Beyond belief (6 page)

Now Darlene Farrell had her own scent.

This time, at least, it was for a good cause.

It had been almost two years since his new life began, when he met Bertram and Irene Setzer of Birmingham, England. They were a well-heeled couple who had hired him to escort their corporate officers out of Sarajevo during a particularly violent period of civil unrest. He had accomplished the mission with his usual efficiency, and as a special reward for his efforts, Bertram and Irene invited him to spend his summer at a villa on their eleven-hundred-acre estate. He knew that they probably just wanted to keep him handy for other jobs that might come up, but he welcomed the opportunity to spend time in the beautiful English countryside. He frequently dined with the Setzers, and it was during those long evenings that he became acquainted with their unusual beliefs. At first, he found their ideas odd and confusing, but as the weeks wore on, he discovered a strange comfort in their philosophy.

No regrets. No guilt. No remorse.

There was more to it than that, of course, but he realized that it was exactly what he needed in his life. The years had taken their toll on his psyche, but this new way of life stripped away much of the pain and anguish that had been consuming him.

Now he couldn't imagine life without the Millennial Prophets. He wasn't worthy yet, but he soon would be.

If only he could get away from that horrible smell.

It was a few minutes past nine by the time Joe came back to his apartment building. As he stepped into the cargo elevator and pulled the accordion-style metal doors closed, he performed his nightly ritual of trying to shake off the job. He rolled his shoulders and breathed deeply. Let it go.

He pressed the button for the third floor. He couldn't help but think back to his meeting with Jesse Randall and how quickly the boy's demeanor had changed. He'd pushed Jesse to perform, which had probably triggered unpleasant memories of Nelson and the other testers.

From one moment to the next, Jesse had transformed from a meek little boy to an angry, venomous child. Nelson had sure done a number on him.

Joe rolled his shoulders again. Not now. Leave it behind. Keep it from interfering with—

He went still. There was something different about the elevator tonight.

The floor was shaking, rattling.

A low metallic groan echoed in the shaft below.

He punched the button again.

The vibration intensified, jarring him backward. The elevator car trembled and creaked, and the hanging light fixture bounced crazily overhead.

Before he could regain his balance, the bottom dropped out of the elevator.

He clawed at the air, finally catching the accordion-style door in front of him. His fingers curled around the sharp diagonal bars as his body slammed against the oily shaft. The floor plate clanged downward, echoing in the void below.

The elevator car abruptly stopped. Still dangling from the door, he tried to get his bearings. What the hell had just happened?

He looked down. Darkness. Shadows.

Death.

He swung his legs back and forth, trying to get a toehold somewhere in the shaft. Not a chance.

Shit.

The door bars, pulled by the tension of his weight, pinched like nutcrackers around each finger. Blood oozed over his hands. He couldn't hold on much longer.

Nikki. He'd never see her again.

Sounds from above. Clanging. Whirring. Gears shifting?

The elevator car lurched downward.

His hands were numb, and he knew that he could lose his grip at any second. He kicked outward, trying to keep his body from brushing against the side of the shaft.

The car moved faster. And faster.

Was it falling? Not quite, he realized, but almost.

The second floor flew by. He was headed for the basement. Though he couldn't see it, he knew that the cement floor of the shaft was rushing toward his outstretched legs.

Climb, he told himself. Now.

He gripped the next row of diagonal metal strips
and pulled himself up. It hurt like hell. He grabbed the next row with his throbbing left hand. The elevator was picking up speed. He could hear sounds echoing off the bottom of the shaft.

Climb.

He swung his legs up.

Bam!

Contact.

The force of the impact threw him backward onto the floor of the shaft. He was caked in oily sludge.

He stood up and realized the shaft had been cut about three feet deep into the basement. He forced open the doors and hoisted himself up to the floor. He crossed his arms in front of him, tucking his bleeding hands under his armpits.

The crippled elevator hummed, taunting him as he staggered away. Thank God Nikki hadn't been with him.

He leaned against the dark basement's concrete wall, shaking.

All hell broke loose after nine o'clock.

For some crazy reason, Eve Chandler's voice was ringing in his ears.

Joe angled his watch into a shaft of light cutting through the basement's glass brick window.

Nine-fifteen
P.M.

Twenty-four hours after Nelson's murder.

Fifteen minutes after Jesse Randall's bedtime.

If his hands weren't still hurting so badly, Joe might have chuckled. He knew what the Landwyn University parapsychology team would say if they heard about this: another shadow storm. He had upset
Jesse, and the boy's subconscious was striking back.

Joe looked back at the humming elevator and the overhead light that was still swinging back and forth.

The spook squad would have a field day with this one.

J
oe walked into the Landwyn University Humanities Building. He'd hoped to get there earlier, but he had spent much of the morning with the elevator service technician, who couldn't offer any explanation for the previous evening's malfunction. He had shown Joe how the floor panel fit snugly in the base of the car; no reasonable amount of force could pry it loose, and even if it had somehow happened, the elevator's base panels would show the stress. The panels were rigid and straight.

Forget it, Joe decided. It had been an accident, like the dozens of other elevator accidents that occur every day. Nothing spooky about it.

A female grad student was standing guard outside the parapsychology testing room. “Wait here, please. Séance in progress.”

Joe looked up at the video monitor over the door. The picture was dark, but there were the requisite spooky sounds, bumping furniture, and amazed exclamations
from the supposedly objective research team.

The grad student looked Joe up and down. “Dr. Kellner will be out in a couple of minutes. Are you a seer?”

“No.”

“Spiritualist?”

“No.”

“Telepath?”

“No.”

“Healer?”

“Afraid not.”

“Then what are you?”

“Police detective. My name's Joe Bailey.”

“Ah. Skeptic.”

“My reputation precedes me.”

“You could say that.”

Joe knew that he was probably the single most despised person by the parapsychology program's faculty and students. The head of the humanities department, Daryl Reisman, was a fellow skeptic, and he often hired Joe to debunk the group's findings. Reisman felt that the parapsychology program was an embarrassment to the university, but the group was protected by a wealthy benefactor, Roland Ness, who provided not only most of the program's funding but also many of the university's other endowments. Any movement to abolish the program would certainly be quashed by a board of regents eager to keep Ness's cash rolling in.

Nothing like a little reality to piss everybody off.

The testing room door opened, and the program members filed out smiling, chattering, and gesticulating
wildly, as if they had just ridden the Space Mountain ride at Disneyland. The only one who wasn't positively glowing was the medium herself, Suzanne Morrison. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, and it was Joe's experience that attractive people made the best mediums for the same reason they made the best con artists: Dupes
trusted
attractive people. Joe had witnessed one of Suzanne's séances the week before, and although it had been the most impressive display he'd ever seen, he had no doubt that he would expose her trickery after another session or two.

“Congratulations,” Joe said. “It looks like you just gave them an E-ticket ride.”

“What?” She stared blankly at him.

Joe suddenly felt old. Suzanne was in her late twenties, too young to have ever fussed with the old Disneyland ride tickets.

“Arcane reference. Consider it officially dropped from my vocabulary. It looks like you really wowed them. Of course, you're preaching to the choir.”

“Aren't there bad guys out there who need to be caught, Detective?”

“How do you know the bad guys aren't here? How do you know I'm not talking to one of them right now?”

She flashed him a radiant smile. “Are you here to arrest me, Mr. Bailey?”

“Messengers to the hereafter can call me Joe.”

“Does that mean I've made a believer of you?”

“It means that you can call me Joe. And that I'm scheduled to attend another séance of yours next week and I fully intend to expose you.”

“Promises, promises.”

“You don't think I can do it?”

“I think you can
try.”

“I've never failed yet.”

She shrugged. “There's a first time for everything.”

She walked down the hall.

Joe smiled. He admired her nerve and sense of humor. Suzanne Morrison didn't take herself as seriously as most others in her profession.

“I'm telling you, Bailey, she's the real thing,” Dr. Gregory Kellner said as he walked toward him. Kellner was a small, balding man whose face was always flushed red, as if he had just been trying to blow up a balloon that wouldn't inflate.

“We'll see about that. I'm here on official business today, Kellner.”

Kellner nodded. “Is this about Nelson?”

“Yes.”

“Since when are you a homicide cop?”

“Since a murder was made to look as if it had been caused by telekinetic means.”

“Do you have proof it wasn't?”

“It doesn't work that way. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”

“I take it you've discovered a more likely method.”

“Not yet, but I will.”

Kellner smirked, as he always did when Joe appeared to be stumped by some reputed psychic phenomenon. “I already spoke to Detective Howe about Nelson.”

“I'm more interested in the boy. You were studying Jesse Randall, weren't you?”

“He was primarily Nelson's case, but yes, we ran some tests here.”

“Why wasn't I called in?”

“Our testing hadn't progressed that far yet. We didn't want to inhibit Jesse by introducing a foreign element.”

“A ‘foreign element’? I've never been called
that
before.”

“A nonbeliever's presence can severely inhibit psychic activity. It's been well documented.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kellner sighed. “What would you like to know?”

“In your opinion, is Jesse Randall a true teleki-netic?”

“Not that my opinion has ever mattered to you, but yes, I believe he is. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. He was subjected to rigorous testing at a paranormal studies conference in Dallas, and he made a believer out of everyone there.”

“I understand that Jesse and Nelson had a falling-out. Was Jesse's experience in Dallas part of the reason for that?”

Kellner considered the question. “Jesse wasn't happy. He wasn't used to that kind of scientific testing, and, I admit, it was quite invasive. But when you find someone with a gift as astonishing as Jesse's, you have a responsibility to study every variable you can, while you can. Children often outgrow psychic powers, and we needed to quickly glean whatever information we could.”

“Is that why Nelson wanted him to go to Switzerland?”

“Yes. I know Jesse didn't want to go, but for him to spend six months at the Lindstrom Institute for Paranormal Studies would have been a tremendous opportunity.”

“Opportunity for whom?”

Kellner didn't answer.

Joe nodded. Just what he thought. “Do you really think, even if Jesse had been psychically capable of it, he would have murdered Nelson?”

Kellner vigorously shook his head. “Not consciously. I think Jesse was fond of Nelson, but he was upset with him, and that anger and resentment manifested itself in a series of disturbing dreams.”

“And you believe that those dreams caused these so-called shadow storms, including the one that killed Nelson?”

“I do.”

Joe nodded. “All right. I need to take all of the Jesse Randall session videotapes shot here, in Dallas, and anywhere else you may have tested him.”

“I'm sorry. I'd need a court order for that.”

Joe reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheaf of tan papers. “One court order. How did I know I'd need this?”

“How does he do it?”

Nikki was on the floor in front of the television, mesmerized by Jesse's demonstrations. She and Joe had been watching session tapes for the better part of the evening, captivated as small objects shook and rolled across tabletops, papers sailed across testing rooms, and pieces of metal bent and broke in Jesse's
hands. Almost every test was accompanied by pulsating rap music, which Jesse claimed he needed to concentrate.