Absence of Faith (36 page)

The room was without traces of
light anywhere. She thought this was odd. Even the streetlights
outside her home would cast a faint silver of light into the
bedroom windows. She could at least see the windows framed in this
pale light. She reached over to turn on her Victorian lamp next to
her bed and her fingers touched something that felt like many tiny
sticks. It made a dry rustling sound like paper. She moved her hand
around wildly like a fish out of water feeling the area around her.
The entire area was covered with the dry, stick-like substance. She
felt a rough blanket that smelled of mildew beneath her. Under the
blanket, the floor was hard and rough and felt like
wood.

She sat up and her head spun out of
control. Tiny white stars swirled in front of her eyes. She laid
back and took several deep breaths. Her stomach was about to erupt
when she heard a sound.
What was that!
She thought feeling
the fear quickly seep through her body. The sound had an animal
quality to it and she began to sweat. Seconds later, the sound came
out of the darkness again - a low moan of pain and fear. She backed
away from the sound, but her movement created the rustling sound
again. She stopped out of fear that the animal would find her in
the darkness and attack. The voice moaned again.

Linda stared into the darkness
hoping her eyes would adjust and she would be able to see
something, anything. She was still sweating, but not as much. She
stared at the darkness for several minutes, letting her fear escape
and her thoughts take over. Slowly, she began to think again - her
thoughts were clearer now. Slowly she took a deep
breath.

"Hello."

There was silence for several
seconds.

"Hello. Is anyone there?" she said
louder.

Nothing. Then she could hear
breathing, short and shallow, but it was breathing!

"Who are you?" she said.

There was a garbled sound at first
like someone trying to talk with a throat full of mucus.

"Help...me...help..." the voice
said.

It was a low, very faint voice.
Linda slowly moved toward the cry, crawling on all fours like a
cautious animal. "Help...me," the voice was raspy and strained.
Linda stopped and used her hands to feel in front of her. She did
this several times, moving toward the sound, until her hand touched
something warm and slightly hairy. She moved her fingers along the
length of the object. It was an arm. She moved closer and moved her
hand along the arm's length until she found a hand. It was a large
hand with a slight hardness on the palm and inside of the fingers.
She picked up the hand and then slowly lowered it to the floor. She
felt along the man's arm to his shoulder and found his face. She
touched his cheek; it was rough from the stubble of a beard several
days old. She leaned over him and whispered near his head, "Where
are we?"

"I don't know," the raspy voice
said in a strained whisper.

"What's your name?"

"Nick."

C
arson sat
down for the first time in eight hours. He dropped into a dark
brown stuffed chair in the doctor's lounge on the first floor of
the hospital. It was his first 45-minute break. This was his week
for the all nighters, and he didn't mind because he knew it would
soon be just a mere memory. Three more months and he would be off
the hook - no more all night duty unless it was an emergency. He
let out a breath of relief at the thought and then fell into a
deep, restful sleep.

Carson awoke slowly to a vibration
at his hip. He wasn't sure now if his beeper went off or not. He
rubbed his eyes trying to hurry them to focus, and then glanced
down at the beeper. A tiny triangle blinked on the LCD screen. He
pressed a tiny button next to the screen and his home telephone
number flashed on the tiny screen. He looked at his watch. It was
4:15 a.m. He quickly went to the phone on the wall and pressed "9"
to get an outside line. When he heard the second dial tone, he
dialed his home number.

"Detective Vandergarde," the voice
said.

"Who?" Carson asked.

"Vandergarde here," the voice
said.

"I'm sorry. I must have dialed the
wrong number..." Carson replied his head still swimming in
sleep.

"Doctor Hyll?"

"Yeah. How did you know my
name?"

"I'm at your house now and I think
you better come home right away."

"Is Linda ok?" Carson yelled into
the phone.

"We don't know. You'd better come
now," Vandergarde said.

"Is she there? Let me talk to her.
Is she hurt?"

"Missing, we think. You'd better
get here as fast as you can. I'll explain everything when you get
here."

Carson slammed the receiver back
into its holder and rushed out of the lounge. The phone bounced off
the holder and swayed back and forth like a pendulum. As he rushed
past the nearest nursing station, he told the nurse he had an
emergency at home.

Carson pulled up and it looked like
a late night party with every light on in the house. Several police
cars were parked in front along with several more unmarked cars. He
rushed up his porch and entered. Two men dressed in suits stood in
the living room, while several uniformed officers moved through the
house like they were old friends over to see the new house. The
uniformed police dusted for fingerprints and looked
around.

"What happened? Where's Linda?"
Carson said frantically.

"I'm Jerry Vandergarde. I spoke to
you on the phone," said the tall, blonde man as he approached
Carson.

"What's going on?" Carson
asked.

"We're not sure. We got a 911 call
from here and then nothing. The call was connected, but no one
spoke. When we arrived, the front door was open and a window over
there was broken. We're checking with neighbors to see if they saw
anything," Vandergarde explained. "Looks like a break-in, but we're
not sure."

Carson rushed past Vandergarde into
his bedroom. Several detectives and crime scene investigators were
examining the room. He rushed out, went back downstairs, and
approached Vandergarde.

"Would your wife go out around 3
a.m. for any reason? Visit a friend?"

"No. Nobody! She would call me if
she went out. She was leery about going out at night since the
first break in."

"That’s why we responded,"
Vandergarde said. "We knew about the first break in. So far it
looks like we have to treat this as a missing person unless we find
evidence to prove otherwise."

"Don't bullshit me!" Carson
yelled.

Vandergarde raised his
eyes.

"Why would all these cops be here?
Tell me what's going on or do I have to talk to your
boss!"

"Listen, asshole!" Vandergarde
replied pressing his face close to Carson's. "I don't have to tell
you a fucking thing! You can call the governor! I don't have to
tell you anything! I'm conducting an investigation and right now
you are my number one suspect!"

Carson looked away and his face
flushed red.

"Okay," he said clenching his fist.
"Would you mind filling me in? I'm telling you that she has no
reason to go out at this hour. Even if she were sick or dying, she
would call 911 before driving herself to a hospital. She would call
me first. I’m a doctor!"

"Okay. We're checking the hospitals
now for that possibility," the detective said. "If you would come
out to my car, I'll fill you in on what we have so far."

Vandergarde led the way to his
black GMC truck parked in front of the house.

"We had a hellva time trying to get
in here. The gate guard wouldn't let us in until a uniformed pulled
up. You got good security here," Vandergarde said.

"It's ok, I guess. Keeps the cars
out after eleven, but not the people," Carson replied.

The two men got into the
truck.

"What I am about to tell you stays
in this car. Okay?"

Carson nodded.

"I'm Nick Vancuso's partner,"
Vandergarde said. "All those calls you’ve been leaving for Nick,
I've been getting. Nick is what we call in the force a ghost buster
- a detective who becomes an expert on crimes related to the occult
and Satanism and anything else that is weird or out of the
ordinary. Personally, I didn't believe any of that shit until Nick
disappeared two days ago, and I was given his files."

"He disappeared?" Carson
said.

"Yeah, I didn't even know Nick was
a ghost buster. Until a few years ago, any crime related to
Satanism was kept under raps, because we didn't want everyone
panicked, but mainly because you lose credibility with most judges
when you mention occult stuff, and you end up losing most of the
time. Plus the damn newspapers play it up to high heaven,"
Vandergarde explained. "Excuse the pun."

"So Nick and my wife may have been
kidnapped by Satanists?" Carson asked incredulously.

"I'm not saying anything, but it is
a possibility."

"Oh come on! What kind of shit is
this?" Carson said. "Why would they want to kidnap Nick or my
wife?"

"Listen. It is a possibility until
proven otherwise. We have reason to believe, it may be such a
group. Why Nick? He was getting too close to them, making them
uncomfortable, so they would go after him."

"He's dead?" Carson
said.

"It's a possibility. A veteran
detective just doesn't disappear for a few days and not tell
anyone, especially Nick. He was one of the best."

"What about Linda? Is she dead,
too?" Carson asked his voice trailing off to a whisper and his eyes
welling up.

"Not yet," Vandergarde
said.

Carson looked at him
intensely.

"How do you know?"

"Nick reported that your wife had
been marked with a funny symbol, a symbol that marked her the bride
of Satan."

"A diamond flanked by two inverted
C's. They painted it on her with nail polish," Carson
said.

"Well, she's a special person to
them and they won't kill her because she's supposed to have the
Devil's son," Vandergarde explained. "This was all in Nick's
notes."

"That's what Nick said and I'm
still having problems believing all this. I think it's just some
crazy maniac out there who kidnapped my wife. This is just a bunch
of crazy shit!"

"I thought so, too," Vandegarde
said. "Until I read Nick’s files."

"What's the motive? Why would they
pick Linda?" Carson asked.

"They just don't pick anyone.
There’s a motive. You or your wife is a target. Have you ever
crossed anyone connected with them? Anyone at the
hospital?"

"How am I supposed to know that?”
Carson said. "They don't wear name tags."

Vandergarde reached in the inside
pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a small pad. He turned on
the overhead light and then flipped several pages.

"How about a nurse named Janice
Doherty? Ring any bells?"

Carson stared hard at the detective
and Vandergarde watched him closely.

"She worked with Doctor Graber, but
I never worked with her, never met her."

"But she knows of you?"

"It's a small hospital."

Carson looked out of the window at
the large oak tree near his house.

"Is she one of them?" he
asked.

"We don't know, but Nick spoke with
her and then he disappeared."

"I don't know. I just don't know,"
Carson said. "I'm having a hard time with all of this."

He pressed his fingers into his
eyes and rubbed them.

"Maybe, I'll get a ransom note or
something like that."

"I wouldn't count on it,"
Vandergarde said. "They don’t want money."

Carson looked up at the
detective.

"So what do I do now?"

"We'll put out a missing person's
report. You'll have to come to the station to sign it. Do you have
a recent photo of your wife? We'll give it to the
media."

"Sure," Carson said and opened the
car door.

They went into the house and Carson
went upstairs to the bedroom to get a photo of Linda. Vandergarde
stayed downstairs in the living room. Carson noticed her things on
the vanity - uniquely shaped bottles of perfume, the gold-plated
jewelry box from Paris, two hairbrushes filled with strands of her
brown hair - objects that defined her life. He stopped at the photo
of them taken in Bermuda on their honeymoon. Carson had set the
camera on a small tripod and put the camera on self-timer. He
hurriedly joined Linda sitting on a large rock that was part of the
jetty. The camera clicked just as a wave splashed white water up
behind them – a perfect shot. Carson could still hear the waves
hitting the jetty. His eyes began to water and tears rolled down
his narrow cheeks falling into the rug below. His chest heaved and
he burst out crying. After a few seconds, Carson reached over and
picked up the photo. He looked at it again and a new wave moved up
from his bowels into his throat. He held the photo against his
chest and cried again. He unconsciously dropped the photo and it
bounced slightly on the rug and partially slid under the vanity. He
bent down to pick it up and saw a silver chain with a pendant
attached lying under the vanity. He moved his hand under and picked
it up. The thick silver chain was broken and the pendant was about
the size of a quarter and in the shape of a peace symbol. Carson
stared at the jewelry for several minutes, turning it over,
examining it, and looking for any clues that could explain what had
happened to Linda. Then he put the pendant in his pocket and headed
downstairs.