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My exciting evening consisted of tackling the stack
of homework that waited for me. I opened my laptop, found the first
draft of my social studies paper, and got to work.

About an hour later, my cell buzzed. It was
Kate.

“Hey, Abby, do you have a minute?” she asked. She
sounded hurried and rushed. I glanced at the clock. It was after 7
and I had hoped she would have been home by now.

“Yeah,” I said. “What’s up?”

I could hear an intercom in the background. My heart
sunk. She was at the hospital.

“I just had this strange hunch about the murder
victims,” she said, whispering. “I don’t know where it came from.
Maybe our talk the other day, I don’t know. I haven’t told anyone
yet, and wanted to bounce it off of you first.”

She seemed nervous, which was odd. Kate didn’t
rattle easily.

“What is it?” I said, leaning back in the chair.

“Well, I started thinking that there had to be
something that linked the victims together. I thought like maybe a
gym or a bank. Or maybe they had their taxes done at the same
place. So I’ve been checking those kinds of things out the last few
days. Nothing turned up, though."

“Okay,” I said.

“Now, I want to tell you this, but you have to
promise not to freak out, because it’s not conclusive. It doesn’t
mean what you think it means. I need you to just listen to what I’m
saying.”

“All right,” I said.

“The thought passed through my mind that maybe they
all went to the same dentist or doctor. So I’ve been checking
around town. Nothing there either.”

Suddenly, I had a feeling what she was going to say.
No wonder she didn’t want to tell me. The facts were staring her
straight in the face.

“So I checked the emergency room files. I have a
contact over here. He’s letting me look at the names of the
patients who have been in the ER during the past year...”

“And they all were in the ER,” I said, finishing her
sentence.

She was silent for a minute.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Abby, that’s exactly it.
Tom Connelly, the first guy, came in for frostbite last winter.
Lana had an infection in the summer. And then...”

I heard papers being shuffled in the background.

“And then the arsonist. He was in for bronchitis.
Abby, they were all here. This is the connection. The
hospital.”

“The ER,” I said, correcting her and hoping she
would pick up on my hint. “The ER where Dr. Mortimer works.”

Another silence.

“Yes,” she finally said. “Yes. Look, I have to
finish up here and then I’ll be home. They won’t let me Xerox the
files, so I want to get down a few key things. See you soon.” Her
voice was shaky.

“Be careful, Kate,” I said. “The killer is smart.
Hurry and get out of there.”

Now I was nervous. I didn’t like Kate being over
there alone.

“See you in a bit,” she said sharply and clicked
off.

Although I was nervous, I was also relieved. This
would help prove what I had been telling Kate. She could ignore my
visions, but she couldn’t ignore these facts.

I got a soda and drank it, staring at my reflection
in the kitchen window. This should help Kate see what was really
going on. I could only hope that this would help her face the
truth.

That night, I had another vision. Another killing. A
woman floating in the Deschutes. But this time I saw him. I saw who
the killer was.

And Kate would have to wake up.

CHAPTER 29

I stood on the bank of the Deschutes River, early in
the morning, the lights of Awbrey Butte twinkling in the distance
and the quiet of the winter’s morning surrounding me. This was the
first time I was at the scene that was in my vision. Everything
felt exactly the same. I saw where he had held her down in the
water. I saw where he had dumped her body, saw the footbridge.

And, of course I saw her, where she was still
snagged in the river, face down.

I called Kate and waited. I was the only one there,
not even the runners were out yet. I could feel the killer’s energy
around the area, like a part of his essence still lingered, strong
and powerful. Funny. I still referred to him as the killer, even
though I knew who he was, had seen him clearly as he smiled at
me.

Now I could stop him.

I wasn’t sure if Kate would help me or not. It would
be hard for her. But it didn’t matter anymore. This couldn’t go
on.

Kate pulled up in her car with a photographer. I
nodded and pointed and she walked over and studied the body. She
had her notepad out and the photographer started taking pictures.
She must have called the police too, because I heard the whine of
sirens coming our way. I backed up into the trees and watched.

Kate ran up to me quickly. I told her what I had
seen in the vision, who I had seen smiling at me and then walking
away from the terrible thing he had done. She nodded, didn’t look
at me, but wrote it down in her notepad as if that would help stop
the sting.

The police arrived along with the reporters from the
TV station. Kate headed back over.

Now there were four. It was just too many bodies in
too short of a time for Bend. Maybe they could rush the toxicology
report.

I didn’t approach Kate again. She was busy working.
But I saw her face from a distance. Pale, tired, and scared. I
could see it and I could feel her fear. I think she knew what had
to be done. I hoped so.

I walked back to the Jeep and did the only thing I
could think of doing. Head over to school.

CHAPTER 30

Somehow the thought of going to school was
comforting. Sitting in class, listening to teachers, studying in
the library. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it completely.

I got a text from Kate later that day while sitting
in English Lit. The dead woman was an instructor at the local
community college. It was being labeled a suspicious drowning.
Everything was being looked at, and the police had a new intensity
to the investigation. They were starting to think that there was a
serial killer in Bend.

It was a huge story. This could be the one Kate was
waiting for to get her to the big city.

I sent a text back.

“Stay away from Dr. M til we can talk. Plz.”

She didn’t respond right away. But finally, she
wrote back.

“OK.”

I went to algebra, took the test the best I could,
and wandered down the hallway, waiting ten minutes after the bell
so the kids were mostly cleared out. I was glad the day was over. I
felt like sleeping for a year.

Jesse was waiting by my locker. I couldn’t stay mad
at him. So what if he ignored my last text when I told him we
needed to talk? It was good to see him and I wanted to tell him
everything about what had happened, about the vision and killer,
about what I had to do.

“Hey, Craigers, long time no see,” he said. We
hadn’t talked since he was cut from the team. That seemed so long
ago, so much had happened since. I didn’t really know what to say
and yet I wanted to say so much.

“Want to go get a burger or something?” I said.

“Can’t. I told my dad I’d help him out at the
garage. I just wanted to say hi. So you probably saw the basketball
rooster, huh?”

“Yeah. It was shocking. Doing okay?”

“It was painful seeing it up there without my name
and all,” he said. “But I guess I just have to get used to it.”

“Why don’t you go talk to the coach? You’ve known
him for almost four years. I don’t think it’s impossible to talk
your way back on, but you have to stop going up to the mountain so
much.”

“Yeah, maybe. We’ll see. How are you doing?”

“Can you walk me to the Jeep? I can tell you what’s
happened.”

“Sure,” he said.

I told him everything. All about my vision and how I
finally had the guts to see who the killer was and how I had gone
to the river in the morning to see the body. About how Kate was
working on the story and about how I needed to confront Dr.
Mortimer.

He opened the door for me.

“Just be careful, Craigers,” he said. “Let the
police handle it. It sounds like they are more interested now. You
can feed all your information to Kate and she can leak it to the
cops. Stay out of it. It’s too dangerous.”

Jesse didn’t realize my anger, or my determination.
This was going to stop. I wasn’t waiting for the authorities to
piece it together. I had already waited too long.

“All I want to do now is go take a long nap,” I
said. “But I’ll keep you updated.”

“Call me if you go see him,” he said. “I’ll go with
you. Whatever you do, don’t go over alone.”

“I won’t,” I said. “Hey, you want a ride? I could
drop you off.”

I was tired and truthfully didn’t feel like going
all the way out to his dad’s garage, which was on the outskirts of
town.

“Nah, he’s coming and getting me. Should be here any
minute,” he said.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Tell him I’ll come by soon,
to say hi.”

Jesse gave me a quick hug. I drove home and took a
long nap.

*

When I woke up, it was dark both outside and in the
house. I felt groggy and stumbled out into the living room. I was
surprised to find Kate was home. I could see her silhouette on the
sofa, a soft stream of steam rising from her teacup.

I turned on the dining room lights.

“Leave them off,” she said.

I sat down next to her.

“I don’t understand how this happened,” she said.
“Why would he do this, Abby? And why would he kill that lady?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Okay. Go ahead and tell me what you saw.
Everything.”

I told her everything.

“Did you write up the story?” I asked.

“Yeah, it comes out tomorrow. They’re taking this
seriously, assigning a lot of detectives to the case. Too many
bodies. And a dead college instructor caught the attention of the
national news. We’ve been talking to newspapers and stations all
over the country. This is a huge story.”

She took a long sip.

“Well, that’s good,” I said.

“Yeah, but it’s not quite as cut and dry as I had
hoped. She was a teacher, but she has a bit of a sketchy past. Who
knows why, but she told her students about how she used to be a
drug addict. The police interviewed some of her old students
already and a few said she seemed pretty unstable. The theory now
is that she was out late last night buying drugs.”

“Odd,” I said.

“Yeah. They’ll investigate this one thoroughly,
compare it to the other deaths. I bet she has that same drug in her
system. That in and of itself should blow this whole thing wide
open.”

I stared out the window. Tiny, shimmering flakes
were swirling in the wind, blown from the rooftop, caught by the
light on the porch.

“It’s time we stopped this,” I said. “Are you
helping me?”

Kate was staring outside too. She didn’t look at
me.

“Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 31

We drove over to the hospital. Kate didn’t want to
call ahead or anything, she wanted to catch him off guard. But he
wasn’t there. We talked to the nurse in the ER and she told us that
it was Dr. Mortimer’s day off.

“He must be at home,” Kate said. “That’s even
better.”

I had no idea where he lived, but Kate did. We
starting heading up Awbrey Butte, a high-end community with new,
sprawling houses with views of the city and the Cascades. We kept
climbing the icy, windy road, past huge houses all lit up.

“I’m glad you’re here with me, Kate,” I said. The
city was beneath us now and with all the lights, it was a
spectacular view.

“Of course I’m here with you, Abby. I want answers
too. I just can’t figure out why he is doing this. Is he just a
psycho? I have to know.”

Kate was mad now. In the time between sitting in the
dark and now, her emotions had turned from sad to angry and I was
relieved. We would need her strength for this and Kate was the
strongest person I knew. I was happy she was back to her old
self.

As we drove, fear crept in and started to grow. We
were going to confront Dr. Mortimer and I wasn’t even sure what we
were going to say. But there was no turning back.

“I called my police friend James from the hospital,”
Kate said. “He’s on duty tonight and he’s going to meet us over at
the doc’s house in about half an hour. He said to wait outside, but
I want to talk to Ben first.”

We turned left onto Summit Drive. The butte was
frozen, the roads slick.

“The rich really are different,” I said to Kate,
looking around at the mansions and reciting a line from a favorite
movie, The Edge.

“Yeah, Bob, that’s true,” Kate said smiling,
catching the reference. She turned off the radio and we pulled up
in a long driveway, which snaked up to the house.

It was magnificent. Large and estate-like, with the
front made up of large windows looking out at the mountains. Kate
turned off the car.

“Let’s do this,” she said, squeezing my hand. I
nodded and we both took a deep breath.

We walked up to the large Santa Fe doors and rang
the doorbell. It only took a few seconds before Dr. Mortimer opened
it. He was surprised to see us, but then seemed happy we were there
and invited us in.

“Welcome, um, to my house, Abby,” he said. He was in
jeans and a Boston College t-shirt. It was strange seeing him
wearing casual clothes. Usually I saw him in scrubs or suits.

Kate didn’t even try to smile or flirt like she
usually did. She was dead serious and I could tell that he picked
up on it.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Well, sure. What’s wrong?” he asked. “Come on,
let’s sit down.”

We walked to the living room and I looked around.
The house was beautiful inside too. It had an open floor plan, with
a loft upstairs, and the floors, beams, and even the ceiling were
wood. It was decorated like one of those kicked up mountain cabins
in magazines, with studded leather sofas and white bear rugs on the
floor.