Her Last Whisper

by Karen Robards

  “If that’s an unpleasant memory, I’m sorry to have recalled it to your mind,” Tam said. Charlie felt a flutter of pride: she’d never known Tam to be wrong, and clearly this wasn’t going to be the first time. “I can only report what I see.”

  “It was accurate.” Lena looked shaken. “Accurate’s what I’m interested in.” Her eyes met Charlie’s. “Your friend got everything right.” Taking a deep breath, she focused on Tam again. “I have some clothing of my sister’s, some jewelry, her toiletries. She left everything except what she was wearing in the room when she disappeared.”

  “Do you have her hairbrush?” Tam asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Does it have her hair in it?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Only her hair? You didn’t share it?”

  “No.”

  “If I could have that.”

  Lena nodded. “It’s in the bathroom. I’ll get it.” She picked up an iPad from the foot of the bed and looked around at all of them. “I took this video of Giselle on Saturday, a few hours before I left for the airport. If you watch it, you can see what she was like.”

  She pressed the button, handed the iPad to Tony, and then walked into the bathroom as the rest of them gathered around Tony to watch Giselle, clad in a black top with spaghetti straps—all that could be seen of her attire, because from the waist down she was hidden by the table at which she was sitting. Her black hair was twisted into a loose knot on top of her head, and she smiled broadly at the camera. Giselle then looked at the large, white-frosted cupcake with the single flaming candle that was being presented to her on a tray by members of a restaurant’s waitstaff. Two waiters and two waitresses in bright yellow uniforms placed it on the table, and began to sing “Happy Birthday.”

  Giselle joined in, cheerfully off-key: “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear me-e, happy birthday to me.”

  As the singing concluded, Lena’s voice could be heard in the background urging, “Blow out the candle!”

  Giselle did, the waitstaff faded away, and—still off camera—Lena asked, “Did you make a wish?”

  “Yes.” Her dark eyes sparkling, Giselle grinned at the camera, or rather, presumably, at Lena, who was behind it. “And I’ll never tell what I wished for, so don’t even bother to ask.”

  “I know what you wished for,” Lena retorted. “The same thing you’ve been wishing for on your birthday since you were fifteen: for us all to be one big happy family again.”

  “Well, you’re wrong, Miss Smarty Pants.” Giselle playfully stuck out her tongue at Lena. “I’ve outgrown that.”

  “Sure you have.”

  Giselle said, “If you must know, I wished that we could both have our own happy families, so there.”

  Giselle looked, and sounded, so much like Lena—a happier, less snarky version—that Charlie was riveted. Then, still out of sight, Lena went “Aww” at her sister with her trademark snark, and the video ended.

  Charlie realized that she had a lump in her throat. She knew that, some eighty-odd hours after Giselle’s disappearance, if what had happened to her was anything other than a voluntary leave-taking, there was a strong statistical probability that she was dead. Twenty-four hours was the golden time period in which the recovery of abduction victims alive was still a realistic possibility, and they were well past that.

  “Right after that I gave her the bracelet,” Lena now said. Charlie hated to meet her gaze for fear Lena might be able to read what she had been thinking in her eyes, but Lena was staring at the iPad and nothing else, and, anyway, Lena knew the score as well as she did. Lena was standing just behind Tony, and it was obvious that she’d been watching the last bit of the video. Her eyes were maybe a little brighter than usual, but other than that indication of a possible quickly banished welling of tears she looked composed. No, determined and focused. Like, say, a pitbull was determined and focused.

  “What restaurant was that?” Buzz asked as Tony put the iPad on the table. Lena passed a small hairbrush to Tam, who accepted it with a nod of thanks and began pulling the loose hairs from it.

  “The Polo Cafe,” Lena replied. “It’s downstairs. Coffee, sandwiches, pastries. We just wanted to grab a quick bite.” Like the rest of them, Lena was watching Tam set the hairbrush down then slowly roll the hairs she had removed from it into a ball with her fingertips. Tam’s abstract expression made it obvious that mentally she was already elsewhere.

  “You left for the airport at around five on Saturday, if I correctly remember what you told me,” Tony said to Lena. “What did you two do in the time between when this video finished and then?”

  Lena shook her head. “Nothing in particular. Played some slot machines at the casino. Shopped. I had to pack, so we came back to the room about four. Giselle was with me. I left her here in this room at five.”

  There was a stark expression in her eyes that told Charlie how close to the edge Lena was. The fact that she was able to maintain focus and control under such terrible circumstances and concentrate her energies so completely on finding her sister was, Charlie thought, a testament to her strength.

  “She thought you weren’t coming back,” Tony said thoughtfully. It wasn’t a question—Lena had been over the sequence of events with him multiple times, Charlie knew—but Lena answered it anyway.

  “I was going to fly home. She wasn’t scheduled to fly out until Monday morning—there were some local artists whose work she was planning to check out for the gallery. But my flight was canceled, so I came back.” Her voice wobbled for just a second. “She wasn’t here. I thought she was out doing something, that maybe she was visiting those artists she’d been talking about, or even that she’d met a guy. Oh, God, if only I’d started looking for her then—” She broke off. Her lips pressed tightly together. Her jaw clenched. Charlie’s heart ached for her.

  “You couldn’t have known,” Buzz said fiercely. “There was no way you could have known.”

  Lena turned a razor-sharp gaze on him.

  “I’m picking up a jumble of images,” Tam said, and the rest of them immediately switched their attention to her. “Which ones are related to Giselle, I can’t be sure. Someone should be prepared to write them down because afterward I won’t remember most of what I say.”

  “I’ll get it on video, if you don’t mind.” Buzz immediately whipped out his cell phone and started pressing buttons to set up his camera.

  Tam nodded. “That’s good.” She looked at Buzz in a way that seemed to see right through him. “You like video games. You play—Assassin’s Creed. When you’re alone. All the time.”

  With all eyes suddenly on him, Buzz turned red. “I’m trying to beat it,” he explained defensively. “The game, I mean. It’s not that easy.”

  Tam continued unheedingly: “I’m seeing someone drinking too much. In a bar with an American Eagle over the door. Double saloon doors. Red. Red, white, and blue.” Her eyes slid toward Lena. “There’s a lot of guilt over an illicit love affair.” As Lena’s eyes widened, Tam blinked and looked away, toward Tony, her gaze going a little unfocused. “A blond woman. Pretty. Long, silky hair. Screaming Get out, get out. She’s … throwing something. A … shoe?”

  Tony stiffened.

  Tam’s hand clenched around the ball of Giselle’s hair. She took a deep breath, and her eyes seemed to fix on the wall behind them. Charlie couldn’t help it: she had to glance around to check out what Tam was looking at. As she had expected, there wasn’t anything but beige patterned wallpaper and the entertainment center within Tam’s line of vision. Not that it mattered: what Tam was seeing was nothing tangible, and it was nothing that the rest of them could see. “I’m getting a strong image of that old TV show with Joan Collins and Linda Evans: Dynasty. That’s it, that’s the name: Dynasty. I don’t know what it means but that’s what I’m getting: Dynasty. I’m getting the number fifteen. Dogs barking. Lots of dogs. An old—some kind of sign. A service station sign? I don’
t know. It’s faded. There’s a word on it, and a picture: a shell, I think. And birds. A flock of birds. It looks like the surface of the moon.” Tam stared intently at the wall. Her voice went quieter, and took on a deeper pitch. Charlie had seen Tam do her psychic thing on many occasions before; still, every time she witnessed it, goose bumps prickled up and down her arms. “I see a small, dark enclosure. A woman stuffed into it. She’s … limp. Unconscious. It’s Giselle. There’s movement. Wheels turning. Silver. A sensation of speed. Oh, she’s waking. The space feels larger now, but it’s still dark. It’s hot. It smells bad. Where am I? What is this place? There’s something over her eyes. I can’t see. She’s not alone. Who are you? What’s happening? She’s panicking. She’s being moved again, lifted. There’s blood. She can see now and she sees blood. A puddle of blood. Blood everywhere. There’s screaming. She’s screaming. Oh, God, oh, God—”

  Dropping the ball of hair, Tam spun around. Her eyes were wide, and she was visibly shaking. Michael moved swiftly toward her, and so did Charlie. Michael reached her first, but it was Charlie who put an arm around her because, of the two of them, it was Charlie who could.

  Charlie said, “Tam …”

  Tam blinked. She sucked in air. Her expression changed. It was obvious that she was once again aware of her surroundings, that she was back with them.

  Catching the thick fall of her wavy red hair in her hands, she pulled it up away from her neck. A slight sheen of perspiration covered her face and neck. “Is it hot in here? I’m so hot.” She looked at Charlie, at the rest of them, then finally at Lena. “I saw Giselle. She’s been taken.”

  “I knew it.” Lena’s voice was thin. “Is she alive?”

  Tam looked troubled. “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know the answer. I only know what I saw. A slice out of time. I was seeing some things through her eyes, so at that moment she was alive, and in grave danger. I can tell you this, too: there’s a murderer out there. It was he who took her.”

  “Oh, God.” Lena closed her eyes. Thrusting his phone into his pocket, Buzz was beside her in an instant, sliding a hand around her upper arm. Such was Lena’s state of mind that she didn’t even try to shake him off.

  “I’m sorry,” Tam said.

  Lena opened her eyes to look at her. “At least we know she was alive when you saw her, and that she didn’t leave on her own or have an accident or something. We can focus one hundred percent on what we do, which is finding her and the bastard who has her. Hopefully we’ll be in time.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?” Tony asked Tam, while Lena, apparently having just become aware of Buzz’s hand on her arm, pulled away and shot him a poisonous look.

  Tam shook her head. “When I see through someone’s eyes like that, I get bits and pieces. What they know, what they see. And I can’t go back to them. Not for a long time. It’s like the window closes.” She huffed out a breath. “I can’t help you with this anymore.” She looked at Charlie. “I have to go.”

  Charlie nodded. Knowing Tam as well as she did, she knew that the darkness of what she had seen acted on her like frost on a flower. If she didn’t get to the figurative sunlight soon, she would start to wilt.

  “I’ll walk you to your room,” she said.

  “No.” Tam had pulled herself together. She was no longer holding her hair away from her neck, and her distressed look was fading. “There’s no need. I’m just going to grab my things and get in my car and head back to L.A. You stay here and help them.” A nod indicated the others in the room.

  “We’re going downstairs anyway,” Tony said. “The hotel didn’t want us to set up shop on the premises because they were afraid that having an ongoing investigation under their roof might be bad for business. We’re partnering with the local FBI on this, and they’ve given us some space and the promise of full cooperation. So if everyone wants to meet in the lobby in ten minutes, we’ll head on over there.”

  “I’ll walk you,” Charlie repeated. This time Tam nodded.

  “Thank you,” Lena said to Tam. Sincerity was in her face, her eyes. Tam had clearly impressed her a lot.

  Tam nodded. “You’re welcome.” Then she nodded in response to the farewell chorus, and slipped through the door with Charlie—and Michael—at her heels.

  “Thank you,” Charlie repeated as they headed for the elevator. “I know that was hard on you.”

  “There’s a dangerous energy associated with what befell your friend’s sister,” Tam warned. “It’s like a dark storm. It could engulf anyone who gets too close. You should stay away.”

  “There you go. That’s what I’ve been telling her all along,” Michael said.

  Tam glanced at Michael with a kind of wary interest. “Have you?” Tam’s gaze slid to Charlie. “You should listen. To me, and in this instance to him.”

  The elevator arrived. Since it was full of people, nothing more was said until they were walking along the hall to Tam’s room.

  “I appreciate you coming,” Charlie said. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

  “He”—this was accompanied by a nod at Michael—“would have gone poof, and you probably would have been better off.” The tartness of Tam’s tone was a good indication that she was back to normal.

  “If it helps, you might want to try thinking of me as her bodyguard,” Michael said. “I’ll keep her alive if I can.”

  Tam frowned at him. Then, seemingly reluctantly, she nodded.

  “It does help. A teeny, tiny, smidgen of an amount, because as a spirit there’s not a whole lot you can do, but I guess anything’s better than nothing. Safety conscious, she’s not.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Hey, guys.” Charlie waved a hand in the air. “I’m right here. I can hear you.”

  “I keep hoping that something—like your friend the real-deal psychic here telling you that there’s danger—will make you back off some of this stuff,” Michael said to Charlie.

  “It won’t,” Tam told him. “I’ve tried. She’s stubborn.” Michael gave a grunt of agreement, Charlie shot them both indignant looks, and Tam’s attention shifted to her. “Telling you that you should follow my example and go home, too, is a waste of time, I know. But there is a great deal of danger here. The man who took Giselle—I didn’t get a sense of distance. That tells me that he is still right here.”

  “That tears it,” Michael said. “We’re out of here.”

  An inner shiver at the thought of inserting herself into yet another investigation into an active serial killer shook Charlie. The fear was too close to the bone: it had taken root in her psyche, she realized, and getting rid of it permanently was going to require time and possibly therapy, self-administered or otherwise. But there was nothing she could do about it right now except deal. It cost her some effort, but she deliberately closed her mind to it. “No, we’re not going anywhere. I can’t. Not when it’s Lena’s sister.”

  “Death wish,” Michael growled. “Savior complex.”

  “Bite me,” Charlie retorted.

  “I thought so.” Tam’s tone was resigned. She told Charlie, “Try to stay out of harm’s way as much as possible.” As they stopped in front of her door she looked at Michael. “Spirit, you understand that my grounding spell will wear off soon. If you get yourself in trouble again there’s little more I can do to help. The least thing could end you. Think of yourself as a bug flying around in a world full of zappers. You get too close to one, and you’re gone.”

  His eyes lighting in sudden amusement, Michael nodded. “Bug. Zapper. Got it.”

  “I hope you do, because this is not a joke.” Tam’s tone was severe. “Now go away. I have something to say to Charlie.”

  Michael and Tam exchanged measuring looks. “Thanks again for everything you’ve done,” Michael said. Then his eyes met Charlie’s for the briefest of seconds. “I’ll be waiting by the elevators,” he told her, and sauntered off. Charlie watched his tall form—all broad shoulders an
d narrow hips and sexy swagger—striding away, then glanced back at Tam.

  Who’d been watching him, too.

  “He’s hot, I’ll give you that,” Tam muttered as she fished her key card out of her purse. “Even kind of charming.” Flourishing the key triumphantly, she gave Charlie an admonishing look. “That handsome FBI agent—Tony—is interested in you. I can feel the vibes when he looks at you. That’s who you should be focusing on. Forget Gorgeous Ghost Guy. Believe me, he’s bad news. And he’d be bad news even if he weren’t dead.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Charlie replied drily. It was exactly what she’d been telling herself for weeks, so why she should find it annoying she didn’t know.

  “Which you’re going to ignore.” Tam gave her a partly fond, partly exasperated look. “Honestly, cherie, how can you be so smart and yet be so stupid about men?”

  Tam had seen her through a variety of relationships, so the observation wasn’t exactly unfounded.

  Charlie made a face at her. “You know what they say: you have to kiss a lot of frogs.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Fine, don’t listen to me. Did I mention I’m a psychic?” Tam retorted good-humoredly, and reached out to enfold Charlie in a hug. She hugged her back, then watched as Tam slid her key through the lock, then turned to point a monitory finger at her. “You take care of yourself. And remember what I said about the dangerous energy around this case. Keep out of its way.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Charlie promised. As Tam stepped inside her room she said, “Drive safely. Talk to you soon.” Then a thought hit her and she added, “Oh, and, uh, just how sure are you that we don’t have to worry about hunters anymore?”

  “There’s that we again.” Pulling a face, Tam shook her head. “I’m sure. But then, what do I know? Besides just about everything.”

  “Love the modesty,” Charlie retorted.

  Tam grinned, waved, and closed the door. Smiling as she headed for the elevators, Charlie multitasked, making use of her time and her phone to check her e-mail. At what was waiting in her in-box, her eyes flickered with interest. First up, a message from Warden Pugh in response to the one she had sent him asking to be kept in the loop on Dr. Creason’s and the trustee’s progress: both were still hospitalized, but they were alive and slowly improving, which was a relief. The cause of their collapse was still being investigated. The second message was the one she’d really been waiting for. Quickly reading through it, she frowned, then read it again, more carefully. By the time she reached the elevators, her frown had morphed into a full-blown scowl. Michael was there, alone, arms folded over his chest, one broad shoulder propped against the wall.