“I think we’ve seen enough here,” Nate said, his voice a low rumble in the cold room, echoing slightly from the metal shelves that surrounded them. “Laura?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Laura nodded, her mind elsewhere. Twelve. That was what she had been unable to see. The timer must have been set for a certain hour, and twelve had come up four times now in the crime scenes. Both women were set on their respective platforms for twelve hours, it seemed, and both of them were on timers for twelve hours. From twelve noon to twelve midnight.
Laura was no numerologist, but that was a lot of twelves. Surely more twelves than was usually expected to be a coincidence.
If the latest victim – who she hadn’t seen, not in the slightest, not even to get a glimpse of them – was already set up on a platform at twelve noon, then she would die at twelve midnight. Over seven hours after the vision Laura had seen. Tonight? Laura checked her watch. It was almost three, now.
Almost three – and that was odd. It had been only a couple of minutes past the hour, according to the clock. Normally, when Laura’s visions struck, they caused a corresponding pain in her head. The more severe the headache, the sooner the thing was going to happen.
So…
Not three, today?
Three, tomorrow?
“We should get going to the victims’ families,” Nate said, and Laura realized with a start that he and Blackford were already striding out of the morgue. She hurried after them, attempting to keep up and pass off her hesitation as a moment of thought and nothing more. “We need to talk to them, find out if there’s any possibly link between the two of them. Laura, you good to drive again?”
“Of course,” Laura nodded, managing to fall back into stride with them as they moved to leave the room and go out to the parking lot.
Three, today, she decided. Her visions had seemed to change in the past. She didn’t truly know what rules governed them, or what things might affect them. Maybe she had a weaker headache because there was a lower possibility that she could do anything about the vision’s outcome, given that it was happening so soon, and she was so far off from knowing anything about the killer yet. Maybe it was because she’d had a nutritious breakfast, or because she was in a good place with Lacey and Nate and her outlook was happier. She had no idea how it all worked.
It wasn’t as though she’d been born with an instruction manual, as much as she wished she had.
So, she had to assume it was happening now. That the victim was already out there, waiting to be found. She had to. She couldn’t risk assuming otherwise, in case someone was going to die, and it was all her fault for not feeling rushed enough.
“I’ll give you the addresses,” Blackford said, dismissively, as they emerged into the cold winter sun again. It did little to dispel the chill from Laura’s bones. “I’m needed back at the station.”
“Fine,” Nate said. “Let’s go see Veronica Rowse’s family first. Right, Laura?”
“Sure,” Laura said, because it was as good a place as any to start. The locals must have already spoken to the Marchall family, given that Stephanie Marchall was found a few days ago. Might as well go over new ground before ground that was already covered. They needed to find a clue, and it was going to be easier to find one there.
And they needed to find a connection to the number twelve – because if they didn’t, the chances of the person on that platform dying would increase as the day wore on.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nate glanced at Laura from the side of his eye as they drove, the GPS showing that they were pretty close to the Rowse household. She looked calm. A little tense, but that was normal for a case.
Normal – that was how she looked, Nate decided. Like nothing had happened. As if the last two cases, and all the arguments they’d had, had disappeared into the ether.
It should have reassured him, but if anything, it worried him even more.
“You feeling okay?” he asked, casually, keep his gaze ahead as if it was just small talk. He caught the way she darted a glance at him, though, the surprised and uncertain movement of her head.
“Yeah,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Because last night, you told me you were seeing psychic visions.
Nate didn’t say it out loud. He was trying to tread carefully. This whole thing was so strange, and he wasn’t sure he had his head wrapped around all the intricacies of it, yet.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Guess we just saw some dead bodies. That’s not usually a very nice thing to experience.”
“Oh, yeah,” Laura said, shrugging. “I’m fine. You? You looked a little peaky, in there.”
Nate grunted a little, low in his throat. He’d been trying to keep that a little more under wraps. “I just don’t like the feeling of it, sometimes. Like we’re looking at these people’s bodies. I don’t think they would have enjoyed it, if they knew.”
“It’s good that they don’t,” Laura said, softly, pulling up outside a small family home with two cars parked outside already. It was clear that everyone had gathered around, having only just heard the news of Veronica’s passing themselves. Which was both a good thing, and a bad thing, in Nate’s experience.
Good, because they could talk to everyone at once. Bad, because everyone was going to want to stick their oar in – even the people who weren’t relevant.