Twisted Whispers

by Sheri Lewis Wohl

  Down the block the neon lights of the bistro beckoned. A tall ale would be just the thing to help him relax, and unfortunately, it would also be the thing to draw attention to him. It was the middle of the workday, and he didn’t need to be seen pounding down a brew. Rather than give in to temptation he walked by the bistro with a sigh of longing and headed to the sandwich shop instead. Nobody would look twice or remember a guy grabbing a sandwich.

  And then he saw her, and suddenly his whole line of thinking shifted. The longing for an ale disappeared, as did his appetite. Maybe the feeling in the pit of his stomach had nothing to do with the sister and her mystery friend. Maybe, just maybe, it had everything to do with the woman in front of him waiting in line to order.

  Really, it was too soon to go there, yet what could he do when God dropped her right into his lap? Her dark hair was long and shiny as it fell past her shoulders and down her back, contrasting beautifully to her bright-pink shirt. When she turned, blue eyes swept over him and a friendly smile crossed her lips. The shirt was cut low over her breasts, and a tattoo peeked out enticingly. Ink wasn’t really his thing, but every once in a while an exception came along.

  He was smiling too as he followed her out of the shop, his sandwich long forgotten.

  *

  Thea hated coming downtown. Riddled with one-way streets, heavy traffic, and rude pedestrians, the trip was always a nightmare. Around the jail and courthouse, the parking was horrible, and that was being nice. Getting a decent spot was like winning the lottery, which of course meant she always ended up a million miles away.

  Despite all the irritations associated with coming downtown, this afternoon it felt important to make the journey for a couple of reasons. First, she needed to know what was happening in Alida’s case. Second, and she’d never admit it out loud, she wanted to see Katie. The more she was around her, the more she thought of her. Yet not seeing her made her think about her even more. She couldn’t shake it. Lorna wasn’t too far from the mark last night.

  So, instead of trying to pretend she wasn’t attracted to Katie, why not just go with it? Besides, if making herself a pest helped bring her sister home, then all the better. She intended to do whatever it took to get Alida back safe and sound as soon as possible. That Katie was the key person involved just made it easier to be a pest. She squared her shoulders and held her head up, ready.

  Until the instant Katie came around the counter, she thought she was pulling off cool-and-collected pretty well. Then there she was, so gorgeous in form-fitting black slacks and with a gun at her waist. Only sheer willpower kept Thea from dissolving into a jabbering ten-year-old girl. It wasn’t her fault. Something about a woman cop sent her heart racing. Or maybe, if she was honest, this particular woman cop made her pulse hammer because she’d never experienced something like this before and Katie wasn’t the first female officer she’d ever met.

  “Come on back,” Katie said as she held open a heavy security door. Thea eased by, inhaling Katie’s fresh scent as she did. An urge to stop and savor the scent overpowered her, and she concentrated on the simple task of keeping her feet moving forward. Lorna followed without giving any indication she thought Thea’s behavior odd. She was grateful neither Katie nor Lorna seemed to notice her inclination.

  As much as Katie distracted her and her preoccupation with attempting to appear collected and calm, Thea didn’t miss Lorna’s expression. She noticed the change right before they walked up the last few steps of the Public Safety Building. Her body language shifted slightly, and then all of a sudden she looked around as though she believed someone was following them. Thea asked her outside what was wrong, but Lorna said it was nothing. She didn’t believe her. Something kept her on edge.

  Lorna wore the same cautious expression now, as they followed Katie back to a workstation surrounded by gray fabric walls about five feet high. Around them were similar workstations—some empty, some with heads bent toward computer screens or holding telephones to their ears. A low hum of activity permeated the room. In Katie’s space, Thea dropped into one of two straight-back chairs, and Lorna took the other one. Katie sat in a black task chair and swiveled around until she faced them. Nobody said a word for at least a full minute, the sounds of the squad room a continuous thread of voices and movement.

  Katie broke the tense silence, her face grim. “I have some good news and some bad news.”

  Thea’s heart began to hammer for a different reason now. “You have a lead?” She didn’t dare to hope, yet she did.

  Chewing her lip a little, Katie nodded slightly. Thea liked the nod but wished the expression on her face was more optimistic. “In a sense, yes, I do. Unfortunately it’s not in a good way, and that’s the good news.”

  Now she understood the look on Katie’s face. Her heart sank, and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “And what’s the bad news?” Maybe if she got the bad news details first, the good news might sound better. She glanced over at Lorna, who stared intently at Katie as if soaking everything in. A frown line creased her forehead and shadows ringed her eyes.

  Leaning forward in her chair and putting her elbows on her knees, Katie looked first at Lorna and then at Thea. “I don’t know how to say this.”

  Just spit it out is what she wanted to scream. Instead, Thea put a hand on Katie’s arm and forced her words to remain calm. “Please, just tell us.”

  Blowing out a breath, Katie spoke in a rush. “All right. I’m beginning to believe we have a serial killer on our hands and that Alida probably came into contact with him.”

  Serial killer was just about the last thing Thea was expecting Katie to say. She struggled to process those two horrible words. “Serial killer?” she whispered. Over the last twenty-four hours her thoughts had drifted in all sorts of directions, some of them very dark. This was something she’d never considered.

  Katie nodded and blew out another breath. “It didn’t occur to me either until I called my brother in Omaha. He’s a neuro-psychologist, an expert in criminal cases, and he suggested that Alida’s disappearance might not be an isolated instance.”

  Thea took some deep breaths and tried to quell the nausea that was setting in. “He was right?” Saying the words nearly made her throw up.

  Katie’s eyes were sad. “Looks like it. I considered it before I called him and actually ran some local checks. After talking with him, I widened my search parameters. That’s when I hit pay dirt. Three other missing women with similar stories popped up. I didn’t catch them because they were too spread out.”

  Three other missing women? How could this be? How could they miss something like that? “Alida was the only one local?”

  “Sort of. One woman disappeared from Grant County, which is only about a hundred miles away. Another woman went missing from King County in the Seattle area, and the final one was from Kootenai County, just across the border in Idaho. The last one was very close, and I didn’t catch it at first because I didn’t run my search query across state lines.”

  With her right hand, Thea massaged the back of her neck. A dull ache was beginning to run up it and into the back of her head. Katie was right; the good news wasn’t particularly good, even if it was a weak lead. Then again, it was progress, and there was much to be said for that. “So you have something to work with?”

  Alida had been gone too long, and Thea wasn’t dumb. The longer she was missing, the less likely they’d find her alive. The thought cut through her heart like a knife, yet she was forced to be realistic. She might never see her twin sister alive again. Even if that turned out to be true, finding her was still critical. She was out there somewhere, cold and alone. That wasn’t something she could live with.

  “Not a lead exactly, but it gives me a new avenue to explore, and I’m hoping like hell it points me to your sister.” Katie sat back in her chair and clasped her hands together.

  “I hope so too.” Thea turned and looked at Lorna. “It’s something, don’t you think?” The hope in her vo
ice made her sound like a little girl on Christmas morning.

  Lorna nodded, but her eyes weren’t focused on either Katie or Thea. They were scanning the room as though searching for some threat. She seemed far from engaged in the conversation that had just occurred.

  “Lorna?” she asked again.

  Lorna’s eyes shifted until they connected with Thea. “Sorry,” she said. “You were saying?”

  As Thea suspected, Lorna hadn’t caught a word of the conversation between her and Katie.

  “It’s encouraging that Katie has something to work with, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.” Lorna squeezed her hand. “Yeah, I do.” For the first time since they got here, Lorna seemed engaged, though Thea wasn’t confident Lorna knew what she was agreeing with.

  “We’re going to find her soon.” Thea spoke with far more confidence than she felt. Maybe if she put voice to it, she could make it true. Again she was showing that little-girl optimism and she wasn’t embarrassed about it.

  Katie echoed her. “We will find her.”

  This is the kind of attitude Thea had hoped for from day one and was so grateful someone finally got it.

  For five more minutes they talked about what Katie had discovered and where she was going next. Finally, the conversation trailed off until silence fell between them. There didn’t appear to be anything left to say. Her hesitation to leave was twofold—she wanted to be here to know immediately about anything that could lead them to Alida, and she simply wanted to be near Katie. She didn’t put voice to either one, so instead Thea and Lorna got up and left Katie to continue her work. It was the right thing to do even if it was the exact opposite of what she preferred.

  Once they were outside, Thea turned and put a hand on Lorna’s arm. She still wasn’t engaged a hundred percent and Thea wanted to know why. Lorna wasn’t the type to check out, or at least she never was before. “What was up with you in there? You were a thousand miles away.”

  Lorna rolled her head slowly as if trying to make sense of something. “Yeah, I was. It was really weird. About the time we hit the front doors it was like somebody was pouring ice water down my back. The oddest sensation hit me from the top of the stairs all the way through the door, and then inside, it was still like ghostly fingers were poking at me.”

  That explained a lot in a frightening sort of way. She didn’t want to ask and couldn’t keep herself from doing just that. “What do you think it means?”

  Lorna was shaking her head now with conviction. “Damned if I know. It’s not like what’s happened to me before. Keep in mind I’m still pretty new to this psychic thing, and so far I’ve had visions or felt like I’m channeling vivid movies that show me what I need to see. This wasn’t like that. It was a feeling but in a cold, rather icky way, to put it in technical terms.”

  That was plenty technical for her. Her desperation to find Alida had driven her to beg Lorna to come help. In reality Thea didn’t know the first thing about psychics or what they could do. Even given her profound lack of knowledge, this didn’t sound good. “I don’t like it.”

  Running both hands through her short hair, Lorna leaned her head back and stared at the clear sky. “Back atcha, sister. Didn’t light me up either. Something or somebody left a really black pall on this place. If I couldn’t see the big blue sky up there I’d swear on a Bible a big black cloud covered everything. ”

  She wrapped her arms over her chest and let her gaze move across the faces of the people coming in and out of the building. “Maybe so many bad people have walked this ground it left traces of bad energy behind.”

  Lorna’s eyes met hers and she didn’t like what she saw there. “I’d agree with you, except I’ve been in two other police stations since this thing manifested itself, and nothing even remotely like this happened.”

  Her heart constricted and it felt a little like her air was being cut. She was the one responsible for asking Lorna to use her gift to find Alida, and she was doing exactly that. There were no rules, no guarantees, and no timelines. She got it and the fact that all they could do was keep going forward and, corny as it might sound, leave no stone unturned. One way or the other, they would find Alida and bring her home. Thea just wished the terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach would go away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Well, this was a new and most decidedly unwelcome wrinkle. Were surprises going to just keep coming? It was bad enough Lorna could see dead people. Now she was being hit with the heebie-jeebies too. Some days it just didn’t pay to get out of bed.

  It surely had something to do with Alida, because nothing else made any sense. Since she got back to Spokane she’d focused all her energy on locating her, and in a weird kind of psychic way it made sense. Funny how six months ago this never would have occurred to her and now it was the new normal. Considering possibilities outside of the physical realm was becoming an everyday kind of thing. She wasn’t thinking inside the box any more. She was way outside it these days.

  As she thought about the weird feelings washing over her as she stepped up to the doors of the Public Safety Building, every nerve ending tingled as if it was happening again. This was different from the way Tiana McCafferty had asked for help. It was more like a bad, itchy rash that no matter how hard she scratched wouldn’t go away.

  God, this whole psychic thing really was crazy or, at the very least, making her crazy. She wanted to help, but so far she felt like she was running through peanut butter. Somewhere a clock was ticking and the minutes were passing much faster than she was moving.

  Something needed to change except she was lost as to what it was. She had no clue where to look or what to do. When she was working on a particularly difficult project and got stuck, it was usually best to walk away and take some quiet time to focus. Then, suddenly, the brick wall she’d been running into again and again would crumble. Maybe it was time for something like that now. It couldn’t hurt and it just might help.

  At the curb where Thea had parked the car at a three-hour meter, Lorna paused. Not wanting to hurt Thea’s feelings by bailing on her for a while made her hesitate. She almost got in the car and abandoned her idea, except she needed to do something to bring things into clearer focus. “Thea, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a walk.”

  Thea, who looked tired and near defeat, pulled her hand back from the door handle and studied her. Whatever was going through her mind at this moment, it wasn’t optimism. Lorna wanted to give her assurance but didn’t want to lie. There was nothing she could offer to help ease her mind.

  Thea started to put her car keys back in her pocket. “Sure. We can take a walk if you think that’ll help.”

  Lorna shook her head. Clearly, Thea needed sleep more than a walk, and she wanted to be alone. “No, you don’t understand. I need to think and I need to be alone to do that. Do you understand?”

  A flicker of hurt crossed Thea’s face. “Of course…”

  She didn’t understand and guilt tugged at Lorna’s heart. If she didn’t sense how important it was to try to jump-start her new skills, she’d cave and stay with Thea so she didn’t feel as though she was being abandoned. “Please, it’s nothing about you. I mean, I’m just getting in touch with this thing I have, whatever it is, and to be honest, I’m struggling. Right now I need to turn inward to plug into it. I can do that better all by myself.”

  Thea held her gaze, then nodded before once more reaching for the door handle. The hurt in her eyes was gone, and resignation seemed to drop down on her like a curtain call. Her voice echoed the weariness in her eyes and her body. “Give me a call when you’re ready to head back to the house.” She got into the driver’s seat and fastened her seatbelt, the door still open. The sunglasses she slipped on hid the charcoal circles beneath her eyes.

  Lorna tapped the top of the car. “You go try to get some rest. I’ll hop a bus in a little bit.”

  Thea smiled and shook her head. “No, you will not. No reason for you to ride a bus when I�
��m just hanging around waiting for something to happen.”

  She shrugged and decided Thea probably wouldn’t rest anyway. “Gotta admit, I’d rather not ride a bus all the way up north. It’s not that I don’t like public transportation, but I always end with a heavy smoker sitting next to me, and I hate that.”

  “Call me when you’re ready and I’ll come pick you up.”

  Lorna leaned down and gave her shoulder a squeeze. For the first time she noticed how thin Thea was. She was always lean but this felt like more than that. She made a note to make sure she got some food in her tonight. “You know I love you, right?”

  Thea rested her head against the hand Lorna still had on her shoulder. “You say that to all the girls.”

  She winked and kissed the top of her head. “Only the pretty ones.” She shut the car door. “Go get some rest. I’ll call you in a little while.”

  After Thea pulled away, Lorna put her hands in her pockets and began to walk toward the river. As much as she loved the ocean and the rambling house she now called home, this place had something special that she missed. It took her five minutes to walk from the PSB to the center of the Monroe Street Bridge. With her arms resting on the concrete banister, she leaned out and stared at the river flowing strong and clear a hundred feet below. The air carried the fresh scent of the water and just a hint of moisture from the spray of the rapidly running water as it crashed over the basalt rocks. She was mesmerized.

  Amazing how something so simple as standing in the middle of a bridge could clear her mind. Even with four lanes of steady traffic going north and south across the bridge creating a subtle vibration beneath her feet, the spot was soothing. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of her childhood home. The sweet familiarity of it eased the tension in her shoulders. She let her thoughts wander and reached out with her spirit. Show me, Alida. Show me where you are.