Fourth Fight

by Mary Abshire

  The drive from the property to town took little time since she sped most of the way. The one and only McDonald’s sat off the main road. Several cars had parked on the lot and a small line had formed for the drive through. Even small towns loved the golden arches fast food chain. Emily pulled into a spot behind the building.

  “Want me to grab some food and coffee?” Andrew asked as she cut the engine.

  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  He left her after a smooch on the lips.

  Emily tugged her computer bag between the seats. After she withdrew her laptop, she set the case near her feet. Although the restaurant wasn’t too crowded, she preferred to have privacy and a place where she and Andrew could talk freely.

  She logged back into her laptop. Within seconds, she found a network to use, and then she opened her email from Matt. Leaving his message on the screen, she opened another window and searched for missing women like she had before. More articles appeared. She scanned one after another and was stunned to learn other ladies had disappeared around the time of one of Annie’s shows.

  Two girls in Richmond, Virginia, hadn’t been seen since Annie’s show in 2014. The boyfriend to one of the gals had dropped them off at the show. Police had suspected him since his relationship was on the rocks and he had a history of violence with his girlfriend. Another woman had gone missing in Charleston. She’d been in her late twenties, but had features of a model. She was also a singer in the local town she grew up in and had strong connection to a church. Her father was the last one to talk to her the night of Annie’s show. Several people interviewed knew she had tickets to see her favorite singer, Annie. Nobody knew if she made it to the venue. Her car had been found in an industrial area.

  When the passenger door opened, Emily jumped.

  Andrew froze. “Are you okay?”

  She took in a deep breath. “Yeah.”

  She returned to searching for others as he climbed into the car. The smell of coffee and eggs roused her appetite.

  “Find anything interesting?” He set the bag between his legs and then lifted one of the cups from the tray. “I fixed it the way you like it.”

  She took the coffee from his hand. “Thank you, and yes. There are others that disappeared around the time of one of her performances.” She pulled the tab back on the lid before she sipped on her drink.

  “Have any of the missing women been found?”

  “I don’t think so. I haven’t looked at Facebook pages yet. I wanted to check at least ten shows before I hop on that site.”

  “Why don’t we take turns? I’ll eat while you search. When I’m done, we’ll trade.”

  “Teamwork at its finest.” Grinning, she set her coffee in the cup holder between the seats.

  Andrew ate his breakfast as she jumped between screens and searched for more missing women. The smell of eggs filled the car, drawing a growl from her stomach. She ignored her growing hunger and focused on her research. More women had disappeared in Savannah and in several cities in Florida. New Orleans and Galveston, Texas, also had several ladies who’d gone missing around one of Annie’s shows. Emily found it interesting most of the towns were near the ocean or the gulf, but not all of them.

  “She traveled a lot for being so young,” Emily said before she drank more java.

  Andrew chewed as he balled up the wrapper to his last Egg McMuffin. “But she was an adult, right?” he mumbled.

  “Yeah, this list dates back three years, so she would’ve been at least nineteen.” Emily didn’t want to think about the many places she’d been as a teenager, singing to large crowds. She might not have been as popular, but she probably drew at least five to ten thousand to a show. If one girl had disappeared after every performance and Annie had at least ten per year from age sixteen to nineteen, the number of women missing would’ve been at least thirty. And that was a low-ball figure.

  He drank some coffee while she searched other cities on the list. While she found a few unrelated missing girls, she still managed to find at least one who’d disappeared around the time of a show.

  “I’m ready,” Andrew said as he set his coffee next to hers.

  Emily brought up her Facebook page before she handed the laptop to him. “I have several names for you to look up.” She took the food sack from between his legs as he held her computer.

  “Do I enter the names in this box?” he asked pointing to an empty one at the top.

  She easily forgot he wasn’t up to date with modern technology since he’d died in 1989. But he learned fast from watching her. Within a day of getting his cell, he could text like a pro.

  “Yes. Enter exactly what I tell you, and then click on the magnifying glass icon,” she said.

  He propped the laptop on his lap. “Ready when you are.”

  “Geraldine Franklin, New Orleans.” She dug inside the sack and claimed her breakfast sandwich while he typed.

  The page brought up the same picture Emily had seen in the article about her disappearance. Several of her friends had posted comments on her page.

  “Try to find her last entry. It should be from a little over a year ago,” she said.

  “What are you looking for exactly?”

  “I want to see if there’s any mention about going to see Annie perform.”

  Andrew scrolled down the page. He found Geraldine AKA Gerry’s last posts. She had mentioned her excitement to see Annabelle live.

  “Damn,” Emily mumbled, her mouth full of food.

  “Got another name?”

  She swallowed. “Whitney Perkins, Miami, Florida.”

  After he searched for her, the page loaded. A photo showed a smiling, pretty blonde with her friends. Andrew found her last entry dated a year ago. She mentioned her and her college roommate had tickets to see Annabelle. Her roommate, Debbie Johnson, had disappeared too. Since they’d gone missing, friends posted notes asking where they were and asking them to contact them.

  While Emily continued eating she gave names and locations to Andrew. Some of the pages were private and showed very little. Others showed concerned comments from friends and family. After reading so many notes, Emily’s stomach started to churn. She couldn’t finish eating and wrapped the remains in the thin paper.

  “I don’t need to look at any more,” she said, tossing her trash in the sack.

  “How many did you look up?”

  “Too many. Around fifteen I think.” She leaned her head back against the seat. “We don’t know what happened to them, but we know for sure they disappeared around the time of one of Annie’s performances. They’re all pretty women. They’re all of legal age. None of them were married.”

  Andrew gently closed the lid on her computer. “You have to do your job tomorrow. You can’t back out. If you do—”

  “We’ll never get any answers and you may not get a chance to kill her.”

  “I wish there was another way.”

  So did she. With the knowledge she now had, choosing four ladies to God knows what horrible fate didn’t sit well with her.

  “I’ll do what I have to, but we have to follow the van. We have to stop whatever is happening to them,” she said.

  “You realize if we stop them, I might not get a chance to kill her.”

  Nausea rose within her. She leaned her elbow against the door. “What are we going to do? We can let them get hurt.”

  Andrew stared forward. Silence lingered for a few minutes. She too considered ways to prevent harm to the girls and save Andrew’s job so he could kill Annie.

  “What if we follow them, then call the police and give them an anonymous tip about a wild party?” he asked.

  She straightened as hope snaked through her. “That’s not a bad idea. You could use that prepaid phone I gave you. And we can try to take pictures too. That way we’ll have evidence.”

  “We could always break up the party ourselves.”

  “Sherri is supposed to be there with her.”

  “So we let th
e girls go and then you take Sherri somewhere to talk to her while I kill Annie.”

  “She’ll think you killed her. You’ll be a suspect. It will be all over the news.”

  “Sure, but they can’t prove I did.”

  “Christopher will come after you.”

  “Let him. I’ll destroy him too.”

  Emily’s head began to throb. “Maybe I should call Troy and get more poison.”

  “We don’t have time and you can’t have any deliveries made to our apartment.”

  Fuck, he was right. His second plan would work, but he’d acquire worldly attention and the hatred of a demon who’d lost his daughter.

  “Let’s make that plan B for now. I don’t like it, but it is an option,” she said. “The anonymous tip idea sounds better.”

  “I can agree to that.”

  The deep breath she took didn’t offer any relief to the growing ache in her head. She tried to stay positive. They at least had a plan and a backup option. And she would get to save four girls. Maybe the situation wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Don’t worry,” Andrew said. “We’ll make it through this.”

  She held onto hope they would, but fear remained constant in her thoughts. They were dealing with two sick and evil demons.

  Andrew tucked strands of her hair behind her ear. “Let’s go back and take a long shower or bath.”

  Her lips curled on one side. “And fool around?”

  “I think that is an excellent idea.”

  Given what the challenges they had to face, she couldn’t agree more.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Andrew paced slowly on the side of the stage. The plugs in his ears dulled the music. Flashes of light drew his gaze past the drummer and guitarists to the other side. Once in a while he managed to catch a glimpse of Emily standing at her post, but it was never long enough. Before the show had started, Sherri had moved her to replace Matt since he and Don needed to resolve a security issue. Andrew had sent her several texts, but that had been the extent of their conversation. The entire day since breakfast had been the same way. Emily had been busy working with Sherri and he hadn’t seen her except in passing. His frustration continued to grow as he walked back and forth backstage. He was so close, yet so far away. He hated not being able to talk to her.

  The lights went out, but the ones behind the main stage allowed him to see Emily. She wore a black jacket over a purple blouse. Her tight jeans and heeled boots added to her badass appearance. Arms crossed, she had her attention directed at the demon facing a crowd of thousands.

  A touch on his arm startled him and he jerked it away. Matt lifted his palms up. Andrew removed his earplugs.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” Matt said.

  “It’s fine.” The loud country twang, blaring guitars, and Annie’s voice wasted little time in giving him a headache.

  “You’ve seemed edgy all day. Is everything okay?”

  Raking a hand over his head, Andrew stepped further away from the stage. He wanted to tell Matt what he and Emily had researched. The man should know if something bad was happening to innocent women after Annie’s shows. But would he believe Andrew? There was one way to find out.

  “You know how Carrie asked you to get that list of dates and locations?” Andrew asked.

  “I sent it to her,” he said as he gave a nod.

  “She did some research. It turns out there were women who disappeared and they had tickets to see Annie. Some of the venues verified the women with the tickets had shown up. They all fit the description of the fans Carrie has to pick out after tonight’s concert.”

  “How did she find this information?” Matt asked.

  “She searched the Internet looking for missing women during the month and year and location of the concert based on your list. There were plenty of reports. We checked Facebook too and there were notes from the girls about going to see Annie.”

  “Your wife found all this on the web?”

  “She’s smart. And I have to agree with her theory. There are too many of them to be a coincidence.”

  Matt took a few steps toward the stage and then stopped. Andrew moved to stand beside him. He seemed to be staring ahead, but not focused on anyone or anything. His facial features held no expression, but his brows seemed tighter than normal when the lighting hit his face just right.

  “Were any of the women found?” Matt asked.

  “No.”

  “Is there evidence the women were seen with Annie?”

  “No.”

  Matt met Andrew’s gaze. “If there’s no evidence, then I find it difficult to believe women are being abducted because they go to a party with Annie.”

  His response surprised Andrew. He’d thought Matt might have more of an open mind. “We’re going to try and prove something is happening to the girls being singled out for Annie’s party.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Carrie and I are going to follow the vehicle Don transports them in. We’ll watch and make sure the girls don’t run into any harm.”

  “So, you were planning to sneak away for a bit?”

  Andrew didn’t want to answer to avoid igniting Matt’s anger. “Aren’t you a little curious to find out what’s going on? These women that have gone missing all fit the profile Annie gave Carrie.”

  Matt ambled away from him and then returned. “Are you two undercover cops?”

  “What? No.”

  Matt stepped closer, stopping inches away from Andrew. “Why are you snooping around? Why do you care what happens at Annie’s parties?”

  The last question triggered alarm bells. Maybe Andrew had been mistaken about Matt. “Are you concerned about the girls missing or not?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Do you want to find out what happens after Carrie selects four fans?”

  “I sure as hell do now.”

  “Then trust me.”

  “Why? You haven’t answered any of my questions.”

  Andrew stared into his gray eyes as he fought the temptation to tell him the whole truth. He suspected Matt would fire him on the spot if he’d said he’d died and had been sent from heaven to destroy demons. Emily hadn’t believed him until she witnessed Andrew touch one.

  “You won’t believe me if I tell you,” Andrew said while he conjured vague words to use that weren’t too far from the truth. “I came to stop whatever crimes are being committed. If there are none, then nobody has anything to fear. But if innocent people are being harmed…”

  Matt shook his head and walked away. Seconds later he returned. “And you’re not undercover agents?”

  “No, we’re not. If my wife thinks something is wrong, she investigates. And she’s usually right.”

  “You two seem like decent people. I’ve seen the way you two are together. You both seem honest.”

  “We are and we’re trying to do the right thing. When Carrie and I first started working together, I fell in love with her. She’s a tough nut to crack and I’m stunned I did. I trust her implicitly.”

  Matt put his hands on his hips. “Answer me this… Did you really meet her in the emergency room?”

  Andrew hesitated to respond, but he needed Matt on his side. While Andrew knew it was too soon for Matt to accept the full truth, he figured he could handle some of it. “No, we didn’t meet in a hospital, but I was a nurse once.”

  Matt narrowed his gaze at Andrew. “Did you ever work security before?”

  “I’m qualified to do this job and I will,” Andrew said, knowing if he gave the truth, Matt would throw him out in an instant. “But I also want to stop any crimes or bloodshed. I’m asking for your trust. Please don’t say anything to the others.”

  Matt walked away and then he stopped. Similar to the other times, he headed back toward Andrew. “I want answers too. I want to go with you.”

  Andrew dropped his jaw briefly. He hadn’t expected Matt to ask to join the investigation. If Andrew turned Matt
away, he doubted Matt would continue to keep quiet about the matter. “Will you promise not to say anything to anyone?”

  “Trust me, I won’t. I think you and your wife are wrong about these parties since there is no evidence. But in the chance that something is happening to fans, then I want to know about it. On top of that, I want to know more about you two. I want the truth. And if either of you are a threat to Annie, I will be there to protect her.”

  The last part gave Andrew pause. He’d have to be careful if he got the chance to kill Annie. Emily would have to distract Matt somehow. Matt’s involvement complicated their plans, but they could still work through them.

  “I’ll send you a message when I have to get the car from the lot. Carrie will text me when she escorts the girls to the vehicle,” Andrew said.

  Matt nodded. “I’ll be ready.” Saying nothing more, he walked away. This time he didn’t come back.

  Disquiet swam within Andrew as he returned the plugs to his ears and faced the stage. He doubted Emily would be pleased to see Matt joining them, but maybe his presence would work in their favor. If Emily was right, which Andrew believed she was, then something was going to happen after the concert. They’d get the proof Matt needed and save a few ladies from any foul play. Maybe Andrew would be able to destroy the demon too. They’d all find answers soon enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Emily stood outside Annie’s dressing room, typing a message for Andrew. I think they may be drunk. Their loud laugher can be heard from others down the hall.

  Leaning against the wall, she lowered the phone. She’d been waiting for over forty minutes for Sherri to come out. What was taking so long? Annie hadn’t spent as much time with introductions in Vancouver. Why did she feel the need to chat this time?

  Venue employees passed by dressed in jeans and t-shirts from the concert. Badges hung from lanyards around their necks. A few glanced her way when a sound from inside the room spilled into the hall.

  Her phone vibrated in her hand, catching her attention. She read Andrew’s text.

  I’m in the car. Finally found a spot to watch without being seen. I miss you. xxoo.