99 Souls Page 6

  Jim kept his fear in check and his hands in his pockets. “How about we wait for it to arrive?”

  “How about you don’t worry about the search warrant.”

  They were eye to eye for a moment before Jim glanced away. After finding the words he wanted—words that would further antagonize Hammond—he looked back at the detective and said, “She’s my friend and I’m not going to stand for you making an illegal search of her house.”

  Hammond closed the distance between them. “Even if that is what I am doing, what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m...”

  “That’s right. Nothing.” He shoved Jim into the hallway. “For your information, there’s nothing illegal about this search. Now get the hell out of here.” He slammed the bedroom door.

  Jim now had a reason to leave. With a sigh of relief and his head hung low as if he’d been defeated, he walked to the front of the house and out the door.

  Chapter 10

  SARAH WEPT FOR HER SON AND FOR herself, and hated herself for the latter.

  She heard someone come into the bathroom only once. When she did, her breath caught in her throat. She was certain the police had found her.

  With a wad of tear-stained toilet paper in her left hand, she tucked her feet up on the seat and tried to be quiet, hoping they wouldn’t open the stall doors. However, once she heard the tap-tap-tap of the stranger’s heels, she knew it wasn’t the police. That was a good thing, because she apparently hadn’t been quiet enough. The tapping slowed, then stopped, then changed directions and came toward her stall.

  “Honey, you all right in there?” the woman asked, once she was close enough for Sarah to see the blue pumps underneath the door.

  “I’m fine,” she managed to say, though it didn’t sound convincing.

  “Oh, honey, whatever he did, it ain’t worth it.”

  “Really, I’ll be okay.”

  “He didn’t hit you, did he?”

  This time, Sarah didn’t answer.

  “Because if he hit you, he’ll just keep on hitting you if you go back to him. Trust me, I know.”

  Again, Sarah remained silent. I wish it was that simple, she thought to herself.

  The heels tapped away and one of the sinks turned on. Sarah peeked through the crack between the pilaster and the door and saw a woman in a black miniskirt applying eyeliner. When she finished, she tapped her way back to the exit and, just before leaving, called out, “Whatever he did, you just remember one thing: You don’t take shit from anyone, you got it?”

  She did, and she wouldn’t. Not that she needed to be told. Chasing down your son’s kidnapper and evading arrest might not have been what the stranger meant, but they fell within the category of “not taking shit.”

  When Sarah was certain the woman wouldn’t return, she put her feet back on the floor and wadded up a new ball of toilet paper to wipe away her tears. She might not be taking shit, but that didn’t mean she was done crying.

  THE DOOR SQUEAKED OPEN a while later and she heard Jim say, “Sarah?”

  Sarah got to her feet, wiping away the most recent tears and throwing the toilet paper into the toilet.

  “I’m here. I’ll be right out.”

  “Okay.” The door creaked closed.

  She exited the stall and examined herself in the mirror. She couldn’t do anything about the filth on her clothes, but she splashed water on her face and washed her hands, drying both with the last paper towel.

  “Oh, Sarah,” he said when she came through the door. “Look at you.” Then he hugged her.

  “I know. I know.”

  “Let’s get you out of here.”

  They proceeded down the cereal aisle, past the Cocoa Puffs Sarah had refused to buy for Brandon last week. He’d been so upset, she remembered. He’d pleaded and pouted and pointed out how all his friends had tried Cocoa Puffs, so why couldn’t he?

  “Because they’re not healthy,” she’d told him, which she then followed with the popular parent’s line: “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do that, too?”

  Fresh pain blossomed in her chest. How could she have been so concerned about something as trivial as cereal when there were dangers out there like... like that thing that took her son, whatever the hell he was. If she could do that day over again, she’d have bought him all the Cocoa Puffs he wanted. She’d buy every single box on the shelf, if he asked.

  She obsessed on that thought until they neared the end of the aisle. The same pimple-faced kid was behind the Customer Service desk, which she expected. This time, though, two uniformed officers stood on the other side.

  She immediately turned around and started heading the other way. She’d known it would only be a matter of time before the police started questioning local businesses for leads. It was why she’d worried about them finding her in the bathroom. If Jim had gotten here even five minutes later...

  But he hadn’t, and since they’d seen the police before the officers saw them, they had the upper hand.

  “Run, Jim,” she whispered.

  She took off, going as fast as she could.

  “But...” He trailed off, looked back at the Customer Service desk where the police were still talking to the pimple-faced kid. He ran after her.

  They went back through the service doors that led to the bathroom. Sarah stopped to examine their options. To the right were the bathrooms she’d just been in and an employee lounge. To the left, an industrial freezer with a walk-in door. Straight ahead, another pair of swinging doors with a sign that read EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  “What are we doing?” Jim asked.

  “There were cops.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Weren’t you at my house when they tried to arrest me? Come on.”

  Taking the EMPLOYEES ONLY sign as a promise for a rear exit, she ran through the second pair of swinging doors. Jim cursed under his breath as he ran after her. No matter what happened, he wasn’t going to leave her on her own. He knew that whatever small chance there was of her changing her mind, of her turning herself in to the police and requesting their help, she wasn’t going to do it without his prodding.

  They were in the guts of the store now, surrounded by wooden shelves of stock that reached to the ceiling. On the shelves were labeled boxes of Pampers, Lindsay canned olives, Bush’s baked beans, and so forth.

  With Sarah leading the way, they ran until they encountered a pair of large bay doors that told her she’d find a loading dock on the other side.

  Before they reached the exit, Jim said, “This doesn’t make you look any more innocent.” He was breathing hard so the words came slow.

  “I thought you were here to help me.”

  “I’m also here to talk some sense into you.”

  Sarah pushed through a door underneath an exit sign and was hit by the cool night air and the powerful stench of rot coming from nearby dumpsters. She followed the loading dock to a crisscrossed iron staircase and then stayed close to the side of the building as she advanced toward the parking lot.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Jim asked.

  “I don’t think so. Look, Jim, before they thought my son was kidnapped by someone who would call demanding a ransom. Now they think I killed him. I know Brandon’s still alive. I can feel it. But how long do you think that will last? If I’m in jail instead of looking for him and the police are questioning me instead of looking for him, how long?”

  In response, Jim only said, “Detective Hammond is searching your house right now.”

  Of course he is, Sarah thought.

  “What was in that diary?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not mine. I don’t even know where it came from.”

  They reached the front of the building. Sarah peered around the corner. She saw the police cruiser parked near the doors in a No Parking zone, but didn’t see the officers.

  “Where’s your car?” she asked.

  He pointed to a spot in front that was danger
ously close to the cruiser.

  She took several deep breaths, trying to center herself as well as she could. She looked back toward the loading dock. No one seemed to be following them. “Okay. Go get it and bring it around here.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

  “They’re only looking for me,” she reminded him.

  “How do you think you’ll find Brandon on your own?”

  “I’m not on my own,” she said, with a look that spoke volumes. “Please go get the car.”

  He sighed and crossed the parking lot.

  She watched him go. He jogged a little faster than she would have advised, though he wouldn’t draw too much attention if anyone saw him. In a clean pair of jeans and nice collared shirt, he looked more like a man in a hurry than a man on the run.

  Then, from right behind her: “Police! Don’t move!”

  Chapter 11

  AFTER HIS ABDUCTOR LEFT, A TREMOR settled into Brandon’s fingers. His young mind, good with puzzles and uniquely gifted, tried to work out what the bad man had planned to do with the doll. It was clearly an original, because it had been made in his image. That meant the bad man had made it. Certainly it was more than just a gift, but he couldn’t put his finger on what that “more” was.

  In an effort to find his way to the answer, he replayed the last few minutes in his head. The bad man coming into the room. The doll being placed in his hands. The sense of calm that came over him. And then hurling it across the room. In his mind’s eye, he saw it shatter in slow motion. At first, fine cracks formed when it hit the floor, etching their way across the porcelain. Then tiny chips split off along those cracks as the cracks deepened, connected, and split the doll into pieces.

  A soft snap drew his attention to the broken pieces of ceramic. The single chunk that had composed the doll’s head and left shoulder lay maybe seven feet from him. Or, rather, the two chunks.

  But it had been one before. It had been one and now it’s two.

  His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. Although he did not yet understand how he had done it, he did understand that by will alone he had cracked this plaster fragment.

  How cool is that!

  He stopped thinking about why the bad man had brought the doll into the room and started thinking about how he had broken it. For the first time since he’d awoken in this place, he climbed off the bed. Careful not to step on any broken shards, he crossed the room to where the head and shoulder were, wiped away the loose plaster in front of it with the palm of his hand, and sat down.

  He stared at the hairline fracture that had just formed. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. But then, after looking at it for a while, he began to wonder whether anything so profound had really happened. Was it too amazing? Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him.

  He slid the pieces of porcelain apart, picked one up, and examined it closely to see if he could identify another reason for the break. Even to an eight-year-old boy, looking for evidence like this seemed silly. What would Mr. Sonders do if he was in this situation? Brandon wondered.

  Mr. Sonders, Brandon’s wild-eyed science teacher (and his favorite teacher to date), would tell him to test his theory. “If you could do it once,” he could hear Sonders telling him, “you can do it again.”

  Brandon thought that was called a litmus test, but he wasn’t sure. Either way, it seemed like a good idea.

  He placed the porcelain back on the floor and focused all his attention on it. He stretched and knotted his thoughts in new ways, demanding the porcelain to break.

  Crack, he thought. Split in two. Break apart.

  Then he remembered the way wizards in movies talked and tried: I command you to obey my will and break yourself into two.

  He clenched his fists. Strained his temples.

  I am your master. You will do as I say. Now break!

  He heard nothing that suggested success. He opened his eyes to see if both large chunks of porcelain were still intact. They were.

  He knew that applying this new gift to other items would be easy once he understood how it worked. But, for now, the answer to that question seemed to wait at the center of a maze sufficiently complex to baffle anyone.

  He was not about to give up, however. He concentrated harder, this time clenching his teeth, staring at the chunk of porcelain that had been the doll’s shoulder.

  He silently shouted at it: I command you to break! I command you! Now! Now! Now!

  As he concentrated, he pulled on the resources reserved for keeping out the ghosts of ghosts. Without that mental block in place, they began to resurface. The first to break through manifested itself as an old man who had pale skin and liver spots on the back of his hands. He was skinny, frail, and his face was partly obscured by a thin gray beard. Sitting in the corner by the door, translucent, he silently cried.

  Then the room revealed another victim. She had only been six when the bad man had taken her life. Dressed in a pink nightgown and sucking her thumb, she was curled into a ball at the head of the giant bed.

  Next, a fourteen-year-old boy dressed in a ski jacket silently jumped up and down on the floor shouting soundless obscenities.

  These were different ghosts (or, perhaps more accurately, “memories”) than the first set to appear. But as each of the room’s memories stacked on top of the next, enhancing the vast tapestry of horrors, those returned, as well. The military man trying to crash through the door. The girl trying to break the window. The boy in the corner, hands wrapped around his torso, mumbling to himself. The woman in the bright red sweater crying into her hands.

  Now, instead of just commanding the piece of porcelain break, Brandon also pictured it breaking. After a couple of minutes, he thought he saw the chunk of porcelain quiver. Before he could be sure, however, the legs of another young girl moved across his field of vision. She was so close that he saw nothing above her knees. She stood directly in front of him, then she turned and stepped toward him.

  The ghosts had not distracted Brandon from his task. He’d hardly noticed they were there—that is, until her leg passed through his left eye, darkening the room and breaking his concentration. He jerked back, surprised.

  Immediately, his mind slammed the door on these phantoms. Instead of fading away like they had last time, they all vanished simultaneously.

  He was exhausted from the effort of trying to crack the porcelain. He had failed. He grew lightheaded; his vision flooded with fuzzy spots until it went black. He felt himself rock backwards, but didn’t feel his head hit the floor.

  Chapter 12

  “POLICE! DON’T MOVE!”

  Sarah looked over her shoulder in the direction from which the voice had come and saw two figures charging down the iron stairs that led from the loading dock to the street. Although shadows obscured their uniforms, she knew they were the cops she’d seen at the front of the store.

  Fortunately, they’d called out to her when they were still quite a distance away. From a glance both ahead of her and behind her, she estimated she was about as close to Jim’s car as they were to her. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts, so focused on getting away from the supermarket before the police caught her, that she hadn’t heard them approaching. If they’d been any closer, she wouldn’t have had a chance of outrunning them. After all, they weren’t weak, scared, or tired. They hadn’t spent the better part of an hour running, hiding, and bleeding.

  But along with the advantage of distance, she had one very important thing that they didn’t: a purpose—a reason to run that was as fundamental to her life as breathing: her son.

  Jim’s engine roared to life. He turned on the lights.

  Sarah launched into a sprint. Arms pumping, she felt the cold cement of the parking lot pound her aching feet. There were no cars parked near him, but Jim could have easily driven forward, looping around through the lot to meet Sarah at the corner of the building, where, with his gaze on the dashboard camera, he must still think she was. Inste
ad, he backed his silver Honda Civic out of the parking spot at a snail’s speed.

  Jesus Christ, she thought, and underneath that thought, there was a second, wordless one that formed deep in her subconscious and chastised safe, rational Jim for being so absurdly cautious.

  “Stop! Police!” shouted one of the officers as they took off after her.

  She ran around the back of the car, because it was the fastest way to get to the passenger-side door. Jim slammed on the breaks, finally realizing she wasn’t where he thought she was.

  “I said ‘Stop!’” the officer said again.

  Sarah flung open the passenger door and jumped in. “Go!”

  Shocked, Jim looked from her to the officers. “But—”

  She knew he was going to once again tell her she should turn herself in, that she needed to be working with the police instead of against them. She cut him off: “Just go!”

  With a huff, Jim shifted his foot from the brake to the gas, spun the wheel, and headed for the exit. Sarah watched through the rear window until they were out of the parking lot. The two officers, who had only been feet away when Jim pressed the pedal down, stopped running. Illuminated by a street lamp, one leaned over and put his hands on his knees. The other yanked his radio off his belt and held it up to his mouth.

  “This is a terrible idea,” Jim said.

  “It’s the best one going.”

  Jim sighed. “Where are we headed?”

  “Just drive for now. Get as far from here as possible. Let me think.” Sarah buckled her seatbelt to stop the car from beeping at her. “By the way, what do you think happened back there?”

  With his hands at ten and two, Jim glared suspiciously over at her for a second. Traffic was even lighter now than it was when Sarah had raced down Piedmont Avenue on foot. So much so, in fact, that at least for this moment there was no one in their immediate vicinity. Still, Jim didn’t want to take his eyes off the road for long.