Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) Read online

  STILL RATTLED, Solomon edged away from the ambulance, watching as the crowd of onlookers moved across the street, then down toward where the cop car had screeched to a stop.

  The EMTs had already followed on foot and now they were bringing her out—the woman who wasn’t quite Myra—carrying her between them, her hands cuffed behind her, her bruised and bloodied body exposed to the world.

  Solomon thought about her face, about how different it had looked. And about those wild, terrified eyes.

  A sudden thought occurred to him then—a memory of his childhood in St. Thomas and a grandfather who liked to tell tall tales.

  Tales of darkness and death and resurrection.

  And as he thought about those tales and what they’d meant to him, a single phrase crowded his brain. One that had given him nightmares for years:

  Enfants du tambour.

  Children of the drum.

  TWO

  The Man Who Couldn’t Let Go

  4

  NOTHING GOOD COMES from a phone call at three in the morning.

  Tolan had learned that the hard way, when he first got the call about Abby—exactly one year ago today. It had been a morning a lot like this one, chilly but not cold, and he’d been standing in an overheated hotel room instead of lying in his own bed.

  He thought about that morning a lot. Especially when he couldn’t sleep. His frequent bouts of insomnia were the aftereffects of the tragedy, and the grief that accompanied them was as palpable and unrelenting as an electrical storm.

  These days, however, that grief was shadowed by a twinge of fresh guilt. Not the usual feelings of culpability—those were a constant. But something new. Different. Because the woman who had been there for him, who had nursed him through those impossible first days, was now sleeping quietly beside him, the calm amid the chaos.

  Tolan lay there, staring into the darkness, listening to the nearly imperceptible sounds of her breathing, feeling the warmth of her back against his, and tried not to think about Abby and how she had once occupied that very same spot.

  Then his cell phone vibrated on the night stand.

  He glanced at the clock: 3:05.

  Scooping up the phone, he flipped it open and checked caller ID. Blocked. He thought about letting it buzz, but was afraid the sound might wake Lisa.

  Climbing out of bed, he slipped into the bathroom to answer, catching it just before it kicked over to voice mail.

  “Hello?”

  “Dr. Tolan?” A man’s voice. Little more than a whisper.

  “Yes?”

  “Dr. Michael Tolan?”

  “Yes,” he said, not bothering to hide his impatience. “What is it?”

  “Today’s the day, Doctor. The day I’ve been waiting for.”

  “I’m sorry, who is this?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” the caller said. “I just wanted to wish you a happy anniversary before I slit your throat.”

  Then the line clicked.

  BY THE TIME his phone started vibrating again, Tolan had convinced himself that there was no reason to be alarmed. The caller was undoubtedly an old patient of his, playing mind games.

  He’d dealt with a number of difficult cases back in his days of private practice, and this wouldn’t be the first to entertain himself at his expense. Such threats were a hazard of the profession.

  There had, however, been something uniquely unsettling about the caller’s voice. That almost-whisper laced with a touch of menace.

  And despite reassuring himself, he couldn’t help feeling his discomfort deepen as he watched the vibrating phone shimmy on the surface of the bathroom counter.

  For a moment he wondered if it might be one of his current patients, someone from the hospital. But it was unlikely that any of them had access to a phone. Especially at this time of morning.

  He reached out, picked it up. Answered it.

  “Dr. Tolan?” Not a whisper this time, but forceful, self-confident.

  “Look,” he said. “I know you’re having fun, but I’m really not in the mood. If you want me to recommend a new therapist—”

  “Sorry, Doc, I think you’ve got me confused with somebody else. This is Frank Blackburn.”

  Surprised, Tolan hesitated. “Who?”

  “Frank Blackburn, OCPD?”

  It took him a moment to find the memory. “Ahh, right,” he said. “Sue Carmody’s partner.”

  Carmody was a Special Victims investigator he had consulted with on a couple of cases. Their collaboration had been successful both times out, but he had never been able to warm up to her. She was a typical anal-retentive with control issues that he’d found just barely tolerable.

  “Carmody transferred to another unit,” Blackburn said. “But that’s a conversation we’ll reserve for a later date. Right now I need your help.”

  “Is this about one of my patients?”

  “I don’t think so.” Blackburn sounded surprised. “Why do you ask?”

  He considered telling Blackburn about the phone call but decided against it. “No reason. What can I do for you?”

  “You still run the EDU over at Baycliff, right?”

  “I’m the director, yes.” A sixty-bed facility, the Emergency Detention Unit at Baycliff Psychiatric Hospital handled a large portion of the city’s mental health emergencies, usually picking up the overflow from County General.

  “I’ve got a Girl Gone Wild here I need you to take a look at. Real whack job.”

  Tolan bristled. He had never appreciated the dehumanizing slang cops used to describe the mentally ill. Not that he was a saint, but his patients were troubled human beings who deserved respect, not scorn.

  “The Unit’s staffed twenty-four-seven, Detective.”

  “I’m sure you’ve got a wonderful crew, Doc, but I need the big guns on this one. The way you handled that kid we brought in a few months ago was nothing short of magic.”

  “Is this another rape case?”

  “At this point I’m not sure what it is. That’s why I need you.”

  Tolan sighed. He’d already given up on sleep, and lying in bed dwelling on his grief wasn’t doing him any good. Still, he needed time to decompress.

  “Go ahead and have the night staff process her. I’ll let them know you’re coming and meet you there in a couple hours.”

  “Thanks, Doc, you’re a peach. Sorry if I woke you.”

  Somehow Tolan got the feeling that Blackburn was never really sorry about anything.

  It was a state of mind he envied.

  WHEN HE GOT out of the shower, Lisa was awake and waiting for him, towel in hand, a look of concern on her face.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’ve been better,” he said, taking the towel from her.

  “You were asleep when I came home.”

  Tolan shook his head. “Playing possum. Didn’t want you to worry. You came in pretty late. I figured you were staying at the beach house.”

  “We went to Isabel’s after the movie, and you know what happens when you get four women in a room talking about men. We all start sharpening our knives.”

  He tried to laugh, but all he could manage was a weary smile. As he finished drying off, Lisa moved in close, slipping her arms around him. “You look miserable. Maybe you should talk to Ned again.”

  Ned Soren was Tolan’s ex-partner. He was also his therapist.

  “He’d probably just try to get me back on the fluoxetine,” Tolan said. Unlike Soren, he was a strong believer that psychopharmacology was a last resort. “Drugs or no drugs, you’d think that after a year I’d be making more progress.”

  “There’s no time limit on grief, Michael. You know that.”

  “Clinically, yeah. But emotionally . . . I just want to get past this. It isn’t fair to you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I just want you to heal,” she said. “No matter how long it takes.” She gave him a squeeze, kis
sed him. “You’ll be marking this day for the rest of your life, Michael. But it’ll get easier. I promise. You’ll come around.”

  “Is that what you told the girls last night?”

  “It’s what I always tell them. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it.”

  “You’re too goddamn good to me.”

  Lisa smiled. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

  HE CONSIDERED TELLING Lisa about the phone call, but what good would that accomplish? He was certain now that it had been nothing more than a cruel joke perpetrated by a sick mind, and telling her would be equally cruel. As grounded as she was, Lisa was also a worrier. And what she worried about most was Tolan.

  Why throw gas on the flames?

  He thought about all the years they’d known each other and how their friendship had only recently blossomed into romance. They had met as undergrads at UCLA, had shared a house with four other students in Westwood. There had been a fair amount of flirting at first, a night of drunken kisses that never led anywhere, and they’d quickly settled into friendship mode. Thanks to similar paths in grad school, they’d kept in touch ever since.

  Lisa had served on staff at County General for several years, then signed on as head psychiatric nurse at the Baycliff EDU about six months before Tolan came on board. Shortly after Abby’s death, she had encouraged him to take the director’s job, and they had been working together ever since.

  Truth was, she had awakened something inside him he’d thought would lay dormant forever, and the feeling was both unexpected and welcome.

  He needed her. Not at the same primal level at which he’d needed Abby, but Abby had been his soul mate and there was no competing with that.

  Lisa was, for lack of a better word, his savior. And if he could keep his remorse from dragging them down, they might have a future together.

  BY THE TIME he was dressed, Lisa had brewed a pot of coffee and handed him a cup as he entered the kitchen. Her shift at the hospital didn’t start until later that morning, and she was wearing only a T-shirt, which barely covered her ass. Her hair still had that tousled, just-got-out-of-bed look.

  Tolan suddenly remembered the first night they’d made love and felt his body reacting to the memory. Maybe that was the date he should be marking on his calendar. Celebrate the bliss, not the pain. Anything to get him through this godforsaken day.

  “Feeling any better?” she asked.

  “Getting there. You look great, by the way.” He set down his coffee cup. Smiled. A smile she was getting to know quite well.

  “Don’t even think about it. You don’t have time.”

  “We could make time.”

  “I thought you said the police are waiting for you.”

  Tolan’s smile broadened. He was starting to feel better now. Much better. Decompression nearly complete.

  “Let ’em wait,” he said.

  5

  BLACKBURN WAS IN the staff parking lot when Tolan pulled in.

  Tolan had met the man only once, several months ago, when he and Detective Carmody brought in a young rape victim who was suffering from trauma-induced mutism. Tolan had managed to get her to talk, giving them just enough of a description to eventually help nail her attacker.

  This had more to do with the girl than Tolan, but no matter how much he tried to dissuade them of the notion, the partners were convinced he’d pulled a rabbit out of his hat.

  As Tolan killed the engine of his Lexus and climbed out, Blackburn came over. He was big and lean and distinctly urban. Someone you wouldn’t want to piss off.

  His smile, however, immediately softened him.

  “Hiya, Doc. Thanks for showing up on such short notice.”

  It was approaching five-thirty now and Tolan was late, but if Blackburn was bothered by this he didn’t show it. Tolan noted that his shirt and jacket were stained with blood.

  They shook hands. “I assume she’s been admitted?”

  Blackburn nodded. “The doc on duty said they were gonna clean her up and put her in a cell. She’s pretty docile right now, but if you’re smart, you’ll strap her to the goddamn bed.”

  Tolan nodded, gestured. “Let’s walk and talk.”

  Baycliff Psychiatric Hospital was located on Pepper Mountain Mesa, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and what the cluster of colorless buildings lacked in character was made up for by their surroundings.

  The walkway leading to the Emergency Detention Unit was edged by neatly landscaped grounds full of oak and bigleaf maple. There was a good breeze blowing, and the leaves, a rusty yellow-gold, floated like confetti and cartwheeled across the lawn.

  Off to their right, and some distance away, was a forest of California pepper trees. A narrow pathway snaked through them, its mouth blocked by a thick chain holding a NO TRESSPASSING sign, warning off the curious.

  A good quarter mile up that pathway, nestled in the Pepper Mountains, stood the remains of the old Baycliff Hospital, a once majestic structure that had been abandoned after a severe earthquake and fire over half a century ago. It remained untouched and forgotten, except by the occasional adventurous gang of teenagers looking for a midnight thrill.

  The current hospital, located on what the geophysicists considered more solid ground, had been built in the late 1960s and looked it. Except for the view, it held little of the grandeur of the older model. And none of the allure.

  As they walked, a sudden memory assaulted Tolan: he and Abby exploring the ruins of the old hospital one afternoon. His calendar had been free and she had closed her studio for the rest of the day, both of them hoping the adventure might help them recapture some of the energy that had been draining from their marriage of late.

  As they explored the grounds—Abby furiously snapping photographs of the massive, burned-out building—they had joked of ghosts and demons, and had marveled at the courage of those who chose to visit late at night, tempting fate.

  Three days later, Abby was dead.

  “Here’s the thing,” Blackburn said as he and Tolan continued toward the EDU. “I’ve got a guy on his apartment floor with a ventilated chest. Less than two blocks away, your new patient shows up bare-assed in the middle of the street and tries to use the business end of a pair of scissors on a cab driver.”

  “I assume this isn’t a coincidence?”

  “She had what looks to be the victim’s blood on her, including traces on her left heel, and we found a matching footprint at the scene.”

  Tolan sensed some hesitation. “So what’s the problem?”

  “A couple of things. First, the crime scene techs say the splatter pattern doesn’t mesh with the blood we found on her. Thinks it’s more likely she put her hands in it, then rubbed her face.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tolan said. “What else?”

  “The scissors.”

  “What about them?”

  “They don’t match the wounds. So if Miss Nature Lover is my suspect, why the sudden switch of utensils? It doesn’t make sense.”

  These things rarely do, Tolan thought. “Have you considered she might also have been a target? Maybe she picked them up at the crime scene in an attempt to protect herself.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Blackburn said. “The blood on them probably came from her hands. But to be honest, I don’t know how she’s involved—and I’d sure as hell like to find out. Unfortunately, she’s a complete schizo.”

  Tolan bristled again. Most people who used such terms knew nothing at all about schizophrenia or mental health in general. He laid the blame for that squarely at the feet of a syndrome he called BTS—

  —Bad Television Shows. And the treatment was simple: selective use of the remote control.

  “You say she was naked, so no ID at all?”

  “Nope. We ran her prints and got a big fat zero. Some old homeless coot thought she might be a friend of his, but he turned out to be a nut job too.”

  Tolan stopped just short of the EDU lobby doors and looked at him. “Listen, Detectiv
e, if we’re going to work together, let’s get something straight. They aren’t nut jobs or whackos or schizos or loonies or maniacs. As far as I’m concerned, the only difference between my patients and a guy battling a heart arrhythmia is the organ under distress.”

  “Easy, Doc, I’m not trying to offend anybody here. Hell, my old man was manic-depressive.”

  “Then you of all people should know how damaging labels can be.”

  Blackburn shrugged. “The only label we had for him was asshole. But if it’ll make you feel any better, consider me duly chastised.”

  Tolan said nothing. Truth was, he’d heard a lot worse coming out of the mouths of his own colleagues. Looking back on the year he’d spent as a medical resident, he could remember when burn victims were crispy critters and terminal patients were GPO—Good for Parts Only. Such language was a release valve, a little dark humor to help get them through those long, hard hours of sobering reality. He doubted it was any different for cops.

  But for some reason he’d been particularly touchy lately. Was it the insomnia? Had his yearlong battle with sleep deprivation somehow robbed him of his capacity for tolerance and turned him into a high-minded, judgmental prick?

  Taking a long, deep breath, he sighed and said, “Don’t mind me, Detective. I’m a little oversensitive these days.”

  “That just about makes us polar opposites,” Blackburn said. “But I can live with it if you can.” Then he smiled. “Call me Frank, by the way. Some people tell me it’s a name that suits me.”

  Tolan managed a smile in return. “I’m beginning to see why.”

  He pulled open the lobby doors and gestured Blackburn inside. He had been coming to the EDU almost daily for over nine months now and still couldn’t get over how drab it looked. Faded green walls, a row of metal chairs, battered end tables carrying the requisite out-of-date news magazines. Function over aesthetics.

  Adjacent to this was a wire-mesh security cage that led to the maze of hallways that made up the detention unit. A lone guard sat at a desk just inside the gate, and a sign above it read ESCAPE RISK.