by Lisa Ladew
“Hear me out. Today, I was terrified that Sheriff Payne was going to do exactly what he tried to do. While I was sitting in that cell, my mind kept running over all the ways that he could try to pin those bodies on us. He would have gone to the press for certain, and splashed his story all over the front pages. And whatever the public hears first, is what they believe. Public opinion always sways judges and juries. So what if we get public opinion on our side? What if we contact a reporter, and tell her your story. That way, if we get caught and arrested by Sheriff Payne again, at least our story is already out there. He won’t be able to find a new judge and spin everything his way without the judge already knowing better.”
“What’s his problem anyway?” Katerina asked, shaking her head.
“I don’t know. He’s always been like that. I haven’t had to deal with him much, but the times that I have, I’ve always come away slightly surprised and disgusted with him.”
“So let’s say we find our reporter. It sounds like you have someone in mind already?”
West nodded. “I do.”
“So what do we tell her?”
“The truth.”
“And when do we do this?” Katerina asked, thinking wistfully about the next day. It was their last day off and she had wanted to go look for the body, but she knew West was probably right. As little as she wanted to tell her story – as little as she wanted to be known as the psychic paramedic or whatever people would come up with – she knew that talking to someone would be smart. That covering their butts would be smarter.
“I don’t know. Sooner is probably better. If we could get it done tonight, then we could go back out to Tetam County tomorrow, maybe.” West said, caressing his phone. “Want me to make a phone call?”
“Hell yes.”
Chapter 19
Katerina rolled out of bed, almost feeling light and normal. Almost. Her dreams the night before had been terrifying, but only in the way a normal nightmare was terrifying. She didn’t have the overwhelming, cloying feeling that her brain was trying to kill her. She didn’t feel like a different person had taken her over in the night.
She padded silently down the hallway and found West still asleep and lightly snoring on her couch. She had tried to offer him the bed, but he had refused. She shook her head at his stubbornness and wished he would at least switch off with her. She felt guilty making him sleep on her couch. But at least he looked comfortable. It was a long, microfiber couch with no arms, so his feet hung off the end slightly. It had been her mother’s, and one of the only pieces of furniture she had saved when she moved into this tiny apartment.
They had gone to sleep late the night before - almost two in the morning. The reporter had come by just before midnight and stayed until 1:30. She’d been a petite woman, with an obvious thing for West. She hadn’t been challenging about it, but she had asked the two of them what their relationship was. And once they had responded just friends, she had touched West nonstop, practically draping herself over him. Katerina had done her best to be amused by it, so she didn’t get irritated. West had seemed embarrassed, and stood or paced most of the time she was there.
Right now, Katerina wanted to go out to the newspaper box and read the paper. But fear made her second guess going outside. She hadn’t forgotten Pam’s death. She hadn’t even dealt with her guilt over it yet. White-hot anger flashed inside her for a moment. She shouldn’t have to be afraid. She shouldn’t have to be dealing with this at all.
Quietly, she got dressed, and forced herself to go outside. It wasn’t like she had the luxury of hiding in her house until this guy was caught. She had to go outside, work, try to be a normal person.
She ran downstairs quickly and fished a newspaper out of the box, trying to tell herself she wasn’t afraid. She sprinted back up the steps and did not breathe a sigh of relief as she closed her door. Yeah right.
The couch was empty and she sucked in a terrified breath for a second, wondering what had happened to West. But then she heard him in the bathroom. Singing, it sounded like. She giggled to herself and ran down the hallway.
“When you’re done with your American Idol audition get out here. I got a newspaper.”
She retreated to the kitchen table and opened the newspaper. The headline was something about discretionary account spending in the state legislature. Boring. She scanned the page quickly and didn’t see anything that she thought was related to them. West came out and smiled at her. “Do you really think I’m good enough for American Idol?”
She looked at him quickly, trying to figure out if he was joking or serious. The teasing glint in his eye tipped her off right away. She snorted laughter.
“Yep, you should be a judge actually.” She shook the paper in front of him to get his mind back on what was important. “I don’t see anything yet.”
“I bet it’s not even in there,” West said. “She came too late last night to get it in today’s edition, but she said she would put it online asap. Check on my phone.”
West meandered into the kitchen and started coffee. As the rich smell filled her small apartment, Katerina finally found what she was looking for.
Two Bodies Found. Will There Be a Third?
Katerina skimmed through the article and breathed a sigh of relief. The reporter had seriously downplayed her ‘psychic’ involvement. She then questioned why the Tetam Township Police Department hadn’t notified anyone that there was a serial killer loose yet. Katerina winced at the phrase serial killer. Is that what he was? West came back to the table and she gave him the phone.
He read quickly, his eyes zooming back and forth over the words, then looked up and grinned at her. “She did a great job.”
Katerina nodded. “Do you think it’s enough? Can we go out and find that last poor woman today?”
“I think so. What about you?”
Katerina thought hard. But actually, if she were straight with herself, she didn’t even care. She wanted to do the right thing – the smart thing. But she knew she was going to look for that body today, whether anyone was going with her or not. She was determined to be done with this. To be herself again. To own her mind again.
“Yes, I think it’s more than enough.”
West looked at her closely. “Okay then, let’s eat and go hunting.”
***
As West neared the border of Tetam County, Katerina held her breath. She searched the side of the roadway for cop cars. She certainly wouldn’t be surprised if Sheriff Payne had his deputies stationed behind barns or billboards to arrest them as soon as they entered the county. But the boundary slid by without a cop car in sight.
“So where are we going?”
She pulled out the map. “I actually don’t know, but I’m pretty sure if I see it, I’ll know it. I think we just need to drive around in this area and see what pulls me.” She ran her finger over a section on the map close to where both of the other bodies had been found.
West nodded, and drove on.
They searched for hours. They saw a few other cars driving past them on the lonely country roads, but luckily, no cop cars. Katerina felt her frustration mounting. “Maybe we should start driving up some of the side roads. I haven’t seen anything remotely recognizable yet.”
“Whatever you say,” West said, and turned into the first road on his left.
Katerina opened her mind and tried to recall what she had seen about the third woman. The woman with the bright red lipstick. But she only opened herself partially. She didn’t want anything slamming into her and knocking her off of her feet. That’s what it had felt like before, when she wasn’t ready for it.
Images played lightly through her mind and she realized she seemed to have some sort of rudimentary control over what she saw now. Was it because there was only one image left and she had so much more of her own brainpower to work with? Or was it because she’d been dealing with this for almost a week now and was getting used to it? Regardless, she couldn’t wait to find the third bo
dy. The feeling that she would be done with this entire nightmare once she did, wouldn’t leave her. In fact it was growing stronger.
Katerina looked out the window and knew right away that they were going in the wrong direction. “This isn’t right. Let’s try the next one,” she told West. He nodded and turned around.
Katerina looked up the next side road on the map and told West the mile marker. He drove just under the speed limit, not wanting to give any cop a reason to pull him over. As they got close, he slowed down and Katerina felt an immediate sort of pull come over her. Something was tugging at her from the woods. It was almost like she was a piece of metal, and the biggest magnet in the world was hidden up that road somewhere.
“This is it,” she said, hearing the sudden raspiness in her voice.
West glanced at her quickly and then back at the road. He seemed to be trying to look every way at once. “Where?”
Katerina turned her head, then slowly turned back the other way. She found where the pull was strongest and pointed. “Right there. In those trees.”
West angled through the grass, towards the area Katerina had pointed to. “I’ve been thinking Katerina, once we find this body, we should call Pearson and have him come up and represent us. Then we just leave so Sheriff Payne can’t arrest us.”
Katerina tried to resist the pull long enough to look at him. “Can’t he come into Westwood Harbor and arrest us?”
“He can, but not without a Westwood Harbor officer coming with him. And I’m betting he won’t like that. I’m betting if we leave the area, since we already talked to a reporter and got our story out there, he will just leave us alone. He will have to actually investigate the murders and not try to pin them on us.”
Katerina nodded. It was difficult for her to keep her attention on West, and not just open the truck door and run like mad towards the woods, but not impossible. This time.
***
West parked the truck and got out quickly, looking around. The forest line was sharp and the meadow grass before it was low, as if somebody tended to this land occasionally. To their left, was a ridge line, which would be blocking the setting sun in a few hours. He ran quickly around to the other side of the truck, trying to open Katerina’s door, but she was already out. She wasn’t running this time, thank goodness, but her face had taken on the somehow blank look on top of terror that he’d seen twice already. He took her hand.
Katerina led him into the trees and started off down a trail that she had effortlessly found. This trail reminded him eerily of the first trail they had been on, where they had found the first body. They were almost exactly alike. Katerina stopped twenty feet in, almost exactly how far in she had stopped the first time. She’s going to go left, he thought. Which she did, stepping over the thick underbrush, her feet crunching in the foliage below.
West followed her closely, squeezing her hand tight. Any minute now, she would come across the body.
Katerina stopped short and West hurried forward.
“She’s not here.” Katerina whispered. West pushed past her. He looked at the ground below the tree, which was spookily like the first tree again, and said, “Is this the wrong place?”
Katerina shook her head, her face registering shock and dismay, but a certain relief too. “No, this is the right place. I know it. I feel it. She’s already gone out of my head, like a bubble popping. But she’s not here anymore.” West looked down at the ground, then knelt. He was no tracker, but he could tell something heavy had lain here and was now gone.
“You’re right. She was here. She’s been moved.”
Katerina looked around suddenly, into the depths of the forest, her eyes terrified again. She crouched low and whispered, “He’s here.”
West felt adrenaline dump into his bloodstream. “Where?” he whispered back.
Katerina shook her head, her eyes trying to look everywhere at once. “I don’t know. He just… He must be here, right? He moved the body. He knew we were coming.”
Crushing guilt settled on top of West for the second time. In trying to save them from a jail sentence, he had handed them a death sentence. He had told the killer they were coming by insisting that Katerina talk to the press.
He crawled close to Katerina. “We’re going to get out of here. Don’t panic. Just walk with me to my truck. It’s only a few yards away. We’ll jump in, and we’ll get out of here. I promise.”
Katerina grabbed his hand and squeezed. He pushed past her again, and pulled her out to the trail. His nerves were on high alert, his ears trying to hear anything from the forest. He walked silently down the trail, as quickly as he dared. They entered the open field where his truck was parked, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He looked right and left, and thought that as long as no one was hiding behind his truck, they were home free.
As the thought was crossing his mind, a loud crack split the air, almost like a board breaking. West heard a strange noise to his left and showers of bark from a tree hit his arm. Instantaneously, he understood. They were being shot at!
He crooked an arm around Katerina’s neck, intending to pull her to the ground, but she was already dropping. Crouching, and trying to stay in front of her he made a beeline for his truck. Katerina reached it ahead of him and turned around, looking at him wide-eyed. West heard another shot pierce the middle of his truck with a sick sound of metal against metal. He tried desperately to figure out where the shots were coming from.
To their left was nothing but open field. Unless someone was at the top of the ridge line, with a rifle, the shots had to be coming from the trees somewhere. As soon as the thought settled in his mind, West was certain the man was on the other side of the ridge line. Far enough away that there was no chance of him getting hurt, but able to easily see them as they exited the forest. If they had parked farther away they would be dead right now.
Obviously the man was not a sniper though, or they would have had no chance.
“Do you think we can drive away?” Katerina hissed at him, her face a tense mask of fear.
“We’re going to have to try.” he said. “I’m going to open the door and crawl in, you come right after me. Keep your head down. In fact, don’t even get on the seat. Just stay in the foot well. I’ll slide across to the driver seat and start it up. I don’t know what the range on his rifle is so don’t sit up until we’re out on the main road.”
Katerina nodded wildly, her hair flying around her face. An errant thought, completely inappropriate for the terror of the moment, crossed his mind. God she is beautiful. West just hoped he would live long enough to tell her that. Suddenly, it seemed ridiculous that he hadn’t already told her that a hundred times. No, a thousand times. He was a paramedic. He should know how precious and fleeting life was.
West reached out and opened his door. Immediately, the other side of the truck was rocked with bullets. The driver’s window exploded inward, showering glass on the seat. West winced, but knew he couldn’t stop. He threw his body onto the seat and pulled himself over to the driver’s side, expecting a bullet to pierce the door and then his head at any second. He prayed that if he got shot, Katerina would be able to climb over his body and drive away. He thrust the key in the ignition and twisted it, saying a fierce prayer in his mind. The engine roared to life and he looked over at Katerina. She was in the foot well, like he had instructed, but she was leaning out, trying to close the door. She was able to grab it, and swing it shut.
Bent over, laying on the seat, glass grinding into his jeans, West threw the truck into drive and stepped awkwardly on the gas pedal. The truck lurched forward, and he began to swing it around. The sound of bullets hitting metal assaulted his ears again. Please don’t let him hit the gas tank. The truck lurched suddenly sideways, and West knew immediately that one of their tires had blown. No matter. He didn’t care about the tire and rim. He would drive until it caught on fire, if he had to.
Finally turned around, he floored the gas pedal and felt the truck try to respon
d. The truck rocked again and West wondered if he had lost another tire. They lurched forward and West heard the meaty sound of metal parting metal on the side of the truck move, then decrease into a faint pinging at the back of the truck. Daring only to lift his head an inch above the dash - just high enough to see with one eye - he steered them back onto the dirt road and felt the truck gain traction, spitting dirt and rocks behind them as they quickly sped up.
“You OK?” West yelled to Katerina.
“Yeah, I think so. Can I get up yet?” she answered shakily.
“Not yet. Soon. Let’s be sure to be out of the reach of that gun or rifle or whatever it was. I think some of them can fire almost a mile.”
Katerina peeked up at him and West was relieved to see she looked unhurt. He couldn’t believe they had both gotten out of that unscathed. For now. West’s mind churned. Katerina was in more danger than he had thought. And now, because of him, this killer knew who she was. West grimaced and swore to himself that he would protect her. He had gotten her into this. He would have to keep her safe. No matter what the cost.
Chapter 20
Katerina held on tightly as the truck bounced over the dirt road. The sounds of bullets hitting metal had stopped. She watched as West spun the steering wheel hard to the right. He lifted his head and looked behind them. She tentatively crawled up onto the seat and peeked out the back window. They had turned onto the main road and the dirt road where all the shooting had happened was quickly disappearing behind them. The formerly quiet truck was making a horrible thunking and flapping sound.
Taking her cue from West, she turned around on the seat and put her seatbelt on. She sat totally still and tried to process what had just happened. She’d been shot at. Someone was trying to kill her.
Her mind felt dead and wooden. She should be freaking out, but instead she could barely hold onto a thought. The muscles in her neck and shoulders felt tight and rigid, like they would snap. She tried to relax but instead she started shaking until every muscle in her body convulsed uncontrollably, and even her teeth chattered.
