Dark Visions (17 page)

She fell and grabbed her lower right leg.
Her wails reached him with unnerving accuracy. Gert knew he
wouldn't be able to hear anyone in the trailer now.

He turned and crawled deeper under it,
constantly scanning the grounds around him for legs.

Dust filled his nose. By the time he got to
one end of the trailer and rolled onto his back he couldn't breathe
too well. He got his elbows braced in the dirt. He edged out from
under the trailer and looked up the side. A solitary window sat
directly above him.

He took one more look left and right. The
woman still screamed a nasty wail. He felt it resonate through his
body with a kind of joy.

He squirmed forward, clearing the edge of
the trailer. There were a couple of bullets left in his weapon. He
would have to do this right the first time.

He stood and peeked around the edge to get a
look at the main door.

No one was visible. The shooter was still
inside.

He took a large step toward the door and
threw his badge inside the unit. While the badge was still in
flight, he was hustled back for the window at the end of the
trailer.

He popped his head up and looked in. A large
man stood staring at the door with a gun strapped on his
shoulder.

Gert put his gun to the screen side of the
window. He aimed as best he could and fired all the remaining
ammunition into the trailer.

After the noise of his gun, the area had an
eerie quiet to it. The woman in the parking lot of the motel had
quieted her screams a little.

He ducked down and scurried around the back
where he came to another window. He eased up and looked in. The big
guy was on the floor with his hands clamped around his neck. Blood
gushed past his fingers.

Gert was surprised at how little he felt
when snuffing a life out. There had been too much killing and he
was growing numb to it.

The sun beat down on his back. He agreed
with it. This place was hot. It was time to go before people
started showing up.

He ran around to the front and jumped on the
stairs. His gun was empty, but he kept it raised in a firing
position anyway.

The big guy lay in the doorway. He wasn't
moving now, blood circled around his head.

Gert ran to the back and found nothing. He
turned around and headed in the other direction.

This was his last chance. He had to find the
girl. He had to get out of this place fast.

A wall had been built to block this part of
the trailer off from the rest. He kicked the door five times before
it buckled and broke open.

And there was his prize. His little
Automatic Writer. He aimed the gun at her, grabbed her by the wrist
and started for the door.

She whimpered and shook her head. She
appeared dazed.

A new plan formed when he stepped outside.
The SUV would be a much better vehicle than the cop car. He opened
the back door of the SUV and pushed the girl inside without too
much resistance. She was acting lethargic, cradling her head in her
hands.

He looked at the steering column; no keys.
Three steps got him to the woman on the ground. She was sprawled
out, sweating and pale.

"Keys," he said, waving his hand in the air.
"Give them to me and I won't kill you."

Her left hand moved. She pointed at the left
pocket of her slacks. He bent and fished inside where he found a
set of car keys.

"Good. You tell them the truth of what
happened here. Tell everyone who asks that I've got the girl and I
will kill her if I don't get what I want."

Gert turned to leave and then stopped. There
had been so many things wrong about this from the start. There was
no way he'd be able to go back living a normal life of small time
jobs.

After the cop was killed on the highway,
Gert knew his boss was lying to him.

There would be no other city, no other
kidnappings.

The team was dead.

His boss would want him dead because if he
was captured, maybe he'd talk.

He knew it was over.

He turned and looked down at the woman in
the dirt. The blood had slowed its exit from her ankle area. She'd
been applying constant pressure, trying to staunch the flow. He
noticed the sun glint off something in her hand; a cell phone.

Good. She probably called for help.

"Whatever you say to the cops will be heard
by the man I work for. Tell them that I've decided I will finish
this my way."

Chapter 39

Sam looked through the windshield of the
unmarked cruiser at the passing clouds. Some were dark with rain,
others gray and dreary.

"I wonder if the weather's gonna hold off,"
Sam said.

Dolan didn't answer him. They'd been on the
side of the highway for fifteen minutes waiting for the ETF to give
them the go ahead to approach the cabin.

"You okay, Dolan?"

"Sure."

"You seem tense. Something you want to talk
about?"

Dolan shook his head. "I'm a little confused
on this one. There's something different about this case."

"How's that?" Sam grabbed his coffee from
the holder in the dash and took a sip.

"I don't know much yet, but it's coming to
me."

"What do you know?"

Dolan turned and looked at him. Sam set his
coffee back. "I know someone close to me is going to get
killed."

"Close to you emotionally or in proximity?"
He smiled and then asked, "What if we get this guy right now? He's
supposed to be in the cabin, right?"

"When I first mentioned the cabin, I said we
had to work fast because the perp was planning to leave or was
leaving at that very moment."

"Are you saying he's gone?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Why would certain information be blocked
from you, but other snippets come through? Don't you usually get
enough of the picture to be more than fifty percent right?"

"Usually, but I'm being blocked this
time."

"Blocked? How does that happen? And who
would block you? Or better yet, who would have the talent to know
how?"

Dolan shook his head. He shrugged his
shoulders like he just lost a baseball game. Oh well, no big deal,
his expression said.

Well it was a big deal
, Sam
thought.

Someone whistled outside. He looked up as
one of McKinley's men waved them in.

Sam turned the car on and drove down a
gravel road, until he took the left hand turn onto the cabin's
private drive. He parked and then he and Dolan exited the
vehicle.

McKinley walked up to him. "Sam, we're too
late. Looks like they were here recently though. Come inside, I'll
show you what we've got."

Sam nodded and looked at Dolan. He was
staring off at the trees. Sam followed his gaze and saw nothing
there. A soft rain started to patter down around them.

"You coming in?" he asked.

Dolan shook his head. "Just get it over
with. I've got some thinking to do."

Dolan stood under a tall pine tree watching
McKinley's men coming and going through the cabin.

He considered that maybe everything seemed
different this time because the person he was trying to locate also
had a psychic talent. Could it work like repelling magnets?

He didn't want his colleagues thinking he
couldn't produce results. Yet he knew there would be signs in the
cabin to show that Sarah had been here; signs that would vindicate
him as a psychic.

He reasoned this would probably be a good
time to get more involved in the investigation. Get more hands-on
so it would appear to everyone that he was trying to solve this
thing too.

He stepped out from under the pine tree and
into the light rain. The air held a faint wet wood smell which made
him think of the Sky Blue motel.

He stopped halfway to the cabin.
Sky
Blue?
He looked up. Rain came from darkened clouds with no blue
sky anywhere.
Motel?

Where did that come from?

He trudged up the steps of the cabin. The
kitchen area held minor details of residency; utensils in disarray,
scraps and crumbs on the counter top, chairs left astride the
table.

He could hear McKinley talking about Sarah
in one of the back rooms. He headed that way and peeked in. The men
were standing by a small desk with books scattered on top.

McKinley turned to him. "It looks like you
are good at what you do. Fingerprints in this room at first glance
appear to be Sarah's. We'll have confirmation shortly. Now, if you
could just lead us to where she
is
and not where she
was
."

Dolan nodded at him, turned around and
walked out of the cabin. The rain had subsided to a gentle mist. A
soft breeze wafted through the trees causing them to serenade him
with a billowing leaf hum.

Someone shouting caught his attention. It
looked like McKinley's men had stopped a car from entering.

Then he recognized Caleb's voice. What was
he doing here? Was Amelia with him? He would have to deal with
this. They would want to know where their daughter was. Why wasn't
she where he said she would be? Was she still okay? It would all
boil down to one thing, was there still any hope?

He hurried up to the road. Sarah's father
was out of the car, using his arms to illustrate his frustration at
being denied access to the cabin.

Caleb saw him and called him over.

"Did you find Sarah? Is she okay?"

His face looked desperate. Since Caleb
hadn't seen his daughter yet and he wasn't allowed on the premises,
Dolan figured Caleb was thinking the worst.

"She's gone. We missed her. I'm sorry."

Caleb gasped. A small yip came from inside
the car.

"I mean she's not here. There is evidence
she was, but we're too late."

Caleb frowned, holding the open door of his
car with both hands. "So she's...whoever was here has left the
area?"

"Yes."

"I thought you'd done this before. I thought
you were the best. What went wrong?"

"Nothing went wrong. The information isn't
absolutely accurate all the time. I'm not a fax machine. I don't
receive a detailed list and then we all follow the instructions.
Only God knows everything." He realized his tone came across
harsher than he intended, but everyone needed to take a step
back.

"What are you talking about? Either you see
things or you don't. These are people's lives you're dealing with.
You can't send everyone on wild goose chases."

"It's not that simple. I wish it was, but
it's not. She was here, but she isn't now."

One of McKinley's men stepped up between
Dolan and Caleb. He told Caleb he would have to clear the road. Get
back in his car and move it to the highway.

Caleb mumbled under his breath and leaned
down to get in his car. He put it in gear and started to back
out.

Dolan turned towards the cabin to see Sam
coming out the front door. He was talking on his cell phone. A
moment later he flipped it shut and beckoned Dolan over.

"A woman by the name of Denise Hall is being
rushed to Liberty Memorial Hospital with a gunshot wound to her
ankle. Emergency crews found her alive along with three dead bodies
at an abandoned motel called the Sky Blue."

Dolan stared at him.
Sky Blue
Motel
.

"What's up? You look surprised."

Dolan realized his mouth was open. "I'm not
used to having information given to me this way."

"What way?" Sam mocked exaggeration.

"The name of the motel came to me ten to
fifteen minutes ago, but that's all I got. Nothing else. Now you
come up and tell me things I should've known. It seems to be
happening too fast."

Sam flipped open his notebook and scanned
down some of the notes he'd made.

"Apparently she owns the building and was
recently renovating it. The three dead men were security, although
word is they were heavily armed and two of the dead may be attached
to the Ward family. The bad news is yet to come."

Dolan nodded for Sam to go on.

"It looks like the FBI has an interest in
the Ward family. One of the two dead was an informant. He was one
of theirs. And get this. Denise says a teenage girl with missing
hair was taken by the guy who shot her ankle."

Dolan was struck with a thought. "What was
the woman's name again?"

"Denise Hall."

Dolan snapped his fingers. "That's
Esmerelda's daughter. Sarah said something to Mary Bennett about
Esmerelda's daughter; something about her getting hurt. So she is
psychic." He said this last part to himself.

"Here's why they called us. They found a cop
car at the back of the motel. It was stolen earlier in the morning.
Local police knew that we're looking for the guy who killed the cop
on the side of the highway and stole his car. They wanted to give
us the head's up. But they also had a message from this woman. She
said the perp told her to tell the police that he was going to
finish things his way now. She said the guy told her whatever she
tells the police, his boss would hear it too."

Dolan watched Sam as he wiped the edge of
his mouth twice. He looked disturbed, bothered.

"What's got me is the message from the
kidnapper. If his boss will hear whatever Denise tells the cops,
then that would lead us to believe that his boss is in our ranks.
The media is concentrating on the cop killer case. There hasn't
been media frenzy on the kidnapping so the only people who would be
privy to Denise's comments would be everyone working directly on
the kidnapping of Sarah Roberts. I'm also concerned about the dead
informant, not to mention the Ward family connection. This case is
becoming something much bigger than it already is."

Dolan looked away, thinking about Esmerelda.
The rain started again. He heard Sam's cell ring. He felt Sam
stepping away from him to get out of the rain.