Chapter 69: Now What?

Rebecca called Bob while she was awaiting her return flight. She was leaving Paul behind for an extra day to co-ordinate and oversee the efforts of the CS team. They still had Easy's car to go over, the neighbor's house, and of course trying to track down the receiver for the remote cameras they had found in the house. Bob called me at the house and said we needed to meet. I gathered us in my office as soon as we were all available.

"We've been made," Rebecca said plainly.

"What?" Allison asked. "How?"

"I have no idea, but he knows we're after him."

"Are we even sure it was him?" I asked.

"Looks like it so far. No prints on the car; no prints, hair, or skin on the tape we took off the girl."

"What do you mean the tape you took off the girl, which girl?" Allison asked.

"Elizabeth Street. He grabbed her late last night." She shook her head. "Shot her in the ass with a tranquilizer. She never saw his face." She looked me strangely for a second before continuing, "He stashed her in the house across the street. It was empty and for sale. If we hadn't found her she still likely would have been home by nightfall. Doctors say he gave her some kind of time release sedative; it wore off a little after lunch. She was bound but I think she would have been able to either get up and hop to the door or at least attract attention. He used her to smoke us out, see if we would come running. And we did."

"But she's okay?" I asked.

She laughed. "As far as she's concerned she was never in danger."

"What do you mean?" I guess it was Bob's turn to ask a question.

"Elizabeth Street," she said, "is convinced that she is a chosen child of God Almighty. Once I'd explained what had happened she told me that the killer didn't choose her, but that God gave her to him because he couldn't hurt her and that way he wouldn't hurt anyone else. We had a very interesting discussion. After Jimmy, she is about the most interesting person I've ever met, no offense there, stud."

"None taken," Bob answered with a laugh. "Does this mean that it's okay to go ahead and tell the others they're in danger?"

Shannon jumped on that one. "And let him know which one's we're watching? That would virtually guarantee that he'd grab someone else."

"But he knows who you're watching already," Bob countered.

"No," I said. "He knows that we know what type he is interested in. Shannon, Allison, you both know how important it would be not to let on that you know you're a target. Even with that knowledge, do you think you could not change your behavior so he wouldn't know?"

"Not a chance," Allison said flatly. "Considering what he does to his victims, I think I'd want a cop escorting me everywhere I go. Someone big at the very least, either that or I'd lock myself in my house and not leave until someone told me he was caught."

"Hell, I don't think I'd be able to do it and I'm the one trying to catch him," Rebecca added.

"Yeah, it was a dumb idea. I guess I just want this over with no one else getting hurt and I didn't think it through. Scary considering I'm the resident psych here. So where does that leave us?" Bob asked.

"Right where we were before he took Lizzy. Nothing has really changed; the game is still the same," Rebecca said.

"Not exactly. One thing has changed," Shannon corrected her.

"What's that?"

"He's nervous, and that might lead to him making mistakes. Personally I think this was his first mistake."

"How was this, a mistake?" Bob asked.

"The same way it would be a mistake for us to tell the girls. Knowing that you are being watched changes your behavior. You do things differently. If you let the people watching know that you know who the watcher is, all they have to do is change the watcher. If they don't know that you know, you can watch the watcher and know when it is most likely to be safe to act."

"Very good, Shannon," Rebecca said, "but I think that in this case, looking at how careful he has been in the past, he always acts as if he is being watched. What he just did is identify who the watcher, in this case me, is. So now he can watch the watcher, as you put it. At this level and this far into the game, you can't just hand it off to someone else. And he knows that, so I think it was more of a calculated risk. It would be interesting to go back and look for similar incidents before each of the previous killings. I may have to look into it. No, for now, we just continue doing what we were already doing, waiting for him to make his move."

"Well that sucks," Allison said.

"Tell me about it," Rebecca said. She paused for a second and let the silence stretch out. I think she may have been hoping that someone else would say something. Finally she said, "There's something else you need to know. I told you Elizabeth said she is a chosen child of God?"

"Yeah, considering what we know about her it sounds a little nutty," Allison said. "I mean, most of your Christian fanatics don't go around fucking everyone in sight."

"I'll admit it sounds strange but I have to tell you, whether it's a gift from God or not, what she has works."

Bob eyed her speculatively. "What do you mean, what she has? She claims she is gifted?"

"Oh yeah, let me just try to explain it the way she did and then you can tell me what you think. When I asked her about the night of the attack she said that it wouldn't have mattered if she had seen the killer or not."

"Wouldn't have mattered..." Shannon started to ask the obvious question, but Allison put a hand on her arm and she quieted.

"Yeah, I asked that. She says that even if she had seen him, she would not have been able to ID him if they ran his picture on the front page of the paper. She says that she can't see people the way we do. She was sitting right in front of me and said she couldn't tell me what color my hair or eyes were." She had all of our complete attention now. "She says that what she sees when she looks at people is... well... truth. She sees who they are, and who they can be. We'd only been in the room together maybe fifteen minutes total, yet she looked at me and told me that someone in my life had died but that I carry a piece of them with me always. Then she told me that I carry an unrelenting hope and certainty but that it is colored by suffering and longing."

"Wow," said Allison. "That's almost scary."

"I don't know if scary is the right word but it is certainly accurate. The first would be Michael," Bob said. "The second has to be Amy."

Rebecca nodded. "She says that this sight is the gift that God gave her and he uses her as a focus. She sees what is truly wrong with people and then acts as a conduit for God to work directly to fix the problem. She gave some examples and I gotta tell you, she's convincing. I met one of the examples and he told me about their relationship. She uses sex as a tool to get to the people she needs to reach. She uses her reputation as a cover so no one pays close attention to what she is doing. In this case, she seduced a fifty two year old man because when she looked at him he was dying inside. His wife had died a few years before and she said when she looked at him there was this hole where his heart should be, and it was growing, slowly eating away at what was left. She seduced him; lured him to a secluded place and screwed him in broad daylight. It may have been secluded but it was still a public place and she not only screwed him without getting caught, but got him to give her his address, and then went to his house that night to finish the job. She said she could see the hole filling in again while she was doing him.

"He said that she had set him free; that he'd tried dating since his wife died but that he just couldn't make it work. He's getting married this December and Lizzy's his flower girl for the ceremony. And just so you know, he told me the story of how she seduced him first, she filled in the why later. He said he didn't want me going in to see her thinking she was a public utility, or words to that effect."

"But, you would never think that," Allison said.

"Why thank you, Allison. No, I wouldn't. I make it a point to not judge people. As long as they aren't breaking the law and hurting people I don't really worry about it. And of course he had no way of knowing that."

"But you believe her?" I asked.

"She's very convincing. She read me like a well worn book, that's for sure, and it gets better." She paused and looked at me. "She knows about you."

"She what?" Allison asked.

"She said she could see you when you watched her in her dreams. She said Jimmy glows like a white shadow... and that you, both reflect his glow and feed it. She even knows your names. When I asked her how she said you and Jimmy talk when you think no one can hear."

"No one should have been able to hear," I said.

"Obviously the rules don't apply universally," Bob said. "Just as you surmised that certain types of mental illness may interfere with you bridging people, certain other gifts may limit your... influence in those people's dreams. In this case, something in the way Elizabeth perceives people allows her to see you even when you are observing. Interesting that she sees you the way she does; in dreams anyway. I wonder if she would see you the same way in person. Oh well, just another Nobel Prize winning paper I'll never get to write. People knowing about her gifts would be almost as bad as people knowing about yours. I wonder that no one has noticed her perceptual differences."

"Really, I don't think it's that surprising," I said. "I mean where would it come out, art class? Most of us suck as artists to begin with and portraits are the hardest for beginners. She may have been seen as working in abstract at the worst. And even then it would only come out if you were working in class with a live subject. Working at home or from an image she should be fine. I mean I think if her gift extended to pictures of people it would likely have driven her insane years ago. Besides, how would a camera capture that?"

"I think I'm going to kick you out of my class, I'm starting to fear for my job. So now what? Are you going to go pay a visit to Easy Street the way you did to Rebecca's boss when he found out?"

Rebecca laughed. "If you do, you better take Shannon along for protection. She made it very clear that she is very interested in getting the two of you alone some time; specifically, naked and alone."

"Ooh, then you should definitely take me along," Shannon said. "Sounds like fun. I was sitting here wondering why I couldn't put a face with the name. I thought I'd been with you at least once when you were bridging all the girls, but I must have missed this one or she would have known about me too."

"Apparently so," I answered. "Since she obviously had no trouble perceiving Allison or I, I doubt that she would have missed you. It would be interesting to hear what she sees when she looks at all of us."

"Yes, and it would be very interesting to hear what she sees if you are each there alone," Bob added.

"You mean to see if being together changes us somehow to her perception?" Allison asked.

"Yes, exactly," he said. "So, I guess since nothing has really changed and we're back in our holding pattern, that we're pretty much done here? I don't supposed we could impose upon you to borrow your little island getaway?"

"Fine with me," I said.

"We could go to the glade or Shannon's cabin or something," Allison said.

"Yeah, but change the sheets this time or it will be the last time you get to borrow it," Shannon joked.

Rebecca turned bright red and Bob simply roared with laughter. I was surprised it didn't echo after I sent them on their way. Of course I was laughing so hard you probably wouldn't have heard it anyway.

"Now that was priceless." Allison said. "So what now? Do you want to go somewhere or did you want to try and drop in on Easy Street."

"Either is fine with me," I said. "I get to be with both of you either way. Shannon?"

"I think we need to go talk to her. From your description before she just sounded like this walking sex machine. I think if nothing else I owe her an apology for thinking that."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Allison said. "I kind of had her pegged as the school slut, weird to think that she actually promoted the image to use as a sort of smokescreen."

"Pretty smart though if you ask me," I said. "We all had exactly the reaction she wanted. We didn't look any deeper than the public image. And here I'm the one who was trying to look deeper."

"No you weren't," Allison countered. "You were trying to confirm if she was the kind of sex machine this whack job is looking for. You confirmed what you needed to and moved on."

"Yeah, when you put it that way, I guess that's exactly what I did. I guess maybe we all owe her an apology. So how do you want to do it?"

"Well personally," Shannon said, "I want to be on my back, with Jimmy..."

Allison giggled and then caught herself. "You know very well that is not what he meant. Although..." They both glanced at me.

"Hey, don't look at me, I just arrange locations. Beyond that I just do what I'm told, when I'm told, to whomever I'm told to do it to, or with."

Allison slid up close to me and sort of purred, "And you do it so very well. Doesn't he, Shannon dear?"

Shannon slid up on the other side and kind of melted up against me, her robe hanging open so she could press her suddenly naked flesh against my arm. "Yes, he certainly does, he just doesn't do it nearly often enough."

"Does this mean we're not going to talk to Elizabeth?"

Apparently it did. Maybe we could talk to her tomorrow.

Wednesday dawned bright and full of untapped potential. Life was grand and all the world was my playground. Yep, Shannon was spending the night tonight! In fact, Karen would be bringing her over a little before lunch time. I started the day with my usual run then changed into my bathing suit and headed out to the pool to catch up on some long overdue sunshine. Okay, so I was there yesterday.

Allison came bouncing out a few minutes later and caught me completely off guard. She had told me she'd gotten a new bathing suit and I thought I was ready for it. I might have been, if she'd worn it. I was a little overwhelmed when she slipped into my lap stark naked and ask me is I could rub some oil on her.

"Sunshine, you know I would love to rub just about anything on you, including me."

"Oh, you're so sweet," she said. She kissed me on the nose and then changed the subject, "I was thinking; you remember when we were experimenting with whether or not we could move between dreams without you being there? Or be trapped in someone else's dreams?"

"Of course I remember. I was nervous as hell until we figured out how to keep you all safe. I'm still not sure exactly how I figured out that it would be safe."

"What do you mean? Oh yeah... what did convince you? I mean, you were right, but how did you figure it out."

"I'm not sure but I think I sent myself a note."

"You what?"

"You remember when we were going to the meeting with Bob and Rebecca that weekend? Well, when I got to the office there was this note that said, 'She'll be all right.' It was signed E. I assume that somewhere along the line my subconscious must have figured it out and I sent myself a note and signed it E for Edward."

"You're weird," she said. "I love you, but you're weird."

"You say the sweetest things." I stroked a hand over her shoulder and cupped her right breast. I suddenly noticed it was different. "You've grown, sweetie, you seem... fuller... rounder..." I leaned up and sucked gently at the pert little nipple. "And the nipple's bigger. I like it."

"Who says the sweetest things? Oh no, don't stop." She gave a deep sigh. "Thanks for noticing. I need to hit Mom up for some shopping money. I need to buy some new bras."

"No you don't, I'll just follow you around and hold them up for you."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh sure, that would work. You're a silly boy."

"Nah, I'm not silly; I'm just plain crazy, about you." I gave her kiss on the nose and said, "So what was it you started to tell me."

"Oh that. You remember how you had the televisions set up to watch us?"