“Are you ready for this?” Nate asked. He was looking at Laura, not at the house.
“Yeah,” Laura said, trying to shake off the thoughts of all the responsibilities that waited for her back at home. “Yeah, I'm ready.”
They got out of the car and walked up the short path
to the door together, able to move in time after these years of working together. Nate had a way of shortening his stride to make sure that she could keep up with him, and Laura would lengthen hers to reduce the difference. Nate knocked heavily when they were close enough, and they both waited, tense with the anticipation of the confrontation.
A young man answered the door. He was in the right age range to be Scott – his late twenties or early thirties. But he wasn’t Scott. Laura knew this, because the man they were looking for was Caucasian, and this man appeared to be Chinese-American.
“Hello?” he said, looking at them with a puzzled expression.
“We’re looking for Scott Darnell,” Laura said, her eyes flicking past the man who had answered the door and towards the hall. She was looking for any sign that would clue her in as to whether the man they were looking for was home.
“Scott?” the guy repeated, glancing behind himself almost involuntarily. “Uh… what’s this about?”
Laura lifted her badge, synchronized with Nate’s movement. “I’m Special Agent Laura Frost, and this is Special Agent Nate Lavoie,” she said. “We need to speak with Scott about an ongoing investigation. We believe he can help us with our inquiries.”
“Oh,” the man said, and blinked slowly. “Um. No, I don’t know Scott.”
“You clearly do,” Laura said, but even as she spoke, her attention was taken by something else. By the sound of movement behind him.
He must have heard her say his name, and that she was an FBI agent. Because then there was the sound of rapid footsteps and a door being wrenched open, and both she and Nate were familiar enough with those sounds to know exactly what they meant.
“I’m going around back,” Nate said, darting off to the side before the words had even left his mouth.
“Let me through, if you don’t want to be charged with obstruction of justice!” Laura snapped, pushing past the bewildered-looking housemate and dashing straight down the hall. The sound of the door opening – it must have been a back door to the property. In case Nate’s route was cut off by a fence or something in the way, Laura shot through the house, following instinct and also the sound of the road towards the back of the property to lead her to the door.
It was swinging open, Scott Darnell clearly having raced through it without bothering to close it behind him. As Laura emerged, she saw a blank, empty yard – literally, because it was only dirt, the residents clearly not finding the time or effort for landscaping. Nate dashed around the corner, his long legs carrying him far, but Laura saw that his face was as lost as hers. They hadn’t seen where he’d gone.
There was another home on the other side of a fence, an almost identical property. Perhaps Scott had jumped the fence and run that way. The problem was, where had he gone after that.
“I’m over the fence,” Nate said, his words coming short and sharp to conserve breath, and then he was gone, his tall frame vaulting over the blockage with a leg-up from a locked storage box resting against the fence. Laura couldn’t follow him – she couldn’t jump like that. They had to split up here, go their own ways.
She turned and re-entered the house, throwing out a hand to steady herself. She landed on an item of clothing that had been discarded on the side, and a jab of sharp pain shot through her forehead –
Laura was looking at a city street from above. It was illuminated by stree lights, small pools of illumination that fought back that shadows that always swirled in her visions. She was watching as…
As a man ran into view, glancing over his shoulder. He had messy brown hair, curls bouncing with each step and in the wind of his passage. He was running full tilt, around a corner and then another, going around three sides of one big building. Laura thought she recognized it. She thought she had driven past it on the way to the house.
He stopped, slowing to a walk when he saw the car parked outside the house. The open front door. He stuck to the shadows of the building, creeping by. He flattened himself against the wall like he was in some cheesy spy film and then sidled along. At the side of the building was a small alleyway that didn’t go all the way through – just ended in a brick wall.
He snuck down into the alley and behind a large, industrial bin beside a door. Glancing around one more time, he pushed the door tentatively – and it opened. He slipped inside, the darkness of the interior of the building swallowing him fully.
Laura gasped as she came back to herself mid-way through a step, still at a run. She faltered for a moment, stumbling, then charged onwards. The building on the corner. He was going to be running around the building on the corner. If she went now, maybe she could intercept him before he got inside.
No matter what, he wasn’t getting away from her now.
Laura dashed through the house, almost knocking over the housemate who was still standing around in the corridor. Him, she would deal with later – possibly on an obstruction charge, since he had obviously lied to them in order to give Scott more time to get away. But for now, Scott was the priority, and she threw her body down the street and towards the corner as quickly as she could, drawing burning breaths into her lungs with each stride.
She didn’t have the backup of Nate to rely on. In the vision, he hadn’t even been in sight. Either he’d lost Scott as soon as he was over the fence, or he was so far behind that he would never understand where Scott had gone. That meant she was on her own, going up against an adult male who had possibly already killed two people.
But Laura didn’t feel scared as she ran towards him. She didn’t have time to feel scared. She only knew that she had to stop this man from killing again, and her job was to accept the risk that might come with that.
Laura reached the building at the end of the street – a modern-built church, she now saw, closed down for the evening, home to some obscure religious group that she had never heard of. There was no sign of Scott. Had she missed him?
She knew where he would be, if she had – inside. There was no point in waiting. She rushed forward, down the street towards the corner where he would turn, or had turned, she had no idea. She just had to follow the vision, to trust that she was putting herself into the right place –
She collided bodily with another person as she reached the corner, the momentum taking both of them to the ground. She was slightly winded, but with her hands up in front of her as she ran, the impact had been smaller – the other figure, a man, had been twisting around the corner and she’d hit him full in the chest and stomach. She rolled, seeing him only managing to gasp for breath and not get up.