Iris Johansen - Pandora's Daughter

"Do you want a cup of coffee?" Grady asked.

She shook her head.

"How about a walk?"

She frowned. "At midnight? What are you trying to do?"

"Waiting is always hard."

And, as usual, Grady could sense what she was feeling. "I'll be fine." She sat down at her computer. "I can keep myself busy."

She could feel Grady's gaze on her back and a moment later the door closed behind him.

Distraction was the name of the game. It's only three hours…

CARMEGUE CIRCUS.

The banner over the fairgrounds was a bit faded, but the red script was bold and joyous. The same shade of red in the stripes on the big top tent in the center of the fairgrounds.

It was after three in the morning and the fairways were deserted and the booths closed.

"Edmund Gillem's trailer is on the far side of the grounds," Grady murmured. "It's being used by one of the roustabouts, Pierre Jacminot, but Harley bribed him to go into town for the night. He should have left the door unlocked."

"I'm relieved we're not going to be arrested for breaking and entering." She followed him down the fairway. It was tense and a little eerie walking down this aisle that was usually crowded with busy, happy people and that was now dark and without life.

And the trailer where she was headed was also without life. It was the place where a man had killed himself in that terrible way.

"I wouldn't be that inefficient," Grady said. "You have enough to face without dealing with the local gendarmes."

"Maybe." She could see the small silver trailer gleaming in the distance. Her palms were cold and sweating. "What if Edmund doesn't come to the party?"

"Then you'll be relieved and I'll have to find another path to follow." His gaze was also fastened on the trailer. "You could put it off until tomorrow."

"I've always hated procrastinators. I won't be one, Grady." They had arrived at the door of the trailer. "Let's just get me in there."

"Right away." He opened the door and stepped aside. He handed her a small flashlight. "Don't turn on the lights. You're sure you don't want me with you?"

"At the moment I'd welcome anyone, even Dracula, with me in this trailer." She stepped up into the darkness of the trailer and was immediately assaulted with the smell of lemon polish and sweat. "I'm okay." She slammed the door behind her.

Darkness.

Isolation.

She couldn't get rid of the isolation, but she could do something about the darkness. She turned on the flashlight.

She was standing in a tiny room with a comfortable-looking hideabed couch and a TV on a stand. An even tinier kitchenette led off the room. A black sweatshirt was tossed on the back of the couch.

Edmund's sweatshirt?

No, what was she thinking? It had to belong to the roustabout, Pierre… what's his name, who had taken over this trailer after Edmund's death. It just seemed that everything that concerned her was connected and focused on Edmund Gillem. She could feel him here.

Imagination.

Or not.

What did she do now? She didn't want to sit on that couch. She didn't want to touch anything that had belonged to Edmund. She sank down on the floor beside the door and played the beam of her flashlight around the room. A landscape print of a poppy field hung above the TV. The furniture was cheap and well used, but the carpet was gray and looked brand-new. She lifted the beam to the walls. They were wood-paneled and the surface also appeared old and discolored.

Except for a lighter, two-foot square beside the curtains. The square was an entirely different color than the rest of the walls. A photo or picture must have once occupied that spot.

Or a mirror.

He cut his throat with a jagged piece of mirror.

New carpet.

Because the bloodstains would not come out of the old one?

Lord, she felt sick.

Poor man.

He was a good man. I think I would have liked him.

Were you a good man, Edmund?

What made you take your life?

An overwhelming sadness enveloped her. Life was precious and Edmund's mental agony must have been exceptional to lead him to want to leave it.

Well, it was time to stop wondering and see if this so-called gift she possessed was only a fluke or if she could really find out the answers to those questions.

She drew a deep breath and turned off her flashlight. It was pitch-dark but in her mind's eye she could still see the bareness of the wall where the mirror had once hung.

Edmund…

She braced herself and slowly, tentatively, opened herself to the voices.

Nothing. No whisper. No roar. Nothing.

Relief poured through her. She had tried. She had done what she had promised. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't hear anything. Perhaps it was a fluke after all.

And then they came.

A scream of agony so intense that it hurt Megan to the bone.

"Tell us. Don't be a fool, Gillem. Where's the Ledger?"

"No," a broken gasp. "I'll never tell you, Molino. You'd only kill me anyway."

"Perhaps not. Try me."

"No."

"Sienna, continue to persuade him."

Another long drawn-out cry of pain.

"We know you don't have it here. Where have you hidden it?"

"I never… had the Ledger."

"But you know who does. Who has it now, Gillem?"

"I don't… know."

"Start on his testicals, Sienna."

Another shriek that made Megan press back against the wall as if the pain was being inflicted on her body, not Edmund's. Make it stop, Edmund. Tell them. Don't let them hurt you anymore.

"Why protect them, Gillem? They're only freaks. They wouldn't help you. Not those Finders or Listeners or Mind Readers. Probably most of them are phonies anyway."

"Then why do you want to find them?" Edmund gasped. Molino didn't answer. "Tell me about the Pandoras."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Who are they? How many?"

" I don't know -"

"I'm getting impatient. The Ledger. Sienna, do it." Edmund screamed again. But he didn't tell them.

The pain went on, the screams echoed on and on.

"No," she whispered. She curled up in a ball on the floor.

"They're hurting us, Edmund. It's not worth it. Tell them…" What could be so important that would keep him silent while enduring punishment like this? But it had been important enough to him. He could barely mutter his refusals now, but he wouldn't give them what they wanted.

Brave, she thought dimly, and good. Good men should not be tormented like this.

God, she wanted to close them all out. She felt as if she was joined to Edmund and the pain was unbearable.

She couldn't do it. She wouldn't do it. It was if they were joined and she could feel his terrible loneliness. "It's okay, Edmund. I won't leave you alone." She reached jerkily up and locked the door before burying her head in the crook of her arm. "Play it out. You're not by yourself this time. I'll stay with you… until the end."

HE HAD TO GET IN THERE. To hell with his promise.

Grady's nails bit into his palms as his hands clenched. Pain was swirling around Megan with tornado force.

"What's happening?" Harley was coming toward him. "You look as if you're about to tear the trailer apart."

"If I can, I will. She locked the damn door."

"And you're not trusting her to come out on her own?"

"She's hurting . I'm going to go back to the car and get a crowbar."

"That would take time. Let me see what I can do." He bent to examine the lock. "Did I tell you I was once a locksmith?"

"No."

"Good, it would have been a lie. But during my misspent youth I did dabble in safecracking."