41

Hooper emerged from the rear door of Casa de Oro just as Zoe pulled into her assigned parking slot. He had an unflattened cardboard box in one hand and a white plastic garbage bag in the other.

Zoe got out of the car and watched him toss first the garbage bag and then the cardboard box into the metal bin. He managed to prop the fully erect carton directly in front of the FLATTEN ALL BOXES sign.

She was not sure why she had come back to the apartment so early in the day. She had spent the past few hours alone in her office, unable to concentrate on any of her design projects because of an uneasy, edgy sensation that grew steadily stronger.

She had tried immersing herself in her research on spiderwebs, but as soon as she opened the first book—a treatise on the ancient system of Vastu—the restlessness had become impossible to ignore.

The need to return to Casa de Oro had become so overpowering that she finally stopped fighting it. Somewhere, somehow, she sensed that she had overlooked something important there.

She looked at the unflattened carton and tut-tutted. “Petty, Hooper, very petty.”

“It’s my gesture of triumph.” Hooper dusted off his hands, admiring his handiwork. “The rest of you may have abandoned the war, but I intend to fight on. What’s more, I’ve got a secret weapon. I can’t wait until Sergeant Duncan knocks on my door to give me another lecture about breaking down the boxes. I’m really going to let her have it.”

“You’re planning to terminate your lease?”

“Hell, no.” Hooper tossed his car keys into the air. “I’ve got the goods on Ms. Anal-Retentive.”

“What goods?”

Hooper looked smug. “Get this. Robyn Duncan was fired from her last job here in Whispering Springs because she lied on her job application. All I have to do is pick up the phone and call the folks who own Casa de Oro and she’s history.”

“How did you find out that Robyn lost her other position?”

Hooper surveyed the parking lot quickly to make sure no one could overhear, and then he took a step closer to Zoe.

“Last night I had a couple of beers with a friend of mine. I started telling him about the drill sergeant we’ve got for an apartment house manager and he said it sounded just like a woman who worked for him for a few days at the end of last month. When I mentioned her name, it turned out to be none other than our Robyn.”

Zoe tightened her grip on her purse strap. “You’re certain that she lied on her job application?”

“That’s what my buddy said. She was hired on a provisional basis because they were shorthanded, but after the background check went through they let her go because they found out she’d faked her previous work history for the past two or three years.”

“What was wrong? Was she in prison or something?”

“Worse.” Hooper uttered a malicious chuckle. “Get this, she was locked up in some kind of private mental hospital.”

Zoe went cold. “You’re sure?”

“That’s what my buddy said.” Hooper tossed his keys again and strode off toward his car. “I can’t wait until she hits me up about that damned unflattened carton. I’m really looking forward to telling her that I know she’s a certified loony.”

“Hooper?”

“Yeah?” He unlocked his car.

“Where does your buddy work?”

“He’s a supervisor at Radnor Security Services.”

She stood there, stunned, while Hooper drove out of the parking lot.

Eventually she pulled her wildly skittering thoughts together and let herself into the lobby. There was a neatly lettered sign on the door of the manager’s office informing tenants that the manager was away from her desk due to personal business.

Zoe tried the office door and was not surprised to discover that it was locked. She stepped back and checked the small lobby and the stairs that led to the second floor. There was no one in sight. The apartment complex felt empty, as it usually did in the afternoons when most of the tenants were away at work.

She considered her options. She could call Ethan and ask his advice, but she was pretty sure he’d tell her not to do anything.

Doing nothing was no longer an option. The edgy feeling was rapidly metamorphosing into acute anxiety.

It was impossible to wait. She had to know.

Robyn’s apartment was the last one at the end of the first-floor hall. It was no doubt locked, too. But she had noticed that Robyn usually left her bedroom window open during the day.

She went outside and followed the sidewalk around to the back of the building. The storage locker that contained gardening and pool equipment partially concealed the open window. She took another quick look over her shoulder. There was no one around to witness her somewhat less than legal entry.

She reached into her bottomless tote and found the small tool kit she always carried with her.

It was no trick at all to pry the screen out of its aluminum frame.

She gathered her nerve and swung first one leg over the window ledge and then the other.

The first touch of the dark energy was no worse than what she had encountered in Arcadia’s office and at the show house.

Not too bad. She had been prepared for it. She could deal with it. An exultant sense of relief flashed through her. She wasn’t the crazy one, after all.

She stood on the carpet near the window and studied the bedroom.

To describe the space as spartan in design would have been to understate the painful precision with which the minimal furnishings were arranged. The narrow bed, with its crisply folded white spread, was eerily reminiscent of a patient bed at Candle Lake.

She looked across the room at the small chest of drawers. The photo that had gone missing from the envelope she had left in Arcadia’s office stood propped against the mirror. The chili-pepper red mug was positioned next to it.

She took a step toward the dresser. There was no warning. She blundered straight into a tangle of dense, seething energy.

Panic ripped through her. She was caught in the heart of the spider’s web.

The ghastly stuff shrouded her senses, blinding all of them, not just the part of her that was psychic. She was plunged into total darkness. The sudden absence of light was disorienting. She reached out to grab hold of some object of furniture to steady herself and realized that she could not feel anything through her fingertips.

Terror arced through her. She had to get out of there. But how could she do that when she could not see, hear, touch or feel? She willed her legs to move but had no way of knowing if they got the message.

She was trapped in a waking nightmare. She would go mad if she did not regain her senses. She opened her mouth to scream for help but could no longer hear so she had no way of knowing if she had even made a sound.

She flailed wildly at nothing for what seemed an eternity, fighting the cloaking static. She knew she had to regain control or she would be lost forever in this terrible darkness.

She remembered how to shut out the low-level stuff. The technique for getting through this mess couldn’t be all that much different. It was all about fine-tuning the energy flow and finding harmony in the patterns.

Feng shui of the mind.

Slowly, painfully, exerting every ounce of will and psychic energy she possessed, she forced back some of the static. Gradually some of the dark vibes faded and fell away.

Without warning, the light came back. So did the rest of her senses. She was aware of the rough feel of carpet under her hands and realized that she had fallen to the floor.

She opened her eyes, weak from her internal struggle, and looked toward the doorway of the bedroom.

Robyn Duncan stood in the opening. She had a pistol in her hand.

“You could have knocked,” Robyn said.

 

Ethan stood behind Singleton and looked at the computer screen.

“Nice job getting into those files,” Ethan said absently. Most of his attention was focused on the one name that stood out from all the rest.

“No problem,” Singleton said. “Radnor’s computer security is an off-the-shelf program. Any halfway decent hacker could get through it in about fifteen minutes.”

“Only took you five.”

“That is because I’m way better than halfway decent.”

“True.”

Singleton tilted his head slightly. The light from the screen glinted on his glasses. “What made you think that the person who invaded Arcadia’s office and Zoe’s library might work for Radnor?”

“Harry mentioned that he got sidetracked by a Radnor guard the other night at Fountain Square. He said security guards make him nervous because they can go anywhere without drawing attention and they’ve usually got access to keys. It occurred to me this morning that Radnor handles security for the show house neighborhood as well as the square. Someone with a Radnor uniform who knew where the keys were kept and who also knew the security layout could get in and out of both locations without leaving any tracks.”

“Okay, I’m impressed.”

“It was a long shot,” Ethan admitted.

Singleton leaned back in his chair. “So why didn’t you just come right out and ask Radnor for a list of employees?”

“I didn’t want to put him into what we in the trade like to call an untenable ethical position.”

“Oh, yeah, right. A responsible employer isn’t supposed to release that kind of info unless the cops come calling with a warrant.”

“Besides, it’s a hell of a lot easier this way.”

“Sure is,” Singleton agreed.

“And, naturally, I’ve got no qualms at all about invading the Candle Lake Manor files, not after what the folks at that place did to Zoe.”

“I’m with you.”

Ethan read quickly. “Looks like Robyn Duncan was a patient at Candle Lake for three years.”

“Zoe spent a season in hell there. Three years would probably feel like an eternity.”

“I’m a little short on sympathy at the moment,” Ethan said. “I think Duncan is stalking my wife.”

“Got to admit that her presence here in Whispering Springs and her job as the manager of the apartment house where you and Zoe just happen to be living is hard to write off as a coincidence.”

Ethan studied the information on the screen. “When was Duncan discharged from Candle Lake?”

“Looks like she wasn’t.” Singleton scrolled through a couple of pages of data and paused. “Not officially, at any rate. According to this record, she walked out under her own steam last month.”

“Well, hell.”

Singleton squinted at the screen. “Right after you and Zoe went back to Candle Lake and tore the place apart. Things were probably in chaos for a while. My guess is Robyn Duncan just up and left while everyone was running around trying to figure out what was happening.”

“Does Duncan have any family?”

“Let’s see.” Singleton pulled up the admitting sheet. “Nope. Not anymore. But it looks like she inherited a lot of money, and a trustee was appointed to administer the estate. A guy named Ferris. He signed the commitment papers.”

“And then paid Candle Lake Manor to keep Robyn out of sight and out of mind while he went through the assets of the estate, probably.”

“That’s how the system worked there at Candle Lake.”

Ethan scanned the admitting notes and stopped abruptly when he read some very familiar phrases.

. . . Patient suffers from severe auditory hallucinations. . . . Claims to hear voices in walls. . . .

“Oh, shit,” he said softly.

Singleton cocked a brow. “Same diagnosis as the one they wrote up when they admitted Zoe, I take it?”

“Almost identical.”