“Johan, is that you?” she called out, and the figure turned to her without answering. It could also just be Mr. Jacobs from down the hall, she thought, but took her cell out anyway. It would be good to call the cops, tell them she got home.
Cell in hand, she dug around in her purse for her keys. The man walked to her, his face obscured by the light streaming in from the window behind him.
She took several steps closer. “Do you need help with something?” She shielded her hands against the light and heard the elevator ding open again. She turned to the sound and felt the man’s body slam into hers, pain exploding in her head.
Images of death flashed through her mind, and the feelings that came with them made her tremble in fear. Rage, fury, lust, and then pleasure. Sick, twisted pleasure. The blood was everywhere, and there were so many bodies.
And then just blackness.
Johan Luken glowered at Detective Murphy and Detective Larson and crossed his hands over his chest, making no effort to mask his fury. They could give up, but he never would. By the look on the woman’s face, he knew his reaction didn’t surprise her. She opened her mouth to say something but closed it again.
“So that’s it?” Johan said and stood up to go. He and Ritchie needed to get back to work now that the police were calling off the search for Sara.
“It’s been a month. The possibility of her still being alive with a monster like the Jerry Killer…” Detective Murphy trailed off, avoiding his eyes.
“Right. As you’ve said. Nothing I say will change your mind so I’d best be going.”
“Many family members feel the way you do but that doesn’t change the facts. A serial killer took your friend. He never kept his victims alive for long. His name remains a mystery, and we don’t know anything more than the previous investigations uncovered,” Detective Murphy explained.
“He kept Louise Fairbanks for years. He could do the same with Sara,” Johan said.
“To be frank, the FBI has taken over the case. We are still treating it as a priority in conjunction with them, but we wanted to temper your expectations,” Detective Larson cut in. Detective Murphy elbowed him into silence.
“You don’t have the case anymore?” Johan made his way to the door.
“Something like that, yes. There’s a task force but…” Murphy stopped again.
“Who do I need to speak with at the FBI?”
The detectives looked at each other.
“We’re very sorry, Mr. Luken,” Detective Murphy said.
He faced them again. “But the FBI is also assuming she’s dead?” He took a good look at the both of them and saw it in their faces. “That’s what I thought.” He yanked the door open and walked out without looking back.
The detectives had surprised him with the phone call this morning. He had thought all along that they had some information, at least the killer’s real name. But he had been wrong. The moment he sat down in the interrogation room he knew why they had called him. They were assuming Sara was dead.
He walked through the halls and out onto Wilcox Avenue, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. Richie Jones should be up by now. Johan had no idea how that man kept going on the amount of sleep he got daily, but he was thankful for his tireless effort in searching for Sara. He opened his car door.
“Mr. Luken. Johan Luken.” He turned at the sound of his name to see Detective Murphy waving at him. “Mr. Luken.” she stopped in front of him and bent over to catch her breath. “Glad…I could catch you…” she gasped.
“What can I do for you, Detective Murphy?” he said, his voice cold. Sara had trusted her and she wanted to just throw her life away.
Detective Murphy straightened out. “I want to help you and Ms. Caine. Please believe me when I say that,” she said.
“So help,” Johan said.
She nodded at his car. “Can we take a drive?”
He grabbed the handle and pulled the passenger door open for her. Outside working off the books, he didn’t see how she could do much of anything.
“You sure about this?” he asked as they got into the car.
“Drive,” she said.
He drove north to Sunset Boulevard and took a right, waiting for her cue. It took some minutes before she spoke again.
She turned her face away from him. “Once the FBI steps in they tend to take over, and with the high profile of the Jerry Killer, well, my hands are tied. They talk cooperation, but this case will make careers and we’ve been effectively locked out. But, what I do know is that they’ve hit a dead end as well and Special Agent Richardson, who is head of this investigation, is certain she is dead and demanded we call you in.”
“So why are you here?”
“You’re looking for her as well, and I want to know what information you’ve found.”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Because I want to help you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think she’s dead either. Sara could be Gillian Herrmann’s replacement.”
“Why don’t the FBI think that way?”
“I’m not privy to the way they think,” Murphy said bitterly. She took a deep breath before speaking again. “I know you’ve found something, I can see it in your demeanor.” He stared at her for a few moments and decided to use her anger at the FBI to his benefit. It could be useful to have a LAPD detective on the team.
He nodded. “What’s the most important thing we don’t know about the Jerry Killer?”
“His real name,” she said without hesitation.
“Which is what my friend and I have been attempting to discover for the last month.”
“And?”
“We have some leads but nothing definite yet. I know that she’s alive,” Johan said.
Detective Murphy stared at him for a beat. He knew he sounded more hopeful than serious. “Can I meet with the both of you tonight? I want to help in any way I can. Off the record.”
Johan raised an eyebrow at her. “Sure,” he said and rummaged in his pocket. He pulled out a silver cigarette case and handed it to her. “Call me after your shift. My number is on one of those.” She took a card out, and he drove her back to the station.
A voice whispered to her out of the darkness. “Wake up, Sara, wake up.”
Sara Caine struggled against the drowsiness and strained to open her eyes. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“Wake up. Wake up, Sara.” The voice sounded like her mother’s. Her consciousness swam to the surface of the drug induced slumber.
The woman’s voice faded into the distance.
“You have to wake up now,” whispered the voice. Sara blinked her eyes open and attempted to pull her arms back to her body. The pain jolted her back to reality. Handcuffs circled her wrists and were attached to an industrial looking headboard. She pulled harder and flinched as the metal ate into her skin.
She lifted her head. She was in the same room she had woken up in before. He hadn’t moved her yet.
Dust lazily floated in the rays of the afternoon sun struggling through the closed blinds. She recognized the look and feel of a Southern California afternoon, and relief washed over her. At least she was still in Los Angeles. Not having found a way to track time, Sara had no idea how long she’d been there.
Her mind slid to the man who kept her captive. He had told her to call him Dads the first time he came to free her so she could use the bathroom. She refused to call him that first time and every time since. He came three times a day to feed her and let her relieve herself. He could be coming any moment.
She heard a key in the lock, and the old man shuffled in, his eyes a brilliant blue. She’d never seen eyes more alive and more frightening.
Johan Luken stood next to Detective Murphy outside Ritchie’s door and questioned his decision on bringing her here. Since he’d picked her up, she avoided all eye contact and said barely four words to him. He was either stepping into some trap set up by the LAPD, or she never got t
hat leave of absence and was putting her job in jeopardy by being there.
“Who is this partner of yours?” was the first thing she said in what felt like hours.
“He’s a friend of Sara’s and a damn good hacker,” Johan said and was about to talk Richie up more when he opened the door and Detective Murphy took a step back. Johan cracked a grin. Everyone had a similar reaction when they saw him. He was sure when he told her Ritchie was a hacker, she imagined a thin, pasty looking guy with no social skills. Instead, Richie was a dead ringer for Brad Pitt in Troy.
He gestured to the detective next to him. “Richie, this is Detective Murphy,” he said.
She held out her hand. “It’s Murphy. Just Murphy,” she said. Richie pumped her hand with a grin and waved them in. “As Johan told you, we’ve been trying to find addresses going back further than what’s in all the files you and the FBI have,” Richie explained and pointed to the leather couch in front of his bank of monitors. Johan and Murphy sat down.
“You’ve found something new,” Johan said. He recognized the current of excitement in Ritchie’s voice and hoped they’d be able to skip his process. Richie held up his hand to stop him, and Johan got comfortable. They were definitely going to hear about his brilliant deduction skills.
“We hit several walls immediately,” Richie explained and made sure he had their undivided attention.
“Like we did. No usable fingerprints and no other way to identify him. We did find DNA, but no match to anyone we have in the system,” Murphy said.
“I also found those fingerprints,” Richie said and turned back to his monitors. After a furious amount of clicking, close-ups of smudgy fingerprints appeared on the screen. “Like you, I hit a dead end with them.”
Johan saw Murphy shift deeper into the black leather couch, also getting comfortable. She’d lost the nervous look she’d had on all evening.
“Older people’s fingerprints get smudgy when they put any pressure on them. Something to do with moisture in the skin or age or something,” Murphy explained. Richie swiveled in his chair and nodded at her.
“Right. So anyway, the next step was to find where they both surfaced together,” Ritchie reiterated. He’d found it, Johan was sure of it.
“I found another address before the ones in Palm Springs. Under a different name, of course.”
Murphy leaned in. “How do you know it’s them?”
“Fairbanks was the name of a famous silent film star. Douglas Fairbanks. I ran different combinations of other names and found a nurse named Louise Pickford at an address in San Francisco with a father named Dads who had dementia. A place called Comfort Homes of San Francisco,” Johan said.
“That has to be them. What are the odds of the same kind of relationship?” Johan asked.
“I checked Louise’s driver’s license,” Richie said anticipating their doubts. He hit a couple of keys and pulled up a California Driver’s License, with an unsmiling Lou staring out from a badly lit picture.
“Is it too late for a flight tonight?” Murphy checked the time on an ancient watch.
Johan was surprised that such an old relic worked. ‘Too late, we can go first thing tomorrow.”
“I don’t fly,” Richie said. “Plus, you want me in front of the monitors. I can get more information that way. The man had a name once, and I will find it,” Richie said. “Oh, and another thing, the place was also managed by McGregor Investments.”
“That’s an interesting connection,” Johan said.
“That could simply be a coincidence. They own properties all over the States, all of them assisted living homes. At some point, it’s a numbers game.”
“I tried calling them today but since the Sunshine is getting so much press, they’re all on major shutdown. No one’s answering any questions,” Ritchie said. “Can you use some of your LAPD muscle to get them to talk?”
Johan shook his head before Murphy could answer. “Murphy took a leave of absence, Richie. I told you that, remember?” Sometimes Johan wondered if Richie listened to him at all.
“What’s the point of bringing a cop along if you can’t use their influence?” Richie asked.
Murphy cut in. “I’ll influence in any way I can. I have my methods.”
Ritchie turned back to his computers and numerous screens popped up.
“OK, first flight available is JetBlue leaving at six in the morning. Sound good?”
“Perfect. Let me give you my—“ Murphy started but Ritchie interrupted her.
“Already taken care of. I can expense it,” he said, his attention back to the computers.
“Don’t you need my info?”
“Already got that,” he said. Murphy glanced at Johan with a crooked smile.
“I told you he was the best,” Johan added.
Sara Caine sat in the back of her parent’s Jaguar and watched as her parents fell into an angry silence. She preferred their shouting to this. The mood in the car now felt a hundred times worse.
“Mom, are we there?” Sara leaned into the back of her mother’s seat and whispered.
“Hush, honey. Not right now,” her mother said without turning around.
She jutted out her chin in frustration. “Why not now? No one else is talking,” she complained.
“Sara, enough,” her father threatened. Sara sat back in her seat and folded her arms around her.
She recognized the familiar dream although this start was different. A massive argument had always started the dream off. What did this new silence mean? Her mother twisted in her seat, tears streaming down her face.
“It’s time to wake up, Sara.”
“I don’t want to.”
Her father smiled back at her reassuringly. “You have to wake up, Sara. Now. It’s time,” he said. Sara closed her eyes knowing the accident was about to happen. She’d stuck around only once to see her parents’ death and that was enough. She focused her energy back on her breathing.
In the distance, she heard her parents’ screams, the sharp sound of metal on metal, a sickening crunch, and then a high-pitched whistle. She heard those last sounds every night and they haunted her into the day. However, this new silence scared her more than the crash sounds ever did.
She opened her eyes to a black nothingness, a void. Outside her breathing, she heard nothing else. This was a limbo straight out of Dante.
If she was asleep, then where was she in the dream cycle? She’d studied sleep disorders and sleep patterns because of her own nightmares and insomnia, but she didn’t recognize this stage. The phase of sleep where dreams existed was known as REM sleep, but this didn’t feel like that.
This resembled the first phase, when the mind shut down to recharge. The only problem with that was that she’d have no awareness of self or the void for that matter.
She closed her eyes and focused on the only sound she could hear. Her own breathing. If she could fall asleep then she could also wake up. And when she’d wake up, she might not be in this void anymore.
“He’s drugging you,” said a woman’s voice through the darkness. Sara strained to recognize the voice. She only knew her mother’s voice from the dream but had no idea if that was what she really sounded like. She had no recordings of either of them, and the accident was all so long ago. She scattered photos of them around her house to make sure to remember them, but it never felt as if it was enough.
“Wake up,” the voice said. It sounded as though it came from right in front of her. She opened her eyes and stepped toward the sound.
“Say something. I need to use your voice,” Sara said.
“You’re almost there. It’s only a couple of more steps. You need to wake up,” the voice said. Sara stepped forward and detected the woman’s Germanic accent with its hard, nasal sound.
“Am I getting closer? Can you see me?” Sara asked.
“Can you see the pin of light?” said the voice as it faded off into the distance.
“No, I don’t. It’s all black and y
ou’re fading,” Sara cried, her anxiety rising. Becoming hysterical would not get her out of here, she thought and calmed herself down.
“I don’t see it,” she called out. When she got no response, she ran forward.
“Please say something. Hello? Are you still there?”
Sara sprinted forward and felt the forward momentum in her body but thought she was running in place. She pushed herself to run faster.
She squeezed her eyes shut and finally saw it. The pinpoint of light. She used whatever energy she had left and directed her body at it. She sobbed in relief as the pinpoint enlarged, became a circle and grew bigger until the light surrounded her.
Sara gasped awake and was momentarily thrilled to see the sun and her prison. As reality pushed her relief back into terror, she listened for any sounds of Dads. Instead, she heard music playing somewhere in the house and recognized the tune as Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis Presley.
The room transformed in front of her to a clean, sparse bedroom with a chest of drawers and a chair next to it. A colorful rag rug sat on top of newish, wood flooring.
Sara closed her eyes and opened them again. She recognized the shift as a vision and thought she could be in the 1940s. But, then Elvis Presley became a hit in the 1950s. The 1950s could be right.
She yanked hard on her chains and wished they were also part of the dream. An argument rose over the sound of the music, and it took her a second to register that the voices weren’t in English but in German.
As Sara strained to make out the second voice, the light streaming from the window coalesced into a shape of a woman cowering at the door. The woman gained such a vivid, sharpness that Sara realized she probably died in this very room.
The woman’s dress cemented her thinking it was the 1950s, and she would be old enough to be Dads’ mother. She’d read that serial killers came from violent, traumatic childhoods and this woman didn’t appear violent although appearances were deceiving.
The ghost cracked the door open and the shouting grew louder. The woman closed the door against the sound and sobbed. The intensity of her crying drew energy away from her corporality and made her translucent. She turned to face Sara, tears streaming down her face.
The Elk (A Caine & Murphy Paranormal Thriller Series Book 1) Page 22
