What Hides Within (34 page)

"Nice try, Kevin. I'm not going down for your fucked-up hobbies. You'll do whatever you've come here to do, but you're not going to pin the explosions on me. I'm not a killer!"

"What makes you so sure? Remember, Clive. What's blinding you?"

"Bullshit! You did them. You did them all. That detective was on to you months ago. They found your sick-ass playthings all over the apartment. Not to mention, you tried to blow me up the other day! So, according to you, not only am I a homicidal maniac, but I'm suicidal, too. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? Don't you think I would know if I did that crap? After the mall, you tried to stab me. I'd say that's some convincing proof of your guilt, if you ask me."

"How do you know what the police found at the apartment? You've been in this hospital, unconscious since you collapsed beside me on our now-ruined carpet. Even the Salvation Army won't want it now. You're never getting that blood out."

"Because . . ."

Clive stumbled for an answer. He didn't have one. How did he know what the police found at the apartment? If the FBI found anything the first go-around, they didn't let him know about it. He couldn't even remember how he got to the hospital. He filled in the missing data with rational assumption. Somebody must have called the cops. Maybe Morgan called them. And he must have been semi-conscious when the cops were rummaging through the apartment. His brain must have processed some of what they were saying. That had to be how he knew what was found. There was no other logical explanation, except for Chester. Maybe she told him.

But Clive couldn't remember any police or ambulance. In fact, he couldn't remember a single thing between stabbing Kevin and waking up to Kevin's voice in the hospital, if he was even in the hospital. He couldn't be sure. It made him uneasy. He couldn't even be sure if he was still alive.

I've never been stabbed before
, he justified.
Could it have affected my mind? I also lost a lot of blood. This will all go away as I heal
.

"I must have overheard somebody," he murmured softly.

"You keep denying yourself the truth, and more people are going to die because of it. Eventually, it will all catch up to you. For the sake of others, if not your own, come to your senses."

Clive found little solace in his answer, his circumstances or what purported to be reality around him. He couldn't even figure out why he was handcuffed. Why was he talking to a dead man, a man he was sure he killed? Why was the world around him being taken over by all the creatures he feared and despised? Was he dead? Was this his tomb? Was this Hell?

Kevin seemed to read Clive's thoughts. "You're not dead, Clive. You're where
she
can't go. The only place where she has no control. The place where you are you, and nothing stands between you. Yet, you still aren't you. So it seems the problem isn't her doing, but your own."

Clive's head felt as though it would explode if he tried to follow Kevin's logic. His puzzled look said all he needed to say.

"Still, your death may be preferable."

"Not to me."

"It would stop a lot of heartache. You're a monster, Clive. No better than I was. Worse even. At least I felt remorse."

"Please! You can't even compare me to you. I would never have done the things you did."

"I can see there's no getting through to you. It's impossible to reason with someone so close-minded. So, I guess that means I'll have to go to Plan B. Do you want to find out if the old saying is true? You know, if you die in your dreams, you die in real life? I'm not sure how anyone could actually know that, since the dead tell no tales. I guess that makes me just another figment of your tormented imagination, huh? But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun."

"Argh!"

The sharp pain and his own screaming told Clive that even apparitions could inflict real hurt. The rat gnawing on his shin certainly seemed real, and the pain was unbearable. It increased as more rats began gnawing and thrashing. Roaches hopped from the walls onto his head and body. They blocked his sight and forced their way into orifices. A stream of insects entered his screaming mouth and dug their way down his throat. Worms and maggots burst from Clive's navel. They swam in and out of his pores as though his skin were liquid. The creatures ate away at his body. He agonized in terror.

All the while, Kevin laughed maniacally. His face continued to distort. Through the swarm of insects, Clive thought he saw the true face of evil.

"Clive?" it called.

The earth-spawned villains tugged at Clive's body. Kevin's face drew nearer. A few roaches fell dead to the floor.

"Clive?"

His body shook again. More of the insects fell dead. Clive watched as his skin turned black and rotten where they had once been. His screams became deafening.

"Clive!"

"Ah!" A last scream, then silence. Clive awoke on his hospital bed. He sat up in a room not dissimilar from that in his dream. He was handcuffed to the bedrail. His sheets were stained with sweat and, he feared, other bodily fluids. His heart mass-produced beats at an alarming rate.

And to his left, he saw Morgan. It was Morgan who had wrestled him from the depths of Hell. She had shaken him free from the Devil's grip. She had called him back to the living world. Morgan, his savior. She kept her promise. She would always protect him.

"Shh," Morgan said, gently caressing Clive's chest.

"Morgan," Clive said, slowly catching his breath. "Something isn't right. I may have done something awful."

"Shh." Morgan brushed the wet hair from Clive's forehead. "You were having a nightmare. It's okay now. Everything's alright now."

"But Kevin accused me--"

"Relax, Clive. Your mind is your own worst enemy. You're feeling guilty for what you had to do to Kevin. It's not your fault. Everything is as it should be. I'm here now. No one is going to hurt you."

The strain of his overworked heart was too much for Clive to bear. His body collapsed, and unconsciousness returned. His arm went limp. It hung suspended in the air by the metal clasp tightly affixed around his wrist.

"No one will hurt you," Morgan repeated. "Everything is as it should be."

When Detective Reilly arrived at her desk a few days later, a thirty-four page fax awaited her. It contained a Somerset Police report, complete with exhibits and some typewritten notes entitled "The Unofficial Version." Neither the fax nor the notes were signed, but she knew it was from Officer Gillepsie. He had come through on his promise.

Reilly breezed through the typed summary. Under "Items Confiscated," she found what she had hoped she'd find.

Reeboks, size eleven. I knew it! And I'm sure the knife will match Page's wounds, too.

Reilly was confident she had solved the Page murder. Kevin was her scumbag all along. Hunches don't lie. She pushed the report aside, in part satisfied. But something else ate at her.

It's not my problem anymore
, she told herself to no avail. She needed further resolution. She needed to know about the explosions. She needed to know that they had been properly investigated and concluded. She needed to know that the FBI had identified the right guy.

She rifled through the remaining pages, not knowing what to look for. She scanned for anything varying from the usual boilerplate lingo. One of the attachments caught her eye, though she couldn't immediately determine what about it had been so catching. It was a hand-scratched note that read:

Providence Place,

Food Court, 2 p.m. Saturday

Underneath it, someone else wrote, "Date of assault per P.P.D." Reilly presumed this latter note was written by Gillepsie.
The jackass wrote on the evidence
, she criticized.

Reilly thought back to the call she received from Clive Menard that Saturday. He sounded frazzled, claiming to have been attacked without provocation by his roommate while shopping at Providence Place. Kevin Ventura drew a knife and tried to kill him, he said. He ran. The scenario always seemed plausible, but it never seemed quite right to Reilly.

Yet, Morgan Donnelly flawlessly confirmed Clive's story. So did a host of mall goers. On Reilly's advice, Clive and Morgan filed a joint police report in Providence two days later. Reilly's involvement in the matter was over.

Apparently, the draftsman of the Somerset Police report didn't bother to investigate the matter beyond the initial Providence Police report
, she thought.
They are way behind in their investigation if they can't figure out who the unknown "mall patron" was. Unless Menard never filed a report. What sense would that make?

She looked again at the scribbled note. Something about it bothered her. It seemed out of place. The words revealed that the author of the note had a specific appointment at the mall that day. The time of the appointment roughly coincided with Kevin's attack on Clive.

So? Ventura planned the attack. Makes sense. But why would he do it in a public place?
She allowed her analytical mind to run wild.
Maybe there was another reason he was supposed to meet Clive there? Maybe he didn't write this note.

She plodded through the case files overflowing from her desk drawer, searching for handwriting samples she'd "acquired" through dumpster diving. As she suspected, the note didn't match Ventura's handwriting. It didn't match Clive's either.

One of them had to write it. It came from their apartment.
Reilly was confused. Her samples were taken directly from the roommates' garbage. She knew they were accurate. Who else was supposed to be at that mall? Morgan? The writing didn't look feminine, but looks were often deceiving.

She studied the note, trying to pinpoint the source of her skepticism. Then she realized that it wasn't the words themselves that bothered her. Rather, it was the way in which they were written. Every character slanted slightly to the left.

Reilly had a slant to everything she wrote, too. In grammar school, her penmanship teacher would slap her hand with a ruler if she didn't tilt her writing pad slightly to the left. When she would write along the lines on the paper, her characters would always be slightly tilted. It became so ingrained that from then on, Reilly wrote everything at a slant. But her characters always slanted to the right. Those on the note slanted left.

A left hander?
she wondered. If true, the revelation would drastically limit the note's potential authors. She re-reviewed her handwriting samples.
Kevin Ventura is not left handed
, she concluded.
But Clive Menard is!

All of Reilly's samples--medical release forms signed by Clive, grocery lists, credit card payment receipts and a host of miscellaneous notes--all had the same slant to them as the writer of the note in question. Same slant, but the handwriting was remarkably different. Clive's handwriting did not appear to be a match.

Reilly was no handwriting expert, however. She had no idea how many variations one person's writing could have. One lefty's notes ending up in another lefty's trash, though certainly possible, seemed less likely than the note belonging to the lefty trash owner. It was enough to raise Reilly's suspicions. Maybe it was nothing. She decided to give Clive a call to see if she could provoke a response.

"Hello, Clive. It's Detective Reilly."

"How are you, Detective? Thanks again for all your help resolving things. I'm so happy this nightmare is over."

"Me, too, Clive. Me, too. I'm actually closing the file. I just had a few questions so I can complete all the paperwork. You know, the usual administrative bullshit."

"Sure, Detective. The FBI already grilled me back at the hospital on anything and everything, though."

"Really?" Reilly played dumb. "Then this should only take a moment."

"Alright. Go ahead."

"Thanks. Did your roommate have any friends or visitors while he lived with you?"

"Ever? I'm sure he must have, but now that I think about it, none that I can recall. So, he may have, but I don't remember any."

"No one came by recently to see him?"

"Not when I was around."

"Did he have a girlfriend? Boyfriend?"

"I don't think so."

"Family?"

"Not sure."

"How did you meet him?"

"Through a website. It matches potential roommates, kind of like a dating service. It was cheaper for both of us to shack up than to live alone."

"Were you friends?"

"We didn't hate each other, not until the last month or so, anyway. He just lost it. I'm still not sure why. But before that, we got along well enough. We didn't hang out or anything."

"Did he ever do anything strange or illegal in your presence?"

"Everything about Kevin was strange. He kept to himself. Locked himself in his room all the time. I guess it's true what they say about the quiet ones."

"Did you ever get a chance to look around his room?"

"Nope. Sorry, Detective. I wanted to, and I wish I had. Maybe we could have stopped him sooner. His room was always locked, though."

"You don't have a key? You never had one made?"

"No."

Clive didn't seem to like the question. Reilly sensed he was lying.

"I mean, yes, but I never used it. I got it to sneak in there like you asked me to, but he was always around when I thought of it."

"Do you know Ventura's cellphone number?"

"Not off-hand, but I'm sure I have it somewhere."

"Did you ever call it?"

"Probably. I can't remember when or why, though."

"Did you ask him to meet you at the Providence Place mall that day he attacked you?"

"No."

Clive sounded indignant. He seemed to be catching on that her questions were more than simply "administrative."

"Are we almost finished, Detective Reilly? I have to be somewhere in a few."

"Just a couple more questions. Why were you at the mall that Saturday?"

"I already told you, the FBI and the Providence Police. I was shopping with my girlfriend."

"Do you shop there often?"

"Not really."

"Do you know why Ventura was there?"