Ryan greedily clamped his mouth onto the bottle with such force that Cameron lost his grip, dropping it onto the floor. When he brought it back up again, the boy resumed gulping, emptying it within a matter of seconds.
Cameron watched, round-eyed, then said, “Would you like another?”
Ryan nodded.
Cameron took out another bottle and went through the same process all over again. It seemed obvious the boy was dehydrated, hadn’t had any water in days. Cameron wondered why nobody’d thought to offer him any.
Four bottles later, Ryan finally seemed satisfied, though he was gasping for air. Drinking had been more important than breathing.
Cameron pulled up a chair and sat across from Ryan. The others had obviously tried the intimidation route and failed, leaving behind a subject who wasn’t in the best frame of mind for an interview. Cameron decided to go the opposite route, offering the boy comfort, while at the same time trying to establish a bond.
“I want to help you, Ryan, but in order for me to do that, I need to ask you a few questions. It’s important you answer. Do you think you can help me out with that?”
A quick, timid nod, but with eyes still filled with terror.
“Do you know why we’re holding you here, Ryan?”
He shook his head. Once again, tears began rolling down his cheeks.
“No idea at all?”
He closed his eyes tight, squeezing out even more tears, which again tumbled rapidly down his cheeks. After that, a sob exploded from his mouth, and Ryan let it all out. He cried, shaking his head.
Cameron waited a few moments, allowing the boy to compose himself. “Ryan, do you know what happened to Alma Gutierrez?
The boy shot his head up, startled. “Miss Gutierrez?” He scanned the room as if searching for her. “What happened to Miss Gutierrez?”
“Ryan, are you telling me you don’t know what happened to her?” Cameron looked directly into the boy’s eyes. Fear and confusion stared back at him.
“I don’t know. Is she okay?”
Cameron paused. “She was killed, Ryan.”
Instantly, the boy’s expression went from confusion to horror. “She was …? I don’t under … who’d want to …?” He began crying again.
Now Cameron was confused too. “Are you telling me you don’t know anything about this? At all?”
Ryan shook his head emphatically, his bottom lip quivering.
Cameron didn’t know what to make of the boy’s answer, and he was having a difficult time hiding his surprise. Either the kid was an Oscar-caliber actor, or he knew nothing about Alma’s murder, which made no sense. Cameron put his hands together and looked down at them, thinking a few seconds before he spoke. “Ryan, what was the last thing you remember when you saw Miss Gutierrez last Wednesday?”
Ryan sniffled a few times, composing himself, then responded almost matter-of-factly. “I didn’t see Miss Gutierrez on Wednesday.”
“You didn’t? Ryan, are you sure?” Cameron said. “You never saw Miss Gutierrez that day?”
The boy said nothing, just sniffled again, nodding his head.
“Ryan. I need you to be truthful with me.”
“I didn’t see her Wednesday,” he cried out between gulps of air. “I swear!”
“Where were you, then, Ryan?” Cameron asked, hearing his own voice become more tense. “Where were you when you were supposed to be with her in her office, getting tutored?”
“I …” He stopped, looked around the room, shaking his head, and trying to think. “I was … I …” Then he let out a giant, frustrated sigh, and said, “I don’t remember, but I know I didn’t see her. I’d remember it, and I just don’t.”
Cameron drew a steadying breath and tried to regroup. “Let me make sure I understand you correctly, Ryan. You have no memory of seeing Miss Gutierrez on Wednesday, but you have no idea where you were instead? Can you see how I’d have a hard time believing you?”
Panic had returned to the boy’s face, and he labored over each breath he took. “I know … I know it sounds weird. It sounds weird to me too. I … I can’t explain it. But it’s true—I swear it is—and it’s not just that. I can’t remember a lot of things.”
“What do you mean?”
Ryan glanced down at his feet, shaking his head, almost as if they didn’t belong to him. “Lots of stuff. It’s like there are big spaces in my head. They’re missing or something.”
“You mean blocks of time you can’t remember?” Cameron suggested.
“Yeah.” He nodded, relief in his voice.
Cameron studied the boy’s face for a few seconds. He didn’t know what to think. Ryan did look genuinely confused. Could he have killed Alma and had no memory of doing it? Did he even kill her at all? “Ryan, do you remember anything that happened that Wednesday?”
“Some,” Ryan said. “But I was sick. I wasn’t feeling too good.”
Cameron was reaching into his shirt pocket for his pen and froze. “Sick, how?”
“I had a stuffy nose. And my throat hurt.”
Cameron swallowed hard. “Were you running a fever?”
“My gramma took my temperature. Said it was just a little over 99. Not bad enough to keep me home, so she made me go to school.”
“Okay,” Cameron said, feeling his throat becoming tighter. “Do you remember what happened after that?”
Ryan deliberated for a moment, then looked across the table and shook his head. “I don’t know. I think maybe when I was on the bus.
“Going to school?”
“No … I mean … yes ... I mean … I’m just not sure. Can we stop? I’m really confused right now. I need to think for a minute.”
He wasn’t the only one.
Cameron paused, then turned his head sideways, looking at a manila folder lying on the table. He reached for it, opened it up, then pulled out a sheet of paper. After glancing at it for a few seconds, he flipped it around and slid it in front of the boy. “Ryan, does this mean anything to you?”
Ryan tilted his head so he could read the paper. When he was done, he looked up at Cameron, confused. “What’s that?”
“You have no idea?”
The boy shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
“It’s a poem called The Hunted Soul, by Virgil Morrison. You’ve never read it before?”
“It’s scary. Why would I want to read something like that?”
Cameron scratched his forehead, staring at the paper as he spoke. “Ryan, I have to leave the room for a few minutes.”
The boy panicked, his eyes welling with tears. “You’re leaving? Why? Did I give the wrong answers? Please, ask me again. I promise I’ll try harder. Just don’t go.”
Cameron sat, speechless. How could this child, this scared little boy, so eager to please, be their suspect? The longer he heard him talk, the more preposterous the notion became. “I promise, I’ll be right back.”
When Cameron came out into the hallway, Frank was still there, waiting to hear what had happened. “So? Did ya get the kid to sing?”
Cameron leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and looking at the ceiling. “Oh… he sang all right. Just the wrong song.”
“Did he confess?”
Cameron hesitated, trying to find words. “That kid in there?” he said, nodding toward the door. “If he killed Alma Gutierrez, then he sure as hell doesn’t know it.” He paused. “And you wanna know something else? To be perfectly honest … neither do I.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Sheriff’s Station
Faith, New Mexico
“Would you please tell me what in God’s name you’re talking about?” Frank asked, practically shouting. “Because I haven’t a clue. What the hell did he say in there?”
“He had no idea what I was talking about, Frank—none of it. When I showed him the poem, he looked at me like I had two heads. He was disgusted by the words, said he’d never seen them before.”
“And you believe him?”
“I can’t explain it. There’s this innocence about him, a naiveté,” Cameron said. “Trust me—the way he was talking, the fear in his eyes—the kid doesn’t have the sophistication to lie like that. There’s a disconnect. That kid in there is scared to death.”
Frank looked away, throwing his hands up in surrender. “I don’t get it.”
“Think about it for a minute. Nothing is fitting. I think we’re way off track.”
“So how do we get back on track?” Frank asked. It sounded more like a demand than a question.
“For one, we can’t trust the obvious because the obvious doesn’t work. Nothing is as it seems … nothing. We know that, Frank—we’ve seen it over and over. And I just saw it in there.
Frank said nothing, leaning against the wall, folding his arms, and shaking his head.
“Something strange is going on here, and I have a bad feeling it’s gonna get worse … a lot worse.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Where are you getting all this?”
“Wanna know where I’m getting it? I’ll tell you where: from Ben Foley, from Ryan Churchill, and from Judith Hedrick—that’s were—that’s what the evidence is telling me. That’s what they’re telling me.
“Wait a minute … Judith Hedrick?”
Cameron breathed deep, let it out quickly. “That’s what I wanted to tell you before the news about Ryan.”
“I don’t understand. Judith—she’s a victim.”
Cameron shook his head. “Judith’s not a victim, Frank. She’s a suspect.”
“A suspect? A suspect in what?”
“In the murder of Felicity Champion,” Cameron said, regret creeping into his voice. “That green fiber—I think it came from a sweater she owned. I think Judith killed the girl, and now she’s on the run.”
“What the…?” Frank said, now sweating visibly.
Cameron pulled the photo from his pocket, the one with Judith wearing the lime-green sweater. He held it out.
Frank snatched it and glared at Cameron before studying it. After he did, he looked back up, wide-eyed. “I don’t fucking believe it.”
“Believe it, Frank. And as long as we’re dealing out the shocking details, I’ve got another one for you. Try this one: Ryan Churchill may not recall anything about Alma’s murder, but there’s one thing he does remember.”
“What’s that?”
“Coming down with flu symptoms the same morning she was killed. And that’s about all he remembers. After that, everything’s just a blur.”
Just then, Margaret burst through the door and headed down the hallway.
“Christ,” Frank said, shaking his head, “There’s a shitload of trouble coming down the pike … and it’s headed straight toward us.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
San Mateo Boulevard
Albuquerque, New Mexico
It was late afternoon, the start of rush hour. Traffic was getting thicker by the minute, patience among drivers growing thinner. As Kyle waited at the light to cross Central Avenue, she began feeling light-headed. Almost immediately, the visions started again.
She sat, paralyzed, gripping the steering wheel as if hanging onto it for life. Somewhere in her outer consciousness, she could hear the other drivers sounding their horns, but it didn’t matter—they couldn’t compete with the noises inside her head.
This must be what it’s like to lose your mind, she thought. Was she losing hers?
Red—that was all she could see at first—just red and nothing else. Thick as syrup, deep and velvety, like a rose petal.
The color of pain.
It whirled before her eyes, separating, becoming thinner with each round until disappearing into nothingness. Kyle heard a scream, then an explosion. She felt almost certain it was a gun blast. After that, an image came into focus: a hand, pushed against a sheet of glass, moving downward, and leaving a long streak of smeared blood behind it.
Then a crackling clap, followed by a blinding light.
Kyle’s back felt like it was glued to her seat. She drew her hands up to her face and covered her eyes, trying to clear the images from her mind; her head fell down onto the steering wheel, and her own horn started.
She knew she was blocking the road, knew she was holding up traffic. She also knew there was nothing she could do about it. The raging storm of sounds and images had now taken center stage, taking over her thoughts, taking over her mind.
The images continued to turn at warp speed, materializing as a long, protracted blur. Just as before, every few minutes the thread of pictures would slow to a stop, like video fast-forwarding to a specific point. During one of those breaks, Kyle saw a man’s face, eyes closed, and head shaking rapidly back and forth. His movements looked bizarre and unnatural, the intense vibrations making his features look distorted and out of shape—less like a human, more like a freak.
Again, the speed picked up, fast-forwarding to the next scene. A smear of colors blazed past her, along with a series of whines and high-pitched squeals. Kyle felt dizzy and disoriented.
Then, almost instantly, she found herself transported somewhere else. It was that hospital again—and again, she was standing in the middle of it.
But this time she was in a different part. Kyle saw blood splattered walls, tried to get a better look, but suddenly heard something behind her. She spun around and found two men attacking one another—no weapons, just bare hands. To her right was a long glass window; it was some kind of observation booth with a man and two women standing inside. They watched as the conflict escalated—half-interested, half-indifferent—doing nothing to stop the two men as they tried to kill each other.
One of the men reached for the other’s throat so his thumbs were just below the Adam’s apple. He pushed hard, breaking skin, and causing blood to spill down. The other man let out a fierce howl. Kyle screamed too, but nobody seemed to hear her.
With his fingers still lodged in the man’s throat, the attacker guided his victim down backward, toward the ground, until he was lying flat. Raising one foot high into the air, and with all the force he could muster, he slammed it hard onto the victim’s chest. Kyle could hear cartilage grinding and bones cracking as the wounded man’s body skipped a few inches off the ground, then fell back again. A circlet of fresh blood instantly materialized around the victim’s head, spreading out onto the floor.
One of the observers glanced down at his watch, as if he had somewhere to go. The other jotted a few notes on a clipboard.
The attacker stood over his prey with an expression of superiority. He was tired, breathing heavily, thrilled by his own accomplishment. His eyes looked unnatural, almost black. Kyle looked away.
Suddenly, a loud horn blasted. Then another sound: a voice. Kyle couldn’t make out what it said through the booming echoes, but the attacker did. Obediently, he backed up to the same wall where the observation window was located. Locking his hands behind his back, he eased them into a metal re-enforced opening inside the wall. One of the observers leaned forward and reached through, grabbing the man’s wrists. When he pulled them back out, they appeared to be locked inside some sort of contraption, a square metal box with openings on the ends, one for each hand. A restraining device, Kyle thought, but she noticed the latch on one side wasn’t closed properly. Still, the man stood, compliant.
The loud buzzer sounded off again, followed by a mechanical noise, like heavy pieces of steel disengaging from one another. A giant door slid open, and two males dressed in white emerged. They moved toward the other two men, pushing a gurney, the wheels emitting a loud, squeaking noise—it sounded like a child’s hysterical laughter; they maneuvered the assailant onto it.
Kyle looked at the victim, still lying on the floor, surrounded by his own blood. She watched helplessly as he stopped breathing, finally giving in to death.
Nobody seemed to notice the man on the gurney still had one hand free—one deadly hand.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Sheriff
’s Station
Faith, New Mexico
It was time to start facing facts: whatever was taking over the town seemed to be spreading fast, becoming more unpredictable, more deadly, while at the same time, as far as Cameron could tell, going virtually undetected.
What the hell is it? he wondered while driving home from the station that evening.
He needed to find out.
Armed with the news about Judith, Margaret was off running around town, trying to chase down leads. Meanwhile, for him, more time meant the possibility of more lost lives. He couldn’t afford another second of it. Nobody could.
Once again, Cameron began thinking about Sherlock Holmes, wondering what he might do in the same situation. And then, as if from the legendary detective himself, he got his answer: There is nothing as deceptive as an obvious fact.
The facts need a makeover, Cameron thought, a new perspective.
He needed to go back and begin re-evaluating every piece of evidence, starting with the most obvious one: although each case appeared isolated, and different suspects kept emerging, there was still a strong chance they were all connected in some manner. Margaret had suspected that, but Ryan’s flu symptoms seemed to confirm it.
As it turned out, Judith in the role of suspect rather than victim was not an entirely bad thing. She’d given him one more person to use for comparison—that could come in handy while searching for similarities among the cases.
Getting back to Holmes, there was one obvious fact in particular that still wasn’t adding up, never really had, and that was this flu virus. Ryan and Ben were the only people in town to contract it, and both just happened to be murder suspects.
Quite a coincidence. That alone was enough to cause suspicion, but here was another: The influenza virus is highly contagious. Even if the boys had managed to catch a rare case of summer flu, it would have gone around town by now—and it hadn’t. All this led Cameron to think that perhaps they weren’t really dealing with a virus at all. Maybe, he thought, it was something else, something just mimicking one.
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