Nightmare (17 page)

I sat next to her on the bed and only then realized thatJordin
was holding her digital voice recorder in her hand. Her eyes were
huge and her complexion pale.

I was a little nonplussed that she'd already begun reviewing
the evidence we gathered last night, having hoped that she would
wait until we were back in New York to analyze the data after
gaining a little distance from the experience.

The minute I was seated, she hit the Play button, having
already cued it up to what she wanted me to hear. She had the
device turned up so loud that our ears were hit by an unpleasant
level of static. But behind the white noise, a deep, throaty voice
could be heard.

"I like the blonde," it growled.

Now my eyes went wide as I glanced up at Jordin. I was startled
for two reasons.

One, managing to record a disembodied voice that was
so clear and easy to understand was all but unheard of. Most
recorded voices were garbled at best, and took the trained ears
of numerous investigators to come to a consensus on what they
might be saying.

And two, I was a brunette. So the voice could only be describ-
ingJordin. Possibly even threatening her.

"That's one of the best EVPs I've ever heard," I said, suspicious
that the recording had been tampered with or our surroundings had been compromised when it was recorded. "Where was
it taken?"

I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that question before
she said it.

"The room with the portrait," she replied.

It was an amazing piece of evidence if it was legitimate, but
Jordin appeared unhinged.

"Does this freak you out?" I asked.

She looked at me like I was crazy. "It doesn't freak you out?"

I'd heard tons of EVPs but I'd never had one that spoke of
me personally.

"I don't feel safe here," she admitted.

I nodded, understanding. "No problem. It's about time we
headed for our next destination anyway. You still want to keep
going?"

"Absolutely," Jordin replied, though she tried unsuccessfully
to suppress a shudder as she said it.

Jordin checked us out while I loaded the rental car. We split
the duties to expedite our departure. The longer we were there,
the more Jordin looked like she might throw up.

When she came out to the car, I made up an excuse to duck
back inside, claiming to have forgotten something.

Jordin remained in the car as I approached the front desk and
asked about the conditions of our investigation last night.

The kind woman at the counter-the Myrtles's caretaker and
historian, whom we'd arranged our stay with-smiled and assured
me that Jordin and I were left completely alone on the premises
overnight, just as requested. She winked as she noted that she
wouldn't have made such a concession for anybody else, but that
my reputation-and that of my parents-made it possible.

I was sure she would ask about the kind of night we had, to
make me ask such a question of her. But she merely smiled and
told me I had an open invitation to return anytime.

I had a feeling that if I ever took her up on the offer, Jordin
would sit that trip out.

"I don't understand why you're not writing this down," said
Derek, his voice growing louder with every word.

He and I sat across the desk from police sergeant Bill Rutherford, an abnormally large, muscular man whose dour, blank
expression never wavered as Derek related his story to him. It
felt like trying to talk to a pit bull.

"Her name is Carrie," said Derek, nodding at a blank pad
that sat on Sergeant Rutherford's desk. "Carrie. Morris. And
she's missing. Just like my fiancee. Jordin. Cole."

Rutherford had listened carefully to our tale: that less than
twelve hours ago, Carrie Morris had gone missing the night
after she found a strange symbol on her neck-Rutherford had
mumbled something that sounded like "gang-related" when I showed him the picture on my phone-just like Jordin Cole
before her.

Derek had insisted on reporting Carrie's disappearance to the
police, but I believed this exercise to be a waste of time. For one
thing, we'd already been blown off by a wire-thin elderly woman
at the university registrar's office, who had politely recited "dropouts are very common, particularly at the beginning of the school
year" as if she were reading it out of a textbook. Apparently it
wasn't university policy to consider every person who dropped
out without telling their roommate or went off on a drunken
road trip to be a missing persons case.

After hearing that, we hadn't bothered with school security,
assuming we'd hear the same line.

So we ventured out to the local police department, at Derek's
insistence and over my protests. I knew in my heart that there
would not be a natural explanation forJordin's and Carrie's vanishing. After a strange symbol appeared on their necks. After
they'd had a week's worth of vivid nightmares. Something else
was at work here.

But Derek wouldn't hear it.

"We'd like to file a missing persons report over this," said
Derek when Rutherford remained silent, looking bored.

Rutherford let out a long, worn-out breath and began rummaging through a file drawer in his desk. "Fill out one of these
for every person you want to report, then take 'em to the officer
at the front desk," he said in a lifeless monotone. "Just be sure
to notify us when your friends show up again."

Derek blinked. "Uh, no. No, no. She's not going to `show up,'
because she's mis-sing. As in, abducted. Taken by someone who's
still out there and who needs to be stopped!"

I got up out of my chair. "Come on, Derek." I put a hand on
his arm and dragged him out the door while he continued to
glare at the police sergeant behind us.

When we were out in the front lobby, Derek located a seat in
the waiting area where he could properly fill out the forms. He
flopped down into it angrily.

"I know you think all of this is pointless," he complained, "but
it wouldn't have killed you to give me a little support in there."

I sat across the aisle from him. I know I could have apologized,
but I said nothing, letting him get it out of his system.

Like campus security, the police department apparently dealt
with a lot of so-called "missing college students" who had a tendency to turn up drunk or high after attending some party that
got out of control.

Derek was still steaming as my thoughts went elsewhere. He
glanced up from his papers. "So why didn't you?"

"Hm?"

"Why didn't you say anything to help me out?"

I sighed. "Because one day I hope to work with these people,
or people like them, and I'd rather not do anything to annoy
them before that day comes."

Derek's shoulders slumped, understanding entering his eyes.
"Oh, right. The cop thing, I forgot. Okay. I guess that's fair. I wouldn't
want to take you to a job interview at a church. No offense."

I almost laughed. Almost. "The symbol is the key," I said. "That
symbol on the back of the neck. There's got to be more to it."

"I've never seen anything like it," Derek said.

"Yeah ... But somebody has. I think that should be our next
step. But I have one more thing I want to do first."

"What?"

I barely heard him, thinking again of what the woman at the
registrar's office had told us. "Come on, let's go."

It was late that afternoon by the time my first task was complete, but it was well worth the effort spent.

First we returned to the registrar's office and asked if they
could give us an estimate of how many students had withdrawn
so far in the first week of school. When the registrar lady tried to
give us the runaround, Derek did something wholly unexpected.
He seemed to sense what I was up to and abruptly turned on the
charm. And for a moment, I could see what Jordin saw in him.
I saw what others saw in him when it was whispered around
school that he was on the fast track to become one of the most
influential ministers in the nation.

He was capable of incredible magnetism and charisma, a
form of which he used to charm the registrar woman into giving
us the information we were after. I wouldn't have believed it if I
hadn't been there when it happened. He had her hanging on his
every word with a smile by the time we left.

As we were leaving the office, I couldn't help asking, "You
learn that from your dad?"

It was his turn to chuckle now. "All the men in my family
have what we call the `Hobbes Family Charm-you can turn it
down, but you can't turn it off' "

I rolled my eyes at his little family motto. Charming and
cocky. Yep, I could see that being Jordin's type.

Derek's father was the pastor of some megachurch out in Texas.
I didn't know which one, but he was extraordinarily popular, and
quite influential, appearing often in the media as a guest panelist or advisor on a wide range of moral issues. He had a huge following, which made me suspicious of him, but from the handful of
times I'd seen him on the news, he didn't strike me as a phony. He
actually seemed like a pretty down-to-earth guy. Someone you'd
enjoy watching the big game with, or debating some hot topic with
over a nice dinner. Derek had a lot of the same qualities.

"The registrar said that about ten students gave written notice
oftheir withdrawal or transfer, but none have dropped out. It's just
too early," he said, back to business. "But, I took the initiative to ask
about last spring and this summer semester, and she said twelve
students dropped out or simply stopped coming to class. You
thinking that these dropouts may not actually be dropouts?"

I shrugged. "It's just a theory. Needs confirming."

"Library?" he asked.

He caught on quick.

"Library," I said.

Three hours later, we'd found evidence in police reports,
college surveys, and one noteworthy newspaper article from a
reporter in Boston that provided all the confirmation I needed.
Whatever had happened to Jordin and Carrie, it was happening
at major metro colleges all over the mid-Atlantic seaboard. Over
three hundred in the past six months.