A Soul To Steal (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book One) (19 page)

He gathered up his remaining energy and started to run. It was a dead run, with all the energy he could manage. With every step, the bridge was closer.

That’s when it happened. The pounding of hoof beats exploded out of the forest behind him. Quinn didn’t dare look, he just kept running. Somewhere behind him he could hear the horse kicking up the clay as he pounded his way toward the bridge. A dark hollow laugh echoed high above the trees and Quinn’s blood ran cold.

One minute, he thought—I’m so close this time.

But he knew he wasn’t going to get it. The horse’s gallop sounded ever closer, a noise that was pounding into his brain with every step. The laugh rang out again as Quinn stumbled.

The horse was on top of him. Quinn could hear the blade come out of the Horseman’s sheath. Could hear it positively ringing in the cold fall air as it began its stroke. And Quinn knew where it would be aimed. He could almost feel the blade as it approached his neck.

He could see the bridge, only yards away. But he wouldn’t make it.

Quinn knew he was a dead man.

He knew what it felt like to die.

When he woke up, he was screaming.

*****

Friday, Oct. 13

Quinn came in early in the morning and was again one of the first in the office. He felt tired and worn down but forced himself to start working. It was the only way to get his mind off the nightmares. He checked off several ideas on his agenda. He had to keep following up the Kilgore murder, had to write up that piece on Terry and…

Talk to Buzz, he remembered. See if Buzz could think of anything that happened in the
Chronicle
building.

After a moment, he found a note stuck to his desk keyboard.

“Don’t forget about the dog story,” it read.

Quinn crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. He didn’t even look at the signature—a loopy giant H. The dog story? He had written the lead of the paper this week and Helen was still forcing a story about dog shit. It was enough to drive you nuts.

He was also surprised to find his voicemail light blinking. Surely Helen hadn’t decided to leave a voice message as well?

But it wasn’t Helen. Instead it was a message from an old source of his asking for a meeting.

Quinn wondered what it meant. Why was Dee calling him now?

He would have to wait until school was out to go meet him, so he spent the remainder of the day working on his Terry story and making calls to find an update on the Kilgore case.

He barely saw Kate, who came in before lunch, but then was off again. Janus told him it was for some profile that Laurence wanted.

At about 2:00 p.m., Quinn left to head over to Loudoun County High School.

Janus grabbed him on the way out.

“You need me to come?” he asked.

“Nah,” Quinn said. “A source asked for a meeting. Don’t know what it’s about.  I’ll be back in a minute.”

Quinn shook his head as he walked down the stairs and out the back door of the building, glancing into the printing press room as he passed by.

He arrived at Loudoun County High School near the edge of town five minutes later. He tried to imagine what it would have been like to go there, but couldn’t. The building was smallish and dull-gray, with a football field and bleachers not far behind it. It had little to distinguish it from countless other schools.

Quinn walked around the edge of the parking lot and entered a back door. Technically he wasn’t supposed to go into the high school, not after the story he had written last summer about its growing marijuana problem. But he also had recently written a glowing profile of the policeman on duty at the school and figured that would ease any complications that might arise if he were caught. It was also after school hours and he thought it unlikely anyone would spot him.

Dee was in the appointed place.

“What’s up?” Dee said, leaning against a locker near a science lab.

“You called and I came,” Quinn said. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been all right,” Dee said. “But I’ve got something to tell you. It’s important.”

Quinn nearly laughed. Dee somehow always had a serious look on his face, like any minute the sky was going to collapse on top of him. Quinn liked him, but it was damn hard to take the kid with anything but a grain of salt.

“Sure, what is it?” Quinn responded.

“Not here, man,” he said and gestured inside an empty classroom.

Quinn sighed. This was probably a waste of time. When they got into the room, Dee shut the door.

“I can’t be seen talking to you,” he said.

“The marijuana article was over a year ago, Dee,” Quinn replied, smiling. “I’m sure they've forgotten about it.”

“No, it isn’t that,” Dee said. “They haven’t forgotten about it either, but that ain’t the point.”

“Then what is?” Quinn asked.

“I know something about that murder,” Dee said, still looking nervously at the door.

“Mary Kilgore?” Quinn said, suddenly taking the entire conversation a lot more seriously.

“Yeah, the chick from Middleburg,” Dee said.

“What do you know, Dee?”

“Like who killed her, man,” he said.

“Everybody knows that,” Quinn said. “The police arrested her husband.”

“It wasn’t him, man,” Dee said. “No way it was him.”

“Look, Dee, just calm down and level with me. What the hell are you talking about?”

“I saw him,” Dee said. “Two weeks ago. Jacob and I saw him.”

“Saw who?”

“The guy who killed that woman,” Dee said. “He was dressed up, but I’m sure it is the same guy. I’m sure of it.”

“How do you know he did it?”

“Shit,” Dee said. “I’ve seen some weird things in my time. But I saw this dude try to take Jacob’s head off.”

Quinn was lost.

“Just tell me what you saw,” Quinn said. He wasn’t sure if Dee knew anything at all, but the kid was obviously nervous. He sure thought he had something.

“Jacob and I were out near Purcellville the other week,” Dee said.

“When?” Quinn asked him.

“A week ago Saturday, I think,” he said.

“You were scoring some dope?” Quinn asked.

“Shut up!” Dee said fiercely, looking at the door. “These walls aren't exactly soundproof.”

“Sorry,” Quinn said.

“Yeah,” Dee muttered. “We were out there, doing business, when we heard something coming. We couldn’t tell what it was at first.”

“Where were you?”

“Out along Gallows Road near…” Dee said, looking irritated by the interruption.

“A good place to stay out of the way,” Quinn said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dee replied. “We thought maybe it was a cop, or something. We didn't know what to think. Then I figured it out—it was a guy on a horse. You could hear the sound all around you, man. It sounded like it was hell bent for leather.”

“A horse?” Quinn asked and felt his throat constrict. Almost immediately, his palms started to sweat. Dee didn’t notice.

“It was a horse all right,” Dee said. “You could see him coming down the road, riding like the wind.”

“Could you see who it was?” Quinn asked.

“Are you kidding, man?” Dee asked. “It was the dead of night—and you see some crazy fucker riding straight at you. How likely is it you’re going to get an ID?”

“What was he dressed like?”

“Dressed like?” Dee asked, his face knotted up in frustration. “You aren’t getting it.”

“Getting what?”

“Let me finish my goddamn story and you will,” he replied. “It was like nothing I’ve ever seen, man. The rider had this huge cape and the horse looked… demonic, you know? I could see his red eyes staring right at me. I thought for sure I was going to lose my head.”

“You panicked?” Quinn asked, growing more uncomfortable by the second.

“No, I mean it literally,” Dee replied, looking straight at Quinn. “This dude had no head. He was dressed like the Headless Horseman. You know, the one in that movie?”

Quinn felt like he had been punched in the gut. His throat closed in and he had trouble pulling in oxygen. He nodded only briefly as Dee continued.

“He just ran right past me, but I thought I was a goner,” Dee said. “I was seriously toast.”

“Jacob?” Quinn croaked.

“Jacob was fine,” Dee replied. “But I think the guy may have tried to take a swipe at him. He was so close, it looked like he ran through him. Jacob shit himself, I know that. But he didn’t lose his head.”

Dee stopped and looked at Quinn strangely.

“You feel okay, man?” he asked. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“I’m fine,” Quinn managed, still feeling like his head was spinning. “What did you guys do?”

“Do?” Dee asked. “Jesus, man, what do you think we did? We ran like hell after he left.”

“So you didn’t see where he went?”

“We didn’t exactly stick around to find out what the hell was going on.”

“Then what makes you think this horseman killed anyone?”

“What makes me think it?” Dee asked. “Christ, man, I thought you were smart. You asked all those questions when you wanted to do your dope story, made the school look bad. You seemed pretty crafty. Where is your head now? Stuck under a rock? When a dude dresses up like the fucking Headless Horseman and then somebody dies with their head no longer attached to their body, it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together, you know?”

Quinn still felt short of breath.

“But maybe it was the husband…”

“Maybe, if he liked to get all dressed up,” Dee shot back. “You telling me there is some killer out there
as well as
some motherfucker dressing up like a ghost? Because I’m not sure what bothers me more. The idea that some son-of-a-bitch is out there taking people’s heads off, or the fact that he is just one of two psychos in the area. It’s the same guy, man. It has to be.”

“Why haven’t you gone to the police?” Quinn asked.

“Oh, well, I’ll just go fucking do that, won’t I? ’Hey, Sheriff Brown, you know when I was buying drugs from your son, he and I just happened to see some whacked out motherfucker dressed up like a guy from that Johnny Depp movie?’ I’m sure they would give me a fucking medal for that, don’t you think?”

“I see your point,” Quinn replied, reaching in his head for something intelligent to say. But all the knowledge had been sucked out somehow. One line kept repeating itself: The dream is real. The dream is real. You thought you heard him the other morning. You were right. He’s real. The Headless Horseman is real.

“Jacob hasn’t talked about it, man,” Dee said. “I wasn’t going to mention it again, but after the murder… I tried to get him to speak up, maybe say something to his Dad. But he…”

“Jacob’s a shit,” Quinn said. “He doesn’t give a damn about anybody but himself.”

“Amen,” Dee said.

“I should have printed his name when I had the chance,” Quinn said to himself.

“You did that, you wouldn’t be in this county anymore. They would have run you out. You were cool, man. You had to play it cool. You know I appreciate that. My guys did too. If our names had been in the paper… Anyway, you have to pull your head out of your ass on this one. Because there is some serious freaky shit going down.”

“More than you know, Dee. More than you know.”

“Seriously, you look like you need a doctor,” Dee said.

“It’s nothing.”

“Look, I don’t want Jacob to know nothing about this,” Dee said. “But I felt like I had to tell somebody.”

“Thank you, Dee,” Quinn replied. “I really appreciate it. I do.”

“Do you?” Dee asked. “You look more sick than excited.”

“Let’s just say you caught me off guard,” Quinn replied.

“But you believe me, right?” Dee asked.

“I believe you, Dee. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

“Good,” he said. “Look, I’ve got to split. I’m done with this, okay? I told you, my conscience is clear. So don’t have no cops show up and ask me about it, okay?”

“It’s off the record, don’t worry,” Quinn said.

“Alright man,” Dee said and shook his hand.  Two seconds later, he was out the door.

Quinn sat down in one of the chairs. He needed to think. Someone had actually seen the Horseman. He couldn’t believe it. Although Dee was a pot smoker, he wasn’t a liar and wasn’t inclined toward making stuff up. During the whole weed story, he had been one of the few reliable sources of information.

Quinn put his head in his hands and stared at the desk. So it was real. The dreams had been forecasting something, just as he feared. A voice from the darker part of his mind piped in: What did you think was going to happen? Did you honestly believe it was going to go away? That it was all in your head?

He hadn’t, Quinn realized. He had felt this sense of dread all month and it had been increasing every day. When he heard about the murder, it only confirmed what he had seen coming all along. Hadn’t he slipped up and said something about the Horseman to Gary when he called? But he hadn’t connected the Horseman with the killing. Maybe it was that serial killer or maybe someone who knew the woman. But he hadn’t thought of it. It was just a dream. But what if it wasn’t? Quinn kept wondering what he was going to do.