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Laura tried to start again, recentering herself. The rough pages. The musty smell. The chair. Come on, Laura. The sounds around her of voices, of tapping on phone buttons, of handsets jolted back into receivers. Words. We need you to stay safe tonight, is there anyone who can come and be with you? Or can you go anywhere? A clattering sound from somewhere across the room; Laura didn’t know what it was. Someone being clumsy. They were wasting time. They needed to concentrate—
Laura gasped, letting her eyes fly open. It was useless. No matter how hard she tried, she was too anxious, too on edge. Those intrusive thoughts kept coming, reminding her that she was responsible. That she was the only one right now who could save Alex, save Nate, save Amy, get better for Lacey. Ironically, it was that same anxiety taking over her mind that was stopping her from having the vision she needed to see this through.
She could have done with a drink. Something to take the edge off. But that was stupid. Apart from all of the other many, many reasons why she couldn’t have a drink right now, it would have deadened the vision, too.
Laura’s mind drifted to her meetings, to Garth. He was right that she hadn’t been back in a long time. The meetings were too much. Having to admit that she had failed yet again, month after month. Feeling judged, even though the whole point of AA was supposed to be that you could get better without judgment. All that religious crap, drilled into you whether you believed in God or not.
Did Laura believe in God? Probably not, she thought. Right now, God was letting an innocent woman die because He couldn’t see His way clear to show her another vision. Not even when she’d tried to clear the way for Him.
But then again, where did the visions even come from? And if there was something out there, or someone, then it couldn’t hurt, could it? She was desperate, and Laura had no idea how to get through this on her own. She needed help, from any quarter she could get it.
So she allowed her eyes to slide closed again, and she prayed. Please, God, or whoever, she thought, imagining her brain waves beaming out into space, penetrating the ether, reaching the ear of someone or something powerful. Please don’t let this woman die because of me. Please help me save her.
She kept her eyes closed, hanging onto that last thought. It was a little reassuring, she had to admit. The idea that if something all-powerful was out there, it might be looking out for her. It might hear her call and help, after all.
She floated on a thin stream of calm for the first time all day, resting only in the moment. For just that moment, nothing was wrong. It was all going to work out. She was going to sort this out, and—
A sharp stab of pain hit her right in the center of her forehead, so powerful she almost cried out. Her hand flattened sharply on the phone book, gripping onto the center of the page as if it could keep her grounded, her eyes opening blearily on a too-bright room, her head almost ricocheting with the pain—
She was floating in the air above a room, an empty living room where a comfortable couch rested in front of a television. It was switched on, playing some evening comedy show. She was looking down on the flickering lights, the only illumination in the dark room. They played over the legs and feet of someone sitting in an armchair, facing the television.
Laura tried to focus, to see what she was looking at. Who she was looking at. From above, it was hard to know much about them. A slim body, no way to tell their height, only the top of the head carpeted with short-cropped hair.
A slim, straight body with no curves—short cropped hair. Laura put the pieces together. It was a man. She was looking down on a man. Was he the killer? After a moment, she heard him laugh at something on the screen and then saw him raise a beer bottle to his mouth, taking a quick swig.
Beer. Her mind, her thoughts, zeroed in on that bottle. On the way it would feel to let that liquid pour down her own neck. On the way it would ease off all her cares—
Laura’s attention snapped back to the room. Something was different. Something subtle, but it sent a chill down her neck. Someone else was there.
The vision was infuriating. She could see only what it showed her, unable to cast her view beyond the dark and flickering edges. Like she was looking into a TV screen herself. But she knew that the atmosphere had changed, even if the man in the chair didn’t seem to sense it.
She focused on him, on what he was doing. His attention was fully on the television, no sign that he had noticed anyone else around him. Then again, perhaps it was simply a housemate of his. But she had a different feeling. A feeling that this person, whoever they were, was not supposed to be there.
Her eyes darted across the scene over and over as she waited for something to happen. She was shown this for a reason. Something bad was coming, and she knew it.
Without any warning, a pair of hands shot into her view. They were holding something , something she at first could not recognize. Then, as it slipped over and around the neck of the man in the chair, she thought she recognized it. A tie, a simple necktie with a dark blue stripe running across a light blue background. It was pulled tight around the man’s throat, yanking him back in the chair, making him tilt his head back and claw at his own neck.
Laura looked at his face. He was young. Younger than her. Not even thirty, she thought. His eyes were wide with panic, his mouth contorting as he fought for breath and struggled to get out from under the tie. His eyes were looking right up into those of the killer. If she could just get closer—if she could see the reflection in those eyes—she might see that it was Ed Bronston—
Laura opened her eyes with a start, wrenched away from the vision too soon. At least she hadn’t had to finish watching this one die, she thought.
But there was something that gnawed at her as she replayed what she had seen in her mind, searching for clues. A man. The victim had been a man. She was sure of it. This wasn’t just an androgynous woman; he was male, completely.
And he was dying in the same way as the others.
It was definitely their killer. Which meant he was changing his method. Going for a man instead of a woman. Trying to throw them off the scent.
And, like a bucket of ice water down her spine, Laura realized something else.
Everything they were doing right now was a waste of time.
Alex—whoever he was—would never hear their warning.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Laura didn’t have time to think of a clever strategy to tell them how she knew. She didn’t have any time at all. She needed to get them to change their tactics now, right now, or the man she had seen—Alex—he was going to be dead before they got to him.
She had no idea who he really was. What his last name was, where in the city he lived. She knew that he was watching a certain show on television, but how would that help her in a city where people were probably all watching that show at the same time? How would they even get that information to track down who was watching?
