by Blake Pierce
Laura was no numerologist, but that was a lot of twelves. Surely more twelves than was usually expected to be a coincidence.
If the latest victim – who she hadn’t seen, not in the slightest, not even to get a glimpse of them – was already set up on a platform at twelve noon, then she would die at twelve midnight. Over seven hours after the vision Laura had seen. Tonight? Laura checked her watch. It was almost three, now.
Almost three – and that was odd. It had been only a couple of minutes past the hour, according to the clock. Normally, when Laura’s visions struck, they caused a corresponding pain in her head. The more severe the headache, the sooner the thing was going to happen.
So…
Not three, today?
Three, tomorrow?
“We should get going to the victims’ families,” Nate said, and Laura realized with a start that he and Blackford were already striding out of the morgue. She hurried after them, attempting to keep up and pass off her hesitation as a moment of thought and nothing more. “We need to talk to them, find out if there’s any possibly link between the two of them. Laura, you good to drive again?”
“Of course,” Laura nodded, managing to fall back into stride with them as they moved to leave the room and go out to the parking lot.
Three, today, she decided. Her visions had seemed to change in the past. She didn’t truly know what rules governed them, or what things might affect them. Maybe she had a weaker headache because there was a lower possibility that she could do anything about the vision’s outcome, given that it was happening so soon, and she was so far off from knowing anything about the killer yet. Maybe it was because she’d had a nutritious breakfast, or because she was in a good place with Lacey and Nate and her outlook was happier. She had no idea how it all worked.
It wasn’t as though she’d been born with an instruction manual, as much as she wished she had.
So, she had to assume it was happening now. That the victim was already out there, waiting to be found. She had to. She couldn’t risk assuming otherwise, in case someone was going to die, and it was all her fault for not feeling rushed enough.
“I’ll give you the addresses,” Blackford said, dismissively, as they emerged into the cold winter sun again. It did little to dispel the chill from Laura’s bones. “I’m needed back at the station.”
“Fine,” Nate said. “Let’s go see Veronica Rowse’s family first. Right, Laura?”
“Sure,” Laura said, because it was as good a place as any to start. The locals must have already spoken to the Marchall family, given that Stephanie Marchall was found a few days ago. Might as well go over new ground before ground that was already covered. They needed to find a clue, and it was going to be easier to find one there.
And they needed to find a connection to the number twelve – because if they didn’t, the chances of the person on that platform dying would increase as the day wore on.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nate glanced at Laura from the side of his eye as they drove, the GPS showing that they were pretty close to the Rowse household. She looked calm. A little tense, but that was normal for a case.
Normal – that was how she looked, Nate decided. Like nothing had happened. As if the last two cases, and all the arguments they’d had, had disappeared into the ether.
It should have reassured him, but if anything, it worried him even more.
“You feeling okay?” he asked, casually, keep his gaze ahead as if it was just small talk. He caught the way she darted a glance at him, though, the surprised and uncertain movement of her head.
“Yeah,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Because last night, you told me you were seeing psychic visions.
Nate didn’t say it out loud. He was trying to tread carefully. This whole thing was so strange, and he wasn’t sure he had his head wrapped around all the intricacies of it, yet.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Guess we just saw some dead bodies. That’s not usually a very nice thing to experience.”
“Oh, yeah,” Laura said, shrugging. “I’m fine. You? You looked a little peaky, in there.”
Nate grunted a little, low in his throat. He’d been trying to keep that a little more under wraps. “I just don’t like the feeling of it, sometimes. Like we’re looking at these people’s bodies. I don’t think they would have enjoyed it, if they knew.”
“It’s good that they don’t,” Laura said, softly, pulling up outside a small family home with two cars parked outside already. It was clear that everyone had gathered around, having only just heard the news of Veronica’s passing themselves. Which was both a good thing, and a bad thing, in Nate’s experience.
Good, because they could talk to everyone at once. Bad, because everyone was going to want to stick their oar in – even the people who weren’t relevant.
“Let’s go in, then,” Laura said, with a sigh, opening the driver’s side door. Nate nodded, moving to get out of his own side. He couldn’t help his mind drifting back to the whole psychic thing.
It was so weird. It was like she’d come up with the most unbelievable explanation, and yet the one that fit all the facts the most neatly.
She did know things, he thought, watching the back of her head as she walked up the path in front of him, her blonde ponytail swinging from side to side. She did seem to figure things out before other people could, to know what was going to happen and where the killers or victims in their cases would be. But that was…
Well, it was one thing to say that someone had expert knowledge. That they had a lot of experience in this kind of investigation combined with a natural talent allowing them to figure things out. Or even that they had people to talk to, shady underworld people who could give them tip-offs and inform on their colleagues in crime. Claiming that they were psychic was another thing altogether. It was ridiculous. Psychics, mediums, clairvoyants – they didn’t exist. It was all old wives’ tales and con artistry, wrapped together in a nice, neat package to take financial advantage of anyone who was grieving enough to believe them. He’d come across psychics before – most cops or law enforcement officers involved in big cases had. They’d come out of the woodwork when someone was missing or a body couldn’t be found, trying to claim that they knew where to find them.
Almost all the time, it was a load of bunk. Sometimes someone would make a lucky guess, and then on interrogation it would turn out they actually knew a lot more about the case than they’d let on. Cold reading and investigative journalism, combined with a healthy knowledge of your given city’s underworld, could bring you all kinds of hints.
But actual psychic powers? No. There was no way Nate believed in that. Just like he didn’t believe Laura now, and for all the same reasons.
Laura knocked on the front door of the property decisively, the kind of loud knock that couldn’t be ignored by the people inside. She seemed fine. She had seemed fine for the whole case so far, actually. If anything, she was in slightly better spirits – probably, he thought, because she had that visit with Lacey to look forward to. She was racing ahead every time they had to get somewhere, like she wanted this solved so she could get home. He didn’t blame her for that.
But if she really believed what she’d told him last night…
Of course, she’d said this morning that she was over it. That she’d come to her senses. But you would say that, wouldn’t you? If someone greeted you with skepticism and told you that you needed help? Especially if you were an FBI agent like Laura, who knew what could happen to people with mental health issues.
The kind of powers that could be brought to bear until they were healthy again.
If she was sectioned, she’d be taken away from her daughter.
It was an unsettling thought, and one that Nate was grateful not to have to consider any longer when the front door opened.
The person behind it was a balding man in perhaps his sixties, mostly gray-haired in what little remained and bulging a little at the wa
ist. He had a downcast, grim look to his face, like he was trying to come to grips with a terrible truth.
“Mr. Rowse?” Nate guessed. He had to be the father.
“Yes?” the man replied, his gaze sweeping across them expectantly. He didn’t seem terribly surprised to see a pair of strangers on his doorstep. After the first visit from the police early this morning, he was probably just waiting for more news to come.
“I’m Special Agent Laura Frost,” she said, holding up her badge. Nate followed her lead. “This is my partner, Special Agent Nathaniel Lavoie. We’d like to speak to you for a few moments, if we can. We’re investigating what happened to your daughter.”
“Her death,” Mr. Rowse said, a sadness spreading through the words that seemed to soak through him like water through a sponge. “You can say it.”
“Yes, sir,” Laura replied, softly.
“Come in, then,” he said, with a certain amount of resignation.
There was a living room inside the first door in the hall, though Nate could barely make out anything more than the fact that there were a couple of battered sofas and a television in one corner. The room was filled with far too many people, particularly after Mr. Rowse had walked in to join them. He sat down heavily on the one vacant spot.
Beside him was a similarly-aged woman who must have been Veronica’s mother – even in death, he could recall the shape of the lips and nose of the body and compare them exactly against this woman’s features. There were also two brothers, judging by the resemblance to their father, and a couple of women who might have been their wives. Two small children, too, who were playing on the floor, seemingly totally unaware of what was going on around them.
“Hello,” Nate said, which seemed to be about the most appropriate thing he could think of at that moment.
Everyone looked at him, and no one said a thing.
Laura cleared her throat awkwardly, which prompted Mr. Rowse to speak up on their behalf.
“These are the FBI agents they were sending,” he said, glumly.
His wife patted his hand, silently.
“That’s right,” Laura said, glancing sideways at Nate before seemingly taking charge of the situation. “We have a few questions to ask. It could be a little complicated if we have everyone chipping in – can we ask that just those who knew Veronica the best stay? We’ll need to ask about her day-to-day life, her background, and so on.”
There was some general shifting in the room. One of the brothers, the older one by the look of him, spoke up first. “I’ll take the kids to the backyard,” he said. “I haven’t been around much the last few years, anyway.”
“Right, same here. I’ll go with you, honey,” one of the women said – and after a few moments of awkward shuffling to let people out of the room, Laura and Nate were down to just the parents and one brother.
“Okay,” Laura said, taking out a notebook and standing at the front of the room, facing them. It was awkward not to be able to sit, but it was going to have to do. Nate stood beside her, resisting the urge to put his hands in his pockets or cross his arms over his chest. He wasn’t sure what else to do with them, so he dug his own notebook out of his inner jacket pocket, just for something to hold. “First of all, let us just express how very sorry we are for your loss.”
“Absolutely,” Nate added. “We understand that the circumstances of our meeting today couldn’t be worse. But your cooperation is very much appreciated. We’re doing whatever we can to bring whoever did this to justice.”
“You don’t know who it was, yet?” the brother asked, lifting his eyes. He looked angry. That was a fairly common reaction among grieving relatives.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” Nate asked.
“Stephen,” he said. “Steve.”
“Steve, we’re still chasing down leads at the moment. How much have the local police told you?”
“Just that she was found dead in an abandoned warehouse,” Mr. Rowse said. There was a hitch in his voice as he continued. “Hung,” he said. “But she wasn’t… she didn’t do it to herself. Someone did it to her. That’s what he said.”
“That’s correct,” Laura said softly. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we’re also investigating another death which happened in similar circumstances. We have reason to believe that the two killings are related.”
“There’s some kind of murderer out there?” Stephen asked furiously. “Someone’s murdering people, and they got my sister?”
“It looks that way at the present moment,” Nate said, putting as much respectful regret into his voice as he could. “But at this time, we’re not yet sure whether the two deaths are connected in more ways than that. What we need to do is to establish whether there was any link between your Veronica and our other victim, or whether there was anyone in Veronica’s life who might have had reason to want to hurt her.”
“We already told the other officer,” Mrs. Rowse spoke up, her voice wavering and sniffy. “She didn’t have any problems. She was just a normal person. She didn’t have enemies or anything like that.”
“She was unmarried?” Laura asked, waiting with her pen poised above the empty page of her notebook. She seemed so in control. Like she was handling everything just fine. Nate had to wonder, though, what signs he’d missed before.
“Yes, that's right,” Mr. Rowse said, staring at an indeterminant point in the carpet. Nate could see how the man was probably picturing his daughter, the life she could have had. The life that had been cut short so cruelly. It wasn’t a feeling he could completely relate to, not being a father himself – but he knew how bad it would feel to lose a sister. Sometimes, he wondered if his inability to keep a relationship with a woman going was something to do with all the death he’d seen. The fear of losing someone that you loved so much. “Never did quite get round to finding her Mr. Right, did she, love?”
Out in the hallway, a door opened and closed. “No,” Mrs. Rowse said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue again. “Though we thought that Bradley had a bit of potential, didn't we? She didn't let us meet him, before.”
“Why not?” Nate asked, his interest piqued. This could be a potential lead. The statistics of the number of murders carried out by people who knew the victim, and particularly by romantic partners, spoke for themselves.
“It was all a bit new,” said a new voice from the hallway.
Laura and Nate both turned at the same time, relying on their whip fast reaction speeds to assess the direction of the newcomer, and whether or not they were a threat. The man framed in the doorway, holding a plastic carrier bag in his hand, looked to be in his early to mid-thirties. He was dressed casually, in a dark sweatshirt over jeans, and he had the same tired, haggard look that the rest of the family wore.
“That's Bradley,” Stephen said, with a hint of animosity.
Nate took this in, weighed it carefully. He thought about his own sister, who he was always very protective of. When she brought home new boyfriends, he often reacted the same way. Like they were an impostor, someone who needed to be kept an eye on. Someone who might turn out to be dangerous. Of course, he had the usual fear that big brothers did: that his sister might get her heart broken. But at the same time, he knew enough from being an FBI agent to know that sometimes, just having a broken heart would be a lucky getaway.
The question was, what kind of suspicion was it that caused Stephen to look at Bradley that way? The normal kind of brotherly suspicion, or something more?
“I've just been to the store for some tea supplies,” Bradley said, hefting his bag. He walked in, setting it down on the coffee table, having to step between Laura and Nate as he did so. Then he hesitated, awkwardly, like he didn’t know where he was supposed to fit in this tableau of family.
“How did the two of you meet?” Laura asked, which Nate knew was just her way of exploring the situation and starting to get an idea of exactly how Bradley felt about his deceased girlfriend. It wasn't necessarily in the w
ords he said, but in the tone, the body language. Even the look on his face. These things could give away more than a person realized.
“We both work at the hospice,” Bradley said. “We're both nurses. Days are long, you end up spending a lot of time in the break room if you can. We've been talking for a long while, but it was only recently that it became anything more than that.”
“She used to talk about you all the time,” Mrs. Rowse said sadly. “I wasn't at all surprised when it came out you had been out for a drink together. I started to get really excited for her. I thought...” Her voice trailed off, leaving unspoken the story of what might have been. Nate saw how her shoulders seemed to droop, further at that.
“Have you been able to think of anyone that might want to harm Veronica?” Laura asked. “Perhaps there's someone from work, or a friend you had in common? A family member of someone from the hospice?”
“No,” Bradley said, shaking his head mournfully. He looked tired and almost deflated, like he’d had all of the life sucked out of him over the past twenty-four hours. “And I don't know if she would have told me, not yet. We were only just getting started, like I said. There are things that you tell your long-term partner you wouldn't tell a friend, or even someone brand new. She didn't seem to be afraid, or to have any worries or fears in the last few weeks. I've been going over it in my head, trying to remember everything she said to me. But there was never anyone like that, not that I can think of.”
“That's very helpful,” Nate said, nodding. It was always good to encourage people in these situations, rather than just firing questions at them without pause. It made them feel like they were being interrogated, and then sometimes they would clam up. “So, to summarize, none of you can think of anything that might point to the reason why Veronica in particular was singled out?”
“No,” Stephen said, and the others shook their heads in agreement, and Nate studied them.
The parents were crushed. Stephen was angry at the world, at the killer, but not anyone in particular. It wasn't the kind of anger that he'd seen in violent criminals. It was a kind of hurt, defensive anger, the anger of a man who had not been able to protect his little sister and knew it. As for Bradley, he just looked like he was in an uncomfortable situation, dealing with something very sad among strangers. That would have been difficult for anyone to deal with, and Nate bought everything he was saying.