Those of the Margin: a Paranormal Suspense Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thriller Book 2) (20 page)

Derek spotted a four-drawer file cabinet in the corner. He raced his fingers through the contents of each drawer, but found only file after file of completed estimates of Jack's construction business, financial records dating back to 2002, an owner's manual for an LG refrigerator, and an entire drawer filled with Robby's art work, report cards and cards that he had made and given to either Jack or to Maggie.

He rummaged through the small, walk-in closet but found only neatly stacked storage bins filled with summer clothes. Derek glanced at his watch. He wondered if Mark Irish would hold firm to his ten-minute time frame. He had five minutes left if Mark was a man who stuck to his word.

Derek made his way back out into the hallway and soon spotted the rope that was used to pull down the retracting attic staircase. He pulled the rope much harder than it needed to be pulled, sending the telescoping stairs racing towards his head. Derek moved just before the solidly constructed wooden ladder raced past his head.

He pulled out his Maglite, climbed the stairs into the attic and looked for any box or storage container that
 
resembled something that would be used to store pictures. The attic was as large as the second floor of the Bryant's home, but only a few feet of the middle of the attic allowed enough headspace for someone to stand, as the sloped roof claimed much of the potential headroom.
 

He stepped around box after box labeled with "Beach Toys," "Old Records," and "Christmas Presents" before finding a clear, plastic container, filled with photographs and tucked at the far end of the attic. Derek kneeled in front of the container, pulled open the top, and with his teeth clinching his Maglite's beam onto the pictures, he quickly searched for what he was drawn to find.

As he thumbed through the hundreds of pictures, Derek could hear the strengthening wind whipping through the eaves of the house. He could hear the snow and ice mix bouncing off the roof and could sense the sudden and dramatic rise in the humidity level. And as his hand reached deeper into the box, as if it were guided, he felt a bundle of pictures, bound together by a thick rubber band.

He pulled the three-inch thick bundle out of the plastic tote and steadied his flashlight's beam onto the top photograph. It showed a young boy, no older than five, standing on a rocky coastline, proudly displaying the fish he had caught. The proud smile that creased across the young boy's face was forever locked in time. He would always be smiling, always standing, framed against the background of the ocean, proud of what he had accomplished in that brief moment.

Derek was captivated by his thoughts about the boy in the picture. His father had taken pictures just like this one of him holding a caught fish, his face beaming with pride. He wondered if the boy in the picture was Jack and if Jack's father was the one capturing the moment with the camera.

Derek thumbed through more of the pictures in the stack. Most were of the same young boy: getting on the school bus, dressed in his baseball uniform, holding up a two-foot rat snake. All pictures someone would expect to see of a young, happy boy.

He dug deeper into the plastic tote, pulling out, then putting aside picture after picture. Though he didn't know what he was searching for, he trusted that he would know when he came across the right picture. As he continued to find and then discard pictures, Derek felt the air around him turn suddenly cooler. A few degrees at first, then sharply, bitterly colder. A fetid smell filled his nostrils before quickly dissipating.

He snapped his arm backwards when he felt the chilled hand racing up his back and gripping his neck. His deflection caught only air.

"Concentrate," he said to himself, certain that all he had felt was a blast of frigid air sent into rapid circulation by the blowing winds of the storm that was reaching the shoreline.

He returned his focus to the tote filled with pictures, wishing that Maggie had better organized them, labeled them, and had somehow known that he would someday need to find a particular picture of a particular person.

#####

Trooper Girard, having glanced at his phone, realized that the 10 minutes Mark Irish had allowed the two priests to search for whatever the hell it was that they were looking for had expired.

"Father," he said to John Flannigan, "I'm sorry but the 10 minutes is up."

"That's fine," John said in response. "I hope Father Derek is having better luck. If Maggie did save old family photographs, she didn't store them on the first floor. I'll go and collect Father Derek."

John Flannigan intentionally moved slowly to the staircase, hoping to give Derek a bit more time. He climbed the stairs with deliberate delay, pausing after each trio of steps, pretending to catch his breath.

"I'm still recovering from a bit of bronchitis," he lied to Trooper Girard, then immediately and silently asked for forgiveness.
"All in the hopes of helping Maggie,"
he silently added to his prayer.

John was still six steps away from the second floor when he heard the noises. At first, he thought that the storm outside had collected and focused its strength and released an instant torrent of wind. But the sound he heard was more of a crashing sound, followed by a sustained silence. The silence ended with the distinctive thud an object makes after being thrown into an immovable object. The grunt and guttural scream confirmed his suspicion.

"Derek," he yelled as he bounded up the few remaining stairs. "Trooper Girard, quickly!"
 

As he reached out towards the attic stairs, the retracting staircase was suddenly pulled up and slammed back into its closed position, sending deep cracks into the sheet-rocked ceiling.

Trooper Girard reached the top of the stairs within seconds after hearing the crashing sounds coming from the attic. He stood next to John, pistol drawn in his excited haste.

"Is he alone up there?" he asked.

"Doesn't sound that way to me," John said. "Help me get the stairs pulled down."

Mark Irish was soon up the stairs and was pulling on the rope used to release the attic stairs. Both troopers pulled as hard as they could. When the concealed staircase began to open, it was quickly and powerfully pulled back into place, furthering the cracks that were now extending several feet down the hallway ceiling.

"Father Derek," Mark yelled. "Can you hear me?"

There was no answer.

"Try the rope again, quickly," John said.

"Derek, can you hear me?" Mark said as he, John, and Trooper Girard grabbed hold of the thin rope and, in unison, pulled hard. As the three were pulling, another thud was heard directly over their heads. Instantly, the resistance holding the attic staircase was released and the telescoping stairs raced open.
 

It happened so fast that none of the three were prepared to catch or at least break his fall when Derek, who must have been lying on top of the stairs, came crashing to the floor. His unconscious body sliding in an awkward position down each step until his decent had ended in a twisted form.

"Call 911," Mark ordered to Girard. "And get another trooper up here now."

Mark drew his modified Glock 23, removed and clicked on his flashlight, then climbed the stairs cautiously. He paused when his head and shoulders were above the ceiling.

"Who's up here?" he called, his voice betraying his desire to appear calm. "Come out with your hands above your head."

He flashed his light nervously around the attic. When another trooper arrived in the upstairs hallway, he motioned for the trooper to follow as he climbed the rest of the way into the attic.

John gently pulled Derek away from the stairs and placed him in a more comfortable-looking position. Though he had no medical training, John could tell that Derek's face had been scratched and bruised and that his right shoulder was in a position that it shouldn't be in.

"Derek," John said as he cradled Derek's face, "can you hear me?"

Derek's eyes fluttered before his face grimaced with his realization of the pain his body was saving for him until he regained consciousness.

"Don't move," John said, grateful that Derek was awake. "The ambulance is on its way."

"Hold the picture," Derek said. "I found it."

John looked to Derek's right hand and removed a crumbled up photograph. Though he didn't take the time to inspect the picture closely, he saw that the photograph held the frozen images of a man and a young man, who looked to be no older than 15.

"It's him," Derek said, now fully aware of both his surroundings and of the pain in his shoulder. "It's Phillip."

#####

The ambulance brought an even greater sense of worry to the neighborhood. The flashing lights bounced in a disconcerting fashion off the hibernating light bars of the three trooper cars parked in the Bryant's driveway. The promised winter storm had arrived, keeping neighbors inside their homes, but curtains and shades were drawn open in the homes of the curious and concerned.

The two paramedics who responded to the 911 call were tentative in their approach. They knew, from their extensive training, to assume that a home with multiple police cars parked in the driveway represented a potentially dangerous situation. After they were assured by the trooper who met them at the front door that the situation was under control, they proceeded quickly to diagnose, stabilize, and lift Derek onto the stair-chair and out into their warm ambulance.

"Tell me exactly what happened to you up in that attic," Mark Irish asked Derek as he sat beside him in the back of the ambulance.

"I have no idea," Derek said. "I felt something grab my neck, then pull me backwards so fast that I couldn't catch my balance. After that, all I remember is the feeling of being thrown."

"Did you see anyone, Father?"

"I don't think there was anyone to see."

"What do you mean?" Mark asked.

"I don't know what I mean. I'm sorry."

"You get to the hospital and get yourself fixed up, Father. I'll catch up with you later and will let you know what we find up in that attic." Mark opened the rear door of the ambulance and slipped out of Derek's sight.
 

With Mark out of their way, the paramedics resumed treating Derek. One of the paramedics mentioned that getting to the hospital would take a bit longer than normal, due to the storm.

"It's getting pretty bad out here. May be a slippery ride to the hospital."

"I can't go to the hospital," Derek demanded.
 

"Your shoulder is definitely dislocated and possibly broken. Plus, I'd bet you have a concussion."

"I'll sign off that I refused to go to the hospital. Just set my shoulder, and I'll be fine."

"Father," the paramedic said, "we aren't supposed to do anything except immobilize your shoulder. You may need surgery, and if I pop it back into place, I could cause more damage."

"Someone's life may depend on me not going to the hospital. I need you to pop it back into place."

"Father, I don't know. Someone's life?"

"Yes, my child. Please."

The paramedic waited until the troopers had moved away from the ambulance. He shut the rear doors and asked his associate to "take a quick walk" before the he got face to face with Derek.

"This is gonna hurt like hell."

Grabbing Derek's humerus bone with one hand and stabilizing his shoulder with the other, the paramedic closed his eyes and slowly rotated Derek's arm. He was going by feel and was waiting until he could feel that the humerus was in proper alignment with the shoulder socket. Without pause or warning, the paramedic tugged firmly on Derek's arm then pressed hard on his shoulder socket.

The grinding sounds emanating from his shoulder, though expected, nearly caused Derek to lose track of reality and fall into a spinning world of nausea and pain. But it was the popping sound that shocked Derek the most. His intended stifled scream came howling out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Maggie knew she was driving too fast considering the weather conditions, though the speedometer in the car she had borrowed from John Flannigan was only reading 33 mph. The snow was falling in heavy waves, driven in dizzying circles by the ocean's wind. She risked taking her eyes off the road to find her cell phone. She dialed Jack's number then slammed the phone onto the passenger's seat when her call went directly to voicemail.

"This is Jack. Leave a message."

"Damn it," she said as she applied a bit more force to the gas pedal.

By the time she saw the signs indicating that Kennebunkport was five miles ahead, Maggie could see no further than a few feet beyond the windshield. The blowing winds had stabilized into sustained gale strength winds that were experts at finding gaps in the seals of John Flannigan's car and filling the car with high-pitched whistles. Maggie glanced at her speed. Ten miles per hour with at least 20 miles left before she arrived at where she believed Jack had brought Robby.

"You better not let anything happen to him," she said as she imagined Jack in her mind's eye. "Nothing."

#####

"Are you serious? Your arm must be killing you, and you want to go chase after a ghost?" John Flannigan was mired in disbelief and doubt when Derek handed him the keys to his car and told him that he needed to drive. "You're as white as a ghost, pardon the cliché," he said after Derek had dismissed Mark Irish's request for Derek to provide more details about what happened to him in the attic, and instead opened the passenger's side door of his car and sat down in an uncomfortable, twisting fall. "Why won't you answer my questions?" John asked before surrendering his concerns and taking his place behind the steering wheel.

"Father," Derek said, his voice muffled as he battled against the moans of pain from emerging, "I know who Phillip is, and I know why he calls himself 'Phillip.'"

"No offense," John said, "but who the hell cares? Maggie is who-knows-where and Jack has Robby. Why the hell do you think that knowing who Phillip is will help anything?"

"I know where Jack is."

"You figured out where Jack is by looking at a picture?" John said. He then remembered that he was still holding the picture Derek had given him. Before putting the car into gear, he studied the picture.