Curse (Blur Trilogy Book 3) (11 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MONDAY, JUNE 17

8:24 A.M.

Kyle Goessel watched as the other guys from the basketball camp made their way into the field house. At first, larger clumps of players walked past, then a few stragglers, but Daniel didn’t show up in any of the groups.

The first session in the gym would start in just a few minutes. Still no sign of his friend.

They were supposed to meet for breakfast at the cafeteria half an hour ago. After waiting there for twenty minutes, Kyle had come over here hoping to at least catch Daniel before the camp began for the day.

He texted him again and waited.

No reply.

At this point it was too late for breakfast, but why hadn’t he at least replied to the texts?

Kyle had a disquieting feeling when he thought of the blurs his friend had been having and how Daniel had spoken last week about his fear that the thread might snap, the one that kept him sane.

He texted Nicole to see if she’d heard from Daniel and she replied almost immediately that she hadn’t.

What’s going on?
she typed.
Can’t you find him?

I mighta missed him,
he replied.
Let me just check on something.

Someone came hurrying out of
Berringer Hall and jogged toward the gym, but it wasn’t Daniel, just another kid who was hustling to get to the first session.

So, okay. Even if Daniel had just accidentally slept in, he needed to get his butt over here.

Kyle didn’t like his next thought, but neither could he shake it:
There’s no exit ramp on the road to insanity. Maybe he went off the cliff.

He did his best to put that idea out of his mind as he headed for the dorm to check his friend’s room.

Malcolm was on level B1 of the center getting things ready for the orientation when the call came through.

Even though he was underground, special routers allowed him to receive it. He thought it might be Sam, but surprisingl
y,
Senator Amundsen’s name came up on the screen.

“Senator?”

“Petra was taken.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Friday night. It happened on Friday. I’ve tried to contact Sam but haven’t been able to. I finally decided I needed to call someone. I thought I’d reach out to you. They said no police, no FBI, but you’re a freelancer, right? So you’re—”

“No, it’s good that you did. What’s her condition? Do you know if she’s alright?”

“As far as I know, yes. Her kidnappers recorded a video with their demands. I’ll send it to you. We can talk again after you’ve seen it.”

“Where are you?”

“At home.”

“So the police don’t know? You’re certain of that?”

“The people who took her told me they’d kill her if I contacted the authorities. You’re the only one I’ve told.”

“Alright, forward everything you have to me. I’ll take a look. And don’t worry, we’ll find her.”

Kyle knocked on Daniel’s door.

“Bro, it’s eight thirty.”

Silence.

“Dan?”

He tried the doorknob, found it unlocked. Swung the door open.

“You in here?”

With the lights off and the shades drawn, only a vague smudge of daylight made it into the room. The light from the hallway wasn’t enough for Kyle to tell if Daniel was there or not, so he felt the wall for the light switch.

Found it.

Flicked it on.

Daniel’s bed was neatly made. His basketball shoes waited beside it. A leather-bound journal sat on the desk next to his wallet.

But he was gone.

After verifying that he wasn’t in the closet or the bathroom, Kyle glanced around for Daniel’s phone, but didn’t see it.

Hoping for some sort of clue about what had happened, he opened Daniel’s journal and found that the last two entries were all about death and blood and the loss of hope. The handwriting became scratchy and almost indecipherable at the end, as if he’d lost his train of thought and descended into scribbled madness.

Kyle phoned Nicole. “You guys need to get over here.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Daniel. He’s gone.”

“What? Where?”

“I don’t know. I’m in his room right now, here at the dorm, but I can’t find him.”

Though the girls weren’t allowed in here, Kyle figured that most everyone was at the gym anyway and they should be alright. “I want you and Mia to come over, help see if we can figure out where he might be.”

“We’ll be right there.”

After hanging up, Kyle searched the room more carefully and finally located Daniel’s phone under his bed.

The texts from this morning were there, along with a couple from Nicole last night telling Daniel goodnight. All of them were marked as unread.

The last one that’d been opened was from about half an hour after they’d dropped Daniel off here. It simply read:
Answer this call, Daniel.

Kyle checked the recent calls.

It didn’t appear that anyone had contacted his friend after that.

The last outgoing call was to Daniel’s mom when he’d phoned her after they arrived at Sue Ellen’s house.

While Kyle waited for the girls, he carefully examined Daniel’s email and social media posts for any hint about where he might be.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Dr. Adrian Waxford walked out the back door of the Estoria Inn toward the forest.

Half a dozen cars of the workers currently at the facility sat in the shaded parking area nearby.

He hiked past them toward the maintenance building, and then continued to his favorite overlook near the perimeter fence that ran along the edge of the property.

From there, he could see through the trees and make out the next mountain over, the one that lay just beyond Little Bear Creek—which, with the recent rains they’d been having, wasn’t really so little or even much of a creek right now. More of a river at flood stage.

He glanced back at the Estoria.

Stout poison ivy vines and unrelenting kudzu climbed nearly the entire eastern wall of the hotel, giving the old place an aura of mystery.

They’d renovated the building’s interior but left the outside untouched.

The tales about this place being haunted might have attracted some curiosity seekers in the past, but even those stories had mostly faded from the collective consciousness of the area over the last two decades.

People said that a murder had occurred in room 113.

Adrian didn’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural, but it was one of the reasons he’d chosen that room for the killer from Wisconsin. It just seemed fitting that a murderer of children should be in the most lurid room in the hotel.

Staring out across the valley again, Adrian tapped the screen of his satellite phone to put the video call through.

A few seconds later, the face of General Vanessa Gibbons appeared.

“I had a message to return your call,” Adrian said.

“I’m coming down there,” she replied in her clipped, efficient,
military-esque manner. “I want you to show me around the facility.”

“I can send
yo
u m
y
latest reports. The
y
should be enough t
o—”

“Adrian, our oversight committee has invested a
substantial
number of taxpayer dollars into this project and we’ve given you carte blanche to do as you see fit. However, this week I need to report back to them and they’re going to be asking me some very direct, very probing questions about your progress, especially regarding this new drug you’ve been telling us about. Additionally, as I told you last month, one of the senators has been snooping around where he doesn’t belong, and that concerns us—especially this close to our next budget meeting.”

“Don’t worry about the senator. I have a feeling that’ll all blow over.”

“We can’t make policy decisions based on feelings. We need facts.”

“I’ve made some significant strides recently. In fact, I have a new subject that we’ll be able to track from start to finish. I’m almost ready to try out the Telpatine on him. Just give me a few more weeks to—”

“That’s not soon enough. The committee members are pressuring me for answers now. The only way I can feel confident fielding their questions is if I verify things in person. How far are you from the Knoxville airport?”

“It’ll depend on traffic, but plan on at least a ninety-minute drive.”

“I’ll contact you with the details concerning my arrival after I confirm my flight.”

“Do you need someone to pick you up?”

“I’ll rent a car.”

“Alright, I’ll make sure the main gate is open for you. I look forward to—”

But she hung up before he could finish.

So, then.

Admittedly, this put a bit of a wrinkle in his plan.

There were aspects of his research that he had not included in his reports, aspects that would be best kept
confidential.

However, things could still move forward, especially if Henrik was able to deliver Zacharias before the general’s arrival.

The renovations on the fourth floor weren’t complete, so General Gibbons would have no need to tour that level. They could keep Zacharias up there until tonight’s nine o’clock deadline.

Adrian pocketed his phone, returned to the Estoria, and told his assistants to prepare one of the rooms on the fourth floor.

Then, he went to finish the dosage calculations for the first human trial of Telpatine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

9:00 A.M.

12 HOURS UNTIL THE DEADLINE

The girls texted Kyle that they were at the dorm and he slipped outside to let them in.

Back in the room, he showed them Daniel’s phone. “The last text he opened said for him to answer a call, but there’s no record that anyone contacted him after that. It’s like he just vanished after he read that text.”

“Yeah, vanished without his phone.” Nicole pointed to the desk. “Or his wallet.”

“And look at this.” Kyle pointed out the unfocused, disjointed writing in Daniel’s journal.

“He did some weird journaling like that last winter too, remember? And now he’s having his blurs again. This is not good.”

Footsteps in the hall caught their attention. K
yl
e opened the door slightl
y,
peered out, and then ducked his head back in.

“Quick—hide.”

“Who is it?” Mia asked.

“The guy who checked Daniel in last night, the residence hall director. He might have seen you two come in.”

Mia scrambled under the bed and Nicole disappeared into the closet.

Kyle snapped off the lights, dove under the covers, and drew them up to his chin just as the door opened.

When the lights clicked on, he groaned and rolled to his side. “Hey!”

The director consulted a clipboard. “Daniel Byers?”

“Yeah.”

“Buddy, you’re late. They started practice over in the field house half an hour ago.”

“What?” Kyle pretended to be shocked. “What are you doing here?”

“Room inspection.”

K
yl
e groaned again but did not climb out of bed. “A little privac
y?
”

The guy backed into the hallway again, shutting the door behind him.

Kyle waited a few moments, then stood and told the girls, “Okay. The coast is clear.”

Mia emerged from under the bed.

Nicole stepped out of the closet. “We need to tell someone he’s missing.”

“Who?” Kyle asked. “If we call his parents, they’ll just worry about him and there’s nothing they can really do about it from Wisconsin anyway.”

“The cops? Or campus security, maybe?”

But Mia shook her head. “We don’t even know that he didn’t just go for a walk or something and then lost track of time.”

“I don’t think that’s very likely.”

“Alright,” Kyle said. “But before contacting campus security, let’s have a look around, check the student center, the cafeteria, see if we can track him down. Maybe I just missed him earlier and he made it into the field house.”

“His basketball shoes are still here,” Nicole pointed out.

“Well, I should check just to be sure.”

“Alright, then I’ll get the cafeteria.”

Mia was staring out the window at the broad, sweeping campus. “I guess that leaves me with the student center. Let’s meet back as soon as we can at that fountain over by the library.”