A Revelation of Death

by Alexa Padgett

  The Hacienda was a palatial adobe built back in the late sixteen hundreds that sprawled across a goodly portion of a side street near the Canyon Road area. It had been in Cici’s family since it was built, and she’d grown up there, just as her father and her grandfather had.

  “I never knew you had an uncle,” Sam said.

  Cici shrugged. She still felt raw. From the dream, but also from her time in Chaco. She wanted to close her eyes to find sweet oblivion, but the last few times she tried, intense nightmares followed her, especially the flash of memory of the Russian’s gray eyes just before he flipped over the side of the cliff. She brought herself back to the conversation with Sam, but the effort taxed her.

  “Your mom or your dad’s brother?”

  “My father’s. He was older by a couple of years. I didn’t know I had an uncle either until after Aci died.”

  Sam blew out a breath. “That’s awful.”

  “You don’t think it’s all related, do you?” Cici asked.

  Sam’s eyes widened. “Do you?”

  Cici traced a pattern on her pants leg as she puzzled through her jumbled feelings. After a long moment of silence in which Cici continued to contemplate what she knew of her uncle, Sam asked, “When did your uncle die?”

  “In the late seventies, I think.” She flattened her palm against her leg. “I’ve never dreamed about him. Aci’s never communicated anything about his death.”

  Sam doodled on the paper. “Then I’m inclined, at least until you can tell me otherwise, to believe his death has nothing to do with Patti Urlich or the girl, Kelli. I’m not even sure the Urlich murder is connected to this girl, Kelli’s death.”

  When Cici opened her mouth to speak, Sam held up his hand. “I know you do, based on your dream. And believe me, you finding any connection between the two women worries me. I don’t want a murderer targeting young women in my city. I need to talk to Raynor about the information he collected yesterday, go over the video coverage we have of the area. I asked Raynor to pull all the files of missing or abducted women from the last five years.”

  “So, you’re looking for a clue in Patti’s death and also possible patterns with the girl I dreamed about. Kelli.”

  “Right. I’ll attack this from as many angles as possible.”

  “When will you know?” Cici asked. “If it’s connected?”

  “When we find evidence.” Sam hesitated. “Or another body.”

  “And you think we will?”

  “I’m betting on it,” he said.

  “Why’s that?”

  Sam met her gaze, his face set with a seriousness that caused Cici’s skin to tighten. “Because your sister hasn’t sent you dreams unless you or someone you care about is in mortal danger.”

  19

  Cici

  If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed. ― Sylvia Plath

  * * *

  Snippets from last night’s dream continued to churn through her mind as she showered—the water causing another panic attack. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to ignore her pounding heart and rapid breathing. She was exhausted by the time she exited the bathroom.

  She dressed, which took entirely too long thanks to her shaky muscles, and heated up tea to take into the church office, and the whole time the dream clung to her like skunk spray. She kept getting stuck on the shadow of the man in the storefronts as Kelli hurried toward what she’d hoped was safety.

  As she settled into her chair behind her desk, she closed her eyes and the image on his shirt swam into focus. She gasped.

  She scrambled for her phone. Before she dialed the number, she licked her lips. What if she was wrong?

  Sam said he was gathering evidence. This could be helpful. She called him.

  “Hey, Cee.”

  “What are you up to?” she asked.

  “Reviewing the evidence and other case files. I plan to talk to the neighbors about Cooper and Patti Urlich.”

  “Anything useful?”

  Sam grunted in frustration. “No. But then, I don’t know what, exactly, I’m looking for yet.”

  “I’m not sure this is relevant,” she said.

  Sam waited. Damn his patient nature. She didn’t want to feel comfortable enough to share this detail with him. Too much could ride on her being wrong.

  She closed her eyes but the image remained fixed, like a Polaroid. Each detail was etched in stark relief.

  “The man—I told you about how he stood over Kelli? He wore an NMSU T-shirt.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Sam said, more energy zipping into his tone. “Anything else? Beard? No beard? Tattoo? Earring?”

  “I think I saw the shirt. I almost didn’t say anything. What if I’m wrong? What if I send you on a false errand?”

  “We’re at a point of gathering facts,” Sam said. “Anything could be useful. Maybe Patti has a student—or a yoga student has a son—who attends State. Being able to make connections, look for patterns, that all helps in the arrest. Thank you for sharing the detail. And for talking me through the dream earlier. I know it’s taken a toll on you,” he said.

  She brushed her thumb under her eye, touching the skin that had been dark and puffy from lack of sleep when she washed her face this morning. He’d seen her eyes and frowned but chosen not to push her, which she appreciated. She really didn’t need to add more stress to her day—especially when the act of showering caused her to panic. Fighting with Sam always caused immense stress.

  She hadn’t realized how much she needed him to be strong, to support her, until she didn’t have him when they were fighting over Baby Isobel’s case.

  “The dreams are difficult.”

  “Do you want them to stop? Can you make them stop?”

  She nibbled at her lip, but winced and released the still-tender flesh. “I don’t know.” She tried to feel her way through an explanation, but she didn’t really have one.

  “I want to help you solve this case,” she said. “I meant to tell you. In my dream, Aci told me to look up something.”

  “Any idea what she meant by that?”

  “None. She vanished before I was able to ask.”

  She closed her eyes against the echoes of fear and pain she’d felt through the young woman. Hopefully, Kelli now felt peace.

  Cici never asked her twin about her current location, not because she wasn’t interested, but because she feared the answer. Cici needed to believe in an afterlife—one in which the good people of the earth went one direction while the liars, thieves and those who increased their lot by causing others pain went the other direction. She’d always believed that, soothed by the moral organization. But now… concerned her sister existed in some kind of limbo—a painful, bloody in-between place that didn’t dissipate her pain or her guilt caused Cici to question her years of study.

  The very foundation of her faith.

  This—this revelation—was so much greater than the impossible choice of shoot or be shot she’d faced in Chaco Canyon. So, Cici remained ignorant of the truth. And deeply torn.

  “Will you be okay today?”

  Sam’s ability to remain attuned to her mood shocked her. He’d known how much the dream upset her and hadn’t wanted to leave her earlier, but she hadn’t shared how it further shook her core beliefs—the foundations of which were already unsteady after her experience in Chaco.

  “Yeah. I drove my Harley.”

  “Cici, you’re wearing a boot for a broken ankle,” Sam admonished.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Felt good. Maybe I’ll take it out for a drive at lunch.”

  He must have spoken next through clenched teeth. “Text me when you leave, please.”

  “Will do.”

  20

  Sam

  I will always be the virgin-prostitute, the perverse angel, the two-faced sinister and saintly woman. ― Anaïs Nin

  * * *

  Sam’s phone rang the next morning at the same moment the sun
crested the horizon. Both he and Cici groaned as the sharp, staccato chime pierced their sleepy minds.

  “Got a girl missing. Student at St. John’s. She went for a jog down Camino de Cruz Blanca last night about nine—that’s where she was spotted last,” Raynor said, talking fast—not even saying hello when Sam answered his phone.

  He gnashed his teeth as he sat up, his body protested the long hours he’d sat at an empty desk in the far corner of the precinct yesterday.

  “He’s targeting young women,” Sam said as he leaned over to check the clock. Before seven. He’d slept longer than he’d expected. Investigations like these left little time for sleep or meals.

  “Why do these girls run so late?” Sam muttered. “By themselves?”

  “Yeah, you’re on to something. There’s a strong argument for the pack mentality. Or running during daylight hours.”

  If the guy was targeting twenty-year-olds like the St. John’s student or even the missing teenager, that meant Patti’s death didn’t fit within his normal profile. Which meant Sam was missing something.

  Sam ran his hands over his face and caught Cici’s bleary gaze. Her lids were still heavy with sleep but she smiled at him and rose, stretching as she did so. Her pajamas consisted of flannel pants and his T-shirt. Satisfaction coursed through him as he took in her sleep-rumpled appearance. She slid her foot into her boot, then snapped at the dogs. They followed her from the room.

  “Did any other women come up in the database?” Sam asked, focusing on the case. “Missing or runaways?”

  “Yeah, especially in Albuquerque, as expected. But there was one five years ago from the Taos area. There’s another girl who disappeared from Pojoaque…” Raynor must have picked up some notes. “Yeah, that was seventeen months ago.”

  Raynor ticked off a dizzying list of other names from around the state—enough to make Sam’s head spin. Too many missing young women. “That’s all the missing/runaways I found.”

  “What’s the name of the missing woman from Taos?” Sam asked.

  “Let’s see…she was eighteen, Kelli Ann Vander Keck. She planned to attend New Mexico State.”

  Sam clenched his jaw. Kelli. “With an ‘I’?” he asked, but he was already sure this was the same woman Cici had dreamed about.

  “Yeah. K-e-l-l-i. You need me to spell out the rest?”

  “No.”

  What he needed was for Cici to be less involved…or, dammit, to provide more information. He struggled through the emotions building in his chest as he realized Kelli Ann Vander Keck was deceased. He pressed a fist to his forehead. Raped and killed.

  Raynor kept talking.

  “The missing Pojoaque girl was twenty. Her name’s Josette Hampton.”

  So, if it was the same guy, he definitely preferred his victims young. While he had a type, he might not always be able to pick off a victim that met his criteria. Sam had talked to psychiatric specialists who worked with rapists. They, like the criminal profilers large departments employed, believed availability took precedence over predilection. Decades of studies and mountain of research backed up these ideas. That was, if Cici was correct and they were dealing with a rapist.

  If it was the same man who tied up Patti Urlich and drowned her. He needed evidence to link these cases together, not Cici’s well-meaning and emotionally draining nightmares.

  “I want to interview her friends, roommate, everyone she knows on campus.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Raynor said.

  “Give me forty-five minutes.”

  The missing runner’s friends offered no relevant details about their friend’s whereabouts. Sam and Raynor finally tracked down one of her roommates a couple of hours after arriving at their shared house.

  It was a small beige stucco box not far from the campus. The yard was choked with weeds and some gravel and two small cars were parked haphazardly over the curb.

  Sam and Raynor stepped out of Sam’s vehicle, where they’d been talking about their options, when a young woman walked up the front steps. She’d eyed them as she drew nearer, her keys in one hand, her phone in the other, finger hovering over a button. Sam stepped out of the car, already holding up his badge and identifying himself. He didn’t want to scare the young woman more, especially since her face was splotchy and her nose red.

  She waited on the walkway. Once he was close enough, she took Sam’s ID and studied it before handing it back, then she did the same with Raynor’s. Smart girl, but then, getting into St. John’s pretty much guaranteed her intelligence.

  “I’m Delilah Fremont,” she said. “You’re here about Jenny?”

  “Yes,” Sam said.

  “We have some questions,” Raynor added.

  “Come on in. Ruby will be back from class soon, too. She wanted to talk to you. Rube and Jen are real close. She’s totally torn up over Jenny’s disappearance.”

  The house was smaller than Cici’s—more like a postage stamp with walls. The three of them crowded into the living room, which was dominated by a tattered chenille sofa. There was an equally old armchair—one of those designer mid-century ones with the curved headrest separate from the black leather middle, all set on silver poles—that was now ripped and had what appeared to be dog teeth marks around the wooden base.

  “Did Jenny have a boyfriend?” Raynor asked.

  Delilah arched an unnaturally thin eyebrow. In fact, it looked like a tattoo. Sam fought the urge to ask—or even shake his head. The young woman’s choices were her own.

  “No boyfriend on the scene. No girlfriend at the moment, either,” Delilah said, her tone acerbic enough to translate how much she didn’t care for the gender-based questioning.

  “So, Jenny wasn’t currently seeing anyone,” Sam said. “You mentioned another roommate.”

  “Ruby,” Delilah said.

  “Right. Did Ruby and Jenny have a fight? Or is there anywhere else Jenny might have gone for the night?”

  “No way. And Jenny was happy when I saw her yesterday evening. She’d planned on a run, then to finish an assignment for a Socratic seminar,” Delilah said, dabbing her eyes. Her mascara left dark streaks down her cheeks.

  “Did she have any previous relationships?” Sam asked.

  Delilah tilted her head, causing her short, dark hair to flutter briefly at her crown. “Yeah. She and her former boyfriend broke up over the summer.”

  “Who was that?” Raynor asked.

  Sam sat back, glad Raynor wanted to take a more active role in the questioning.

  The girl scrunched her nose, giving Sam a pretty good indication of how she felt about the boy. “Logan Grassley. He goes to State.”

  Sam stilled. “Oh?” Maybe there was a connection there—with Logan. He’d definitely look into the details.

  “Yeah. They met lifeguarding. Over at the Salvador Perez pool. I always told Jenny she could do better than that guy. I never understood what she saw in him. I mean, Jenny’s so smart.”

  “Why didn’t you like him?” Raynor asked.

  If anything, Delilah looked even more disgruntled. “He was all big into gaming.”

  “Was Jenny?” When the young woman blinked at him, Sam expounded on his question, “Did Jenny play video games?”

  “I mean, she played…we kind of all do. But that’s different from being a gamer.”

  “What types of games did she play?” Sam asked. “What platform?”

  The girl scratched her cheek. “Dissonance. Most of us use that platform.”

  “Can we see her laptop?”

  “Um, why?” she asked. “Her laptop is personal.”

  “I don’t have a warrant yet, but if she’s missing longer, I’ll pull one. Right now, I want to study her Dissonance account and see who Jenny was talking to.”

  “I’ll do that.” Another girl walked in and dropped her messenger bag by the old, tattered sofa. “Ruby,” she said, shoving out her hand.

  Sam took it, surprised both that she’d offered to shake his hand a
nd at the firmness of her grip. Her face was half-obscured by large, pink-framed Buddy Holly glasses. She wore a garish silver blouse with a bow at the neck and wide-legged hot pink pants—like something straight out of an early-eighties movie—or Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sam decided the outfit and glasses must be ironic.

  “Let me grab it from our room,” Ruby said.

  “You share a room?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah.” Ruby disappeared down the short hall and reappeared a moment later, clutching a sleek, silver laptop to her chest. She shoved some papers and a sack with a fast food emblem to the side and set the computer down on the cleared laminate. As soon as she opened it, noise started to emanate from the machine.

  Raynor grunted but Sam leaned forward and pressed the lower-volume key.

  “Thanks,” Ruby muttered. “Jenny’s popular.”

  “Are those all notifications?” Sam asked.

  “DMs. We’re not much into social media, but Jenny keeps her messages open in Dissonance. Ah.” Ruby clicked on a tab and up popped the recent messages from people Jenny corresponded within the video game.

  There were about thirty names. “Mind if I write the names down?”

  “Wouldn’t it be faster to snapshot them and send them to your email address?” Ruby asked.

  “Yes.” Sam pulled out his phone. “That would be much better. I’ll call this in and get the paperwork for the warrant started.”

  “Okay.”

  They waited as Sam made the call.

  “The search warrant is in process,” Sam said as he pocketed his phone. “But if you are willing to give me consent now, that’s called a consent search, and anything we find related to the case should be admissible.”

  The girls studied Sam.

  “I can claim an emergency exception, which means I’m worried about evidence getting destroyed or that I’m worried about the length of time it’s taking because I believe Jenny’s life is endangered.”