Supernatural--Cold Fire (22 page)

Though the similarities went beyond height, build and eye color, Chloe’s demeanor was, understandably, less troubled than Claire’s, despite her teenaged pregnancy. Claire remained on her own, having lost her father, whose body Castiel inhabited alone now that Jimmy Novak’s soul had departed, and having lost touch with her troubled mother. Chloe, on the other hand, had a support system in place with both parents. She was not alone and adrift in the world, at the mercy of strangers. Nevertheless, she had lost the father of her unborn child, a young man who may have shared a life with her. She may not have come to terms with that loss. Castiel doubted she could have. And the loss would only become more pronounced when her baby was born. In addition, Aidan’s murderer remained on the loose and extremely dangerous with an unknown agenda. Chloe hadn’t been a direct target yet; only men had been murdered so far. But that could change at any moment. They had no way of knowing where the killer would strike next.

Castiel drove to Lovering Maternity Center at a few miles above the posted speed limit in his gold Lincoln. Though he liked the car for what it was, sometimes his patience was tested by the need to cross every mile from one destination to the next. If he had his full Grace, he could have dropped in on Dr. Hartwell in seconds to satisfy his curiosity and allay his worry. For now and possibly until the end, he remained at the whim of stop signs and traffic lights and other drivers.

With a physical sense of relief, he parked the Lincoln in the LMC parking lot and hurried inside the lobby, assuring the seated receptionist Dr. Hartwell was expecting him and that he knew the way to her 321 North office. Compared to the stop-and-go drive to LMC, the wait for the elevator was a minor inconvenience.

On the ride up, he wondered about Claire again, knowing he would sense her if she needed him or, less likely, prayed to him. Okay, not likely at all. But he acknowledged the loopholes in that need for contact, desperate or surprise situations where she wouldn’t have time to reach out to him. And even if he did hear her call, he couldn’t simply pop in and help her. He had logistics to consider. He’d have to drive to her location or hop on a plane, depending on how far away she was at any given moment. Most likely she would be out of reach for hours, possibly an entire day or longer.

Now he seemed to have added Chloe to his list of concerns. She faced a more immediate threat and would not reach out to him personally, even if she were in danger. He wouldn’t know until after the fact. And by then it might be too late to save her.

He stepped off the elevator and strode purposely toward Dr. Hartwell’s office. His only recourse, until they figured out who or what was targeting the citizens of Braden Heights, was to stay as informed as possible about potential threats, whether signs, portents or gut feelings. Dr. Hartwell’s concerned call possibly fell into the last category. And yet, at this point in the investigation, any lead was potentially an important one.

A young couple stepped out of Dr. Hartwell’s suite, talking softly. The woman was about six months pregnant; her husband looked nine months anxious. Castiel wondered if fathers-to-be were so nervous because the process of carrying and delivering a baby was completely out of their control. They became helpless bystanders to one of the most important days in the couple’s life. The woman suffered all the discomfort and examinations and the pains of childbirth while the man got off relatively scot-free, relegated to the role of supportive coach. Instead of feeling relief, the man suffered guilt and worry in his secondary role. Or maybe there was more to it than that. Castiel would never know.

Slipping past the departing couple, he entered Dr. Hartwell’s suite and made a beeline to the reception desk, where the nurse-slash-receptionist transcribed scribbled patient updates from pages in a manila folder to a computer application.

“Special Agent Collins, here to see Dr. Hartwell.”

Startled, the woman looked up at him. “Oh—yes, Agent Collins! She’s expecting you.”

Dr. Hartwell peeked out of her office, saw him and approached, wearing a fresh white lab coat with “Hartwell” stitched in dark blue letters over the right breast pocket. “Thank you for coming, Agent Collins.”

“No problem,” Castiel replied. “You said—Agent Rutherford told me you had something to show us, possibly related to the Aidan Dufford case.” For some reason, Castiel didn’t want her to think he’d been eavesdropping on their phone conversation. Seemed better—more professional—to say he’d been briefed about the situation by Sam.

“Well, I’m not sure if it’s directly related to Aidan’s… death, but it certainly is weird, in a very troubling way.”

“Does it involve Cla—Chloe Sikes?”

“No, not directly,” Dr. Hartwell said. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” Castiel said quickly. “We met her here after Aidan’s death.”

“Right.”

“How is she, Doctor?” Castiel asked. “I imagine this has been difficult for her.”

“You do realize I’m bound by doctor–patient confidentiality?”

“Of course, I just wondered if…” Castiel cleared his throat. “She reminds me of the daughter of a close friend.”

With an understanding smile, Dr. Hartwell placed a hand on his elbow and directed him away from the reception desk until they stood just inside the door to the suite. Lowering her voice, she said, “Physically, Chloe is fine. Mentally? Psychologically? I’m not qualified to give a conclusive diagnosis. But I’m sure it is an emotionally devastating time for her, especially considering how near she is to her due date. Fortunately, her parents have been supportive throughout the process.”

“Good,” Castiel said. “We don’t know if whoever killed Aidan and the other men will target the pregnant women left behind. I’m glad Chloe has people close who care about her.”

“You needn’t worry on that account.”

“About that phone call…?”

“Right,” Dr. Hartwell said. “It concerns another patient of mine. I believe you bumped into the couple on your way out, Denise and Gary Atherton. Denise had her baby, a boy, and all three of them were asleep in her birthing room when one of the night nurses, Maggie O’Brien, checked in on them.”

“What happened?” Castiel asked, concerned, wondering how the doctor remained so calm if Gary Atherton had been eviscerated in one of her patient rooms.

“Nurse O’Brien saw something so strange and frightening, she screamed,” Dr. Hartwell said. She held up her hands to forestall any questions. “Before you say anything, I must stress that Nurse O’Brien is the only one who saw this… person in the birthing room. Her scream woke the Athertons and when she turned on the light nobody else was in the room and there was no sign of an intruder. Except…”

“Yes?”

Dr. Hartwell seemed to fidget, almost as if she thought she’d said too much already. She shoved both hands into the pockets of her lab coat and heaved a sigh. “This is where it gets weird…”

* * *

Castiel strode from the lobby of Lovering Maternity Center, out from under the porte cochère emblazoned with its cursive LMC, to where he’d parked his Lincoln. He had another impatient drive ahead of him, but as he pulled out of the parking lot, he reached into his pocket. He could pass along the information he’d been given long before he physically arrived at the Holcomb house. He speed-dialed Dean’s phone number.

“Cass? What’ve you got?”

“Dean, where are you?”

“Back at the Holcombs,” Dean said. “Just walked in the door.”

“Is Sam there?”

“Both here.”

“Put me on speaker,” Castiel said. “You should both hear this.”

“Right,” Dean said. “Hold on.”

Castiel heard Dean tell Sam to follow him into the kitchen. Anticipating the nature of the information Castiel might have for them, Dean naturally didn’t want the Holcombs to hear what he had discovered, at least not without a filter. The angel had to admit Dean’s circumspection was, in this instance, a good call.

Castiel wouldn’t want anyone who lacked the background and experience of a hunter to hear what he’d learned.

“All right, Cass,” Dean said. “Spill.”

Castiel told them about Maggie O’Brien, a night nurse at LMC who witnessed an intruder in the Atherton birthing room the previous night, standing over the bed where mother and baby slept. Though the room was dark, the nurse described the intruder as a woman based on general build and her long straggly hair. The fact that an intruder had snuck into the Atherton room was unsettling enough, but the nurse had screamed in fright when she noticed the long appendage extending from the nape of the intruder’s neck to the back of the sleeping infant’s neck. “But after Nurse O’Brien screamed and turned on the lights, the intruder disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Sam repeated.

“When first discovered, she retreated to the darkest corner of the room. Then, before the lights came on, she vanished, as if she’d never been there.”

“Anyone else see this intruder?” Dean wondered. He had to at least consider the possibility of an unreliable witness. But his years as a hunter left him more inclined to give anyone the benefit of the doubt when it came to unbelievable stories.

“Only the nurse,” Castiel said. “Other nurses heard her scream and checked the room. They found no trace of the intruder. Nurse O’Brien began to doubt what she’d seen.”

“Understandable,” Sam said. “But there’s more to this, right?”

“Dr. Hartwell talked to the nurse after the incident,” Castiel said. “She decided to examine the child. More specifically, the infant’s neck.”

“And?” Dean prodded.

“Dr. Hartwell discovered slight redness at the base of the infant’s neck and a tiny ring of puncture wounds. She intended to run tests on these wounds, but within a few hours they had vanished and the skin appeared normal.”

“Let me guess,” Dean said. “Doctor thinks she imagined the whole thing, right? Power of suggestion and so on?”

“She might have,” Castiel said. “If not for the picture she took with her cell phone.”

“She has a photo?” Sam asked, intrigued.

“Yes, she showed me,” Castiel said. “In the image, the wound looks like a rash, but some of the small punctures are clearly visible. I have a copy.”

A photo would be their first solid piece of evidence about who or what was involved in the murders. Assuming the hospital intruder was also responsible for the four murders. Dean wondered if someone else took out the babies’ fathers to leave the mother and infant vulnerable to the hospital intruder. “What about Gary Atherton?” Dean asked.

“Untouched,” Castiel said. “The intruder targeted only the baby.”

“At least until she was interrupted,” Sam said.

Good point
, Dean thought.
Who knows what she would have done if the nurse hadn’t interrupted her—doing what?—with the baby?
They had no idea what the neck connection meant, for the baby or the intruder. A mental link? A transfer of… something?
A feeding?

“How’s the baby now?”

“Fine, according to Dr. Hartwell,” Castiel said. “The baby was more upset by the nurse’s scream than by anything else that happened that night. Hartwell’s requested some lab work.”

“All right, Cass,” Dean said. “We’ll catch you up later.”

Dean ended the call and they walked into the living room where Sally sat with her brother Ramon and her grandmother, looking at them expectantly. He launched into a rundown on what Keating had told him about five missing pregnant women from the early sixties, back when Braden Heights was called Larkin’s Korner.

“That’s it,” Mary said, attempting to snap her fingers, but then merely shook her hand up and down for emphasis, index finger pointed at Sam. “The name of the town I couldn’t remember.”

“No wonder you couldn’t find it on a map, Grandma Mary,” Ramon said. “It no longer exists!”

“Larkin’s Korner is Braden Heights now,” Sally said, letting the revelation sink in.

“Where your great grandaunt Malaya moved with her American G.I., and also where she died in childbirth.”

“So Malaya died here,” Sally said and shivered. “In this town.”

“I don’t know the exact address,” the old woman said. She looked up at Sam. “But it must have been close, right?”

Sam nodded. “Braden Heights isn’t that big.”

“This Malaya,” Dean asked the old woman, recalling the beginning of Arthur Keating’s story about the Larkin family leaving in disgrace. “Any chance she married a doctor? Name of Nodd?”

“Dr. Calvin Nodd,” Mary said, surprised. “How did you know?”

“She married into a prominent family, owned a lot of land here,” Dean said. “Nodd’s mother was a Ruth Larkin. The town was named after the Larkin family. The heirs have been selling off the last of the lots.”

“Where are they?” Sam asked.

“They pulled up stakes, headed for Europe, haven’t been seen around here since,” Dean said. “After Nodd’s daughter skipped town, the not-so-good doctor snapped. Psychotic break. PTSD. Something. Nearly killed a patient during childbirth.”

“Calvin did this?” Mary asked, stunned. “I never knew. After Malaya died we lost touch with him. Except for the few pictures of Riza he sent us before she ran away. After that, nothing. We wrote him, but received no answer. We respected his silence, to grieve in his own way. Sadly, with Malaya and Riza gone, nothing remained to connect us… except painful memories.” Remorseful, she shook her head. “Maybe we should have tried harder to reach out to him.”