didn’t speak as they headed to the parking lot surrounded by the courthouse, the hospital, jail and other municipal buildings.
Finally, they were on the road, shooting south on Twelfth Avenue and then west once they’d reached Northwest Seventh Street.
She didn’t speak until then, and when she did, she turned as best she could in her seat belt, looking at him with a mixture of awe and fear.
“She was there,” she told him. “Right there.”
He was silent a moment, but he knew she was reaching out to him—perhaps for help in accepting what couldn’t be believed.
“You’re truly gifted,” he told her. “Did you learn anything?”
Five
Raina still didn’t believe what she had seen and heard.
Had she really felt what she had experienced in reaching out to another person?
It was all far too strange.
He didn’t press her until they were back at her house. Inside, she hugged Titan—a living creature who was always warm and loving and happy to see her. Then she went into motion, offering Axel coffee, getting it ready and then sitting with him in the living room at last, knowing she had to talk while the sensations were all still fresh in her head.
“When I touched her, I could have sworn I could see her, that she was standing near me. She was sad,” Raina explained. “A presence in the air. And she was almost crying.”
“Begging for your help,” Axel said softly.
“Yes.”
She was silent again for a minute and then she told him, “I don’t really know how to describe this. It was as if she was next to me, as she had been in life, never really looking at herself on the gurney. She was distressed because she couldn’t just tell me what had happened. She could only tell me about her last few minutes...and the terror she had felt. And the denial.”
“What did she say?”
“First, she couldn’t believe it had come to this. She was referring to herself in the morgue. She didn’t know what she did. She said she had no enemies, no one who would do such a thing to her. She’d shared some beliefs on social media, but nothing like many of the hateful things that are said.”
“How was she taken, when was she taken, did she see anything at all?” Axel asked intently.
“No, that was part of her pain and confusion. She was home. She went outside to get her mail. Her box is down in the front yard by the street. She had one of those mailboxes set on a pole, designed to look like a smiling dolphin. She opened the box and that was it. Someone was behind her and then threw a bag over her head. She tried to scream but she couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating and it was fast—so fast. She was picked up and thrown into the back seat of a car. She remembers burlap or some kind of rough material. Her hands were quickly tied, and she was shoved downward. I guess so no one could see her. She believes the car was a sedan. She’d vaguely noted a dark car at the curb, but she hadn’t paid any attention to it. She was just getting her mail.”
Axel was thoughtful. “So that’s it. Whatever is going on, the victims are taken entirely unaware, driven out somewhere and then executed. But I don’t believe they’re chosen randomly.”
“She has no idea what she might have done to offend someone—much less to a point where someone would want to murder her.”
“There has to be something that links the victims. Did anyone speak to her?”
“Yes. She was told that she needed to just stay down and keep quiet. The voice was almost gentle, assuring her it would all be over soon. She wanted help. She was lost and confused. Even when the bag was over her head and she felt the car moving, she never thought it would ‘all be over soon’ because she would be dead.”
Titan had been sitting protectively at her feet. Axel leaned forward to answer her, and Titan moved over to him, certain the man had inched forward to pet him.
Axel responded, and despite the gravity of the situation and the strange cold shivers she was still feeling, she found herself liking him more.
Her father had always been convinced you could tell a lot about people by the way they treated animals. Some, of course, were allergic to dog and cat fur. But those who would boot a dog or cat out of the way might