Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (45 page)

“I was so mad at you,” Russ said to me. “You kept ruining all my plans, and I almost
killed you and your friend Candice when you two were staking out Salisbury’s place,
but then I had this thought. This amazing thought that maybe you kept getting in my
way because you were supposed to. You were supposed to become a part of this. It was
a like a big sign, you know?”

I shook my head. I wanted him to see that this was insane, that he was talking like
a madman, but madmen don’t know they’re talking crazy. They believe in the logic of
random circumstances as if they were a personal road map to carry out their twisted
agendas.

“Mimi was sending me a sign through you, Abby. She wanted my last statement to involve
you because she wanted me to pick an actual bride. It was supposed to be you all along.
It’s fate.”

I bit back the bile forming in the back of my throat. “Mimi wouldn’t have wanted this,”
I said to him.

Russ shook his head like he felt bad that I didn’t get it. “She would’ve understood,”
he told me. “She wouldn’t have wanted them to get away with it in the end. She said
so in her e-mail. They all drove her to it, you know. Mimi found out I couldn’t get
my money back from that beauty shop, or the photographer, and she was sick over it.
She’d never showed up to get her hair done, and she’d tried to take her dress back,
but the owner wouldn’t give her a refund. She sent it to me, you know, because
she said she couldn’t bear to keep it in her closet anymore. I’d paid for the whole
wedding, and Mimi felt so bad. Hell, even the photographer wouldn’t return any of
my money even though he’d only taken a few shots at the church.

“Mimi said she felt responsible for hurting me both emotionally and financially, and
she didn’t know how she could live with herself. She said she wanted to die. And it
was ’cause of them. ’Cause of her sister, who told her she was a loser, and her friends,
who told her she shouldn’t marry me. They wanted her to break up with me and work
all their extra late-night shifts at the Jamba Juice, the selfish bitches. No one
would listen to her. But I listened to her. I listened and I knew she was in trouble,
and I tried to take her away from all that, but they poisoned her against me and told
her to cut me out of her life. Even that student therapist told Mimi not to talk to
me. And she just felt worse and worse and worse until she couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Russ,” I whispered, desperate to get through to him. “Mimi killed herself because
she was a troubled young girl who felt overwhelmed and couldn’t see herself ever feeling
better. She was obviously clinically depressed and that was no one’s fault. That was
just a function of brain chemistry coupled with a tragic set of circumstances. Mimi
wouldn’t have wanted you to do any of this.”

Russ’s eyes narrowed. “Well, it’s too late, ’cause it’s already done, Abby.”

I bit my lip. “Russ,” I tried again. “I know you don’t want to do this. I know that
you reached out to Jed Banes hoping that he’d figure it out and stop you—”

“I didn’t want anybody to stop me,” Russ snapped. “I just wanted you guys to figure
out why. I was doing this out of revenge for all the mean girls out there. All the
people who hurt people like Mimi, who don’t deserve to die like she did.”

My lip quivered. “And I deserve it, Russ? I deserve to die like Mimi?”

Russ’s mouth became a thin line, and I started to hope that he might be having second
thoughts. But then his eyes darkened again and he said, “Maybe your bomb will send
the right message. Maybe then they’ll finally get it.”

I knew then that my fate was sealed. Swallowing hard, I whispered, “What happens now?”

Russ moved toward the door where a tuxedo was hanging on the doorframe. Pausing to
take it down, he then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope I
recognized. “Now I’m going to your wedding. I’ll be sitting in the front row, waiting
for you.”

I shook my head. If he thought for one second I’d go there and put everyone I loved
in danger, he was even crazier than I thought.

“Oh, you’ll come,” he assured me. “If you don’t, I’ll kill your fiancé.” My breath
caught. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Dutch. Then Russ reached back into his
pocket and pulled out what looked like a small TV remote control. “But to make even
more sure that you’ll come, I’ll make you a deal. If you get to the aisle before the
clock runs out, I’ll tell you the code to stop the clock. But if you reach out to
anybody for help, I’ll detonate the bomb.” Russ wiggled the remote wickedly and I
now knew exactly how he’d gotten the other girls to comply with his directive. He’d
promised them to deactivate the bomb if they did as he said. Their only hopes had
been in reaching the destination he picked for them in time. Little did Taylor, Michelle,
or Debbie know that Russ never intended to let them live beyond the two hours he’d
put on the clock.

And he seemed to think that I didn’t know either. He looked to be counting on my having
even a small ray of hope that he’d be true to his word and let me and Dutch and the
rest of the
wedding party live. It was so awful I wanted to fly at him and beat him bloody, but
that remote in his hand kept me frozen in place. There was a red button on it that
I knew represented instantaneous death, and while I had two hours, I knew I might
still create my own ray of hope.

“I won’t make it easy for you,” Russ added, slinging the tuxedo over his shoulder.
“Debbie almost got out of her harness, so I made that cage special for you. You’ll
never get out of it, so I wouldn’t waste any time trying. There’s no phone here, so
don’t waste any of your time left looking for one. You’ll need every minute just to
make it down the hill, because I’m going to go down in the gondola, and then I’m going
to dismantle it. You’ll have to make it to the estate on your own, but I’ve left you
your cane and I’m pretty sure that if you’re motivated enough, you can get down the
bluff in time. Just don’t fall. That timer’s a little sensitive.”

With that, Russ turned and left me without a backward glance.

The second he was out of the cottage, I got to my feet and grabbed Fast Freddy. There
was no way in hell I was going to play his game, and I had to believe that I could
make it down that hillside in time to warn Dutch.

I knew that Russ was going to be true to his word about one thing: If he didn’t see
me or hear the bomb go off within that two-hour period, he’d kill my fiancé. Shuffling
to the door, I stood on the front porch, watching the gondola slide squeakily down
the wire and disappear into the trees.

There was a small patch of land around the cottage that was fairly level, but beyond
that, the terrain was steep, and filled with foliage. Getting down the side of that
bluff with two bum hips, an oversized wedding dress, and a bomb strapped to my chest
suddenly seemed utterly impossible.

I gripped the doorframe and had to take several deep breaths because I could feel
myself starting to panic. I knew I had to
make it down that hillside, but there was no way I was going anywhere near the estate.
I’d never put Dutch, my friends, and family in danger like that, and I knew that Russ
fully intended to detonate the bomb the moment he saw me.

Instead, I had to make it down to the road leading to the estate. There was a gas
station not far from there, and they had to have a phone. All I needed was a few extra
minutes. If I could get to that phone, then I could warn Dutch before I died. I could
also tell him how sorry I was that I’d spent the last few days of my life hiding myself
away from him. I’d explain that I hadn’t understood my own intuitive feelings. I knew
I’d presented a danger to him, but I hadn’t imagined this. It all made sense now,
but if I died before telling Dutch, he’d forever think that I’d pulled away from him
because I’d had cold feet.

When I could breathe again, I closed my eyes and whispered, “Please, crew of mine,
help me!” For a moment I felt nothing but my own panic, and then, almost like a tiny
miracle I felt my spirit guides surround me and fill my chest with courage. I opened
my eyes and in my mind’s eye I literally heard them say,
Look to your left.
It was then that I noticed a very faint trail leading off to the side of the cabin.
With trembling limbs I stepped carefully off the porch and onto the path, gripping
my cane tightly.

The path was true, but I was not. I slipped and slid so many times that I lost count,
and each time I felt my heart would burst with fear, afraid the jolt from hitting
the ground would set off the bomb, but mercifully, it never went off.

I was careful each time I fell to always take the blow on my rear or my hip. The wedding
dress severely hampered my pace; it was so big that I kept tripping on it, and I cursed
it over and over, but there was no way to get it off with the metal cage wrapped around
my torso. That also greatly hampered me, and it chafed against my skin until it was
raw and bloody.

Yet my crew kept urging me on, pushing me to breathe and carry on. As long as they
were with me, I knew deep down that I could do it. I kept my focus on putting one
step in front of the other, and tried very hard not to look at the digital readout
of the clock, but at intervals I caught myself peeking, and that mounting fear built
and built as the minutes ticked down. At last, with about fifteen minutes to spare,
I spotted the road, and began to sob again as I hurried along it toward the gas station.

Cars passed me and honked, and one car pulled over down the street and a woman got
out. She took one look at me and I shouted at her to get back in her car and drive
away. I didn’t want to take the risk that the bomb might take out an innocent bystander.

The gas station would present a horrific choice. How could I warn the people inside
to get out so that I could go in and use the phone? The answer came to me as the station
came within sight. There was a man pumping gas right there. I shouted at him to go
inside and tell everyone to get out. He looked at me like I was crazy, but then I
pointed to my chest and he pulled out the pump from his car, rushed to the driver’s
side, got in, and took off.

I was so out of breath and so upset that I’d blown it that I almost didn’t notice
when the clerk came out to shout at the back of the car. “You!” I yelled at him. “Get
out of here!”

He turned to me, and his expression mirrored that of the driver who’d just sped away,
but I pointed to the bomb and begged him to leave and he took off too as fast as he
could run.

Keeping clear of the pumps, I ran inside the station and behind the counter. I called
Dutch’s phone, but there was no answer and it went to voice mail. I closed my eyes
and cried bitter tears as his husky rich baritone came to my ear. “This is Special
Agent Rivers. Leave me a detailed message at the beep.”

“Dutch!” I cried. “Oh, God! Listen to me. I’m not sure if Cat took your phone too,
but if you get this message, you have to
leave the ceremony immediately! He got to me, baby. Russ Buslawski, our exterminator.
He’s the unsub, and he’s going to kill you. He’s already killed me. I’m going to call
the police now, but before I go, I just want you to know how much I loved you. With
my whole, whole heart I loved you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me,
and I always knew that. More than anything in the whole world I wanted to be your
wife and take care of you like you always took care of me. Please watch over Eggy
and Tuttle for me. Tell Candice, Cat, and Brice that I loved them too. I’ll never
be far away from you, cowboy. I promise.”

I hung up sobbing so hard I could barely breathe. And then I heard the sound of a
helicopter approaching. Intuitively, I knew it was for me, and I also had another
intuitive thought—Dutch was on that chopper.

Rushing out of the gas station, I hurried down the road away from the pumps. The wind
from the blades of the chopper was kicking up so much dust and debris that it was
hard to see, but somehow I managed to spy the railing at the side of the road. I had
to keep Dutch away from me. I didn’t know how much time was left on the timer, or
whether Russ was close enough to me to detonate it, as I knew he would if he suspected
I wasn’t still working my way down the hillside.

And then I had hold of the railing and I turned to see Dutch getting out of the chopper.
I felt such a well of sadness and hope all at the same time. He wasn’t at the ceremony.
He might still live. But then he came toward me and I knew this was exactly the moment
I’d been dreading for the past two weeks. This was why every time he got close to
me, I’d felt a horrible sense of foreboding.
“Stop!”
I screamed. But he kept coming. In desperation I pulled one leg up over the railing.
Looking down, I saw that it was about a fifty-foot drop to the rocky terrain below.

“Abby, don’t!”
Dutch shouted.

I took a deep breath. Could I let go? Could I be brave enough to fall to my death?

I tried to steel myself, tried to convince myself that it would be so quick that it
wasn’t likely to hurt much, but I wasn’t fast enough. Before I knew it, Dutch had
hold of my arm.
“Let go!”
I screamed. “Get away from me, Dutch!
Get away!
”

But he wouldn’t let go. Instead he hauled me back over the side and gripped both of
my wrists tightly.

As I was struggling with him, I saw Candice. She was also approaching.
“Candice, stop!”
I screamed.

She listened, and the look on her face broke my heart. “Tell me how to help!” she
cried.

For a moment her question threw me. Didn’t she know I was quite beyond help? But then,
a thought came to my mind. It was clear and sound and I knew it was from my crew.
Tell her to bring him here,
they said. “It’s Russ Buslawski!” I shouted. “He’s at the ceremony waiting for me
to show up! But be careful, Candice! He’s got the detonator!”