He put it on and looked at Tara. “You ready to go?” he asked.
“Unh-huh. Where are we going?”
“To the airport. I’ve got to rent another car.”
Riley sat on the edge of the desk and stared at the blood on the carpet. The house was quiet now. The police were gone. The body of Barry Miller had been removed and Kay had been rushed to the hospital. She had used the same knife that Barry had attacked Bowden with. She had walked into the room and picked it up only moments after Tara was kidnapped.
Riley tried to stop her from slashing her wrists. He tried to talk her out of it. He even pulled his gun and threatened her. She’d laughed at him. He stood helpless as the knife sliced through her skin searching for a vein. He stood helpless as the blood flowed from her body. He couldn’t pick up the phone to dial 911. He couldn’t summon help, only stand silently and watch her bleed out. He’d never felt so helpless.
Then the police arrived. Two patrol vehicles pulled up out front and the officers sat in the car waiting for something or somebody. He could see them talking and then one of them realized that the front door was open. They approached with guns drawn and entered the house, then found the two bodies in the study.
Riley shook his head to clear his thoughts. It didn’t do any good for him to think about it. He looked down the driveway and wondered how Bowden had done. Had he caught up with Tara’s abductor? Was she safe? Riley stood up and stepped around the pool of blood. His head dropped until his chin almost touched his chest.
He was useless. Completely, utterly useless. He smashed his hand into the wall and it went right through. He kicked at it. He pounded his fists. He could not feel a thing. Then why did his heart ache? Why was there such a cold, heavy drain on his soul? How could he feel such loss and not feel the wall?
He sighed and shook his head. In anguish, he stared up at the ceiling but his gaze didn’t stop there. His tortured soul looked through it, bursting out of the house and into the universe. Blinding flashes of light cascaded through his senses. Brilliant, flaming stars crashed into his soul.
He shut his eyes and fell to the floor burying his face in the carpet. His body shook uncontrollably in reaction to an experience beyond his understanding. Putting his hands over his eyes, he fought to regain control. After sucking in several deep breaths and exhaling each one slowly, the shaking diminished, then left him.
Riley opened his eyes and saw his hands. He sat up, pulling his knees to his chest. Slowly he lifted his gaze to the ceiling. It was still there. He looked at each textured bump on the sheetrock and wondered what had just happened to him. A term came to mind. He had “spaced out.” He chuckled and brought his gaze down.
He was still sitting in the hallway, when a car turned up the driveway. He heard it and glanced in the direction of the sound. The wall was in front of him and then through him and the ground was a brown blur under him and drops of rain slashed like blades of steel. Then he was looking in the car, staring at Tara’s sad face, and Bowden beside her at the wheel.
Riley sprang to his feet. He was in the hallway again, surrounded by the walls. The carpet was under his feet. He hadn’t moved but he had been able to see beyond them. In seventy years he had never experienced anything like that. He was afraid and… he searched for a word to describe his feelings to himself… awed. He wondered why now, after all these years, he was able to do this. His emotions were on edge. Everything appeared crisp, vibrant, like when color was introduced to television.
Riley stood in the foyer when Bowden opened the door. Tara walked into the house first. She was wearing a different shirt. One that was much too big for her. It was a man’s shirt and Riley suddenly realized that it belonged to Bowden. He didn’t know how he knew, he just did, and a sudden jealousy flooded him with heat.
He looked into Tara’s eyes and saw innocence, pain and… love. He glanced at Bowden who seemed distracted. The jealousy vanished. He looked back at Tara and saw a smile, faintly and briefly flash from her lips and then it turned to a frown as tears spilled from her eyes. She stretched her arms out, took a step, and fell forward.
Riley felt her pain and reached out instinctively to catch her. He felt the weight of her spirit against him as he encircled her with his arms. Her weight rested against his heart and was heavy. He stood holding Tara as she cried, her face buried against his shoulder.
“Huh?”
Riley opened his eyes and saw Bowden pointing at him and staring. Riley glanced down at Tara, felt her slipping off his heart and then falling through him. He grasped desperately at her arms as she fell forward, but he had nothing to clutch her with, and she dropped onto the floor.
The frustration and confusion erupted from Riley’s lips as a haunting scream, piercing the air around them. It escaped from his tortured soul, rising into the wind, long and loud, as his faced turned to the heavens and the world spun like a cyclone around him.
He staggered, dizzy from the effects of his scream. Bowden stepped around Riley and gently lifted Tara to her feet. He walked her to the stairs and sat her down.
Riley held both hands over his face and asked from between his fingers, “What is happening?”
Bowden shook his head, looking sideways a Riley. “I don’t know. You touched her though… for a second.”
“Thank you. Thank you for bringing her back.”
Bowden shrugged his shoulders as if it were no big deal.
“Is she the only one left?” Riley asked.
“Kay might still make it.”
“Is she alive?”
“She’s in ICU. What’s been going on with you?”
Riley bowed his head and gripped the fedora with one hand. “I don’t know. I’m like… adrift. I can’t explain it; my spirit is… like a boat tossed on the sea with no direction. I have a hard time now controlling things that are happening to me. No. That’s not it. I’m doing things I can’t control. I’m no longer the pilot.”
Bowden stared at him for a second, and then sprang for the stairs. He stepped around Tara, ran to Flavio’s room, and pulled the painting out of the closet. Carrying it in one hand, he used the other to lift Tara to her feet.
“Come on,” he said, lights dancing in his eyes. “I think I’ve got something.”
Tara walked slowly behind him as he pulled her down the hallway to the office. Riley followed after them, aware that Bowden may have suddenly broken secret of the painting. When Bowden entered the office, he released his grip on Tara and laid the painting on the desk. He opened the desk drawers until he found the charts and he took them out. He tossed the maps aside and focused on the charts that were in book form.
The page number on the chart in the painting was 34 and Bowden opened the first book to that page. He laid it next to the painting, matching up the top corners. The contours didn’t match and the number was printed differently. He tossed the book aside and opened the next one.
Riley suddenly understood what the detective was doing. If they could find the map that matched, it might have a route laid out on it, or a marking of some kind to indicate the location.
Bowden compared the next map to the painting. It was an exact match. He laid the book onto the painting, lining up the painted map with the one he held in his hand. A route had been charted to an island in the San Juan’s.
Bowden whispered, “Gotcha,” and glanced up at Riley, his smile contagious.
Riley smiled and nodded back as Tara walked up to the table to look.
“It was that easy?” she asked.
Riley grinned. “Well, we have a map. Now we have to follow it.”
Bowden straightened up. “Let’s get started.” He closed the soft-covered book and tucked it under his arm.
Riley glanced outside. It would soon be light. He wasn’t going. He knew it and it hurt him deeply.
“What?” Bowden asked, looking at Riley’s downcast eyes.
“I’ll stay here.”
“Nonsense.”
“It’ll be lig
ht in an hour. Then I’ll be useless again.”
Tara stepped close to Riley and looked up into his eyes. “You’ve never been useless. You’ve… you’ve always been my friend.”
Riley smiled as his heart melted inside him. He wanted to take her and hold her close and smell her hair, feel the smoothness of her skin and the warmth of her body next to his. He pursed his lips as he tried to think of something to say, but a sadness enveloped him and he turned away, unable to find any words.
Bowden called after him. “We’ll be renting a boat and going out to the island. You can come with us. We can wait until light, and you can come.”
Riley stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “But what will I do?”
Tara answered quickly, “You can just be there. I will know that you’re with me, even when I can’t see you.”
Riley turned to face them and realized that he stared at two friends. “In seventy years I’ve never been away from this house and this land. I don’t know if it’s even possible.”
Bowden chuckled low in his throat. “You won’t know unless you try.”
“True,” Riley replied.
“Let’s get some sleep,” Bowden suggested. “We won’t be able to rent a boat until seven or eight, I don’t think, so we might as well get some rest.”
Tara nodded. “I could really use some.”
She yawned and Bowden yawned a second later. Tara left the two men and went to her room. They watched her from the hallway until she disappeared up the stairs.
“She’s really something,” Bowden said.
Riley glanced over at him, concerned about his interest in her. “You’re almost twice her age.”
Bowden’s head snapped up. “What? Oh. She’s beautiful, too. I wasn’t thinking about that though.”
“Really?” Riley asked skeptically.
“Yeah. I was actually thinking how lucky you were.”
“Me?”
Bowden sighed and shook his head. “What, you can’t tell that she loves you?”
Riley froze. He had never considered it. “How can she love me? Technically I don’t even exist.”
“I don’t mean physically. I guess she’s connected with the person… um, your inner being?”
Riley looked over at the stairs. “Don’t ask me. I can’t even figure myself out.”
Chase laughed. “Nobody can, my friend. Nobody can.” He looked at the couch in the living room and motioned at it. “I guess I’ll sleep there.”
Bowden threw the pillows from the back of the couch onto the floor to give himself more room to sleep. He kicked off his shoes and let out a long sigh as he lay down. “Do you sleep?” he asked the ghost.
“No.”
“Then wake me at seven.”
Riley watched the big man close his eyes. The skin on his face sagged as he relaxed. His mouth opened slightly as he dropped into a deep sleep.
Riley turned away and walked up the stairs.
The door to Tara’s room was slightly ajar, which was something new for her. She usually left it closed. He walked in and saw her curled up under the covers. Bowden’s shirt lay discarded on the floor and the black slacks that Tara had worn for so many hours were draped over the end of the bed.
Riley sat next to her and wondered about the words Bowden had said. Did she really love him? He stared at her face and sadly shook his head. Even if she loved him, what could he do? He had no way to return that love and she would grow older, while he would be thirty-two forever.
He saw her eyelids flicker and knew that she was dreaming. He hoped it was a pleasant dream, one that would ease the pain of the day. Too many people died for something that still remained unknown. And one person was still missing. Michelle. She was Tara’s best friend. The eighteen-year-old had only looked at the good things in life, and Riley hoped she still could.
He sighed. He didn’t like that line of thought. He hoped that Michelle was still alive. He knew that Cooper was still trying to track her down and that Bowden thought about it constantly. He wondered if he could take a more active role in trying to find the girl and nodded as he answered his own thoughts.
The air in the room shifted as it was disturbed by cold air. Riley could feel the movement of the air but didn’t know how he could feel it. He realized that someone had opened the front door and he stood up slowly as he tried to figure out who it could be. He wondered if Bowden was awake.
Riley walked to the top of the stairs and looked down. A man stood just inside the door with one hand on the knob as he closed it silently. In his other hand he held a gun.
15
The man held the gun near his face with the barrel pointed up at the ceiling. He looked familiar to Riley, but when he lowered the gun a little, Riley didn’t know who it was. As the gun came down he noticed the square jaw and curly blond hair. Sam squinted as he tried to verify who he thought it was. He noticed the flat nose, the athletic build, the 5-foot-eleven inch frame.
It looked like Adam Fonck, but Adam was dead. Riley looked closer. There was something different about the eyes. They were closer together and deeper than Adam’s. The man took a step into the foyer and saw Riley. His head snapped up and he straightened his arm, pointing the gun at Riley.
“Who are you?” the intruder whispered hoarsely.
“The Gray Ghost.”
The man paused and looked at him. “What?”
“Who are you?”
“Kent Fonck. What are you doing in this house?”
“I guess you could say that I live here.”
Kent smiled. “A friend of Tara’s? Is she home?”
“Yes, but we’re not going to wake her up.”
“She’s my cousin, you idiot. I’ll wake her up if I want to.”
Riley shook his head. “A friend of Tara’s wouldn’t sneak into the house with a gun.”
“I don’t mean her any harm.”
Riley was getting a bad read from Kent. He decided to test his feelings and asked the next question, watching closely for a reaction. “You know someone tried to kidnap her today?”
“Really?”
Riley smiled. The reaction told him everything. There was no hint of surprise or concern. Kent already knew.
“I was here when you grabbed her.”
Kent shrugged but his brows furrowed over his eyes. “Were you the one who chased me? You look younger than I thought.”
“No. That was someone else.”
Kent let out a long sigh. “You know, I thought all the killing was over.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ll have to kill you too.”
Riley laughed and Kent cocked his head to one side.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. You’re ready to kill me because I know that you tried to kidnap Tara, but when you told me that, you confessed to killing Adam.”
“Up yours.” Kent pulled the trigger.
The sound was deafening and smoke and fire erupted from the barrel of the gun as the round ripped through Riley’s form. Riley flinched, jerking his head back and bringing his right hand up to knock the fedora from his head. He smiled as he straightened up and looked down at the gunman.
Riley poked his finger into the hole in his forehead. “Good shot,” he said, grinning.
Kent’s eyes bugged out from the deep sockets, showing white all the way around the iris. He looked down into the barrel of the gun and then glanced back up at Riley who was now laughing out loud and uncontrollably.
Hearing the shot, Bowden woke with a start, heart racing. He tore out into the hallway, saw Kent, and drove his shoulder into Kent’s side. They fell at the base of the stairs, and Bowden grabbed Kent’s hair firmly in his right hand and pounded him in the face with his left. His knuckles cracked solidly on Kent’s jaw as the younger man tried to shrug him off. He spread his legs to stabilize his position and dropped another left into the side of Kent’s head.
Kent rolled slightly, from his right side onto his back, freeing his r
ight arm. He still held the gun in that hand and he used it as a club. He swung it around and Chase managed to get his left hand up. Part of the blow was deflected by Bowden’s forearm but his head stopped the rest of it.
Dazed, he fell to the side and Kent tried to scramble out from under him. Chase clung desperately to the younger man’s jacket, trying to pull him back underneath. A seam in the jacket gave way with a long, seam-popping, rip.
He watched for Kent’s gun hand and when it came up again, he swept Kent’s arm under his own, trapped it against his side and smashed the bicep with his right first. Kent screamed as the muscle in his arm constricted from the shock. Bowden punched the muscle again and the gun fell from Kent’s limp fingers.
Kent shoved his left arm up under Bowden’s throat and wrenched his damaged arm out of Bowden’s grasp. Bowden lost his grip but was still on top. He swung a right at Kent’s face. Kent ducked and Bowden connected with the top of Kent’s skull.
Blood trickled from Kent’s nose and Bowden punched the red spot with a short, wicked left jab. Kent’s head rocked back from the impact and blood splattered onto Bowden’s shirt. He drew his hand back to deliver another blow, when Kent raised a knee into Bowden’s groin. His face turned white and Kent threw him off. He reached out, grasping Kent as he fell to the side, off the stairs, and down onto the foyer floor, dragging Kent with him. He had hold of Kent’s coat and another seam gave as the jacket was stretched across Kent’s shoulders.
Riley watched wordlessly as the two men fought below him. He could see that when the two landed by the front door, that Kent would be on top and Bowden would be in a bad position. He launched himself from the top of the stairs.
Kent glanced up and saw Riley running at him. He slipped out of his jacket and bolted through the door. With the coat suddenly released, Bowden fell, rolled over and rested his head on the floor, moaning softly.
Riley watched Kent run down the driveway to his car, which was parked near the road. As soon as he was certain that Kent wasn’t coming back, Riley turned his attention to Bowden.
“How you feeling?”
Bowden glanced up and then closed his eyes. “Nauseous,” he gasped.
The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers) Page 69
