by Blake Pierce
Laura felt her own heart pounding and constricting oddly, her head swimming. The sound of her heartbeat echoed in her ears. She hadn’t seen the future.
She’d seen the past.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Laura was still reeling as Nate made their goodbyes. She hadn’t even heard whether he’d asked any more questions, or what Stephen might have said in response to them. She was too shaken. Still trying to understand what all of this meant.
She’d never seen the past before. It had always been the future. This was a complete change, a one-eighty, something so far out of left field she had never expected it. And she had no idea what it meant. Why it was happening.
If the foundations had felt shaky before, now they were entirely gone. Laura was falling through quicksand, and she had nothing to hold onto. She followed Nate out of the house numbly, slumping into the passenger seat, able to do nothing but simply stare ahead blankly.
“Laura?” he said. His tone was urgent but soft, like he didn’t want to startle her. “Laura, are you alright?”
She turned her head to look at him, feeling how slow the motion was. She couldn’t seem to speed up. Couldn’t snap back to normal. It was like she was inside a dream; and in the dream, she was swimming in treacle, and nothing was working properly.
Nate swore quietly under his breath.
“Laura, what’s going on?” he asked, reaching out to touch her arm. “Talk to me.”
The second he touched her, bare fingers on bare wrist, there it was again. The shadow of death. It was dark and roiling and visceral, and Laura felt it hit her stomach before she had a chance to even react. She recoiled with horror, brushing his arm away with a half-whimper, half-shout, unable to bear it. For a moment she thought she was actually going to throw up, right there in the car.
Nate looked at her even more intensely, his eyes wide with what Laura realized was fear. He was afraid for her.
Or of her?
“Just take a deep breath with me,” Nate said, his voice going lower and rhythmic. “In, okay? And out. You’re doing great. In… and out.”
Laura followed his instructions mechanically, recognizing their value. They’d had the same training, after all. She breathed with him until her mind started to clear, the fog dissipating slowly like mist coming off a river when hit by the sun.
“Are you back with me?” Nate asked, when she was able to meet his eyes without feeling her own glazed over.
“Yes,” Laura said, finding her mouth dry. She swallowed hard.
“What was that?” he asked, the inevitable follow-up. The one she didn’t want to answer.
Laura paused, thinking about how she was supposed to answer him. What she was supposed to say. How could she explain something that she didn’t even understand herself?
“I saw something,” she said, at length, then looked back at him to see his reaction. Better to start small, with something like this. Something non-specific.
“What?” Nate asked. He looked back at the house. “Something in the living room?”
“No, Nate,” Laura said, holding up a hand to bring his attention back to her. “I mean, I saw something. Like we talked about.”
Nate paused, looking at her. She didn’t look up to meet his eyes again. Suddenly, she was feeling incredibly tired. So tired she wasn’t even sure how much of this she could manage.
“Laura…” he said, trailing off like he was struggling to think of how to put his words together. Then: “How did you know where to go last night? The barn?”
Laura nodded slowly, meeting his eyes again. “You already know. I’ve told you.”
“No,” Nate said, shaking his head. “I mean it, Laura. How did you know which barn you had to go to? Did you see a photograph or something? Did someone give you a description?”
“I was alone,” Laura said. “You know I wouldn’t hold back evidence if I’d seen a photograph or some kind of physical proof. I saw it in a vision. I was at the site the killer had set up for the future, in that grocery store, and I touched something he had touched, and I had a vision of the barn.”
Nate’s eyes flicked down to her wrist, the spot where he had just touched her. He must have been thinking about how she’d reacted. Like she’d been burned.
“But, you didn’t really, did you?” Nate said. His tone was becoming uncertain, almost pleading. “That’s not what really happened. You just don’t want to tell me the truth. Maybe you don’t want to admit the truth. I thought I knew you, but… maybe you would do this. Maybe you would hide evidence and claim you had a vision just to get… What? Attention?”
“I’ve been hiding this from you for three years,” Laura said, her jaw tightening. “Do you really think I’m telling you this for attention?”
“But you do get attention,” Nate said. He was talking faster, like he was figuring something out. Like he was having a revelation. “Back at HQ, they talk about you having this intuition. Like you’ve got some kind of sixth sense. People say that about you all the time. They call you a natural detective. You must love that. And I can see how you’d want to keep that going, even if it meant hiding things now and then.”
“No, Nate,” Laura said, feeling a painful squeeze in her chest. “I hate it when they say that. I’ve told you that before. It just makes me self-conscious. I’m only trying to do my job. I wouldn’t cheat like that, not when anything we find could make the difference in court.”
Nate was looking at her strangely, slowly shaking his head backwards and forwards. “It’s like you’re a stranger to me,” he said. “And just now, this whole panic attack thing. It’s an act, isn’t it? Now that you’ve got me on the hook, you’re just trying to string me along and get my attention.”
“No,” Laura said again, but Nate was shaking his head more rapidly now, holding up his hands.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he said. “I’m not going to keep encouraging you by giving you this attention. You know what? I’m going to call the precinct, get them to send out someone in a car for me. I’m going back to the clock store, going through the records they’ve been downloading. At least there we might find a concrete lead. You… you do whatever you have to do.”
Laura’s mouth was drier than she could ever remember it being as he got out of the car, leaving the door open and striding away a few paces down the street. She watched him get his cell phone out of his pocket, heard him speaking quietly into it as he’d promised.
Laura got out of the car, but she didn’t go and get in the driver’s seat immediately. She walked over to him instead.
And he saw her coming and turned and walked further away.
“Nate,” Laura said, desperately now. She ran a few paces to catch up, then reached out to catch at his arm. Even though she knew it was stupid. Even though…
The shadow of death was on him, on her, so strong she could barely breathe. So dark and deep and intense, so much more than it had been a moment ago.
“Don’t,” Nate said, shaking her off. “I need some time. Let’s just get this case solved before someone else dies.”
Before someone else dies. His words were almost prophetic. Laura shivered, but he was turning away from her again, deliberately, shoving his hands into his pockets and squaring his shoulders. He wasn’t going to listen.
She turned and went back to the car, getting behind the wheel because she didn’t know what else to do. He was determined, apparently, and his pickup was already on the way. She started the engine and set off in the direction of the precinct, but she didn’t go far. As soon as she was out of sight of Nate, she turned down a side street and parked a little way down it, resting her head in her hands.
She needed to process this. The shadow of death that she had seen hanging over him all of this time had fluctuated during the months that she had been seeing it. There were times when it had seemed stronger than ever. There were even times when it had seemed to go away completely. Looking back over all of those times,
Laura couldn't help but notice a distinct pattern emerging.
Whenever she thought about telling him that she was psychic in the past, the intensity of the shadow had either diminished or gone away completely. But whenever she decided not to tell him, and now when he declared he didn't believe her, the shadow had become stronger. So dark it was almost overpowering.
The parallel was impossible to ignore. She had seen the shadow of death hanging over her father for a long time before she actually learned that he was going to die of cancer. And that, in itself, was a long time before he had actually succumbed to the disease. But it wasn't like her visions. She had no way of measuring how long it would take for the shadow to progress to a real threat on Nate’s life. Even if she had a preconceived notion of it, now, with things as they were, she wasn't sure that any of the rules were the same anymore.
But what she saw now was very clear. If Nate went on thinking that she did not have psychic powers, that it was all a made-up lie, he was going to die. Sooner rather than later. Certainly not at the age of one hundred with all of his grandchildren around the bed. But if she told him, and made him believe, and made him see that it was real, then he wasn't going to die at all. At least, not for a while.
She had a duty to make him see. She had a duty to save his life.
Not just because she cared about him, which she did. But because this was her job. Her whole reason for being. Laura was an FBI agent because she wanted to stop people from being murdered. She wanted to save their lives. If she couldn't even save the life of her partner, when all it required was for her to be honest with him, then what good was she?
She was going to have to find a way to convince him, to make him see.
But right now... he was clearly having a hard time taking it in. What he’d said had been hurtful – accusing her of making it all up for attention like that. He knew, deep down, that Laura hated the kind of attention she got for solving cases. That was the only reason she was able to keep it together herself and forgive him for that kind of accusation, something that went so hard against everything he knew about her. He was struggling with the concept of her being psychic in itself, and while there would be opportunities to show him proof, they wouldn’t just pop up randomly if Laura trailed around behind Nate like a lost puppy dog. She still needed to do her job.
Just as much as she needed to save Nate’s life, she also needed to stop the killer from taking another. He’d had his next kill site set up already at the grocery store, which meant it was highly likely he was already stalking his victim. She couldn't just drop everything to try and change Nate’s mind, not right now. There would be time for that in due course.
Right now, she needed to work the case. And working the case meant she needed to find the next lead. Looking at medical records and speaking to family members was only going to get her so far.
Laura turned the key in the ignition, starting the engine again with a new determination.
If she wanted answers, she was going to have to go right to the source. The hospital.
She zoomed out on her GPS and found it, the one place where all of the medical records so far had come from. The same hospital. How she hadn't seen that connection and jumped on it before, she had no idea. She’d been distracted, too much in her own head. But she saw it now, and she was going to get to the bottom of this before the day was done. Whatever it took.
***
“So, this is for the clock killer case?” the administrator asked, looking at Laura with an intensely measured look over her shoulder. Laura didn’t flinch.
“That’s right,” she said, following the tall, sharply dressed woman down the hall towards the records office. “We’re chasing down a lead that might be crucial in solving it.”
The administrator nodded, her heels clicking on the linoleum floors at a rapid pace. Even in her sensible flats, Laura found herself hurrying to keep up. “I wouldn’t normally do this,” she said. “But I understand that time is of the essence here, and I want it to be on the record that we’re doing everything we can to help you stop this public menace.”
Public menace. It was a funny way of describing a rampant murderer. “Of course,” Laura said, instead of responding to that. “Your help is much appreciated.”
They’d reached a door marked with a plaque reading RECORDS in old-fashioned font, and the administrator pushed her way in before holding it open for Laura. She followed into a small room which was mostly occupied by a desk and a single computer. Behind it, a partition hid a number of shelves stacked with cardboard archive boxes. Laura couldn’t see how far back they stretched. She didn’t think she wanted to. The computer was much more promising.
“I’ll have to access the system for you, of course,” the administrator said primly, sitting herself down and smoothing out her pencil skirt. “But you can tell me what you want me to look up, and I’ll get it for you.”
“Alright,” Laura said, because she was in too much of a rush to argue – and definitely in too much of a rush to have to go out and get a warrant signed by a judge if this woman decided not to help after all. “I need to see the details of three patients who’ve had procedures done here. The first is Veronica Rowse.”
“And what are we looking for?” the administrator asked, her hands already moving over the keyboard.
Damned if I know, Laura thought. She was hoping this would be one of those things that she would know when she saw it. “She was involved in a car accident about a year ago. I need everything related to that event.”
“Everything?” the administrator said, raising an eyebrow. She turned back to her screen, then glanced at Laura. “I’ve got a lot here. EMT reports, scans and tests, results, signed orders for medication…”
“All of it,” Laura confirmed. “If you can run me off a copy of everything in that file pertaining to the time of the accident, I’ll start looking through it while you find the data on the other two.”
“Alright,” the administrator said, with a heavy tone in her voice that implied Laura was pushing her luck. But Laura didn’t care. This was all she needed, and it had to show her something.
It had to.
She scanned page after page of the documents, trying to record as much of the information in her head as she could. Doctor names. The date and time of Veronica’s admission. The medication she had been administered. All of the tests, and the results they showed. The amount of coverage she’d had with her insurance, and who her provider was. The amount she’d owed. The name of the physiotherapist who helped her to walk again and the number of weeks she’d spent in physical therapy, and the name of the center where she did it. All of it could be relevant.
When Laura finally moved on to look at Stephanie Marchall’s file, the administrator was watching her with clear impatience, looking at her watch repeatedly.
“You can go if you’re busy,” Laura said, not looking up. She could see enough in her peripheral vision, and the files needed her attention more. “This could take a while.”
“I’d better not leave you alone with the files,” the administrator said in a supercilious tone, and Laura was glad she hadn’t been making eye contact at the time. The woman might have seen something ugly cross Laura’s face in response.
She was an FBI agent. If the administrator wasn’t going to trust her, then who was she ever going to trust?
It didn’t matter. Laura refocused, reading through the files again. This time with an even finer-toothed comb, given that she didn’t know all of the details already. The heart attack had happened when Stephanie was at work, according to the EMT report. It looked as though they were called out to the scene, where…
Where her heart had stopped, and she had to be resuscitated.
Laura sat up a little straighter in her chair. Of course. A heart attack, and a near-fatal car accident. Both women had to be revived. That was a link. The first one she’d really seen so far, other than the hospital. Without a vision to help her out, the hospital was too vagu
e of a connection to build on. But this seemed like it would take her one level deeper. This…
Laura reached for the first few pages that had been printed from Lincoln Ware’s file. She had no idea what kind of accident he’d suffered, only the tests that he’d had done for it. She flipped to the EMT report and started to read…
He’d been swimming, at a friend’s house in their own pool. He’d been drinking, too. They all had. Things had gotten out of control, apparently, and the ambulance had been called after he’d slipped under the water and not come back up.
When the EMTs arrived, they’d found him unresponsive, his lips blue. They’d had to resuscitate him. He’d been clinically dead for at least a minute or so.
His heart had needed to be restarted.
Laura felt her own pound in her chest again, as if in response to the idea of a heart failing. All three of the victims had already died once before, and not too long ago. All over the span of the past two years, all in Atlanta, and all were brought here afterwards to recover.
Their lives had been saved. They’d been given extra time. Time, which seemed to be so important to the killer.
Was this it?
Laura studied the text of all three reports again, trying to get something else to jump out at her. She scanned the lines all the way to the bottom, where they were signed off by the responding EMT. The first one was a guy named Paul Payne. He’d been the one to resuscitate Veronica. And the one who responded to Stephanie Marchall was…
Was Paul Payne.
Laura heard herself gasp out loud, a sharp intake of breath as she saw the link. She hurriedly grabbed Lincoln Ware’s report and read through it, but – the name at the bottom was different. A Holly Randall had been the one to respond on that occasion.
But this was something very important. Laura could feel it. The same man had been present at two out of three of these near-death experiences.