“Do you doubt my abilities as a driver?”
“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “Should we be out alone with the . . . the murderer still out there? I mean, after the thing with Nicole?”
Linden is silent for several long seconds and I feel guilty. I know he likes that I help him forget about the killings, even if only temporarily. But we have to be reasonable. “I think my rig is fast enough that I could get away from anyone who might approach us. And I’ll keep us out in the open. Would that make you feel better?” I expect him to sound annoyed, but he doesn’t. He sounds like he really wants me to feel okay.
I chuckle dryly. If only. “It’s not me you have to convince; it’s my mom.” I stand and poke my head out of my door and look both ways down the halls before asking quietly, “What if I told her I was just going to your house?”
He laughs and the bright sound chases away my melancholy. “You do what you gotta do. Just . . . just come, okay?”
I’ve never gone snowmobiling before. It feels like flying! I hang on tight to Linden and squeal when he hits a snowdrift that launches us a few feet in the air only to land softly in a mound of powder, and then we’re gliding again.
I’m dressed in a full-body snowsuit that Linden grew out of ages ago. And I’m grateful for the warmth as the frigid air whistles past us. We last for a full two hours of crisscrossing acres upon acres of perfect, untouched powder and by the time we pull back into his parents’ six-car garage, I’m bursting with delight and excitement even though my cheeks are so cold I can’t feel them.
“That was awesome,” I say when Linden unfastens my helmet for me and I pull it off, the world stunningly bright without the visor in front of my eyes.
“It’s a good machine,” Linden says, looking down at the shiny snowmobile and then running a hand along the side of it.
Getting out of our snowsuits is almost as funny as when we got into them—with Linden again having to assist me with half of my fastenings.
“I feel like I’m four,” I say, giggling. “I need so much help.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Linden says so casually it makes my heart skip a beat. His simple, easy assumption that we’ll do this again. Soon, and often enough that I’ll grow accustomed to the silly snowsuit.
“You look cold,” Linden says, and lifts his hand to push a damp strand of hair off my face. He meets my eyes and his hand freezes. For a moment, I think he might kiss me again. A real kiss, not a deal-sealing kiss. But after a few seconds of tension he smiles, drops his hand, and inclines his head. “Let’s go inside.”
We stop in the kitchen and Linden pushes a button on a very high-tech-looking shiny thing and a few minutes later, we’re both holding steamy cups of frothy cappuccino. “This is so cool,” I say, my hands warming around my mug. “It’s like Starbucks in your house.”
He leads me into a rec room where a huge TV stretches across one wall and a sectional big enough to seat at least ten people lines the wall. Linden drops onto the built-in chaise and pats the space beside him.
Not the seat beside him, but the space on the same cushion right beside him.
With a quick you can do it inner pep talk, I carefully lower myself down next to him so I don’t spill my drink. Our thighs touch and our shoulders rub as I tentatively put my feet up on the chaise close to his.
As I sip my foamy coffee, I subtly take in the space around me. The décor is fairly sparse and almost entirely black and white. Multicolored pillows line the couch, deep jewel tones that are the only bright spots in the entire room. It’s so elegant and beautiful.
But it does make me worry about getting coffee on anything.
I’m not sure I’d like living in such formality. I study Linden’s profile and wonder if he finds it stifling.
Before he catches me staring, I turn away and as I do my gaze finds a long, wide mirror mounted above the couch on the adjacent wall. I gasp and put a hand to my hair. Helmet hair is the least of what I have. It’s like helmet and bed and teased hair all rolled into one almost-beehived mess.
Linden looks up at my sound of dismay. When he realizes why I’m upset, he snickers.
“You knew!” I accuse, pointing a finger at him.
“Aw, come on. It’s cute,” Linden says.
I set my coffee down on the end table and jump up to try and bring some sort of order to the mess on top of my head. Something smacks me in the back and I turn to see one of the pillows on the ground. I grab the pillow nearest to me and lob it at him. He puts his hands up to block what would have been a perfect shot to the face, then launches it at me again, following it immediately with another one.
I shriek and we both laugh and toss pillows until all of the formerly perfectly situated decorations are on the ground. Linden grabs me around the waist and flops back onto the couch, pulling me against him.
He runs his fingers over my messy hair, fixing some of the strands. “You look adorable like this.” And then, with almost no warning, his lips are on mine and he’s pulling my hips tight against his and I can barely breathe.
This one is a real kiss. It’s warm and soft and purposeful in a way the sort-of kiss yesterday wasn’t. One hand runs down the side of my ribs, down my hips, my thighs, then he hooks his fingers under my knee and pulls my leg up and across him, our bodies so close that he warms me even better than the creamy cappuccino.
After a long, soft, lingering kiss, he pulls away and leans his head on one elbow to look me in the face—though he keeps ahold of my leg so our hips are pressed deliciously close.
“Why didn’t I notice you before?” he whispers, and runs one finger down my cheek. I pause at the funny sense of déjà vu his words provoke. Is it because I’ve imagined this conversation happening about a thousand times? Or did I actually dream about a scene just like this?
I smile up at him as he lowers his face to mine again. It all feels so exhilarating and surreal and I don’t know what to do. Honestly, it feels a little fast. But not for me, for him. I’ve been dreaming about this for years. Maybe Linden just moves kind of quickly.
I can’t say that I mind.
His fingertips find bare skin on my back, between my waistline and shirt. He hesitates, as though he’s unsure what to do. Then his fingers slide across my spine and pull me even tighter against him.
I let all my worries go. It doesn’t matter. Today, right now, everything feels wonderful.
Everything feels right.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
NINETEEN
“You didn’t see this coming?” Smith’s words shock me most of the way awake.
“What? Smith?” I say groggily.
“Please tell me you didn’t see this—not that you decided not to tell me.”
“See what?” The fuzziness is starting to clear, but it’s not gone yet.
There’s a long silence at the other end. “Go watch the news,” he says with a despairing edge in his voice that wakes me up the rest of the way. “Call me later.” He hangs up without saying good-bye.
The sinking feeling in my stomach is a better premonition than my Oracle abilities at the moment. I shove my slippers on my feet, don’t bother with my robe, and almost run out of my room and into the kitchen.
No one’s up yet. It’s the butt-crack of dawn, two days after Christmas, and a Friday to boot. I should be sleeping.
I turn on the television and keep the sound low, standing with my face close to the screen as everything inside me turns to jelly.
Someone else is dead and I got no warning whatsoever. Why wouldn’t I get a vision? I should have gotten one.
Shouldn’t I?
I study the crime scene—what I can see of it—and I’m not sure what to think. It looks like an empty lot, and I don’t see any blood. There’s a body draped in the middle of a patch of snow with straggly brown grass poking through, but
the form appears—thank goodness—to be in one piece. There are footprints all around, but I can’t begin to tell which ones were already there and which ones belong to the cops.
The news reporter talks about how the police have been working the scene all night and how long they think the victim has been dead. I count back hours and realize with the acid of shame burning in my throat that the killer probably committed this murder while I was busy making out with Linden yesterday.
Completely drained of strength, I sink down onto a chair and fight back tears. Rationally, I know there’s nothing I could have done without a vision. And I remind myself that I’ve saved two other teens from terrible deaths.
But none of that seems to matter right now. I didn’t save this one.
I have to do better. I have to do more.
I’m so lost in my self-pity that Mom catches me unawares and I jump when she touches my arm. She sees the tears I didn’t have time to swipe away and her grip on my arm tightens. “What’s the matter?”
I gesture wordlessly at the volume-less television.
“Oh no,” my mom says, more of a scratchy sound on her breath than actual speaking. “Not again.” Even in her chair, she visibly slumps and the two of us lean against each other and stare at the screen. I’m sure there are details we’re missing because we can’t hear it, but they don’t seem to matter very much at the moment. What could possibly be more important than the simple fact that another kid—one so much like me—is dead?
I tilt my head when the camera pans to a taped-off scene behind the reporter. “They’ve brought in the FBI,” I say, seeing the stark letters on the back of a handful of black jackets. Mom hesitates, and then turns up the volume.
“. . . used different methods to kill each victim, police are now saying that there are other signs that point to the same person being responsible for all three murders. Agent Johnson, can you tell us a bit more about that?”
The camera swings to a man in a suit who looks tired and rumpled. “There are a few things that we’ve noted in all three cases. The first is a complete lack of DNA evidence, fingerprints, et cetera. The second is that the size of the killer is about the same in all three cases, and thirdly, the methods of killing have no hesitation. They have a marked precision and lack of faltering. We are officially declaring this to be a serial killer, and our profilers are suggesting that it’s a first-time murderer, but that this individual has been planning these attacks, possibly for years.”
“Thank you, Agent Johnson.” She turns back to the camera. “We’ll have continued coverage of the Coldwater Killer as details emerge.”
Coldwater Killer? They’ve given him a name. I don’t know why that makes me so angry. Maybe because it sounds like someone who plays a killer on television, not a real-life psychopath who would chop a seventeen-year-old girl into pieces.
“Serial killer for real now,” Mom says weakly. “And no one can argue that our cops don’t need help. This isn’t exactly their area of expertise.”
Mom and I sit together as the sun begins to rise, saying nothing as the same footage runs over and over again. When my eyes are too tired to look anymore, I rub them and stand up, thinking I’ll go try to drown my feelings in a scalding-hot bath.
As I do, I catch Sierra leaning against the doorway like she doesn’t have the strength to hold herself up. I’m shocked to see tears glistening in her eyes. Sierra’s spent her whole life fighting to keep her emotions even and at arm’s length, because it’s easier to fight visions when you’re calm. She’s always seemed so strong, so in control.
And tired. I’ve spent thirteen years bracing myself against visions and it makes me tired every single day. Sierra’s been doing it for over thirty years. I wonder if she wakes up tired. I try not to see my future in her. It’s too depressing. But on days like today, I can’t help it.
Sierra meets my eyes and her eyelids lower immediately, like she’s ashamed to have been caught in such a vulnerable moment.
But she doesn’t know—nor can I think of any way to express—how much I’m grateful for this sign that she still feels.
The steaming water that generally helps to clarify my thoughts is so not doing its job today. It all seems to be getting worse. I was half convinced that I was meant to help catch this killer—convinced that that was why the visions were so strong.
But if that were true, shouldn’t I have seen this one? Or maybe this murder was just a fluke? An impulse kill?
Still, shouldn’t I be able to see an impulse kill? I’ve seen lots of unplanned things in my visions. This one shouldn’t be any different!
None of it makes sense.
And it makes me doubt, which is worse.
On top of that, I didn’t make any progress on getting to the supernatural plane last night. But I did have that feeling of swimming through thick water again. I don’t know if I should expect more after only the two nights of sleeping with the pendant—it just feels so pointless. It was a little clearer and the need to get wherever I was going was more urgent. I don’t know if that means I was closer or not.
Tonight I’ll wear the pendant again with more focus.
Not that I’m sure exactly how I’m supposed to focus when I’m sleeping.
Smith said to think about the supernatural plane before I go to sleep. I’ll do that.
But I did that the last two nights too.
Maybe I let myself get too carried away with Linden yesterday. I certainly forgot about the murders for an hour or two. Maybe I’ve got to focus on nothing but reaching the supernatural plane—even when I’m awake—in order to get there. I’m not sure how to picture a place I’ve never been.
It’s been several hours since Smith called; I have to call him back. But I have no idea what to say. Where do we go from here? I think about his idea of getting a victim close—almost certainly close enough to get injured—but not killed. Every time I’ve considered it, I’ve pushed the idea away. This is all supposed to be about saving people, not hurting them.
But the killer is so careful. Always masked, always gloved. The FBI guy said it himself: no DNA evidence. And they think he’s been planning this for a long time.
I’ve got to get better at manipulating my visions. It’s the only answer. I’ve got to get to that supernatural plane.
As the water is draining away and I’m toweling off my hair, I have an idea. The text from Repairing the Fractured Future talks about the importance of sleeping lightly. Wouldn’t a nap in broad daylight be a lighter sleep than at night? Maybe? It kind of makes sense. At the very least, it’s worth a try. And having gotten up so early this morning, I have a good excuse.
Assuming I can calm down, because as soon as I thought of this, I got all nervous and excited. Not exactly the best way to prepare to sleep.
I wish I could get my hands on the rest of that book! If Sierra leaves, I might be able to go in and look at it again. Hell, I’m about at the point where I’d just take the book and risk her noticing.
If only I could talk to her.
But I’ve gotten so far into my lies that I can’t tell her without confessing everything I’ve done. Everything I still plan to do. And I don’t think I have the guts to do that.
Besides, it’s not like she’d help me. I’m breaking every rule I’ve ever heard of. She’d stop me—I’m sure of it. I’m going to have to do this on my own.
“I can’t meet you,” I whisper into the phone when I’m finally brave enough to call Smith back. “My mom is so paranoid she’s barely letting me go to the bathroom without supervision.” I peer at my closed door. “I even tried to get her to let me drive straight to my—” I hesitate. “My boyfriend’s house who has, like, tons of security and it was an absolute no.”
Did I just call Linden ‘my boyfriend’? Well, when you spend an hour doing . . . what we did yesterday, isn’t that what he is?
“Besides,” I continue, shaking that thought away for the moment, “what would we do?” The urge to cry start
s to form in my throat again, but I shove it back. “I don’t have a vision to go into. I didn’t get anything this time.”
“Then I guess we wait until you do,” Smith says, and I can hear the frustration in his voice. I can empathize; I hate feeling so helpless too.
But I’ve felt that way for my whole life; he’s still getting used to it.
“Smith?” I say, even more quietly than before. Because what I’m about to say I wish I could hide from myself as well as my mom. “Your suggestion that we have a victim get attacked but not killed? I think you’re right. That we’re going to have to do something like that to get anything useful on this guy.”
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Smith asks, like it wasn’t his idea. “It’s a big step. And a difficult decision.”
“You think I don’t know that?” It’s ripping my heart in two just to say it—but I don’t see another way.
“I’m just saying you need to be fully committed. It’s going to require a lot of skill and not a small amount of risk. Have you been sleeping with the stone?”
“Yes,” I say quickly. “I’m not sure it’s helping though. I don’t think I’m getting there. I’m close—I’m know I’m close.”
“Well, keep trying. Hopefully you’ll be able to manage it soon.”
“I’m going to try to take a nap,” I say, feeling like I have to defend myself. “Maybe I’ll sleep lighter that way and be able to focus better.”
“Listen,” Smith says, “call me as soon as you get another vision and we’ll try to make a plan okay?”
“Sure,” I agree listlessly, then hang up. I lie back against my headboard and rub at my aching sinuses. I haven’t cried this much in one day in a long time and it makes everything hurt. I glance down in surprise when my phone buzzes, and I find a text from Linden.
Are you okay??!!!!!