The Sketcher's Mark (Lara McBride Thrillers Book 1) Read online

  “That really is a nice suit, Jerry,” she said, as a farewell fuck you on her way out the door.

  Chapter Three

  Los Angeles International Airport

  Lara had looked at every passenger coming through the arrival gate off the plane from Paris and not one of them was her sister Janelle. She haunted the terminal, thinking maybe Janelle had slipped past her somehow, caught an earlier flight perhaps. She checked the arrival monitors and saw there was another flight coming in from Paris in an hour. She’d got Janelle’s message that she was running late. She wasn’t surprised. If she had missed her flight in Paris, the airline could have rerouted her through any European city to get back to Los Angeles, even spun her through multiple connections in the US. If Janelle’s phone was out of juice, she might not have had a chance to call and tell her which route she was on. That meant Lara was destined to spend the night at LAX waiting for a call, listening to the PA system for her name to be called to come meet her sister at a Guest Services or wait for a call from an airport payphone. But that deep uneasy feeling she got that she was infamous and despised for at work was beginning to creep in like a slow rolling fog.

  Getting rerouted had happened to Lara before when she had traveled, visiting Homicide Units across the country and one time when she had gone to shadow the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico. That little voice in the back of her mind was whispering to her now as it did at work. She went outside, lit a cigarette and watched the couples and families and friends reunite after their trips or seeing each other for the first time in ages. There were a lot of smiles and people hugging each other. Even though she seemed to be surrounded by love and people at their best, Lara McBride had never felt so alone.

  Chapter Four

  Sharelle sat behind the airline’s Help Desk, more interested in the nail polish she was applying to her fingers than she was in the woman asking about her sister who had missed her flight. The woman had walked up a few minutes earlier and had asked about the passenger manifest for the airline’s flights out of Paris. Sharelle had no intention of giving out such information- even if she could. She imagined her boss giving her another disciplinary and then she would get fired and be back on benefits and she wasn’t about to let that happen. Besides, that new baggage handler was supposed to be coming by with coffee and a slice of lemon cake and he had a charming smile and was single.

  “I’m not asking to see the manifest,” the woman explained, clearly growing impatient. “I just need to know if my sister made the flight,” the woman said.

  Sharelle could hear her trying to remain calm, like it was Sharelle’s fault she couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know. Sharelle put the polish down and let out a long sigh.

  “Unless you the FBI and this some kinda anti-terrorist operation, you just gonna have to wait and see if she’s on the next flight.”

  The woman pulled out an LAPD badge and laid it forcefully on the desk. Sharelle stopped painting her nails.

  “Get your supervisor,” Lara McBride said with a tone that implied she was not to be messed with. Sharelle picked up the phone, dialed and waited for Marianne to answer.

  A few minutes later, Marianne arrived wearing an official airline sweater to mark her status from the other staff. Slight in stature and pushing middle age with no kids and a husband who’d spent the last eight years watching TV and cashing disability checks, she liked achieving something when she was at work. When she personally checked in a passenger she sometimes wished she were going with them. She promised herself one day she would.

  “Yes, ma’am, how can I help you?” Marianne said with a practiced smile.

  Lara showed Marianne her badge and identified herself.

  “Lara McBride, LAPD. I need to find out if a passenger on your Paris run made the plane.”

  “Is this an official Police matter, Detective?” Marianne asked. Lara motioned for her to move away from the desk with her, away from the distracting smell of Sharelle’s nail polish. Lara leaned in close, using a quiet, sincere tone, looking Marianne in the eyes as she spoke. It was an effective technique she had in her arsenal to illicit sympathy, establish a bond and instill in the other person a need to help.

  “Look, badges aside, my sister’s twenty two years old and I’m worried about her. She called me on her way to the airport but she didn’t make the plane. Before we start calling the American embassy in Paris and blowing this whole thing up in to an international incident, I’d really appreciate it if you could just check the manifest. Can you help me out here?”

  Marianne considered for a second, then called back to Sharelle.

  “Check the passenger manifest for Janelle McBride,” Marianne ordered Sharelle.

  Lara exhaled gratefully and put her badge back in her jacket pocket, the one Janelle had bought her for Christmas when she was still in high school. She wore it every day to keep her sister close.

  “No problem, Detective. I got three little sisters of my own and they all cause me trouble.”

  “I know the feeling,” Lara smiled. “I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. Let’s see what Sharelle comes up with. Sharelle, what’s going on with the passenger list? You see the name?”

  Sharelle huffed and made a show of being irritated, but she was typing. When she spoke, it was rapid fire to include all the details as quickly as possible as though she was verbally shaking her hands free of something she wanted to be rid of immediately. “There ain’t any Janelle McBride on any flights out of Paris and her name is not on any stand by lists. That’s it. Done.”

  Sharelle looked at Lara, who recognized the “fuck you” expression from countless witnesses. She decided to focus on the problem at hand. Marianne turned back to Lara, her eyes softening with sympathy.

  “We checked, Detective. Is there anything else we can do?”

  Lara thought out all the possible angles and reached the only logical decision.

  “Can you get me on the next flight out?”

  Chapter Five

  Guillotine was concentrating on getting the rusted old van down the dirty country road. The morning sun had glazed the fields and trees in a light blurry haze. He had the window open and was gulping down the fresh air, clearing his lungs of the thick city smog he had been forced to swallow back in Paris. There was a sharp chill in the air, a little bite that he always enjoyed. It made him feel as though there were great things to be accomplished today and he had all the time in the world to do them. He knew it wouldn’t be long now until he was home. He was hungry and he wanted breakfast. Bacon, eggs, coffee and he would allow himself a scone with butter and jam as a reward for his hard work last night. He licked his lips at the thought. He deserved it. He had done well.

  The van eased around a corner to reveal the rolling fields that were a signature of this area’s agricultural heritage. He could see his farmhouse a mile ahead, perched at the end of a long dirt road like a half forgotten idea. Hand built a century ago by peasant farmers, it was made of stone to keep it warm in winter and cool in summer, with a short stack chimney on the roof and large glass windows he had installed on both sides to let the light through. From the road it looked perfectly ordinary and unassuming. It was only up close that the misaligned stones and odd angles of the building could be seen. Up close, the place felt wrong. To Guillotine, it was the place he had made his home.

  Set back from the house about a hundred yards away like a disowned child, was the barn. And there were no good words for that place. A huge wooden building, windowless, hulking, brooding even under the morning sun, it cast deep pools of shadow on all sides, as though it were seeping darkness that bled from its very core, infecting the daylight and defying nature. Up close, its size was intimidating, like an aircraft hangar. It used to be an unspeakable place to him, the place where he had lived for years back when his aunts had made him sleep there with the pigs and the other animals. It was his cold dark place of dread and fear in those days when he was forming and learning.
Now it was his playground, his sanctuary and he loved it. To him, it was his birthplace.

  Janelle was unconscious in the trailer. He’d tied her hands with duct tape and had stopped a couple of times at roadside stations to reapply the chloroform as she slept to ensure she would not wake. He had learned to be careful and reapply the chloroform at regular intervals along the route to the farm. One Angel in his care had woken and broken out. That had not ended well for her. She had managed to slip out without him hearing her over the radio and had even got the back door open, thrown herself out on to the road while he was still driving. Luckily, they were already out in the countryside where there was no other traffic around to hit her- and nobody to see her desperate bid to escape. She had been stumbling across the leaves and dirt like a wounded bird with a snapped leg, hobbling grotesquely in the dawn’s early gloom. He had turned the van around to face her. He was sad to see she was already broken. What could he do with a broken Angel? With tears spilling down his cheeks, he had gunned the accelerator and closed his eyes as he ran her down. He felt the bump as she went under the vehicle and he hit the breaks and screamed until his throat was raw. She was buried out here somewhere. He could never remember quite where, but driving down here, he thought of her every time, her memory haunting him, much like he had heard people speak of old lovers who had been lost like tears in the ocean of time.

  Snapping out of his reverie, he realized he had arrived at the farmhouse and stopped the van. He got out and stretched like any weary traveler after a long road trip. He opened the trailer and pulled Janelle out of the hatch, setting her gently down in the wet grass. She was starting to wake. He reached in to the back of the van for the chain and shackled it around her ankles.

  From the road it looked like he was dragging equipment to the barn. He pulled Janelle across the wet grass, the morning dew building to a soak on her skin. Her eyes were open and she groggily tried to make sense of what was happening. She could see the blinding morning sky, smell the fresh air and knew she wasn’t in Paris anymore. She heard the chain clinking as Guillotine gave it some slack. Her legs were numb and she knew her hands were bound. The worst was the gag in her mouth. As a reflex, she almost threw up, but tried to focus on controlling her stomach and make sense of where she was and what had happened. She looked up and saw Guillotine hauling her by a thick chain over his shoulder. They were outside the barn when he let go of her and walked to the door.

  She saw him release the huge padlock on the door and drop it on the grass, then roll open the barn door and turn on the lights inside. She tried to remember the things Lara had told her about missing persons and how to have the best chance of making it through if it ever happened to you. Accepting the reality of the fact that it had happened. Focus on gathering as much information about your surroundings, try to identify the location in case of a chance to call for help. She looked around and simply saw grass and open sky. She knew she was in the countryside and as the fog cleared in her head, she realized that she had never left France. The man had had a van, hadn’t he? She remembered vaguely what he looked like. The scars, yes. All she could remember were the scars. And “HH”.

  He walked back to her, lifted the chain and started to pull her inside the barn. The movement shocked her and being taken inside a building terrified her. She lost her focus and gave in to emotion as the terror exploded inside her. Even through the gag, Guillotine heard her scream. He let go of the chain once he had her inside and she was beginning to squirm and roll in the dirt. It didn’t matter now. He had her in the barn and there was no chance she could get out. That was already seen to. He walked back to the long rolling outer door and rolled it shut. The deep rumbling clang it made echoed out across the fields as though the barn itself was shrieking in triumph at it consumed her.

  Chapter Six

  Once she had boarded the plane, Lara saw that Marianne had upgraded her to Business Class. She sat in the wide comfy leather seat that reminded her of the one her father would sit in when he came home from the factory when she and Janelle were growing up. The same chair he had sat in every Christmas to watch her and Janelle open their presents.

  After the plane took off and sailed in to the California sky, a bird headed east to hunt, Lara made notes on her notepad, planning where to start and where to go once she touched down in Paris. She would go the Embassy, then talk to the Paris Police. She had got word back from Interpol before she boarded that they had received no reports of anybody matching Janelle’s description involved in incidents. She would check in to the hotel where Janelle was staying, in case she came back, but also to get a feel for the environment her sister had lived in for the last few days. In what could potentially be a missing persons case like this, the hotel was ground zero, the center of all previous activity and it would provide visual and sensory information for her, just being in the same spot, effectively dropping her in to the environment and world of the person she was trying to find. That information could not be replicated any other way and sometimes would yield information, angles, possibilities that simply looking at photographs taken of the area could never provide. It was how Lara liked to work- how she got the scent.

  Lara closed her eyes to quiet her mind. She was assuming a lot. The facts were that Janelle had simply missed her flight. She had to keep reminding herself of that, in spite of the voice in her head and that awful, low feeling in her stomach. She willed the plane to go faster so she could end this. She dreaded the truth of it.

  She pulled the Skyphone from its cradle in the seat before her and dialed Janelle’s cellphone. The phone rang on the other end. Voicemail. She tried three more times. On the third try, the phone stopped ringing. Someone had answered. She opened her eyes and sat bolt upright.

  “Janelle? It’s Lara. Are you alright?” No answer, just the steady constant hiss of the trans-Atlantic connection. “Janelle, I’m on a plane right now. I’m coming to get you. Tell me where you are.”

  For a moment, she second guessed herself and thought she had dialed the wrong number- then her stomach filled with the awful, bilious feeling of certainty and then she knew. The person on the other end of the line was not her sister.

  “Is Janelle alive?” she asked, her tone neutral, composed. The pause was interminable. Time bled out and the sound of the aircraft’s engines whined in her ears and became all she could hear. She tried to block it out and pushed the phone closer against her ear.

  She could sense whoever was holding her sister’s phone right now and listening to her was deciding whether or not to speak. She had to encourage him to engage with her, anything he said could help give him away.

  “I’m looking for my sister. Her name is Janelle. You’ve got her phone. Can you tell me where she is?”

  She had her pen in hand, ready to write down anything he said. The hissing continued until finally a voice spoke in a disconnected, matter of fact tone.

  “She’s my angel now,” Guillotine said and hung up.

  Lara put the Skyphone back in its cradle and felt her stomach tighten as bile rose to the back of her throat. She refused to vomit, focused on controlling her stomach and her reactions. She started writing everything she had heard beyond the words. The speaker was male. From the depth and timbre of his voice, he sounded like he was in his thirties or maybe forties. He spoke in English but with an accent- not American, not English, not French, something neutral, a mix of both, meaning it was probably not his first language but he was bilingual and that meant educated. An Abductor could give away extremely important information about themselves simply by speaking. References, phrases, sayings, and mispronunciations that were indicative of a certain region or ethnicity. She was looking for anything to get a more specific idea of whom she was dealing with. He had called her an “Angel”. She underlined that word. Somehow, that was the thing that disturbed her the most.

  Clearly, it meant something important to him. He was attracted to her, the angel reference relating to Janelle’s beauty.

 
; “She’s MY angel now.”

  “My”. Possession.

  “Angel”. That was a powerful word, implied she was special to him. Which meant he didn’t plan to hurt her. For now, at least.

  Lara set the pen down and looked out the window, trying to clear her mind. In the distance she saw dark bruised storm clouds and realized she was heading straight for them.

  Chapter Seven

  Lara followed the signs that read “Sortie” as she walked with urgency through Charles De Gaulle airport. She tried to ignore the smell of jet fuel that hung heavily to her clothes and skin and made her want to shower. The terminal was strangely cold and filled with people speaking languages she didn’t understand. Working in Los Angeles, she had had no call to pick up French or any other European languages, but she could speak Spanish fluently. Being dropped in to a new country surrounded by people and signs she didn’t understand already made her feel isolated and out of her depth. But Lara McBride was not one to buckle under such things and instead of giving in to the easier road of feeling intimidated, she pushed the feeling deep down inside her as though she were feeding coal to the engine that drove her, powering herself forward.

  On the plane, she had dreamed a dark vision of her and Janelle as children. In the waking nightmare, they were the same age, holding hands as they walked through the woods near their grandmother’s house in Northern California. Sunlight spiked down through the branches from a bleached white sky and they moved slowly, as though Lara knew something was wrong. Janelle picked flowers, unaware. Lara was scared, she could feel the fear build so fast it had cut off her ability to speak. It was the silence that made her shiver. There were no sounds of life in the woods, no sound at all but their feet cracking over fallen twigs and leaves and her breathing, which seemed deafeningly loud to her. She looked down and saw the animals running ahead of them, away from something inexorably creeping toward them. Something truly awful. Lara turned and saw that night had fallen in the sky behind them. The dark was growing, greedily swallowing the sunlight with a hunger that would never be sated. The animals were racing across the grass, terrified. She looked to her left and saw a small rabbit curled on its side in pain, shivering in fear, its paws fluttering in spasms. All she could do was watch helplessly as the dark began to infect the woods around her and poison the trees, swallowing them whole, banishing them to an inky black eternity. The more this steadily rolling darkness fed, the faster it moved and the more it grew, swollen with the pregnant urge to consume and devour everything in her world. It moved in silence inevitably toward her. Coming specifically for her. Coming for Janelle.