SOUL FREQUENCY
(Frequency Series Book 2)
By Shane Scollins
Chapter 1
He yanked her violently by the arm and dragged her into the room. She didn’t even try to resist him. But even if she had he was too strong, a two-hundred fifty pound block of muscle, and she was but a fifty-pound child.
Hurting her wasn’t part of his plan, but than again he really didn’t have a plan he was just making it up as he went along. He was just so angry and he would snap her little neck if he had to, and he might have to real soon.
“Peter Murt, my name is Peter Murt.” He said it every so often when he remembered who he was. Ever since that night, he was having a hard time with his memory. He didn’t kill that girl—he wasn’t to blame. She died, that was true. He was there when she died, that was true. His hands had apparently choked the life out of her, yes, that was true. But he didn’t mean to kill her he only meant to shake her up. They made him a killer in prison. He didn’t start out as one. It was their fault.
“Shut up, and sit there!” He said to the little girl named Bella as he threw her to the floor. She stumbled to her knees and looked back at him with tears streaming down her delicate face. For a brief flicker he thought of his baby sister when she was that age, maybe seven or eight. Haley had feathery brown hair and big hazel eyes just like this girl. That was back when life was innocent and filled with promise. He was filled with promise at one time too with dreams and hopes.
Peter shook that off and slammed the door. He ran to the front window of the tiny bungalow and looked to the street. There was no commotion but for some reason he felt like they were coming. He hadn’t completely thought this through. They knew he had the girl, they knew he wanted money and freedom.
But exactly how he was going to get those things he wasn’t sure. One million in cash in a duffle bag, that’s what he demanded. More would be nice but that was a lot to carry if he had to go on foot. He’d never seen that much money, so he wasn’t even sure how he knew that it was a lot to carry but something told him it was.
A new idea just popped into his head. Taking out his phone, he called the FBI agent he was told to contact. After one ring the call connected. “It’s me.”
“Mr. Murt. Is Bella still safe?” The FBI agent on the phone replied.
“Yeah for now—for now.” His speech was coarse and strained. “But she won’t be—won’t be if you don’t give me exactly what I want—I want—want.”
“We’ve been waiting for you to tell us what you want.”
Peter had been struggling to come up with something but then it hit him. “I want a boat, a good sized boat, but not so big I can’t drive it—drive it. I want the money on the deck so I can see it—see it—it. I get on that boat and sail away and you never see me again—see me again.”
“What about Bella?”
Flatly, calmly, he said, “I drop her in the ocean when I reach International Waters.”
“Mr. Murt, that’s unacceptable.”
Returning to his stumbled difficult speech he said, “That’s the way it’s gonna be—gonna be.”
“You said you’d let her go.”
“I will, I just said it—just said it—just said it—it—it.”
“She could drown.”
His brain felt scrambled. That made perfect sense for a moment but he replied, “I’ll give her a life vest. She can float—float until you get there.”
“Mr. Murt, that’s really not—”
“I don’t give a shit, that’s how it’s gonna be…boat, pier down on Lancaster in one hour. If it’s not there, I’ll kill her, with a gun—a gun—gun. Then I’ll start killing random people all over the city until you catch me and kill me.”
“Mr. Murt, it will take us some time.”
“One hour.” He ended the call and the video game feeling started to fade. Pretending he was in a video game was the best way to get through these scenes. He could get through them if he just let it happen.
They couldn’t touch him as long as he had the girl, and this way there would be a seamless groove into freedom. It should work like the perfect plan and then his memory would be better too.
There was a noise at the back door. He raised the large chrome revolver and walked angrily towards the noise. The door swung inwards and he nearly pulled the trigger until he saw who it was.
“Hey baby!” She said, her blue eyes flashed with a glint of harrowing menace, and her tight, black, skull design T-shirt hugged all her curves to her jeans.
“Andi, I didn’t expect you’d come here. How’d you sneak up here?” He moved to her and kissed her. It was nice that it was easy to talk again. Once those video game scenes were over he didn’t have as much trouble talking.
She bit his lip, hard, and then slapped his face. “You dick, you think I’d let you have all this fun? I came through the woods behind the house. You’re the one that told me to.” She looked at him oddly.
Peter didn’t recall it. He was having some memory troubles. He’d been having them since the night of the murder. “I was going to text you, tell you to meet me at the pier.”
She pulled the silver revolver from his hand. “How the hell would that work you idiot? This way I can watch your back.”
Peter turned back into the kitchen and leaned against the counter.
Andi pulled open the fridge. “Where’s the little bitch?”
“In the bedroom, crying.” He felt bad about that for some reason.
“Anything to eat in this place?” She took hold of a jar of olives, twisted off the top and tossed the lid onto the granite center island. “Whose house is this?”
“Some old lady.”
Andi plucked an olive from the jar and popped it into her mouth. “Did you kill her?”
He nodded but he didn’t remember doing it.
Andi’s eyes lit up. “Where’s the body?”
He had to think hard to recall where he’d put the body. “Garbage can outside.”
“How’d you do it?”
He wanted to lie and make it sound more exciting than it was. Since he was having trouble recalling details he didn’t know what to say. Andi loved carnage, and mayhem, and all things related to them. It was just a job to him, a circumstance. He didn’t particularly delight in murder the way Andi did. Inside, it was kill or be killed. Out here in the real world, they frowned on it, but it was still a necessary evil sometimes.
Peter shrugged at her question, hoping she would drop it, and then his phone rang. He reached into his pocket and fished it out. “Yeah.”
“Mr. Murt, this is Agent Steen, FBI.”
He took a second to think. “I know who you are. I’m not an idiot.”
“We have your boat on the way with an ETA of twenty minutes.”
“And?”
“And you’re guaranteed free passage to International waters.”
“Fine.”
“But we have one request.”
He sighed. “What is it?”
“That you allow a chopper to tail you to the mark. So that when you dump the girl into the water, we can get to her right away. We can’t risk having to search for her.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever.” He ended the call.
Chapter 2
Jordan watched Kayci work with a little bit more amazement than he expected to have. He should be used to this by now, but it was still a little bit bizarre. Her left eyebrow twitched up every few seconds, her lips pursed on a kiss-me-freeze, it was kind of funny, and a little bit cute.
He closed his eyes for a second and examined the local network of frequencies. The jagged, pulsing, shades of co
lors were plentiful. As always those lighter colored shades like white and yellow were beating low on the graph his mind would create. But the powerful dark reds were very few and far between. The reds were the most powerful psychic energies, and they flowed high up on the top, pushed up by the lower ones, kind of like oil on water.
There wasn’t a lot of energy. He could easily see he and Kayci, their lines spiked way above the common threads of others, the regular people who were unable to flex their minds. But it was nothing like it was just days ago while battling with Kayci’s NSA cohorts where the powerful red lines were arching all over the place and mind wars were out of control.
They didn’t even want to be here. They were supposed to be half way to California by now, dreaming about blue-sky beaches as black ribbons of road flew by under humming tires. But they didn’t even get out of New Jersey before the FBI asked for their special kind of help.
An escaped prisoner named Peter Murt had kidnapped an eight-year-old girl. The FBI had been unable to come up with a safe plan to get her back. They knew where he was, but the area was so remote that he would see and hear them coming for miles. They feared he would kill her as soon as they got close. This man had nothing to live for and was a particularly heinous type of criminal. He’d murdered his girlfriend last year, and while in prison he killed two fellow inmates. Then he killed a guard while trying to escape. Since he’d been out he went on two unprovoked shooting sprees, killing four people at a Newark diner, and three people at a busy intersection in Patterson. The fact he was out of jail at all was something of an improbable twist of fate. Somehow, he’d ended up on a transfer bus to a minimum security prison where he promptly killed another guard and escaped with his gun.
Now it was up to Kayci to find Murt’s frequency and lock in on it. If she could find it, perhaps she could nudge him into a mistake, or make a suggestion that might just ruin his plans. But so far she’d not been able to get the job done. It was harder to find those very low on the frequency plane from any distance. It was easy to connect to them close up, but far away posed a problem. It was much easier to find other psychics. The stronger the signature the easier it was for another psychic to lock onto the frequency. The psychic-to-psychic link could travel many hundreds of miles if both parties were willing.
Jordan could see the struggle. He concentrated hard and locked onto her red line. It was streaming like he’d never seen before. It was a spanning bar with splitting beams, like feelers, all over the place, like tiny bolts of red lightening searching for a grounded object.
He could sense she needed his help but he didn’t want to disturb her. So he tried to seamlessly merge the lines and when he did it was like a kick to the brain. It nearly knocked him off the flimsy metal chair.
Jordan strained, it was like fighting a seizure that was attacking his neurons. His hands started to shake. Everything in his body felt like it was spreading out into the world in little pieces, as if his molecular structure was being torn apart.
Finally, the ride smoothed out and he started to perceive what she was trying to do. Then something more menacing, disturbing even, came into his feed and the link fell apart. He gasped for breath and looked to Kayci.
She opened her eyes and leaned forward. “I got the sonofabitch.” She nodded to Jordan, smiled. “I tuned in, I got his signature.”
The wiry Agent Steen clicked on the lights in the office. “And?”
The mostly empty white room came to light as Jordan blinked away the sudden brightness. Kayci started to jot down something on a piece of paper. Then she handed it over to Steen. “This might work.”
The agent left in a hurry.
Then the other man sat next to her. He was Special Agent Rumi Rahandumar. And although he looked like he was going to have an Indian accent, he was from Brooklyn. “Thank you, Kayci.”
“No problem, but don’t get too excited yet.” She picked up a bottle of water at her feet and took a swig. “All I gave Steen was a bit of dialogue to try and catch him in a mistake.”
“Now we can hopefully snag this guy.” Rumi offered.
Jordan stood. “There’s a problem.” He looked to Kayci who returned an inquisitive look. He said, “You didn’t feel it?”
She shook her head slowly. “I was busy learning his signature, his weaknesses and where he was likely to make an error in judgment. I wasn’t looking for anything else.”
Jordan suspected as much. “When I peaked in, I felt something odd. Now, admittedly, I’m not an expert, but I don’t think he’s going to drop her in the water. I think maybe he’s going to kill her.”
Rumi leaned his body forward. “Why would he do that? It offers no strategic advantage.”
Kayci touched her finger to her lips. “Because this isn’t about the money and freedom.”
Jordan nodded. “This is about something else. I’m not even sure what, maybe revenge. There’s something going on here, it didn’t feel right. I felt deception.”
Kayci sighed. “I did notice that but I didn’t know what he was trying to be deceptive about. There was something in his signature that was odd. I can’t quite put a finger on it. It’s nothing I’ve really seen before from a low-level psychic energy.” She shook her head. “Murt is not a strong enough energy to have those markers. But, sometimes the stress of a situation can cause regular people to have irregular markers.”
Jordan firmed his lips. “Hmm…I thought it was just me, I almost didn’t say anything.”
“No I’m glad you did, Jordan. Always trust your instincts, they’re strong.”
Rumi sighed. “There’s something else you need to know.”
Kayci narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“There’s a reason we called you in on this. There’s a big magnifying glass on this one.”
Kayci glanced at Jordan. “I’m listening.”
“The girl’s kind of a special needs case.”
Jordan sneered, “Special how?”
“Well,” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “She belongs to one of our own.”
Kayci raised her chin. “How so?”
Rumi smiled uncomfortably. “Her father is an agent, a very decorated and well respected agent.”
“Who is she?” Kayci asked.
“Her name is Bella Hill. Her father is Evan Hill.”
Kayci made a face. “Evan Hill, I know that name. Why do I know that name?
“You know it because he’s the most prolific criminal profiler in the history of the FBI. The man is utterly brilliant. He’s the reason Peter Murt was behind bars in the first place when we had no leads. He’s the reason some of the toughest cold cases in the FBI have been closed.”
Kayci nodded. “Impressive.”
“Yeah,” Agent Rahandumar smiled. “He created a criminal algorithm that’s going to change the face of how cold crimes are solved all over the country.”
“Oh, yes.” Kayci said. “That’s how I know him. I saw something on television about him.”
“He’s been out there teaching his techniques to police forces all over the country. Like I said, he’s a revolutionary criminal profiler and a well respected agent. So everyone here is pulling hard on this one. The FBI can’t fail here, it will not look good in the court of public opinion to have our top guy unable to save his own daughter.”
Jordan crossed his arms. “It is possible this is Murt’s revenge of some sort?”
Rumi turned one side of his mouth up. “Murt maintained his innocence the entire time. He insisted the FBI set him up. He still says he didn’t kill his the girl, but Evan Hill put a profile together, and Murt fit it to the letter. Not to mention, there was DNA and several other forensics facts that tied him to the case. His fingerprints were around her neck.”
Kayci asked, “So how did he maintain his innocence? Is he lying to himself?”
Rumi shrugged. “Actually, he says he doesn’t remember anything.”
Jordan chuckled. “Well, that’s convenient. How many murderers woul
d love to use that excuse to get off?”
Kayci looked to the ceiling. “There’s something I don’t like. Agent,” Kayci said.
“Please, Kayci, call me Rumi.”
“Rumi, I’m not sure you’ll understand this, but Murt’s frequency line was very odd. It’s not the run-of-the-mill signature. That worries me. It makes me think he’s not going to do what we want him to even with my prodding.”
Rumi raised his finger at her. “I just need to know. Frankly. Can you nudge him into a mistake? Can this actually work?”
Kayci looked at Jordan, shrugged, and then put her attention back on Rumi. “I don’t know. In theory, we should be able to, but there’s something off here.”
Jordan wondered if he was even farther out of his realm this time. He was still a long way off in his ability to understand all this frequency stuff. He knew he’d come a long way in a very short time, he had to learn quickly while taking down Kayci’s former NSA team. But he still had so much he didn’t understand.
Rumi walked nervously in a circle, brushing his hands through his fine black hair. “I have to make a call. This little girl can’t die on my watch.”
Kayci nodded. “I understand, Rumi. And I wish I could be more certain. But the reality is that this man is dangerous. When you try to psychically nudge people like this, you need to be very careful. They are volatile and messing with their brains can have unintended consequences. The cold reality is that manipulating the sound of mind is much more certain than manipulating the psychopaths of the world. If it were easy, we’d be able to diffuse every nasty situation. Every hostage negotiation would require only a strong psychic practitioner. But unfortunately that’s the exact opposite of what happens sometimes.”
Rumi nodded thoughtfully. “I understand. It’s the beehive theory.”
“Exactly,” Kayci agreed. “You can’t stick your fist into the hornet’s nest and expect anything less than a few stings. But, you can manipulate it softly and hope for the best.”
Rumi looked at Jordan. “Okay, then you two are going to have to come with us.”
Jordan knew this was coming.
Soul Frequency (Frequency Series Book 2) Page 1