A Revelation of Death

by Alexa Padgett

  She clutched her stack of books to her throbbing chest. She wanted to run or scream but none of those things were done. Not in society, Kelli.

  Wait…the woman’s name was Kelli?

  We don’t show emotion like that. It’s disruptive. The way you’re acting isn’t normal. Remember to focus on what others can accept.

  Except Kelli wanted to be disruptive, especially right now. She wanted to scream and scream and scream and scream until the man went away.

  Until he stopped frightening her. Maybe people wouldn’t look at her like she was crazy if they knew he was following her…

  Would anyone believe her?

  Kelli’s crazy.

  How long had she heard those words? Her whole life.

  So, okay, no fit to draw attention to herself. She tried to regulate her breathing. Think of a plan.

  No luck.

  She tried to focus on where she could go…what she could do…the building. The hotel. Yes! A refuge. She’d be safe around all those other people there.

  There—now she could make out the tan adobe wall of the building with its busy circular drive. People would help her there. She quickened her pace until she reached the street—West San Francisco, Cici noted. And the hotel was the El Dorado, one of the nicest in Santa Fe.

  Kelli darted across the street, scrambling around a parked car on the other side.

  As she sprinted into the lobby, she thought she heard a chuckle drift up over her shoulder, causing her to tremble with distaste and fear.

  Before now, she never would have said a laugh held such darkness. But this one did. She sped up, the sound echoing in her ears, building to a sinister pitch.

  She slammed her hand against the elevator button and scrambled into the first one she saw, hitting the close-door button over and over, her heart clogging her throat, pounding so hard against her eardrums. Black dots drifted across her vision.

  “Come on,” she sobbed. “I shouldn’t have come. I should never have listened to Mara…”

  A harried-looking mother with two young, whining kids called out for her to hold the door, but she shook her head, frantic. No one could join her, not now. People hurried forward and the woman with the children scowled at her as the doors slid closed.

  She was alone. Safe. Her knees buckled. She managed to press the button to the floor below hers, before she sank to the ground, struggling to regulate her breathing. No way he’d follow her to a hotel.

  She stumbled down the hall, to sit in the darkest corner. She stayed there, slumped on the floor for what felt like hours. Eventually, she rose, her stomach growling. She’d eat at the burrito place on Lincoln and call her friends. Someone would pick her up.

  She never placed a call because he loomed out of the building shadows as she exited the hotel.

  His eyes were dark and hungry. Her bag of books slid from her numb fingers as he placed his hand over her mouth, his other arm around her waist.

  16

  Sam

  Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance. ― Hannah Arendt

  * * *

  Sam raced into Cici’s bedroom, his Glock 45 in hand, heart pounding, as Cici’s screams echoed off the walls of her bedroom. Her dogs danced around him and the bed, her silk comforter askew and mostly on the floor. The gray top sheet was twisted around Cici’s body, holding her firm in its cocoon.

  Mona, the smaller of the Great Pyrenees whined as she stuck her nose against Sam’s leg, clearly as shaken by Cici’s flailing and cries as he was.

  After ascertaining no one threatened Cici, Sam set his firearm on the dainty wooden nightstand and sat on the edge of her bed. A chilly night air blanketed him, causing him to shiver.

  He went over to the window, shivering at the cool air pouring in through the slight crack between the frame and the casement. He snapped the lock. He’d thought she might sleep better with a bit of fresh air, but now they both shivered from the severe drop in temperature.

  Cici huddled in the middle of her bed, the sheet now at her waist to reveal her form-fitting tee. Her teeth chattered as she wrapped her arms around her convulsing torso.

  “Bad dream?” Sam asked.

  Cici launched herself into his arms. He caught her to him, running a hand down her back as she continued to convulse.

  “She’s there. In the water,” she said.

  He brushed her damp hair from her clammy forehead. Her eyes remained unfocused, like she was lost in the image.

  “Who is?”

  “The…the girl.”

  “Who? Where?”

  Cici shook her head. “I don’t know. Another girl. Another victim.” Cici’s teeth chattered.

  “Just a nightmare,” Sam said. But his attempt at reassurance failed. Anna Carmen’s dreams remained a reliable resource. They told the tale of past events, not a prediction of the future.

  “It was so real.” Her eyes filled with tears but she fell back on her rumpled sheets. “She was terrified as she ran. So relieved when she entered the hotel. And then…then she ended up in the water.” Cici frowned, peering up at him. “How did she get in the water?”

  “I’ll check on a girl in water in the morning,” Sam promised.

  “Thank you.”

  Cici turned on her side, grimacing as she jarred her ankle. She clasped his hand tight in hers as if it was the only lifeline between her and ferocious winds buffeting her. Sam wrapped his free arm around her shoulders, needing to offer comfort. She began to calm. Her teeth chattering stopped.

  “I dreamed of Aci first.”

  Sam tucked some stray hairs that had slipped out of her braid back behind her ear. Before he could figure out what to say, Cici said, her voice soft, “I thought grief eased over time.”

  He gave her a gentle squeeze. “It does. Until it hits you harder than a Mack truck.”

  Cici raised her eyes filled with sadness and pain and gratitude. “Thank you for being here. For being you.”

  He pressed a kiss to her temple. This moment, the tenderness and protectiveness, his ability to show these emotions for this woman, eased into his bones. Even as he worried for and over her, contentment to be with her filled up his chest. They lay in the quiet.

  “Aci said he’s back,” she murmured. “That he’ll come.”

  Sam absorbed her words.

  “I think…I think the girl I saw in the dream…I think she was the first. His first.”

  The moment of peace snapped like an old rubber band. His confusion grew in tandem with his frustration.

  “First what?”

  “Victim. The first one he…” She didn’t want to say the words. “I think he raped her.”

  “What does the vision have to do with Patti?” Sam asked.

  Cici huddled into the bed, seeming to shrink into herself. Sam regretted his harsh tone. None of this was Cici’s fault.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you think it’s related?” Sam asked, gentling his tone as he pulled her back against his chest—where she belonged.

  Cici lay still for a long moment. She seemed to be checking something. Sam guessed it was the connection she shared with her twin. “I do. Yes. But I can’t tell you why. Or how I know.”

  So far, each of the visions Anna Carmen sent caused turmoil and extreme danger.

  “All right.”

  She met his gaze, her eyes glistening in the faint moonlight. She pressed closer to him, gripping her hand in the fabric of his T-shirt. “Don’t leave.”

  She kept asking him to stay. Clearly, Cici had a deep-seated fear of abandonment. His heart ached as he recounted the pattern of her life: first, her father’s move, then her mother’s death, and finally her sister’s murder. Sam was the only important person from Cici’s formative years still involved with her day-to-day.

  He swallowed down the emotions burning up his throat to say, “I won’t.”

  She sighed, her muscles releasing enough for her to
relax. He brushed his hand down her braid. And, in that moment, holding Cici in the dark quiet of her bedroom was enough. More than enough.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Cici said. “I don’t like water anymore.”

  He continued to stroke her hair until her breath evened out.

  He dozed. Between fitful bouts of slumber, he considered that this, in a time of convalescence, was the first time he’d ever slept in Cici’s bed. It was comfortable—a bit too soft for his preference and with layers of pillows and blankets in hues of girly greens and blues which Cici called aquamarine and teal and cobalt.

  As dawn broke, Sam rose from his spot next to Cici, wishing he could do more as she struggled with the demons that continued to visit her dreams.

  He snapped his fingers once to get the dogs’ attention. After letting them outside into the small backyard, he made a pot of coffee. He pulled down his favorite mug and drizzled in a bit of cream Cici kept for him. Sam didn’t like half-and-half, which was Cici’s preference.

  He sipped as he watched the blushes of pink and gold fade into the bright blue of a New Mexican autumn morning.

  Sam headed back down the hall and checked on Cici, who still slumbered on her side, her palm pressed into the indent of the pillow where he’d lain. He grabbed his bag and managed to crowd into the small bathroom. He set his duffle under the edge of the white pedestal and pulled out a clean T-shirt and jeans. After showering, shaving, dressing, and brushing his teeth, Sam deemed it late enough to call Jeff Raynor to ask about another drowning or a missing young woman.

  “Nope,” Jeff Raynor, said. “Besides the rain barrel case, we haven’t been called out on a new major crime this week. And don’t give the drunks or tourists any ideas about the river.”

  “Don’t plan on it,” Sam said. “The riverbed’s dry anyhow.”

  “Why’d you ask?” Raynor asked. “Is it related to the Urlich case?”

  “Maybe. Not sure. You never let me know how Cooper took the news that Patti’s death is now considered a homicide.”

  “Yeah. Didn’t go great. The kid cried a lot and Cooper looked pretty done in. He’s not happy with me for making him move his kid out of the house.”

  Of course he wasn’t. A small child needed the normalcy of a routine—even Sam knew that—and to make matters worse, now his home was the crime scene. Sam’s sympathy for the man increased, but other concerns crowded Sam’s thoughts.

  “I heard something about a girl disappearing from one of the hotels.” He hedged, not yet willing to tell others about Cici’s dreams. Not yet. Not until he was sure.

  “Let me look into it,” Raynor said.

  “Maybe it’s best if we have someone pull missing or abducted females going back a few years.”

  “How far back?” Raynor didn’t wait for Sam to respond. “I’ll go to the database and look up the last couple of years.”

  “Go back five,” Sam said. That time frame covered the period he’d lived in Denver. “Have you been home?” Sam asked. “Did you sleep at all?”

  “Home, yes. Sleep, not so much,” Raynor said. “This is a big deal, a big case for me.”

  Great. Now Sam added worry about Raynor’s mental state to his growing list of concerns. A tired investigator wasn’t at his best.

  And, if Cici was correct, the man attacked at least one other woman.

  He really, really hoped Cici was not correct.

  17

  Sam

  My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. ― Trieu Thi Choi

  * * *

  Cici hobbled out to the kitchen a short time later, her face dewy from a fresh washing though her eyes remained tired. She’d changed into a long-sleeved T-shirt and some yoga pants, which must have been easier to wrestle over her boot than jeans. She looked good, if still on the thin side.

  Images of Cici aiming her pistol as she stood back-to-back with the spy popped into his mind. He’d never forget his terror at finding out Cici was involved in an international terrorist plot, nor could he swallow the bitter taste of regret that Cici was forced to shoot more than one man.

  Sam brought over a mug filled with coffee to the table and slipped into the chair beside her.

  “Sleep okay?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Can we talk about your dream?” Sam asked.

  Cici paused in the act of stirring the half-and-half into her coffee. Her eyes were troubled as she raised them to his. The abrasion on her forehead stood out, angry and red, against the paleness of her skin. Raised bruises in blues and reds circled her throat, and he felt a pang of how close she’d come to death. Again.

  She’d worn her dark hair to bed in a braid, but small tendrils now bracketed her face, softening the new sharpness of her cheekbones—no doubt from lack of enough calories.

  The trek across the mesa had taken a physical toll, but Sam was much more concerned about the emotional one. Cici hadn’t said anything else about shooting—killing—those men out there since he brought her home. The shadows in her eyes spoke of her internal torment and he had to wonder if the dreams were part of her subconscious trying to process the days-long struggle to survive.

  She raised her mug to her lips and took a deep sip. “Okay.”

  She cleared her throat. Then, she launched into a recitation which began with her running from the flash flood and ended with her watching Kelli launch herself into the hotel’s elevator, only to have him grab her later.

  “I think…I think she must have passed out again because the next thing I knew, she’s in some form of water.”

  The story settled over them, causing Sam to shiver even as the morning light cast a warm glow over the hardwoods and the cozy cream color of the adobe walls that lined Cici’s kitchen, living, and dining rooms.

  “So, you don’t think this female…Kelli?” he waited for Cici’s nod before continuing. “You don’t think Kelli fell in the river?”

  Cici took another sip of her coffee as she considered Sam’s question. “No, it didn’t feel like the water moved around her, like it does in the Pecos or the Rio Grande.”

  She pursed her lips. When she spoke, she did so with care, as if she were revisiting the moment and wanted to get her description correct.

  “The water felt still. Warm. And stale.” She shook her head. “Like…like a pond or a pool or something.”

  “Hmm. Okay. A pond is a different tack than the river. I’ll call Raynor back.”

  “Thanks, Sam,” Cici said. She sipped from her coffee and then set it on the table, her gaze turning troubled once more. “One more thing. I’m pretty certain her hands were tied behind her back,” Cici said. “Just like Patti’s.”

  Sam nodded, but Cici no longer paid him attention. She seemed to fall into the image only she could see. Her pupils dilated with the horror of the experience.

  “She drowned?” Sam asked, covering her hand with his. “Like Patti Urlich?”

  Cici blinked back the vision. “Yeah. Yeah, she did.”

  “That’s where the similarities end,” Sam said. He didn’t want to shut her down, but he felt obligated to point out the differences in these cases—and the much greater likelihood they weren’t related.

  “What was she wearing?” Sam asked. Part of him hoped Cici’s nightmare was simply bad luck. But she began to recount the clothes.

  “Red platform wedges. Um…patent leather, I think, and they were tall. Maybe three inches. Jeans, high-waisted and acid wash. Like…from the eighties but the new ones because the bottoms were cut off and stringy. A white blouse. It buttoned with those little pearl buttons.”

  Sam rose and grabbed a pen and pad from Cici’s drawer. He jotted down everything she could tell him about Kelli’s appearance.

  “Hair?”

  “Long. Dark. Pulled into one of those high ponytails. And she wore dangly silver earrings. I think the term for the kind I saw is chandelier. Sunglasses in the same silver.”

  Sam’s gut twisted
. Cici’s memory continued to shock him but even for her, this was an excellent description. “Height? Weight? Anything distinguishing about her features? A mole, scar, birthmark?” Sam rattled off the list, knowing Cici could keep up. As she liked to tell him, this wasn’t her first rodeo.

  “Hard to tell height because of the shoes. Not tall, I’d say based on where she stood with other adults she passed. Thin, fine-boned. Um…” Cici trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she processed the images spinning through her head.

  “I don’t know about birthmarks or anything. She was young. Pretty.”

  “And her name was Kelli?” Sam asked, trying not to feel a pang for the potential victim. Not easy to do. Sam’s desire for justice was driven in large part because of his empathy for the crime victims.

  Cici nodded. “With an i.”

  “How do you know that?” Sam asked, glancing up from the pad.

  Cici frowned. She stared down in the coffee. She took a deep breath before she lifted her head. “For a few moments, I’m pretty sure I was Kelli.”

  18

  Cici

  The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant. ― Mary Wollstonecraft

  * * *

  Sam’s look of horror at her pronouncement caused her stomach to drop. She hadn’t wanted to admit that part—not to herself let alone to him. And unlike the poor girl, Kelli, Cici had been able to scream. To wake up.

  To live this day.

  Cici looked down into her mostly empty coffee mug. “My uncle drowned.”

  She wasn’t sure why she said that, except…well, she needed to tell someone. “I didn’t know. Not until recently.” She set her mug on the table. “My father told me about it. He drowned in the acequia behind the family hacienda.”