Patient Darkness: Brooding City Series Book 2 (6 page)

“Who was that?”
Brennan asked.

Sam shut off his phone and set it on the desk. “Nobody with anything urgent.”

Truth.

They were back at Brennan’s apartment, presumably just hanging out again. In truth, Brennan had asked Sam to watch over Greg after his doctor’s appointment, which his friend had agreed to easily. It was that kind of loyalty that made Brennan continue to value his friendship. It was precisely that kind of loyalty which blindsided him as well.

At some point in the day, he and Greg had decided that Brennan
needed
an online dating profile.

“I’m really not comfortable with this,” he said, even as Sam continued to type away on his laptop. Greg sat on the couch with a smug grin on his face, nursing a mug of hot chocolate that had far too few tiny marshmallows.

“Yeah, well, that’s why we didn’t ask you,” Sam said, offering Brennan his cheeriest smile. “We knew you’d be a big spoilsport about it.”

“I have a serial killer to catch.”

“Whose murders you’re officially not supposed to be investigating,” Sam noted. Brennan raised an eye. “Hey, I have contacts, I know these things.”

“Wally,” Brennan concluded.

“I plead the fifth.”

“Uh-huh. Well I guess I don’t owe him one anymore.”

“Oh, no,” Sam said. A look of dread crossed his face. “You owe Wallace a favor?”

“Yeah, why?”

Sam shuddered visibly. “Man, I’m glad I’m not you. You do
not
want to owe that dude a favor.” A heavy frown descended upon Brennan’s brow, but before he could ask anything more, Sam finished typing with a keystroke of definite finality. “Voilà.”

Brennan turned the laptop so he could see it. “CopAFeel dot US?”

“Where lonely detectives meet lonelier crime enthusiasts.”

“This can’t be a real site.”

“As real as you or me, partner. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You wouldn’t believe how many niche dating sites are out there.”

“I’m married.”

“You
were
married,” Sam said, not unkindly. “I’m sorry about what happened to Mara, but that was years ago. Either you can continue to live in the past, or you can give love another chance.”

“We think it’s time you got on the market again,” Greg chimed in.

“Mara wouldn’t want you to be forever alone on her behalf,” Sam reasoned.

And there it was, the ultimate argument for living after a loss. If he dated someone else, if he removed the gold ring that had encircled his finger for many years, would Brennan be desecrating the memory of his dead wife—or fulfilling her final wishes for him?

It couldn’t hurt to meet new people.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he looked back at the website. It had bold, simple colors and pictures of couples holding hands chained together with handcuffs. “Is this…a bondage site?”

“What?” Sam spun the screen toward him. “No, man, not like that. It’s to sell the whole cop-loving theme. These are women who are attracted to men that do the things we do.”

“The things that
we
do? Are you on here, Sam?”

His friend rubbed at the back of his head. “In the past, yes. Now it’s purely for research, for you!” He made a few quick clicks, and a woman’s portrait came up. “How about this one? She’s a single widow, like yourself, and loves kids.” He nodded toward the couch.

“Hey!” Greg objected. “I’m a full-on adult.”

“An adult with no job and whom still lives at home? You’re a kid.” Sam looked briefly puzzled with himself. “
Who
still lives at home? Dammit, I don’t know.”

Greg didn’t bother to argue, choosing instead to sip quietly from his cocoa.

“I feel like this is all a bit sudden,” Brennan said, taking the laptop back and closing it. “Besides, CopAFeel seems more like a website for quickies rather than fostering relationships.”

Sam placed a hand on his shoulder. “Baby steps, kemosabe. You need to crawl before you can walk.”

“I thought I was already up to baby stepping. Now I need to crawl?”

“I’m mixing metaphors here, give me a break.”

“As long as you’re my ever faithful sidekick, Tonto, then I think I can allow that.” Brennan grinned, but Sam just shook his head and pulled on his jacket.

“All right, give me everything you have on the serial killer case,” Sam said.

Brennan was caught off guard. “I thought you didn’t have any time to work on the case. What happened to being on retainer for two days?”

Sam touched the tip of his nose. “That’s why you collect up-front, in cash,” he said. “I finished early, and I could always use extra cash from the department.”

“I can’t pay you,” Brennan reminded him. “Officially, I’m not on the case.”

Sam waved his hand. “I’ll dig something up and convince Bishop to commission my services…and then commission my
services
,” he added, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“She’s still going to wonder how you got involved with the case to begin with.”

“Wallace,” Sam said instantly. “He technically did tell me, unprompted, to keep you away from the case. He opened the door for me to be involved. I’ll just say he piqued my interest.”

“Perfect. I don’t have it all down right now, but I’ll send you a file later tonight.”

“Sounds good.” Sam slapped him on the back. “I’ll talk to you soon. See you later, Greg!”

Greg waved as the apartment door shut behind Sam. Brennan contemplated the closed laptop and looked at his nephew on the couch. “You really think this is a good idea?”

“He’s good at his job, right? Seems like the police could use his help as much as yours.”

“Not that,” Brennan said. “I meant the online dating. I haven’t been with anyone else since your aunt died.”

Something shifted about the way Greg held himself, because a moment later he was as serious as Brennan had ever seen him. “This is exactly what Sam and I were talking about. You need to stop thinking about your life in relation to hers. It doesn’t mean you can’t remember her, but honoring her memory and holding on to a ghost are two separate things.”

Brennan stared at him for a long minute. “You’re entirely too mature for your age.”

Greg laughed. “I’m just a kid, remember?”

“That’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Brennan said. “Have you given any thought about college? Or a job?”

“I thought you were cool with me staying here.”

“I am, of course. But you don’t want to be that guy who sleeps on a sofa his entire life. You’re missing out on crucial experience by being cooped up in here all day.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “What if you want to bring a girl back to your place? Because you sure as hell aren’t doing it on the couch.”

Greg remained silent.

“
Or my bed
,” Brennan added, and a smile cracked across Greg’s lips. “What I’m saying is that you’re almost nineteen and still don’t have any solid goals. You need to have
action
in life to make it meaningful.”

“So with your sex life on hold,” Greg said, “how meaningful has your personal life been recently?”

It was Brennan’s turn to hold his silence.

“I’ll make you a deal, Uncle Arty. If you agree to expand your dating life, I will agree to start looking around for a job.”

Brennan frowned. “This isn’t really a negotiation.”

“No, it’s not. This is me forcing you to do something for your own good,” Greg said pointedly.

“Touché,” Brennan said. “All right, it’s a deal.”

Greg grinned. “Excellent. I’ll start in the morning.” He hid his mouth behind a hand as he yawned widely. “Wow, what time is it?”

“Not late enough for you to be tired yet,” Brennan said.

“Maybe it’s the drugs the good doctor gave me to fight the patch. I’ve been feeling out of it
all
day.”

“Hold on, so that means that your scheme with Sam to get me into dating was just a side effect? That all of your advice was just the drugs talking?”

The largest grin spread across Greg’s face. “A deal’s a deal,” he said merrily.

Brennan wiped a hand against his mouth. “Yeah, I suppose so. Go on, get ready for bed, then.” He collected his laptop and retreated to his room as Greg made his way to the bathroom. He sighed gratefully as he sat down on the king-sized bed. After a long day of hoofing it around town and being blindsided by a dating plot, it felt good to just relax and let himself melt into the pillows.

But I can’t relax yet,
he thought. He pulled up a writing app and quickly typed up all of the salient notes he’d picked up on his visit to Kelsi Woodill’s apartment. There admittedly wasn’t much to report. “Cast a wider net and see what you pull in,” Brennan mumbled, speaking his final message to Sam aloud. If anyone could find something the police hadn’t, it would be Sam. He sent the notes and message and nearly closed the laptop when the other open tab caught his eye.

He clicked through, and CopAFeel asserted itself on the screen. The widow’s hazel eyes stared at him through the screen. Clara Thompson. She had lost someone, too, just like he had. But there she was, putting herself out there. What if she was struck with tragedy again? Wasn’t she worried about being exposed like that?

Why is she more courageous than me?

Brennan opened the chat box and composed a message.

Alex swore violently
as soon as she regained consciousness.

She was roused from her wine-dreams by the incessant pounding of a jackhammer inside her skull. The blouse she had passed out in was soaked through with sweat, and the sheets beneath her legs felt equally damp. Thankfully, she had had the good sense of mind to set her wineglass on the nightstand before surrendering her body to its drunken slumber. The last thing she needed was to replace wine-stained bedsheets. Fuzzy and buzzing, her mind communicated slowly with the rest of her body.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Her tongue felt wooden in her mouth, and there was a lingering scent of wine on her breath. Her fingers were stiff, and she fumbled with the buttons of her top. Next came the bra, then the rest of her clothes. She shivered as the cold air cozied up against her smooth, clammy skin. It didn’t carry the same feeling of comfort as it had the other night. Alex needed a shower, the hotter the better.

She stood immobile for several minutes beneath the intense spray. The tension residing in her shoulders trickled away, knots unfolding beneath the steady stream of water. Once the thin veneer of sweat had been wiped away, the warmth spread through her limbs in earnest. Memories of what happened the night before came back to her in bits and pieces. Almost at the same time, she felt a now-familiar presence pressing against the fringes of her consciousness.

Arthur Brennan
.

You’re fucking kidding me.
Alex resisted the urge to slam her head against the tiled wall. Unwilling to leave the shower just yet, she reached out with her mind. She touched a dozen different dreaming people before she found someone who was awake. Judging by the dull and inactive brain, she figured it was a man. He was watching the television, or rather, mindlessly staring at the screen while something played in the background. She suspected he was neither awake nor asleep, but in some transitory stage.
I just need you to look at the clock,
she thought.

Seemingly by pure coincidence, the man lolled his head and looked toward the kitchen. Three thirty in the morning.

Back in her shower, Alex sighed. It was early, too early to be awake, but her early slumber meant she’d captured a full night’s amount of sleep. Even if she went back to bed now, she knew she wouldn’t find rest.

“What’s a girl to do?” she pondered. She turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Steam clouded the mirror and hung in the air like fog over the moors. Alex wondered at her internal narrator. It wasn’t often that she compared her bathroom to the Scottish highlands.

The cloying, humid air escaped from the room as she opened the door, and her body tingled all over as colder air rushed to meet her. It felt right this time without her coating of feverish sweat, and she was reluctant to leave that feeling even as she started pulling on clean clothes. She wormed her way into a snug pair of dark jeans, then slipped on a gray t-shirt over her bra. She checked herself in the mirror and added a leather jacket to the ensemble.

Alex emerged from her room as silent as a mouse, walking on the balls of her feet in heavily padded socks. She never wore shoes in her apartment, and only rarely so in the building as a whole. She stopped in the kitchen, confirmed the time, and grabbed a short, sharp blade from a wooden block full of knives meant for chopping, slicing, dicing, and whatever other motions were involved in cooking. She didn’t even know why she grabbed it, only that it felt good in the grip of her hand.

What am I going to do, kill him?
It seemed a bit much to kill a stranger for keeping her from sleeping at night. If she gave in to those urges regularly, her building would be almost entirely devoid of tenants. Still, she held the knife.

She padded softly and swiftly down the hall to the elevator, which opened at her touch with a mercifully quiet ping. It was a relatively short ride to the sixteenth floor, and the psychic pressure she’d felt before was dramatically reduced in strength. Either the stranger had gone to sleep, which would make her job all that much easier, or else her resistance to the mental assault was simply improving.

Win-win
, she thought as the elevator doors opened. The hallways were identical to those of her own floor, and Alex relied on the pressure on her skull to guide her. She turned left and walked slowly, and the pressure mounted gradually with each passing step. Alex watched the room numbers as she moved. Sixteen-oh-eight. Sixteen-ten. Sixteen-twelve. Sixteen-fourteen.

She paused. Two steps back toward room sixteen-twelve, and she felt certain that she had reached her destination. The psychic pressure peaked as she pressed her ear to the door; nothing could be heard from the other side.

Like hers, this door required a key. Alex cursed herself for leaving her lock picking kit in her room. She wasn’t an expert by any means, but it was an idle hobby that had turned into an occasionally useful talent. She bit her lip as she surveyed the door. Even if she could pick the lock, was there another layer of security beyond it? It seemed unlikely.

It won’t take more than two minutes to get the kit and come back,
she reasoned. She hardly took a step before the door to room sixteen-twelve opened inward, and Alex jumped back in surprise.

A man appeared from the darkness. He was short, with a wreath of white hair that made him look like a wizened Renaissance monk. His clothes were rumpled, yet still spoke of expensive origins. Dark glasses concealed his eyes, and he ventured forth with a slender cane half a step ahead of his feet.

Alex held her breath. This was not the kind of man she had been expecting. She remembered the heavy weight in her hand. Had she been about to murder an old, blind man just so she could get some sleep?
Yes, he’s blind.
She suddenly had an image of two men standing stock still in front of a T-Rex.
Hold your breath and don’t move. He can’t see you.

“But I can hear you,” the old man said. His lips moved as soon as she had completed her thought, as if taking his turn during the course of a normal conversation.

Alex didn’t respond, nor did she so much as twitch a muscle. It was impossible for him to hear her.

“Up here,” he said. He tapped his wrinkled dome for emphasis. His dark glasses were locked on her exact position. “You speak quite loudly with your thoughts. It is a wonder that anyone can sleep at night with you lurking around.”

He spoke in a stilted manner as if he were taking deliberate care to ignore contractions, or perhaps was unaware of them altogether. Was he toying with her? What kind of game was this? Alex had been lured by the most psychically violent thoughts she had ever heard, those of a veritable madman, yet this geezer was as calm and collected as if—

As if he expected me to be here.

And then, the impossible. A smile cracked across the old man’s leathery lips. “Please, do come inside. I know why you are here.”

She shook her head and took a step in retreat.

“You have nothing to fear,” he chided. “I sensed your confusion the moment you stepped inside the building. Yours is a powerful gift, and not the first of its kind that I have witnessed.”

Alex’s composure cracked, and she cleared her throat. “When I stepped inside the building?”

He seemed delighted to hear her speak. “Yes, that is right. You reached out to me in the lobby.”

Ahh, so you’re the one.
She immediately reined in her probe and imagined a stone wall between her mind and the outside world. He had been the one to speak to her with his thoughts. Somehow, he had sensed her in his mind when no one else had. She couldn’t allow him to hear any more of her thoughts.

His head tilted curiously, as if he could feel the retreating tide of her psychic probe. “There is no sense in hiding who we are from each other.” He leaned heavily on his cane, one hand resting on top of the other. “My name is Benjamin. What might you be called?”

She considered lying. This man, Benjamin, was a stranger. More importantly, he was a stranger who knew what she was. The knife was still in her hand, hidden behind her back. He was slow, old, and weak. It would take less than a second to end it all here. Yet something stayed her hand.

She wasn’t a murderer. Even if it was in her best interests, even if it protected her from being exposed as her father had always feared would happen, Alex couldn’t strike down a blind, unarmed man.

What am I thinking? Of course I can.
Her hand tightened around the knife’s grip. It was her or him. She realized that it was no longer a petty case of losing a little peace and quiet. This was for her own protection, the preservation of
her
own life.

“That would be ill-advised,” Benjamin rasped. In the span of a moment, he had assumed a defensive stance. The cane, no longer supporting him, was held like a staff between both hands. Blind or not, he apparently had some way of sensing her movements. Even the slightest muscle contraction from gripping the knife hadn’t escaped his gaze.

Alex dropped the knife. “I apologize,” she said, adopting Benjamin’s speech pattern. She had read somewhere that mimicry was the easiest way to build a rapport with someone new. It had served her well so far in life, allowing her to blend easily with normal people. “You may call me Stephanie.”

“Stephanie,” he echoed. He said the name again and frowned, but the staff became a cane once more and pleasant features quickly returned to his face. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Reader.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are a Reader,” Benjamin stated calmly. “I am a Pathfinder.”

Alex dropped the copycat speech pattern. “No idea what you’re talking about, but you’re not who I was looking for.” She turned to leave.

“If you leave now, you may never find peace. I know what torments you, and I know what will set you free.”

“You do?”

Benjamin pointed into his room with the cane. “Come inside and I will explain everything.”

“You don’t know what my questions are.”

“You do not know which questions are worth asking.”

Alex looked toward the dark doorway with apprehension. She knew that the source of burning, naked hatred for Arthur Brennan lay somewhere in that darkness. “Fine,” she said. “Take me inside. I want to speak with whoever is in there.”

Benjamin nodded. “He would like very much to be heard.”

The old man turned sharply and walked back into the room, seemingly without need of his cane. Alex followed him, though she groped the wall until her hand found a light switch. It made sense that the room hadn’t been lit before; a blind man had no need for lights. But what of the other man?

Inside the apartment, the furniture was identical to her own, though everything was arranged in a rather simpler layout. Glass end tables were pushed against walls or other furniture so that nothing stood out as an island, nothing directly in the way of a blind man’s meanderings. It gave the apartment a greater sense of openness. Without the lights on, it might have easily been a gaping cave shrouded in shadows.

Two for two describing normal rooms with creepy imagery. Imagination, thy name is overactive.

“In here,” Benjamin said. He stood outside the bedroom at the end of the hall and waited expectantly. Alex opened the door with the same enthusiasm that one might unveil a basket full of cobras. The interior was surprisingly underwhelming.

It was dark inside, but not pitch black. A sliver was parted between the curtains, through which the light of the center city seeped in. A bed, smaller than hers, was pushed against the far wall and lay directly in the path of incoming light. Reclined on the bed was a man of average height and unimpressive features, and if not for the tubes connected to his arms he might have been resting peacefully. He was still at rest, but it looked more like the kind of repose that was reserved for coma patients and those near death.

“He’s Fractured,” Alex said aloud. She immediately retreated behind the stone wall of her mental defenses. Fractured minds were hopeless to cure, far beyond the reach of modern medicine. She suddenly understood why the psychic shouting had been so singularly driven by one powerful emotion—the bedridden figure was, quite literally, a madman. He would obsess about this one fixed idea until the end of his days.

“It is a terrible fate,” Benjamin said. “I would not wish this upon my worst enemy, nor even upon the person responsible for doing this.”

“Arthur Brennan?”

“You are familiar with him?”

Alex shook her head. “No, but it’s kind of hard to keep
him
”—she looked toward the bed—“from broadcasting it, and I’m the only one receiving.” She rubbed at her temples. “I didn’t realize someone could transmit thoughts like that.”

Benjamin frowned. “You have already done this yourself,” he said, his tone perplexed.

“You’re wrong. I read minds—when I want to, and even when I don’t—but nothing more.” She walked to the window and peered out through the crack in the curtains. “So who is Arthur Brennan?”

“A Sleeper. A detective. The one I hold responsible for this man’s current state of mind.”

Alex still had her eyebrow raised from the first in the list. “A Sleeper? They don’t exist.”