Satan's Mirror (12 page)

She covered her face. It was a dream.
This isn’t happening.

An odd feeling came over her, a pulling sensation, drawing her to her feet. She stared in horror as the wall dissolved into a shimmering mirror. A face coalesced from a swath of red. Yellow eyes glinted. The devil smiled, showing needle-like teeth.

“Dear God,” Emily whispered.

The devil pulled back. Behind him, Emily saw a wall of stone and torches. Then she saw April, naked and weeping, held by the scruff of her neck.

Emily gasped.

“Do you believe in me now?” the devil said.

FIFTEEN

The cold, unyielding stretcher chilled Emily’s back. Lights pulsed in the night. She squeezed her eyes tight. Behind her lids, she saw her daughter’s face—April laughing as she ran through fields of wildflowers at the farm, April clawing the floor as the devil pulled her beneath the bed.

Why hadn’t she listened when her daughter said she was afraid? Why had she insisted she sleep in that room?

“Emily? Can you hear me?” called a woman’s voice next to her ear. “Don’t fall asleep now, honey. We’re on our way to the hospital.”

“No,” Emily groaned. She couldn’t go to the hospital. She had to save April. She tried to move. A strap bound her thighs, and sharp pain bound her chest. Jingling, rattling sounds jangled her nerves. She was in an ambulance, she realized, looking around. “Please let me go. My daughter.”

“Try to relax. We’re going to take good care of you.”

“Please,” she said. The world darkened.      

Brisk air shocked her awake. The stretcher moved smoothly over concrete, wheels clicking, and pushed through double doors. Light blazed, searing her eyes. People converged upon her, touching her, prodding her.

“Don’t,” she moaned. “Leave me alone.”

Miraculously, they did. She found herself in a bed surrounded by curtains. Her head ached. She rolled onto her side, and the bed seemed to roll with her.

A man pushed back the drape. He wore glasses and a stethoscope. “Hello Emily. I’m Doctor Gordon. How are you feeling?” He shone light in her eyes—it felt like knives. “You have a moderate concussion. X-rays show your ribs are bruised, but not broken. Can you sit up for me?”

She pushed onto her elbows. The room swam. “I have to throw up.”

He handed her a plastic container.

She vomited what felt like everything she’d eaten for the past week. When she finished, the doctor handed her a warm towel to wipe her face.

“Thank you.”

He raised her headrest with the bed controls. “I need you sitting in an upright position.”

“I have to go home.”

“Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see how you’re doing.” He patted her arm. “The police would like to speak with you.”

“Fine,” she said, panting. Even the act of sitting was strenuous. She noticed she had gotten sick all over the front of her, and wiped the mess weakly with the towel.

Emily wore a hospital nightgown. She didn’t have clothes, or shoes, or credit cards. How was she going to get out of here?

Two men in suits entered her cubicle. They looked like twins—square shoulders, square jaws, flattop haircuts that elongated their heads.

“Miss Goodman? I’m Detective Johnston, and this is Detective Milan.” He dragged a chair to her bedside and sat. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

As if he were family. As if he were someone she should know. “Where did you get my name?”

“Your housekeeper,” Milan said. “She gave us a description of your daughter.”

“We’ve put out an amber alert,” Johnston told her. “And we have an APB on Joey Mastrianni.”

“You know about Joey?”

“We have your report of an intruder in your home yesterday morning.”

But there was no intruder, Emily realized. It was the Mirror opening, making things move. Just as April said. Why hadn’t she believed her? “I have to find him,” she murmured. Joey was the only one who could help her now.

“Why would Mr. Mastrianni kidnap your daughter?”

Kidnap? Who told them April was kidnapped? Emily put her hands to her head and felt a band of gauze. The room spun, but she knew it was actually her life spinning out of control.

“Can you tell us what happened tonight?”

“My daughter screamed,” Emily said. “I ran to her bedroom. The light flickered and sparked. But it couldn’t have, could it? The lamp was broken.” She frowned, trying to make sense of the impossible. “Things flew through the air. A photo frame hit me in the head.”

“Did you see who threw the objects?”

Threw it? She looked at him. Wasn’t this man listening? “April climbed out of bed, trying to get away. But then something, someone,” she amended, remembering the response she got from the police after Dan disappeared. “Someone grabbed her.”

“And you know of no reason why?”

Yes. Because I pissed off the devil. She drew up her knees and hid her face. A keening wail escaped her, a sound she’d never heard before. Stop it! If she started crying now, she would never stop.

“I’m sorry, Miss Goodman, but we have more questions. We understand you are divorced. Could your ex-husband be involved in the disappearance of your daughter?”

“What? No.”

“No custody battle? No hard feelings?”

On the tail of that, the other man said, “Can you give us a description of Mr. Mastrianni?”

“Just leave,” she managed to say.

The chair squealed as the detective pushed it back. “We’ll be in touch.”

Voices came from beyond the curtain. Emily buried her fists in the sheets. What was she going to do?

Then she heard a voice she recognized.

“Is she sedated?” asked Ross Devine.

“Not at all,” a woman answered. “We’re keeping a close eye on her.”

“May I see her?”

“I think she’d like that.”

Emily stiffened as Ross peered at her. “What are you doing here?” She glanced at a large clock on the wall. “It’s three o’clock in the morning, for chrissake.”

He stepped forward. “Esmeralda called me. She couldn’t come herself. The police asked her to stay at home in case of a ransom demand. But she sent this.” He set Emily’s backpack on the foot of her bed. “There’s a change of clothes and shoes, a hairbrush and stuff, you know. And it feels like your laptop is in there. She gave me Dan’s camera and disks. I hope you don’t mind.”

She stared at him.

He winced. “Em, I’m so sorry. I feel responsible.”

“You
are
responsible,” she hissed. “You and your secret assignment.”

“I wish I’d never sent you to Florida. You would never have met the guy and—”

“Joey?”

Ross nodded. “Esmeralda told me about him, how he followed you back and broke into your house. Now he’s taken little April.”

“It wasn’t him. It was the Mirror. Satan took her.”

His jaw dropped. “What?”

“I saw her on the other side. The devil held her up like a prize. He laughed, Ross. He laughed at me.” She threw off the sheets and scooted past the railing. “Damn it to hell.”

“Wait a minute. You can’t get out of bed.”

“Watch me.” She held her bruised ribs as she slid to her feet.

“I’m getting the doctor.” Ross rushed away.

Emily opened the bag and pulled out jeans and a T-shirt, her favorite hiking boots, and her wallet. Bless you, Esmeralda. Gingerly, Emily tugged her soiled clothing over her head.

“What’s going on here?” asked Dr. Gordon.

Ross peeked around him like a little boy being a tattletale.

She tossed down the stinking nightgown and put on the T-shirt. “I’m leaving.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” the doctor said.

“I’m a grown woman,” she said in a growl. “I’m a citizen of the United States. You cannot keep me against my will.”

He paused. “I wish you’d reconsider.”

In answer, she put on her boots. The doctor sighed. “There are forms you need to sign. And I’ll give you a prescription for pain. Stop at the nurse’s desk.” He went out, leaving Ross standing dazed in his wake.

“This is crazy,” Ross said.

Emily put her wallet and her cell phone into her pants. “Did you drive here?”

“Why? You want to make me your accomplice by driving you home?”

“I’m not going home. I’m going to Saint Augustine.”

“What? Now I know you’re insane.” He shook his head. “All right. I’ll authorize a small expense account. Do what you have to do. But bring back the story.”

She stepped close to him, staring eye-to-eye. “My daughter is not a story.”

“Em, I know you’re upset, but—”

“Are you going to take me to the airport or not?”

He stepped away. “Let’s go.”

As instructed, Emily stopped at the desk before leaving. She pocketed the prescription without any intention of having it filled. The pain she felt might double tomorrow, but she didn’t care. Pain was nothing compared to the terror her daughter felt at that moment.

They walked into the chilly night and located Ross’ dark blue Lexus. He had parked on the opposite side of the lot in the apparent hope that no one would park next to him.

Emily got into the car and leaned the seat back. She wished she could sleep.

“Do you really think you can get a flight to Saint Augustine at this hour?”

“I’ll get as close as I can, drive the rest of the way.” She scowled as he slowly pulled down a driveway and eased into the empty street. “You can go a little faster, you know. What are you afraid of, traffic?”

“Actually, I’m afraid of hurting you. I don’t suppose there is any chance of talking you out of this.”

“None,” she said, still frowning, although her anger at him diffused a bit. “I want to know everything you know about the Mirror.”

“Not much to tell. I was looking for a story that no one could say we invented. I was on the subway, and I saw a kid reading a comic book with a devil in it. You know—horns, red skin. And I thought about how almost every society, regardless of religion, had some form of devil. All those devils looked remarkably similar to the caricature in that kid’s comic book. There had to be a reason. So I researched the origins of Hell and Satan, and that’s how I learned about Satan’s Mirror. It crops up throughout history. They used to sacrifice people to it in medieval Scotland.”

“Cut the crap. This isn’t about medieval Scotland. You’re holding out on me.”

Ross fell silent. He entered the freeway. The tinted windows of the car turned streetlights into halos. “Remember the ten-day Caribbean cruise I went on at the beginning of the year?”

“The one for males only?” She shrugged. “I remember.”

“I was making friends and schmoozing. You know me, the life of the party. One night at dinner, I mentioned Satan’s Mirror. To my surprise, one of the guys knew all about it. He said the last time he’d been on the cruise he met a woman in the Bahamas. Not Grand Bahama, one of the smaller islands. I can’t remember which. Anyway, she showed him the Mirror. He said it was a hoot, and he’d put me in touch with her if I wanted to.”

“And of course you wanted to.”

“I couldn’t wait. I looked her up as soon as we got into port. She was an interesting person. Affable with a lovely accent. She offered to show me the Mirror right then, but I was like you, I suspected a parlor trick. So I told her I was having a luncheon at a local hotel, and she would be the guest of honor. I hoped getting her out of her element would cramp her style.”

“But it didn’t, did it? She opened the Mirror.”

“Made it appear right in the middle of a conference table we were sitting around.”

“Did the devil take anyone?”

“No. Didn’t even try to, just stared at us in turn. I felt odd when it looked at me, like it was memorizing me, judging me. Gave me a chill. Later, the woman told us that we were all marked, and Satan would know us when our time came. We had a laugh about that after she left.”

He exited the freeway and started the winding route that led to the airport. Emily watched him. The way his throat worked, she knew he had more to tell her. The story didn’t end in that room. But he didn’t speak again until they pulled into the drop-off zone of the airport.

“I became close to one of the people I met on that cruise,” Ross said, putting the car in park and turning to face her. “He lived in Maryland. Last month, he disappeared. Vanished.”

“You never suspected the Mirror?”

His face twisted. “This is the twenty-first century. No one believes in the devil anymore.”

“But you do, don’t you. That’s why you sent me on that assignment.”

“You’re the best investigative reporter I know. And I’m marked.”

She stared at him, incredulous. Bile rose in her throat. “April—”

“Em, you’ve got to understand. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I thought you’d uncover a hoax, or at the least, get me more information. I’d never wish harm to come to you or Dan. Or little April.”

“But you did harm her, Ross. And I hope you burn for it.” She opened the door and set a foot outside.

“I hate to say this out loud, but isn’t Satan the Lord of the Afterlife? April must be dead.”

“She’s alive. I saw her. And I’m going to get her back.”

He grabbed her arm, sputtering. “This is hell we’re talking about. People don’t come back.”

She wrenched away. To hell and back, she thought, remembering Joey’s waxy face. “I know someone who did.”

SIXTEEN

Vanessa sat smoking a cigarette at the top of a rickety wooden staircase that connected the back door of her
Psychic Parlor
to what appeared to be a second floor apartment.

From behind a bush in the alley, Emily scowled. She hated everything about the woman, from her wild tangle of gray hair to her overlong magenta toenails. She wanted to hurt her, destroy her life as Emily’s had been destroyed. But Vanessa could give her what she wanted—and right now she wanted to find Joey.

She considered the staircase. That was how Vanessa appeared from nowhere the first day they met—she heard bells ring at the front door and slipped in through the back. Maybe Emily could work that in her favor.