Cass shook her head. “You’re right. Again. But it doesn’t change anything. Let me go. Let me go and don’t call and don’t come over. If you feel anything at all for me…”
“Feel anything? What the hell do you think has been happening in that bed for the last few days? Some casual fucking? A little entertainment to pass the time? If you believe that, then you’re messed up, Cassandra. Seriously messed up.”
Messed up. It was an accurate description of how she felt. “I need my cats.”
“Leave them here. I’ll collect them and bring them over. You want to make the dramatic exit, go.”
“No. I need them now.” There could be no strings. It was the only way. If she so much as left a sock here, it would give him the opening he needed and she couldn’t allow it because the truth was she wasn’t altogether sure how resolute she would be against any attempt he made.
“Fine.” He pulled on a pair of sweats and rounded up the cats so quickly, it almost seemed as if they sensed their mother’s urgency to leave. Despite their cozy surroundings, they knew where their loyalty belonged.
During the roundup, Cass had quietly called a cab. When he came down the stairs dressed and ready to take her home, he’d been startled by the presence of the yellow car in his driveway. In a way it was like a dagger in his back that she hadn’t allowed him at least this final courtesy of driving her home. It was a slap in the face to the gentleman he was.
Leaving him standing in the foyer, she carried everything out to the car. She pushed the carrier along the backseat, tossed her duffel on the floor, closed the car door and told the driver to go-all without once looking back.
It was better this way, she told herself, reclining into the cab’s seat. He knew that she was “messed up,” and she knew that she could never risk that kind of closeness with another person again. She’d been weak and stupid and needy and everything else she had ever detested about herself growing up. Everything she’d learned to overcome in the asylum. She had this gift, this curse, and there was no wishing it away. It required sacrifices. How foolish she’d been to forget that. Tears pooled in her eyes, but ruthlessly she forced them away.
She had made her bed. It was time to lie in it.
The apartment was exactly how she had left it. Nothing was disturbed. There had been no attempt to break in. Feeling slightly more secure, Cass stepped inside and tried to shake off what had been a crushing afternoon. Letting the cats free, she noted for the first time that what she once thought looked uncluttered, aside from the dishes in the sink and a frying pan left on the stove, now seemed…barren.
It was easier not to have things. Easier to move around, easier not to form attachments to them. But looking at the near-empty living area with nothing more than the mats, the squat table, the tiny television, the single chair, Cass came to the conclusion that a couch wouldn’t hurt.
The phone rang and the glaring noise had her jumping in her skin. She picked up the receiver cautiously, although she wasn’t sure why.
“Hello?”
“Is anything disturbed?”
Cass listened to Malcolm’s tight voice and decided she was deluding herself if she thought the break was going to be that simple. Not that it mattered. If she had to cut it with a chain saw, she would.
“Everything is fine.”
“Call Brody. Now.” With that, he hung up and the click in her ear made her perversely annoyed.
“Call Brody,” she mocked in a deep voice. “Maybe I don’t want to,” she retorted to an empty room. “What do you think about that, Mr. Tough Guy?”
The phone rang again and was no less jarring. Cass snatched it up. “I’ll call him when I’m ready. Get off my back.”
“Cassandra?”
“Dr. Farver. Sorry, I thought you were someone else. What’s up?”
There was a decided pause at the other end of the phone, and Cass found herself getting irritated all over again. She had committed herself to staying in touch with this man, but these weekly phone calls were getting a little ridiculous. “Look, Dr. Farver, if this is about your subject again, I already told you I’m not interested. I’m not going to change my mind.”
“It is about her but not what you think.” His voice was edgy and tense, and Cass was left with the impression that Dr. Farver was about to do something he rarely did. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”
Like admit to a mistake.
“A terrible mistake. I don’t…I couldn’t…I don’t see how but…”
“Easy, Dr. Farver. Just spell it out.”
“Someone broke into my office.”
“Okay. Was anything stolen?” Cass wasn’t sure why he’d felt the need to call her but replied with the obvious questions. “Was anyone hurt? Mad, is she…”
“She’s fine,” he quickly assured her. “It happened last night. No, nothing was taken. At least nothing of significant value, but I’m afraid of what this might mean.”
“You’re going to have to spell it out.”
“Chris is an exceptional student. Her talent is truly powerful. Almost as powerful as yours. A telepath, naturally. Like you, she had an extremely difficult upbringing. Maybe even more so. Her parents are both dead. It was a murder/suicide. Awful. Like with you, I pulled her out of a home for the mentally committed. I kept doing that. I kept telling her how much like you she was. How similar your talents were. I don’t think I should have done that.”
Cass stood in her tiny kitchen and tried to assemble the story Dr. Farver was putting together for her. There was a student, a girl, at the institute who shared a similar talent for telepathy.
Only Cass wasn’t telepathic.
And something else. Something about the murder/suicide sounded familiar. Why did it sound familiar? How could it?
“I told her you didn’t want to take part in the research,” Dr. Farver continued, his tone more jittery, more nervous than she would have believed possible of the reserved doctor.
“Okay.”
“She seemed upset by that. Even disturbed. She kept insisting that I try to talk you into it. I think she was counting on the fact that you and she were connected in some way. That you might help her develop her gift even further. When I finally told her that you had absolutely refused testing, it was like…I don’t know. Something snapped.”
“Dr. Farver,” Cass said calmly, although the answers were starting to stream in like sand that was suddenly allowed to flow through an hourglass. It was just a matter of time before all the sand was weighted on one side and the full picture revealed. “Why do you think she broke into your office?” The someone no longer being in doubt.
She heard him sigh on the other end of the phone. “I’m not sure. I can’t be positive. It’s just that she’s gone. We’ve looked everywhere for her. It’s not like she’s a prisoner here. Of course she’s free to come and go as she pleases. But recently she’s been gone for days without a word to us. When she came back the last time, she seemed out of sorts. Rattled. High-strung. She kept asking when you were coming. I told her you’d been here and what you’d decided. I came into the office this morning and everything was turned over. Papers everywhere, drawers opened.”
“And?” Cass prompted, waiting for the punch line he clearly did not want to deliver.
“And…your folder. It was on top of my desk. I was sure I had put it away. The sheet of paper with your new address was missing. Cass, I think she’s coming to look for you.”
“I have to go, Dr. Farver.”
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up so much. It’s just that you two were so much alike. Even the bruises that you would get, she would get, too.”
Numbly, Cass hung up the phone. A girl with her talent. But not telepathy. Cass closed her eyes and thought back to the contact with the monster on the street. The person, the girl, in the hooded sweatshirt had stopped, had looked at Cass.
Why?
Anytime before when Cass had done a reading, the li
ving were never aware of the dead’s presence. If Cass chose not to say anything, which she often did with the occasional stray contact, the living person would have been oblivious.
But when the monster came, the hooded figure stopped. Stopped and looked and watched. Like she was aware of the monster, too.
Cass shook her head and paced the living room. That didn’t make sense. If this Chris was another medium, then that would mean that she was a conduit, too. That she had to be channeling for someone else. Someone else who brought the monster into both of their lives? It seemed too far-fetched that there was another person involved. The only time Cass had ever had direct contact with the dead had been with…her grandfather.
Family.
Cass ran back toward the phone and punched in Dougie’s cell phone. It took him a few seconds to answer but eventually he did. “Hi.”
“Hey,” he replied, recognizing her voice. “Tell me you came to your senses and you’re ready to set this trap. I know McDonough is worried, but I promise we can do this safely.”
“Dougie…”
“You can’t talk. Is that it? Is McDonough in the room with you?”
“No, I’m home.”
“What the hell are you doing there? You’re not alone are you?”
“Forget about that for a second,” she cut him off irritably. “Listen to me. When you were checking into those stories about the other people who had had their tongues cut out, you said there was a domestic dispute case.”
“Yeah. The wife offed her husband. Apparently he was abusive. But I told you, she’s dead. She killed herself a few months later.”
Murder/suicide.
“Did they have any children? Specifically, did they have a daughter?”
“A daughter?” Dougie repeated. “You’re thinking…”
“Can you check?”
“Yeah. Hold on. The file is on my desk somewhere.”
She waited while he moved through his office, then she heard the rustle of papers and had to bite her lip to keep herself from shouting to him to hurry.
“Here it is. Wallace and Patricia Rockingford. They had…No, a son. Christopher. No, wait. It’s just listed as Chris. I guess it could be…Christine. Holy shit, Cass. You think this is our girl?”
“I’m pretty sure it is. She lives at the institute in D.C. I’m not sure why she would have taken the train from Baltimore unless she had my old address and went looking for me there… It doesn’t matter. It’s her.”
“Stay put. I’m on my way. Keep the door locked, and whatever you do don’t let anyone in.”
“Right.”
Cass hung up the phone and wrapped her arms around her waist. Dougie was on the way. They had a very solid lead on the person if not responsible for the murders then certainly connected to them.
It couldn’t be coincidence. Chris’s mother had cut out her father’s tongue. Why? Why the tongue? And which one was the monster? Not that it mattered. Either way, the daughter had to be severely messed up.
Messed up.
Malcolm’s words came flooding back, and Cass found herself wishing desperately that he was here with her. She’d never let herself get close to anyone. Had avoided it on purpose. In a week he had become this anchor of stability. She’d said it couldn’t be real and maybe it wasn’t, but it didn’t feel like such a short time. It felt like years. If only there were no Lauren. If only there were no opening for her to be used, she could have had…what?
Instead she was standing in her empty apartment. Alone with her cats.
Admittedly, petrified.
“Nothing to be afraid of,” she told herself firmly. Dougie was on his way. They knew who they were dealing with now. It was just a matter of time.
It was as if the words themselves conjured the tingle that ran up her spine. She barely had seconds to gather her defenses before the pain of impact overwhelmed her, and suddenly there was a monster in her head. In her room.
Inside the apartment, Cass whirled and saw the doorknob on the apartment door turning. She hadn’t locked it. When she’d walked inside, she’d let the cats loose and then the phone had rung and she hadn’t locked it.
Cass jumped for the door, pushing against it to keep whoever was on the other side out, but in her room, the monster roared.
Sha -a uh-h-h! Sha-a uh-h-h!
It swung at her, and Cass felt the contact immediately to the side of her face. The momentum of the blow threw her back against the wall inside her white room, and physically she tumbled and fell butt first on the linoleum kitchen floor. Too far away now. All she could do was watch as the door opened and a slim figure in a hooded sweatshirt walked through it.
The girl pulled back the sweatshirt. Her eyes were surrounded by dark bruises and her brown hair was cropped short. She smiled and when she did, Cass noted that a tooth was missing.
“Hi, Cassandra. It’s so good to finally meet you. And I see you’ve met Daddy.”
Chapter 18
S ha -a uh-h-h! Sha-a uh-h-h!
“Can you hear him?” Chris asked as she stood over Cass. “Yes, you can. That’s what I’ve wanted. What I’ve waited for. Ever since Dr. Farver told me about you.”
In her room, Cass shuffled back, away from the monster. Its foul face and form didn’t seem to move but stood over her, still shouting the same unintelligible words.
In the kitchen, she tried to get to her feet but stumbled backward as the two worlds vied for her attention.
“Chr-Chris,” she stuttered, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of a thing to say. Not to a multiple murderer.
The younger woman moved inside and bolted the door behind her, something that Cass would curse herself forever for not doing as soon as she’d walked through it.
If she ever got out of this mess.
Cass figured the girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. Like one of the baristas she had worked with at the coffeehouse. This girl should be making frappuccinos, not removing women’s tongues.
She was tall and, although she was slim, she still had probably about twenty pounds on Cass. She wasn’t weak. That was certain. Not if she’d managed to kill three other women of varying sizes. And, of course, it took a decent amount of hand strength to cut out a tongue.
“We’re going to be friends,” the girl said, smiling, even as she opened the drawer nearest to her and extracted a medium-size steak knife.
Cass thought about her stun gun, really the only other weapon in the apartment. She kept it in the cabinet above her refrigerator. But when she glanced over her shoulder from her position on the floor, it seemed so far away. She needed time. Time to think about the next move.
“I don’t see how that’s possible if I’m dead.”
“Oh, I’m not going to kill you. I never wanted to hurt you, Cassandra. I only wanted to find you. I needed your help.”
Inside her head, the beast suddenly charged and Cass found herself huddling into a tight position as its hooflike foot kicked her back.
Get up. This time the voice inside her head was hers. Rolling to her knees, she scrambled between the beast’s legs and, once clear of it, she managed to gain her footing. It turned and howled again, but this time Cass was ready. It swung its arm at her and, instinctively, she put into play what she had practiced and dodged the blow.
Charged with a surge of confidence that her mental form was using what her body had learned, Cass once more focused on Chris, who was now moving about the apartment, the knife gripped in her right hand.
“Those women didn’t deserve to die.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I couldn’t help that. The first lady, she was supposed to be you, but she didn’t hear Daddy. I asked her over and over again and she said I was crazy. I’m not crazy. The voice is real. You know that.”
Chris turned around and faced Cass, who had managed to pull herself off the floor using the refrigerator as leverage even while in her mind she continued to duck the blows of the raging monster.
It wasn’t possible. She was never going to be able to defend herself against two enemies.
“No, you’re not crazy,” she assured her. “The voice is real. I can hear it.”
“Yes,” Chris burst with excitement. “You can hear it. But that lady couldn’t and I got so mad. When she told me to leave I got so mad. Then I saw the knife on the counter in her kitchen. It was just out there. She’d been cooking when I walked in and the words kept coming back. ‘If you don’t shut your mouth I’m going to cut out your tongue.’ That’s what Daddy always said. He said it when I told him about the voices. He would beat me and say it when I cried. He would rape me and say it when I told him I was going to tell Mommy. ‘I’m going to cut out your tongue. Shut up. Shut up or I’m going to cut out your tongue.’”
Cass cringed at the image the girl painted and now the mental image of a monster made sense. He wasn’t a man. He was evil. And he had hurt his daughter in every way that he could.
“Is that why your mother killed him? Did she finally see what he was doing to you?”
Chris laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. She wiped her forearm across her brow, brushing the knife perilously close to her face, but it was evident that she wouldn’t have felt the sting of any cut, as far lost in her insanity as she was.
“Mommy didn’t kill Daddy. Mommy couldn’t have. She was weak and pitiful and scared of him. More scared than I was.”
Another revelation. “You killed him. You killed him and cut out his tongue.”
The look of pure joy that shone in the girl’s dark eyes was more frightening than her father’s form.
“I did. I killed him and I cut out his tongue. I thought it would be over. I didn’t think he could be a voice. But he is. He came back. He came back and now he haunts me and he won’t shut up!”
The sick joy in her expression was replaced by rage. “Over and over again. He yells and it hurts. It hurts as bad as when he used to hit me, and I have to make it go away. They put me in the hospital, but he didn’t go away. They gave me all these drugs, but he still wouldn’t go away. Then Dr. Farver came and he believed me. He believed that I could hear things and he told me about you and how you used to hear things, like me. He said we would be able to communicate without words. He said you would know what was inside my head. Do you, Cassandra? Do you know what’s inside my head? I think you do.”
Possessed Page 20
