Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) by Jools Sinclair Read Free Book Online

top, but I kept on sinking.
    But something was new. I was able to step out of the water for the first time. And I could breathe.
    Everything was hazy and I didn’t know where I was. It smelled like lilacs as steam surrounded me, warm against my cold skin. My heart pounded in my chest.
    Then I saw her. At first, just her face. A woman, in her twenties, with long dark hair. She didn’t see me, even though I was in front of her. She was in a bathtub, the water full of bubbles. Suddenly she sat up, startled, frightened, like she knew I was there. But it wasn’t me she saw. It was a dark figure, a man, with his back to me. Terror filled her eyes.
    She screamed as he grabbed her ankles and lifted her up, forcing her head under the water. Waves rolled out of the tub, soaking the floor as she struggled. It seemed to last forever.
    I just stood there, paralyzed in fear. I didn’t scream, I didn’t do anything.
    Then it was quiet. 
    Her head floated back up to the top, eyes open and lifeless. He stood over her before bending down and whispering something.
    I started shivering, backed away before suddenly being thrown back in the lake again, swimming above them, away from the horrible scene.  I swam upward, toward the light at the surface, needing to inhale the air from above. But I didn’t make it.
    I had to breathe in the black water.
    Again.
     
    I woke up shaking.
    Kate was still working in the living room. When she saw me stagger out, she rushed up, giving me her blanket, and led me to the sofa.
    “How’s your head?” she asked, worried.
    “Okay, I think,” I said.
    I felt weak and destroyed. I drank some tea and tried to calm down as I told Kate about it. Cautiously, she asked some questions.
    “So you’re sure she’s Asian?”
    “Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I said. “She was in the bathtub when he pulled her feet up and drowned her. I saw it happen, Kate! I was right there.”
    I took a few deep breaths. Tears pooled in my eyes. She stood up and paced around the living room.
    “Do you have any idea where this happened? Did you see an address? Was it a house or apartment?”
    I tried to remember.
    “No,” I said. “But he’s tall. And strong. Not muscular, but strong.”
    I shuddered at the thought of those hands wrapped around her ankles, the pounding of her fists on the ceramic.
    “These really aren’t dreams, are they?” she asked.
    “No,” I said.
    Kate got me a tissue and I blew my nose.
    “You should try to get back to sleep,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do right now. I’ll look into it as soon as it gets light.”
    I nodded. I knew in the morning Kate would be searching for her body. And I knew that she would find it or hear about it soon. It was just a matter of time.
    “Anything else about the killer? Facial hair or something?” she asked.
    I couldn’t tell her that I was too scared to get any closer, too scared to look. I couldn’t tell her that his coldness struck a fear in me that I’d never felt before.
    “No, he had his back to me,” I said.
    “You’re sure, Abby? That she was killed?”
    “I’m sure,” I said. “The old man too. The visions had the same feeling, the same energy. His energy.”
    There was no doubt in my mind. There was a killer loose in Bend.

 
    CHAPTER 13
     
    It was crowded downtown on account of the lunch hour and the holiday season. Volunteers for Winter Snow Fest were stringing up banners. I walked along the plowed sidewalks as a mean wind blew up off the river, bringing the air temperature down into the teens.
    They had found her. I was in American history when Kate sent a text saying that a woman had been discovered dead in a house downtown. My pass was waiting at the office.
    I turned down Delaware Avenue and found police cars lining the block. There was an ambulance parked in a driveway of a small house on the corner. Kate’s car was parked a little ways down.
    Kate was standing outside next to a group of people in various uniforms.