“Well…no. I don’t know what makes you different. Sometimes when I’m not near you, I can hear you—like when you were in that trailer. But when I am near you like right now, I can’t hear you at all.”
“Thank God!” The words spilled from her lips before her brain could censor them. How mortifying would it have been if he knew exactly how she thought about him sometimes?
He chuckled. “That bad, huh?”
“No, not at all. Just the opposite.”
“When I’m near you, I can still hear other people’s thoughts, but it doesn’t hurt like it normally does. For the first time, I can control it, censor it so it’s not overwhelming. And I think I know why—” His phone buzzed and he looked at the screen. “Got it. Here. Watch this.” He held the phone between them so they could both see the screen. “This is my interrogation of Simon Smith.”
On the screen, the door to the interrogation room opened and the bushy-faced, scruffy-haired troll from under the culvert shuffled into the room. Fear froze her voice. She pointed at the screen with the hand Xander wasn’t holding and finally found the ability to speak. “That’s him. That’s him. He stabbed the girl in the park. That’s him.”
“I know. His name is Simon Smith, and he really did kill Courtney Miller in the exact way you said it happened.”
Isleen’s attention fully locked on Xander having a one-way conversation with Simon Smith. Nothing about Xander’s interview was normal. None of it made sense; none of it was logical. It mostly looked like he was having a chat with himself.
Xander didn’t speak until the video clip ended. “He didn’t know you. He didn’t know Queen. He didn’t know anything about the trailer you were held in. Didn’t even recognize the road number. Courtney Miller’s time of death was placed in the exact time frame while you were still in the hospital.”
“But I was there. I saw it happen.”
“You are right. And wrong.”
He tapped the phone’s screen and another video came on.
A man sat hunched over a table, his close-shaved head bowed so she couldn’t see his face, but she instantly recognized him. “Mr. Goodspeed. He killed Marissa and his wife and son.”
“No. He didn’t.”
“He did.” Her words were firm. “I watched him do it.”
“What you saw wasn’t real.”
“What do you mean, it wasn’t real? I was right there.”
“No, you weren’t. You were here. What you saw was the future. What would have happened if your information hadn’t stopped him.”
He was speaking English. She understood what each individual word meant, but in that particular combination, it just wouldn’t compute. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I told Kent everything you said about Mr. Goodspeed. He contacted Sunny County Children’s Services and the local sheriff’s office and had a plainclothes officer stop Mr. Goodspeed the moment he pulled into the parking lot. They found his gun tucked into the back of his trousers and a suicide note in his car. He had intended to kill them all and then himself. But the information from your dream stopped it before it occurred.”
His eyes were the color of liquid gold and sincere, so gosh-darned sincere that she nearly believed him. Silence loitered between them while her mind rammed, bashed, and smashed into an impenetrable wall of disbelief. “My dream?”
Xander set his phone facedown on the table and grabbed her other hand in his. He looked into her eyes as if what he was about to say resided on the level of gospel. “Yes, dream. You are dreaming about these events.”
The way he looked at her made her want to accept her own innocence. But the memory was so vivid, so intense, and full of horror—there was no way it hadn’t been real. The strength of his personality swayed the logic in her mind. She let go of his hands, scooted back in her chair, stood, and walked across the cabin to stare out the window.
Outside, everything seemed so idyllic and calm. A lazy buzzard rode a current of air over the tops of the trees, then out over the yard. The sun shone through the bird’s wings, backlighting them with an oddly angelic glow.
“It’s real. Not a dream. I have felt the sun on my skin, the splatters of blood hitting my face. I see it. I hear it. I feel it. I can’t move and I can’t fight, but I’m right there…” Wait. Something had always been a bit off. She always got plunked down in a white nothingness that morphed into a picture, and then she couldn’t control her own body. Could the explanation be as simple—and complicated—as a dream?