Under Dust Painted Skies
Chapter SevenZac glanced up from the clock on the mantle with a frown. Remy had left nearly fifteen minutes ago to take Luca across the street to play with the Littleton's children. This was something they did maybe twice a month. Because Remy was usually running errands for Zac, Luca typically went to their house to place, but a couple of times the Littleton's children had come over to his house to play.
These hadn't been bad experiences, and Zac had actually enjoyed himself. Kids were easy for him to get along with - at least as long as they didn't ask him about going outside.
Caleb and Joshua were six-year-old twins and Greta was eight. Luca had been the baby of the neighborhood until Mac and Brian got Lily. Zac had yet to meet the baby, but Remy had cooed over how cute the child had been. It only made Zac's heart ache.
Today, though, his thoughts weren't on the children. Instead, he could only wonder what was taking Remy so long. Usually she reserved long chats with Nancy Littleton for when she was picking Luca up from a play date.
He couldn't say why he felt so uneasy about her absence, but after a couple more minutes of attempting to distract himself with watching television, he finally stood. While the kitchen was a perfect spot to watch Ted Cline's house, the front foyer offered the best view of the Littleton's.
Sucking in several deep breaths, Zac walked to the partition door that opened to the foyer. He stood there for several moments, working up his strength until he felt able to enter the foyer.
Zac knew it had annoyed Isaac any time him came to visit because he had to wait for Zac to enter the foyer, unlock the locks and then step back behind the partition before allowing Isaac to enter the house. That was why he preferred to always let Remy answer the door. It was so much faster and less awkward.
Now, Zac took one more deep breath and then slid the partition door away. He stood there for a moment before taking a tentative step into the foyer. Once he was inside the small area, he had to take another moment to get his bearings before he moved the rest of the way to the window that was just beside the front door.
He drew the curtains aside and looked to the left toward the Littleton's house, but before his eyes even made it to the light green house, he spotted Remy. At first, he sighed in relief that she wasn't inside still talking, but then the rest of the scene in front of him came into focus.
All relief he had felt quickly dwindled as his body seized up in fear. No, Remy was not speaking with Nancy or Jim Littleton. Instead, she stood at the end of their driveway, speaking to none other than Ted Cline.
"What the fucking hell is she doing?" he muttered to himself. Fear was interlaced with anger. Why would she speak to this man when she knew about Zac's suspicions about what he had done?
Muscles tense and jaw clenched, Zac stared at them. Remy didn't seem uncomfortable speaking to the man, but she also didn't seem to be completely at ease. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but not in the way Zac was used to - like she was about to reprimand him or Luca, but as if to distance herself from the man somehow. Her shoulders seemed a bit stiff as well, but Zac could see her face, and she didn't look worried or scared.
Zac's eyes washed over the seemingly harmless man. There was nothing about Ted Cline that stood out. He looked to be of average height and weight with nondescript features. He looked like the typical guy next door; someone no one would think twice about. But then wasn't that how most serial killers operated? Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy - they had all probably seemed like the typical guys next door. No one suspected them of the heinous crimes they had committed until they were caught. Ted Cline fit right in.
Shaking away these unsettling thoughts, Zac wondered how long Remy had been out there speaking to him. Moreover, he wondered what exactly they were talking about. There was a part of his mind that itched to know what Ted Cline was saying, but the bigger part of him just wanted Remy to get away from the man Zac believed to be a serial killer.
It pained him that he couldn't go out there and get her himself. He couldn't even open a window and call her. His mind flickered at that idea: call her. He grinned to himself, wondering why he hadn't thought of that right away.
He retreated from the foyer much quicker than it had taken him to enter and hurried to the living room to grab his cell phone. He knew that a cell phone seemed slightly ridiculous given he never went anywhere, but he had purchased both his phone and Remy's, saying that he was likely to be the one to call her the most. Also, sometimes he liked to keep his cell phone with him downstairs so that he could easily check his email without toting around his laptop. There was also a small part of him that believed that maybe someday he would have need of a cell phone.
He quickly punched in the designated key for Remy - Number 2 - and brought the phone to his ear as he went back to the foyer. He only faltered for a moment before walking back to the front window. He knew his illness was bizarre. It made little sense to him at times, so he had no expectations for others to get it, but usually after the initial exposure to the foyer, reentering a second time was just a little easier.
He remembered his therapist telling him that that type of gradual exposure could probably help him toward leaving the house. At the time he wasn't interested in hearing it. Most of the time he just didn't think about it, but it vaguely crossed his mind now, wondering if that would still be true for him or if his illness was too far gone.
He pushed the curtains aside, yet again, as he listened to the phone ring and watched Remy where she stood on the street. He was sure she could hear her phone ringing. For a moment he thought maybe she was going to ignore him completely, which grated at his raw nerves, but after a moment, she held up a hand to Ted and then reached into her pocket to retrieve her phone.
It was weird watching across the street as her voice echoed through the phone in his ear. "Yes?" she said, turning away from Ted Cline as she spoke. Rather than sounding annoyed, she seemed slightly concerned and was that a hint of relief he heard in her voice?
Zac hadn't thought his actions through. His first inclination was to demand she come inside away from the psychotic neighbor, but Zac thought better of it. He wasn't sure if his voice would carry through the receiver, and if so, he certainly didn't want to alert the neighbor that he was onto his murderous ways.
"Um, are you coming back anytime soon?" he asked, speaking softly just in case his voice carried.
Remy seemed to hesitate slightly. "Did you need something?" she finally asked, but again he detected something in her voice that was a little bit off.
"Yeah," Zac answered, wracking his brain for something - anything - to tell her to bring her back inside to safety.
"I need some help moving some stuff around in the studio," he lied. From his vantage point, he noticed Remy's brow crease. Then his eyes flickered to Ted, who was watching her with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Zac's stomach seemed to roll a little at the sight of the sleaze ball eyeing her so unabashedly.
Of course, Remy would be his type. Beautiful, brunette and single. She was a little younger than his other victims, or at least the two Zac knew of. He wondered if there were more out there, and his stomach churned again.
"Oh," Remy said. It sounded like she was going for casual, but she was unable to cover some of her confusion. "I'll be right in to help with that."
"Okay, good," Zac said. He had to bite his tongue not to tell her to hurry. He watched as she snapped her phone shut and then turned back to Ted. She plastered on a smile - a fake one that seemed all wrong compared to her real smile - and spoke quickly. She gestured toward the house, and Zac let the curtains fall back into place and stepped away from the window so that he wouldn't be seen spying on them.
A few moments later, he heard the locks on the door jingle. His heart seized at the thought of being so close to the open door. Clumsily, he made his feet move until he was on the other side of the partition. He pulled it shut, so that he would not be exposed to the open door, just as he heard the heavy wood swing inward and then was followed by the heavy thud of it being closed. His heart seemed to slow at the sound of the locks being clicked back into place.
Before he could move away from the partition, it was being pushed to the side. Remy shrieked at the sight of him just on the other side.
"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded. "Trying to scare the shit out of me?"
"Language," he said in a mocking tone, which only earned him a glare.
"Luca's not here to hear my language," she retorted. She stared at him pointedly, waiting for an answer.
"I was waiting for you to come inside," he huffed. "And if anyone should be asking what the hell anyone's doing, it should be me. I'd swear you're really trying to give me a heart attack!"
"What are you talking about?" she demanded.
"I saw you talking to that psycho!" he exclaimed.
"Were you spying on me?"
"No," Zac said quickly. Too quickly. "I was just checking to see where you were. You were gone for so long," he explained softly. "Then I saw you talking to him. What were you thinking?"
"It's not like I sought him out or something," Remy rolled her eyes. "He was putting his trash out as I was leaving the Littleton's. It would have been rude to just ignore him. Besides, I thought maybe if I introduced myself and talked to him for a minute, he might say something of interest."
Zac glared at her for a moment but held his tongue from telling her how stupid she had been. Once his anger abated slightly, he finally said, annoyance still clear in his voice, "Well, did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Find out anything interesting."
Remy sighed, "I'll tell you, but can we sit instead of standing here at the foyer?"
Zac was a bit shocked he hadn't even thought about standing right there at the foyer, but then again he was slightly desensitized for the moment. "Yeah, let's sit," he agreed.
Once in the living room, Zac looked to Remy, as if to say, "Well, get on with it."
"He introduced himself as Theodore Cline," she said. "But he said I could just call him Ted, like I intended to call him at all." She scoffed a little at that. Zac would have rushed her on since he already knew this fact, but it was interesting to hear this tidbit.
"Cocky?" Zac wondered.
"Oh, yeah."
"What else?"
"He said he was a computer programmer," Remy said. "He wanted to know why he saw me come and go between your house and mine, so I told him that I'm your assistant."
Zac did not like this. He didn't want this sleaze ball to know anything about him, but Remy went on, ignoring his scowl. "He said he moved here from Chicago. He didn't give a reason, but he did follow that up by telling me about his job, so I guess I was to assume it was for work."
"Is that all you got?" Zac asked. He felt a little let down by this news.
"He just commented on liking the neighborhood but said he hadn't met many of the neighbors," she shrugged. "It was pretty inane."
"You didn't like him," Zac stated rather than asked, but Remy treated it like a question.
"No, I didn't," she answered. Zac was hoping for some sort of elaboration and was about to ask her why she didn't like him, but she went on. "I can't explain what it was exactly. At the surface he seemed nice enough, despite being cocky, but there was just a weird sort of vibe coming off of him."
"Maybe because he's a serial killer," Zac muttered.
Remy rolled her eyes but didn't argue with this statement. In truth, they hadn't said much about Ted Cline since Zac's brothers left the evening before. Zac was sure Remy had looked over his shoulder when he moved to his laptop to look up more about Ted Cline, but she hadn't said anything else. Instead, she carried on the rest of the evening as if nothing unusual had happened. For that Zac was grateful. It hurt too much to think of his brothers accusing him of being paranoid.
Rather than pursuing the conversation, Remy changed the topic. "So, you never got around to giving me that list you made yesterday for art supplies."
Zac was caught off guard for a moment, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that the topic of Ted Cline made her uneasy. This was, apparently, her way of telling him she didn't want to talk about it anymore.
"It's on the table," he said, nodding over his shoulder toward the table shoved against the wall that usually housed the telephone, address book and outgoing mail.
"I think I'm going to head to the store and pick this stuff up while Luca's playing," Remy said as she stood and went to retrieve the list. "Want me to pick up some dinner on my way back too?"
Zac shrugged noncommittally, and Remy huffed softly as she pocketed the list. After bidding him a quick goodbye, she headed for the door.
As soon as Zac heard the last of the deadbolts being clicked into place from the outside of the door, he stood from the couch. There was a part of him that wanted to go to the window and make sure she got to her car without any problems, but if she caught him checking up on her again, Remy would probably give him an earful.
She's too independent sometimes, he thought. He knew she found him frustrating because while he needed help to generally survive, it was often difficult feeling like he was being looked after like an incapable adolescent, but he wasn't the only one; Remy was just as stubborn.
He forced his feet to move toward his office instead of toward the foyer window, but when he heard a car start up outside the house and then pull away a moment later, he sighed in relief.
He sat at his desk and opened his laptop. After taking it out of hibernation, he opened his favorite web browser. He checked his email for the first time today. He'd been itching to do so all morning, but Remy and Luca had showed up early this morning.
After the stress of the previous afternoon, Zac had taken the sleeping pills prescribed by the doctor last night before he went to bed. He used them sparingly because he generally disliked the way they made him feel. His brain still felt a little foggy, and he imagined he'd probably be this way for the rest of the day. As nice as if felt not to be totally exhausted, the dreamlike quality to his day after using the medication simply wasn't worth it. Also, the dreams usually came back twice as bad after using them. He did not look forward to sleeping tonight.
Luca had school this morning, and while Zac could have used that time frame to check his email, his brain had not yet been functioning on all cylinders when Remy left to drop her off. Instead, he had clumsily removed the clean dishes from the dishwasher and replaced them with the dirty ones from breakfast.
Then it was as if the universe sensed his intent to immerse himself in the mystery of the missing misses because just after he'd finished with the dishes, Nanette called. When she said she had something she wanted to discuss with him, his walls immediately went up, thinking she was going to bring up the horrible idea of the book deal yet again. Instead, she said that one of her art dealer friends had seen his work and wanted to do a showing.
Zac had argued that it seemed stupid to have a showing since it wasn't as if he'd be there for the presentation, but Nanette had insisted that she would handle that side of things. They'd talked for a bit, and before the call was over, Zac had somehow agreed that maybe it was time to start working on a new collection to show.
By the time he'd finished with the call, Remy was back. Of course she wanted to know what Nanette's call was about, and as soon as he was finished explaining, Remy ushered him down to the basement, saying he needed to get to work. He suspected she just wanted to keep him busy so his mind wouldn't wonder to Ted Cline.
He'd worked steadily down in the basement but only because he was finishing the ominous landscape he'd started the previous day. Even if it wasn't part of a collection, at least Remy could vouch that he was working.
It was only when Remy returned some hours later after picking Luca up from preschool that Zac came back upstairs. They'd had a quick lunch of chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese before Remy went to take Luca for her play date.
Now, though, he could finally take a look at his email as he'd been itching to do all day. He made a mental note in the back of his mind to keep his cell phone on him at all times for now on. If he'd had it, he could have checked his email hours ago. Unless Luca was with him, Remy rarely ever came down to the basement while he was painting, so she would have been none the wiser about his activities. He realized it was too late to fret over now and waited for his email to load.
As soon as it appeared on the screen, he blew out a long breath. The newest email was the one he'd been hoping for: Your Background Check Results.
In his hasty anger toward his brothers, Zac had immediately searched for a good background check site. When he found one that seemed decent, he'd keyed in his search pretty quickly. The initial results didn't give much, so Zac opted to pay for a full, detailed check. These results would take just a little bit longer. Zac wasn't sure why, but he'd rather wait and get all of the details than get a half-assed version instantly.
After he'd purchased his background check for Ted Cline, Zac had typed the man's name into his browser search default just to see what kind of results that might produce. There were 2,360 results for 'Ted Cline,' and 1,170 for 'Theodore Cline.' It was a lot to sift through and figuring out if any of it pertained to the Ted Cline he was looking for would be next to impossible unless there were pictures accompanying the pages, so Zac decided to leave it to the professionals.
Now, he opened the email with the results and clicked on the link to the attached report. He immediately sent it to the printer for a hard copy, but when the printer stopped after only five pages, Zac was confused. He looked back at the PDF on his computer and was shocked to find that was all that the search had rendered.
Confused and slightly miffed at apparently having been ripped off, Zac looked through the papers. It was then that he realized that maybe he shouldn't be upset with the background company. The results dated back only to 2005.
According to the birth date listed, Theodore Robert Cline was born in January of 1963, making him forty-seven years old. That was all that was listed about his childhood. Then the list began to move backwards from the most recent to the oldest information.
His newest employer was located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which helped to solidify that these were the results for the right Ted Cline. Before moving to Tulsa close to six months ago, Ted Cline's previous residence was listed as Chicago, Illinois, which coincided with what Remy had been told today. There was a list of his previous employers - he'd worked for two separate companies in Chicago for about a year each.
Before Chicago, Ted Cline had lived in Las Vegas for two years. He worked for one company during his time there, and before Las Vegas, he lived and was employed in Jacksonville, Florida. He had an excellent work record. His bosses all gave him glowing recommendations.
Ted Cline had also never been married, but the results listed the names two women he had dated - one woman for a few months while living in Jacksonville and then another for nearly six while living in Las Vegas.
But, apparently, there were no results for this Ted Cline before 2005. Mystified, Zac read through the report more carefully. He had no criminal record. There wasn't even so much as a speeding ticket on file. His finances seemed modest and fitting of a computer programmer, but while these results painted a picture of your average Joe, they only made Zac more suspicious.
Curious, Zac opened a new tab in the browser and typed in 'Chicago + Missing persons.' The first result came from the website for the Chicago Tribune. He clicked on it.
He had to sift through quite a few articles pertaining to missing persons, but he figured it was safe to skip over the men. Instead, he focused on the missing women. He skipped over the ones that had gone missing before 2008 or in the past six months. There were a couple of teenage girls over the age of eighteen at first that fit the right time frame, but they seemed too young.
Then he found several articles about older women ranging from their mid twenties to their early thirties. Zac focused on these, and after finding ten women that fit the bill, Zac stopped looking for more and started taking in the details.
Amanda Sullivan. Thirty. Disappeared on Friday, September 15, 2008. Last seen at a fall festival on a Friday evening.
Jessica Abernathy. Twenty-six. Disappeared on Friday, November 28, 2008. Last seen getting coffee at a Starbucks on Black Friday.
Kelly Raymond. Twenty-nine. Disappeared on Friday, January 2, 2009. Last seen leaving a party.
Zac checked three more, and it struck him as odd that all of these women had disappeared on Fridays from public places. This fit right in with the two women from Tulsa.
Pictures of the missing women also accompanied these articles. They were all thin, pretty women with dark hair. Again, Remy's face entered his mind, making his blood boil at the thought of Ted Cline anywhere near her.
Perplexed, Zac did a search for 'Las Vegas + Missing persons.' This time he clicked on a news site but found twice as many results. He wasn't overly surprised, given it was Las Vegas, but it did make it harder to see if there was a similar pattern here. Eventually, a few similar to Tulsa and Chicago emerged.
They fit the time frame and circumstances, and the missing women fit the bill in age and appearance. Next he searched Jacksonville, and once again he found several missing women.
His stomach rolled uncomfortably. In just a matter of a couple of hours, he had already found at least twenty women that fit the same modus operandi of the women who disappeared from Tulsa. What if these were just the tip of the iceberg? Nowhere in the articles had they said anything about finding these women - dead or alive - or having any leads about their disappearances.
How was that even possible? And, furthermore, these disappearances only went back five years. Zac felt nauseous just thinking about how many more there might be, but he had no way of finding out, not without knowing where, when, or who the man across the street had been before he became Ted Cline.