Mr. 8

Chapter 6: Observation Psychology 264

At the risk of being late for class, Denton took the long way to campus. His route would take him through downtown and right past the Moss Hollow Gallery.

There would be no time to stop in to see Linda, but he was compelled to take this small step to be near her, no matter how briefly or how imagined. He needed some kind of reassurance that she was okay. A glance through the window of her shop would be enough. He knew he was being irrational, but that knowledge didn't help.

The events of the morning had left him with an unshakable sense of impending doom. The streets may have been filled with sunlight, but it felt as if there were a shroud over the town.

None of it seemed real. It was more like a dream, or a movie, he had somehow stumbled into. Denton Reed should not be tracking down missing girls, in real life. He should not be standing around police stations or examining police reports on homicides.

The unopened blue file—he could smack himself. The lead on the girl's abduction had distracted him, and he hadn't gone back to read it.

Unlike the vagrant, the police had actually investigated that case. The contents of the thick folder tantalized him with its mysteries. Could there be a key clue in it? Would it lead to whatever or whoever was behind the strange influence that gripped all the victims? He would need to call Bill up and ask to see it.

Tomorrow, he thought. Today Bill was questioning witnesses and working the case. Hopefully, things would settle down by tomorrow. Hopefully by tomorrow, the madman would be behind bars and there would be no need to call.

He turned onto 5th Avenue and got stuck at the light. The gallery where Linda worked was six storefronts up ahead. His pulse rose as he noticed a white van parked right across the street. Its roofline rose above the other cars parked down the side of the road.

Denton chewed on his thumbnail, waiting for the light to turn green. Through the gaps in passing traffic, he peered at the truck, telling himself there was nothing sinister about it.

The second the light changed, he hit the gas so hard that the Mercedes squealed forward. Almost immediately, he stepped on the brake and slowed down to a crawl, as he passed the shop.

The van belonged to a plumbing company. The rear doors were wide-open, and Denton watched a middle-aged man in overalls store his tools away.

When he looked over at the gallery, two women were walking out, smiling and chatting. The glare on the windows was too bright to see inside, but it was clear that for everyone else, it was just a normal day in Bexhill.

The car behind him honked, and Denton sped up.

He cursed his foolishness. He hated how paranoid he was acting. The sign outside the Savings & Loan told him it was thirty-eight degrees outside, and he switched on the stereo and turned up the volume. Funky Hammond organ notes filled the interior of the car. Jimmy Smith laid down a blues riff as deep and flowing as a river, only to be met by Stanley Turrentine's tenor sax, echoing the notes back like a gospel choir. Denton hoped the soothing, familiar sounds would drown out the thoughts in his head the same way it drowned out the world around him.

He wasn't remotely successful.

For the rest of the drive, he tried to ignore the eights that popped out at him from license plates, mail boxes, and gas station prices. Worse still were the vans on the road. He refused to take any notice of them, not the five panel vans and not the fourteen minivans that crossed his path.

By the time he reached campus, his world had become a fragile place.

He parked in his usual spot at the back of the lot, by a row of poplar trees. No matter how late he was, there was always still some spaces back there. Most people didn't want to walk so far.