The note was a typed clue: “Hit the trail, but keep the razor. You’ll need it to find piece at the steeple.”
Find piece? I doubted that was an accident.
In my mind’s eye, I pulled up the Cheekwood map that I’d seen on the Web site. The Woodland Sculpture Trail ran along the back edge of the mansion, with sites on the path numbered according to the presiding displays.
The Steeple Dance. Third on the list.
With the clock ticking, I’d have to move quickly and avoid a confrontation with the estate guards. Though worried about Felicia’s safety, I was driven by a greater need to discover the identity and motive of the person behind this stupid game. He might be out there, waiting for me among the trees.
“Nice exhibit,” I said to the security guard.
He eyed me with distrust as I moved as nonchalantly as possible down the spiral staircase in the center of the mansion. I pretended to turn toward the front foyer, then cut back through a passageway that led to an outside arbor. He hadn’t followed me. Good. I padded up a stone walkway, then sprinted across the back lawn, past a swan fountain. Following directions. Heading for the trail.
Only minutes until closing. What would I find back here? Another person tied to a sculpture and bleeding onto the forest floor?
Felicia’s words: obey the instructions if you want to know the truth.
The truth. About what exactly?
I tramped through the underbrush. Darkness deepened beneath the merging clumps of trees, offering at least some concealment.
The trail. There. Should I veer left or right?
Left.
I ran now, envelope and razor in one hand, Desert Eagle in the other. I knew where I was headed. The straw hat fluttered from my grip, but it didn’t matter. On either side of the path, the woods were so still I could hear my shirt swishing with each pump of my arms, my feet padding over bark and turf.
BEAR: breathe, evaluate, act rapidly. I’d learned that from one of my street pals as a teenager.
In the clearing ahead, rusty-orange spires stabbed at angles into the gray sky. I’d seen the Steeple Dance sculpture online and in the brochure. What I hadn’t seen was the object swaying on a cord from a branch of a cedar tree. A casual passerby would’ve missed it.
I took a deep breath, peered around, listened. As far as I could tell, I was alone. I walked closer and reached for the object. Too high. I tried to gauge the distance.
Seemed innocent enough. A small bag cinched with leather straps.
Find piece at the steeple …
A piece of what? I paused. A finger? An earlobe?
Whatever this was, whatever was in there, it was all part of the sicko’s game.
I glanced around the clearing and walked to the back of the sculpture into the thickening shadows. With a good jump, I might be able to snag it. But what would I be grabbing? Last fall I’d found the horror of a clump of hair in an envelope that sent shivers through my limbs.
C’mon. Just grab the thing. Get this over with.
I told my feet to back up and get a running start, but they stayed planted like tree roots—heavy and thick.
What was wrong with me? Was I turning soft? For years rage had fueled my confrontations, erasing all other emotions while focusing my energies on rib-cracking victory. I’d taken on bigger men. I’d learned to throw the switch, cutting off any thoughts of injury or pain or consequence. I’d been unstoppable.
Eighteen months ago I’d made the decision to give up all that and start honoring my mother. Time for a change. Time to start thinking of others, not just myself. In choosing the high road, though, I’d been burned both literally and figuratively.
I looked down at my hand that still bore the scars. Apparently my psyche wasn’t faring much better.
I scanned the clearing. This was me, Aramis Black, gathering evidence, reconnoitering, considering his next move. This was not a moment of weakness.
So why couldn’t I budge?
PS3414—Social Psychology.
Lipscomb University, College of Natural and Applied Sciences.
In last week’s class, Professor Newmann had addressed the mental hurdle of limb-numbing fear, reminding us that public speaking—forget spiders or heights—was Americans’ number-one phobia. This set off a lively debate. Most of us could recount paralyzing incidents—two hundred feet up the face of a cliff, a chance at a game-winning free throw. One boy even admitted to freezing up during his first kiss and got a rousing laugh from the class.
“Look at Professor Bones,” Diesel prodded me. “He’s not even smiling.”
“Probably still waiting for his first kiss.”
“Naw. He was married once.”
“Really? Now there’s an urban legend for you.”
Newmann’s attention swiveled our direction. Behind tortoise-shell glasses large enough to frame a … well, a tortoise … his eyes locked on to mine. Above thin lips and pasty eyebrows, his hair was plastered across his forehead by one of those hair sprays that smells like something you’d use to polish your tires. His outdated tweed jacket didn’t do much to hide an almost anorexic frame. Poor guy. Even his role as a sub was nothing more than a scrap thrown his way after our original teacher was pegged and hospitalized by a hit-and-run on South Twenty-First.
“Mr. Black, is there a comment you wish to add to our discussion?”
I started to zero in on a snappy comeback to send the class into howls. I imagined this slightly graying man at home alone with a microwave dinner, listening to Michael Bolton. Could he be any more pitiful? And then something moved in me: empathy maybe. Or godly compassion. How pathetic to ridicule a man I knew so little about.
“No sir,” I said. “Sorry for interrupting.”
Newmann studied me, testing my sincerity. Nervous giggles flitted about Ward Lecture Hall 150, but I remained stone faced.
Bones turned back to his notes on the lectern. Head down, he said, “We have ten minutes remaining before dismissal. Would you please stand, Mr. Black, and give a summation of our discussion?”
“Uh. Okay.”
“No reason for a show of shyness. Speak for all to hear.”
I rose and cleared my throat. I was working without a script, and the class probably had some perverse desire to see me fall.
Time to face the nation’s number-one fear.
“Professor, can I address the class from the podium?”
“You can. More accurately, though, you’d need permission to do so.”
“May I?”
He peered over his glasses. “Yes, you may.”
I strode to the front and faced my peers. Nabbing bits of info from our past hour of interaction, I layered them with facts uncovered in my weekend homework, including recent theories that human DNA is encoded with ancestral memories.
“You’re losing our attention,” Newmann said. “Perhaps you can clarify.”
“Okay. Who in this room is scared to death of cats?” I paused for a show of hands. “No one? But if a rat came skittering in under our desks, I bet this place would go crazy.” The mere mention caused a group of girls in the front to lift their feet and shudder. “What if there’s something in our collective heritage that triggers such reactions? Rats helped spread the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. Maybe the nightmares of previous generations passed down through our DNA.”
The lecture hall was with me now.
“And think of déjà vu. We’ve all experienced it, right? Well, what if a particular bend in the river or a curve of the road seems suddenly familiar because Grandma saw that place years ago and passed that memory through her genes?”
Eyes were round with contemplation.
“Fear is a tool,” I said. “A warning mechanism to aid our survival. DNA, genetics, maybe even your grandparents’ memories play a part. Of course it gets tricky when it filters from our logical side into our intuitive side. A mom sees her kid run into the street, and she finds superhuman ability to protect her young. But emotions can also get in the way. Who was it who mentioned shooting free throws? You, Derek? I bet you wouldn’t have frozen at the foul line if your dad hadn’t been watching.”
“Probably not.”
“Bottom line,” I concluded, “in this age of science and rationalism, we can’t forget that the heart and brain are connected. They work in tandem. When we feel afraid, it only serves to underline that fact.”
The professor’s jacket swept against me as he retook the stage. The applause and whoops from the class faded, and he threw me a scowl. “Speaking of feelings, how do you feel you just did with your little discourse?”
“Pretty good.”
“And how do you think you did?”
“All right, I guess.”
“Which simply proves, Mr. Black, that thoughts and feelings don’t always coincide with reality.”
All this raced through my head in seconds.
Fear is a tool. Feelings don’t match reality.
I shook my arms and took a step back. The ground was spongy, an unstable springboard. To my left, the Steeple Dance’s orange spires stretched upward. Straight ahead, the felt bag still dangled from the tree.
BEAR … act rapidly.
I made two running jumps, but my fingertips only raked along the soft material and set the object swinging back and forth above my face, taunting me.
The cords were wrapped around the branch, defying my efforts.
The razor. That was it. The freak had provided the necessary tool.
I shifted my gun back in my waistband, held the blade between my teeth, and grabbed hold of a lower branch. I tried not to close my mouth on the bloody metal.
To find piece …
I braced a foot between the tree trunk and a branch, stretched my leg to reach the next. A grunt. Another stretch, and I reached the limb that held the bag. Gripping the wood between my thighs, I scooted out to the cord. I saw it was knotted, damp and thick, almost impossible to loosen by hand.
After a few seconds of my sawing, the bag plummeted to the forest floor where it hit with a metallic clink. Didn’t sound like a body part.
Other sounds now, not too far off.
Heavy breathing. Pounding feet. The security guard!
I dropped the blade and eased my legs over the cedar limb. My fingers released, and I landed in a crouch on the twigs and leaves below, the Desert Eagle squeezing over the rim of my jeans and thudding on the ground. I snatched it up, found the blade and the bag, and sprinted away as the guard came into view.
“Hold it right there!” he called.
He was no match for my speed, and he was in need of serious meds if he thought otherwise. Daily sit-ups, push-ups, and walking the mile to Black’s most days—and now riding my mountain bike to class at Lipscomb—kept me lean and mean.
See ya.
Without slowing, I crashed through the bushes and swatted away the branches that slapped at my face. Give the guard some credit for recognizing pursuit was futile. Behind me, I could hear him yakking into his handheld radio.