Into the Abyss: A Psychic Visions Novel (Psychic Visions Series Book 10)

by Dale Mayer

  He nodded. When she shook her head again he jumped to his feet and paced the small room.

  “Why is it you insist on being thickheaded and stubborn?”

  “I’m thickheaded and stubborn?” she asked. “You storm into my life today with a bogus story and a crazy attitude. I have never seen you before. I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. And now you come back tonight telling me a serial killer who people have been hunting for close to twenty years is now watching me.” She snorted. “Why don’t you just crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out from and go find yourself a different hobby? Because you really suck at this one.”

  He glared at her. Then smiled.

  One that made her spine shiver. She studied him warily. “I don’t like the look of that smile.”

  “Too bad. If you won’t listen to me, and my duty is to keep you safe, then I’m going to stay here tonight. I need a place anyway.” He walked over to the couch, bounced on it a couple of times, nodded and stretched out. “This will do just fine.”

  She gasped in outrage. “Get out of my apartment.”

  “No.” He laughed. “What will you do about it? Call the police?” He reached forward, grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. “I could use a good game.”

  She stood fuming at the end of the couch. He was right. What was she going to do? Call the cops? Hell no. Besides, he’d just tell them a story like he told her. It would be all over the precinct tomorrow. That was the last thing she needed.

  “Okay fine, I believe you. I’ll take care. Make sure I’m not being followed.” She added the last in a sarcastic tone of voice. But he wasn’t even looking at her. “Hey, did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.” He flicked through the channels. Just when she was ready to scream in frustration or pick up something to toss at him Solomon strolled off her bed and walked over between them. He sat down in front of Jericho and leveled back that golden gaze at him. Jericho immediately sat up. “Holy shit.”

  Interesting reaction. She watched carefully as the two made eye contact. She’d never seen Solomon act this way. Then again she didn’t bring visitors home. She had the occasional relationship, a hot and heavy weekend that never made it past the tangled sheet stage. And that was definitely not the relationship she had in mind for Jericho. No, ruthlessly she shoved the energy back down. Dear God, he was potent.

  “His name is Solomon,” she said grudgingly. Jericho’s mouth opened and then snapped shut. She wasn’t sure if he was shocked at the size of Solomon or if there was something else going on. She walked around the two of them to check out Jericho’s energy. He kept a tight rein on it, holding it close against his body, like so many other psychics she knew. Hers was no different. It was dangerous to be open and friendly. She kept hers locked down tighter than most.

  Solomon’s energy was exactly the same. But there was a crackle in the air, as if Solomon and Jericho were actually having a conversation. Curious and a little mystified she sat down at the end of the couch.

  “Solomon?”

  The cat broke the intense connection and turned his golden eyes on her. Then he walked closer and landed in her lap, put his head up on her chest and his engine kicked in. She could do nothing else but wrap her arms around him and hold on tight.

  Jericho looked at her and then his gaze slipped to Solomon and back up to her.

  “How long have you had him?”

  “Why?” She refused to answer his question. “Now that you know Solomon lives here, would you please just leave?”

  That look in his eyes softened. “I wish I could. I really do. But now that I know the Ghost has found where you live and has studied your habits, where you shop, where you eat…” He shook his head. “There’s no way I can do that.”

  “You think you’re guarding me? Protecting me?”

  His grin flashed, sending little electric shots into her nerve endings. “I know you’re tough, sweetheart, but I can still beat you after three rounds.”

  Immediately her feistiness surged to the surface. “You’re on.”

  He laughed. “You’re so easy to manipulate.”

  “No I’m not.” Inside she was ashamed. He was right. He hadn’t had to do very much, and she was already jumping at him.

  Her cell phone went off then. She stood up, still holding Solomon in her arms, and walked across to pick it up from the table.

  Dispatch answered, “Detective Bantrell. A second body has been found at the same house you were at earlier today.”

  The dispatcher rattled off the same address. She slowly hung up the phone, questions running through her mind in an endless loop. “What the hell?” she whispered.

  She automatically put the phone in her pocket and reached for her holster. She was dressed, her jacket now hiding her hardware. This was who she was. She turned back to Jericho. Solomon jumped out of her arms to pad over to his food dish.

  “I’ll be gone for two maybe three hours, could be longer. Be gone when I get back,” she ordered.

  “What did dispatch say?”

  “None of your business.” She walked to the front door.

  “Wait,” he said urgently. “This is what he wants.”

  “What do you expect me to do?” she scoffed. “Hide away until he comes after me. I have a job to do and a big bad world out there that needs protecting. I can’t do anything inside. If he comes after me all the better.”

  “Except for one thing. You don’t have a clue what he looks like. How the hell will you know who to protect yourself against?”

  She shot him a look and opened the door. Just as she went to close it behind her she reminded him, “Don’t forget he staked out this apartment. Watch your back.”

  She disappeared into the stairwell to race down the three flights. As she stepped out into the night she automatically slid to the left, slightly behind the big column in front and paused.

  Instinctively she lifted her nose to the air, searching, probing the evil that prowled the streets.

  And found nothing. Satisfied, she headed off to the crime scene.

  *

  Jericho waited all of two minutes for her to leave, then he muttered, “Hold down the fort.”

  Solomon settled on the couch as if listening to Jericho’s orders.

  In another deliberate ploy, he left his bag behind.

  By the time he made it to the street level she was long gone, but her energy hung heavy in the air. He’d seen lots of people in this lifetime. He’d learned to read a lot more energies. But hers was unique. It shifted and moved as if there were a lot of other people – or peoples’ – energies in her space. He’d yet to decide if she was the aggressive, uncaring person she projected to the world or if that was the persona she presented while on the inside she cared too much.

  But the thing about collecting energy was one didn’t always know whose they carried. Some of them were more leech than friend and caused people all kinds of hell. He didn’t think Tavika had many friends. He knew she had almost no family – if any. So who the hell were all these little bits and pieces clinging to her, and did she know they were there?

  He assumed she must know some of it. Like so many psychics though she probably had some knowledge, but not all of it. Almost working blind not knowing what part of their education was lacking. There was no network to check and see if all skills were mastered.

  Not that he was a master either, but he’d been honing his skills for the last twelve years. That gave him a slight advantage over somebody like her. Except that same raw power gave her a huge advantage over everyone. Now if she understood just what she was doing… Keeping that guard up was blinding her to other dangers. She could only do so much without draining out her system. The effort to stay inside and keep the world out was an enormous drain on her reserves.

  Her shield was stronger, her energy edgier, more distant. He didn’t like it.

  He understood her need for self-protection, but did she realize that by burning through the energy required to
keep her inside, she was actually attracting the same unnatural element she was trying to protect herself from?

  She was a hell of a cop. He’d read up on the commendations she’d received. The number of cases she closed was impressive, so much so that he knew she had to be using some of her abilities to solve them. He was all for crime fighting. Even more so for psychics to be the ones doing it. But he wondered if the rest of her station held her in high regard or did they just dismiss her as an oddball?

  It could go both ways. Being abrasive could be just a cover, or, as he suspected, it could be her way of keeping everyone else at bay. He walked out the front doors of her apartment building, noted the energy that hung heavy on the side and followed her up the street. He didn’t know if she had driven another vehicle or taken her bike, but her energy said she was walking. How did that work?

  It was a balmy night, but still not efficient to walk to get where you’re going. He hadn’t picked up anything local, and from the little bit he’d gathered she was heading back to the same crime scene beside Kinsman Park. He hopped in his vehicle that he’d parked around the corner and drove slowly in the direction she’d gone. She was going to be livid when she saw him.

  He smirked. That just meant he had to make sure he wasn’t seen. Something he had in common with the Ghost.

  After he locked his vehicle, he slowly crossed the grassy field of Kinsman Park. He hadn’t taken a dozen steps when his phone rang. He checked the time and realized there was only one person who would call at this hour. “Hello, Stefan.”

  “What’s going on?” Stefan asked, his tone more agitated than neutral. That in itself was unusual. It took a lot to rattle Stefan’s cage, and explained why the phone and not via telepathic communication.

  “I’m not sure. I’m following Tavika as she returns to the crime scene from earlier today, apparently a second body was found.”

  “Has the Ghost ever reused the same crime scene?”

  “I don’t know and as his MO has changed now it’s hard to say what it is at the moment.”

  He crossed the street noting how dead the traffic was at this hour. It was just before ten o’clock, surely there would be people out and about still. “What did you call for?”

  There was a short intense silence. And he knew something was wrong. “Stefan, talk to me.” He approached the house and walked past quietly as if uninterested.

  “I’m getting some weird readings from Tavika.”

  “Weird readings? What does that mean?”

  Stefan yawned.

  “Stefan, have you been painting the future again?”

  “Just a little bit.”

  “Just a little bit about the future? Or just a little bit of painting?” Jericho asked in a wry tone. He’d been dealing with Stefan for a long time. They had an interesting relationship. Being dominant males and yet having very serious abilities, it was almost as if they were brothers.

  “Both. But the images are very distorted still. So far they appear to be crime scene images. One of a child, an old man, and a young man.”

  “Three different paintings all the same?” Jericho frowned. He didn’t paint, but he understood some of what Stefan went through.

  “Three separate paintings but with a slash of red going from the left side of the first painting to the right of the last. A continuous wave of bloodshed.”

  “Great.” Jericho turned to study the house behind him. “Did you call so I could have an art lesson, or was there a message behind this?”

  “There is a message.” Stefan fell silent. Just when Jericho was going to push him, he added, “Watch your back. This wave continues for a lot more paintings.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Because in the very last painting the wave circles Tavika many times around. It’s going to impact everybody within her world. Including you.”

  *

  The night air was cool and moist, the light rain petering out. He smiled at the old metal and wood bench he sat on. The streets were mostly empty. He could sit here in peace and enjoy his success. His plan worked better than expected. He hadn’t known Jericho would head to Tavika like a homing pigeon.

  It was just a bowl of soup after all. Nothing worth sending him into a panic. He smiled. Or was it? Interesting that Jericho ran to Tavika. As if she hadn’t had a hard enough day looking after his latest victims. She should have her dinner then sleep. She was going to need it. He planned to be very active in the next week, all in preparation of his new life.

  One he was looking forward to.

  Just then Tavika walked out of her apartment.

  He straightened. Interesting.

  Where the hell was she going now? He watched her stand on the corner then hop on a bus. Strange.

  But even more strange was to see Jericho leave a few moments later.

  What the hell? Something was up.

  And he wanted to know what it was.

  Chapter 7

  Tavika approached the same crime scene, her cold hands shoved into her pockets as she strode along the road. She’d taken the bus as something inside of her needed to be on the streets at the level of the rest of her people. It wasn’t very far away and it was a single ride so in theory it was faster than driving. As she approached the same house for the second time that day she studied the area. It was a small brown bungalow, one of a dozen just like it.

  There were so many here it was hard to actually pick out the one that was the problem as they looked like a cookie cutter set. Except for one thing – the crime scene tape. She walked around to the back. This was the same pathway the killer must have taken.

  Why? Why would he have returned to this same house? It made no sense.

  If this was a drug house, or a known gang hangout, then she could understand people coming back and forth, but the old man didn’t appear to have connections to anything like that. He played bingo down at the seniors’ hall on Friday nights and that was all she’d found so far. And that had come from the neighbors.

  Everyone they’d spoken to so far said he was harmless.

  But somebody had gone there specifically to kill him. Then come back with a second body? Shaking her head at the craziness of a killer’s mind she stepped into the kitchen and froze. Her heart coming to a shuddering halt before picking up and racing again. There was a young girl’s body sprawled at the center of the kitchen floor. Tavika bowed her head, her fists clenching as she absorbed the blow.

  Some things were just too much to bear. That killers would go after someone so young and innocent was heartbreaking.

  She pulled hard on her control when all she wanted was to kick, scream and pound on the walls in frustration and anger. She’d rather stomp the killer into the floorboards but he wasn’t here.

  The atmosphere was sober. Not a person in that room spoke.

  When faced with the atrocities of what people did to each other Tavika reacted as she always did.

  She pulled on her mantle of professionalism and pulled out a pair of gloves.

  This girl had fought her last fight.

  Now the battle was in Tavika’s court, and she had no intention of losing. This girl’s death would not become another cold case.

  Her heart welled with pity for the victim. The teenager lay with her arms and legs outstretched. If she’d been lying on her back she’d look like she was making snow angels. Instead, she lay on her stomach and her head had been twisted around to face the ceiling. A travesty that was hard to look at.

  It was also a macabre twist. And not something… She frowned, her mind darting through the cases she knew but couldn’t think of one that was similar.

  Shelby, the coroner, was on her way. She might have seen this before.

  Tavika rocked back on her heels and looked around the kitchen. From her initial examination it looked like the girl’s broken neck was the cause of death, but the coroner would do a full autopsy. Tavika wanted to know if there were any drugs involved. The child looked peaceful
– too peaceful.

  There was no blood or other visible signs of trauma. She lifted one of the girl’s hands and checked out the fingernails. They were clean. There was no scratching or bruising on her palms, fingers, or arms. She was wearing running shoes and had a bright red band in her hair. She looked to be about fourteen.

  Peters, another of her team, squatted opposite the victim. The look on the detective’s face was one she’d seen before. They were all bleeding hearts when it came to children. Adding to the pain, Peters had twin girls a couple of years younger than this one. “Who the hell would do something like this?”

  “You know we have no shortage of volunteers to step into that category,” she said. “More to the point, do you have a missing person report for this girl?”

  “No, we’re checking for one now.”

  Tavika stood and walked to stand by the girl’s feet. “She’s well-dressed, in good health. She looks to have been well cared for.”

  Peters straightened and pulled out a notepad. “All that says is she could be anyone’s kid.”

  “Which means she probably hasn’t been chained up in some godforsaken basement for the last six months like some of the others we’ve found.”

  Tavika turned her attention to the kitchen, trying to forget the case she’d inadvertently brought back to the surface. That case had taken months to solve and in the meantime two more kids had been kidnapped and chained up. Thankfully, none of the children had died, but they would need counseling, likely for the rest of their lives.

  They at least had a chance to recover. This girl would never see another day.

  When she’d done all she could with her small notebook in hand, Tavika decided to return to the office. Given the lateness of the hour she could have just gone home, but there had to be a connection between the old man and girl. She needed it. The first twenty-four hours after a murder were the most important. After that it was far too easy for witnesses to forget or embellish and killers to take flight.

  It was also easy for the horror of the initial visual of a crime scene to fade. She didn’t want that to happen. Everyone deserved better than that, but in this case that girl deserved a whole lot more. Tavika snapped a few more pictures then took another walk through of the house for the second time that day. There was no visible difference.