Identity--A Tale of Murder, Mystery and Romance

by H. D. Thomson

  But there was his car and Ferguson’s Bentley. Someone could hide inside or behind either car. Peter might be able to see them approach, but not if they caught him from behind, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be able to hear them. With the boy still latched to his side, Peter edged along the perimeter of the garage and peered into what interior he could see of both cars.

  “Help!” The boy screamed, his voice drowning beneath the two alarms. “Someone help—”

  Tension gnawing through his muscles, Peter slapped a hand over the little bastard’s mouth, froze and waited for someone to come at him and attack. A thick and heavy stillness filled the garage’s interior, while the high-piercing wail of the two alarms throbbed against car metal and rubber, and cement and drywall.

  Ferguson rushed into the garage, slamming the door open and waving a phone at Peter. His thick silver hair shot up from a ruddy, deeply lined face. When his gaze latched onto Peter and the boy, his brown eyes flashed with panic. “What the hell are you doing? Get his head covered. Now!”

  “What the fuck do you think I’m doing?” Peter snarled, yanking the pillowcase back down over the boy’s face and digging an arm tighter around the kid’s ribs to keep him from thrashing around. Peter shifted, looking on either side of him, expecting a bullet or a weapon to his face or body. “There’s someone else in here with us.”

  “Damn it,” Ferguson yelled over the sirens. “No one’s in here but us. It’s the boy you’ve got to worry about. He’s the one that triggered both alarms.”

  With the boy flailing in his arms, Peter dug into his pants’ pocket, found the car’s remote and clicked the alarm off. The piercing siren died, but the house continued to scream a high-pitched cry that bombarded his senses as Ferguson punched in a code on the box by the door.

  Deafening silence, almost as loud as the alarms had been, permeated the garage. Ferguson dialed a number on his phone and after a pause, said, “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. There’s no need to have anyone come by. I accidentally tripped the alarm. Yes. Okay. Thank you.”

  He glared at Peter. “I thought I told you to keep his eyes covered at all times. It’s imperative that you make sure he doesn’t see what’s around him, particularly any computerized device. That’s our only protection.”

  “Protection from what?” Just what the hell was it about Skye’s son that scared the shit out of Ferguson? And how could a nine-year-old kid turn on alarms without putting a hand on them? If what Ferguson said was true, then that meant this kid was a far bigger fish than Peter suspected.

  “I don’t pay you to ask questions.” Ferguson jerked his head toward the door. “Hurry up. I’ve got some eye drops for the boy that will keep him momentarily blinded and in line.”

  Peter’s gaze narrowed. All his previous work involved getting the job done and getting out, no questions asked, but this task involved Skye’s son and was personal from the very beginning no matter how much he wanted to think differently. This job was about revenge. To hell with the other players, and that included Ferguson and his fucking arrogance.

  But along with that revenge, he wanted answers to why this kid was so important. If he set off alarms by his thoughts and was dangerous around computers... The scent of money oozed from the boy’s body. If the kid could manipulate a computer, the possibilities were unimaginable.

  A fortune.

  Far more than he would ever see in his life or longer.

  Inching the pillowcase aside while keeping the boy’s face concealed, Peter wrapped his fingers around the boy’s warm and fragile throat. A pulse point, frantic and uneven, throbbed against his finger. “I can kill him right now. One quick snap, and your golden boy’s dead. The power to have him live or die is all up to you. He lives only on the condition I get some answers.”

  ~~*~~

  Blinking against the fading but hot July sunlight and the sting of sweat that slipped into one eye, Skye wiped at her brow before hauling herself up the chain link fence. Her jeans caught against the sharp metal ends as she tried to straddle the top. Grumbling with frustration, she yanked at the hem. Fabric tore, sounding like a disembodied cry in the stillness of the afternoon. Skye swore under her breath but managed to get both legs over onto the other side.

  She dropped to the ground. The abrupt landing jerked the air from her lungs and forced her to her knees. Grunting, she slapped a palm on the ground, stopping herself from tumbling on her face. Dead, course grass cut into her hand. She rose on unsteady legs and glanced around. No movement on the street from behind or in the yard directly in front of her.

  It was a good half-hour since a car had driven past.

  Not the most popular place. The closest building around was a barn a good 1000 feet down the road. Skye didn’t know whether that was good or bad. She guessed she’d find out soon enough.

  As she walked away from the fence, grass brushed across her jean-clad ankles and running shoes, sounding like malevolent whispers filled with secrets and brutality.

  Shivering, she paused in the middle of the yard and looked up at the abandoned building, with its boarded up windows, faded, gray roof and three stories of red and battered brick. The picture on the internet of October House had depicted the place’s aura of neglect but not its sense of despair.

  Before parking on the opposite side of the home, she’d driven into a rural area between the outlying cities. A number of farms still dotted the area, somehow managing to escape the claws of concrete. Once she’d stepped out of the vehicle, she’d crossed a two-lane road with soft shoulders. The property, a good acre Skye guessed, rested on the corner of a four-way stop and was surrounded by a six-foot chain link fence. The house beyond the enclosure had beckoned, hinting of malevolent secrets and past terrors.

  For a long moment, she stood and stared with unease at the building now, as dark, fathomless memories scratched below the surface of her consciousness. God, she wanted to remember, but the fear and images of a sick, green face with lizard-like eyes flashing yellow hatred immobilized her.

  Jaw tightening, she groped for calm. Tyler was out there, alone, frightened, and in desperate need of her help.

  Skye refocused her energy on uncovering the mystery of October House. She might be traveling down a crazy, irrelevant path, but she was frantic. The foster home had to be somehow linked to what was now happening in her life with Tyler. Why else would Jay have heard the name?

  Skye ignored the front door. Too visible for anyone who might pass by. Locusts scattered as she walked through the dead grass. One landed on her arm, and she brushed it aside impatiently as she circled the building, looking for a way in.

  Turning the corner, she discovered a windowless metal door, the same faded rust color as the brick. She twisted the knob. Locked. Nothing that she didn’t expect.

  The hum of a vehicle carried through the air and rapidly approached. Tensing, she hunkered down by a bush or weed. Laughter, sharp and at odds with the unease twisting Skye’s insides, broke over the sound of tires on asphalt. Frozen, she waited as the growl of the engine strengthened. She edged along the brick wall toward the front yard. On the opposite side of the street her silver, economical rental car still sat on the shoulder. She inched further along the wall until she saw a van roll to a stop at the intersection. Then the vehicle raced off down the road and around a bend, disappearing from view by a layer of trees.

  Tension eased from her upper back and shoulders. A couple of people in a van. Nothing more. No killer, kidnapper or psychotic. Just her overactive imagination. Skye rolled her shoulders, calmed her heart, then retraced her steps and searched the back door and the immediate area for any signs of an alarm. Seeing none, she relaxed even further, knowing she could bypass something as unsophisticated as a deadbolt.

  Skye focused her mind’s energy on the doorknob’s lock and the deadbolt. A barely discernible click and snap followed. When she turned the knob this time, the metal gave with a low rumble, making her wonder when the last person had walked through the
halls and rooms of this place.

  She stepped into the stifling silent hallway and closed the door carefully behind her. Dust and a musty, unused scent assailed her nostrils. With each cautious step, her running shoes whined softly against the wood floor, which coincided with the hard thump of her heart. She walked down a faded, beige hallway where stained rectangles marked the walls from where pictures once hung.

  The fear and unease she’d tried to bury resurfaced. Her heartbeat quickened and sweat thickened across her skin, causing her t-shirt to cling tighter against her body. She’d been here before. Skye didn’t have to search her memory. She’d lived, breathed inside these four walls as an orphan.

  After passing several doorways, Skye stepped into a room to the right. A floorboard creaked beneath her weight. Broken blinds hindered the sunlight from struggling through a large bay window. A couple of desks, decades old, sat like large bullfrogs, bulky, brown and weathered. Laughter and tears echoed through the past and into the room, faint but unmistakable memories from Skye’s past.

  Other children had lived here and died.

  She paused, frowned.

  A sound, possibly a footstep, resounded from the hall. She backed up against the wall beside the door. Forcing air in and out of her nose, slowly, quietly, she waited and listened.

  Silence.

  Cautiously, she re-entered the hall and found it empty, dark and ominous. Moving as quietly as possible, she eased back down the hall from where she’d started. By one doorway, ‘Office’ was stenciled in faded gray across the open door. Sadly, even if there were filing cabinets inside, she didn’t think she’d find anything useful inside them. Still...

  She slipped inside, past what looked like a waiting room and into an office with three tiers of metal files in the same faded beige as the walls outside. She eased two drawers open and found both empty.

  Exactly where would years of records be?

  Helplessness gnawed into her stomach. There must be a storage unit somewhere. They couldn’t have all been destroyed, could they?

  As the drawer scraped shut, the noise almost masked the rustle of clothing. That and the sigh of someone’s breath alerted her too late. She gasped. A hand roughly clamped over her mouth, locking the breath in her lungs. Before she had a chance to latch onto the drawer handle, the person jerked her backward. Her fingers clutched at the air.

  Focusing past the panic, she forced her mind on the drawer and stared hard at the cabinet. The drawer flew from the cabinet, rushing past and grazing her shoulder but missing her attacker. Damn it. She couldn’t get to the person behind her without hitting herself.

  Trying to bite at the hand across her mouth, she struggled against the steel-like arm around her stomach. A man. His scent of soap and aftershave filled her senses. Skye stiffened in shock.

  David whipped her around and pushed her up against the nearest wall, his hand firmly latched over her mouth. The buckle of his belt dug into her stomach. She shivered as the heat of his body scorched through her clothing and into her skin as fear and a sick sense of excitement rushed through her limbs.

  “Shhh,” he whispered by her ear, his breath feathering her hair back from her temple. “We’re not alone.”

  Chapter 20

  Tyler’s body drooped in Peter’s arm as he continued to cup a palm against the boy’s neck. Fear must have put the kid into a faint. Good. This way, Peter didn’t have to deflect a knee or foot to his body anymore.

  “What did you do to him?” Beneath his pin-striped shirt, Ferguson’s chest expanded in obvious outrage.

  “Not a fucking thing. The kid fainted, but I can make it where he’ll never wake up again.” Peter wrapped his palm tighter around the boy’s slender neck as he stared across the hood of his car at Ferguson.

  Peter was lying, but Ferguson didn’t need to know that. He had no intention of killing the boy just yet. Now that the moment had come to make the exchange for cash, Peter found he disliked the plan. The idea of taking the kid’s life while Skye watched appealed far more with each passing moment. To have her down on her knees, begging him, to be able to witness her life disintegrating right in front of him filled him with growing interest.

  But more than revenge kept him from handing over the kid. Peter wondered what it was about Skye’s son that sent sweat dripping from Ferguson’s brow? If he found the reason, Peter just might be able to use it against Skye in some way.

  “Why is this kid so damn important? Give me the answer. The real one, and not some pre-fabricated shit.”

  At the threat, Ferguson’s gaze narrowed and his hand fisted around the phone. For a long momen,t he didn’t say anything. “That wasn’t the deal. It was cash for the boy and nothing more.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  Ferguson’s nostril’s flared. “I can see that.”

  “Well?” Peter coolly asked, disliking the arrogant prick.

  “How about I just pay you. You leave and I keep the boy. It’s simple. Don’t make it more complicated.”

  “Money isn’t enough anymore.” Peter smiled, seeing the sudden malice flare in the other man’s eyes. Ferguson didn’t like this new development. The bastard was probably used to having people do exactly what he wanted. Well, not this time. Not with Peter. Ferguson couldn’t control him, and Peter suspected the guy was finally figuring that one out.

  “Fine, you’ll get it, but the garage is hardly the place to have this conversation.”

  Ferguson opened the door leading to the interior of the house and stepped into a black and chrome colored kitchen. Peter followed, and with an arm around the boy’s waist, hefted the kid’s limp body higher against his hip. “Where do you want me to put him?”

  “This way.”

  Ferguson walked down a hallway and stopped at a metal door with another alarm system. He punched a code into a keypad, and the green light replaced a flashing red one. The door sighed open beneath Ferguson’s hand. He then led Peter down a flight of metal, mesh stairs.

  Peter followed at a slower pace. Caution pricked the back of his neck. Even though Ferguson was well in his sixties, overweight and out of shape, Peter wasn’t about to underestimate the man.

  He’d made that mistake at the library when it came to Bishop’s father. Peter had barely managed to get the old man over the rail. He hated loose ends and was frustrated at not finishing him off at the hospital, but he couldn’t pass up a perfect opportunity to grab the kid. Skye and Bishop had been too focused on the old man to think of much else.

  The stairs led to a large, sterile, rectangular room with three white walls. The fourth consisted of counters and cabinets from the waist down. On the counter were several monitors and computer and other sophisticated equipment. A glass partition, possibly a two-way mirror, separated this room from another deep in shadow.

  Ferguson opened a door at the far end of the room and flicked a switch. Light flooded into the other room, revealing a large recliner through the glass, very much like a dentist’s chair, except this one had thick metal sleeves by the arm pads and footrests as if waiting for a victim’s ankles and wrists.

  Shit. The place looked like someone’s grotesque, modern-day Frankenstein experiment.

  Nostrils pinched, Ferguson opened the door wider. “You can set him on the chair.”

  Peter walked through the open doorway, passed Ferguson and the animosity and anxiety that radiated from his thick body, and draped the boy across the leather-like chair. That same prickle of awareness raced across his neck, and Peter rolled his shoulders, sensing the threat behind him even though he couldn’t see it.

  Casually Peter turned back around. The door stood open, while the glass partition proved to be exactly what he’d assumed. A two-way mirror with no sign of Ferguson. He was out there though, waiting to strike. Peter strode toward the doorway and sprang into the other room, tucking his head into his chest, rolling across the cement floor. He kicked out a leg and caught Ferguson’s ankle. The other man grunted and landed hard
against the ground. A gun flew from Ferguson’s hand and skirted across the floor away from the other man’s reach and by Peter. The weapon didn’t matter. Ferguson didn’t have a chance in hell of bypassing Peter to get to it.

  Peter bounded to his feet. He watched dispassionately as the other man clawed at the counter with floundering hands and dragged himself up on his knees. Ferguson’s mouth wheezed like a fish starved for oxygen. Splotches of red covered his face. Across his brow and upper lip sweat shimmered beneath the fluorescent light.

  Peter kicked the gun into the corner of the room behind him and further away from Ferguson. Then Peter stepped casually toward him. Panic flared in the prick’s eyes as he stumbled to his feet. The old man shouldn’t have turned on him. Peter rolled his neck back and forth, hearing and feeling his spine crack several times. He wanted to kill the bastard. The arrogance. The lies. The disappointments. Just like everyone else in his life. Always saying one thing and doing another. Just like his meth addict of a mother.

  Ferguson just proved he was no different than all the others, and like all the rest, he’d never disappoint Peter again. Peter wouldn’t give him that option, but first, he had to take care of a couple of matters. Like money and answers.

  “Did you really think I was going to let you shoot me? I didn’t take you for being that stupid.” Peter took another step, while Ferguson’s hand shook along the counter’s edge. The quaking didn’t stop there, though. It rushed through his entire body, even rattling his teeth. Peter smiled with pleasure.

  “The gun was to keep the boy in line. I swear to God. It was just a safety measure.”

  Peter laughed without humor. “Really? I didn’t think a kid in a dead faint was a threat. At least to my way of thinking. The boy can’t weigh much over fifty pounds. Hardly a danger, even at your advanced age and weight.”

  “It’s the truth.” Ferguson edged backward, his fingers trailing along the side of the counter. A couple more feet and he would have the wall against his back. He licked his bottom lip and closed his eyes. “You’re forgetting the money. I haven’t paid you yet.”