As we searched through the mountains of stuff, I came across a picture of a bride and groom with skulls for faces.
I showed it to Brad. "See, this might happen to us if I set the date. We might shrivel up and turn into a couple of skeletons after the wedding. This could be a sign." I waved the picture under his nose.
"A sign about what?"
"That we're not supposed to get married. That you might just disappear one day again, out of the blue. That we're not really right for each other. That it's all a mistake."
"We are definitely not a mistake. And there's no way I'm leaving you again. In fact, there's no way you're ever getting rid of me now." Brad grinned at my neuroticism. "And don't tell me you believe in all this voodoo now."
"Of course not!" I snapped.
"So what's the worst thing that can happen if you set the date?"
"Er…lots of things?" I said, but it came out more like a question than an answer.
He threw his arms up in the air and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Women!"
I pretended I hadn't heard him and rifled through a wooden cabinet that housed hundreds of empty bottles of alcohol. "Either Marie's a secret alkie, or these are used in some kind of ritual." Shame they were empty, I could've done with a stiff drink.
Upstairs there were four closed doors. Behind the first one was a small bathroom with a rusted bath, a mountain of hair products, a carved wooden mask on the wall that looked like a man in mid-scream, and a stuffed black crow on the windowsill. Ick.
One of the other rooms was a bedroom that had a single iron bed with a colorful hand-embroidered duvet cover. More candles and clutter. A picture of a Catholic saint.
The second bedroom had a double bed, a small metal dressing table covered with candles and dolls, and stuff that looked like it should've been thrown away about a hundred years ago. Yellowing bits of paper with weird writing, glass beads, bottles of foul-smelling stuff, a rusted machete. On the bed was a bright red duvet cover and matching pillow. Next to the bed on a small wooden table were a rickety old lamp and a couple of books. The lampshade had a red scarf draped over the top, giving the room an eerie glow. I was guessing this was Marie's room.
I walked toward the machete and stared at it. It was pretty blunt and didn't look like it had been used in a long time, but it would've been a pretty lethal weapon in its day. "Wonder what she used that for?"
Brad picked up the books on the night table, reading out the covers. "
Ancient Voodoo Black Magic Spells
and
Gray's Dissection Guide For Human Anatomy.
" He glanced up. "A bit of light reading before bedtime?"
The blood drained from my face. "Omigod!" Images of the boy known as Adam and voodoo ritual killings crept into my brain again. A horrible picture of Chantal and Liza, held down in a darkened room, tied up, being sliced to death with a machete swam, before my eyes. "I'm getting a really bad feeling about what's happened to Chantal and Liza."
"You're not the only one."
The third bedroom was pretty much the same. Lots of macabre things and creepiness, but still no trace of Chantal or her friend.
We trudged back down the stairs and stood in the kitchen. That was when I spied a lump in the dirty carpet.
I kicked it and my boot connected with something hard.
I glanced up at Brad. "What do we have here?"
He pulled the edge of the carpet back, revealing a trap door.
"A basement," Brad said as he slowly pulled open the door.
I trained my Maglite down the dark stairs, but there was a small light source coming from somewhere below. Trudging down the creaky wooden staircase, we found ourselves in a whitewashed room with concrete walls.
I gave an involuntary gasp. This was Marie's voodoo altar room.
A table had been set up on one side of the room and was covered by a black cloth. My eyes swept the altar: candles galore, all lit up with shadows dancing around the room, making it feel like it was alive with ghostly spirits. Didn't anyone ever tell Marie not to leave lighted candles unattended? How irresponsible of her. Mountains of necklaces, several of which were made out of human teeth. I figured it was a pretty safe bet she hadn't bought them from the local Accessorize shop. Yet more bottles of spirits; two small wooden coffins, each with a skeleton doll wearing a top hat and tails lying inside; an alligator's head; two human skulls that were yellowed and looked ancient; three animal skulls that I was guessing were probably from a goat; wooden bowls filled with bones of smaller animals; plastic dolls that reminded me of Chucky, the killer doll from the film
Child's Play;
long wooden sticks; feathers, a bowl of fruit; a wooden cross that was crudely put together with bits of string.
"Creepsville," I said, my intestines suddenly turning into liquid goo. "I can smell zombies."
"What do zombies smell like?" Brad raised an eyebrow.
"Yucky and decaying, like the smell in this room, and the smell of Marie's tea. Urgh." I pinched my nose closed and breathed through my mouth. "Good job we didn't drink that tea. It's probably made from boiled-up zombies."
Brad's lips twitched in a smile. "It's amazing the things that go on in your head."
"Tell me about it. I have to put up with me all the time."
He inched closer to the human skulls. "They're not recent."
I eyed the skulls warily, wondering who they'd been when they were alive. Had they been sacrificed, or had they died of natural causes? I shuddered at the thought. "So this is where she does all her black magic rituals." I screwed up my face, half expecting Chucky to come to life and take a swing at us with an axe.
At the back of the altar, hundreds of photographs and pictures were taped to the wall.
"Hacker said in some of the voodoo rituals they use photos of the people they're trying to help or curse," Brad said.
"Can you see her?" My heartbeat clanged around in my chest as I wondered if I'd see Chantal or Liza's face staring back at me.
"No."
As I leaned forward over the altar, inspecting each one of them more closely, I heard a
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
noise and smelled something burning.
"You're hair's on fire!" Brad's eyes nearly pinged out of his head.
"Agh!" I glanced down at the left side of my hair and swatted it with my hand.
Ouch! Burny hands.
Probably not a good move, but at least it seemed to stop the flames before they engulfed the whole of my head.
Brad took his jacket off and swatted my head with it repeatedly to stop the residual flames.
I pulled my hair in front of my eyes to inspect the damage.
Great! Now one side of my hair was six inches shorter than the other. And it was at the front, so I couldn't exactly ignore it.
"Does it look really bad?" I asked Brad.
"Of course not, Foxy." He tried to suppress a chuckle and failed miserably.
I slapped him on the arm. "How bad is it?"
"It's not bad, it's just…" His eyes twinkled with amusement. "Different. Actually, it suits you."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "You're laughing at me, aren't you?"
He threw his hands up in mock surrender. "Of course not."
"Good. Because hair to a woman is as important as a willie is to a man. Just think how you'd feel if your willie caught on fire!"
"I hardly think it's the same thing. For starters, men don't have willies on their head."
"That's not entirely true, actually. I've met more than my fair share of dickheads in my time, but that's beside the point."
"What is the point?" Brad stared at me like he didn't have a clue what I was on about.
"Women think about their hair. A lot. If our hair looks crap, we feel crap. Men, on the other hand, think about their willies a lot. If they're not using them, they feel crap. Same thing, see?" I snapped.
"Right, I get it now." He gave me a look that said he didn't get it at all.
"Why is it always me?" I groaned, scrunching up my face.
He hugged me toward him. "Well, didn't you say you need to get a trim for the wedding anyway?"
"So you
do
think it looks bad, then?"
"Not at all," he protested. A bit too lamely for my liking
"Shit. I haven't got time to go to the hairdressers in the middle of this case. I'm going to have to walk round with even more scary hair now."
"Look on the bright side." Brad grinned.
"What's that?" I huffed.
"If you don't look in the mirror, you'll never even notice it. And at least you don't have a dick on your head."
"That doesn't exactly make me feel much better." I tutted, turning to the pictures again, making sure I was so far out of candle reach I was almost halfway across the floor.
Half an hour later, we'd looked at all of the pictures, but none of them were of Chantal. In fact, there was no trace of her or Liza in the house at all.
I couldn't help wondering if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
As soon as we got home, I poured us both a stiff brandy and resisted the urge to look in the mirror.
"Yuck. I never want to go back to that place again." I took a swig, feeling the burning sensation down the back of my throat. I swirled the amber liquid around in the tumbler, thinking. "I still don't know if the voodoo angle has got anything to do with Chantal and Liza going missing." I filled Brad in on my chats with James Langton, Elliot, Andrew Scott, and Steven Shaw. "I don't think James Langton stealing money from Chantal's trust fund has anything to do with it. If you think about it, Chantal's disappearance has only highlighted what he's been up to, and he wanted to keep it quiet. I spoke to all of the other staff at Langton Developments and none of them had anything to add that might be useful." I brought the glass to my lips but didn't drink, going over and over in my head a possible explanation for what had happened to Chantal. "Elliot followed Chantal to the Second Chance Clinic, although Andrew and the receptionist deny she was ever there—but they were definitely lying, I could tell. Hacker said there was no record of her ever being a patient, and even though it would be easy to get rid of her files, we know from Elliot that she was there."
"So do you think Chantal was there because of her termination or this story Liza was investigating?"
"It could be either, although I am convinced Liza's story is the key to this case. Elliot also saw Chantal on Chequer Street, talking to a prostitute, and prostitutes are some of the main clients at the clinic. Plus, Liza liked writing about women's issues. The idea she was doing a story about prostitutes is looking more and more likely."
"But Steven Shaw's also lying. Is he involved somehow in whatever's going on at the clinic?"
"I don't know. It's possible Steven, or even Elliot, could've killed Chantal in a jealous rage—a crime of passion, although somehow that doesn't feel right to me, either, because it can't be a coincidence that both girls have now disappeared."
Brad perched on the end of a breakfast stool. "The main question is, then, what is going on in that clinic?" He rubbed at his neck and moved it in a circular motion.
"You okay?"
He dropped his hand and said, "Yes, just a stiff neck. I must've slept funny last night." He waved a dismissive hand. "How's your ass?" He grinned.
"Better than my hair!" I ran a hand through my out-of-control curls and felt crispy bits crumbling off the ends. "I've been thinking about the clinic, and it could be any number of things going on there. It's a government-run clinic, so I doubt that the funds are enough to be worth embezzling. They could be doing experimental treatment on patients without them knowing, or they could be covering up patient deaths from botched terminations." I paused for a brandy hit, a horrible thought suddenly worming its way into my brain. "Did Hacker manage to find out who Emily Jacobs was?"
"No, he was still looking into it when I left the office."
"We know Liza called her number before she disappeared, and I'm betting it was to do with this story. On the list in Chantal's apartment were the initials EJ and a date. What if Emily Jacobs was a patient at the clinic who died from surgery that went wrong? Liza might've found out she was going to have treatment there and tried to warn her against it, but something happened. Or maybe Emily was one of her sources." I took a glug of brandy. "Both Chantal and Liza phoned the same number on the day they disappeared, and that number was written on Chantal's list next to a set of initials. Maybe the initials on the list are all women who are prostitutes who gave Liza information."
Brad narrowed his eyes, thinking. "The clinic could be doing some kind of medical experiments on the patients. Most of them are prostitutes, probably with no family looking out for them; they're basically considered throwaway members of society. Who would notice if they disappeared because something was going wrong with the treatments?"
"And this Holbrook Clinic must be involved in it somehow, too. Their website definitely sounds iffy. I mean, if you're selling private medical treatments, why wouldn't you list exactly what you do on your website, instead of something vague like 'unique treatments, tailor made to suit qualified clientele'? What's that all about?"
"Sounds like: If you contact us, we'll tell you if you're a fit for our treatments, whatever they are," he said. "It could be something new and controversial like stem-cell treatments or designer babies, but what would that have to do with prostitutes?"
"I wish I knew." I sucked in a deep breath, feeling the coolness on my lips as Marmalade crept in through the cat flap and jumped on my lap. I kissed his head. "Hey, boy. What do you think about it, huh? Do you think Andrew Scott is doing weird scientific experiments on his patients? Meow once for 'yes' and twice for 'no.'"
Marmalade seemed a tad confused by that and just yawned, staring at me with huge green eyes. He nudged my hand with his head insistently, cat-speak for "feed me."
"I'll feed him." Brad slid off the stool and shook the box of kitty biscuits.