“Don’t say ‘so far’,” Nate grimaced. “It makes it sound like there are going to be more.”
Laura suppressed a smile. “Both victims are female, and both are acting coaches. It’s believed that there could be a link between them, which seems obvious – both being in the same profession.”
“Acting coaches,” Nate mused. “You ever thought about acting?”
Laura laughed. “No, never. What about you?” she said. She tried to imagine what that would be like for someone like her: seeing visions of bad reviews before they happened, learning one of her fellow actors was going to die right in the middle of a scene when she needed to remember her lines. The thought made her shift subtly away from Nate.
She hadn’t felt it, yet: the darkness that surrounded him. She’d been careful to avoid contact with him as much as possible since she first sensed it, before the last case. It was the shadow of death, an indescribable sensation that she only knew meant his death was some way down the line. She’d had no visions yet to shed any light on it, no idea of what might cause it, no idea of how to prevent it.
Except for the fact that, when she’d thought about telling him the truth about her ability, it had seemed to fade. And when she changed her mind, it came back. It was just one more thing that Laura had to try and wrestle with during all of this. A whirlwind of a case in which her visions had come thick and fast and left her with almost crippling headaches: Amy, her own daughter, the struggle not to pick up a bottle when everything felt so hard, Nate’s death. And now another case, right back in at the deep end without any time to breathe.
If she had time to breathe, maybe she could think about it. Work out what to do. How to tell him, if she was going to tell him at all. But she hadn’t had the time, not really, to fully process it and everything it could mean.
And so she simply shifted away from him, so that there was no chance for them to accidentally brush up against one another and send that sickening darkness crashing over her again like a wave.
“I think I would make a great leading man!” Nate was saying, leaning back from her a little to give himself room to flex his guns as though he was posing for a photoshoot. “Don’t you think?”
“Yes, Nate,” Laura deadpanned, in a tone that made it very clear she was only indulging him.
He laughed and shook his head. “Alright. What do we have on them so far?”
“Looks like the M.O. is the same on both,” Laura said, flipping back and forward between files. “Stab wounds to the heart, a couple of them in both. The knife was left in place, but initial analysis suggests that the killer was wearing gloves – there are no fingerprints on the handle.”
“Very dramatic,” Nate grunted.
“The first one was killed in an alleyway near her
apartment, and the second was killed inside her own car.” Laura shuddered a little, thinking of the horror of finding out you were no longer safe even inside your own vehicle. “It looks like the killer approached both of them from behind, pulled them against him or the back of the seat, and then plunged his knife down into their chests – as if stabbing himself, almost.”
“How long was the knife?” Nate asked.
Laura shuffled through the pages. “It looks like it was long enough to reach the heart, but not to penetrate through the back of the body.”
“So, he would have avoided getting most of the blood spatter on himself,” Nate mused. “And he would have been able to restrain them with the same motion that killed them – his arms going around their arms. Smart.”
“Hm.” Laura flicked through the pages to the end. “Looks like the local PD have established that there’s no known link between the two women, except that they may have been aware of each other in a professional capacity. No circle of friends, no shared plays or short films, or anything like that.”
“Attention: all passengers from the five-fifty flight to Seattle, Washington, should begin boarding now,” the speaker above their heads chimed. “Please head to Gate C with your boarding pass at the ready.”
Laura folded the file back together and handed it to Nate. “That’s our call,” she said.
Nate stuffed it quickly into his carry-on case, nodding. “After you. Let’s hope it’s a quick flight. I know I said I didn’t want to tempt fate, but… two acting coaches in a row makes it feel like there might be a third acting coach coming soon.”
Though she hadn’t had any hint of a vision just yet, Laura had to agree.
***
Laura settled into her seat, trying to get comfortable. The flight was long enough that she could try to catch a bit more sleep. She’d had an early awakening in order to get to the airport in time for the flight, and Nate must have been even more tired with his diversion.
“Laura,” Nate said, and there was a funny tone to his voice that made Laura stiffen up. It didn’t sound good. It sounded awkward and tense, the way things were every time he brought up the fact that he thought she was hiding something. “Do you want to tell me about what happened, yesterday?”
Laura swallowed, looking out of the window. The plane had levelled out past the uncomfortable ear-popping stage, and with the cloudy weather, all she could see below was white. “I went to check up on Amy and I heard her father shouting. The housekeeper let me in – she was clearly afraid, so I rushed upstairs and saw him. He was about to beat her. I couldn’t just leave her there, so I brought her to Rondelle.”
“Wait, back up a little,” Nate said. “Why did you go and check on Amy? You didn’t say anything about this to me.”
“I just had a… a gut feeling,” Laura said.
“A gut feeling?”