A Grave Prediction (Psychic Eye Mystery) (15 page)

“Riiiiiight?” I agreed. I knew exactly what she meant. Edwards had been a surprise. I’d clearly underestimated him based on his
appearance and demeanor. It was something I vowed not to do again.

We traded out cars and had to file some paperwork about the slashed tire, which took a little while. By the time we got back on the road, I was good and hangry. “There’s a place,” I said, pointing to anything along the road that even looked like it served something to eat.

“Would you stop?” Candice snapped.

“Would you?” I snapped back.

Hmmm, maybe we were both hangry. Candice gripped the wheel a little tighter and drove for just a bit before pulling into a Jamba Juice.

The second she parked, I turned to her and said, “You’re kidding, right?”

She rolled her eyes, clearly tired of my whiny self, and exited the car, leaving me sitting there in my famished misery. I pouted in my seat, considering my options. Looking left, I spotted a pizza joint within walking distance. Trouble was, if I went for it, Candice could simply ditch me and let me find my own way back to the hotel.

Of course, it might be worth it to get a piece of the carbs I’d been craving.

But then I glanced down at my waist and had to admit that the bloat I’d been carrying for several months was greatly reduced. Candice really might be on to something with that whole gluten- and lactose-intolerance stuff. With a groan I got out and followed after her inside.

To my surprise Candice had already ordered for both of us, and she was just slipping the cashier some bills when I sidled up next to her. She handed me something light chocolate colored and said, “Drink.”

I took a tentative sip. It was amazeballs. “Holy mother of all that is good and delicious!” I moaned. “What
is
this?”

“My private recipe,” Candice said, pocketing the change and taking the other drink.

I followed her back out of the shop like a dutiful puppy, sipping and slurping and moaning with happiness.

I could taste bananas, and peanuts, and almonds, and cocoa, and maybe even a hint of vanilla. We sat in her car in silence for a little while, sucking down our smoothies and I suppose waiting for our glucose levels to rise and bring us back to being congenial. “Sorry I got snippy with you,” Candice said.

“Me too. Wanna go back to the hotel and braid each other’s hair?”

She laughed with relish, and I delighted in the richness of the sound of it. Candice had a great laugh. It was a shame we so seldom heard it. “How about we check to see if Edwards went back to work, and if he did, we’ll stake him out until he heads home, and then we’ll call it a night.”

“That sounds like all sorts of fun,” I said drily.

“I know, but he’s the only lead we have, so I think we should stick close for a while.”

“Okay,” I said, wishing there was more in the ether for me to dig up about that connection between Edwards and the robberies. “Candice,” I said when my intuition hit on something new. “Maybe you should look into Edwards’s work history.”

“His work history?”

“Yeah. I feel like there’s a hint to the past that’s related to his work that might help us.”

She nodded. “I can do that once we get back to the hotel.”

Our plans were foiled when we drove to the parking structure where Edwards typically parked and we couldn’t find any
sign of his car. Candice even drove all around the surrounding neighborhood, checking to make sure he wasn’t trying to give us the slip by parking someplace on the street, but his car was not to be found.

That worried both of us, because it suggested not only that Edwards was probably hiding from us, but that he might be hiding evidence from us too.

Around four thirty we turned away from the bland office building and drove to a spot just down from Edwards’s house, but his car wasn’t in sight, which didn’t really mean anything because he usually parked it in the garage. But then, right around five fifteen we got lucky when a minivan belonging to the missus pulled into the drive and the garage door swung up.

Edwards’s silver sedan wasn’t inside, so wherever he’d gone when he ditched us, it didn’t appear to be home.

We waited some more until close to six thirty and Candice finally called it a day. “Let’s pick his trail back up in the morning,” she said.

“Can we go to dinner now?” I asked.

“You’re hungry again already?”

“No. I need a cocktail and going to dinner is the best pretense for indulging in something to take the edge off this crappy day.”

“Agreed. But there’s one stop I want to make beforehand.”

“Where?”

“Best Buy,” she said. “There’s one on the way back.”

I discovered why Candice wanted to stop at the big electronics superstore shortly afterward when she purchased a vehicle-tracking device. “I should’ve tacked this sucker to Edwards’s car from the get-go,” she said. “We would’ve been able to see his trail even with the slashed tire.”

“Hindsight,” I said. “Next time we’ll be smarter.”

We got back to the hotel, ditched our work clothes, and changed
into jeans and sweaters. We both agreed that sticking close to the hotel was the way to go; we’d already spent way too much time in the car.

As I was sprucing up my hair one final time before going to dinner, there was a knock on the door.

I poked my head out of the bathroom to find Candice staring questioningly first at the door, then at me. I shrugged. I had no idea who it could be.

“Who is it?” Candice called.

“Special Agent Hart,” came the reply.

“Oh!” I said, and hurried to the door. “Hey!” I said when I saw her. “What’s up?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Abby,” she said. “Rivera found out today you were still here, and asking questions of the former security guard at the La Cañada bank. He’s on the warpath.”

I made a face. “Shit.”

“Hi,” Candice said from behind me while sticking her arm past mine to extend it toward Agent Hart. “Candice Fusco. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Hello, Ms. Fusco. I’ve heard a great deal about you too.” The two shook hands cordially, but there was a wariness to both of their stances. I found it amusing as hell.

“We were just going to dinner, Kelsey. How about you come along?” Behind me, Candice coughed into her hand. I ignored that and added, “Really, we’d love to have you.”

Hart looked from me to Candice and back to me again. “I wouldn’t want to impose,” she said.

“It’s no imposition,” I told her, then backed up to grab my purse, pat Candice on the arm, and add, “It’ll be fun!”

Candice turned her face away from Hart to show me that she thought it’d be anything but fun.

I just grinned bigger and led the way out the
door.

•   •   •

W
e made polite conversation until the martinis arrived. Two sips in, Hart dropped the pretenses and got down to business. “So, why’re you two still here?” she asked.

“We love L.A.,” Candice said tartly. “The people, the weather, the surf. Can’t get enough.”

“Right,” Hart said. “That’s believable.”

“This is bigger than just the bank robberies,” I said, dispensing with the snark and going for honest. I trusted Hart, and I thought telling her couldn’t do us any harm. We weren’t really getting too far on our own after all. “I think there’s going to be a series of murders from a sicko who will then bury them at the top of that hill in La Cañada Flintridge.”

Hart considered me curiously. “The graves you said you saw?”

“Yes. When I was first drawn to the spot, it wasn’t because of some ancient buried remains. It was because there’s something in the ether pointing to a series of murders, and I intend to stop them before they happen.”

Hart shuddered slightly. “That’s like something out of that movie,
Minority Report
.”

“I agree it sounds freaky,” I told her. “But I’m convinced
that if we don’t solve the bank robberies, then those murders are going to happen.”

“Why?” she asked next. “What’s the connection?”

I shook my head. “I wish I knew. So far we’re very much in the dark and I’m operating on gut instinct alone.”

“Doesn’t your ability allow you to see more information?”

“Not this time,” I admitted. “The ether can be a murky place. It’s like navigating through an early-morning fog—sometimes you hit a patch that’s impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, and other times you can see several streets over. This is one of the thicker patches.”

“Then how can you be so sure that these future murders will take place?”

I sighed. “It’s really hard to put into words what I feel intuitively. Mostly because no words exist to aptly describe what it is that I know to be true. But I
do
know that at least three, possibly four girls will be murdered. And they’ll be buried up on that hill. Who does it and why, I can’t tell you, but the only way to stop this guy is to identify him, and I believe that he’s connected to the robberies.”

“It’s not that I doubt you,” Kelsey said. “It’s just unlikely that a bank robber would make the jump to serial killer. The pathology is quite different.”

“I know,” I agreed. “Really, I do. I’ve been consulting with the bureau long enough to recognize that the mind of a sociopath differs widely from the mind of a thief, but there
is
a connection. I just don’t know how. Yet.”

“What do you guys have so far?” she asked.

I glanced at Candice, who shrugged one shoulder and said, “Not a lot. Abby thinks there’s a man who could be at the center of all this and we’ve been tailing him for a couple of days.”

“Who?”

I answered. “A guy named Will Edwards. He lives in the subdivision that borders the lot where we found the remains.”

“Have you checked him out other than tailing him?” she asked.

Now, I knew that we really shouldn’t be doing any background checks on anyone here in California, as we weren’t licensed in the state, and admitting to a federal officer that we had in fact done that could land us in hot water, but I figured we were already in for a penny, so I told her the truth. “We have. There’s nothing. On paper he’s clean.”

“Bank records?” Kelsey asked next.

“No,” Candice said firmly. There were lines even she didn’t cross.

“Good. I can’t access them without a warrant, but I wanted to make sure you two weren’t skirting the law.”

“We’re not,” I said. It didn’t mean we wouldn’t—it just meant that, so far, we were being perfect little Girl Scouts.

“Okay,” Kelsey said, and I knew she believed us. “Anyway, like I said, Rivera is on the warpath. He’s pissed that you’re still investigating the case when he told you to go home. He’s worried you’ll kick up some dust that’ll come back on him, which is typical. He’s a political animal and he’s always looking to toss one of us under the bus when things go south. So I’m giving you the heads-up that you should expect a call from your director pretty soon. Rivera won’t let this go until you two are back in Austin.”

Candice sipped her martini and adopted a nonchalant expression. “So what?” she said. “We’re not representing ourselves as licensed PIs or linking ourselves with the bureau. We’re just a couple of citizens asking questions.”

“Oh, I get it,” Kelsey said with a bit of a grin. “I figure you have your own reputations to protect, which is why you’re still here, and also why I want to help.”

“You want to help us?” I said, perking up.

“I do,” she said. “After all, you helped me out. Big-time. I think I owe you.”

“I thought this was some other agents’ case?” Candice said.

“It is,” Kelsey admitted. “But I’ve been briefed on it, and know where the investigation is at the moment.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Dead in the water,” she said with a wink. “The truth of the matter is that we’ve got no leads and nothing else to follow up on. The case has gone nowhere, and until the robbers strike again or we get lucky, we’re not likely to solve it. I think we need you.”

“Cool,” I said, feeling myself smile. “So, what can you tell us about the case that Perez and Robinson haven’t?”

“What’d they tell you?”

“Nothing other than that there were five robberies in and around the Pasadena/La Cañada Flintridge area all by the same gang.”

Kelsey looked like she was waiting for me to say more, and when I didn’t, she said, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Did they show you the video?”

“No,” I said, “but Candice found one of the robbery videos online. It might be helpful if we could see the other tapes.”

Kelsey scoffed. “That’s the
only
video we have.”

“Wait, what?” Candice said. “What do you mean the only video? How could that be?”

Kelsey put her palms up. “The bank had their entire video surveillance system run through a central server off-site at
another facility. Apparently, someone hacked into the mainframe, inserted a virus that took all of the video recordings from every branch, and deleted them in real time. Because the cameras were working, no one noticed that the recordings were being erased. For whatever reason, it took them several weeks to get the network of cameras up and recording again, just in time to capture the last robbery.”

“Well,
that
can’t be a coincidence!” I said. “How long before the first robbery did the camera system go down?”

“Weeks,” Kelsey said. “Perez checked. The two incidents are unrelated.”

“But what was the point?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Kelsey said.

“What was the point of hacking into the system and inserting that virus if someone wasn’t going to take advantage of it?”

Kelsey shook her head. “The virus came from Russia. We traced it to a known ring of teenage hackers who like to mess around with video surveillance systems. To our knowledge, they have no boots on the ground here.”

“But what if someone knew about the hack and took advantage of it?” Candice asked.

Kelsey nodded. “That’s what we think too, but so far, we’re unable to find proof that anyone here knew about it until after the breach had been detected.”

“Why’d it take so long for the bank to get their surveillance recordings back up and running?”

“I don’t know,” Kelsey said. “Perez was going to track down someone at the corporate office to get that answered, but these guys have been less than forthcoming.”

“What do you mean they’ve been less than forthcoming?” Candice pressed.

“I mean that three of the bank robberies occurred before the
corporate office admitted to us that they didn’t have any of the footage. They kept trying to stall—people were out sick, or on vacation, or having trouble with the file—that kind of thing. From what I remember, it got pretty tense for Perez and Robinson, and it took a visit from them to the corporate office to finally get the story about the hack.”

“But why would they want to keep that a secret?” I asked. “I mean, their banks were being systematically robbed. Wouldn’t they want to do whatever they could to cooperate?”

“You’d think they would,” Kelsey said. “But we’re seeing more and more companies try to cover up the fact that they’ve been hacked, due to how the news of it will affect their stock values, not to mention the willingness of the public to abandon institutions they perceive as being unable to protect their money or their personal information.”

I was quiet for a few moments while Candice asked some additional questions about the robberies. My mind was humming with little gossamer-thin tendrils of intuitive information. There was something about the hack that was definitely connected to the robberies. Someone knew about it. Someone who used it to their advantage. It led me to ask my next question.

“Kelsey, is it possible for another hacker to see the work of these hackers?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if someone got into the bank’s mainframe and started nosing around and saw that the video surveillance equipment wasn’t working, maybe they used that to their advantage. Maybe they organized a small gang and started hitting up the banks.”

Kelsey seemed to consider that for a moment before she shrugged and said, “I suppose it’s possible, but probably unlikely. The second hacker would have to know what they were looking for. This virus was pretty well hidden, from what I understand.”

“Well, someone knew about it,” Candice said.

Kelsey nodded, but I knew she wasn’t convinced.

We ordered and moved on to other topics. As the night wore on, it was nice to see that Candice and Kelsey gradually began to let their guard down. They both relaxed the set of their shoulders and laughed when the other told a joke. What had been a tense first hour talking with each other became a rather fun girls’ night out.

Around ten o’clock I started to yawn and couldn’t stop. “You look bushed,” Kelsey remarked.

“I am.” I then motioned to Candice with my thumb. “This one had me up early for kettlebell swings.”

“Sounds painful,” Kelsey said.

“It was,” Candice teased. “Maybe more for me than for her.”

They both laughed at my expense, but I didn’t mind. Hell, it was probably true, as I’m a world-class complainer, especially during exercise. No matter how out of breath I get, I can usually gasp out one additional whine before collapsing on the floor. Besides being psychic, it’s my best superpower.

After paying the bill, we walked out to the lobby and parted ways with Kelsey. “Call me if you need my help with something you turn up,” she said.

“We will,” I promised. Even though I figured Candice and I would probably end up handling this whole case on our own, it was nice to know that Kelsey was willing to discreetly back us up should we need it.

Fifteen minutes later, I sank down onto the pillow and was asleep within seconds, and I don’t remember a thing until bolting upright around two in the morning. I’d come awake from a very vivid dream, which I felt was strongly prophetic.

In it I’d been sitting in a bathtub, feeling the warmth of the water soothe and relax my tense muscles. While I sat there, the
faucet on the tub began to sprout a vine that wove its way out of the fixture and climbed up the wall, sprouting leaves made of hundred-dollar bills as it went. When it reached the top of the wall, it clung to the ceiling and spread out there too.

Looking at it, I wasn’t alarmed, just fascinated and curious, but then something bad happened. The bottom of the vine somehow became severed and it began to bleed. Red blood dripped into the tub of water and I shrank back away from the droplets, clambering out of the tub to get away from the scene. It was as I was climbing out that I startled awake, and was left to blink in confusion for a minute until I came fully awake.

The room was dim, but not so dark that I couldn’t see. “Candice?” I whispered. She stirred, but only slightly. “Yoo-hoo,” I called softly. “Caaaaandice.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, you’re awake?”

She sat up and sighed heavily. “I am now. What’s going on, Sundance?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure.”

“No. But I have a gut feeling and I think we need to go.”

“Where?”

“To Edwards’s house.”

Candice nodded and without another word got out of bed to head to the dresser where she’d stored her clothes.

I watched her in mild surprise. “That’s it?” I asked. “You’re not even going to ask me why?”

She didn’t pause as she slipped a sweater over her head. “I’ve known you long enough to know that when your gut tells you to do something, we should do it.”

“Huh,” I said. “Cool.” I got out of bed too and dressed
quickly. We were out of the hotel and headed north only five minutes after waking up.

There was relatively little traffic and we arrived at the Edwards home in no time. Candice eased the rental SUV—a totally different color and model from what we’d had before—to the curb across and slightly down from the house.

I was surprised to see so many lights on inside. Glancing at the dashboard clock, I said, “They’re up late. Even for a Friday.”

“They are,” Candice said.

No sooner had she gotten those words out than a car approached. We ducked down as the lights hit us and to both our surprise, the garage door to the Edwards house opened and the car slipped inside.

“That’s Edwards’s car,” I said, peeking over the dash.

“It is,” Candice agreed. “He’s back at an odd hour.”

The car parked and I sat up straighter, leaning forward to squint into the light of the garage. “His car looks dirty. Like he’s been somewhere dusty.”

Candice looked from Edwards’s car to the direction he’d come from. “Looks almost like he spent time in the San Gabriel Mountains,” she said.

The door to the garage was still open as Edwards got out of his car. He looked weary and worried. I knew we were part of the reason why. At that moment a woman opened the door from the house and stepped out to greet him with crossed arms and an angry expression. She pointed a finger at him and said something that looked like an accusation. He hung his head and began to shuffle toward her and the door. She stopped him by shoving him in the shoulders and started yelling—like,
yelling
.