Dark Visions (19 page)

"We're all doing our best. We will catch
this guy. We're on our way to talk to a woman who saw your daughter
and her kidnapper just a few hours ago. We've got a description and
which direction they were headed in. We also know the vehicle and
plate number the perp is driving. Hang in there; this may come
together faster than you think."

"We're following you to this woman," Caleb
said.

"I can't let you do that. I'd lose my
badge."

Dolan read persistence on Caleb's face.

"If this woman was the last known person to
see my daughter then Amelia and I want to talk to her too," Caleb
said.

"Well, you can't come with us, but it's a
free country. I'm not able to stop you if you were to go to Liberty
Memorial to see Denise Hall. That's up to you."

Sam dropped the cruiser into gear. Dolan
turned around to see Caleb reversing onto the shoulder of the
highway and stop there.

The rain had subsided when they were still
at the cabin, but the road was wet. Sam flipped the wipers on as
they came behind a tractor trailer.

"She gonna make it Dolan?"

He looked over at Sam. "Can't tell for
certain."

"What
can
you tell for certain?"

Dolan detected an edge of hostility in Sam's
voice.

His cell phone rang. It was Alex, his
assistant. Dolan updated him on the situation and when he'd get
back to the fair.

If not today, this would probably be over by
tomorrow, he told him.

Chapter 42

This was the first time the message was
prophesying murder. Reading the note in her hand, Sarah found two
things peculiar.

One; after months of getting cryptic
messages about people in peril, and herself feeling honor bound
because of what happened to her sister to do something about it,
she was sent out like a fly that has now gotten caught in this web.
Although she knew there was always a possibility things could get
scary, she never expected them to get personal.

Two; the message on the paper in front of
her was the most serious one yet. If she wasn't being held against
her will at this very moment, she would be quite upset about being
sent precognitions regarding murder.

Sarah sat in the backseat of the SUV. They
had been traveling all day. The sun had gone down. He'd pulled over
to grab food and twice to let her go pee in the bushes.

She'd fallen asleep for a while and now when
she looked over the seat, the clock on the dash said it was after
one in the morning.

They were going the speed limit. For the
last hour he sat up front, listening to the radio and talking to
himself. She worried as his actions grew increasingly harried. He
was coming undone.

Sarah looked away and tried to focus on the
note in the dark backseat.

Could this be a test? Maybe she was being
elevated to handle bigger and more serious tasks when this was all
over. That thought offered hope. It would mean she was destined to
get out of this alive. How come the message giver didn't tell her
how things were supposed to be? It's unfair to play with her like
this. How much trauma could she take? Especially since she's prone
to depression.

Sarah leaned back and stared at the note. It
came in three parts with one of the parts fading away.

Don't thump, rip and tear, better to be
savage
.

The second part was the murder prophecy;

Gert's boss will kill him
.

And the third line was the one that ran
out;

Gert's boss works with police
.

The "c" was half written and the "e" on
police was not there.

Sarah considered how much of this she wanted
to give Gert. She knew she had to show him something, but what?

What if he thinks she just made it up, to
undermine him?

It's better to show him all of it so he
could see the mystery of the first riddle. Maybe seen as a package
it would lend more credence to the message.

Sarah rubbed at the leather strap wrapped
around her wrist. The skin was red and itching. It almost felt at
times like little critters were crawling around, trying to burrow
into her arm.

With her right side feeling the effects of
sleep, she maneuvered around and leaned on her left. When she did
that, the paper left her grasp. She reached down to retrieve it and
noticed something written on the backside. It was a name;
Vivian
Roberts
.

This was the first message that pertained to
the here and now. One that was relative to the situation she was
facing. It coincided with Gert's warning and timeframe. He'd
ordered something written and now he will get it.

Messages couldn't be relied upon. They held
a random existence. Could this process be a part of her and because
she knew she needed something, the messenger came through?

Or was Sarah the messenger through some
subconscious place? The part of her that wakes up when her
conscious mind passes out?

She dismissed that idea. How could she know
where to be when people were in trouble? How could she know to
bring a hammer that day? Unless she was psychic and in the infancy
of the gift, but she didn't think so.

She recalled reading somewhere that
sleepwalkers could open doors, drive cars, and even commit murder
while remaining asleep. People have used somnambulism as a defense
in court and won.

Could she be sleepwalking, just with a
different method to it?

She brought her legs up under her and hugged
them. The floor was cold. A sheen of sweat covered her body.

She had to get away from Gert.

She would either have to rely on the Other
Side for directions, or handle it herself.

She just hoped she wouldn't have to kill
again.

Chapter 43

Amelia thought the house looked different as
they approached. Something about it at night made it look sad.

Caleb put the car in park, flipped off the
headlights and sat back.

It had been an exhausting day. When they
finally got to talk to Denise Hall, she was being sedated for the
pain. The relentless interview schedule with different police
agencies had worn her out. Amelia and Caleb only got a minute out
of her before she fell into a drug induced sleep.

Amelia sat and went over what this stranger
had said about her daughter.
She was okay, a few bruises. She
looked tired. She was missing a certain amount of hair.

She opened the car door and stepped out.
Caleb did the same. They walked up and entered their house which
didn't seem like it was theirs anymore. It felt foreign with the
police officers milling around, sipping coffee.

For as many people that were there, the
house felt empty.

Amelia stepped away from Caleb. "I need to
be alone for a little while."

She saw him nod and turn for the
kitchen.

She took the stairs slow, like her soul was
burdened by the weight of grief. When she entered the bedroom,
Amelia flopped on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. She felt so
helpless and exhausted. There was nothing she could do but wait for
other people to do things. It was starting to drive her crazy.

She got up and walked into the bathroom. The
mirror reminded her she hadn't applied make-up since the morning of
the Psychic Fair.

She left the bathroom only to collapse on
her bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. She wondered how she
could stand to lose another child.
She would certainly become a
different person
, she thought.
One very closed to the world,
turned off.

This was the second time a daughter of hers
was kidnapped. She would do whatever's necessary to make sure this
won't be the second time a daughter of hers gets killed.

She fell asleep crying into her bed sheets
at the chaos her life had become. She wept because she couldn't put
it back together again.

Chapter 44

Caleb walked through the main floor of the
house and stopped in the kitchen where he grabbed a small glass and
opened a bottle of brandy. After two quick shots, he left the
kitchen and approached the stereo in the living room. He turned it
on to the local rock station and turned up the volume. Not loud
enough to bother anyone, but high enough to drown out what he was
going to do. He didn't want Amelia to hear.

An officer stood flipping pages back and
forth on a clipboard. He was beside a temporary workstation set up
by the kitchen phone line.

"I need some answers," Caleb said. "I need
to know what we're doing here. I don't want to be told that we're
sitting on our fucking asses waiting for some kidnapper to
call."

Caleb figured these guys deal with angry
people for a living. To him, Caleb was just another upset
father.

"We're here in the hopes that we intercept a
call. Most of the time, in cases like this one; we get a call with
a list of demands."

"
Most of the time
," Caleb mocked.
"This isn't most of the time because there's been no call. There
are no demands. So why don't you all just leave."

The officer set the clipboard down on the
table behind him. "It would be better if we stayed. Things will go
downhill fast if we were to leave and then the call that saves your
daughter comes in with no one here to monitor it."

"I understand that you guys are the experts
and that you've done all this before, but it's different this time.
The kidnapper is more aggressive. He's got my daughter and he's out
there killing people."

"Every cop in the country is looking for
him. He shot one of ours. He raised the stakes, so there'd be no
way we could abandon this post knowing that the one person he has
with him, lives here."

He didn't want to hear anything more the cop
was saying, but he couldn't stop talking. "What about Dolan? I
thought he could help, so I practically begged – "

A knock on the door silenced him. He spun
and started for it, but the cop grabbed his arm.

"You weren't expecting anyone, were
you?"

Caleb mouthed the word 'no'. They started
for the door, with the officer putting himself against the wall
behind it.

Caleb stood a little off center. "Who is
it?" he shouted in a stern voice.

"FBI. Open up."

The cop reached past Caleb and looked out
through the small window beside the door. Then he unlocked and
opened it.

Caleb watched as they showed identification
and stepped in.

"My name is Special Agent Jill Hanover and
this is my partner, Special Agent Fergus Mant. We're in charge
now," she was talking to the cop. "Your Task Force is being
dismantled. Everyone pack up and leave. I'll have my own people
handle things from here."

Chapter 45

Sam jolted awake. Something woke him up but
he wasn't sure what.

His cell phone rang. He fumbled in the dark
trying to remember where he'd placed it in this shoddy motel
room.

His hand found the light switch of the
bedside lamp on the third ring. The cell was on the floor. He bent
down, snatched and flipped it open in one movement.

"Detective Sam Johnson here."

"We've got a problem."

"What's the problem?"

"It's Mike. We're dismantling all our
equipment and leaving the Roberts' house."

Sam was wide awake now. "Why are you doing
that?" He swung his legs off the bed and sat up.

"FBI is taking over the case."

"I am the FBI. The task force was
commissioned by the FBI. This can't be happening."

"It is. You better get here fast before this
Roberts guy gets arrested. He wants everyone out. The Special Agent
in charge is trying to calm him down."

Sam raised his free hand to his forehead.
Why was the FBI sending a team to take over a kidnapping case from
the multi-jurisdictional task force set up to handle the kidnapping
cases?

"I'm on my way."

Sam slammed his phone on the bed and looked
across the room at the door that stood between his and Dolan's
room. It had to be Dolan. Whatever the problem was he was sure
Dolan was at the root of it.

He knew there was something different about
this case. And he knew that difference lay with Dolan.

He got up, stretched, and walked over to the
door. He heard nothing coming from Dolan's room. His hand was in
mid air, about to knock when the door unlocked and flipped open
from the other side.

"I'm ready to go," Dolan said.

"It's four-thirty in the morning. I thought
you'd be sleeping."

"I was, but when I found out the FBI was
taking the case from you, I got up and dressed."

"How did you find out?"

"Come on Sam, how long have we been doing
this? You know I have my ways."

Dolan stepped away from the door and grabbed
his duffel bag. He called over his shoulder to meet him in the
coffee shop in the lobby when Sam was ready.

Sam shut the adjoining door and started
getting dressed, thinking about the questions Dolan was going to
have to answer soon.

Chapter 46

Sarah felt something tugging on her
wrists.

Her hands fell free of restraint. She rolled
her head to the side and got her eyes open enough to guess the time
as early morning. The sun was up, the air cool. Birds flitted past
the open windows of the building she sat in.

How many days had it been? How long before
it was all over? She couldn't continue this way. She was the one in
charge usually. She was the one helping people, not the person who
needed the help. She wondered if her message giver knew what was
going to happen to her when she sent her to stop the kidnapping on
Birk Street.

Was all this part of the process? Was this
the plan?