“It’s not anything,” Laura said. “I don’t control when the visions come and I don’t really think there’s any particular rule about when or why they happen. At least, I haven’t noticed one in all these years. It could mean that I’m just not seeing the bad thing that’s about to happen.”

  “Right.” Nate said. There was an uncomfortably long pause, then: “So you haven’t seen that he’s going to die, like you saw with me?”

  “No,” Laura said immediately. “No, I haven’t. The shadow of death is – it’s very rare. I probably come into contact with people all the time and never see anything threatening them, even though they might die not too long after.”

  “That’s kind of creepy to think about,” Nate said, and Laura regretted bringing it up.

  God, she wished this elephant wasn’t in the room. Even when it wasn’t an elephant anymore because they were addressing it directly, it seemed to be hanging over their heads and changing every dynamic between them.

  She just wanted it to feel the way it had before all of this. When they were just partners. Yes, she’d had to hide a huge part of herself from him – but at least it hadn’t been awkward most of the time.

  She stared out of the window, not sure what to say next or where to take the conversation. What was she going to ask him about? His love life? It had been weird enough talking about hers, and last she knew, he was still in the recovery period after his longest-lasting girlfriend had broken it off. What he’d been up to lately? Probably researching the place he was supposed to transfer to when he decided not to be her partner anymore, and looking for a new place to live. The cases she’d worked on lately? That would just be a reminder of the fact that they hadn’t been working on them together.

  And what else was there?

  Was she supposed to start telling him all about Zach – a new discovery she hadn’t even really processed or understood herself yet?

  “I didn’t really mean creepy,” Nate said, after another long silence. He sounded guilty, like he’d messed up. But he hadn’t messed up. It was Laura who had messed up. She was the one making all the problems here. If she just didn’t have this ability in the first place, none of this would have happened. “It’s just weird to think about. I’m still getting used to it.”

  “I know,” Laura said quietly. “I’m sorry I dumped all this on you.”

  “I asked you to,” Nate pointed out. “I wanted to know so that we could work together better as partners. I still feel that way. It’s a good thing that I know, so I can help you out with it and you don’t have to pretend about your leads anymore. We’re going to be better at solving this case.”

  “Yeah,” Laura agreed, even though she had so many doubts spiraling through her head that it was a wonder he couldn’t hear them out loud.

  For a start, her visions hadn’t exactly been playing ball lately. She’d started seeing visions of the past, not the future, and she had no idea why. She’d been unable to trigger the visions when she needed them. She’d seen the same thing over and over in tiny, unreadable fragments, instead of getting new insights that would help her progress her understanding of the case. She’d even had visions trigger in instances that she couldn’t explain how or why they’d set off. None of it made sense anymore.

  She had no idea what was going on with her head or why, and she couldn’t be sure that anything she saw was actually going to help her with the case.

  But that was something she was going to keep to herself, because she didn’t want Nate to realize that not only had she thrust a monumental secret on him and asked him to keep it from their superiors – but she’d also done it at a time when her visions were less reliable than they’d ever been.

  She just had to hope that by some miracle, everything worked the way it was supposed to this time – and they caught the killer fast, so Nate could see he’d made the right choice to come back as her partner.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Laura stretched her arms above her head, getting out of the car and then rubbing the aching muscles in her shoulders. There was something about sitting in a car for hours that made you feel cramped and sore in ways that just sitting in a chair for hours didn’t. Maybe it was the lack of freedom, the knowledge that you couldn’t get up and move even if you wanted to.

  Or maybe it was the tension that had simmered in the air between Laura and Nate for the whole journey to Mariesville that had her feeling stiff and sore.

  “This must be it,” Nate said, nodding a short way down the road. It was unmistakable: crime scene tape across the entrance to the alleyway, a police officer in uniform standing against it with sunglasses covering his eyes and his arms crossed over his chest, and at least three marked and unmarked vehicles that Laura would have bet a lot of money were law enforcement.

  Laura shaded her eyes for a moment and nodded in the same direction. “Guess we’ll have to head inside the alley to see if we can spot some kind of chief around here.”

  Nate nodded in response, already starting to lead the way. They had their badges out and ready to show the cop guarding the tape by the time they had walked over to him, and he nodded them through with only a spark of interest at the FBI insignia. He must have already heard the FBI were on their way.

  It was obvious as soon as they entered the alley that the person in charge was standing right in the middle of the long, narrow space, looking down at something on the floor with his hands on his hips. He was talking with what looked like someone from the forensics staff in white overalls, both of them gesturing towards a spot on the ground a few times as Laura and Nate walked over.

  Before they were in earshot of the quietly-spoken conversation, the Captain turned and looked at them. He wore the blue uniform of the police force, the insignia of his rank clearly visible and his hat tucked under his arm. He was probably in his fifties, with black hair that was graying at the temples and piercingly sharp blue eyes that made Laura shiver involuntarily. He was not the kind of detective she would have liked to go up against if she was a criminal, herself. She imagined he would be quite effective in the interrogation room.

  “Agents,” he called out, obviously clocking them before they had the chance to introduce themselves. “We’re just looking over the scene. I’m afraid you’ve missed the body.”

  “That’s alright.” Nate came to a stop in front of the Captain first, holding out a hand to shake. “Special Agent Nathaniel Lavoie.”

  “Special Agent Laura Frost,” Laura added, when Nate made a slight gesture in her direction to prompt her instead of saying the words himself.

  The Captain nodded, shaking Nate’s hand and then Laura’s. “Captain Ortega,” he said. “I take it you’re here to see what we already know about the victim.”

  “Yes, please,” Nate said agreeably. He and Laura turned when Ortega did, looking down at the empty space in the alleyway which had clearly been home to a body not long before, conspicuous by its absence.

  “Well, I can say it’s not much,” Ortega sighed, in a matter-of-fact way. “We’ve already processed the body and the mannequin through the lab – it’s been top priority. There’s not a lot of physical evidence that we can use. The mannequin was wiped totally clean, probably cleaner than it even was in the factory after it was made. There aren’t any marks on it indicating where it was manufactured either, so we’re not able to use that to track down the source. Looks like the killer wore gloves – we haven’t found any fingerprints or DNA traces on the body or anything else that we could definitively narrow down to the killer. Of course, the public nature of this spot means it’s tough to use much of what’s here – any defense attorney worth their name would be able to argue that someone might have walked through here and touched those crates or those garbage bags for any reason.”

  Laura nodded. “What do we know about the cause of death? Our report says blunt force trauma. You have anything more specific than that yet?”

  Ortega shook his head. “We haven’t found a weapon or any indication from the wound itself as to the shape of the weapon,” he said. “Just blunt object is what they’re telling me. But there is one interesting thing about the head wound.”

  “Oh?” Laura asked.

  Ortega pointed to the scene left behind in the wake of the body. “You see the blood? That would have pooled out from the head wound. There isn’t any evidence of a blood trail or any drips that we’ve found coming into or out of the alley, and due to the amount of blood here, what I understand is that the victim cannot have been killed very far from here. In fact, it’s possible or even likely that she was killed right here in the alley and then laid down. If she was killed elsewhere and then moved here, we’d see a lot less blood.”

  “But no spray pattern,” Nate said, glancing around.

  Ortega nodded. “That about sums it up. Lots of reasons why there might not be a spray pattern, of course. Something to do with the nature of the blunt object. Maybe the spray hit the killer and so their body blocked it from landing on other objects around them. Maybe the impact of the wound did not actually cause an initial blood spray, so to speak, but the blood began to pour out in earnest when she was then immediately laid down and gravity got to work. The first victim has a similar story – no blood spray, no indication of where the crime was committed.”

  “This is a meticulous kind of work,” Nate said thoughtfully. “The whole scene with the mannequin had to be thought out carefully, especially to make sure there was no forensic evidence left behind. It looks to me as though he would have had to bring the victim here specifically, with everything already set up and waiting for her. That’s the only way it would make sense to me.”

  Laura nodded in agreement. “Having to set all this up, maybe dragging a mannequin out of a parked car and bringing it here, would be a big risk if you were having to rush because the body was already in position. Stressful. I would imagine someone facing those circumstances would probably make more mistakes, leave something behind. The cleanliness of the scene itself suggests that rushing wasn’t much of an issue. I think you’re right. This was all in place, waiting for her.”

  “So, then, the question is whether she was the intended victim all along, or just the first person to walk into his field of opportunity,” Nate said. “What do we know about her – the victim?”

  Ortega gestured vaguely towards where the body would have been. “Kenya Lankenua. You’ve seen the pictures?”

  Nate drew out the file from his pocket, unfolding it from the way he’d had to make it fit the space. He pulled out the photographs they’d seen during their briefing with Rondelle and showed them to Ortega. It was a grotesque scene, the mannequin posed as if holding her from behind.

  “She’s a single, unmarried woman, early twenties, working as an office administrator for a local firm here. Neither her workplace nor her home were at all connected with the alley and there’s no reason for her to walk through here for either of them, but that doesn’t rule out leisure activities. Obviously we’ve only made a few inquiries so far, but we haven’t got an account of her movements last night before she was killed. Since she lived alone and wasn’t in a relationship, and didn’t seem to tell her family she was planning to go out, we don’t yet know what she was doing. Whether she was lured here or came here by coincidence.”

  “Very unhelpful,” Laura said with a sigh, then flashed Ortega a wry smile so he knew it wasn’t him she was annoyed with--just the data. “Alright, so this positioning is very clearly meant to send a message. She’s spooning with this mannequin. What’s the meaning behind that? The killer made a very strong choice to use these mannequins, meaning there was a reason behind it.”

  Nate looked down at the empty scene as though he could still see the victim lying there, instead of just the remnants of the pool of her blood soaked into a flat cardboard box. “Spooning suggests something romantic,” he said. “There could be an element of love in this – like a spurned lover or maybe a jealous one.”

  “This kind of rage could point to a perceived wrongdoing on her part,” Laura suggested. “She cheats, so he hits her over the head and poses her in the alleyway in an incriminating position, imagining her with the other man.”

  “Who’s the other man?” Nate asked.

  “We have the male victim,” Laura shrugged. “That could be a great place to start.”

  “We haven’t found any link between them,” Ortega interjected.

  Laura nodded. She didn’t say it, but they would have to re-investigate everything, including whether there was any way the two victims could have been connected. While Ortega and his team must have put their best efforts forward, they had, after all, invited the FBI to help them because they knew they were out of their depth. She and Nate couldn’t take anything they had found out so far for granted.

  There was always a link between the victims of crimes like these. Even if it only existed in the mind of the killer. The trick was finding out what it was.

  “We need to talk to her family,” she said. “Get some insight from them. I’m guessing you have an officer with them already?”

  Ortega nodded. “I can take you right there.”

  Laura drew a breath and tried to think of some way to politely tell him not to come – but Nate beat her to it. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ve got our own car. Just give us the address and we’ll be on our way. I’m sure you have a lot of important work to do – let us do our thing, and we’ll let you do yours.”

  Ortega nodded curtly, then extended a hand towards their car. “I’ll walk you back and get it in your GPS. I’ll give you my number, too, in case you need anything.”

  “Great, thanks,” Laura said automatically, her mind already on the next thing.

  Find the link between the victims. Understand the killer. Find the killer. Stop the killer.

  Easy, right?

  Except their cases never were – and Laura knew they were only about to take the first step in what could turn out to be a complex and brutal case.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Laura watched Nate get out of the car, resting for just one moment before she got out and joined him. It felt like she was already coming out of a long week. Even though she’d managed to recover somewhat from the last case she’d been on – which wasn’t always a given – there was still a lot going on. Her burned hand, which still ached whenever she accidentally brushed it against something without warning, even though it was protected by the bandages. Zach and the revelation that she wasn’t the only psychic in the world. Trying to find the new balance in her dynamic with Nate.

  Even though she’d longed to have him back as her partner, she was already beginning to find that she needed a moment here and there to herself to breathe. Being with him felt like hard work, in a way it never had before.

  Well, not never. She had to remind herself sometimes that, once, they hadn’t known each other at all. They’d had to learn to trust one another back then.

  She hoped they could do it again.

  Laura walked behind Nate up the short path to the front door of the property, steeling herself for another interaction now: with the grieving family of the victim. That was never easy, either. So much heavy emotion, and it could easily become rage – and it could easily be directed at anyone. That was the thing with grief. Even those who tried to help could sometimes find themselves in the firing line.

  Nate knocked on the door, and it was only a brief moment before it opened to reveal a plain-clothes detective – the badge hung around his neck made him obvious. Ortega must have called ahead to tell him to expect them, because all he did was look at their outstretched badges with a glance, nod, and then beckon them in.

  They emerged into a home that was almost unnaturally quiet. Laura followed the detective and then Nate to the first door on the left and was thus the last person to enter the room, only seeing the group inside once Nate had stepped aside and she could move into her own clear space. There wasn’t anywhere to sit; the small sofa and one armchair were occupied by an older man and woman as well as a girl who looked to be in her late teens.

  The grieving family, no doubt.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Lankenua?” Nate asked. There was a slow nod from both of them, and the girl looked up dimly at him through red-rimmed eyes.

  “You’re the agents we were waiting for?” she asked. Even though she was the youngest person in the room, she seemed to be naturally taking control. The older couple – the parents – were subdued and numb, hands clutching one another, tracks of tears visible on their cheeks. The woman was wrapped in what looked like a traditional print, brightly colored over her dress and a wrap over her hair, somehow incongruous with the atmosphere in the house.

  “Yes,” Laura said, speaking up in the hopes that a female voice would be reassuring for her. “We’ve just arrived in town, so please forgive us if we end up asking questions that you’ve already answered – we want to be as thorough as possible in finding out who did this to Kenya.”

  “Keen-yah,” the girl said, correcting Laura’s pronunciation. She had a stern jut to her jaw, braided hair flying about her face as she shook it warningly. “I keep trying to tell these dumb cops!”

  “Precious,” the mother said in a low tone, a warning.

  “It’s alright,” Laura said. “Kenya. I apologize. We won’t get it wrong again.”

  “Shouldn’t get it wrong in the first place,” Precious muttered.

  Laura glanced at Nate. This wasn’t a good start. The parents were obviously too numb and lost in their grief to help much – the father hadn’t even really reacted to their presence yet. The sister, meanwhile, seemed to have taken a knee-jerk reaction of anger to all of this. It did happen. But maybe Laura needed to step back and let Nate deal with this, because she’d already poisoned her own image in front of the girl.

  “What can you tell us about Kenya?” Nate asked, his voice gentle, very careful to get the pronunciation correct. “What was she like?”

 

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