Page 8
K ylie left her experimental sketch with Porter, insisting that she needed to spend some time alone to absorb the very personal information he had just filled her in on. So he dropped her back home again, retrieving more of her set-aside sketches from the casino murders, as the captain had requested. She did tell Porter that she wanted a copy of her family’s file as soon as she could get it. He agreed, but he had to get back to the office to get her latest sketches to the captain today. He also told her that he had two undercover cops assigned to watch over her here. She grimaced, but no way would she decline his help.
Inside now, she couldn’t stop herself from locking the doors and the windows, as she turned and stared at her surroundings. She’d always had a fear of living alone, and she knew that came from her aunt. Her aunt locked up everything as soon as she got into the house, as if that would keep away the boogeyman. Aunt Agatha should have known that it in no way was effective, and that constant negativity probably attracted more bad energy than it ever repelled.
Forcing herself, Kylie now went and unlocked all her windows and doors, pushing everything wide open in order to change the energy in her home. As she stood here at the double French doors, staring out at her backyard, she looked around and whispered, “What the hell were you thinking, Agatha? Why would you never tell me?”
But her aunt was still in hiding, of course, still terrified of everything out there. And, if she’d had some communication from Kylie’s family’s killer, it would make sense that Agatha was worried he’d find her, even now. But Kylie didn’t have any of that information, not until now, because her aunt had never divulged any of that, had never warned her about any of that.
Kylie walked back inside and made herself a pot of coffee. With a fresh cup she headed to her computer, where she researched the name she had been born under. It didn’t take long to come up with a very gruesome set of articles on the death of her family, just as Porter had told her. The killer had been caught, and it was a murder-for-hire, which detail the killer never divulged. The authorities never did figure out who was behind the murder either, only that the killer was a mercenary, and he admitted he had nothing against the target family personally. It was just a mark for him, and he was well paid.
And that just made Kylie feel even worse. No wonder her aunt had always been terrified. If somebody had cared enough to kill Agatha’s sister and her husband and their children, that in itself was enough to set anybody’s nerves on edge. Kylie had no memory of her twin brothers because they were literally newborns, on the way home from the hospital when they were killed in a car accident. A bomb had been set under their vehicle and had gone off when they were heading down the interstate. Nobody else was killed but the four of them, as Kylie had been thrown clear of the vehicle at the time.
She sat here, staring at the computer screen, feeling as if her entire world had coalesced into something new, something different. In a way it was as if she herself were new, as if she were different, and she was. The deaths of her family members just didn’t make any sense. Her parents weren’t rich or famous or hateful or criminal or politicians or drug lords. So who would want to kill them? None of this made any sense to her at all. Kylie felt this overwhelming sense of panic and fear, and she didn’t even know how she survived the car bombing. Was it dumb luck or did her being here serve a greater purpose? Sometimes she had wondered if she was here for some greater purpose because her life hadn’t been the easiest.
She had never been suicidal, but at times she understood what it had taken for other people to get into that depressive mindset and to not want to live anymore. As she clicked through the online reports on the death of her family, one article shared a photo of Kylie’s mother. It could have easily been a current photo of Kylie herself. Even the way her mother stood there revealed a mannerism Kylie caught herself in at many times. Her mother leaned against the doorjamb, one hip hitched up a little bit, her arms crossed over her chest. Although a lot of people might do that, Kylie usually leaned her head against the doorjamb too and stared out at the world.
She zoomed in on her mother’s face and stared, seeing the same eyes, the same tilt of her lips. Another picture was of her mother holding the newborns in the hospital, and she was glowing, absolutely glowing.
“Did you realize that, within a couple days of this photo, you would be dead?” Kylie murmured to the image. Upon seeing her mother for the first time, and then a picture of her father in a different news article about the death of Kylie’s family, suddenly she felt the tears welling up. Without warning, she fell to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably as grief overwhelmed her. She didn’t even notice when the sobbing stopped. She found herself lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, as if she were on a completely different universe.
She remained on the floor, turning her head to study the ceiling, wondering why it looked brighter, why the sunlight coming in from the windows shone with a different tint of color. It was as if she had a whole new perspective on her world. Not that it was any better but different. Her old one had been cold and empty, while this one? It didn’t seem any better, but maybe it helped her understand her aunt, understand who Agatha really was on the inside and why she was the way she was.
Kylie slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. The cup of coffee she had poured earlier had gone cold. She made her way back into the kitchen, poured another cup of coffee, and slapped together enough ingredients to make somewhat of a sandwich. With that on a plate, she took both outside and sat down on her deck steps, where she slowly munched on her meal. She stared out at the world around her, wondering how everything could be so different and yet maybe not different at all.
“Did it change anything?” she murmured to herself.
Knowing doesn’t change anything, silly girl .
Kylie’s inner voice was strong, just like her aunt’s. “No, maybe not.”
From what Kylie now knew, a killer was still out there. Two killers in fact. One had been responsible for the mass shooting spree at the casino. She hadn’t heard anything about whether the cops had caught him or not. And then there was the second killer who posed his victims—the young woman in the house today and the senator’s daughter among the massive deaths at the casino. Possibly the same murderer who killed her family.
As Kylie sat here, still munching away on her sandwich, she felt watched, as if someone, somewhere, was checking in on her. She looked around, but she had a six-foot-high fence all around, and no face peered over the top, with no knotholes for somebody to peer through either. Nobody was out here. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling. She turned toward her house and bolted inside. She walked firmly and deliberately, wishing to confirm nobody was in her house either. Then slowly—half nervous and half determined to not let this beat her—she checked every corner, every closet. She even looked under the bed, just to confirm that no one was inside and that nothing was out of the ordinary. As it turned out, her house was empty. She found nothing suspicious here and nothing out of place.
When her phone rang, she answered it without checking the number, as she finished searching her house.
“I found you anyway. Nothing you can do.” And, with that, the phone call went dead.
She stared down at her cell and checked for the last number dialed, but the ID read Private Number. She didn’t even know what that meant or what she could do about it, but she quickly phoned Porter and told him what had just happened.
“Let me see if I can do anything, but chances are the call came from a burner phone.”
“Right,” she replied, as if she knew what that meant. And theoretically she did, but she didn’t know why anybody would do that.
“So, you’re saying you felt somebody around your place, and then he phoned you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure the caller was male?”
“Yes,” she reiterated. “For a moment there I wondered if it could have been my aunt, but, no, it was definitely a man.”
“Right. I think your aunt has done a hell of a job ducking into the deep dark privacy of her current hiding spot, so, if you’re trying to locate her, I wouldn’t advise it.”
“No, I’m not trying to find Agatha,” Kylie replied. “If she wanted anything to do with me, she would contact me. When this is all over, and my family’s killer is caught and behind bars—or better yet dead,” she snapped, “I could send Agatha a message and tell her that she can relax. However, after all these years, I doubt if she’s even capable of true relaxation.”
“It would be good if she would, but you’re right. I’m not sure she could recondition her response after so many years.”
“I doubt she wants anything to do with me anyway. I think she thought trouble would always follow me.”
He laughed. “You do tend to have that ability, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” she muttered, “but not on purpose.”
“No, not on purpose,” he agreed. “The captain wants to see you, by the way.”
“That’s nice, but I’m not sure I’m ready to see the captain.”
Porter laughed. “It isn’t a bad thing. At least he knows a little more about you.”
“How is that a good thing? And what does the rest of the department think of this stuff?”
“They know about me, somewhat. My partner has always kept me on the straight and narrow, not letting any of this woo-woo stuff get to me.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, Neil likes to joke about my unusual methods, but, when it comes down to it, he generally accepts what I have to say. So, we can move on and don’t waste time discussing psychics and their methods.”
“That would help,” Kylie muttered.
“Besides, we still gather all the evidence as usual. We still follow the law, so nobody will take the stand and believe anything I have to say just because I say it.”
“Right, I guess police procedure hasn’t changed at all either, has it?”
“No, it sure hasn’t.… You sound a little rough.”
“ Ya think? First I had a complete meltdown on my office floor, after finding articles and pictures online about my family. Then I made a sandwich. I was sitting outside on my deck steps, eating, when I had that horrible sensation of being watched.”
“I have those two undercovers in your area. I’ll see if they noted anything. And I was about to come to your place anyway,” he shared. “So I’ll pick you up and bring you back here to the station. Then we’ll talk to the captain. He just wants to discuss the sketch you created while blindfolded, and we’ll go from there.”
“Sure, but I’ll grab a quick shower first.”
“Good idea,” he murmured. “At least that should make you feel better.”
“Says you,” she muttered, as she disconnected. Time was short, so she didn’t waste it, and headed up to grab a shower. She couldn’t quite relax. Even as she was scrubbing down, she had one ear tuned for any unwelcome visitors. The trouble was, she didn’t know whether they would be on a physical level or something else completely.
How had the killer known that Kylie was turning around in her backyard, looking to see if somebody was watching her? How could he possibly have had that information, unless… he was nearby, checking in on her?
*
Porter had spoken to his two guys on watch in her neighborhood. They saw nothing. With a shake of his head, he drove up to her place and watched as she stepped outside. She looked better. Her hair was braided in a ponytail, still damp, but it bounced as she raced toward him. When she got in his vehicle, he looked at her curiously. “That’s more enthusiasm than I thought I would get.”
She shrugged. “Can’t toss that feeling of unease now.”
He nodded, as he contemplated her house.
“Go, go, go,” she muttered. “It’s not that bad.”
He laughed as he put the car in gear and drove back out onto the street. “Says you. I don’t want you so afraid that you can’t sleep in your own house.”
“Too late for that now,” she replied, giving him a wry expression. “Considering all the murders that have gone on recently, and the fact that I really felt a presence, followed by that phone call making it all very real,… I’m certain that he knows where I live.”
“That is a concerning thought,” he murmured.
“Yeah, it definitely is. And I get it. For you guys this is just more normal stuff,” she noted, “but it’s not quite so normal in my world.”
“Not for us either… in this case.” He drove through traffic, giving her a chance to settle her nerves a bit.
“Do you think the captain is upset?”
“I don’t think so. Just curious and wanting to know more, hoping you have more.”
She winced. “That’s the problem with giving anything. As soon as you do, everybody wants more.”
He had to agree with her. It was a casualty of the work that he did. “And yet we can’t blame them. If we were the ones looking for answers, you know very well we would want more.”
“Of course we would, but it would be up to us to get our answers. It wouldn’t be up to us to get answers for everybody else, and that’s where the challenge comes in.”
“Have you been asked to get answers often?”
“Enough that I backed away after things didn’t go so well.”
“Like your aunt, huh ?”
“Not that bad. I was in a test group with a disbelieving group of people doing a whole pile of tests. Someone decided to take the opportunity to shoot somebody within that group, thinking it would be a great time to prove to everybody that psychics weren’t real. I did see something happening, and I did warn them, but they laughed it off—until the shooting started,” she explained. “At that point, I went underground. They tried to contact me afterward, but I wouldn’t have anything to do with them, and eventually they left me alone. That was after people got angry at me for not having done more.”
“What more were you supposed to do?” he asked.
“You know what people are like. You always have to do more. It doesn’t matter what you’ve already done. It’s never enough. Everybody wants more.”
“You’ve really been through it, haven’t you?”
She shrugged. “For some that would be nothing. I just didn’t want to get any further involved, knowing that was how people would react.”
“Of course, but that doesn’t mean that all people are the same.”
“No, they’re not all the same, but the one thing they universally want is more .”
He could hardly argue with that because he’d seen the same thing in his own world, and their captain was a prime example.
“Yes, he is,” she muttered in acknowledgment.
Porter froze for a moment and then replied gingerly, “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, you did. You said, The captain was a prime example ,” she stated crossly.
He glanced at her and clarified, “Actually I didn’t say it. I thought it.”
She looked over at him, then shook her head. “Bullshit, I heard you clear as day.”
“I know, and I’m questioning that now too.”
“Of course you are,” she muttered, adding an eye roll. “Christ, it feels as if I need to move again.”
“Move again?”
“Yes, every time something goes wrong in this world, I end up moving,” she muttered. “It just seems to be the safest way to deal with this shit.”
“I don’t know about the safest way, but it’s one way.”
“I won’t sit here and listen to your criticism. I don’t know how well you’ve done keeping all your abilities under wraps, but you’ve had a support system. At least the captain believes you enough that your teammates don’t laugh at you.”
“No, they don’t laugh at me, but plenty of times they look at me sideways, wondering just what I’m doing, saying, or believing. Another level of awareness happens.”
She didn’t say anything to that, but nodded.
As they drove up to the station and parked at the back, Porter added, “I didn’t say that out loud—about the captain, I mean.”
She looked over at him and shrugged. “You must have because I sure as hell can’t read minds.”
He avoided any further argument on this topic and asked, “Do you always carry that pencil with you?”
She clenched her fingers around it. “Yes.”
“Any other things that you always have with you?”
“No, why?”
“I’m just wondering,” he said, keeping his tone neutral as he watched her.
“Stop staring at me,” she snapped irritably. “It makes me nervous.”
He gave her half a smile. “It’s all good.”
“Yeah? Says who?”
As she walked into the captain’s office, the captain stared at the two of them and said, “Finally.” When she glared at him, he lifted a hand. “Okay, so maybe that’s not the best way to greet you.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, as she threw herself down into a chair.
The captain studied her and asked, “Not a good day, huh ?”
“Some truths were given, some enlightenment that I didn’t ask for,” she stated, with a hard glance at Porter. “I’m still dealing.”
“Ah, yes, he told me about those.”
“He told you about it before divulging all this though,” she pointed out, “so you knew this time was coming. I didn’t. So, for me, it came out of the blue, and I can’t say I’m terribly impressed at having heard it at all.”
“Would you rather have been kept in the dark?” Porter asked.
She thought about that for a long moment and then shrugged. “No, I just wish my aunt would have done something about it earlier.”
“We do too,” Porter replied, “but, for whatever reason, she felt she couldn’t do that.”
“I don’t know what she was thinking,” Kylie muttered.
“Or she wasn’t thinking at all and was simply reacting, hoping that it would end up better than it was.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Then Kylie turned to the captain. “What did you want to see me about?”
The captain lifted the sketch on his desk. “This.”
“Oh, that.” She stared at it glumly. “Yeah, I wish I could take that back too.”
“You can’t,” the captain declared, “and I gather that you really aren’t too interested in doing this work, but right now we obviously have a problem, and we’re hoping you can help.”
“Yes, but your hope means finding answers, and then you get angry when I don’t,” she said. “So I’m not sure that this is a good deal for anybody.”
“You know who it’s especially not a good deal for?” the captain asked, staring at her.
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“The next woman who’s already in trouble right now,… his next victim. We lost one this morning. We really don’t want to keep losing them.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, Do a better job , when she realized that would just come across with all the hurt and anger that she felt inside. The captain wasn’t the target. Her aunt was, at least in some ways, but maybe not. It was a confusing thing to even contemplate right now. “What exactly do you want from me?” she asked.
“Anything you can give us.”
“I gave you that sketch, and I’m not sure what else there is.… Oh.” She frowned, as something clicked. “Apparently there is something else.” She picked up her pencil, reached for her sketch pad, and started scribbling.
The captain looked at her and then Porter. The captain opened his mouth, but Porter held up a hand.
“Good idea,” she muttered. “Keep quiet until I’m done.” And, with that, everybody settled into their respective positions and waited. When she finally released a heavy sigh, she said, “I guess I missed that in the first round.”
“Something has definitely changed,” Porter noted. “So, if you missed something, that’s understandable.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I don’t understand any of this, so whatever.” She resumed her sketching.
“What happens if I were to give you a different pencil?” Porter asked.
“I would use it, but I wouldn’t be happy about it,” she replied. “Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered if it has any talisman-type meaning to you.”
She laughed. “If you mean, would it make my drawings any better or any worse, or would it not be psychically charged? I doubt it,” she stated. “I have been using it all this time, and it certainly packs a punch, but I wouldn’t say it was that special.”
Porter just nodded and didn’t say anything.
When she was done, she rubbed her face. “There. I don’t know that it makes a damn bit of difference though.” She handed her latest drawing to the captain.
He snatched the sketch and turned it around.
Porter walked behind him to stare at Kylie’s newest artwork. “Look at that. You’ve drawn a person this time.”
“Sure, you mean a person other than the victim?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged. “But it won’t be clear, and it won’t be enough to help.”
“How do you know?” Porter asked curiously, as he still stared at it. “You’ve certainly added some details about… I presume the killer?”
“I don’t know whether it’s the killer or not,” she replied. “I didn’t look.”
The captain frowned at her. “Well then, look now, for heaven’s sake.”
She frowned at him, then got up, walked around, and stared at what she had drawn. She tried to hide her shock, but Porter wasn’t letting her hide anything.
“See?” he asked. “Something has changed.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what’s changed,” she declared. “I don’t know why it’s changed either. So, if you were planning on asking me, don’t bother.”
“I wouldn’t ask you about that at all,” he said, his gaze warming. “I was interested to know if you had seen the change you made here, compared to your earlier drawing.”
“No,… I haven’t. I don’t understand it either,” she murmured. And she didn’t. It was weird. She didn’t quite understand the impetus to draw a second sketch of an earlier crime scene, but she saw more clarity, more details, and now a male figure stood beside the dead woman. “I don’t understand what he’s doing,” Kylie added.
“Neither do I, yet,” Porter agreed, as he looked at it, “but is he standing beside his victim because he just shot her, or does he have another purpose?”
“It’s not sexual,” she stated.
“That’s a damn good thing,” the captain muttered. “Nothing good about that.”
“Nothing good about any of this,” she added, looking at him. “It’s all just plain bad.”
“I get it, and, for you, this is particularly troubling.”
“Yes, it is, and, as you already know, I don’t like dealing with this.… I don’t like any of it.”
“Because it’s criminal in nature, or just because it’s violent?”
“It’s because of all the shit that people do to each other,” she explained, staring at him. “Who the hell wants to embroil themselves in that crap?”
“And what if you solved something and came to some finish line?”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” she noted. “And according to all the people I was working with in a study group, it can’t because I don’t have enough abilities, the right abilities, or something.”
“Sounds to me as if you’ve been listening to a lot of garbage over the years,” the captain shared.
“It’s not as if I had any trustworthy people to listen to,” she said, staring at him.
“What about Stefan?” the captain asked. “Or did you not know of him back them? So when you were involved in that study, did they say anything at all about your gifts?”
“Just that I didn’t pass and didn’t do anything correctly. Nice try, but you don’t have any abilities . I knew I had abilities, but I’d been trying to hide them, having been cornered into doing this study in the first place. I was young and stupid and felt as if I had to prove myself. So I opened up and told them about the shooting that would happen. Then they all laughed at me and muttered, Right . Within five minutes the shooting started,” she shared.
Porter watched her beating herself up about it. “So, you got scared then, huh ?”
“Not the words I would use. Ever since that happened, I just shut down. People don’t want to know or to hear what I have to say.”
“I do,” the captain declared. “I want to hear all of it.” She stared at him and frowned, but he nodded. “I get it. I see the dislike of what I’m saying in your gaze, and I can even understand it. But that doesn’t change the fact that I do want to know everything that you hear and see when it comes to this mess.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand what that entails. It’s more than just whatever I hear and see. It’s a lot more.”
“So, tell me,” the captain prodded. “You saw this latest woman’s death earlier this morning. Drew your first sketch on it. Then your mind came back to that same scene—while sitting here in my office—and you added a living character to it.”
“Yes.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know,” she fired back. The questions continued until she finally raised her hands and announced, “I’m not kidding. I don’t know. I don’t know why I came back and added it.”
“Because we were saying there should be more or because you felt cornered? What?” Porter asked.
“I felt cornered,” she confirmed, with a hard look in Porter’s direction. “You’ll just end up trying to corner me again and again and again, just to get more answers.”
“No,” Porter argued. “We’re not. However, if you get more answers, if you have anything else to say or to offer, we would very much like to hear it.” Her jaw worked, as she stared at him, and he continued. “It’s really like pulling teeth with you.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, I imagine it is.”
He smiled. “And yet I suspect you aren’t all that hard to work with.”
“What do you know?” she asked, with a half laugh. “Stefan’s been asking me to work with him for a very long time, and I keep saying no.”
“Any particular reason why?”
“Yeah, I don’t like being made fun of, for one. I don’t like people making me into something I’m not or thinking that I have abilities that I don’t. I mean, this latest sketch came out, but who’s to say it is of any value to anybody?”
“And who’s to say it’s not?” Porter countered. “I get that you feel insecure and stressed, but you now have somebody on your case, somebody who contacted you and told you that he saw you, that he knows you’re there. Doesn’t that worry you?”
“Yes, it worries me, but I highly doubt it worries you,” she noted, staring at him. “This is the problem. Somebody found out where I am. He doesn’t know what I can do and is worried that I might do something.”
“Tell us again what happened,” the captain said.
She groaned and then filled him in on it. When he frowned immediately, she shrugged. “It felt as if I was being watched, but I didn’t see anything. Porter’s two guards didn’t see anything. Nobody was at my house. So, it’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine,” Porter stated. “Good God, you’re being amazingly difficult.” She glared at him, and he laughed. “If I could say anything guaranteed to piss you off, I think I just did it.”
Her shoulders sagged, and she shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not used to dealing with people on this issue.”
“You should be,” Porter stated. “You’re very gifted.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know that the person I added to this sketch has anything to do with the latest murder. For all you know, I just added it to piss off you guys or to send you off in a million directions.”
The captain snapped at her, “Did you?”
“No, of course not,” she snapped right back. “But you don’t know that, and you have no proof of that, so nobody will believe this.”
“Ah, I understand now, I think,” the captain began. “So, as long as we can keep you safe from all that craziness in the world out there, plus keep you safe from the judgment of people likely to say you’re a fake and a fraud, you might be interested in working with us?”
She frowned at him. “How the hell did you even get to that point because I didn’t say that at all.”
The captain laughed. “And yet I also know that you really love to draw.”
She looked at the sketches still on his desk. “I don’t know if I love these crime-scene sketches. I don’t know that anybody can love them, but I feel as if I’m doing something here. I don’t know exactly what that is.”
“Something honest at least?” Porter asked.
Kylie shrugged.
The captain nodded. “So, maybe just give it a try and do a bit more and see where you go. If nothing else, your crime-scene sketches are absolutely top-shelf, but these additional two? These are incredible.”
“Maybe,” she murmured, “but they aren’t easy on me.”
“Do you feel a physical effect?” Porter asked.
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” she clarified. “It just, it just feels different. It feels as if I’m doing something I’m supposed to be doing.”
“I agree because I think that is exactly what you’re supposed to be doing,” Porter shared. “You have a very unique gift, and I think you’re picking up a hell of a lot more than you even realize.”
“So what? Now you’ll tell me that this latest sketch with another person in this one resembles the killer who’s been on the run for years.”
“It absolutely does resemble him,” the captain admitted. “You captured the essence of who he is with just a few strokes, and I’m stunned because I don’t know that even a camera would do that.”
“It would,” she replied, “but it would be different.”
“Exactly, and this difference here shows me there is so much value in what you do.”
She stared at the captain, wondering if she could believe him, but sincerity filled his tone, and something inside her started to settle. “Maybe,” she muttered. “I don’t know.”
“You haven’t been very happy with this gift of yours,” the captain noted, with a gentle gaze. “I get that. I understand what you feel, particularly when you’ve been laughed at and mocked, and things didn’t turn out well. Whether that’s a lack of training or a lack of confidence, I don’t know, but you might want to consider opening up a little bit more when these things happen, and seeing if you can get more.”
“Because you want more,” she stated, with a mocking glance at Porter.
“Not just me,” the captain admitted. “I think everybody wants more, and I understand your viewpoint because Porter has argued with us many times over about the same thing. The fact that he can’t just give us more all the time. Apparently something about that whole more thing drives people like you nuts.”
She laughed. “I’m not even sure what people like us means,” she said, hanging her head. “But, yes, this constant need for more, the constant pressure, that constant sensation of not being able to do enough, to help enough, to see enough makes my job harder. Yeah, it’s incredibly difficult,” she murmured.
“Why don’t you agree to give us what you can, and we’ll agree to work with that?”
She stared at him in surprise. “I highly doubt that anybody you work with will be content with that.”
He smiled. “You let me worry about that. While you’re here over the next while, you’ll work closely with Porter and see if you guys can pick up things and find out where this asshole is and what he’s doing in town.”
“You mean, outside of killing people?” she asked, frowning.
“Do you think he’s killing somebody? Is he here to specifically target somebody?”
“I think so, but I don’t know who,” she said. “For all I know, it’s me, and I’m just not aware of it.”
“What would it take for you to be aware of that?”
She stared at him, then shrugged. “I really don’t know. I’ve never been a target before.”
He nodded. “That’s good to know.”
“No, it’s not good to know,” she declared in a mocking tone. “It’s one of those things sadder than hell to know, but it’s never good to know.”
*
Just as Porter and Kylie walked out of the captain’s office, Porter’s phone buzzed. He checked his screen to see a text from his partner. Porter looked over at the captain. “I need to go talk to Neil.”
He nodded. “Okay, then send him in here. I’ll have him do something else while you’re working with—” He nodded toward Kylie.
“I do have a name,” she stated crossly.
The captain smiled. “And it’s a beautiful name too. Just remember that Porter and I are open to working with you.”
Porter nudged her out of the captain’s office.
“And here I thought you told me how Neil was fine,” she noted.
Porter shrugged. “I did. I do, but apparently the captain has a different take on that.”
“And that’s because Neil must have said something to the captain,” Kylie suggested.
“Maybe, but I’m not going there right now.”
“Easy for you to say,” she muttered.
He laughed. “Come on. Let’s go get you some food.”
“I’m not hungry,” she grumbled.
“Yes, you are. You’re hungry and cranky and miserable. I can see past that whole facade you are scrounging up.”
“Gee, thanks for that great image.”
He shrugged. “Hey, I call it as I see it. Better get used to it.”
“ Great ,” she muttered. “Do you ever not do that?”
“Not often,” he replied. “It’s too difficult not to, especially in these situations. We have to protect ourselves the best we can.”
“And are we literally protecting ourselves in this situation? Because, if we are, who are we protecting ourselves from?”
He frowned at her. “That is one of the questions the captain is worried about. If this escaped killer is now taunting you, then we must figure out what he wants.”
“I don’t know what he wants, unless it’s my aunt, but I would never tell him anything.” Porter didn’t respond. “What?” she asked. “You don’t believe me?”
“In ugly situations, people will say anything to get the pain to stop, and that includes handing over your aunt,” he stated, with a shrug, “and nobody would blame you.”
“She would,” Kylie declared, staring at him. “She did raise me. She did give me a place to live, and I am a successful adult because of her.”
He nodded. “I hear you. I’m just saying that, when and if this guy ever finds you, we want to confirm he doesn’t have a chance to put that loyalty to the test.”
Kylie’s heart sank as she realized what he was talking about. “There is absolutely no reason for him to come after me. I have no idea where my aunt is. It makes no sense.”
“Just like he had no reason to come after your family?” When he stared at her, shivers ran down her spine. “Nothing makes sense with this guy,” he murmured. “That is something else to understand. I’m not trying to scare you or to send you into hiding, but the bottom line is that he’s doing this for a reason. We just don’t know why.”
She slowly nodded. “It could even be somebody other than him.”
“Why would that be?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “I’m just looking for any answers that make sense.”
“And does that make sense to you?”
“No, of course it doesn’t,” she replied, raising both hands in frustration. “However, neither does your theory that he wants something to do with me.”
“I’m not the one who called you,” Porter reminded her. “Your stalker did.”
“And what are the chances it was somebody else making that phone call?” She waved at Porter’s partner ahead of them. “Maybe Neil did it. Maybe he’s jealous of the time you’re spending with me,” she snapped. “Maybe it’s just as simple as that.”
“That would be easy enough to find out,” Porter stated. “I could grab his phone and check.”
“Don’t do it for my sake,” she protested. “I’m just throwing out ideas.”
“These ideas all have consequences.”
“I know that.” She glared at him. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Nothing. How about nothing?” Then he walked up to his partner.
Neil stared at her and noted, “Wow, you guys are really an item now, aren’t you?”
“No,” she muttered, fatigue in her voice. “Apparently he wants more sketches.”
Her tone was filled with such disgust that Neil had to laugh. “Well, it is what you do, right?” he said cheerfully.
She nodded. “It is. Whether I’ll continue to sketch, I don’t know.” He frowned at her, and she just waved her hand. “Don’t mind me. I’m just really tired. It’s been an emotionally rough few days.”
“God, that’s for sure.” Neil gave a headshake, looking over at his partner. “I was just checking in to see where you guys were and what you were up to.”
“The captain sent us over to the latest crime scene,” Porter shared, as he took a seat, motioning at the spare beside him for her. “He wanted Kylie to do some sketches.”
Neil sat down. “Who knew we had budget money for this stuff?”
“Right, that’s what I told them,” she agreed, with feeling.
He grinned. “And here I thought you would be all over it.”
“Not after that casino mess.”
“Ah,” he replied, with understanding. “I can see that too. That was a rough one for all of us.”
“It was sure as hell rough on me,” she stated, as she looked at him. “It’s not my normal life.”
“No, of course not,” Neil replied, “though it’s not normal for any of us, for that matter. Seeing somebody with such disregard for life playing it out in such a big way is rough.” Looking over at Porter, he added, “They did find the mass shooter.”
“Oh, good.” Porter seemed surprised.
Neil nodded. “Outside of mopping it up, it’s basically over with anyway. He offed himself. They found him in the back of his mother’s place, inside the shed. He’d blown his head off.”
“Good for that,” Porter stated, with feeling. “Not that I want to seem unfeeling or anything, but wow.”
“No, be unfeeling,” Neil agreed. “We all feel the same way. A whole lot less court-case drama with something like this. And it’ll probably come down to somebody who was mentally ill, needing help, and couldn’t get it. I know that’s no excuse, but it’s hard enough on all of us. Still, if he killed himself, that’s just one less case we have to try and deal with.”
“And yet we still have so much evidence to gather and so much work to do on the casino murders,” Porter added, “that, in a way, his suicide is even more work.”
“But with an end this time,” Neil reminded him. “That’s the thing to hang on to. An end this time because we already have him identified, and we know to some degree what happened.”
“Do we have the full story?” Porter asked Neil.
“Apparently his girlfriend has come forward. He was struggling with depression, delusions, and his medications. He’d gone to the doctors multiple times, and they’d changed it up, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and whatnots. He got very, very depressed, and his mother was very ill. As the story goes, he didn’t want her to suffer.”
“Oh, man, so, he killed her?”
“He killed her and then apparently that somehow morphed into him killing a whole lot of other people because he was angry. Angry at the system, angry at the people who were making money. Simply angry at anything and anyone who seemed remotely happy.”
“Ah, so that’s where the casino comes in.”
“People who were spending money without helping others—like him, his mother. He just got angry at the world at large,” Neil explained. “He went crazy and decided that all of them were better off dead, including himself.”
“Good God.” Kylie stared at Neil in shock. “I understand how he could get so upset, comparing their abundance with his lack. Yet it’s still sad to think that his way of dealing with the disparity and his envy and jealousy and his suicidal ideation was for him to brutally take everybody else with him, under the guise of it’s being better for them. Yet that was never the shooter’s choice. Those people were never given a choice.”
“Exactly,” Neil replied. “In the shooter’s mind he may or may not have been able to give them that choice. The girlfriend mentioned he’d gotten stranger and stranger and a little more fanatical every day. She was contemplating breaking up with him but wasn’t sure what would happen if she did.”
“Are you sure she didn’t?” she asked Neil. “That would be another trigger that would send him flying.”
“And maybe she did and hasn’t told us the truth yet. I don’t know,” Neil conceded. “But, if the shooter was as unstable as she’s saying, it would explain some of what he did. Anyway the end result is that he’s in the morgue downstairs, and we’ve got two other teams on it.”
“Not you?” she asked him.
“No, because technically”—he motioned at Porter—“this guy is my partner, and we were assigned to the other case, the one from the more recent shooting, for the woman who apparently you went to see.”
“I didn’t go see the woman,” she corrected. “I went to see the crime scene.”
“What did you think of it?”
“It was disgusting,” she stated. “What else it could be? That’s what crime scenes are. They’re impactful. They’re snippets of moments in time when somebody’s rage or hurt or anger or greed overtook them, and they changed other people’s lives forever,” she described. “It’s terrible. All of it is terrible.”
Neil nodded. “I can agree with that.” He looked over at Porter. “Will you catch me up on things?”
“Yeah, I will.” He gave a nod at Kylie. “I need to take her back home.”
“No, I’m not going home.”
He frowned, then shrugged. “Maybe that’s best.” Turning back to Neil, Porter added, “The captain asked me to send you in next, so maybe go deal with him first, and then we’ll catch up in a little bit.”
Without any argument, Neil hopped up and walked toward the captain’s office.
Kylie whispered to Porter, “Will Neil really be moved out of this case that easily?”
“No, he won’t, and, if the captain is smart, he won’t hint at him being out. I think he’ll just attach him to someone else temporarily, the same way the captain’s attached you to me.”
“ Great .” She rolled her eyes. “The last thing I want to do is make another enemy in here.”
“Another enemy?” Porter asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “A couple people here don’t really like who I am or what I represent or something,” She sighed, followed by a shrug. “It’s not as if I understand why.”
He looked at her quizzically. “I hadn’t been aware of any animosity toward you.”
“I’m new enough that I don’t know that anybody has really noticed any of it either,” she added, “but I presume some people were let go in the latest layoffs, and yet somehow I’ve just been brought on.”
“Ah.” Porter nodded. “That’s very true. I’ll give you that. And it is something that could have caused some confusion, and we aren’t…”
“Of course you’re not sure if you’re keeping me,” Kylie stated in a mocking tone, “and some people here would totally agree with that decision.”
He frowned at her. “You seem eager to get out of here. In some ways, I would think you don’t want to be here.”
“In some ways, yes,” she muttered. “In other ways, maybe not. However, now that I’m involved in this case, and I have this asshole contacting me, I would just as soon get it resolved so I can move on.”
“And what would that look like?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “I really don’t know.”
“How many times have you moved in the last few years?” She just glared at him and didn’t answer. “Quite a few I imagine.”
“Doesn’t matter. If I have to, I do. I’ve gotten used to it.”
“Then what? You move from town to town, road to road, like your aunt?”
She stared at him. “That’s hardly fair. My aunt is surviving the best way she knows how. So, whether you or I approve of her method or not, it’s kept her alive.”
“I won’t argue with that,” he conceded, “and I mean no insult, but I would hate to see your life become as lonely and as hard as Agatha’s has been.”
Kylie shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter what you want though, does it?” she stated, with an attempt at mockery, failing badly.
“No, not at the moment, it doesn’t.” And, with that, he added, “I need to go down to the morgue and get the scoop on the autopsy. I want you to come with me.”
“Why?” she asked, her heart sinking. “You know that morgues are terrible places for me.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that, but I guess if I’d thought about it long enough, I would have.… That’s not necessarily an issue.”
“It is for me,” she declared, staring at him. “That’s just not something I want to deal with if I don’t have to.”
“Have you tried to go inside one lately?”
“Not sure I’ve tried to go into any of them. I have a reason for that too, remember? I shouldn’t have to explain that part of it.”
“I don’t understand that,” he admitted, looking at her. “Are you telling me that you’re a sensitive as well?”
“I don’t know what I am.” She frowned at him. “I draw pictures. And sometimes those pictures are pretty, and sometimes they aren’t.”
“Ah, so you don’t know what would happen when you go to the morgue. You’re assuming it would be bad.”
“Yes, I’m assuming it would be bad,” she stated, with an eye roll, “as you should be assuming the same thing yourself.”
He shrugged. “I am not very good at assumptions. Let’s go find out for sure. At least with me, you’re in a safe environment. So, if you pass out or something, I’ve got your back.”
She stared at him as he half dragged her toward the elevator. “You really think I want to go into a morgue?”
“You work in a police department,” he noted, casting her a casual glance. “It would be aligned with your job.”
“And yet I feel as if something more is behind your actions.”
“Yeah, but you always think something more is behind my actions,” he replied, with a gentle smile. “You must be great fun at parties.”
“I don’t do parties,” she snapped, glaring at him.
“No, I don’t imagine you do.” He sighed. “You missed out on a whole lot of life.”
“I didn’t miss out on anything,” she stated, glaring at him. “Most of what I didn’t do was by choice.”
“Or by fear because that’s what your aunt drilled into you.”
“Sure, but look at what my life is like,” she pointed out, “so, to a certain extent, fear makes sense.”
“Fear, yes, caution, yes, but overly fanatical about it? No, that’s not a way for anyone to live.”
“I’m hardly fanatical,” she argued. “You can’t say that.”
“Whatever,” he muttered, as he opened the door. “Just remember the coroner doesn’t know anything about you. If you want your sketchbook…” She held up a small one. “Oh, good. I would’ve suggested you grab one, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to or not.”
“I keep one on me always.”
“You want to tell me why?”
“No.”
He studied her and asked, “A story is in that too then, isn’t there?”
She sighed. “You’re very irritating.”
“Yes, I understand I can be. Yet I’m also a good person to have in your corner.”
“Are you though?” she asked, scrunching up her nose. “Right now, it doesn’t feel like it.”
He led the way to the morgue, and, as they got closer, she felt her insides shivering. “How come you’re not affected by this?” she asked.
“You mean, because I’m psychic? Because I talk to the dead sometimes?” he asked. “As I told you, if I can help them cross over,… I do. Although that’s not necessarily the easiest of jobs, it is rewarding when I can help them though.”
“Do they not know what they’re doing?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes they think they know, but they’re too scared to move. Sometimes they don’t want to leave loved ones who are still in this world.”
“Which makes sense,” she acknowledged.
“It does, and yet nothing more is for them here, so they need to move on,” he explained. “So, that’s definitely one of those things to be dealt with, and the sooner they face it, the better off they are.”
“Maybe,” she muttered. As they got closer to the morgue, she whispered, “I really don’t like this.”
“It will be fine,” he replied.
“And if it isn’t fine?”
He stopped to face her. “Then maybe you should know exactly what you can do down here.”
“What do you mean, what I can do? I can do nothing down here. I’m pretty sure you understand the same as I do that these people are dead and gone.”
He smiled and nodded. “Absolutely they are, but I always find one or two who want to hang around and party.” Maybe it was perverse of him to tease her, but she’d led a completely locked-down life in so many ways that she was afraid of all aspects of her gift—to the extent of not realizing what her gift even was or what she could do. Yet he suspected she could do a whole lot more than she currently was. She just didn’t know it. She didn’t even know it was an option, and that part just blew him away. He had seen a little bit of her gift, every once in a while. Not everybody had a supportive environment growing up, and, in her case, it had been the exact opposite.
She’d hidden her abilities, and then, when she’d finally gotten free from her aunt, Kylie had gone a little bit crazy trying to utilize them, but she was out of control and hadn’t learned any better. It didn’t help when things backfired, and she’d gone back into hiding. Porter understood that, but hiding for a little while was one thing. Yet hiding for a long time was a completely different story. As far as he was concerned, she needed to get out and live a little. She might not agree with him, particularly after this session in the morgue, but he could only hope that she would be good with it in the end.
And, with that, he pushed open the door and nudged her inside.