William Bernhardt - Dark Eye

No. I have to be honest. I knew who it was. And I knew it was for me.

“Yeah.”

“I have her.”

“Son of a bitch.” I clenched the receiver so tightly my fingers turned white. “Why Rachel?”

“I needed her. She’s the Vessel.”

“You said you cared about me, you bastard!” I shouted, feigning a toughness I did not feel. “If you do anything to her, anything like what you did to me-”

“Please calm yourself, dear. This is pointless.”

“I’ll make your god Poe look like an unimaginative grandma when you see what I can do. Have you hurt her?”

“Of course not.”

“What is it you want?” I cried. “What is it you want from me?”

“Now? Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Then why-”

“I just called to tell you that you needn’t worry. I have Rachel, and I will take good care of her, after my fashion. There’s no chance that you’ll catch me or recover her. So relax and enjoy what little time is left.”

My head felt thick and unresponsive. There must be something I should do, something I should say. But what was it? “What do you mean, what little time is left?”

“I’ve told you before, Susan. The end times are upon us. I have everything I need now. Everything.”

“Let me talk to her. If you really haven’t hurt her, let me talk to her.”

A long sigh. Followed by: “Five seconds.”

The phone passed. “Oh, my God, Susan, it’s him. It’s really him. I haven’t been this scared since that day when we rented a video just after my parents-”

“Time’s up.”

“Bastard!” I wailed, my voice hoarse. “You could at least let her finish the sentence.”

“I’m afraid we must go, just in case you’re tracing.”

“Can I talk to her again tomorrow?”

“I… doubt she’ll be… able to communicate clearly.” I heard him sigh. “I wanted so much to save you, Susan. But I couldn’t do it. And who else is going to try?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you know. Good night, Susan. Try not to make a mess of it this time.”

The line disconnected.

While they were all babbling about the trace and the recording and what it meant, I stumbled to my car and drove away, fast, before Patrick got up the strength or numbers to stop me. My heart was pounding and my brain was racing. A thousand thoughts cruised through my head at once. It was like being drunk without being drunk. Was this what they called a dry drunk? I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t get a grip on myself, on anything.

Except one thing. I knew where I was going. Gordy’s. Back where this all began. It was appropriate, no? Symmetrical.

Had I ever really thought for a minute I could give up drinking? Who was delusional now? The bartender would still serve me, I thought, and if he didn’t, there was a liquor store next door. Hell, that might be quicker. What did it matter? No shortage of places to get drunk in Vegas.

Soon as I got there, I parked, popped open the car door, put one leg out-and froze.

Not voluntarily. I wanted to move. I kept telling myself to move. It was as if I’d lost all control, as if some alien being had taken over my body.

I closed my eyes and saw Darcy-Darcy, of all people-in my mind’s eye. The autistic savant, the boy who didn’t comprehend emotion, but who nonetheless had given me so much emotional support. He was just staring at me. He liked me, I’d have to be blind not to see that, but he wasn’t happy to see me. He was sad. So sad.

Rachel wasn’t sad. Worried, not sad. I saw almost everyone I knew, Lisa, Patrick, Granger, the chief, my parents, my suspects, all of them, all of them, all of them.

David.

They were so sad.

That’s what he wants you to do.

I somehow managed to get my leg back inside the car and close the door, but that was such a strain that I decided to forget about trying to move again for a while.

Try not to make a mess of it this time.

My wrist throbbed. Throbbed, like an aching in the hollow of my heart.

“Don’t let him win, sugar bear.”

“It’s so… hard,” I said, even though I knew I wasn’t speaking.

“Naturally,” David replied, with his understanding smile. “It’s meant to be.”

“I wish you hadn’t done it, David. I wish you hadn’t.” I folded over on the seat, hands tucked into my lap, cradling like a fetus. “I just wished you’d loved me enough to stay.”

David looked at me with heavy eyes. “I’m sorry, Susan. It’s hard to admit, but-there are times when love has nothing to do with it.”

I lay on the seat like a pathetic baby, which is exactly what I was. “I don’t forgive you, David. Not now, not ever. I will not forgive you.”

His eyes only deepened. “This is my last visit, Susan.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you need to get on with it. And you won’t, as long as I’m around.”

And then he was gone. And I lay across the front seat of my beat-up car, crying into the vinyl, hurting, hurting so much.

But I was still inside the car.

When I woke up, I didn’t know how much time had passed. Somehow, all the smoke and cobwebs that once had fogged my brain had cleared, like someone had gone in with a mini-vac and sucked it clean. The aching, the craving, was still there. But it was manageable. I could make it. I knew that I could make it.

Rachel needs you, the voice in my head insisted. You have no more time to waste.

And yet I didn’t immediately start the car. I sat up straight and stared into the mirror. All I could see were my eyes, but somehow, that was enough.

I could catch this man, I told myself, looking right into those red, tired, mismatched eyes. I had the means, the gift. If only I could put it all together…

I tried to let my mind drift, free-associate. I thought if I opened things up enough, I might spark a connection, discover whatever it was I knew but my conscious mind had not yet seen.

Relax, I told myself. Breathe in, hold it, release. Breathe in, hold it, release.

I had been so sure I had him, back at the Transylvania. I could almost feel him in my grasp. But I’d come up short.

Pull back, Susan. Let your mind wander…

Had the three cheerleaders come to the Transylvania? Had the others?

Helen is a good girl. She would never do something like that…

Annabel was brilliant, an honor student even at MIT. I made sure she knew how to apply herself, how to turn heads…

The most important facet of the narcissistic personality is the absolute certainty of his own superiority, that he’s right and everyone else is wrong…

He’s smart, phenomenally smart. Deranged, but smart…

She made scrapbooks, just like I did as a girl. She even posted some of her art on her personal Web page…

My eyes opened.

Uniforms.

That was the key, damn it. Uniforms.

What did Helen have on the walls in her bedroom? What did she have pasted into her scrapbook, on her Web page? Not rock stars. Not TV hunks. Cops, firemen, doctors, pilots…

And what did they have in common? Uniforms. Where did she sneak out to in her black leather bad-girl getup? A biker bar? The teen stud club? No. The Army grunt hangout. Because that’s where she would find men in uniforms.

Helen had a thing for uniforms. She liked them.

She trusted them.

Tiffany admired policemen, firemen. She dreamed of one day being a cop herself, because she admired them so.

She trusted them.

There’s more, I heard a voice within me saying. Keep working it, keep digging…

Darcy had shown me the burn mark where the door had been forced, the door to the ballroom where Helen Collier was found. But why was that significant?