HAUNTED: A Jenny Watkins Mystery Read online

  Her sobs began to rival that of the baby.

  Eventually, both Steve and Jenny did stop crying. The baby had fallen asleep on her as she sat in the recliner; although she was in an uncomfortable position, she opted not to move. She’d rather be stiff and sore than deal with the crying again.

  She’d rather be drawn and quartered than deal with the crying again.

  She closed her eyes in an attempt to get some sleep. Fatigue trumped discomfort, and soon she found herself dozing off despite the twisted nature of her position.

  You’re stupid.

  The words echoed through Jenny’s head in a horrible, raspy voice. The sound made her cringe.

  You’re totally worthless.

  She reached into her pockets, but they were empty. This was not good news.

  Nothing can help you, you pathetic excuse for a human being. Don’t even bother to try.

  Agitation filled Jenny’s veins; she could feel herself escalating.

  Look at them. They’re all out to get you, every one of them.

  Her eyes scanned the young people that scurried in every direction around her. There were so many of them. Their disguises looked very convincing, but she knew better.

  They’re planning to get you. They’re going to abduct you and do experiments on you. They’re just looking for their moment.

  Fear took over. There were dozens of them; they could have easily overtaken her. How had she fallen into their trap? How did she let herself wander into their territory? Looking up, she realized she nearly went through a red light. A quick slam to the brakes kept her in check.

  Dumbass. If you go through the light, they’ll get you for sure.

  She began to feel panic. How was she going to make it out of this? She wanted to be home.

  The light turned green. She eased on the gas pedal, driving slowly through the perfectly manicured area. This must have been their territory—the place that they called home.

  If you get one, they’ll leave you alone.

  She swallowed. She wanted them to leave her alone.

  Get one. Let them know you won’t go down without a fight.

  What if they were strong? Freakishly strong? What if she tried to get one, but they got her instead? She’d need to choose one that was alone. And small. That was her best chance at survival.

  The truck inched forward as she scanned the sidewalks, looking for someone that would fit the bill. The grass stopped being exquisite, so she knew that she was leaving their territory. That would be better. She stood a better chance if she wasn’t on their turf.

  You’d better get one soon. They’re making their plans right now. If you don’t show them who’s boss, they’re going to get you and pull your organs out. They’ll feed on your brain.

  She gripped the steering wheel tighter, acting outwardly stoic but verging on hysteria on the inside. What if she couldn’t find one? She was going to be tortured.

  Up ahead, she saw one walking alone, headed in Jenny’s direction. Her spirit soared as she looked around, making sure there weren’t others that might attack her. No one else was walking. No cars were around. This one would be easy to get, and none of the others would witness it.

  She pulled the truck over to the side of the street, making sure the doors were unlocked. One last glance around showed she was, in fact, alone with this one. She only hoped it wasn’t stronger than it looked. Grabbing the crowbar she kept on the seat next to her, she waited until it walked by. Its disguise was clever, she had to admit; it would have appeared to be just another college student to the unenlightened eye. She was so grateful that she knew better.

  This one made things easy on her; it wore earbuds and stared at its phone as it walked. Jenny was able to get out of the car and walk up behind it with no problem. Raising the crowbar overhead, she focused on her target’s long, black hair and swung.

  With a gasp, Jenny sat up straight in the recliner. A quick look around signaled she was, mercifully, safe in her living room. After checking to make sure she didn’t wake the baby, she released a sigh, shuddering away her anxiety. That vision had been awful on multiple levels.

  Jenny closed her eyes again, trying to recall the surroundings from her vision. She didn’t recognize the area, but she knew it had to be a college campus somewhere. She also knew she had the ability to recreate it on canvas if she had to. When coupled with a painting of the victim herself, Jenny was sure that somebody, somewhere, would be able to recognize this incident.

  If only she could access her painting supplies without waking the baby.

  With her nerves returning to normal, she glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes. She had been allowed to sleep for a whole twenty minutes before being woken up by the vision. Resting her head against the back of her chair, she wondered why everyone—including dead people—was so opposed to allowing her to get some decent sleep.

  Zack looked at his laptop, the morning sun shining through the window behind him. “It says here that a twenty-year-old named Elaina Maldonado was reported missing from Longfellow College in Oakton a year-and-a-half ago. Her body was found a couple of weeks later in a nearby ravine.”

  “Does it have a picture of her?” Jenny wiped her eyes as she leaned forward, nursing baby in tow.

  “Sure does.” He spun the computer around so Jenny could see the screen.

  There she was—that beautiful young woman—smiling pleasantly at the camera like she hadn’t a care in the world. The image sparked a wave of intense emotion in Jenny, starting in her stomach and radiating through her entire body. The baby even reacted to it, stopping his nursing for a moment to draw in a giant gasp of air before finding his way back to breakfast again.

  Jenny sat back in her chair. “That’s her. Did they ever catch who killed her?”

  “Nope. At least, they hadn’t when this article was written.”

  “And when was that?”

  Zack scoured the screen. “Shortly after it happened.”

  Closing her eyes and resting her head back, she asked, “Can you look into that a little more? See if they’ve solved it since then?”

  “One step ahead of you, chief,” he replied as his fingers pressed the keys.

  Jenny enjoyed the quiet moment, almost dozing off while Zack did his research. His voice brought her back into the present. “Here’s a statement from Longfellow advising students that, while they should always be careful, the campus is considered safe—even though they haven’t solved the murder yet. This was released right before the start of the fall semester this year.”

  She scrunched her face. “I agree the campus is safe, but only because I know the asshole who did this is dead. How can they get away with making a statement like that when they don’t know who did it? For all they know, the killer could be one of their students.”

  “What else are they going to say?” Zack posed. “Keep your kids and your tuition money far away from here—we have a looney on the loose?”

  Jenny didn’t argue, but the notion still didn’t sit well with her. “I’ve heard of Oakton, but I don’t know where it is. How far is it from here?”

  “About an hour and fifteen minutes.”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “Then I guess we need to pack for a day trip.”

  Jenny sat in the car, which was parallel parked along a road that weaved its way through the idyllic-looking campus. She hoped she was inconspicuous, nursing Steve in the back seat while Zack stood outside, leaning against the car. Although she couldn’t explain why, she was getting a vibe of impatience from her husband, as if folding his arms across his chest was somehow going to make the baby eat faster. That familiar feeling of irritation was creeping back into her bones—she seemed to be living with it ever since she got home from the hospital.

  This was not what motherhood was supposed to feel like.

  She watched the students scurry around campus; a little math indicated it was either final exam week or the days leading up to it. She could sense the urgency of the
collective ‘oh shit’ from the students who were just now realizing their semester-long procrastination was probably not such a good idea. Leaning her head back against the headrest, she absorbed the energy of the campus—the promise and optimism were palpable. She remembered her own life on campus and the feeling of invigoration that went along with it. If only young Jenny would have known her potential back then; she had the whole world at her fingertips, but her self-defeating inner voice had convinced her that she didn’t.

  Oh, to be able to go back in time and slap some sense into that girl.

  Her reason for being there quickly popped back into her mind when she saw a dark-haired student walk past the car, complete with ear buds and attention focused squarely on her phone. The difference was that this girl was going to make it to her destination. Elaina, who was simply doing the same thing as this young woman, didn’t have that luxury.

  Jenny looked down at Steve, realizing that the man who killed Elaina was once a week-old baby lying peacefully in his mother’s arms. Or maybe he wasn’t—perhaps he grew up in a horrible situation, considered to be more of a burden than a blessing by the people who were supposed to love him the most. This may have been a child who had been born with all the correct wiring, only to have things go terribly wrong because he was placed into a situation that would have made anyone turn evil.

  Or he could have been born with these issues programmed into his brain, destined to do awful things from day one.

  An impatient knock on the window disrupted Jenny’s thoughts. “Are you almost done?”

  Irritation swiftly turned into hate. How could he possibly be angry that she was taking too long feeding the baby? She was the one doing all of the work—why was he pissed off?

  “A few more minutes,” she said angrily.

  Her eyes worked their way outside of the car again, landing on two young women who were casually walking with backpacks slung over their shoulders. Their smiles were easygoing, their pace leisurely. Jenny found herself aching with jealousy. All those girls had to do was take care of themselves—something that was true of Jenny up until seven days ago, but since then all of that had changed. Jenny’s well-being was a distant afterthought, taking a consistent back seat to Steve’s every whim. Even her most basic of needs weren’t being met with timeliness—she couldn’t sleep despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t eat when she was hungry, or shower, or pee…Steve trumped absolutely everything, and if she was going to be completely honest with herself, she desperately wished she could take it all back and undo it.

  She wanted to be one of those girls with the backpacks.

  Eventually, Steve finished eating, and after a spit-up-filled burp and diaper change, was finally ready to face the outside world. Jenny put him carefully into the stroller, turning to Zack and saying, “You ready?”

  “I’ve been ready,” he replied.

  The fact that she didn’t punch him in the eye was a testament to her self-control.

  She began to push the stroller with no particular destination in mind. “Do you know anything about this campus?”

  “I’ve never been here,” he replied. “I also don’t know what you saw in your vision, so I’m not going to be very helpful. I’m just along to be your charming sidekick.”

  Charming. Right about now he was about as charming as a pile of dog shit under her shoe. “I guess we’ll just walk around until I see something that looks familiar.”

  They walked without saying a word; Jenny wondered if Zack also considered the silence to be uncomfortable. She looked around them, trying to ignore all of the promising young childless women that littered her path, although that was difficult to do when they kept saying Awww every time they saw the baby. She remembered being in that position, wishing she could fast forward her way through college and reach the day she would have a baby of her own.

  If only she knew.

  They rounded a corner, and things began to look familiar to Jenny. This was definitely the path that she had driven in her vision. “We need to keep going straight; eventually we will find the spot of the attack.”

  The campus was crawling with hundreds of students, making the scene look substantially different than when she saw it through the killer’s eyes. “When was she killed again? This place was a lot more desolate the day Elaina was murdered.”

  “It was summer,” Zack explained.

  “What day of the week was it?”

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket. After some searching, he replied, “Friday. She was walking back to her apartment from her job at a grocery store; the last time she was seen was at three o’clock when she punched out. Her roommate had already left for her parents’ house for the weekend, so nobody noticed that Elaina didn’t make it home from work.”

  Jenny shook her head as they continued down the familiar street. “That’s awful. How sad would it have been if Elaina knew that, too? She was awake while she was being strangled—suppose she knew that nobody was going to miss her, at least, not until it was too late?”

  “That does suck.”

  “When did she finally get reported missing?”

  “Her boyfriend called the police around midnight; he’d apparently been trying to get a hold of her for hours, and nobody had seen or heard from her since she punched out.”

  “That’s a huge head start for the killer.”

  “She could have been disposed of already by the time anybody figured out something was wrong.”

  Disposed of. Like trash. The notion made Jenny want to walk faster, shortening the amount of time it would take to discover the killer’s identity, but she also knew that wouldn’t do much good. He was already dead; he wouldn’t strike again. She wouldn’t be saving any other victims this time. The only thing she could do is give the family some answers—or perhaps remove undeserved scrutiny from the top suspect on the list. That last thought did lead Jenny to quicken her pace. “Do they have any suspects?” she posed, hoping nobody was going through any undue stress.

  “It looks like they spent a lot of time looking at the boyfriend, but don’t they always?”

  “Did he have an alibi?”

  “Not for the whole time. There’s, what, nine hours that he’d need to account for?”

  Once again, Jenny felt overcome with sadness; that poor young man lost his girlfriend, and then he had to deal with misplaced suspicion. At least, she assumed it was misplaced. “Is the boyfriend still alive?”

  “I’ve never read anything that implied he’s not.”

  Jenny revisited the vision in her mind, deciding that the attack had to have been random. Had Elaina not been there, the killer would have just murdered the next person who happened to be by themselves. This was not the work of someone who intentionally sought Elaina out.

  They continued walking through the well-manicured campus, which the killer had considered their territory. She thought for a moment about how genuinely frightened she was of everyone she came across during that vision, wondering how it felt to actually be the man who had committed the murder. Just that small snippet she had witnessed had been disturbing; living that way must have been torturous. For the first time, she actually felt sympathy for the killer—in his own mind, he was only defending himself, albeit from a threat that wasn’t there.

  To him, however, the danger had been undeniably and frighteningly real.

  After they had walked for several more minutes, she found herself approaching the spot where the killer had accosted Elaina. “It’s up there,” she said with a point. “It was right about here that she was walking toward him.”

  “What side of the street was she on?”

  “The right side. The killer just pulled over and walked around his truck before he hit her. I guess that made it easy for him to put her in the passenger seat; it was facing the sidewalk.”

  Zack looked around at the students who scurried in every direction. “And no one else was here?”

  “Not on this street.”

  “
That’s hard to imagine.”

  “I know; that’s why I asked when it happened. On a Friday afternoon in the summer, most of these kids would be back in their hometowns.”

  “But here’s something I don’t get,” Zack began. “You say this was a completely random attack, committed by a guy who had obviously lost his marbles.”

  While Jenny wasn’t particularly fond of the term lost his marbles, she simply said, “Yes.”

  “Then it doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “That there was only one victim. If this guy was as crazy as he sounded, don’t you think it would have happened more than once?”

  After contemplating for a moment, Jenny lowered her shoulders. “If I had to guess? Yes.”

  She didn’t like the sound of her own words.

  “You do realize you’re the sixth psychic we’ve had in here,” the police officer, whose name plate read Miller, said. “The problem is, none of the stories they’ve given us have lined up with each other, none of them have lined up with the facts, and none of them have gotten us any closer to the killer.”

  Jenny hung her head briefly, irritated by the fact that phonies gave the credible a bad name. However, she knew that she could ultimately say something that separated her from the rest, so she started spewing her version of events. “Well, I saw in my vision that she had been wearing a blue short sleeved shirt and a pair of khaki pants. She was walking west-bound on Harris Street, looking at her phone as if she was watching some kind of video or reading an email or something. She had ear buds in. Her phone case was personalized with a photo of a Yorkie on it, and the killer hit her on the back of the head with a crowbar, only to ultimately strangle her to death in his car.”

  Officer Miller stayed quiet for a moment; Jenny couldn’t help but feel like she’d gotten through to him. He interlaced his fingers in front of his mouth, eventually speaking around the steeple he’d created with his pointer fingers. “That phone case was never found.” Looking up at Jenny, he asked, “How do I know this is a vision and not some inside information?”