Double Visions Part 13

"But you understand that we're just friends, right?"

"Yeah, I know," he said, pouting a little as though knowing what was coming around the bend.

"Maybe if things were different ... if I was a little younger or you were a little older, who knows ... but right now, Marty, I'll be honest. I could use all the friends that I can get. I have no room in my life for romantic attachments of any kind. I hope you understand."

She went back to scrambling the eggs and waited to see how he was going to take the rejection.

"Maybe I should get going," he said quietly, not looking at her.

Jane made as if to offer words of consolation or friendship when the phone rang insistently beside her. "Wait a minute, Marty," she said, picking up the phone. "Please."

Marty stood half in, half out the door in a sulky pose.

"h.e.l.lo?" Jane answered. "Oh hi, Danny."

"So that's him? That's your boyfriend? I suppose I'm not good enough for you," Marty snapped, his voice rising higher in an adolescent screech.

"Marty, please," Jane tried in vain as the teenager stormed out. Her attention, however, was soon taken by Danny on the other end of the line.

On the ride over to meet Danny, Jane started to wonder if she was going to need to trade in the 4x4 for a minivan, such was the company riding in the back now. The faces and figures often blurred in and out of her reality but she could sense them all there, watching, waiting.

Danny had been upset on the phone. It wasn't what he said or even how he said it, but she had been around him long enough now to tap into his spirit. He hadn't told her who was dead, but she instinctively knew that it was someone on the inside. The killer had struck at the heart of the detective tasked with finding him. Jane knew that she was going to have to be Danny's strength for now and she only hoped that her shoulders were strong enough. She had failed his father once and she couldn't fail another Meyers man.

She parked up around the corner from the address that Danny had given and switched the engine off. He'd told her that he would come and find her when the scene went quiet, so she waited. After a short while, she looked up in the rear-view mirror and saw two new pa.s.sengers squeezed into the back seat. The woman she had never seen before, but the man seemed familiar. It took her a while to remember and when she did, she found the reason for Danny's hurt. The man had been in the police station when she had been arrested by Danny what seemed like an age ago now. He was an older guy with the bearing of a copper, but a kind face to go with it. He was obviously a colleague of Danny's and a friend; she couldn't help but wonder just how much death and pain there could be left in the world. Surely it had to run out at some point.

At some point she dozed off as the summer sun baked the car. Her dreams were a jumble of slashing blades and blood as the innocent fell, only to rise again and take a seat on the long bus that she was driving. The hiss of the air brakes punctuated another stop and another customer climbed aboard.

She saw her mother board the bus, her flesh shredded with the Crucifier's symbol carved into her chest. Her mother held such sorrow and disappointment in her eyes that Jane cringed under the glare.

Karl Meyers stepped onto the bus at the next stop; somehow he was mingled with the father that she had never known, and his shaking head brought tears to her eyes.

The bus was soon full and there was standing room only as the dead climbed aboard and Jane felt that she was paying the fare of every customer. Soon the bus was dangerously overcrowded and every square inch was packed with the dead squabbling for room. Elbows bucked and legs kicked as they squirmed like vermin fighting for air in a barrel. Jane tried to keep the bus driving straight but hands clawed at her from behind. These spirits stank of the grave and rotting fingers tore strips of flesh from her face. She gripped the huge wheel hard and desperately tried to keep the bus on the road but the dead were now spilling over the seats behind her, obscuring her view. She fought for breath as they piled on top of her and her foot slipped off the accelerator. The bus slowed to a crawl and outside, angry hands started to pound on the windows with furious clenched bony knuckles. The bus started to rock violently from side to side as the corpses refused to be denied entry. The gla.s.s shattered and still they poured in, burying her under foul, decayed flesh as she fought frantically for air, but the world went dark.

She was awoken by strong hands shaking her roughly. Slowly, Danny's face came into view and she suddenly hugged him fiercely.

"Have you forgotten that you're not exactly my type?" he said lightly.

"Sorry," she mumbled in reply, letting go and wiping away the tears from her cheeks.

"Jane, we are going to need to have a talk about that night 8 years ago; something's come up that I don't understand and I'm hoping that you can make some sense of it."

"That must have been some whopper of a dream, Miss," a stranger suddenly said from over Danny's shoulder.

"Just give me a minute here, Bradshaw," Danny barked protectively, wondering just where the h.e.l.l the guy had sprung from. He had sent the agent back to the station with Selleck after the scene had been processed but now he was back on his own terms.

"Sure, no problem," the American said, stepping away.

"Hot date?" she asked with raised eyebrows once the man was out of earshot.

"FBI, sent to clean up our mess," he answered, a little bitterly. "I'm sorry. I sent him away and somehow he's b.l.o.o.d.y snuck back again."

"Maybe it's your aftershave?" Jane joked. She could feel that they were dancing with clumsy attempts at humour, putting off whatever unpleasant conversation they were going to have. "I didn't know his name, your friend inside," she probed gently.

"Bryan Wilson," he replied quietly. "He was a good man, Jane, and he deserved a h.e.l.l of a lot better than this."

"Did you know his wife?"

"Not as well as I should have; it's a long story."

"What about your man there?" she said, nodding towards the agent who was busying himself with the scenery. "How exactly does he feel about you talking to me?"

"Well I haven't exactly crossed that bridge yet," Danny conceded.

"Maybe I should to talk to him? You think that he's got more of an open mind than your colleagues?"

"You know, I worked a case in Nevada once," Bradshaw suddenly said, sidling up and joining the conversation. "Way out in the desert, some old guy was digging a well and came across a grave with the remains of 11 bodies. The tech boys found nothing of any use on any of the corpses either to discover ident.i.ties or cause of death. We were there for two weeks and I don't mind telling you that we found jack s.h.i.t..., sorry Ma'am, I mean we found nothing," he apologised and Jane could picture him tipping a Stetson. "The local Sherriff's Department had no leads or clues and we were about to be rea.s.signed. Thing is that some old woman came to the motel where I was staying late one night. She told me that she knew who'd done it and she wanted him stopped. Bad juju, she called it. Obviously I asked her what evidence she had, you know, getting all excited, but my jaw d.a.m.n near dropped when she told me that she'd dreamt it. I was about to write her off as a bag of crazy a.s.s cats when one of the local deputies walks in. Well, she takes one look at that boy and at the same time he goes about as pale as a ghost and bolts for the door. Long story short, we pick the guy up a few hours later and he confesses to the whole thing."

"You know who I am?" Jane asked.

"Wouldn't be much of an agent if I didn't do my homework, now would I?"

"So you're a believer then?" Jane enquired with genuine interest.

"Well, now, I wouldn't exactly say that, but I have seen the storage room in Washington where the bureau keeps files on the..., unexplained cases shall we say."

"Can I ask you something else, Agent... Bradshaw ... was it?"

"Ask away, Miss."

"How much of that 'good old boy, aw shucks Ma'am can I tether my horse to your fence post', is really you?"

Bradshaw studied her carefully. "More than a pinch but less than a handful," he smiled in return.

"And are you going to object if Danny here lets me take a look at the crime scene?"

"Way I see it is that I'm every bit a civilian spectator as you are, Miss."

"Call me Jane," she said climbing out of the car and steeling herself for what lay ahead.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

REWRITING HISTORY.

Randall gave up the struggle of trying to unscrew the whisky bottle with his damaged hand. It was probably a blessing as he would have likely demolished the bottle and the rest of the day would have been spent in a foggy, useless haze.

He was currently ensconced in a c.r.a.ppy roadside motel that stretched the limit of his meagre resources. He had been working his a.s.s off and, as yet, all he still had were questions. He greatly wished that life could be like the movies where all you seemed to need was a rousing self-appointed agenda and things fell into your lap. But there were no great leaps here for him; nothing had fallen out of the sky and into his lap and no secrets had been laid bare before him simply because he wished it.

All he knew at the minute was that 8 years ago there had been a serial killer dubbed the "Crucifier" by the media. A man named Arthur Durage had been crowned the psychopath and struck down by Detective Inspector Karl Meyers. Meyers had saved Durage's final victim, Lana Genovese, before succ.u.mbing to a fatal knife wound by the killer. What the wider public didn't know was that Meyers had been working with a so-called psychic, Jane Parkes. She had been with the detective in Durage's bas.e.m.e.nt on that fateful final night and had escaped unscathed. Randall had been friends with Meyers' partner, Tom Holland, from whom he had gathered such information in the form of a journal kept by Meyers which had been held in the possession of Holland. But now there was supposedly a new Crucifier on the loose and Randall had discovered that Arthur Durage's grave was empty. According to the groundsman at the cemetery, there had never been a body put into the ground.

Randall's nostrils were full of conspiracy and cover-up; the only trouble was that he was now a man without resources. After Marion Ramsey had fallen under the Crucifier's blade, her father had made it clear that Randall no longer had the backing of The Globe newspaper. He knew that Alfonso Ramsey had been stern about stopping him - his plastered hand bore testament to the media magnate's seriousness.

So here he sat on the outside. There was a new, or possibly old, killer in town and he had no idea just how to proceed forwards. The police had swept away the original investigation to hide the fact that Meyers had been working with a charlatan medium, presumably on the police payroll, and it had gotten him killed.

He lay back on the bed and tried to think about anything else but smashing the whisky bottle open and drowning his sorrows. This was supposed to have been his swansong. His legacy would have been to see his name up in lights and make enough money for his estranged family.

The phone buzzed noisily, interrupting his self pity and he answered it reluctantly. "What?" he grouched.

"Randall, that you?" a woman's hushed voice asked.

"Who's this?"

"You don't know me but I got your name from a friend who told me that you might be interested in paying for certain information."

"I don't tend to deal with smoke and mirrors, lady. You got something useful then I might buy it, but not anonymously. But don't worry, I always protect my sources and your name will never feature beyond me, but I have to have a record for the accounting files. I'm afraid that I don't have an endless supply of brown envelopes stuffed with cash."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line as the woman pondered his words.

"What do you pay?" she asked eventually.

"Well that depends on what you've got," Randall replied, rubbing his temples and trying to stave off the impending headache.

"Oh s.h.i.t, okay," she sighed. "My name's Kim Croft. I work as an admin a.s.sistant in the Faircliff Police Station in CID. One of the PCs here has sold you info before and he says that you pay well."

Randall knew that he didn't have the money anymore, now that he wasn't working for The Globe, but he had flashed the paper's money recently enough so he should be able to lead the woman on. "That's right. What have you got?"

"I want you to know that I would never normally even dream about doing something like this, but..., I've got a mother whose nursing home bills are mounting up and I have to find a way to help her..., you understand, don't you?"

Randall would have genuinely struggled to find something that he could care less about. "Of course, Kim," he said soothingly. "Times are tough for everyone and we all have to do unpleasant things to get by, but family has to come first, right?"

"Yes," she said, eagerly grasping for the imaginary lifeboat.

"So what have you got?"

"I came across some files when I was doing some typing..., oh s.h.i.t I hate doing this. Look, my boss trusts me and I have access to his desk in order to do the filing, typing etc. There was a stabbing at a rest stop just outside of town recently; did you hear about it?"

Randall wracked his brain for a moment. "Yeah, I think so. Wasn't that a mugging gone wrong or something like that?" he asked. With all of the Crucifier stuff, some poof getting his rocks off in a public toilet hadn't made his radar.

"Well, that was what the police let people think. There was blood discovered at the crime scene. They figured that the victim managed to fight back and had injured his attacker. They tested the blood hoping for a match and they got one."

"Whose was it, Kim?" Randall asked fervently, knowing that this was going to be juicy.

"How much will I get for this?" Kim asked nervously.

"20,000," Randall lied, knowing that he would never pay a penny for it.

"Okay, the blood matched someone on file. It matched Arthur Durage's."

Danny led Jane into Wilson's house. It suddenly struck him that there was a huge gulf between him and his team outside of the office and he really didn't know any of these people beyond their shared profession. He had spent so long carefully guarding his own personal secrets that it had prevented him from ever having friends; now it seemed like such a ridiculous waste. He made a mental note to at least try and change his ways. If he wasn't careful then he was going to end up miserable and alone. He had found a great guy who loved him and all he ever did was build barriers; he wondered just how much of Nathan's patience he had already exhausted.

He held back as Jane entered Wilson's home and tomb. The lab boys had already determined that the man had been killed in the potting shed at the bottom of the garden and then carried into the house. His wife had been butchered and displayed like the rest of the Crucifier's victims. Her face was bashed in beyond recognition and the symbol carved into her chest. Wilson's watch had been smashed and stopped at 8:17am, leading everyone to a.s.sume that was when he had been attacked, giving an indication of the time of death. Dr Reese had been on the scene earlier and had said, after a cursory examination, that the time indicator seemed correct.

Danny knew at this point that if Jane was caught on the premises, his career wouldn't be his biggest concern. If Chalmers found them here then he would likely be facing charges and jail. Chalmers and Barrett were clearly more concerned with their appearance than the case and Ramsey had the ears of even their superiors. Bradshaw continued to be a mystery to him, but the man had an easy way of putting you at ease which was both comforting and disconcerting at the same time. Bradshaw clearly knew about Jane and, despite his presence being orchestrated by Alfonso Ramsey, Danny's gut was telling him that the man was on the level. Besides, if the man knew enough to tell him who and what Jane was, then it was pointless trying to keep secrets from him.

He watched as Jane wandered through the house, clutching her mother's silver brooch tightly in her hand, pausing at various points before moving on. Even a week ago he would have found the whole idea preposterous, but now he could feel the air crackle with electricity as she walked from room to room.

Bradshaw kept a watchful distance behind both of them. Danny could feel the man's mind ticking over and knew - without Jane's extra sensory perception - that the man's dim cowboy act was mainly for show.

"You believe her?" Bradshaw suddenly whispered from behind, and Danny had to stop himself from jumping; the American moved as silently as a ghost when he wanted to.

"Enough to be risking my neck, I guess," Danny answered honestly. "I take it that you understand her presence here is strictly confidential? Not even my team know about her."

"Yeah. I kind of figured that by the way that you made her wait around the corner until everyone else had left."

"Speaking of which, why are you back here?"

"Got to go where the action is, Danny, and right now something is telling me that your lady friend there is right where I need to be."

Jane could quickly feel that the sense of palpable death was already disturbingly familiar. The more time that she spent walking in dead shoes, the more that she felt comfortable in them.

Wilson's house had been one of happiness, a sanctuary from the worries of the outside world. She could feel a strong bond between a husband and wife, one that had been tested to breaking point but had survived. Now, while their lives may have been lost, at least their bond stretched into the afterlife and they were together for eternity.

The killer's trail was still glowing as she stepped into the Shadow World and she had no trouble in following his movement. Once more there was a barrier to what she could see and the killer took every conceivable precaution to shield his ident.i.ty. But now there was a cautiousness to his movements, as though she had troubled him and he was now taking her seriously.

The a.s.sault in the shed of Danny's friend had been brutal but efficient; the attack on Mrs Wilson, however, had been frenzied and full of anger. Due to her enforced involvement and the escalation she could now sense deeper than before, to the point that she could tell when the killer was in control and when he wasn't. There was a dichotomy here to his actions: at times careful and rehea.r.s.ed, and at others wild and hysterical.

There was something here that he was trying to hide, something important. She retraced her steps throughout the house and down to the potting shed in the garden. It was here that she felt strongest that the killer was blocking something from her. She concentrated her efforts as the scene played out in front of her. Wilson was attacked brutally and without warning as he opened the shed. He was stabbed with the sharpened garden shears before being able to raise a hand in self-defence. The killer watched him die before taking his coat and hat in order to move undetected up to the house and take Mrs Wilson unawares. But there was a moment at the shed, a brief second where her vision wobbled like someone had altered the tape. She rewound and watched the scene over and over again: the stabbing, the death, the killer leaving. Every time that she watched the scene, she managed to narrow down the moment where something changed. She poured all of her senses and will into the moment, staring past what she could see and what he was hiding. The scene blurred and jumped for the briefest of seconds and she caught it. There was a whisper on the wind and she caught the scent; he was desperately fighting her to keep this hidden but she was fighting back and harder. She pushed with all of her might, taking all of her anger and frustration out on the man that had dragged her back into this life, a life that she had sworn to leave behind forever. She battered against his defences until her hands were b.l.o.o.d.y, tearing down the wall brick by brick until the gleaming light behind shone through with magical triumph.

When she stepped back across the threshold, she found Danny and Bradshaw waiting for her expectantly.

"What is it?" Danny asked quickly.

"How accurate is a time of death determination, Danny?"

"Unfortunately, it's not like the movies; most doctors in real life can only give a window of an hour or two, but sometimes you can get lucky, like with Wilson when his watch broke upon impact."

"The watch," she replied. "The killer set it forwards an hour and then smashed it," she said triumphantly.