Magic. That’s exactly how it seemed.
The thought made Constance recall an old trick her brother used to do back when they were kids. He used a prop called a Lippincott Box, and he would make a borrowed coin or ring disappear from a handkerchief and then reappear inside the locked container, right in front of your nose, much to the amazement of family and friends.
Looking at the individual reports now, it was as if the house on Evergreen Lane was itself a giant Lippincott Box and the killer a stage magician doing one show per year for a very select audience. The only problem was that the victims weren’t inanimate objects, and there was more going on behind the scenes than simple sleight of hand.
There was another puzzle within a puzzle too-the victims themselves. There were seven men dead and not a single ID made on any of them in all these years. Except for the external genitalia, all of their body parts were accounted for, meaning they had to have fingerprints and dental impressions-or they should. That was something else sorely lacking from any of the files. No autopsy reports, no ten-print cards, and not even a close-up photo of any of the faces. Why?
It just didn’t make sense. Especially with the bureau involved. This wasn’t shoddy investigative work; this was deliberate. More than that, it was a manufactured nightmare with strings attached, because someone else was going to die if she didn’t wake up and figure it out.
She was feeling like she’d been told to go sit in the corner and play solitaire and to not come out until she’d won; but as some kind of sick joke she had been handed an incomplete deck of cards to use. For all intents and purposes, that was exactly her situation. The SAC had to have known what she was up against, and moreover what was not in that envelope when he handed it to her. Then there was the fact that this assignment had possibly come out of DC, with her name at or near the top of the short list.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Why her? Why was she being set up to fail, and why had the same been done to the other agents before her? What were their sins that had landed them in this hell? But more importantly, what had they discovered that they were now complicit in hiding?
Her mind raced through scenarios, none of which made any more sense than the files from which she was working. Why they had been redacted by the process of apparently deliberate-and definitely egregious-omission was obviously a part of this mystery. One thing that kept coming back around was her bizarre phone conversation with Agent Keene.
What was it that he’d told her? ‘Call him after Christmas Day if she still had any questions but that he didn’t expect to be hearing from her… Not about this case anyway?’
What kind of sense did that make? It certainly sounded as if he knew something but wasn’t about to spill it. If there was a brass ring out there, and he and the other agents had grabbed it, why wasn’t this case solved? Why was she here now? And why was there almost certainly going to be another body cooling in the morgue if they had already found an answer to this puzzle?
She sighed and stepped back from the bed, slipping her fingers up through her loose hair, pushing it away from her face, and holding it atop her head. Staring at the piles of useless paper was just giving her a headache. She’d only been at it for a few minutes, but she was already dying for a break.
She gave in to that desire. With a sigh she wandered over to her suitcase and dug out the bottle of ibuprofen. Then, she opened a warm soda and washed down a pair of the caplets with a quick swig from the can. She knew she should probably just lie down and try to nap as much as she could. It was going to be a very long night in a very creepy house, and she needed to be clear-headed and alert. Wearing herself down even more by chasing her tail wasn’t going to help accomplish that at all.
She started to take another drink, then stopped herself, held the soda can in front of her face, and glared at it, her mouth twisting into a thoughtful frown. Continuing to pour caffeine into her system wasn’t going to do her much good either. Shaking her head, she dumped the can into the sink, then walked over to the desk and sat down. Hopefully the ibuprofen would start kicking in soon, and she could relax. However, until that happened, she wasn’t going to be able to even think about sleeping. While she waited for the marriage of human biology and pharmaceutical chemistry to be consummated, she could pass the time checking her email. Maybe when she was finished with that, the pain would be dulled, and she would feel up to cleaning the papers off the bed again.
She reached out and thumped her middle finger on the touchpad, causing the slowly winking amber light on the front edge of the notebook computer to hiccup mid-flash and then glow solid blue. There was a soft whirr, the screen flickered for a second, and then it flared to life. Staring back at her was the box with the taunting prompt: ENTER ENCRYPTION KEY.
Constance skated her finger over the pad, pulling the arrow-shaped cursor down to the task bar, then started to click herself over to the email client. Her finger hovered over the button, hesitating as she continued to stare at the leering box in the center of the screen.
“Oh, what the hell…” she muttered, then shifted forward in the chair and moved her fingers up to the home row of the keyboard.
The prompt was still winking in the encryption field, so with a quick series of taps she spelled out “FRUITCAK” and dropped the fifth digit of her right hand down on the enter key with a heavy finality. The system whirred, flickered, and then as she’d seen countless times before, it announced: INCORRECT KEY!
“Yeah, figured as much…” she mumbled.
She started to drag her finger across the pad once again but stopped. Pursing her lips, she creased her forehead and slitted her eyes for a moment. Reaching forward, she allowed her fingers to stab the alphanumerics once again. This time she keyed in “FRUITC8K.”
She stared at the eight simple characters for a moment, then stiffened her index finger and drove it down with a deliberate stab against the return key. Falling slowly back in the chair as the screen winked and the hard drive whirred, she frowned at the computer and waited for the inevitable error message.
The drive continued to spin, and the backlit LCD panel flickered as the computer clunked through the hackneyed routine. Five seconds passed, then ten. After fifteen, Constance raised an eyebrow and started to sit forward. At twenty-five, the installed reader software was opening. At thirty, it had maximized to fill the display, and a document was in the process of loading.
Judging from the progress on the status bar, it was sizeable.
AFTER a while, you discover that darkness isn’t really what you think it is.
You get used to it. And when you do, it stops being the absence of light. In a way, it becomes its own kind of illumination-a mix of blue, and black, and gray, with shapes and shadows everywhere. There are things you can see, and things you can feel, and things that you just somehow know.
That’s what darkness really is.
Of course, the getting used to it part doesn’t happen right away. Accepting the darkness for what it is takes some time. Constance didn’t know how long a span that happened to be, but since the world around her was a mix of blue, and black, and gray with shapes and shadows everywhere, she knew she must have been in the darkness for at least that long. But to tell the truth, she really couldn’t be sure, because in a peculiar way, it seemed like it had been much longer, and it seemed like it had been no time at all.
A terrible noise pierced Constance’s skull and she pressed her palms tight against her ears, squeezing her eyes closed to shut out the brilliant darkness. Now the sound of her own breathing became loud and inescapable, trapped behind her hands to echo inside her head.
She waited.
The terrible noise, blunted only slightly by her hands, reverberated against her again. She steeled herself in fearful anticipation of the next blast, but it didn’t come.
Now only the sounds of her breaths filled her ears.
She let go and drifted.
Constance was so cold that her skin was
numb, but that didn’t stop the pain. It couldn’t. Not on the inside, and that’s where she felt it most. Her body was aching in ways she had never known before, even during her time at Quantico. Back during those first few weeks of physical training at the academy, more than once she’d been certain she was going to die. But this wasn’t like that at all. This was worse. And it was different.
It wasn’t just physical.
It was beyond merely that. It was a violating kind of ache that never ended. It pulsed straight through her core, making her want to vomit. In fact, her mouth tasted sour, so she wondered if she already had but that she’d simply forgotten.
The terrible noise came again, loud and urgent. Behind it was a strange rattle. She reached to press her hands against her ears again, but the noise was too quick for her. It rang out and penetrated her skull with its violent sound. The rattle forced her to clench her teeth as it filled her head with a disharmonic chord.
Then silence… And the silence continued.
Constance sighed. The ache seemed to be gone now, but it had left a phantom in its stead. While the pain itself had faded, the violation remained, and the bitter taste of bile still survived on the back of her tongue.
The silence shattered like crystal.
The terrible noise bit into her brain, forcing a familiar pattern to form. Sharp notes escalated in front of a hard plastic chitter. Midway through the awful chime a loud clatter joined in, followed almost immediately by a dull thud.
Then the terrible noise sounded again and again.
Constance came awake with a start, snapping her eyes open and sucking in a quick breath. It was a mix of blue, and black, and gray with shapes and shadows everywhere throughout the room, but the shapes and shadows were different than her recent memory. Or was that memory just a dream? She blinked and exhaled hard, fighting to push away the fog that was clouding her head.
The urgent peal of her cell phone tore a wide swath through the quiet once again. She breathed in, then exhaled with a deep groan as she rolled over and reached for the nightstand, fumbling through the shadows for the screaming device. Her hand came up empty. She shifted then pushed up on her elbow and groped some more, sending her eyes along with her hand to go searching in the blue and the black and the gray. Still nothing.
She yawned and then cleared her throat. The fog was starting to lift, and she vaguely recalled a clatter and thud. Rolling forward onto her stomach, she thrust her arm over the side of the bed and pawed the carpet below. It was rough and cold. She was ready to give up when her fingers brushed against something hard. She wrapped her hand around it and then rolled over onto her back.
The device had fallen silent. She cleared her throat again and swallowed hard. Her throat was dry and her mouth not much better. Trying to will away the remnants of sleep, she held the phone up and aimed her bleary eyes at its glowing display.
It read: 5 MISSED CALLS.
She started to thumb over to the lists when it began to bleat out a familiar ringtone once again. She pressed the answer button, cutting off the tune, then lazily pushed the device up against her ear.
“Yeah, Ben…” she answered; her voice was as thin and arid as her throat.
“Constance?” Ben’s concern was wrapped tightly around the words that issued from the speaker. “You okay?
She coughed, then cleared her throat a third time. It didn’t really help. “Yeah…” she croaked. “I’m fine…”
“I wake you up?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sorry…” he replied, although it was relief that threaded through his voice. “When ya’ didn’t answer right away I started ta’ get a little worried.”
“Like you needed another excuse,” she mumbled.
“Sue me.”
“Too much trouble,” she replied, her words quiet and lazy. “What time is it anyway?”
“‘Bout ten after five.”
Her heart thumped and she rolled her eyes quickly around the shadowy room. “In the evening, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” she breathed.
“When’d ya’ finally crash?”
“Around three.”
“That ain’t much sleep. Wanna just call me back later when ya’ get up?”
“No…” she grumbled, pushing herself up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Getting up now. My alarm is set to go off in another few minutes anyway.”
Just across from her the heater was blowing, but the room still felt cold. She stood up and padded over to it, then checked the controls. The dial was already set to high; however, lukewarm air was all that seemed to be pushing up from the vent. She positioned herself in front of it anyway, stretching in an attempt to loosen a few kinks.
She turned slowly and allowed the air to blow up across her back as well. It really didn’t help much. After a moment she gave up trying to get warm, wandered over to the door, and flipped the light switch. A soft glow filled the room, but to her it seemed as bright as the sun, so she squinted against the onslaught.
“You still there?” Ben asked.
“Yeah… I’m here…” she replied, her voice still a tired mumble. “Just trying to wake up.”
“You’re pushin’ yourself too hard, hon,” Ben told her. “You really should’ve hit the sack when we got off the phone this mornin’.”
She stretched again, letting out a semi-satisfied groan, then admonished, “Stop being such a mother hen. I had something I had to follow up on. You know how it works.”
“Yeah, I do…” he replied. “But did it get ya’ anywhere?”
She glanced over at her notebook computer. It was in standby mode once again, screen dark and power light slowly winking its amber glow. He had asked her a fair question; however, she honestly didn’t have a solid answer.
“Not sure yet,” she breathed softly as her mind began to wander. “Right now I’m still trying to connect the dots.”
“Prob’ly be easier if ya’ had some more rest.”
She didn’t reply because she had stopped paying attention to him. While still holding the phone to her ear she stepped over to the desk and tapped the computer keyboard. The machine whirred back to life as she watched. A moment later when the display clicked on, the multi-page document was staring back at her. She had saved the unencrypted version to her flash drive as soon as it was done loading this morning, but she found some solace in the fact that the original had not inexplicably disappeared while she slept.
“Yo… Earth ta’ Constance…” Ben finally said.
She mumbled, “What?”
“You fallin’ asleep on me or somethin’?”
“Or something…” she replied quietly, still staring at the embedded photos on the document.
“Wanna share?” he asked.
Her tone remained distant. “No… Not right now.”
“Ya’know, I really think maybe ya’ need ta’ go back ta’ bed.”
She snapped, “How about I rag on you the next time you’re working a case and running on nothing but coffee and cold, three-day-old pizza?”
“Fine, have it your way,” he conceded. “I didn’t call ya’ ta’ have an argument anyway.”
“Sorry,” she sighed. “I know you’re worried about me, but I’m definitely just not in the mood for the mothering, okay?”
“Yeah, I sorta got that,” he sighed, then gingerly added, “Ya’know, just for the record, your mood is kinda why I’m so worried. Ya’ don’t usually get like this.”
“Yeah…” she agreed. “I know.”
“Okay, that’s the last I’m gonna say about it… So listen, I’m callin’ ‘cause I ran your stuff for ya’.”
“Were you able to keep it off the books?”
“Flew as low as I could,” he told her. “I owe an acquaintance out in KC a bottl’a bourbon. The really good shit.”
“For what?”
“Well, it is Christmas Eve ya’know… Gettin’ things done on the sly wasn’t exactly eas
y.”
“This acquaintance a badge?” she asked.
He snorted. “Trust me, you’re better off not knowin’.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it,” she said, then thought silently to herself, Aren’t we a pair, trying to protect each other… Playing out our own version of the Gift of the Magi.
Ben added, “Oh, by the way, you’re payin’ for the bourbon, just so ya’ know.”
“Am I getting my money’s worth?” she asked.
“Guess it depends,” he told her. “Number one, your buddy the sheriff is damn near a fuckin’ Boy Scout.”
“That good, huh?”
“Yeah. Just about as clean as they come. Did twenty-four years with the KCPD, Missouri by the way… Fifteen of those were as a detective, and ten of those were spent heading up a child predator task force.”
Her mind wandered for a moment to the file attached to the cryptic email and what it had contained, but she decided it would be better to keep the information to herself for the moment. Instead she replied, “Given the history, I can easily see that. Merrie Callahan’s abduction was likely the truly defining moment in his career.”
“No shit… Well, he had a hell of a clearance rate on cases too, so I see what ya’ mean about the whole Sherlock thing. He was directly responsible for putting away a whole lotta seriously sick fucks… On top of that he received several honors…boatload of commendations… Oh, and never fired his service weapon in the line of duty.”
“Lucky bastard…” Constance breathed.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Ben agreed. “Anyway, married to Kathy Carmichael, three daughters, blah, blah, blah. Normal stuff, nothin’ spectacular. Retired from KCPD, hung out there for a while and did some consulting for the task force, then moved back ta’ Hulis in oh-two. Elected sheriff oh-three in a special election ta’ fill the vacated post, and that’s where he’s been ever since. Re-elected oh-four and oh-eight.”
In the bleak midwinter asacm-1 Page 21
