The Touch

by Lisa Olsen

  “Okay, so why come to me?” Gabriel shrugged.

  “It got me to thinking; do you guys have access to the blueprints for Allie’s house?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve got those right on my Blackberry, do you want me to email them to you?” Cooper smirked. “What kind of question is that?”

  “An investigative one,” Maddie snapped. “I’m trying to find out where the woman who kidnapped those kids back in the day stashed them. The kids were missing for much longer than Chloe has been so far, she would have kept them out of sight.”

  “You think Chloe is being kept in her own home?” Gabriel’s brows rose, it would be the last place anyone would ever look for her. Provided the perp had ready access to get in and out of there.

  Maddie nodded, “And maybe Lexi stumbled onto something that got her in over her head. Allie too for all we know, she’s not picking up either.”

  Gabriel tapped his finger against his lips as he thought it over. There were some holes there, but it wasn’t a terrible theory. It beat the pants off of any theory they’d been able to come up with so far on their own. Wherever Chloe was, it was under the radar, she hadn’t been spotted by anyone, even after all of the press coverage. The real question was, how much did Allie know about all of this? It was hard to believe anyone could be coming and going without her knowing about it.

  “You know Lexi, she’s not out clubbing somewhere. Most nights she’s either holed up in her room or painting in the studio. When she didn’t come home I thought maybe she might be out with you but…”

  “Yeah, we had a little bit of a disagreement the last time we spoke,” Gabriel admitted. “She left me a message earlier today too, but I thought maybe she changed her mind about talking to me when she didn’t pick up.”

  “She did? What did your message say?” Maddie asked.

  “Just that she wanted me to call her as soon as I could and that she was still at Allie’s, but that was around two o’clock. She could be anywhere by now.”

  “So let’s drive out there, see what we can see,” Cooper suggested.

  “Why don’t we start with trying to call Allie again, I don’t want her attorney having any kind of case against the department for harassment if we can avoid it.” Gabriel pulled her number out of the computer and picked up the phone, but the answering machine picked up and he hung up without leaving a message. “No answer.”

  “So what do we do?” Maddie asked, looking between the pair of detectives.

  “I could probably get that information on the house’s blueprints from the city planner’s office, but not at this hour without a court order.”

  “Which we don’t have,” Cooper pointed out.

  “Alright, let’s take a drive out there,” Gabriel conceded, “But no busting down the door looking for Lexi, we have to tread carefully here.” He exchanged looks with Cooper, satisfied that he caught the subtext. Allie was a big fat unknown in this equation, and she was to be treated as dangerous until proven innocent.

  “We can take my car,” Cooper volunteered cheerily.

  Gabriel laid a hand on his chest. “What makes you think you’re coming?” It was hardly a two man job, and it might put Allie on the defensive to see the pair of detectives on her doorstep. He was much more comfortable going with Maddie. She wasn’t the least bit threatening, until she opened her mouth.

  “Come on partner, you know I got your back. This situation sounds like it could get out of hand fast, I just wanna do my part.” Cooper darted his eyes in Maddie’s direction.

  Gabriel hid a smile behind a cough. Far be it from him to deny his partner the chance to act the hero in front of a pretty girl. “You might be right at that; it’s never a bad idea to have too much back up. But I’m driving.”

  “I’ll follow you guys okay? I want to have my own car,” Maddie declined.

  “I call shotgun,” Cooper’s hand went up. “For your protection of course,” he grinned.

  A roll of the eyes was given. “Who’s gonna protect me from you?”

  ***

  In the end Maddie took her own car alone and Tim and Gabriel took the Towncar out to Allie’s house. The first thing he noticed was that the house was completely dark and Lexi’s car was nowhere in sight. Stopping at the end of the driveway, Gabriel killed the engine, pleased to see Maddie pull in directly behind him instead of driving all the way up to the house.

  “Hold on a sec before we go in like gangbusters,” Maddie whispered, leaning against the car as she pulled out her phone. “Let me just make a quick call to Paul and make sure Lexi didn’t turn up at home before we go make total asses of ourselves.”

  “So what’s the deal with you and Paul; is he your boyfriend?” Cooper asked, taking up the spot beside her.

  “This so isn’t the time or the place,” Maddie murmured distractedly.

  “But you’re saying there’s a time and place?” he grinned.

  Gabriel fished out his phone, dialing Lexi again, frowning when an automated voice reported that her voicemail was full and no longer accepting calls. That wasn’t a good sign; it meant she’d been unable to check her messages for a while. Unless she was holed up in her studio painting, it was looking more and more like Maddie was right and something had happened to her.

  Maddie hung up after a brief chat with Paul. “He said there’s no sign of her and it doesn’t look like she’s been home all day. He assumed she was staying here with Allie.”

  “She’s still not picking up the phone either. Alright, let’s go check in with Allison, but leave the talking to me, just follow my lead, okay?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Maddie nodded and Cooper did the same.

  “You’re the bossman.”

  The house looked completely deserted, no sign of movement or lights when they approached the front door and rang the bell. As the silent seconds dragged on, Gabriel began to think there wouldn’t be an answer and he started to weigh the pros and cons of probable cause and any justification for breaking in. After all, no one could reach either Allie or Lexi; they might have been attacked or worse, and in need of help. But then the hall light snapped on and Allie came to the door, blinking in the light.

  “Yes?” she asked blankly.

  A little taken aback by the lack of greeting, even if she was ticked off at him, Gabriel plunged ahead. “We’re ah, trying to track down Lexi, can we speak with her?”

  “She isn’t here,” Allie started to shut the door and Gabriel put a hand out to keep it open.

  “When did you last see her?” he asked, losing some of the cordiality in his voice and replacing it with an interrogative tone.

  “I don’t know, earlier today.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know, home I suppose. Is there anything else, Detective?”

  “What do you mean you don’t know, when did she leave?” Maddie pushed her way into the doorway, a disgruntled look on her face.

  Allie regarded Maddie steadily, her expression inscrutable. “Earlier today,” she repeated. “Why don’t you go and bother someone else for a while, I have other things to attend to.” Again she tried to push the door shut but Gabriel held it steady, not willing to relinquish it before getting the final word in.

  “If you hear from Lexi, please tell her to give me a call.” With that he let go, turning away, deep furrows of worry appearing on his forehead. He didn’t like being blown off, even if Allie had every right to be pissed off at him at the moment.

  They got all the way to the end of the driveway before Maddie spoke. “What do we do now?”

  “Now we wait for Lexi to turn up, that’s it,” he shrugged, not any happier at reaching a dead end than she was.

  “But what about Allie’s behavior back there? Didn’t she seem off to you guys?

  “Total beeyotch, she’s definitely got something to hide,” Cooper agreed.

  Gabriel was less willing to make any rash judgments. “I dunno, it makes sense she’d be cold to me, I was the one who a
rrested her after all, that would tick anybody off.”

  “Yeah, but she wasn’t just cold… it was like she didn’t give a damn where her own sister was,” Maddie pointed out.

  “I thought you said the ghosts told you she wasn’t the killer?” Gabriel reminded her. She couldn’t have it both ways; either Allie was involved or she wasn’t.

  “Yeah I know,” she frowned. “Still, my spidey senses are going into overdrive here, I can’t shake the feeling that something’s not right.”

  “We could run a GPS locator on Lexi’s phone, see where it turns up,” Cooper suggested and Maddie flashed him a grateful smile.

  “That’s a great idea!”

  Warmed by the response, Cooper pulled his tablet out of the back of Gabriel’s car. “It’ll just take a sec; I have a cool app for this. What’s the number?”

  Gabriel rattled it off without missing a beat, wondering if he should break down and buy one of those nifty gadgets. Only whenever he was away from his laptop Cooper was around to provide his or he made do with the limited internet access on his phone.

  “Okay, here we are… and it’s… huh, that’s weird. Hold on a sec, let me zoom in a bit,” Cooper frowned over the display, tapping the screen a few times. “It’s here. According to this her phone is right here, but I can’t get it to zoom in any more and see where exactly it is from where we are.”

  Maddie’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “What if she’s in that hidden room?”

  Gabriel couldn’t help but dismiss that with a snort. “Oh come on, Lexi probably left the phone inside and that’s why she hasn’t been answering today. I was willing to go with you on this little field trip, but I have real work to get back to. Just go on home and I’m sure Lexi will turn up soon. She probably went for a drive or something.”

  “He’s right, maybe she went to the movies to blow off some steam and got lucky?” Cooper suggested helpfully and Gabriel resisted the urge to smack him.

  Maddie didn’t bother to reply to Cooper. “Okay okay, I’ll go home. But promise me you’ll look into the thing with the blue prints?”

  “First thing in the morning I’ll make a call. Scout’s honor,” Gabriel gave her a reassuring smile.

  “She was right; you do have a nice smile,” Maddie’s head cocked to one side as she studied him.

  That caught Gabriel by surprise. “Lexi said that?”

  “She said a lot of things,” she smirked. “Whatever’s going on between the two of you, don’t give up on her, okay? I’ve known her a long time and she doesn’t let herself fall very often, I’d hate to see her get hurt.”

  He didn’t want to see Lexi get hurt either, even if she had been the one with the cutting words the last time they’d spoken. “When she does come home, have her give me a call. Or if you wouldn’t mind…” he handed over a business card.

  “I thought you said she was probably fine wherever she is?”

  Busted. Gabriel shrugged, “Still, it’ll put my mind at ease.”

  “Here, take my card too. Just in case you need anything in the middle of the night, I’ll be right at your fingertips,” Cooper held out one of his own cards.

  “Alright,” she accepted the card, turning it over in her fingers. “Who knows, I might find myself all alone some night, in desperate need of a little distraction,” Maddie replied, her voice soft and breathy, deliberately teasing him.

  “I can be very distracting,” Cooper’s smile widened.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she smirked. “See you guys later, thanks for trying.” With a little half salute, Maddie turned and got into her car.

  “I like that girl,” Cooper sighed, watching her drive away.

  “You like all girls,” Gabriel pointed out, already climbing into the driver’s seat.

  “What about you? Ghost stories? Really? You’ve got it bad for that chick.”

  “Shut up and get in the car, I’ve had enough wild goose chases for the night. Time to head for home and get some rest.”

  “Then you don’t think there’s anything to what the housemate had to say?”

  Gabriel looked up the driveway to the house that was once more shrouded in complete darkness. “I didn’t say that.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lexi awoke to a splitting headache, a metallic taste in her mouth that she vaguely recognized as blood. Wrists and ankles were bound painfully tight to the chair, right hand still bare, and she immediately clenched it into a protective fist. Straining at the bonds only made her wrists and ankles burn and the knots showed no sign of slipping. The old wooden table was set for a tea party with delicate cups and saucers, dirty and smudged, like the one she’d held up in Chloe’s room but the dishes were bare. A flickering oil lamp provided the only illumination, the glass half covered with soot, obscuring what light there was. The same ancient bed she’d seen in the visions stood tucked away against the wall, the ratty bedclothes matching the tattered drapes hanging on the walls. No sign of any windows or doors, Lexi could understand how such a room could be so undetectable.

  Chloe sat across the table, her face bowed and shadowed in the uncertain light. Upon closer inspection, the other “child” at the table was not a child at all, but a large lifelike doll propped at the head of the table to preside over the ruined tea party. Dressed in a white cotton party dress, the doll stared ahead with sightless eyes. Tearing her eyes away from the unsettling view of the doll, Lexi’s gaze returned to her niece, relieved to see the gag hung loose around her neck. “Chloe? Honey, can you hear me?”

  Chloe’s head came up, her cheeks stained with tears. “Aunt Lexi?” Her voice sounded small and defeated, as though she’d lost any hope of escape.

  “Oh, thank God,” the knot in Lexi’s chest eased at the immediate response. “How are you, are you okay?” she whispered, not wanting to draw any attention to the fact that she was awake, in case Allie was within hearing distance.

  “I can’t feel my feet…” Chloe whimpered, fat tears spilling from the corners of her eyes.

  Oh Christ… Lexi resisted the urge to tear up herself, knowing she had to keep it together until they escaped. “Listen to me, it’s gonna be okay Chloe, your feet are just numb from the ropes. As soon as she unties them you’re gonna get those little pins and needles tingling when you walk, like when you fall asleep funny and your arm goes to sleep, but there’s nothing to worry about, I promise.” Immediate guilt assaulted her for making that promise. Depending on how long she’d been tied up like that, any manner of irreparable damage could have already been done, but she needed Chloe’s spirits up for now. They could deal with any permanent consequences later; one hill at a time.

  It wasn’t clear if Chloe was buying it or not, the girl didn’t acknowledge what she said at all. When she did speak, it was with a shaky whisper. “I’m scared; I want to get out of here.”

  “I know Sweetie, and I’m gonna figure out a way to get us out of here, I promise.” There she went again making promises she had no idea if she could keep. Her own feet began to feel those telltale signs of blood loss, numbness and tingling and she tried to ignore it, focusing on what she could control. “How long has she had you tied up in here?”

  “I don’t know… a long time,” Chloe sniffled. “Days, I think.”

  Of course she’d have little clue of the passage of time without any windows. “But does she ever untie you and let you walk around?” It was easier not to call Allie by name or to refer to her as Chloe’s mother; whatever Allie had turned into, she was no longer the sister Lexi knew and loved.

  “Sometimes, when she wants us to play games.”

  “Us?”

  “Bianca and me.”

  Lexi’s eyes widened in surprise, “Bianca, the little girl who died here?”

  Chloe nodded. “That’s why she keeps me here; she wants me to play with Bianca. Sometimes with the other kids from before, but mostly it’s just me and Bianca.”

  Her head was throbbing, making it hard to think, a
nd Lexi rode out a wave of dizziness when she tried to shake it clear. For whatever reason, Allie had become fixated on the ghosts and keeping them happy, and they had to figure out how to use that to their advantage. “Can you ask Bianca to tell her to let us free?”

  “That won’t work, Sophia wants us here. I heard them talking, she wants to keep more kids here like before. Bianca didn’t like the other kids that were here before, but she likes me, she wants me to stay here with her forever.” Chloe’s eyes were wide and frightened; an edge of hysteria to her voice.

  Sophia… Bianca’s mother… this was starting to make a little more sense now. “That’s not gonna happen. The police will come looking for us and they’ll find us just like what happened before. Only this time they’ll come before it’s too late,” Lexi replied with more confidence than she felt. While she was sure Gabriel would come looking for her when she turned up missing, how long would it take him to realize she was gone? Maddie and Paul might not realize anything was wrong for days and assume she was staying with Allie for an indefinite time period. “So you said she does untie you every once in a while, to play?”

  Chloe nodded weakly. That was good, very good. Provided she could get Allie to do it again, now that she was tied up too. Why on earth had Allie tied her up instead of just getting rid of her like she’d done with Neil? Not that she was complaining, but it couldn’t help but worry her what else Allie had in store for her. For them both.

  “Okay so listen up, this is what we’re gonna do. The next time she comes in here, we’re gonna…” A loud click came from the doorway in the dank little room and the wall swung inward.

  Allie stepped into the light, a covered tray balanced on her hip as she shut the door behind her. “Here we are for a lovely tea party,” she called out in a singsong voice, the smile on her lips at odds with the situation at hand.