Regenesis (Book 1): Impact (18 page)

Nick
only nodded in agreement.

Jessica
analyzed him and quietly apologized. “I should be kinder to you Nick. I know
you’re grieving and a lot of insane things have happened in a very short period
of time, and that isn’t fair. You aren’t thinking clearly Nick; you need to go
home and be with your family. And you need to rest.”

Nick
nodded once more. His eyes watered and his lips trembled, but he remained
collected and whispered that his family ended with Victor. Jessica searched for
comforting words, but Nick continued before she could offer any, “Do y-you know
w-why I came here?”

“No,
why did you come here?”

He
wiped a few tears out of his eyes and let out a sigh wrapped in a smile,
“Because y-you’re the sm-smartest p-person I know, J-Jessica.”

She
blushed a bit and thanked him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you out anymore Nick,
but let’s just leave this with the police, okay? I’m sure they’ll capture the
person responsible in no time at all.”

Nick
agreed without any conviction. He rose to leave when Michael shouted for him to
wait. The pudgy little boy dashed into the room and skidded to a halt. “I had
to tell you,” he started with a wide grin, “Bottles are made of glass, so you
can break them if you want to.”

Nick
chuckled and told him he was right.

“And
can I ask a question? What’s salt made out of?”

Nick
glanced at Jessica in search of an answer, but merely said, “I-I think it’s
just s-salt.”         

“Are
you sure?” he questioned Nick. “Tommy’s fate hangs in the balance!”

“Wh-Who’s–”

Michael
turned to his sister and begged, “Can I have a sandwich? Pleeaaasseee!”

Jessica
laughed and agreed to the little boy’s swift request. She said her goodbyes to
Nick and he left them as they went to the kitchen. He hadn’t taken more than a
few steps before his phone vibrated. He found it was Jordan and answered it.
“Hello?”

“Hey,
how are you holding up?”

“I’m
d-doing fine,” he quickly answered.

Jordan
hesitated, but asked, “How was Victor’s funeral?”

Nick
slowly continued to walk toward his motorcycle and answered him, “It was okay.”

“Sorry
I couldn’t make it. I would have, but…” Nick heard him sigh over the line, “I’m
just pretty messed up from everything that’s happened recently.”

Nick
frankly forgave him. “I don’t th-think Victor would h-have minded t-t-too much.”

“Still…Anyway,
are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “You’ve been through more shit than the
rest of us.”

“I’m
fine.”

Jordan’s
pause gave Nick doubt that his lie actually convinced his friend. Jordan
changed the subject. “Drake spoke with the doctors who’re watching over Ian.
They expect him to pull out of the coma in a few days.”

“Th-That’s
great.”

“Yep.”

“Is
Drake st-still p-planning the p-p-party?”

Jordan
chuckled, “Now more than ever. He claims it’ll boost morale for the whole
group.”

Nick
forced a laugh, “That s-sounds like him.”

“So…Has
Amy called you yet?”

“N-No,
why? I-Is something wrong?”

“No,
I just wanted to see if she’d called you.”

“Why?”

“Because
she was freaked Nick,” Jordan told him. “She needs to talk to someone about
this.”

“D-Do
you think I-I should t-talk t-to her?”

“That’s
what I’m getting at.” Jordan gave Nick the number, which Nick wrote on a
receipt he dug out of his wallet, and Jordan told him to call her. After they
traded their final remarks, Nick hung up. He stared at the digits on the
receipt and hardly believed they stood for anything. It seemed distant to him,
something he couldn’t handle then. Nick took the helmet he’d left on his bike,
put it on, and rode off as fast as he could.

---*---

7:45
PM

Baltimore,
Maryland

Detective
Felton walked down the hall and into Ryan Sage’s office. Sage stood hunched
over case notes and other related materials spread across his desk. The wall of
photographs and notes on each of the victims had overrun the map on the nearby
wall and incorporated it in the madness of the detective’s notes. Sage
pinpointed where each victim died on the map and in most of the cases where the
victim lived in relation to the site of their murder. The list still ended with
a yellow sticky note with a circled question mark, though Detective Sage had
scrawled Angela Walsh’s name on it in red ink.

Felton
brought his partner a fresh coffee, but he wasn’t sure where to place it.
Sage’s office was covered in either the investigation or in garbage. All of his
filing cabinets were open with pages sticking out, there were four Styrofoam
containers with half-finished meals, six drained energy drinks, five standing
empty soda cans and five more crushed ones on the floor, eight emptied and
discarded bags of chips, two half eaten doughnuts, one large cup of stale
coffee, and nine candy bars on his desk. Felton decided to merely hand the hot
beverage to his partner. Sage’s gaze never left the notes; he took a quick swig
of the coffee, cringed slightly from the heat, swallowed, and made room on his
desk after he knocked a few of the candy bars to the floor.

Detective
Felton stayed at the edge of the desk. Short prickly reeds littered his neck
and face, and two reddened and dark half-moons sat under Ryan’s eyes. Felton
cleared his throat and asked, “How long have you been here for Ryan?”

“Since
Friday,” he said without removing himself from his work. “And no, I haven’t
slept since then either, to answer your next question.”

“Are
you serious? How the hell can you expect to continue this investigation if you
don’t sleep? You’re going to get sloppy and miss something.”

“I’ll
sleep once I know we have Cladis, or as soon as we know who his next target
is.”

Chuck
let out a breath and asked if Angela Walsh had called him back since their
initial contact.

“Nothing
as of yet.”

“And
today is what? Day six?”

“Yes.”

“Do
you think she’s still alive?”

Sage
nodded. “I’d like to think that she would have turned up by now if she was
killed already.”

“Alright,
well what if it isn’t her?”

“It’s
her,” he said as he looked Felton in the eye for the first time, “It is her.”
His eyes returned to the documents. “How are things out there?”

“Worse.
Now that there are whispers of this serial killer, people are beginning to feel
that we either aren’t doing our jobs or that we’re not strong enough to keep
this city in line anymore,” Chuck reported.

“What
do you think?”

The
phone rang before Detective Felton could reply. Sage snatched it before the
first ring ended. Chief Johnson started, “Sage, it’s Johnson. There’s been an
accident on Orleans and from what I’ve heard, your tenth Angela Walsh was in
the accident.”

“What
kind of accident?” he asked.

“Her
car was hit by a taxi. The driver tried to help save but I guess she lost a lot
of blood or something and passed on.”

“What’s
the driver’s name?”

“Mario
Evanston. We’ve already got a team there but I’d like you to join them as
quickly as you can,” the Chief told him.

Sage
agreed, “We need to rule Evanston out as Cladis or possibly the next target.
We’ll head out now.”

--          --          --

His
wiper blades removed waves from his windshield as they rolled up to the crash
site. It’d rained for weeks in Baltimore and as such by the time they exited
their vehicle most of Angela’s blood was washed away in the rain swept streets.
Detective Felton left to inspect the wreck while Sage approached one of the
ambulance workers and asked to see the body.

Detective
Sage found it difficult to confirm that the corpse he examined was truly the
young woman he’d spoken with not even a week earlier. He checked her right arm
and found the branded crescent mark.

“What
killed her?” he asked the medic.

“Well
her airbags failed along with the seatbelt’s lock mechanism, so if you mix that
with the trauma of the impact with the other vehicle…well, you can do the
math.”

“Thanks.”
Sage started to leave, but asked, “You said her airbags and seatbelt failed?”

“Yes.”

“Just
the airbags on her side or for the whole vehicle?”

The
medic thought a moment and said, “I believe it was just on her side.”

Sage
thanked him and walked over to a young officer he’d been acquainted with.
“Maguire,” he started, “Were there any witnesses?”

He
nodded, “A few, though they’re gone now.”

“Did
you get their testimonies of the accident?”

“Of
course,” he said. “I already gave them to Detective Felton though.”

“Hey
Sage,” Detective Felton called out from the site of the wreck, “Hurry over.”

Sage
left Officer Maguire there and crossed traffic to reach his partner without so
much as blinking while he crossed. He examined the car from the start and noted
it was a head on collision that wrecked the front left side of both vehicles
and crushed the entire left side of Angela’s car.

“Look
at this,” Felton told him. Sage peered into Angela’s car, as bloody as it was
and as destroyed as it stood. “Her airbags never deployed.”

“That’s
what I’ve heard,” he mentioned. “I’d like to get the car checked out to see
whether this was a mechanical failure or sabotage.”

“I’ll
make a note of it.”

Sage
examined the rest of the car closely. The windshield was cracked but not
shattered, the driver’s door was open and extremely damaged (Sage assumed the
cab driver pried it open to get to Walsh, which Felton confirmed was true), and
the entire front end of the vehicle was irreparable. He rounded to the back of
the car and found it to be relatively fine, but he stopped at the right side of
the car and looked intently at a small indent in the middle of the side. He
guessed the impression was about two feet wide and nearly a foot tall.

“Felton,”
he said, “I need a camera.”

The
detective called for one and Officer Hendricks brought it over to Sage. He
snapped a few images of the dent and returned the camera to the officer.

“Can
I ask what that’s supposed to be?” she questioned him.

“I’m
not sure yet,” he told her, “I’m curious as to whether this impression was here
before the accident or not.”

Felton
walked over and saw the area they in question. “How could the crash do that?”

“Do
you think it’s just something else?”

“Do
you honestly think it’s a part of this?” he asked his partner.

Officer
Hendricks intervened. “I think we actually have footage of the crash as well as
images of both cars from before the wreck from the traffic cams around here,”
she told them. “That should answer your questions.”

Sage
agreed and asked for her to get them if she could. Hendricks agreed and left to
make the call. He turned to Felton, “Now, let’s go talk to the driver.”

“Do
you really think he’s Cladis?”

Sage
shook his head, “I doubt it.”

“Why?”

Sage
looked at him, “Would you stay around the scene of a crime you committed when
you didn’t have to?”

“We
would have all of his information from the cab though,” Felton reminded him,
“So we would find him.”

“Assuming
the information is legitimate and that he, Cladis, wouldn’t have stolen the car
from the real Mario Evanston.”

“I
guess that’s true…”

They
reached Evanston, who sat in an ambulance recovering from the minor concussion
he had crossed with the shock of the entire incident. Detective Sage started,
“Mister Evanston, I’m Detective Sage and this is Detective Felton–”

“I
didn’t do anything,” Evanston started. “I didn’t even hit her, she swerved into
my lane.”

“We’re
not accusing you of anything,” Felton told him, “We merely need you to
accompany us to the station to answer some questions.”

“I
didn’t do anything though. I tried to save her,” he told them, “But-But she’d
just lost so much blood…” he looked down at his own bloody clothes and
muttered, “I tried to save her.”

Sage
reassured him he wasn’t in any sort of trouble. “We’ve simply been investigating
another matter, one we believed she was a part of. We simply need you to answer
some questions that pertain to that.”

Evanston
looked at both of them, “Am I a part of that investigation?”

“Yes,
since you were in a wreck with her,” Felton told him.