Angel's Dance (24 page)

“
Bella ran away. Everyone
knows that,” Louis snapped. She suspected he was becoming
suspicious as the smart and even asinine comments had
stopped.

“
Of course, everyone still
believed that until you took Kat. Why cut the fun short? No one was
looking for you.” Flashes in Clear’s mind. Kat had talked to Bella
at the recital and had seen Bella after, several times after. Bella
had, in effect, run off with Louis. She had stayed in Chicago of
her own free will, against everyone else’s thoughts. Bella had
picked Kat, not Louis. But the new tilt had excited Louis. That was
why.

Clear could feel a migraine building.
This was so emotionally taxing! Yet, she was so close. She couldn’t
stop now. “What draws you to these women… girls really? You are a
grown man, attractive enough. Why prey on these girls when you
could have your pick of grown women?” Flashes of how much easier it
was to manipulate the girls. All of them fell at his feet and did
his bidding, willing to do anything for the art. And then
surprisingly, Kat did not. That was his hook. Bella had shown
interest in her, insisted that she was far more talented than she
seemed. But Kat’s absolute and utter lack of interest in what
world-experienced Louis offered on a tantalizing hook had enticed
him even more.

His dad had warned him about victims
like this. They were dangerous, would lead to him getting caught.
And dad was right, as always. But the danger was the ultimate
allure. The other girls had gotten boring. Sure, dad still enjoyed
it, but it was Dad’s game. Louis was ready for his own
game.

“
Nothing?” she asked, in
response to his silence. She had gotten almost more than she wanted
from the question, but to build on his silence would make him even
more suspicious.

“
I’ve already told you,
I’ve done nothing wrong.” Another flash of all the evil things he
had done to these women nearly doubled Clear over in pain. Forcing
them to dance on broken toes, cutting, sexual abuse, degrading them
at every turn only to have them coming back for more. She shook her
head to scrub the images. This wasn’t going to help her get Kat
back.

“
Where do you keep them?”
She knew it was almost a waste of time to ask, but she hoped. Hoped
he would let something slip in that oily little mind of his. She
almost missed it, it went so fast. A house. A large white house
with green shutters.

“
Grant!” Clear called out.
He came running. She stepped away from Louis and whispered. “I need
you to find a picture of a house.” She described it to him. Maybe
there would be more attached to the photo of the house than what he
was giving her.

“
Right,” Grant nodded. He
held out a stack of photos. “Here are all the artistic ones I have
found so far. None of them seem to be Kat. These three might be
Bella, but I can’t tell.”

Clear took the stack of photos,
looking at the three he thought were Bella. Sure enough, they were.
She caressed the first photo and was immediately sucked into the
same room that Kat had been in.

Bella lay on the floor bleeding from
one arm. “How can you do this?” she whispered, sounding
heartbroken. “I have bled for the dance. I have given my heart and
my soul to you. What more can I do?”

Louis was buttoning his pants up. He
had just had a rather amusing little romp with Bella, but even that
was not enough to slake his driving thirst. She had come too
willingly. She had seemed to be a much larger challenge, as pure
and innocent as she was. But her devotion to her craft was all he
needed to have her laying on the floor after a vigorous session
begging him to do more to her. He sneered down at her. “You are
just not what I thought you could be. I am so deeply disappointed
Bella. There is no hope for you… except..” He eyed her
thoughtfully. “Perhaps if you could get that girl to come join us?
Maybe seeing a true genius… it could inspire you.” He stroked his
chin thoughtfully.

“
Yet
your
true genius seems to elude me!”
she snarled back. He put on a face of true hurt and waited just
enough of a beat to make her believe she had hurt him. She was
surprisingly good at the banter. There was that small consolation.
“Perhaps my genius is not enough. Perhaps raw genius is what you
must see in hopes of achieving it.”

“
I’m sorry!” Bella sobbed,
throwing herself at his feet. “I didn’t mean to insult your talent.
Of course you are talented!!” She clung to him.

He bent down to her level and took her
face in his hand. “Ah, Belissima! Of course, you were only speaking
out of envy and spite. I know this. I don’t hold it against you.
Not at all.” He had to keep her wanting more, after all. And like a
heroin addict she licked it up. Accepting everything he said as if
he were a god. Pathetic, really. “Now, I must be going to the
studio. And you need to get your muse to come to us.” He rose and
started to walk away.

He made it ten steps before she called
out to him. “What if I can’t? What if she won’t come?”

“
Find a way,” Louis
ordered. “Or perhaps you truly are not capable of greatness.” He
then continued out the door, leaving her crying in her own blood.
Pathetic.

Clear pulled back from the image. She
felt cold and ill. She looked at Grant.

“
That bad?” he asked
grimly.

“
It sounds like he used
Bella to get to Kat.” Clear tried not to cry. She coughed to
release the tightness in the back of her throat. “We will get her
back,” she promised. Laying her hand on his arm, she could feel the
comfort her words had given him. She drew from that comfort and
then turned back to Louis.

“
I’ll find you that
picture,” Grant muttered and stomped back into the back room. They
could hear him banging about and Clear could see that this was
causing Louis no small amount of agitation. She sat silently
letting him listen to it, hoping it would make him more
reckless.

“
He can’t do that!” Louis
muttered. “Those are mine! He has no right to touch my things. I
swear, if he has ruined or broken anything.. I swear…
I’ll…”

“
You’ll what, kill him?”
Clear asked caustically.

Louis stared into her eyes,
unflinching and she knew he meant that.

Grant was tearing the photo room
apart. He had no compulsion about knocking over camera equipment
and letting it shatter on the ground. On the contrary, it gave him
a great satisfaction; particularly as he found thousands more
photos of dancers. The monster had hundreds of the more “artistic”
photos and Grant felt sick even imagining what these girls must
have gone through. Clear had told him that the artistic ones were
all of his victims. Most of the images seemed to be taken in the
same room… but not this room.

Grant tore through the photos looking
for a white house with green shutters, trying to block Clear’s taut
features from his mind. Whatever nightmare she had seen in that
last vision with the picture of Bella had left her drawn and pale.
She shouldn’t be here! He chided himself. She is far too delicate
for this type of work. Her empathy went too deep. But then he
reminded himself that if he could feel what the victims felt then
he might not be able to handle this either. In fairness, Clear was
handling it like a trooper. She was the one who kept her head when
he was going crazy and probably would’ve killed the
bastard.

Grant threw his hands up in
frustration. He needed to focus! He was just haphazardly throwing
things about. This would not do. He would never find anything at
this rate. He spotted a large cabinet on the far wall and waded
through the debris. Pulling open the cabinet, he found several
large books. Scrap books? Personal photos not left out for the
casual client to observe? He pulled down the first book and quickly
scanned through the photos. It was a visual bio for the man and he
had been in a lot of productions. The playbills, pictures of
rehearsals and performances. No good.

He moved on to the next book. This one
had pictures of dancers in rehearsal. Louis instructing, Louis and
Ms. Chofsky. Hmm…. He continued to thumb through the pictures. He
stopped at a picture of Louis and his dad in front of a white
building. There was only a corner of the building in the picture.
It looked like white clapboard, but there was no evidence of a
shutter. He pulled it out of the book and kept flipping. Further
along he found a picture with Louis, Ms. Chofsky, Mr. Lando and
another woman who must be Mrs. Lando. They were all standing in
front of the same house. This picture showed that it was a
two-story white clapboard. It was an older house and there on the
windows were dark green shutters. He snatched this one up as well
and ran back into the room.

Clear was clinging to
Louis as if she might fall. Louis looked from her to Grant and
back. “What? What the hell is she doing?” he asked, seeming in
horror. :How… how could she possibly know…
what
is she?!!”

Clear was bloodless, her hand and face
locked in a contorted image of fear. She appeared to be on the
verge of collapsing. Whether she was in the middle of a vision or
not, she was in trouble. Grant scooped her up, pulling her rigid
fingers from Louis shirt.

“
Clear? Clear are you
alright?” Grant gently set her on the ground and began rubbing her
frigid hands. They were still tensed as if clinging to Louis. As he
rubbed them she began to relax slowly. Suddenly she snapped out of
it, sitting up abruptly. She looked confused and
disoriented.

“
Are you ok?” Grant asked
again.

She nodded grimly. “I… what happened?”
she asked.

“
I think this is too much
for you,” Grant murmured, rubbing her arms.

“
We don’t have much time…”
Clear whispered.

“
You’ll be no good to us
if… if you snap,” Grant whispered, thinking back to the last time
he had found her in a similar circumstance. He couldn’t block out
the smell or the image of blood everywhere. He shook his head to
dismiss that horrible old memory.

Clear smiled wanly. “I’m fine. I’ll be
no good if Mr. Lando gets out.”

“
Clear, I can’t… I can’t
ask you to do this,” Grant searched for how to say what he was
feeling. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing both his
daughter
and
Clear.

Clear sat up. “You aren’t. I’m not
doing this for you. I’m doing it for Kat.” She pulled herself up to
her knees. “And if I quit then if something happens to her… it is
my fault.” She sat quietly for half a beat, brooding. “I will be
fine.” She almost sounded as if she were trying to convince herself
of that.

She glanced over and
noticed that he had dropped the photos. “What is this?” she asked.
She picked it up and almost instantly she was gone again. Grant sat
by watching her and warring with himself which was more important
to him. His daughter, who he might or might not get back safe and
alive; or keeping this remarkable and amazing woman safe and alive.
She was here, she was real, she was certain. And he was driving her
to ruin. Never mind that she was beyond his grasp. Clear, with her
amazing gifts and abilities. Did he really have a right to abuse
and use her like this? And for what? Odds were that Kat was already
dead. Even with that thought, he could not make himself reach
forward and break Clear’s connection. He clung to himself forcing
himself not to reach out to her, even as she twitched and contorted
in fear and possible pain.
God help
him!