Linger: Dying is a Wild Night (A Linger Thriller Book 1) (20 page)

“No,” Weston said, “but I’m sure it’s fine. Give him time.”

Chris uttered another sound, this one long and low and coming from deep inside him. Then suddenly he took his gaze from the ceiling and swiveled his head toward Kate, his mouth starting to move as if he were attempting to form words. But no words came forth, only guttural noises that approximated speech.

“Ahahahahaaa.”

Under the best of circumstances he would have been difficult to understand, but here, the sound was both horrifying and heartbreaking and sent a chill straight through Kate’s central nervous system. Even Weston was on his feet now, and had clearly never experienced anything like this.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“What
can
we do? We have to go with it.”

“But what is he trying to say?”

The words came again, no clearer than before, Christopher’s blank eyes fixed on Kate.

“Ahahahahaaahahaaa.”

She moved slightly, and the eyes followed her, and she suddenly realized that he could
see.

And then it hit her. The person looking at her, the person trying to speak, wasn’t Christopher at all.

It was someone else, trying to communicate
through
him.

He took a step forward and extended an arm, holding the photo book out toward Kate, as if asking for her to take it.

She started to back away but Weston grabbed her arm and said, “Do it, Kate. You need to do what he wants.”

She wrenched free. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“I’m not sure what’s going on, but if you want to catch your killer, this may be the only way.”

The boy took another step forward, pushing the photo album toward her. Kate hesitated, wanting to flee, to be anywhere but here, and hating herself for it. But could anyone really blame her? This was fucking insanity.

Weston wouldn’t let up. “Do it, Kate. You know you have to do it.”

And he was right. She knew he was right.

Christopher—or whoever this was—uttered more noises and Kate finally stepped forward, hesitated again, then reached out and took the photo album in her hands.

The moment her fingers gripped it, she felt heat rise up through her arms and into her chest, then radiate throughout her body. As it reached her brain, the throbbing in her skull abruptly disappeared and the room began to sway and rotate around her, spinning faster… and faster… as her vision narrowed and lost focus.

Then everything went dark and she felt herself falling as the darkness swirled around her. And somewhere far away, a man’s voice drifted toward her…

“…build you a fucking castle…”

“…build you a fucking castle, baby…”

“…build you a fucking—”

And then she opened her eyes and found herself lying on a bed in the soft glow of a nightstand lamp, a phone to her ear, the voice on the line saying, “Before we’re done with this guy, I’m gonna build you a fucking castle, baby.”

“But what if he stops paying?”

This question had come from Kate, but it wasn’t her voice. This was Bree Branford’s bedroom, so it had to be Bree. And that meant only one thing: Kate was in the middle of another ridealong.

She was
inside
Bree’s body.

“He’ll never stop paying,” the voice on the line said. “That culero thinks he’s a big shot, and he don’t want no teenage panocha to tarnish his reputation and land him up in Coalinga. So what other choice does he have?”

“He’s a cop, Chucho. He could come after us.”

Chucho snorted. “I been dealing with cops half my life, and most of them don’t got two fingers of a forehead, but this one ain’t stupid, and I get the feeling that what he did with you is only some of the shit he’s into. I made it clear to him that there’s more than one copy of those videos and if he tries anything—”

“You didn’t tell him
I
have one, did you?”

“Relax, baby. All he knows is you’re some cute little piece of panocha he likes to get nasty with. He don’t even know your real name.”

“Yeah? Well Natalie says he could find out.”

Chucho exhaled. “I told you to quit listening to that little bitch. She’s getting you all riled up over nothing.”

“Are you sure I’m safe?”

“As long as you got that data chip, you’ll be fine. Where’d you hide it, anyway?”

She was about to answer when he cut her off.

“No, never mind, don’t tell me. Just keep it someplace safe, in case you need it.”

“It is,” she said.

“That’s my girl. Are we okay now?”

“I guess so.”

“Okay, baby, I gotta go. Be good.”

Kate felt her smile. “You already know I am.”

He laughed softly. “You might have to show me again.”

Then the line clicked and Kate felt a glowing warmth spread through her, the kind of warmth that accompanies a deep crush, what teenage girls often mistake for love. But there was also some uncertainty there and she knew that Bree was worried about what she’d gotten herself into. She wished she could read the girl’s thoughts as well, but that didn’t seem to be one of the benefits of this particular parlor trick.

It was all about feelings. Emotion.

And Bree Branford had those in spades.

They sat up now and reached for the stuffed bear lying on the bed, then unzipped the battery compartment and put the phone inside. They zipped it back up, set the bear on the shelf beside the bed, then climbed off the mattress and headed for the bedroom door.

There was a mirror on the back of it and Kate caught a glimpse of Bree’s worried expression. Without make-up she looked every bit the teenage girl she was. Then the door opened and they went into a dark hallway and down to the bathroom—but not the one Bree normally used. Instead they stepped inside the bigger bathroom, the one reserved for her little sisters, where Kate had frantically searched for a wash cloth back when she was a clueless cop simply trying to help a little boy in distress.

They closed the door, then opened the linen cupboard and crouched in front of it. And Kate sensed an obsessiveness about the task, a quickening of the heartbeat, that led her to believe Bree had done this many more times than she needed to.

They reached inside to the bottom shelf and pulled out a fresh roll of toilet paper. But Kate knew Bree wasn’t here to replenish her supply. Looking down at the hole in the toilet roll, they stuck a fingernail into the space where the cardboard tube and the toilet paper made contact, then carefully pried it back to reveal a small piece of plastic hidden inside, about the size and shape of a postage stamp.

Kate had no trouble recognizing what it was.

A data chip.

They stared at it, the heartbeat slowing again—that sense of urgency waning—then pushed the cardboard back in place and returned the roll to the bottom shelf. The worry Bree had felt dissipated slightly, as they got to their feet and closed the cupboard doors.

As they turned to leave, the sound of the doorbell startled them. A dog started to bark and a voice from another room—a woman’s voice—called out, “Thad, can you answer the door? I’m trying to get dinner ready.”

“I’m on it,” a voice called back.

They moved into the hallway now and back toward Bree’s bedroom, the dog still barking as the indistinct murmur of voices filtered toward them from the front room. Kate heard Bree’s sisters laughing in the kitchen with their mother, but she sensed no feelings of warmth in Bree. Only the cold resentment of a teenage girl living with people she had come to despise.

They had almost reached the bedroom when they heard a shout—Thad Branford calling out in surprise and anger, “What the hell are you—?”

Then his voice was abruptly cut-off by the sound of grunts and groans and furniture crashing. The heartbeat kicked up again and after a moment of hesitation, they turned and started back down the hall, a creeping sense of terror rising.

The dog was still barking and Bree’s mother screamed, an agonizing, “Oh my God! OH MY GOD!!”

And now they picked up speed, running past the girls’ bathroom toward the living room. One of the girls was screaming and Kate heard a grunt, followed by a loud thumping sound, and the girl immediately went quiet. Kate knew what that sound was and wanted to shout at Bree,
don’t go in there, for godsakes don’t go in there,
but she was only along for the ride.

They barreled down the hall, then stopped short in the doorway looking onto the living room. One of the lamps was overturned, its bulb shattered, and Thad Branford lay on the floor in semi-darkness, blood pooling around his head, Chelsea lying near the kitchen, a dazed look in her eyes, blood trickling down her forehead, her mouth moving soundlessly.

In the center of the room, a man wearing plastic gloves and a hooded disposable coverall was hunched over the body of little Becca Branford, delivering blow after blow with a claw hammer.

Horror and disbelief exploded inside Bree. She screamed and they stumbled back against the hallway wall. Then her survival instincts kicked in, and they turned together and started to run, catching only a glimpse of the man as he got to his feet, his face little more than a blur.

They barreled back down the hallway, past the bathroom and around the corner past Bree’s room and on to the mud room at the back of the house. They were about to reach the rear door when hands grabbed them by the hair and slammed them to the floor.

Kate felt pain rocketing through Bree’s scalp and body as they hit the wood hard, and a gruff voice above them hissed, “This is all on you, you little skank.”

Kate tried to recognize that voice but she couldn’t place it, any more than she could see the man’s face as the hammer began to deliver its blows, Bree turning away from him and covering her head.

The dog was in the room now, barking furiously, as the girl’s terror was compounded by Kate’s, the blows reigning down, dazing them, blood running into Bree’s eyes, clouding her vision.

And as much as Kate wanted to see that face, she couldn’t take this anymore. It was too much, too goddamn much, and she needed to be gone, to be away from here, to be out of this girl’s body and back where she belonged.

The dog kept barking and Bree was crying now, shouting out for her attacker to stop, please stop and Kate shouted right along with her, “No… No… No… No…” as the blows continued.

Then the man stopped to catch his breath, the hammer hanging loosely in his hand. And Bree, barely conscious now, whimpering, finally lowered her arms and looked up at him through her blood filled eyes.

She tried to blink the blood away, and for the first time since this ordeal began, Kate saw the man’s face… his features obscured, blurry… but that didn’t keep her from recognizing him immediately. She recoiled inwardly, not wanting to believe what she was seeing, hoping it was a trick of the mind…

But no. It was
him
all right.

And she had no doubts that he was stone cold crazy.

As she tried to come to terms with this, with the horror of it, the room began to spin around her and she was once again sucked into the black vortex, shedding Bree’s body, as a distant voice shouted “Kate! Kate!” and hands slapped her face.

Her eyes sprang open and she found herself on the floor of the Branford living room, Noah Weston hovering over her.

She batted at him, shouting, “Stay away! Keep away from me!”

And as Weston stepped away, Kate dropped the photo album, then backed into a corner and desperately tried to catch her breath.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Do I fucking look all right? I just got beaten half to death.”

“Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “Did you see the guy? Did you see who did it?”

She sucked in a deep breath and nodded.

“So is it someone you know?”

She nodded again and released the breath, not wanting to say the name out loud, because saying it out loud would make it true and she desperately didn’t want it to be true.

“Well?” Weston asked. “Who is it?”

She finally relented, the words coming out in shaky gasps.

“…My old boss… …Rusty Patterson…”

H
E DIDN’T ANSWER UNTIL THE
third ring of the bell.

The apartment was a modest third floor walk-up, not much different than Kate’s, but with a view of the Pacific that put most views to shame. Right now the sea was a sparkling black diamond, quiet and nearly motionless, as if it understood the solemnity of the moment.

Rusty opened his door, looked out at Kate and feigned surprise. But he knew why she was there.

He knew.

“Hey, Kate, what’s up?”

“Mind if I come inside for a minute?”

“Sure, why not,” he said, then stepped back and gestured. “Come on in.”

She moved past him into his living room and reacquainted herself with its furnishings. In all the years she worked with Rusty she had only been to his apartment half a dozen times.

“In case you’re wondering, MacLean and Linkenfeld are downstairs and they’ve got a couple of unis with them. I figured since you’re the reason I’ve got this job, the least I could do is give you a moment alone, give you a chance to talk about it.”

He frowned, giving it a valiant effort, but the words sounded hollow. “Talk about what? What’s going on?”

Kate brought her arm out from behind her back and offered him the roll of toilet paper she’d found. “You forgot something at the Branford house.”

He looked puzzled. “What?”

“You left it, and a bunch like it, scattered on the bathroom floor when you ransacked the place. You looked right past it, just like we did, and you gotta hand it to Bree. Her clever little hiding places almost kept you from being caught.”

She showed him the hidden data chip and he looked at it, then at her, and he didn’t disappoint her by carrying on the charade.

His shoulders slumped and he crossed to the sofa and sat. It was only then that she noticed something he apparently hadn’t: a small patch of blood seeping through his shirt near his left ribs. One of her bullets had caught him after all.

“So I guess I should call my lawyer?” he said.

“You can, but I don’t know how much good it’ll do you. We’ve watched the videos and the girl in them is clearly Bree Branford, and she’s clearly underage, and you clearly violated her in a number of different ways.”