The Living Blood Page 7

  “But who are you . . . really? Your eyes are so full of mystery, David,” the actress said, and Lucas glanced up at the TV. The familiar actress playing Jessica had the same short-cropped hair, but a smaller, more birdlike frame, than the true-life Jessica Jacobs-Wolde.

  “That’s no mystery in my eyes, Jessica—there’s only you,” responded baby-faced Blair Underwood, who managed to infuse his character with the same unsettling sweetness Lucas had seen in Wolde’s photograph. “Je t’aime, my love.”

  Lucas shuddered. Jesus, that poor woman.

  But the more Lucas read, the deeper the mystery became. As Garrick had told him, the missing hypodermic needle from the scene of David Wolde’s death was off-the-record, because he didn’t find a single mention of it in print, even in the tabloids. And Alexis Jacobs was Jessica’s sister, as he had guessed, but the articles included very little description of her medical background, except that she had worked at the Sickle Cell Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. As far as he could see, Alexis hadn’t been involved in any alternative practices, nothing to foreshadow the work she would later undertake in Africa.

  Lucas felt so absorbed and frustrated as hours passed that a migraine rocked against his temples and made his stomach feel queasy. Not that he’d eaten more than a bite since breakfast, and it was past dinnertime. Cleo had left a half hour before, promising to call and check on them in the morning. Just like that, another day had slipped him by.

  After slapping together a sandwich from refrigerator scraps, Lucas sat down cross-legged in the midst of his carpet of clippings and turned the VCR back on. Earlier, he hadn’t been in the mood to watch the finale, David Wolde’s horrible murder of his daughter in a Louisiana motel room, but he decided maybe the producers would include something worth seeing.

  While the tape played, Lucas flipped through a Time magazine story featuring profiles of David Wolde’s half dozen victims. The first was an old woman in a nursing home with pancreatic cancer, Rosalie Tillis Banks. Lucas was about to skip on to the next profile, but a photograph in the section on Banks caught his eye: Her only claim to fame, before her death, was that her father had been Seth Tillis, the bandleader of a 1920s-era group called the Jazz Brigade, who had vanished without a trace when she was still a child.

  The magazine displayed a grainy photograph of the bandleader, and it nearly made Lucas drop his food. The young Seth Tillis and David Wolde were identical.

  Granted, the photo of Tillis was seventy years old and the quality was poor, obscuring parts of his forehead and hairline. But the eyes! And the angles of his jawbone, the curve of his mouth. David’s resemblance to the old woman’s father was outright uncanny. The photograph’s cutline, also noting the remarkable similarities between the victim’s father and the killer, surmised that David Wolde might have been a family descendant, the jazz artist’s own great-grandson.

  Then, Lucas noticed an eye-catching cover of the Weekly Guardian, the shabbiest tabloid of them all. The July 17 issue featured twin photographs of Seth Tillis and David Wolde, proclaiming, “Wolde Returned from Dead to Kill His Children.” In the article inside, the reporter claimed Wolde himself was really the ghost of Seth Tillis, which was why his corpse had vanished. David Wolde, the story said, could not be killed.

  On the television set, gunshots rang out. Lucas looked up in time to see David Wolde’s death grip around his daughter’s neck. Three bloody gunshot wounds across his chest formed a triangle that ruined his white shirt. David fell back and slowly slumped to the floor, leaving a bloody trail on the wall. Jessica, looking ragged and only semiconscious on the bed beside her dead daughter, was screaming, “He’s not dead! He’s not dead!”

  Lucas rewound the tape, just to be sure there had been no hypodermic in the scene. Nope.

  But the very last shot of Mr. Perfect intrigued Lucas: While the credits rolled, the camera showed a rain-slick New Orleans street, dark on both sides, while a shadowed man walked toward the camera, illuminated by the path of the moonlight. As the man got closer, Lucas could see he was the movie’s version of David Wolde, his death-pale face fixed in a smirk, with a triangle of bloody gunshots painting his white shirt as he ambled toward the camera.

  Then, the screen went black.

  That was also the first time Lucas noticed it was after dark, because the room had suddenly been robbed of its light. His fingers trembling slightly for reasons he did not yet understand, Lucas flipped on the floor lamp to bring warmth and familiarity back to the living room, which the clippings had now turned into a macabre shrine. His head was filled with a question triggered by the movie’s motel-room scene, reinforced by that parting image of David: Had Jessica Jacobs-Wolde really claimed that her husband was not dead? Had she known something about him the police had not?

  For the next hour, he searched the clippings for interviews with anyone who had been in that motel room. It took him that long to find a detailed follow-up story in the New York Times, which quoted a police officer on the scene, Veronica Davis, who had tried to comfort Jessica Jacobs-Wolde after her daughter’s death. That poor woman was not in touch with reality, the newspaper quoted Davis as saying. She’d just seen her husband killed, but it hadn’t sunk in. “He’s not dead,” she said to me over and over. Then she said she knew her little girl was dead for now, but she told me to check on her later to see if she had woken up, if she had healed. And she meant it, too.

  The room, somehow, was still too dark.

  With stiff knees that felt suddenly unsteady, Lucas stood up and flipped on the switch to activate the overhead light and ceiling fan, which made the papers on the floor rustle and stir as the fan’s blades built up speed. Lucas’s heart was pattering, and he was now so hungry, even after eating half a sandwich, that he was on the verge of nausea. Why did he feel a distinct sense that his unconscious was beginning to make crucial connections his conscious mind couldn’t yet grasp?

  A growing part of him almost didn’t want to know, felt he should not know.

  Tomorrow, he decided, he would call Officer Veronica Davis in Louisiana to find out if she could remember anything else, anything at all, Jessica Jacobs-Wolde had said to her that night. He would ask her if Jessica had said anything about blood or the missing hypodermic.

  For now, though, it was time to check Jared’s temperature and give him his nightly dose of meds. After glancing at his watch, he realized Cleo had been gone more than an hour.

  “Dad?”

  Lucas had to stand stock-still and crane his ears to determine if he’d really heard Jared’s voice, which sounded far-off and dreamy. For a moment, there was silence in the room, except for the sound of the tape rewinding in the VCR and the gentle breeze-murmurings of the papers on the floor.

  “Dad . . . you know what she told me?”

  Definitely Jared, but his voice had a strange quality that made Lucas feel a stab of outright panic. He made it as far as the foot of the stairs, where what he saw there stopped him: At the top landing, a dozen stairs above Lucas, Jared was standing in his perspiration-drenched pajamas, his face beaming with a wide grin. Lucas was so surprised to see the raw jubilance on his son’s face that it took him a second to realize Jared’s balance was odd; he was nearly rocking in place.

  Sleepwalking. Jared had never done it before, but he was definitely doing it now. Either that or he was delirious, and both prospects were terrifying.

  “Jared, step back.”

  “Know what she told me, Dad?” Jared said again in the same flat voice.

  Lucas had no idea what Cleo had told him, assuming Cleo was the she in Jared’s head, and he didn’t care. Lucas made such a sudden movement to climb the first step toward Jared that his bad knee buckled, the cartilage grinding so hard that he felt a twisting pain plow through his knee. For a crucial instant, he lost his footing.

  “She said the blood heals,” Jared said, a gentle musing, and then he crumpled.

  Lucas watched Jared’s body seem to actually deflate, as if it
had become liquefied, free of bone or muscle. While Lucas screamed his name, Jared pitched headfirst down the stairs.

  4

  Two kilometers outside Serowe

  Botswana

  “Mommy . . . wake up.”

  Only half-awake in her bed, Jessica made a small sound, drawing her arms around her face to block out the light bleeding through her eyelids. Just a few more minutes, sweetheart, she thought she mumbled aloud. Or maybe she didn’t. Delicious sleep was creeping back to her, so maybe she hadn’t opened her mouth at all.

  “Mommy, now . . . please?” A whine, then a sharp tug at her blanket.

  “Oh, Lord have mercy . . .” This time, Jessica opened her eyes to face the sun’s assault. Someone, probably her daughter, had already pulled open the ruffled, gold-colored curtains, one of the handful of frills left by the home’s previous owners, and the cloudless day was well under way outside her bedroom window. It must be at least nine-thirty, she judged by the light. Their neighbors had been up for hours, tending their livestock, plowing, collecting wood, cooking, or heading out on foot or bicycle for their town jobs. They rose at dawn and went to sleep soon after dark, living by the sunlight.

  But sleeping in was an American vice Jessica had seen no need to renounce. Sleep was one of the few familiar comforts she had been able to bring to Africa with her.

  “Bee-Bee, what did I tell you about when Mommy is sleeping? You know better.”

  “Not Bee-Bee—it’s Fana,” her daughter corrected her, gazing at her with indignation from where she stood beside Jessica’s bed, wearing white cotton panties and nothing else against her maple-brown skin. At three and a half, her head was barely high enough to reach the top of Jessica’s mattress. Bee-Bee’s dreadlocks hung down nearly to her shoulders, flattened from sleep, but her big, all-absorbing eyes were wide-awake. Remarkable eyes, set above those perfectly rounded cheeks. Her father’s eyes. Groggily, Jessica sat up. “I know your name, little troll. I’m the one who named you, remember? It’s Beatrice, like your grandmother.”

  “No, Mommy, it’s Fana. F-A-N-A.”

  This whole business with her name had started last week, after the bathtub incident. Jessica had assumed it was evidence of small, lingering trauma for her daughter, so they had all humored Bee-Bee when she’d called them into the dining room, asked them to sit at the table, and ceremoniously announced that she was to be addressed as Fana from then on. Later, Jessica and Alex had a big giggle over it; but that was a week ago, and her daughter hadn’t let up yet.

  “Okay, tell me what Fana means.”

  At this, Bee-Bee shrugged. “It’s my real name.”

  “Well, who said that’s your real name?”

  Bee-Bee smiled shyly. “It just is.”

  Jessica touched Bee-Bee’s chin, speaking gently. “Did your name change because of what happened to you last week? Do you think you’re a different person now?” It was a cheap attempt at psychoanalysis, she thought, but worth a shot.

  Abruptly, Bee-Bee cast her eyes down. Instead of answering, she lifted up a burgundy hardcover book she was carrying. Without even looking, Jessica knew it was Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, a story Bee-Bee loved so much that it was a wonder she hadn’t memorized it. The previous owners had left a row of decorative classic books on the fireplace mantel, the Carroll book among them. One day, Jessica had found her daughter flipping through the pages, sounding out words on her own. That hadn’t surprised her, since Bee-Bee had been spelling out words and trying to learn to read since she was in diapers; she definitely had gifts beyond just her blood. Her intellect was so advanced she could probably read much of Alice in Wonderland on her own, but she preferred being read to. Jessica hadn’t expected to introduce Bee-Bee to Lewis Carroll until she was a little older, thinking parts of it might be too frightening for such a young child. She didn’t want any monsters in her daughter’s world. But Bee-Bee had found the book, and there had been no prying it away from her ever since.

  “Read me the Queen of Hearts, Mommy. ‘Off with their heads!’ ”

  “Don’t you want to talk about what happened last week?”

  Resolutely, Bee-Bee shook her head. Then, reconsidering, she said softly, “I’m sorry I scared Sarah and . . . I made you scared, too. I was playing, holding my breath in. And then . . . I dunno what happened.”

  “And then you went away for a while, right? You fell asleep.”

  Bee-Bee nodded, as if relieved that her mother understood. “Uh-huh.”

  Most likely, Jessica thought, it had been a trance. Bee-Bee lapsed into prolonged trance states sometimes, especially when she was staring into the fire or listening to a story, as if her mind were whisked to some other vast, imaginary place. When she was a baby, there had been mornings she was nearly impossible to wake up, which had scared Jessica to death.

  But this trance had been different. This time, Bee-Bee had been in the bathtub.

  Jessica had been awakened by Sarah’s scream ringing throughout the house. She’d sat up and noticed that her daughter’s trundle bed against the opposite wall was empty. Lightning quick, her mind connected the scream to the empty bed. Something had happened to Bee-Bee.

  Even though Alex had fought with surprising strength to keep Jessica from going into the bathroom to see what had brought on the scream, Jessica had flung past her sister because she was Bee-Bee’s mother and she had to. So, she had seen. Bee-Bee was naked, submerged faceup in the bathtub’s too still water. Her thin, ropy dreadlocks floated serenely alongside her head. No ripples, no bubbles. As Sarah lifted her out of the water, Bee-Bee’s arms and legs flopped against the ceramic rim with a sickening hollow thudding.

  Jessica had only stared, mute.

  Alex and Sarah went to work on Bee-Bee, lying her flat on the bathroom’s tiles, listening for breath from her lips, searching for a pulse. As they worked, Alex and Sarah spoke to each other only in glances, but poor Sarah’s entire frame was trembling and her face was wrenched with guilt and terror. Sarah must have been bathing Bee-Bee, Jessica realized. And she must have walked away, only for a couple minutes. Bee-Bee was a big girl now. Bee-Bee knew how to sit up in the bathtub by herself.

  The worst of it, really, had been watching Alex plant her palms atop Bee-Bee’s naked chest and begin the methodical pumping motion to try to start her heart again. Each time Bee-Bee’s chest was compressed, so deeply Jessica wondered if her chest wall would cave in altogether, Jessica felt herself transported across time. One-and-two-and—

  No pulse. I got nothing here. We’re losing this one.

  Come on, kid. Come on, dammit.

  Kira. Jessica had felt a dead woman stirring inside her, reliving the last instant of her life.

  They worked on Bee-Bee for an eternity, her sister and the nurse. They tried to breathe for her, tried to stimulate her heartbeat, plunged an adrenaline-charged cardiac needle into her tiny chest. Bee-Bee refused both breath and life. Through the whole ordeal, wrapping herself into a ball on the floor of the corner of the bathroom, Jessica had watched them work, slowly shaking her head. They’re wasting their time, she thought. She had lived this before, and it had been a waste of time then, too. Jessica knew what a dead child looked like.

  “Stop it!” she’d finally shouted at them, yanking them from their frenzy.

  Jessica had pulled a towel from the rack and wrapped Bee-Bee inside it, turning all the corners carefully, as if bundling an infant. “Move. I’m taking her back to bed,” she said in a voice calmer than she’d imagined possible.

  Alex had been frightened, her face sopping with perspiration, but she had understood. Sarah, however, had not. Sarah had looked at Jessica as if she were taking the child away for sacrifice.

  “It’s all right, Sarah,” Jessica whispered, and the horror in Sarah’s eyes only deepened.

  With the door closed behind her, Jessica had sat by Bee-Bee’s bed, feeling her cool forehead, noting the absence of any throbbing when she pressed her fingertips to Bee-Bee’s neck
and wrist, watching her chest refuse to take in breath. She heard Sarah’s wailing from outside her door, the anguish of a woman blaming herself for a child’s death. Jessica knew how that felt, too. To keep her mind from dwelling there, Jessica had to preoccupy herself with detached insights on how pale Bee-Bee’s skin had become in death, and how the expression on Bee-Bee’s thin, gray, little lips seemed to be a half-smile, as if she knew Jessica was there.

  An hour later, there was a knock on the door and Alex had joined her. She, too, sat at Bee-Bee’s bedside and checked to see if she was still dead. She was. Then, Alex held Jessica’s hand and prayed with her, but Jessica had told herself there was no need for that. Not this time.

  “Go tell Sarah she’s awake,” Jessica said. “Tell her the resuscitation worked.”

  “But she knows that’s not true, Jess. She was there.” Alex’s voice was tight with pain.

  “Just go tell her. Her heart will want to believe it. Tell her it wasn’t her fault.”

  And Jessica was right. After Alex left the room and spoke to Sarah in soothing tones in the hallway, the nurse’s wailing stopped and grateful sobbing began. Jessica was proud of her lie.

  Yet, for almost three hours, Bee-Bee lay dead. In all that time, Jessica never once allowed herself to consider the possibility that perhaps Bee-Bee was not like David, after all. Ever since infancy, Bee-Bee’s blood had absorbed cuts or scratches almost immediately, repairing her skin much faster than Jessica’s injuries healed, so Jessica had known what to expect if this day ever came. She refused to believe Bee-Bee would not wake up.