Unholy Shepherd, Robert Christian [fastest ebook reader TXT] 📗

she insisted, pointing at the row of homes. “You can just let me off here.”

“No,” he said decisively, showing her that he had called her bluff. He returned her glare with an exaggerated grin.

“Four blocks south of Main,” she sighed. “I got a studio in one of the old industrial buildings. I don’t remember the name of the street.”

“Branch Street,” said Manny.

“Yeah, that’s it. Should have known. All the street names around here have something to do with trees.”

“Most of them, yeah.”

“I think it’s stupid.”

“So do I.”

Within minutes, Manny was heading south down Branch. Maureen, who’d been quiet, poked his arm with her hand and gestured ahead.

“Third one on the left,” she said.

Manny pulled his truck over to the curb and put it in park before turning to her.

“Listen, Maureen,” he said, trying to sound as calming as possible, “I’m sorry that you’re involved in this. And I’m sorry I tried to use you as some kind of tool back there. But take some advice. You’re going to need to be careful. I got a feeling this all might get worse before it gets better.”

“I’m not stupid,” she said as she pushed her door open. She hopped out of the truck and began to close the door before she stopped and leaned back into the cab. “Listen, I don’t blame you for trying to do what you did. I might have done the same. But you should know something. The nightmares force me to look through the eyes of someone doing evil things. That much I figured out a long time ago. But I never put that into context until the other night. I always figured that there’s evil that puts out—I don’t know—imprints into the world, and when I’m around, they fill me up like a cup. When I was in the little boy’s room, I found something that told me the truth: I see these things as they’re actually happening. Not in the past, not in the future. Right then and there. So you see, I’m more cursed than I thought. There’s nothing I can do to help you. Anyway, thanks for the ride, Detective.” She stepped back and closed the door slowly.

Manny watched as she walked across the street, her eyes still down, arms wrapped around her. He had to say something, if only to indicate that he had heard and understood her, even if he didn’t completely. He rolled down his window. “It’s Manny!” he called to her.

“No, it isn’t,” she called back, not bothering to look. She reached the door to one of the buildings and disappeared inside.

THIRTEEN

Agent Layton stalked through the sheriff’s department building toward his makeshift office. It was poorly ventilated and the summer heat made sitting in this interview room a trial, but at the moment, he didn’t mind. He was eager to read the fax that he had just received. It had only taken a few hours for the information he was seeking to reach him, and that put him in a very good mood.

The conversation he had with the young detective about Maureen Allen’s ability to predict a crime had shaken loose an old memory of some Bureau gossip regarding a case up in Massachusetts from when he was a young agent. He’d always thought that the veterans were just pulling his chain, that the FBI didn’t really keep files on this sort of paranormal activity. In the intervening years, he personally had never worked any case that dealt with the kind of circumstances that a TV show could be built around, but the gossip still ran strong within the Bureau, and he’d heard his fair share of odd cases. He thanked his lucky stars that his best friend from those days held the same position in the Chelsea Field Office that he did out here. He might not have gotten a look at this otherwise.

Layton sat down at his desk and opened the folder to reveal case number 7-3919: the kidnapping and unsolved murder of Braden Allerton in the town of Duxbury. There were a few lines redacted from the document, but on the whole, it was pretty much intact. The reading was fascinating, but most intriguing was the collected notes from an FBI psychologist’s examination of the victim’s sister, eight-year-old Maureen.

Layton pored over the three pages of notes twice before closing the file and sitting in silence, pondering everything that he’d just read. A child’s disappearance with no solid leads and a little girl named Maureen whose dreams had apparently led her to call the police, who in turn were able to discover the body. He needed to find out what happened to that little girl, who would be about thirty-four years old by now. If his suspicions were right, an ordeal like the one she’d been through would probably lead a person to change their name at the first chance they got.

FOURTEEN

Maureen was grateful for one thing as she paced back and forth between her bed and couch: she didn’t have to go into work. Saturday nights at Anderson’s was Angela and Shelly’s night. Mr. Anderson used the two brunettes to make sure each Saturday drew in a horde of horny college boys. The two girls didn’t even look old enough to be serving, and they spilled or gave away far too many drinks, but with the makeup they wore, and the tits-and-ass show they put on, Mr. Anderson couldn’t care less if he had to spend most of Sunday cleaning the floor and massaging his books.

She didn’t actually expect to keep her job much longer, anyway. She was pretty sure that news of her arrest had made the rounds in the small town and, even though she had been released, she was still a person of interest in the murder of two children now. She could just imagine the next time she stepped foot into that bar. Her weeknight regulars would look at her differently, though it might be a