Bad Karma

Chapter 14

When the ambulance arrived, the EMT workers moved swiftly and within minutes had Emily on an IV and were monitoring her vital signs.

“How’s she looking?” Shannon asked one of them.

The EMT worker didn’t bother to look up. “Blood pressure’s low. She has a fractured skull and probably swelling around the brain. We’ve got to get her to the ICU right away.”

They stabilized her head, then one of the EMT workers lifted her up enough so the other could slide a stretcher under her. Shannon asked which hospital they were taking her to and he was told Memorial.

They were loading Emily into the back of the ambulance when a police cruiser arrived. Two uniformed patrolmen got out, talked briefly with the EMTs, then approached Shannon with their poker faces firmly intact. One of them introduced himself as Officer Robideau, the other-the larger of the two-didn’t bother giving his name, but Robideau referred to him as Jenks. Shannon explained what happened and his relationship with the victim. Both officers were young, maybe late twenties. Both had short buzz cuts and sunburned faces. Neither of them looked like they believed him. Jenks peered at Shannon with a distant look in his eyes, almost as if he were waiting for an excuse to be able to unload on him with his nightstick. He asked Shannon to show them where the attack happened.

Shannon led the way to his apartment. When the officers saw that his front door was unmarked, Robideau asked whether the attackers had a key to the apartment.

“I hope not,” Shannon said. “My guess is they’re good with locks. These were pros.”

When he opened the door and the two officers saw the gaping hole in the wall, their skepticism faded. Robideau let out a low whistle. “It looks like they had a crowbar with them.”

“What are those recorders hooked up to?” Jenks asked.

“Surveillance cameras.”

“Tapes missing?”

“Yep.”

He gave Shannon a look indicating that he was just itching to smack him with his nightstick. “How do you suppose they knew you had video surveillance?”

“Don’t know. They probably found one of the cameras, then looked for the recorders. As I said before, these guys are probably pros.”

Jenks had small, almost baby-like ears, and as he stared at Shannon the tips of them turned a bright fire-engine red. “Do you mind telling me why you have this system?” he asked.

“I was on the job for ten years.” Shannon held up his right hand showing his missing two fingers. “I was a Detective First Grade when I lost these and had to go on disability. Now I’m a licensed private investigator, and have a surveillance system for my safety, okay?”

“There’s no need to take that tone,” Jenks said, his manner more subdued. “Under the circumstances that was a more than reasonable question.”

“Agreed. Let me show you where I found Emily.”

Shannon led the two cops to his bedroom. While they were staring at the blood stain on the carpet, a hard knock came from the front door followed by Daniels yelling through it to announce himself. Robideau joined Shannon, and when Daniels was let in and he saw the patrolman, he nodded brusquely to him and asked who he was partnering with. Robideau told him Chris Jenks.

“What hospital they take the victim to?”

“Memorial.”

“Why don’t you head over there and take a statement in case the victim regains consciousness. Jenks can stick with me for the time being.”

Robideau nodded and was out the door when Daniels asked him how the victim was doing. “EMTs didn’t think it looked good,” Robideau said.

Daniels stepped into the apartment, nodded at Shannon, then sniffed a couple of times. He made a face. “You been smoking?”

“A couple of cigarettes. Filthy habit,” Shannon said.

“Yeah it is. I didn’t know you were a smoker.”

“Up until today I haven’t been. At least not during the last five years.”

“I sympathize,” Daniels said. “This Carver-Gibson business can take its toll. These last few months I’ve been pouring an extra couple of shots of Maker’s Mark each night. And now just what we need. Another homicide.”

“It’s not a homicide yet,” Shannon said.

“No, not yet. I guess we can hope for the best. How well did you know the victim?”

“Pretty well. Emily lives two doors down. She’s probably Susan’s best friend here in Boulder.”

“Susan…?”

“My ex-wife, well sort of my ex-wife. We got back together four years ago, just never bothered remarrying.”

“How well did you get along with this Emily…?”

“Emily Janney. I like her. She’s a good kid.”

“You two ever involved?”

“No.”

Daniels took several steps into the room and looked around. “I had to pull in a few favors to get this case assigned to me,” he said. “My boss didn’t want me touching anything else until the Carver-Gibson murders are closed. My own personal circle in hell: to work that case for all eternity.” His eyes settled on the hole in the wall. “You had access to the equipment from the closet?”

“Yeah. I had built in a side panel that could be slid out. Too bad they didn’t use it instead of carving up the wall.”

“They probably found the video recorders with a stud detector-type device for electronics.” Daniels’ barrel chest expanded as he took a long deep breath. He let it out slowly through his nose. “This is going to be another fucking long day. Just what I was hoping for on a Friday night. What was your neighbor doing here?”

“She was keeping an eye on the place. She was supposed to call the police if she saw or heard anything.”

“You were expecting someone to break in?”

“I thought there was a chance the muscle I ran into at True Light would try it. A couple of Russian thugs.”

“Yeah? What made you think so?”

Shannon scratched his neck, looked away. “They threatened to come here if I kept bothering the True Light. It was an indirect threat. Nothing I could sign out a complaint on.”

“Ah fuck, this is just what I need. Now I’ve got to chase after a couple of phantom Russian thugs.” He lowered his head into his right hand and squeezed his eyes. When he looked back at Shannon they were as bloodshot as any bassett hounds’. “I’m going to need you to go to the precinct and look through mug shots. I’ll give our sketch artist a call and see if I can get him down there tonight.”

“Maybe I can do better than that.” Shannon took out his wallet, found the Russian’s driver’s license and handed it to Daniels.

“How’d you get this?”

“During our scuffle the other day. I doubt you’re going to find much on him. I’d already faxed his picture to my friend at the FBI and so far she’s found nothing.”

“What about fingerprints?”

“Already checked. License had been wiped clean.”

Daniels held the license closer and squinted as he read the name and address. “Dan Smith from Los Angeles. What do you suppose the chances are that that name and address are genuine?”

“Unless he legally changed his name, zero. Both of these guys had thick Russian accents. If I had to bet money on it, I’d say this one was ex-KGB. Also, at one point he boxed professionally-at least in Russia.”

“Give me a timeline.”

“I stopped off here at ten to two to check emails, stayed no more than fifteen minutes. I came back around six and found Emily. I think the window’s smaller. One of the Russians picked up a few of True Light’s members at Vishna Yoga around three-thirty. He was driving a black Mercedes 500 SEL. I didn’t get a license plate. They were probably here somewhere between two thirty and a quarter past three.”

Daniels nodded slowly as he considered that, then yelled out for Jenks. The patrolman came out of the bedroom and told Daniels he was maintaining the crime scene. Daniels waved him over. “Show this license to every tenant in this building and find out if anyone saw him here this afternoon. Also whether anyone saw a black Mercedes sedan. I want every tenant asked. I also want the neighborhood canvassed.”

“His nose is probably bandaged up,” Shannon offered. Daniels eyes narrowed as he gave him a sideways glance. “I broke it pretty good the other day,” Shannon explained.

“You heard what he said,” Daniels said to Jenks. “Mention the bandages.” Jenks acknowledged Daniels with a curt “yes sir”, then left the apartment.

Daniels asked Shannon, “Outside the videotapes, anything taken?”

“My computer. Nothing else that’s obvious. I’ll go through the apartment more thoroughly later. Are you going to talk to True Light?”

“Yeah, I’ll get their side of it. I want you heading over to the precinct and looking at mug shots for that other Russian.”

“Later. Mug shots are a long shot at best. Right now I’m going to pick up Susan and take her to Boulder Memorial. When the sketch artist is available give me a call on my cell phone and I’ll take care of that and the mug shots at the same time.”

Daniels made a face but didn’t argue. Instead, he mentioned in an offhand manner that maybe they’d get lucky. That Emily would regain consciousness and be able to tell them what happened.

“If she does recover she’s not going to be able to tell us anything. If she could, those Russians wouldn’t have left her alive.”

Daniels shrugged weakly, indicating he pretty much agreed with that. “I’ll get forensics here, see if we can lift any prints or fibers,” he said without any enthusiasm. Shannon left without bothering to mention how useless that activity would be.

The Boulderado Hotel was less than a five-minute drive from his apartment. On his way to pick up Susan, he found that he had shaken loose a cigarette and was lighting it before he realized what he was doing. He caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror-the cigarette dangling from his lips, the hardness about his face, an emptiness in his eyes. He took the cigarette out and crumpled it. After parking at the hotel, he tossed the cigarette and the rest of the pack in the trash, then found Susan waiting for him in the hotel lobby.

She walked to him quickly and took hold of his hand, then asked whether there was any news on Emily. He told her that he didn’t know of any yet. “But you gave her the Opium 1M?” He nodded and told her he did.

As they walked to their car, Shannon saw that dark clouds had rolled over the Flatirons. With the approaching storm the temperature had dropped almost twenty degrees in the last hour. He felt Susan shiver next to him. She squeezed his hand harder, but didn’t say a word.

While they drove to Boulder Memorial, he told her his theory about Paveeth sending the Russians to their apartment while he was busy at True Light. She sat quietly, listening, her face tense and pale in the evening dusk.

“I am so angry about this,” she said at last.

“Susie, I am so sorry about what happened.”

“There is nothing for you to feel sorry about, hon. You did nothing wrong. The person I am furious with is this Anil Paveeth. For him to think he can victimize people the way he does.”

Shannon hesitated, said, “Susie, I really don’t want you going back to that yoga studio. I don’t think it’s safe. I also think the incense they use has been doctored. Maybe Paveeth’s added THC to it, maybe other ingredients. Anyway I think he’s using it to weaken people’s resolve, along with the other standard brainwashing techniques they’re employing. This guy’s a chemical engineer. He’d know how to do something like that.”

She didn’t respond. Shannon glanced over and saw her brow furrowed as she sat lost in her own thoughts.

When they arrived at the hospital, they went to the ICU waiting area and checked in at the desk. The nurse brought up Emily’s record on her computer and told them that she was in surgery now but her doctor would come out later and talk to them.

They took seats and waited. Shannon could see the worry tugging at Susan’s features and spoiling her mouth. Under the fluorescent light of the waiting room, her skin looked almost paper-thin. More to get her mind onto something else, Shannon asked her what the characteristics were of a Medhorrinum remedy-type.

Numbly, she rattled off, “Intense energy, passion, outgoing, zest for life, all of which leads to them burning themselves out. Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious since I’ve been hanging out with one of your Medhorrinum patients. Hell, we might even go into business together.”

That knocked her out of her brooding and brought a bare trace of a smile to her lips. “Hon, fifty bucks you’re bluffing.”

“Mike Maguire. He’s the Boston guy I went to the ballgame with the other night. You can pay me later in services. We’ll work out an arrangement.”

“Oh no you don’t! You’re not leaving it like that. How’d you find out he’s my patient?”

Shannon couldn’t keep from smiling. “Mike’s doing a few odd jobs for me. I had him outside Vishna Yoga today taking pictures of everyone going in and out of the place. He was a bit shocked to see his trusted homeopath consorting with a known cult.”

“I bet he was!” Her bare trace of a smile stretched a fraction of an inch. “He’s a nice man. I like him.”

“Yeah, he kind of grows on you.”

Susan laughed at that. It was a sad laugh, but at least it was a laugh. “Thanks,” she said.

“For what?”

“For trying to get my mind off Emily.”

“She’s going to be okay,” Shannon said. “I have a gut feeling that she’ll be okay.”

She nodded but didn’t seem too confident about Shannon’s gut. He looked helplessly at her, wishing there was something he could do. He knew this was hard for her. It was hard for him. After Charlie Winters, they’d both reached their thresholds as far as being able to lose people close to them because of violence. He started wondering how Emily had gotten into their apartment. If those two Russian thugs had broken in as he’d guessed, they would’ve locked the door after them. So how did she get into their bedroom?

He remembered then that he still had to call Maguire’s wife in Massachusetts. It was already seven-thirty. With the two hour time difference he had to call her soon if he was going to do it that night. He told Susan he’d be back in a few minutes, then walked out into the hallway and found a quiet spot near one of the emergency exit doors with better cell phone reception.

A woman answered on the other end with a flat “yeah?”

Shannon introduced himself and told her he’d like to talk to Nancy Maguire.

There was a long pause, then the woman in the same flat voice told him that she was Nancy. “Mike told me you’d be calling,” she said. “I don’t know why you’re bothering. There’s nothing I can tell you.”

“I was hoping you might have seen or heard something the night your neighbors were murdered.”

“No. Nothing. Mike told you I was taking sleeping pills, right?”

“Yeah, he did, but if you could try to-”

“Look, you know about my pills. That’s my answer.”

Shannon stared out the glass door. Flashes of lightning showed in the distance. He listened for the rumble of accompanying thunder, but the lightning was too far off.

“I have a few other questions,” he said, his own voice flattening out to match Nancy Maguire’s. “Do you remember seeing anyone with either of the victims?”

“I told you, I was out that night.”

“Not just that night. Any night.”

There was another long pause. Then, “No, I can’t think of anyone.”

“If I were to fax you some photos, could you take a look at them and tell me if any of the people look familiar?”

“I told you, I don’t remember seeing anyone with them. Look, it’s late here, I got to get going.”

“Before you go, Mike wanted me to tell you he misses you.”

“Yeah, that’s nice.” Then she hung up. Shannon found himself shaking his head and staring at his cell phone. He put his phone away and went back to the waiting area to join Susan. Robideau was now standing next to her talking to her. Shannon joined his ex-wife. Robideau seemed surprised to see Shannon, but gave him a short nod before turning back to Susan.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he told her.

She bit her lip, nodded. Shannon knew she was on the verge of tears. He took hold of her hand and squeezed it. Robideau noticed the gesture, excused himself and took a seat on the other side of the room.

Time dragged until a doctor came into the waiting area. He talked first with Robideau, then came over to Shannon and Susan. He introduced himself as Emily’s surgeon. “I have positive news,” he told them. “Emily’s still unconscious, and by no means out of the woods, but she’s doing much better. Her vitals have stabilized, her breathing is better and, while she has a fractured skull, the CAT scan shows no significant damage and far less swelling around her brain than we could’ve expected given the blow she received. Things are looking hopeful.”

A few tears broke loose from Susan. She wiped them off quickly. “When will you know that Emily’s out of the woods?”

“Regaining consciousness will be a big step. There’s no telling when that’s going to happen. It could be in a day, it could be longer. You just never know. The officer over there has left me his number to call when Emily’s status changes. If you’d like you could leave me your number also.”

Susan shook her head. “I’ll wait here for her.”

“That’s your choice. If you change your mind, feel free to leave your number with the nurse on duty.”

He left the waiting area, his gait showing that he’d had a long day also. A few minutes later Shannon received a call from Daniels telling him the sketch artist was waiting for him. After he got off the phone, he told Susan he had to go to the Boulder Police Station but that he’d be back as soon as he could. She nodded, signaled with her index finger for him to move closer, then kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Try not to smoke any more cigarettes,” she said.

When Shannon stepped outside, he took hold of his shirt collar and tightened it around his neck. It had gotten even colder than before. Earlier in the day the temperature had hit the mid eighties, now it was closer to fifty. Still no rain, but jagged flashes lit up the sky. He could now hear the thunder off in the distance.

At the station house, he went through several books of mug shots without any luck finding the younger Russian, Dmitry. He then worked with the sketch artist, who came up with a pretty good likeness. Shannon told him there was a good chance this one had a broken nose also. The sketch artist came up with a second drawing with the nose bandaged up and the eyes blackened.

As he was getting up to leave, Daniels wandered over and told him he’d like to talk to him for a few minutes.

“Go ahead.”

“It would be better if we talk privately.”

“I’d really like to get back to Susan.”

“This will only take a couple of minutes. Come on, follow me.”

Shannon shrugged, saw he had no choice in the matter and followed Daniels into one of the interrogation rooms. He took a seat while Daniels leaned against the table with his arms folded across his chest.

“None of your neighbors saw anything,” Daniels said. “Canvas came up empty.”

“A good thing then I was able to give you that Russian’s license and a description of his partner.”

Daniels scratched behind his ear. “About that. According to Paveeth, you weren’t allowed entrance into True Light today. He insists that you arrived there around two o’clock today, and were told to leave when you rang the buzzer. One of his members claims she saw you wait by the gate for fifteen minutes and then drive off.”

“The two of them said that, huh?”

“Yeah, they did.”

“I can describe Paveeth’s sanctuary in detail. If you need me to do that -”

“That wouldn’t prove anything. He claims when you busted in a couple of days ago you forced your way into his sanctuary. He also denies knowing anything about any Russians.”

“Then who gave me my black eye and swollen jaw?”

Daniels flipped through his notepad until he found the page he was looking for. “Duane Sweenski and Alvin Guthrop.”

“Who the fuck are they?”

“The Mutt and Jeff team you tangled with over there.”

Shannon gave him a blank stare.

“The guys whose heads you busted up,” Daniels explained.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I talked with Paveeth, I talked with them. They all gave me the same story.”

“I’m sure they did. And you bought it?”

“Before I answer that, let me tell you about a call I just finished with. It was to your old boss.”

“Martin Brady?”

“Yep.”

“How’s Martin doing?”

“He wasn’t too happy I woke him, but he talked with me. He told me you were the best detective he’s had. Smart, resourceful, tenacious as hell once you took a case. He also told me the full extent of your history with Charlie Winters. It was a lot more than a single incident where you lost a couple of fingers in the line of duty.”

“Yeah, quite a bit more than that,” Shannon agreed.

“I had no idea about everything you went through.” Daniels uncrossed his arms and rubbed a hand across his jaw. He tried to look Shannon in the eyes, but veered off and stared into an empty corner of the room. “He told me it wasn’t just your losing your two fingers that put you on disability.”

“That’s mostly true. I could’ve gone on disability with what had happened to my hand, but along with being maimed I did have rage issues dealing with Winters.”

“I’d have to think anyone would under similar circumstances. Question is, how are you doing with these rage issues now?”

“I think I’m doing pretty good.”

“Were you doing pretty good when you attacked Sweenski and Guthrop and almost killed them?”

“That was self-defense.”

“Sure it was.” His eyes shifted back to meet Shannon’s. “Something else your old boss told me that I found troubling. That you had a history of blackouts while on the force.”

“I could explain that but you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Why don’t you try me?”

“It’s not worth the bother. So where’s this leading to? Your department’s going to try to revoke my license?”

“Yeah. My boss will be requesting a hearing.”

“That’s fine. I’ve pretty much decided I don’t want to do this shit anymore. Are we done?”

“Not yet. There’s a thought around here that maybe you were involved with the victim. That you could be using these phantom Russians breaking into your apartment as a cover for what really happened.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous.”

“Maybe, but it will have to be looked into.” Daniels wavered, unable to meet Shannon’s stare. He curled his fingers on his right hand and gave the impression that he was studying his nails. “There’s another thought that maybe you’re still having trouble dealing with your rage. That you’d go to any length to harass True Light.”

“You really believe I attacked Emily?”

“I’m not saying what I believe. My boss, however, might be thinking along those lines. He also might be thinking you could’ve had a blackout and not even know what you did.”

“I didn’t have a blackout. I didn’t ransack my own apartment. And I didn’t attack Emily.”

Shannon waited for Daniels to say something. When he didn’t, Shannon laughed. He felt a tightness in his throat as he asked, “So what are you telling me? You want to arrest me?”

“No. I’m not doing anything until I see whether Emily Janney regains consciousness, and then hear what she has to say.”

Shannon lips pressed into a rigid smile. He nodded to Daniels and got to his feet. When he had his hand on the doorknob, he turned and asked, “What are you going to do if you find the two Russians I identified?”

“I’ll talk to them. But unless their prints are found in your apartment or we find someone who saw them there or I can find a connection between them and Paveeth, I’ll have to believe what they tell me.”

“So that’s it,” Shannon said.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t built a case yet against me for Carver and Gibson.”

“Give us time,” Daniels said. He tried to smile but it didn’t stick. “A word of advice, Bill, stay away from True Light.”

Shannon exaggerated a mock look of dismay. “But they’re the one true source,” he exclaimed. Then he got the hell out of there.

Shannon felt a sickish feeling in the pit of his stomach when he stepped into the ICU waiting area and saw the wetness around Susan’s eyes. It took a moment before he could find his voice and ask if there was news about Emily.

She shook her head, wiped some of the wetness away with her finger and motioned towards a TV that was hanging from the wall. “I was watching the ten o’clock news,” she said. “They had a story about a missing six year old boy who had gotten lost up in Pike’s Peak.”

Shannon took the seat next to her. “With everything going on today I forgot all about that,” he said. “I met Les Hasherford early this afternoon. He received a call when I was there about the missing boy. Have they had any luck finding him?”

“They just did. He had fallen into a ravine.”

“Is he alive?”

“He’s unconscious, but alive.”

“Was Les Hasherford responsible for finding him?”

She nodded, bit her lip.

“That’s interesting,” Shannon said. “When I saw him earlier he was having trouble slipping into that other world. I had the impression he couldn’t do it anymore.”

“They showed video of him from earlier in the day when he was leading the police. The poor man could barely walk. A police officer had to support him on one side. With his free hand he was holding a cup of coffee. They showed him several times drinking coffee.”

“Are you sure it was coffee?”

Susan shrugged weakly. Of course, Shannon knew the answer to that. Hasherford was antidoting himself so he could find the missing boy. Most likely he had poured cup after cup into himself until he was able to slip into the world of the dead and dying again.

“Maybe it won’t affect his health.”

“Maybe,” Susan said, unconvinced.

A news break came on. The boy was reported to be in critical condition, but the doctors were hopeful. According to one of them, if he’d been found any later he probably wouldn’t have survived. Susan blindly searched for Shannon’s damaged hand and held onto it. They sat like that until past midnight when a young resident came over to them and introduced himself as Dr. Leonard Cohen. He told them that Emily had regained consciousness. “She’d like to see both of you,” he said.

Cohen led them through the ICU to Emily’s room. She was propped up in bed, her head mostly shaved and a thick bandage wrapped around her skull. Her eyes looked swollen and her skin had a jaundiced tint to it. Both an IV and a morphine drip were attached to her arm, and other equipment monitored her blood pressure and heart rate. She looked so small lying there that Shannon almost didn’t recognize her. When she saw Susan, her face scrunched up into a mass of creases. “My head hurts,” she whimpered softly.

Susan was both crying and smiling brightly at the same time. “I know, Em.” She moved quickly to the bed and hugged her friend. Cohen nudged Shannon, told him he’d be back in five minutes and then Emily would need to rest.

The two women embraced for a minute, then Susan sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed Emily’s shoulder.

“I bet I had you worried,” Emily said.

“You’d win that bet, Em.”

“You should’ve known it’d take more than a conk on my noggin to get rid of me.”

“Do you remember what happened?” Shannon asked.

Emily squinted over at Shannon and noticed him for the first time. “I got hit on the back of my head,” she stated, annoyed.

“I know. Did you see anything?”

She shook her head, winced. “I don’t remember much, except hearing somebody rustling around in your apartment when I came home from work. After that it’s all fuzzy.”

“How’d you get into my apartment?”

She stared at him as if he were dense. “With a key. How’d you think I got in?”

“You gave me back my key.”

She hesitated, smiling sheepishly. “I made a copy in case I ever lost your spare.”

“Hon, that’s enough interrogation for tonight,” Susan said to Shannon, then to Emily, “Em,” she said, “I’m so happy that you’re okay.”

“I know, Susie. I’m just going to have a headache for a couple of days, that’s all.”

Cohen had walked back into the room. He suggested that it would be best for Emily to rest. Susan gave her another hug and told her she’d be back visiting tomorrow.

“You mean today,” Emily said. “Already past midnight.”

“Today,” Susan agreed, her smile brighter than any Christmas tree.

During the ride back to the hotel, Susan rested her head against Shannon’s shoulder. She looked exhausted, too emotionally spent to talk. The skies lit up every few seconds as lightning flashed over the Flatirons. Rain started to hit the windshield.

By the time they got back to their room, Susan was out on her feet. Shannon helped her into bed and out of her clothes. He then sat on the floor and tried to meditate, but he couldn’t slow down all the noise in his head. Every time he closed his eyes thoughts would start bombarding him. The one that was most persistent and loudest was his wondering what the connection was between the two murdered students and that cult.

He knew he had no chance of sleeping. He wrote Susan a note, left it on his pillow and headed out to his car. Outside the skies had opened up and the rain was coming down in sheets. The lightning now seemed to be overhead, the thunder crashing around him. He drove to his apartment. When he arrived there he put on a sweatshirt and a pair of running shorts and headed outside. Within seconds he was soaked, the water adding pounds to his clothing. He started running as hard as he could. Within minutes he could feel the burn in his leg muscles and chest, but he kept pushing himself. At times lightning lit up the trees along his path as if bombs were being tossed, the thunder exploding next to him. He forced himself to keep sprinting at full speed and didn’t turn around until he was several miles from his apartment. On his way back he pushed himself harder. At times the rain hit him so hard in the face that he could barely breathe, his chest feeling as if it were about to explode in unison with the thunder going off around him, but he didn’t stop until he got back to his apartment building. There, he collapsed, hands on knees, and tried to suck in air through deep ragged breaths. He stayed paralyzed in that position for minutes before he could move. Then he went into his apartment and took a hot shower.

After changing into dry clothing, Shannon walked around his living room and put the books back on the shelves, all the while trying to keep his eyes off the gaping hole in the wall next to the closet. After that he straightened up the kitchen. When he went into the bedroom, he stood transfixed for a moment over the blood-stained carpet, then steeled his gaze away from it and started to pick up the papers and clothing that had been dumped out of the drawers and onto the floor. It took a while, but eventually he had the room straightened up. As far as he could tell, nothing was missing other than his computer and the surveillance tapes.

He went back to the living room, played a CD of Native American music by Carlos Nakai and sat cross-legged on the floor with his eyes closed. Running and straightening up the apartment had helped slow down his thoughts, but he knew his mind was still too active to get any sleep, and he saw no reason to go back to the hotel and risk waking up Susan. The repetitive beat of the drums helped relax him further and slow down the noise in his head. After a while he felt at peace and became aware of a stillness inside. It was a feeling he didn’t want to leave and he waited a long time before opening his eyes. When he did, he was surprised to see that it was ten past seven in the morning and that he’d been meditating almost three hours.

Outside, the sky had cleared up. The sun felt warm on his face as he looked out towards it. The only sign of last night’s storm were some branches that had fallen down. He walked to Juiced Up and met Eli at a corner table. The place was more crowded than usual with all the tables taken.

Eli gave him his typical deadpan stare, mentioned that Shannon looked refreshed. “I take it the thunderstorms didn’t keep you up.”

“Nope, not one bit. Your usual?”

Eli nodded, and Shannon went to the counter and bought a chai for his friend and a combination apple and carrot juice for himself.

“No coffee this morning, huh?” Eli asked, smiling.

“I think I got all that out of my system.” Shannon stopped to take a sip of his juice, then told Eli that his apartment had been broken into the other day and his neighbor attacked when she tried to investigate.

“Emily?”

Shannon nodded.

“Oh, Jesus,” Eli said. “I like that girl. Very spunky. I hope she’s okay.”

“I think she will be. She regained consciousness last night and outside of a fractured skull it doesn’t seem as if there was any significant damage. Susan had me give her a homeopathic remedy when I found her. I think it helped.”

“And you suspect the True Light cult is behind the break-in?”

“I’m pretty sure of it. I went there yesterday afternoon to talk to Melissa Cousins. They kept me waiting, and I think they used the time to send their Russian goons to my place.”

“What do the police think?”

Shannon took another drink of his juice. “Not worth talking about,” he said.

Eli nodded, his long face somber. “Before we get too far off subject, I’ve been thinking more about your lucid dream slash out-of-body experience the other day. You mentioned something about that girl responding with gibberish when you asked who killed her. By any chance do you remember what she actually said?”

Shannon consulted his notepad and found what he had scribbled down after he had woken up from his dream. He read the words to Eli.

“I’m not sure that’s gibberish,” Eli said.

“After reading it out loud, I’m not sure either. I guess it could be Swedish? Maybe some words I picked up subconsciously from a movie?”

“It’s German,” a thin man with a goatee said. He was sitting at a neighboring table and drinking an espresso. “Mit vergnugen means ‘with pleasure’.” He smiled at Shannon and Eli, then turned back to his New York Times.

“That’s odd,” Eli said. “Why would she answer with pleasure when you asked who killed her?”

Shannon was staring at his notepad. “She actually said that when I asked her if she could give me a clue about the murders. But why would she speak German…”

He stopped cold as the answer hit him.

“What?” Eli asked.

“I know what it means,” Shannon muttered, distracted as he thought about what he was going to do next, “I don’t have time to explain now, but I’ll give you a call later.”

“Jesus, Bill, you can’t leave me hanging like this,” Eli sputtered, his long face growing beet red. Shannon stumbled out of his seat, barely aware of his friend’s protestations. He waved to him weakly at the door, then left the coffee shop and headed back to his apartment to pick up his car.