Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (6 page)

But he leaned in toward my ear and whispered instead.

“Don’t mention this to your shrink. Nothing good will come from it.”

CHAPTER 12

For the first time in years, we didn’t make the playoffs. We just won two games that season. The coach organized some extra scrimmages and games because he wanted to give the seniors some more time on the field.

The field was a dark shade of gray. The rain of the last few days had melted a lot of snow but the ground was still soggy and full of holes. I hadn’t been out on it and I was sure that unless five starters suddenly got taken down, I would be sitting for the rest of the game.

As I sat there on the bench with all the subs, kicking at the grass, I thought about what Dr. Krowe had said about quitting the team. There was nothing quite like going from starting forward to being on the bench as a sub. It felt awful. I should have quit.

Amanda was in goal, doing a decent job. The Summit forwards were putting on a lot of pressure, but shot after shot, she stopped them. With about five minutes to go, the coach even put me in.

I didn’t have any illusions about the player I used to be and the shell I was now. But at least I managed not to fall down and I even made a half-decent pass before the final whistle.

We ended up winning. And for a brief moment, they came back to me. Those feelings that only winning brings. The girls hugging, the crowd cheering, the coach giving his victory speech. It felt good.

I walked to the Jeep and drove home. My body was aching from sitting in the cold for so long. I was looking forward to a hot shower and dinner.

Kate didn’t get home until late. I had a pile of books opened on the table and had almost finished my homework when she walked through the door.

“Hey, Abby,” she said.

She was carrying a stack of files and put them on the table.

“Hey,” I said. “Looks like your day isn’t over yet.”

“Yeah,” she said.

After we talked a bit, I headed to bed. I thought about Jesse. He was the most stubborn human being on the planet. I couldn’t figure out if I had to let things be or try to push him. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

And again, I fell into the dark, icy water and into another vision.

Bubbles flew up around me. A light filtered through the gray above as I was being pulled down into the murky black. I screamed, trying to swim to the top, but I kept on sinking.

But something was new. I was able to step out of the water for the first time. And I could breathe.

Everything was hazy and I didn’t know where I was. It smelled like lilacs as steam surrounded me, warm against my cold skin. My heart pounded in my chest.

Then I saw her. At first, just her face. A woman, in her twenties, with long dark hair. She didn’t see me, even though I was in front of her. She was in a bathtub, the water full of bubbles. Suddenly she sat up, startled, frightened, like she knew I was there. But it wasn’t me she saw. It was a dark figure, a man, with his back to me. Terror filled her eyes.

She screamed as he grabbed her ankles and lifted her up, forcing her head under the water. Waves rolled out of the tub, soaking the floor as she struggled. It seemed to last forever.

I just stood there, paralyzed in fear. I didn’t scream, I didn’t do anything.

Then it was quiet. 

Her head floated back up to the top, eyes open and lifeless. He stood over her before bending down and whispering something.

I started shivering, backed away before suddenly being thrown back in the lake again, swimming above them, away from the horrible scene.  I swam upward, toward the light at the surface, needing to inhale the air from above. But I didn’t make it.

I had to breathe in the black water.

Again.

I woke up shaking.

Kate was still working in the living room. When she saw me stagger out, she rushed up, giving me her blanket, and led me to the sofa.

“How’s your head?” she asked, worried.

“Okay, I think,” I said.

I felt weak and destroyed. I drank some tea and tried to calm down as I told Kate about it. Cautiously, she asked some questions.

“So you’re sure she’s Asian?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I said. “She was in the bathtub when he pulled her feet up and drowned her. I saw it happen, Kate! I was right there.”

I took a few deep breaths. Tears pooled in my eyes. She stood up and paced around the living room.

“Do you have any idea where this happened? Did you see an address? Was it a house or apartment?”

I tried to remember.

“No,” I said. “But he’s tall. And strong. Not muscular, but strong.”

I shuddered at the thought of those hands wrapped around her ankles, the pounding of her fists on the ceramic.

“These really aren’t dreams, are they?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

Kate got me a tissue and I blew my nose.

“You should try to get back to sleep,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do right now. I’ll look into it as soon as it gets light.”

I nodded. I knew in the morning Kate would be searching for her body. And I knew that she would find it or hear about it soon. It was just a matter of time.

“Anything else about the killer? Facial hair or something?” she asked.

I couldn’t tell her that I was too scared to get any closer, too scared to look. I couldn’t tell her that his coldness struck a fear in me that I’d never felt before.

“No, he had his back to me,” I said.

“You’re sure, Abby? That she was killed?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “The old man too. The visions had the same feeling, the same energy.
His
energy.”

There was no doubt in my mind. There was a killer loose in Bend.

CHAPTER 13

It was crowded downtown on account of the lunch hour and the holiday season. Volunteers for Winter Snow Fest were stringing up banners. I walked along the plowed sidewalks as a mean wind blew up off the river, bringing the air temperature down into the teens.

They had found her. I was in American history when Kate sent a text saying that a woman had been discovered dead in a house downtown. My pass was waiting at the office.

I turned down Delaware Avenue and found police cars lining the block. There was an ambulance parked in a driveway of a small house on the corner. Kate’s car was parked a little ways down.

Kate was standing outside next to a group of people in various uniforms. She glanced up and saw me and signaled for me to stay where I was. Then she sent me another text telling me to meet her at Thump, the coffeehouse we always went to. She would be there shortly.

I lingered for a few minutes longer and watched as she spoke to the ambulance driver. I knew there was really no need for an ambulance to be there or the paramedics. This was a DOA through and through. The woman had been dead for hours. I saw that Kate was working her magic and sure enough, after a few moments, the guy opened the back of the vehicle and let her step inside.

Kate was in there for what seemed like forever. When she emerged, her face was pale and her hair was being blown everywhere. She didn’t even seem to notice. I could tell she was shaken. It was never easy seeing death, I knew that now, too.

I started walking into the bitter wind. It was freezing. I pulled my coat tighter as I tried to think about why all this was happening. Bend was a small city and it hardly ever had any murders. The last one had been over a year ago when a husband shot his wife eight times one night, claiming he thought she was an intruder. The jury saw it differently.

And now, within a month, two people had been killed. And for some reason, I was hooked into what was happening, had seen them both die.

My phone rang.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Kate said.

I went inside Thump and got in line for the cappuccinos. It was packed, but a couple left and I slipped into the corner table and waited. Kate walked over, heels pounding the floor.

“Was it her?” I asked.

She nodded her head.

“Exactly how you described,” she said. “Long, dark hair, Asian woman. Found dead in the bathtub.”

Kate had that older-than-her-years look again.

“What in the hell is going on, Abby?” she said as she grabbed her cup. “Somehow you’re following some killer around in your dreams. How is that possible?”

Soft music floated through the noisy crowd.

“It was awful, just awful to see her,” she said. “The poor woman had this terrible expression frozen on her face. I’ll never forget it.”

She closed her eyes and sat for a moment before taking out her notepad from her large, black purse.

“Okay. Here we go.” She took a deep breath. “According to the lead investigator it was an accident.”

“What?”

“She was in the bathtub, and their theory is that she somehow passed out and drowned. They found a half empty bottle of wine nearby. They’re thinking maybe she had a bad reaction to it or an underlying medical condition and fainted.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, shaking my head.

“Well, it’s just their initial theory. Someone even suggested that it might be a suicide. I guess she recently broke up with her boyfriend of three years and she was distraught. But the coroner will do an autopsy and they’ll have a thorough investigation.”

I sat in silence. I couldn’t believe it.

“It wasn’t an accident, Kate,” I said a little too loudly. “It was murder!”

“I know,” she said in a hushed voice. “They’re going to talk to the ex-boyfriend too, Abby. And when they do the autopsy, my hope is that they’ll find that same drug in the body, like the first one. That will help make the case for murder as well as linking the two victims.”

I sighed.

“They are also canvassing the area and talking to neighbors. Something might come up there. Maybe somebody saw someone prowling around or leaving afterwards,” she said. “They’re just starting the investigation.”

I sat back in my chair and took a sip from my cup.

“Do you think he is just picking them randomly?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

I had no idea why he was killing. I wasn’t able to pick up on his motive. I just knew that he was being very methodical and that he wasn’t done, that there would be others.

“He won’t stop,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “I figured. But he might leave town. Bodies can’t keep piling up, whether accidents or suicides, without the authorities becoming suspicious at some point. He might move on to another place.”

I nodded.

“We will find this guy and flush him out,” Kate said. “I’m not letting this go.”

She took a long hit of coffee and looked around.

“The thing that I don’t get is why you’re involved,” she said. “You just don’t need this in your life right now. This shouldn’t be happening to you.”

“Don’t worry so much about my life,” I said. “I have plenty of fun hanging out with Jesse. It’s not all gloom and doom.”

She sighed and took another long drink.

“You know what I mean. These dreams, or whatever they are, must be related to your accident. And it seems the more we try to move past it, the more it tries to suck you back. Seriously, Abby, I don’t want you to get too caught up in any of this.”

I reached over and grabbed her hand.

“I would do anything for that accident to not have happened. Really, I would. But I’m alive, and that’s good too. I can’t just look the other way when someone is killing people.”

I cleared my throat and tried to calm down.

“Okay, Abby, we’ll work on this together. But not as your primary focus. Your primary focus is getting better.”

I didn’t understand why everybody was always telling me that. I was walking now, even running when I had to. Sure, school wasn’t going that great, but I was passing. Besides, I only had a little more than one semester left there anyway. I thought I was doing okay, but sometimes when they made those comments about healing and getting better, it made me feel like I was crazy or something.

“I don’t know if this helps,” I said. “It’s probably just obvious. But the killer doesn’t care about his victims at all. It’s a strong feeling. He doesn’t have any sort of regret or sadness when he kills them. He does it in a very matter-of-fact kind of way.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. He’s a sociopath. No emotions, no sense of right or wrong.”

“That’s why I know he won’t stop. But I don’t know why he’s doing it, what he gets out of it.”

“Because he’s a nut, that’s why,” Kate said, slamming down her cup, her emotions rushing up, sharp and edgy.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

I closed my eyes.

“Anything else?” she asked.

A strong, dark feeling shot through my body.

“Throwaways,” I said. “That’s how he sees them. They’re useful throwaways. For something, I don’t know what. He is saying this to himself. He believes it, too.”

“That’s important, Abby. That’s a good clue.” She wrote it down in her notebook. “Can you actually hear his voice?”

I concentrated again, surprised I was able to do this with people around. I could hear a whisper, a quiet voice coming from the same place where I drowned in those dreams.

“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “But it’s very soft, like a thought.”

Her phone buzzed.

“Okay, I’ve gotta get going. I’ve got to write this up and get it in. I really want to find this guy.”

Kate stood up and pulled on her Calvin Klein trench. She swirled the last of the coffee around in the paper cup and took one more gulp before throwing it in the trashcan.

“It was awful, Abby. I’m glad you didn’t see her. I mean, see her again, dead in the ambulance.”

She gave me a hug.

“You know, there’s a lot of this kind of psychic stuff that nobody knows about,” she said, lowering her voice. “What I mean is, that your condition, it’s not so crazy. This stuff happens, it’s not so uncommon. And you’re not alone. I’m right here with you and we’ll figure it all out.”

I nodded and it made me feel warm and safe when she said that. To not be alone. That meant everything, even if it wasn’t really true.