Hidden Entity Page 6

  “I own this building. I never knew there was a hidden hallway. I was just exploring in case some of the guests wanted to see hidden spaces like this. I didn’t mean to disturb you—”

  “It’s hard to believe that you were exploring after midnight. I would think you’d be sleeping.”

  “There was an accident in one of the rooms! I was up anyway!”

  A chuckle mixed in with his sneer. He pushed her along the narrow corridor ahead of him now, until she guessed they were a few yards from the panel that she knew could set her free. It was now pitch black, and her flashlight was behind them, shedding no light on this area now. “I don’t trust you. You seem like a nice lady, but I’ll be long gone by the time you find your way back.” He roughly shoved her forward and disappeared into the pitch black, leaving her standing in the stone passage in the pitch dark.

  Brenda failed to calculate how far she had walked through the narrow hall. At first, disorientation set in and she fumbled along the irregular limestone wall. She took deep breaths. The dark passage grew quiet. Faint cigarette odor lingered. She had no idea if he lurked a few feet from her or if he had slipped out of the building entirely. Then she heard his voice some distance away, menacing and unstable.

  “Go on. Get out of here. If you take much longer, I may change my mind about letting you go. And no one would find you in here for days, I’m sure...”

  Brenda didn’t respond, simply continued walking and tried to suppress the fear that fluttered in her stomach. She continued to feel her way along the pitch-black passageway. No more words came from the man’s mouth. She tried to concentrate on his location but panicked and focused on finding a way out, and soon. Muffled sounds reached her. They came from the second floor. She heard faint footsteps on the floor above her. Guests were moving around. She wondered if she dared to call out for help, or if the man would rush forward and stab her for such a thing.

  She hoped the guests were preparing to return to bed until she recalled daylight neared. She knew rumors would fly not only throughout Sheffield Bed and Breakfast, but also run rampant through Sweetfern Harbor by morning time. Brenda couldn’t allow herself to think about the reputation of her bed and breakfast at this point. She had to get out of the dank hallway.

  She finally felt a smoother surface and discovered a narrow metal latch. When she pulled on it, hallway light from the second floor almost blinded her and she stumbled out into the open once again. Brenda almost sobbed with relief.

  She heard Mac’s voice along with other officers. The door closed behind her and it became the smooth wall that lined the second floor once again. She leaned against it and took deep breaths.

  “Brenda, Lauren Meyers wants to talk with you,” one of the officers called up, having no idea what she had just been through.

  “I’ll be down as soon as possible.” She attempted to still her overactive heartbeat.

  She hurried to Mac and told him of her experience. Then she showed him how to open the wall. The detective summoned two officers to follow him into the passageway.

  “He still has the knife in his pocket. Be careful,” Brenda said. “There are droplets of blood on the floor.”

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this, Brenda. Find out all you can from Lauren, and I’ll meet you later downstairs. Are you up to it?” Mac asked. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” His face was filled with concern as he searched his beloved wife for any damage, but Brenda was tougher than she seemed.

  She reassured him with a quick hug. “I have to keep going. He didn’t touch me, not really. Just a bruise on my shoulder, I think. My adrenaline is still at its peak. I may crash later when I realize how close I came to becoming another of his victims. I am sure he killed Ryan Meyers. I saw what I believe were blood stains on his knuckles, too.”

  “We’ll find him.” The detective was assured his wife was all right for now and took off down the passage with his officers.

  Brenda knew that Lauren Meyers could tell her plenty. She was anxious to talk with her. When she entered the sitting room, she saw a tear-streaked face. Officer Sims told Brenda at the doorway that Lauren was still in shock from the impact of what had happened to her husband.

  “I don’t think she had anything to do with it all,” Natalie said. “She is shaken up considerably. I think she will need a sedative.”

  “I’ll offer again to go to the hospital. Maybe she’ll tell me what she knows. Why don’t you take a break for a while, Natalie? I’ll stay with her until Mac gets down here.”

  Lauren sat on the edge of the sofa and waited tensely for Brenda to enter the room.

  “Lauren, I know you have had a horrible night of it. I understand you wanted to talk with me again.” She pulled a portable recorder from her pocket. “I’d like to record your words.”

  Lauren nodded her head vigorously. “I’m ready now. What I will tell you is the truth. I want to tell you the story I promised Ryan I would tell him before he—before it happened.” She swallowed nervously but persevered. “Now he will never know of my deception.” She sniffled loudly, and Brenda handed her a tissue. “I deceived him because if I had told him the truth before we married, he would have left me like Seth Hill did. I loved Seth, but when his mother snooped around and discovered my background, she forbade him to marry me. We were in love. I didn’t think I’d ever love again until I met Ryan.” She reached for another tissue. “I was afraid to tell him what happened in my past for fear of losing him, too.”

  “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

  6

  Lauren Meyers took a deep breath and began telling her story to Brenda. At last, she could tell everything in full. Perhaps, now that she had lost almost everything dear to her, the telling would finally free her.

  “My mother was killed in a car accident a couple of years before I became a teenager. My father, Grady, began drinking heavily and chose to ignore me. He had no idea who my friends were, and I didn’t dare invite them to our house. I couldn’t rely on him being sober. When I turned fourteen, my aunt and uncle invited me to their home to celebrate. It was the best birthday I had had since my mother’s death. My friends came, and we even had a local band perform. They were unknown to me at the time, but they played our kind of music.”

  “Did your father approve of the party?”

  “I don’t think he even knew about it. My aunt and uncle certainly didn’t invite him. Besides, he was too busy brawling with our neighbor. The elderly man who lived next door, his name was Randy…I don’t recall his last name right now. I thought he was a nice person, but my dad sure didn’t. Well, after that birthday party, I got home and discovered him even more drunk than ever. He was berating Randy for planting a stupid tree on our property. Randy said he had proof it was on his property, but that didn’t matter to my father. He was on a rampage by that time. He called it an invasion of his privacy.”

  Brenda shivered when Lauren said those words.

  “I was standing at my upstairs bedroom window watching his latest tirade against that poor innocent man next door. I knew my father was as drunk as I’d ever seen him. I was just thinking I should call my aunt and ask to stay with them for the whole night—and maybe for the rest of my high school years, because I had had so much fun at the party and had started to remember what it was like not to live in fear all the time. And then…it happened. I saw my father pull out a long knife and plunge it into Randy’s chest.” Lauren shuddered as if seeing it for the first time. “That one stab wasn’t enough. He did it over and over. I later heard the poor man had thirty-six stab wounds.”

  “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry you saw that as such a young girl. What did you do?”

  “I didn’t want my father to know I had been watching and so I quickly pulled away from the window and turned my music up higher. The old man’s daughter drove up just after my father got out of sight. I heard the wailing when she discovered the bloody body of her father.”

  Lauren sank lower into the folds
of the sofa. She curled up as if to protect herself from the memories. Brenda waited. The recorder ran silently, recording the woman’s long pause as she considered her next words. “I’ll never forget that night. It changed me. It’s why I lost Seth…”

  “I don’t understand how your boyfriend Seth came into it. It’s not as if you played a part in any of it,” Brenda said. “Did your father know you saw him do it? Did he spread around stories or something?”

  She shook her head no. “He had no idea I witnessed anything until I turned him in. When the police started canvassing the neighborhood, they naturally came to our house first. We lived right next door. I knew if my father could be as vicious as that, it wouldn’t take much to set him off against me. I felt awful, but I had to turn in my own father just to stay safe. I ended up staying with my aunt and uncle…but not for the reasons I thought. I had to stay with them so I wouldn’t become a ward of the state.”

  “Where was your father when the police talked with you?”

  “He was in the backseat of the police car by then. He had to give them permission to talk with me alone. He had no idea I was a witness to the whole thing. He was always yelling at me to turn down my music. I guess he thought I was listening to music or something and hadn’t heard or seen anything. Well, I told the police the truth, and Grady Fisher was booked for murder. Later, I found out they had plenty of evidence against him from the bloody clothes my father had simply left in our garage and the knife that still dripped with the man’s blood. He was so drunk he had simply dropped the knife on the kitchen floor and left it there until the next morning when the police showed up.”

  “How did he end up in a mental hospital and not prison?”

  Lauren gave a short, bitter laugh. “From the moment they arrested him, he began to put on the crazy act. I mean, he must have been an awful person to get so drunk and then to do something so horrible, but I never thought he was insane. I thought he was a mean man who drank too much.” Circles began to form under her eyes. “I am sure he was here, in this bed and breakfast. I know I recognized him when he left the room after killing Ryan. Those same sloping shoulders…that same gait…and I know he thought I was on that side of the bed and he meant to kill me. That night Ryan fell asleep first on my side and then I took his side.”

  “How would your father have known which side you typically slept on?”

  Lauren stopped to think about this for a moment. “I haven’t been able to put this into words before now, but I believe my father escaped the hospital some time ago and found his way here. He must have kept track of me all these years and somehow knew I’d be here this weekend. Perhaps he picked it knowing about the secret passage allowing him access to the house. I feel sure he wanted to punish me, to frame me for my own husband’s death, as a punishment for turning my own father in to the police. But once his handwriting is proven, you will all believe me that it was him.” She paused and looked up at Brenda. “Maybe he has been watching us at night to know which side I slept on.” She shuddered again and wrapped her arms around her body.

  Brenda asked her how handwriting entered the picture. Lauren reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, revealing the note she found the day the room was ransacked. She confessed she had crumpled the note and dropped it, wanting to conceal it from her husband, and had later found it somewhere on the floor near the window in the room. Brenda took out her cell and notified Mac of the further evidence. Her attention then reverted to her guest.

  “He’s still here, Brenda,” Lauren said. “He knew it wasn’t a woman he killed. He is just waiting to get the right victim, and that is me.”

  Brenda was now certain Grady Fisher was in the building, or at least he had been. She recalled the conversation she had with him. He had answered coherently, though cruelly. She realized there were no signs he was a madman from the way his words connected with her subject matter.

  “You will have twenty-four-hour protection until he is found. You have to remember, though, that maybe it wasn’t your father at all.”

  “I don’t know who else it could have been. As far as I know, Ryan didn’t have any enemies at all. My father is my only known enemy. It had to have been him. I’m sure of that.”

  Brenda patted Lauren’s hand and said, “There is a room around the corner from our apartment that we usually reserve for couples with small children. No one is in there now, and I’ll take you to it so you can get some quality rest.” Lauren asked if she could retrieve clothing and personal items from her room. Brenda started to agree and then she changed her mind. “Lauren, I’ll get them for you. You may not be ready to see the room since it’s still pretty messy. Tell me what you need.”

  Tears formed in Lauren’s eyes. “Thank you, Brenda. I really don’t want to go back in there. Have they taken Ryan away?” Tears spilled uncurbed.

  “He is not in there. Let’s go. I’ll take you to your new room.” As they walked together, Brenda realized that Lauren still had not explained how her first boyfriend Seth played into this whole story and was determined to ask her as soon as she got the opportunity.

  Before she could ask, however, Grace Mitchell emerged from her room just as Brenda and Lauren passed by. She told Lauren how sorry she was and gave her a quick, tight hug. “Is it alright to go downstairs for a cup of coffee, Brenda? I don’t want to disturb the police,” Brenda said.

  Brenda was not happy to learn that gossip had spread so many details so quickly, but she supposed there was nothing much to be done about it. “Just be careful. There is still a lot of police business in the house. Get your coffee and then go back to your room.” Grace readily agreed and sped off.

  Brenda told Officer Swenson to stand outside Lauren’s new room for protection. “No one is allowed to enter her room unless authorized, and right now no one is authorized other than Detective Rivers or me. This woman needs to get her rest.” Officer Swenson took his station and Lauren looked relieved to have the protection of the police officer in front of her door.

  Brenda retrieved everything belonging to Lauren from her room and packed it all neatly into the woman’s suitcase and overnight bag. They had talked enough for now, and she decided questions about Seth would have to wait. Instead, Brenda ordered breakfast to be brought up to Lauren’s door and then told Officer Swenson to call her when the breakfast arrived.

  The young officer stood outside the door with Brenda and told her a manhunt was going on outside. “No one but you, Brenda, would have discovered that hallway. You were lucky that man didn’t take you out, too.”

  “Let’s hope they find him soon.”

  “Is he really a madman?” At least Officer Swenson spoke in low tones.

  “Just guard this door, Officer.” He nodded and Brenda wearily returned to her office to take care of more details.

  Inside the guarded room, Lauren knew she wouldn’t sleep. Once she ate a good hot breakfast, she wanted to go over every detail of her life to this point in her head. She had never allowed herself to think much about the day her father was taken away due to her statement to the police. The aftermath of that terrible day had wreaked havoc on her life. Her father had retained an aggressive lawyer who, along with an unscrupulous but convincing psychiatrist, successfully swayed the court into believing that he was insane. Lauren had hoped he would be behind bars for the rest of his life. Instead, he got off easy, sent to a mental health facility that was in reality a mental hospital disguised as a minimum security prison. Once there, he walked the building freely, enjoyed three meals a day and all the medical care he needed, both physical and mental. The longer he was there, it seemed the less supervision he required. To Lauren, there was no other explanation as to how he escaped. The more she thought of the figure in her room in the dark, the more she was sure it was her father.

  Now her dilemma was how to explain his presence at Sheffield Bed and Breakfast, many hundreds of miles away from Colorado. She paced the confines of the small room, hearing the police
officer shift on his seat outside the door, thinking and worrying, the lack of sleep carving deep lines into her face as she waited.

  Back in her office, Brenda typed up her statement about the confrontation in the dark passageway. She recalled the wild look in the eyes of the hidden man. It didn’t prove he was Grady Fisher. Perhaps the killer was someone else who had a grudge against Ryan Meyers? The sight of the man with the knife could easily have triggered past events to rush through Lauren’s head. The possibility that the young woman suffered from traumatic flashbacks was at the top of the list as well. She remembered the way Lauren drew back when Ryan pretended to stab everyone he passed in the room after his performance. No wonder she had recoiled at the role Ryan chose to play. Brenda didn’t think Ryan Meyers would have chosen to be a zombie, much less pretend to stab everyone, had he known the trauma his wife experienced as a young teenager.

  She stopped by Lauren’s room and discovered that the traumatized woman still had not slept. She asked Lauren if she wanted something to calm her. Lauren felt the tension in her body was too strong and finally she agreed. Brenda called her own doctor and asked if he could prescribe something mild for her. She told Lauren to lie down while someone fetched it from the pharmacy, and she would be back soon.

  By the time Brenda and Mac finished a light breakfast, Bryce’s research had been completed and it eliminated any doubts about who the intruder was. On Mac’s cell phone, Bryce called and spoke to them both as they sat in Brenda’s office behind the front desk.

  Detective Bryce Jones discovered that Grady Fisher had indeed escaped from the hospital. The institution had been searching for him for almost a week, but had never thought to look as far away as the Atlantic coast. The staff there did not know Grady’s full criminal history, but after searching his room, they had found newspapers stuffed in the back of his closet that told the story of how he murdered his neighbor. The articles also noted how his own daughter witnessed the crime and had been the state’s star witness against him.