Line of Fire

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “Thanks,” I told Cody, shutting the door.

  I turned on the faucet, braced for imprints. Not finding any on the faucet handles, I washed my hands methodically, my eyes wandering over the room. Tub with shower, soap, and one bottle of shampoo, toilet with a toilet plunger tucked next to the wall, paper, the sink with a razor, extra blades, shaving cream, and a black comb. A towel hanging over the shower curtain rod. Everything was sparse and rather simple for the size of the bathroom. Just the basics. More what you’d expect from a bachelor with his first apartment than from an old codger who’d had years to accumulate belongings. Apparently Cody didn’t hold onto much, or he didn’t buy much. There wasn’t even a cupboard to investigate, except the one under the sink, which was crammed with extra rolls of toilet paper and a brush for cleaning.

  I ran my hands over everything to be certain, wishing I was in the bedroom so I could find something he cared about more. Imprints were funny that way. Like countertops, no one cared much for their shampoo.

  My hands drew near his razor on the edge of the sink, and I felt the familiar tingling in my hand. Wait a minute. I’d found something. I placed a finger on the razor.

  Darkness fell over me. Darkness and a deep anger as I stared at the face of a man in the mirror. Cody. Self-loathing. Regret. Dragging the razor over the stubble, wishing I/he could cut away as easily the part black part of my/his soul.

  The grim imprint ended, but another one exactly like it began. Was this proof of Cody’s involvement with the missing girl? Certain killers might experience moments of agonizing regret, though that didn’t cause them to turn themselves in or prevent an attack on their next victim when the pressure was too great. Not that Cody had to be a serial killer, exactly, or even a serial child abductor. But he could be. He might be responsible for far worse than what he’d done to my mother.

  Regardless, this imprint proved Cody felt a guilt that weighed on him day and night, and it was my responsibility to figure out why.

  Chapter 3

  I was breathing heavily when I managed to open my hand and release the razor handle. It wasn’t the kind of imprint that made me pass out, but it was close. What did it mean? Maybe I didn’t want to know. I wanted to run outside and drive back to Portland, forgetting I’d ever tried to find my biological father. I felt dirty and weary.

  That’s the imprint, I reminded myself. Still, it had taken its toll, and I felt exhaustion creeping in. Using tissue, I picked up the razor from the sink basin and replaced it where it had been on the side. Then I washed my hands again, but the memory from the razor was mine for life, a memory I would need to deal with and bury in a mental corner with all the other terrible imprints I’d experienced.

  Memories were like that. Once experienced, they were burned into my mind, and only the greatest amount of willpower redirected my thoughts elsewhere. It was one reason I didn’t touch objects unnecessarily. I did it only to help someone else—in this case, my sister, who wanted to meet her biological father, and, of course, for the missing girl.

  Okay, maybe I did it a little for myself, too.

  I slipped one finger into the pocket of my black dress pants, touching the drawing I always kept there—a rendition of the first photograph of me with my twin taken after we’d discovered each other last year. My sister had drawn it, each stroke imbued with her love. I soaked up the emotion, grateful for the steadying effect. Cody’s self-hate faded, and I felt stronger, cleaner.

  Thank you, Tawnia. I felt her, or at least a connection to her, though not nearly as strong as when we were together.

  I pondered for a moment what would happen when Cody used his razor again. If I’d imprinted my horror at what I’d experienced, he’d feel it and know I’d been nosing around—and that I shared his talent. Fortunately, by the stubble on his face, I’d be long gone before he used the razor again.

  Or maybe I’d decide to reveal my identity.

  Maybe.

  I opened the door, expecting to see Cody waiting in the hall, his callused hands impatiently on his hips, but he was nowhere to be seen. I could hear voices coming from the living room. Shannon had done his job.

  Without hesitating, I opened the door to the bedroom. Not exactly following guest etiquette, but I needed to know. Besides, there was more at stake here than my questionable parentage. A young girl was missing, and I might be able to find something here that the police hadn’t.

  The bedroom was as simple as the rest of the house, excepting that wide-screen TV set—a big, plain dresser, a short bookshelf filled with thick nonfiction books, a wrought-iron lamp on a nightstand piled with more books. The double bed was covered with a handmade quilt—still beautiful after at least half a century. It could use a good washing, but it was in excellent condition.

  Forcing my gaze away from the quilt, I took several steps toward the nightstand. That would be where he’d store things that were important to him, or if not there, then maybe in the top drawer of the dresser or in the closet.

  I touched the wrought-iron lamp first. I couldn’t help myself. Being an antiques dealer, I recognized a beautiful piece when I saw it, and besides, imprints fairly jumped from the surface, they were so strong.

  Cody/I loved this lamp, loved it because it belonged to my beautiful mother and her parents and grandparents before me. It meant continuity, family. A deep remorse that the family line would end with me. I’d failed everything in my life. The remorse left me with tears. Yearning.

  Other imprints followed, much less recent. Warmth of ownership. Nothing distinct, but pleasant and happy, like the imprints on my antique rings. I smiled. If I was at an estate sale, I would buy this heirloom despite the remorse because of the love imbued on its surface. Another owner would love it, replacing the remorse until it vanished and only the echo of love remained.

  The lamp was obviously an heirloom, passed down from my ancestors. Being adopted, I hadn’t really considered my lost heritage. My adoptive parents had been everything to me. It hadn’t mattered that they had no extended family or that they hadn’t collected things the way I did. But now I was assaulted with unexpected feelings. A new door had opened. I wanted the lamp to love and pass down to my children and grandchildren.

  I forced my hand away, hoping I hadn’t left an imprint that would tell Cody more than I wanted him to know, and began touching the books on the nightstand. Titles such as Sculpture and Artistry, Carvings Come Alive, Build Your Own Solar Panels, and Gardening Made Simple. Cody was a practical man, it seemed. The imprints were faded—curiosity, contentment, sleepiness.

  One book was out of place: The World’s Worst Killers. I placed a finger on the cover, worried about what I might experience.

  Again the self-loathing, every bit as bitter as on the razor, but it was an older imprint, at least a year old, and it had faded a bit. Another imprint quickly followed. Laughter, giggling. A brief glimpse of Cody’s front door. Nothing more. The last imprint, which would have made it the first left on the book, was too fleeting for me to decide who was laughing, but someone apparently thought this book funny enough to leave on Cody’s front porch.

  A prank.

  I didn’t know whether to pity the man or to fear him, but I rejected the urge to run. Shannon had my back, and if I couldn’t trust him, I shouldn’t be considering starting a relationship with him. Especially when it meant giving up Jake, my best friend and former boyfriend.

  The top drawer held several pairs of reading glasses, four large bottles of nonprescription pills for pain, one half full, all of them outdated. A roll of toilet paper he was obviously using to blow his nose, as indicated by the handful of used tissue squares in the corner of the drawer. No significant imprints on the glasses or bottles.

  The bottom drawer was crammed with more books: Fifty Delicious Meals in Fifteen Minutes, Do-It-Yourself Kitchen Tile, Caring for Your Trees, The American Gold Fraud, Politicians Aren’t Really Working for You. Again, no imprints of interest, though I did wonder a bit at Cody’s versa
tility. Had he really made the fifteen-minute meals? Was he active in politics? Did he subscribe to conspiracy theories?

  The bed was next. Clothing and similar items usually didn’t hold imprints well, perhaps because they were washed too often, losing minute bits of themselves to become lint, or because they were mostly forgotten. But quilts, especially those used often, sometimes contained good imprints because people loved them so much. I had an afghan my mother had crocheted and which I snuggled in when I was really down and missing her. I used it sparingly, afraid my own imprints would take over, and I never, ever washed it.

  Upon closer inspection, this quilt was particularly intricate. Each block had something different embroidered onto it—a cat, a house, a flower, a boy, a paintbrush, a window. On and on, nothing repeating. The needlework on these had been done by hand; no machine could have been so accurate and detailed.

  Whoever did this was an artist, I thought. Eagerly I placed a finger on a strip of material that ran around the outer edge of the entire quilt like a frame.

  Pain. Despair. She can’t be dead. Please, God, no! Never to see her face. To feel her hand on my head or her arms around me. I would never get her out of that place.

  I sank to the floor, trembling with agony—not mine, the boy’s. The child Cody, I suspected. It felt like mine.

  Before I could recover, another imprint came. The quilt was finished. It would warm and comfort him when I was long gone, each square something from our past. He will always know how much I love him. A woman’s thoughts, I knew, from her memories of Cody as a baby at her breast nursing, playing in the garden, running into her arms.

  I arose, eager for more. This was history. My history.

  As I touched each square, I experienced a memory of the depicted event—Cody covered in paint, laughing at the beach, eating ice cream, crying over a dead bird, holding her hand.

  The woman had to be his mother. My grandmother. I wanted to experience all the squares, but the next imprint on an embroidered flower made me hesitate. I was going to take you away from there. I told you I would that day, but it was already too late, wasn’t it? Not the woman’s imprinted thought but Cody’s, placed a decade later as he touched the quilt, much as I was doing now.

  Then came the woman’s imprint, from the same square. She/I looked up to see Cody standing in the doorway of a bedroom where metal bars blocked the windows, his face sober, flowers in his hand. “I’m going to take you away from here, Mother,” he said somberly. “I know you will,” I/she said. “I’m getting better every day.” But I wasn’t. I wasn’t at all. The visions were still coming, and the doctors told me every day that I was crazy, a danger to my teenage son. But I loved him. That was the only thing holding me together.

  I withdrew my hand. Cody had imprinted after his mother’s imprint. Did he often touch a square, reliving their memories together? Did he touch a whole bunch in one sitting or did he limit himself to one at a time, fearing he would too often leave his own imprints, as it was natural he would on something he loved this much?

  Tears filled my eyes, though I didn’t want to feel anything for this man who, in my view, had been the cause of my biological mother’s death. I forced my thoughts back to the task at hand. Nothing about Jenny Vandyke would be on these squares, or if there was, it would take too much time to find it. I needed to move on. I took a step toward the foot of the bed, thinking to check the closet.

  The door behind me slammed open. “What in the devil’s name are you doing in here?” Cody demanded.

  I had been so involved in the imprints that I hadn’t even heard footsteps in the hall. I turned to see Cody’s reddened face glaring at me. Behind him Shannon frowned, apparently blaming me for taking so long.

  “I, uh, got mixed up,” I said unconvincingly. I’d always been a terrible liar. “Then I saw the quilt. It’s so beautiful.” I reached out but stopped short of touching it. I couldn’t risk being mesmerized by an imprint, though I longed to know more of my grandmother.

  “Get out!” Cody bellowed. Thick, ugly veins stood out on his neck. He lifted his hands as though to throttle me, and I could well imagine him kidnapping a child. Or hurting one.

  Behind him Shannon tensed, his hand going to where I knew he kept his gun.

  “I’m going already!” I said, lifting my hands in submission. “Lighten up, old man. One would think you had a body hiding in that closet.”

  His face grew more flushed. “Is that what you want to see? You want me to prove I don’t have that poor little girl stashed in there? As if the police didn’t already search this place stem to stern.” He pushed roughly past me and dived for the closet door, yanking it open. “See for your—” He broke off as a man burst from the closet, staggering two steps before collapsing, face down, onto the hardwood floor. From all the blood, it was apparent that if we didn’t do something soon, he wouldn’t be around to answer any questions.

  “But … I swear I … How did he … I didn’t …” Cody stuttered.

  “Help him!” This I directed at Shannon, who had drawn his gun. Already I was kneeling, rolling the man over. He was younger than I’d estimated at first glimpse, his clean-shaven features drawn by pain and blood loss. Maybe in his late twenties. “I got a pulse,” I said. Opening the man’s jacket, I peered at him. At least two wounds, but there could be more. No imprint on the jacket.

  “Some kind of knife.” Shannon had reholstered his gun and was dialing a number on his cell phone. “Yeah, we need an ambulance. There’s a man here who’s been stabbed. He needs immediate attention. I don’t know the address, but it’s on the north outskirts of town. The artist’s place.” He paused. “No, it’s not the artist. I’m hanging up now so I can try to stop the bleeding. No, I don’t need you to talk me through it. Just hurry!”

  Cody had disappeared but returned with the towel from the bathroom. I tried not to think about cleanliness as I held it against the wounds. Cody had left an imprint on the towel, strong enough to have stayed on the cloth, though already it was fading:

  How did he get in my closet? They’re never going to believe I had nothing to do with this. They’ll never stop looking now.

  The man moaned.

  “Who did this to you?” Shannon asked him.

  His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t respond.

  Shannon’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Cody. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “No,” I said for him. “You can see how surprised he was.”

  Cody gave me a gratified look while Shannon’s showed irritation. Good, that I understood. I met his gaze steadily until he nodded acceptance.

  “Do you know who he is, at least?” Shannon asked Cody.

  Cody shook his head. “Looks familiar, but I swear I can’t place him. I don’t get out much.”

  “Well, you think about it and tell us if you remember anything.”

  “The police are going to arrest me.” Cody’s voice was gruff. “Since he was found here, they’ll think I did it.”

  Shannon frowned. “Maybe. Unless he wakes up and tells a different story.”

  Minutes ticked by slowly as we waited for the ambulance.

  The sheriff’s deputies arrived seconds before the ambulance. Unfortunately for us, they were the same detectives who’d been at the gas station shooting. Maybe Cody wouldn’t be the only one who ended up in jail.

  Detective Sergeant Greeley gave the all-clear to the EMTs before letting them into the house. “We’ll get his statement at the hospital if he wakes up,” he said as they took the unconscious man away.

  His gaze turned to us, his voice hard. “I suppose you’re going to say you had nothing to do with this.”

  “Of course we didn’t,” Shannon said.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Detective Levine sounded considerably more friendly.

  I gave him a smile. “We’re here to visit Mr. Beckett.”

  Greeley’s small eyes glittered. “I see.” He turned to Cody. “What happened her
e, Mr. Beckett?”

  “He must have come in while we were in the woods.” Cody lifted his chin against the accusation in Greeley’s eyes. “I never saw him before.”

  “What were you doing in the woods?” Greeley pressed.

  “Sight-seeing,” I said before Cody could respond. I really did not like the detective. The only thing he had going for him was his badge and a nice head of hair. “Look, Mr. Beckett has nothing to do with this. He was with us the whole time.”

  “The man’s wounds could be several hours old,” Shannon said.

  There he went again, being a cop instead of my friend. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Mr. Beckett didn’t have anything to do with it.” The imprint had made that much clear to me.

  “We’ll determine that down at the station,” Greeley said. “We’ll want to question all of you, of course.”

  “Of course,” Shannon said at the same time Cody growled, “No way. I’ve been questioned enough. My only wrongdoing is leaving my doors open on my own property while I take a little walk.”

  He called our long trek in the woods a little walk?

  “What’s so funny?” Greeley asked me.

  “Nothing.” I wished I had Tawnia’s poker face, but my twin had been given all the subterfuge talent in the family.

  “You’re all coming with us.” Greeley motioned us to go ahead of him. His hand was near his gun.

  “Thanks, but I’ll drive,” Shannon said. “Wouldn’t want to have to come back out here for my truck.”

  “Right. How am I getting back if I don’t drive myself?” Cody muttered. I’d seen an ancient-looking gold Honda out front when we’d arrived, and it must belong to him. I wondered what he did when he had a lot of snow, since he didn’t seem to have a garage.

  “We’ll have someone drive you back.” Levine placed a tentative hand on Cody’s arm. “Or I’ll drive you myself.”