A Soul To Steal (17 page)

Quinn shivered.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’ve had nightmares in my time, but that’s…”

“Horrible?” she asked. “I fought it off last year. The dreams kept coming, growing worse and more real every single day until Halloween came. I thought I was going crazy.”

“And then?”

“It stopped,” she said. “Just like that. November 1 came and it all ended. And I felt so relieved, like it was gone for good.”

“But it wasn’t….”

“No, it wasn’t,” she said. “It started sooner this time. It was August when it began. And I could feel it building in my brain. I just could not take it.”

“So you came here?” Quinn asked in disbelief.

“I had to, Quinn,” she said. “Something in my brain is telling me I needed to come back here. I don’t think it’s my Mom, but…”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think it’s him either. Because in my dream, she tells me he is coming anyway and I think she is right.”

“That he is coming for you?”

“It doesn’t matter, Quinn,” she said and stood to face him. “I see him everywhere, in everything. Do you know what that is like? To live your whole life waiting for the bogeyman to show up? I have dreams where the post-it note is on my door. Whether he is coming or not, I have let this man shadow me for so long it doesn’t matter. I see him around every corner, in everything. He lives in my mind rent-free. I had to come back.”

“But what if he’s still here?” Quinn asked. “The murder the other day…”

“It wasn’t him,” she said. “Do you know I was actually sorry when he told me it wasn’t Lord Halloween?”

“Why?”

“Because it would mean it is time to face my fears,” she said. “I don’t want to be afraid of him anymore. I want to find him and be done with it.”

“But…”

“I know it’s not sane, but would you do anything different? I can’t keep living like this, or if I do, he’s killed me already. So I actually wanted it to be that bastard’s return. Then I could get busy and find out who he is.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t?” he asked.

“Aren’t you? You wrote the story.”

“I don’t know, Kate,” Quinn said. “The police confirmed it all, very easily. But…”

She waited for him.

“I felt good about it yesterday,” he said. “But today, it felt wrong. Like they wanted me to write that story. I actually had a voicemail from Brown’s assistant telling me it was a good story. It feels wrong.”

“I don’t think my source would have lied to me,” Kate said, but she looked troubled.

“Are you positive?” he asked. “Because if he…”

“My father was a cop. They were on the force together. He and my parents were friends. I played with Julia, their daughter. Why would he lie to me about this? Of all things…”

“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “Maybe he didn’t.”

She sighed and pulled her jacket closer to her.

“I have to find him,” Kate said.

“If it’s true, and he’s still here, how do you know he won’t find you first?” Quinn asked.

She looked at him.

“Maybe he will,” she said. “But I’ve been looking over my shoulder for so long, I think I have a leg up. I’ll be ready.”

“If you wanted it to be him, and you’ve come back for that, why talk about leaving?” Quinn asked. “You said outside the office you were going to go. Why?”

“Things are so weird, Quinn,” she said.

“They weren’t already?” he responded.

“It’s different now,” she said. “I have dreams, but they aren’t like before. Sometimes my mom is in them, but then there are these symbols and a word that I don’t understand.”

“Maybe your dreams are just catching up with your location.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “And there has been other stuff.”

She paused.

“Like?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you, but only because you can already tell I’m crazy.”

“You aren’t crazy,” he said, and put his hand on hers without thinking about it. “I don’t think that.”

She looked at him.

“Thank you,” she said.

“So what is the other stuff?”

“One of the very first days I was here, when you gave me a tour of the
Chronicle
, do you remember that?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“When we were downstairs, near the printing press, I saw something,” she said. “I asked you and Janus about it.”

“I remember you pointing at the floor,” he said.

“But you saw nothing?”

“No, I didn’t see anything,” he replied.

“I saw something, Quinn,” she said. “Something that makes me worry I’m cracking up.”

“What?”

“There was blood,” she said. “There was a pool of blood all over that floor. I looked at my feet and it felt like I was walking in it. I could see it, shiny and deep red, so clearly. And you guys acted like it wasn’t there.”

“I didn’t see anything,” he replied.

“You see? That’s why I wanted to leave. Everything was so screwed up before and now that I’m here, it seems to be getting worse.”

“Did you see it again?”

“I haven’t been down there since,” she said. “I saw it as clear as day and then while I was talking to you, it disappeared. It’s stuff like that. The dreams, the blood, everything… The rational part of my brain keeps telling me to leave before I lose what is left of it.”

“Then why stay?”

“Because I think this guy is close, Quinn,” she said. “I feel it somehow. I know he will return. Maybe now or maybe next year. But he is still here and I have to find him.”

She stopped talking and looked back out across the pond. The wind drifted across it again, blowing her hair back. Her hands clenched the marble bench.

“You have to promise to keep this secret,” she said.

“Of course,” Quinn replied.

“I shouldn’t have even told you.”

“I think it’s about time you told someone,” he said. “You’ve been bottling this up for too long.”

“I know,” she said. “And I’m not going to leave. Whatever is going to happen, it finishes now, here. I’m through waiting for him to jump out of the shadows.”

“Look, I want you to stay, but…” Quinn said. “What if you are right? If this guy is back, this is the last place you should be. Particularly if he figures out who you are. Every bit of research on him shows he is one for the follow-through.”

“That’s why you have to help me, Quinn,” she said and gripped his hand. “You have to help me find him first.”

*****

The stranger watched the two figures talking near the bench. He couldn’t tell if they were arguing or not, but they were certainly animated.

He wished he could hear what they were saying. The stranger sighed. Still, he was glad he had followed them out, if only to know for sure there was something going on between the two. He wondered what it meant.

Quinn and Kate, sitting in a tree, not quite K-I-S-S-I-N-G, he thought. He idly wondered which one he should kill first.

Patience, his brain said. Not too soon. You have to take your time, hone your skills.

But it would be so easy, he thought. He could even take one right now.

Patience, that voice in his head said again. Not too quick or they’ll connect you. The police are dumb, but they aren’t that dumb. Don’t be sloppy. You’ve waited so long.

Kate seemed familiar to him, the stranger thought. She claimed to have never been here before, but there was this strange odor of familiarity to her. It seemed like something on the tip of his tongue—but he couldn’t think of it.

Had he known someone named Kate Tassel? He thought about it a moment. He did not think he did.

Breaking his line of sight with them, he moved back through the cemetery toward the grave where they had been standing. They had not been there long, but the stranger wanted to see. It might help him.

He found it and recognized the name immediately.

“Sarah Blakely,” he said out loud, just to hear it.

He clapped his hands to his mouth to keep a laugh from coming. No, he didn’t know a Kate. But he did know a Trina, didn’t he? Yes, yes he did.

Everything made sense now. Her familiarity – even as a child, she had been stunning to look at. And her outburst. He should have known it then. But the last name had thrown him.

It will take more than a last name to hide from me, the stranger thought.

She was little Trina—dear Trina—whose Mom thought about her even while she was being gutted. She called out her name so many times.

He moved back into the line of trees at the back and carefully worked his way to see the couple now standing near the bench.

I have old business with you, Trina, he thought.

He watched as the two walked out of the cemetery together. He noticed they were holding hands. Yes, he was very glad he had followed them.

And this so easily solved the question of whom he would kill first.

“See you soon, Trina,” he said out loud as they disappeared around the bend. “See you real soon.”

Chapter 10

Thursday, Oct. 12

About the only thing that made Madame Zora’s waiting room any different from a doctor’s was the faintest smell of lavender in the air, Kate thought.

It was painted off-white with magazines like People stacked neatly on tables next to moderately uncomfortable couches. And there was no sign of what Kate had expected—scented candles, beads or voodoo dolls—not even new age music.

Instead the place had more of a sterile quality.

She was surprised a little by the number of people there—she counted eight.  Apparently a lot of people need a psychic healer, or an “alternative medicine guru” as she styled herself now.

Maybe the crowd should not have been surprising. Madame Zora was one of Loudoun’s oldest business owners and if her establishment did not have much respect (jokes about it were common), it had at least endured long enough to command a loyal clientele.

Kate shook her head. It wasn’t that she disbelieved in something beyond the material world, but this? A semi-doctor's office dedicated to the occult? She found it hard to accept.

But she dutifully scribbled something in her notebook. An article on Madame Zora—Loudoun’s most famous (and presumably only) psychic—was to be her contribution to the Halloween section. And though she hated the section, she would at least write a good article. It was a matter of professional pride.

“Kate Tassel?” a sprightly teenage girl with a ponytail asked as she came out of the door on the far wall. She too had the air of a nurse—or doctor’s assistant—clothed in a white coat.