by CJ Lyons
If this was real, I was being punked on a supremely cosmic level. Especially as I hadn’t believed in God or stepped foot in a church since my dad died.
Ironic, since I’d been hoping maybe God would talk to me at Dad’s funeral. I’d been praying for forgiveness, but had known it could as easily go the other way with hellfire and damnation. No way anyone would let me off easy, not after killing my dad, even if it was a tragic accident. But I was only twelve and still believed, so it somehow all made sense in a warped, Catholic schoolgirl kind of way.
My family and Father Kersavage and just about everyone had thought it best if I skipped the funeral, so I had. Not because I was used to doing what everyone—or anyone—told me to do, but because I’d known missing saying good-bye to my dad would hurt me more than them, and back then, hurting me had seemed more important than anything else.
Would even God wait twenty-two years to exact payback? I was all grown up now, skeptical of who or what God was, and sincerely doubted He/She/It would take time out of His/Her/Its busy schedule to mess with me.
Which left Option B: a severe deficiency of vitamin H. H for Haldol, a powerful antipsychotic. Or in layman’s terms: nuts, crazy, psycho, loony, daft, insane....
I glanced at the nun. She wasn’t talking, which was a relief.
Even if she did, how could I be sure it was really her? I sidled over, half-expecting her to sit up, let loose with some pea-soup special effects, and spin her head around on her neck. But she lay there like a good dead nun should.
Feeling like a thief stealing from the poor box, I grabbed her cell phone from where it had fallen onto the floor. Couldn’t let possible evidence be lost, I told myself as I flipped through the numbers stored in the contacts list. The one dialed most recently was labeled: Jessalyn. The one marked In Case of Emergency was labeled: Rectory. And the one called most often was labeled: Office.
I called the office number. It rang twice and went to voice mail. A woman’s voice said, “This is Sister Patrice, I’m not available right now. Please leave a message.”
I jumped back, dropping the phone. It was her. The voice in my head was the dead nun on the table before me. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell?
If the nun in my head was for real, did that mean the girl was as well?
The image of the little girl filled my mind, bringing with it melancholy tones of grief and fear. Lost, she was so lost—and scared.
I had to help her.
But how?
CHAPTER FOUR
Matthew Ryder opened the door to the Good Samaritan security office, expecting a few square badges sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. He was pleasantly surprised to see that although they were crammed into a room smaller than his first car, an ’89 Toyota Corolla hatchback, and had less-than-state-of-the-art equipment—Videotape? Who the hell still used tape?—they seemed on the ball, already pulling up footage and scouring it.
“Did she make it?” one of the two guards who had brought Sister Patrice in asked. His uniform was streaked with dried blood, and his voice held a tremor.
“No. Tell me about the car.” Ryder took the seat between the two at the monitors. The three of them were wedged in so tight their shoulders touched.
“Here it is. Walt’s duping a copy for you, and Zimmerman’s on the phone with dispatch now.” He nodded over his shoulder to where an older man, the supervisor, no doubt, paced as he spoke on a phone. “We gave them the license plate. He’s waiting to see if the patrol cars were able to track it.”
Ryder was less interested in where the car went than where it came from: his crime scene. The Major Crimes guys would eventually muscle in, but he was the detective on call. For now, this was his case. “Show me.”
The guard, Tinker, his name tag read—bet those jokes got old fast—hit some buttons, and one of the screens went blank then started up again with a grainy picture blurred even more by the rain. The ER ambulance bay. One ambulance was leaving, obstructing the view, then as it pulled away, a low-slung, light-colored sedan came into view. American, looked like a beat-up old Caprice, primer patches marring the paint job. White, maybe silver or tan. Couldn’t see the driver through the rain drumming against the windshield.
The car barely slowed, swinging sideways alongside the sliding doors leading to the ER. The car’s rear door sprang open. A man’s hands—Hispanic or light-skinned black, maybe dark-skinned Asian—rolled a woman’s body from the car as the driver pounded the horn. As soon as the first security guard appeared at the ER entrance, the car sped off, water spraying Patrice’s body.
“There’s the plate.” Tinker froze the frame. Ryder made a note of it. Dispatch already had the manhunt going, although if the actors were smart, they’d ditch the car. It was a good bet they weren’t the ones who’d shot Patrice—not if they were risking getting caught bringing her to Good Sam.
“Show me where it came from,” Ryder ordered.
Tinker looked flustered for a moment, rewinding the tape. “Can’t see.”
The other guard, a thin man in his sixties, shook his head and leaned across the console. “Try looking at a different camera. If they came down Empire, they’d be on the clinic camera.”
“Clinic’s closed. It’s a holiday,” Tinker argued.
“Camera doesn’t know it’s Thanksgiving,” the other man retorted.
Tinker punched a few buttons, and another image appeared. “What time did that call come in?”
“Call? What call?” Ryder asked.
“There was a call to the hospital operator at 20:23,” the older guard explained. “Male, bad connection, lots of static, saying they were bringing in a gunshot victim. He hung up before she could get any details.”
“They record those calls?”
“No, sorry. But these guys showed up less than four minutes later.”
“Call-ahead seating, like we’re some freaking restaurant,” Tinker muttered. “Okay, look here.”
Another blurry image. Where did they get their equipment anyway? Ryder’s nine-year-old nephew had better gear than this shit. “Came from the east, down Empire.”
“Probably from the Tower.”
“Or St. Timothy’s,” Ryder said. His stomach knotted at the thought. Would he find more bodies waiting for him there? He pushed to his feet, already heading toward the door. “One of you guard the body until my guys get here.”
He headed out the ambulance bay, the cold hitting his wet clothing so hard and fast that his heart stalled for a second. “Shit.” He swung back around and returned inside. Not because of the cold, but because his phone was in his jacket pocket. And his jacket was still inside the exam room.
Tinker was already there, standing guard outside the curtain. “You need something, Detective?”
“Just my jacket. It’s hanging on the cabinet.” Ryder grabbed it while Tinker made a note. The security guy was obviously relishing his role as potential witness in a homicide. “Where’s Dr. Rossi?”
“Went to get cleaned up.”
So much for their dinner date—hope it was good for her. After all, how many chicks got to get involved in a murder on the very first date? Most guys probably waited at least until the second or third for that. He shook free of his thoughts and called dispatch. “I need a unit over at St. Timothy’s.”
“Sam-eleven is already there. Responding to a shots-fired call.”
“Any casualties?”
“Unknown. Reporting witness was a Father Vance.”
Figured. The only person who’d dare to notice shots fired in that neighborhood would be Marcus Vance. “Patch me through to them.”
There was a moment of silence on the line, then a male voice came through. “Officer McInerny.”
“Detective Ryder. You there with Father Vance?”
“Yes.”
“Where were the shots fired?”
“He reported them from the alley outside. Just got here, haven’t had—”
“You in a two-car?” Budge
t cuts had left most of the patrol cars staffed by one cop, but they still tried to do two to a car around the Tower.
“Yeah.”
“Stay with Vance. Don’t let him leave. Don’t let him take any calls. Send your partner out to the alley. Tell him it’s a crime scene. Don’t know what he’ll find with the rain, but he needs to protect anything he does. I’m on my way.”
“Will do.”
Ryder hung up. Vance wasn’t hurt. Good. But Ryder didn’t want anyone else to break the news about Patrice, which meant he’d have to do it himself. He started to pull his jacket on.
“Detective, don’t think you want to do that,” Tinker said.
Ryder had already stopped before he could smear blood all over his favorite leather bomber jacket. Damn. Couldn’t face Vance drenched in Sister Patrice’s blood.
<<<>>>
Death was a bitch, but she hadn’t won yet. The thought knifed through Daniel Kingston’s brain each breathing moment, in-between the pain and the gut-wrenching nausea and the goddamned babble of the idiots invading his last days on Earth, determined to sabotage every good thing he’d worked his whole life to accomplish.
Right now, the idiot causing him the most heartache was his son. Daniel Leopold Kingston the second. “Junior” to his mother before she’d passed. “Leo” to everyone else—including the leeches who surrounded Leo and called themselves his “friends.” Like that loathsome gang leader, Tyree Willard. Bad enough Daniel had to do business with Tyree to protect Kingston Enterprises’ interests in the Tower, but to have his son treat the gangbanger as an equal…
From his position outside their rooftop conservatory, Daniel watched as one of the waitresses inside the Victorian glass structure maneuvered between tables, her tray held protectively in front of her as she tried to outflank Leo. The holiday party Daniel was hosting for one hundred and sixteen of Cambria’s elite was to celebrate Kingston Enterprises’ takeover of Narcis, an Irish pharmaceuticals company. A takeover engineered to give Leo a position after leaving—translation: being ignominiously dismissed for research improprieties—his position with the National Institutes of Health.
Not that Leo appreciated his father’s efforts. No. Instead, he focused his time and energy on terrorizing serving girls.
Daniel caught his son’s eye and beckoned him to join him outside the glass-walled greenhouse, away from curious ears and the temptation of long-legged beauties. “You know there will soon come a time when you’ll be the one hosting events such as this one. You’ll be expected to represent the Kingston name.”
Leo didn’t bother to mask his eye roll. Ignoring his father, he checked his cell phone.
“Leo,” Daniel persisted, trying to stress the urgency. He didn’t want to tell Leo how short his time was, refused to be turned into an object of pity during his final days. “Tell me truthfully. Are you in trouble?”
“No, of course not,” Leo lied, almost as effortlessly as Daniel himself. “Just arranging to meet up with Tyree and the guys later. Seeing where the parties are going to be.”
Parties? Leo was thirty-one years old, much too old for partying. When Daniel was his age, he’d already wrested control of Kingston Enterprises from his own father. Of course, he’d had Mary, his wife—a woman as voracious for prestige as Daniel was for power—to help him.
Daniel sipped at his wine, the mellow merlot turning to vinegar as he swallowed his anger and disappointment. “Leo, these people are here to celebrate your new position as CEO of Narcis Pharmaceuticals. You can’t abandon them to go clubbing with a gangster.”
“No, Dad. These people are here because they’re your paid lap dogs and you told them to sit and beg. Nothing to do with me.” He waved his hand, a magician making an elephant vanish with a gesture. “Sorry, gotta go, big plans.”
As he watched his son walk away, fear of what his son’s “plans” entailed churned through Daniel’s gut.
He turned back to face the conservatory. Inside the glass, mingling with exotic blooms forced to flower at Daniel’s convenience rather than nature’s, men and women sipped champagne, toasting Cambria’s future—a future that depended on the Kingston family’s continued prosperity.
At the base of the wrought iron pillar beside the door was the date the conservatory had been completed: 1846. The crowning achievement to a house that had taken two generations of Kingstons to build.
Daniel touched the toe of his shoe to the date. For luck. A habit ingrained in him as a child and then later when he was barely thirty and had taken the family company from his father, a man with frivolous tastes and an even more frivolous mind. At that time, Kingston Enterprises had been stripped bare, only this house and a single, weed-infested lot on the least-desirable block of the city left to its name.
Now look at him. He’d gambled everything they had by building Kingston Tower. He remembered how proud he’d been when they’d erected a smaller model of this same conservatory on the roof of the otherwise squalid concrete tenement. The greenhouse with its wrought iron and Old World charm had done the job—soon he’d had all the funding needed to complete the project.
Funding that had been diverted into more land acquisitions, a commercial shipping company, several manufacturing plants, two malls, three high-end office complexes and, most recently, Narcis Pharmaceuticals. All of which combined to keep Cambria and the hundred-odd citizens guzzling Daniel’s expensive wine inside the conservatory from going under. When he’d saved his family’s fortune, Daniel had also saved the city—a city now controlled by men Daniel had handpicked and placed into power.
He raised his glass in a silent toast, across the lights shimmering through the mist, to the Tower in the distance. Without the Tower, none of this could have been possible. Mary had been pregnant with Leo—making Daniel superfluous as far as she was concerned—so he’d thrown himself into the project, often showing up on the job site and grabbing a tool, working alongside his men, goading them on to work harder, faster. And after, once the pitiful ragtag families had poured in, he’d personally managed the building, eking every dime out of the public coffers—and some not-so public ones, including the gangs who coveted the Tower’s turf and potential customers.
Tyree Willard, leader of the Royales, would say Daniel made the Tower his bitch. The thought made him smile. He hadn’t stepped foot inside the Tower in almost two decades, but he still used the lessons he’d learned there in his business dealings. Lessons of grit, perseverance, never surrendering.
Now those lessons were all he had left as he faced his greatest challenge. Cancer. Testicular cancer—the irony wasn’t lost on him. How many women from the Tower would be howling with delight if they ever knew?
But no one could know. Not now, the way the Internet twisted private scandals into virtual public executions. Kingston Enterprises would be sunk. And Leo would be left with nothing. If there was one thing Daniel Kingston understood, it was the importance of legacy. The Kingston name was everything. Omnes nominis defendere. The family motto: Above all, defend the family name.
“Not too late for you to adopt me and disown him.” A ghost separated itself from the shadows, emerging into the light. Not a ghost, but a slender African American woman dressed totally in black: designer suit, shirt, tie, and skin-tight lambskin driving gloves. “Your board of directors would sure as fuck approve.”
“Don’t be vulgar, Flynn,” he said absently. He’d groomed the girl to blend into any crowd, knew she was trying to goad him with her foul language. “How bad is it?”
“Bad.” Using her gloved fingers—Flynn never took her gloves off, at least never that Daniel had seen—she selected a choice sliver of dark meat from the Limoges plate she held and, her fingers brushing his as she slid his glass from his hand, chased it down with the remnants of Daniel’s merlot. Somehow she made eating with her fingers seem elegant yet primal, sensual yet revolting. Like everything about Flynn, a paradox explored at your own risk.
He waited, reining in his impatience.
Daniel made it a point never to let the help see any weakness. Flynn was the one exception to the rule, the only living person aside from the doctors and nurses who knew about his cancer, but he’d be damned if he’d give her any further advantage over him.
She licked the grease from her lips and set the plate down. They stood together, neither bothered by the chill night mist. Music swirled from the conservatory, providing a buffer zone between the idiots trapped inside the glass and Daniel’s idiot son, with whom he was trapped as his only acceptable heir. “Another girl from the Tower has gone missing. Exactly like the others. I’m still not sure where he’s keeping them, but—”
“We can’t have any more surviving victims. The police are getting too close.” He’d been able to silence the last meddlesome detective, but another death so soon… too risky.
Daniel shook his head. How had he raised such a fool? It wasn’t what Leo had done—was doing—that bothered him. He’d always believed morals were for losers, the weak, so they could feel good about themselves when they ran away, tails between their legs.
Rules meant nothing to Daniel. A strong man forged his own rules, didn’t let others dictate to him. No, he could care less about what Leo was doing. It was the risk he abhorred. The family name must be defended at all costs. Yet his son persisted in taking foolish, senseless, needless risks.
Daniel couldn’t abide the thought that Leo was all he had left—and he might lose him.
“Find the girl. Deal with her.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Flynn blew him a kiss before disappearing into the shadows.
CHAPTER FIVE
Standing in the shower in the ER’s women’s locker room, hot water pummeling my body, scouring it clean, all I could think about was the scene in The Sixth Sense where the little boy tells Bruce Willis he sees dead people. The anguish on his face, the despair. Etched into my mind as deep as a scar.
“I don’t see dead people.” I said the words aloud to give them weight. “I only maybe hear not-so-dead people.” Well, okay, not maybe. Possibly. Probably.
