The Pact (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 17) (2 page)

Sarah narrowed her eyes and frowned. “I’m fine. Earl Grey or a glass of water. Then show me what Vivian left for me and then I’ll sleep. I went through Hell in Vegas.”

“We heard a little about it. Parkman called.”

She looked up, surprised. “Is he here? In Santa Rosa?”

Sarah sat at the kitchen table while her father flicked the switch on the kettle. On the corner of the table, a small red light blinked on the phone. Someone in the house was using the phone.

“I’m sure he’ll be around soon. Your mom said she’d call him.” Caleb grabbed a mug from the cupboard.

Seconds later, the red light on the phone blinked out. Then footsteps came up the hall. She turned as her mother entered the kitchen behind her.

“Mom,” Sarah said as she bounded from the table and hugged her. When she pulled away, she looked for Vivian’s message. “Your hands are empty. Dad said you were getting something for me.”

“It’s all ready.” She exchanged a glance with her husband. The kettle grew louder in the small kitchen. “I left it in the other room.” Amelia faced Sarah. “I think it best you examine everything on your own. Vivian’s message was for you and you alone. We went too far when we read the first page.” Her mother shrugged. “Vivian was my daughter, too.”

“I don’t blame you.” She made a tsk sound. “How dangerous could information be anyway?”

Amelia moved for the kitchen table. Sarah studied her mother’s face a moment longer. Worry lines creased her brow.

“I’ll go look at it now,” Sarah said.

Amelia bobbed her head once toward the hallway. “Go. We’ll have your tea ready when you come out. We’ll talk then.”

Down the corridor to the guest bedroom, she hesitated at the open door. The bed was made. On the white blanket, laid out in a neat and orderly fashion, was the time capsule with its bounty spread out beside it. Vivian had chosen a small tube for the twenty-five year old message, similar to the kind that held posters when they were shipped in the mail.

Before reading a single word on the handwritten pages, Sarah examined the tube. A note on the outside asked the reader to keep it sealed until spring 2016. It didn’t say for Sarah’s eyes only. There were no warnings to restrict anyone from reading the contents held inside.

She set the tube down and picked up the first page.

This message is for my sister Sarah …

A shudder ran through Sarah’s shoulders as she read her sister’s handwriting from twenty-five years ago. In the cursive, Sarah saw familiar lines, arches that resembled her own writing. A tear leapt to her eyes when she thought of the sister she never got to have in life. A sister to play with, do makeup, talk about boys. That era in her life was over, but she would’ve loved to have had Vivian be a part of that.

Sarah read on, noting important details, memorizing a few of the facts. Near the middle of the second page, she understood why Aaron couldn’t be made aware of what was on these pages.

It foretold his death.

A chill rippled through her as she got to the meat of the message.

Vivian wrote of her intention to enter into a pact with Sarah. Without the pact, their communication was cut off. A pact could break that silence between them forever. Vivian added a side note questioning the kind of communication they had. In her prophecy, it wasn’t revealed how the sisters would be talking in the future.

“Don’t we have a pact already?” Sarah asked the empty room. “Why do I have to do this?” Her voice cracked. “It doesn’t make sense, Vivian.”

Could this note still be accurate? Could the living Vivian have predicted events about to happen that well from over two decades ago?

Did any of it matter? Why couldn’t Vivian just talk to Sarah like she always did? Guide her through the next few weeks?

“Vivian?” Sarah asked. “Just tell me where to go, what to do. You’re in my head now. We’re closer than we’ve ever been.” She waited for an answer, but none came. “Vivian? Are you there?”

Sarah reread the part about their communication being severed. At least until they made a pact.

“Vivian? You’re gone?”

After no response, Sarah continued reading. Vivian wrote that she had been offered a glimpse of Sarah’s blueprint. In it, she saw Sarah die.

She had also seen a man in Sarah’s life—Aaron—and his blueprint ended at roughly the same time. Vivian’s theory of life was called the blueprint. A person’s life, their struggles, their family, their triumphs, were all written down by that person prior to their incarnation on Earth. Coming to Earth is a form of evolving our souls, making us better entities, as we live out our blueprint. The pain, the struggle we encounter along the way, is there to teach us humility, love, and understanding. At times, life was overwhelming, but we never write more than we could handle.

Vivian had caught a glimpse of the man’s name in Sarah’s life, calling him Aarow instead of Aaron. The only way for the sisters’ relationship to remain the way it was for years to come was for Sarah to enter into a pact with Vivian. But her sister wasn’t given the information twenty-five years ago on how to do that. And she wasn’t able to tell Sarah now as communication had ceased.

Sarah closed her eyes and focused. She waited for Vivian to enter her consciousness, but she didn’t. For the last two days, Sarah had spent time with Aaron in Vegas. Vivian had been strangely quiet, but Sarah hadn’t paid particular attention to it as she wanted to spend quality time with Aaron without distractions.

Vivian,
Sarah whispered in her mind.
Talk to me.

Silence. Nothing.

“Damn it.”

Sarah read the end of the note. Aarow—Aaron—was to be murdered in Toronto. Sarah had just let him fly home the other day. Had she stuck to the pact they had made in the hotel not two days before, he would be in Santa Rosa with her, reading the letter and not in Toronto about to be killed.

“No, no, no,” she moaned, rolling her head back and forth. “It’s not possible.” She dropped the pages on the bed beside her and looked up at the ceiling. “After all I’ve done, Vivian, you can’t do this to me.” Sarah dropped her head and let the tears flow. She missed Aaron and felt remorse for how she’d treated him in Vegas. She felt bad for being here alone after agreeing to be absolutely honest with him.

She could have kept him from going to Toronto.

She snatched up the letter and tried to memorize the parts that might make sense later on.

Vivian said Aarow would be murdered by the clock.

How will time kill him?

She also said to protect a Dane. If the blonde Danish dies, that could spell trouble. Don’t let the blonde Danish die.

Blonde Danish?

Sarah surmised Vivian was talking about a blonde woman from Denmark. At least she hoped that was right.

There was a man named Oaf and his son. But Vivian admitted in her note that she might be missing a letter in Oaf’s name.

Who would call their son Oaf?

PAIN was behind everything, Vivian wrote. Stop PAIN and everyone lives, but boys will continue to be violated.

Goosebumps rose on Sarah’s forearms. This part of Vivian’s letter didn’t make sense. Boys violated? Stop PAIN? Was there a religious meaning in there somewhere? Sarah recalled her time in Los Angeles where someone was killing Catholic priests for their transgressions. Is that what this was about?

In the end, it was the foretelling of Sarah’s death that shook her. She had spent several years receiving messages from Vivian. Nothing shocked her. It had been a long time since Vivian was so vague. Recently, with her sister directly in her head, everything was quite clear. The letter in Sarah’s hand reminded her of the Automatic Writing stage of their messages. Clues, hints, and riddles.

Sarah would never forget the clue for a kidnapping that read North Face. The girl about to be kidnapped walked right by Sarah, a North Face jacket on, and Sarah missed it, thinking she was supposed to face north in order to see the kidnapping. It almost cost Sarah her life.

As now, the message was spotty and riddled. And it portended the end of Sarah’s life.

Sarah flipped the pages over. Another paragraph was written on the back of the second page. Vivian said that she had taken it upon herself to write letters. Those letters were in the time capsule. They were not to be opened by anyone except by the person whose name was on the envelope, and whoever found the time capsule had the responsibility to properly stamp and mail the letters. Sarah’s life depended on those letters getting through.

She looked inside the capsule tube. The letters were gone.

The last paragraph said goodbye.

Tomorrow, mom and I are going shopping,
Vivian wrote
. At the mall, I’ve been instructed to run away from her. If I lose mom, I will be able to stop a man named Stew Art. I think his first name is Almond, but I’m not sure.

Armond Stuart.

The man who kidnapped, raped and murdered Vivian all those years ago after she went missing. Armond was now dead after Sarah hunted him through the United States and into Europe.

Sarah read on,

I’m told this is the only way for you to stay alive. If you do, I’m also informed that we, as sisters, will create a bond that’ll stop dozens, if not hundreds of bad people from hurting others in the future. It’s the right thing to do, Sarah. So I have decided to lose mom tomorrow at the mall. Please tell her it was not her fault. This is my choice. I want to do this. I don’t want to live in a world where there’s so much pain. Especially if I can do something about that. I’m left with no choice. So I say goodbye, Sarah, and I pray you live through this so we can do what my teacher from the Other Side has done for me.

Enter into a pact with me, Sarah. If not, we will be reunited very shortly and our work on your plane will be over.

I love you, little Sarah.

The tears came in torrents. Why did the world’s problems fall to this family? Why did she have to lose her sister?

Breathing through her open mouth, her nose clogged as her sinuses filled from crying, Sarah reread the end of the note, the page gripped tight in her palm.

The guest room door opened. Her father stepped in, a glass of whiskey in his hand.

“Sarah,” he said softly. “I turned off the kettle. Thought you’d want something stronger.” He handed her the whiskey. She took it and drank it back in one gulp, then gasped. “Don’t worry about a thing. Your mother and I have thought about this for the last few days and we have a plan. We think it’ll work.”

Sarah rolled the handwritten pages and stuffed them into the tube, missing the tip of the opening a couple of times because her eyes were too blurry with tears.

In a daze, she allowed herself to be led to the kitchen. On the couch in the living room, Parkman sat with his arms crossed.

“Oh, Parkman,” Sarah managed.

Parkman pushed off the couch and got to his feet. “Sarah,” he whispered. They embraced. “We’ll find a way through this.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be that easy this time.” She pulled away from him, grabbed the bottle from the coffee table and refilled her whiskey glass. “Vivian has abandoned me up here.” She tapped the side of her head, then drank the whiskey back. “Vivian’s gone, Parkman.”

“Not yet she isn’t. I got one of the letters she wrote.”

Her father put a hand on her shoulder. “So did we.”

Chapter 2

The Clock bit the end of the granola bar off and chewed methodically. The interior of the building across the street was dark. Not a single light glowed from within. It had remained dark since the last person locked up for the night and left the premises.

The Clock studied the buildings on either side. They were also closed for the evening. This would be an easy job. In and out. Just after midnight. No one around except for the odd car passing by. But what could the occupants of a passing vehicle see once The Clock was inside the building?

Alarms wouldn’t be a problem. There was nothing of considerable value inside. If they had an alarm system at all, it would be a cheap ADT system—without cell backup. People who ran businesses like the one across the street rarely paid the exorbitant extra cost for cell backup.

He swallowed, then bit into the granola bar again. The time to go was precisely 12:15 a.m. That was the time he had structured this operation for. Inside the building for ten minutes. Then out. Back in his hotel by one in the morning. Five hours later he would rise at six and do his hour routine of yoga and stretching, then shower, breakfast, and return to this location. He would watch the curtain fall over the business across the street. His client would want a picture of the damage, the carnage. His client would want the deaths caught on camera.

His approach to killing was why people hired him. As a hunter would shoot a giraffe and pose with it, The Clock killed humans and posed with them. Well, sort of. He didn’t do selfies. After forty-two confirmed kills as a private military contractor, it wouldn’t help his business any if he posed with the evidence.