The Last Echo (15 page)

“And he was right. The bastard was exactly where Rafe said he’d be, drunk out of his mind in a cheap motel room off the interstate. He never even bothered cleaning up . . . he was still covered in their blood.”

Violet shifted nervously, trying to tell herself it didn’t matter but unable to stop the question from bubbling up in her throat nonetheless. “What was her name?” she asked. “His girlfriend . . . what was her name?”

Sara hesitated, her face screwing into a mask of uncertainty. “I’ve already told you too much. I doubt Rafe would want me talking about any of this.”

But Violet already knew. “It was Sophie, wasn’t it?”

“How did you . . . ?” But Sara just shook her head, her voice distant. “He hasn’t been the same since.”

No wonder Rafe had sounded so hopeful when he’d called her Sophie at the hospital. Violet’s heart ached for him as she blinked back her own tears now.

First his mother. And then Sophie.

Sara sighed heavily. “After all that, I decided it was time for Rafe to come live with me so I could make up for being such a crappy big sister. At the time, I’d been working sixteen-hour days and practically sleeping at the office. With Rafe there, I started bringing my work files home so I could be there . . . with him. That was when I discovered how useful his ability could be.” She sighed as she recounted the details. “I woke up one night when I couldn’t sleep and caught Rafe going through my folders. At first I was pissed. Those were confidential FBI files, he had no business looking at them.” Her bemused smile was at odds with her words. “When I yelled at him, Rafe just gave me that look of his—the one that says:
Relax, I’ve got this under control.
”

Violet smiled too. She knew the look, Rafe’s signature expression.

“And then, just like that, he told me who did it. He knew who exactly the killer was and how he’d done it.” She chuckled derisively. “I’d spent the past four months of my life poring over the evidence and questioning witnesses again and again and again. And there he was, my baby brother, looking me right in the eye and telling me where to find the murder weapon.”

Violet let out her breath; her chest ached from holding it. “He had another dream?”

Sara shook her head. “No. That’s the thing; it wasn’t a dream this time. He knew from just thumbing through the personal photos we’d collected from the victim’s home. From just . . .
touching
them. That was when I started to dig deeper, investigating what he could do. I realized that his dreams or waking visions—or whatever you want to call them—are triggered by touch. It was the first time I’d ever heard the word
psychometry
. With his girlfriend, she’d left him one of those plastic troll dolls, the ones with the fuzzy hair—kind of a memento, I suppose. And because he’d been holding it and because it had been hers, Rafe dreamed about her. But he doesn’t have to be sleeping to have a premonition. I’m still learning the ins and outs, but it seems like everyone’s gifts work differently.”

Violet thought about what Sam had told her, about
his
ability being different from Rafe’s, the garden-variety sort of psychometry.

Sara kept talking, not needing to be prompted now. “The more research I did, the more fascinated I became. I tested Rafe, giving him more files, letting him handle more evidence and items from the cases—mostly old ones that had already been solved—so I could gauge his accuracy. Sometimes it would take days, even weeks, but he was pretty good. He got about seventy-five percent of them right. The others . . .” She shrugged, her lips curving downward. “. . . he just came up ‘blank.’ He said he didn’t sense anything at all.

“In the meantime, I was trying to find out if there were others with gifts like his. I started putting out feelers and kept coming up empty. People at work were starting to look at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was. And then, one day, I heard about a girl.

“She was in foster care, and was being bumped from house to house. She was only fifteen and had already been in twenty-four foster homes. No one wanted her. She got in trouble at every school she attended. She was truant on a regular basis, fell asleep in class, and was being bullied by other kids. Yet somehow she managed to maintain a three-point-eight-three GPA, despite move after move. The school administrators accused her of cheating on more than one occasion.

“A police officer actually brought her to my attention after she called them about her foster dad, a family man everyone in the community admired. Turns out he was a serial rapist they’d been trying to find for years . . . and somehow she knew.”

Violet was intrigued. Was the girl Krystal? It wasn’t hard to imagine Krystal having difficulty getting along in foster care with her outspoken personality and her unusual looks. Most foster parents probably hoped for kids who slipped a little more under the radar than Krystal did.

“When I met her,” Sara continued, “she was angry and withdrawn and reluctant to even talk to me. I thought that maybe introducing her to Rafe would help, but he refused—he was still dealing with his own issues—so I was on my own with her. It took nearly two months to get her to open up to me, but when she finally did, she revealed everything.

“She explained the myriad of ways she’d alienated her foster parents. At first, she didn’t know she had an
ability
at all, but she’d understood that she was different because she recognized things that the other kids didn’t. She knew when her fifth foster mother was defrauding the system by collecting checks for a child who’d run away. She knew too when her third and eighth foster fathers were abusing other girls in the home. And she would tell everyone who would listen: caseworkers, teachers, babysitters, even the foster parents themselves. But she found out quickly that no one believes a six-year-old, especially one with a history of making unsubstantiated claims. All she had were her ‘feelings,’ and feelings weren’t enough to file charges, only enough to get a little girl moved to the next home.

“In the end, though, she’d just stopped communicating at all, deciding it was best if she remained silent at all times. Most of the foster homes got tired of all the calls from the school because she was ‘unresponsive.’ But she couldn’t keep silent about her feelings at the last house even if it meant she had go back in the system again. And by the time I met her, she felt like she was some sort of freak.”

Something Sara said was bothering Violet. “Wait, when you say ‘feelings,’ do you mean she was empathic? As in Gemma?”

“Right. Gemma. Who did you think I meant?” Sara asked.

“I don’t know, I guess I thought you were talking about . . . someone else.” Violet tried to imagine Gemma as the lonely foster kid that Sara described, withdrawn and uncommunicative. Definitely not the Gemma
she
knew. “So what happened? Where did she end up?”

“Let’s just say it wasn’t hard for me to get approval to be a foster parent, and by the time I broached the subject with Gemma about coming to live with us, I’d already earned her trust. She couldn’t wait to get out of the system.” Sara scowled, her brows creasing. “I think Rafe’s still mad that I never consulted him.”

Violet’s head was spinning now. “Wait a sec.” She held up her hand; it was almost too much. “So you’re saying Gemma
lives
with you and Rafe?”

Violet took the coffee Sara handed her, even though the smell of it did nothing to soothe the churning in her stomach. They were in the kitchen now, and Violet was sitting at the same table where she’d watched Gemma reading Jay’s palm. She reached for the sugar.

“And she
still
lives with you?” Violet finally asked, trying to wrap her head around what she’d just heard. It was almost weirder than the fact that Sara was Rafe’s sister.

Sara nodded, taking the seat across from Violet. “She does. And it works out rather well for us. Well, for Gemma and me,” she corrected. “Rafe and Gemma . . .” She hesitated. “They’re like oil and water. Rafe can be . . . stubborn.” She shook her head exasperatedly. “And Gemma’s not much better. It’s like having two toddlers living under the same roof sometimes.” And then her expression morphed into a wide grin. “Or two teenagers, I guess.”

Violet didn’t know why it bothered her so much that no one had told her this before.

She just frowned into her coffee, disappointment weighing on her. Sara reached across the table to lay her hand over Violet’s. Her touch was firm but reassuring, and nothing like her brother’s. “I’m sorry, Violet. It’s hard for kids like Gemma and Rafe to open up, I suppose. They’ve considered themselves outsiders for so long, they have a hard time trusting anyone.”

Violet wasn’t sure what to think. She pulled her hand away from Sara’s and traced her fingertip around the rim of her coffee cup. Part of her wanted to walk away, to leave the team and all its secrets. She didn’t know if she wanted to be part of a group that couldn’t be honest with one another about the simplest things, like relationships and living arrangements. How could she trust them with her secrets if they didn’t trust her with theirs?

But she knew she was being dramatic. She knew she could trust them because she already had. They’d already saved her life once.

“So, how’d you guys end up here?” she asked at last, wanting to hear the rest of the story.

“At the Center?” When Violet nodded, Sara pursed her lips. “Shortly after Gemma came to live with us, I went to my superiors and asked about creating a new unit.” She grinned at Violet. “Kind of a psychic detective division.”

Despite herself, Violet grinned back at her. Out loud, it sounded ludicrous, even though that was exactly what the team was.

“I was denied, of course,” Sara went on. “At least officially. But, later, I was approached by a director—someone much higher than me—about working on my own, outside the restrictions of the FBI. He knew of an organization that was interested in what we could do, and they were willing to give me the freedom I needed to run my own team. They even provided the financial backing for the Center. In return, they occasionally send us cases that require the utmost discretion. Sometimes it’s something as simple as a background check on an employee or a colleague. Sometimes it’s working with law firms or the district attorney. And sometimes, they ask us to investigate something more . . . serious. As long as they don’t ask us to do anything illegal, I don’t mind the arrangement; it frees us up to work on the cases we choose to work, the ones where I feel all of your skills are used best.”

Violet had speculated about the high-tech facility and how a team of psychics who helped solve crimes for law enforcement agencies could afford such a luxurious space.

She’d even felt strange taking money from Sara, even though Sara had insisted it was her job now and she should be compensated. Still, it was weird collecting a paycheck for something she had no real control over.

But now it made sense to her. There was someone else, some outside entity—an entity with a lot of money, apparently—backing them. In exchange for sharing their abilities.

Violet was suddenly grateful that her ability didn’t involve reading people’s thoughts or emotions, the way Gemma’s did. The idea of
spying
on someone’s most private feelings was sort of repulsive.

Then again, she chided herself, she was the girl who was drawn to the dead.
Repulsive
was relative, she supposed.

But it made her feel better knowing she’d probably never have to answer to the people with the big checkbooks. She was more comfortable with bodies.

Sara’s phone rang and she pulled it out to check it. She frowned at the display. “Sorry, Violet, it’s one of the detectives working
the collector
case; I need to take this.” She scooted back from the table and left Violet alone in the kitchen.

Violet decided this was as good a time as any to go. She dumped her coffee in the sink, offering a quick wave to Sara, who was sitting at her desk now, listening intently to the detective on the other end, before she slipped out the door.

SHE KNEW THE MOMENT SHE REACHED THE BOTTOM
of the steps outside the outer door that something was wrong.

But it wasn’t what Sara told her that bothered Violet, she realized as her heart began to beat too hard—too fast. It felt like she was trying to breathe through sand, the air was suddenly dry and coarse. This was something else altogether.

She wasn’t alone.

She took a step backward, the heels of her shoes bumping against the bottom step. She felt trapped. She wanted to race back up the stairs, to see if—by some miracle—the door hadn’t locked behind her. But she knew that it had; she’d heard the telltale click. And her keycard would do her no good; it was already lost in the cluttered depths of her skull-and-crossbones purse.

She scanned the parking lot, searching the road and every crevice, nook, and alleyway she could see between the buildings around her. Everything appeared to be deserted.

Yet the hair standing up on the back of her neck told her otherwise. And it wasn’t just the hairs that warned her; it was the presence of an echo—or rather, echoes—that confirmed her suspicions. The haunting imprints that raked every inch of her skin, piercing her outward calm as she stood there, trying to decide what to do next.

She clutched her cell phone in one hand and gauged the distance to her car. Those keys, at least, were already in her other hand. She held them tightly, not wanting to lose track of them. But even as she squeezed them, allowing them to give her a false sense of comfort, she worried she was too far away. Or rather, that the person carrying the imprints was too close.

Still, she had to do something. She couldn’t just stand there, waiting for something to happen.

In the distance, she heard the loud bass of music bumping, and she thought maybe a car was coming. But after a moment, the sound faded, and she realized it was heading in the opposite direction.

She had one chance, she finally decided, one chance to make it to safety. If only she could make it there in time.

She turned quickly, not wanting to second-guess her plan as she raced back up the steps. Time seemed to slow to a blur and from somewhere behind her, she felt, and heard, the rush of echoes moving closer . . . closer . . . closer.

They were coming fast now, and above a haunting sound she’d heard once before, she recognized the pounding of footsteps and the swish of fabric.

He was running right for her.

She pressed the button on the intercom with a sharp sense of satisfaction. Blood rushed past her ears, deafening her and making it impossible to tell if she’d pushed it hard enough, signaling that she was out there . . . calling for help.

Before she could blink, she felt a muscled arm snake around her throat, and a hand close viciously over her mouth. She was dragged backward, violently hauled down the stairs and away from the intercom that might have connected her to Sara. The cell phone fell from her hand, skittering across the ground.

Violet struggled—or tried to—but the arms that held her bore down with brutal force, squeezing her so tightly that she was already suffocating within them. She thrashed, trying to break free from the callused hand that covered her mouth and nose. Her eyes bulged and her throat burned as her windpipe threatened to collapse on itself.

He whisked her away from the entrance, carrying her as if she weighed less than nothing. It took her a moment to realize they were in the alleyway between the Center and the next building. It was dark in the space between the massive warehouses, darker than it had been out in the open. And when he released Violet, throwing her to the ground, she landed hard on her hands and knees, coughing and gasping for air. She didn’t bother to look up. She didn’t need to see his face to know who he was. Or what he was capable of.

James Nua. She would have recognized those imprints anywhere.

“Look what we have here.” His words came out like a growl, mingling with the choral voices of the echo he carried. “Bet you didn’t expect to see me again.” He squatted down in front of her, forcing Violet to look directly at him. She cringed, unable to tear her gaze away from the slithering black marks that wriggled beneath his skin, shifting around the permanent ink on his face and neck. He’d shaved his head since she’d seen him at the jail just three days ago. It was smooth now, clean, and the swirling echo snaked over his skull now too.

Unsteadily, Violet struggled to her feet. “Why are you here?” she squeaked out, her throat barely making room for her words. “What do you want from me?”

He rose too, matching her movements so that his mouth remained just inches from hers. So close that Violet could feel his sticky breath. So close she was certain he could taste her fear. “I came here to find you.” One of his black brows slashed upward. “And you made it so easy,” he sneered. “Not that many White Rivers around. My boys and I, we were able to track you down like . . .
that
.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face, and Violet flinched.

Her heart hammered recklessly as she struggled to think of a way out of this. Tried to decide
if
there was a way out. “Why m-me? Wh-what did I do?”

“I think you know why. I think you should stop asking stupid questions.” His jaw flexed and Violet could see him gritting his teeth, could feel the unrestrained fury oozing from him in viscous waves. “I think you should stop pissing me off by lying.” His fist shot out without warning, and Violet was thrown backward by the powerful blow. Her cheek just below her left eye exploded with shattering pain, and her vision blurred as she crashed to the ground behind her. “I don’t know what you told them, or what you think you saw, but you don’t know shit.” Violet barely had time to catch her breath before he’d taken a long stride and his foot was flying toward her. Instinctively, she rolled away from him, but he was fast, and she felt the toe of his shoe graze her hip.

“S-stop . . .
please
,” she begged, her face in her hand, her cheek throbbing savagely. “I didn’t see anything! I swear.” It wasn’t a lie, not really.

“Then what? Did you hear her? Did you hear that dumb bitch screaming for her life?” A sadistic grin broke over his face. A depraved and sinister grin. Violet felt sick as his voice dropped. “Did you hear her screaming for the lives of her babies?” Violet tried to shake her head, to tell him no, she hadn’t heard anything, but he was already reaching for her, grabbing a fistful of her hair. He yanked her so hard that her neck felt like it had snapped as he lifted her so her face was even with his. “Do you know how much trouble you caused me? You should’ve kept your fucking mouth shut!” Spittle sprayed from his lips as he cursed her, his face red with rage. “I’m’a gonna kill you, bitch.”

And then he was dragging her by her hair, away from the mouth of the alleyway into the shadows beyond, where no one would see them. Violet struggled, her fingernails digging into the pavement, trying to find something, anything, to grab on to.

She believed what he’d said about killing her, and she was desperate to find a way to stop him. When he threw her down behind a pile of wooden pallets covered with broken-down cardboard boxes, her entire body was shaking, her fingertips bloodied and raw. She desperately hoped that the haunting chorus of echoes he carried wasn’t about to become the eerie backdrop to her death.

He loomed over her, wearing an expression that made her blood freeze.

She was no longer thinking when she kicked out at him, operating in pure survival mode now. She put every ounce of strength she had into her legs, and she was rewarded when she felt his kneecap grind beneath her foot. When she heard him gasp sharply, practically a scream, Violet scrambled to her hands and knees, realizing she still had a chance.

“Help!” she shrieked, running—stumbling, really—away from James Nua. “
Please
 . . . someone help me!” But her voice was splintered, too soft and too frail.

And then the other sound was back, the thumping resonance of bass.

But she couldn’t run fast enough, and she shrieked as she was jerked from behind, caught by her own hood when James Nua snagged it, hauling her backward.

Violet fell, squeezing her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to watch the creeping black vines that crawled beneath James Nua’s skin as he stood above her.

It was then that she heard the soft click in front of her face, and felt the whoosh of air just beneath her nose.

And she did look. Unable to stop herself.

Nua held up a knife, a switchblade with a polished steel blade for her to see. His lips twisted into a menacing snarl as he touched the tip of it to Violet’s neck, just below her left ear, and traced a fiery path along her jawline. She could feel the drag of the blade, the smooth metal sliding over her skin. If she moved—if she breathed—he might very well cut her.

“You fuck with me . . .
I . . . fuck . . . with . . . you
.” His voice was low and he dragged out each word, each syllable, as his narrowed eyes held hers. She felt his muscles tense and she knew that this was it. “Dumb bitch,” he whispered.

A gunshot rent the air, making Violet jump, and she felt the point of the knife prick her skin. Above her, James Nua went rigid, his eyes widening as he released her jacket and she fell back. He stood there for moment, confusion contorting his features as he struggled to sort through what had just happened. And then his mouth opened and he released a gut-wrenching, ear-shattering howl of half pain, half rage.

Like Nua, Violet’s brain moved too slowly. But she seized her opportunity to escape. She was on her back, and she scooted away from him, stumbling awkwardly over her own hands and feet as she crawled as far from him as she could manage. As she did, as she pressed herself against the concrete wall, she started to make sense of everything in front of her.

Fresh blood bloomed at James Nua’s side, the stark crimson stain spreading against the white of his T-shirt. He let go of the knife as he clutched his wound with both hands, his eyes incredulous, his face contorting with pain.

“Stay where you are!” Sara ordered from the alley that opened onto the street, and Violet could see that her gun was aimed directly at James Nua now.

Violet watched recognition dawn on his face as pain contorted into undisguised fury. With effort, he staggered to his feet.

“I said
stay where you are
!” Sara yelled again, taking a cautious step closer.

Nua just grinned at her, but even from where she stood, Violet could see the beads of sweat prickling across his forehead.

Violet remained still, watching Sara’s approach. Relief unfurled within her, but she was shaking all over and her teeth chattered violently.

Behind Sara, the music drew closer, and Violet’s stomach tightened. It came upon them slowly, and Violet blinked as she turned to the street beyond the alleyway. It was moving far too deliberately.

As the nose of the car came into view, the resonating bass pounded so loudly that Violet could feel it beneath her feet. Sara was watching it too, positioning herself so she could keep Nua in her sights while never losing sight of the big red car. She kept her gun aimed at Nua’s grinning face.

It was like a scene out of a movie. Violet saw the boys, both with the same tribal-like tattoos as James Nua’s. Neither looked old enough to be driving. One kept his hand on the steering wheel while pointing his gun down the alleyway. The other boy sat higher, perched in the passenger-side window frame, leaning over the roof of the car, his gun directed right at them. As if on cue, both boys began firing at once.

Sara’s training was evident, and she moved like lightning. She dropped to the ground and was firing back before Violet could even breathe. Violet pressed herself as close to the ground as she could, covering the back of her head with her hands. She didn’t need police training to know that lifting her head was a bad idea.

The rapid bursts of gunfire lasted mere seconds before Violet heard the peal of tires. And then there was silence.

Violet knew, even without looking, that James Nua had gone. She knew she was safe, at least for now. His imprints were nowhere near her.

But he could still come back,
Violet thought, shuddering.

Yet that wasn’t why she stayed where she was, her face pressed against the filthy blacktop beneath her, breathing in dirt and oil, and letting pebbles grind into the swelling flesh of her cheek. She stayed there straining, trying to feel for new echoes . . .

. . . not yet ready to know if Sara had survived.

Because if she hadn’t, that meant Rafe had just lost his sister too.