Hold Me in the Dark

by Newbury, Helena

  I grimaced, then took a deep breath. “Daniel Grier. Dentist. 44, divorced—amicably, four years ago—no criminal record, two children who live with their mom.”

  “Dentists see a lot of patients,” said Carrie. “A lot of young moms with kids. Affair with one of his patients, jealous spouse?”

  This is what I hate about murders. Every inch of the victim’s life gets picked apart, looking for a motive. As if it’s their fault. But in Grier’s case, I’d found nothing. He was as clean as they come. “I checked his computer and his phone,” I said. “He wasn’t having an affair. He’d started seeing a woman from his church choir a few months ago. She’s devastated.”

  “Family?”

  “Live in South Carolina and were all there at the time of the murder. They’re flying out today.”

  “Debts? A gambling problem no one knew about? A drug problem no one saw?”

  “Healthy bank balance. No drugs at his place.” I crossed my arms and glowered at the board. Most of the people I come across in this job, even the victims, aren’t people you’d choose to meet. It’s mostly gangsters killing gangsters, thugs killing thugs. But I’d spent the last forty-eight hours immersed in the life of Daniel Grier: I knew him now better than I know most of my neighbors and he was good. He was a guy you’d borrow a lawnmower from and forget to return it and he wouldn’t give you a hard time about it. A friendly, peaceable guy who did his job, paid his taxes and was in the process of falling in love again. A good man. A hell of a lot better than me. And we’d utterly failed to protect him. “Want to know what’s really weird? Grier didn’t live at the apartment in Harlem. It’s vacant. He lived over in Morningside Heights. There are signs of a struggle there.”

  “Wait,” said Carrie. “You’re telling me someone kidnapped Grier and drove him ten blocks across town just to kill him? Why not kill him in his own home?”

  “Beats me,” I muttered. “Security cameras at both places were offline. We think someone hacked them. No prints—our killer wore gloves.”

  Carrie cursed. “No motive, no leads.” She nodded at the equations. “Except this. A message?”

  “That’s my theory. He’s toying with us. Showing how clever he is.”

  “The tech guys any closer to solving it?”

  “Nope.”

  She cursed again, shaking her head.

  I didn’t mean to say it, but I was exhausted and it just came out. “I think he’s going to kill again.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  I looked at my feet. I’m not good at lying to Carrie, despite all the practice I’ve had. “Just a hunch.”

  She studied me, waiting to see if I’d crack. But I lifted my head and stared back at her. She sighed. “A serial killer. Just what this city needs. If you’re right then we need to get this math deciphered now.”

  I grunted my agreement. Carrie gave me a friendly pat on the arm and started to walk away.

  The killer was out there, laughing at the dumbass police who couldn’t solve his riddles….

  Except he didn’t know we had a secret weapon.

  I can’t. This stuff freaked even me out. I didn’t want it anywhere near her.

  But if I didn’t ask for her help, someone else was going to die.

  “I might know someone,” I blurted.

  Carrie stopped, turned around and walked back to me. “Who?”

  “She’s a mathematician.”

  Carrie’s eyebrows shot up at the she. She tilted her head to one side: tell me everything.

  I looked away.

  Carrie sighed and stabbed a finger towards the board. Other people were starting to arrive for work and she lowered her voice so that only I could hear. “Sam, I’m going to say something and you might want to pay attention because I’ve been doing this a while. I’ve seen murders. I’ve seen serial killers. I once took down a man who carved up an entire family and scattered the pieces across four states. But I have never, ever, seen anything like this. If you have someone who can tell us what these numbers mean, call her! Now!”

  She stared at me until I reluctantly nodded. Then she marched off towards the elevator.

  Why did I tell her? But I knew why: I’d told her because I knew she’d talk some sense into me.

  I looked at the board. Daniel Grier’s gray skin. The swirls of bloody numbers. I can’t bring Yolanda into this. Cases like this took their toll on you. I didn’t want to look into those green eyes and see they’d lost their innocence forever.

  But it was more than that. I was drawn to her, fascinated by her. But I couldn’t be with her. I didn’t deserve that peace, didn’t deserve even a second’s release from the guilt burning inside me. And Yolanda... she didn’t deserve the risks that would come with being with me.

  I’d have to keep my distance. But fighting that pull, every second we were together... that would be agony.

  I can’t….

  Then I growled, mad at myself. Yes I can. The hell with my feelings. I wasn’t going to let someone else die. I grabbed my coat.

  7

  Yolanda

  I’D SLEPT BADLY, my dreams haunted by dark, tentacled forms that lunged and coiled around me, dragging me down into the blackness. Now, fueled by coffee and a cinnamon and raisin bagel, I was staring at the crime scene equations again. I was trying to figure out how all the images slotted together, but it was like trying to hold an entire atlas in my brain at once.

  There was a thump that made my door bounce on its hinges. A thump I recognized. I spun to face the door, my heart suddenly in my mouth. “Hello?” I yelled.

  A second’s silence, as if he was having second thoughts. Then, “It’s Agent Calahan.”

  Instead of hitting the button on my desk, I shot across the apartment and unlocked the door manually, swinging it wide. Calahan looked worse than before. Suit more rumpled, hair more mussed, a little more stubble. He looked like hell. And amazing. Roughly, grumpily, amazing, his wide shoulders and chest filling my doorway. I wheeled back out of his way. “Come in.”

  He came inside and pushed the door closed with his foot. His eyes were everywhere...except on me. I stared up at him, shocked by how much that hurt. I thought he... was I wrong?

  “Changed my mind,” he muttered, staring at my exercise bike. “Could use your help on the case.” He looked at my kitchen. At my floor. And then, finally, because I still hadn’t said anything, he looked at me.

  When those blue eyes met mine, it was red hot and immediate. The raw heat of it blasted straight down my body, my skin throbbing and aching like he’d seared my clothes away and I was sitting there naked before him. I swore I felt my nipples pucker and tighten.

  And then, in less than a second, he was looking away again, staring determinedly out of the window.

  I swallowed. I hadn’t been wrong.

  “Yes or no?” This time, when he looked at me, the lust was controlled...just. But those pale blue eyes were searching my face, asking different questions. How are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me?

  Doing what?

  “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded once, quickly, as if that was what he’d been expecting and it was no big deal. But he started to pace around, intimidatingly big, his shoes thumping on the floor. He hadn’t planned any further than that, I realized. He just rushed over here and asked me.

  He stopped right in front of me. He was so big, I had to tilt my head way back to meet his eyes. “First thing is to get you to the crime scene,” he said. “Grab a laptop or a notepad or whatever you need.”

  I gawped at him. “What?! No! I thought—I meant I could work on it here. You can get me better photos, help me understand how they fit together—”

  He shook his head. “You need to see it. It’s on the walls, the ceiling...it goes around corners, doubles back on itself. You can’t understand it from flat photos.”

  I had a feeling that was true but I hadn’t ever considered—“I can’t go...” I nodded at the door.

>   “Why not?”

  I looked at him incredulously. Do you want a list?! My chest had gone tight with fear. I thought of the stares and the questions, the people who’d treat me like a child if they acknowledged me at all. People like my boyfriend and boss. Not to mention a whole world that was the wrong height and too narrow and full of steps, reminding me every second how broken my body was. No! Why do you think I stay shut in here?!

  I looked up at Calahan imploringly.

  For a second, he seemed to soften. Then his jaw set. “You have to see it,” he repeated.

  He didn’t want me to suffer. But he wasn’t going to compromise, either, not when it came to the case.

  I tipped my chair onto its back wheels and balanced there, debating. I can’t.

  Then I thought of the dead man. Of the other people who would die, if I didn’t do this.

  I took a deep breath, dropped my chair back onto four wheels and shot over to my desk before I could change my mind. I grabbed my laptop, a pad of paper and a pen, then sped over to the door and nodded to Calahan.

  “Alright,” he said. There was a new note of respect in his voice. “Let’s go.”

  8

  Calahan

  IT WAS THE fourth time I’d walked through Yolanda’s apartment building, but the first time I’d actually had time to look around. The place was beautiful but old, probably built back in the 1930s. I could see elaborate balconies and gargoyles through the windows and inside it was all white marble and big art deco mirrors. The private elevator, which ran directly to the penthouse and skipped all the other floors, was so old that it had a metal gate instead of a door. Yolanda rattled it closed as soon as we were inside.

  “I’m parked across the street,” I told her, and reached for the button for the first floor.

  Before I could push it, her hand slid under mine, the back of it cool against my palm. Her finger stabbed the button for the parking garage. “We’ll take my car,” she said firmly.

  She turned her head, flicking her black hair out of her eyes, and looked up at me, those green eyes daring me to argue.

  But I didn’t argue. The prickliness, I realized, was a defense mechanism. She’d gotten so used to having to prove herself….

  I stared right back at her. You don’t have to prove anything to me.

  And her eyes changed. They softened as her shields dropped just a little. And as soon as they softened, it was like I was falling into them again: lush green forest, the air cool and wet. I could feel her hand under mine, my heat soaking into her, and I had this urge to just close my fingers around it—

  The elevator shook as it began its descent and we both looked away, drawing our hands back. The inner wall of the elevator was mirrored and I glared at myself. Idiot! What the hell are you doing? God, she’d been on the case less than a minute and already, I was acting crazy. Just get her to the scene. Let her do her thing with the math, then you can go your separate ways.

  When we reached the parking garage, Yolanda slammed back the gate and was halfway across the dark concrete vastness before I’d registered that we’d stopped. I was still amazed at how fast she could shoot around. It was like all that excess brain power had to be burned off as movement when she wasn’t thinking.

  She skidded to a stop by her car. I don’t know what I’d expected: something boxy and practical, maybe. Not that.

  It was a sports car that looked like it had arrived from the twenty-second century. It was low and sleek, full of graceful curves and, as we approached, the doors opened upwards like an eagle preparing for take-off. The dashboard came alive with symbols and a woman’s voice greeted us in Japanese. Yolanda grabbed an overhead handle, lifted herself and swung into the driver’s seat. Then she folded the wheelchair and pushed it up a ramp and into a slot behind her seat, where it clicked into place.

  I realized I was standing there like a dumbass, so I quickly climbed into the passenger seat. The doors closed. Yolanda pulled a thing like a trigger on the back of the steering wheel and we surged forward silently. Electric.

  We reached the exit of the parking garage and she stopped for a second. “What’s the address?” she asked.

  I told her and she pressed a button and repeated it for the GPS. And the cop in me noticed something.

  The GPS had a list of all the places you visit regularly, to save you having to re-enter them. Except in Yolanda’s case, there was just one place in the list: a physiotherapy center across town. That was literally the only place she’d ever driven this car.

  I thought of the grocery store delivery bags in her apartment. My stomach lurched as I put it all together. She never leaves her apartment except for that one appointment. And even that, she’s honed to minimize contact with the outside world. She goes elevator - car - physiotherapy - car - elevator - apartment. The car’s electric so she doesn’t even have to stop for gas.

  I looked across at Yolanda. The GPS had worked out the route and it was asking her to confirm. But she was sitting there frozen. The car was still in the shadowy parking garage, but the light from the outside world was just brushing her face through the windshield. I could see how big her eyes had gone: she was so scared it made my chest ache. I almost told her to stop. We’ll go back upstairs. We’ll do this another way.

  But before I could, her finger stabbed decisively at the screen. She pulled the trigger on the steering wheel and we shot forward onto the street.

  9

  Yolanda

  WE SPED silently through the city. I kept my eyes on the road and tried not to think about how far I was from home, how every turn of the wheels took me further from my apartment.

  We pulled up at an intersection and the guy next to us looked admiringly at my car. That’s the main reason I went to the trouble of importing it from Japan: it draws attention and that means they’re looking at it, not me. There are other reasons, though. It has an insane amount of power and I love to go fast. The lowness of it makes climbing in and out from a chair easy: swinging myself up into an SUV is a pain in the ass. And finally, they designed it with hand controls instead of pedals so it fits me without any alteration.

  With a chime and a singsong message in Japanese, the GPS announced that we’d arrived. I pulled up behind a patrol car.

  You can do this.

  There was a cop guarding the building and he watched as I got out. I have the process slick and it takes less than ten seconds, but doing it under his gaze felt like putting on a Broadway show. The entire time, my brain was taunting me that one slip, one tiny misjudgment of balance, and the chair would be on its side and I’d be in a red-faced heap on the ground with people running to help—

  I dropped lightly into the chair. Exhale.

  We passed through a front yard that had been carefully tended, with planters full of pink and purple flowers and a maple tree casting shade. The place looked so normal... until you saw the crime scene tape. Calahan lifted it up so I could duck underneath. We rode the elevator up to the fourth floor in silence and we were halfway down the hallway to the apartment when Calahan’s hand on my shoulder stopped me.

  “Just—” he started, but he couldn’t finish. When I looked up at him, he was looking ahead of us, towards the open door, his lips pressed tight together. Then he glanced down, met my gaze, and just shook his head. A warning. Just brace yourself.

  I could feel it too, a wrongness that the photos had only hinted at. It was as if everything that was good and clean and bright ended halfway down the hallway. Inside that apartment was something else, something that sucked those things in like a black hole.

  I gave the wheels a determined shove and coasted forward towards the door. But a few feet from it, I suddenly jerked to a stop. I looked down at myself: without consciously willing it, my hands had gripped the wheels. The wrongness got stronger, the nearer I got, and it was as if my body was reacting on instinct to what was inside. All the little hairs on my arms were standing up and I could feel sweat breaking out along my spine. My right
arm tensed: I was a split-second away from spinning the chair in a 180 and getting the hell out of there.

  Calahan came up beside me. “It’s okay,” he murmured. His voice, so deep and throaty, could be surprisingly gentle. “You don’t have to.”

  I thought of the countdown. Someone else was going to die.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes I do,” I told him. And pushed myself inside.

  On the drive over, I’d wondered about how I was even going to get inside the room without damaging the writing on the floor. But Calahan had thought of that. Big sheets of transparent Perspex had been laid down like flagstones, covering the entire floor. I rolled in….

  And saw.

  It was so dense! The blood had turned black as it dried and the numbers covered the walls so thickly, what had been a bright, airy room now ate up the light. And the patterns... they flowed and morphed, twisting from floor to wall to ceiling, forcing you to turn and turn and turn to follow them until you went dizzy. There was something animal about them. They flexed and bent in a way that made me think of snakes and eels, slimy dark forms sliding through oily water. And there was no way to look away because it was everywhere you looked. A strange sort of claustrophobia came over me. It felt like the lights were dimming. It felt like being swallowed. You could go mad, in here.

  My hands had gone slack on the wheels. I coasted to a stop right at the center of the room and looked down. There was a gap in the equations there, which should have been a blessed relief. But the gap was exactly man-sized. I swallowed. I knew what—who—had been lying there.

  Calahan approached from behind me and somehow managed not to make me jump. I was shocked by how slowly and silently he could move, given his size. “You okay?”

  I managed to nod. “You were right. I had to see this.”

  “Our killer’s a man,” said Calahan. “Or at least, tall.” He pointed to part way up the wall. “We figure he used an old-style fountain pen filled with blood and the pen strokes change, about here. They go from pushing up against the wall—because that’s the highest he could comfortably reach, standing on the floor—to pushing down against the wall—because that’s when he switched to standing on a box, or a step ladder, or something. I got a few guys of different height to try it and I figure he must be six feet or a little over.”