(Psychic Visions 01) Tuesday's Child (3 page)

"Nope, nada."

Disgusted, Brandt walked away. At least that partly explained the panic in her eyes.

"Except the ring," Kevin called out, snickering.

Brandt spun around. "Ring? What ring?" He walked over and put his palms on the desk. "You didn't mention a ring."

Kevin leaned back in surprise, his hand stalled in midair. "Hey, easy. I didn't think anything she said mattered."

"Fair enough." Grappling for patience, Brandt threw himself down in the chair. "What
did
she say?"

"Fine." Kevin shifted to the side and reached for his notebook. He flipped through the pages until he found what he wanted. "She didn't say much," he said, frowning at his notes. "She woke up twice 'inside' different women while they were being murdered. She sees what the women see and when they die, she snaps back into her own body."

Brandt frowned, puzzled. "Odd ability to have. Where does the ring fit in?"

"She said that when staring out of the women's eyes..." Kevin rolled his eyes at that. "She couldn't see much of the attacker because he wore a full ski mask, like a balaclava. You know the ones with only eye holes and a mouth hole. She remembers his eyes being black and dead looking. And..." he paused for effect.

Brandt glared at him in annoyance. "Come on…come on. Stop the melodrama."

"Jeez, you're a pain in the ass today. What gives?"

Brandt rolled his eyes. Camaraderie was slowly developing with Kevin. Brandt had joined the East Precinct four weeks ago, but on a temporary basis. His boss had arranged for Brandt to have an office and access to all files, current and cold, as he searched for information on a potential serial killer, before heading up a task force if his findings warranted one.

He'd come into contact with this killer years ago and had run him to ground in Portland a year ago. Then nothing. A year. He couldn't believe they still didn't have a lead. This killer had become his nemesis. His Waterloo.

Most of the guys here had accepted him. It would take time to develop more than that. Time he didn't have.

"Fine then." Quirking one eyebrow, Kevin continued to read. "She mentioned seeing a ring during the one murder, and then she thought she recognized it again during the second one," he said in an exaggerated voice.

"Did she describe it?"

Kevin nodded and glanced down at his notes. "Some sort of four-leaf-clover pattern with a diamond in each of the leaves. A snake, or something similar, coils between them. According to her, one of the stones was missing."

Brandt sharpened his gaze. "Color? Size? Gold? Silver?"

Kevin searched again through his notes and shook his head. Casting an eye at Brandt, he said, "She didn't say and...honestly, I didn't ask. I thought she was off her rocker." He scrunched his shoulder. "Jesus, her cases aren't even related, yet she says it 'feels' like the same killer. Something about having the same energy signature. Whatever the hell that means." He dropped his gaze, a frown furrowing his brow as he doodled on the corner of his notepad. "I gather you're not dismissing her story?"

Brandt considered that. He'd used psychics before. In fact, he'd been friends with Stefan Kronos for a long time. The reclusive psychic was a difficult person to get close to. And even more difficult to be close with. The man was painfully honest. Brandt knew what valuable information they could give, but also knew using them could be a crapshoot.

"I don't know what to think. The changing MO thing is unusual, but it happens. That's why I'm here, after all. Still, if she had concrete information, it would have been easy enough to check out against our cases. But she didn't though, did she?"

Kevin shook his head. "Not really. The last murder happened this morning, which could mean that we haven't found the victim yet, or it happened in a different country and we'll never hear anything about her. Oh yeah, this morning's victim had a tiled ceiling with deep crown moldings and frilly pink bedding. That is, if any of this can be counted on." He waited a heartbeat. "Here. Go for it. I'll log it in, but you can have this." He ripped off several pages from his notebook. "Personally, I think it's all bullshit."

Brandt half nodded and walked back to his office. Bullshit or not, he'd still check it out.

An hour later, Brandt slumped back in his computer chair, stumped. Killers were normally predictable in their methods. They stayed with what worked and few killers changed that. Those that did had been in business for a long time. They'd evolved. This made them incredibly difficult to hunt – as he well knew.

He checked Kevin's notes again. With only a comment or two on the women's hair and the way they'd died – it would be hard to identify the victims. He had too many possibles to sort through. In a busy metropolis like Portland, murder was an everyday affair.

Speaking into empty air, he said, "This is ridiculous. I need details, damn it."

He needed a time frame or details of the victims themselves. How could Kevin not have asked for more? Not that he could blame Kevin. The city was overrun with nutcases. Who could tell them from the
normal
people these days?

He scratched down a couple more questions before returning to his screen. This particular nut had a name – Samantha Blair. He tried to fit the name to the image of the skinny, panicked woman from the hallway.

Back at his screen, he brought up all the information the database had to offer, which was scant at best. She was twenty-eight years old with no priors, no outstanding warrants, and no tickets or parking violations.

The phone rang, interrupting his search.

"Hello."

"Hi, sweetie. How are you today?"

Brandt leaned back with a grimace. "Mom, I'm fine. I told you yesterday, the headache was gone when I got home. Nothing to worry about."

"Yes, dear. I just wanted to call and make sure you're feeling better."

"I am. How are you? Are you ready to leave that place yet?" Brandt pivoted in his chair to stare out the window. The sun had managed to streak through a few of the gray rain clouds, lighting the sky with colored swaths.

His mom should be sitting out on her little deck in the assisted living center a few miles out of town. She'd been happy there – too happy. This was supposed to be a temporary situation. Somehow, every time he mentioned her leaving, her lung condition or diabetes acted up or she came up with some other excuse to stay a little longer. The center didn't mind. They were in the process of adding a new wing to accommodate more seniors. His mom had money and paid her way. It was to be closer to her that he'd requested the switch in location to this particular station.

"I'm not that good. My hip has mostly healed, but it still feels weak." She sniffled slightly.

Brandt grinned. What her hip had to do with a fake cold was anyone's guess, still she pulled out a sniffle every time.

Her voice almost back to normal, she asked, "Do you have time for lunch today?"

"No. Today's not good."

"Oh dear. Well, how about tomorrow then?"

"Mom, I'd love to if it's just the two of us. No more prospective girlfriends, okay?"

"Now honey, I wouldn't do that. You explained how you felt about my 'interfering,' as you called it. But, still," the raspy voice dropped to a sad whisper, "I do want to see you settled before I die."

"Oh, hell," Brandt muttered. The sweet long-suffering tones somehow managed to convey lost hopes and dire endings soon to come. "Mom, you aren't dying. And I am in the hands of a good woman. Many good women in fact." Her shocked gasp made him grin.

"Don't say that. You need a wife, not those...those," she spluttered.

He couldn't help but chuckle at her outrage. She deserved it for her constant interfering in his private life. Her persistence came closer to smothering than loving.

Brandt groaned under his breath. He straightened, stretching his back. "Enough about my girlfriends. Mom is there anything else you need to say, because I've got work to do."

"No, I'll save it for lunch tomorrow at the Rock Cafe. Be there at one o'clock like you promised."

Brandt's chair snapped forward, his feet hitting the floor hard. "What? What's this?" She'd hung up on him. "Damn it."

Irritated, he stared at the phone in his hand. His mother's machinations were legendary, and though he hated being outmaneuvered, he shook his head as he replaced the phone in its cradle. It was his fault. He'd been letting her get away with this for thirty-four years, so there'd be no changing the status quo now.

Good humor restored, he turned back to his computer screen. According to Kevin, Samantha lived in the nearby community of Parksville where she worked at a local vet's office part-time. The sparse facts didn't begin to explain the haunted weariness that had so touched him. He'd seen a similar look in the families of victims and those at the bottom of their world.

He forced his attention back to Kevin's notes. It appeared Samantha had said something about both women having long hair. The one from several months ago had been a blonde who'd been strangled. So, how many unsolved cases could he find with long-haired murdered victims?

His fingers flew across the keyboard. Three cases listed for the last year. One of them flagged as possible prey of the Bastard, the serial killer he'd followed to Portland. A killer that had been active for decades, possibly all over the States, with no one connecting the dots – until Brandt.

This killer's victims were always young, beautiful women that were either happily married or in strong, committed relationships. All had been raped. And that's where the similarities ended. Some women were strangled in their beds, some stabbed in their living rooms, others tortured for hours. Portland was the geographical center of the most recent attacks.

The police had an old DNA sample that had degraded over the years and a couple of hairs from very early cases – and no one to check them against. This asshole had started his career before the labs became so sophisticated. He'd adapted and learned well. To date, they had no fingerprints and no hits on any databases.

That's why Brandt had trouble convincing his boss that they had a serial killer. Hence his job, pulling together everything he could find to get the backing for the task force to hunt down this asshole.

A knock sounded on the door. "Move it, Brandt. We've got another one."

11:27 am

S
am sat in her dilapidated Nissan truck at the stop light. Who was that man she'd mowed down in the hallway? It might have been a fleeting contact, but he'd left a hell of an impression. Strong, determined, surprised and even concerned. Sam wrapped her arms around her chest tightly. Not likely.

A honk from behind catapulted her forward. She drove down Main Street before pulling into the almost empty parking lot at the vet's office, her insides finally unfurling and relaxing after the tough morning. The animals always helped. It's not that she didn't like people, because she did. But the foster home mill hadn't given her much opportunity to understand close relationships.

Whenever she'd tried to get close to another child, either they or she'd ended up shipped out within a few months. Sam had grown up watching the various dynamics around her in bewilderment. From loving kindness, to sibling fighting, to lovers breaking up and making up, everyone appeared to understand some secret rules to making relationships work.

Everyone but her.

She'd tried several relationships, even had several short-lived affairs. In the last few years, they'd been nonexistent.

Sam locked her car and walked through the rear door of the vet hospital – her kind of place. She had a kinship with animals. They'd become her saving grace in an increasingly dismal and lonely world. She stashed her purse in the furthest back cupboard, peeled off her sweater, and tossed it on top. Then she tucked in her t-shirt and got to work.

Moving through the cages, Sam grinned at Casper, a tabby cat who'd lost his leg in a car accident. "Hey buddy, how're you doing?" She opened the door and reached inside. Instantly, the cat's heavy guttural engine kicked in. She pulled the big softy out of the cage, careful for his new stump. The bandage had stayed dry at least. That had to be a good sign. She gave him a quick cuddle. "Okay, Casper, back you go. I'll get you fresh water. And how about a clean blanket?"

Sam bustled about taking comfort in the mundane and in the service of others – animal others. She hummed along until she came to the last cage. Inside, a heavily bandaged German shepherd glared at her. She halted at the hideous warning growl.

She stretched out a hand to snag the chart hanging from the front of the cage.

The growls increased in volume.

Sam stepped back to give the injured animal more space. She'd intruded in his comfort zone, something she could respect. Bending to his level, she spoke in a soft voice. Without his trust, taking care of him wouldn't be pleasant for either of them. And this guy looked like he'd seen the worst humanity had to offer.