Along Came a Demon (9 page)

I gaped. He grinned at my expression. “Interesting. I wonder why convincing
you
I am human takes considerably more effort.”

I backed inside, hitting the door hard with my uninjured hip, pushing it open.

He tried to follow me inside but stopped on the doorstep, his right foot an inch from the scattered metal filings. He looked down and hissed again.

I slammed the door.

I went in the kitchen swiping beads of sweat off my face with my sleeve.

Mel and Jack followed me from hall to kitchen. “What are we going to do?” Jack cried.

“
We?” Mel asked as she shot to the window and looked out.

Jack stood in front of me and puffed out his chest. “You know I would’ve seen him off if I could, Tiff.”

Mel’s laughter pealed through the room. “She knows you’re a wuss.”

He turned on her. “And you’re a lecherous hussy. Gorge this and Gorge that, and how he’s such a pretty-boy. You have no idea—”

“
Hussy!” Mel shrieked.

“
Hussy?” I echoed. Hadn’t heard the word used in a long time. I flung up my hands to shoulder level, palms out. “Enough, you guys!”

Mel came over. “We worry about you.”

“
We would go out of our minds if anything happened to you,” Jack said.

A small warmth grew in the region of my heart, but Jack spoiled it by adding, “We’d be back to how it was before you moved in. Me and
her,
standing around doing nothing day in, day out.” He stood tall in a dramatic pose. “I think I would kill myself.”

Afternoon, and I was
damned
if I would cower in the house all day. I went outside to talk to Lindy, toting the Ruger. She looked up in alarm when she saw it.

“
Relax, Lindy. It can’t hurt you.”

She sighed. “I suppose nothing can hurt me now, except the pain in my heart.”

She didn’t mean it literally; she thought of Lawrence.

I had to tell her he was still missing, but I didn’t say anything about his stuff disappearing from the apartment, or nobody remembering him.

She put her hands to her face. “How can he just disappear? Where is he?”

“
Perhaps you’d know better than me. Who are his special friends, Lindy? Who would he go to?”

“
I don’t know who he plays with at school and he’s never had a play-date. My poor little boy!”

I couldn’t even give her a consoling pat. “Lindy, we will find him. Don’t doubt it.”

She stumbled to her feet. “I’m going back to the apartment. If he can, he’ll go home.”

I stood up with her. “It’s not your apartment anymore. They’ve probably already cleared out your stuff.” Which, if she did go, could account for Lawrence’s things no longer being there.

“
Lawrence won’t know.”

“
You tried it before and you couldn’t leave the yard.”

But she tried again, picking up speed as she moved away from the fruit trees. She stopped suddenly as if she hit an invisible wall. She stood still a moment, then tried again. Same result. She sagged, shoulders slumping.

Something she said sent my mind spinning, something I completely blew off before. “…
except the pain in my heart.”

Her heart
.
She had a blurred memory of a tall, yellow-haired figure
coming right at her.
She didn’t see him properly, but that didn’t matter because unless their killer is behind them, the dead see with something other than their eyes.
I
need a clear visual, but the dead don’t.
She didn’t remember his face.

The demon did not kill her. She
did
die a natural death.

She should not be here.

But he touched her at the moment of death. He enabled her spirit to wander. And she came to me. If she hadn’t, no one would know about Lawrence.

The demon did not kill her. Did he send her to me?

The phone rang. I hurried inside and saw Mike’s number on Caller ID. I grabbed the phone. “Hi, Mike,” I said a little breathlessly.

“
Can you come down here?” he asked.

I glanced back to make sure Jack and Mel were elsewhere. “What do you need?”

He sounded irritable. “To talk to you. Here. In my office.”

“
Righty-ho. You gonna give me an idea why?”

“
No.”

I didn’t particularly want to chat with Mike when he was in this mood. “How about I’m there in… .” I glanced at the big pink-framed wall clock. “An hour?”

“
Now.”

I narrowed my eyes. Mike’s terse one-liners made me less than cooperative. “Sorry. I’m busy. I’ll see you in an hour.”

“
It’s about Lawrence Marchant,” he said.

I stopped just inside the Squad Room to look at the wall, where Royal Mortensen’s picture hung with the rest of the gang’s. I silently whistled.

What a
hunk!
An exotic-looking man with a lean, chiseled face, straight nose and full lips, blond highlights in his long glossy-brown hair, skin nicely bronzed. His deep-brown, tip-tilted eyes caught the light, sparkling with good humor. A white T-shirt clung to broad shoulders and a narrow waist, an impressive chest with sculpted abs and nicely rounded pecs. I grinned at the picture—Clarion PD had itself a poster boy.

I didn’t see him as I headed for Mike’s office. I would have noticed. Penney and Garn nodded. Brad Spacer saluted me with his oversize coffee cup.

I tapped on the doorframe. “Mike?”

At his desk, Mike beckoned me. “Take a seat, Tiff.”

I faced him across his paper-strewn desk. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he spoke. Not a good sign. “Uh, Tiff?”

“
Yes, Michael.”

“
Lawrence Marchant. Birth certificate, school records, medical and dental history… .”

I could have said something scathing, but I was too worried.

“
We talked to the neighbors again. They swear they don’t recall any child living with Lindy Marchant.” He scratched his head behind his ear. “Three of them agreed to a polygraph. They’re telling the truth, or think they are. It doesn’t make sense.” He eyed me like he hoped I could solve the mystery.

“
I have no idea what’s going on, Mike. Only know what I got from his mother.”

He continued to stare at me, as if trying to gauge my reaction, and I got edgy. I couldn’t tell him what I knew, so I tried to look baffled. I knew more was coming as Mike would not have called me to his office if he had good news. So I said nothing as I watched a deep frown etch his forehead.

But neither did he. He was the first to look away.

“
What gives, Mike? What do you know about Lawrence?”

“
This is bigger than the disappearance of one child. I spoke to Agent Larsen earlier.”

The FBI? What now?

He looked in my eyes again. “You know how many kids go missing each year, here in the States? We’re talking hundreds of thousands under eighteen-years-old. So I’m not surprised it took this long to make the connection.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Connection?”

“
More than two hundred of those kids were born on November 9, 2002. Same as Lawrence Marchant.” Mike looked away; he couldn’t meet my eyes now. “And we just started looking. There could be more, a lot more.”

He ran his palm down his face, but that didn’t erase the rigid lines on his forehead and beside his mouth. “Some bright spark at the Bureau saw a communication from Interpol and joined the dots. Same thing’s been happening all over the world.”

“
The world?” I repeated inanely. I couldn’t quite coordinate my thoughts.

“
Lawrence Marchant’s disappearance is part of a pattern. Male children born on November 9, 2002, have been disappearing
since
then.”

I tried to speak and stuttered the words instead. “
Since
2002? But, you mean babies, toddlers… .”

His voice softened. “I know.”

A dead silence hung between us for a few seconds.

“
I know missing children aren’t your field, but I’d like you with us on this. You put us onto Lawrence and I think you have an interest in finding him.”

I cleared the lump in my throat. “Believe me, I do have an interest in tracking down Lawrence, and even if I’d never heard of the boy, do you think I’d say no to finding a missing child? But why do you think I’d be of any help, Mike?”

“
You said you… . You said… .” He cleared his throat and tried again. “You communicated with his mother. Maybe she knows something,” he said uncomfortably.

Lindy didn’t appear to know anything helpful, but I didn’t tell Mike. “I’ll do my best.”

“
Good. I thought you’d agree. I want you and Roy working together on this.”

What?
I was not a cop and
had never been asked to partner with one. Surely Mike could see the difficulties posed by such a partnership? He thought I
contacted
the dead, he didn’t know I saw and heard them. Cops are method, logic and evidence while I’m anything but. I could see Mortensen asking me for the names of my
sources
and insisting I rigidly follow police procedure, and not believing a single word I said anyway.

With a thin smile, I said, “Um, no.”

His smile was just as narrow. “I thought you’d say that, but I want you to reconsider. If you don’t work with Roy, you’re out. I’ll get a C & D from Judge Michaels.”

I gripped the wood arms of the chair. “You’ll put a Cease and Desist on me? You’re kidding, right?”

He slowly shook his head side to side. “Lawrence Marchant is our business now. If you won’t work with us, you’ll get in our way.”

I gave him a murderous look. “I’m a private citizen, Mike. You can’t stop me.”

“
Yes, I can.”

And he could, too. Damn the man.

“
And if you work for me, you get paid,” he added.

I leaned back in the chair and folded my arms over my chest, compressing my lips stubbornly. “You know what people think of me, I’m a whacko. Mortensen won’t listen to anything I tell him.”

Mike’s shoulders relaxed. “Give him a chance. He wasn’t surprised when I told him what you do. He worked with a psychic on a couple of cases in Seattle. Told me the experience totally rearranged his thinking on metaphysical investigation.”

Metaphysical investigation? They have a name for it now?

“
Tiff?”

I waved at him. “Give me a minute.” The upside, I would be in on anything the cops learned about Lawrence. The downside, I would be stuck with Royal Mortensen breathing down my neck. But he could go where I couldn’t without a damned good reason. He could open doors.

“
Okay,” I agreed. “But you tell Mortensen we’re partners. He’s not my boss.”

“
Already done, Tiff. Already done,” he said smugly.

I started to my feet, but Mike saved the whammy for last. “One more thing. Some of the children were found. They were murdered.”

And while I was still trying to absorb that, he looked past me at the big plate-glass window separating his office from the squad room. “Roy’s here. Come meet him.”

I followed Mike inside the Squad Room and to a side office. He called through the door, “Roy, Tiff’s here.”

Detective Royal Mortensen came out the office. I took a step back, almost tripping over my feet as what I saw registered. Mike said something to Mortensen and looked back at me. He put his hand on the guy’s shoulder. “Tiff, meet Roy Mortensen.”

To Mortensen he said, “Roy, meet Tiff Banks and if you know what’s good for you, don’t call her Tiffany. She’s partnering with you on the Marchant case.”

Royal Mortensen presented his hand. I stared, and I cannot even begin to picture my expression. Dumfounded. Horrified. Incredulous. Take your pick. His hand dropped and the half-smile slid off his face.

Six-foot-six? Shining metallic copper hair threaded with strands of gold, clipped back in a pony tail. His tip-tilted eyes sparked and glowed a deep brown like newly minted pennies. Wide shoulders strained a black tee tucked in khaki pants with his ID badge pinned to the waistband.

He was so much more than his picture.

I looked at Mike, then back to Mortensen, wondering what Mike saw when he looked at him.
I do not believe this!

Those little cogs and gears in my head clicked and dropped into place. The process normally felt good, but not this time. Kids born six years ago, disappearing over the past six years. Mortensen had been a detective for the past six years.

Demons were involved.

Mortensen was a demon.

“
Forget it,” I growled, and stalked away.