One-Eyed Jack (27 page)

“
I’m sorry,” I said. “If I
knew how to stop Jenny, I would have.”

“
We searched the room
for... well, we didn’t know what for. Something that might explain
some of this. We didn’t find much. But we did find a finger, the
little finger from a child’s left hand.

“
Except it wasn’t fresh
enough, or the right color, to be Andrew McPhee’s. I think it was
Jack’s.”

Chapter Eighteen

I considered that finger silently for
a moment before I said, “I suppose it’s far too late to reattach
it.”

“
After
a
month
?
Of course it is.” Skees waved that aside. “I have a couple of
concerns here, and that finger isn’t on the list. I need to know
what really happened, and I need to know what we can
say
happened, and I’m
pretty sure they don’t have much in common.”

“
I’m with you on that,” I
said.

“
I guess you’ve told me
the first part, and I think we can work something up for the second
one. Last I heard, McDonough and Carrera had more or less decided
to say it wasn’t a homicide after all, or any kind of police
matter, just some weird medical mystery, so that shouldn’t be a big
issue for us – the doctors get to make it up, we don’t have to.
What I also need to know, though, is maybe the most important thing
– is it going to happen again?”

I considered that. I looked at Skees,
and I wished I could give him some good news, that I could tell him
yes, it was all over, Jenny had done her thing and that was
it.

But that wouldn’t be doing either of
us any favors.

“
I don’t know,” I said. “I
really don’t. But I’m assuming you want my best guess.”

“
If that’s all you got,
yeah, I’ll take it.”

“
Okay, look, Detective, I
don’t know what I’m doing. Remember that. I’ve never had any other
real psychics I could talk to, and I’ve never found any books or
websites that match what I see and hear for myself. I talked to the
thing that killed Mrs. Reinholt, and I’ve talked to Jenny, and to a
couple of others. These ghosts or spirits or demons or whatever
they are, they’re all limited. They don’t have real personalities,
they just have obsessions. They don’t get distracted, or change
their minds – they stay focused on whatever they’re about. Mrs.
Reinholt’s killer was all about who was in charge, who had the
power, it was all anger and resentment, and once it was free of her
control it was done; it went away and never came back, and so far
as I know it never hurt anyone else. I’d like to say that’s what’s
going to happen, but I don’t think it is, because Jenny’s not about
power, she’s about hunger and guilt and mother-love, and she’s
obsessed with devouring children. I think she’s going to get hungry
again, and now she knows that dying kids can be convinced to ‘help’
her, so I think she’s going to eat more of them. I don’t know how
long it’ll take her to get her appetite back, it could be a couple
of days or a hundred years, but eventually I think she’ll eat
more.”

“
How do we keep that from
happening?” He stared directly at me.

I met his gaze squarely.
“I don’t
know
,” I
said. “I swear I don’t.”

“
Is she going to eat Jack
Wilson?”

“
No, I don’t think she
is,” I said. “I think she’s going after easier prey.” I told him
everything I could remember of Jack and Jenny’s conversation in
that little lounge.

When I was done Skees tipped his head
back for a few seconds, then looked at me again.

“
She jilted him,” he
said.

“
You could look at it that
way,” I agreed.

“
That would explain a lot
about how he’s been acting.”

That caught my attention. “How has he
been acting?”

“
Pissed. Seriously
pissed.”

“
That would make sense,” I
acknowledged.

Skees dropped that, and returned to
what he considered important. “So you don’t know who she’ll eat
next, or when?”

I shook my head. “I really don’t. Some
scared dying kid who thinks he can help her, would be my
guess.”

“
And you don’t know how we
can stop her?”

“
No. I wish I
did.”

“
How did you stop the one
that killed your teacher?”

“
I didn’t. No one did.
It’s still out there somewhere.”

Skees considered that for a moment,
then asked, “But it hasn’t hurt anyone else?”

“
Not that I know
of.”

“
So why
is our Jenny different? I know how you said she is; I want to
know
why
.”

“
I
don’t
know
.”

“
You think it’s something
about the real Jenny? Maybe there’s some connection between
them?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s
it. The one that killed Mrs. Reinholt wanted to kill anyone who
tried to control it. Jenny wants to eat children who love her.
Nobody else is trying to control that one, but there are lots of
kids out there who can love Jenny.”

“
Are
there? Can they even
see
her?”

“
I don’t
know. Jack can see her just fine, Katie could see her a little, I
don’t know about Andrew, but I’m not sure they need to see her to
love her. If someone else
tells
them about her, that might be
enough.”

“
Well, who’s going to tell
them? I don’t think Jack’s in any mood to talk about her
anymore.”

“
Maybe,” I said. I
hesitated, then said, “Detective Skees, may I be blunt? I think
you’re trying to convince yourself that Jenny’s not going to kill
any more kids. I think you’re doing that because there isn’t any
way you can catch her or make her stop. I don’t think you really
have any evidence.”

He grimaced. “You don’t have any real
evidence, either.”

“
No, I don’t. You’re
right. But I saw her, and I saw the one that killed Mrs. Reinholt,
and they were really, really different. That one eight years ago
didn’t look remotely human, it didn’t – ” I stopped; I didn’t want
to explain that Jenny radiated her emotions, and Reinholt’s bane
didn’t. It would just lead to a lot more useless questions. And it
wasn’t something unique to Jenny; lots of night-creatures radiated
like that, maybe one out of every dozen, though not usually so
strongly. “It was different,” I finished.

“
So then you don’t really
know anything about it, right? You keep saying that. So what makes
you think it’ll go after other kids?”

“
Jenny said she was going
to stay at the hospital where there are other children to love,” I
replied. “I think that sounds like a threat.”

Skees didn’t answer at first; he
leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and
stared at me.

I stared back.

“
You say there’s nothing
we can do,” he said.

“
I said
I don’t
know
of anything. Physical means won’t work – you can’t hold them,
or hurt them. I drove a car through one once, and I’ve tried
cutting them; it doesn’t work.”

“
You’ve tried
it?”

“
Yes.”

I didn’t explain further, and after a
moment’s thought, Skees didn’t ask. Instead he began, “This teacher
of yours, Mrs. Reinhart...”

“
Reinholt,” I corrected
him.

“
Whatever.
She
could control these ghosts, right? Why can’t
you?”

“
Because
I’m not a witch, or whatever she was. I have some weird psychic
abilities that she gave me, that’s all. We had this strange
relationship, where I was sort of a teacher’s pet, but we kind of
hated each other at the same time, and one day she said that I
didn’t know as much as I thought I did, and maybe if I saw what was
really out there I’d be a little less of a pain in the ass, and
that night I started seeing things. But I just
saw
them, I couldn’t
touch them, or make them obey me, the way she did. After that I
watched her sometimes, and it seemed like she just summoned them up
out of nowhere whenever she needed them, and I can’t do anything
like that.”

I didn’t mention that she had teased
me with that, told me I would never be able to do what she
did.

“
But
they
can
be controlled,” Skees said. “
You
just can’t do it.”

“
Well,
yeah, I guess so. I’m not sure
anyone
can do it; for all I know,
Mrs. Reinholt was the last of her kind.”

“
Doesn’t seem real
likely.”

“
I guess not. But
Detective, I’ve been looking for real psychics or witches off and
on for eight years now, and I haven’t found any.”

“
Where were you
looking?”

I grimaced. “Well, I started with the
Yellow Pages. I tried the web, and the classified ads, and anywhere
else I could think of that a psychic would advertise. I talked to a
couple of professors at the University of Maryland.”

“
Did your teacher
advertise any of those places? Would your professors have known
about her?”

“
No,” I acknowledged. “She
didn’t work as a psychic; it was a hobby. She didn’t advertise; she
taught high school, and I don’t think the school board would have
been happy with her if she was moonlighting as a witch.”

“
So why
would
any
real psychic advertise?
You’re
a real psychic; can you do
anything people would pay you for? Anything you could
advertise?”

“
No,” I
admitted.

I’d thought about that, of
course, but my talents, if you want to call them that, weren’t
particularly useful. I could see night creatures, but I
couldn’t
do
much
of anything about them. I could spot other psychics, and what good
was that? And while I did have my dreams, I never dreamed about
anyone I’d met, and I couldn’t
choose
who to dream about. I
couldn’t see anyone’s future, or talk to dead relatives, or find
lost valuables. I was really something of a bust when it came to
useful psychic abilities.

“
If
someone was looking for a real psychic, would they
find
you
?”

“
No,” I
repeated.

“
So there are probably
others like her out there; you just don’t have any way of finding
them.”

I wasn’t totally
convinced, but I had to admit he had a case. “Maybe,” I said. “But
the thing is, I really
don’t
have any way of finding them, so what good does
it do us if they’re out there?”

“
Ah,” he
said. “Yeah. So you don’t know anyone else with paranormal
abilities – except your friend de Cheverley. Could
she
do
anything?”

It wasn’t literally true that I didn’t
know anyone else; I knew Jack, and a guy named Leonard who lived in
Gaithersburg, and an old lady in Arlington, and a couple of others
I’d lost track of.

But they couldn’t do anything useful,
any more than I could.

But Mel – maybe she could. I hadn’t
thought of that.

“
I don’t know,” I said.
“She can’t see or hear these creatures, the ghosts or whatever they
are; we’ve tested that. But I don’t know whether she can affect
them.”

“
Do you think she might be
able to scare Jenny off?”

“
I have no idea,
Detective.”

“
Mr.
Kraft, I really,
really
don’t want any more dead kids. I think it’s worth
a shot. Think you could give her a call and ask her to come out
here?”

I noticed he didn’t
suggest
he
should
call her. “Even if she came, Detective,” I said, “and did scare the
ghost off, wouldn’t Jenny just go somewhere else and kill some
other kid?”

“
She’d have to start from
scratch, wouldn’t she? You said she gets her power from interaction
with humans; maybe she wouldn’t have the strength without Jack
Wilson.”

It seemed to me that he was grasping
at straws, putting way too much faith in my own half-assed
theories. “This is all guesswork,” I said.

“
Yes, it is. Does that
mean it’s not worth trying?”

“
I suppose not. But I
don’t know whether Mel’s going to want to do it. She doesn’t like
traveling much. What’s in it for her?”

“
Saving a kid’s life isn’t
enough?”

“
Maybe
saving a
theoretical
kid’s life probably
isn’t.”