by Linda Welch
Time was a ticking. I needed to identify the killer so Mike and SLCPD could get everyone out of the mall. I would have to come back and talk to June and Amy later, and I had to find the other two deceased people and talk to them. I gestured at mom and daughter. “Can you tell me who did this to you?”
June gulped. She lifted one hand and pointed at the food court. “Him.”
I turned to see the food court. “Describe him.”
“He’s sitting between a tall, bald old man and a little boy. He’s wearing a navy blazer and black slacks. Some kind of nametag on his lapel.”
I spotted him. A short man, in his late twenties maybe, slicked back black hair and a pale face. He looked like a mall employee.
Yeah. You can look pale, buddy. You’re not going home a free man.
“Thank you. I’m going to talk to the police officers in charge and they’ll take care of him.”
Now the fun would begin. Mike had only my word this guy was the killer, but at least he had someplace to start. The hardest part would be persuading Salt Lake City PD to take the man into custody. If Mike could do that, SLCPD would follow procedure by scouring the mall and the accused for evidence, and looking at his background. I’d known Mike to tuck a suspect away in a holding cell, wear him down, try to brow-beat a confession from him, but Mike didn’t run this case. But I was betting evidence nailed this bastard.
Not all the cases on which I worked had a successful conclusion. The word of a person who delves in the paranormal is not respected, and of course, seldom believed by people in general, so their participation is rarely mentioned. Imagine the field-day a defense attorney would have with a psychic on the witness stand. Good hard evidence wins a case. One case in Nevada, the accused walked owing to a seemingly infallible alibi. I knew he did it, but the police had no proof. But I felt positive about this case - forensics would find all kinds of nifty little incriminating things on this man’s body.
“And him,” a young voice said from behind me.
I spun back to Amy. Another one? There were two of them? “Where?”
She lifted her chin and jerked it. “Short brown hair, camouflage jacket, black Levis, backpack on the ground by his feet.”
Oookay! I was not even going to look at the guy directly. “I’m going to talk to the police now,” I told them, “but I will be back.”
The mother’s tone was bitter. “We understand. You have to take care of the living.”
I ambled back to Mike trying to appear casual. Every eye in the food court tracked me. They wondered about me, why I was here.
I walked past Mike and he fell in behind me. I stopped when we got to the far side of the food court. He came in close and ducked his head to bring it near mine. I described the killers and told him where they sat.
Mike put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a little push. “You head outside. We’ll take care of this.”
I didn’t argue. I headed back the way I came in. I heard a voice behind me. “I don’t want to alarm you, but we think the perpetrators are still in the mall. We’re going to escort you out one at a time. Please remain seated until two officers come for you… .” The voice faded as I drew away from the food court. I exited the mall and stood near the door.
Before long, they came out one at a time, each escorted by a couple of officers or members of SWAT. They were separating the civilians as if it were standard procedure, so they could take care of the suspects without risking a confrontation and endangering the others.
The press had been herded away and I understood why. One shout, one stupid remark or question could easily jeopardize the operation.
The mall employee was fifth, but two SWAT swooped in and steered him behind the waiting bus. The brown-haired guy was twelfth. He must have suspected something.
He dropped his backpack and bent over to pick it up. Next thing I knew, he held me by the upper arm, the blade of a knife pressed in my neck, one of those small jackknifes which don’t take up much space in a pocket. I understood how the police missed it when they patted him down.
The two SWAT who accompanied him dropped to one knee and held their pistols steady on him. He jerked on my arms and stepped behind me, keeping the knife blade at the side of my throat.
My day was getting better and better.
He backed inside the entrance of the mall, towing me with him. Before we got more than fifteen feet, he took us through a mall office door. He slammed the door shut, pushing me inside the office, where I stopped between two desks.
The place didn’t have any windows. Another door led off to god-knows-where.
He waved his little knife at me. “Over there against the wall, bitch!”
I edged over to the wall and a clear space with no desks or other furniture against it.
I was pissed and also very, very frightened.
A hostage situation is never predictable. The felon is as scared as his captives. Even as he makes demands, he knows the cops will get him in the end. The odds are stacked too high against him. He starts to think he has nothing to lose, which is when he’s most dangerous.
This guy was scared almost out of his pants. He stood against the door, trying to listen through it, waving the knife about in one hand while he gnawed at a hangnail on the other. He didn’t pay much attention to me. I was a female hostage and he toted a weapon, right?
He jumped back. Maybe he decided standing near the door was not such a good idea. Maybe the cops would shoot through it. I could see him losing it soon.
“They’ll be phoning in soon, asking for your terms?” I said amicably.
“Shut up!” he hissed.
“What are you going to ask for?” I continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
He moved to stand in front of me and pointed the knife at my face. “I said, shut up!”
I shrugged. “Just trying to help. You should ask for a copter to the airport, then a jet. A jet is awful hard to stop and can take you anyplace in the world. Now a car, on the other hand… .”
He was getting mad now. I held up one hand placatingly, palm out. “You don’t want to hurt me. Lose your bargaining power. Nothing to stop them blasting their way in here if I’m dead.”
He looked at the hand I held up. I brought up the Ruger and put it point to point on the blade.
I gave him a brittle smile. “Mine’s bigger than yours and it goes bang.”
He got a scared-rabbit look, but then his hand slowly dropped and a little spark in his eyes told me he thought about lunging at me. My hand followed his down. I made my face and voice chill. “Drop it!”
The knife clattered on the floor. I stepped back.
For a moment, all kinds of things went through my mind. Did he feel the same fear as his victims as he held his gun on them, just before he fired? How many of the dead did he kill? If I pulled my trigger, a few less ghosts would wander the mall.
We were alone. Only the two of us would know I didn’t fire in self-defense. And he wouldn’t be telling anyone.
The door burst open. I jumped and the Ruger wobbled in my hand. “Okay, we’ll take it from here,” Mike said.
I am not some badass with nerves of steel. I was terrified the whole time.
Mike was furious with me, but I shrugged it off. Did he really think I would let someone stab me when I had a gun and knew how to use it?
When we got back to Clarion, after I gave my statement, he bundled me in my car with orders to go home and stay put for a couple of days.
Another case over. Another paycheck. And four people who must linger in a mall, unseen, unheard, until their killers died.
And I don’t know what I would have done if Mike hadn’t come through the door when he did.
Chapter Seven
“Um, you have a visitor,” Mel said.
“He’s on the porch,” Jack supplied.
I eyed them. They did not look any happier than I. They looked nervous. But then, they always look nervous.
I backed to one of the narro
w windows either side of the front door and peeped out.
Holy… ! He leaned on the wall in profile, but there was no mistaking Caesar, his long sheet of golden hair pushed back over his shoulders, slightly iridescent golden skin. He stood with hands in the pockets of a tan, calf-length, butter-soft leather duster, with a pale-tan silk shirt beneath and brown suede pants which couldn’t get any tighter if they tried. The shirt opened at the neck and gold glinted at his throat. Gold in his ears too: a long earring in the shape of a feather almost touched his shoulder. He turned his head to me and smiled, his blue sapphire eyes gleaming beneath thin golden eyebrows.
He was something to behold.
I heard him through the thick walls and storm windows, clear as if he stood next to me. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he sing-songed.
I backed from the glass and there he was looking through it.
“Please,” he said, and his voice whispered through my bones.
Spirits, demons - could no one wait till I had my morning coffee?
I stalked back to the kitchen and turned on the radio, loud. KXGB cooperated by blasting out Metallica’s Sandman. Oldie but goodie. I hiked the volume up louder and flipped on the coffeemaker.
Jack and Mel stood side by side next the backdoor. “What are you going to do?” Jack asked.
I pulled a clean mug from the cupboard. “I have absolutely no idea.” I paused. “Amend that. I’m going to call the cops. I found a stranger on my porch. I told him to leave but he refused. I’m afraid to go outside and confront him. If I call the cops, there’ll be half a dozen squad cars here in less than ten minutes.”
“The way he can move, he’ll be gone before they pull up,” Jack said.
I thought it over. True. Plus, maybe he didn’t care if he stirred up trouble. Maybe he’d hurt them. His pal seemed to enjoy hurting me.
So, calling the cops was not one of my better ideas.
Figuring if I could hear him, he could hear me, I turned down the radio, plucked up the phone, dialed the time and temp line and made my report to the tinny voice.
I went back to the front door and yelled through it. “I just called the police.”
He appeared at the narrow glass pane again. “I only want to talk.”
“Yeah, well, make an appointment.”
Never taking his eyes off me, he lifted his hands to shoulder height, backed across the porch and down the steps. He smiled, just slightly. I watched him till he passed the Henderson’s place and disappeared from sight.
I opened the door and walked onto the porch.
I knew demons could really move, but not how fast. Pressing his body against mine, he pinned me to the wall. His braced his left arm on the wall above my shoulder, his right snaked around my waist. He dipped his head, his face in my neck. His breath wafted up my neck to my ear. My legs turned weak and the only thing holding me up was his arm.
“Tiffany,” his breath said in my ear.
“I hate that name,” I groaned.
“Where is Lawrence Marchant?”
So they did not have Lawrence, but were after the boy.
His pointed tongue traced the shell of my ear. Heat washed through my body in a delicious wave, coiling inside me, seeping through my pores, thrilling over my skin. My groin tingled and I gasped aloud.
He stilled, then stepped back, releasing my waist, looking down at the barrel of the Ruger where it dug in his belly. “You would not.”
I gasped again, this time in relief, as he eased farther back from me. “I would. I will. Get off my property. You were not invited.”
He hissed, lips peeling back to show his teeth. “I am not a vampire. I do not need an invitation.”
“Gleaming eyes, pointy teeth; you could have fooled me,” I told him sweetly.
He tucked his chin in his neck, frowned, and a look of deep concentration came over his face. Then he changed, right in front of me.
It was slow and it was subtle. Very gradually, his face filled out, eliminating the gauntness. A flush spread over his skin as if the blood came nearer the surface. His teeth blunted and were smooth, dazzling white. His eyes were still a startling blue, but now warm. The metallic luster to his hair faded. And an incredibly handsome, but human man smiled at me as if I were the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.
I gaped. He grinned at my expression. “Interesting. I wonder why convincing you I am human takes considerably more effort.”
I backed inside, hitting the door hard with my uninjured hip, pushing it open.
He tried to follow me inside but stopped on the doorstep, his right foot an inch from the scattered metal filings. He looked down and hissed again.
I slammed the door.
I went in the kitchen swiping beads of sweat off my face with my sleeve.
Mel and Jack followed me from hall to kitchen. “What are we going to do?” Jack cried.
“We?” Mel asked as she shot to the window and looked out.
Jack stood in front of me and puffed out his chest. “You know I would’ve seen him off if I could, Tiff.”
Mel’s laughter pealed through the room. “She knows you’re a wuss.”
He turned on her. “And you’re a lecherous hussy. Gorge this and Gorge that, and how he’s such a pretty-boy. You have no idea—”
“Hussy!” Mel shrieked.
“Hussy?” I echoed. Hadn’t heard the word used in a long time. I flung up my hands to shoulder level, palms out. “Enough, you guys!”
Mel came over. “We worry about you.”
“We would go out of our minds if anything happened to you,” Jack said.
A small warmth grew in the region of my heart, but Jack spoiled it by adding, “We’d be back to how it was before you moved in. Me and her, standing around doing nothing day in, day out.” He stood tall in a dramatic pose. “I think I would kill myself.”
Afternoon, and I was damned if I would cower in the house all day. I went outside to talk to Lindy, toting the Ruger. She looked up in alarm when she saw it.
“Relax, Lindy. It can’t hurt you.”
She sighed. “I suppose nothing can hurt me now, except the pain in my heart.”
She didn’t mean it literally; she thought of Lawrence.
I had to tell her he was still missing, but I didn’t say anything about his stuff disappearing from the apartment, or nobody remembering him.
She put her hands to her face. “How can he just disappear? Where is he?”
“Perhaps you’d know better than me. Who are his special friends, Lindy? Who would he go to?”
“I don’t know who he plays with at school and he’s never had a play-date. My poor little boy!”
I couldn’t even give her a consoling pat. “Lindy, we will find him. Don’t doubt it.”
She stumbled to her feet. “I’m going back to the apartment. If he can, he’ll go home.”
I stood up with her. “It’s not your apartment anymore. They’ve probably already cleared out your stuff.” Which, if she did go, could account for Lawrence’s things no longer being there.
“Lawrence won’t know.”
“You tried it before and you couldn’t leave the yard.”
But she tried again, picking up speed as she moved away from the fruit trees. She stopped suddenly as if she hit an invisible wall. She stood still a moment, then tried again. Same result. She sagged, shoulders slumping.
Something she said sent my mind spinning, something I completely blew off before. “… except the pain in my heart.”
Her heart. She had a blurred memory of a tall, yellow-haired figure coming right at her. She didn’t see him properly, but that didn’t matter because unless their killer is behind them, the dead see with something other than their eyes. I need a clear visual, but the dead don’t. She didn’t remember his face.
The demon did not kill her. She did die a natural death.
She should not be here.
But he touched her at the moment of death. He enabled her
spirit to wander. And she came to me. If she hadn’t, no one would know about Lawrence.
The demon did not kill her. Did he send her to me?
The phone rang. I hurried inside and saw Mike’s number on Caller ID. I grabbed the phone. “Hi, Mike,” I said a little breathlessly.
“Can you come down here?” he asked.
I glanced back to make sure Jack and Mel were elsewhere. “What do you need?”
He sounded irritable. “To talk to you. Here. In my office.”
“Righty-ho. You gonna give me an idea why?”
“No.”
I didn’t particularly want to chat with Mike when he was in this mood. “How about I’m there in… .” I glanced at the big pink-framed wall clock. “An hour?”
“Now.”
I narrowed my eyes. Mike’s terse one-liners made me less than cooperative. “Sorry. I’m busy. I’ll see you in an hour.”
“It’s about Lawrence Marchant,” he said.
I stopped just inside the Squad Room to look at the wall, where Royal Mortensen’s picture hung with the rest of the gang’s. I silently whistled.
What a hunk! An exotic-looking man with a lean, chiseled face, straight nose and full lips, blond highlights in his long glossy-brown hair, skin nicely bronzed. His deep-brown, tip-tilted eyes caught the light, sparkling with good humor. A white T-shirt clung to broad shoulders and a narrow waist, an impressive chest with sculpted abs and nicely rounded pecs. I grinned at the picture—Clarion PD had itself a poster boy.
I didn’t see him as I headed for Mike’s office. I would have noticed. Penney and Garn nodded. Brad Spacer saluted me with his oversize coffee cup.
I tapped on the doorframe. “Mike?”
At his desk, Mike beckoned me. “Take a seat, Tiff.”
I faced him across his paper-strewn desk. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he spoke. Not a good sign. “Uh, Tiff?”
“Yes, Michael.”
“Lawrence Marchant. Birth certificate, school records, medical and dental history… .”
I could have said something scathing, but I was too worried.
