The Last Echo: A Body Finder Novel Page 5

  “You know, school,” Violet answered, doing her best to ignore the look of disgust Gemma shot her from her place on the couch. She made her way as inconspicuously as she could to where the rest of the team was gathered, hoping not to draw any more unwanted attention.

  “Yeah, well, maybe if you didn’t live so far away, you’d be here on time like the rest of us,” Rafe said, his voice quiet and mocking as Violet took the open spot next to him. “Nice entrance, by the way. Way to be low-key.”

  Violet made a face at him as Sara gave her a brief nod and flipped through a manila file. “Now that everyone’s here, let’s get started.” Violet cringed at the reminder that they’d all been forced to wait for her. “Here’s what we know so far. . . .” Sara’s voice began in its usual controlled and clipped way—what Violet considered her work voice. “The police have confirmed that the girl Violet found was Antonia Cornett. She’d been missing for almost two weeks.” Sara pulled a photo from her file and handed it to Sam, who was sitting in the seat closest to her. “Her friends called her Toni.”

  Sam studied the picture for a moment before passing it to Gemma.

  “I’ve also been told that she’s not this guy’s first victim. In fact, the police are dubbing him ‘the collector.’ Apparently, this is the third body they’ve found in this condition.”

  Violet wondered if she’d missed something, and she raised her hand uncertainly.

  Her lips turning up slightly, Sara shook her head. “Violet, this isn’t school. If you have a question, just ask.”

  Violet dropped her hand, her cheeks flushing. “Sorry. What did you mean by in this condition? What condition was she in?”

  Sara nodded as she explained to the group. “Apparently his MO is to try to preserve the bodies. The first two times he used large coolers, but this time . . .” She looked at Violet again. “Well, you saw, he put her in a freezer instead. Since there was no power and it was still cold, it was obvious it hadn’t been there long. The girls are killed by suffocation; there are signs of strangulation. But each of them is treated with the same care: hair washed and styled, nails freshly painted, makeup applied, and clothes immaculately cleaned and pressed. Like they’ve just gotten ready for a date.”

  Violet felt sick. Whoever this guy was, he was clearly spending far too much time with the bodies after they’d died.

  She couldn’t help wondering what else he’d done with them.

  Shuddering at the thought, she curled her feet beneath her and glanced up at the skylights in the ceiling. The sun was moving down the sky, tracing a fiery path toward the waterfront. Already Violet could feel the effects of a restless night catching up with her, and she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. She blushed again when she caught Rafe watching her. It seemed like he was always watching to see how she was handling all this.

  Violet widened her eyes at him, letting him know she was fine. She turned away, forcing herself to focus on Sara’s words.

  Krystal interrupted then, disruptive and unrepentant as usual. She dropped onto the couch, squeezing into the narrow space between Violet and Rafe without even trying to be quiet, oblivious that she was disturbing anyone. Sara didn’t acknowledge the disturbance; she just kept talking like nothing had happened.

  “Wow. What a sicko, right?” Krystal tried to whisper. She toyed with one of the clear healing crystals that dangled from a chain around her neck, as if she were rubbing for answers.

  Violet kept her voice considerably lower than Krystal’s. “Totally.”

  Sara shot a pointed look at Krystal, and Krystal rubbed her stone even harder. It was on the tip of Violet’s tongue to ask if Krystal was her real name, or just a nickname because of her belief in the powers of the stones she wore.

  She opened her mouth to ask, but Sara drew her interest.

  “We have some of Antonia’s things—some of her personal effects—if any of you would be willing to stay behind for a bit and check them out for me. Tell me if you sense anything?”

  Violet sat up a little straighter, eager for the chance to watch the rest of them in action. Everyone on the team—at least everyone but her—was in some way psychic. They all had certain “sensitivities” to things that weren’t exactly tangible.

  She supposed she did too; her gift just didn’t work the same way theirs did. Hers wasn’t useful at a moment like this. But that didn’t stop her from being fascinated by the others.

  “Any chance we can go to her place? Check it out in person?” Rafe asked.

  Sara cocked her head, her brows raised. “You think that wasn’t my first question?” she asked, addressing Rafe directly. “Sorry. Her home is off-limits. Once the police give us the go-ahead, I’ll see if we can schedule a little field trip. But until then, we’ll have to make do with what we have.”

  Violet’s part of the investigation had pretty much finished the moment she’d discovered the girl’s body in the warehouse. Or at least it was finished until they had a suspect in mind. That was when she could try to match the echoes from the dead girls they’d already discovered to the imprints on whoever might be responsible for killing them. For now, all she could do was stand back and watch while the others did their thing.

  She hovered near the edge of the large conference table where Sara placed a cardboard box and opened the flaps. Already several of her teammates were reaching inside, pulling out the girl’s belongings. Violet felt like she was eavesdropping on something that they probably didn’t share with many outsiders.

  This was how it worked for some of them—maybe all of them to some degree, Violet thought as she stood back, watching as items were passed from one set of hands to the next.

  Psychometry. It was what she’d seen Sam doing when she’d first met him. Violet had learned the term soon after she’d joined the team, and she’d Googled everything she could about it. From what she’d gathered, it was the ability to “read” the history of an item—or the person who owned the item—simply by touching it. Of course there was nothing “simple” about it. And like her gift, there didn’t seem to be a lot of hard and fast rules to it. Each of them seemed to have their own way of doing things. It certainly wasn’t a science.

  But it had a name, and Violet felt a flash of envy that they, at least, knew what to call their ability. Hers continued to remain nameless. For all she knew, she was unique in her ability to seek out those who’d been murdered.

  She eased closer, trying to get a better look at what was happening in front of her, until she unwittingly became part of the circle, handling objects that were passed around. She paid less attention to the personal effects and more attention to those who held them. Beside her, Krystal closed her eyes whenever she was given something, seeming to concentrate on the feel of each item in her hands, while Gemma scrutinized the pieces like a detective, as if she were searching for physical clues that might have been left behind on the objects themselves. Rafe, on the other hand, barely paid attention to any of them—the objects or the others. He was passed an item, glanced haphazardly at it, and then passed it along, almost as if he were playing a bizarre game of hot potato.

  From outside the circle, Sara supervised, taking in all their reactions.

  Sam caught Violet watching him and he winked at her, catching her off-guard with the gesture. And then he glanced away again, his face almost childlike, right down to the spray of freckles across his nose, as he ran his fingers over an ordinary hairbrush.

  Violet watched him as he closed his eyes, concentrating once more. She wondered what he sensed that she didn’t.

  She reached inside the box for a small photo album with a brushed black velvet cover. She drew it out, untying the satin ribbon that held it closed as she flipped to the first page. Inside, she got her first real glimpse into the girl’s life—before it had been stolen away from her.

  Antonia Cornett looked barely older than Violet. She was just twenty-one, an art history major at the university. The last time any of her friends had seen her alive
was just two weeks earlier, when she was leaving the off-campus rental house she shared with her best friend to go to class.

  Violet studied Antonia’s big brown eyes and her thick curtain of dark hair, and wondered if she looked like the other girls who’d been discovered before her. The ones they suspected had been murdered by the same person.

  As she looked at the smiling images in the photo album, it was hard not to notice how pretty the girl was. There was a quiet sort of laughter in her eyes, buried behind her shy smiles. But what really struck Violet was that this was a girl who’d had friends, a family . . . a life.

  Her heart ached. People missed her, this girl. And whoever the killer was, he’d taken her away from them. Violet wished she could do more to help her team find him, to stop him from doing this to anyone else’s daughter . . . sister . . . friend.

  She closed the book and glanced up to find Rafe watching her just as she felt a tear slip down her cheek. She hadn’t even realized she’d been crying.

  She watched as he tucked something into his pocket, something small and silver. She swiped at her face with the back of her hand and pretended not to notice the concern on his face as she turned away again, setting the album aside. This was hard, she realized, peering into the private life of a dead girl. It was one thing to find her body, to know where she’d been discarded by her killer. It was another thing altogether to know her.

  Slipping away from the solemn congregation, Violet wandered to the kitchen and grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge. She found a chair, one away from the others, and she curled up, tucking her feet protectively beneath her.

  “Wanna talk about what happened back there?” Violet glanced up to find Rafe staring back at her. “Did that freak you out? It can be kind of intense.”

  “No.” But the denial came a little too quickly, and then she frowned. Sighing, she chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Sort of, I guess,” she admitted hesitantly. Softly. “How do you do it?”

  He sat down in the chair across from her, leaning forward on his elbows and studying her intently. “Do what?” His quiet voice was even quieter now, an uncertain breeze.

  “Try to understand them? Try to get inside their heads?” she whispered.

  “Who? The killers, or the victims?”

  “Either.” Violet shrugged.

  “It wasn’t like I’ve ever had a choice in the matter,” he answered cryptically. And just when Violet thought about asking him to explain what that was supposed to mean, he spoke again, his blue eyes unguarded, his expression almost daring. “I’m guessing that’s the way it was with you too. You were never asked whether you wanted to find the dead, were you, V?”

  Violet’s heart stopped. She felt cornered, like an animal trapped. It was new to her to talk openly about what she could do; the team had given her that. And even though it wasn’t yet completely comfortable for her, she was trying.

  She shook her head, her unblinking eyes never leaving his.

  But she wanted to know more. So much more. “So is that how it works, then? You sense things from touching them?”

  “It’s different for everyone,” Krystal announced as she snuck up on them, seeming to materialize from out of nowhere and dropping onto the arm of Violet’s chair. “You know that show Medium, where the lady talks with the dead? You know, ghosts and spirits and stuff?” She shrugged. “That’s kind of how it is for me.”

  Violet’s face snapped up to meet Krystal’s, her expression dubious. “Seriously? I knew you . . . you know, got messages from . . .” She hesitated, not sure how to word it. “Beyond.” It sounded so stupid when she said it out loud that she cringed a little. She tried to shrug it off. “I guess I sorta thought you did what the others do—you know, touch things.” She hated the uncertain edge in her voice. Why should she doubt that Krystal could talk to the dead, when she herself could find them by the sensory echoes that were left on their bodies?

  Krystal grinned, and Violet could smell the familiar scent of jasmine—Krystal’s perfume—as she stared into her dark, honest eyes. Krystal shrugged again. “We all touch things, Violet.” But the way Krystal said it, was in the most obvious way, as if Violet hadn’t meant the whole psychometry thing. “And it’s so not as cool as it sounds. Mostly the ghosts or whoever come to me in my dreams. A lot of times I don’t even understand what they’re trying to tell me. It’s all very mysterious. I’d way rather have what Rafe has.”

  “Which is . . . ?” Violet asked, so curious that she nearly forgot Rafe was sitting right there with them.

  “That”—Rafe scowled at Krystal, and Violet got the sense that sharing time was over—“is really no one’s business.”

  Krystal’s lip curled as she stared challengingly at Rafe. “By the way, Houdini, I saw what you did back there,” Krystal accused. “Don’t think you’re going without me.”

  Rafe looked genuinely puzzled by her words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Violet glanced between them. Rafe’s expression remained blank, while Krystal’s was impassive, her stare narrowed. “Bull. I saw you slip that key in your pocket, and we both know what it opens. I’m just saying, if you go, I go.”

  Now Violet was the one who was confused. She’d noticed it too, but she’d been too preoccupied with the fact that Rafe had caught her crying to realize it was a key he’d pressed into his pocket. “What does it open?” she asked, not sure who she expected to answer her.

  “Her house,” they both said at once.

  And then Krystal clarified by adding, “Her front door.”

  Violet’s eyes widened and her voice dropped. “You stole the key to Antonia Cornett’s house? But Sara said we couldn’t go there. You aren’t planning on breaking in, are you?” She wanted no part of this, no part of Rafe’s stupid plan to break into a victim’s home and go through her things without anyone’s permission. “You’re both crazy.”

  “V, wait.” Rafe reached across the space between them and grabbed her arm, closing his hand around the sleeve of her hoodie. “Just hear me out,” he begged, his voice softer now, quieter even than usual.

  She reluctantly turned to face him. She didn’t want to meet his gaze, but she could feel his thoughtful eyes on her, penetrating her, and she couldn’t stop herself from glancing upward. She sighed, her only audible response, but it was enough and Rafe knew he had her attention.

  “I need to get in there, to see if there’s anything . . .” He didn’t finish, but his brows drew together and Violet could see he was trying to choose his words carefully. “I want to do whatever I can to help. Hopefully before it’s too late for someone else.”

  And that was it, the one thing Violet couldn’t do that Rafe and the others could. He and Krystal might actually be able to stop this killer from striking again. They might be able to use their ability to do something good. Something very, very good.

  Just like Rafe had done for her.

  She felt herself waver as she bit her lip. “God, Rafe, I don’t know. You could get in so much trouble if you got caught.”

  His serious expression faded, and even though his voice remained calm and quiet, everything else about him—the mischievous glint in his blue eyes, the half grin that challenged her, the dark slash of his brows—looked defiant and dangerous. “From who? The cops? Sara practically has them eating out of her hand. And what’s Sara gonna do, ground me? I don’t think so, V. I think Sara wants this info as much as we do. I think if she could give the order herself, she would. She’d probably thank me for going in there to look around.”

  “Yeah, somehow I doubt that,” Violet said.

  “So you’re coming, right?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered slowly. It was a terrible idea, but she wanted to know as badly as he did if they could find anything useful.

  Rafe and Krystal stared at her, waiting for her to make up her mind.

  After a moment, Krystal turned to Rafe again, acting as if Violet didn’t exist. “When are
we going?”

  “I was thinking tonight. That way I can put the key back before anyone realizes it’s missing.”

  “Fine. I’ll drive. No way I’m getting on that metal death trap of yours.” Violet wanted to shush Krystal, to tell her she was being entirely too loud—especially in light of the fact that they were talking about becoming felons and all.

  At last, Violet’s voice ripped like dry paper from her throat. “I’m in.”

  Rafe jumped up from his chair, a wide grin on his face, his teeth a brilliant flash of white. Violet didn’t think she’d ever seen him so . . . so enthusiastic.

  Violet swallowed around the grit forming in her throat, which threatened to smother her if she waited too long to speak again. “I’ll meet you in front in five minutes.”

  Uncertainty

  HE STEPPED CAUTIOUSLY INTO HER ROOM, NOT wanting to disturb her too soon. She needed her rest. He knew she was exhausted.

  It was dark, but the lack of light didn’t indicate night or day. It was always dark in here, just the way she liked it.

  He stopped briefly, deftly balancing the tray on one hand as he pulled the lighter from his pocket and lit the small candle on the dresser that stood just inside the doorway. The candle’s light infiltrated the space, casting flickering shadows over every surface, into every corner. In the pale glow, he could also see that he wasn’t disturbing her at all; she was already awake, her eyes wide. Alert.

  He balanced the tray in both hands, smiling broadly. “I’d say good morning, except you slept most of the day away. It’s dinnertime.” He glanced self-consciously at the tray, suddenly nervous, his palms sweating and his heart racing. “I brought you some soup. I figured you must be starving.”

  She didn’t answer—not out loud—but he knew she was glad to see him. Her eyes darted around the room, first one way and then the other, searching, appraising.