But Natalie already knows this. “And seven others. Or is it eight?” She waves a hand toward the television, which is on but muted. “It’s all over the news.”
Graham nods. “The killer’s back,” he confirms.
“And you’re no closer to catching him.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He leaves very little of himself behind,” Graham says. “He knows the island well, slips on and off easily—”
“He’s a shadow,” she says. Her hands flutter, as pale as the wings of a dove, and settle on her arms, rubbing them through the thin cloth.
“Feels that way.” A dark, menacing shadow. “We’ve tried not to involve you in the investigation. You were so young. You couldn’t remember anything back then, or even a few years later—”
“But I do now,” she says. “Small pieces.” She shrugs. “Maybe nothing yet.”
Her voice is thin, her words wallow in uncertainty, but he pursues them anyway. “What have you remembered?”
He steps closer, into her space, and doesn’t stop until he’s wrapped in the halo of her body heat.
“Flashes. Light and sound. The tall sea grass and the wind. It’s howling. But the day Steven and Lance died was sunny. Too bright. And the ocean was calm.” She tips her head back and meets his gaze. “It doesn’t make sense. Yet. But Steven is there, and so is Lance. And we’re not alone.”
“We need more than that.” A face or a name. “We need something concrete.”
“And that’s what you came for today—my memories.”
Her lips tremble and Graham watches, fascinated, as his fingers lift and trace the shape of her mouth. “Don’t cry, okay?”
Touching her creates a static hum in his fingertips. The air is thicker. His muscles tighten. His physical response to her shouldn’t be a surprise. Attraction among survivors is a natural development but leads only to increased anxiety. Another tidbit he picked up from grief counseling. Survivors grope for the life-affirming, sometimes anywhere they can find it.
But understanding his primitive reflexes doesn’t do anything to dampen his arousal. He steps back, stuffs his hands in his pant pockets, and watches her thoughts become expression on her face.
“You said that to me before.”
Outside the local market. When she was seven or eight and was left behind when Lance and Steven took off on their bikes.
“And you didn’t.” Although she wanted to. Her lips trembled then, too, and her blue eyes filled with hurt.
“I won’t now.”
Because nothing hurts as much as losing Steven.
“I need your memories, Natalie,” he confesses. He hates himself for it. He would walk through fire before he chased the unraveling ribbons of his connection to his brother. “There is no other way.”
“I want to help.”
He nods. “Then keep working on it.”
“I think I’ll remember more when I get back there, to King’s Ferry,” she says. “The
closer I get to Steven the more I remember. The more alive he becomes.”
“You can’t bring him back,” he warns. He already traveled that road, looking for Lance. “And you can’t stay there with him.” There’s no life in it.
“But I can let him go,” she says. “That’s what I came here to do.”
He nods, but knows there’s no escape. She’ll carry Steven with her like an extra piece of luggage for the rest of her life. Sometimes carry-on; sometimes a trunk so heavy it will take more than one to lift it. There is no other way.
“You haven’t been able to do that.”
“No,” he admits.
“And that’s our bond.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
Graham turns toward the door, that bond she mentioned pulling at him like a bungee cord. But there are other pieces to work, other leads snapping at his fingertips. “When are they letting you out of here?”
“I’m waiting for the doctor,” she says.
“Come see me.” He holds the door open and looks back at her. “When you remember.”
“When I have something concrete,” she clarifies.
“When you have anything.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Monday, 10:35 am
Natalie followed the black ribbon of Highway One around a hairpin curve and then pressed the accelerator a little too hard. The rental car jumped into warp speed and Natalie’s head jerked back against the seat. She wasn’t used to driving a vehicle as powerful as the BMW; her Dakota was good for hauling the tools of her trade, not for going zero to sixty like she’d entered a time machine. The BMW was the only car available at the lot on such short notice. It cost double the price of the compact she’d asked for, but then she wasn’t the one paying the bill. She’d called her insurance agency that morning and they would file a claim with the ferry company to cover the expense of her truck and its contents. They would also pay for the rental.
After a sleepless night on the psychiatric ward at Victoria’s Queen’s Hospital, during which she’d conducted an exhausting search through her mental state, the scenic drive was comforting. So were the conclusions she’d arrived at just before dawn.
She would not let it bother her, that she saw things others didn’t.
So what if she now had a prophetic gift? It was having a profound impact on her life, yes. It meant changing the way she saw events. But it didn’t mean she had to shelter herself from humanity. She was not going to become one of those fugitives from society, who lived in a cabin in the woods and ordered her groceries over the internet.
The Bible was full of prophets, and while some took journeys into isolation, they always surfaced into a sea of humanity where they found a comfortable, even esteemed existence.
Natalie didn’t plan to announce herself to the world, but she decided if she embraced who she had become she would live a lot easier inside her own skin. Anything was better than doubting her sanity.
She accepted that Michael had come to her after death. He had spoken. Warmth had emanated from his body and he had been very real. She decided Michael had appeared in a manner in which her mind could accept him. And his message had been clear: Natalie was here with a purpose.
She wondered if every supernatural event she experienced was connected to King’s Ferry and her brother’s death. If so, who was the dead man in the woods?
And how did the ferry’s sinking fit with all the other pieces?
She slowed the sports car as a flashing caution sign announced an upcoming intersection. Entering Sidney. According to the directions given to her by the clerk at the car rental shop, this marked the halfway point on her way to King’s Ferry. She continued north, with the Pacific Ocean thundering ashore to her left and towering pines and firs crowding the sky on her right. The coastal freeway wound around marinas where white boats bobbed at their moors and gulls swooped and plucked breakfast from the water. Her body recognized the feel of the island and she found herself relaxing into its rhythms before she reminded herself that the calm she sensed was not to be trusted. Not everything was as it seemed.
Not even Graham Marquette. He had come to her wanting help, with a gentle manner despite his urgency, but that conflicted with the vision she’d had of him in the woods that day, when staring at the dead man. There was no mistaking it. Graham Marquette fired the gun, a white-winged bird flew from the muzzle, and another man lay dead. Natalie sensed menace in
the vision. She felt the intent.
Graham Marquette didn’t want justice; he wanted revenge. And he wasn’t going to stop simply with the capture of the man who had killed their brothers.
Shortly after Graham left her hospital room the future had spoken again, with a collection of images dark and violent in nature.
Vengeance was blinding. In his case, it seemed others would die. Natalie among them. She didn’t completely understand the vision—it was hard to look at yourself dead, the focus wasn’t sharp—but she
knew it was coming.
Nor did she understand her response to Graham Marquette. He had touched her and awareness bloomed. She’d felt each callous on his fingertips, the heat of his breath. He had stood close to her and she’d known the size and shape of his body. It was recognition on an elemental level, but more about where each of them had been than where they were at that moment. And Natalie had wanted to stay right there, where she knew the terrain. Where she found a soul of similar circumstances and a knowing no one else could give her.
But she wasn’t here for that. She had a purpose. And the closer she got to King’s Ferry the stronger her determination to unearth answers and bury Steven.
She pulled into the turn lane for Malahat Drive, which would connect her to the heart of King’s Ferry, and waited for the light to change. Her to-do list was on the passenger seat and she let her eyes linger on it. The first several items were completed. She had clothing and cash and she no longer need to seek out Graham Marquette. When she arrived in King’s Ferry she would get breakfast and then find Saul Doss. If he was alive. She hadn’t seen him floating in her vision. She hadn’t seen him at all after that last look upwards, when he’d stood on the second after deck.
She no longer had his business card. She had shoved it into her pocket, but of course it
was a clump of semidry scraps by the time she’d pulled it out of her coat at the hospital. She would have to look through the local directory. And if that didn’t work, she’d ask around.
She wouldn’t rely entirely on Doss for help. She didn’t trust him. After Doss, she would search the archives at the public library. She remembered few details of her brother’s death; newspaper coverage could fill in what she never knew and jar loose memories that were deeply hidden.
The traffic light changed and Natalie moved slowly through the intersection. She kept to the posted speed limit and let her eyes dwell on the scenery. A revitalization had moved through this part of King’s Ferry. The buildings were short, weathered structures with new paint and cheerful trim. Windsocks and kites were suspended in the air outside a novelty store, some rainbow colored, some with the carved faces of ancient ancestors whipping overhead in limited fury, tied, as they were, to rooftop pegs.
When Natalie was here as a child she and Steven had been beach bums. They had flown kites and dug for treasure, snorkeled the inlets, peering through masks at the rocky bottom and the shadows of what they knew had to be old shipwrecks. Steven had found a ship’s compass in the murky bottom of the bay. He had surfaced with it in his hand, waving it above his head, because it’d been a trophy. Their first and only piece of real treasure.
Natalie felt the shadows shifting in her mind, a little light seeped into forgotten moments. Kite flying and windsocks and wind chimes made out of seashells. She reached backwards for the memory and the image of a single face bloomed in her mind’s eye, grew larger until it exploded, its torn pieces cascading through the air like fireworks. Saul Doss. Not so weathered, his hair black and thick and straight and all the way to his shoulders. And now Natalie realized that they had met more than once. On the ferry he had been testing her memory, and he had lied to her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Monday, 11:00 am
Natalie stopped for breakfast at the OK diner in King’s Ferry. The sky was pale gray and misting. She remembered from her summer trips that day had started early on the island and lasted long into the evening. That the light didn’t wane before nine pm. And that the morning fog, if it was going to burn off, did it by noon so that the sky became the clear blue of tumbled stone. She’d loved her summers here--right up until the last one.
The diner was located on the main strip of town. There were art galleries and touristy gift shops, seafood restaurants and a trendy coffee shop popular in the states. Natalie sat at a booth next to a window and looked at the traffic bunching up at the intersection as she waited for her order. She remembered this street, though some of the shops were new; others were remodeled to keep up with the façade of a quaint coastal village.
She knew differently. King’s Ferry wasn’t the destination families craved when they thought of quality time together, building memories and experiences. King’s Ferry was dangerous, dressed to look innocuous, but underneath evil hovered. It never really left.
She now believed that the man in the woods, murdered and left for discovery—her discovery—was connected to this place. Finding him had revealed her gift and moved her in the direction of King’s Ferry months before she’d made the conscious decision to return.
It was when she’d stood in front of his corpse that Natalie had her first vision—Graham Marquette had fired his gun and the wings of a dove had opened.
It didn’t make sense. She’d felt vengeance in the vision, but the dove was a symbol of peace. She’d felt urgency in Graham when he’d visited her earlier. She’d felt compassion and the buzz of an attraction better left ignored. But no darkness.
The man in the woods was murdered in a manner very different from the way Steven had died. She wondered about that.
Could there be two killers involved?
According to the news, a total of ten people had become victims of the King’s Ferry Killer. Had they all died the way Steven had?
A cut throat and grass the color of wine. The image is sudden, the clarity sharp. Steven’s body lay in the tall grass above the ocean, his Power Rangers t-shirt torn and his life drained.
She had stood over him, so absorbed with fear it had made her body useless. The loss swelled up inside her again, became a heaviness in her throat. She gasped for breath.
Was she with Steven when he died? Or was the memory of finding him?
She sat back, pressed her fingertips to the edge of the table, and drew a long breath that caught in her throat.
She came for that reason—to find out. To finally know what happened to her brother. She wouldn’t leave until she had at least that.
“Here you go.”
The waitress slid a plate in front of Natalie. An ocean omelet—stuffed with crab meat,
spinach and cheese. Two days of hospital food had made her feel like a starved cat, but remembering Steven squashed that. She nudged her fork with her fingertips, looked up at the waitress and smiled, though she felt a small tremor in her lips.
The waitress placed a bottle of ketchup on the table. “You need a refill?”
Natalie considered her glass, half full with Coke.
“I’ll take a coffee.”
“I’ll bring cream,” the waitress said. “You sound like you’re from California. Usually, you want cream. Sugar substitute, too.”
“Real sugar,” Natalie corrected. “I don’t do the fake powder. If I’m going to take up a bad habit, it’ll be smoking, or drinking myself into oblivion.”
She laughed, but it sounded rough.
“I hear you on that,” the waitress agreed. “We could all use a few drinks around here.”
Natalie watched as the waitress moved toward the coffee station, grabbed a ceramic mug from a rack and filled it with the brew. Then she turned her attention to the omelet she’d ordered. The cheese had melted and was oozing out the sides. Her stomach spoke up, begging for a bite. She took three by the time the waitress returned with coffee, cream and a sugar bowl.
“You’re here at a bad time, you know,” the waitress said.
Natalie nodded. “I saw the news.”
“This is no place to be if you don’t have to,” she said and pulled at the white dish towel hanging from her apron. “Don’t be going out at night by yourself,” she warned. “Don’t go anyplace there aren’t other people. You ask me this town should be under curfew, at least the next few days anyway. You know, they should have locked this island up real tight when Miss
Iverson turned up dead.”
The waitress walked away, the towel slapping the side of her leg.
“She’s right.”
Natalie looked up. A woman hovered at her table, literal
ly wavered, and Natalie wondered if it was a trick played on her by the lighting. The gloomy sky was casting its pall through the windows and the interior lamps, suspended from the ceiling, were dull. She examined the woman, from her dark, curly hair, over the quilted, red trench coat she wore, down her jeaned legs. She was shifting on her feet. No play of lights; the woman seemed nervous. Natalie looked into the woman’s face and noticed her eyes. They were large and soft; Natalie saw sympathy in them and recognition.
“Natalie Forrester.” She reached a hand toward Natalie’s face, almost close enough to touch the crescent shaped scar under Natalie’s eye with her fingertips. “I told you not to play too close to the jetty.”
When Natalie was seven years old she’d tried to follow the boys as they hunted treasure on an old, abandoned jetty. She’d fallen and it had taken seven stitches to clean up the damage.
The woman stuffed her hands in her pockets and asked, “Do you remember me?”
She hadn’t, until the woman had spoken. Now she felt memories shift in her head. Sunshine and shadows. Incredible warmth and a chill so determined it charged down Natalie’s spine.
“I baby-sat for you and your brother,” the woman prompted.
“Lanie,” Natalie said. She had stayed with them at night, when Natalie’s parents went out to dinner. A few times, Lanie had watched them a full weekend, when Natalie’s mother and father traveled to another part of the island. She had let them stay up late, rushing them into bed when they heard a car pull into the drive way, telling them to pretend sleep just before she closed the bedroom door and took the stairs two at a time. She had sat on the floor with them and played long games of Clue and Sorry. But Natalie also remembered that Lanie had occasionally shown up different. Distant, but something more than that, really. She would not talk to them. She’d sat for hours in the living room without moving. Sometimes she fell asleep sitting in a chair, her legs curled up under her, her hands gripping the arm rests. She and Steven were so spooked they’d climbed the stairs to the bedroom they shared during the summer months and locked themselves behind the door, never speaking above a whisper for fear they’d wake her up. Lanie had never hurt them, but her behavior was so odd, they’d wondered about the ghost stories they’d heard on the island and if Lanie could be one of them, one of the after dead.
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