Conduit

  The taste in her mouth made her want to get sick again. She used the edge of the bathtub to get into a standing position. At the sink, she rinsed her mouth with water and brushed her teeth. Her reflection in the mirror alarmed her almost enough to call Cassie to take her to the emergency room. A yellow tint highlighted her ashen skin, while dark circles encompassed her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept in days. As bad as she looked, her insides were far worse.

  Stephanie’s voice in her head was louder than any of the others before her. Emily prayed it wasn’t in her final moments, that there was still a chance to save her. Hope flickered in the back of her mind. If Stephanie could make contact with Emily, then maybe the connection worked both ways.

  She held onto the edge of the sink, bowed her head, and squeezed her eyes shut. She focused every bit of energy she had left and peered into the black hole eclipsing her mind. “I’m here, Stephanie,” she said. “You’re not alone. If you tell me where you are, I can send the police.”

  Emily!

  She had to make contact with Stephanie, had to get her to say more than her name. She tried again. “Stephanie, I need you to listen. I can help you, but you have to tell me where you are.”

  A shrill, inhuman scream responded. Emily steeled her mind against the horror, focused her thoughts inward, and again spoke into the darkness. The screams continued. Emily repeated her words, and the sound of Stephanie’s screams pierced through her heart.

  Emily! Make him stop!

  The screams resumed and Emily couldn’t stop the tears from flooding her closed eyelids and rushing down her face. She pressed forward into the darkness, calling Stephanie’s name, letting her know she could help.

  Suddenly the entity that lived in the darkness embraced Emily, as if he were standing behind her. She no longer heard Stephanie, but a much deeper voice, soothing yet excitable. He spoke several words, but Emily couldn’t understand anything he said other than her name.

  Emily’s body shook. Much too late, she realized the danger in what she did. This whole time she thought she was connecting with Stephanie, but she was really connecting with Stephanie’s killer. He used Stephanie and the others to lure Emily into opening up her mind to him, and it worked.

  In an attempt to sever the connection, Emily opened her eyes and raised her head. She sucked in her breath. In the mirror, standing over her right shoulder was Stephanie Price, her face bloodied with knife wounds.

  Help me, Emily!

  Emily screamed.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Jake raced up the driveway and across the grass toward Emily’s front door. Emily sat on the dark porch wearing a thin, baby blue camisole and black shorts. Her bare feet were planted on the concrete, unaware of the low temperatures kissing her skin.

  Emily looked at him with the pale, frightened face of a child. Though she shivered with violent tremors, she didn’t have her arms wrapped around her body to keep warm, as if she had no idea she was freezing.

  The torture in her reddened eyes and haunted face confirmed the fearful words she spoke to him on the phone: “He’s killing her.” Jake didn’t understand what she meant at the time, and still did not fully comprehend.

  Jake held out his hand, but Emily only stared at it. Either she was in shock or she didn’t want to leave the perceived safety of her front porch. He thrust his hand out further, making his intentions clear without a word. She was going inside whether she liked it or not.

  Her trembling hand reached out and transferred the ice cold temperature of her skin to his. Her fear latched onto his heart and he helped her to her feet. Whatever he was about to encounter, he could not let her fear overcome him.

  Emily’s wobbly legs stumbled on the steps, and Jake steadied her with his arm and walked her back inside the house. After he secured the locks on her front door, he guided her to the living room and sat her down on the couch. He went to the rocking chair and removed the quilt from the back. He laid the quilt over her body, covering her arms and legs.

  Emily glanced at him with gratefulness in her eyes, but did not speak.

  “I’m going to make you some tea,” he said.

  Emily nodded and looked away. Her brow creased and she returned to her lethargic state.

  After fixing her a hot cup of tea, he sat on the couch next to her and handed her the mug. She pulled the quilt down to free her hands and accepted the mug. Their hands touched, and he was glad to feel her skin had warmed. She blew ripples across the tea in order to cool the liquid.

  After she took a few sips, Jake dared to speak. “Tell me what happened.”

  Emily’s face tensed again. “He’s killing her.” She turned her head to him and her damp eyes pleaded with him. “She may already be dead. I can’t hear her anymore.”

  Stunned into silence, Jake watched her take more sips of her tea. The fluidity of her movements told him her body was coming alive from the cold, but emotional pain and frustration controlled her. “Who is being killed and who is killing her?” he asked.

  Tears stormed her cheeks and she squeezed her eyes shut against them, as if trying to stop the flood. “Stephanie Price.”

  Her frantic voice cut through Jake. “Is that the girl who’s missing? Emily, what makes you think someone is killing her?”

  “She called to me, just like others before her. She screamed my name and cried for help. And then...” Emily stopped speaking before finishing her thought.

  “What?”

  Her bottom lip quivered and she fell silent again.

  Jake decided to try another route. “Do you know who’s killing her?”

  Emily’s eyes deadened. “Him. He’s killed them all and he’s not stopping.”

  The blood drained from Jake’s face, and he made the connection to the case Emily and Cassie were working on with the police. “Do you mean the serial killer?”

  Emily nodded.

  “You’re hearing his victims?”

  “They call my name. They scream for me, but I can’t help them. I can’t stop them from dying.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you’re hearing? The victims of the serial killer as they are being killed?”

  “I wasn’t sure until tonight. I thought it might be, but now I know it is.”

  “Why do they call your name and how do they know who you are?”

  Emily shook her head. “I don’t know. I just want them to stop. I can’t help them.”

  “How long have you been hearing them?”

  “A couple of weeks. At first they were quiet voices saying my name. I didn’t know who was calling me because I didn’t hear the voices until a long time after they died. Then came the writing. I wrote the words ‘hear me’ without realizing what I was doing. Those same words were carved out on their skin by the killer, each victim with a different letter. Why would they call to me and tell me to hear them? Why would they scream my name and make me write words that are not in my handwriting?”

  Jake sat speechless at her revelation. The moment they met, he knew she was a powerful psychic, but what she was saying, while possible, was beyond all bounds of anything with which he was familiar.

  “Then tonight,” Emily said, “I saw Stephanie.”

  “Where did you see her?”

  She lifted her hand and pointed to the hallway. “In my bathroom. In the mirror. Her face was cut up and there was so much blood.” She turned to Jake and grabbed his hand, frantic again. “Don’t you see he’s killing her?”

  Jake took the mug from her other hand and set it on a ceramic coaster on the coffee table. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and took her hand. “I’m here now, and everything is going to be okay. We will figure this out together, but to do that, I need you to show me where you saw her.”

  Emily responded with a nod and shed the quilt from her lap. He followed her down the hall, through her bedroom, and into the master bathroom. The lights were still on from when she had been in there last. It looked innocent enough. The walls were not streaked wi
th blood and no dancing ghosts appeared in the corners. He peered into the oval mirror that hung on the wall, but only his reflection stared back. For a moment, he wondered if Emily had hallucinated.

  He turned to say something to her, but stopped. Emily clung for life onto the door frame. One glance at the terror on her face told him she had seen something in the reflective glass. Something sinister enough to cause her to run away without turning off the lights and sit outside in the cold to wait for his arrival. She had been so spooked by the sight in the mirror that she had not cared enough for her own wellbeing to take the time to put on a robe or even socks and shoes.

  Jake took her hand once more and led her to the bed. He sat her down on the edge of the bed and kneeled before her. He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “Emily, I’m not leaving you. If these victims are reaching out to you, it may be a warning of some sort. We need to have Cassie come by in the morning so we can coordinate having someone with you constantly. You are not going to be left alone for a second until it’s over.”

  Relief washed over Emily’s face and a few stray tears dampened her cheeks. “Thank you, Jake. I wasn’t sure that you’d believe me.”

  He used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “I would never doubt you. But we have to find out why this is happening and stop it. We should call your Uncle Leo and tell him—”

  “No,” Emily said, with a strength in her voice that she had not exhibited since he arrived. “We can’t tell him, not until I can figure this out.”

  “I don’t agree with you,” he said. “I will, however, respect your decision, but only for a very short time. I reserve the right to change my mind and call him myself. I’m not knowingly going to leave you at risk.”

  She bowed her head. “Okay.”

  “Now, where are your sleeping pills?”

  Emily lifted her eyes to his face. “How do you know about those?”

  “People like us don’t sleep very well. You need some rest, so you’re taking a sleeping pill.”

  “There’s a bottle of Ambien in the medicine cabinet in my bathroom.”

  He rose from the floor and kissed her forehead. In the bathroom, he retrieved a pill from the prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet, added water to a short glass next to the sink, and took them back to Emily.

  She swallowed down the pill without hesitation. She handed Jake the water glass and slipped down under the covers in her bed. He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his fingers through her hair.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” Emily said.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here.”

  “I don’t have an extra bed. The couch isn’t that comfortable, either. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll sleep on your floor. I’m not going to leave you alone in here.”

  “There are some extra pillows in the hall closet, and some blankets, too.”

  “I’ll take care of it, and I’ll also check the locks.”

  Jake walked through the house, ensuring every door and window was locked up tight. As he started toward the hallway, he noticed her cell phone on the dining room table next to her purse. He picked up her phone and went into her contacts. Finding Cassie’s name, he pressed the send button and waited for Cassie to answer. The call went to voicemail, and he left a short message asking Cassie to come to Emily’s house first thing in the morning.

  In the hallway, Jake opened the closet and found a couple pillows, an extra blanket, and two pillow cases. In her dark bedroom, he pulled the cases over the pillows and arranged them on the floor. After removing his shoes, he took off his jeans.

  “Jake, I don’t want you to have to sleep on the floor. You won’t be comfortable at all.”

  He laid his folded jeans on his tennis shoes. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

  “The bed is big enough for both of us. I need to know you’re close. I need to feel you next to me to make it all go away.”

  Jake hesitated. With their vow to avoid intimacy until they solidified their relationship, it was hard enough keeping his hands off her. She also struggled with their mutual agreement. Now he was in her bedroom in the middle of the night, halfway undressed, and she was in skimpy enough clothing to make his thoughts stray.

  Under different circumstances, he would be concerned about sleeping next to her, about being in such close proximity in a place where it would be easy to ignore everything they discussed, but not tonight. Emily was terrified by what she saw and heard, and he wanted to stay close to not only keep her safe, but to make her feel secure. At any moment the Ambien would take control of her and force her to sleep. There was no danger that they would be tempted to cross the line.

  Jake walked around the bed to the other side with pillows in hand. He lifted the comforter and climbed into bed, on top of the sheet. Despite the knowledge that nothing would happen between them, he did not want even the slightest temptation. He rested on his back and listened to her quiet breaths, assuming her to have already fallen asleep.

  Emily rolled over and faced him. She scooted over in the bed until she was next to him. He turned on his side and, through the shadows, stared into her tired eyes. He brushed her hair back from her face.

  “I called Cassie from your phone and left her a message to come by first thing in the morning,” he said. “She needs to know what’s going on, and I think it will help to talk it out with her.”

  “You read my thoughts, as usual. Thanks for calling her.” She moistened her lips and smiled.

  Jake wanted to tell her how he felt about her, but he was unsure how to even begin to share those emotions after knowing her only a short time. He didn’t want words to rush out unchecked, and possibly not be reciprocated, so instead he leaned in and gently kissed her.

  When they parted, her eyelids fluttered a bit. “Are you getting tired?” he asked.

  “It’s starting to kick in.”

  “Those pills don’t make you sleepwalk or sleep-eat, do they?”

  “The only thing they do is make me sleep,” she mumbled.

  Jake caressed her face. “Then just close your eyes and sleep, Em. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

  With her eyes closed, her breathing evened out. Her hand reached for her pillow, and he wrapped his hands around it, interlocking his fingers with hers. Serenity claimed her face, softening her creased brow and allowing the corners of her mouth to relax. Knowing the rest of her night would be peaceful and calm, Jake closed his eyes and drifted toward sleep.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  The silence in Emily’s living room was almost as unbearable as the darkness clamoring for control of her mind. Emily sipped on a cup of coffee on the couch next to Cassie. Jake sat in the recliner next to the couch. He leaned forward with his elbows propped up on his thighs, digesting everything she had told them about the darkness.

  They had both vocalized their reaction to her detailed narrative. Cassie was upset Emily hadn’t told her what she was going through, especially since they were helping the police on the case. Jake was frustrated that when he warned her away from the case, she hadn’t mentioned everything that had already happened.

  When she explained that merely being in close proximity to Jake eliminated most of the killer’s presence in her mind, she did not expect his reaction. She wanted him to understand how important that made him, how their connection was much deeper than either of them realized. Instead, he voiced that he was angry with the whole situation, fearful for her, and hurt that she didn’t confide in him. He had wanted to help from the beginning, but she never gave him, or Cassie, that chance.

  After Emily admitted and apologized for her mishandling of events, the three of them sat in an uncomfortable silence. Emily focused on her coffee, while Jake fidgeted in the recliner. Every few seconds, Cassie started to speak, but closed her mouth before any words came out.

  Jake spoke first. “I’m not sure what to do from here. Our number one priority is to keep you safe,
but how do we eliminate this threat?”

  “We tell Uncle Leo,” Cassie said. “There’s no way around it.” She pointed at Emily. “You should have said something when he brought us this case. As soon as you found out the message carved in the victims was the same as what you wrote, you needed to tell us. We never should have gotten involved.”

  “This was going to happen whether we took the case or not,” Emily said. “I was hearing the women over a week before Uncle Leo came to us with the case. If anything, taking the case helped me better understand this.”

  “But you invited him in,” Jake said. “He knocked on the door to your mind and you swung it wide open for him.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Emily said. “I thought I was communicating with the women. I didn’t realize—”

  “You didn’t realize he used the women to get to you,” Cassie said.

  “Had you told me about it,” Jake said, “we would have been able to figure that out together, before you put yourself in danger.”

  “I still don’t understand how this works,” Cassie said.

  “I don’t either,” Emily said. “That’s what I want to find out today. He’s already in my mind, so we should take advantage of that. If we look into it a little deeper, we can stop him. We can find him and send the police his way. Maybe there’s a way I can use this connection—”

  “No!” Jake slammed his hand on the table. “Absolutely not. You’re not going any further with this, either of you. You’re both talking about this like it’s any other case you work. It’s not. This is your life we’re talking about, Emily. And yours, Cassie.” He paused and sadness touched his eyes. “Em, you didn’t see yourself last night. What he’s doing to you is destroying you and I won’t let it go on any longer. We’re calling Leo right now and talking to him this morning.”

  “Talking to Uncle Leo isn’t going to change anything,” Emily said. “If we don’t stop him, he’ll kill someone else and then that victim will reach out to me, too.”