Already Chosen, page 14
“A quick buck?” Nate repeated. “How’s that? You thought you could get some notoriety for those sick little scenes you set up, is that it?” He was laying it on thick, playing bad cop. Leaning forward across the table so James had nowhere further back to go, making aggressive and accusatory statements with each question, making sure to scowl at him as much as possible in between. He was doing a very convincing job of being the guy who wanted to make this guy’s life miserable in revenge for the fight they’d had.
“No!” James exclaimed, his eyes wide and his face a shade of gray. “I don’t even know what – what scenes you’re talking about!”
Nate scoffed, rolling his eyes, and turning his head to the wall momentarily as if to find someone to agree with him on the other side of the one-way glass. Laura knew there was no one there, but the kid didn’t. “Come on. You expect me to believe you haven’t heard about the local murders over the past few days? The news channels around here have practically been showing nothing else. Not to mention all that water cooler talk.”
“I work nights, alone,” the security guard pointed out. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. The first time I heard about any murders was when you said you were arresting me for them!”
“Alright,” Nate said, shaking his head with a disbelieving smile as if he was just allowing him to lie for now. “So, why did you steal the mannequins?”
James clamped his mouth shut for a moment and looked at his lawyer, who until now had been sitting so silently that Laura had almost forgotten he was in the room. Only almost, because you knew as an agent that if you took your eye off a lawyer, they would start poking holes in your case.
He brief leaned in to whisper something in James’s ear; he turned and whispered something back, and then they exchanged a quick nod.
“I did take the mannequins,” James said, his face pale as he confessed. “I’ve been selling them to art students at the college for a couple hundred bucks each. It’s still cheaper than what they would pay for them online or from the manufacturer, so there’s been a bit of demand. The first one was for my girlfriend and the orders have kept coming in since then.”
“Can you give us the names of the students you sold them to?” Laura asked. Inwardly, she felt a flash of despair. It was a good story. Good enough to be the truth. “We’re going to need to check that your story is true.”
James nodded wearily, reaching out for the pen and paper in the middle of the table. It was supposed to be for the start of recording his statement, but this would do just as well.
“In the meantime, you can tell us where you were after your shift last night, and before your shift the night before,” Nate said, his voice flat and still clearly not buying the idea that James was innocent. Of the murders, if not the theft.
“I just went home,” James said, his voice almost a squeak. “I was at home before and then I came home after. That’s it.”
“And can anyone other than your obviously biased mother and father verify that?” Nate snapped.
“My client has been very open and honest with you,” the lawyer interrupted, folding his hands on top of the table. “I suggest that you look into the sale of the mannequins as has been described to you before you ask any more accusatory questions. He’s been very forthcoming and cooperative so far.”
“Once we got into this room,” Nate grunted through gritted teeth. “He was a bit less cooperative in the house.”
Laura had the feeling she was about to have to step in and prevent another fistfight, but the door to the interview room cracked open a second after a rapid knock and all of the heads in the room swiveled to look at it. Laura glimpsed one of the detectives working under Ortega through the gap, and got up to hear what they had to say.
“What is it?” she asked, keeping her voice low as she stepped out into the hall and held the door all but shut behind her.
“It’s the mannequins,” the detective said, somewhat nervously. Laura took that as a very bad sign. “Captain Ortega said we should notify you right away.”
“What about them?” Laura asked, bracing herself for the bad news she already, in her gut, knew was coming.
“The one we retrieved from the suspect’s home has a stamp on it marking it as property of the department store,” the detective explained. “We hurried over to the store to check out the storeroom, and all the others do, too. But the ones found at the crime scenes didn’t have any identifying marks. There’s no way to remove the stamp – the porous material kind of sucks it up, so you’d have to scrape off part of the mannequin to get it off. There’s no sign of any tampering like that.”
Laura gritted her teeth against an oncoming headache. Not the kind that usually precipitated a vision. No, this was a regular old frustration headache.
“Alright. Thank you,” she said, before walking back into the interview room and shooting Nate a look of hopelessness.
“Mr. James,” she said, leaning heavily on the back of her chair. “Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be speaking with your manager about whether he wants to press charges on the theft. For the moment, you’re free to go.”
She turned towards the wall rather than watch the look of victory on the smug lawyer’s face, or see William James realize he was no longer in danger of being put away for something he didn’t do. It wouldn’t make her feel any better.
And somewhere out there, the killer was still ready to make his next move.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Laura shook her head when Nate took a step towards her, holding up a hand. “Don’t,” she said. It was just the two of them in the interview room now, but she didn’t feel ready to leave. “I can’t believe we got it wrong again.”
“This is normal,” Nate reminded her. “We always have to fight through the different leads until we find the one that works. If there was an obvious culprit, they wouldn’t need to call in the FBI. You’ve just forgotten that because you’re frustrated about your – you know.”
Visions. He didn’t even want to say the word. “Yeah, well. We’d be a lot further along right now if they were working.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Nate said. He was probably just trying to be kind, but the failure burned into her like a brand against her skin. She hated herself for a moment, hated that she couldn’t get the visions to work, hated that she wasn’t a good enough detective to solve the case without them. Hated that she was wasting time on thinking these things instead of going out there and finding the next lead.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she snatched it out as if it was on fire, hoping for a new clue. But her heart only skipped a single beat when she saw it was Chris on the caller ID – and then she hated herself for being apprehensive instead of excited to speak to him, too.
“It’s Chris,” she said, shortly. “My, um.” She didn’t really know what to call him. Boyfriend? That felt too juvenile, but they were definitely dating.
“Right,” Nate said quickly, gesturing towards the door as he stepped in that direction. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
He was gone before she’d hit the answer call button, taking a breath before speaking to try to stop her voice from sounding so short. “Hi, it’s Laura.”
“Hey!” Chris’s voice was far too upbeat, making her wince. “How’s it going with your case?”
“You know I can’t tell you any details,” Laura said, which wasn’t fair. She knew that he only meant to ask if it was going well or not. It was just that she couldn’t bear to tell him that they were getting nowhere.
“Oh, right,” Chris said, sounding a little taken aback before he rebounded. “Well, I was just wondering about this weekend. I wanted to book something, but obviously if you’ll still be out there, there’s no point. What do you think? Will you be back in time?”
“I don’t know,” Laura sighed. “It’s like asking me how long a piece of string is. The case is over when it’s over.”
“Right, I get that,” Chris said. “I was just wondering if you had, I don’t know, a gut feeling or something. If you think you’re close to solving it or if it’s going to be a long and difficult one.”
“I don’t know, Chris,” Laura said, gritting her teeth. “I never know. I’ve told you that before!”
Her voice came out so much harsher than she intended it to. “Got it,” Chris said, his previous exuberance all but gone. “I’ll, um. Hold off. Let me know if you do get it figured out, and if there’s still time I can always book something at the last minute.”
“Chris,” Laura said, sighing, knowing she needed to apologize. “I’m sorry. You’ve caught me at a really bad time. I’m just – I’m stressed out.”
“Good luck with it,” Chris said, brushing over her. “The case, I mean. I’ll see you when you get back.”
“See you,” Laura began, but he’d already put down the phone.
Damnit. She’d messed up again. Chris was an understanding kind of guy, but how much patience did he have before he would get tired of her being snappy and unappreciative? At least she didn’t worry anymore about him turning out to be violent like his brother, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to lose him.
And if she lost him, she lost access to Amy – lost the chance to make sure she was alright.
God, it was all falling apart. Laura held onto the back of the chair with one hand and sunk her head into the other, wishing it wasn’t so hard. They’d reached a dead end in the investigation and all she’d been able to muster so far was a vision of someone cheating and a creepy nightmare. She wanted a drink. She really wanted a drink. If she snuck out without Nate seeing –
The door opened and she sensed more than saw Nate enter the room, knowing him by his presence, by the sound of his footsteps. She didn’t need a drink. She would be fine without a drink. She had to stay strong.
“Everything alright?” Nate asked, coming to a stop beside her.
Laura dropped her hand from her head and looked up with a dull nod, letting her hand settle on the back of the chair next to the other one. “Just wish we were getting somewhere,” she said.
“We will,” Nate assured her. “Trust me. This killer isn’t going to get away with it for long. We’ll get him.”
“It’s how long he gets away with it that worries me,” Laura said, taking a deep and slow breath. She just needed to calm down and focus. She needed –
A spike of pain went through her temple and she stopped thinking, waiting for the vision to suck her down into it and show her what she needed –
There was a man, walking along, his back to her. All she could see was the back of his head. Short-cropped black hair. A blue collar – a collared shirt, so something smart. She tried to take in every detail that she could, anything that might identify him. If this was their killer – or even his next victim – she needed to remember. She needed to know.
It was so dark, so hard to see. Even the edges of his head were fuzzy, like they were threatening to spiral off into the darkness all around him. There was no sense of time or place, no sense of motion. No – she thought maybe he was walking. But to where, where from? She had no answers.
The vision pulled out slightly, and she thought – this was it – she was going to see him, see his face. All he had to do was turn. Even to the side – even to give her a profile would be enough. She just needed more data. Was his nose long? Did he have a moustache or beard? What color were his eyes? Anything – anything to help her track him down…
He stopped moving, she thought, and then there was some sound, muffled as if from underwater and far away. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then there was some kind of grunt, a curse – something going wrong? What was she seeing? What was going wrong for him?
The vision pulled out further, started to solidify a little more around the edges, getting brighter. Laura tried to take in as much as she could, tried to understand what she was seeing. A dim room, maybe – a gray room – the blue shirt in more detail, with epaulettes on either shoulder, with a badge just visible further down on the sleeve –
Laura came back to herself furious and aching, her head pounding for no good reason. Who cared what was going to happen in this interview room to another police officer sitting in this chair? Why would she need to see a vision about that? Even if it had related to their case, she couldn’t see the officer’s face or make out anything about what was happening! It had probably been a case of him stubbing his toe on a doorframe, and she couldn’t even warn him about being careful!
She stood straight and turned to the door, only to find Nate standing in the way with a troubled look on his face.
“What did you see?” he asked. His eyes were wide, his mouth open like he was ready to cheer with excitement. Like he thought she was about to give him the answer to the whole case and they could go wrap it up right now.
Oh, how utterly bizarre it was now that he knew about the visions. How strange to have him asking her what she’d seen, when for so long she had been trying to hide that she had seen anything at all. Sometimes Laura didn’t think she liked this new reality. It had been easier to stomach these kinds of useless distractions when she was the only one who knew about them.
Laura shook her head. She didn’t want to go into it. “It was nothing,” she said. What was she supposed to do – admit to him that she had failed yet again?
“Wait,” Nate said, moving to block her exit as she tried to leave the room. He held out his hands, his voice still fast and excited. “It wasn’t nothing. You had a vision, didn’t you?”
Laura wanted to lie so badly. She wanted to pretend she’d just been spaced out thinking about going on a date with Chris over the weekend, but it was the stupid kind of lie that would create more questions than it answered.
“I did,” she said. “But it was nothing. I have those sometimes. It didn’t help.”
Nate sighed heavily, dropping his arms back down by his sides. “Damnit, Laura, you’re not supposed to be keeping this stuff from me anymore,” he said. “You can tell me now. It’s not like I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “It was nothing you need to know about.”
“Need to know about?” Nate repeated incredulously. He shook his head. “Wasn’t the whole point of the dance we’ve been doing over the past couple of months that you were going to be honest with me from now on? Why did you even tell me about your visions if you’re just going to keep shutting me out and hiding them?”
Laura looked at his face and almost balked. He was angry with her. Again. All those frustrations from the last few months, all the times he had repeated that he couldn’t work with her anymore if she wasn’t open and honest. It was all bubbling right back to the surface now that the issue had come up again. He was furious with her, not just for avoiding his questions this time but for all the other times as well.
And in that moment, something inside Laura cowered away rather than facing up to it. Something inside her was kneeling in front of Marcus, begging him not to take Lacey away from her, even though she was so drunk she could barely say her own daughter’s name right. Something inside her was sitting alone in her car, having received the news that Nate had put in a transfer and was never going to work with her again. Something inside of her was seeing the look on her mother’s face when she realized that Laura had seen her father’s death ahead of time and never said a word about it.
She brushed past Nate and out into the corridor, her mouth clamped firmly shut, and half-walked, half-ran out of the precinct into the cold air and the escape that their hired car offered.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
He sat and looked at the mannequin, admiring it as he put the rag to the side. He’d done everything he could to make it as clean and shiny as possible, going over every single millimeter of it until he was absolutely sure he had erased every trace of whatever life it might have had before.
It was clean, but he did not take off his gloves. No, there was no point in risking getting it dirty and having to start all over again. And like this, he could be free to run his finger along the curves and smoothness of it, admiring what he had done. Knowing that everything was ready.
Tonight, he would be able to put his final mannequin in place, and everything would be complete.
Ah, everything had gone so well. Better than he ever could have hoped. No one had even been by to ask about the missing mannequins yet – because no one had noticed they were gone. He had calculated everything well. It was true that no one would notice what he was doing. It was true that no one would notice the missing bodies. And now here he was, standing on the precipice of completing his work.
To think, that all this would soon be done. That he would have finished. And, being uncaught so far, he had to assume that he would remain uncaught. That had been one of his worries, that someone would misinterpret what he was doing and try to get him into trouble. If they didn’t see the beauty in it, the magic, they might think that he needed to go away somewhere – and then he wouldn’t be able to finish. But he no longer had that worry.
No, now he was just quietly happy, ready for the final stage. Tonight he would be going to see his cousin! Wasn’t it incredible? To have spent so long without any family at all, and then to find out that you had a cousin all along!
It had been an incredible discovery. He’d thought that he had no family left at all. He only dimly remembered the concept, now – a home full of smiles and laughter when he was very young, so long ago that it felt almost like someone else’s memory. Something he had seen in a film, maybe.
He’d given up hope.
But then he’d found out about the fact he still had a relative left – and better than that, they even worked in the same place! What an incredible coincidence that was, so amazing he could barely believe it. To go your whole life looking for something, and then to find out it was right on your doorstep all along!
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