Blood Dahlia - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries) (19 page)

38

One thing that always fascinated Wolfgram was how much information one could buy with nothing more than a credit card and a valid email address. He’d run several searches on different individuals over the years and was amazed how much was in the reports. But Sarah King’s was different.

There was almost nothing in them. A modest credit score, one arrest for public intoxication, an address and phone number, and practically nothing else. The woman certainly
was an enigma. No matter, though; he could get what he needed from other sources.

Wolfgram, whenever possible, preferred to be nude. He was nude now as he went about his household chores
, and by the time he was done, he was ready for his afternoon nap.

His nap schedule was rigid. Every
day at 4:00 p.m., rain or shine, he would take an hour nap. Not fifty-eight minutes, not sixty-three minutes, exactly sixty minutes. If he woke up early, he would try and sleep again for the remaining time. He kept a pair of pantyhose underneath the pillow, and he took one side and slipped it over his head. He wouldn’t be able to sleep without something covering his face.

Exactly fifty-nine minutes later, he woke and lay in bed another minute before rising. He stretched his back and his arms, his shoulders and thighs. He had seen lions once in Kenya waking to a sunrise
, and they stretched every part of themselves. He had done it ever since.

Though evening was falling, it was still light out. He had some time.

He spent it in the shower. The shower calmed and relaxed him. Sometimes he’d play opera or yoga music on the stereo in his bedroom and sit in the shower for hours, until the water ran ice cold.

But he had too much excitement buzzing within him to do that today
, so the shower was no longer than usual, and then he dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a baseball cap. In his medicine cabinet were several full makeup kits. A blue zip-up bag contained false beards and mustaches. He chose the brown beard, not quite full and not quite stubble, and stuck it to his cheeks with eyelash glue. He waited a few moments, glaring at himself in the mirror as the glue dried.

When he felt he looked just right, he left the house and got into his Oldsmobile.
Twenty-five minutes away by service roads was a car rental agency. He parked in their customer parking lot and went inside.

The clerk was a young man of no more than twenty
, with a buzz cut. He smiled widely and said, “How can I help you, sir?”

“I’d like to rent a car, please,” Wolfgram said.

“Just need a driver’s license and a major credit card.”

He
produced a false driver’s license and a credit card. The driver’s license was connected to a real man who had passed away last year. All of his false identifications and credit cards were connected to men who had passed away. The best lies, he thought, contained partial truths.

After the paperwork, Wolfgram waited by the front entrance for his car to be brought around. As he did so, his phone rang. He took it out and checked the ID. It was Dara.

He had forgotten about Dara. But there was something pleasant about her. Comfortable, not entirely revolting, like most women in his life. So he answered.

“Hello, Dara.”

“Hey. What’re you doing?”

“Just
heading in to grade some papers. How about you?”

“Getting off a shift at the hospital. I was wondering if you wanted to grab a late dinner. I
gotta run home and change, but I was thinking after.”

“I can’t… But maybe later to
night if you can wait that long. Perhaps ten or so?”

“Um, yeah, why not
? I’ll just have a snack. Let’s do it the European way.”

The car, a dark four
-door sedan that wouldn’t stick out no matter where it was, pulled up to the front of the rental agency. “I’ll pick you up at ten, then.”

“Okay, see you.”

Wolfgram hung up and got into the car. The clerk asked him to inspect it so he wouldn’t be liable for damage that was already there when he returned the car, but Wolfgram waved him away and drove off.

The freeways, unfortunately, were bumper to bumper. A giant sea of taillights. Wolfgram listened to Beetho
ven’s Fifth and then his Sixth symphony, on the radio. Hardly the last note had played by the time he got off the exit.

A few more streets, and he
was in front of Sarah King’s apartment complex.

He was familiar with the building. It had an interesting allure
, and he’d googled its website after he had driven by once. It had been a dormitory for a defunct college that had been a few blocks away and then turned into a mental institution in the ’60s. The institution had been shut down in the ’80s and turned into an apartment complex. Of all the places for a psychic to live, if that’s what she indeed was, he wondered why she would choose someplace filled with what must’ve been so many horrific memories.

Sarah King just became even more interesting to him.

Wolfgram parked across the street and stared at the building. He knew Sarah wouldn’t be here. That story painted the FBI as buffoons; there was no way it had been sanctioned by the Bureau. It had caught them off guard. Which meant they were probably concerned for Sarah’s safety. Unless they were entirely incompetent, she should be in protective custody somewhere—that was the protocol anyway.

Law enforcement was quite
curious to Wolfgram. He’d worked as a police officer for several years, during college. He thought he could learn about procedure, but that was not covered to the extent he had wished. Instead, he attended law enforcement seminars on forensics.

The best one he had ever seen was given by a homicide detective from San Diego named Jon Stanton. The man
was teaching at the front of a large auditorium of local, state, and federal law enforcement agents. He was emphasizing the importance of observation, of not letting any detail escape the investigator’s attention. To demonstrate, he told the attendees he would leave and they could move anything in the auditorium, and when he came back in, he would figure out what it was.

Several people moved some of the
dry-erase markers, some moved pens or pencils, one took an item of trash from the bin in the corner, but Wolfgram one-upped them. He removed something from the auditorium entirely so that Stanton couldn’t find it.

Stanton came in, observed the auditorium like a bloodhound on a scent, and determined that someone had removed a pen that was on the floor. They’d taken it outside. He then walked out the way Wolfgram had and returned with the pen a few moments later
—the pen Wolfgram had thrown into a dumpster outside. It was the most incredible thing Wolfgram had ever seen.

It was from Stanton’s seminars, which Wolfgram had attended four
of while a police officer, that he learned the art and science of forensics—both how to find evidence and how to conceal it.

He scanned the surrounding streets and saw what he was looking for about half a block up. Two men in a sedan parked inconspicuously in front of a house. They had their eye on Sarah’s complex. Wolfgram grinned and pulled away. He drove past them, careful not to look, and then glanced in his rearview.

He turned at the intersection and headed for the freeway entrance. This was just a curious diversion from his real destination.

39

The moon shone fiercely, a glowing ball of silver light hanging in a dark sky. Sarah stared at it through the shutters in her bedroom. She lay on the bed a long time, just watching it. She and the moon had always had a history.

When she was a little girl, she would run into the woods when she was hurt. Her father was a strict disciplinarian and would beat her with a belt
when she misbehaved, as though she was a mule. On these nights, the dark forests were her friends, her comfort.

There was a stream
near her home. Several large stones jutted out from the shore, and she would sit on them for hours and stare at the gushing water below her. Sometimes the moonlight would be so bright that she could see her reflection in it. And there, among the whispering trees and the wind that kissed her skin, she’d open her mind.

She would see things that were to come and things that had been. The dead would tell her things as though they were angels and devils sitting on her shoulders. She saw civilizations fall and cities demolished. But she also
saw love and hope. She saw civilizations rebuilt and new nations formed. She saw history before her, and she was too young to know what it was. Now, in her twenties, she wished she could remember what it was she had seen. If she had kept a journal… But then again, maybe the visions would have terrified her.

Sarah
stripped off her clothes before hopping into the shower. The water was hot, and she let it run over her a long while before getting out and into her pajamas, which consisted of an old sweatshirt and sweatpants. The bed was cold, and laying her head back, she stared at the way the moonlight appeared slotted on the ceiling from the beams being cut by the shutters. And at some point, as she stared, her mind began to drift and sleep overtook her.

Sarah stood in the middle of a house. Not like any house she had ever been in and she wondered how she’d gotten here. Was she sleepwalking? Was this where she had been all along?

Noises were coming from somewhere. The sounds were too muffled to know what they were. Maybe the television, maybe an animal whining to get out.

“Hello?” she said.

No answer. She stood frozen for a long time, scanning the home. Past the kitchen in front of her were sliding glass doors leading to a backyard. A small kitchen table held an empty beer can. In the living room was a flatscreen television on the wall and furniture that looked old and ragged, though it was so dark she couldn’t really tell. There were no paintings or photographs up as far as she could tell.

More sounds
, this time louder.

“Who’s there?” she said.

No reply. The sounds continued.

Sarah hesitantly took a step in the dark. The only light was the moon coming through the sliding glass doors
—a full moon, like the one she thought she had just been looking at before. She stood in the kitchen and looked around. Dishes in the sink, cupboards open, the floor sticky. Not a place that was kept clean. Turning around, she saw a set of stairs leading down to a basement. The sounds grew in pitch and then leveled off. They were definitely coming from the basement.

The d
ownstairs was completely dark except for a dim glow at the bottom, something like an old hanging lightbulb. And the light was coming from around a corner.

“Hello? Is someone down there? Hello?”

Still no reply, though she was certain that the basement was where the sounds were coming from. Gingerly, she took the first step and then another and another. Before long, she was at the bottom of the stairs in the light.

She turned the corner and froze.

In the center of the room, a nude man lay on the floor. Prostrate, he was bleeding out of his side. Another man stood over him, blood dripping from both his hands. The man had fury in his eyes, a type of anger Sarah had never seen before. The man on the floor was whining.

The other man reached into the wound on the man’s side and pulled out something slick and wet. Sarah screamed, and the man’s gaze shot to her. She turned around to run, but the stairs were gone. There was nothing but a brick wall. She pounded against it with both fists
, but it was immobile. Behind her, the man was grinning and took a step toward her…

Sarah
sat up in bed and screamed. The darkness enveloped her. She didn’t know where she was, and she crawled back against the headboard, shadows dancing everywhere before her.

The door flew open
, and a man stood there. He flipped on the light. The man was bald and in a button-front shirt and tie. His gun was held in front of him, and he swept the room.

“What happened?” he said, panic in his voice.

She took a deep breath, her heart loud in her ears. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry. It was a nightmare,” she said breathlessly.

The agent scanned the room and then checked the bathroom. He gave Sarah an odd look and said, “You sure you
’re okay?”

“Yes,” she said, one hand to her head, partly from the headache that was just making itself known and part
ly from embarrassment. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“Well, let me know if you need anything. I’m right
outside.”

When he had left, Sarah exhaled loudly and fell back into bed. The moon had shifted positions
, and the light was in a different spot from when she had first gone to sleep. She stared at it awhile, hoping it would have the same hypnotic effect, but nothing was happening. She knew sleep wouldn’t be coming again tonight.