Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) (21 page)

Thinking she might be about to witness a suicide, Carmody put the sedan in gear, then drove through the gate, rounding the short curve that wound through the cluster of trees. When she emerged on the other side, she discovered that the driver’s door of the Lexus was now hanging open, the seat empty.

Shit.

Pulling to a stop behind it, she killed the engine and climbed out, taking her Glock from the holster she kept clipped at the small of her back. She glanced around. No sign of him.

“Dr. Tolan?”

She moved past his car toward the building, staring at the black hole that had once been the main entrance, wondering if he’d gone inside. If he had, she wasn’t about to follow. She may have been stupid enough to come this far alone, but she wasn’t
that
stupid.

She kept her Glock raised. “Dr. Tolan?”

No response. No sign of him.

Then her phone bleeped. She turned, realizing she’d left it on the passenger seat. And it was working again, no longer stuck in a dead zone.

Moving to the car, she leaned in and snatched it up, flicking it on. “Hello?”

Silence. Only the sound of breathing.

“Dr. Tolan? Is that you?”

She looked toward the building again. It towered above her like a set from an old horror movie, and she half expected a snarling, ravenous ghoul to come tearing out of that black entranceway, its teeth bared.

“Dr. Tolan, where are you?”

The silence continued a moment, then a soft voice said, “Right behind you.”

And when Carmody turned, she was struck in the chest by twin Tazer darts, the sudden shock of electricity knocking her straight to the ground.

37

T
HEY HAD PUT
Solomon in what the orderly called the Day Room. A bunch of bolted-down tables and chairs facing a large wire-mesh window that overlooked the ocean.

Solomon had been right. Standing at the window, he could see houses way down there along the coastline, little two-bedroom beach homes right up against the sand, waves lapping at their back porches.

The Day Room was full of loonies. Some of them sat in chairs, quietly babbling, while others milled about, looking as if they weren’t quite sure what to do with themselves. A stack of game boxes sat untouched on a shelf in the corner. Parcheesi. Checkers. Monopoly. Another shelf held old paperback books and magazines.

A television, mounted high on the wall behind a cage, was set to a channel showing a weeping young couple who seemed to be offering some kind of confession to a talkshow host. Some of the folks watching wept along with them.

A woman in a blue robe kept circling the room, holding an open book in front of her and pretending to read as she quietly sang “Moon River.” The book was upside down.

Every once in a while an old coot stuck in a wheelchair would cry out, “Help me, Jimmy! Help me!” but nobody paid much attention to him. Not the orderlies, not even the guard sitting behind a nearby desk.

Solomon had seen some pretty crazy things on the street, but this place topped them all. He sure wished that nurse lady would show up like she promised. He needed somebody sane to talk to.

He kept looking around for Myra, but didn’t see her. Figured they probably considered her too dangerous to leave her in here. Put her in her own box, just in case she got feisty.

“Mr. St. Fort?”

He turned from the window, saw the nurse lady, Lisa, coming toward him, a smile on her pretty face.

He gave her one of his own. “Afternoon, ma’am.”

“Sorry I took so long to get back to you. I usually spend my day running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”

Solomon jerked his thumb in the direction of the parking lot. “You ever find what you were looking for out there?”

Her eyes clouded and Solomon knew he’d just poked a sore spot.

“Not yet,” she said. “Why don’t you come with me? We can go someplace that isn’t so noisy.”

She gestured to the guard, then turned and started away. Solomon followed her.

S
HE TOOK HIM
to a small, windowless room. Exam table in the middle, covered with a wide sheet of paper. She invited Solomon to sit on the table, while she pulled up a stool next to it.

“You wanted to tell me about your friend,” she said. “I have to admit I’m pretty curious about her myself.”

“Where you keepin’ her?”

“Don’t worry, she’s being cared for. We’ve put her in her own room and she’s under constant observation.”

“You got any idea why the police brought her here?”

The nurse lady frowned and shook her head. “I was hoping you could tell me. They’re keeping it on a need-to-know basis. And apparently they don’t think I need to know.”

“Aren’t you a supervisor or something?”

She nodded. “So they tell me.”

“Then why wouldn’t you need to know?”

“I’m afraid you’d have to ask one of the detectives in charge. They’re a pretty tight-lipped bunch. I’ve read her chart, but there’s not a whole lot there.”

“I was on the street when they picked her up,” Solomon said. “Heard the cops talking about her.”

“And?”

“They said she tried to stab a guy with a pair of scissors. Some cab driver, over on The Avenue.”

The nurse lady’s eyes widened slightly. Just enough to tell Solomon she was surprised and definitely interested.

“But what I have to tell you,” he said, “won’t be in a police report, and it won’t be on any chart. I don’t want you thinkin’ I’m crazy, but what that woman is going through has its roots in the heart of the Vieux Carre.”

“The what?”

“The French Quarter. New Orleans. Down in the dark alleyways and behind private doors. You won’t hear too many people talkin’ about it, because those who know tend to keep it to themselves, keep it in the family. Most of the locals have never even heard of it.”

He looked at her a moment, wondering how deep into this he should get. Then he said, “You can call it a religion, a lifestyle, a crazy man’s superstition—doesn’t matter.
La manière du rythme
is what it is and ain’t nobody on this good earth can deny it.”

“
La manière
. . . what?”

“The way of The Rhythm.”

She frowned now. As if she had just been confronted by someone trying to hand her a copy of
The Watchtower
. He was taking her into foreign territory and her first instinct was to retreat.

Most people who knew about The Rhythm were born into it, like Solomon, so it never took any real convincing. But outsiders were different. Had a natural tendency to be skeptical. He’d tried telling Clarence about it once and Clarence had just looked at him and said, “What the fuck you been smokin’, man?”

But if Solomon was right, if he’d judged this woman accurately, once she got past those initial instincts, she’d be receptive to what he had to tell her.

Weighing his words, he said, “People who believe, people who
know
, know that the way of The Rhythm is like a heartbeat. Keeps us alive. And life is all about balance and timing.”

“That’s true no matter what religion you practice.”

Solomon nodded. “Action and reaction. Everything we do, every move we make is countered by another move. It’s the world’s way of gettin’ itself back in sync.”

“Like karma,” she said.

Solomon shook his head. “Karma’s different. That’s all about people being mindful of what they do. Be good and get good in return. Do bad, get bad back.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“The Rhythm don’t give a shit what you do, just so long as everything’s in balance. And when it ain’t, it’ll do anything it has to to correct it.”

“What does any of this have to do with your friend?”

“Her being here ain’t no accident,” Solomon told her. “She’s here because The Rhythm wants her here. Wants us all here, to balance things out.”

“What things?”

“I’m not sure. But the woman you’ve got in that room isn’t who you think she is. She’s what we call
un emprunteuse
.”

“A what?”

“
Un emprunteuse
. A borrower. One of the children of the drum.”

Another frown. Solomon knew he was treading on dangerous ground here. Had just crossed that invisible line that most people don’t want to cross. But to her credit, the nurse lady didn’t laugh or get up and throw him out. She’d probably heard wilder stories in her day.

“Are you a Christian woman?”

She shrugged. “More or less.”

“Then you probably believe that when people die, they become spirits, right? That the soul travels on.”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, sometimes, when a person dies before her time, when her death throws off the beat, messes up the rhythm, she finds herself kinda trapped in the middle of nowhere, lookin’ for a way to make things right. And one of those ways is to borrow a little time among the living.”

“And you think that’s what your friend has done?”

“If I’m right about this, the woman in that room ain’t my friend,” Solomon said. “Not anymore, at least.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, she might look a little like Myra. Got some of the same marks and features, but Myra’s just the vessel. Somebody else has got ahold of her body, and she’s changing.”

A pause. “Changing how?”

“Her eye color, maybe. Nose not quite as big as it once was, fingers thinner, shoulders wider. She’s slowly taking on the form of the borrower. And the migration ain’t an easy thing. There’s a lot of pain involved. Takes hours. Sometimes days. All depends on how accommodating your host is, and how familiar the borrower is with the ways of The Rhythm.”

She gave him a bemused look. “Wouldn’t your friend have something to say about all this?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Solomon said. “The only way a borrower can take over is if the host is either too weak to resist or just plain dead. But just because we’re dead, don’t mean we ain’t still attached to our bodies. Some of us can get pretty possessive about it. So the borrower’s got a better chance at success if she knows the host. Got permission to come aboard, so to speak.”

“I don’t suppose you know who this so-called borrower might be?”

There was a minute trace of sarcasm in her voice now, and he could see that he’d misjudged her. That she was merely tolerating him. Giving him a chance to speak his peace before she tossed him back in with the rest of the loonies.

Solomon couldn’t really blame her. This was pretty nutty stuff to an outsider. But when you thought about it, it wasn’t any crazier than the beliefs of any other culture or religion. If you’re born into it, you believe. If not, you either laugh or start dialing the mental health hotline.

“No,” Solomon said, refusing to give in. “I’m afraid I don’t know who she is. But somebody in this hospital does. You take her out of that box, parade her around for a while, and I guarantee somebody’ll recognize her.”

The nurse lady stiffened. Had he struck a chord?

Hard to say.

She gave him a curt smile and stood up. “This is a fascinating story, Mr. St. Fort, it really is. But I have a lot of work to do. Why don’t we get you back to the Day Room now?”

“That’s it? That’s all you want to know?”

“I think I’ve heard enough. Maybe we can talk more later.”

He knew she was only humoring him. Mentally, she had just made a big red check mark next to his name and he had a feeling he’d soon be on a regiment of antipsychotic drugs. But he also sensed by that last reaction that what he’d said wasn’t completely lost on her. She seemed a bit rattled. Unnerved.

She started to turn toward the door and he grabbed her wrist. “Hold on, now, hold on.”

Her face hardened. “Please let me go.”

He immediately released her. “I know what I’m telling you sounds crazy. I don’t blame you for thinkin’ I’m just like the rest of these poor folk, but whoever took Myra’s body didn’t come here to play patty-cake.”

“Then why
is
she here?”

“Hard to say, but she knows somebody. Somebody in this hospital. And she wants to communicate.” He paused. “Maybe more than that.”

“And she winds up here just by coincidence?”

Solomon shook his head. “You aren’t paying attention. There ain’t no coincidences. That’s The Rhythm doin’ what it does. Makin’ sure all the pieces come together at the right time, in the right place.”

Another curt smile. No warmth. Not even tolerance this time. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. St. Fort.”

She turned to leave again and Solomon grabbed her arm a second time. “Listen to me. I don’t know what happened to the woman who’s taking over Myra’s body, I don’t know if she had an accident or if somebody killed her, but—”

“Let
go
of me,” the nurse lady said, pulling her arm free. Then she threw open the door and shouted, “Security!”

“You’ve gotta listen to me. Let me have some time with her. If it ain’t too late, I might be able to reverse the change. Get Myra back before anything bad happens.”

“Security!”

A split second after the word left her mouth, a big guy in a uniform showed up, looking ready to bust some heads.

“Get him out of here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The guard grabbed Solomon by the shoulders, pushing him toward the door.

But Solomon resisted, turning toward the nurse lady. “You gotta let me see her. I might be able to—”

“Shut your mouth,” the guard said, roughly wrenching his arms behind him and spinning him around.

Glancing over his shoulder, Solomon thought he saw a troubled look on the nurse lady’s face, a look that said she might just believe him after all. But it wasn’t enough to get her to stop the guard from dragging him away.

In the end, he supposed it didn’t much matter. The Rhythm would do what it had to do.

And whatever that turned out to be, neither one of them would be able to stop it.

38

T
HE MAN KNOWN
as DickMan229 lived in a squat, two-story apartment building not far from Blanchard Beach. A big block of cement, it housed about twenty units overlooking a small, oval swimming pool that looked like it had been pissed in at least one time too many.