Missing: The Body of Evidence (23 page)

Disorientated, Nancy awoke at the sound
of a thud. She sat upright, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her dad sat
in a chair facing the bed and stooped to pick up his gun without taking his
gaze from hers. She had puffs around her eyes and they smarted with what felt
like grit when she rubbed them.

‘You talk in your sleep. Who’s David?’

‘Don’t know. I slept like a baby. What are
you doing in here?’

‘I’ve been here all night, just in case
things escalate.’

Escalate?
She had a good idea who David was, but had no recollections of a dream. The
last thing she wanted was to tell him about her visions. His gesture was
appreciated, even more so when he asked if she wanted a coffee and left the
room.

Showering and dressing, she joined him in
the kitchen and sat at the table.

‘What have you got planned after we pick up
the rental car?’ he asked. ‘I’m going to have to work.’

‘First, report the missing gun. Then I need
to go to the bank to collect a bank card and to withdraw some cash, I’m low on
funds to book into a motel.’

‘Don’t go using your card outside the bank.
Whoever is putting tabs on you can trace your movements through purchases.’

‘I’m not stupid. I
am
a detective.’

‘All the same, I’ll loan you some cash, you
don’t want to draw out a large amount.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What then?’

‘I’ll dye my hair when I get into a motel,
but first I need to go to the apartment. Logan will be phoning. After that,
I’ll go to see an attorney.’

‘Do you want me to arrange to have the punk
who made the deposit picked up? I know people who could get to the truth.’

‘No way, it’ll only make matters worse.
Besides, Logan said he’s gone to ground.’

‘My friends wouldn’t just ask questions in
the neighbourhood, I’m sure they could find him by stepping on a few toes.’

His offer amazed her and she wondered just
who these people were that he knew. She could see from his expression that he
was deadly earnest.

‘Listen, Dad, I appreciate the offer, but I
prefer to do my own digging.’

‘Okay, but the offer is there. I’ll be
doing my own investigating when I get to work and I’ll check out the
registration number on the surveillance van.’

‘But... oh never mind.’

Whatever murky world he moved in, she
concluded it was best not to know. They finished their coffees, he handed her
some bills, a copy of the photographs on a computer disc and they set off to
the car rental company.

***

With all the
formalities completed, he tossed her the key to the rental car. Nancy turned to
her dad and gave him a hug. His hands stayed limp by his side.

‘Thanks, Dad.’

His cheeks rouged, at odds with the
coldness of his stance and she peeled away to save his embarrassment. Maybe,
she thought, it was a little too soon for him show any affection, but at least
they were making headway.

The rental-depot was only two blocks from a
local sub-police station and a short five-minute drive. Nancy parked and made
her way to the desk-sergeant. She knew him of old. They exchanged pleasantries
and then filled out a report for the missing gun. The sergeant read her report.

‘Sure you haven’t misplaced the gun?’

‘I’m sure; someone must have picked the
lock.’

‘And nothing else was missing?’

He raised his head and looked straight into
her eyes. It must have sounded as strange to him as it did to her. If she wasn’t
a detective, she guessed he wouldn’t have left it at that.

‘Seen it in the papers about the fire.
Lucky escape for you and Kyle.’

‘Yeah, lucky me.’

Nancy breathed a sigh of relief at avoiding
further small talk, when a uniformed cop brought in a felon for processing. She
picked up a copy of the report and made her way back to her car. On the drive
over to the bank, the mention of Kyle’s name led her to run over in her mind
the weekend at the cabin. Her eyes darted to her cell phone poking out of her
purse on the passenger seat. The temptation was to there to phone Kyle, or at
least to switch on the phone to see if he had left her a message. But thoughts
that whoever was watching her had managed to get the number to her cell phone,
and that they could triangulate her position, held her temptation in check.
Nancy parked and made her way into the bank and up to customer reception.

‘Nancy Roberts, I’m here to pick up a bank
card and I need to order five years bank statements.’

The young woman typed in her details on the
keyboard.

The smile wiped from the young woman’s face
and she asked her to wait and scurried through a security door. Nancy glanced
over at the tellers counter and could see the young woman whispering to one of
the cashiers. The security door opened and the manager walked toward her with
the young woman in tow. Behind them, she could see the tellers gazing over at
her as if she were some sort of alien.

‘Miss Roberts.’

The manager thrust an authorization form in
front of her.

‘I need you to sign this, for us to send
copies of your statements to Detective Brogan.’

Looking up at the young woman peering over
the manager’s shoulder, she looked as though she had a bad smell under her
nose. Nancy signed the form and the manager handed her the debit card. He
turned without saying as much as a thank you; or a goodbye, and exited through
the security door. Nancy walked over to the counter, handed the teller her
card, and drew out some cash. The cashier didn’t even look at her as she
processed the transaction, but the impression that everyone else was glaring at
her, made Nancy feel uncomfortable. She looked up at the security camera.
Thoughts that she was standing in the punk’s footsteps, the one who deposited
the money that caused her problem, made her shudder. Nancy rushed out of the
bank wanting to scream and vowed to change banks when it was all over.

Standing outside the entrance to the bank,
Nancy scanned in all directions, getting a fix on everyone in the area, before
walking the twenty yards to the entrance of her attorney’s office. Stopping,
she glanced around, but no one paid her any attention and she slipped through
the office door to reception.

‘I need an urgent appointment.’

‘Doesn’t everyone. Sorry, all the attorneys
are out. I can fix you up for tomorrow.’

Nancy bit her lip.

‘Okay, but listen. I want to give you these
for safe keeping, and I’m going to need a criminal attorney.’

‘We have Mr. Hayward at nine a.m.’

‘Fine.’

Nancy felt in her purse and handed her the
computer disc with the photographs, the chit for the missing gun and Tracy’s
pen drive.

‘Please, can you lock these away and hand
them to Mr. Hayward.’

‘Sure, here’s his business card.’

With the goodbyes said, she made her way to
her car and drove to her apartment. Eyes darted from the rear-view mirror to
the road and back to the rear-view mirror. With no one following, she turned
into the picnic-parking lot, near to the nature trail where she used to take a
morning walk, and parked her car. Taking sunglasses from her purse, she slipped
them on and pulled the peak of her baseball cap low over her eyes. Walking
across the road, she stepped over a low hedge and made her way to the fire
door. A light rap on the window and she called out.

‘Mrs. James, it’s me, Nancy.’

The curtain twitched and a gray haired
woman’s face appeared in the window. Nancy waved and the window opened.

‘Hi, Nance, lost your key?’

‘Yeah, sorry, can you let me in.’

The window closed and after a few, minutes
the fire door opened. Nancy thanked her, bounded up the stairway and took the
gun from her belt, loading a bullet in the chamber. At the door, she slowly
turned the key and slipped inside. There was a brown envelope on the floor and
she picked it up and moved into the living room. She checked that all the rooms
were empty and walked back to the sofa, where she sat and looked at the brown
envelope. All that was on the front of it was her name. Nancy opened it, took
out a note and read the message in silence.

The flashing neon on the answering
machine in her living room caught Nancy’s attention. In the stance of
The
Thinker
, she stroked her lips with her finger. The message inside the brown
envelope had unsettled her. Instructions from the note were clear enough, meet
Bill at Angelus Roseburg cemetery at two that afternoon, burn the letter, and
tell no one. Doubts surfaced, that Bill could be a party to her being set up,
possibly to deflect guilt from his own direction. A wish permeated, that her
dad would open up and tell her what connection he had to Bill and Logan and
what he knew of them. She slipped the note in her purse and decided to hand it
over to her attorney.

Curiosity as to who had been trying to
contact her drew her to the answering machine. Whoever was bugging her
apartment would already know the contents of the messages. The worry was that
if Kyle was trying to contact her and the surveillance team was part of
internal affairs, he might get into trouble. With some reluctance, she pressed
PLAY.

There were three messages, all from Logan.
A thought struck her that the messages may have given away that she was not in
her apartment at the time of the calls.

She picked up the handset and dialled
Logan’s number.

‘Hi, Chief. Sorry I didn’t get back to you
earlier, I took a sleeping pill.’

‘Okay, but leave your cell phone switched
on when you’re out and about. It’s switched off.’

‘I’m not going anywhere, only resting in
bed and my cell phone is busted. Any news?’

‘Yeah, we think we’ve found the house where
your man is hiding over on Piru Street. We’re sending in a team later today.’

‘That’s good news. Listen, I’m going to
unplug my phone the rest of the day. To be honest, I’ve not recovered from the
fire at the Cabin. I hurt like hell and I need to rest.’

‘Okay, but put it back on in the morning
around eleven and I’ll keep you posted.’

‘How’s Kyle?’

‘Fine, but they’re possibly keeping him in
for observation for a few more days. Got to go.’

The continual tone of the cut line
prevented her from asking what Kyle’s reaction had been to events. Nancy
replaced the handset. Trembling from head to toe, she recalled the conversation
and tried to determine if she had covered all the bases. She flushed hot and
then cold at Kyle not phoning. On the one hand, it would save him a visit from
internal affairs, but on the other hand, she wondered if he had written her
off. Nancy stooped and disconnected the telephone. Sitting back on the sofa,
she covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

Her inner mind told her she needed to get a
grip and come to her senses. This was no time for emotion. Nancy went to the
kitchen and made a strong black coffee. The infusion of caffeine worked its
magic and her emotions subsided. Deciding to give her stalkers a few more
fingerprints to confirm that she was in her apartment, she took a dressing robe
from her bedroom, slipped it on over her clothes and sat at her computer desk.
After ruffling her hair, she switched on the computer and tried her best to
look shattered for the camera.

Opening the browser, her mind blanked as to
what to search, before deciding to take the surveillance team on a trip to You
Tube. Nancy searched out Westlife, and pressed play for their video of
Flying
Without Wings
, which she had not seen before.

With the volume on full, she sat and
watched the screen. The film took Nancy on her journey with Kyle. She was
finding hard to hold back the tears, when her expression froze, with her mouth
open, at the ending of the video. A woman dressed in white and looking
remarkably like her, floated in space. It was as if an electric current had
passed through her body at the significance of the both the lyrics and now the
visuals striking home. She sat in silence, biting her lip and staring at the
computer screen, her mind going through the visions of her dreams. Conscious
they were watching her facial expressions; Nancy switched off the computer and
discarded the dressing robe.

Pacing around the living room, she reckoned
she had more than her love life and career to contend with and she sighed. Her
mental health was now an issue. The images at the end of the video and recall
of the dreams made her think something weird was happening with her psyche.
Everything started with the bang on her head when she ran into the bough of a
tree. All the strange events ran through her mind creating the paranoia that
she was losing her grasp on reality. The malfunction of the shower... the odd
pattern of the fire at the cabin… the candles blowing out and then re-lighting.
Then there was the even stranger events of the glass exploding in her presence
and the MRI scan reversing polarity. Each individual event had a logical
explanation, but when added together it did not feel right, and she thought she
was losing her mind.

The meeting with Mary, the psychic at the
station flashed through her mind and the words that a spiritualist psychic
could help her. She opened her purse and took out the note with the address for
the psychic she had been given. A glance at the wall clock told her there was
enough time to visit the psychic and still meet up with Bill.

Her eyes darted around the room, and then
it dawned on her where she had put the Blu-Tack. Nancy trudged into the bedroom
and threw herself on the bed. She sighed for the benefit of those listening.

‘Arghh, bed and sleep.’

An impish grin spread on her lips as she
took off her sneakers, eased off the bed and tiptoed to the hall, picking up
the Blu-Tack on the way out. Her sweaty palm twisted the door handle and
without a sound she closed the door behind her. Like a naughty schoolchild, she
snickered as she jammed Blu-Tack into the fire door catch and then headed
across the road to her rental car.

The adrenaline rush gave her the sense of a
dopamine high for her mind, but her body started to spasm.

She drove for maybe ten minutes, her eyes
darting in all directions from the rear-view mirror, to the road ahead.
Gradually the anticipation of a cat and mouse car chase diminished. A smirk
developed at managing to pull one over on her stalkers.

She drove north and watched the scenery
roll on by as she chewed up the road ahead. Finally, she reached her
destination.

Nancy parked and checked the number of the
address. Slowly, she crawled along forward in her car, squinting at the house
numbers. Set back off the road, some seventy-five feet and in a slightly
elevated position, the house came into view.

Originally white, the paint was peeling and
greying, with some of the wooden boards hanging loose. The windows looked as
though they had never seen a cleaning, as if they were praying for rain. The
path to the front door looked well-trodden but, with a lack of tending, the
grass had become overgrown with wild flowers and weeds.

It looked like the sort of house where she
would normally call for backup before knocking on the front door, but on this
occasion, it was something she would have to do alone.

Easing from her seat, she closed the car
door and made her way up the pathway to the house. The floorboards creaked on
the veranda and gave her the shivers. Nancy went through the ritual of swaying
her head from side to side in an effort to find some composure and then knocked
on the door. Nerves took hold in the form of a mild-panic attack at the thought
that she had not worked out what she wanted to ask the physic. Anticipation
turned to dread at the sound of footsteps shuffling toward the door and the
handle twitched.