The Blood In the Beginning (23 page)

‘Training got a little out of hand.'

So I see.

Get out of my head!
I seriously hoped the hallucinations weren't coming back.

‘If you prefer.' She smiled, an icon of patience, which made me feel about five. ‘Tell me.'

‘I train in the LA-MMA circuit.'

She nodded. It wasn't news to her.

‘I lost it in the cage.' There, it was out.

‘After you ran away from Miguel?'

Was it on the five o'clock news? ‘Something like that. It's a bit of a blur.'

Her phone rang and she pressed the com button. ‘I'll take it in a moment, Chloe.' She returned her attention to me. ‘You cut loose in the ring?'

‘Yeah, but he wasn't holding back either.'

‘Is he smaller than you?'

‘Hell, no. He's six foot two and three times my weight.'

‘Who won?'

Not the question I expected. ‘Me, and it wasn't a TKO. I put him in hospital.'

‘And you don't think that odd?'

I think my whole freaking life for the last two weeks is beyond odd.

‘It's okay, Ava. Relax.' She pulled a file from a drawer. ‘I've dug around a bit since we last talked, at Rossi's request.' She pulled out a letter, signed it and stamped it with a seal. ‘Rourke is your best bet to gain access to the hospital records. If anyone can uncover your past, he can. The contact must be in there. You bring me a name, and I'll have it straight to Teern.'

Him again?
I waited for more explanation. ‘That's it?'

‘Question?'

I shook my head. ‘You guys talk like I'm in the loop.'

‘Aren't you?'

‘Not in the least.'

She gave a light laugh, indulgent, as if I'd spoken nonsense. ‘Drop this to Rourke on your way.'

I thanked her and left. Rourke's precinct was two doors down. One-stop shopping for all your legal needs. He was in, too, which was a bonus; at least that's what I thought until he started yelling at me. What side of the bed had he gotten up on? Damn, he looked like hell, and sounded worse.

‘You waltz in here, waving papers in my face, asking for favours?'

‘Um. Yeah.'

‘You think Dom didn't bring me up to speed on your session Saturday night? Jesus Christ, Ava! What's happened to you?'

‘Me? Where were you anyway? I wasn't even planning on going in the cage.' Sure, it wasn't his fault, but the question came out anyway.

Big night …

‘What did you say?' Rourke was a lot of things, but a clubber wasn't one of them. Then I realised I'd picked up his thoughts, not his words.
Stay on track, Ava.

‘You pulverised Jimmy, and by the look of you, he was holding back.'

‘He wasn't!' I shouted, then collected myself. In a civil voice I said, ‘The symptoms are morphing.' It was the only explanation that made sense to me. I hadn't run it by Tom, my usual biochemical sounding board, since we hadn't spoken since the incident. Call me chicken. But that was beside the point, because it was a logical explanation. ‘That's why I need to find my birth mother. I need to find her soon.'

‘Your blood condition is morphing into rage?' He didn't pause to let me speak. ‘Because
rage
is how Dom described it. Four men, Ava! It took that much muscle to pull you off.' He leaned forward, his brow creased, eyes blazing. ‘I don't pretend to know how or why it happened, but if you're caught going ballistic again, I won't be able to protect you. If Jimmy presses charges, and the juvie file is opened, they'll throw away the key. Slam. Clink. The end. Then it will have all been for nothing.'

Nothing?
He wasn't pulling punches, but it was true. If they locked me up, it was goodbye Ava as I knew her. No graduating, no saving lives with CDC. I'd be lucky to get a job washing test tubes there. No MMA club. No teaching street kids how to protect themselves, no future, at least, not the one I wanted. ‘It won't happen again.'

‘Seriously, Ava. It can't.' He relaxed a little. ‘My hands are tied if it does.'

‘I'll apologise to Jimmy.' That would not be fun.

‘You'll apologise to the entire school.'

Not unexpected. I waited until he leaned back in his chair and relaxed his shoulders. ‘So, can you help me find my birth mother?'

He re-read the letter from Jones. ‘This gives me license to look, and there is one place I might be able to throw some weight around.'

I raised my eyebrows.

‘It's better you don't know,' he said softly.

‘You mean child services was blowing me off?'

‘Maybe. I'll find out.'

‘Thanks. I owe you.'

‘Like that's something new?' He gave me one of his rare, warm smiles. ‘Be careful. There's still a killer out there with your name on his mind. I don't want you going anywhere alone after dark. Agreed?'

‘I'm not arguing.'

‘Though after what you did to Jimmy, I'm not so sure you're in any real danger.'

‘The stalker usually has a gun.' I tilted my head, storm over. ‘You're keeping the stake out on me, right? So we can catch this guy.'

‘Until he's behind bars, I promise.' He sighed. ‘You're our bait, I won't deny it, but Ava, no getting hurt again. Understand?'

‘Got it.'

He came from around the desk and gave me a quick, one arm hug. ‘Be safe.'

I soaked up the good graces and left.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next morning, I counted my blessings. I hadn't been chased, shot at or beaten up for over seventy-two hours. Nil underwater imagery. The bright sun beamed in through the east window, and I didn't even growl at it. After a quick shower, I headed to Kerckhoff Hall, best bistro in the business. Tom was out, and yeah, I was still avoiding him. He'd been staying at Zoe's, fallout from the other night. I felt like crap about it. My plan: bunk at Cate's. I sent another message to her, asking her to call me back. I scanned through the rest of my inbox and found a text message from Celeste, one of Daina Fleming's friends. She had a break between classes and asked if I had time to meet up. Perfect.

Kerckh in ten,
I texted.
South entrance. Spot U?

Tall, blonde, red rose tat on my left arm,
she texted back.

C U Soon.

I found her at a window seat, sipping black coffee and munching a bagel with avo and cream cheese.

‘Ava?' She looked me up and down, her smile fading.

‘Thanks for meeting with me.' I sat opposite and waved at the waiter, ordering a long black and organic raisin toast with sprouts.

‘You're not what I expected.' Celeste didn't appreciate my ex-army camos, pale tank top and steel-toed boots, it seemed. ‘You say you work for the police?'

‘I do.'
And I also lie sometimes.
I was doing research the police should be doing. Close enough.

‘What's with the Lara Croft look?'

‘I like to be prepared. Did you think of anything else? About the last night you saw Daina?' I studied her body language, ready to pick up any subtle messages. Consciously, things might have been all fun and games at Poseidon the night Daina disappeared, but maybe there was more to it than that. I opened to her mind as well. Why not take advantage of my receptivity to others' thoughts if it was on? No telling how long that would last; whether it was more than a part of the Discovery Channel hallucinations or not.

‘I don't know anything more than what I already put in my statement, but …'

I leaned forward.

Her eyes welled.

I wanted to look away. ‘But?' I encouraged her.

‘I've had nightmares.'

She seemed about to fall apart. I reached out and touched her forearm, and felt the fog roll in.
Whoa!
It reminded me of something, but I couldn't think of what. My coffee arrived, and we both picked up our cups for a drink. The smooth, rich heat cleared my head a bit. ‘Tell me about the dreams.'

‘I can't. They vanish when I wake up, but I'm left with a really bad feeling.'

‘Describe it?'

‘Dark. Empty. Like the floor is dropping out from underneath me and I'm falling.'

Poor chick. ‘You think something more happened that night, and it's blocked.'

‘Maybe.' She nodded her head, holding her cup with both hands. There were gold rings on her fingers and a pendant to match.

‘You talk to anyone about it?'

‘I told my therapist, of course.' She brightened a bit.

‘What'd your shrink say?'

‘The usual. That I was traumatised from my friend's disappearance, blah blah blah. Her absence had left this hole in my core.'

I wondered how much an hour they charged.

We both ate in silence. Well, I ate; she picked. ‘I'd like to talk to you and Rachel together.' I got up to pay. Celeste followed me. ‘Maybe that would jog loose a memory.'

‘Rachel's gone home for summer break.'

‘Before final exams?'

‘She's a fourth year art major. Her submitted work is hanging in the gallery upstairs.' Celeste pointed at the ceiling.

We took our turns at the till and headed for the door. ‘It's disturbing, but then, they all are.'

I looked at the time. ‘Show me?'

Celeste led the way. Kerckhoff wasn't only a cafeteria and study hang-out, or long-time home to the university press. It was the oldest surviving building on campus. Its Tudor-gothic structure had made it through the Big One — stained glass, students and all — no one and no thing was lost. That was thanks to the base-isolation system upgrade they'd given it, decades before the Big One. Too bad they hadn't done the same to a few more buildings in the area. Or all of them.

Kerckhoff stood tall, and the second storey held the student gallery, among other things. I didn't know what the current exhibition was titled, but judging by Celeste's description, there would be gore. Sure enough, as I walked in the attendant handed me a flyer titled,
Nights of the Demonic.
Great. Won't this be fun?

The rest of the flyer was cheerful enough.
This series is dedicated to working with student organisations and artists to showcase the weird, repressed and denied images that stalk our dreamscapes.
You'd think they were selling Neapolitan ice cream with how delicious they made it sound.
Gallery exhibitions aim to highlight the talent of students and local artists in the mission of creating dialogue on relevant social, political, and cultural issues.
And, apparently, archetypal and unconscious ones, as well. I scanned down the names and numbers, spotted Rachel's.

‘It's this way.' Celeste strode ahead, leading me through the partitioned maze of surreal and macabre images. Most of the paintings and sculptures were distasteful to my eye, not that I had a refined artistic sense, or anything.
Why did every new crop of grads have to keep dwelling on the devastation?
Yeah, it was bad. People suffered. The students here had only been kids when the Big One hit, like me. No local could say they hadn't lost someone. So sure, this shit was embedded in the unconscious, but enough already. Show me some sunshine. Happy days. A little comedic relief? We survived. There are things to be grateful for … I rubbed the back of my neck. That's what places like Poseidon did. Offered escape.
Into what?
The darkest world we can imagine? I shoved my hands into my pockets and kept to the middle of the floor, trying not to be engulfed by any of the twisting, gaping-maw images either side of me.

Celeste stopped in front of Rachel's work. She didn't look at it. ‘See what I mean?'

I did. It was huge, twelve foot high. Acrylic on canvas according to the card stuck on the wall along with a sticker dot.
It had sold? That fast?
I made a mental note to find out who the buyer was, then stood ten feet back, taking it in. It was a club, obviously, with tables and chairs, mostly unoccupied, ringing a crowded dance floor. The subject was a young woman, slumped at a table, her head turned away so that only half her face was visible. She wore a skimpy black dress, pearl earrings and a gold bracelet on one wrist. I studied her profile, catching the fine details of her features. The artist had captured a profound sadness there, and as I stared at the eye of the subject, I knew who she was. ‘Daina,' I whispered.

Celeste froze. ‘I have to go.'

‘Wait!'

She headed down the stairs before I could say goodbye.

When I turned back to the artwork, I saw what Rachel had painted into her ‘night of the demonic.'
Oh, boy, did I see.

The work was titled,
Last Dance
, with a question mark at the end. The irony was, the girl at the table wasn't dancing. Couldn't if she'd tried. The ends of her long slender legs were stubs, the black Spanish-style boots tossed to the side, still containing her severed feet. They were abandoned under the table like a pair of old shoes. That mind-tripping surreal-scape wasn't what bothered me the most; it was the image that was reflected in the single tear rolling down her cheek. I had to stand at just the right angle to see it, and I wasn't sure anyone else would pick it up, unless they knew where to look. It rose up like one of those hidden optical illusions that weren't revealed unless the eyes lost focus, allowing everything to blur. In the tear, distorted like a funhouse mirror, was a man's arm reaching toward her. In his hand, the largest part of him in the fisheye view, was a bloody knife. His face was nearly blacked out, but there were vertical lines on his forehead. ‘The stalker.' I shivered, taking in the mini-scene, sure of one thing. This could be the killer, but how the hell would Rachel paint it? Was she psychic? Clairvoyant? Or maybe just having bad dreams?

The minute I was out of the gallery, I rang Rourke. ‘You have to see something. Painting number 129, Kerckhoff Hall. Rachel Paddington's the artist, and the subject's Daina Fleming.'