LITMIR.BIZ

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bloodstream, but Jessie, facing into the wind, stood motionless. Didn’t try to escape.

      No!

      The monster stopped. Hand raised, he drew a knife from deep within the folds of his cloak and stared over Jessie’s shoulder straight at Becca.

      Becca gasped. This was what had killed Jessie.

      And it was coming for her.

      Chapter Twenty-One

      “Becca?”

      She heard her name as if from a distance. It rolled inside her head, echoing.

      “Becca!”

      Hudson? It was Hudson’s voice?

      “I’m coming in.”

      She blinked, her eyes opening to the bright lights of her own bathroom. Her head ached dully and she was lying on the cool tile floor, her head inches from the bathtub, her feet nearly touching the tub. She remembered the demon in her vision, could almost smell the saltwater that had clung to him. Was he even real?

      “Dear God,” she whispered, thinking of her unborn child.

      She lay motionless, trying to pull herself together, trying not to shiver from the coldness and the fear.

      The bathroom door cracked opened and Hudson, all six feet of him, stepped inside. Seeing her on the floor, he went pale as death. “What happened?” He was at her side in an instant, dropping to his knees as she struggled to hers. “Are you all right? Becca!” Concerned eyes studied her, strong arms surrounded her.

      Wincing against the pain, she remembered the pregnancy test. Where the hell had the wand rolled to?

      “You had another vision,” he realized, concern etched into his voice.

      “Yes.” She rubbed the back of her head where it had hit the floor. God, it hurt. “I’m fine, though.”

      “You need to see a doctor.”

      “No doctor. I’ll be fine.” She spied the pregnancy wand with its two vibrant lines announcing that she was pregnant. Corralling it with one hand, she wordlessly handed it to him.

      He looked down at the two pink lines. “This means…?”

      “Positive. You’re still okay with this?” she asked anxiously.

      “I’d be better if you let me take you to a doctor. You’re pregnant,” he said, as if she needed to be reminded. “And these visions…I don’t like them.”

      “I know, I know.” Becca struggled to sit up. “But you’re okay about the baby? I just need to know.”

      “Yes. More than okay. But we’re going to the Laurelton Hospital ER.” He pulled her, protesting, to her feet. “I want to make sure both you and the baby are okay. We’ll make an appointment with your doctor later.” He gave her a hard look. “You have a doctor?”

      “Yes. But—”

      “C’mon.”

      He shepherded her out to his truck, and despite her continual assertions that she was totally fine, they headed over to Laurelton Hospital, which hung on the edge of a hillside, making the third floor on one side, the first floor where the emergency vehicles entered.

      Becca was surprised when Hudson insisted on going into the cubicle with her. “I can do this by myself,” she said with a smile.

      “I want to talk to the doctor about your visions.”

      “I’ve been through this with my parents. There was never anything wrong.”

      “You’ve never been pregnant before,” he said, and her heart clutched. “You seem to be having them more now. Maybe it’s connected. I don’t know.”

      The doctor appeared, a young woman with her hair scraped into a ponytail and a stern expression that suggested she’d never suffered a moment of joy in her life. “You’re here for a pregnancy test?”

      “And an exam,” Hudson said. “She’s also been suffering severe headaches that seem to bring on delusions.”

      The doctor looked at Becca. “Are you having a headache now?”

      “I just want to confirm my pregnancy,” Becca said. “I’ll make an appointment with my doctor.”

      “I can give you a cursory exam, but it sounds neurological. You might want to schedule further testing.”

      “I will.” Becca was firm.

      She gave Hudson a look and he seemed about to argue, but then let it go.

      “I’ll be in the waiting room,” he said.

      Twenty minutes later Becca came out of the room, a smile quivering on her lips. She started laughing as Hudson jumped to his feet and met her in front of the ER’s sliding doors. “We’re going to be parents,” she said, and he hauled off and kissed her hard to a smattering of clapping from the other waiting-room attendees.

      “I love you,” he said, and she squeezed her eyes closed, holding on to the moment with all she had.

      “I love you,” she blurted.

      Tears threatened and she laughed them away. And she didn’t say the words that trembled on her tongue: I always have.

      Mac should have felt elated that some of the pieces were falling into place. The Portland Police had Scott Pascal in custody, a confession signed. Two murders had been solved with the killer copping a plea.

      But two more murders were still unresolved, and he was no closer to figuring out who was behind them, or even if they were linked, as it seemed they were. Renee was working on Jessie’s story and someone had killed her. A case could be made that she’d learned something that implicated a killer who’d been waiting twenty years.

      He was in the squad room, at his desk. Phones rang, a fax machine whirred, and there was light conversation between the cubicles, but Mac barely noticed. Nor could he concentrate on the report he should have been writing about a bar fight turned fatal. Or the domestic violence case where a kid had shot his father rather than accept another beating from the old man’s belt. They were both in his computer, ready to be polished.

      But what had Renee learned?

      Or was he way off base, trying to make a connection that didn’t exist simply because he wanted the Brentwood case solved? Tim Trudeau was certainly a possibility. His alibi—his cleaning woman had said he was definitely home the day of Renee’s accident—might not prove true. When she’d been questioned, Aida Hernandez had hidden behind a language barrier that Mac wasn’t certain existed. But her interpreter, Sergeant Delgado, had been adamant that Hernandez’s words were the truth. “She’s scared, but not of Tim,” Anna Maria Delgado assured Mac. “Aida’s very religious. She wouldn’t lie easily.” Delgado, whose own parents had been born in Mexico, was as smart as she was beautiful. Her word was usually golden with Mac, but Mac had done some checking on Trudeau and wasn’t completely convinced of the guy’s innocence.

      Trudeau had financial motives. Though they were divorcing, at the time of her death Renee had yet to change her will. Her ex would still get the proceeds of a hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy, the joint bank accounts worth twenty-three thousand dollars, Renee’s small IRA, and the house she’d paid for and owned outright with the proceeds her brother, Hudson, had paid her for her share of their parents’ ranch. All told: over half a million; closer to three-quarters.

      Not a bad motive for murder.

      “Damn.” He scratched at the stubble on his chin and thought. Hard. Why did he feel he was missing something; something important, something right under the surface of his thoughts? He glanced at the computer screen. It was split between actual images of Jessie Brentwood at sixteen and the computer-generated one of her as well. Dead on.

      No…it

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