Through the brilliant light, she began to discern shapes, moving slowly and subtly. She could not identify them but, somehow, she knew that they were familiar to her, like long-lost memories plucked from obscurity. The figures became closer, as the light wrapped around her, and she felt as though she were as light as air, not a single concern or conflicting thought entering her mind.
The light softened and yet pulsed at the same time, as though it too were alive, a conscious being wrapping itself protectively around her. From the diffuse glow, one of the figures approached her, both solid and diaphanous at the same time, as though existing simultaneously on different planes. She could not distinguish any features in the figure, and yet she knew without a shadow of doubt that it was her father standing before her. Behind him was her mother, the knowledge of her identity a bond that nothing could break, not even death.
There were no words and yet she heard her father as clearly as if he had whispered directly into her ear.
‘It is not yet your time.’
Joanna knew that he was right, knew that she would not argue nor struggle against his word, for he of all people knew what was right for her. But there was no denying the fact that she did not want to leave, did not want to abandon the peace that surrounded her. She could think of nothing in the world behind her that she wanted, nothing that she craved or yearned for. The callous nature of humanity had scoured her of the desire to live, and she wondered why on earth she had fought so hard to survive her incarceration at the hands of madmen like Damon Sheviz when she could simply have given up and come here just the same.
‘Because it is worth it, to remain.’
The words, or the sense of them that reached her soundlessly, shocked her only because her very thoughts had been heard. Her silent yearning to remain, found its own answer.
‘You will return, and we will be waiting for you.’
Joanna’s heart filled with joy at such simple words, any fear of death long since evaporated and cast away by the light and the warmth. She was still reveling in its comfort when the light suddenly flickered and weakened, paling and running like a watercolor sketch in the rain.
Joanna felt something terrible wrenched from within her, as though a cold and dark hand had reached into her soul and ripped it bodily away. The warmth and comfort of the light vanished as a cold darkness swelled and overwhelmed her. She heard what she thought were her own cries echo bleakly through her mind, mingling with deep voices and strange noises that infiltrated and violated it.
‘Can you hear me?’
The voice sounded deafening after the blissful silence.
Joanna blinked and harsh white light painfully pierced her eyes. Her skin felt cold, her body ached and felt as heavy as all the earth, as all the emotions she had left so far behind dragged her down with a weighty, lethargic gravity. She felt as though she was being drowned by her own existence and, before she had even realized it, tears were streaming from her face. Pain from the intravenous lines ached through her arms and her head began to throb from dehydration as she coughed a thin stream of bile that dribbled weakly across her lips.
Damon Sheviz leaned over her and dabbed away the saliva, his head blocking the light as he held her face in his cold, dry hands.
‘Tell me, Joanna, what did you see?’
Joanna managed to focus on him, and through her tears rose a terrible rage that swelled through her weakened limbs and surged through her belly like fire.
Joanna snapped her head sideways, latched her teeth onto Sheviz’s left hand and bit down with every ounce of the fury that had been locked away inside for so long. Sheviz’s screams echoed out around her like wailing banshees, as her teeth sank through his flesh and tore a chunk of his hand away in a bloodied mess that spilled onto the tiled floor beneath her.
Joanna spat gruesome, metallic-tasting blood out of her mouth as she laughed manically through her tears.
‘Go to hell!’
Sheviz hopped up and down as he cradled the tattered wound on his hand, tears flooding from his eyes as he glared at her.
‘You first!’ he shouted. ‘This was just the first experiment, Joanna! I’ll keep working on you until there’s nothing left. I’ll keep sending you to the edge of death until you tell me what you saw! Mark my words, your days are numbered!’
Joanna, her mouth still dripping Sheviz’s blood, smiled through her grief.
‘Do it!’ she spat. ‘I have nothing to fear.’
Sheviz stared at her for a long moment, his pain forgotten. ‘What did you see?’ he gasped.
Joanna held the smile on her face and, without a word, lay back on her gurney. Sheviz rushed to her side, his blue eyes wide and frantic, and then he scowled at her.
‘You’re lying!’ he spat.
Joanna closed her eyes. ‘You knocked a pencil off the desk while I was dead, picked it up and tossed it onto the counter, then ran a hand through your hair as you watched me.’
Sheviz’s face plunged in shock and wonder as he grabbed her shoulders, his bleeding hand forgotten as he shook her.
‘Please, Joanna, tell me what you saw!’
Joanna lay still and did not open her eyes as she replied.
‘I really will die, before I tell you,’ she whispered softly.
34
‘Seriously?’
Jake Donovan stood in his office with Glen Ryan, Neville Jackson and Karina Thorne, as Jarvis laid out what they had discovered.
‘It’s the only thing that makes sense,’ he explained. ‘Whoever is responsible for the murders is systematically targeting the people that they believe were involved, however indirectly, in the auto wreck on the Williamsburg Bridge.’
The lie wasn’t a big one, but Ethan still marveled at Jarvis’s ability to deceive with a conviction that was utterly convincing. The auto wreck wasn’t their main area of concern, but Donovan didn’t need to know that. Many times in the past, Jarvis had, in effect, deceived Ethan, although never with malice in mind. Lopez seemed less inclined to believe the old man right off the bat, but then she too was capable of the same kind of deception. Takes one to know one, Ethan reflected. He wondered just what else Jarvis might keep buried up there in his head, what secrets he may harbor.
‘You want us to start digging into the clerk’s private records?’ Jackson asked them. ‘She’s just a bit player. How will that bring the men responsible for this to justice?’
‘You’ve already found the four men responsible for the robbery,’ Ethan reminded them as he tossed the black-and-white photograph of Wesley Hicks onto the table before them. ‘Two are dead and two are in jail right now. This is Hicks, caught by the security camera on the Williamsburg Bridge.’
‘There wasn’t any footage of them up there,’ Jackson uttered.
‘Computer-enhanced reflection in the window of the flatbed,’ Lopez replied with a bright smile. ‘Having the DIA on the case helps enormously, don’t you think?’
‘So they’re linked,’ Donovan said. ‘You think we might be able to dig something up on the clerk, maybe some kind of payment?’
‘That was my next move,’ Ethan said. ‘Problem is, if the money all went into the East River, then it’s possible that she won’t have received any payment. It would all have depended on the robbery going down without a hitch or, at least, one of the robbers making it out with the cash.’
‘Then what use is any of this?’ Glen Ryan asked. ‘Sure, it’s good procedure to have the clerk checked out, but I don’t see much chance of there being a paper trail. Dudes like the ones who hit the Pay-Go work with cash. It’s not like they’d have sent her a check.’