Fractured (8 page)

“I
want
to catch this monster. I don't want anyone else to get hurt, Jeremy.”

I sighed. I never had a chance.

◆

So it was decided that the four of us would go to the church for evening mass. We'd seem innocent enough—two couples who'd felt the sudden urge to get spiritual. My heart pounded. I didn't know if Agent Reston would let the clock run out on Bobby or not. I didn't know what cards she held. Or what side she was even on.

As an afterthought, I grabbed a quart-sized plastic zippered bag for evidence, just in case, and we were off.

21

Bobby

Saturday: 10:43 PM

The church sanctuary was empty and unheated, exactly like I remembered it from my vision. Our footfalls echoed in the silence. The row of candles near the altar glowed red and yellow. I clung to Gabe's arm, half-expecting to be swept away from her any second.

Around the shadowy edges, Brittany's ghost flickered vaguely, like returning here was more than she could deal with, too.

Trembling, I clutched Gabe's arm tighter. “Are you sure you're up for this, Bobby?” she whispered.

“Sure. I'm fine.”

“You don't sound fine,” she said.

“Whatever,” I muttered. “There's no going back now.”

Maybe it was stupid to put Agent Reston's promises to the test like this, but I couldn't come up another plan. Better to hold my nose and dive in than tiptoe around trying to avoid the inevitable.

“She sat over in that pew,” I whispered. My heart raced as we walked down the center aisle. I glanced at the shadows. Brittany's ghost had faded to the thinnest veil.

When I stopped at the tenth row, Jeremy stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. “I'd volunteer for floor duty, but Veronica has her standards. It's kind of difficult for me.”

“I'll do it,” Gabe said.

“No,” I said. “It's got to be me. You guys could miss something and I…”

The three of them looked at me and nodded. Of course it had to be me.

I handed Gabe my jacket and shimmied under the pews on my belly, using my phone for a flashlight. It was dusty under the benches, unidentified mounds buried in fine silt like gray snow. But I was looking for something much more recent.

Blood pounded in my ears. I had to fight to focus. I couldn't help but wonder if Agent Reston had implanted me with some kind of tracking or monitoring device to remotely assess my performance. Then they'd discuss and score me, like an Olympic ice skater. If I did well, would they share a high five and shout that I'd nailed it? And if I didn't…

I swallowed down the bile that rose in my throat. I'd been outmaneuvered. And Agent Reston was a much better chess player than me. I had no choice but to play the game her way.

I shut off the light from my phone. Sprawled on my stomach, I closed my eyes, and waited to feel, rather than see, what had happened to Brittany Byers.

There were layers of stories cluttering the dark—some angry, others loud and demanding, still others sad, grief-stricken, and sorrowful. Most of them were faded and worn, woven together into a hundred-year-old record of all the people who'd sought comfort in this church.

But I was searching for that single bright strand that would lead me to the answers I needed. My hand burned with a deep spark of pain as it passed over a certain patch of floor.

I opened my eyes and shined the light from my phone. There was nothing. I scanned the floor. Whatever it was that had caught my attention, it was pretty damn small. I wondered if my senses were so attuned now that I was picking up invisible evidence, like fingerprints or grains of dirt. Crime scene stuff better left to the police forensics team. But we'd ruled out bringing in the police, so I proceeded, lying there, trying to slow my breath. My fear loomed behind me like a tidal wave of fire. I had to find the quiet inside the noise, to capture the residue of the events that took place.

I narrowed my range to a small area, my fingers circling above. To my surprise, a sort of visual map was forming in my mind, kind of like those topography graphs from Earth Science class.

Then I saw it. A single long, bright hair.

I picked it up and realized my mistake a second too late. My brain spasmed violently. My lungs seized and I couldn't pull in a breath. Everything went black. I was teetering at the edge of an abyss. I fell— then landed with a bounce. Something had caught me on my way down. It was like dangling by a single thread over boiling pits of lava.

I found I could breathe. And see. Remnants of past events whirled by like windblown petals, but my gaze focused in on that single long hair.

It didn't belong to Brittany. Her hair was short and black.

The vision narrowed and crystalized.

It belonged to a woman.

The person who'd killed Brittany Byers was a woman.

22

Jeremy

Saturday: 11:08 PM

“F
uck,” Bobby Pendell muttered.

“I'm coming for you, Bobby. Just hold on.” Gabe had already swung into action, readying herself to crawl under the low pews.

“No!” Bobby hissed. “It's okay. I'm okay.”

First his feet emerged from under the pews, and a moment later, a dust-covered, flannel-shirted Bobby Pendell stood smiling, dangling an invisible object from his two fingers.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Brittany's ghost brighten from a shimmer to a smudge.

“Interesting, Bobby,” I said, squinting and peering closer.

“It's a hair, shithead,” he said. I smiled. The sound of his impatience signaled that Bobby Pendell was in control. And that maybe Agent Reston's creepy claims were working—that the drug she'd injected him with had held him back from the brink without shutting down his freaky third eye.

Marisa scrunched up her face. “That's a pretty long hair. Like a girl hair. The victim?”

Bobby turned to her, still dangling the long hair from his fingers. “No. Brittany had short black hair. This belongs to her attacker. A female with long hair stuck under the same kind of black knit cap and bandana as your attacker.”

“Weird,” said Gabe. “Are you sure the hair isn't from another victim?”

Bobby smiled grimly and cut me a look that told me there was a lot more behind that statement. “Couldn't be surer.”

I supplied the plastic bag from my pocket and he dropped it in. I returned the bag to my coat pocket.

“How do you know, Bobby?” Gabe asked pensively. “Why are you suddenly able to control this when yesterday you were—you were falling apart?”

Bobby put his arms around Gabe and drew her into a kiss. Marisa flashed me a questioning look, but I only shrugged.

“Because, baby,” he said, “practice makes perfect, right?”

Marisa and I held hands, but did not follow suit with the face-sucking. Ever since I'd gotten here, there'd been very little spark between us and I couldn't help but feel just a bit envious. Here was Bobby Pendell, not even eighteen, staring death in the eye and tonguing his girl right in the middle of a church. “Ah, youth,” I said.

Gabe wrenched herself free, her expression far from lusting. In fact, she looked like she could spit flame with her next breath. “Don't fucking lie to me, Bobby,” she said. “Do you think we just waltzed out the door and skipped to the orientation? Marisa called my phone and I left it under the couch on speaker. We heard everything. Every. Damn. Thing.”

“Foiled again,” I said. Bobby cut me a malevolent look. I understood it now. I was the only person among us who did not terrify him.

“Apologize, Bobby,” she said fiercely. “You promised you'd never lie to me. I gave you the chance to fess up—but you didn't.”

“I, uh.” Bobby rubbed at his scalp with a palm.

“He only wanted to keep you from worrying, Gabe,” I said. “It may be boneheaded, but that's the way he is.”

Bobby glared at me like he was about to launch himself at me again. Gabe scowled at him and shook her head. “Okay. Short version, you need the help of the anti-psycho drug Agent Reston shot you up or the visions will eat your brain.”

“That's, um, well…” Bobby looked at me for support. Clearly, he lacked the tools to keep from stuffing his other foot in his mouth. Since I only had one foot at my disposal, he figured I was his guy.

“Well put, Gabe,” I said. “I warned him you'd tear him limb from limb if he tried to protect you.” I turned to Bobby. “I don't know about you, but I'm more scared of Gabriella Sorensen when she's pissed than some blind, impeccably coiffed FBI agent.”

Bobby Pendell looked like he might have turned three shades of green. But it was kind of tough to tell in the dim light.

Gabe's expression softened. “When are you going to learn, Bobby, that I am not made of eggshell china? Stop trying to be a hero. We are all in this together.” She flashed me a mildly hostile look. “At least some of us are.”

“Sometimes, I mean, most of the time—I want to kick him in the face, but don't shit on Glass,” Bobby blurted. “He's…he's my f-f— He's my friend.”

“Cue the heartwarming music,” I said.

“Leave it to you to spoil any moment,” Marisa said coldly, releasing my hand.

I shivered. Something told me that while my fledgling friendship with Bobby Pendell was warming, there was an ill wind blowing through my relationship with Marisa Perez.

My stump began to throb inside of Veronica.

And the thing I wanted badly at that moment, more than I wanted anything—was a drink.

23

Bobby

Saturday: 11:42 PM

I
caught the tail end of the look Marisa flashed at Jeremy and the way his face kind of fell. I could see the tiny hairline cracks starting to form in that joker's mask he wore. And I realized that Jeremy Glass wasn't all that different than me. He just danced along the edges of a different kind of brink.

“I don't get it,” Marisa said. “You're saying the same person attacked Brittany and me? Yet hers was a woman?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I'm just pretty sure it is, because…”

“You saw both attacks for yourself,” Marisa finished for me.

I nodded and said softly, “Yeah.” Marisa's eyes were dark, shiny, and bird-bright. I got the sense that she was wearing her own kind of mask. And it didn't fit that well either.

“Why don't we see if there's anything else downstairs,” Gabe said, her voice frosty. “Since you're all nice and safe in your freakout-proof suit.”

I let the girls walk on ahead of us out of the sanctuary into the brightly lit stairwell and waited for Jeremy. From the way they leaned in to speak and laughed at their own secret jokes, it was obvious they had gotten close pretty quickly. Which was nice, because at least Gabe would already have a friend when she came here next fall.

But Jeremy wasn't keeping up. He shuffled along, a few feet behind, and instead of his usual smirk, he wore a barely disguised grimace. “Veronica again?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I can always count on her, at least.”

“What's up, Glass?”

“And you care why? Thought you were just tolerating me.”

I sighed. “You really did put a first-rate effort into that. But it's kind of hard to hate you,” I said. “Even if you are a total a-hole.”

He shrugged and smiled, but his eyes were misty. “Nice to know my work is appreciated,” he said.

“Do you think they heard the end?” I asked abruptly. “Agent Reston wasn't anywhere near the couch when she told us about the ticking clock. Maybe Gabe only knows about the psychic epilepsy— and not the rest.”

“You mean, not about the fact that you might have only seventy-two,” he glanced at his watch, “make that sixty-eight hours to live?” Jeremy looked down, distracted. “I don't know. Why do you keep everything from that girl? She's as tough as old leather. And worth more than gold. You're a lucky guy.”

My head snapped toward him, my gaze narrowed. I'd caught the way he looked at her sometimes, but thought better of mentioning it.

Jeremy must have read into my look. “I wouldn't ever touch her, Bobby. As if she'd trade you in for a lemon like me.”

I thought of mentioning that I was very likely not going to be around much longer. That, combined with my freaky dark talent, didn't make me such a great catch. Instead I said, “Shut the fuck up, Glass, and stop feeling sorry for yourself. We have work to do.”

Jeremy gave me a pained smile. “And an ignoramus country boy to keep alive.”

24

Jeremy

Saturday: 11:59 PM

P
ity! I couldn't believe it, but I actually caught a flash of it in Bobby Pendell's eyes. How pathetic are you if a kid who's blind in one eye and seeing death and murder in the other feels sorry for you?

I looked down at the hydraulic contraption that served as my leg. My fault. Everything that ever happened to me was my own doing. With the exception of my mother's death, which, out of habit, I still blamed on myself.

Nothing stings worse than to see someone so at the end of their rope think you are even worse off than they are. But in a way, I was. Bobby's demons were external.

Mine were inside of me.

The stump hurt like balls and I wondered if something was wrong there as well. Chaz, my physical therapist, had once told me that the stress I put on myself from running so much could cause problems in the future. I hadn't really paid attention, but now I sort of remembered him mentioning that bone spurs could be pretty painful.

If I'd admitted it to myself, it had been happening for a bit. Which was why I'd put my collapsible crutches in the same carry bag I'd brought the running blade in.

“Look,” I said. “After we check out the basement, I'm going to head to the apartment where I'm staying.”

Bobby looked at me. “You're not staying with Marisa?”