ms. Chofsky, Mr. Lando and another woman who must be Mrs. Lando. They were all standing in front of the same house. This picture showed that it was a two-story white clapboard. It was an older house and there on the windows were dark green shutters. He snatched this one up as well and ran back into the room.

  Clear was clinging to Louis as if she might fall. Louis looked from her to Grant and back. “What? What the hell is she doing?” he asked, seeming in horror. :How… how could she possibly know… what is she?!!”

  Clear was bloodless, her hand and face locked in a contorted image of fear. She appeared to be on the verge of collapsing. Whether she was in the middle of a vision or not, she was in trouble. Grant scooped her up, pulling her rigid fingers from Louis shirt.

  “Clear? Clear are you alright?” Grant gently set her on the ground and began rubbing her frigid hands. They were still tensed as if clinging to Louis. As he rubbed them she began to relax slowly. Suddenly she snapped out of it, sitting up abruptly. She looked confused and disoriented.

  “Are you ok?” Grant asked again.

  She nodded grimly. “I… what happened?” she asked.

  “I think this is too much for you,” Grant murmured, rubbing her arms.

  “We don’t have much time…” Clear whispered.

  “You’ll be no good to us if… if you snap,” Grant whispered, thinking back to the last time he had found her in a similar circumstance. He couldn’t block out the smell or the image of blood everywhere. He shook his head to dismiss that horrible old memory.

  Clear smiled wanly. “I’m fine. I’ll be no good if Mr. Lando gets out.”

  “Clear, I can’t… I can’t ask you to do this,” Grant searched for how to say what he was feeling. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing both his daughter and Clear.

  Clear sat up. “You aren’t. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Kat.” She pulled herself up to her knees. “And if I quit then if something happens to her… it is my fault.” She sat quietly for half a beat, brooding. “I will be fine.” She almost sounded as if she were trying to convince herself of that.

  She glanced over and noticed that he had dropped the photos. “What is this?” she asked. She picked it up and almost instantly she was gone again. Grant sat by watching her and warring with himself which was more important to him. His daughter, who he might or might not get back safe and alive; or keeping this remarkable and amazing woman safe and alive. She was here, she was real, she was certain. And he was driving her to ruin. Never mind that she was beyond his grasp. Clear, with her amazing gifts and abilities. Did he really have a right to abuse and use her like this? And for what? Odds were that Kat was already dead. Even with that thought, he could not make himself reach forward and break Clear’s connection. He clung to himself forcing himself not to reach out to her, even as she twitched and contorted in fear and possible pain. God help him!

  Chapter Sixteen

  Clear found herself in front of the white house with green shutters. Maybe it was what she already knew, but the house seemed far more eerie than the happy picture she was using as a conduit. As she walked toward the house, she immediately knew to veer to the left and walk behind the house. There in the bushes on the side was a cellar basement door that appeared to have been sealed off, but that his father had built a tunnel to years before, giving them private access. She moved back around to the rear of the house, and followed her intuition to a shed at the back. Entering the shed, she found typical yard tools, chemicals and a work bench. Against the back there was a shelf with very little on it. Looking at the ground she could see the gouging in the wood where the shelf had been moved forward repeatedly. She tugged against it with all her might, sliding it forward in the grooves. Behind the shelf there was a trap door. Instantly Clear knew that from the door of the shed, it would be impossible to really tell that the shelf had been moved.

  She reached down and pulled the trap door up. Looking down into the gloom, she saw a pole ladder. Taking a steadying breath and reminding herself that this was just a vision, she headed down into the tunnel. After only six steps, she hit hard dirt. She turned carefully, her head still able to barely peek out of the trap door. She felt around the lip of the trap door, instantly knowing that there must be some sort of lighting system. Her finger caught a switch and lights went on in front of her.

  She squatted down looking into the tunnel headed toward the house. Her stomach knotted. But it was just a vision, she told herself. Nothing could hurt her here…she hoped. Reaching up, Clear hooked a finger in a notch and pulled the trap door closed, steeling herself against the immediate claustrophobia. The air was dank and dirty. The tunnel ceiling was much lower than the floor of the shed above and she had to duck to maneuver through. After twice almost smashing headlong into the naked bulbs dangling down, she got on hands and knees and began crawling as quickly as she could. She was surprised at the dimensions of the tunnel. Even though Mr. Lando was in relatively good shape for his age, she could not imagine how he could maneuver this tunnel. After only a few minutes the awkward angle of holding her head up to look ahead of her, while crawling forward, began causing her muscles to burn.

  Soon enough she was at the end of the tunnel and had come up against a cement wall. She knew that there must be some way to get in, but there were no latches or levers. She was becoming more and more claustrophobic in this long dark tunnel with the naked bulbs casting illusive shadows. And as the panic temporarily overrode her logic and reason, she began slamming into the wall with her hand and then her shoulder. To her surprise it slid forward ever so slightly.

  She turned herself around in the tunnel and planted her arms against the walls, then began to push as hard as she could with her legs. Slowly but surely the wall moved forward grinding against the concrete all around it. A cloud of concrete dust rose up, making it h
arder for Clear to breathe.

  She could not really think of the logic behind such a system, except that it would certainly deter anyone from getting in and more importantly a 90 lb dancer from being able to get out. But how did they manage it? Both men were built like dancers.

  As the concrete seemed to clear the lip, it moved a little faster and easier, driving the thoughts from Clear’s mind. She gave a few more shoves, just enough for her to be able to get in.

  She was immediately filled with an intense fear. She did not want to go into this room. But she knew that she had to. Steeling her courage, she slipped through into a very dark space. The air here was putrid. Clear fought the urge to gag and covered her mouth and nose with one hand as she flailed about to her right looking for a light switch.

  As her fingers crept across the light switch, part of her instantly regretted flipping the switch and her mind screamed for her to close her eyes and not look, but she had to. To help Grant. To save Kat.

  The room was lit by a single naked bulb. Flipping the switch had also kicked on some sort of exhaust fan in the corner of the room. Clear couldn’t even begin to comprehend what she was seeing and the only coherent thought was that this was not the same room that Bella had been in. Then the reality of what she was seeing… and smelling, hit her and she couldn’t hold back the gags.

  She came to vomiting all over Grant.

  Grant had called and conveyed everything that Clear had told him to Bryce, leaving it to Bryce to assume that they had gotten the information from Louis. Bryce should be able to hold Mr. Lando until the warrant was served.

  “Your skills have improved, man,” Bryce commented. “You got that nut to crack in record time.”

  Grant cringed at having to lie. “It wasn’t me… It was Clear.” And that wasn’t really a lie.