Authors: Melissa Marr
Nate nods, and we watch her go.
I text Grace again, but there’s still no answer. My mother is still in the kitchen when my father comes home. He looks in at me, sees Nate holding me while I cry, and asks, “Are you okay?”
“Nate is here,” I answer.
“If you need me—”
“I know, Daddy.”
He smiles in surprise at my words. It’s been years since I called him that, but it’s been years since I felt as close to them as I have the past couple days. He walks away to find my mother, who has been doing something or other in the kitchen that involves a lot of cupboards opening and closing.
Once I hear their muffled words in the kitchen, I turn to Nate. “I’m scared.”
“You didn’t see Grace’s death happen,” Nate reminds me.
“I
did
though. He put her in his trunk and took her. She was at the library, and then she was in his trunk.” I smother a sob.
“Shhh. She didn’t go to the library though. Right?”
He holds me, and I try to push past my fears. I know he’s trying to help, but until I know that Grace is safe, nothing is going to be okay.
I need a plan. There has to be something I can do. I just have no idea what it could be.
Nate and I are still sitting in silence when my parents come into the room. I know by the look on my mother’s face that it’s bad. Gently, my father tells me, “Grace is missing.” Before I can speak, he continues, “It’s not like at Madison’s house. There was no sign of a fight, nothing broken or anything at the Yeungs’ house.”
“Madison fought back,” I say, not entirely surprised.
“She did.” My father pauses, and I realize that he’s debating hiding something.
“What? Tell me.”
“Madison fought him in the foyer of the house,” he says. “They think she was alive when she left the house. She was drowned, like Amy Crowne was.”
“And Grace?”
“The police didn’t find . . . Grace isn’t at the lake. Eva, there’s no reason to think Grace isn’t going to be okay.”
I realize that in some sick way, if Reid thinks this is about me, Grace is either safer than the others or she’s in worse danger. She’s my best friend. I think back to the vision of her death. I wish that I knew more so that I could try to help her. All that I remember that could be relevant is that she was leaving the library when it happened. I think back to it, letting the memory fill my mind.
Grace opens the trunk, drops a bag in, and reaches up for the lid to close it
.
That’s when it happens. He hits the back of her head, and she opens her mouth to scream, but a hand comes over it. Grace bites down, but the person holding her doesn’t let go
.
She tries dropping her weight like they tell you in street defense class, but a hand on her back shoves, and she falls into her own trunk. Her legs scrape against the car, and she feels like she can’t breathe from the force of the fall
.
Blinking against the pain and trying to push herself out, Grace looks up and see someone standing there. Then the trunk closes, and it’s all dark
.
“He kidnapped her,” I say aloud. “Then he took her somewhere. I’m not sure how he got her out of the house. Maybe because I trusted him, and so did she. If she’s not home and not answering, he has her.”
They all stare at me. Nate looks like he has questions, but he remains silent. I guess he figures that what I know is because of my death visions. It sort of is, but it’s also the most logical answer. “Grace wouldn’t ignore my texts. She was supposed to come see me today. Maybe Reid claimed he was sent to pick her up, like he drove her home yesterday. She doesn’t know it’s him, and she didn’t know about Madison and—”
“Eva,” my mother interrupts. “We aren’t giving up. We don’t know for certain that she’s with Reid.”
“Of course she is!” I look at them. “He’s targeting my friends, Mom. Grace is my best friend. The only other one who’s . . . Piper . . .”
It hits me. Piper was killed in her foyer; she was drugged, and then . . . she died. She was going to be the victim. Reid was going to kill her, and instead he killed Madison in her foyer. “He drugged her,” I whisper.
“What?” my father asks.
I scramble to explain without admitting that I saw Piper die in the way that I now think Madison died. “If she fought but he still took her, he drugged her. Madison—did he drug her?”
“There’s no way to know that,” my mother says gently. “Eva, don’t do this. Madison is with God now. What happened was awful, but she’s gone. What you need to concentrate on is keeping faith that everything will be over soon.”
My parents exchange a look, and then my father says, “We’re going to wait and pray. The police are following every lead, Eva. They have everyone working on this. The detective is talking to CeCe, and I suspect they’re going to talk to Robert, Jamie, and Grayson. They’ll talk to Reid’s grandmother, and they’ll probably talk to Piper and the girls, too. Someone has to know where he would go.”
“But he’s already killed three people. What if—”
“Grace is a smart girl, and the police know who he is now,” my mother interjects. She straightens her shoulders. “I’m going to call the courthouse and see if there are any properties that any of the Bensons own, and your father and I are going to talk to Sheila Benson’s former coworkers. There are a lot of volunteers. We’ll search door to door if we have to.”
My father nods. “The police know what they’re doing. Your grandfather is gathering the volunteers from the church to help, and we’re asking the employees at the winery to help, too. Everyone is working together to find her.”
“I want to help.”
“No,” they say in unison.
“You’re on crutches,” my father adds.
“And he’s already hurt you once,” my mother points out. “You are not going out searching for her.”
I open my mouth to argue, but my father repeats, “No.” He shakes his head at me. “I understand that you want to help, but the best thing you can do is stay here where it’s safe. The police have asked that all of Reid’s friends stay home. The last thing we need is to have to search for more than one missing girl.”
“Daniel!” My mother snaps, but he waves her off.
“Reid won’t come back to our house, and between the alarm and the police patrols, Eva is safe in the house.” My father holds my gaze as he speaks. “She can agree to stay put, here with Nate, or we can stay here instead of helping with the search.”
I sigh. “Fine. I won’t join the search, but—”
“No ‘buts,’ Eva.” My father sounds sterner than I’ve ever heard him sound. “You stay here with Nate, or we all stay.”
“Go help them find Grace,” I say. “Tell Grandfather Tilling thank you. Tell everyone thanks actually.”
Both of my parents kiss me on top of my head, and after a few more reminders, they leave. I listen to the beep of the house alarm being reset, and then I turn to Nate. “In the death vision, he kidnapped Grace. She was at the library, and he hit her and pushed her into the car trunk.
Her
car. Remember how I told you the details of my vision of your death changes, but the big thing stays the same?”
Nate nods.
“He has her, and I have an idea.”
“Eva . . .”
I hold up a hand and text a message to Grace’s phone: “Reid, I’ll never forgive you if you hurt Grace.”
Nate looks at what I’ve texted and starts, “Are you sure that’s—” His words stop as I tap send.
I wait. I stare at my phone, hoping that he’ll reply. There is only silence. “Damn it!” I toss the phone on the floor. “He took her. It’s all my fault. I sent her home with him yesterday, and now . . .” I start crying again. “I need to fix this. I
need
to.”
Nate wipes my tears and tells me the same thing my parents and Detective Grant have said. “It’s not your fault.”
“What good is having visions, if I can’t save her?” I let out a scream of frustration. I feel reckless in my desire to help Grace. I’d offer myself in her place if I could. I’d do anything Reid asked right now. I can’t let him kill Grace.
“You saved
me
,” Nate says. “You don’t know if she’s going to—”
“That’s it!” I grab Nate’s hand. “Reid is the killer, and you get attacked by him in every version of your death. I need my phone.”
“I’m not following,” Nate says.
“Will you trust me?”
“Of course, but—”
“I love you,” I blurt.
Nate stares at me for a moment. “Eva, I—”
“Don’t. I don’t need you to say it; I just wanted you to know before I tell Reid.” I offer him a tremulous smile. “Can I have my phone?”
He scoops it up off the floor where I flung it and hands it to me. “Are you going to fill me in?”
“I’m going to lure him out,” I tell Nate. “He thinks he loves me, so he’s not going to want me to be with you. You saw him earlier. That’s what had him so upset. I need him to focus on me, on
us
, not on Grace.”
For a moment, Nate is so motionless that I think he’s going to object, but then he nods once. “Tell him.”
Smiling, I type “I love Nate” and hit send. I wait. There’s still no reply, so I type, “As soon as he gets back, I’m going to tell him. Then I’ll do whatever you want if you set Grace free.”
“I won’t let you do that,” Nate says, his voice grown taut with anger and something else. “I know you want to save her, but I won’t let you—”
“I’m lying,” I interrupt, which is a little bit true. “Reid doesn’t know about my visions.”
“Okaaay.”
“He thinks you’re out somewhere and that you’ll come back to me, and we know that he’s the one that attacks you on Old Salem.” I grab Nate’s hand. “We know where he’ll be. We don’t know when, but if I can lure him out, we can
make
the when be now.”
Nate’s eyes widen for a moment before he clarifies, “So you’re going to send me to capture him?” Then he gets the same sort of look in his eyes that I’ve seen before he ends up in a fistfight. It’s a mix of excitement and determination. “I can do it. Then he won’t be able to ever hurt you again.”
“I’m coming, too.”
“Eva, he’s obsessed with you. Taking you to him is—”
“The best plan we have. We know how he attacks you because I
saw it
. He’ll force you off the road, and he’ll think you don’t expect an attack. You do though. So you’ll be ready, and I’ll be ready.”
Nate watches me, but he doesn’t raise any more objections. I can tell he’s thinking about it.
“We know he’s coming, and we know he’s going to attack. We just need to be ready,” I tell Nate.
“Let me go alone.”
“No.” I shake my head and give him my best I-don’t-think-so glare. “In my visions, you were alone, and he killed you. You won’t be alone this time. I’ll be there, and that will make it end differently. Don’t you see? We know things he doesn’t, and we can use it to save Grace. Please?”
“You’ll stay far away from the fight though? You’ll let me handle that?”
“I’m not going to try to jump into a fight. I don’t fight, and”—I motion to my crutches—“I’m not even standing on both feet right now.”
Nate nods once.
“Thank you!” I reach out for his hand and say, “Help me upstairs, and then we’ll go. I just need fifteen minutes.”
Reluctantly, he agrees. I think he realizes I’m hiding something, but he isn’t asking and I’m not volunteering any answers. I’ve seen other visions. Nate knows that. Maybe he isn’t putting all the pieces together yet, but I am. The spot where Reid dies in my vision of him looks a lot like where he attacks Nate, too. I know how Reid dies now—and it’s not the killer who shoots him. It’s me.
As soon as Nate goes back downstairs, I go into my mother’s room and hobble to the back of her walk-in closet. In the corner is a firebox. Awkwardly, I crouch down while balancing on my crutches, unlock it, and open it. The pistol is there where it’s always been. Next to it is a faded blue-and-yellow cardboard box of bullets. I pick both items up and slip them into my purse. I’ve been going to the shooting range with my grandfather for years, so I feel as comfortable with a pistol as I do with a cell phone. It’s a tool, one I’m hoping not to use. I want to change the vision I had of Reid’s death, too. Despite everything he’s done, I don’t want anyone else to die, but if it’s between Reid and Grace, she’ll be the one who lives.
“Nate?” I call from the top of the stairs.
He comes around the corner, stops, and looks up at me. As he walks toward me, he says, “You know, I love you too.”
I can’t stop the smile that comes over me. “Yeah?”
In a blink, he’s the rest of the way up the stairs and kissing me. When he pulls back, he says, “Yeah. I do.” My crutches fall as he lifts me in his arms. “I wouldn’t put my life in your hands if I didn’t.”
He carries me down to the ground floor and then runs up for my crutches. I watch him with a smile still on my lips. When he’s back in front of me, I say, “The accident was never that bad in the death visions, but you’ll need to be careful of the crowbar. He won’t expect you to be prepared. You can use that. The Maglite helps, too. A baseball bat would be better, but I don’t suppose you have one of those.”
“No bats in the truck. Sorry,” Nate says. “I’ll be ready though. I can get the crowbar away from him and kick his ass. Then he’ll tell us where Grace is, and
then
he’ll get locked up so everyone is safe.”
I nod as we leave the house. That’s one possibility. The other possibility is in my purse. Killing isn’t the first choice, but it’s on the table. Reid put it there.
Judge
W
HEN
I
WAKE
, G
RACE
is still asleep. I check her pulse. She’s fine. I was careful with her dose. She’ll probably wake while I’m out. I check that her collar is secure, and then I kiss her. She doesn’t kiss me back, but that’s just because of the medicine. I slip out of bed and get her phone. I had turned it off when Grace dropped it outside my car. I need to tell Eva that Grace is safe. I can’t tell her where we are, but I want her to know that we’re okay.
I glance at Grace and then turn on her phone. It blinks to life, and over a dozen text messages flash across the screen. I don’t care about most of them, and I can’t leave it on long just in case it has a GPS chip. As soon as the messages stop, I go to settings and set the phone to “airplane” mode so the Wi-Fi is inactive. Then I return to the messages. They’re not surprising. Her mother, CeCe, and Eva all texted. I see messages asking where she is, saying that Madison is missing, but then I stop. Eva texted
me
. She knew I’d see these.