"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:27)
They arrived at the bridge around noon and to their surprise there were police cars parked all around it. Dani drove closer. She pulled the car to a stop and leaned over Sam into the glove compartment from where she pulled out a box full of fake ID's. Searching through them, she finally pulled two out and chucked one to Sam with a wide grin on her face.
"Let's go."
Dani jumped out of the car, Sam right behind her. She walked up to the police officers, acting like she belong there.
"No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints," one of the policeman was saying from inside a car that seemed to belong to nobody. "Spotless, it's almost too clean."
"This kid, Troy," said the other police officer, "he's dating your daughter, isn't he?"
"Yeah."
"How is she doing?"
"Amy's putting up missing posters downtown," the officer shrugged as if he knew the act was pointless.
Dani perked up her breasts and cleared her throat. "You fella's had another one just like this last month, didn't ya?" She stride confidently up to them with Sam following a couple of paces behind.
"Who are you?" the first policeman asked, turning to face them. In response, Dani flipped open her fake ID to reveal the badge.
"Federal Marshals," she said fiercely.
The policeman frowned studying Dani from top to bottom. "You guys are a little young for Marshals, aren't you?"
She almost faltered. She wasn't dressed for that, she supposed. A simple dark jeans, black high heeled boots, a black T-shirt and the leather jacket she refused to be without. Her blonde hair was loose and tangled. Still, she had enough confidence she thought she could go around all that and play her part flawlessly. "Thank you," she smiled. "That is awfully kind of you. Now, you did have another one just like this, correct?"
"Yeah," said the officer. "About a mile up the road. There have been others before that."
Sam stepped forward. "So this victim... you knew him?"
The policeman nodded. "In a town like this, everybody knows everybody."
"Any connections between the victims besides that they're all men?" Dani asked circling the victim's car.
"No. Not so far as we can tell."
"So what's the theory?" asked Sam following Dani around the car.
"Honestly?" We don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?"
Dani straightened up. "Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work that I'd expect out of you guys." At that, Sam kicked her shin so hard Dani almost grunted.
"Thank you for your time," said Sam before walking away. Dani followed him. When they got to the Impala, she smacked him across the back of the head.
"Ouch! What was that for?" Sam exclaimed, clueless.
Dani pointed a finger at him. "You kick me again, I'll slap you 'til you can't stand!"
…...
They found the girl indeed putting up missing posters. She was short and chubby, one of those goth kids that thought they knew so much about death. Her black hair was all tangled and she wore heavy dark make up that made her look at least ten years older.
"You must be Amy," Dani said to her. "Troy told us about you. We're his aunt and uncle. I'm Dani. This is Sammy."
"He never mentioned you to me," said the girl with caution.
Dani shrugged naturally. "That's Troy, I guess."
"We're looking for him, too," Sam butt in. "Do you mind if we ask you a couple of questions?"
Amy nodded and they entered a diner. The three of them sat on a booth that was out of the way from everyone else. Sam asked about the last time Amy had spoken to Troy.
"Last night," she confessed. "We were talking on the phone. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and he never did."
"He didn't say anything strange or out of the ordinary?" asked Sam.
"No. Nothing I can remember."
Dani watched Amy carefully, her attention focusing on the girl's necklace. It was a pentagram hanging on a thick black thread. "I like your necklace," said Dani, nodding toward it.
The girl smiled as if it brought her good memories. She pulled the necklace from her shirt so Dani could see it more clearly. "Troy gave it to me," said Amy. "Mostly to scare my parents with all that devil stuff."
"Actually, it means just the opposite," began Sam. "A pentagram is protection against evil, really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing."
"Enough," said Dani. "Next thing he'll be braiding your hair and reading your palm. Here's the deal, Amy. The way Troy disappeared – something's not right. So if you've heard anything..." Amy looked down at her own hands which were shaking. "What? What is it?"
"I... Well, it's just... With all these guys going missing... people talk."
"What do they talk about?" Sam and Dani asked together.
"It's kind of this local legend," said the girl. "This one girl, she got murdered out on Centennial like... decades ago. Supposedly, she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up – well, hey disappear forever."
Dani and Sam exchanged a look. There were finally getting somewhere.
…...
Researched took quite sometime. So long, Dani almost gave up and went out to buy pie. But just as she thought it was hopeless, Sam pushed her away, took her place in front of the computer and typed 'Female Suicide Centennial Highway'. This brought up a single result, which was better than what Dani was doing.
"This was 1981," Sam told her. "Constance Welch, 24 years old. Jumped off Sylvania Bridge. Drowned in the river."
"Does it say why she did it?" asked Dani.
Sam kept reading the article. "An hour before they found her, she called 911. Her two little kids were in a bathtub. She left them alone for a minute. When she came back, they weren't breathing."
Dani crossed her arms. That was typical. We couldn't take a minute to ourselves. We needed constant watch upon our loved ones, or something, or someone, would always come along and take them from us.
"'Our babies were gone and Constance just couldn't bare it,' said husband, Joseph Welch." Sam scrolled down and came before a picture of the bridge where they had been earlier.
"Come on, Sam," said Dani. "Let's go sightseeing."
…...
It was already night when they returned to the bridge. They walked around like two crazed cockroaches looking for any clue that could help them but found nothing. Dani looked over the edge of the bridge. She could almost see this girl, this Constance, taking the swan dive. She understood. She sympathized.
"You think dad would have been here?" asked Sam, bringing her back to the present.
"He's chasing the same story and we're chasing him," she said simply. Truth was, she had no idea where their dad was and that was slowly killing her. He was everything to her. Sam could only see the bad parts, but Dani saw the good. John had been father and mother, maybe not all the time, maybe he had to be gone more than he was around, but he had done his best, and his best had been good enough. "We need to keep digging 'til we find him. It might take a while," she said carefully, knowing exactly what he would say.
"Dani, I told you, I've gotta get back by-"
"Monday, yeah, Sammy." She glanced at her brother. "You're really serious about this aren't you? You think you're just gonna become some lawyer? Marry your girl?"
Sam shrugged. "Maybe. Why not?"
"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?"
Sam took a step forward. "No. And she's not ever going to know." The tone of warning in his voice made clear he thought Dani might try to tell her. As if.
"Well, that's healthy," she replied. "You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you truly are."
"And who is that?"
"One of us," she opened her arms dramatically as if showing more than just herself.
"No," the boy argued. "I am not like you. This is not going to be my life!"
"We've got a responsibility-"
"To dad and his crusade?" Sam snapped. He was always so sweet with everybody. There were only two people in this world that could make him lose his cool and Dani was proud to be one of them. "If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what mom looks like! What difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, mom's gone, Dani, and she isn't coming back."
Dani hadn't meant to, but next thing she was grabbing her brother by the shirt and pushing him back against the rails. She pressed him back menacingly. "Don't talk about her like that." Her voice came out low and hoarse. More than anything, Dani wanted to hug him, Sam and her dad, she just wanted the three of them to be together again. Why did everybody she loved kept bailing on her?
Dani let go of Sam, ready to walk away before he had the chance to do that to her. That's when she saw her. The woman standing by the edge of the bridge wearing nothing but a white sleeping gown. Black hair covered most of her face and she was barefoot. "Sam," called Dani softly.
The woman looked toward them but they still couldn't see her face; it was too dark. Then she let go of the railing she was holding onto and fell into the water below.
Sam and Dani rushed closer to look down but they found nothing. Then they heard the sound of the Impala starting up. "What the hell...?" began Dani.
"Who's driving your car?" asked Sam.
As an answer, Dani reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys. "No one." They watched as the car, without a driver, headed forward toward them. With no other option, they broke into a run in the opposite direction.
Sam had such long legs he was much faster than Dani. He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward but she almost tripped – the damn high heels. No, this wouldn't do.
Her idea could be a crazy one, but she didn't care. It was her time to lead. Pulling Sam, she turned and ran toward the edge of the bridge and jumped plummeting into the water.
Later, she realized how much smarter Sam was. He jumped after her, but before he could fall he took hold of the railings.
Dani crawled out of the water covered in mud. Smelling like a sewer, she looked up when she heard Sam calling her name. "Are you all right?"
"I'm super," she answer, trying to keep the sarcasm to a minimum. She climbed back onto the brigde. Sam was trying not to laugh. She appreciated the effort.
First thing Dani did was check her car. Everything seemed to be in order. Dani stood with her hands on her hips. "That Constance chick," she mumbled. "What a bitch!"
"She doesn't want us digging around, it would seem." Sam went to stand beside her. He inhaled slowly. "You smell like a toilet."
…...
They checked into the closest motel. The man behind the desk eyed them suspiciously. "You smell like a toilet," he felt the need to say.
"Yeah, yeah, I've been told." Dani handed him a credit card.
"You guys having a reunion or something?" inquired the man inspecting the card.
"What do you mean?" asked Sam.
"That other guy, Bert Aframian," he told them. "He came in and rented out a room for the whole month."
Dani gave her brother a smug grin. That was dad all right.
Once they managed to get the guy to tell them what room was 'Bert Aframian' staying in, Sam offered to pick the lock. Inside was the usual mess. The bed was unmade and the walls were covered in pictures and newspaper articles about Constance Welsh and other stuff. An array of weapons and other sorts of strange objects were lain out on the table. There was a circle of salt in the middle of the room.
A smelly hamburger told Dani her father hadn't been here for a least a couple of days.
"Salt, cats-eye shells," mumbled Sam. "He was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in."
Dani walked toward the wall and examined the articles. "Centennial Highway victims. I don't get it. Different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"
"Okay," said Sam. "Constance is the woman in white. Maybe she has a weakness."
Dani shook her head. "Dad would've found the corpse and destroy it. He would want to make sure. Does anything here say where she was buried?"
"Not that I can tell. If I were dad though, I'd go ask her husband. If he's still alive."
Dani thought that was a valid choice. "All right. You do that. I'm gonna take a shower." She was about to enter the bathroom when he called her.
"I'm sorry," he said kindly. "About what I said earlier. About mom and dad."
Dani didn't have the strength to deal with that right now. The smell was making her eyes water. She raised her hand telling him to stop. "No chick flick moments."
Sam smiled. "Jerk."
"Bitch," she replied walking into the bathroom and slamming the door.
When she was done, Dani announced her hunger to the world and told Sam she would be going out to buy food. Sam said he didn't want anything. Apparently, he was trying to call his girlfriend. Dani rolled her eyes and grabbed her leather jacket.
Outside, she searched around, mainly out of habit. She noticed two cops talking to the man who had checked them in. The guy behind the desk said something to the policeman and then pointed right at Dani. Pretending she hadn't see anything, Dani walked swiftly to the opposite direction. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cellphone to call Sam.
"Dude, five-o take off," she said and hoped he still remembered what it meant. "They're following me. Go find dad."
She hung up just in time. The two police officers asked her to stop. Dani turned around with a bright smile. "Problem, gentlemen?"
"Where's your partner?"
"What partner?" she asked innocently. One of the policeman went to check the motel room. Dani hoped Sam was long gone. The other policeman searched her.
"Fake badge, fake ID, fake credit cards," he said going through her stuff. "You got anything that's real?"
Dani raised an eyebrow. "My boobs."
That was the absolute truth, but the man didn't appreciate it. Seconds later, Dani found herself handcuffed and shoved against the police car. "You have the right to remain silent," the cop started.
Yeah, yeah, she knew. And what a right that was.
…...
The interrogation room was a very familiar place. Dani had been into a million of those. Her hands were cuffed to the table, that was the best they could do to assure themselves she wasn't going anywhere. Poor simple men. How little did they know of the world and how smart they thought themselves to be.
A cop stood opposite to her with a average looking box in front of him. He was around his late fifties, little brown hair left, aggressive features. Nothing extraordinary about him. "You want to give us your real name?" he asked her.
"Tara Nugent," she said promptly. Dani didn't even remember where she had taken that name from. Whatever.
"I'm not sure you realize how much trouble you're in here."
"We talking like misdemeanor kind of trouble?" she asked. "Or... uh, 'squeal like a pig' trouble? The difference is important."
The man crossed his arms unimpressed. "You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall. Along with a whole lot of satanic mumbo jumbo. You are officially a suspect."
"You know what? That makes perfect sense. 'Cause when the first one went missing in '82, I was three."
"I know you got partners; one of them is an older guy. Maybe he started this whole thing." The man reached into the box beside him. "So tell me, Daniela... Is this his?" And he slammed dad's journal on the table before her.
Dad's entire demon hunting life. Everything condensed into a single journal. Priceless information. Dad never went anywhere without it.
Dani felt like she had swallow a sock. This was really bad.
"I thought that might be your name," pressed the cop. "See, I leafed through this, what little I could make out. I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy. Bu I found this, too." He opened the journal and flipped through the pages until he found the one he was looking for and showed it to her.
On the page, written inside a circle, read 'Daniela 35-111'. Dani's brain went WHAM. Co-ordinates.
"Now, you're staying right here till you tell me exactly what
the hell that means."
Dani stared at the journal. Guess she'd be staying there for a while then. She cleared her throat. "It's my... high school locker combo."
The policeman paced around. He was about to say something when another cop entered the room and said, "We just got a 911. Shots fired over at Whiteford Road."
The two cops left her alone then. That's when Dani noticed the paper clip sticking from dad's journal. Perfect.