The second her hand touched the bare skin of his arm, the headache pulsed and she knew she was about to see for sure whether or not Pete had anything to do with –
Laura opened her eyes on a murky scene, the edges of it swirling away into darkness, hard to hold onto. Like trying to watch a small quantity of milk swirling into coffee, trying to keep track of it as it dissipated and thinned out, disappearing into the darker liquid.
But she was there, seeing something. She was – yes, she was here, right here in the apartment, in a bedroom she’d half glimpsed through a door that was ajar as they walked down the hall.
She was here, and so was Pete. He was on the bed with someone, over them, leaning his face down to kiss them – to kiss her. He pulled back up and shifted his position, and –
Laura saw her face. Not Kenya. It was only for a glimpse, but she knew it wasn’t Kenya. Then it swirled away again and she could only see part of the covers of the bed, part of Pete’s torso, wisps of vision moving around and disappearing as if driven by the wind, making her feel dizzy and drunk and –
Laura blinked, pulling her hand away and then remembering to check that Pete was actually fine. Her head barely hurt at all. Not surprising, given that she had barely had a vision.
It was confused, patchy, unfocused. But she knew what she had seen. Pete sleeping with another woman, cheating on Kenya. It had to be a vision from the past – she’d seen his arm and it was blank, clean skin, where now there was a fresh-looking and sharp tattoo of a sports team logo on his forearm. A team who, Laura distantly remembered hearing at some point between the frenetic demands of her cases, had recently won a championship.
This had been a vision from only a few weeks ago, perhaps. When Kenya was still alive and the two of them were still together.
“Is there anything you can tell us about why the two of you broke up?” Laura asked, watching him closely. In the corner of her eye she saw Nate move slightly, but then stop, as if he’d forced himself to keep quiet.
“It was my idea,” he said, but then shook his head. “I was stupid.”
“Why?”
“Because she was incredible,” Pete half-choked out, his hand gripping the side of the couch so tightly that his knuckles were white.
“No, I mean, why did you have the idea?” Laura asked, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the obvious miscommunication.
“I felt guilty,” Pete admitted. He looked up at both of them and then his face crumpled. “Oh, hell. You might as well know. I guess you’d probably find out if you wanted to, anyway. I cheated on Kee. I couldn’t stay with her after that, knowing I’d been with someone else. Knowing I enjoyed it more than I did with her. But that was dumb. So dumb. I should’ve stayed with her – then maybe, last night…”
His face crumpled further into a half-sob, and Laura sat back in her chair. They weren’t going to get anything else out of him. But this new piece of information could be useful. If it wasn’t Kenya who had been cheating, but Pete, then maybe this could somehow be her connection to the killer.
Or, the other possibility: knowing that she had been cheated on, maybe she went out and sought someone to help her do the same. If so, that would explain what the killer was trying to say with his placement of the body.
“You can’t think of any reason why someone might want to do this?” Nate asked. “Kenya didn’t tell you of anyone acting odd, anyone mad at her? She didn’t meet the girl you cheated with and have some harsh words for her, maybe?”
“No,” Pete shook his head miserably. “No. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt her. She never did anything to anybody. She was sweet. She just wanted to get her head down and make some money so she could help out her family. She wouldn’t even get into disputes at work because she wanted to keep her job – no one would ever have any reason to hurt her.”
“That’s all we need to ask you for now,” Nate said. “Although, I’d appreciate getting the names of your buddies from the party so we can check your alibi. And please, if you think of anything else that could be significant – even if you’re not sure about it – just get in touch with us. Anything could be that vital missing piece which leads us to the killer.”
Pete nodded. “I understand,” he said. His eyes strayed off to the side, focusing on something else. “God, her family. Her sister! I should do something. Send them flowers, or… I don’t know…”
“We’ll see ourselves out,” Laura said. “Is there anyone you can call to come and stay with you? Or somewhere you can go where you won’t be alone?”
Pete looked at her, and then a flash of something else came over his face – panic, she thought.
Not a second later, there was a knock at the door.
Laura remembered how he had reacted when he first saw them outside. How he’d opened the door quickly and then been shocked to see them – as if he was expecting someone else.
“Perfect timing,” she said drily, getting up. She had a feeling about what she was going to see when she opened the door, and she didn’t think it was going to reflect well on anyone in the situation.
This time, she led the way out of the house, seeing Nate’s bemusement as he silently followed her. She opened the door and saw exactly what she had suspected.
The woman from the vision, coming here to visit Pete – probably with the intention of a repeat performance.
“I hope you have some tissues in that bag of yours,” Laura quipped, stepping neatly around the young woman and out into the hall, confident now that they would be able to track her down later if there was any need to talk to her.
As yet, she couldn’t see that there was a real link, and besides – she only knew who the woman was from a psychic vision, which wouldn’t exactly hold up as a reason for questioning.
“Are you going to explain what that was about?” Nate muttered as they walked down the hall towards the elevator – and Laura almost physically gulped, knowing that now she was going to have to explain her visions to Nate in a very real and imminent way that was somehow more nerve-wracking than she had expected.