Deadly Visions

by Aubrey Harper

  With that, Brad was gone. We watched as he drove away in his police cruiser.

  After several more hours of helping around the store, Lily and I had had enough. My mom dropped us off at the local bar. Pick Bar Pick Grill.

  “Really?” Lily said when she saw the sign.

  “Yup. Really,” I said.

  “Don’t drink too much, and call me when you’re ready to come home, all right?” My mom said. “And please do be careful who you talk to. There’s a killer on the loose.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lily said.

  “Yes, mom,” I said. “See you later.”

  “Has your mom always been that cool?”

  “If that’s what you consider cool, then yes.”

  “You don’t know how lucky you are. My parents were distant and cold and just wanted me to become like them. Your mom is actually cool and supportive and loving. And your brother doesn’t seem like a jerk, either, which is quite the accomplishment for someone of the male sex.”

  “You’re awful,” I joked.

  “And that’s why you love me. Now let’s get some drinks! I want to see what kind of fun this town has to offer.”

  We entered the bar, which was not that full at all. The music was quiet in the background. In fact, the TVs were louder. It looked kind of depressing at the moment.

  “Not much it seems,” Lily said when she saw the scene.

  “It should pick up soon,” I reassured her.

  “Can you turn the music up and the TVs down, please?” Lily asked the bartender as soon as we sat down.

  “Since you asked so nicely,” the bartender said and winked for good measure.

  The music was some eighties classic rock. It sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn’t quite place it.

  “At least the bartender is cute,” Lily whispered in my ear as he prepared our drinks. Two Sex on the Beaches.

  Come to think of it, the bartender looked vaguely familiar as well. He had a thick beard, a checkered shirt, and broad shoulders. I was trying to imagine him without the beard.

  “We went to high school together,” he said. “It’s Tommy. Tommy Lopez. Remember me now?”

  “Oh, yeah, we had Chemistry together, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “I bet you did,” Lily said and giggled.

  “Callie was joined to the hip to Lucas. No guy dared come close,” Tommy said.

  “Not that they would have, anyway. I already had a reputation as a bit of a weirdo by then.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Tommy said as he put our drinks in front of us. “Though secretly, I always thought you were cool. You know, like those X-Men.”

  “I always wanted to be a mutant growing up,” Lily said. “Flying and telekinesis would be my abilities of choice. What about you, Tommy?”

  He looked deep in thought. “Hmm, that’s a tough one. Flying is cool. Super strength would be cool as well.”

  “I’d like telekinesis as well,” I said. “Being psychic is more trouble than it’s worth, and it’s not half as fun as it sounds.”

  “At least you have a superpower,” Tommy said. “Try just being a regular person.”

  “I would if I could. If only for a month,” I said.

  Tommy left us then to tend to some newly arrived patrons.

  “This place isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Lily said, taking a sip of her drink. “And this drink could compete with some of the best drinks I’ve had in my life.”

  “Damn, are you sure it’s the drink or the guy who made it you like so much?”

  “Maybe it’s a little bit of both,” she admitted.

  We ordered more of the same after we were done with our drinks. Lily flirted some more with Tommy. And then, to my surprise, Dax made an appearance.

  “Who’s that handsome meat on a stick?” Lily said when she saw him walk in.

  “You need to stop over-sexualizing every guy you see,” I told her. “And that’s Dax, the FBI agent I told you about.” I whispered that last part. It was supposed to be a secret anyway.

  “Hey, come over here,” Lily called to him when he tried to ignore us.

  He reluctantly came over.

  “I’m a little busy right now,” Dax said, looking around the bar.

  “I’m Lily, Callie’s best friend. What’s your name?” Lily slurred that last part. Either the alcohol was getting to her more than usual or she was just being silly.

  “I’m Dax,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, too.”

  Lily’s phone beeped then. She had a new message. Then it beeped again. Another one.

  Dax looked disinterested and seemed like he was getting ready to leave.

  “This concerns you, Mr. FBI,” Lily slurred as she looked at her phone.

  “No, it doesn’t. She’s just drunk,” I quickly said, taking her phone away.

  I looked at the messages the PI had sent her. Apparently, Peter Hill wasn’t the guy’s real name, which wasn’t really a surprise. What was a surprise, was that Peter Hill was a name given to someone in the witness protection program.

  “What is it?” Dax asked.

  “I know who Peter Hill really is,” I said. There was no use in lying now. Plus, I needed him to answer some questions anyway. “I know that wasn’t his real name,” I whispered.

  Dax looked around nervously.

  “We need to get out of here. Now,” he said.

  Chapter 9

  “Where are you taking us?” Lily asked. “Are we being kidnapped right now?”

  “No, we’re not. We’re willingly going with him,” I said. Then I turned to Dax. “Sorry, I think she’s had a bit too much to drink.”

  “You think? Maybe we should drop her off somewhere before we get into this Peter Hill situation,” he said.

  Dax drove Lily home. She needed some much-needed rest.

  “Don’t have too much fun without me,” she said as she stumbled to her room.

  “And where do you think you’re going, missy?” My mom asked me.

  “I have to meet up with that FBI guy. I think he’s ready to tell me everything. Wish me luck!”

  “Be careful!” My mother yelled after me, but I was already in the car by then.

  I followed Dax to the inn.

  “You better not be thinking that this is a social visit,” I told him when we headed up to his room.

  “Very funny,” he said.

  Once he closed the door behind us and locked it for good measure, we were ready to get down to business. It was only after he’d turned on the lights that I saw what kind of disarray his room was in.

  “What’s all of this?” I asked him as I looked at the files strewn all over the bed and even on the floor.

  He quickly tidied up. “Look away, Ms. Ranger. These are things that only an agent of the FBI is supposed to be privy to.”

  “Then why did you invite me up here in the first place? We could have easily talked at the bar.”

  “Not about this,” he said. “What we’re about to talk about requires the utmost discretion. And I must ask you not to talk to anyone else about this either. Not even your brother. Actually, especially not your brother. I don’t want the local PD to be tipping my hand, okay?”

  “So Peter Hill was in the witness protection program,” I said, trying to bring us back on track. I was getting sick of him telling me what I couldn’t do. I wanted to talk about what was actually going on in my town.

  “Keep your voice down,” he whispered. “While there are no bugs here as far as I know, the walls aren’t exactly soundproof.”

  “Okay, so tell me everything you know about him. Maybe if we can figure out who killed him, we can figure out who wants to kill you.”

  “Not this again,” Dax said.

  “It’s pretty much the main reason I’m here right now. If I hadn’t gotten that vision of you getting shot and dying, I wouldn’t have even come back here.”

 
“Fair enough,” he relented. “But that doesn’t mean I believe any of it.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “What?” He asked.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking how stubborn you law enforcement types are. Would it kill you to entertain something besides hard empirical evidence?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “We can’t rely on hearsay. Cold hard facts and confessions are the only ways we can close cases.”

  “So, are you going to tell me what the deal with that Peter Hill guy was or not?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. The more you know, the more in danger you are. And then it won’t be you saving me, but me saving you from getting killed.”

  “So dramatic. So macho. But I’m a big girl and I can handle it. Otherwise, why bring me here for a clandestine meeting if you’re not going to share anything?”

  Dax sat down on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. He obviously looked defeated. And now, hopefully, I was going to find out why.

  “Peter Hill is a name we gave him. And Picking Hill was the town we chose for his relocation once he entered the witness protection program.”

  “Go on,” I encouraged him, once he’d stopped talking.

  “He was testifying against a notorious criminal and his whole family and crew. We could never nail the guy, always just someone on the periphery of his so-called business. But once Peter Hill came forward, he was actually the main guy’s right hand, we had it all in the bag. We just needed to make sure that this witness didn’t disappear like so many before him. We thought this town would be a perfect place. Practically no one even knows it exists.”

  “Hey, I grew up here. I was born here. It might not be well-known, but it definitely exists.”

  “I didn’t mean anything bad by it. But we usually pick these small towns that no one even thinks of looking into, you know?”

  “Well, someone did. Your witness is dead. What’s your name again?”

  “Well, my full name is Dexter Moore, but I go by Dax for obvious reasons.”

  “The show about the serial killer?”

  “Exactly. I couldn’t very well go around being called by the name of one of the most famous serial killers, albeit fictional, when I was going after serial killers myself.”

  “It’s just a show. I’m sure most people wouldn’t make the connection. And it’s not like it’s airing anymore. And at least your last name isn’t Morgan, right?”

  “Well, it was airing when I started working for the FBI and I didn’t hear the end of it from my fellow agents.”

  “People can be so mean, can’t they? I remember when I was growing up…”

  “No offense, but this isn’t about you.”

  “It isn’t about you either. It’s about Peter Hill or whatever his name was.”

  “So if you’re a psychic like you say, can’t you like, I don’t know, talk to his ghost or something?”

  “I don’t see ghosts. I just have visions that tell me things. Sometimes about the future, sometimes about the past. Sometimes even about the present situation people are in.”

  He extended his hands.

  “Go ahead, read my palms,” he said, holding them out to me.

  “I’m not a palm reader or a tarot reader. That’s not how my gift works. But maybe if I touch you, I’ll get something.”

  “Are you trying to seduce me, Ms. Ranger?”

  “Very funny.”

  I took his hands in mine and closed my eyes. I breathed in deeply and opened myself up to whatever decided to come.

  “It was you all along, wasn’t it?” I heard Dax’s voice in my head. But I knew he wasn’t talking in the present, this was going to happen in the future.

  And then I heard a gunshot and I immediately recoiled from his touch.

  “What was it? You don’t look so good. Did you see me die again? Was anything different this time? Did you see the guy that shot me?”

  “For someone who doesn’t believe in this, you sure have a lot of questions,” I joked.

  “Well, when someone tells me I’m going to die soon, I kind of like to keep my mind at least a little open. So what did you see?”

  “I didn’t see anything. I just heard your voice.” I repeated the words he had said. “And then I heard the gunshot.”

  “Interesting,” he said, looking deep in thought.

  “Why? Do you have any ideas?”

  “Obviously, I’m familiar with my killer or become familiar. So it’s not a random person shooting me.”

  “Is it ever?”

  “Rarely, I’ll admit. Most murder victims know their killers.”

  “So what was his real name?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yeah, it kind of does. If we can figure out who killed him, maybe we can figure out who’s going to kill you. Then I thought of something. “I have an idea.”

  “What is it? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “Maybe I can get a vision about Peter Hill’s murder.”

  “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?” He said, a not-so-enthused look on his face. He looked positively creeped out, actually.

  “I think we’re on the same page. And since you’re a hotshot agent for the FBI, I’m pretty sure you can get me access to his body and his clothes, right?”

  “I can, but I don’t know if I want to. If anyone found out, I’d probably be kicked out of the FBI. Not to mention that I’d be the laughing stock of the whole bureau for letting a psychic look at a dead body in the middle of the night.”

  “We just have to make sure no one finds out, right?”

  He nodded, though reluctantly. “I don’t know.”

  “It could crack the whole case. Imagine knowing who killed him and is gunning for you all in one go. Isn’t it worth a shot?”

  “Is it ever that easy, though?”

  “Not usually,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be.”

  “Fine,” he relented. “But you’ll have to let me do the talking.”

  “Fine by me,” I said.

  In that spirit, Dax was the one who drove us to the local morgue. Thankfully, I wouldn’t have to run into any of the people from the local police station.

  The morgue was actually the local funeral home, and the funeral director was also the town’s coroner.

  “Sometimes small towns make things a lot easier,” Dax said when he parked in front of the funeral home. “If this was a city, we’d have to go through so much red tape to do the same thing. All I had to do was call the mortician and tell him that we wanted to see the victim. And now here we are.”

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s just get this over with,” I said, getting tired of sitting in the parking lot.

  “This was your idea, remember?”

  “I remember clearly. But now that we’re here, why not just do the thing we came to do instead of talk about it?”

  “Touché, Ms. Ranger. Touché.”

  The mortician/coroner was an older man in his fifties or sixties. His hair was white, at least the hair that was left on his head. He was actually a surprisingly jolly man, what with his job involving being around dead people the whole day.

  “This way, agent,” the mortician led us down some stairs to the basement. I was already beyond creeped out. Dead bodies weren’t something I could ever get used to. I saw enough death in my visions, I didn’t need to see it in the flesh.

  The mortician gave me a curious look. “And who may you be, young lady? You look oddly familiar.”

  Before I could answer, Dax took the lead, just like he said he would.

  “She’s just a witness. She might have seen the perpetrator.”

  “Interesting. So you’re a local? Maybe that’s why you look so familiar.”

  Before I could answer, Dax spoke up once again. Now he was just being annoying.

  “Yeah, so is the body this way? We’re in kind of a hurry.”

  “Yes, Agent Moore, it’s righ
t down here. Though I don’t understand why this couldn’t wait until the morning.”

  “Because killers don’t sleep, Mr. Fields,” Dax said.

  The mortician gave Dax a strange look. “But doesn’t everyone sleep?”

  “Semantics, Mr. Fields, semantics.”

  “This is so creepy,” I said as the light the mortician had turned on slowly flickered to life to reveal a body on a slab, covered by a thin sheet.

  “He’s dead, Miss, he can’t hurt anyone now,” Mr. Fields reassured me, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

  “Anything else?” Mr. Fields asked Dax.

  “Do you have his personal effects?”

  The mortician shook his head. “The sheriff took them as soon as the body arrived. Why?”

  “It’s not important now. Thank you for your help. May we have some privacy now?”

  Mr. Fields nodded. “I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.”

  Once the mortician was gone, Dax turned toward me, and he didn’t look happy. “I specifically told the sheriff to send the personal effects back to the morgue.”

  “Maybe he just hasn’t gotten to it yet. Or maybe it’s still in transit?” I offered.

  “In a town this small? Not likely. Anyway, do your magic so that we can go before the mortician starts to suspect anything or remembers you’re the town weirdo.”

  “That’s not very nice,” I said, but I took a few steps toward the body on the slab anyway. Then I stopped. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better if I had access to his personal belongings?”

  “Your brother works for the sheriff. We can’t risk it. The body will have to do. Besides, isn’t the body a stronger psychic connection anyway?”

  “Easy for you to say. You won’t have to be the one touching him,” I complained.

  “You’re such a baby,” he said and then reached out and touched the dead guy’s arm. “See? Easy peasy.”

  “Maybe you share more in common with the fictional Dexter than you let on.”

  “Very funny. Now, will you do this or not? Just put your hand on his chest. You can even do it with the sheet on if it freaks you out that much.”

  And that’s exactly what I did, albeit a bit reluctantly. I cringed as I laid my hand down on the dead man’s chest, only a thin sheet separating me from the corpse. It felt like any second the dead man could come back to life like some kind of zombie.