by Mark Lukens
“I know, Ms. Simmons. But I still think you’ve seen something.”
Her heart jumped. What did he mean by that? “I just told you I wasn’t anywhere near those places,” she said, and she could hear the sharp tone of anger in her voice. “How could I have seen anything?”
Agent Woods continued quickly, like he could tell he was making her angry, like he knew he only had a few seconds to convince her of something before she kicked him out. He took a step towards her and his expression softened. “I think you’ve seen something in your dreams. In the visions you have.”
Tara’s breath caught in her throat and she pointed at her front door. “I think it’s time for you to leave, Agent Woods.”
Agent Woods took another step closer to Tara. The hard lines of his face eased even more, his dark eyes which were so watchful and predatory before were now oozing with compassion. “I know about your abilities, Ms. Simmons. I know about your dreams. I believe you can see things. Sense things.”
“How would you know about that?” Tara whispered as her mind whirled for a moment. The only way he could know about her ability would be from police reports back when Tara had tried a few times in vain to help the police department. They had treated her help like a joke, and even worse, a waste of their time. And she couldn’t blame them. She couldn’t really help – she was always too late with her visions and she never had enough detail about the killers. It was a cosmic joke to have psychic powers where you only saw things after they happened, so she stopped trying to help.
“I know you’ve tried to help the police with your abilities,” he said as if reading her mind. “I know they treated you like a joke. But believe me, the FBI won’t do that. We take these kinds of things very seriously.”
Tara walked to her front door and opened it for Agent Woods. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
Agent Woods met her at the front door. He was about to leave, but he turned and looked at Tara. “There will be more murders. You know that, don’t you?”
Tara didn’t answer.
Agent Woods stepped through the doorway and turned back to Tara. He produced a business card in between two fingers like a magician performing a trick.
“Can I leave my card with you?”
“Will it make you go away any faster?”
He didn’t answer.
She took his card and shut the door on him. She twisted the lock on the door handle. And then she locked the deadbolt.
2.
Tara ran to the window near the front door, the one that looked out onto the parking area. She peeked out through the blinds and watched the FBI agent walk back to his dark sedan. He had his sunglasses on again. He walked between her Jeep and his car and was about to open his door, but he stopped and looked around at the parking area.
And then the agent grabbed his cell phone off of his belt like someone had just called him. He lifted the phone up to his ear and talked into it, brief sentences, sometimes only a word or two in between pauses while he listened on the phone. To Tara, it seemed like he was affirming something.
Then Agent Woods turned and looked right at her window. Even though he had the sunglasses covering his eyes, she could tell that his eyes were focused on her like he knew she’d been watching him the whole time.
She let the blinds snap back in place as she let go of them with her fingers.
She felt a little embarrassed at being caught peeking at him. How did he know she was watching him? He’s a cop, she told herself – it was human nature for someone to peek out the window at him – it was probably another thing he’d learned in a training course at the FBI.
She heard his car start up and pull out of the parking area. She wanted to look out the window again to check and make sure he was gone, but she resisted the urge.
Tara jumped when her telephone rang.
It was her home phone, not her cell phone, and it had a sharp ring that demanded an answer. She hurried to the phone and picked it up on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Tara,” Ben said into the phone.
Ben was one of the people she worked for. In fact, he got her the most work. The assignment that she was finishing now, the children’s book illustrations, was for him.
“Hey, Ben. How’s it going?”
“I was just calling to see how those illos are coming along?” Ben always called the illustrations “illos” for short. “It’s getting a little close to the deadline,” he said. “Not that I’m worried about you, Tara. You’ve never been late on an assignment yet.”
“And that streak will continue,” Tara said.
Ben laughed.
“They’re just about done. I got a little behind schedule.” She thought of a quick white lie. “I’ve been a little under the weather the last few days. The flu, maybe. But I’m back on track now.”
“Sorry to hear that. You should take some Vitamin C.”
“I will. I already am. One step ahead of you, Ben. Thanks.”
“Okay. You just call me if you need anything. I’m just right down the road, you know that.”
Ben’s office was in downtown Tampa, maybe just down the road, but maybe an hour away during rush hour.
“I will, Ben. Thanks. I’ll send the first set of illos to you tonight.”
“I’ll be looking for them.” There was a slight pause and then a slight static on the phone.
Ben had said something, but Tara couldn’t make the words out through the static. “Ben? Did you say something? I lost you there for a second.”
The static faded away a little, but Tara could still hear it. She could hear Ben more clearly now. “I said, take care of yourself.”
“I will. Thanks. Bye.”
She guessed that Ben had said good-bye, but the static was blaring on the phone again. She hung up the phone and backed away from it.
Doesn’t anything work right anymore?
Tara wanted to go and take a shower, but she walked back to her front window instead. She peeked out through the blinds, opening them wider this time; she wanted to make sure the FBI agent was really gone.
He was gone – nobody out there at all. She looked towards the right, towards Steve’s apartment. And she saw him leaving his apartment. He walked to his pickup truck and got in. He started his truck, and then drove away. Unlike the FBI agent, he hadn’t even looked her way at all; he didn’t seem to know that she was in her window watching him like a stalker.
She let the blinds pop back in place, feeling a little dejected that Steve didn’t look her way. And then she had to mentally slap herself and get herself back under control, she had to remind herself that nothing was ever going to happen with Steve. Once he found out about her night terrors and sleepwalking, he would run away from her like she was a leper.
She needed to put him out of her mind.
After checking the front door again, and then all of the windows, she went to her master bathroom and took a shower. She brought her cell phone and laid it on the bathroom counter and locked the bathroom door like she always did.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1.
The next day Tara sent off the illustrations (the illos) to Ben’s e-mail. She still had to work on the last of them, just to touch them up a little, but she still had a few more days for that. Just getting most of them would ease Ben’s mind a little. She tried working on the touchups, but she just couldn’t fully concentrate on them right now.
She had too much on her mind.
She ate the rest of the leftover veggie lasagna that she’d baked last night. She drank a cup of green tea and honey with her meal, and then polished off a glass of red wine afterwards.
She ate alone at the small table in her kitchen. Sometimes she wished she had a pet. Even a cat. Even if it ignored her all day. But she couldn’t take a chance on having a pet.
After rinsing off her dishes, she sat down in front of the TV. The drawing of the revolver and bullets was still on the coffee table in front of her underneat
h the two pencils: one whole pencil, and the other one broken in two pieces.
She picked up the drawing and studied it again. This was a clue, she was sure of it, a clue sent to her straight from the Shadow Man – a clue that said: try to find me before I find you.
She set the paper down on the coffee table and then saw Agent Wood’s business card next to it. She stared at the card for a moment, and then she sat back deeper into the couch.
It was only late afternoon, but her eyes began to close. If she could just shut her eyes for a few minutes, she knew she would feel better. She hadn’t gotten enough sleep lately, and sometimes it was better to nap during the day – she didn’t really have a set schedule anymore, she just took her sleep whenever she could get it.
She was almost asleep when her cell phone rang. Her eyes popped open. The cell phone was on the kitchen counter. She jumped to her feet and ran to the counter as the phone rang and buzzed at the same time. Somehow her phone was stuck on both ring and vibrate at the same time and she didn’t know how to change it. It was her aunt calling.
“Hey, Aunt Katie.”
“Tara, how are you?”
“I’m a … I’m pretty good. Sorry. I was sitting on the couch and I think I was almost falling asleep.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” The instant concern in her aunt’s voice brought Tara back to her childhood in a split second. She felt a sudden ache of nostalgia.
“No,” Tara said. “It’s okay. I wasn’t all the way asleep. I don’t even want to sleep.”
“You feeling okay?”
For just a moment Tara felt like spilling her guts to her aunt. Lorie was her only friend, but her Aunt Katie was the only family she had left, and Aunt Katie was alone just like Tara was; she and her latest husband had split up a year ago after only two years of marriage. But Tara didn’t say anything; she didn’t want her aunt worrying about her.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tara finally answered. “Just a little bit of the flu lately.” She used the same lie she’d told Ben.
“Are you not sleeping well?”
Her aunt knew how to cut right to the chase. Buried in her question was a concern about her night terrors. Her aunt had dealt with Tara’s condition when they had lived together. She was only one of a handful of people who knew about Tara’s night terrors.
“A few nightmares here and there,” Tara finally answered. “But nothing major.”
There was a silence on the phone for a moment. She could tell that her aunt didn’t believe her, and for a moment she wished her aunt was here with her. Her aunt was the only person in the world who really knew her.
“I heard about the latest murder down there in Tampa,” Aunt Katie finally said. It was the real reason for the phone call, Tara knew. “All the way up here in Boston, it’s big news. They’re calling him a serial killer. Killed three people in two nights.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of big news down here,” Tara said, and then regretted it, fearing it sounded sarcastic.
“I’m just worried about you,” her aunt said.
“I’m fine,” Tara answered. “Got my doors locked. Baseball bats in every room.”
“Very funny,” Aunt Katie said and laughed.
No, Tara wanted to say; it’s the truth – I have baseball bats stashed around my apartment. But she didn’t. She could tell that her aunt wanted to say more, she could sense that something was on her mind. But her Aunt Katie wasn’t divulging anything.
They made some more small-talk. Yes, everything was going well with Tara’s work. No, Tara hadn’t found a boyfriend yet. Not even close. She sure wasn’t going to tell her about Lorie’s plan to hook her up with the next door neighbor using a bag of sugar as the bait.
Tara got off the phone with her aunt and went back to the couch and stretched out on it. She plucked Agent Woods’ business card off of the coffee table and stared at it for a moment. Agent Woods seemed like a hard and competent man, but she had seen something vulnerable in his dark eyes for a moment when he asked for her help.
She set the card down on her stomach and closed her eyes.
She just needed to close her eyes for a few minutes. She was so tired.
Moments later she was asleep. At first she didn’t dream anything.
But then the dreams came.
2.
Aunt Katie hung up the phone and she walked to the kitchen table where she’d left a photo album wide open. She flipped back towards the front of the book, to photos of Tara when she was a baby. She turned a page, crinkling the plastic a little that covered the pages. She lingered on a photo of Tara’s mom and dad when they were younger, when Tara was little. She touched the photo of Tara’s mother with her finger. Katie’s sister. God, she missed her so much.
Katie had been keeping a secret from Tara for years now. She never wanted to tell her, she was afraid it would destroy her, but now Tara needed to know the truth.
She closed the photo album with a snap and sat at the small kitchen table in her tiny Boston apartment for a long moment. She stared at her cluttered kitchen counters as her mind lingered on the murders down in Tampa.
It was happening again.
Katie had always believed that she had a touch of psychic ability – but nothing as powerful as Tara’s abilities, not even close. She believed that everyone had a sixth sense whether they knew it or not, whether they chose to believe it or not. She believed that people had “gut feelings” in their lives, a voice whispering at the back of their mind to not go to work that day, or not to go down a certain road, or to buy a lottery ticket. A lot of times people ignored these feelings and then later they knew that they should’ve listened to that voice in their head.
Maybe it was a part of a collective unconscious that all humans shared. Katie had heard that theory from somewhere before.
Who knew?
Right now she had a voice whispering to her, a gut feeling tugging at her, and she didn’t think she should ignore it.
She got up and paced around her cramped apartment. She could hear the traffic of Boston outside: blaring horns, skidding tires, someone yelling at someone else. She had followed her latest husband up here and it hadn’t worked out. Maybe it was time to pack a bag and get out of this city for a little while.
It was time to take a trip to Florida.
It was time to see Tara and tell her the truth. And what she had to tell her, she couldn’t say over the phone, she needed to face her.
Katie walked to her hall closet and pulled down two suitcases from the top shelf.
CHAPTER NINE
1.
Miss Helen waited by her front window for the killer to come.
Her home-based business, Miss Helen’s Psychic Readings, was located on State Road 301, between Tampa and the Hillsborough State Park. Her house was set back from the road and situated on almost two acres of land; it had been left to her by her mother after she passed away six years ago. Her neighbor to one side was Mrs. Jean Smith, an old lady in the early stages of dementia. Her neighbor on the other side was a middle-aged couple who constantly drank and argued.
Miss Helen’s Psychic Readings was open from eight in the morning to seven o’clock at night. She preferred appointments, but if she wasn’t busy she would take walk-ins. She really couldn’t turn down any business.
She had a sign out by the road that advertised her business. It had been constructed, hand-painted, and installed by her brother ten years ago. He died two years ago. She knew she should get a new sign, a bigger one, a fancier one, but she couldn’t bear to replace the sign. It was something made by her brother’s hands that she could look at every day.
Her front yard was large and she’d had the driveway widened a few years back to handle extra cars parking in front of her home. Not that there was some kind of mad rush of customers, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Her vehicle, an older mini-van, was parked underneath the aluminum roof of the carport.
Miss Helen peeked out the window again. It was late in the a
fternoon and she was closed for the day. She’d had her last customer at three o’clock. She had to admit that she’d been a little distracted with her last customer, and she probably should have rescheduled, it would’ve only been fair to the poor woman who came in. Miss Helen knew she hadn’t given her the best service, and she almost felt like refunding the woman.
Almost.
After her last customer left, Miss Helen made sure the front door was locked and then she went to her bedroom to get the revolver from the drawer in her nightstand next to her bed. She had loaded the gun a few days ago with six brand new bullets from the box. She’d been keeping the gun by her bed every night for the last two weeks, but today she wanted the weapon with her at all times.
Miss Helen was in her mid-sixties, and she was a heavy-set woman. She wore large, baggy clothing which helped her conceal the revolver in her pants pocket more easily. She knew how to use the gun, it had been her brother’s and he’d shown her how to fire it at a remote pond in the woods a few years back. They shot at beer bottles until Miss Helen could hit at least half of them.
She had seen the killer in her dreams the last few nights, but not in any detail, only a shadowy figure. But she could feel him. She sensed that he had killed many times before, working his way across the country. At first he killed for pleasure, and then he killed to hone his skills. Recently he’d begun taking things from his victims, things he needed for some kind of ritual or ceremony which hadn’t been too clear to her in the dreams.
The shadowy killer was seeking someone in particular here in Tampa. Miss Helen didn’t know who the person was, but she was pretty sure it was a young woman.
She thought about calling the police, but she knew they would do nothing to help her. They didn’t believe in her mumbo-jumbo and they weren’t going to stake a cop outside her house because she had a few bad dreams.
No, this was something she was going to have to take care of herself.
