Dead Ringers

by Camilla Chafer

  "I'm sorry you didn't want to talk to me about things. I've tried to respect your space but it's hard seeing you while knowing that you’re deliberately putting space between us."

  I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

  "He told me. He said you weren't happy and you needed some time out and didn't want to talk to me. He told me you didn't want me to text or call but I couldn't help it, I texted you even though you didn't reply…" Ben trailed off.

  "Who? What are you talking about?"

  "Hayden, of course. Your buddy."

  "I never said anything like that to Hayden."

  "You didn't?"

  "I might have mentioned being annoyed about not getting a chance to write any good stories and all the time you were spending with Gabi but I never said anything about not wanting you to talk to me. Why would he say that?" It didn’t make any sense.

  "I'm as confused as you are. He led me to believe you two were good friends."

  "I only met him when he started at the newspaper." What the hell was Ben talking about?

  "Then how did he get that photo of you?"

  "What photo?!" My frustration was rapidly rising.

  "The one with you, Daisy and Jenna at brunch. The one that was published all over the place."

  "That was Hayden’s?"

  "Yes! I thought that's how you knew him. I thought you were friends. He said you were embarrassed by the photo but was cool with him working at the Chronicle so long as no one ever brought it up."

  "I never said that!" I paused. "That photo was published before Hayden started working at the Chronicle?"

  "Yeah. So?"

  Pieces started clicking into place. "So he knew Daisy and I were friends. Hayden never mentioned that. Not once. He talked about all kinds of people he photographed but he never mentioned her."

  "Martha told me he worked with Carlos Santiago on a few shoots. Years ago as an assistant or something."

  "I know. He told me. Even a rudimentary search connected Santiago to some of the victims, but Hayden worked for him a couple of years ago so he couldn't be involved; and like you said, Santiago is in France."

  "Couldn't he? They could still be friendly. Santiago might not be involved, or at least, not directly. What if he was just a great way for Hayden to meet his victims? We already know he's a liar."

  "No." I shook my head. "No. I don't know why Hayden said the things he said to you. He must have been confused about something. There's no way he could do this. He’s so nice. He doesn’t even know Daisy. He can’t! Unless… Oh, crap!" I looked down at my shoes on the wooden floor, a shard of light crossing them.

  "What is it? What did you just realize?"

  I gulped. "I'm at Hayden's studio now."

  "Is he there?"

  "No. The door was unlocked so I just stepped inside."

  "Shayne, get out of there. Get out of there right now," urged Ben.

  "I can't. I should look around. Stay on the line. Don't disconnect."

  "No, Shayne, I don't like this. You need to leave. Get out of there. Go to your car. Drive away."

  I only half listened as I looked around the studio. The place was neat and tidy. If there were any signs of an altercation, I would have noticed right away but there was nothing. No knocked over plant pots, no strewn equipment, no traces of blood.

  I stepped around the partition, noting all the uniforms and props were in order. Something sparkled by the darkroom door and I stepped closer to take a look. A bracelet lay on the floor. I reached for it, wondering it if it were a prop but as I turned it over in my fingers, I knew the distinctive design. "I just found Daisy's bracelet," I said softly. "She never takes it off. She's here."

  "I'm calling the police."

  I reached for the darkroom door, turned the handle and it creaked open.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I could barely make out a thing in the small darkroom. No windows, no air flow, just the vague outline of wall a few feet from me. My eyes adjusted as I blinked and light filtered in behind me, revealing a long table spanning the far wall. Several empty trays were lined up side by side on the top. A shelf below displayed a number of plastic bottles with names I didn't recognize but assumed were chemicals for processing film. The floor was covered in a dark rug. Above me were several strands of wire, criss-crossing the room with tiny pegs. There weren't any photographs although I did spot several canisters of film stacked on the table.

  Within a couple of minutes, I saw everything there was to see.

  "Shayne?" hissed a voice from my phone.

  "I'm here, Ben. There's nothing. I'm leaving." My foot hit something uneven on the floor and I stooped to see. Whatever it was felt hard and was covered by the rug. I stuck my phone in my pocket to leave both hands free and rolled it back. Set into the floor was a metal ring and a bolt. My foot hit the ring. Sliding back the bolt, I tugged the trapdoor up, letting it rest against the wall. Steps descended into blackness.

  Somewhere from the dark came a muffled sound.

  I needed a flashlight. There was no way I was descending into the cavelike space without seeing where I was going. I had no idea how far down it went, how big it was, or what might be lurking below. It could be a guy with a chainsaw or a raccoon. My mind went wild with possibilities.

  Backing away from the opening, I looked around for a flashlight. It was so dark in the room, Hayden had to have one somewhere nearby. Or maybe there was a light switch if the area below the studio was hooked up to electricity. Just as I began to turn, hands pushed hard on my back and my arms began to flail, my hands groping for anything to grasp hold of. I knew I was falling into the dark hole.

  Seconds later, I landed with a horrible thud and all the air was knocked out of me. My head thumped and something whined. No, that was me. The whimpering noise came from me.

  I didn't move. I didn't dare move. I wasn't even sure if I could move.

  The muffled noise came again, louder this time.

  I blinked, trying to orientate myself but I couldn't see more than a few inches in front of me. More noise. I couldn't be sure… was the muffled noise I heard somewhere beyond my head someone saying my name?

  When light flooded the hole, I clamped my eyes shut and lay very still, playing dead. Footsteps sounded above me, heavy and certain, then stopped. When I didn't hear the trapdoor shut, I fluttered my eyes open, slowly adjusting to the light as I peeked from under my eyelashes.

  Denim legs were on the stairs, then, a couple of steps down, a masculine torso appeared. A couple more steps and Hayden came into view, his eyes devoid of emotion.

  "I know you're awake. You just couldn't stop meddling, could you, Shayne?" he said. "Look what you made me do."

  "You pushed me down the steps!" The words escaped me before I thought about it. I flashed my eyes open but didn't move. Better that he thought I was severely injured in the fall. When he glanced away, I wiggled my fingertips, then my toes. Nothing seemed particularly painful but until I moved, I couldn't be sure.

  "You were planning on going down anyway. I just gave you a helping hand." This time he smiled darkly. "What were you hoping to find when you poked around my studio?"

  "Photos," I admitted.

  "I knew you saw something that day when I photographed you. I checked later and wasn’t sure what you saw, or thought you saw, so I swapped out a few of the pictures. Of course, none of them are my best work. Just a few candid shots while I was on set. Do you want to see my best work?"

  While he was talking, I concentrated on wiggling my fingers and toes some more, then flexing my muscles. Apart from being winded, and my back aching from the impact of the fall, I was pretty sure I hadn't been severely injured but Hayden didn't know that. "I can't move," I lied. "I think I broke something."

  "Annoying and now useless too." Hayden turned away and reached for something on the shelf. I took the opportunity to glance around. We were in a space smaller than the studio but with just enough head room that Hayden could stand
upright without banging his head on the spotlights recessed into the ceiling, or the electricity cables neatly bundled into the rafters. The walls were framed but not plastered and the floor felt like concrete. Metal shelving covered the wall nearest me. I twisted to see the other side. Beyond an old, wooden workbench, my eyes locked onto a frightened pair of big, brown eyes looking back at me from behind metal bars. No, not bars, a cage that spanned half the height of the room and was only a few feet wide. Inside, without enough space to stand up or stretch out, was Daisy.

  "Are you okay?" I mouthed to her.

  She shook her head, tossing her hair back, then nodding quickly. At first I wondered why she indicated no then yes. Then, as she shuffled to turn a little, I realized her hands were bound behind her back and the strip of cloth in her mouth was a gag. A thick padlock kept the cage door closed. She nodded toward the other side of the room, her eyes widening.

  Just in time, I turned my head as Hayden turned around. He crouched next to me, a photo album in his hands. "These are my favorites," he said as he opened the cover. "My true work. Capturing expression is my passion but doing the moody eyes thing is so boring. I want true emotion. Fear. Desperation. Hope. Look at them, Shayne. Look at the stories they tell."

  I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut when I saw the first photo. I didn't recognize the girl but I couldn’t fail to see her fear. She seemed to be in the same cage that held Daisy, her mouth gagged just the same. Hayden flipped the page and as I scanned them, the photos became progressively worse as did her injuries until the final photo, her glassy eyes were wide open but unseeing. "I thought she'd last longer but she kept crying and it got so annoying," complained Hayden. "However, it was a good experiment. I got the right shots but the lighting was wrong so I tried again. This one looked just like Daisy. So pretty, so pure. At least she pretended to be." Hayden flipped the page, guiding me through another shocking set of photographs of another girl. "So disappointing," he muttered, staring at the photos.

  "Why did you kill them?" I asked, looking away as Hayden turned the page to his next victim.

  "Art. It's all in the name of art." He grabbed my chin, forcing my gaze back to the photo album. I knew there was no use closing my eyes. He would probably just pry them open and I didn't want to think about how. Instead, I tried not to see the poor girls in their last moments. "Of course, none of them were ever as good as I knew Daisy would be. They just don't have her range. They don't have her emotion. They tried but they weren't her. They knew they would never be as good as her. Daisy sees what they don't see."

  "What does Daisy see?" I asked.

  "Me. She sees me. She understands me. She knows we're meant to be. I knew it that first day I met her on a shoot with Carlos in the desert. I could feel it when she looked at me, the way she spoke. All those little gestures. Of course, we couldn't make our art then. She was a supermodel. I was just a photographer's assistant but I've watched her all this time, waiting for my chance and I know she was waiting for me too. It was all part of the game. All those ways she told me she was waiting. All those secret looks."

  "Secret looks?" I asked, wondering if he were crazy.

  "Daisy made sure I knew she was looking at me in her photos, didn't you, sweetheart?" he said, casting a glance at her. "Every time I picked up a magazine, there she was. She must have thought I was ignoring her so she moved to television. All to make sure she could flaunt herself in front of me, knowing how much I was longing for her. She put those girls in my path, you know. She sent them to me. Pathetic copies of her until we could meet again."

  I opened my mouth to tell him he was batshit crazy, absolutely, certifiably psychotic, but I didn't want to antagonize him further. I needed to keep him calm until I could figure out how to get Daisy out of the cage and both of us out of this hole. Hayden was a tall, strong man. I couldn't overpower him, but perhaps I could distract him while Daisy escaped?

  "How do you know she sent them?" I asked, trying to keep him talking.

  "They look just like her. At least, they tried to. Did you know this one had a fake tan?" Hayden flipped through the pages, stopping on a terrible set of photos that he shoved under my nose. "Fake tan. Fake nails. Fake hair. Daisy was angry at me, I could tell. I hadn't done my job right. That's why she sent her. I wasn't giving her enough attention."

  Behind me, Daisy began to sob.

  Hayden glanced up, his expression changing from disgusting glee to concern. He dropped the album next to my head and moved across the small space toward her, reaching through the bars to stroke her hair. "No, darling, no, don't cry. I'm not angry with you. I understand. Everything will be all right now. We're together at last. You have to stop crying. I said stop it. Daisy!" The metal cage clanged and Daisy gasped. The sobbing abruptly stopped. I didn't dare twist my head or body to see if Daisy was okay. It didn't sound like the lock was undone or the cage door opened so I had to hope she was safely behind it. Again, I used Hayden's distraction to look around for something close to me that I could use to hit him hard.

  There wasn't much to choose from. No weapons or tools that I could see. There were a couple of thick plastic cases, the kind used to store power tools and some cardboard tubes with plastic caps resting under the metal shelving. The tubes wouldn't put a dent in a sheet of paper but the plastic case might be heavy enough to stun him briefly.

  "It's you I have to thank, really," said Hayden, looming back into view. "Without you, Daisy and I might not have been reunited for a long time. As soon as you told me Sammy was alive, I knew it was time for Daisy and I to reunite. It's fitting that you're here really. I can't keep you, obviously, because I don't want you but I do thank you, Shayne."

  "I'm not sure how I helped."

  "When I realized you and Daisy were friends, I knew you would lead me right to her so I could surprise her. Both Daisy and I knew the game was at an end. Her substitutes just weren't satisfying me anymore. I think they were trying to steal her limelight but no one could be Daisy. She made sure I saw you with her at brunch so I could take your photo; and as soon as I found out you were a journalist, it was perfect. We could be friends!"

  "How did you find out who I was?"

  "Reverse image search." Hayden shrugged. "It was easy and when the photo got picked up by the newspapers, I knew it was a genuine sign. Daisy, me and you are all connected. I practically walked into that job at the Chronicle. You kept dropping all those little hints about Daisy, teasing me. You led me right to her."

  "How?" I asked, sickened that he thought I was helping him.

  "You told me when you got together, you let me follow you to her place and then confirmed that's where your friend lived. You told me all about her security and when she left the studio and when she would be home. Even before that, you teased me with your murder board and let me play the game designed to catch me. You're pretty fun, you know that, Shayne? All that chasing around after Ryan Ellison when I drip-fed you my suspicions. Hilarious! Like I said, it's a shame you can't stay. I liked being friends with you."

  I shut my eyes, appalled. I told him all those things, but I mentioned what had seemed like insignificant details to someone I thought was a friend. I never realized he knew the Daisy I was talking about was Marguerite "Daisy" Casta. Then I had an idea. "Daisy wants me to stay," I told him. "You know she does."

  "She doesn't." But his confused eyes flashing towards Daisy indicated he wasn't sure.

  "She does. Ask her. Daisy and I are best friends and she wouldn't want you to hurt me. Like you said, I'm part of the game to get you two together. She didn't send me to you as a substitute."

  "Of course she didn't. You don't look anything like her. You're blond and kind of short."

  "Exactly! I'm the polar opposite of Daisy. She knows how much you'll both need my help. That's why I came here today. To help."

  "Carlos helped. He moved into her building so I could be close to her."

  "Carlos Santiago? Did he tell you that?" I asked.

  "Not in so m
any words but I knew that had to be it when he told me where he was moving and invited me to assist on a shoot he had booked. Then I saw you and you confirmed it was where Daisy lived. Carlos realized our connection all those years ago. He felt it. I went there, to her place, touched her things. I knew she was waiting for me."

  "Where is he now?" I asked, playing along even as revulsion threatened to turn my stomach at the thought of Hayden infiltrating Daisy’s home. "He didn't come to help you. I did."

  Confusion flickered in his eyes. "Daisy?" he asked.

  Daisy's muffled murmur was incomprehensible. Hayden moved towards her and then I heard her voice. I breathed deeply. hoping she followed the plan. "Yes, Shayne's right. We need her. You can't hurt her. She's not one of those girls. She's special," she said hurriedly.

  "I don't think she's special," said Hayden.

  "Of course she is. She knew exactly where to come and she's going to help us have a wonderful life together," said Daisy.

  "How will she do that?"

  "You don't need to be troubled with the details. You've done enough to get us together," lied Daisy. "You've done everything I wanted. If you let me out of this cage, we can go in the house and start planning our future."

  "Let you out?" Hayden laughed. "You nearly got me there, Daisy. So close. All the other girls pleaded like that too. Let me out. I won't tell. I thought you were better than that. You know I have to keep you safe here. Everyone will recognize you if I let you out. Plus, how do I know this isn't part of the game? If I let you out, you might run off and spoil everything and I'll have to find you all over again. I nearly lost you once. I'm not going to risk that again. And we don't need Shayne. I've already got everything prepared. I'm going to show you exactly what I did to get rid of those substitutes so you never have to worry about any of them trying to steal your limelight ever again."

  That didn't sound good. That sounded like Hayden wasn't prepared to believe the lies Daisy and I told him, no matter how deluded he was. We had to get out of here and I only had moment to think of some way to do it. Rapidly, my plan came together as he crossly grabbed the album from the floor and stomped to the other side of the room.