The Game (16 page)

Chapter 34

C
andice waited impatiently. She wanted him to return, badly. Never in her life had she felt like this about anyone. It wasn’t her style to fall so hard, so quickly. She was usually the one who needed convincing. There was no easy way around this. Whatever he was, she wanted to be with him.

For some reason, she felt like crying. All the insanity over the past week had culminated with one final emotion, the last one she expected. She could only imagine what he was going through. A small part of her wished she could experience what he had, so she could understand what he’d been living through.

It was nearly two in the morning but she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. The soft knock on the door would have gone unnoticed had she been asleep, but she heard it.

Candice looked through the peephole, but she didn’t recognize the man on the other side of the door. Her heart knocked hard against her breastbone, she took a deep calming breath.

“Candice?” the man said. She didn’t answer. “Candice, I can hear you breathing. Please, it’s me.”

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know this man. Or did she?

“Please, Candice.”

She spoke through the door, softly. “Who are you, what do you want?”

She could see the consternation twist his face. His eyes searched suspiciously.

“It’s me, Lukas, Vince, me…”

“I’m calling the police if you don’t leave.”

“Candice, what’s happening? Why don’t you recognize me?”

This man couldn’t be Lukas, he looked different. He looked somewhat similar, but there was something different about him. The confusion weaved through her mind.

“Please, Candice, open the door and you’ll see it’s me. Just before I disappeared, you told me you loved me.”

She looked at the phone in her hand, dialed nine, one, but stopped short of the final number. Her thumb quivered, she looked again through the peephole. The gloom of the hallway didn’t help. It caused odd shadows to paint his face. Maybe her mind was playing tricks with her. He couldn’t possibly know what she’d said to Lukas before he faded.

Against her common sense, Candice opened the door. When she met his eyes, everything felt right. She took a deep breath. “It
is
you!”

“Yes.”

She threw her arms around him and kissed him. “I’m so glad you came back.”

“Me too.”

“This is crazy. I couldn’t wait to see you. I haven’t slept.” She turned in a circle, stepped around a pile of boxes, and headed towards the kitchen. “I just kept wondering if this was all a dream or something.” She didn’t know what to do. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Are you moving somewhere?”

“I’m almost fully packed. I can’t live here anymore.”

“What about your job? Are you going to try and get it back?”

Candice shook her head. “The police know I was set up, but I don’t want that job anymore. I just want a new start. I made a formal request to end my apartment lease and I get my deposit money back tomorrow.”

“Where will you go?”

“I’m moving in with Zee for now.”

Lukas sat down on the couch. “I was right.”

Candice walked in with two bottles of beer and handed one to Lukas, then sat next to him. “Right about what?”

“About my name. It is Lukas. I know who I am.”

“I’m sorry, I was just going to ask you.” She looked at him curiously. “Who are you, right now?”

He tilted his head back into the couch. “I’m me. I came back as me.”

“What?” She leaned forward. “How do you know?”

“I woke up in a strange house. I didn’t know who I was, as usual. But I found out. I’m Lukas Raven.”

“What do you remember?”

“I remember everything…well, almost everything. I woke up in my house, the house where my family was murdered.”

Candice could see a profound sadness in him that broke her heart. Wetness welled up in his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly.

“I was thirteen, almost fourteen years old. My parents took in a kid whose mother died in a fire. His name was Angus Archibald. He was twelve. I didn’t know him much other than the fact our parents were friends. I woke up in the middle of the night, my sister was screaming. I ran into her room and Angus was on top of her, stabbing her over and over again. I freaked out. I ran over and pushed him off her onto the floor. There was so much blood.” Lukas’ face was wet with tears. “Samantha, she just looked up at me, she was alive but gasping for breath, she tried to say my name, she tried but it just hissed out. She died in my arms. Then, Angus stabbed me. That’s the last thing I remember.”

“Oh, Lukas.” Candice didn’t even know what to say. “I’m so sorry.”

“I still don’t know how I lived, or why I’ve been jumping in and out of bodies for all these years.”

Candice eased her arms around him. “Welcome back.”

“I wish I knew everything.”

“Maybe we can find out those things together.”

Lukas nodded. “I hope so, because something tells me I won’t be getting any more clues.”

“Maybe that means you’re here to stay.” She kissed him softly on the cheek.

He nodded. “I get the feeling I am.”

Chapter 35

A
ngus handed the clerk the credit card and smiled confidently. The cute strawberry-haired girl looked at him, smiled and said, “I need to see some identification. Sorry, it’s store policy on any credit card purchase of more than one thousand dollars.”

“No problem.” He slid his driver’s license out and handed it to her.

A frown formed on the cashier’s face. She looked at the license then looked up at him. Then she repeated the process, eyeing him closer. “Umm, sir, I think you gave me the wrong license.”

Angus plucked the card from her and nearly puked when he looked down. “This can’t be.”

“Sorry, Mr. Raven, I can’t run the transaction without a photo I.D.”

“This can
not
be!” He felt faint, confused, he ran out of the store, leaving behind the two laptops and two tablets. His breath was ragged, shallow. It felt like a horse was galloping in his chest. Everything had just gone impossibly wrong. The rug had been yanked out from under his reality.

He had been living as Lukas Raven since the day he got out of the hell they’d trapped him in. For years, no one had questioned him.

The only way he could become Lukas Raven was to kill him. And the only way to get his hands on the fortune was to kill the entire family. The fact that Lukas persisted, in a vegetative state, was actually a blessing in disguise. It was a happy accident. He couldn’t have planned that if he tried. He only learned later that if Lukas had died, the money would have gone to the endowment of Cornell University.

The moment he got out of jail, he started the process to become Lukas Raven. It was a lot of painstaking detail and effort, but worth it once he got his hands on the Raven family fortune. To make sure there would never be a mistake, he purchased the Iron Stone Mountain mental facility where Lukas was living, closed the doors, and kept only one patient.

By the time Angus put the car in gear, his panic had escalated to frantic proportions. It was a struggle to drive but he managed to speed off to the apartment where he kept Lukas.

The tiny one room apartment was just off Route 10 in Morris Plains. He ran to the door, burst in, and found the wheelchair empty. “No, no, how can this be?” He stormed through the one bedroom apartment but Lukas Raven was nowhere.

This was impossible, the man hadn’t moved on his own in years. He was an invalid, a vegetable. He couldn’t move, his muscles were atrophied to dust. Angus had a full time nursing crew to tend to his cash cow’s every need, to keep him alive, mostly in case he needed a fingerprint. The man couldn’t get up and walk out on his own.

He pulled the license out of his wallet again, glaring defiantly at the picture. A smiling Lukas Raven stared back at him. He didn’t look gaunt and thin in the picture, but youthful and strong. He was handsome and clean-shaven, with piercing dark blue eyes that concealed a strength Angus could never project.

He hated that confident and popular kid. Lukas had it all. The popularity and good looks, talent and skills. He was some sort of baseball prodigy that everyone in town used to talk about, while Angus had nothing.

This made no sense on any level. That was supposed to be Angus’ face, his identity. He went to the DMV with Lukas’ birth certificate and social security card and took that picture. The picture couldn’t just change.

Angus took his phone out and called Rena right away, but she didn’t answer. He hadn’t killed anyone in years, but he felt like doing it now. He didn’t consider himself a killer. He had been a killer, but he preferred to be the director. He preferred to have people like Caleb do his killing for him. He would kill for a purpose, as a means to an end.

Finding Lukas was paramount. He called the nursing agency, but was careful. There was no need to report him missing because that wouldn’t work to his benefit. If they found him he would identify as Lukas Raven, which meant Angus would have to prove who he was, and no one would want to help him. Angus Archibald was not someone people would believe. He used the name Angus Peckham in his private business to separate himself from the other two identities.

The nursing company confirmed the last nurse left three hours ago. The next one was due any moment. There was never more than a four-hour gap in coverage.

The lock on the front door clicked, the door swung open. It was young Sandra, a nurse from Home Care Services. She was one of those people that was neither attractive nor unattractive. Angus liked her blonde hair but not her thin lips.

“Hi, Mr. Raven.” She dropped her bag on the chair by the front door. “I didn’t expect to see you here this time of day.”

Angus didn’t answer.

“Where’s your brother?” She looked around, then walked up to the empty wheelchair. “Is someone else here?”

Angus had no answer. He moved in close to her and wrapped his hands around her throat. The feeling of choking someone was something he had never experienced, but he liked it. She flailed and struggled, scratching his face and drawing blood on his arm, but he didn’t relent. Even after she stopped struggling, he kept choking. After a few minutes, he finally let go.

His hands were shaking. It felt good to kill again, but this time it didn’t quell his anxiety over the situation. This wasn’t what he liked to do. He only killed for a reason. For profit, for gain, Angus Archibald would kill. This was a kill for the pure release and it did
not
bring him the joy he wanted.

He gathered himself and ambled out of the apartment.

Chapter 36

L
ukas Raven, that was his name. It felt very odd to be himself. He’d never had an identity. There was never a time that he could recall when he wasn’t adlibbing his life. He was always learning on the fly from a script that he’d never seen before the movie actually started shooting.

Feeling like a fraud was something he couldn’t shake, even now, because even though he had a name, the memories of his childhood weren’t complete. He remembered bits and pieces, going backwards from the night his family was murdered. He was recalling things in reverse. When he first woke up as himself, he recalled nothing. But after the diner, everything from that night flooded back in a deluge.

Samantha was his baby sister, a full year younger, but very bright and pretty. He recalled the face she used to make when she laughed at his silly jokes. She would stick her front teeth over her bottom lip and tilt her head side-to-side. Sam would be a beautiful woman now.

He always thought that knowing who he was would free him of the burden of feeling like a fraud. But now it was even worse. Now he missed everything that might have been. Lukas lived a life, several of them, as other people. But he never enjoyed the families. There was never a moment when he felt like he belonged.

“Are you okay?” Candice asked.

Lukas snapped out of his reverie. “Yeah. I’m just thinking.”

She touched his hand. “What’re you thinking about?”

He tilted his head back into the couch and looked to the ceiling. “Everything. My sister, my parents, what I remember about that night.”

“What do you remember, besides that night?”

“Bits and pieces, random moments in time, but I’m having a hard time knowing what’s real. I mean, I know it’s real, but it’s hard to accept that it’s my life. I’ve been a fraud for so long that I don’t know where to start being me.”

“How can I help?”

He shrugged. “I have some visions in my head. I don’t remember them happening. I just remember them. Does that make any sense?”

“Sure, that happens to everyone. Memory is a funny thing. My mother once told me that people create their own reality, their own past.” She took a sip of beer and placed the bottle on the box where a coffee table used to be. “Didn’t you ever play that game, the one where you stand in a line and one person whispers a secret to the next?”

“Yeah, in grade school. I remember it.” That memory unleashed a few others. And so it became apparent how it was going to work.

“Well, that game is a microcosm of life. Our memories, even our real ones, are all clouded. You’ve been other people, but things that happened to you still happened to you. And what happened to you before, when you were yourself, that was still you.”

“I guess that’s where I’m having the problem. I miss what could’ve been. I could’ve lived my life, been anything I wanted to, instead of trying to be everyone else. I wonder what I could’ve been, what my sister might’ve been, our family…”

“I’m sure that’s hard. And not to take away from what you’ve been through, you were robbed of your life. You had no chance. But everyone has those feelings. I wonder what would have been if my brother hadn’t died. I yelled at him, I told him to get lost, to get out of my room.” Her eyes grew with wetness. “He asked me where he should go, and I said I didn’t care, I said he should go play in traffic for all I cared. He got onto his bike, and pedaled into traffic.”

Candice broke down. She leaned over, her elbows on her knees, and he placed his hand on her back. He wanted to comfort her, but the truth was he wasn’t good at this stuff. Living as a fraud, he’d had relationships, but they were false. He never cared if he did the wrong thing because he knew it wasn’t going to last. Eventually he would move on to the next life. He was never in a life more than a couple years at a time before he was pulled away.

“Candice, you know it’s not your fault. You were just a kid.”

She sat upright, wiped away her tears. “I know. But my father, I don’t think he ever forgave me, so it was hard to forgive myself.”

“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that sometimes what will be will be! I’m not saying we have no control, because maybe we do. But I think there are some predestined threads woven into the complex tapestry of our lives. Maybe we control the color and the texture, but not so much the direction or path.”

Candice shook her head. “I don’t know. I like to think we’re the ultimate masters of our destiny. I think we forge our own futures by our actions.”

“Maybe so. But you have to admit, no matter how great our intentions, we are all compelled to make bad choices from time-to-time. We all wish for a do-over now and again. As we grow older, we definitely make fewer mistakes, maybe because we know there’s less time to fix our screw ups.” Lukas leaned over and kissed Candice on the head, catching her by surprise. “What happened to your brother — you didn’t control that. There may’ve been nothing you could’ve said, or done, to change that moment in time. You told him to get lost, but if you had told him you loved him, he might’ve gotten on that bike and rode away, not in anger, but in a blissful state of happiness. But he still might have ended up in a bad situation.”

She smiled. “I know…I’ve run every possible scenario through my head. He was going to get on that bike no matter what. He was going to his friend’s house. But I still should’ve been nicer to him.”

“He was a kid. He probably forgot about your words thirty seconds after he left the house.”

She nodded. “You have quite the way with words, Lukas Raven.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about things. I’ve spent a lot of time in my own head instead of in the moment. In general, after I learned the basics about whoever I’d become, I would kind of tune out their lives and try to understand what was happening to me.”

“That could be expected.”

“It was selfish.”

“Maybe so. But I can’t imagine living the way you did.” She sat up and reached across Lukas to the end table to pick up her tablet.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m going to research you, Lukas Raven.”

She moved close to him, holding the tablet so he could see the screen. Immediately they found some archived stories on the murders.

Candice scrolled through the story on the screen, reading pieces of the text aloud. “It is believed that the only survivor of the murders, Lukas Raven, was placed at Iron Stone Mountain mental facility after being medically cleared…a debilitating condition, due to severe post-traumatic stress, has left Lukas in an unresponsive state…an investment firm called RFM Investments purchased Iron Stone Mountain.”

“Angus.”

“Where did he get his money?”

“I don’t know.”

Candice continued reading excerpts. “It says the patients were moved to other facilities around the country. It is believed Lukas Raven was placed at Sunnyvale Heights in Portland, Maine.”

“Maybe we should call them in the morning.”

Candice touched his hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you in right away.”

“It’s okay.”

“It was weird though, it was like I knew who you were, but you weren’t who you were supposed to be.”

Lukas smiled uneasily. “Do I still look the same to you?”

She shook her head. “No, you look better.” She leaned over and kissed him softly, letting her lips linger for a few seconds.

After she pulled away, he leaned back and she placed her head on his chest. Lukas closed his eyes and sleep came quickly.

They stepped off the bus and the cold air hit them in the face. Lukas took a breath and turned his face from the wind. The streets of Patterson, New Jersey were cool and dry under the late afternoon sun.

The call to the hospital in Portland confirmed what Lukas suspected, they’d never heard of him. But their hours of research led them here.

Lukas held the smoked glass door open for Candice, and they stepped inside the plush office. The noise from the wind slipped away as the door shut.

“Can I help you?” the plump, attractive, bleached-blonde receptionist asked.

Candice smiled back. “Yes, we’re here to see Parker McMillen.”

“Miss Laguna?”

“Yes.”

“He’s the second door on the right. You can go right in.”

Lukas liked the office, the smell of flowers tickled his nose as they entered and sat in large pinned-leather chairs.

A distinguished gray-haired man entered the room wearing a black suit and silver tie with tiny pigs walking in all directions. “Hi, Candice, how’s your mother?”

“She’s good.”

“She said you have some legal questions?”

“My friend here, Lukas, he’s lost all his identification. What’s the best way to go about getting him back on the map?”

McMillen nodded. “What do you have?”

Lukas shook his head slowly. “Nothing.”

“No birth certificate? Nothing?”

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“What hospital were you born at?”

“I don’t know.”

Candice put her hands together and used them as a pointer. “He has some memory issues, amnesia.”

Parker looked Lukas over, nodded. “Okay, well it will take some legal maneuvering, but I think I can help. First off, what’s the full name we need to reclaim?”

“Lukas Christopher Raven.”

Parker furled his brow, looking hard at Lukas. “That’s not a very common name. You didn’t happen to live in Hackettstown at some point, did you?” Parker said with a smile.

“Yes,” Lukas said. “I did. I think I may have been born there.”

Parker looked to Candice. “Is this a joke? Because I don’t find it funny. I know your mother is a friend of mine, Candice, but I don’t appreciate people wasting my time.”

Candice turned her palms up and shrugged. “Parker, I don’t understand. This isn’t a joke. I’m trying to help my friend.”

Parker stood up and buttoned the front of his pinstriped navy suit. “Well, your friend is pulling your leg. I know Lukas Raven, he’s been a client of mine for several years, and you, sir, are
not
him.” He put his hand on the receiver of his desk phone. “In fact, I might just call the police and tell them what you’re up to. Do you think I’m a dolt?”

Lukas stood up. “Sir, I assure you, I’m not here to waste your time. I am Lukas Raven.”

“Nice try,” Parker said. “I’m going to give you twenty seconds to get out of my office. That’s twenty seconds to rethink your scam and drop this ruse.”

“Please, sir.” Lukas moved in front of him. “Why do you think I’m lying?”

Parker looked at Candice. “Your friend is a persistent con man, Candice. I’m sure your mother would be very disappointed to know you’re associating with such a character.”

Candice moved towards him. “Parker, I assure you. Whatever scam you think we’re trying to—”

Parker cut her off. “We? You’re going to admit complicity in this? I assure you, this is not something Christine Laguna would ever do. Your mother is one of the best people I know. She would be devastated. And what I know of you doesn’t fit into character with this kind of game.”

Lukas raised his hands, holding them up in we-come-in-peace fashion. “Mr. McMillen, hear me out.”

The lawyer took a deep breath. “Fine, you have two minutes and only because of her.”

“I wish I could explain why I don’t remember my life. But I have lived. I know how the world works, and I know you think you know the real Lukas Raven, but you don’t.”

Parker laughed. “You are convincing, a smooth talker…you sure you’re not a lawyer?”

“Can I ask how you think you know Lukas Raven?”

“I represented him. When he got out of the coma, he had to lay claim to his family assets, as if you didn’t know.” He shook his head. “I told Lukas we should have made this public to discourage unsavory types like you. But he insisted on keeping everything quiet. He didn’t want anyone to know he came out of the coma. I didn’t think it would take this long for some worm to squirm out of the dirt.”

Lukas suddenly had a clear picture of everything. Angus has planned this all along, he planned the murders, knew he would go to jail. He turned to Candice. “He planned it all.”

“How could he? There’s no way he could have.”

Lukas continued. “It was premeditated. He killed everyone to get the money, he knew he’d go to jail as a juvenile and be out in time to claim the money.”

“No way.”

“I don’t know how, but this somehow worked out for him. Maybe he didn’t plan every aspect, but somehow it fell into place.”

“Oh God.” Candice put her hand over her mouth. “RFM Investments…TRK Consulting. RFM, Raven Family Murderer, TRK, The Raven Killer. Has be been taunting everyone in plain sight?”

Lukas felt his head swoon. Nausea churned in his gut. A feeling of faintness came over him. Finally, he just flopped into the chair. His breath slowly returned. “My God, he planned this, at twelve years old, somehow he planned this.”

“He must have gotten your birth certificate.”

“From the house. When I was at the house, there were files and papers all over the place. He must have gone back when he got out.”

“This is unbelievable, how could he get away with this?”

Parker wandered out from behind his desk, milling about the office.

Candice moved closer to him. “Parker, you have to believe us. That man you know isn’t Lukas. His name is Angus Archibald. And he’s a killer. It was Lukas here who was in the coma, in a matter of speaking.”