Vibrations (27 page)

“Oh, he’s here. You’ll see him
soon enough. I have some things I have to figure out first.”

She wasn’t sure if she should
act sympathetic or tough, but she wanted to keep him talking. “Why didn’t you
kill me? Is it just children you like to kill?” The last sentence was dripping
with derision and she added a smirk to show she wasn’t scared.

He sat up straight on the edge
of the couch and leaned toward her. “I don’t enjoy my job. It’s just something
I have to do. But don’t worry. I’ll have no problem killing you when it’s time.
And I think I’ll even enjoy it. You’ve really been a problem for me. Snooping
around everyone. You should have taken the message and gotten out while you
still could.”

“I was just doing my job,” she
said shrugging. “It wasn’t personal. I did it to help find the kids. That’s
what I do.” Whitney decided to try to get on common ground. “I guess we’re both
just doing our jobs.”

He didn’t say anything so
Whitney continued.

“I get paid for what I do. What
to you get out of this?”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s not
always about the mighty dollar.”

“Oh, I see,” she said bracing
herself for his anger as she made the next comment. “You get off on this stuff.”

“Shut up!” He stood up and
walked toward her. “You have no idea how important this is and it’s none of
your business.” He slapped her hard across the face. “You’re not here to learn
my life story. Tell me about your psychic powers.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you what you
want to know. First, tell me if the boy is alive and what happened to Nick.”

“The boy is fine, for now. He’s
sleeping,” he said smiling, the movement barely noticeable behind the ski mask.
“I can’t say the same for your boyfriend. I left him bleeding to death back on
the mountain. Hey, that’s the first grown-up I’ve killed.” He chuckled to
himself and walked back to the couch.

Whitney was trying to keep her
mind open to his thoughts, but he was still blocking her. He was probably
psychotic or had some other mental condition that made it hard to interrupt his
vibrations. She could feel his anger and frustration, but now she could tell he
was happy with himself. He referred to Nick as a grown-up in a way that told
her he didn’t include himself in that group yet, even though he was physically
an adult.

“Okay, I answered your
questions. Now talk. Tell me all you can about your powers.” He leaned back on
the couch and crossed his legs as if he were a student waiting for an
interesting lecture.

“It’s not something you can
learn to do. You have to be born with the ability. I didn’t know I had it until
I was about eight.” Whitney paused. She wasn’t going to tell him about her own
trauma. That might excite him even more.

“My parents didn’t think it was
good for me to tell anyone about it, so I tried to hide it. When I turned
eighteen, I started experimenting with using it to help others.”

“Enough about your life,” he
said sweeping his hand down in a slicing motion. “Tell me how it works.”

Whitney gave him her practiced
educational version. “All life is made up of energy. We have it in our bodies
and it radiates from us. Some people can see it in the aura surrounding people
and animals. The aura is an energy field that can actually be photographed
under the right conditions. The energy produced by our thoughts and feelings
moves in waves, although that isn’t easily seen by technology. It’s similar to
the way sound waves move. Your ear picks up the sound waves and your brain
interprets them. I have the ability to feel the vibrations given off by emotion
and thought and interpret them. Sometimes I just get feelings or images, and
other times I can…”

“Read minds?” He was sitting on
the edge of the couch now, obviously excited by the discussion.

“I hear thoughts. I can’t read
everything in a person’s mind. I can only get the thoughts that are most
powerful, most energized at that moment. Somehow my brain turns the waves into
something I can understand.”

The man sat quietly
contemplating what she had said. Whitney took advantage of the moment to reach
out and try to find Nick. She was feeling weak from the ordeal, and from
absorbing the man’s negative energy. Normally she would block herself from
taking it in, but she had to try to figure him out. She let her eyes droop as
if she was just tired and opened her mind out past the cabin.

“Hey, what are you doing?” The
masked man shouted, jumping to his feet. She could hear the anger in his voice.
He wasn’t disguising it this time but she still couldn’t place the voice.

“I’m just tired. I’m resting my
eyes. Could I get a glass of water?” She tried to sound even weaker than she
felt.

“No,” he said sharply, sitting
back down. “Let’s continue this discussion. Can you read my mind?”

Whitney hadn’t been able to sense
Nick. Maybe he had gone back for help. She wasn’t ready to consider any other
possibilities
.
She would not give up hope. She looked up at her captor
and answered his question.

“Some people have the ability
to block me. They can shield their mind so that the vibrations can’t be read,
or they are distorted.” She added silently to herself, “Especially crazy
people.”

“If you touch me could
you read my mind better?” He stood and stepped closer.

“No, it doesn’t work
that way.” The truth was it might help her read him but she didn’t want him to
know that.

“Don’t lie to me bitch!” he
shouted. “I’ve read about this stuff.”

“Well, it works that way for
some people, but not for me,” she answered meekly. Maybe it was time to change
tactics.

“Did you know I was in the cave
with the boy? Tell me the truth.” He was pacing now, getting excited about the
direction of the discussion.

“At first I did,” she admitted.
“Then I thought you had left. I couldn’t get much. Just a feeling there was
another person, then it went away.”

He twirled around and slapped
his hands together. “I knew it. I did it.” He turned to face her. “I blocked
you. I learned how to meditate, and then I just cleared my mind and you
couldn’t tell I was there. Cool huh?”

“I didn’t know you could do
that.” Whitney was lying again. The FBI had worked on teaching their agents the
same tactics. It didn’t always work. If someone was good enough at it, it made
it more difficult for anyone to read his or her thoughts.

“Maybe you can teach me how to
do that,” she asked as if totally enthralled by his methods.

“I don’t think so,” he laughed.
“I’m not stupid you know. You won’t be needing any new abilities where you’re
going. Just keep coming up with new information for me and I might just keep
you alive…for a little longer.” He laughed again and left the room.

Whitney’s slumped back against
the chair but the ropes bit harder into her arms. She tried to get comfortable
by moving her arms in closer to her body.

“Nick! Nick where are you?”
She
searched with her mind and prayed at the same time. “Please don’t let him be
dead.” Tears started rolling down her face and her body started trembling. So
this was it. All these years of getting close to killers, and this would be the
one to end it. “I’m so sorry Nick. I shouldn’t have let you close. I’m sorry.”
Whitney quietly sobbed until the stress and exhaustion overcame her again
and she fell into a restless sleep.

Nick woke feeling cold and
weak. He must have been unconscious for a while because the sun was already
going down. His arm didn’t hurt as much now. He tried to sit up and take
inventory. He had lost a lot of blood, but the bleeding had stopped. The first
shot had gone clean through his arm. The second shot went into his lower leg
and didn’t come out. Thank goodness no arteries had been hit. He would have
bled to death in minutes.

Agent Hollerman would know they
were missing by now. They hadn’t called to check in for more than twelve hours.
They were going east yesterday, so they would be looking in that direction. Unfortunately,
they had turned north this morning, and they wouldn’t know that. His first
objective was to get back to the radio, and then to find Whitney.

He tore off his shirt and tied
up the wound on his arm so it wouldn’t start bleeding again. The pain triggered
more nausea as he applied pressure. He made a sling out of the rest of the
shirt, and tied his arm in place. His leg was burning, but he could walk on it.
Still feeling cold and shaky, he was afraid he would go back into shock if he
tried to walk to far.

“I have to help Whitney,” he
said in a whisper. “Can’t fail.” He gritted his teeth and started back toward
the cave. His vision blurred and he had to rest after a few feet. His legs felt
like rubber and he was having difficulty ignoring his thirst.

When he finally made it up the
mountain, he saw the packs tossed around at the entrance. If the shooter was
lying in wait for him, this would make the perfect spot for an ambush. He sat
by the packs and waited.

Not hearing a sound he started
rummaging through the packs, hoping the killer had left him for dead. Thankfully
he found a water bottle that hadn’t rolled down the slope when the packs were
dumped. Still on constant alert, he downed some trail mix that had been stuffed
in a side pocket. It stuck in his throat but he forced it down with more water.
“Blood loss,” he thought to himself. “Need iron and fluids.”
He searched
for the high protein bars that had the most iron and found them under some
other supplies. He ate one while stuffing the rest in his pockets.

“Orange juice. I think that
helps.”
He wasn’t sure, but they always made you drink orange juice
after giving blood. Too bad that wasn’t in their supplies.

He managed to get himself into
some warmer clothes, and make a better sling. Now he had to get Whitney. The
climb up the mountain had taken a long time. He was extremely weak and at the
same time, he was trying to be quiet. He crouched as low as he could with a bad
arm, and eased himself toward to opening of the cave. His eyes searched the
mountain for the signs of their struggle. The radio wasn’t there. Whitney was
gone. He remembered his gun and slowly moved back down the mountain.

“I’m not thinking right.”
He
took a deep breath and tried to clear his head. Charging in there unarmed wasn’t
a great idea. He turned back down the mountain to find the gun, but what if the
killer had already found it? Nick picked his way down trying to remember the
path he had taken. He remembered running and then falling. He searched the
field and kept his eyes on the mountain. All that dodging and weaving to avoid
being shot made it hard to remember. What if Whitney was still alive and he was
wasting time looking for his gun?

“
What good will it do if
I can’t get to her in time? The killer probably took it already,” he muttered
as he kept his eyes searching the ground for clues. His foot stepped into a
hole and he almost fell. It looked like the same hole that had tripped him up
last time. Nick dropped to his knees and searched the ground with his good
hand.

“Yes! I can’t believe he left
it.”
His hand felt the sun baked steel at the same time he saw it. Why
hadn’t the killer bothered to take it? “Maybe he just thinks I’m dead,” he told
himself making a prayer out of it in the same breath. “Whitney, I’m coming.”

He stopped and thought about
Whitney. If she was alive, she might be able to hear his thoughts. “Whitney! Whitney,
I’m here! Hold on.” He heard nothing in response.

He climbed back toward the cave
and held the gun with his left hand. Ears and eyes on high alert he ducked into
the dark opening, stopping for a moment to let his eyes adjust. Treading
lightly and slowly through the dark he slid against the rocks to find his way. When
he felt the walls opening up he froze. This was the room where he’d found the
boy. The killer could be sitting right there in the dark waiting for him. He
slowed his breathing and listened.

“Whitney?” He didn’t make a
sound, but he was shouting in his head. “Are you here?” No answer. His heart raced
as his mind flashed with pictures of what he might find. He could hardly
breathe as he felt his way across the room. She wasn’t there. The room was
empty.

Nick continued to explore the
room looking for anything that would lead him to Whitney. What he found was
another small opening that led to different tunnel. After following it for a
few feet he began to see light coming from the other end. He came out to a
rocky ledge and stared down. They were nowhere to be seen. Nick sat down and
leaned his back against the edge of the cave. He had to think. Where would he
take her and where was the boy?

He lowered himself from the
ledge and landed in the brush below. His pulse quickened when he saw the ATV
tracks. Now he knew how the killer was getting around and he had something to
follow. If they were already dead, the killer would have just left them in the
cave. What did that psycho want with Whitney? Since it would be dark soon, he
followed the trail as fast as he could go. After leaving the mountain he
followed it a few miles into the woods, and then he had to stop. The trail
converged with three or more ATV trails. He couldn’t tell which one the killer
had taken.

The emotions of the day boiled
up and he couldn’t hold it back any longer. His shoulders shook as he started
silently weeping. He had failed her. “No,” he told himself. “She’s not dead
yet. I would know it.” He sat down and wiped away the tears. “Whitney,” he
yelled in his head, “can you hear me?” As soon as he got enough strength back
he would pick a trail and go looking for her.

* * * *

Whitney woke hearing Nick
shouting her name. She looked around for him, but he wasn’t there. She was
still in the cabin, tied to a chair. She had fallen asleep again and had
probably been dreaming.