Fear (2 page)

Without planning it, Gaia found herself coming out the north side of the park and turning toward George's brownstone. She wasn't sure she really wanted to confront the old agent face-to-face. She definitely wanted to try her plan of passing along misinformation, but there was one big problem with that plan—
she wasn't sure she could look at George without trying to remove his head from his shoulders.
He had lied to her. He had betrayed her father. He was helping Loki. For all Gaia knew, George might even have been involved in the deaths of Sam and Mary.

Convincing George that they were still pals was going to mean swallowing a lot of anger and not letting it show. It was going to take some serious acting. Gaia wasn't sure she was up to it. Hiding her feelings and playing happy was not exactly a Gaia Moore specialty.
Turning every hurt into anger and making a solid fist-to-face connection—that was more her style.

Gaia was still over a block from George's place when she spotted something wrong. There was something in front of the house, something yellow. From that distance Gaia couldn't tell quite what it was she was looking at, but as she walked slowly up the block, it became clear. Yellow tape. Police tape. The front of the brownstone was blocked off with a line of police tape.

Gaia stood across the street with her hands shoved down into the pocket of her sweatshirt and watched as the tape fluttered in the chill, damp breeze.

If the brownstone was marked off with police tape, then it had to be a crime scene. Gaia supposed there could have been a burglary or a robbery. Ella had stocked the brownstone with several ugly but expensive bits of art. Some thief with equally bad taste might have broken in for that. But Gaia didn't think so. She didn't think the police would have taped off the entrance if it had been a robbery. This had to be. . . something worse.

Gaia stayed on the sidewalk and watched the house for a few minutes as the sun slipped behind the taller buildings on the far side of the park and the cars rolling slowly down the street turned on their lights. She turned around to leave, took a couple of steps, then turned again and marched through the traffic to the front steps of the brownstone.

Close-up, it was easier to read the words on the yellow banner.

Gaia took the plastic tape in her hands and snapped it. The two ends fluttered away as she stepped to the door and took the knob in her hand. It was locked, of course. The NYPD wouldn't want thieves breaking in and messing up their nice clean crime scene.

It wasn't a problem for Gaia. She fished in her pocket and came out with a single key. She slotted it into the door and turned the knob again. This time it opened with a soft click. It figured that if George wasn't even going to change his answering machine message after his wife's death, he wasn't going to change the lock on the front door just because Gaia moved out.

It was weird stepping inside. It was always strange to go back to someplace where you used to live.
Gaia almost expected to see herself coming down the stairs, like the brownstone was some kind of four-story time machine.
But she didn't see her past self, or the ghost of Ella or George. The front hallway was dark and quiet.

Gaia closed the front door and walked on into the living room. There was a light on beside the couch, but the room still seemed to swarm with shadows. Could a house get haunted overnight? Gaia could hear the soft hum of the refrigerator purring on in the kitchen. It was a comforting sound. The brownstone was still, in some way, alive. But the fridge seemed to be the only living thing in the house.

It was cold. Either the refrigerator was working overtime or the heat was busted. The temperature inside the house didn't seem much warmer than it did outside. It was damp, too. Clammy. That was the right word. The inside of the brownstone was way clammy.

Gaia finished a lap around the lower rooms without seeing anything wrong. She took a chance and turned on some additional lights in the kitchen and hall. The lights drove away the shadows but didn't give any clue about what had happened. The books were still on the shelves. Ella's ugly postmodern prints were still hanging on the walls. There were a couple of dirty glasses on the counter beside the sink, but it was obvious that George had been keeping the place neat. There was no sign of theft. Or a fight. Or anything.
Just the clammy empty quiet.

The bedrooms on the second floor were much the same. Everything neat. Everything in its place.

Gaia stopped again on the landing leading up to the top floor. It was dark at the top of the stairs, but the room up there was so absolutely familiar, Gaia could have walked through it with her eyes closed. It was the room where she had lived for the months she spent here with George and Ella. It was the same room that she and Tatiana had climbed into the night before. It was a place she had seen a thousand times.

But for almost a minute, Gaia just stood there and looked up the stairs as if they led to some alien world. She wasn't afraid of what she would find. She just didn't know if she'd like it.

She walked up the stairs to her old bedroom. There was another strand of police tape here, strung across the bedroom door. Gaia looked past it into the room. The lights were off, and Gaia made no move to turn them on. The only light in the bedroom came from the streetlights streaming through the window. It was dim enough that it took her a few seconds to realize the window was open. The white curtains moved slowly in the cold breeze. That explained the cold and damp—the clammy—feeling in the brownstone.

The open window was the same one that Gaia and Tatiana had used to get into the apartment. Did they leave it open when they left? Gaia couldn't remember. If they did leave it open, then why didn't George close it?

Gaia's eyes slowly adjusted to the dimly lit room. She began to make out more details in the room. Most of it was still the way it had been when she lived there. The bed was still in its place. The other furniture hadn't changed. But there was one big difference. In the middle of the floor was an outline made from short strips of white tape.

The outline of a human body.

Something ran along Gaia's spine that was far bigger than a shiver. This was more like some kind of convulsion. Her throat tightened painfully, and tears pushed against her eyes. Gaia stepped into the room, barely noticing the length of yellow crime scene tape as it pulled away from the door frame. The body outlined on the floor was clearly an adult man. The tape showed where one hand was thrown back behind the head. The other was pressed against the chest. From the tape, it was clear that the body had been big, maybe a little overweight. It had to be the outline of George Niven.

Oh God, George.
Gaia angrily rubbed at her eyes and shook her head.
No.
She wasn't going to be sorry for George.

In the middle of the outlined form was a dark stain that was nearly invisible in the poor light. Gaia crouched down beside the taped figure and reached toward the dark spot at the center. Her hand was trembling. Not with fear, but with some emotion she couldn't even name.

George was a traitor. He had gone against her father, given information to Loki, and lied to Gaia. She shouldn't feel any sympathy for him. Rats got killed.
Nobody cried over the rats.
It didn't matter why George had done the—

“Wow,” said a voice behind her. “Look at that.”

Gaia jumped to her feet and turned. She had her arms ready, her hands formed into curving blades and her muscles tensed to attack. She was expecting Loki, expecting one of his goons, expecting anything. Okay, almost anything. She was not expecting what she saw.

Standing in the doorway of the bedroom was a dark form lit by the light from below. The form was slender, a girl's form. Gaia could just make out thick shoulder-length dark hair that hung in a loose, uncombed tumble. The shadowed contours of a face.

“Heather?”

The bedroom lights came on with a snap. Gaia winced and squinted against the sudden brightness.

The girl in the doorway was Heather Gannis. Or at least, she looked like Heather. But not the Heather that Gaia knew. Heather had always been picture perfect. Perfect hair. Perfect clothes. Any time Gaia spent with Heather made her feel like something found under a rock. But this girl. . . this girl made Gaia look neat.

Heather's hair was a mass of untamed chestnut strands guaranteed to break the toughest comb. Her jeans were ripped out at one knee. Her worn gray sweater was muddy at the elbows and flecked with bits of dried leaves. There was a dark smudge across her face that might have been smeared makeup but looked more like plain, old-fashioned dirt.

“Surprise,” said Heather. She favored Gaia with a big, lopsided very un-Heather smile.

Gaia relaxed her fighting stance. “What are you doing here?”

“Me? I'm being a good citizen.” Heather stepped into the room and paced slowly across the floor. “I saw someone breaking into a house. A crime scene, no less. That seems like something any good citizen should stop.” She scuffed her toe across the carpet. “Pretty messy in here, huh?”

Gaia looked down. What had been only a dark stain with the lights off was clearly blood. And not just a little blood. The floor was dotted with fine fans of blood, as if someone had taken a can of spray paint and given the carpet a couple of good shots. It wasn't red like on TV. The blood had darkened, turning a deep brown that was almost black, but Gaia didn't have any doubt about what it was. There were little smears of the dried blood on the sides of her sneakers.

“Just look at this,” said Heather. “What kind of housekeepers are these people?”

“The dead kind,” Gaia replied. She stared at Heather's face, trying to get some clue about what was going on.
Heather might be a world-class pain in the butt, and she might think the world revolved around her, but usually she demonstrated at least a tablespoon of sanity.
“Are you on some kind of drug?”

Heather laughed. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. Or maybe it's that I'm the only one off drugs. A drug that makes everybody else act nuts.” She walked into the center of the bedroom and started to circle around the outline on the floor.

“Right. Sure. You're the sane one.” It was starting to seem like a good time to hide the sharp objects. “So, how did you get here?”

“Same way you did. Walked through the park. Took a little stroll along the sidewalk.” Heather scuffed at the outline of George Niven's left arm. “I followed you.”

Gaia scowled. “Followed me?” If Loki still sent his people to follow her and Heather followed her, did that mean there was a whole line of people behind her? “Why would you do that?”

“To show you I could. A little test. And I passed it. See what I'm saying, sister?”

“Sister?” Was she kidding? It had to be some kind of sick joke.

Heather kicked more tape from the floor, removing one of George's hands. “I followed you to this place, and it was easy. So, so easy.” She closed her eyes and smiled again.

Gaia felt a little angry that Heather had been out there following her. Angry at herself, mostly. After all, if she couldn't spot Heather Gannis stumbling along after her, what chance did she have of catching Loki's agents?

But anger wasn't the main thing Gaia was feeling. Something was wrong with Heather. Seriously wrong. “Listen,” said Gaia, “you need to get out of here and stop following me around. It's dangerous.”

“Dangerous? What do I care about dangerous?” Heather started circling the room again, moving more quickly this time. She waved her arms in the air to accent her words. “What do you think I am, some mouse? That's what you think, isn't it? You think I'm a mouse.”

“Mouse?” Gaia started to feel dizzy as she spun to face Heather. The nearly dry blood squished under her feet. The taped outline of George Niven was being torn apart. Heather's arms went up and down; her shadow on the wall seemed alien. Inhuman. The whole thing suddenly didn't feel like any kind of joke. It felt more like a scene from a nightmare. Madness and violence. Blood and shadows.

“Heather.” Gaia reached out to stop Heather, but the dark-haired girl batted Gaia's hands away.

“You're right,” said Heather. “You're right about the following. I shouldn't be following you now. It's too late for that.” She danced across the head of the tape outline, tearing up the few pieces that were still attached to the floor. “I shouldn't be following anyone.”

“Heather, stop.” Gaia reached out again. This time Heather didn't push her hands away. This time
the girl unloaded with a looping, right-handed punch
that caught Gaia just in front of her ear.

Gaia had been punched a hundred times. Probably more like a thousand. But no punch ever caught her so much by surprise. She hadn't expected Heather to hit her. She had never expected Heather to hit
anyone.
And she hadn't expected Heather to be so fast or so strong.

Gaia went to her knees on the blood-soaked floor. Her ears rang from the impact. Since when was Heather Gannis able to hit like that? Gaia looked up to see Heather standing in the doorway. Heather's face was tilted down and her tangled hair shadowed her features, but Gaia could still see the smile on Heather's lips.

“I'm all through following,” said Heather. “From now on, I'm going to take the lead.”

“You're going to lead, all right,” said Gaia. She stood up and looked down at the stains on her jeans. There was blood, human blood, all over her. “You're going to lead the way right to the land of rubber rooms and straitjackets.”

There was a noise from the hallway. When Gaia looked up, Heather was gone. A moment later Gaia heard footsteps moving rapidly down the stairs, followed by the slamming of the brownstone's front door.