Haunting Whispers (2 page)

The same female voice, too close and way too loud, responded, “Hey, can you hear me? Ms. Everhart?”

“Shush, don’t yell.”

“I’m whispering,” the woman said. “You’re at Kramer Hospital. Can you open your eyes?”

Audrey lifted her eyelids a fraction and pain streaked through her head like a sharp odor. She squeezed her eyes closed. “The light.”

“Kill the overhead, Trevor. Try again when you’re ready, ma’am. Don’t rush.”

The woman’s concerned whisper made Audrey want to please her. She inched her lids open and stared into eyes as green as Irish shamrocks. Wavy auburn hair framed the woman’s oval face and feathered toward full red lips. “You’ve got pretty eyes.” She suddenly remembered those eyes and the woman behind them—Detective Rae Butler, Kramer Police Department.

“Must be the drugs,” the man said.

Detective Butler squared her shoulders and stepped back from the bed. “I’m Rae Butler.” She motioned to the short man with stark-white hair standing behind her. “And this is CSI Trevor Collins.” The crime-scene investigator nosed the air in greeting. “Are you up for a few questions? I’ve just come from the scene.”

The scene
? That implied something bad had happened to her. Audrey blinked repeatedly to orient herself. She hated feeling confused and helpless. The sensation registered like a weighted block settling on an unstable foundation. “Where did you say I was again?”

“Kramer Hospital. You were brought in a couple of hours ago. Do you remember what happened?” Butler’s comments shifted seamlessly from introduction to interview.

“My head feels fuzzy. I think I was in the Grantham Homes development. Then I woke up here with you staring down at me with those—” She stopped, certain that disorientation had hijacked her restraint.

Audrey had heard rumors about Rae Butler in her year with the mayor’s office. It seemed odd that she could recall gossip more readily than the last few hours of her own life. Many of the Kramer cops aspired to emulate Rae as a detective or hook up with her romantically or both. Everybody seemed to like her. She was a good officer, friend to all, loyal to a fault—blah, blah, blah. Sometimes all the hype intimidated Audrey. It didn’t help to be dazed in her presence.

They’d met when Audrey was going through rookie school, a requirement for non-sworn personnel in the police department and other key city employees. Rae had been an instructor in the training course and proved patient and knowledgeable. However, not only Rae Butler’s professional skills had impressed Audrey. She was drawn to Rae as a person—as a woman—and that hadn’t happened in years.

Rae’s ability to discern the real from the bullshit had been so disturbingly accurate that Audrey avoided her whenever their paths crossed again. She couldn’t afford the intimacy that friendships required or allow anyone to distract her from her goal. She needed access, and her position in the mayor’s office provided it. She returned her attention to the attractive detective, determined to dispatch her as soon as possible.

When Audrey tried to sit up, Rae moved immediately to her side. She grabbed a pillow and started to position it behind her back. The gesture seemed like second nature, gallant and thoughtful in a way Audrey found endearing but a bit too presumptuous.

“No.” Audrey shifted sideways and took the pillow. “I can manage, thank you.” She couldn’t let Rae Butler touch her. She needed physical distance, especially right now. She fought to control her senses at the best of times, but under duress she often failed.

Rae stood beside her bed, confusion clouding her eyes. How odd she must find Audrey—an injured woman frightened of the smallest kindness, the most benign touch. She continued as if Audrey’s blatant refusal of her assistance occurred every day. Audrey thought that sad. “What were you doing in Grantham Homes?”

“Looking for a location to hold a press conference. Mayor Downing secured federal funding to revitalize the area and wanted to make the announcement on site.”

“You went alone?”

“I didn’t see the harm in the middle of the day.” Trevor Collins pinned her with a look that shouted “idiot.” She sensed his disbelief like a solid wall. Rae’s expression remained neutral.

“Can you remember what happened?”

“Detective, my head aches. I hurt all over, and it’s hard to focus.” She ran her hand over her head and flinched as she struck tender spots on her scalp and matted knots of hair. “Jeez, I must look like death riding a crippled spider.”

Rae flashed a grin that dimpled her cheeks, but quickly returned to business. “Anything at all about the assault would help.”

Audrey’s head pulsed as Butler’s words registered. “I was assaulted?” She remembered walking around the community build-ing, nothing more.

Trevor Collins grunted from behind Rae. “How else would you have gotten those bruises?” Collins either had little empathy or was socially challenged. She wanted him to leave but was afraid the request might sound like she had something to hide—which, of course, she did. No need to call attention to the fact so blatantly.

She looked at the purple splotches forming on her arms then back at Rae. The muscles in her abdomen contracted with the feeling that always accompanied her knowing. Inhaling deeply, she calmed the urge to throw up. She recalled pain and an eerie feeling of déjà vu. It’s only a few bruises, she told herself. Why did it feel like more?

Rae glared at Collins and inclined her head toward the door. She either didn’t like her sidekick’s offhanded comments or she’d sensed Audrey’s discomfort with his presence.

Audrey waited until he left. “I’m confused.”

“Are you saying you didn’t see who assaulted you?”

Rae Butler’s tone indicated she found the possibility un-acceptable. Most people who had never been victimized found it difficult to imagine the event itself or the ensuing aftermath. For some reason she thought cops would be different, or
should
be different. She wasn’t about to test the theory.

“I didn’t see anyone.” That much was true. “I was walking around the Grantham Homes Community Center and then—nothing. For all I know, aliens could’ve abducted me. I’m not trying to be difficult. Really.” How could she not know who assaulted her? She knew more than she wanted about most things, so how was it possible to be so clueless?

Detective Butler’s brow furrowed as she regarded Audrey with suspicion. She clearly thought Audrey was being less than forthcoming. Audrey couldn’t admit,
wouldn’t
admit she’d been assaulted. Perhaps this once her feeling was wrong. Besides, the specifics of what happened were still blurred. The sparkle in Rae’s eyes dimmed as she gathered her belongings and headed for the door. “Maybe you’ll remember more when you’ve had time to recover. I’ll be in touch.”

Audrey wanted to cooperate to keep Rae Butler here a bit longer. While her questions were probing and uncomfortable, her presence soothed Audrey’s unsafe feeling. Something more foreboding had or was about to happen. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of this. Rest now.”

When she was alone, Audrey tuned the wall-mounted television to a music station and increased the volume as much as she could stand to block the noise inside her head. She focused on Rae Butler, regal in stature with a handsomely sculpted body, her movements fluid and efficient. She got what she wanted and didn’t accept “no” easily. When Audrey failed to answer her questions, Butler was obviously disappointed, outwardly suspicious, and no amount of smiling could conceal her reaction. Upsetting Rae bothered Audrey more than it should.

She tried once again to reconstruct the afternoon’s events. Perhaps she’d become too good at burying unpleasantness. No matter where she started in the scenario or how she tried to creep up on the memories, something stopped her when she rounded the corner of the Grantham community center. She felt the violence in her gut, not to mention the aches and pains that dotted her body like a well-placed beating. The nagging feeling that she was missing something obvious seemed like a premonition.

Audrey didn’t believe in omens or fortune-telling. That was another world, another lifetime ago, and she was determined not to go back. She couldn’t explain to Rae Butler—pragmatic, logical Detective Butler—that she had a
feeling
about the incident. If she ever shared those particular hunches with Rae, she would have proof, and she would find it on her own.

She shivered as a cold breeze swept through the almost-airless room. This day seemed to signal the beginning and the end of something that would change her life forever. She’d keep these thoughts to herself, along with the details of her past. Such information would only stymie her attempt at a new and different life.

*

On the short drive from Kramer Hospital back to the crime scene, Rae thought about the first time she’d met Audrey Everhart over a year ago in the police basic introductory course. She’d initially been concerned that the petite, five-foot-five woman wouldn’t make it in the intense, physically demanding classes. With her wispy blond hair and wide azure eyes, Audrey appeared like a fish in the desert—way out of her element.

In practical exercises, Audrey had shown tremendous insight, almost an uncanny ability to sense pending shifts in mood and potential danger. She wasn’t as cocky as the male recruits or as reticent as the female ones. Audrey possessed a quiet intelligence that she wore like an old soul, a worldliness born of years of experience though she was only twenty-three. Rae wished on more than one occasion that she would reconsider a career in the mayor’s office and join the police department.

However, Rae had also seen other traits that would not have served Audrey well on the job—fierce independence and emotional sensitivity. Audrey seemed determined to work through exercises on her own while simultaneously safeguarding the feelings of others by sharing her process. Her contradictory approach worked for her. She endeared herself to her classmates while keeping them at a distance.

Throughout the course, Audrey had been attentive, absorbing information like a gifted child. Sometimes she’d regarded Rae with the same admiring look rookies gave experienced officers, and maybe a little more. Audrey’s gaze often lingered on her longer than necessary and seemed to hold unspoken questions.

Rae sensed the chemistry between them immediately, but convinced herself the mayor’s publicist was only interested in learning as much as possible. Maybe Rae had just been particularly susceptible to the attentions of a young, attractive woman. She and Janet had started having problems, and her ego was more than a little bruised. Fortunately, she hadn’t seen Audrey Everhart since the classes ended and didn’t have to test her resolve.

When she’d found Audrey’s hospital room earlier, Rae tapped and entered quietly. The ghostly pale woman lying in bed only vaguely resembled the Audrey she remembered. Her spiked blond hair appeared almost white against her colorless flesh. Nobody had mentioned an injury resulting in blood loss, though Audrey looked as though she’d been drained. Dark splotches were already forming on her arms. The thin sheet draped over Audrey outlined her delicate curves. What other injuries had someone inflicted on her?

Audrey’s refusal of her assistance with her pillow could indicate deeper trauma, past or current, or simply a desire not to be touched. The sight of any victim altered by accident or intent always bothered Rae. The fact that it was Audrey gouged at a tender place inside her. She compartmentalized in order to do her job, but her compassion for the injured never waned.

As she parked in the Grantham Homes lot, Rae tried to recall any information about Everhart from the city’s fertile grapevine. She seemed to work hard and keep to herself. If those were character flaws, Rae would count herself in that category since Janet left. Except for seeing a few friends semi-regularly, Rae had a social life right up there with Our Ladies of Perpetual Boredom.

She walked to the front of the community facility to join Trevor Collins, who stood with his hands perched on his hips. It was his what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here gesture. Rae had requested Trevor to the scene on a hunch. Another CSI had already processed the area, but she needed Trevor’s years of experience. “I know they’ve worked it once. Try again. We missed something.”

Recently her hunches amounted to little more than SWAGs—stupid wild-ass guesses. She’d virtually lost her intuition and instincts when her five-year relationship failed. If she couldn’t spot a cheating spouse, how could she detect anything else? She trusted Trevor’s eye for detail to augment her deficit.

“You think she’s holding out, don’t you?”

“Too soon to tell.” Rae really didn’t want to believe Audrey was purposely withholding information.

“Well, I do. How can she not remember being assaulted?”

“That’s why you have all that white hair—too much deep thinking. Maybe you should wait until the evidence is in. Isn’t that what you forensics types do?” Their banter had become almost routine. It offset some of the cruelty they encountered on the job.

“What, and leave all the wild speculation to you cops? Boring.”

She followed Trevor patiently and waited for him to offer something significant.

He pointed toward the ground behind the community center as he talked. “Everhart walked from the front around this side. Her heels left very distinct impressions. She stopped here for some reason. The imprint is deeper in the soft ground. There’s also a depressed area in the grass behind the shoe prints. Maybe a scuffle. Then drag marks.”