Chain Letter Omnibus Page 25

  Now she was totally lost. “How do you know anything about me? I’ve never met you before. Have I?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Not long ago. Don’t worry. You won’t remember me.”

  Alison leaned back in her seat and felt her breath slowly go out of her body. It was true—she had no memory of this guy. Yet she knew him. She didn’t understand how both things could be true at the same time.

  “What am I suffering from now?” she asked carefully.

  “Lack of love. It’s always the cause of suffering.”

  She thought of Tony and their unfulfilled love, and her heart ached. “That’s true,” she whispered. Then she shook herself. “Who are you?”

  He removed his legs from the porch rail and sat up. “I’m a guide. I’m here to guide you.”

  “To what?”

  “You know what.”

  She bit her lower lip, but she didn’t taste blood. She tasted cold water. Her whole body had suddenly gone cold. “You know about the chain letters?” she gasped.

  He shrugged. “The letters are not important. It’s what they represent.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A chain,” he said seriously. “An unbroken chain. It’s very ancient—not a happy thing. But it can be broken.”

  Alison’s head was spinning. She had come to this spot by chance. She had only met this guy by chance. Yet he knew of her worst fears. . . .

  “How can we break it?” she asked.

  “With love,” he said simply.

  “I don’t understand.”

  The guy’s green eyes were penetrating, yet gentle still. It was as if she stood fully exposed before him, her thoughts and everything, but it was OK because he understood her. And appreciated her. That’s why she felt so comfortable with him. He radiated unconditional love.

  “You do understand, Ali,” he said.

  “But I love Tony. I want to help him. I want to help the others, but they won’t listen to me. Tony won’t even talk to me.”

  The guy raised a finger. “That doesn’t matter, either. You have asked for help, and someone will come. Trust this person. But beyond this you must trust what’s in your heart. The letters come from a place where there is no heart. There is only pain. None of you must go to that place.”

  Alison was frightened. “Where is that place?”

  The guy hesitated. Alison didn’t understand why she didn’t think of him as Chris. Then she realized it was probably because it wasn’t his real name. It was just something he made up so she could understand. But understand what? Who the hell was this guy?

  “It is not far from here, either,” he said.

  “But this Caretaker has already killed one of us,” she said. “How can I stop him from killing more of us?”

  “Dying is not so bad as being put in the box.”

  “What happens when you’re put in the box?” Her voice trembled. “Do you go to that place?”

  “Eventually. Unless you can get out. But it’s difficult to get out once you are inside. Most people never do.” The kettle began to whistle inside the cabin. The guy seemed to listen to it for a few moments. Yet he could have been listening to something far off. His gaze focused on a place she couldn’t see. He came back to her after a minute, though. “I’m afraid you won’t have time to stay for tea,” he said, and there was a hint of sorrow in his voice.

  “Why not?”

  “It is time.”

  “Time for what?” She stood. “Please, you have to tell me what’s happening here. Who are you?”

  He stood, too. He didn’t say anything but only hugged her, and his arms as they went around her were of great comfort. She felt a warm glow in her chest that spread through her after he let go. But her heart was still in anguish.

  “I am your friend,” he said. He reached out and touched the hair that hung beside her cheek. “I am your greatest admirer.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “You will. You will act in love. You will do what has to be done.”

  She began to cry. “I’m afraid. Can’t I stay with you a few more minutes?”

  He shook his head and turned for the front door. “You have to hurry. Go to where it all began. There are two places, you know. Find them and you will reach the end of the chain.” He smiled at her one last time before stepping inside. “Goodbye, Ali.”

  “But—?”

  “Hurry,” he said and vanished through the door.

  Alison stood for a minute staring at the closed door before opening it and peeking inside. He must have gone out the back way. She saw no sign of him. The whistle of the kettle had stopped. It sat on the wood stove as if it had sat there undisturbed for years. There was no sign of the burning logs. It was as if she had dreamed the entire encounter. She turned and walked back to the lake, toward her car. His words rang true, whoever he was. She had to hurry, even if she didn’t know where she was going.

  Chapter Nine

  Alison was on the main freeway toward her house when she deciphered the mystery the strange fellow had set before her. He had spoken of two places where it had all begun. Obviously the first must be the dusty road in the desert, where they had run over the man. The second had eluded her at first. Neil had started the chain letters. Therefore, the inside of Neil’s head must be the second starting point. But Neil was dead. His mind was gone. Yet, she reasoned, he must have sat at home when he composed the chain letters. She would go there, to what was left of the place. She remembered he had burned it down with the man’s dead body inside to give the illusion that it was he, Neil, who had been killed by the Caretaker. She didn’t want to go to the man’s first grave in the desert. She wasn’t even sure that she could find it—or what she’d do out in the middle of the desert.

  The burned house had months ago been leveled by bulldozers. A grass lot stood in its place. There was plenty of ash left, however. As Alison crept up to the lot in her car, she imagined she was looking at the remains of a bomb blast site—one that had hastily been covered over with sod. She parked and walked across the grass, charred splinters poking at her shoes from between the soft blades. All right, she was here. Now what? Should she sit down cross-legged in the grass and commune with Neil’s ghost for answers? She decided she had already met one ghost that day.

  Who was that guy? How did he know about the letters?

  She wasn’t going to answer those questions here. She must have misunderstood the guy’s clues. She was returning to her car when she saw a new guy climb out of a car. He had just pulled up. The sun was close to setting, and it was hard to see in the dim light. For a moment she was afraid. What could he want here? It was a vacant lot, after all. She was the only thing there.

  “Hello?” he called.

  “Yeah, what can I do for you?” she asked nervously.

  “What?”

  “I said, what do you want?”

  He walked closer. “My name’s Eric Valence. I’m a police officer.”

  “You don’t look like a police officer. Show me your badge.”

  He stopped in midstride. “I’m off duty.”

  “Yeah, right. You look like you’re off duty from high school.” Actually, he didn’t look bad for a complete stranger. He was slender, but had broad shoulders and a graceful stance. His features were dark, sharp. He looked intelligent, and she wondered if she should be trying to make a fool out of him without first knowing who he was and what he wanted.

  “I’m twenty-one years old,” he said.

  “Isn’t that kind of young to be a police officer?”

  “What?”

  “Can’t you hear?”

  He tilted the left side of her head his way. “I can hear,” he said, insulted.

  Yeah, but not too well. God, I’m ridiculing someone’s handicap.

  She took a step closer to him and spoke louder. “Are you really a police officer? Please tell me the truth.”

  He hesitated. “I work for
the police. My uncle’s a sergeant with the LAPD.”

  “And you just help out every now and then?”

  “I’m collecting information for them for a case.”

  Alison remembered where she was and began to feel nervous. “What kind of case?” she asked.

  “I can’t go into detail. But I need to find the woman who used to live in this house before it burned down. I’ve been out to this neighborhood before, but nobody around here seems to know where she’s moved to. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

  Alison’s throat tightened. The police might be on to them already. She had told the group that morning that she wanted to go to the authorities, but it was quite another thing to have the authorities come to them. They’d get no extra credit for turning themselves in.

  “I might,” she said evasively. “Who are we talking about?”

  “Mrs. Katherine Hurly. Do you know her?”

  She shrugged. “A little.”

  He gave her a shrewd look. “Did you know her son, Neil Hurly?”

  Alison fought to keep her composure. She was an actress, after all—it should have been easy. But just the sound of Neil’s name spoken by someone connected to the police made her face fall and her voice sound unsteady.

  “A little,” she said.

  The guy noted her reaction. He had really turned the tables on her. “Did you go to school with him?”

  “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

  “I’ve only asked you a couple of questions. What’s your name?”

  “Alison.”

  “Alison what?”

  “Alison. Who are you?”

  “I’ve already told you who I am. My name’s Eric Valence.”

  “I want to see some identification.”

  “I can show you my driver’s license.”

  “No. How do I know you’re with the police?”

  “You could call them and check me out.” He continued to study her. He knew she was worried. He had her over a barrel. “If you’d like to call the police, that is.”

  “I don’t feel like doing anything right now except going home.” She turned aside and stepped past him toward her car. He stopped her dead in her tracks with one little sentence.

  “I know it wasn’t Neil who burned to death in this house,” he said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told the grass in front of her. He moved up and stood beside her.

  “Yes, you do, Alison.”

  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “What do you want?”

  “The truth. Who died here? Where’s Neil?”

  “Neil’s dead.”

  “Where’s his body?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did he die of?”

  “Cancer.”

  Eric was surprised. “He had cancer?”

  “Yeah. And if you don’t believe me, ask his mother.”

  “That’s just the point I can’t find his mother. Can you help me find her?”

  “No. You don’t want to do that. It would be a waste of time. She doesn’t know anything. She thinks her son died in the fire that took place here.”

  Eric moved in front of her. “But you know differently. Tell me the story.”

  “No. Why should I? I don’t even know you.”

  “But I know something about you. I know, for instance, that you were involved in a criminal deception.”

  Alison was indignant. “Are you threatening me? ’Cause if you are, you can go back to the police station and get your uncle and have him come arrest me.” She pushed by him. “I don’t need to listen to this anymore.”

  She had reached her car when he caught up with her again. “Look, Alison, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I do want to know what happened here, but I don’t want to get you in trouble.” He paused and awkwardly reached out toward her. “You look pretty upset. I want to help you. That’s all. Please let me help?”

  She was going to yell at him again when the words of the stranger at the lake came back to her.

  “You have asked for help, and someone will come. Trust this person.”

  “How can you help me?” she asked quietly.

  “I can tell you what I know. You can tell me what you know. We can join forces.” He fidgeted awkwardly. “I’m smarter than I look. I’m good at figuring things out.”

  He sounded so pitifully sincere, she had to smile. “You look plenty smart to me, Eric.” She opened the door of her car for him. “Let’s go get some coffee. We can talk. But I don’t know if you’ll believe half of what I have to tell you.”

  · · ·

  They went to a Denny’s Coffee Shop not far from Neil’s old house. They got a booth in the corner. Both ordered coffee and pie. Eric confessed what his real relationship was to the police department, which seemed to her to be only that of a hopeful reject. But she was fascinated by how he had used their computers and his ingenuity in piercing through Neil’s deception. He told her about the difference in the X-rays and promised to show them to her when she took him back to his car. Even without the stranger’s advice, she felt she had to trust Eric. He was within a hairbreadth of exposing everything that had gone on before.

  So she told him her tale, starting with the night of the concert and the dead man in the desert. She took Eric all the way through Neil’s chain letters, up to the new letters and the death of Fran Darey. Occasionally Eric would interrupt to ask a specific question. Was there another car on the road when they hit the man? Was there a history of mental illness in Neil’s family? Did anyone besides Tony see Neil die? How long after Fran’s accident was it before the police arrived on the scene? Eric did indeed have a sharp mind. Many of the things he asked, Kipp hadn’t even thought of. She answered each of his questions as carefully as she could. She was relieved that he believed her every word. She asked him about his faith in her when she was done.

  “I know it must all sound pretty farfetched,” she said. “I won’t blame you if you think I’m crazy.”

  He sipped his coffee. He had hardly touched it while she spoke. “I believe you. You couldn’t have made up a story like that. It’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “You asked a lot of questions. Tell me what you think.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I think you’re in serious danger.”

  In a way it was good to have her beliefs confirmed. Yet his conviction brought her no relief. “You don’t think Fran’s death was an accident?” she asked.

  “Unlikely. She died right on schedule.”

  Alison nodded weakly. “Fran was always worried about not being on schedule.” She sniffed. “So what should we do? Should we go to the police?”

  “I wouldn’t, but then, I think I know more than most cops. You probably should. You need protection.”

  “Will we get in trouble if we go?”

  “Will you go to jail? Probably not. This Tony guy will, though.”

  “Why him? We were all responsible.”

  “He was driving when the man was hit. He didn’t report it. That’s manslaughter.” Eric paused. “What exactly is your relationship to Tony?”

  “He’s my boyfriend.”

  Eric blinked. “I see.”

  “I don’t want him to go to jail. It’s unacceptable.” She reached out and touched Eric’s hand. “You told me you’d keep everything I said confidential.”

  The news that she had a boyfriend seemed to have taken him back a step. “Yes, and I will keep my word. But you asked my advice, and I gave it to you. I think you should go to the police.”

  “You know what I love? I love it that out of everyone in this group, you’re the one who’s making this suggestion. I just love it, Ali.”

  “We can’t do that. Not yet.” She took a breath. “If you know more than most police, what would you do next if you were in my predicament?”

  “If you’re convinced that the new Caretaker is not someone in your gro
up, then you should concentrate all your efforts on finding out who the man in the desert was. His identity is the missing link. There’s a good chance you didn’t even kill him. The fact that there was no other car in the area indicates that he might have been dumped there, already dead.”

  “But then why can’t we tell the police that? Tony wouldn’t have to go to jail.”

  Eric shook his head. “I know there was no other car in the area because I believe you. The police won’t. You buried a dead man in an unmarked grave and didn’t tell anybody about it for over a year. You’ll have no credibility with the authorities.”

  “I see your point.”

  “Who the man was and how he died is crucial,” Eric went on. “If he was murdered, the people who killed him might have had contact with Neil.”

  “I don’t see the logic in that.”

  “It’s obvious. Neil is dead. We must assume he’s dead because your boyfriend says he is. But you’re getting new chain letters, and they’re similar to the ones Neil sent. Therefore, somebody outside the group must have seen Neil’s chain letters. This is assuming no one else in your group has turned psychotic, which seems unlikely. It’s possible the person who is sending them now is the same one who composed the first ones. Tell me, in the short time you spoke with Neil after you knew he was the Caretaker, did he at any time indicate he had help?”

  “I kept wondering and worrying and I tried, but this thing got in my head, and I couldn’t get rid of it. I don’t know where it came from. It was like a voice, saying this is true and this is a lie. It wouldn’t shut up! I had to listen, and I did listen, and then . . . I did all this.”

  “I don’t think so,” she whispered.

  “You sound doubtful?”

  “He did say something that indicated he was being influenced.”

  “How so?”

  Alison repeated the remark Neil had made just before he collapsed into Tony’s arms and was carried away. She added, “But it was just something that was in his head. It wasn’t like he had a real physical accomplice.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Eric disagreed. “If he was mentally ill from a tumor in his brain, then his accomplice could have dominated him in such a fashion that he would be unable, even at the end, to admit that he was working with someone. It’s a theory is all. We’ll have a better idea which direction to take if we find out who the man was.”