Like you’re looking at someone, talking to someone, but not really? There’s no one there! What are you doing?”
“I was talking to someone close, someone on his way to help me.” She saw it clearly—he was afraid. In that instant, he was afraid of her. She had to use his fear against him or she didn’t stand a chance. She said with an eerie singsong voice, “Who am I talking to? How could I be talking to anyone? You said it yourself, no one’s there and I’m a liar.”
He screamed, “Who’s there, who’s close?” He whirled around again, panting now, but no one was there. He was shaking when he turned back to her. “No, you’re a liar, you’ve got to be a liar. You’re not psychic.”
“Of course I am. It’s like calling 911. Help’s on the way. When he gets here I’ll tell him how pleased you were with yourself, picturing Heather and Amy and Latisha in your sick brain, reliving those moments when they were crying and helpless. Did it give you a rush, you worthless creep?”
Had she pushed him too hard? He was standing four feet from her as if frozen. Then he yelled, “There’s no such thing as real psychics! There’s only those crap TV shows with make-believe psychics who are supposed to see everything, except they never see the face or the name of the killer. It’s stupid. Tell me how you knew. Did that stupid old gossip, Turley Maybeck, say something to you? Nosy old biddy. She’s always hated me.”
She realized in that moment he did believe in psychics and that was why he was so afraid. “So Turley Maybeck knows what you are, too? She knows you’re a murderer?”
“Shut up! I looked in that tote bag of yours. Your driver’s license says you’re from New York. Your name’s Carson DeSilva. And you’ve got a stupid middle name—Estevao. I haven’t ever seen you before. Why are you here? Tell me!”
Maybe she could rattle him so badly she’d have a chance at taking him down. It was obvious he didn’t know what to do. He had no weapon, he looked panicked, confused.
She called up the monotone singsong voice again, near a whisper this time. “I saw everything. I heard what you were thinking when I faced you standing on the steps of the market. You were spewing your thoughts to me so loud a deaf dog could hear you.”
“No, I didn’t. I never do that. I’m not supposed to.” He broke off, stared at her. “But I saw something in your face, heard you whisper. You couldn’t have been inside my head, you’re not special, you’re lying.”
She was now sure he knew all about psychics. He was shaking his head, back and forth, and she felt the fear crawling through him, fear of old faded memories, of a blurred face, a woman, and with her a young girl, both seated cross-legged on sand at a lake, by a brightly burning fire, and the woman was speaking words that made no sense. Carson felt his shock—oily and cold—and she felt his fear of that woman, of what he couldn’t understand. Alarm was flooding through him now because he was afraid of her, too, afraid because she wasn’t helpless like those three girls he’d killed. Carson wasn’t pleading with him not to kill her.
He whispered, “You couldn’t see what I was thinking, you couldn’t. Tell me who told you or I’ll kill you right now.”
12
* * *
Carson kept waving the pipe back and forth in front of him like a metronome, kept her voice hypnotic. “I told you, moron, you were shouting your thoughts so loud anyone listening could have heard you. I saw the three girls, heard you say their names, like you were their boyfriend, their lover. And isn’t that stupid, since you’re way too old for three young girls? How old were they? Fifteen, sixteen? Young girls, teenagers, so guess what that makes you?”
“Shut your stupid mouth!”
“Maybe you dreamed about dating them? Now that’s a joke, isn’t it? Or maybe you wanted revenge on their parents?” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Or are you insane?”
“Shut up!” Rage poured off him like roiling black clouds crashing into each other. He was shaking his head wildly back and forth. “This shouldn’t be happening. I don’t understand how you saw what you saw, how you got out of the duct tape—but I can’t let you leave here. And you’re too old, way too old.”