Night Vision

by Maggie Shayne

  His eyes turned distant, pain-filled.

  “And that’s why you took care of us, stepped into Dad’s shoes the way you did,” Sam said. “It was guilt.”

  “And you’re gonna make the same mistake now that you thought you’d made then, Ed. Because I don’t even know what’s in this file, and neither does Megan.”

  He lifted his brows. “You really don’t know?”

  Megan could see Sam trying to inch his hand toward his gun. But he couldn’t do it with the other man’s eyes on him.

  “Oh, come on, Sam,” she said. “You can guess, can’t you?” The chief turned his attention her way. “Skinner is the man who’s been raping and murdering girls in town. And I suspect he was doing it long before the police realized they had a serial killer on their hands. He knew someone was onto him when I phoned the police with that tip on where the next body would be found.”

  “I still don’t believe you have any so-called psychic powers. But I had to find out for sure,” Skinner said.

  “So you assigned Sam to get close to me, try to find out how much I really did know and how I knew it. That way you could keep an eye on both of us.”

  “None of this is relevant,” Skinner said. He swung his gaze back to Sam’s, held out his free hand. “Give me the file, Sam.”

  Sam held it out. Skinner reached for it and seemed to realize at that moment that Sam’s gun was no longer in its holster. “Don’t, Sam!”

  Skinner lifted his own gun higher, even as Sam brought his around from behind his back. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, barrels pointing, fingers squeezing, shots exploding, muzzles flashing.

  Megan launched herself, hitting Skinner in the side just as his gun went off, so that he stumbled and fell. Rolling onto his back, he turned his weapon on her.

  “No!” Sam shouted.

  Skinner’s gun bucked in his hand. The shot exploded in a deafening roar, and Megan felt the blaze of red hot metal slice through her midsection; she doubled over at the impact long before she felt the pain. She lifted her head, shocked, stunned. Skinner was taking aim, would have shot her again if not for the shot Sam fired that made the chief’s head snap backward, leaving a neat hole between his eyes. His body went lax, his arm and gun dropping to the floor, and then he was still.

  “For the love of God, what’s going on?” someone cried. Megan heard feet crashing through the house, female voices crowding around her. But Sam was her only focus. He knelt beside her, his face stricken.

  “Megan, hold on.” Without looking away from her he told his mother, grandmother, whoever was within earshot, to call nine-one-one. “Tell them there’s an officer down,” he said. “It’s the truth, and it’ll get them here faster.” He added that last with a meaningful look at Skinner.

  Then he was leaning over her again, holding a hand to her belly, where she felt warmth and pulsing wetness. “Don’t leave me, Megan. Hold on.”

  She smiled softly, staring up at him. “Guess I was another one-night stand after all, huh?”

  "Not by a long shot.” He held her desperately. “Megan, you have to know I wasn’t pretending. Not from the first second I set eyes on you. What's between us is real.”

  Her hand closed around his. “I know that, Sam.”

  “The curse is lifted,” Lily said in her raspy voice, from somewhere nearby. “The girl broke it, exposed it, took it upon herself.”

  “There was never any curse," Sam said. "Skinner killed Dad.”

  “And would have killed you, too, if not for this woman and her gift.” She knelt on Megan’s other side. “Bless you, child.”

  Meg smiled, shifting her gaze from the old woman’s back to Sam’s again. “Finally did something important with my abilities. Finally got someone to believe me.”

  “Yeah. And I will never, ever doubt you or your visions, Meg. I promise.” He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers, and she kissed him back until the darkness swallowed her up.

  Epilogue

  Megan was in the darkness, and it occurred to her that she might be dead. Oddly, she felt no terrible grief or resistance to that idea. She had reached one of the most important goals of her life. She’d understood, at last, why she had been given these powers, and what earthly use they could be to anyone. They had been useful. Vital. They had saved an entire family, broken a curse, of sorts, solved a string of murders, prevented who knew how many other women from being victimized by Ed Skinner. And maybe kept Sam Sheridan from an early death. God, that was worth everything, wasn’t it?

  He believed in her, in her gift. So did his grandmother.

  That was all she had ever wanted. Validation. Respect. And the chance to use her gift for something good.

  “I love you, Megan.”

  No, not love. She’d never asked for that. Just to be believed, just to be useful, just–

  “Do you hear me? I love you. I’ve never said that to a woman before, and I’m not about to lose the only one. I want you back. I want you to stay with me. Always.”

  Sensation seemed to return by degrees. She became aware of a warm, strong hand holding hers. And she opened her eyes and stared up into a pair of familiar, loving ones.

  “There you are,” Sam whispered. “You gonna stick around, then?”

  “I think so.”

  He squeezed her hand, and a vision flashed, making her suck in a breath and close her eyes, just briefly.

  He frowned at her, his face filled with worry. “What is it, honey? What are you seeing?”

  She drew her brows together, wondering if she should tell him what she had seen. The two of them in a photo a lot like the ones on his father’s desk, with two little angels standing in front of them, golden ringlets and strawberry curls. A boy and a girl. She smiled and knew she still had a whole lot left to do in this lifetime. “Meg? You gonna tell me what you saw?”

  She blinked and met his eyes, saw the love in them, knew it was going to last. “You parked in a terrible spot. You’re going to get a ding in the Mustang.”

  Sam smiled slowly. “That’s my Megan.”

  “Yours?”

  “Oh, yeah. And I’m not leaving this room, even if someone’s going to total the Mustang.”

  “No?”

  “No. And as long as you’re still having visions. I’d like you to try one on for size. Will you do that for me?”

  “I guess I could try.”

  He nodded, taking both her hands in his. “Look into the future, honey. See if you can make out a long and happy one, one you’ll be spending with me.”

  “I don’t need any psychic skills at all to see that, Sam. If we want it, we can make it happen.”

  “I want it, Megan. Do you?”

  “With all my heart.”

  He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers. “Then that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  THE END

  Continue reading for an extended excerpt

  of Maggie’s new thriller Girl Blue!

  Girl Blue: Chapter 1

  I was waiting, crouched behind his car in the parking lot. It was dark, and there were street lights but no cameras. I’d checked ahead of time. I’d planned this carefully, because I was going to kill him, no matter what. I figured I’d make it as easy as possible.

  He came out of the bar, three sheets to the wind, which would make things so much easier. He listed to one side but tried real hard to stand up straight as he walked around the parking lot, awash in android-blue light, looking for his car. Then he took his key fob out and tapped it. The car beside me unlocked its doors and flashed its headlights. He saw it and smiled like he’d just won the lottery.

  Only he hadn’t won anything. His winning days were over.

  He staggered to the car, opened the driver’s door. I slipped up behind him, silent as a shadow, and jabbed him in the crease of his ass with a perfectly placed needle.

  He spun around like a wobbling top, about to fall over. “What the hell!” and clocked me in the jaw. My head snappe
d sideways. I’d have gone down if I hadn’t caught myself on the roof of his car. I stood ready to take another blow, thinking it would've been worse if he wasn't so drunk and wondering how long the drug would take to kick in.

  He had one hand on his ass where I’d stuck him. His eyes rolled. I grabbed his shirt front, pulled him toward me as I opened the back door of his car. Then I turned him around, because I could not do this looking at him, and shoved him face-first onto the back seat, and then I climbed in after him, right up his back. He was out cold in seconds, not moving. I took the wood-handled garrote from my pocket. I’d made it out of picture-frame wire, several layers twisted together to make it thick, so I wouldn’t accidentally decapitate him. I gagged a little as I put it over his head, and pulled it down between his face and the seat, over his chin to his neck. My inner voice, though it wasn’t really mine, said, Do it. Just do it. There’s no other way. He won’t feel anything. Just do it. You’re so close.

  I pulled the right handle with my left hand, the left handle with my right, so they crossed at his nape. It was awful, what I was doing. My lips pulled back from my teeth with the effort it took–and not just physically. I had to force myself and my self was resisting. Tears filled my eyes. I tried to focus on my watch. It was an old-school watch, not a smart one. A delicate oval, with gold numbers and hands that swept way too slowly around its face. A narrow, delicate, pink leather band. After two minutes, he started to convulse, his body bucking underneath me, just like the internet said he would. I pulled tighter, to hold on, pressing my knees into his back like a cowboy at a rodeo. Terrible sounds started coming from him. Wet, growly, choky sounds. I wiped my wet face against my black, spandex-covered shoulder.

  Just hold on. It’s almost over. It’s better this way. For everyone, even him.

  I didn’t know how many times the second hand had circled, but eventually it felt like it was over. The sounds stopped first, thank God. I’d never get them out of my head, though. Those sounds would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. In silence, the twitching of his body eased, and he finally went still. I looked at my wristwatch and held the wood and wire weapon as tight as I could for three more minutes. My arm muscles were cramping up. My hands hurt despite the thick leather gloves I wore to protect them. Murder was not easy.

  When I was sure he was dead, I let go of the garrote, slid it out from beneath him, and then climbed off him and backed down his body and out of the car. My legs were shaking so hard I wasn’t sure I could stand up. But I did, I stood there beside the open car door, looking in at the man on the back seat.

  I sniffed, backhanded my nose with my black leather glove, forced my gaze away from him to look around. A dozen vehicles, but no people. No witnesses. His keys were on the pavement, so I picked them up. His legs were still sticking out of the car. I bent them at the knees, so I could close the door.

  Then I got behind the wheel, and started the car, noticing for the first time that it was a Jaguar, a newish one. Blue or black, impossible to tell which in the dark.

  I knew exactly where to put him. There was a burlap bag and a shovel already there, waiting.

  I started the car. The radio blasted to life, scaring me so bad my head hit the ceiling before I got hold of myself and snapped the thing off. Then I sat there, gripping the wheel, white-knuckled. I took three long, deep breaths. Okay. I was okay. I put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.

  I was driving through the night with a dead guy in the back seat, shaking all the way to my marrow. This was not me. This was not anything I’d ever imagined myself capable of, not in my wildest dreams.

  Well, maybe in my wildest dreams.

  A congested moan came from the back seat and sent a lightning bolt through my entire being.

  The alarm clock went off like a freaking mind bomb.

  The murderous dream popped like a balloon at a birthday party, showering its deadly latex bits all around me. I sat up fast, blurting an overly loud, “Holy fuck!”

  Mason sprang out of bed, landing in a ready crouch beside it. “What? What?”

  My bulldog picked up her head, blinked sightlessly at me, then lowered it and resumed snoring.

  I looked around our bedroom like I was searching for an explanation. But there were only the soothing green walls and rich walnut trim.

  “Rachel?” Mason turned on the lamp.

  I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. Lingering sparks of murder were still blinking out one by one in my head. I swallowed hard. “I’m okay. Bad dream.”

  “Was it?”

  I met his eyes. “You know me too well.”

  “So? What was it?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Yes, you do. It’s not like it’s the first time a killer took up residence in your head, or you took up residence in his, after all.

  It’s not that, Inner Bitch.

  Then what is it?

  Like I just told Mason, I don’t know yet.

  Yes, you do.

  “You okay?”

  I slid up out of our big bed, planted a big, morning-breathy kiss on his face, and said, “I’d be better with coffee.”

  He smacked my butt and said, “Then coffee you shall have.” He pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that said, DEFINITELY NOT A COP. Yes, I bought it for him. I think it’s hilarious. He only wears it to humor me. What can I say? I got myself a keeper.

  I turned back toward the bed. “Wanna go outside, Myrt?”

  Myrtle did not so much as twitch her ears in reply. “I guess not.” I pulled on my fluffiest robe because it was six a.m. and also September, and went out onto the balcony. It had pretty wrought iron railings and a view of the four-mile-long, mile-wide Whitney Point Reservoir.

  God, I loved seeing. I could spend hours just…seeing. As would, I guessed, anyone who’d spent twenty years of their life blind. I went to the railing and looked at the water. It was a rippled mirror, reflecting rolling hills and blue sky. The air tasted good, but its flavor was shifting. It smelled like back-to-school.

  When Mason returned, he not only had our coffees, but a pair of blankets over his arm. He set the steaming mugs on the railing, and spread the blankets over our bowl-shaped wicker chairs in case there was dew on the cushions. I sank into mine, pulled the blanket around me, and he handed me my mug.

  “You are the perfect man,” I said. “I don’t know if you know it or not, but–”

  “I do know it.” He dropped the second blanket on his chair, but didn’t sit. He stood by the railing like I’d been doing. Only he wasn’t looking, like I had been. He was thinking.

  My man was a bit of a thinker. It was his greatest flaw.

  “You miss Jeremy.” It wasn’t a question.

  He glanced back at me. “I just don’t get living on campus when campus is only thirty minutes away.”

  Three weeks ago, we’d moved Jeremy into his Binghamton University dorm. Mason seemed to think we’d moved him to the moon. “It’s Labor Day weekend, Mace. He’ll probably be back before breakfast and not leave again until Tuesday morning.”

  “Yeah.” He still sounded mopey. “Think we’ll see him this time, or he’ll just drop off his laundry and go hang with his friends?”

  “Wow. Clingy much?”

  “Misty sees more of him than we do.”

  “You’re an uncle. Misty is a girl, and she’s better looking. Plus, she has her aunt’s DNA, so I don’t know how you can blame him. You know the females of the de Luca line are irresistible.”

  He sighed, staring out at the water. I stretched my leg to kick his backside. “That was funny. You didn’t even crack a smile.”

  “Sorry. You’re right. I know.”

  “Kids grow up. It happens. Get over it.”

  “Right. You were the one sniffling all the way home the day we moved him in.”

  “Freaking campus is a pollen pit. Sue me.”

  “You don’t have allergies.”

  “Did that
day.”

  I slid over in my chair, opened my blanket and patted the spot beside me. “BU is lots closer than the police academy, you know. You’d better toughen up by the time Jere heads to Albany.” I was talking a good game, but I was missing Jeremy as much as Mason was. We might only be an uncle and an honorary aunt, but we’d been raising the boys for two years, and they felt like our own kids. Even though I wasn’t nearly old enough for that.

  Mason started to get in with me, then stopped because there was a ping from his PJ pocket. He pulled out his phone and looked at it.

  “I reiterate my opinion,” I said, “that this balcony should be a device-free zone.”

  “No such thing for a cop.” He tapped the screen and said, “What’s up, Rosie?”

  Rosie was his partner. I hoped he was calling to invite us over for a barbecue.

  At six-something a.m?

  Yeah, probably not, I thought in reply to Inner Bitch’s query. I just hope it’s not about what I dreamed.

  But it is. You know that, right?

  I kind of did, but I didn’t want to admit it. Not even to my subconscious Chatty Cathy.

  Mason put the phone back into his pocket, and I’d missed whatever else he’d said. But his face looked more serious than before. “I’ve gotta go. We have a body.”

  I closed my eyes. “A body?”

  “Yeah. Joggers found him off the Rail Trial.”

  I could see the man from my dream in my mind’s eye. A youthful fifty-something, fit, clean shaven, hair so light it was hard to spot the gray unless you were up close to it, with a yellow-orange tint like it had been red once. He had a perfectly bald spot the size of a silver dollar on the back of his head. I’d stared at that spot for an eternity last night.

  A forefinger hooked under my chin. I opened my eyes to see my guy’s worried ones trying to get a peek inside my head. He said, “Anything you need to tell me, Rachel?”

  “Only if he drove a dark-colored Jag and was strangled. Or mostly strangled.”

  “Mostly strangled?”