String of Tears, page 16
She nodded at that. “I don’t understand any of this. I got an email, asking me if I could repair the clasp and a couple of the threads on the pearls. That’s it.”
“Did you ever find those emails?”
“Yes, and I printed them out, plus forwarded them to you, right?” And then she stopped, stared at him, and asked, “I did, didn’t I?”
He pulled up his email and nodded. “They’re right here. And the printer whirred behind your canvases, but I never retrieved those either. Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to look at either.”
She shrugged. “It’s fine. I was just worried I hadn’t even sent them.”
He ran through those two emails and added, “Okay, so really nothing indicative of a problem in here. So how did you receive the pearls?”
“I told you that too. I got them in the mail, by courier.”
“We need to track down who and how that came to be as well,” he noted. “Did they come together?”
“No,” she snapped, her frustration building. “They came in separate deliveries, which you know very well. The necklace came before any of this started, and the bracelet? … You were right here and helped me open it.”
“No problem or no weird feeling when you held the necklace?”
“No, I didn’t even realize at the beginning that there was a matching bracelet. He–at least I think it was a male–told me that he had another piece to go with the necklace that needed work as well. It wasn’t suspicious. It wasn’t different. It wasn’t weird, no strangeness to it, until, as I already told you, … I was finishing the work on the necklace and began adding the positive energy that I always do to help people. I would never add energy other than that, and I didn’t even know that it was something you could do.”
“No, but, if you think about it, if you can do something one way, there will always be people out there trying to do it the other way.”
“You mean, if I’m trying to put good energy into something, somebody out there will be trying to pull it away or to instill bad energy?”
“Yes. Although bad isn’t the word I would choose.”
“Right, you don’t mean bad. You mean evil.”
“That is a more descriptive word, yes,” he agreed, as he nodded. Just then his phone rang. “Stefan, how are you doing?”
“A little tired. I’m sending you some photos of images that I sketched last night. Go over them with Jewel and see if she recognizes any of them.”
“Will do,” he replied, and then he explained to Stefan about her night.
“Damn,” he muttered. “Whatever this is, somehow it’s gotten into her space and her energy. We have to keep her safe, while we figure out a way to detach her.”
“Yeah, and I’m not sure how well detaching will work either.”
“Let’s not worry about that just yet,” Stefan suggested, and then he yawned through the phone.
“Sounds like a rough night for you.”
“Yeah, definitely, but …” He hesitated, then added, “I’ll need to talk to you in a little bit about something else.”
“Yeah, ditto.” Hurricane hung up and waited for the photo files to open up on his phone, and, when they did, he winced.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Stefan was called to sketch last night, and, when he does, they’re usually not the prettiest of images.”
“No, I don’t imagine so.” Jewel frowned. “Did he send images?” She scooted closer to Hurricane on the couch. When he held up the first one, she sucked back her breath and stared at it, her face twisting. “Good God, that’s just like a photograph.”
“And that’s the way these images are coming out,” he noted. “He doesn’t always draw in this clear graphic form, but obviously a message is involved.”
“A message?” she asked, turning and looking at him.
“For some reason, the clarity is needed.”
“Great. Anybody who can do this …” And, when she didn’t have words, she groaned, as she stared at the image. “Do you think it’s one of the women?”
“That’s what Stefan was hoping you could tell us. Do you recognize her?”
“No, I don’t.” She shook her head. “And that’s saying something because, with an image that clear, it would be hard to not recognize her, if I knew her.”
At that, he flicked to the second image. She seemed to study Stefan’s technique and shook her head. “He’s incredibly talented,” she murmured.
“He is, indeed.”
When he got to the third one, she pulled back and stared. “That’s Anna,” she cried out. She jumped up, raced over to her workbench, and pulled out one of her sketches. “It’s her.”
But whereas she had done an almost contemporary, almost modernistic image, Stefan had done one in brutal clarity.
Hurricane quickly sent Stefan a text. Number three is Anna, one of the victims in the pearl bracelet.
“Are there more?” she asked, looking at his phone and then back at him.
He nodded, hesitated, and then flicked again. She nodded, tears coming to her eyes. “Yes, that’s another one. Nellie, from the necklace.”
“And he has one more here.”
As he flicked it open, she cried out, “That’s Rhea. She’s in the bracelet.” She stared at him. “How could Stefan get the same images as I did?”
At that, Hurricane turned to her and then replied, “Because, for Stefan, this is the energy work that he does.”
“Yes, but I don’t,” she snapped, glaring at him.
“Yeah, I hear you,” he said, “but, right now, it seems that you do.”
She sank back down beside him on the couch. “Why me? Why these images? Why now?”
“Why you? Because you opened the necklace for energy transmission, incoming and outgoing, it seems. Why these images is because you were given the necklace and now the bracelet to repair. Why now? Maybe for no other reason than the fact that somebody who owns the necklace wanted to get it fixed, so that somebody else could wear it again.”
She stared at him. “Nobody can wear this,” she stated, her voice harsh. “Whoever wears it will die.”
“And yet,” he began gently, studying her carefully, “When you were at the hospital, you kept asking for a necklace, and you kept reaching to your neck for it. As if you had worn it. And you’d had it on your neck at one time, right?”
She stared at him. “The way my memory is, I can’t be sure of anything.”
“You told Stefan that you had tried it on, something about the repair. Think of how you work.”
“Maybe. It was a beautiful piece. Sometimes they don’t lay flat. What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I mean, I’m grasping at straws here. That you were trying to put loving energy into it was one trigger. However, that you put it on maybe was a bigger trigger. Maybe somebody who would wear it wouldn’t necessarily end up as a victim, but maybe, because of what you did, it made you become a victim.”
She stared. “Are we thinking that this killer is still out there and that the killer may have sent the necklace directly to me, for me?”
“I can’t say that for sure,” he told her, shaking his head. “For all we know, the killer is long dead, and this necklace was inherited. Until we can track down these women in your visions and Stefan’s, we don’t know whether they died decades ago, if not centuries ago. Or maybe the necklace and bracelet were sold in some estate sale, and somebody pulled it out of a dusty dark corner, and that coming back to you has brought it back to life again.”
She swallowed hard. “You almost make it sound like this thing is alive.”
He smiled gently. “Don’t ever kid yourself. It is energy, and energy never dies.”
“Right,” she murmured. “That’s just not very reassuring.” She got up abruptly and stated, “I’ll go have a shower. It’s six in the morning and way too early, but I’m not sure I have much more to give at the moment.”
“If you want to go for a nap instead, do that,” he suggested. “Otherwise, we’ve got a long day ahead of us, and we still can’t do very much, until the business world opens.”
Obviously she wanted to ask questions but, at the same time, probably didn’t want to know exactly what he had planned when the businesses did open. She nodded. “I’ll go lie down and see if I can sleep again.”
He nodded. “Good.” As soon as she went upstairs, his phone rang again. He looked down, and, not recognizing the number, he answered it cautiously.
“My name is Grant.”
“Yes, right. Hi, Grant. Hurricane here.”
“You know me?” Grant asked.
“No, but I certainly know Dr. Maddy.”
He sighed. “Such a strange world that everybody knows my wife and my connection to her and that’s how I get identified.”
Hurricane chuckled. “Not necessarily, but she pushed some of the energy ahead to make it an easier trip for you.”
“If you say so,” Grant muttered. “Look. This case has really gotten ahold of her.”
“It certainly got ahold of Jewel as well.”
“Right, and anything that goes bump in the night always has me on edge.”
At that, Hurricane had to chuckle. “Not a big fan, huh?”
“The stuff that they see is pretty darn crazy, but then I gather you’re in the same business.”
“Pulled in by the same forces,” he said honestly. “It’s not as if I can ignore this.”
“But you don’t have much of a choice either, do you?”
“I don’t. Some of my skills are …” He stopped and then added, “Let’s just say, unique.”
At that, Grant snorted. “Every one of you guys appears to be unique. This is a world where nobody knows what you can do, and yet you all exist in some weird time-space dimension that makes no sense to the rest of us.”
At that, Hurricane burst out laughing at the disgruntled tone in Grant’s voice. “I hear you, man. So, is this meant to be a helpful call?”
“What? You mean it isn’t?” he quipped on a note of laughter. “Anything that sets Maddy off the way this has will be something that I’m all over, just trying to keep her safe.”
“Is she not safe?” he asked hesitantly.
“I’m not sure, but I haven’t seen her like this in a very long time. So I’d like to solve it as quickly as possible.”
“I’m all for that,” Hurricane agreed. “You got any idea what we’re supposed to do about it?”
“I’ve pulled some of the names that you gave to Stefan,” he stated. “And I understand from Maddy that I have some images to look at regarding this case. But Stefan’s artwork that I’ve seen before is pretty crazy sometimes—some of it is dead clear, and some of it isn’t.”
“These are like photographs,” Hurricane stated, “and you should be able to get some IDs off them via facial recognition, I would think.”
“Particularly if anybody has names to go with the images,” he added, a question in his voice.
“In that I can help you.”
“Really?” he said. “So whatever psychic is giving us that is somebody I would love to work with.”
“Be careful what you wish for. In this case it’s Jewel, and it’s not terribly easy on her. Something’s going on in her space, and, while we’re not yet sure, we suspect a possession of some kind.”
At that, Hurricane heard Grant suck in his breath. “Okay, how about you give me the names to match whichever drawings. I’ll add it to the list that I’ve got and see what I can come up with.”
“Also, can you check into Jewel’s incident report? Like where she was found and anything about it that we don’t already know, just because you may have access to more information.”
“I got the gist of it from Stefan, but that’s definitely not the normal abduction.”
“We’re not sure that it was an abduction.”
At that, Grant’s voice turned brisk. “That you’ll need to explain.”
“Not sure I can,” he admitted. “A lot of woo-woo stuff goes bump in the night for this one.”
“Unfortunately there always is, when it comes to Maddy’s cases. I can look into Jewel’s case and see if we can come up with anything.”
“I was hoping there might be surveillance video and witnesses or something, anything at this point.”
“In your dream world that would be very nice,” Grant said, “but it’s rare to get something quite so clear-cut as that in my line of work.”
“Yeah, well, I keep hoping,” Hurricane replied. “Now she’s started to walk in her sleep, and these objects that are infused with a certain dark energy are calling to her in a dangerous way.”
“Right, and that’s something that you specialize in, I understand.”
“Yes, I don’t know if Maddy’s mentioned some of the specialized museums we protect.”
“I’ve heard about them, yes. Not that I particularly want to see firsthand.”
“No, I’m sure you don’t,” Hurricane agreed, with a chuckle. “However, because I do what I do, you don’t have to deal with these … artifacts.”
“I’m not sure I could do anything that would help with that either,” he noted. “This is … There’s only so much those of us who don’t have any energy-working abilities can deal with.”
“Yet, if you’re with Dr. Maddy, I suspect you probably have abilities you are using that you aren’t even aware of.”
“So they say,” Grant murmured, with a note of laughter. “Let me just add that I’m not too worried about that pathway.”
“It will happen anyway,” Hurricane warned.
“Yeah, it already has,” Grant admitted, “but still, this is out of my wheelhouse. I’ll get back to you.” With that, he hung up abruptly.
Jewel sat on the stairs, her chin propped on her hand, looking at him. “Who is Grant?” she asked.
Hurricane was startled, as he wondered how she knew his name, then realized he’d said the man’s name at the beginning of their telephone call. “That was Dr. Maddy’s husband,” he replied, looking at her.
“You said something about possession,” she noted, her tone equally soft and controlled.
He hesitated again and then nodded. “Yes, but we’re not exactly sure—not sure how, not in the expected ways of possession.”
“Is there anything you guys are sure of?”
At that, he smiled, because her voice had a teasing note to it, not full of blame or anger. “I think we know what’s going on, yet we’re just not sure how it came about and who is involved.”
“You really think that I’m being possessed by somebody?”
“It’s not like that in the generic possession sense,” he began, as he got up and walked over to the bottom of the stairs to look at her. “In a case like this, I think the dark energy has somehow gotten into your system, probably when you opened yourself up to the necklace, and somebody—either connected to these women or the actual killer himself—somehow managed to get into your energy. If we can track down these names you’ve given us, even find proof that these women were murdered, we can work on that angle.”
“But if they’re in my energy, I should be able to get rid of them, right?”
“Absolutely,” he confirmed, looking at her with a nod of approval. “That is very important to remember.”
“So this isn’t a case where I’ve got them and I have to keep them forever?”
“No, but we need to make sure that we do it in such a way that we don’t cause you any more hurt.”
“Do you mean hurt or do you mean ending up in one of those pearls?”
“That’s the ultimate injury, is it not?” he asked softly.
She looked at him, something dancing in her eyes. “I’m hungry.” Her voice was garbled. Almost as if the prosaic turn of voice had caught her by surprise, a burble of laughter popped out.
He chuckled. “Now that’s a sound I really like to hear,” he stated, with a smile.
“I’m not sure I’ve been laughing very much lately. I feel there’s been nothing but one wave of problems after another.”
“Got it. Did you manage to sleep at all?”
“No, when I heard that phone call, that was the end of it.”
“Sorry about that. I did give him all the names you came up with. He’ll also look into where you were found and see if we can come up with any more information.”
“I suppose that would be one of the biggest things. I mean, it’s one thing to have whatever you’re saying here happening, but it’s an entirely different thing to have ended up naked and left for dead out on some highway.”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “I don’t know who or what is involved in this, or why, but I think a couple issues are involved, and solving at least one would help us to narrow down the other one, if only because we’ve ruled out the other, you know?”
“Well, that’s the thing. Is all this related, or are they different things entirely?”
“You never found anything missing when you looked around your house, either the first one or this artist loft, right?”
“No, says the woman with amnesia.” She looked at him puzzled. “Nothing outside of my laptop and cell phone.”
“I’m just back to wondering if somebody did find something.”
She shook her head. “I mean, it’s possible. However, if they were looking for the stuff for my show, it was already sent out. That much we gathered from my emails. My jewelry designs were already sent to the show, and the necklace was in my safe. I don’t know what to say about the safe, but it’s awkward having it open and exposed,” she noted, looking at it. “I feel that we need to close it off again.”
“We can do that.” Hurricane hopped up the few stairs to where the wall safe was and replaced the drywall, making it look as close to having always been there as he could. “Obviously, if this were a long-term solution, we would be closing this off with proper drywall or maybe cement.”
“Or just make it look like a proper safe and not try to hide it at all,” she muttered.
“That too,” he agreed, looking over at her. “I suspect that’s what it was when you first moved in here.”
