He cursed softly. This was the sort of thing that they would remember. Not right away, but when their little schoolgirl compatriot disappeared and her pimp and/or the police started asking questions, sooner or later one of them would recall the strange man walking all alone in this neighborhood, the man who showed up just before she checked out.
Milo knew he should just forget about this one, cut his losses; walk away and continue the search. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t be able to find another suitable playmate before the end of the night. But something about this girl really stoked his fire. Maybe it was nothing more than the fact that she represented an interesting challenge, but Milo wanted her. Only her. And he was goddamned well going to have her, the consequences be damned.
What would these drugged-up witnesses remember, anyway? He was just another anonymous guy in anonymous clothing. And he would disappear like smoke. There was nothing to worry about.
Milo walked past the hookers, ignoring them even as they eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and resentment. They seemed to realize he wasn’t a customer, and if he wasn’t planning to drop some cash on any of them, they wanted him away as fast as possible, so as not to scare off the next potential sale.
He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to hurry things along just to please a couple of skank hookers. He stared them down as he passed, knowing he shouldn’t do it but unable to stop himself. Who the hell did they think they were? He blinked as an image of a knife flashed into his head. One of them had a knife hidden inside her boot and she was thinking about it, grateful she was protected against…whatever the danger was. She wasn’t even sure. She only knew that she felt uneasy and concerned for her safety.
Then the vision passed and Milo was able to refocus his concentration on his target, the little faux schoolgirl standing off by herself on the sidewalk ahead. This novice streetwalker apparently had not yet developed whatever sixth sense the pros in front of the convenience store had that warned them of the menace inherent in Milo Cain. She looked ill at ease, but didn’t seem to feel she was in any danger.
The girl twirled a finger through a stray lock of hair, gazing across the misty street at nothing in particular that Milo could see, so totally oblivious to her surroundings that he was able to move up right next to her, invading her personal space, before she even realized anyone was standing there. She turned and almost bumped into him, jumping back with a tiny yelp.
Milo arranged his face into what he hoped was his most ingratiating smile, aiming to look like just another pathetic horny bastard out for a little professional action on a Friday night. His nerves were thrumming and the tension in his gut was building as he approached the point of no return. The hooker returned his smile hesitantly and said, “Hey, baby. Can I borrow some lunch money?”
The question was so unexpected that Milo laughed out loud in spite of the circumstances. “You don’t even have to borrow it,” he told her. “I’ve got money and it’s all yours. Of course, there are a few strings attached.”
“There always are,” she answered with a wistful smile. “What can I help you with tonight?”
“Oh, we’re going to do all kinds of fun stuff,” Milo said, thrilled that he didn’t even have to lie. Of course, she might disagree with his definition of fun, but that was her problem, not his. “Follow me.”
“Follow you? Where are we going?”
“My car’s right around the corner,” he said. “Let’s get out of this rain.” He began walking away without looking back.
He knew the hooker would follow him. He was right.
CHAPTER 13
Thirty years ago
Everett, Massachusetts
The stranger dressed all in black dumped the canvas bag into the truck of his idling car and returned to the doorway. Virginia had warned Robert this moment would be stressful, had told him to steel his heart, to avoid forming even the slightest attachment to the babies. She had said that to do so would only make the moment of parting that much more difficult. But how could it possibly be more difficult than this?
She had explained, clearly and patiently, that this parting was a necessary step. It represented the only way to protect the children, to ensure them of a fair chance at a happy life, and, more importantly, at a safe life. It had to be this way.
And Robert understood, at least as much as was possible. He had listened without judgment to her dispassionate recitation of her strange and terrifying family history, their discussions lasting hours at a time, deep into the night, for weeks on end. He trusted his wife, had complete faith in her, accepted the words she told him without reservation. He knew she would never suggest abandoning her own children unless there was simply no other way.
So he had agreed.
And it had all led to tonight. He had thought he was ready; had believed he had constructed a wall around his heart, impenetrable and thick.
But he had been wrong, because the moment he laid eyes on the two tiny newborns, helpless and innocent and entirely dependent upon others for their survival, Robert had fallen hopelessly in love.
He could not do it. He could not give them up.
The stranger cleared his throat respectfully, then reached out and gently plucked the baby girl from Robert’s left arm. He tucked her away exactly as Robert had done, and then lifted the baby boy from his other arm. Robert did nothing to stop him.
Then the stranger looked at Robert and nodded. He said nothing. There was nothing to say. The man turned and walked back to his car, seeming to dissolve into the inky night thanks to his black clothing. He fastened the babies expertly into identical car seats, positioned side-by-side in the rear of the vehicle.
The man walked to the front seat and climbed in, his feet crunching gravel. He backed out of Robert and Virginia Ayers’s driveway and accelerated smoothly forward. He turned left at the end of the lonely road and was gone.
CHAPTER 14
The Parkman Hotel was short and squat and had at one time been considered high-end, if not quite luxurious. It had been built in the late 1800s and in its day it had been the equal of any surrounding construction, according to the research Kevin had done on the Internet. The problem was, its day had passed decades ago and the building now appeared overwhelmed by the modern steel and glass high-rises surrounding it.
The room was clean, but the furnishings were dowdy and out of style, not that Cait cared. This wasn’t a vacation or a pleasure trip, but a fact-finding mission with a specific goal—to unearth as much of her family history as possible.
The trip from Logan Airport to the hotel in a Boston cab had been like some crazy amusement park ride, the driver whipping between lanes at will, driving one-handed, sometimes one-fingered, gleefully cutting off other vehicles like the fate of the free world rested upon his passengers arriving at their destination in the absolute minimum time possible. This vehicular insanity had elicited honks and angry gestures, but to Cait’s surprise most of the other drivers’ reactions seemed perfunctory, as if they had fully anticipated being cut off in traffic and were only responding because they knew it was expected of them.
“Christ,” Kevin muttered as he dropped their bags on the hallway floor and unlocked the door to their room. “I’m sure glad we didn’t tell him to step on it.”
Cait smiled her agreement. She trudged to the queen-sized bed in the middle of the small room and flopped down on it, too tired to unpack, surprised to discover the bed was fairly comfortable. She patted the blanket next to her. “Let’s get some sleep, I want to get up first thing in the morning and get an early start.”
Kevin grimaced. “It’s already first thing in the morning.”
“No rest for the weary,” Cait said, and as she did, a Flicker struck with such force her head was thrown backward, bouncing off the hotel room wall with a thud. She moaned and her eyes glazed over before her eyelids fluttered madly. In the Flicker, she was looking through someone else’s eyes, gazing at a schoolgirl standing on a drizzly Boston sidewalk. Upon clos
er inspection the girl turned out to be a young woman acting out what she thought might be a man’s schoolgirl fantasy. She stood on a wet sidewalk covered by a shroud of heavy mist, and whoever this Flicker belonged to was gazing at her with a predatory lust that was shocking in its intensity.
He—Cait knew it was a he, although she couldn’t have said how she knew—was talking with the young woman, joking, keeping the conversation light, but there was no real humor behind the words; they were a put-on, designed to keep the woman (the VICTIM) at ease until he could get her alone. He was tense and high-strung, not exactly nervous, more like excited, anxious to begin playing with (TORTURING) her.
The woman was a prostitute, that was obvious, but the man wasn’t interested in sex; at least not primarily, not right now. He wanted to hurt her, to do things to her, bad things; the evil oozed out of him, rolling off his body in waves like heat off a rapidly accelerating fire.
Cait wanted to shout at the girl, to tell her to run, to sprint in the other direction and scream at the top of her lungs, to alert everyone in this grimy neighborhood to the fact that there was a monster in their midst. But of course she couldn’t yell, she couldn’t warn anyone of anything, she wasn’t even really there. She was a mute witness to a random event occurring somewhere nearby.
The young prostitute was uneasy, but she allowed herself to be convinced to accompany the monster. He said something about his car being around the corner, which was patently stupid. It was raining and no one else was around, and there was no good reason in the world why any john would park out of sight and negotiate with a prostitute on foot before bringing her to his car. It was clear the prostitute knew something was not quite right, even the man (MONSTER) could see that, but he knew she would follow him anyway, and she did.
His thoughts were swirling and violent. He was picturing pliers and knives and what he would do with them, how he would use them to elicit shrieks of terror from the girl. He would taunt her with them, pinching her nipple lightly, just enough to cause her to gasp in shock and fear and a little pain; then he would move down her body and stroke the skin of her inner thigh with the back edge of a knife-blade, barely touching her but demonstrating his evil intent with crystal clarity.
Then he would get down to business in earnest. He would open the jaws of the pliers wide and he would—
—and then the Flicker was gone and Cait’s eyes snapped into focus to see a worried Kevin leaning over her. Concern was written on his face as he held her hand and stroked her arm gently. She bolted upright and pushed him out of the way, sliding off the bed and rushing into the tiny bathroom where she puked, her partially digested dinner of chicken parmesan with rice and vegetables searing her throat on the way out.
Kevin followed her and rubbed her back wordlessly until she had finished. She relaxed and then abruptly dry-heaved into the bowl in a kind of horrible exclamation point. Sweat rolled down her face and Cait felt jittery and washed-out, like a marathoner who had run an entire twenty-six-mile race without drinking any water. She struggled to her feet and staggered to the sink, dizzy and woozy, thankful for Kevin’s strong hands supporting her.
Cait splashed cold water on her face and then shuffled out of the bathroom and sat down on the bed, her shoulders slumped and her head resting on her chest. She thought she might get sick again and clamped her jaws shut, swallowing hard.
“What was that all about?” Kevin asked quietly.
She shook her head, instantly regretting it, clenching her teeth until another wave of dizziness and nausea passed. “I’m not sure.”
“Is it something you ate? Maybe you’re just overtired and stressed out about seeing your biological mother for the first time.”
“No,” Cait said, her voice shaky and reed-thin. “It’s nothing like that. I’m nervous about seeing my mother, that’s true, but this was unrelated to that. It was the Flicker.”
“I don’t know,” Kevin answered, clearly skeptical. “I’ve seen you have Flickers plenty of times but you’ve never reacted to one like this before.”
“That’s because this was different from a normal Flicker, if there even is such a thing. Usually I see random events or occurrences that have no value judgment attached to them. Like yesterday in the grocery store when I saw the little old lady had dropped her checkbook on her kitchen floor. It wasn’t anything good or bad, it just was. Do you understand what I mean?”
Kevin shrugged. “I guess so.” He was still watching her closely and Cait knew he was worried she might toss her cookies again.
“Well, this Flicker wasn’t like that. This was evil personified. I was in a man’s head, and the man was looking at a woman—a prostitute—and he was planning to do things to her.”
“Well,” Kevin said, “I’m sure you realize that’s the whole point of prostitution.”
“No.” Cait shook her head again, firmly this time, ignoring the wave of nausea that accompanied the gesture. “That’s not what I mean. He wasn’t thinking about sexual things, at least not the usual sexual things a normal man might do with a prostitute. He was planning to do awful things to her; to torture her, to injure her. Badly. Kevin, I could feel the evil inside this man and it was overwhelming. It was like a black cloud roiling in his body waiting to explode out of him.”
He stared at her for a long time, saying nothing. It was as if he was no longer her boyfriend but was on duty, his cop eyes probing. “I’ve never seen you go into such a deep trancelike state before when you had a Flicker. Usually you just sort of stare off into space like you’re thinking really hard about something. If I talk to you, you are still able to hear and answer me. But this time, you were gone.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Cait said. “This was not a typical Flicker. It was terrifying. I don’t know what it was all about, and I sure hope it doesn’t happen again, but Kevin, that’s not the point. We have to call the police. We have to alert them to what’s happening out there.”
Kevin shook his head and Cait said, “What?”
“We can’t call the police.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said? This man is going to hurt a young girl, badly, maybe he’s going to kill her. We have to do something to stop him!”
“How?”
“Excuse me?”
“How are we going to stop him? Do you know who he is, or even where he is? Do you know who the girl is? Do you know where he’s taking her? Do you know—”
“Okay, okay,” she interrupted. “You’ve made your point. We don’t have any specific information. Why can’t we just call them and at least alert them to the fact there’s a homicidal maniac roaming the streets of their city?”
“Because they’re not going to pay any attention to you, that’s why.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Unless you have a name or a location, the Boston police are going to listen to you, politely at first, then not so politely if you go on for too long, and when you’re done, they’re going to send you on your way—or hang up, if you call—and blow you off. They will assume you’re just some lonely nut job desperate for a little attention.”
She stared up at him, her face drawn and pale, and he said, as gently as he could, “This is a big city, Cait. The cops here deal with crazies every single day. If you start telling them about Flickers and seeing things in your head, you’re going to be just another crazy to them. There’s nothing we can do unless you have more information.”
“But that poor girl...”
“I know, but maybe it’s not as bad as you think. Maybe you misinterpreted what you saw. Maybe it’s a case of some bored married couple playacting, trying to spice up their lives a little by pretending to be a hooker and a john.”
Cait shook her head. By now the resulting nausea didn’t surprise her. “I didn’t misinterpret anything. This was no kinky married couple. This man was evil, and he was ruthless. He was an animal, a predator stalking his prey, and he is going to hurt her, maybe kill her.”
Kevin sat on the bed next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You know, if you’re still planning on getting up early tomorrow—I mean, today—we should really get some rest. You look like hell.”
Cait laughed in spite of herself. “Thanks for the compliment. How do you always know the just-right thing to say to a girl?”
“It’s a gift.”
She crawled under the covers, still dressed in her jeans and T-shirt. She had been tired when they arrived, thanks to the red-eye flight from Tampa. Now she was beyond exhausted, she felt as though she had been run over by a truck. A truck being driven by a homicidal lunatic.
Kevin was right, of course. If they were going accomplish anything in the morning, rest was critical. But how was she supposed to sleep after experiencing that terrible Flicker? Cait Connelly was thirty years old and had been dealing with Flickers for as long as she could remember. They had long since gotten to the point where she viewed them as nothing more than an annoyance, a small part of her personality that she had learned to live with, like some people live with migraines or the occasional terrifying nightmare.
But tonight’s Flicker was different than anything she had ever experienced. This wasn’t a mental image of an old lady forgetting to bring her checkbook on her twice-weekly trips to the grocery store. This was a blackness so complete it was stifling, a thirst for violence and depravity that dwarfed anything Cait had ever imagined.
This was true evil.
How can I sleep after experiencing something like that? Cait wondered. She knew she would lie awake all night, tossing and turning, listening to Kevin snoring softly beside her, jealous of him for not having to experience the Flickers, for not having to feel the rage and corruption of a monster somewhere in this city who was even now doing twisted things to a helpless young woman.
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