William Bernhardt - Dark Eye

This was where Bloomfeld did his best to pretend he had a backbone. “I have a responsibility to my guests. They expect a party that-”

“I’ll cancel the damn party if you don’t cooperate with me! I’ll shut the whole hotel down.”

He froze, his face more horrific than any of their gargoyles. “You can’t do that.”

“I can and I will. I won’t let another girl die because you were too busy entertaining to help. Now you can deal with me, and we can go through your security contractor’s employment records, or I can shut the whole joint down. What’s it going to be?”

As if he had a choice. I held all the cards. And I had to admit-it felt good to be effective again, to be back on top of my game. Or getting that way.

Bloomfeld started gathering the records.

“Great technique,” Patrick said quietly. “Where’d you study, Nazi Germany?”

I suppose I should’ve been more respectful to Bloomfeld, since we were in his office in his hotel. Well, next week, I’d send him a Hallmark. Right now, I had a job to do. And some lives to save.

By eleven P.M., I had winnowed it down to five names. Five possibles who fit most of the criteria. The women were eliminated, of course. All the men of the wrong age group. Everyone who was physically too large to be Edgar. I classified them by economic group, by educational background, by family relationships. Anyone who listed a parent as a Person To Contact in an Emergency was eliminated. And in the end, I had five names.

One of them was Edgar. I was certain of it. But which one?

I peered at the pictures, the files, everything that was known about them. Darcy hunched over my shoulder. I had seen this man, damn it. I had talked to him. I should be able to pick him out of a photo lineup. Shouldn’t I?

Three of them were private security, where we had focused this search, but I was also considering a part-time tennis instructor and an actor who worked in the evening Spookapalooza show playing Edgar Allan Poe. I phoned Madeline and told her to run Net checks on all of them-to learn as much as she could as quickly as possible. I instructed Bloomfeld to round up all the suspects. And I let my mind do what it did best. From here on out, I knew finding Edgar would not be a matter of logic or analysis. Intuition had to take over. My instincts had to tell me which of these men kidnapped Rachel. And how to get her back.

The more I dwelt on it, the more I gravitated toward the three security officers. The tennis dude wore a uniform of sorts, but was it a uniform that instilled trust? Would Annabel, the MIT student, have given him the time of day? Judging from his photograph, he was a cute guy, not much older than she was. But somehow, I just didn’t believe it.

The actor who played Poe was an obvious choice-too obvious. If his Poe connection were that apparent, would he have given us the Poe-derived clues, the quotations, the literary death methods? I had seen this guy on television once or twice since the Poe connection was leaked, being interviewed as a local expert on “the Dark Bard of Baltimore.” No, he was way too high-profile. I didn’t buy it.

And then there were three. Damon William Cantrell. Jeffrey Henry DeMouy. Ernest Lee Abbott.

“What do you think, Darcy?”

Darcy stared at the pictures. His brain was in motion, I could tell that. But this wasn’t what he did best, was it? When he met them, he might notice the telltale smell of perfume or the stain of a certain kind of ash found only in Sumatra or whatever. But what could he do with a photo?

“I don’t think I like this one,” Darcy said. He pointed to the file photo of Cantrell, but I noticed he wasn’t actually looking at it. “His hair is like John Wayne Gacy’s hair.”

“Anything else?”

“Did you know that John Wayne Gacy is considered the most successful American serial killer? He made even more deaths than Ted Bundy.”

“Anything else?”

He tapped another picture, the one of Abbott. “I think that maybe I have seen him before.”

“Really? Where? In the hotel?”

His face twisted up. “I don’t remember,” he said-words I never expected to hear coming out of that mouth. But such was the irony of being autistic. He could remember chapter and verse about anything he read. But he was useless with faces. Some researchers thought autistic people didn’t really even see faces, their expressions and distinctions. Just a pink blur. Which would explain why they were so poor at picking up on visual clues, facial expressions, and body language.

Darcy was not going to pick the lucky winner.

“Where is Patrick, anyway?” I said. I wanted to get his opinion on this, before Bloomfeld arrived with the suspects. “He should be back by now.”

“I’ll go look,” Darcy said. He probably realized he wasn’t much help here. So he would be of use another way.

And I continued to stare at the pictures. Will the real Edgar please stand up?

I have to find Patrick Susan wants me to find Patrick and she’s so worried and scared about her niece Rachel who seems nice but I hope she doesn’t like Rachel more than me or she can like us both and is Rachel like her baby because I want her to have real babies and maybe she won’t maybe she won’t if something happens to Rachel like Mommy never had any more babies after me and Dad tells people that they couldn’t but they could I know they could Mommy told me they could but they weren’t going to because I was a difficult boy and they didn’t want any more difficult boys. We have to stop the Bad Man because he hurt those girls and he hurt Susan and he might try to hurt more people and it’s not right to hurt people. I would never hurt anyone. Hurting is bad.

I can’t find Patrick there are so many people in this gambling room and so much smoke I hate smoke I don’t know why people smoke it’s bad for you and it’s disgusting and it should be illegal it makes my eyes hurt so I went into the ballroom with all the weird decorations. I couldn’t see Patrick but I saw this guard guy and he was in a big hurry and I don’t know why I even looked at him except he was carrying an axe and that seemed weird and then I looked at him some more and I wasn’t sure if I knew him I never know if I know people but he smelled like someone I knew his smell was familiar and then he said something and I heard his voice and I remembered the guy on the street and all that talk about how tall he wasn’t except then he had a mustache and a different color hair and glasses and he looked different but he said something again and I knew it was him.

He must be the Bad Man.

He recognized me too and I made a joke about did he have any more good puzzles I could solve and he didn’t and I could see he was going to hit me just like the kids at school used to hit me and I should’ve done something about it. I should’ve stopped him but then I would have to hit him and it isn’t right to hit people it isn’t right and I don’t want to hurt anyone and I didn’t do anything and then he took the other end of the axe and he hit me and I fell down and then there was nothing.

“Please,” Rachel gasped. “I can’t stand it anymore. It hurts.”

“Only for a little while, my dear. Soon it will all be over.”

She’d been hanging upside down for far too long. Blood rushed to her head, making it throb so intensely she could barely think. “Where’s Tiffany? And the others. Where did they go?”

“They’re such dear girls, so eager to please. Nothing I ask is too much.”

“Because you’ve tortured and brainwashed them.”

“Rachel!” He tightened the ropes around her wrists and ankles, making sure she was secure. “Don’t speak like that. I’ve told you what is at stake. I’ve explained to you about the Ascension, about Dream-Land. About my sweet Virginia. The whole majestic plan.”