Dreamscape (7 page)

“Yeah, so. What does that tell us?”

“I believe he picks victims whereby he can inflict two types of pain, to his victims and their families. What about your other victims? Were they close to their families?”

Jackson frowned in thought. “I’ll have to look into it, but I think you might be right.”

Thorpe shook his head knowingly. “It’s the same guy, Jackson. It’s him.”

“Well, now we have two mysteries. Our murderer and who the hell is the letter writer. Besides, what connection does she have to you?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Honestly, I have no idea of the connection. Told you before, I thought the letter seven years ago wasn’t a psychic but the killer’s wife who had someone deliver it to me, or that the deliverer was someone else who knew what he’d done. Didn’t matter to me. Caught the guy. Never had any belief in that psychic stuff. Bunch of bologna.”

“You can’t say that with a straight face after tonight, Thorpe? I don’t believe you. If you didn’t have some faith in the information you wouldn’t have driven down here in the middle of a Nor’easter.”

Thorpe gazed into space at something only he could see. “Let’s just say that case seven years ago came back to me. The rest played out like a dream. Maybe the reality of the situation will sink in. Right now, a girl’s safe.”

“We need to find this letter writer. I’ll talk to Montgomery about who dropped it off. He had to have known the person. Might be the only link to our guy.”

With his good hand, Thorpe pulled a piece of paper out of his front pocket. “Or maybe I might have an idea who that someone is.”

* * * *

The storm had broken. The promise of a new day emerged as the sun broke through the morning sky. Electricity had been restored shortly before Thorpe drove into his garage. Roads were left in tough shape by the shoreline: water damage, trees down, branches littering the area. His house escaped damage, at least physical damage. Cindy hadn’t liked the fact he’d left them alone, stranded in her eyes. He opened the back kitchen door, and she stared at him, greeting him with silence.

She swung around back to the stove, cooking. She cooked when upset, nervous, worried. She slammed the skillet down on the eye of the stove. He added irritated to the list.

“Bad night?” he asked. He threw his jacket over the back of the dinette chair.

“Bad night?” She turned the mixing bowl in hand and banged the spatula down on her new granite countertops. She’d had the new kitchen less than a year. New glass-fronted cabinets flooded the kitchen. The outdated kitchen was completely remodeled with receding lights, a peninsula added to the counter top area serving as a space for the kids to eat, and an elegant bay window, not to mention all-new stainless steel appliances.

Thorpe hadn’t seen the need, but he thought it would make her happy. He’d gotten to the point that he didn’t think anything he did would make her happy.

“I don’t know, Doug,” she interjected curtly. “Being left in the middle of a Nor’easter with the kids alone. Oh, no electricity. While you’re off chasing bad guys. There are other police officers. Wasn’t even in your jurisdiction.”

“You haven’t heard the news?”

“No, it’s kinda hard without electricity.”

He shook his head. He didn’t care. “Goddamn it, Cindy. Lights have gone off before. If you were scared we have neighbors, besides the guys down at the station. Warren checked in with you. I know he did.”

“It’s not the same, Doug, and you know that.”

He shrugged. He needed a hot shower and coffee before the conversation went any further. He stared at her. Her wan expression only made her look tired. “I’ll be back down in a minute.”

“You could have phoned,” she said flatly as he headed up the stairs.

He didn’t turn around. “I did. Twice. Check your messages.”

* * * *

Steam enveloped the bathroom in fog. The condensation built on the mirror, dealt with by a few quick swipes of his towel. Thorpe needed this shower. The warm water revived his equilibrium from the freezing weather he’d endured the previous night and the frigid cold downstairs. His hand throbbed. The pain medicine had worn off. Thorpe ignored it.

The memory of the events of the night replayed in his head. His mind strove to make sense of the whole scenario. Things weren’t as they seemed. He felt it—felt a pull and he couldn’t explain it.

“Breakfast’s ready,” Cindy called up to Thorpe.

He dried off, put on clean clothes, and looked in the mirror. Red streaks marred the whites of his eyes. Twenty-four hours without sleep puts toll on a man. He didn’t see sleep coming any time soon either.

Thorpe eased down the narrow hallway, opening the doors to his kids’ rooms to give a quick check. Clothes littered Molly’s floor, her new dress too. Molly lay hidden under a mountain of blankets, her rhythmic breathing testament to her presence.

Thorpe backed into the hall and checked on his son. Liam slept, probably not even caring if the house blew away. He walked in a world surrounded by his tunnel vision. If he was tired and sleepy, nothing could happen to him.

Thorpe turned. Cindy stood behind him.

“They’re fine,” Cindy whispered. She pulled her robe tighter. “I made sure of that.”

Thorpe chose to ignore the last remark, too tired to argue. “I’ll have a quick breakfast and coffee on the go. Hate to leave again, Cindy. I don’t feel like debating at the moment. I can’t really get into last night right now,” Thorpe stated, walking down the stairs to the kitchen.

Cindy followed. “You don’t have to. It’s all over the news.” She pointed to their small TV on the kitchen counter and turned up the volume with the remote control.

“Like a scene out of a Hollywood movie, Lewiston police chief Douglas Thorpe snatched an eighteen-year-old girl out of the hands of a suspected serial killer. No conformation about the serial killer, only speculation that these latest events have a connection with a murder last August on Sea Gull beach in Lewiston. Orleans police released a statement confirming the attempted abduction. Reacting to an anonymous tip, Chief Thorpe literally pulled the girl out of the moving SUV—a Black Lexus. A burned out stolen Lexus was later found not far from 6A up from Orleans.

“A source from the Boston FBI unit stated that early this morning they picked up a suspect or potential witness to this upsetting occurrence.”

“What the hell? What suspect?” Thorpe’s voice rose. “I was with everyone until early this morning.”

Thorpe grabbed his coat off the back of the chair. With cell phone in hand, coffee still in its pot, and without a goodbye, he walked through the back door. It clicked shut tightly. He didn’t care. He was gone.

Chapter Five

Ramona sighed. Time had moved slowly on the overnight shift. Glad that the hours had come to an end, she cleaned up her area for the day shift to begin. Her supervisor, Peggy Lopez, had demanded Ramona cover techs that couldn’t make it in because of the weather since she was the only lead tech cross-trained in all departments from hematology, blood bank, and chemistry. Evening techs could have easily covered the shift, though.

Another attempt by Peggy Lopez to make Ramona quit. Lopez had long ago made it clear she wanted Ramona to leave or she’d make it so miserable Ramona wouldn’t have another option. Ramona wished she could quit, but she couldn’t afford to, not with Leila to support.

When the opportunity arose for Ramona to take on the responsibility of lead tech, she hadn’t made the decision lightly. At the time, Ramona was confident she’d made the right decision. She knew the work, the people. The raise that came with the promotion also came in handy. With a small child to raise by herself, money had always been tight. The problem was she knew things that ordinary people didn’t.

Within a hospital setting, every specimen, every procedure has to be well documented; every error corrected according to procedure. Mistakes couldn’t be swept under a rug. Each mistake had to be addressed. When Peggy Lopez asked her to write up one of the blood bank techs, Eileen McComb, for making one of these mistakes, how could she explain her decision to defend the technologist?

Without question, Ramona understood exactly what Peggy had done, knew that Peggy had done it before. In her hurry, Peggy had mistakenly entered the wrong result on a specimen. A patient had been having an adverse reaction to receiving blood whereas the proper procedure had been to perform a direct coombs which would allow the doctor to assess whether or not the patient’s own body’s immune system had reacted to the blood. Not following a procedure that Peggy herself had written, Peggy had run it on the instrument which gave a false positive result.

Since Eileen had released the type and screen results, Peggy covered her tracks by doing a corrected report over her wrong results, stating that it was Eileen who entered them originally, which in itself wouldn’t have been a case for disciplinary action, but when the doctor inquired as to the mistakes, Peggy felt she had no alternative but to hang Eileen out to dry. Ramona realized it wasn’t the first time Peggy had done that to a tech.

It didn’t help matters that Ramona went back through the files finding evidence to support Eileen and knew where to find it. Nor did it help that Ramona stood up for Eileen at the Human Resource hearing that Eileen had requested. Ramona discovered that the original report had been pulled, deleted from the computer. The only saving grace for Eileen was that the direct coombs had been added on to the original type and screen—added on after Eileen’s shift had ended. Ramona couldn’t prove what Peggy had done, but she proved Eileen hadn’t. The matter dropped quickly, leaving Ramona a marked woman.

Constantly berated, brought in for ‘discussions’, pulled in off shift, Ramona never knew what she’d walk into every morning. The constant stress wore on her. She took a deep breath. Everything seemed worse with lack of sleep, and she hadn’t had much sleep as of late.

Movement from lab control caught her attention. The promise of a new start to the day diminished upon the sight of two state troopers. She stared at them. Immediately, she realized that something had gone wrong. A voice identifying himself as Lieutenant Cappelli and asking for her came from the hematology lab.

She walked around the corner to the sink and took off her gloves, preparing to wash her hands. She managed, “I’m Ramona Damsun, Can I help you?”

Instantly, he slammed her up against the wall and frisked her. Lieutenant Cappelli grabbed her arm and led her out of the lab. Without her coat, purse, or a word of explanation, they put her in the back of their car.

She asked what they wanted.

“They want you for questioning,” Lieutenant Cappelli stated.

They drove silently until they reached their destination—downtown Boston. She looked up and saw the FBI building, and her heart sank. Her first thought had been of Leila. Leila would be worried when she didn’t show up from work. They wouldn’t let her make a call. She sat waiting in an interrogation booth. No one had told her why they’d brought her here or had even spoken to her in the last three hours.

Fatigued and not in a good mood, her instinct told her to run, but that wasn’t a viable option. With the realization that alternative options had been exhausted, Ramona Damsun felt her life close in as much as the walls around her.

The door opened. “Ms. Damsun,” a man said as he sauntered in and slammed his notebook down on the table. “I’m Special Agent Marcus Collins. I have a few questions for you. Are you comfortable? Do you need a drink? Something to eat?”

Ramona rolled her eyes and looked away. She said nothing as she had done since she’d been brought in, picked up as a common criminal.

“Ms. Damsun,” Agent Collins said. “Most people in your situation feel it is in their best interest to be corporative. Serves their best interest.”

“How long do you think it will take to connect you to the killer? Boyfriend, brother? You tried to make it right. You let us know,” Agent Collins continued. He walked around the table, leaned down, and whispered in her ear. “That will make a difference for this guy. Maybe you’re scared. We can take care of you.”

A laugh escaped her. “You’ve done such a great job so far. Picking me up at work. Walking me out as you would a criminal.” She leaned back in her chair. “I’m not saying another word. I want a lawyer.”

Agent Collins exhaled and looked back over his shoulder. The next minute, he walked out the door leaving Ramona alone with her thoughts.

* * * *

Driving into Copley Center was a challenge the day after a Nor’easter. The narrow streets of Boston had yet to recover from the snow emergency. Thorpe hadn’t managed to obtain much information other than the woman’s name. When he entered the building, the only fact he knew for certain pertained to her location, and for some unknown reason the FBI had her in the interrogation room.

He hurried up the elevator merely to be left watching the semblance of the interview from the two-way mirror. His anger over the situation dissipated slightly. Collins hadn’t a clue why they’d been interested in this woman. Thorpe studied her. He couldn’t shake a feeling….

Collins walked in looking for someone other than Thorpe. “Do you know if any of her background checks has come back? Need to go back at her.”

“Not you, I hope,” Thorpe said simply. “You went in blind.”

“It’s not your concern, Thorpe. You’re only here as a courtesy. Where’s Montgomery?”

Thorpe shook his head. “As far as I know, meeting with Jackson.” He walked over to Collins, face to face. “So you picked her up at her place of work? Do you have any idea why we are interested in her?”