“There’s street lighting—sidewalk is pretty well lit.” Holgersen tugged at his goatee. “Something happened to Gracie between this stop and the door of the Badger. From here, her phone goes dead. The staff call, get no reply. Nada. Vanished. Until she winds up in Ross Bay Cemetery at the feet of the Virgin Mary.”
Techs had been trying during the afternoon to trace Drummond’s cell phone, but no luck. Battery was either dead or removed. They’d acquired her recent call records from her carrier, which was being cooperative, and a tech was presently going through those. Next step would be a visit to the Drummond house and taking into evidence any other electronic equipment she might have used. But the clock was ticking fast. Angie figured she had until tonight to catch a break, because by tomorrow morning this case would probably be in the hands of a homicide team.
Technically speaking, a primary crime scene was where the victim was found. In this case, the cemetery was the primary scene. However, an assault like this began at the point where a suspect first changed intent into action, and it included any other location where physical or trace evidence might be located. She hoped to find something here.
Shutting off the engine, she pulled on her skullcap. But as she reached for the door handle, her own cell rang. She checked the ID. Her dad. She let it go to voicemail as they got out of the car.
“Okay, let’s walk it through.” Angie turned in a slow circle, surveying the surrounding area. Fog was thick, and sleet spat from the low sky. “She gets off the bus here. And the Blue Badger is down by the water over there, around those brick buildings.”
“Abandoned,” said Holgersen, shining his flashlight along the side of the closest structure. “Derelict gasworks from the eighteen hundreds. About to be redeveloped, according to those rezoning application signs plastered to the walls.”
“How’d you know they were gasworks?” she said.
“I told you. I know stuff.”
She crooked a brow and panned her own flashlight over old rail ties that ran alongside the building perimeter. The ties were overgrown with weeds that were covered in a light layer of slush.
“So, Drummond starts walking this way.” Angie headed off down the sidewalk. Holgersen followed. “Her shift starts at six thirty, and the bus was late, so she’s hurrying. It’s cold, windy, snowing that night. She has her head down, earphones plugged in. Unaware of her surroundings.”
“Plenty traffic going by,” said Holgersen.
“But it was stormy,” said Angie. “Weather like that turns people’s attention inward. Drivers’ attention was probably focused on the road directly in front of them.” She checked her watch as they reached the corner at the end of the block. “It takes her maybe two minutes tops from the bus shelter down to this corner.” They rounded the corner and entered a neatly paved parking lot with standing light fixtures reminiscent of the gaslight era. Ahead of them was the bakery and café with a blue neon caricature of a badger in the window. Bright, warm lights inside illuminated patrons at small tables. “And we’re here.” They climbed the stairs to the patio, made for the glass doors.
Angie stopped on the deck. “Except Drummonddidn’tget here. Something happenedbeforehere.”
As Holgersen reached for the door handle, something compelled her to turn and stare into the shadows across the parking lot. The two brick buildings hulked dark and ominous, side by side, windows boarded up. Wind gusted suddenly, sending a thick shroud of fog swirling up from the water, and there she was. At the entrance to the narrow alley that led between the brick buildings. The little girl in pink. Luminous, almost floating. Her back was to Angie.
The child turned slightly and glanced over her shoulder. White face glowing in the dark. She held out her right hand. In her left was a small basket.
Come playum dum grove ... Come down dem ...
A kind of terror rose inside Angie. The child was beckoning. She could feel the pull deep inside her, as if invisible strings tugged inside her chest, drawing her toward the shadows. Almost not of her own volition, she took a step toward the apparition.
“Pallorino? You coming?” Holgersen stood there, door open in his hand, music and laughter seeping out into the cold.
“Ah, yeah ... Why don’t you go ahead, see if anyone saw Drummond yesterday? Ask the usual—was she having any problems, had she recently expressed any fears, made any complaints about patrons, personal situations, fellow workers. I just want to go check ... something out over there.” She moved quickly across the patio and back down the stairs.
“Pallorino!” he called after her, then cursed as she disappeared into the swirl of sleet and mist. She made for the alley.
Come, come playum ...
The whispering inside her head grew louder, the tug in her chest fierce. She began to race toward the black opening between the buildings even as every molecule inside her body screamed for her to flee.
Run ... Run! ... Uciekaj, uciekaj!
The strange words filled her head. Some sounded like mangled English, like the odd utterings of a toddler, and those seemed to beckon her to come and play, to do something nice. While the others seemed to be in a foreign language, yet she seemed to understand instinctively what they meant—Flee! Run away! Fast!
She entered the alley, heart hammering. And stilled. The child in pink was suddenly at the far end—a soft, impossible wash of shimmering pink. The girl’s arm reached out again.
The mist swirled, cleared, and she was gone.
Angie swallowed. Sweat prickled across her upper lip. The shadows were like ink inside the brick corridor. Soot and lichen blackened the walls. She clicked her flashlight on again. Old rail ties. Glint of broken glass. A bottle. All sticking out of the fine layer of slushy snow. She entered slowly, gravel and frozen slush crunching and squelching beneath her boots.
Her beam bounced off the walls and flickered in crevices, making shadows dart. Something scuttled across her boot. She gasped, swung her beam as her hand shot instinctively toward her holstered sidearm. A small shape disappeared into a drainpipe tucked into a little alcove in the wall. Just a rodent. Gathering herself, she made her way to the end of the corridor where she’d seen the toddler. The alley spilled out into a wide, vacant lot—clumps of grass and brambles poking out of the slush. A foghorn moaned out on the water. She ran her flashlight across the lot. No child.
Of course there was no child.
She was fucking hallucinating, like her mother ... it was starting. She was getting sick. What on earth had even compelled her to follow something sheknewto be an apparition, a figment of her own mind?That’swhat frightened her most. The fact that her hallucinations could exert such powerful control over her own sense of logic. She turned to quickly return to the warmth and lights of the Blue Badger, and suddenly she saw the rear end of the bus shelter up the bank, her vehicle parked beside it. And it struck her.
