LITMIR.BIZ

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      Funny how a few weeks and a couple of murders changed her perception.

      She placed a few other calls, including a local rental car company advertising “cheap, slightly worn cars,” her insurance agent, and her own answering machine at her house. Mac had called there once and Tamara had left a “Just checking in, call me,” message.

      Not now, Becca thought.

      The rental car, an ancient dented Chevy, was delivered, thankfully, and she drove to the motel to secure her room, then to a local outlet mall where she picked up a change of clothes, some toiletries, PowerBars, and a six-pack of juice. Back at the motel she showered and changed into clean clothes, then downed one of the PowerBars and a couple of pain relievers and put together a pot of decaf coffee from the pre-measured packet provided by the management. Once fueled, she returned to the hospital, determined to run Hudson’s doctor to the ground, but she was waylaid by two detectives, a man and a woman, from the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department, who also wanted to speak to him.

      Hudson was still asleep, but the detectives, who were waiting at the door to his room, realized who she was and decided to interview her first. They’d gotten some information the night before, but they wanted something more to go on in order to find who had run her off the road, then chased her through the dark forest.

      They all sat in a waiting area not far from the second-floor nurses’ station and Hudson’s room. Aside from a few scattered plastic chairs, a fake plant, and a coffee table littered with old magazines, the area was empty. As the woman detective, who introduced herself as Marcia Kirkpatrick, took a few notes and asked questions, her partner, a husky silver-haired cop in his fifties, Fred Clausen, studied her intently, only interjecting a few questions of his own for clarification.

      “You didn’t see your attacker?” Kirkpatrick asked. She was trim, fit, with sharp features and thin, unpainted lips.

      “I saw him, or his form,” Becca said, “but it was dark in the forest and raining, no moonlight. I caught a glimpse of him in the headlights once, but he was dressed in black or dark blue and wearing a hood.” She thought about the image she’d seen in her visions, superimposed it over those of the man who had chased her to the ground the night before, and thought it was her assailant. But that picture was all in her mind and had no merit. She wasn’t comfortable enough with these two cops to admit that she “saw” things. They’d dismiss her as a nutcase. Hands clasped between her knees, she said, “All I have are impressions.”

      “How tall is he?” Kirkpatrick asked.

      “Six feet, maybe six-one. Big.”

      “Heavy? Slight?” Reddish eyebrows lifted as she skewered Becca with her gaze.

      “Neither. I know that he was fit. Never seemed to get winded…” She called up his dogged pursuit, the cold terror that had consumed her. “It seemed that he was athletic. I can’t tell you how old he was, but not a kid, nor an old guy. He moved too quickly. Was too strong.” She remembered the pure hatred she felt emanating from him. “He wanted me dead.”

      “How do you know?” Clausen asked.

      Her stomach roiled and she thought she might be sick. “Because I’m the target. This might sound like I’m reaching, but something like this happened a long time ago. About sixteen years ago, not far from the same place. I was forced off the road…I think it’s the same man.”

      “You think the same guy was chasing you then, nearly twenty years ago, but you’ve been living in the Portland area ever since and he hasn’t bothered you?” Kirkpatrick was understandably skeptical.

      “He failed the first time.”

      Clausen exchanged a look with Kirkpatrick, who twisted her pen, then clicked it several times. “But he hasn’t accosted you since.”

      “Not until last night. But that’s because of Jessie.”

      “Who’s Jessie?” Clausen asked.

      “Jezebel Brentwood. She was a friend of mine in high school.”

      “The girl whose bones were just discovered,” Clausen said, his interest piqued. “The one the Laurelton cop McNally was here asking about.” He was nodding now. “McNally thinks there’s a relationship between her death and Renee Trudeau’s.”

      They were catching on quickly now.

      “Renee is—was Hudson’s sister.” Becca hitched her chin toward the door to his room.

      “If you’re the target, then why kill her?”

      “I don’t know. I think…I think it has something to do with Jessie’s murder.” Becca went on to explain the links, as she saw them, that Renee was digging into the past and had riled up the murderer, who then focused on her.

      It had sounded so much more solid before she said it aloud. It was impossible to explain.

      “Back to last night,” Kirkpatrick said, her eyes narrowing. “This guy who chased you, did he say anything to you?”

      “He called me ‘sister.’ Said he was God’s messenger.”

      “Hmmm. Maybe ‘sister’ as in the ‘we’re all sisters and brothers’ communal sense?” the woman cop suggested.

      “It seemed more personal, but…” She shrugged.

      “He say anything else?” Clausen asked.

      She closed her eyes, remembered. “He called me the ‘Spawn of Satan,’ I think, then later said ‘Jezebel and Rebecca.’”

      “Did any of it seem to make sense?” Kirkpatrick asked.

      When Becca shook her head, Clausen said, “Sounds like he talks to God, or is doing the Big Guy’s bidding.” Clausen kept his expression neutral.

      Kirkpatrick’s eyes held Becca’s. “Would you recognize his voice?”

      “I don’t know,” she said, but as she remembered her struggle and panic, she nodded. “I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, but I think I would recognize his voice.” And the thought of it made her shiver. She prayed she’d never see him again, never hear the horrid, snakelike sound of his whispered curses.

      “But you don’t remember anything that would make him identifiable? No tattoos or scars or facial characteristics.”

      Becca shook her head. “I didn’t see him, but I do know that I knocked him good with that rock. He staggered and it gave me time to run. He may have some damage. A black eye or bruised forehead or something.”

      “Anything that would send him to seek medical attention?” the woman detective posed hopefully.

      “No.”

      “Doesn’t sound like that kind of guy, even if he needed it,” Clausen agreed.

      After a few more questions about her confrontation, hoping to learn something more about her attacker, anything that might help, they gave up. Clausen promised to return to speak with Hudson when he awoke. “If you think of anything else, call,” Clausen insisted and handed her his card.

      “I think you’d better see this.” Gretchen, subdued for her, waved Mac over to her desk.

      “Just a sec.” He headed for the break room and a cup of coffee before wending his way back to Gretchen through the maze of desks where cops were already on phones, booking suspects, going over notes, and shuffling paperwork.

      Even the Homicide Department was cranking it up. Aside from the regular caseload there had been a fight in one of the local watering holes. Another drug deal gone bad, and one twenty-three-year-old had been stabbed and died on the way to the hospital. Another couple of kids had been drag racing on 26. A bad accident, one kid in the hospital, not expected to make it, another dead. The driver, of course, suffered a few cuts and a broken leg.

      Gretchen was seated at her

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