Mind Games

by Polly Iyer

  He surprised her by fastening only her left wrist to the bedpost. She bent her knees and inched upright. What time was it? She’d lost track. Darkness had descended. The dim light from an oil lamp on the side table offered the only illumination.

  “Who are you? Why are you doing this? If you want ransom, my father will meet your demands.”

  “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “No. You’re blocking me out. That’s not easy to do. Not when I’m trying.”

  “I know.”

  Of course he knows. I’m blocking him too. Psychic invasion depended on the sitter’s receptiveness to the reader. If the sitter put up barriers, penetration became more difficult, in some cases, impossible, similar to a subject of hypnosis who refuses to allow entrance into his mind. Neither Diana nor her abductor would allow the other to penetrate.

  “If you don’t want money, then what? Did I do something to you? Something that hurt you?”

  “Because of you, I spent twenty years in jail.” He squinted. “You caught me.”

  Diana’s mind went into overdrive. “I never caught anyone. I was a child, an instrument. If you were caught it was because of something you did, not me.”

  He sat back in his chair and studied her for a moment before he spoke. “I watched you, you know. All the time you were becoming famous, I watched, knowing I could do what you did. I did it all the time.”

  “What do you mean, watched me? You followed my career?”

  “I lived down the road, right in the next town. I read all the papers about how you found missing people, only you had that father of yours making you famous. I had no one.” He reached down and touched her thigh.

  She needed to block him, couldn’t let him in. She connected the face with the name on Ernie’s suspect list. Nothing his touch passed to her, but she remembered.

  She touched him back on the arm. “You killed the two women I found here.” She wanted him to think she was reading him. After all, that’s why he touched her, wasn’t it? He wanted her to know in the same way all killers want to impress the world with their achievements. His smile was neither arrogant nor evil. More prideful.

  “Do you know my name?”

  “No,” she lied. Take away his thrill; keep him anonymous, a nobody. Let him think he’s better than me. For now. “I never knew the names of murderers. The only ones important to me were the victims.”

  His smug look changed to disappointment.

  “You wanted me to find those women, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, to see if you could.”

  His chilling affirmation shot fear through her. Stay cool, Diana. Don’t let panic show on your face. “Hmm, risky,” she said, and wondered whether the trill in her voice was her imagination.

  “I like taking risks. Makes life interesting.”

  How far back did this go? Had he tried to get her attention when she was a child? If not, he damn sure had it now. “Who are you?” she asked. “What’s your name?”

  “Harley Macon. Does the name mean anything to you?”

  His disclosure confirmed what she already knew. “No, nothing.” Diana met his smugness with defiance. “You think you’re better than me, don’t you? You’re not.” Ah, a twitch in his smile, a momentary lack of confidence.

  “We’ll find out when the game starts, won’t we?” He recovered, his tone teasing, a teenager playing a game of one-upmanship.

  So he is playing a game. Macon wanted power over her. He’d try to break her down physically to weaken her mentally. She couldn’t allow that to happen because all he had to do was prove his superiority to himself—then he’d kill her. She must stay strong long enough for Lucier to find her. If ever there was a time to employ her acting skills, it was now.

  “And how do you plan to play, Harley Macon?”

  He pondered, but she knew it was an act, that he’d planned this down to the night at the Marigny Ball. To the hospital visit. And to the secluded cabin.

  “I’ll give you a clue. Maybe like the first time at the party when I transmitted the woman in the water. That was incredible. I loved the way you reacted, like I’d hot-wired you. Or maybe like the second time: the girl with the scarf. I didn’t see your reaction, but I can imagine.

  “I haven’t decided yet.” He rose from the chair and looked out the window into the black night. “Maybe I’ll think of something different. But whichever way I choose, you’ll have to tell me where the person I abduct is.” He turned to face her. “If you miss, you die.”

  Diana’s stomach lurched. “You mean you’re going to kill someone so I’ll tell you where the body is?”

  “That’s the game.”

  She felt physically sick. She couldn’t be the reason someone died. “That’s not a game; it’s a sacrifice.” Even though the room was hot and sticky, goose bumps rose on her arms. She remembered her first contact at the party and her reaction from the phone call at Francine’s. She wasn’t prepared then, unsure of the source. Now, she stood face to face with Harley Macon. Face to face with a man willing to kill to play a macabre game. “And what’s my test to you, or is this a one-way game?”

  “One way, of course,” he said. “I hold all the cards, don’t I?”

  Keep talking, Diana, as if this is the most natural proposal ever made. Show confidence. “You’ve followed my career, so you know how good I am. I don’t know anything about you. If the challenge isn’t equal, you’ll never prove you’re better. Don’t you want an even playing field or are you afraid of that?”

  The almost empty room echoed with his laughter. “Why, Miss Racine, when all else fails, are you resorting to psychology?” His eyes narrowed. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “And if I refuse to play?” she dared. “You kill me now and no one gets hurt. That’s what will happen anyway. I have nothing to lose.”

  “An altruist. How charming.” His twisted smile turned his beautiful face into a frightening caricature. “Depends how you want to die.”

  “Oh, I see. If I do what you want, you’ll kill me quickly, and if I don’t you’ll torture me?”

  “That’s fair, don’t you think?”

  Licks of fire seared her gut. She could handle the mental part, but her mind was much stronger than her body. “So, by playing your game, I’m authorizing you to go out and kill a woman.”

  “Not necessarily. I might find a man. I recall you found dead men too.”

  Diana glared in disbelief as he once more spoke so casually about taking a life. Macon was a malignant sociopath, incapable of remorse. This game—him against me—would be played with a stacked deck, and unless I find a way out, he’ll only deal one hand. She hoped he needed her confirmation that he was superior, her “cry uncle.”

  Hell will freeze over first!

  “Once you have a body, how am I supposed to tell where it is if I’m tied up here?”

  “Like you did the other times. I’ll bring you something of my victim. When you tell me where he or she is, I’ll tell you if you’re right.”

  “So I have only your word whether I’m right or wrong. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  With the swiftness of a snake attack, he smacked an open hand across her face, stunning her. “Don’t ever call me stupid. Hear me? Not ever.” His face burned red with anger, the same color as the hand mark she knew branded her cheek.

  Good! She rattled him. That’s what she must do to break down his defenses, to level the field. Hopefully, he wouldn’t kill her before the ground evened off.

  She thrust out her chin. “Go ahead, do what you damn well please to me. You’ll get nowhere because I refuse to play your game. You’ll never know if you were better. Never. But I know.”

  Macon circled the room, running his fingers through his hair, looking back at her over his shoulder. “You’ve got nerve. I’ll say that.”

  She couldn’t show fear in spite of her stinging face and a body that cried out in agony. Before he killed someone to leave on her dyi
ng conscience, she’d make him mad enough to snap and kill her. Until then, she’d discovered a weakness to file away. She wondered whether she could use it to her advantage.

  Macon leaned down, his face flush to hers, his voice a menacing whisper. “I’ll do what I please; you’ll do what I want.”

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” she said, not flinching.

  He stared for what seemed an eternity before unlocking the cuff from her left wrist and pulling her up, rattling whatever loose part pinched inside her ribcage. She teetered on numb legs, holding her breath, refusing to look away first.

  “Where is it?”

  He clasped her wrist and led her into the main room, a small, sparsely furnished space with what looked like a kitchen area devoid of appliances. The counter held a funny-looking coffee pot and a camper stove. He stopped in front of a closed door and pushed it open with his foot.

  “There’s a bucket to flush and a jug of water and a bar of soap to wash up. Don’t try anything.”

  “Strictly business.” She stepped inside, closed the door, and leaned her back against it. A quick survey revealed nothing to give her an advantage, not even a glass or a toothbrush. She did her business, then poured enough water from the bucket to flush. She found a plug on the basin and filled it with enough water from the jug to wash her hands and splash on her face. No towel. She flicked the water off and opened the door. Macon stood waiting.

  “Feel better?”

  Diana laughed.

  “What’s so funny? You think this is funny?”

  She took a step back. “Is that how you charm women? Ask them questions you don’t care about before you kill them?”

  “Just being superficially polite.”

  “How nice. I guess your mother taught you some manners. What else did she teach you?”

  Without preamble, Macon turned and struck Diana hard across the cheekbone―this time with a closed fist—propelling her back through the bathroom door and up against the sink. She went down hard. A trickle of blood escaped from the corner of her mouth where she bit the inside of her cheek. Stunned, she tried to shake off the ringing in her ears and the visual duplication of everything in view. As her mind refocused, she pocketed another of Macon’s weaknesses, another raw nerve. She wondered how many killers’ problems traced back to parents.

  He leaned down and jerked her to a standing position, sending a sharp pain through her midsection. “My mother taught me lots of things, not the least of which was that women can’t be trusted.” He dragged her back to the bedroom, fastened all four cuffs, and turned for the door.

  “I’m going to get us some food. I’d ask what you want, but I don’t give a damn. Whatever I get, you’ll either eat or you won’t.”

  She heard the wheels screech as he dug himself out of the dirt driveway and drove off.

  Diana lay stretched from corner to corner like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, pondering how to mentally subdue a man who wielded the same powers and who was unquestionably insane. She knew she broke the skin on her back when she hit the sink, and she felt the tender tissue above her cheekbone starting to swell. Unwilling to delve deeper into Macon’s twisted mind, she filed his two obvious sore spots in a mental folder and hoped she could refrain from incurring his wrath again.

  But a strange thing happened when he socked her. Maybe anger allowed a momentary breakdown of his barriers, or perhaps the contact resurrected the scene from Diana’s faded memory. From another life. In the next town.

  * * * * *

  Unseasonably chilly temperatures had moved in that morning, even though it was the end of June. A biting gust blew a ringlet into her face. She flicked it out of the way with the back of her hand. Nestled on the ground between two gnarled roots of an enormous oak shading the side of the hollow, she clutched the red sweater belonging to a fourteen-year-old girl who’d vanished without a trace. The contact of the sweater and her visual description led police to the site where they began their search. She watched with the forlorn expression of someone who knew what the men combing the area would find. Maybe today she’d be wrong. She’d know soon.

  “I’ve found something. Here, here,” one of the diggers cried, breaking the silent tension wound tightly in the air. “She’s hardly covered.”

  She saw blood and the strange angle of the girl’s head. As the victim’s parents, police, and other searchers hurried to the spot, she got up, leaving the red sweater behind, and walked toward her own parents standing on top of the hill, pride on their faces. Diana never looked back.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Connecting Connections

  Lucier and Beecher returned to the station early the next morning after staying late, feeling the pressure of time weighing against them. Cash entered the office looking as if he’d just found the cure for the common cold.

  “What did you come up with, Willy?”

  “I spent the morning on the phone with Macon’s boss and his old girlfriend. His boss asked around, but no one knew where Macon was going. He missed fishing last vacation because his mother died and he went home to bury her. Apparently, the guy loves to fish. So, dead end there. The girlfriend is something else. ’Course, this goes back over twenty years, but she said some interesting things. The guy was a major piece of work.”

  “In what way?” Beecher asked.

  “Well, according to her, he could only get a hard on if he got aggressive. In fact, she said he was getting so rough she broke up before he seriously hurt her. Said he had a strange relationship with his mother.”

  Lucier was all ears now. “Did she explain what she meant by that?”

  “I asked. She said they were unnaturally close, but she always felt he hated her.”

  “Whoops,” Beecher said. “Fucked up for sure. He’s starting to fit the profile like a surgeon’s glove.”

  “And this is the best part,” Cash said. “I asked if she’d ever heard of Diana Racine.”

  “And?”

  “Macon was obsessed with her. Followed everything she did. He told her Diana Racine wasn’t all that good, because she couldn’t find everyone the cops wanted.”

  “Sounds like he knew more than the cops. Check back with the sheriff’s department. See if they have any information about those unsolved murders they thought he committed. They got him for one, but I’m thinking they might have been right. This boy has a history.” Lucier stared at the papers on his desk. “I think we’ve got ourselves one sick puppy, Sam. See if the prison has a psychiatric report on him. I want to know whether he exhibited any sexual problems there. A pretty boy like him must have ignited some sparks. Also, see if Macon made friends with any prisoners from Louisiana, near New Orleans. Maybe he has a buddy. I don’t want any stone unturned.

  Lucier stopped, slapped his hand on the table. “Damn, of course.” To Cash: “You said the boss mentioned he went home to bury his mother last year when she died, but—” Lucier riffled through the papers, “says here he was in prison when she died eight years ago. If he didn’t go to his mother’s funeral last year, where did he go? Willy, find out the dates of his last year’s vacation and where Diana Racine was performing then. I’ll bet she was right here in New Orleans exactly a year ago. Oh, and, Willy, find out if there were any unsolved, sexually related incidents during that time.”

  Lucier couldn’t contain his impatience. So many things popped into his head he couldn’t keep them in order. Being wrong wasn’t an option. Time was running out for Diana. He was staking his reputation and Diana’s life on one hypothetical hand of poker, something he warned his men against.

  He paced the floor as soon as Beecher and Cash left, stopping only to answer the phone.

  “Lucier,” he bellowed into the receiver. He listened, urgency eating at him until he breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll be right there.” Grabbing his jacket, he said, “B. D.’s conscious. I’ll be at the hospital.”

  * * * * *

  The veteran cop lay dozing when Lucier entered his room bu
t soon opened his eyes and cracked a pained smile at the sight of his boss. His wife hugged Lucier, exchanged a few words, then left them alone to talk. Harris’s pallor frightened Lucier, and the pouches under his eyes and deep creases around his mouth seemed more pronounced in his thin face, reminding him that Harris was the senior member of his squad and just short of retirement.

  Lucier sat by the bed.

  “Stupid to ask how you’re doing, isn’t it?”

  “Could’ve been worse. Son of a bitch could’ve killed me.”

  “Always a positive slant, huh?”

  Harris sprouted from another generation of cops. He never quite came to grips with the changing world, the venom that spewed from young people, the callousness and apathy with which the public accepted their daily dose of shocking news and heinous crimes.

  “My biggest regret is not seeing him before he got to Ms. Racine. I swear, he snuck up on me like a shadow. Didn’t suspect a thing until the knife slid into my back.”

  “I know. It’s not your fault. He was lying in wait. Are you up to telling me what you remember?”

  “You bet.”

  “Did you see his car?”

  “A Corolla, I think. Silver. Alabama plates. I aimed to shoot out one of the tires, but I could barely hold my gun. That’s pretty much all I saw before I conked out.” He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he said, “You know, I’ve been on the force thirty years, and this is the first time I’ve been down. Doesn’t feel too good either. When I felt that slice between my shoulder blades, I knew I was finished. What they say is true about your life passing before you. I saw my kids, grandkids; I saw my wife. I thought…I thought, man, I’m not ready; I don’t have anything in order. Can’t be my time.”

  “It wasn’t, and you’re not the only one who’s glad.”

  “Thanks. Watch out for Doris till I’m outta here, will ya?”