Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) (31 page)

—but Blackburn quickly brought the light down again and shone it in his face.

“You can try,” he said. “But you won’t get very—”

Another sound abruptly cut him off.

A thudding sound.

Blackburn exhaled sharply and went down, the flashlight tumbling to the ground in front of him.

Tolan watched him fall, then looked up to see Lisa standing over him, a thick tree branch in hand. She tossed it aside and crouched over Blackburn, prying the gun out of his fingers. He was either out cold or dead.

“Get up,” Lisa told Tolan. “You heard what he said. Your precious Abby is loose, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let her hurt you. We need to finish what we came here to do.”

Blackburn stirred and Lisa pointed the gun at his head, about to pull the trigger.

Tolan sprang to his feet. “Lisa, no!”

“I have to,” she said. “He saw you. He knows.”

“No, it’s one thing to want to help me, to clean up after me, but you’re not a murderer. Don’t do it.”

“What difference does it make?”

“More than you can know,” Tolan said. “Trust me on this. I’d give anything to take back the things I’ve done.”

There was a flutter of movement again.

In the trees behind Lisa. A flash of white.

Abby?

Crossing to Blackburn, Tolan picked up the flashlight and pointed it, seeing nothing.

Then, another flutter, off to his right. A faint whisper:

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two . . .”

He and Lisa exchanged quick looks as he swept the beam toward it.

Again nothing.

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two . . .”

“Oh, my God,” Lisa said, panic filling her eyes.

Another flutter, off to the left now.

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two . . .”

Tolan swept the light in that direction—

—and there she was, crouched at the base of a pepper tree, looking out at them with dark, feral eyes. Not the product of a deluded mind, but real. Very real.

“Abby,” he said, feeling a sudden, overwhelming ache, accompanied by an unbridled sense of relief.

She was alive. She was alive and she was back and she didn’t look dangerous at all. She was the same woman he’d met five years ago, the same woman who had taken him into her bed, into her heart.

His
lost soul.

“Oh, my God,” Lisa said again in a trembling voice, and brought the gun up to fire.

“No!” Tolan shouted, hitting her arm with the flashlight. The gun cracked, the shot went astray, and when Tolan returned his gaze to Abby—

—she was gone.

56

“
JESUS,” A
voice said. “What the hell happened to you?”

Blackburn had a mouthful of twigs.

He opened his eyes and spit, then realized he was lying on the ground. His head felt as if it had ballooned to twice its size.

Turning on his side, he looked upward toward the source of the voice. All he could see were two overlapping circles of a light.

Double vision.

Shit.

“Somebody sure did a number on you,” the voice said.

Then hands grabbed him, pulling him upright.

Clayton Simm crouched next to him, aiming a flashlight toward his head, fingers immediately going to the butterfly bandage, then moving to a spot just above Blackburn’s temple.

There was something wet there and Blackburn winced, pain shooting through him.

“This is bad,” Simm said. “You don’t want to be moving around too much.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Fire alarm. Some of our patients got loose. I thought I heard a gunshot. Did one of them attack you?”

“No,” Blackburn said, fighting confusion. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He squinted at Simm. “You picked the perfect time to finally show up.”

“Yeah, thanks for dragging me out of bed, then disappearing on me. I figured if I’m awake, I might as well be doing something useful.”

“Good, then help me to my feet.”

“I don’t think you should be—”

“Just do it.”

Simm stood up, then reached a hand out and pulled Blackburn to his feet. The world started spinning and Blackburn grabbed ahold of Simm’s arm to steady himself.

“I told you. You might want to sit back down. I’ll go get you some help.”

Blackburn said nothing, thinking he might toss his cookies. He tried searching the ground, but the double vision persisted. “Where’s my Glock?”

Simm swept his flashlight beam around the area, but came up empty. “Don’t see it.” Then he spotted something and stooped to pick it up.

Blackburn swayed again and Simm quickly caught him. “You drop this?”

It was a scrap of newspaper. The article on Anna Marie Colson that Kat had found in Tolan’s house. It must’ve slipped out of his coat pocket when he fell.

It was wet, but not soaked through. Simm shone his light on it, staring at the photograph of the college roommates. Blackburn looked too, trying to get his vision to clear, the image swimming before him, then finally coming into focus.

He stared at the fresh young faces, surprised by what he saw. Something he hadn’t noticed before. One of the roommates looking
away
from the camera, not at it, wearing an odd expression.

“Is that Michael?” Simm asked.

Blackburn shifted his gaze to Tolan’s smiling face, then snatched the article away from Simm and stuck it back in his pocket.

“I need to get up to the old hospital.”

“What the hell for?”

“Just help me get back to the trail. I’ll be fine after that.”

“Not likely,” Simm said. “I let go, you’ll fall flat on your face.”

Blackburn brushed a wet leaf off his cheek. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

T
OLAN WEAVED IN
and out of the trees, finally clearing the last of them, then stepped onto the grounds of the old hospital, where the rain came down hard, turning the battered driveway to mud.

After the shot, he thought he’d seen Abby again, several yards in the distance, and had taken off after her without looking back, leaving Lisa in his wake.

“No, Michael! You can’t trust her! She’s not what you think she is!”

But Tolan didn’t listen. Nothing she could say could stop him. Not after he’d seen that face. That beautiful face with its striking brown eyes.

All he wanted was to make things right. To put his arms around Abby, to hold her, to tell her how sorry he was for what he’d done.

But now, as he stood at the edge of the forest, rain battering his face, he saw no sign of her, and the glimmer of excitement he’d felt only moments ago began to morph into the first seeds of despair.

From across the drive, the wide black mouth of the hospital’s main doorway seemed to call to him, beckoning him to enter.

He shone Blackburn’s flashlight toward it.

Was she inside?

A sudden feeling of déjà vu washed over him. A memory of Abby standing in the darkness of that doorway. Like something from a dream.

This is where it happens, Michael. Where it all comes together and balance is restored
.

Steeling himself, Tolan crossed the drive and went inside.

“
MICHAEL!”
 

AS
Lisa watched him disappear through the doorway, she felt heartsick.

After all she’d done for him, all the sacrifices she’d made, all these years she had put her own interests aside to love him and protect him and what does he do?

He ignores her. Leaves her behind. Humiliated.

And all because of that
thing
.

Because of Abby.

Always Abby.

Lisa had spent the last year—the last
fifteen
years—coddling him, nurturing his wounded heart, promising to always be there, even during the darkest moments of grief.

And what had it gotten her?

She was always second string in his eyes.

The consolation prize.

When they made love, she knew he was thinking of Abby. He’d even said her name once, not realizing it. But Lisa had never mentioned it to him, had never complained.

Was there nothing she could do to make him see her?

She was a beautiful woman. A lot of men had told her so. She’d felt their stares, their unchecked desire, but she’d never responded, never led them on.

Because her heart was Michael’s. Always had been. Always would be. No matter how he treated her.

No matter who he chased after.

And she’d thought it was finally working this time, this year together, only to see it destroyed by that woman. That aberration.

But Lisa was an optimist. She knew this night would soon pass, this terrible day would be over, and when she was done cleaning up—a chore she had been born to perform—everything would be on track again, and she’d have another chance to make Michael’s heart hers.

But she needed to catch him first.

And Abby.

Before something terrible happened. Like the old man had warned.

Hurrying through the rain, Blackburn’s gun clutched in her hand, she glanced at her BMW parked out front and stopped in her tracks.

A chill ran through her.

The trunk was open.

She hadn’t opened it, had she?

No, she knew she hadn’t.

Moving around for a better view, she looked inside and felt her stomach drop. The blanket was there, soaked with rainwater and blood—

—but the body was gone.

Sue Carmody’s body was gone.

Michael? Could he have taken it?

No, he didn’t have time. She’d just seen him a moment ago.

Could it have been Abby?

That seemed even less likely.

But if it was neither of them, then who?

“Hey!” a voice shouted.

Lisa wheeled around and saw Detective Blackburn emerge from the trees, a bloody gash in the side of his head. Clayton Simm, of all people, was propping him up, looking just as surprised as she was.

“Don’t fucking move,” Blackburn shouted. “Stay where you are!”

She should have shot the sonofabitch when she’d had the chance. Shouldn’t have listened to Michael, let him talk her out of it.

Oh, well. Better late than never.

As the two men approached, she brought the gun up and squeezed the trigger.

57

W
HEN THE GUN
came up, Blackburn dove.

“Holy Christ,” Simm shouted, diving in the opposite direction.

Then the shots rang out, one after another, bullets ricocheting around them, Simm scrambling for cover in the trees as Blackburn rolled on the muddy pavement, narrowly avoiding a hit.

Pain shot through his head, and when he looked up, his vision had doubled again—two overlapping images of Tolan’s girlfriend turning away and running into the old hospital.

A moment later, she was gone.

Climbing to his feet, Blackburn staggered, then regained his balance, his head throbbing, the wound leaking a lot more than he would have liked.

He turned to check on Simm, to make sure he wasn’t hit, but didn’t see him anywhere around. The poor guy was probably halfway back to Baycliff by now, shitting his pants as he ran.

Feeling as if he’d just stepped off an overcranked merry-go-round, Blackburn staggered toward the open doorway.

Halfway there, he had to stop, resting against the BMW.

That was when he noticed the open trunk and the bloody blanket. And he had no doubt that there had once been a body inside.

The body of Sue Carmody.

He’d known she was dead the moment he saw that ruby earring. And whatever thin hope he’d carried for her survival had already washed away in the rain.

T
OLAN BARELY HEARD
the shots.

They were little more than faint popping sounds, part of some other world, just like the wind and the rain.

This building, this hospital—with its charred and crumbling walls and shattered glass and broken tiles and peeling paint, with its long, shadowy corridors and darkened rooms—was a world unto itself.

He remembered it in more detail than he thought he would. But it looked different at night, the decay seeming more sinister in the darkness.

Yet, oddly enough, he felt comforted. His last good moments had been spent within these walls, with a woman he would always love.

Sensing she was here somewhere, Tolan worked his way down the corridor and turned a corner to find a broad staircase leading up to the second floor.

Abby had loved that staircase. Snapped a dozen or so photographs that day, taking her time, trying to get just the right angle, as she always had.

He could feel her now. A ghost, perhaps—or was it the real thing?—hiding in the shadows above.

He heard a sound from up there and swept the flashlight beam toward the top of the stairs. It flickered and grew dim. Probably damaged by the rain.

“Abby?”

His voice bounced off the walls, but it was the only voice he heard.

No one answered.

He banged his hand against the flashlight and for a moment it grew brighter, then flickered again and went out.

Shit.

Another sound came from the top of the stairs.

A whimper?

Tossing the flashlight aside, Tolan took the steps two at a time and plunged into the darkness of the second floor, moving down a long hallway, the only illumination coming from the far end, where pale moonlight shone in through a broken window.

There was movement down there. A shadow in the light.

“Abby?”

Picking up speed, Tolan barreled toward the end of the corridor and ran smack into something hard and metallic, banging his shin. Wincing in pain, he stumbled forward and landed on his hands and knees.

Sonofabitch.

Turning, he saw that he’d tripped over a portable generator, its thick electrical cord snaking toward a small, windowless room.

What was
that
for?

Was someone living up here?

Tolan rubbed his shin, waiting for the pain to subside, then got to his feet and approached the room, a sudden memory stirring in his brain. That feeling of déjà vu.