No Way Out (A Carly See FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1)

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Later that night, Carly drew a breath of relief when she closed her apartment door behind her. She leaned against the door, waiting for her heart to slow down.

“She was still alive,” she reminded herself.

That was what she’d been mentally telling and retelling herself ever since she’d helped Jean Bassman escape from her bindings in that ramshackle attic. Much of the truth had come out since then. The man they had captured—Jean’s abductor and her sister’s killer—was a local high school teacher murderously obsessed with the two girls. If she and Lyle hadn’t stopped him when they did, Jean might well have been dead by now.

Again, Carly breathed a quiet “thank you” to Arlene’s protective, life-saving spirit. Then she switched on the lights and glanced around at her small, neat one-bedroom apartment. She had chosen the simple furnishings for their nice clean lines, easy upkeep, and lack of distinguishing features.

It’s nice to be home.

As she took off her muddy shoes and walked on inside, she tried to put today’s whole ugly episode behind her.

A nice hot shower will help, she decided, heading for the bathroom.

She was right. The hot water had a healing effect, washing away not just the muck and dirt of the search, but also at least some of the stresses and anxieties of the day. She got out of the shower and put on a soft terry robe. She let down her long, straight black hair and looked in the mirror, studying her own gray eyes.

I look so normal, she thought. Average even.

Which was true as far as her height and weight and general features were concerned. Of course, at age 30 she was in much better than average physical shape, as FBI agents had to be.

Nobody would guess that her brain was weirdly wired to pick up hints and riddles from dead people. She was glad of that, and she made the most of her unexceptional appearance, tying her hair up daily so that she looked like some perfectly ordinary young professional.

But try as she might to seem normal, she still stirred up suspicions. As she stood looking at herself in the mirror, she remembered the question that the search team asked her and Lyle near that house—a question that kept on echoing in Carly’s mind.

“How did you happen to come looking here?”

After all, it had been a considerable detour from the path the searchers and their dogs had been following. What possible reason could Carly and her partner have had for coming here?

Fortunately, Lyle had said something vague about finding the house on GPS and getting curious about it and then going there. He was covering for Carly, of course. Lyle himself didn’t understand Carly’s unusual gift, and they never talked about it, but he always did whatever he could to tacitly support her. She was grateful for that, although it would be awkward to tell him so.

As soon as they’d gotten back to the Behavioral Analysis Unit, Lyle had told her he would make the official report, and that he wouldn’t need her help.

“Go home,” he’d said.

“You deserve some rest.”

So she’d driven the 20-minute commute from Quantico to Glensted. And now here she was in the apartment where she lived all alone—and living alone suited her just fine.

After a day of braving the intrusive gazes of law enforcement professionals, it felt good to know that nobody in the sprawling five-story apartment complex knew exactly what she did for a living, much less that she possessed some sort of freakish mental quirk. Most of the people here seemed to be commuters like herself, and they minded their own business.

Not surprisingly, she was hungry, so she went to the refrigerator to look for something to eat. Living alone as she did, she hadn’t gotten into the habit of preparing proper meals for herself. She survived mostly on frozen dinners and deliveries. Right away she saw a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza. She slapped one of the slices onto a plate and didn’t even put it in the microwave, just took it to her dining area and sat down at the table and began to eat it cold. It tasted just fine that way.

As she ate, she glanced over at the bookcase on the nearby wall. One shelf was full of family and childhood memorabilia. There were photos, of course, of school events, vacations, and a portraits of family members.

It was all a reminder of a very different life in Currie, the small town in Illinois where she’d been born and raised. As she looked at a paired portrait of her parents taken for a wedding anniversary some years back, she felt a stab of guilt. She hadn’t been back to Currie for at least a year and a half. She hadn’t even called Mom and Dad for a couple of months.

Maybe I should call them now, she thought.

But no, she quickly decided against it. Her father, the town dentist, was a taciturn man who was just about impossible to talk to face to face, let alone on the phone. By contrast, Carly’s mother, an English professor at the local community college, tended to be pushy and domineering. Carly wasn’t in the mood to deal with either of them right now.

On the same shelf stood a colorful toy pinwheel, its slender dowel handle planted in a lump of clay.

I should get rid of that thing, she thought.

After all, it was just a silly toy she’d kept since she’d been seven years old. When her friend Tyler Glick had turned seven, he and his family had given out these cheap little pinwheels as birthday party treats. Carly had kept hers ever since.

She closed her eyes and flashed back through the years to after that party, when she and Tyler were both 12 years old and she still kept that silly pinwheel in her bedroom. Tyler left school one day, but never got home. A full day went by, then another, then another, and the whole town of Currie became frantic with alarm over the boy’s disappearance. The local police were helpless to find any trace of him.

After Tyler had been missing for a week, Carly had a dream with that pinwheel in it. In her dream, the pinwheel had been enormous, towering over Tyler who was lying motionless on the ground nearby.

Then the pinwheel had changed shape, becoming a wind-powered water-pump with a whirling, multi-bladed wheel at the top of a tower. Carly had awakened from the dream in a panic and ran to her mother.

“Mom, I know where Tyler is,” Carly had said.

“And where is that?” Mom had replied as she made breakfast.

“Right near the windmill on Sam Mercer’s farm.”

Mom’s forehead had crinkled with her customary skepticism.

“What makes you think that?” she’d said.

That was the moment when Carly had first faced a dilemma that still kept confounding her. She’d felt with every cell in her body that she’d had some kind of connection with Tyler, and that she knew something that everybody desperately needed to know.

And yet she couldn’t talk about it.

Mother would never have believed her—and why would she?

Nevertheless, Carly had been so insistent that Mom had conveyed her hunch to the police. Mercer’s farm had lain outside the original search area, but a small group of searchers finally went there. Sure enough, they’d found Tyler’s body in a shallow grave within sight of the windmill. He’d been abducted and brutally murdered.

Fortunately, Tyler’s killer was soon found—a lone drifter who had passed through the area recently.

Carly had never told anybody how she’d gotten that hunch. Nevertheless, the experience had changed her life. Along with a fascination for the paranormal, it had whetted her interest in law enforcement. After she’d finished college in nearby Southey, she’d joined the police department in her own hometown.

Being a policewoman in Currie hadn’t been very exciting or challenging.

Just a step above being a meter maid, she’d liked to joke.

So Carly had gone to the FBI Academy in Quantico and eventually joined the BAU. Tonight hadn’t been the first time her strange gift had proven useful, nor was it the first time she’d been stymied to explain just how she did things.

Carly got up from the couch and walked over to the pinwheel and idly blew on it, making it turn around.

“I miss you, Tyler,” she whispered. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. I wish I could have stopped it from happening. And now … well, I guess the only thing I can do is keep trying to make the world a little safer. I hope it helps.”

She finished eating and took her plate to the island between her kitchen and living area. Then she stepped closer to the bookcase and looked directly at a frame. It was of herself at 19 and a younger girl at a carnival eating cotton candy together, smiling and laughing. More than 10 years had passed since the picture had been taken.

We both look so happy, Carly thought as a lump of emotion formed in her throat.

It was painful to remember that this was the last time she’d ever seen her sister.

“Where are you, Megan?” she whispered. “Am I ever going to see you again?”

Just then she was jolted by the sound of her cellphone ringing. She took the call, which was from Lyle.

“Hey, kid,” her partner said, “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“No,” Carly said.

“And I hope you haven’t settled in for the night.”

Carly chuckled. Of course Lyle knew better than that. And of course it wasn’t the first time he’d called her at such a time. She’d long since gotten used to being ready for duty at all hours.

“Oh, no, of course not,” she said with playful sarcasm. “It’s not like I stripped out of those filthy clothes the minute I walked in the door and took a long hot shower and got into a warm comfy bathrobe and ate a delicious slice of cold pepperoni pizza and I’m just about ready for bed. It’s not like that at all.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” Lyle said, chuckling as well. “I’m still at Quantico and I just now got our marching orders. It looks like we’ve got more work to do tonight. How soon can I pick you up?”

“Give me 20 minutes,” Carly said.

“I’ll be there.”

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“The Shaddon Center for the Arts.”

Carly’s eyes widened with mild surprise.

“Are we going to catch a play?” she asked.

Lyle scoffed and said, “I’m afraid we’re going to be a little late to catch a performance of the Scottish Play. I’ll explain when I pick you up.”

Lyle ended the call, and Carly sat staring at the phone for a moment.

The Scottish Play? she wondered.

Oh, she realized. He must mean Macbeth.