Possessed

by Stephanie Doyle

  There was a “but” coming. She could practically already hear it. Then Cass was able to figure out what he wanted before he had to say it. “You think the killer might show up at her funeral.”

  He shrugged. “It happens, doesn’t it? They want to see what they’ve done. Revel in it. He or she, whoever that was in the sweatshirt, might try to lurk in the background and watch, but if you were there…”

  “I would know that he was there. Because the monster would come back.” Cass pulled herself out of his reach until his hands fell to his sides. He crossed them over his chest and grimaced.

  “I did it, didn’t I? Crossed that fragile threshold in your brain that signals ‘user.’ But if you would hear me out-”

  “What you’re asking makes sense,” she cut in, deliberately ignoring the roiling lurch in her stomach. “You don’t have to apologize for that. I don’t have anything to wear, obviously, but if you take me back to my place I can change quickly.”

  “Cass…”

  “No.” She stopped him with a raised hand when he made a motion to move closer. “It’s all right. You want to find the person who killed your sister. I get that.”

  “Did it also occur to you that I might want to find the person who is responsible for that thing that attacked you? Find him so we can stop it from happening again.”

  “Should it have occurred to me?”

  “Yes, it should,” he answered tightly.

  “You’re not making sense.” Cass turned away from him to get her clothes that she’d left on the chair.

  “There’s something there, Cass. Between us. And it sure as hell doesn’t have anything to do with your gift. You can ignore it if you want, you can pretend I’m only using you to get after Lauren’s killer, but it’s not going to change anything.”

  “Pretend?” she asked, picking the most annoying word out of his speech.

  “Yes. Pretend. I’m not going to lie and tell you that your being at the funeral isn’t a possible advantage. I’m also not going to tell you that finding Lauren’s killer isn’t my number one priority. But I meant what I said before. I saw what happened to you. I know how that thing hurt you. So the second thing topping my current agenda is finding out who or what is doing that to you. Why? I don’t know. I like you. You’re stubborn and five foot nothing, but you seem to handle all these burdens. My dad would say you had grit. But you’re so damn closed I want to shake you sometimes until you admit that you need people. That you’re not as freaking okay with being alone as you seem to be.”

  “I’m closed?” Cass laughed, waving her hand around the room filled with beautiful objects. “I’m alone? Malcolm, look at this house. If you packed it full of any more things, you would never have to see another person again. Some people surround themselves with things because it makes them feel better. Others do it because they’re shallow. Why do you do it? Why the car, and the watch, and the clothes, and the memorabilia all tucked into this massive, lonely house? It’s not who you are. Don’t try to convince me that it is.”

  “I enjoy these things. I have them. It’s not to suggest that they are all I have.”

  “Really? Then where are the damn casseroles? Where’s the pie and the cookies and all that comes with it. Your sister died! You’re connected to all sorts of people through your job. Hell, you know the mayor. Every homemaker within a thousand-mile radius should be bringing you something to eat, but you said there’s nothing. When my grandmother died, we ate for months from what people had brought. Here there’s nothing.” Cass took a breath because she needed it. “Don’t tell me you’re not just as closed as I am,” she insisted. “Don’t be that hypocritical.”

  There was a startled silence between them. Malcolm looked over his shoulder toward the door, maybe all the way down to the kitchen, as if to verify that there were in fact no casseroles waiting for him.

  “No. No one did bring over any casseroles. A few people sent cards.”

  Instantly, Cass felt contrite. She rubbed her hands over her face as if she could somehow erase that moment of brutal truth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I imagine you were just trying to defend yourself. It wasn’t my intent to put you on the spot.”

  He stepped away from her, and that was even worse than the cold timbre of his tone. If only he hadn’t pushed her, she wouldn’t have had to push back. She wouldn’t have been forced to show him that despite what he had, he had nothing.

  Of course, then she may not have also realized that for all her pretensions about not needing anything, the result was that she also had nothing. They were so different, yet in this they were remarkably the same.

  “I’ll go to the funeral,” she offered. “It does make sense. And you’re right. It’s not just about finding Lauren’s killer. I have to know who is bringing this monster to me. I have to find a way to stop it. I survived the last time, but I don’t know what would happen next time. I have to figure it out before it really hurts me…or worse. You need to take me back to my apartment.”

  “I was up early this morning. I couldn’t sleep. I went to your place. Yes, I took the keys,” he said in answer to her shocked expression. “I fed your cats, gave them fresh water and food. They seem fine. I found a dress in your closet. It was black. It was appropriate. Also shoes and some other things I thought you might need.”

  The audacity of his actions was more than enough to start another argument, but she didn’t have the wherewithal to bother. She figured if the monster did show up today, she was going to need all of her strength to survive it.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I’ll get them.”

  He left but quickly returned with her standard black dress and a pair of old shoes she recognized that matched. Carefully, he laid them out over the ottoman as if they were recently purchased from DKNY. They weren’t. He set another bag down beside the ottoman, and she could see it contained her toiletries and a hint of lace, which suggested he hadn’t forgotten underwear. The man was nothing if not thorough.

  “We need to leave in about an hour.”

  Cass calculated her preparation time. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “If this person, the sweatshirt, is there, run. Don’t think, don’t hesitate, just run. The farther you get away from it, the better. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Run? From something that was inside her head? Cass didn’t try to point out the obvious snags in that strategy. Instead, she nudged her chin in the direction of the ottoman. “You should go. I only have an hour. You know us girls,” she added as a lame attempt at levity.

  He didn’t smile or make the obvious jokes. It would have been easier for them both if he had.

  “You can’t let it continue to attack you,” he pressed. “There has to be a way to stop it.”

  “It’s not your problem.”

  “I think we already established that it is,” he declared solemnly. “Get dressed. I’ll meet you downstairs. After it’s…the funeral…is over, we’ll talk more. I want to talk.”

  The door closed behind him and Cass shook her head. Great, she thought. He wants to talk. There was nothing productive that could come of that. At least nothing she could see. Her best bet was to cut her losses. Get dressed, go to the funeral, find the killer then…what?

  Cass quickly realized that getting dressed was a much easier option than trying to answer that question.

  The day was perfect for a funeral. It was cold, wet, gray and solemn. Cass figured if she was ever going to be buried, she would want it to be on a day like this. The sun shouldn’t shine for death. The sky shouldn’t be blue. The weather shouldn’t be comfortable.

  After all, there was nothing comfortable about death.

  People should be wet and shivering and sad. They should look miserable because it was a miserable task.

  Expectedly, at Lauren’s funeral, they did.

  There had been a much larger crowd at the church. Malcolm was Catholic, and apparently Lauren
had been, too, until her conversion to Wicca. Cass didn’t know if Lauren might have wanted a Wiccan service, but, given Malcolm’s devotion to her, she had no doubt he would have done that if he knew how to bury someone in that tradition.

  As he had mentioned to Cass, the only funeral for witches he could imagine was a stake and a fire, and he said he didn’t believe that was appropriate.

  The city’s elite turned out to pay their respects. The mayor, the chief of police, Dougie’s captain and sundry assemblymen. The church was packed with people, and all Cass could wonder was how a man who knew so many people could have so few friends. Some employees had stopped and spoken with him for a time. There was also a slew of Lauren’s friends, from high school, college and her coven who offered their condolences. Lauren apparently didn’t have Malcolm’s issues and seemed to be not only popular but extremely missed.

  But there was no one person who was there just because they cared for him. He stood straight and stoic in the church during the service. And now as the priest concluded the rites of burial, he remained the same. Only a smattering of people had followed from the church to the cemetery. Lauren’s closest friends, Malcolm and Cass stood in a tight circle around the open grave upon which the coffin sat ready at some near time to be lowered into the ground.

  Once the priest backed off, one of Lauren’s witch friends offered a prayer as well. When she finished, she was the first to lay a flower on the coffin. Everyone still around the site followed suit and eventually left. There was no announcement to have people back at Malcolm’s house, and Cass knew that if there had been, only a few people might have come.

  Glancing around the graveyard, she searched for anyone who looked to be lurking. She’d felt nothing during the church service other than the familiar tingling of potential contact that always came when she was in a large group. Anytime she was in a crowd of that many, the odds were someone from the other side would try to make contact. She intentionally shut her mind to it, her belief being that if the monster showed up it would be too strong to be blocked out and, as for the rest, she didn’t need the distraction.

  With everyone pretty much gone except for Malcolm, who was thanking the elderly priest for his kind words, she felt absolutely nothing. No sensations at all that would lead her to think whoever brought the monster was close.

  Still, she wasn’t sorry that she had come.

  Her eyes fell on two figures who stepped out of a car at the bottom of the hill on which Lauren was to be buried. She spotted Dougie and instantly recognized his partner, Steve.

  Steve stayed by the car, but Dougie started walking toward them. No doubt they’d had the same idea about the killer wanting to be at the funeral. They had stood in the back of the church, and the car, she knew, had been driving around the cemetery for a while.

  His expression was grim, and Cass had to assume that he hadn’t had any more luck than she had had.

  “Hey,” he began cautiously.

  “Hi.”

  “Can we talk?”

  Cass looked over her shoulder. Malcolm was now listening to the priest, who was obviously trying to offer words of comfort to him. She doubted they would help, but it was what priests did, after all.

  “Sure.” She followed him away from the grave site, as it seemed disrespectful to talk in front of the coffin. He stopped under a tree and faced her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Same thing you are, I guess. Looking for Lauren’s killer.”

  “And how the hell would you know if you spotted him?”

  Cass thought about Malcolm’s suspicion that the person they were searching for might be a woman but figured there was no point in clouding the issue now. It was time to let Dougie know what had been happening; she just didn’t want to do it here. After their fight, for lack of a better word, she’d thought she would have been happy if she never had to see him again, but she could see she was being ridiculous. This case was more important than what he’d done to her.

  What he’d done and what she’d done. Yes, he had used her. But, as Malcolm had said, she had used him, too. Was there really any difference?

  Regardless of who was to blame, Cass wasn’t so immature as to withhold information that might be useful to a murder investigation because she happened to be mad at the lead detective. “We need to talk about this, Dougie. A lot has happened since the other night. The thing that brought me to the psychic’s apartment that morning-I didn’t want to tell you then because it seemed so far-fetched, but it’s happened twice since and I think it may be important. It’s why I’m here.”

  “Detective.” Cass turned and saw that Malcolm was a step behind her.

  “Mr. McDonough. Pardon our intrusion during this difficult time for you,” he said in the manner of someone who has had to give the same speech several times in the past. Cass didn’t doubt that, as a homicide detective, Dougie spent a lot of time at funerals. “My partner and I are here because we wanted to see if there were any suspicious people in attendance today. It’s not unusual for a killer to want to be a part of his victim’s funeral.”

  “I understand. I appreciate your efforts.”

  “I was also looking for Cass.”

  That was news. “Looking for me? Why?”

  Dougie turned back to her, his expression even more grim than before. In fact, he looked downright worried. “There’s been a development in the case. One you need to know about. It involves you.”

  “Me?”

  He looked away from her as if trying to figure out how to say what he needed to say.

  “The murders being so close together puzzled me. Yeah, serial killers tend to kill in a particular area. It’s like their hunting ground, whatever. But there was something too coincidental about the two murders. I didn’t get the impression that these victims were chosen at random. A witch who worked at a New Age store on Addison. A psychic who gave readings down the block. I knew that they weren’t the only eccentrics that lived on Addison.”

  “Technically, Silvia lived around the corner,” Cass pointed out.

  “No, her building actually faces Addison. So I went back to your old apartment, the one you lived in only a few months ago.”

  Cass shook her head, not understanding what he was saying.

  “It was a hunch. Just a hunch but…”

  “Oh, my God,” Malcolm whispered.

  “We found another body. A woman with dark hair. Her name was Carol Lyman. She had moved in right after you left. New to the city, she didn’t know a lot of people. She’d paid her rent and didn’t really know anyone else in the building so no one missed her right away. She’s been dead for almost six days. And her tongue was missing.”

  “Dougie, what are you saying?”

  Cass felt a tingle on the back of her neck, but this time it wasn’t a precursor of contact. It was that feeling when something horrible was about to happen and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. Her gut clenched and she felt herself break out in a cold sweat. She knew what he was going to say even before he said it.

  “We think the killer is after you, Cass. We think he’s been looking for you all along.”

  Chapter 14

  The three of them sat around Malcolm’s kitchen table. Since his house was the closest and most private place to talk, they had gone there to discuss the issue of the woman found in Cass’s old apartment. Dougie had sent Steve back to headquarters and had ridden with Malcolm and Cass to the upscale Gladwyne residence. Dougie’s eyes grew big when he spotted the flat-screen TV in the great room, but other than that, he made no comment about the place.

  They had just sat down, when-as if to mock her-one of Malcolm’s neighbors rang the doorbell. He came back into the kitchen and presented them with a massive casserole dish filled to the brim with macaroni and cheese.

  “It’s a casserole,” he said, his eyes pinned on Cass’s.

  “I see that.”

  “Mrs. Norris. Next door. She dropped it off.”
r />   “That was very nice of her.”

  “You want some?”

  “I’m not really hungry,” Cass replied to his near smirk.

  “I am.” Unabashedly, Dougie raised his hand.

  Malcolm served himself and Dougie, and for a moment Cass considered tossing her pride aside. It smelled delicious, and macaroni and cheese was one of her favorites. Then Dougie reminded them why they were all sitting around Malcolm’s kitchen table in the first place, and she quickly lost her appetite.

  “I don’t get it,” she said as the two men went back for seconds. “Why me? It’s not like I advertise in the paper. Who would know where to find me?”

  “Somebody did,” Dougie pointed out grimly.

  “You’re sure it’s not a coincidence?”

  The two men exchanged a look, which let Cass know her question was borderline ridiculous. “It’s not a coincidence, Cass. But before we get to that, let’s talk more about this monster.”

  “I don’t know what else to tell you. The first time I was alone in my apartment, I might have thought it was a dream if the contact hadn’t been so strong. When I woke, I sensed trouble. That’s why I went outside. I knew there was something wrong. I needed to find out what. The next time was down near Penn’s Landing. I left you and started walking, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. The person in the sweatshirt was there and at the train station when it hit again.”

  “She’s not kidding when she says a ton of bricks, either,” Malcolm interjected. “Do you know what happens to her when the dead make contact? It hurts her. This thing messed her up. Almost cracked her ribs and broke her nose. The bruises are faded now but they were there last night.”

  “Last night?”

  “Yes. I kept her here with me. You didn’t think I was going to leave her alone.”

  “No, of course not,” Dougie said slowly. “You’re a real conscientious fellow, aren’t you?”

  “Dougie, stop,” Cass warned.

  “What’s the matter, Detective?” Malcolm said. “Am I back on your suspect list? Maybe I killed my sister as part of a more sinister plot to get to Cass. Or are you worried about something else?”