Horror at what had been done.
Confusion that an FBI agent seemed to give credence to her words, even though she’d been miles away when the murder had occurred.
Once they got up to the semi-luxurious suite they’d taken, Jenny read through the room service menu. “Steak!” she declared.
It was an old hotel; it could only be so luxurious. But their suite did have two rooms, a dining area, and a newly installed whirlpool tub.
“You know I’m a vegetarian,” Nancy reminded her.
“Only because you’re dating a vegetarian,” Corrine said. “And you’re a pescatarian. You wolfed down a lobster grinder at lunch.”
“Pescatarian. Because fish are cannibalistic little monsters,” Nancy said. “Have you ever seen a cow eat a cow? Nope. But fish... Trust me. I’ve been diving. Those little suckers are ready to turn on each other at a moment’s notice.”
Kylie was only halfway paying attention to her friends. She already had her computer out.
“Kylie, what do you want to eat?” Corrine asked.
“Anything. Just order two of whatever you’re getting,” Kylie told her. She logged in to the hotel’s internet as she spoke, starting a search for FBI Special Agent Jon Dickson.
Nothing came up on the FBI website. Then again, she hadn’t really expected it would. She wasn’t sure how to do a further search; she tried a few social media sites and came up with a dozen men with the name Jon Dickson—none of whom seemed to be the Jon Dickson they had met. Putting his name into a general search engine yielded tens of thousands of hits; too many to start scrolling through.
Nancy, leaning over her shoulder, murmured, “That might not even be his real name.”
“He might not be for real at all,” Jenny suggested. “I mean, he met us in a bar and then dragged us out to a weird, obviously temporary office in a place that’s supposed to be a candy shop soon.”
“He’s real,” Corrine said decisively. “You can tell.”
“How?” Kylie demanded, looking up at her friend.
“Confidence, authority. He’s polite, but he behaves in a way that defies...defiance. I believe he’s for real. He was definitely mysterious, though...” She broke off, staring at Kylie. “Come on, Kylie. You must admit the whole thing is very weird. I mean, the way you behaved under hypnosis and the things you were saying... The way you were screaming. It was terrifying just to watch. I thought something terrible had happened to you in a previous life. But now, seeing what happened... Except you’re talking about Michael Westerly. That’s impossible. But then, what is an FBI agent doing here? So, what is going on?”
Kylie stood, feeling guilty again. “Something terrible happened. But as horrible as it may be, happens every day. That’s life—good and bad. And bad will happen...okay, this isn’t coming out the way I intended it to. I’ll try again. Yes, something terrible happened but we’re here to celebrate your marriage to a great guy. A guy you love. So, let’s get going with champagne and dinner and forget all this for now.”
“Hear, hear! To Corrine and Derrick,” Nancy said, and the others echoed her.
As if on cue, there was a knock at the door.
Dinner had arrived, and with it, a bottle of champagne. Jenny did the uncorking. Nancy was ready with the glasses. They all toasted Corrine and Derrick, and then, as they had planned, they grouped in one of the bedrooms and ate and talked and ordered more champagne and talked some more, about the men they had dated, their trials and tribulations through college, and how Corrine was lucky, the wedding would be amazing, and she and Derrick would certainly live happily-ever-after.
Much, much, later, Corrine fell asleep, Nancy and Jenny retired to the second bedroom, and Kylie lay wide-awake for an hour before she got up and tiptoed back out to the little parlor/dining room of the suite to open her computer again.
She found a news story on the recent murder; that was no surprise. The police had barely managed to cordon off the area where the body had been found before the media descended. Kylie swirled around in the desk chair, the remote control in her hand, and turned on the television.
Annie Hampton had been beloved in her community. She had lived just ten minutes south of the Rebecca Nurse Homestead. She had taught grade school in Swampscott. Local residents were devastated and anxious that whoever had perpetrated such a deed be brought to justice immediately.
They interviewed friends of the victim—a cruel thing to do, Kylie thought. Reporters played sympathetic, but they still filmed people fresh in their grief, with tears in their eyes and streaming down their faces.
Some suggested a horrible monster had come to Essex County. Others speculated about a mystery man in Annie’s life. Someone she had talked to friends about, a man who was wonderful. Rumor had it they were just waiting for the right time to announce their love to the world. No one thus far seemed to know who the mystery man might be. Not even her closest friend, a woman who was crying her eyes out as she spoke to a reporter.
Kylie flicked channels; almost every local station was covering the murder.
She finally found a national channel, where an astute young anchorwoman was giving statistics on murder rates in the country—unsolved murder rates. They were staggering, and frightening. She noted that similar murders had taken place along the Eastern Seaboard, from Virginia through DC, and on up.
“Officials now suspect there is a serial killer at work,” the anchor said. “Several members of law enforcement believe Annie Hampton might well have been attacked by a murderer moving north and leaving a river of blood in his wake. Please call the tip line shown on the screen if you have any information regarding this murder or suspicious behavior in your area. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated by authorities.”
Kylie turned from the television back to her computer and began to research recent unsolved murders. As the anchor had suggested, they were numerous. She narrowed her focus to young women who had been stabbed to death. She found a handful of stories about stabbing murders, the bodies left in abandoned graveyards up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
She hesitated.
And then she looked up Michael Westerly, trying to find his events calendar.
She blew out a breath, frustrated. Michael Westerly had not, according to his calendar, been in Virginia. Or New Jersey.
She sighed. What was she thinking? That this senator was a serial killer? Based on what? A weird vision? As Corrine had theorized, Kylie had probably just seen the man’s picture somewhere. And while her friends had envisioned beautiful past lives for themselves, she had somehow imagined an act of violence.
But she could still see his face, see the fury in his eyes, feel his determination and his cold rage and she could feel...