Blood Dahlia - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries) (16 page)

30

Sarah opened her door
the next morning and saw Giovanni standing there, holding two coffees from Starbucks. He handed one to her and said, “Ready?”

“Yup.”

She locked her door and followed him down the hallway and out to the car. Rosen was sitting in the passenger seat, busy on his phone, and Giovanni set his coffee down on the roof to open the door for her. She got in and said, to Rosen, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Rosen
answered, still on the phone.

Giovanni pulled away from the curb, sipping his coffee. He glanced back
at Sarah. When she noticed, he looked away.

“So where we going?” she said.

“Wharton State Forest,” Giovanni said. “It’s where we found the body dumped in the woods.” He reached over to Rosen’s lap and removed a file to hand back to Sarah. “That’s her.”

Sarah opened the file. Michelle Anand. Twenty-two years old. Her official profession was listed as “actress.” The photograph of her looked like something an actress would send to agents.

“Why do you guys still use files?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Giovanni asked.

“Just thought the FBI would be all high tech.”

“The FBI’s the slowest of any government agency to change. J. Edgar Hoover wanted tradition and almost nothing else. I don’t think he really cared that much about results
even. The tradition was what mattered. Don’t you think, Arnold?”

“He was a
sick son of a bitch who didn’t understand a lick about the Constitution. I prefer not to associate him with the Bureau. Take this on-ramp over here.”

Sarah flipped through the rest of the file as they drove. It was just… sad. That was the only word that c
ame to mind. Michelle was a runaway at thirteen and lived on the streets until she was almost eighteen, when she met and married a much older man. Sarah could only imagine what it would take for a young girl to choose to live on the streets rather than at home. She wondered if the parents even cared when they were notified of her death.

The sprawling urban landscape turned into
dense forests that she couldn’t see more than a dozen feet into. Sarah stared at the trees. Nature, something she’d spent her entire life surrounded by, now made her uneasy, and she didn’t know why.

Giovanni turned down a side road
that quickly became so bumpy that Sarah nearly flew out of her seat. Twenty minutes later, when they were deep in the woods, Giovanni stopped the car and both men stepped out. Sarah followed, leaving Michelle’s file on the backseat.

The trees engulfed the road
, taking over the path beaten out by men. Not enough people traveled there to keep the road well maintained. Other than the tracks they’d just made, Sarah didn’t see any other signs that people came here at all.

“Her body was found over here,” Rosen said, trekking into
a thicket of trees.

Sarah followed. The trees were only a few feet apart
, and she had to sidestep to get through the brush. After about thirty feet or so, the trees thinned out, and they stood in a small clearing, hidden from view of the road. No one could’ve seen anybody back here. Trees surrounded the space like a wall.

“Body was
there,” Rosen said, motioning with his chin to a spot on the downhill slope of the clearing.

Sarah glanced
at both men and then walked over. She wasn’t sure what she was expected to do. What little control she had came only when she concentrated by herself. Standing in a creepy forest with two FBI agents watching her every move wasn’t exactly the ideal situation for concentrating.

She walked down the slope about halfway and then looked back. “
Here?”

“Just down a few more feet, but yeah.”

She took a few steps and stopped. The clearing, in the light of the sun, could be considered beautiful. But it was so hidden from everything else, so silent, that the beauty was overwhelmed by the eeriness.

Sh
e scanned from one end of the clearing to the other and down at the grass and dirt under her boots. She kicked a rock, watching it tumble down the hill before sighing and looking around again. Turning back to Rosen and Giovanni, they were staring at her.

“Anything?” Giovanni
asked.

She shook her head. Out here in the wilderness, it hit her how silly this all was. Granted, she had seen things no one could explain
, but she could totally understand why some people wouldn’t listen to her no matter what. Even if they were potentially in danger.

Turning around to head back and admit defeat, something caught her eye. She stopped and
stared at it. Something blue in the grass, farther down the hill.

Sarah began walking toward it, glancing over her shoulder to
reassure herself that Giovanni and Rosen were still there. The color was slightly higher than the ground on which it lay. As she got closer, she saw something crumpled and stretched out over a few feet.

Only
when she got near did she see it was really a body.

A young woman in a blue sweatshirt. She wore jeans and white sneakers… and her face had been removed.
A clean incision that ran around the edge of the skull. The torso had been cut in half at the waist.

Sarah
closed her eyes tightly.

“Am I dead?”

The voice was soft, quiet. Sarah opened her eyes and stared down at the faceless upper body. The eyes were still there, blue and frightened.

“Yes,” Sarah said.

“I had so much to do. I never… I never had children. I really wanted children.”

Despite the revulsion, Sarah kneeled down next to the woman. With her voice hardly more than a whisper, she said, “Who did this to you?”

“I really wanted children. Since I was a little girl. I thought I would be a good mother.”

“Michelle, who did this to you?”

The woman began to cry. Sarah reached out, her hand hovering above Michelle’s a moment before resting on it, their fingers intertwining. Sarah could feel the cold skin against hers, the ridges of the nails as they touched her own hand. As far as she could tell, Michelle Anand was right there in front of her.

“Michelle, tell me
—who did this to you?”

“He…” She began to weep. Tears rolled down her skinless face.

Sarah didn’t look away this time. Instead, she swallowed and said, “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want to die.” The woman grabbed Sarah’s arm with both hands. “I don’t want to die!”

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

“No. No! You can do it. You can stop it. You have to stop it.”

Sarah felt a trickle of fear down her back. “I can’t.”

The woman’s eyes were no
w blazing with fury. She pulled herself up, screaming, “You will do it! You will.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t,” Sarah kept saying over and over.

The woman wrapped her hands around Sarah’s throat, and Sarah screamed. She fell onto her back, staring at the sky, her breath slowly choking away.

“What happened?” Giovanni said, running up to her. He
put his hands under her and lifted her up. “You okay? What happened? You screamed.”

Sarah looked around quickly
—only Giovanni and Rosen in sight. Her breathing was labored and quick, her heart pounding so furiously she thought it would jump out of her throat.

“I saw… I saw her. I saw her. She was right here.”

“Who was? Michelle Anand?”

Sarah nodded.

Giovanni looked at Rosen, whose expression didn’t change.

“What did she say?” Giovanni asked.

“She… nothing. Nothing that can help us. She was frantic. She knew she was dead. She knew.”

Giovanni glanced up
at Rosen again. “I think I’ve had enough of the woods,” he said.

“Me too.”
Sarah was on her feet. It took a few moments for her to adjust and regain her balance.

As they began trekking back up the incline, they heard something.
The snap of a small branch breaking.

Both Rosen and Giovanni froze.

“I don’t think we’re alone,” Giovanni said.

Rosen was
quiet a moment, scanning the line of trees in front of them. “No, we’re not.”

Sarah hadn’
t noticed anything other than natural sounds in the forest. Branches fell and broke all the time. She didn’t understand why they appeared so concerned. “It’s probably nothing,” she said.

“Probably. Let’s keep walking.”

A breeze was blowing through the trees, making a soft rustling sound that Sarah had loved, like the trees were speaking to her or singing. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much she had missed that sound.

Back in between the trees, Giovanni went first
, and Rosen was behind her as they made their way through the sharp branches. Just as they saw the car, Giovanni dashed to the right. Rosen spun around and ran back, sprinting in an arc back behind them.

“Hey,” Sarah said, “what’s going on?”

Neither of them replied. Sarah felt the trees around her, the sense of calm and peace now gone. She thought of the severed torso, the fingers clawing at her, begging for help. The thought sent a shiver up her back.

Someone yelped in pain.
Despite the fear, Sarah ran toward the sound. Had something happened to Giovanni? She rounded a thicket of trees and saw Giovanni on top of another man—the man from last night, Kenneth Lott.

Rosen had his sidearm pointed at the man as Giovanni slapped handcuffs on him.

“Wait a second,” Rosen said, putting his sidearm away. “I know him.”

“Yeah, I do, too.” Giovanni said, easing off. “He’s with the
Post
.”

Rosen laughed. “Is that what you told them, Kenny? The
Post
.” Rosen chuckled some more. “Uncuff him.”

Giovanni did so
, and Lott pulled away from him like a child who didn’t want to be touched.

“What the hell
, Arnold?” Kenny demanded.

“What’re you doing here, Kenny?”

“I’m following a lead.”

“What lead?”

Lott looked at Sarah and then back. “None of your business.”

As Lott began to walk away
, Giovanni reached for him, but Rosen said, “Let him go.”

“He’s not with the
Post
?” Sarah asked.

Rosen shook his head, fingering a tear in his pants
from sprinting through the trees. “Kenny couldn’t get coffee for the reporters at the
Post
. He works for a sleazy news and gossip website called the Skid Row Gossip. They interview porn stars and high-level drug dealers and things. Before that, he used to be a cop but got thrown off the force for taking bribes.”

“What the hell’s he doing following us?” Giovanni said.

“I don’t know. But it won’t be good for us.”

31

On the drive back into the city, Sarah didn’t speak. Even when Giovanni or Rosen asked her a question, she kept quiet and stared out the window. Words just wouldn’t come to her right now.

She’d seen the dead before, or at least what she thought were the dead. But they were in the background, like inanimate objects almost. Hardly interacting with her.

Except for one other time
: when Sheriff Bullock had brought her out to see one of Nathan Archer’s victims. Sarah remembered that one clearly because the dead woman had seen her, knew Sarah was there, and could speak to her. Just like Michelle Anand had.

“I’m really hungry,” Sarah said. “Can
we stop somewhere?”

“Sure.”

Giovanni took the next exit without a word, and soon they had parked in front of a fast-food chicken place. Next door was a gas station that seemed to cater to semi-trucks, because the parking lot was full of them. Most of the truckers parked their vehicles in back, on a wide-open lot before walking over to the restaurant.

As
Sarah stood in line, she caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection cast on the glass door. For a moment, she didn’t recognize who it was. The image in the glass wasn’t hers. But when her general shape and then her detailed features came in, she closed her eyes and opened them again. It was Michelle Anand.

Sh
e looked at Giovanni, who was staring up at the menu. Cleary, he didn’t see it. Neither did Rosen or anybody else. They’d all be panicking if they had. She was the only one.

Sarah looked away
for a moment and then looked back. It didn’t help. The other woman was still there. When Sarah lifted a hand, Michelle Anand would lift a hand in the glass. When she opened her mouth, Michelle would do the same.

Sarah crossed to the glass and
gazed at herself, into her eyes, to see even the slightest deviation of the reflection from her movements, but there was none. The image was not Michelle… it was her.

“Do you know what you want?”

Sarah snapped out of it and looked at Giovanni, who was still staring up at the menu. “Yeah,” she said, going back. “Um, just a chicken sandwich and some French fries, please.”

She watched as the two men ordered for the three of them and then paid. As they
left the line to wait for their order, Giovanni came over to her and said, “You sure you’re okay? You look kinda pale.”

“I’m fine. Just exhausted.”

Sarah turned to the glass, and Michelle was gone. It was just her again.

They sat by the window
, and as they ate, Giovanni said, “You think Lott’s gonna run a story?”

Rosen shrugged as he took a bite of a chicken sandwich. “Who cares if he does? No one reads that garbage but celebrity news junkies.”

“Not necessarily,” Sarah said. “I’ve seen stuff run on things like that first, and then the big news outlets run it later.”

“That’s true,” Giovanni said. “They’ll pick up a story from a smaller news outlet and run with it if it’s
juicy.”

Rosen wiped his lips with a napkin. “I’ve known Kenny for ten years. He’s their investigative reporter on the actual news. The problem is
their demographic doesn’t read the news, so he doesn’t get anything but a link to the story on the main website. I don’t think it’s a problem.” He looked at Sarah. “What did you see, Sarah? What did you really see?”

Sarah didn’t say anything
for an uncomfortably long time. “A woman,” she finally said. “Michelle.”

“How’d you know it was Michelle?”

“You had a picture in the file. It was her. I mean… she didn’t have her face, but I could still tell. The hair and the ears and neck. Her face was gone.”

Rosen
looked at Giovanni and then back. “Did she say anything?”

“She asked me if she was dead. Then she tried to get me to help her. She said she regretted not having children. I told you, murder victims are not happy to be there. They’re confused and terrified
, and they lash out.”

“Did you see anything else?”

“I don’t think so. She was wearing a sweatshirt. It was blue and said ‘Penn State’ across the front.”