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

by Dale Mayer

  Outside, she stood in the backyard. In her head she knew logically it had to be the same killer. There was no reason for two people to come through this old house on separate missions, one to kill an old man and another to drop off his recent kill. She wondered if the killer, having taken care of the old man, then went for his fresh victim and needed a place to dump her so he decided to put them together. It was lame, but she’d seen worse reasons in her line of work.

  Of course when the killer returned with the second victim he’d have seen the crime scene tape and would have known the cops had found the old man. So why leave the child?

  The fresh air helped clear her mind. Her soul was achy. But she fanned the anger inside. She needed something to drive her forward.

  This time she caught a ride back with one of her team. At the office she sat back down at her desk and logged into her computer.

  “I tried to log into your computer today,” Mark said in front of her. “It wouldn’t let me.”

  Slowly she raised her head to study him. “Why would you try?”

  He sat down in the spare chair across from her desk. “Mine wouldn’t even turn on. But I had a lot of work to do, so I thought I could use yours by logging in with my own password. That way I’d get the bulk of the stupid reports done.” He slapped the stack of paperwork on her desk.

  “Why is it if your computer wasn’t working you thought mine would?” She was no more a computer tech than anybody else in here. She was fair to average, maybe even slightly better when it came to research, but she didn’t do forensic or cyber-crimes as she didn’t have the knack for it. She did, however, understand how to keep her computer login safe.

  He gave a snort. “Well yours is working so you get to do the reports.”

  “Like hell. Move them or I’ll dump them on the floor.” She didn’t even bother looking up.

  He stormed to his feet. “Goddamn it.” He snatched up the reports and returned to his desk.

  “Besides you probably haven’t tried to turn your computer on again since we got back.”

  “Did you even check out what time it is?” he protested. “We’ve logged in our hours for the day already.”

  “So, I’ve still got some work. Thanks.” She didn’t bother cutting the biting tone back. All she was concerned about was that he did his job and maybe a little bit more so they could clear the backlog of cases and actually put these criminals behind bars.

  Sure she had a stronger record for solving cases than most of the other guys in the unit, but she swore that was because she put in the time and effort to get the job done. And maybe because she had a slight advantage.

  Not that the other guys cared. And that was because they had a life.

  She lived for her work. That meant it became her life. She turned her focus back to the computer. There had to be a connection somehow between the two deaths.

  *

  What a way to spend most of the night. Damn it. He wanted to walk through the house when it was empty of cops. He’d waited all afternoon in the park. Now that there was a second crime scene in the same house he really wanted to take a look. He got as close to the damn place as he could without his presence being suspicious. He was pretty sure several of the people standing around in a group watching as the ambulance arrived were looking at him suspiciously though. He had ID if he needed, but it wasn’t going to be good if the neighbors called him in. With a last glance he disappeared into the crowd and walked back to the park.

  Besides he needed to talk to Tavika about this. He’d stepped into the house in spirit form, but it was hard to see much with everyone in there. He’d heard the cops talk though. Not a lot, but enough.

  Why a child? And why leave her body there?

  He couldn’t help but think that in some way it was an offering. And if that didn’t sound bizarre nothing did. His inner sense went off. His phone rang soon after.

  Hunter. “What’s this about a child?” Hunter snapped.

  “Not the child you’re looking for.” Jericho studied the darkened sky around him. “A teenage girl found dead in the same house as the old man.”

  “Odd. Grandfather and granddaughter?”

  Jericho shook his head even though Hunter couldn’t see the motion. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “End-of-life, start of life?”

  Interesting Hunter was picking up a theme. “Not that I’m seeing, but we will certainly check that angle out.”

  “If they are not family then the connection’s going to be somebody that knows both of them.” Hunter rang off.

  Jericho stared down at the phone. That would make sense. Both victims had known the killer. So what kind of a killer spent time with an old man and a young girl?

  There had been something peaceful about the girl’s face. She hadn’t died in terror. Neither had the old man. That brought his mind circling back to why? They could have been asleep when attacked or more likely given a drug to render them unconscious. That would explain the lack of expressions. As soon as he’d understood a young girl was dead in the house he’d picked up his phone and started his own research. There’d been no recent reports matching the girl’s description. According to the glimpses he’d caught, the girl was thin, but cared for. It was possible she either hadn’t been missed as yet or hadn’t been with her captor a long time. But then why kill her? Questions just ran around in circles but there were no answers.

  Hell, in cases like these none of the answers ever made sense anyway.

  Jericho slowly turned and walked back to the apartment. He’d left his bag at Tavika’s on purpose. But he also figured she’d do her damnedest to stay at work overnight. That way she could avoid him.

  Halfway there he lifted his head and took a sniff. The air was muggy, the scent of perfume heavy from small gardens close by. His senses picked up something else odd. An aroma he couldn’t place. He frowned and kept walking, opening up his senses wider.

  He was alone in the park. For many people that was a recipe for disaster. For him not so much. He deliberately slowed his pace so if somebody wanted to come up and attack him they could. He always felt it better to fight frontal hand-to-hand combat than to wait until somebody shot him in the back. Footsteps then fell in behind him.

  He smiled and kept on walking. Every once in a while his energy attracted young males. He used power like every young man around wanted to. It was what they all sought.

  But it was only those that had strong abilities to understand that came after him. He stepped up to a small footbridge, crossed the little creek and stopped. Sure enough the person slid behind a bush. It wasn’t particularly late, just past ten o’clock. So the age of his follower could be all across the board.

  There was no malevolence in the energy. Mostly curiosity and envy.

  He understood the envy. He waited a few minutes and then called out softly, “Show yourself. I won’t hurt you.” He sensed rather than saw the person stiffen. And then a young boy stepped forward. He stared at Jericho with eyes very similar to his own. Almost a liquid silver rippling in the moonlight. Stunningly attractive, the boy also looked vaguely familiar. “Who are you and why are you following me?”

  “I’m not following you.”

  The child said nothing more but stared at him. There was an unnerving depth to that gaze. He had no doubt the boy was one of power. And maybe even more developed than he could imagine. For that reason alone, he reminded Jericho of Tavika.

  “Good. It seemed like you’re either following or hiding from me.” He smiled knowing that was going to prick the young man’s temper. If there was anything these young men had it was ego and pride. One couldn’t play without taking on the other. Both were a dangerous game. But at this age group it shouldn’t be too bad.

  Sure enough the boy puffed up in anger. “I wasn’t hiding.”

  “Okay. Are you waiting to see where I was going?” He kept his tone mocking and light, as if to say ‘hey kid it’s okay, back off now, we will all be fine.’
>
  “Why are you following my sister?” Then the boy took several steps back, and Jericho realized he could see right through him. “Just stop it. Leave her alone.” And he took off.

  Following his sister? Who the hell was his sister?

  *

  Now what the hell was going on? He sat in his housecoat twiddling with his police scanner. Nothing made sense. They’d found another body? At his crime scene?

  Was someone following him? Imitating him? That thought curdled his stomach.

  But why dump a body with the old man.

  Did nothing make sense anymore? It should. It had to.

  It was the only way he could keep everything in place. There was a natural order to shit, and people needed to respect that.

  Not go confuse the issue by messing up his own work. Fuck the nerve of this asshole. Just let him have five minutes alone with the killer. He’d teach him to not be a copycat.

  Chapter 8

  How could somebody reach the age of seventy and have less than a half page of history behind them. Connor Breaker had been an electrician, with his own business. As such he must’ve known a lot of people, had a lot of clients. Sure that had been eight years ago, but maybe he’d done some work for the killer. There were too many unanswered questions, but the one that really got her right now was the fact that she couldn’t find out anything about him.

  There had to be more. He owned the house and had for over twenty years. He cashed his social security checks every month and paid his bills on time. That was it. Nothing to suggest a connection to the girl or the killer.

  There had to be one. She turned her attention to the girl. There was no matching missing person’s report anywhere in the last three to four years. How could anyone have a beautiful young girl in their life and not notice when she’d gone missing?

  Not likely. Of course that instinctively made her think the girl’s parents had something to do with this. And that was always a possibility, but at the moment she wasn’t interested in those. She was looking for something locked down. Her phone rang. It was the coroner.

  Awesome. “Hey, Shelby, anything new?”

  “Not sure it’s the same killer.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Breaker had a puncture wound on the right shoulder, like a pressure syringe.”

  Tavika sat back, a big smile on her face. “So I was right, some kind of sleeping drug was administered so he couldn’t fight back. What about the girl?”

  “No pressure syringe wound.”

  “So why leave them both in the same house?”

  “Any sign that a child lived there?” Shelby asked.

  Tavika shook her head. “Not that we could see. There was no sign of anyone but the old man there.”

  “Unless she was a relatively new addition.”

  “No sign of personal belongings,” Tavika said cautiously. “I can check in with the neighbors. Maybe they saw a child around.”

  “It just occurred to me that both deaths involved throats. One was a slashed throat, the other a broken neck.”

  Tavika tapped her pencil on her notepad as she contemplated somebody with a fixation on necks. “I’ll check the other case histories and see if we come up with somebody using an MO that might be similar. Maybe run it through the database.”

  “I’ll let you know when we get the tox screen back, but at this point I’m guessing we’re looking at a simple knockout drug.”

  “No other signs of injuries on either of them?”

  “Too early to tell,” said the coroner. “I’m not done yet though. Just starting on the girl.”

  Tavika sat back. So one killer or two? And if one, he could have a fixation for the neck area. There was a special database for modus operandi. She’d have to see what she could find. She checked her watch. Damn it was already two in the morning. She should have done this at home. Then she could start the searches and crash while the computers did their thing. Instead, she set up a couple of searches and sat back to wait. Very quickly they all came back negative.

  Definitely bedtime. She logged off and shut down her computer. Mark may have had a viable reason for logging on and trying to use her system, but she didn’t want him to succeed next time. There was no way in hell she was going to get blamed for any more computers having viruses. There had been a lot of them lately. They’d all been warned to make sure they stayed off social media and keep office hours to business concerns.

  That wasn’t her problem. But she knew Mark had way too many girlfriends and was on multiple dating sites. She wouldn’t put it past him to try to log onto her computer so he could play.

  With a head shake at his antics, she stood up. All she wanted to do was go home and rest. She walked out of the station realizing she was once again without wheels. The bus service had stopped for the night. Damn.

  As tired as she was, walking was out of the question.

  She was too far away to walk. She’d have to catch a cab.

  “If you aren’t too stubborn, you can catch a ride with me.”

  She turned to see Jericho leaning against the front wall of the station. She came to an abrupt stop. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wondered if you’d found a connection between the two victims yet.”

  “Even if I did, it’s none of your business. You know I can’t share confidential information.” She glared at him. She was too tired to fight him – or her hormones that were down in the well where she’d shoved them. Particularly as her energy reserves were at an all-time low.

  “Doesn’t matter about the syringe. I already knew about that. I was wondering if there is anything in their history that connected them to the Ghost.”

  “No,” she snapped. “Nothing that came to the surface, and it will take days, if not weeks, to get to the bottom of this.”

  “If then…” He straightened and held up his keys. “You walking or you want a ride?”

  She stared out into the night, her mind whirling. Even if she walked home or took a cab there was nothing that would stop him from driving back to her place. She was going to have to deal with him one way or another. She was too damn tired. She glared at him. “I’ll accept a ride home, thanks. You can grab your personal belongings when we get there and leave.”

  “You’re half right.” He laughed, nudging her around to the side where he’d parked. “I’ll grab my bag, but I sure as hell won’t be leaving.”

  *

  How could he have possibly missed her open, friendly manner? He snorted. She was so damn prickly. He drove them home, enjoying the empty streets of the city. When he pulled up out front of her apartment he turned off the engine and waited until she got out. He followed her up and asked, “Did you eat?”

  “You know I did.”

  He’d actually forgotten about the Chinese food he’d seen upstairs. He was starving but knew he may have to forgo a meal. He’d love to have ordered in pizza, but didn’t think this was going to be the time. Up at the apartment he was happy to see she didn’t even protest his presence. He grabbed up his bag, sauntered over to the couch and lay down. The apartment was closer to being a studio as it was an L-shaped room with the bedroom in the hook of an alcove. The layout didn’t provide much in the way of privacy.

  Then again she didn’t appear to need it as she walked to the end of the bed and collapsed fully dressed face first on the bedding. He knew within a few minutes she’d succumbed to sleep.

  Solomon took up residence on her butt. He wondered if the cat watched over her or was just taking advantage of a soft, warm place to sleep. As Tavika spent little time here, it was also Solomon’s chance for more human contact.

  Damn. He wished he could go out like that. His stomach growled. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he had something to eat. Unlike Tavika, he burned through calories at an alarming rate when using his abilities. Today had been harder than most as he tried to keep track of her and the Ghost.

  Her half eaten Chinese food container sat
on the table. He walked over to check it out. It actually looked good as it was meat, vegetables, and noodles. The other container was soup. He grabbed the noodles, sat back down on the corner of the couch and proceeded to finish her dinner. Growing up in his household, ignoring food in one’s dish meant losing it. With two older brothers, there was no keeping it safe unless it was in his stomach.

  He ate the last bite, ready to grab a few hours of sleep when he heard an odd sniffling sound. He tossed the empty container into the garbage and looked toward the bed. Tavika lay as he’d seen her last. She appeared almost comatose she slept so heavily. When he heard the sound again he took a hesitant step forward. She was making the sound but he had no idea why. Not sure what to do and hating to invade her privacy, he peeked around the corner so he could see her face.

  What he saw was enough to break his own heart. This big, tough, independent cop who’d kick his ass if she got a chance – slept – but huge tears rolled down her cheeks.

  He knew her history, hell, media around the world had picked up the story.

  Psychic’s daughter survives slaughter.

  The headlines had been lurid and compelling. The pictures devastating. Tavika had been around eleven or twelve at the time. The details on what she’d gone through were a little sketchy and that was a good thing. He knew she’d disappeared for a while. Presumably to heal and wait for the sensationalism to die down.

  Not that she needed any more reason, but he wondered at the sadness and grief on her face. Feeling like an intruder, he turned away, leaving her to her pain, knowing there was nothing he could do that she’d accept. At least not yet.

  *

  He had an easy name to cross off his list next. He’d take care of that tonight. It should add to Tavika’s pain. After all he’d watched her talk to this guy in the past.

  Not that the victim deserved to die for that reason.