“Mmm-hmm.”
Lucas, oblivious, dug into his backpack. “Sophronia. Nope, don’t think so. Maybe a colleague? A girlfriend? Though I don’t know about that. He’s all work-work-work.”
“Hell if we’d ever know.” I looked over at Rachael. “He’s never told us about his extracurricular activities.”
“Don’t kiss and tell,” Rachael said. “Good policy.”
It didn’t happen the way they said it did. It’s all lies.
“Maybe,” I said.
I pulled in a deep breath and exhaled, looking at them.
“Okay. No bullshit, no sales pitches. I’m probably fired come tomorrow morning—but if I’m not, I’m committed to this. I’m going to help this guy. If you don’t want a part in it, I don’t blame you, so—″
Lucas slapped Grace’s lockbox onto the steamer trunk in front of us. He looked at me, a wily smile on his lips.
“Taylor Family Loyalty, bro,” he said.
Beside me, Rachael tugged my satchel off the floor, placing it beside the metal box. She pulled out its contents. The folder with the admittance papers and our research from the night before. The crumpled Brinkvale envelope containing Grace’s personal effects. She shook the envelope. Out clattered a cell phone and a wallet.
“You’re trying to do the right thing. I’m in,” she said. “But this is serious business, Z. I’d be out the door if I liked you less… or if you weren’t such an amazing lay.”
“Tee Em Eye,” Lucas muttered. “Knock it off.”
“Okay then,” I said, motioning for the folder. She passed it over. “Can you fire up your laptop? And Lucas, find something to open that box.”
He blinked. “Uh, can’t you just go old school, get a paper clip and…”
“I’ve done enough of that today.”
He shrugged and headed for the kitchen. Rachael powered up her PC as I flipped through the folder, locating the CD-ROM that contained the police reports. Rachael slid the disk into the machine.
Seconds later, there she was: Sophronia Poole. Age 47, lived on Central Park West. There was a photo of the woman here, probably culled from her DMV record. She was black and beautiful; her eyes twinkled behind tiny, trendy glasses. High cheekbones, full lips.
My eyes ticked down the report. Poole had been a psychiatrist. As with the other deaths, the only M.O. commonality was Martin Grace himself: Suspect was a former patient of victim, the investigation paper said. Victim’s files reviewed. Victim believed suspect suffered from paranoid delusions; suspect felt “followed and hunted.” No clear motive from victim’s files.
Sophronia Poole died on August 18th, two years ago. I asked Rachael to scroll down the screen.
“Oh my,” I whispered. “Oh my God.”
On August 19th, Sophronia’s downstairs neighbor had called 911. Jacob Kellerman hadn’t heard anything unusual the day before. He’d called because blood had seeped through the upstairs floor and left Rorschach stains on his ceiling.
Sophronia Poole was found on the living room floor of her condo, gagged. Her heart had been removed.
I closed my eyes. My father knew her, wanted to avenge her. “It’s no wonder,” I whispered. “No wonder.”
Lucas bounded into the living room, armed with a flathead screwdriver. One of our cats, Bliss, pranced behind him. Lucas proudly pointed to his leg. Dangling from the carpenter’s loop on his jeans was our five-dollar claw hammer.
“I missed my calling,” he said, jabbing the tip of the screwdriver at the hinged lock on the box. He tugged the hammer from its loop. “Part-time carpenter, part-time locksmith.”
THWACK!
The lockbox’s lid shot up like a jack-in-the-box, making a tinny exclamation as its top smacked against the trunk. Pop went the weasel—and pop went Bliss, a foot into the air. She was gone in a furry blur.
The three of us leaned forward simultaneously; I’m certain we were all aware of this, how silly it must’ve appeared… how very theatrical, how very Pandora… but we were drawn to the mystery inside.
Resting atop a stack of documents was a creased envelope. It was sealed.
I scooped up the screwdriver and used it as a makeshift letter opener, tearing the paper.
My fingers found a small stack of photos inside.
I pulled them free.
We gasped at the monster staring back at us.
It had been a person once, a woman captured on faded Kodak photo paper. She was young, about my age. A desert sunset glowed from somewhere behind the photographer, soaking the woman in hues of amber and tangerine. Her blonde, feathered hair and bell-bottoms told me this was the 1970s.
But she wasn’t a person anymore. She was a ghoul. A furious tangle of black lines covered her eyes and mouth, unholy and in-human—worse than a scream, worse than wide-eyed terror. She was howling.
The ballpoint pen ink was scratched deep into the photo, torn well past its emulsion. I flipped to the next photo. Two more ghouls—once children, now small, feral things with swirling holes for eyes—glared back from a wooden seesaw. Along the edge of the photo was written, At the tot lot, 1982. Jenny, 5. Danny, 7.
“What in the hell is this?” Rachael said.
“His past,” I said, shuddering. “Back to haunt us.”
“Bad juju,” Lucas whispered. His face was pale. “Uckin’-fay ooky-spay.”
I reached back inside the lockbox and removed several yellowed documents and an envelope. At the bottom of the box were a pair of military dog tags and a bronze disc, slightly larger than a fifty-cent piece. Rachael held this to the light. In its center was a starburst; above that, an eagle’s head.
“‘Central Intelligence Agency,’” she read. “‘For Valor.’”
I looked at Lucas. “Not ooky-spay. Ook-spay. Jesus, who is this guy?”
My eye returned to the photos in my hand. I flipped through the rest. They were all defaced. Entire heads were covered in black permanent marker in some; others simply had slivers of black tape covering the subjects’ eyes. A much younger Martin Grace was in one of these photos. He stood before the Grand Canyon with the ghoul-woman and the tot lot ghoul-children. I couldn’t tell if they’d been smiling when the picture was taken. They were wailing now.
“‘Dear Rick,’” Rachael recited, holding a creased sheet of paper in her hand. “‘It’s been two weeks since you called. Danny, Jenny and I pray you that you’re safe, sleeping soundly at night, dreaming of us.’” Rachael’s eyes flitted to the end. “‘Keep fighting the good fight. We love you.’ It’s signed ‘Lucy,’ dated March 10th, ten years ago.”
“Here’s something from the CIA,” Lucas said, tapping a sheet. “It’s for that medal. For, uh, ‘acts of extraordinary heroism involving the acceptance of existing dangers with conspicuous fortitude and exemplary courage.’”
“Name,” I said.
“Distinguished Intelligence Cross,” he said.
“Not the medal, doofus. His name. There’s gotta be a name.”
“Oh. Richard Drake.”
Richard Drake.
“Hot damn,” I said.
My mind did the math, concocted a question. Was Martin Grace really a man named Richard Drake? I thought back to my research session with Rachael after Gram’s memorial service, and what she’d said then: Martin Grace is incorporeal, Z. He’s a hoax. I flipped the Grand Canyon photo and read the names on its back. Lucy, Daniel, Jenny… and Rick. Yes.
“So we’ve got a name, and we’ve got a family,” I said. I picked up the medal. “And we’ve got a job, I think. Don’t know what he did, exactly, but we know he was good enough to get this thing.”