They have a multiplex at that mall out on the highway. I guess everybody's there.
"Postmidnight shows? I sort of doubt it, but maybe they're having a film festival or something. Anyway, if that's where they are, let 'em stay there. I don't need anybody's headlights-"
Speaking of. Duck.
She took cover on one side of a tall hedge, just seconds before a quiet car passed her position and turned at the next corner.
Roxanne waited in the shadows through a slow count of ten, then continued on her way. There were streetlights in the area-sort of. Technically, she supposed, since the lights were clearly industrial and likely belonged to the region's power company. But these lights tended to be beside or behind the homes rather than out on the streets, as they were closer to downtown.
So there was plenty of darkness for her to skulk in.
Investigate. Plenty of darkness to investigate in.
"Neither of us is very grammatical." Roxanne paused briefly to get her bearings, then made the final turn that would take her to the hulking building that had once housed a textile mill.
Never mind grammar. You really need to be careful now, Rox. Remember who you're hunting. What you're hunting.
"I know."
Just look for signs, that's all. Find something, and we call in the cavalry. Right?
"Stop worrying. I'm not at all anxious to run into this monster,, believe me. Not that I'm his type."
Judging by the victims here, that's not a problem for him anymore. He's making these women into the woman he wants them to be.
"He's sticking to the same body type, though. I'm way too tall." She found the main entrance to the mill-on the other side of a padlocked gate. "Damn. This place has two big steel doors and absolutely no windows; why put a fence around it too?"
Old security. Like everything else abandoned around here, nobody's bothered with it since the last one out locked the gate. Padlock?
"Yeah, big one. Can you get it?"
Of course.
She waited for the telltale click, then removed the open padlock and hooked it on the chain-link fence. Then she paused. "You know, it just occurred to me that since textile mills are filled with big, heavy machinery, they tend to be built on slab foundations. Solid concrete. No basements or underground structures of any kind."
Huh. How about that? I never would have-
"Goddammit, Gabe. We're going to have to have another little Come to Jesus talk, you and me."
I don't know what you mean.
"The hell you don't. You pull this protective shit on me one more time, and I'll-"
You'll what?
"Look for another partner."
Yeah, good luck with that. We're stuck with each other, babe. And in the meantime, why don't you check out this place anyway? Because no matter what you suspect about my motives, the truth is that we'd be making a huge mistake in interpreting Dani's dream literally. So we check out every potential hideout for a serial killer who needs space and privacy. Right?
Grudgingly, she said, "Right. But you have seriously got to accept the fact that I can take care of myself."
Okay, okay. But just move, will you? It's nearly dawn.
Roxanne opened the old gate cautiously and was several steps along the broken concrete walkway to the mill's main doors when she stopped suddenly and turned to scan the darkness behind her.
What?
"That car, the one that passed a few minutes ago."
What about it?
"I've been watching this neighborhood since midnight, and it's the only vehicle I've seen moving."
So?
"I didn't see it turn into a driveway. Plus it was moving slowly and was awfully quiet."
Looking for an address?
"At four in the morning? Do me a favor and sweep the area again, would you? I've got a bad feeling about that car."
Gabriel didn't argue.
Okay. Hang on a second.
Roxanne waited, her uneasiness growing as she visually scanned the area as well as she could in the darkness.
Leave, Rox. Now.
"Gabe-"
Get the hell out of there. Don't stop to lock the gate, just go!
Roxanne moved immediately, smoothly drawing her weapon as she stepped through the gate. But as fast as she was, as careful as she was, she never saw or heard him coming, and never even got the chance to assume a defensive posture before powerful hands grabbed her gun arm.
Paris refilled Dani's coffee cup and pushed it across the table to her. "Look, Marc's right, especially about his mother. People get sick. The fact that you dreamed his mother would didn't make it happen-but it may have given her more time, because he used the warning to make damn sure she got to a doctor, pronto."
"That's what he said." Dani wrapped her fingers around the warm cup. "And I pretended to believe him."
"And he pretended to believe that?" Paris shook her head. "He always did know you better than you thought, sweetie."
Dani shrugged. "It was a moment, maybe… and then it wasn't. I shut down, or he did. A deputy caught up with us to tell Marc that he was needed back at the station, and we went back. Bad timing, I guess."
"Bad timing." Paris was frowning. "Did you dream last night?"
"Not that I remember." She hadn't slept, too fearful of giving over control of her sleeping mind to the vision dream. Or to the voice that kept getting in.
The only upside, she had decided, was that she seemed better able to shield or cocoon her own mind, since even Paris seemed unaware of the struggle. For the first time, that realization caused Dani a twinge of worry.
It was odd, now that she thought about it, for something so profound happening to her to go unnoticed by her twin.
"So you didn't try to take Marc in?"
Dani dragged her mind back to the conversation. "I told you, I have no intention of doing that. Look what happened the other night with you and Hollis-and both of you are psychic."
"We're both okay. More worried about you, since you were the one with the nosebleed."
"Yeah, and that still bugs me. I don't think it was from the strain of taking the two of you in."
"Why not?"
"Because I didn't feel any strain at all, not even an effort. I wanted you two with me-and you were. It wasn't until we heard that ungodly scream that I felt…"
"What, scared? Because it sure scared the hell out of me."
"No, it wasn't fear. I mean, I was scared, but I was feeling something else."
"Like?"
"I don't know. Pressure? Something like that." And the voice. The one you barely heard.
"You got the bends in a dream?"
"Funny. I don't know what it was, obviously."
"But it felt like something outside yourself?"
It was Dani's turn to frown. "Maybe."
"Please don't tell me it was our psychic killer. I mean, I know we all heard his voice, or at least a voice, but he couldn't have actually done anything to you, right? He couldn't have caused the nosebleed?"
Dani's frown deepened. "I don't see how."
"I guess there's no way to know for sure."
"Not unless I bump into him in the next dream." Dani shivered. "I may take you and Hollis in again just for company." Then she shook her head. "Scratch that. You two looked exhausted all day; going into my dream was clearly a bad idea."
"It hasn't hurt me so far."
"And maybe you've just been lucky."
"Too dumb to know better, when we were kids," Paris agreed. "Thing is, we didn't know better. We had a playground inside your head."