Snakes & Ladders (14 page)

Larisa Logan.

The counsellor from Victim Services.

He let out a groan.

Felicia looked over and smiled. ‘Just call her back and tell her you don’t want to talk about Amanda right now.’

Striker met her stare. ‘You don’t know Larisa – she’s a pit bull. The woman’s jaw locks and she never lets go.’

‘Then tell her now is not a good time.’

‘She’ll say that means it’s
exactly
the right time.’

Felicia grinned. ‘She’s persistent, I’ll give her that.’

‘Stubborn as hell is more like it – similar to others I know.’ Before Felicia could respond, Striker hit the Voicemail button and then punched in his password. There was only one message waiting, and when he hit Play the sound of Larisa’s voice was completely unlike anything he remembered of her from the past – high in pitch, unsteady, and speaking too fast:

‘Jacob, it’s me, it’s Larisa . . . Look, I just saw you on the news and . . . . I need to speak to you. About what happened. About Mandy Gill. She didn’t kill herself, Jacob. She was murdered. And I can prove it.’

The phone message shocked Striker and he called Larisa’s cell number. It went unanswered. He dialled and waited for her to pick up three more times but to no avail. Finally, he got hold of the police department’s Info Channel and asked them to look up Larisa Logan’s home number. He called that, too. Again, there was no response.

‘This is bullshit,’ he said.

Felicia agreed. ‘Let’s just go there already.’

‘Already one step ahead of you,’ he replied and hit the gas.

Larisa Logan lived in Burnaby, just a few blocks outside the boundary of the City of Vancouver. From Striker and Felicia’s location – the twenty-seven hundred block of Granville Street – the drive normally took twenty minutes.

Striker made it there in ten.

The listed address came back to a small rancher-style house, located on the north side of Parker Street. In the dark of winter, the place looked abandoned and secluded. A barren cherry tree covered most of the front yard, its long bony branches reaching up into the night sky like arthritic fingers. Inside the house, all the lights were turned on. But there was no movement inside.

Striker parked the car and jumped out. Felicia followed suit.

‘I don’t see any movement,’ she noted.

‘Me, either.’

As he spoke, Striker absently touched the butt of his pistol, tugged on it to make sure it was snug in its holster. Then made his way up the sidewalk.

The front stairs were slippery with frost, and he took them slowly, one hand on the railing, one hand free and ready for a quick draw. When he reached the front door, he saw that it was already ajar. Just an inch, but definitely open.

He showed this to Felicia.

‘Be ready.’

She drew her pistol and took a position of cover on the right side of the door frame, out of the direct line of fire; seeing this, Striker took the left. When they were both lined up, he gave her the nod and then knocked hard on the door.

‘Larisa!’ he called. ‘Larisa, it’s Jacob Striker. With the Vancouver Police Department!’

No answer.

‘Larisa, I got your message!’ he called again.

But still, nothing.

He pushed the door all the way open, and it moved silently, exposing the hallway, living room and kitchen beyond.

‘Larisa!’ he called. ‘It’s Jacob Striker! Felicia Santos is with me. We’re coming inside!’

He and Felicia moved inside the foyer, then shut and locked the door behind them – they didn’t want anyone sneaking up behind them. Once done, Striker gestured for Felicia to cover the right side of the room. When she nodded her understanding, he took the left. Together, they cleared the entire floor, room by room, starting with the den and office and finishing with the bedroom and ensuite in the back of the house.

They found no one.

‘She’s not here,’ Felicia finally said. ‘Shit. Where did she call you from?’

‘Her cell.’

‘Was she home at the time?’

‘She didn’t say. It was a message.’

He spoke the words without paying attention; his main focus was on the area around them. Something about the room bothered him. Something about
all
the rooms bothered him. Tugged away at the back of his mind like an invisible string.

He holstered his gun and moved slowly from the bedroom, down the long carpeted hallway, into the living room and den area. He stood at the entrance to the kitchen and looked back and forth between the rooms.

Felicia followed him.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

He said nothing and just looked around. On the kitchen counter and table were piles of dirty plates and leftover food. By the stove, a pile of spaghetti had been dropped on the floor and never cleaned up. In the far corner of the room were piles of newspapers and bags of empty cans.

‘The place is a pigsty,’ he noted.

‘Some people are messy.’

‘This is beyond messy. And the door was left open. With the heat blasting. I know Larisa – she would never live this way.’

‘How would you know? Have you ever been to her place before?’

‘No. But I have been to her office. And in her car. Everything is always neat and tidy. Clean.
Orderly
. This . . . this isn’t her.’ He walked outside and checked the address. It was correct. They were at the right house. ‘Maybe she moved,’ he added. ‘Maybe someone else lives here now.’

‘Let me get the computer,’ Felicia said. ‘I’ll check out her history, see what I can drum up.’

He nodded, and she returned to the car.

While she was gone, Striker made his way back down to the bedroom. On the bureau was a family photograph. The picture was of Larisa with two other women, so this was definitely her house.

It struck him as odd.

He moved closer and focused in on the photograph. It looked like Larisa and her family – presumably her mother and sister. They were smiling, happy, looked like they had been laughing about something.

A hidden joke between them all.

Striker continued looking around. Piled beside the photograph was a stack of newspaper clippings. And on the wall were more of the same. Stories. Articles. Clipped out and stuck to the walls. Some were from tabloids and magazines; others from more reputable sources.

He read through them all. Across the front of one story – where a man had thrown himself out of a window on the sixth floor of the Regency Hotel – someone had used a big thick felt pen to write:
LIES! LIES! LIES!

The collage of articles made bad thoughts filter through Striker’s head, and he hoped he was wrong in what he was thinking. Then he heard Felicia re-enter the house through the front door. He went to meet her.

When he reached the living room, he found her standing at the kitchen table with the laptop open. She was reading through a list of entries on the PRIME database.

‘What you got?’ he asked.

She gave him a queer look. ‘How well do you know this woman, Jacob?’

‘Well enough.’

‘Do you? When was the last time you talked to her?’

‘I dunno. A while ago,’ he admitted. ‘Probably just over a year – why, Feleesh? What are you getting at?’

‘I’m getting at
this
.’ She turned the computer around so he could see the screen. The first thing that caught his eye were three letters, marked in big red font:

MHA
.

‘Mental Health Act?’ he said. ‘What the hell?’

Felicia nodded. ‘Turns out this Larisa you know has had a lot of problems since she left the Victim Services Unit.’

‘Problems?’ Striker looked up from the laptop. ‘What do you mean?’

Felicia took the laptop back and clicked through the electronic reports. ‘According to PRIME, Larisa Logan has been listed as a Disturbed Person numerous times.’

Striker raised an eyebrow.
Disturbed Person
was a politically correct label for bat-shit crazy.

‘Must be a mistake.’

Felicia continued reading through the reports. ‘I wish it was, Jacob. But I don’t think so. It looks like Larisa actually left her position with Victim Services twelve months ago and took some kind of personal leave. Could be stress-related. I’m not sure. It doesn’t really say.’

Striker closed his eyes and thought back. ‘Twelve months . . . . That was right about the time I had my last session with her. Or maybe thirteen months – it was before Christmas. And then she took stress leave?’

Felicia grinned. ‘Yeah. Must’ve been your boyish charms.’

He didn’t respond. He just began reading through the reports.

While he did this, Felicia took a moment to look around the room. After a few minutes, she returned with a large piece of paper in her hands. On it was a list of strange scribblings. It was confusing and nonsensical. Written gibberish. But some names were there.

Striker saw two names that he recognized:

Mandy
.

Billy
.

He pointed to them. ‘That could be Mandilla Gill. And that could be this Billy guy . . . Ostermann’s patient.’

Felicia didn’t look so assured. ‘There’s over thirty names here, Jacob. It could be a lot of things with all these scribblings. But yeah, sure, the names do match.’

Striker read through all the scribbles until he spotted one name he did not recognize. Unlike the other names, this one had been underlined several times:

Sarah
.

He wrote the name down in his notebook.

Felicia held up a pile of more newspaper clippings – tabloid stuff about everything from medication frauds and passport scams to the existence of aliens and demons. ‘Jesus Christ, Jacob, look at this stuff. Aliens? Demons? The woman’s gone right off the deep end.’

Striker said nothing and finished the report he was reading. When he was done, he skimmed through the list of call incidents. There were many:
Disturbed Person
.
Suspicious Circumstance
. And even a few
Assaults
where Larisa was listed as a
Suspect Chargeable
. Meaning she was lucky she hadn’t been thrown in jail.

This alarmed him.

One of the assault charges was against one of the police psychologists, a man Larisa had worked with during her time in the Victim Services Unit. The charges had been dropped for compassionate reasons, further stating in the Remarks section that ‘Mental Health Issues were involved’.

Striker felt himself deflate; the news was depressing and hard to believe.

He closed the laptop and felt overwhelmed by the information. Larisa Logan. His friend. The woman who had helped him through so much after Amanda’s death. It just couldn’t be true, and yet . . .

And yet here they were.

When he finally found the words, his voice was hard and full of grit. ‘This woman helped me through the darkest hours of my life,’ he said. ‘I’m going to help her through hers.’

Felicia rubbed his arm. ‘She’s out there somewhere, Jacob. We’ll find her.’

Striker did not return the smile. ‘We have to – and not just out of compassion.’

‘What do you mean?’

He turned to face her. ‘Think about it, Feleesh. Her connection to the victim. Her open access to medications. Her history of mental illness. And over the last year, the willingness to resort to violence . . . I hate to think this way, but it’s something that has to be considered. Something we have to be prepared for. Larisa Logan is one of our prime suspects.’

‘Do you believe that?’

‘No, but it’s not about what I
believe
. We have to find her and get her professional treatment – but we also have to rule her out as a suspect first.’

He headed for the front door. The night was already cold and quiet, but it felt darker now than it had before.

Deeper, thicker.
Blacker
.

And he feared it was only going to get worse.

Across the way from Larisa Logan’s place, beneath the overhang of a porch, the Adder stood in the total darkness. He stood tall in the night, completely still. Watching. Waiting.

Assessing.

Know thy enemy
. These were words to live by. And how correct they were. For the cops had now found Larisa Logan’s place. He had no idea how they had done it, but it was impressive nonetheless.

It was not totally surprising. There were trails everywhere in today’s world. Physical. Audible. Electronic. Biochemical. No matter how hard a person tried to cover their tracks, there was always a trail.
Always
.

Somehow, some way, everyone was track-able.

The Adder watched both detectives enter and search the house, then the front and back yards. When they finally left, the woman carried a brown bag full of evidence. What it held, the Adder had no idea, but he assumed it was newspaper clippings and bills and whatever else they thought important.

Whatever the evidence, it was bad news for him. In fact, there was plenty of bad news to go around.
Very
bad news.

Larisa was gone.

The police knew of some part of her involvement.

And they would surely be coming.

The Adder frowned. The Doctor was going to be very unhappy with this news. There would be serious ramifications. Plan alterations. New strategies. And even worse problems if the cops – or the Doctor, for that matter – ever discovered
why
Larisa was so important.

This was most disconcerting for the Adder. The thought should have made him frown. Or squint. Or flinch. Or . . . something. He should have had
some
kind of physical reaction to it. At the very least, he should have worried for the future.

But he did not. He could not. All he could do was stand there and
smile
as the excitement built up within himself.

It was happening.

The game was on.

It was well past midnight by the time Striker and Felicia pulled up to his house on Camosun Street. It was an old house, a small sleepy home on the corner lot. A tiny front yard with a maple tree stood out front. Most of the lights were off inside.

Striker looked at it with weary eyes. So many memories of Courtney and Amanda were here. After the suicide, he’d wanted to move out, but Courtney had freaked, so he’d abandoned the idea. There’d been good times and bad times here over the years, so many that it usually left him feeling awash in emotions whenever he looked upon the place. But now as he took everything in, all he could feel was a weary happiness to have arrived.