She fought for breath, for the nausea to go away. At least it hadn’t changed. She would have expected it to be darker, deeper, more choking if he was about to die right now. She would have hoped for a vision.
But then again, she didn’t really understand how it worked anyway. The only other time she’d really, fully experienced it had been with her father, and one shadow of death didn’t necessarily have to act like all the others.
But, still.
“Nate,” she said, choking the words out and trying to sound normal while she did it. “Be careful.”
He gave her an odd look, something almost sentimental, and nodded. “I will,” he said, opening his door and getting out of the car, pulling away from her hand.
Laura sat back in the driver’s seat as he slammed the door shut and walked towards the gates in the glow of the headlights.
She’d had no vision, she told herself again. If death was waiting for Nate inside that complex, there was nothing she could do about it. That was cold comfort, but it was something. He wanted this. It was his choice.
She still felt sick and afraid as she drove away.
“Okay,” she said out loud, as she looked down at the reprogrammed GPS and tried to focus on going in the right direction at a good speed. More to hear the sound of her own voice than anything else. To try and reassure herself.
It didn’t really work.
***
It was only as she pulled up outside the grocery store that Laura remembered she had her own safety to think about, too. Going in distracted would be a much bigger risk than going in alone. She had to focus, think. Get her head back into the right place.
She just wished a vision would come. Something about Nate. Something about the case. Anything. Right now, she felt like she was fumbling in the dark. And even though this must have been how most people felt all the time, without the promise of a vision ever to enlighten them, she hated it.
The property was all boarded up, heavy padlocks on the front door and wooden coverings over all of the windows. Still, it hadn’t stopped someone from getting in. There was graffiti all over the exterior and scattered broken bottles and empty cans lying in the short section of what would have once been landscaped grass before the street. Either teenagers, or homeless people, Laura had to bet.
She moved around the property once, first in a circle, checking out all possible entrances and exits, her mind on high alert. She couldn’t risk being ambushed, alone out here. In the front of the store, there was enough light coming from nearby streetlights to still give her enough to see by. Round back, though, the shadows were long. She had no choice but to switch on her flashlight and point it around, lining it up with the barrel of her gun just for safety’s sake. If someone sprang out of those shadows at her while she was looking, she wasn’t going to get caught unaware.
The radio she’d been given to keep track of the investigation crackled at her belt, and Laura jumped, swearing. She retreated back to the street before turning it up to listen in, taking it off her belt and holding it to her ear.
“ – New report,” someone was saying, a male voice she didn’t recognize. “We’ve just had confirmation the woman has returned home. She wasn’t missing, just told us some story about losing her cell phone and getting stuck out of town. False alarm.”
“Thank you.” That was Captain Blackford, his tone sharp and businesslike. “HQ, report. That’s how many missing women left unresolved?”
“That was the last one, Captain,” someone fired back, a woman this time. “All new missing women cases from the past twenty-four hours are marked as resolved.”
“Alright.” A pause. “Let’s go back further. Past forty-eight. Keep searching.”
Laura turned the volume down again, partly relieved and partly dismayed. The local police were doing their jobs, despite how unwilling Captain Blackford might have seemed. They were marking off every task that Laura and Nate had asked of them. The missing women – whoever this new victim was, it was looking like she hadn’t even been reported as gone yet. As the night wore on, that might change. But for now, it was only the locations that could give them anything.
Laura turned her radio down to the minimum volume and approached the closed-down store again, this time looking for the entrance point.
She’d seen it, round the back. A boarded-up window where the nails had been wrenched out on one side. The boards were still hanging in place, but it didn’t take an expert to see how easily they could be moved aside to let someone in.
Laura approached cautiously, listening hard, first pointing her flashlight at the window itself and the surrounding area. It had rained within the last few days, and there were no footprints on the ground beside it. That would have been a dead giveaway if someone was inside now. But then again, the soil looked solid now, like it might not take prints too easily. Maybe it was possible someone had gone in within the past day.
Laura crouched by the window, looking down. On the ground, her flashlight had picked out a glint of something. A nail. It must have been one of the ones torn out of the boards. The head was rusty from where it had been sitting in the elements since the place was boarded up. The rest of it, though…
Laura reached out and touched it, seeing how the part of the nail that had been inside the wood was still clean and rust-free. A headache sparked in her temple as she realized what it meant: that it must have been pulled out recently, because otherwise it would also have rusted by now, or at least picked up more dirt than this. It might even have been moved away by the elements or by foraging city animals –
Laura saw it like a flash. A glimpse of something within the darkness, like a lightning flash illuminating a scene. A white barn. Falling apart. The paint peeling back away from the dark wood underneath. A high window so obscured with grime it was impossible to make it out.
An old tree beside the barn. Twisted up towards the sky, bare branches reaching for something. An old scar down the trunk, something like an old lightning hit or the blow of an ax that had never returned to finish the job. Dead leaves on the ground around it.
From one strong and thick branch, almost improbably, a rope swing holding a tire. Something that had once come off a tractor or some other piece of farm equipment. Big and bulky. The rubber cracked and worn in places now and dropping away, the rope dark with age, like it might snap at any moment.
Laura blinked, clearing her head. She dropped the nail and wiped her hand on her pants leg, thinking. What had she seen?