The Omen Days Read online

  I’d like to think Autumn and I have some sort of connection, that even though we haven’t seen each other in seven years, I’d know if she were in trouble, or hurt, or dead. I can’t help but obsess about her visit. Since there are no rational explanations, I finally allow myself to think in less realistic terms. If she were a ghost, and she appeared to me, that means she must be dead.

  The very idea squeezes my heart and makes my breath come short. Losing her all over again is killing me.

  Accepting I am probably on my way to a straight-jacket, I take the watch off my wrist and stare at it. I don’t know anything about watches, except they tell time. This is a nice timepiece, not gaudy. It looks expensive. I pull out my phone and finally Google the brand: TAG Heuer.

  Shit. These fuckers are expensive. Where in the world did Autumn come up with the money to buy me a gift like this? I turn it over and realize the back is engraved. I feel a little better now. She got it used. I’m glad. I wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing she’d spent six months rent on a present for me.

  Engraved in the silver back is a stylized star, and inside its borders there is a monogram with the initials TWH. The W is bigger than the other two, it must be the last name. T is the first, H the middle. I wonder who owned the watch before, why they gave it up, where she found it. Do ghosts wear watches? Do they need to tell time?

  I don’t know, if I were going to spend eternity floating through life, I don’t think I’d want a watch constantly reminding me of time’s never-ending passage.

  I put it back on my wrist. Try to wrap my head around my thought process. If she’s a ghost, she’s dead, and the last thing she did was bring me a present. Not only the watch. She gave me forgiveness. She gave me love, her body. She gave me closure.

  And I finally understand what’s happened. She is gone. But she found a way to let me know she still loved me and regretted what happened between us.

  I can’t believe what a gift Autumn has given me. Despite myself, I start to cry. I have to find out where she is, what happened to her. She’s counting on me. I know she is.

  And then it hits me.

  The watch isn’t a present. It’s a clue.

  Day ten after Autumn went missing, I take a few days of vacation, happily sanctioned by my boss, who is (rightly so) concerned about me getting myself shot on the streets if I don’t get my head back into the game. I drive to Austin, fast. It takes me a little over twelve hours, with two breaks.

  This is even more confirmation I had some sort of drunken vision the night Autumn disappeared. There’s no way she could have gotten to me in the timeframe we’re talking about. Not as a human, that is.

  I’ve never been to Austin before. It reminds me of Nashville. Thumping music downtown, tony neighborhoods, restaurants galore. My GPS takes me to police headquarters on 8th Street, and I go inside, show my badge, and ask to speak to the detective working Autumn’s case, Mario Torres.

  He comes out of the bullpen immediately, hand outstretched. Torres is a big guy, barrel-chested, with jet-black hair and a luxurious mustache. When he speaks, it is with a sense of contained joviality. He reminds me of one of the sergeants I work with in Nashville, Bob Parks.

  “I’m Torres. You Aukey?”

  “Yes. Call me Zack.”

  “Zack. Don’t know how much help I can give you, this is a local case, you know. But come on back, and let’s chat.”

  Torres is humoring me as a fellow cop, and I can’t say I blame him one bit. It’s not usual for cops from other jurisdictions, other states, to come in on a case without first being asked, and without anything to add to the mix.

  We walk by a break room and he gestures to the coffeepot. I nod and he pours me a cup, thick and black. I dump in four sugars; I need the boost. I am tired. So tired.

  He leads me to his desk, pulls me up a chair, and drops a pen on a clean yellow legal pad.

  “So, Zack, tell me what Austin PD can do for you, now that you’ve come all the way from Nashville. I take it you used to date Ms. Cleary?”

  Go careful, Zack.

  “That’s right. We broke up several years ago.” I take a deep breath. “This is going to sound crazy, but I saw Autumn in Nashville Christmas night. Around the same time that she went missing, as a matter of fact.”

  Torres leans forward, his dark eyes searching mine. I can tell exactly what he’s thinking, which he confirms a second later.

  “Is there something you need to tell me, Zack?”

  Boom. In one fell swoop, I’ve made myself a suspect in her disappearance.

  “Yes, there is, but it’s not what you think. I’m not here to confess. I didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance. I’d never hurt Autumn. I love her, man.”

  Torres’s voice is thoughtful. He unconsciously plays with the snap on his cuffs. “Afraid I’m a bit confused, partner.”

  “This is going to sound absolutely insane, and if you toss me out on my ear, or throw me in the pokey, I will completely understand. But roll with me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “About an hour after Autumn was seen on the video, she showed up in my apartment in Nashville.”

  I sit back in my chair and take a drink of the now cooled coffee. It is terrible. I set the cup down and wait for Torres to either cuff me or kick me out.

  Instead, he’s looking at me with undisguised curiosity.

  “What do you think this means, Zack?”

  In for a penny, in for a pound, as my grandmother used to say.

  “I think Autumn’s ghost came to visit me. And I think she’s given me a clue about where I can find her. I know it sounds crazy, but she was in my apartment. We were together for several hours, and she gave me a really expensive watch before she left.”

  Torres is staring at me like I’m going to bite him. “Wow. That’s . . .”

  Oh, it’s definitely time for me to leave. I stand up. “I get it. Sorry. Forget I was ever here.”

  “Sit down, dummy.”

  He gestures toward the chair and I’m startled by his tone. He sounds almost . . . friendly. I sit. I have nothing left to do.

  “You say she touched you?” he asks.

  “Yes. Several times.” She’d done a hell of a lot more than touch me, but I wasn’t going to tell a stranger I’d had sex with a ghost.

  “And she gave you a watch?”

  I unsnap it from my wrist and hand it over.

  He looks at it, gives it back.

  “Amazing.” And he means it.

  I can’t help feeling surprised. “You believe me?”

  “You’re talking to a guy who celebrates Día de los Muertos. Of course I believe you.”

  “No idea what you just said, man. I took French in high school.”

  “Idiot,” he replies companionably. “Día de los Muertos is the Day of the Dead. The first of November, the day after Halloween, we celebrate our ancestors who are no longer with us. The whole idea is to encourage a visit from them, to see them again. So yeah, I believe in ghosts.”

  I must look shocked because Torres starts to laugh. “Dude, I’m Catholic and descended from Mayans. I believe in most everything, from miracles to visitations.” He stops smiling, and his voice is gentler now. “I’m sorry that things are shaking out like this, because if she’s a ghost, she’s . . .”

  My chest squeezes tight. “Yeah. I’d figured out that part for myself. Unlike you, I don’t believe in this stuff, so I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I mean, we broke up years ago, and we haven’t talked or seen each other since. I’m kind of flattered she came to me.”

  “You’re a cop, dude. She probably assumed you would try to investigate and find her body. That’s what cops do, you know.”

  “Yeah. I figured that part out, too. So here I am. What can I do to help?”

  Torres is staring at my wrist. “Let me see that again.”

  I hand over the watch. My wrist feels cold without it there. “There’s an engraving on the
back. Initials.”

  Torres flips the watch over, puts on his glasses, holds the watch under the lamp. Hey, he’s older than me. Not everyone can have cat vision.

  I’m about to make a joke about detectives and magnifying glasses when he turns white and lets off with a string of what I assume are curses in Spanish. He jumps up, out of his seat.

  “What is it?”

  “Come with me.”

  “Wait, you recognize this?”

  He doesn’t answer, marches toward the hall like a bull charging a red cape. I follow, heart starting to beat a rapid tattoo.

  We bolt up a flight of stairs to the third floor and down a long hallway, into the quiet executive offices of the Austin PD.

  Ignoring the protests of the chief’s young secretary, Torres opens the door and strides into his boss’s office.

  The guy who I assume is Chief Acevedo is in a meeting with a three men in suits. They all look surprised, which is no wonder, considering the way Torres is advancing on them. He gets to the desk, tosses the watch to the chief, who catches it. Torres practically growls, “I know where Autumn Cleary is.”

  On the last of the Omen Days, Epiphany, we drive west in a caravan of cars and trucks. It is before dawn, in the darkest hours of the night. The Texas skies are crystal clear, and out here, there are no lights, no city brightness to hide the stars. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it, this vast openness, the constellations easily discernible. Stars litter the sky, diamonds cast onto a black velvet canvas. The brightest star, Sirius, seems to have a halo of light around it. Polaris is to my right, giving me perspective on our travels.

  I’m queasy worrying about what we might find. SWAT is already in position; they’ve been watching the ranch for the past twenty-four hours, trying to determine if Thomas Holden Winchester III is on site.

  Winchester, it turns out, is a young guy who comes from some serious oil money. His grandfather was a famous wildcatter and struck oil on what is now their extensive property. Winchester II continued the tradition, but went missing a few years back. According to Torres, there have always been rumors that he was killed by his kid and dumped down a well on the property, but Austin PD never had any proof and they couldn’t get warrants to search.

  Torres gives me the rest of the rundown as we drive.

  “T.H. Winchester, as he’s known, is rich and ruthless. There’s always been this thing about him maybe bumping off Dear Old Dad, but we also think he’s running coke in from Mexico. He’s funding the coyotes who bring illegals across the border. They come in near Laredo, and Winchester’s people drive ‘em up to the ranch with the drugs. On his property, they can find food and shelter, but the price is hefty. No drugs and you’re dead. Considering the number of illegals we have coming through here? I’d say they’re happy to pay the price.”

  “And you haven’t arrested him for it?”

  “It’s a hard situation. We haven’t been able to get close enough to catch him in the act, and with a guy who has this much money, nothing less than the proverbial hand in the cookie jar will do.”

  “But you were able to get a warrant easily this time. Why?”

  “Judge Crater is hard on kidnapping. Had a daughter killed when she was a teenager. Body showed up after a few weeks on the side of the road. Dumped. She’d been killed elsewhere.”

  “How?”

  “Strangled. Raped.” He paused. “She had some broken bones. The works.”

  “Do you know who did it?”

  “Nope. Not officially.”

  And Torres goes quiet. A meaningful silence. He watches me with his dark eyes, made black by the empty sky, waiting for me to put the pieces together.

  “Are you telling me Winchester might be involved in the Crater murder?”

  He looks out the window.

  “I’m telling you there are a fair number of girls who have gone missing from this area over the past ten years. Five have shown up again on the side of the road, broken and strangled, like Crater’s daughter Rose. The other three are still missing.”

  “Is Autumn one of the three?”

  “Yes.”

  I take a deep breath, try to swallow the bile rising in my throat. “We’re talking a serial killer?”

  “In my opinion, yes. The cases have been documented in ViCAP. A couple of FBI profilers gave us some leads a few years back. I’ve never bought their profile—one of the women was from Vermont, so they think it’s a truck driver dropping bodies during a long haul. I disagree. Whoever’s been doing this is smart and local. Crater’s daughter is the only victim who was a native. The rest of the women were all transplants to the area, without family nearby. I’ve always thought T.H. was involved. Call it a gut instinct.”

  “And now you have his watch. Which we can’t explain.”

  “Well, we have one explanation. Your ex managed to get it to you the night she went missing. Let’s pray it’s not too late.”

  Word has gone around about the way Torres and I came up with a suspect. The Austin cops seem nonplussed by the idea that a ghost visited me and gave me a watch belonging to her murderer. I’m thinking if they are this open-minded, and I ever need a change of scenery, Austin might not be a bad place to work.

  “The thing about T.H.,” Torres continues, “is he won’t go easy. We’re T-minus ten minutes to the ranch. I want you out of the way, and out of the fray.”

  I don’t argue. This is their rodeo. I’m lucky they’ve let me ride along, considering the tie I have to the case.

  Torres’s phone rings. He answers it, listens, then hangs up and smiles, mean and sinister. He is a different man, one primed for action, serious and deadly. I am suddenly glad he’s on my side.

  “SWAT confirms T.H. is on the property. They spied him walking to the barn.” He smacks me on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be our lucky day.”

  It might be their lucky day. All I know is there is a better-than-average chance I’m going to see the love of my life dead and broken, and I don’t know if I want that image of her to be my last.

  Suck it up, Aukey. If Autumn can manage to cross the veil to give you a clue, the least you can do is face whatever she went through to do it.

  The sun is breaking in the east when we drive through the gates of the ranch. I’m not used to the openness of the land here, the vastness, the flat scrub brush and shifting sands. It feels too big, like there’s no way we’ll find a small woman like Autumn. I swallow back the fear and frustration, and hear a series of gunshots. Small arms fire.

  Torres is on his phone immediately. “What happened, what’s going on? Son of a bitch!”

  He slaps the cover closed and jacks a round into his Glock. “SWAT had to engage. T.H. saw them and ran.” He launches a volley of rapid-fire Spanish at the driver, a guy named Hernandez, and the man veers off the main road. A choking plume of dust follows us into the field.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Coming around back. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’s fleeing this way.”

  I rearrange myself to look out the window. Adrenaline has started pumping through my system. I pull the .38 from my ankle holster. Torres watches impassively.

  “Sorry, man, but I’m not walking in there unarmed.”

  He nods, reaches over the back seat and yanks out a vest. “Put this on. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting dead, not on my watch.”

  I shrug into the bulletproof vest and keep watch out the window as we bump and slide through the scrub. This is happening, and all my thoughts are for Autumn. Torres hands me a monocular. I jam it to my eye and start scanning the landscape.

  “There,” I say, pointing. “Dust rising to the south.”

  Hernandez jerks the wheel and we plot an intercept course. Torres is shouting into his phone.

  After a few minutes the dust plume stops. “He’s gone on foot,” I call, but I see quickly that I’m wrong. There is a maze of buildings in the middle of this emptiness. Barns. I catch a glimpse of lush gree
n land in front of us. There is a small lake, marshy with cattails and scrub.

  “Out here, they only water the land they need to keep the stock alive,” Torres says in explanation. “Winchester’s always kept horses. Thoroughbreds. He races them, likes being the big playboy at the track. SWAT is coming. They want us to stay put.”

  Hernandez pulls the truck over to the side of the road, one hundred yards from the barns. We wait. I am jittery and holding the gun too tightly in my hand. My knuckles are white. I release my fingers, try to relax.

  Torres stiffens next to me and swears. “Did you see that? The fucker ran through the corral.”

  Hernandez says, “SWAT’s five minutes away.”

  “She could be in there,” I say, and my hand is on the door and then I’m out, into the chill, onto the marshy land, my legs pumping as I run toward the barns. Torres is right behind me, saying things in Spanish I assume aren’t complimentary. We run low and fast, trying to avoid getting ourselves shot.

  When we draw closer, he grabs my arm and steps in front of me, starts signaling with his left hand. “Go around the front,” his gestures say, “I will cover you.”

  I move slowly this time, my feet touching the ground lightly and quickly as I move to the entrance of the main building. There are six outbuildings. The bastard could be in any of them.

  Torres signals he’s going right, I should go left. I do. I step into the barn, hugging the wall. There are horses, I can hear them nickering and the air is redolent with manure. There is a long cement channel in front of me, tack hanging on the walls, the stall doors shut all the way down.

  The hair rises on my arms.

  I am not alone. I can feel the eyes on me.

  I dive to the left a second before the bullet hits the spot I was standing in. Torres ducks right, behind the door to one of the sixteen stalls in the barn.

  I hear trucks and shouts. SWAT has arrived to save the day. But I know how they work. Set perimeters. Assess the situation. Time. Time. Time.