Framed (8 page)

He delicately retreated, unable to stay and withstand the urge to advance his position. As he made his way back through the water, fading into the trees, he whispered softly into the breeze, “Be careful the company you keep, Ruby. Those that play with matches tend to get burned.”

He was nearly out of sight when he uttered his final warning, “Choose your sides wisely. People are so rarely what they seem.”

He released me suddenly, just in time to roll ninety degrees out of the path of Jer's body. He crashed violently to the ground before Sean scooped him back up again, preparing for another blow. They didn't seem to notice that I was conscious.

“Stop!” I shouted, immediately regretting the volume of my voice. They froze in mid-fight, Sean holding Jer by the collar, his right arm drawn back to strike, and Jer with an arm extended to block the punch while attempting to unhook his shirt from Sean's grasp. “I'm sick of this! You want to kill me? Well then get in fucking line. If you really think I killed that boy, then do it, otherwise leave me the
fuck
alone.”

“You don't have to ask me twice,” Jer said, a smile crossing his face. The expression looked wrong on him—alien—as though his face wasn't meant to look pleased.

“We were just discussing that, Ruby,” Sean said, wiping a scant amount of blood from his lip; I never did see a cut. “I thought I'd finally impressed upon Jer that Thomas didn't actually show us who the murderer was so nobody would be dying for that crime today. It seems I jumped the gun on that assumption.”

“He
tried
to point her out,” Jer spat. “He could barely lift his hand. He was looking at her before he died.”

“Actually, Jer, he was looking at
you
before he died,” I explained with my most condescending tone. “He looked at
me
after he was already dead. I hardly think that counts, unless you'd like to take the blame. I'm sure Scarlet would be more than happy to carry out your punishment.”

“Never gonna happen, Bitch.”

“Aw, she'll be disappointed.”

You have no idea...

“You two make my head hurt,” Sean said, pinching the bridge of his nose. The action made him look far older than he appeared. “What was with the possum routine, Ruby? You looked like you were about to make a break for it and then you dropped like a sack of potatoes.”

I rolled my eyes. That was not the venue I had hoped for to spill the details about my little relationship with the mind-hacker.

"Why are you making that face?" he asked, his tone increasingly serious. "I know that face—nothing good ever comes of it."

“Can we go somewhere a bit more private?" I asked nervously. "There's been something I've been avoiding telling you. Looks like I can't avoid it any longer..."

"Just say it," he rumbled, his irritation poking through.

"I really don't think that's a good—"

"Say it!" he snarled, suddenly breathing down my face. He moved so quickly I didn't even see it—it scared the crap out of me.

"The murderer in Portsmouth has been hacking into my mind somehow and showing me his murders as he carries them out," I blurted out without stopping, "and he's never going to stop until he gets what he wants, but I have no idea what it is."

His look was murderous.

"
Why
is this the first I'm hearing about this?" His voice was low and menacing, and I broke out into a cold sweat instantly. Having his band of merry men surrounding me wasn't helping things.

"Because this is the reaction I expected and desperately wanted to avoid," I whispered, shrinking away from him minutely.

"Who is he?"

"I don't know."

"
Describe
him to me."

I looked around to see that I had the undivided attention of every PC member around me. It did nothing for my confidence or my desire to start spilling the details on my macabre relationship with the psycho in my head. It was even more strange and off-putting given the dead body that was still cooling in a pool of blood on the lawn. Luckily, we were far enough outside the city that the lots provided a substantial divide between neighbors.

“Ordinary,” I said softly. It was the first thing that popped into my mind. “Plain brown hair, dull brown eyes, average height, average weight, average looking. I don't think there's anything overly memorable about him at all. But he scares the shit out of me, Sean. He's
crazy
.”

"And what does this crazy man want?" he asked, still hovering dangerously close to me. My body hummed with my fear, his anger, and that bizarre energy that was ever-present when we were too near to one another.

“Revenge...or at least that's what he said in my first vision,” I explained. "Tonight he said something about needing to choose a side and people not being what they appear. I have no clue what he meant, but those words were meant specifically for me.”

"So you were having a vision when you fell to the ground?"

"Yes."

"Is that how this always happens?"

"Yes...he just takes over, no matter what I'm doing at the time. There's only a split second when I know it's about to hit because it feels like my head is being torn in half."

"What did you see?" he asked, his jaw tightening.

“I saw you and Jer fighting and me lying on the ground with everyone closed in around us,” I said, watching helplessly as the brothers slowly closed in more tightly around me. "He was
there
.” I pointed to the back of the long lot where the river divided yard from forest. “He was just
watching
. He seems to get off on the thrill of violence from what I can tell, but there was something different about him tonight...like he didn't want to get too close to
you
. Any of you.”

“Interesting,” he said casually. There was
nothing
casual about his gaze. His eyes were attempting to pry my skull open and fish around in my head for the information he wanted. "Tell me
exactly
what he said to you tonight."

The tension was so thick I could have cut it with a knife. He knew something, I could see it. I'd learned in a very short while how to read him and under that cool facade was a caged beast ready to attack. I hoped I wasn't the one about to be pounced on.

"He said," I started, my mouth suddenly very dry, "to be careful of the company I keep...that people who play with matches tend to get burned."

The eyes of the brothers, which had been pinned on me, were darting around at one another as a low level rumbling broke out amongst them. Sean said nothing, but his mouth had nearly disappeared from his face as he pressed his lips together tightly. His expression was beyond grim.

“What did I do now?” I asked panicked. "Who is he?"

"His name is Keith James, or
was
at one time,” he said, his voice all business. “
We
refer to him as the Revenant.”

“The Revenant?” I asked, gulping hard. I had no idea what it meant, but it sounded ominous to say the least.

"It means ghost."

“Another ghost? Are you shitting me?” I asked, the pitch of my voice increasing.

“Not a real one, Ruby. He's a
rogue
. We call him that because he's impossible to find,” he said with a sour face. “We've been looking for almost two decades. He surfaces once in a while, goes on a killing spree, then drops off the face of the earth. I had high hopes that the dead women in Portsmouth had nothing to do with him. It would seem I was wrong.”

Sean didn't like being wrong. That fact was displayed very plainly on his face.

"So you know him?" I asked, thinking I needed to seriously consider sharing things with Sean more often in the name of efficiency and time saving.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Then you should know how he's giving me these visions," I said, feeling hopeful.

The look I received in return was far less so.

“I don't know.”

“You don't know? What do you mean 'you don't know', Sean? I've got a psycho in my head giving me play by plays of his kills, following me around,
watching
me. I'd like to know something helpful right about now,” I cried, bordering on hysterical. "What the hell does he want from me? Revenge for what? Why am I choosing sides? Why am I playing with matches?"

“It would have been helpful to have learned about all of this before now so I could have
tried
to be helpful,” he growled, doing a poor job of concealing his anger. I realized that my apparent insubordination was not helping things with his brothers. Even though I really didn't answer to him, his oath to the elders linked his life to mine whether I liked it or not. My lack of cooperation and unintended affiliation with the Rev were clearly not boosting my street cred, and lowered his exponentially. I feared a mutiny was brewing amongst the PC.

"I don't know how he's doing this. I don't know what he wants from you, or who he wants his revenge against, though it could very possibly be me," he said more calmly. "I don't know why he wants you choosing sides, though the implications are not favorable there. And as for the matches comment—that was meant for me. He
wanted
you to tell me that. He
wants
me to know it's him."

"How does that help you know it's him?" I asked, wanting something concrete to grab onto where the Rev was concerned.

"Because that was the last warning he gave me before he disappeared last time," he said stone-faced. "He is not only taunting you, Ruby."

"Oh," I whispered. I felt embarrassed for some reason, however inexplicable it was. The assumption that the madman known not-so-affectionately as the Rev was only after me was a poor one indeed.

“Perhaps we can use you to catch him," Sean said quietly, clearly contemplating his next move.

“Use her as bait. It'll kill two birds with one stone,” Jer added, not-so-helpfully.

Sean disregarded Jer entirely, not even glancing his way after the comment was made. I studied the crowd and saw eagerness in their eyes; it was the best plan they'd heard all day.

“We'll use her, but not as bait. If he'd wanted to kill her, he'd have done it by now. We can track him with her visions," Sean said, looking suddenly hopeful.

“That won't work, Sean,” I explained. “It's not a premonition, it's a real time viewing. I see what he sees
while
he's seeing it. We can't track him that way. He's gone by the time I come out of it.”

“It's more than we've had to work with before.”

“I thought you could find anyone, kill anything?” I asked, remembering portions of conversations I'd had with Eric, his ex-PC brother turned werewolf, who I subsequently killed.

“The Rev is different. He's cunning and covert. When he goes to ground, there is no finding him.”

I sighed.

“Do you really think I can help you find him?” I asked.

Sean took me by the arm and led me away from the group. It was far enough that even they wouldn't be able to hear.

“For your sake, Ruby, I hope you can. You
need
to save face. The pot is bubbling, and the brothers are about to boil over soon. If we lose another...” He looked away from me momentarily before finishing. “If we lose another, I'm afraid that will start a ball rolling that even I won't be able to stop, understand?”

I nervously pushed the loose dirt around with the toe of my shoe while I mulled over what he was saying.

“Okay. I get it. I'll try," I whispered.

He gave my arm a slight squeeze before walking away. I watched him retreat to the others. Jer was fuming, his face red as he shouted something I couldn't make out. Jay stepped in front of him in an effort to control his older brother, but it was to no avail. He pushed him aside, yelling something at him, then walked towards the back of the house. Sean and the others made their way to Thomas's corpse, which lay facing me still, watching me as I left the scene. The image of his dead eyes haunted me the whole way home.

7

I pulled up outside my building only to see that the shop's lights were still on; Peyta was working late. While I locked up the car, my phone vibrated, alerting me to a new text message. It was Matty; he was concerned about how Sean and I left and wanted to know that things were okay. I sent him a quick message as I approached the building, letting him know that I was home and doing fine.

I decided to pop in and see what Peyta was up to. She'd had the good sense to lock the front door, so I fumbled with my keys trying to find the one I needed. While I worked on that, I heard the purr of a motor pull up and idle behind me. A shot of adrenaline rushed through me before I steadied my breath and slowly turned around. The car was parked in front of the TT facing the opposite direction. A man leaned out the window. He was familiar, but I couldn't place his face.

“It's Ruby, right?” he called from the street. I let the tension out of my shoulders, allowing them to drop ever so slightly. Most people wouldn't have noticed. Most people weren't cops. “Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I just saw you struggling with the door there and was checking to make sure you didn't need any help.”