The Vanishing Track (36 page)

JULIET RATTLED THE
heavy door again and pounded on it vainly with her fists. She looked around again, then ran back up the stairs. She had just reached the top when a burly man in a black leather coat tore around the side of the house. She screamed.

“Jesus Christ, Cole, you scared the piss out of me,” she cursed angrily, but her face reflected relief more than fear.

Cole was breathing hard. He put his hands on her arms. “Are you okay? Is
he
here?”

“No. I don't know where he is.”

“Where's Denman?”

“I don't know. Cole . . . Down there . . .” She pointed to the door that led to the shelter.

“It's locked,” she called as Cole headed down.

Cole got to the bottom of the stairs, stood back, and with a booted foot kicked the door in, the old wood exploding in splinters. Juliet followed quickly behind him.

The room beyond the door was in darkness. “Is there a light?” Cole asked.

“I don't know. I've never been down here. The owner said it was just storage.” Cole felt the wall beside him for a light switch. He found one and flicked it on. A bank of fluorescent lights illuminated the room. Juliet pointed to a dark, wet stain that snaked across the floor. Cole stepped into the chamber. It smelled like mothballs and mold and something else. Something dank and putrid. Juliet took Cole's arm and they walked across the room.

Juliet's eyes followed the stain. “The blood ends at that wall.”

Cole pressed his hand against the wall as if feeling for a pulse. He pushed on the wooden shelves and they moved.

“House of secrets,” he said. The shelves opened onto a second set of stairs that descended farther into darkness.

“Got a flashlight?” he asked.

“In the house. Do you want me to get it?”

“Not alone. We don't know where Sean is. Stay with me.”

Cole dug into the mess in his pockets. He pulled a out keychain with a small penlight that Sarah had given him for his birthday. “That's handy,” said Juliet.

“I'm full of tricks,” said Cole, twisting the light on. It cast a small, narrow beam, but it was enough to see by. They descended into the gloom, the stench growing ever stronger.

DENMAN SAW THE
cab pull up and Cole jump out and run for the house. He could also make out the figure of a man standing on the other side of the street, about to walk across, and knew for certain it was Sean.

Though he had been running for nearly twenty blocks, he pushed himself even faster. When Denman was only ten meters away, he shouted and Sean suddenly turned toward him. Denman half expected Sean to register fear, to react somehow to the sight of him running full speed toward him, but the young man's face remained implacable.

Sean seemed to buckle the moment before Denman hit him. They skidded through the sheet of water that had collected in the grass and came to a rest with Denman still clutching Sean around the chest.

Sean drove his forehead forward, connecting with Denman's left check and eye. The cacophony of the storm drowned out the crack of bone against bone. Denman momentarily blacked out, long enough for Sean to push himself away. As he rolled free he kicked his right leg toward Denman's groin, but Denman saw it coming and pivoted on the ground to block the kick with his own leg.

Denman threw two quick jabs with his right toward Sean's face, connecting both times, stunning Sean and giving himself time to rise to his feet. Then Sean was on him again, grabbing him around the knees and pushing Denman back toward a row of parked cars. The two men crashed into a car, setting off an alarm, and both fell into the garden along the edge of the street. Sean held Denman in a vice-like grip around his knees, while Denman punched at Sean's neck and ears, trying to break the man's grip. Sean bit Denman just above the right knee, sinking his teeth into the muscle of Denman's leg. Denman kicked at Sean and the two men broke free.

Sean rushed at Denman, his head low, but Denman easily flipped him. Sean crashed to the lawn, sending a spray of water into the air. Before Denman could lock Sean's arms behind him and hold him, Sean grabbed a stone the size of a grapefruit from the garden and swung for Denman's ankle. The rock connected with a loud crack, and Denman groaned. Sean lunged at him, the rock in his right hand swinging wildly for Denman's head. Denman blocked the blows, stumbling backward.

Denman could see Sean's face clearly. There was no emotion. Just emptiness. Denman backed toward a house, Sean raining blows at his head. Denman twisted painfully on his right foot and looped Sean's arm through the air, throwing him heavily toward the front stairs of the house. Sean landed at the foot of them, but quickly scrambled up and mounted the steps. He crashed into the front door, which exploded in splinters.

Denman ran up the stairs, his ankle throbbing. He could hear sirens now over the blare of the car alarm.

He reached the hall entrance of the house in time to hear Sean crash through the back door, into the yard behind. By the time Denman limped to the back of the house, Sean was gone.

THE HEAVY STEEL
door at the bottom of the second set of stairs was not locked, but barred from the outside with a metal rod. Cole removed the rod and pushed the door open. The smell was putrid, and Cole felt bile rising in his throat. He swung the light around the room and gagged.

Juliet pushed past him into the darkness. “Cole, here, on the floor,” she said. Cole pointed the light toward her. On the floor lay a body in a pool of blood. Juliet knelt beside the man and put her fingers on his neck to feel for a pulse. “It's George Oliver. He's barely alive.”

Cole swung the light around the room.

“Oh my God,” he said. There was a man tied to a metal chair, his head lolling forward. Another man hung from a hook in the ceiling, his arms above him, his face gaunt and pale. Cole knew without checking that he'd been dead for several days. The room reeked of bile and vomit, urine and feces and decay.

“Cole, help me get this man untied, and call for an ambulance.”

They heard feet on the stairs and Cole looked up sharply, his body tensing for action. The feet were accompanied by a flood of lights.

“
VPD
—we're coming in!”

“We're here!” shouted Juliet. She was laying a second man down on the floor as half a dozen members of the tactical team burst into the room, pistols and shotguns held at the ready, lights on their weapons sweeping the room for danger.

“This room is clear,” said one of the men into his headset. “We need an
EMT
team in here, and hurry.”

Cole helped lower the man from the chair to the floor. “You okay, partner?”

The man looked up at him, his eyes glistening in the darkness, reflecting the glare of the police lights.

“I've seen better days,” said the man.

“I bet you have,” said Cole, his hand resting on the man's arm. “I bet you have.”

NANCY STOOD IN THE MEZZANINE
of City Hall with a clutch of other reporters when her phone rang.

“Webber.”

“It's Marcia Lane.”

Nancy looked around her. “Are you talking on the record today?”

“This is just an information call.”

“Okay, go ahead. I'm just standing here at City Hall waiting to see if there are any more riots.”

Nancy thought she heard Lane laugh a little, then grow somber. “I've got two things. First, my divers have recovered two more bodies. Same scenario as before. Shopping carts. Tarps; in one case, burlap sacking. They were farther west along the pier. The heavy traffic in Burrard Inlet kicks up a lot of sediment, so these two bodies already had a coating on them. We haven't got a positive
ID
yet. It may take some time.”

“You said there were two things.”

“Yeah, we just got a 911 call from a house on Salisbury Street. I'm pretty certain we're going to find the other missing people there. I'm heading that way right now. We've got a dozen units there, including tactical. Nancy, I'm pretty sure the call came in from your friend Denman.”

“Jesus Christ. Juliet Rose lives on Salisbury Street.”

“I haven't got a situation report from the tact team yet, Nancy. But I'm pretty sure the guy we're looking for has been passing himself off as a volunteer at the Carnegie Centre.”

Nancy walked as calmly as she could from the gaggle of reporters and stepped into the rain, then broke into a run. It took her five minutes to hail a cab, all the while her heart beating furiously. She hit speed dial on her phone and tried to reach Cole, but he wasn't answering his cell. She then tried Denman, to no avail.

As she got in the cab she called her editor and asked him to send a photographer to the address. “Is everything okay, Nancy?”

“I don't know. I can't reach anybody.”

“I'm sure everything is fine,” said Pesh.

“It's just that Cole has a habit of, well, getting in too deep.”

“Listen, Nancy, there is something else.”

“God, what?”

“Well, you're not going to like it.”

“Just spit it out, for Christ's sake, Frank.”

“Beatta Nowak didn't show up for a meeting this morning.”

“Fuck.”

“Her car was spotted by a
VPD
mounted patrol unit in Stanley Park just after nine this morning. Look, it's only been half a day. She could be out for a walk . . .”

“In the rain?”

“It's Vancouver.”

“Possible, but not likely.”

“Nancy, these things happen.”

“I know, Frank. I've been at this a while. I don't take responsibility for what happens after I report a story.”

“Okay. Well, I thought you'd want to know.”

“Thanks.”

“Call me when you get there?”

“I will.” She hung up without saying goodbye. The streets near the Salisbury house were choked with emergency vehicles. She handed the cabbie his fare and walked up the rest of the way. Three ambulances waited in the road, their crews wheeling stretchers toward waiting doors. She could see groups of men standing around in body armor and carrying automatic rifles and shotguns. A uniformed officer stopped her.

“Are you a resident?” he asked.

“Press,” she said.

“Crime scene perimeter is right here.” He pointed to the sidewalk beneath their feet.

“What happened?”

“Found three people in a bomb shelter beneath that house there,” the officer pointed to the yellow house.

“Alive?”asked Nancy.

“Don't know.”

“Anybody else involved?”

“The woman who rented the place found them,” said the officer

“And the perp?” asked Nancy.

“On the run,” said the cop.

“You're kidding me.” Through the rain she made out Cole's dark, hulking form. “Cole!” she yelled over the hiss of rain and the wail of sirens. “Cole!”

She saw him peer over the railing of the porch and then rush down the stairs and run along the sidewalk, another uniformed officer following him.

When he reached her, they held on to each other, the two cops looking on. “What happened? Is everybody okay?”

“Juliet and Denny are fine. Juliet is in shock, but she'll be okay. Denman is in the back of that ambulance. Broken ankle.”

“What happened?”

He told her. “Denman tackled the freak, but he got away. The kid, Sean, he's the one, the killer. The police are setting up a perimeter. I think they might be too late,” said Cole, looking at the officer who had followed him. “I think the freak has given us the slip. He's crazy, and he's still out there.”

“IS THIS AN OFFICIAL VISIT?”
asked Charles Livingstone. He was seated in his plush office, his fingers pressed together in a tent in front of his chest, his body slouching slightly in his huge leather chair.

“Constable Winters and I are really here for information. And, I suppose, to give you something of a warning, really,” Marcia Lane acknowledged.

Livingstone leaned farther back in his chair. “A warning? That sounds ominous.” He smiled thinly. “It's already been a difficult day, you understand.”

“I do understand. This isn't related to the newspaper stories, at least not directly. Not that I can see. It's about Sean.”

Livingstone's body seemed to deflate at the mention of his son's name.

“What about him?”

“When was the last time you saw him, sir?”

Livingstone pressed his fingers more tightly together so that the tips became white. “It's been some time. A year, maybe?”

“Do you know where he is right now?”

“Well, he should be in school. He
was
attending college here in the city.”

“He isn't living at home while he attends school?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“That's a personal matter, Sergeant.”

“Humor me.”

Livingstone contemplated this for a moment. “My son has a problem with authority. He doesn't accept mine, or anybody else's. I won't tolerate that in my home. It's just too disruptive. Too disruptive. To me. To my wife. To my home.”

“So you kicked him out?”

“I wouldn't say that. He left; I made it clear that he wasn't welcome back. He's well provided for, I assure you. He's an adult, twenty-four years old, for God's sake.”

“Have you ever heard from him?”

“The last time I heard from him he'd been kicked out of Simon Fraser. He had decided on a new career path, and was enrolling in the community college. He was looking for more money, as usual.”

“No phone calls?”

“No.”

“He never drops by the house for a visit?”

“Sergeant, where is this going? I'm being interrogated without counsel present. I'd like you to explain to me what this is all about.”