by Blake Pierce
Was the killer going to come back and find the body and do something to it?
Why was she seeing this?
It happened so fast; Laura wasn’t even sure what she was looking at for a second.
Veronica Rowse with her cold, dead face – Veronica who was in the mortuary already, cut up and sewn back together again – Veronica who was dead, dead, dead…
Her eyes flew open, and she took a breath, and Laura saw that she was alive.
Not just animated – alive.
And it was impossible, totally impossible, because she was dead, and –
Laura blinked, moving to put the photograph back in her pocket. Nate walked past her to go to the car, leaving Laura a moment alone. She caught her own reflection in the window of the store, how wide her own eyes were, and fought to get herself under control.
“Who’s driving?” Nate called over, from beside the car already.
“You can,” Laura said, without turning. Then she did turn, made herself do it, made herself go and get into the passenger seat like everything was fine.
Once she was buckled in, she could stop focusing on moving herself forward. She looked out of the window so that Nate couldn’t see her face as he started the engine and began the drive back. She pretended she was watching people walking around on the morning streets.
But she didn’t see a single thing at all.
Inside, her head was in turmoil. She didn’t understand. What she had seen, it didn’t make any sense. It didn’t add up. It had to be some kind of… mistake?
What could it mean?
She saw visions of the future. That much was the one thing she was sure of. And though they were only visions of a possible future, still subject to change, the rule she had relied on for her whole life was that the vision was still possible at the time she saw it. When she changed things in real time, the visions adapted, kept up. Showed her how things would be now that the change had come.
They didn’t show her things that couldn’t happen.
And yet, what she had seen was impossible. She knew it was. She’d seen Veronica Rowse’s body in person. She had no doubt it was the same woman. But you didn’t just wake up from the dead when you’d been gone for a couple of days. Much less so when the coroner had cut you open to check for any other signs of injury or distress.
Laura brought her hand to her forehead, rubbing it hard. Something was happening here. Something she didn’t understand. She couldn’t interpret what the vision meant.
How was she going to figure out what it meant?
“Captain Blackford, would you mind staying back here to get those records?” she said, as she called his number, even though it wasn’t really a request. It was a decision. “Nate and I need to head back to the precinct. Having all three of us working the same angle is a waste of time. We need to keep moving – right now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Laura trailed behind Nate as they walked into the precinct, back on Captain Blackford’s turf but without him. Which meant that the cat was away – and the mice had the place to themselves. The question was, were the mice going to respect the orders of the dogs in his stead?
Or, whatever other kind of complicated metaphor Laura could dream up.
She felt like her head was still spinning as she walked up to an unoccupied desk, glancing around. There was another cop, a detective, sitting at the desk next to it. “Who uses this computer?” she asked, making him look up in surprise.
“Uh, that’s Bobby,” he said. “He’s not in today. Got annual leave.”
“You have some kind of tech department here, who can get us set up on the computer so we can use the databases?”
He nodded, but then jumped out of his chair as he realized why she was still looking at him expectantly. “Right. I’ll go get someone.”
“Thanks,” Laura said, turning around.
Nate had stopped to talk to another detective, an officious-looking older man with a gray streak in his hair and a clipboard in his hands. He was showing Nate something inside a file, which Nate nodded at thoughtfully.
“What do you have?” Laura asked, joining them as she waited for her tech man to get back.
“Identity of our third victim has been confirmed,” Nate said, handing her the piece of paper. “We’ve got a male aged twenty-eight. Lincoln Ware. A local resident, just like the others.”
“Has he lived here long?” Laura asked.
Nate frowned down the length of the report. “No. See, here – about two years ago, his last address was reported as being in Montgomery, Alabama.”
“Two years,” Laura said thoughtfully. “You think it means anything?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Nate said. “Not yet, anyway. It could all mean something, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Laura stood with her hands on her hips, staring into the middle distance as she thought. He was right. Every little thing could be relevant. They didn’t know enough yet to rule any of it out.
Which was why she needed to get her hands on that database, sooner rather than later. She needed to go back over Veronica Rowse’s file, see as much as she could that might give her some clue about what she had seen.
The last case they had worked, the one out in Milwaukee, was still fresh in her mind. The killer had been targeting twins. That was one thought. Had the vision she’d seen not been of Veronica after all, but her identical twin?
It would be weird if the family hadn’t mentioned a sister, but then again, people did weird things.
“What are you thinking?” Nate asked, snapping her attention back to him.
“I’m thinking that we know hardly anything right now,” Laura said. “Has his family been tracked down and notified?”
Nate glanced at the detective who had brought him the file in the first place for confirmation.
“No, not yet,” he said, making a disappointed face. “They’re back in Montgomery, from what we understand. We’re liaising with the local department there, trying to get them informed. When we do, I’ll be able to let you know.”
“Thanks,” Nate said, clapping the man on the shoulder. “We’ll have to talk with the detectives on the ground there, get them some immediate questions to ask. I’m guessing the family will want to come and see the body anyway, but we need information faster than they can get here.”
The detective nodded smartly, moving away just as Laura’s contact returned with an overweight and bespectacled woman hustling across the bullpen behind him. Pushing her glasses up her nose, the newcomer looked at Laura and Nate owlishly before returning her glance to the computer behind him.
“You’re the ones need access?” she asked.
“That’s us,” Laura said. She flipped out her badge for the tech’s benefit. “We need access to all local and national databases.”
“You don’t need access to Bobby’s files?” the woman asked. When Laura shook her head, she nodded in reply and sat down in the vacant chair. “Shouldn’t take me too long to whip up a new user profile. I’ll get you all the access you need.”
“Thanks,” Laura said. She turned to Nate, figuring this was a good time to fill him in on what she’d been thinking during the drive over – if not revealing the cause of those thoughts. “I’m going to dive deeper on our victims. Starting with Veronica Rowse, see if there’s anything in her history I can dig up. There must be something here that we can work with, even if it’s just some kind of popular hangout they’ve all been to.”
Nate nodded. “I’ll work with you on that,” he said. “I can do the non-database route. Look at their social media pages, start looking for locations or people in common, that kind of thing.”
Laura knew that Blackford would have had his guys looking into those sorts of connections already, but it didn’t hurt to look again. A fresh pair of eyes from out of town could sometimes reveal hidden layers of information. Maybe there was a bar that absolutely everyone in Atlanta knew and went to every now and then, and it was disca
rded by the initial search team as being only a coincidence. A non-local, though, would flag it up.
“All set,” the tech woman said, getting up out of Laura’s way. Laura thanked her gratefully and sat down in the chair herself, immediately logging in to the local database and starting to look up Veronica Rowse.
There were lots of records she could check, and Laura decided to go for all of them. Birth records was obvious, but searching by Rowse didn’t get her anything other than the family members that they already knew about. No record of a twin, or even another sister.
Didn’t mean one hadn’t been born in shameful circumstances and swept away, maybe given up for adoption or abandoned, with no name filled in for ‘mother’ on the birth certificate. Medical records could tell her a little more about that.
Laura searched Veronica’s mother’s information, trying to see anything that would give her a clue about an extended hospital stay or even just a one-night check-in. But there was nothing. Veronica, though, had a fairly serious stay on her records: a car accident, just over a year ago. By the list of procedures that she’d been through, it looked as though it had been pretty bad.
She’d survived it. Only to come out the other end and get herself killed by some kind of monster. What a waste. Of course, it was extra time with her loved ones, time to do the things she loved and maybe make an impact on others. She’d worked in the hospice, maybe made someone’s life better. Maybe lots of people. But, still, it seemed like a damned shame to go through all of that and then just die not long afterwards anyway.
Laura checked everything else she could think of, storing each piece of information in her mind. The non-existent criminal record, which told her nothing. Any mention of Veronica she could find in the local paper – which, as it turned out, was only one, a report on the car accident. The details of her family that came up in searches. Everything. Laura had no way right now of knowing which bit of information was important, so she kept it all in her head.
Beside her, Nate was slumped in a spare chair he’d wheeled over, hunched over his cell phone. He was making rapid notes on a page of his notepad, then pausing to scroll up his screen. They would both be here for a while, especially if they found nothing. Laura squared her shoulders and turned back to her keyboard, flexing her fingers above it as she thought.
There was no other way she could think of to search for information. There was only so much data that could quantify someone’s life. The real essence of them, that was what you got from interviews with the family.
She put her fingers to the keys and typed in Stephanie Marchall instead.
What she saw made her lean forward and frown, focusing more closely on the screen. The medical records were… interesting. Stephanie had only been in her mid-thirties, but according to the report, she’d been brought in after suffering from a heart attack some two years before. All manner of scans and tests were listed on her record, until she had been diagnosed with a congenital heart problem that had never previously been noticed. She had a prescription for heart medication. She must have been taking it on the day she was abducted, or the stress of the event would probably have been enough to trigger another cardiac event. Since the coroner hadn’t mentioned it, Laura guessed it hadn’t come into play during her twelve hours on that platform.
There was more data to go through, more information to find. But Laura had a hunch that something was up, here. Something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on yet.
Instead of looking through all the other checks for Stephanie Marchall, she focused on the medical records, this time looking up Lincoln Ware.
He, too, had a whole batch of tests on his record, and within the last six months. They all occurred on the same day. Tests for arterial blood gasses, a CT scan, blood and urine tests, a chest x-ray, an EEG. Something must have happened to him. The record didn’t show what, and the tests had apparently all come back clear.
Whatever it was, it was clear he’d had some kind of medical experience. Something dangerous, judging by the seriousness of the tests he underwent. The same as the other two.
An accident within the past couple of years. That was what connected all of them.
Was that what her vision had been trying to tell her?
But, then, why had it come through like that?
“Nate?” Laura said, getting his attention with an uncertain note in her voice. “I think I have something here.”
“What is it?” Nate asked, dropping his pen. “I haven’t come up with anything at all, yet.”
“Look,” Laura said, showing him the three records that she’d kept open on her screen. “All three of the victims we have so far were involved in some kind of accident or injury over the past two years. Serious ones, too. I would even guess they were all life-risking scenarios.”
Nate frowned. “Could that be enough?”
Laura shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s all we have right now.”
Nate stood up, snapping his notebook shut. “Well, then we better chase it down. Where first?”
“The Rowse family,” Laura said. She gave him a faint smile. “If we get lucky and Bradley Milford has already been released and gone back to them, we might be able to hit two birds with one stone.”
***
The Rowse house was darker and emptier than it had been the last time they visited. There were only two cars parked outside now, which quickly dampened Laura’s hope of being able to speak to Bradley Milford. A call back to the precinct verified that he’d been transferred for processing before his court appearance, after a much larger stash of pills were found at his home. At least they knew where he was if they needed him again.
Laura knocked on the door, feeling Nate’s presence behind her as a reassuringly solid shadow falling over her own. She wasn’t quite sure anymore just how stable the ground was beneath her. This whole thing with the vision of the dead woman coming to life, with the killer tricking them about the times – it was all throwing her off. And her visions hadn’t been coming often enough, or giving enough detail, through the whole case. It was like she was reaching out for things she’d relied on for years, only to find them no longer where she’d left them. And she needed them to be where she’d left them.
The door opened to reveal the brother who had been helpful before – Stephen, Laura remembered. He took one look at them, sighed, and then stepped back to allow them inside.
“Good morning,” Laura said, because she felt like someone should say something. She walked in, her feet taking her by instinct back to that same living room they’d met in before. There was no one else in the room this time, the sofa empty, the whole space seeming smaller and sadder now that it wasn’t full to the brim with people.
“My parents are resting upstairs,” Stephen said, his voice low. “Let’s try not to disturb them. Unless you’re here to tell us that you’ve caught the guy?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Nate said, his tone one of regret. “We actually have a few follow-up questions. We’re getting closer to catching him all the time, and the information you can give us might help us get there.”
Stephen sighed again and sat down, gesturing for them to do the same. “What do you need to know?”
Laura sat beside him on the sofa, finding the seat cushions uncomfortably flat and sunken, while Nate took an armchair to the side. “I believe Veronica was in a car accident not too long ago?” she said, posing the words as a question.
Stephen looked at her with a frown. “Yes. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Let us be the judge of that,” Laura said, gently but firmly. She found that relatives often had the tendency to become armchair detectives, especially if you didn’t get the case solved quickly enough for their liking. They had to be reminded from time to time that actual detectives couldn’t just share all the information on the case with everyone they spoke to – that most of it had to stay classified so that the killer wouldn’t escape. “Can you tell us about what happened?”
Stephen glanced away, towards the wall, his eyes clearly looking inward to his memory instead of outward. “It was a pretty bad smash. Totaled the car. It wasn’t her fault at all – some loser was drunk behind the wheel, and she happened to be driving home after staying late at work. T-boned her car at an intersection.”
“What about her injuries?” Laura asked. “Her medical records suggest it was pretty serious.”
Stephen snorted. “Serious?” he said, shaking his head. “It was a miracle she survived. She almost didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Laura asked. She could hear a rush of blood in her ears. A thing she didn’t want to acknowledge was coming rapidly towards her, like the very vehicle that had hit Veronica’s car.
“Her heart stopped before they even managed to get her out of the car. The EMTs had to resuscitate her at the scene,” Stephen said. “She had months of problems. Broke her leg in two places. She had to practically relearn how to walk on it by the time the cast came off. Broke her collarbone too, and she had some pretty nasty cuts on her side from the broken glass.”
Laura had a flash of herself, standing in the morgue, looking down at the body. From the other side. She hadn’t gone around to examine Veronica from all angles, had never noticed the scars. The coroner hadn’t mentioned them, but why would he? They weren’t relevant to the cause of death.
“She died, and came back to life,” Laura said, saying the words almost to herself. She felt like she was floating for an odd moment. Like she was looking down at herself having this realization.
That was what she had seen. Veronica Rowse coming back to life. And now that she thought harder about the vision she’d had, the images that were burned into her memory, she could see details. Like the glint of broken glass in Veronica’s hair, just at the edge of the vision. Like the fact that Veronica was only just dead, or she would have looked completely different, as she had in the morgue. This was something that happened not long after her heart stopped. She was resuscitated. The movements Laura had seen – they must have been caused by the EMTs pumping her chest.
