Rainey’s attention turned to the blood stained baseboard. She could see the shape of the smear more clearly from her current angle, or was it what she wanted to see. It appeared to be an arrow pointing next door.
“What did Mack say?” Rainey raised the question aloud.
A confused Brooks asked, “What?”
“No, not you,” Rainey answered. “I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Okay, you keep thinking. I’m going to do some more digging.”
“Yeah, do that. Find out if Buddy Cashion has a car. It might be in his mother’s name or his brother’s name, Travis Odom.”
“I’ll call you back if I find anything. Be safe, Rainey Bell.”
“Always, my friend. Always.”
Rainey put the phone back in her pocket and walked to the other side of Wendy’s house. She looked out the window toward Juanita Cashion’s home. The car Juanita had been standing by when Rainey arrived was no longer in the driveway. A tap on the front door drew her attention, as one of the patrol officers stepped into the house.
“Ms. Bell, we’ve been called back to street patrol,” he said. “The sleet and freezing rain makes for a busy traffic accident day.”
“I understand,” Rainey said. “I’ll lock up when I’m done. I’ll let someone know they can seal the scene.”
“Great. I hope they find Officer King,” he said, on his way out the door.
“Hey,” Rainey called to him, stopping him before he could leave. “Did anyone search the yards on either side of this house?”
“Yes, I’m sure they did. I personally checked the one over there, the Cashion place. The lady was really nice. Nothing back there, not even a dog—just a little workshop with a padlocked door. That lock had not been opened in years. Mrs. Cashion didn’t even have a key.”
“Okay, thanks. Be careful out there,” Rainey offered with a forced smile.
“Yeah, you too,” the officer said and then closed the door behind him.
Alone again, Rainey walked to the kitchen at the back of the house. The window looked into Juanita’s backyard. The view was less than stellar, as Rainey could see very little other than the shared wooden fence between the properties.
Don’t go alone, Rainey said to herself, and immediately argued, It would be too easy. No way she’s been over there this whole time, right?
Rainey turned her back to the window and leaned against the counter, talking to herself aloud, processing what she knew.
“Mack repeated what Wendy said, ‘Go home.’ Why would she have said that unless she knew where the UNSUB’s home was? She knew this person. Why not just go next door and ask Juanita Cashion if Wendy knew her son?”
Rainey decided on that course of action, before calling in another request that could amount to nothing.
#
Knocks and doorbell ringing brought no response from Juanita Cashion’s home. Rainey checked the windows in the garage to find no cars present. The cold dripping rain froze on contact with anything not moving. The spring buddings glistened with the glazing. Winter appeared unwilling to release its hold on the Triangle. Rainey pulled the wool wrap up to shield her head. Even after two years, she missed her long mane of thick curls in winter.
She walked over to the gate leading to the backyard. A quick check of the latch revealed it was unlocked. Rainey paused before she began her planned trespass and called Sheila.
When she answered, Rainey asked, “Any news?”
“No, and they’ve called everyone in to work on the traffic problems. I’m sorry, Rainey. When the weather clears, we’ll send the dogs back out.”
“I understand. Hey, since Teague is in custody, my legal connections to the department are complete, correct?”
Sheila sounded a bit alarmed, when she answered, “That is correct. You are no longer acting as an agent for the police. What are you up to?”
“I have a hunch and I’m about to enter unlawfully, but you didn’t hear that,” Rainey said, peeking into Juanita’s backyard.
“Where are you? Just in case this doesn’t end well for you, I need to know where to begin the search for your body.”
“I’m at Wendy’s neighbor’s house. Did you know Joanne Bonner went missing from Wendy’s house in 2005 and the teenage neighbor was a suspect? That same neighbor, John ‘Buddy’ Cashion, Jr., is now twenty-six, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and living in a halfway house that hasn’t seen him since yesterday.”
“No, I did not know that,” Sheila responded. “I’ll look into it right away. Don’t do anything stupid, Rainey, like sneak around a suspect’s home alone.”
Rainey slid the Glock from its holster and closed the gate behind her. “I’m just going to have a look around. No one is home. Call me back if you find out anything.”
Rainey hung up before Sheila could admonish her further.
Okay, Rainey, see them coming, she reminded herself.
The father she and Wendy shared would often say, “Always, always be aware. If you see them coming, you got a chance.”
She began her reconnaissance awash in sadness that Wendy never met Billy Bell. There had been so little time to tell her about him. Both their lives were full to the brim. If this turned out well, Rainey vowed to introduce Wendy to their father more thoroughly. It was that father’s survival instinct-laden DNA she was counting on to keep her sister’s heart beating.
Juanita’s backyard was well kept. A slab of concrete outside the sliding glass doors housed patio furniture and a grill wrapped in protective winter weather coverings. The few warm days at the beginning of the month urged tiny green shoots of new grass and flower bud sprouts to peek at the sun. Ice began to encase the tender new growth and the winter-dried grass crunched under Rainey’s shoes. Zeroing in on the workshop at the back of the property, she moved to the center of the yard to get a full view of the small building.
She guessed it to be a fifteen by ten feet rectangle placed in the corner with only two sides exposed to the yard. The unseen short side butted up to Wendy’s fence. The long backside hugged the rear fence. A gate, the one Rainey supposed the dog refused to leave, was near the other short side of the shop. A small window, the kind cranked open from the inside, looked out at the gate. The long exterior wall facing the house had a door and another larger window. All of the windows were curtained, preventing a view of the inside.
Rainey checked back toward the house, looking for signs she was not alone. Nothing moved. A cloud of steam followed each breath from her lips, as she slowed her heart rate and listened. She heard only the tinkle of tiny ice pellets falling around her.
There is only one way to find out if she’s in there, Rainey thought, as she stared at the workshop.
“Wendy, this right here is the fine line I was talking about between criminal behavior and doing the right thing,” she said under her breath to the sister that could not hear her.
Rainey crossed to the building, where she examined the padlock and hasp. It appeared to be old and rusty, unopened for many years, but a look at the ground below the door told a different story. Tall grass left to grow through winter was bent and pulled under the door.
Rainey gripped the Glock a bit tighter. She briefly thought of calling for backup, but then she heard the unmistakable clink of metal landing on a cement floor. The sound came from inside the workshop. Rainey flattened herself against the exterior wall, away from the window and door. Her eyes focused on the hasp and lock. Although the lock appeared rusted shut, the fact remained the door had been opened recently, trapping long blades of untrimmed Johnson grass inside the doorjamb.
While Rainey contemplated the rusted lock and the noise from inside, the door and its frame began to move. Someone had rigged the door to appear secure and that someone was exiting the building. She ducked between the side of the building and the fence.
A broad and thick man a few inches taller than Rainey emerged from the workshop. His head was covered with a hoodie sticking out from under the collar of a worn, green, army field jacket. He bent to drop a pin in the bottom of the frame before heading for the back gate. He did not notice Rainey in the shadows, nor did he appear in a hurry to scurry away. He seemed confident that no one knew he was there. Rainey saw no need to change that impression and let him leave.
All right, let’s see what you’re hiding in the workshop, Buddy,
Rainey thought, assuming the man that just exited the gate was Juanita’s troubled son. He fit the physical description, but it did not matter if it was Buddy Cashion or not. What mattered was finding Wendy alive.
She bent and removed the pin, slipping it into her pocket. With the pistol gripped in her right hand, Rainey slowly pulled the door open with her left. A master craftsman must have hung the hinges that concealed the secret to the frame’s movement. She paused to listen for signs of life. She pulled the keychain from her pocket to access the tiny LED flashlight, took a deep breath, and entered the dark interior.
Closing the door behind her, Rainey slid the wrap off her head and used the flashlight to find an identical pinhole on the interior side of the frame. She dropped the pen in place before looking around the mostly empty workshop. One chair stood under a noose slung over the center ceiling beam, a ghoulish recreation of John Cashion, Sr.’s last moments on earth.
This kid didn’t have a chance at a normal life.
Large cardboard boxes lined the back wall, each labeled with the words “Buddy’s Things”. Juanita had moved her son out of the house permanently. The beam of Rainey’s flashlight fell on what looked like a nest of blankets and newspapers, a makeshift bed of sorts. As she grew closer, it became apparent the blankets and papers were stretched across a low storage bench along the wall. Reaching out to uncover what was concealed, Rainey was glad she wore gloves. She had removed only one layer of thin blanket material when she heard the cardboard box scrape across the floor behind her.
She whipped around, shining her little flashlight into the darkness. A bearded Buddy Cashion stared back at her from under his slick bald head. He was sticking halfway out one of the cardboard boxes, which led to a concealed trapdoor in the back wall of the building.
Rainey knew this had to be Juanita’s youngest son. The familial resemblance was clear. Along with cutting out his meds, Buddy had shaved his head hair and used a razor to slice a newly scabbed-over design of intersecting lines into his forehead. This guy was seriously gone.
“Stop right there,” Rainey said, the Glock aimed at Buddy Cashion’s face.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, still on his hands and knees. He cocked his head to one side, processing the scene, and then broke into a smile. “Oh, wow. It’s you. Your hair is different and you’re older, but it’s definitely you.” He had risen to a kneeling position in front of her before he bowed his head. “Protector, I welcome thee back to the past.”
“Are you Buddy Cashion?” Rainey demanded.
He raised his eyes to hers. “I am in the vessel which was once Buddy Cashion. I have evolved into a deeper understanding than the entity Buddy could comprehend. I am the Shaman Gelaph. I descend from the Olympian Spirits and the warlord and ruler over Mars, Phaleg, tutors me in my quest to become a superior warrior in the realm.”
With words like spirit, warlord, and superior warrior peppering his conversation, Rainey had reason to think twice about her response. She decided to stick with the present and reality for now.
“Where is Wendy King?”
“You mean the present day Protector Wendy King,” Buddy answered with a smile. “It’s hard to keep up. There’s the Protector now and then you in the future. I knew I was right about her, uh, I mean you. I had to save you so you could fulfill the prophecy. I couldn’t save the first one, but I got it right this time because you are here from the future, so that means you survived, right?”
Buddy began to stand.
Rainey shouted, “Freeze!”
Buddy ignored the warning. Both her presence and that of the weapon in her hand were inconsequential to Buddy’s delusion. He stood to his full height, reached for the window curtain, slid it back, and flooded the room with soft gray light. He smiled down at her, where she knelt near the pile of blankets and papers. With his size and the limited space they both occupied, Rainey thought she would need to kill him with the first shot if he made a move. She dropped the key chain in her coat pocket and used both hands to grip the Glock, aiming for the golden triangle between his nipples and throat.
He responded, “You don’t need the gun. You need not fear me. I have been given the task of guardian of the Protectors from the Olympian Spirits. My sole purpose is to keep the chosen ones safe. What can I do for you, Wendy King of the future?”
Rainey could see dried blood on his army jacket and watched as his cheek twitched. This tick repeated every few seconds, a telltale sign of long-term antipsychotic medication usage. Buddy was most definitely a paranoid schizophrenic off his meds, suffering with hallucinations and delusions. His speech was clear and he appeared well groomed and healthy. If the recent skinned head and scarring were disregarded, Buddy Cashion looked like an average directionless twenty-something might appear after a weekend of gaming. Rainey decided to try to reach him by giving the Shaman story credence. She lowered the weapon but did not put it away.
“Shaman Gelaph, I need to see young Wendy King. It’s important.”
Rainey watched Buddy turn his head as if he listened to an unseen speaker.
This hunch was confirmed when he said, “The high priestess seeks assurances you are not a trickster. The evil one has many soldiers. Are you an imposter?”
In the split second Rainey had to decide how to answer the Shaman’s question without disturbing the obviously unbalanced man further, the incoming call jingle she assigned Danny trilled from her pocket. The sound startled Buddy into a defensive stance.
He shouted, “That is the proximity alert. You are a shape-shifter. You are a trickster.”
Buddy produced a knife from his jacket sleeve and waved it in Rainey’s direction. She raised the Glock again. Though shooting him without knowing what he’d done with Wendy wouldn’t be wise, wounding him was out of the question.