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  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.

  “Just give me a minute. Make yourselves comfortable and I’ll be right back. Can I get you two sodas or wine or something?”

  “No, we’re fine,” Kate said.

  He was so fast going up the stairs it took my breath away. When he returned, he was wearing a sweater.

  “Okay,” he said, pushing back his hair and sitting next to us. “Something terrible has happened. I can see it in your faces. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “You’ve heard about the college teacher being killed, right?” Kate said.

  “No, I haven’t heard anything,” he said. “I’ve been sleeping most of the day, trying to catch up.”

  “She’s dead, Dr. Mortimer. This morning they found her floating in the river,” I said.

  “That’s terrible.”

  I watched his reaction and it seemed genuine. He took Kate’s hand. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Did you guys know her or something?”

  “No,” Kate said. “But she was murdered. And Abby saw everything in her vision last night. She saw it all happen Ben. Everything.”

  He looked at me with large eyes. Horror filled his face.

  “Whoa, what are you talking about here?” he asked.

  “The visions. The ones we talked to you about at the hospital. Remember?”

  “Of course I remember. Is this true, Abby?” he asked.

  His eyes were dancing between us, back and forth. He was nervous, I could tell. I took a deep breath, gathering my courage.

  “Yes. I saw her killed. It was awful.”

  My voice was shaking as much as my body now and I was sure that the cold had nothing to do with it.

  “As you slept, in your dreams?” Dr. Mortimer asked. “You saw her being killed in your dreams?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Abby was the one who called me to tell me about it,” Kate said. “She found the body in the Deschutes this morning, exactly like she had seen in her vision.”

  “Oh, my God, that’s awful,” he said, sinking into the sofa.

  “I saw it all, Dr. Mortimer. I was there. I was there with the killer and I know who he is.”

  Dr. Mortimer grabbed his head and our eyes locked. I could tell he was having trouble breathing. I knew that this was hard.

  “Shhh,” he said suddenly, sitting up quickly and holding up his finger to his mouth. But it was too late.

  He was there, in the house, listening to everything. He had heard, and he knew I knew. A door upstairs opened and as we all looked up, I saw a tall figure step out from the shadows. My heart thundered in my chest.

  “Hello, ladies,” he said, leaning against the railing up above. A thick darkness surrounded him. There was no mistaking it. It was him. The killer.

  “What a pleasure to see you both again.”

  Nathaniel.

  CHAPTER 32

  Nathaniel walked down the stairs slowly but with purpose, and soon stood in front of us. He was smiling in that same smug way I had seen in my vision.

  “Please, don’t get up,” he said, as he sat down in the opposite sofa. He was all in black, and had his hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  “You bastard,” Kate yelled and within a blink of an eye, she flew through the air and landed on top of him. She started pounding at him with her fists and for a minute, it looked like Kate might take him down. She was always athletic and strong. But after the shock wore off, Nathaniel regained his composure and had the upper hand. And even though he was thin, he quickly pulled her down to the floor.

  “Nathaniel, stop it! NATHANIEL!” Dr. Mortimer yelled as he rushed up to them and pulled his brother off Kate. He slapped his face hard. “Stop!”

  Nathaniel’s eyes went dark, his pale skin glowing in the soft light of the house. My heart was pounding in my ears. I couldn’t stop staring at the blackness that was around him. It made me cold inside. It was the same darkness that was at the bottom of the lake, the darkness of my dreams.

  Dr. Mortimer had a strange shadow around him too, but it was nothing like Nathaniel’s. How could I have been so wrong?

  “Everybody needs to calm down,” Dr. Mortimer said. He pushed his brother back and Nathaniel fell into the sofa. “Kate, Abby, please sit down again. Let’s all talk.”

  And then I got a strong feeling, something that told me that Dr. Mortimer had known. He had known that his brother was killing people and that was probably why he carried that darkness around him. It was guilt. He hadn’t stopped Nathaniel, hadn’t stopped the murders of innocent people and so blood was on his hands too.

  “There’s nothing to discuss here, Ben,” Kate said sharply. “It won’t matter what he says. He’s a cold-blooded killer. A total scumbag murderer!”

  Nathaniel smiled, his dark eyes darting back and forth between the three of us.

  “You just don’t understand,” he said. “You’re making me out to be a monster and that’s not it at all. In society, some have to be sacrificed for the good of the whole. It’s natural. It’s evolution. It happens all the time. You and your beliefs can’t change that.”

  “What are you even talking about?” Kate said. Her face was dark, anger was bubbling up. I hated seeing Kate like that and it scared me. I didn’t know what she would do. I wanted her friend James to arrive and arrest him, beca
use clearly Nathaniel was a madman and there was no reasoning with him.

  “I’m talking about saving society, Kate! You don’t even realize that I’m about to become society’s greatest hero. I am this close to solving the greatest mystery known to mankind! Death!”

  Dr. Mortimer sighed heavily.

  “Not this again, Nathaniel,” he said.

  Nathaniel laughed sarcastically.

  “‘Not this again.’ Do you hear him? And he calls himself a man of medicine! Ben, don’t you think your patients, the ones you can’t save, might be interested in my research? I would think a doctor like you might believe that it’s advantageous to beat death! Isn’t that what you try to do, day after day, with only partial success?”

  “You’ve gone insane,” Dr. Mortimer said, shaking his head. “Absolutely insane.”

  “But wait,” Nathaniel said, looking at Kate and then at me. “What am I thinking? I don’t have to tell you two about the amazing things I’ve done! You have already received the benefits of my miraculous research!”

  “What sort of gibberish are you talking about now?” Kate said.

  Nathaniel’s eyes shot back over to her like a rattler ready to strike.

  “Abby, of course,” he said, extending his hand and pointing to me. “I gave your sister life. And I gave her back to you.”

  For a moment, I forgot how to breathe and I felt like I was drowning again. I just stared at Nathaniel, my body in shock. What was he saying?

  Kate was lost, too. Dr. Mortimer stood up, ready to attack. But I stopped him. I had to know.

  “No, leave him alone,” I said in an even voice, forcing myself out of the stupor. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

  *

  He told us everything.

  It started four years ago, when his company developed a serum that was supposed to help cancer patients. Nathaniel was in charge of the testing and research at various hospitals across the country.

  “I accidently injected a patient with the serum who had just died. I hadn’t realized she was dead, but later I found out that it had been noted on her chart. She had been dead over 20 minutes. And then, shortly after, she came back to life.”

  “It was just a coincidence,” Dr. Mortimer interrupted.

  Nathaniel ignored him.

  “She didn’t end up living too much longer. Cancer destroys the body and this serum wasn’t able to stop that. But imagine my excitement! I had brought somebody back to the life! But I didn’t know if it was a fluke, if what I had invented was really an antidote for death.”

  “This is preposterous,” Dr. Mortimer said, shaking his head. “Just something out of one of those old horror movies you watched as a kid.”

  Nathaniel smiled at his brother and kept talking.

  “Imagine, beating death! Ridiculous sounding, and yet that’s exactly what happened. I realized I would need to do more research, collect and analyze the data. I started to hang around emergency rooms, waiting for accident victims, people who had just died, but who were otherwise very healthy.”

  Nathaniel’s eyes drilled into mine.

  “Like you, Abby,” he said. “You were one of my test subjects.”

  It was like he had punched me in the gut. I heard Kate gasp and Dr. Mortimer sigh. Nathaniel was saying that I was some freakish mad scientist experiment. I just sat there, unable to respond, staring at him with my mouth hanging open and my stomach on the floor. I couldn’t move.

  “Liar!” Dr. Mortimer yelled. “Abby and Kate, don’t believe this. It’s pure fantasy. It’s nonsense!”

  Dr. Mortimer grabbed my shoulders.

  “Abby, you’re alive because we worked on resuscitating you for over thirty minutes. You’re alive because you fell into a frozen lake that shut your system down and you didn’t need much oxygen to survive. Your living has nothing to do with Nathaniel. Don’t believe him!”

  “Ben, always such a nonbeliever,” Nathaniel said. “But it doesn’t matter what you think. The truth is Abby was dead, I injected the serum, and then she was alive. I saved you, Abby. I brought you back to life.”

  “No, Nathaniel. You didn’t bring her back! Why do we have to keep going over this?” Dr. Mortimer said, his voice booming through the house. “It was an act of God. And you, clearly, have nothing to do with God!”

  “Perhaps,” he said, smiling. “But I have everything to do with Abby surviving that accident,” he said. “I just don’t know why it scares you so much. You should be embracing this. You should be as excited as I am!”

  I couldn’t stop shaking. This was all too much.

  “Ben, was Nathaniel at the hospital that night?” Kate asked. Her voice was unsteady. She didn’t want to believe it either, and yet, as crazy as it sounded, we both feared it could be true.

  Dr. Mortimer looked at her, his eyes wild.

  “Yes,” he said. “He was there that night. I told you, he works with St. Charles through his company. He was there, but he was in the lab.”

  He shot a hateful look over to Nathaniel.

  “You weren’t down there. I didn’t see you down in the ER.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” he said. “I’m not a fool. Besides, I waited until you moved on to another patient. It was an older man who was having chest pains. Remember?”

  “I didn’t see you, either, Nathaniel,” Kate said.

  “I was there and I sure saw you. You must have thought I was an intern, the one checking Abby’s pulse and breathing after she returned.”

  The room was spinning and I needed to get out, leave all this behind. I stood up and looked over at Kate.

  But I thought for a minute. I still had a question. I needed to know how someone who was trying to save people had all of a sudden decided to become a murderer.

  “How could you do it, Nathaniel? How could you kill those innocent people? You’re supposed to help people and heal them,” I asked.

  Nathaniel wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked at me. It felt like we were the only ones in the room.

  “I needed to, Abby, for the data. It’s as simple as that. For years I waited for accident victims in hospitals. But it was taking too long. After the huge success with you, I realized I needed to narrow the experiment, to test only drowning victims, or people who died from asphyxiation. And then go from there with certain blood types and body weights and things like that. It’s an active experiment. I’m logging all my results. Careful record keeping. I’ve been trying to reenact what had happened with you.”

  I was stunned. He really was insane.

  “It wasn’t hard to wrap my arm around them or slip a bag over their head so they would pass out. Some I took to the river to finish the job. But the second they died, I was right there, ready to give them back their lives. I injected the dosage. I wanted them to live. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way. Not yet. But I know I can do it again.”

  We all sat stunned.

  “You’re crazy,” Dr. Mortimer finally said. “And you need help, Nathaniel. You need to be locked up.”

  This was all so unbelievable. As I stared at him, it was clear that he didn’t care one bit about the people he killed.

  “Abby, I still would like to run some tests on you. I need to figure out how it worked on you.”

  “You’re not doing anything to her,” Kate said, moving toward him. I was worried she would start attacking him again and knew we needed to get out of the house.

  “That’s it, I’ve had enough,” Dr. Mortimer said. He walked over and Nathaniel stood up. Dr. Mortimer was larger than his brother, and I had a feeling that he could probably pulverize him. At the very least, detain him until James arrived.

  “Ben, the police are on their way,” Kate said.

  I didn’t know why Kate told him that.

  “You called the police?” Dr. Mortimer said, rubbing his chin.

  “Of course I did! He’s a killer, Ben!” Kate said.

  Dr. Mortimer stared hard at Nathaniel, who stared back. The t
wo brothers were full of hate. The house felt electric, violent.

  Outside, a car pulled up into the driveway. Nathaniel walked toward the back of the house, but then stopped, looking exactly like when I had seen him in my vision.

  “Oh, and Abby,” he said. “It was fun seeing you last night. You know, with the college teacher. You were standing in the trees. Or a part of you was. You didn’t exactly look whole. I’m not sure how you were able to be there, watching me as I worked. Seems that we are linked somehow. It’s intriguing, to say the least.”

  I glared at him.

  “I’ll be back. Nothing too invasive. I’ll come find you when things have settled down.”

  Nathaniel took off running and bolted through the kitchen and then the back door. Dr. Mortimer rushed by me in pursuit, but the killer vanished in the cold, snow-filled night.

  CHAPTER 33

  We drove slowly over the icy streets. Dr. Mortimer seemed sure where to find Nathaniel.

  “So did you know your brother was a murderer the entire time?” Kate asked. She was sitting up front and I wished she hadn’t asked that. I knew that she wouldn’t be able to live with the answer.

  Dr. Mortimer was quiet. Then he sighed.

  “No, not the entire time. Just since the fire. When we arrived that night, I saw Nathaniel in the crowd and I followed him into the woods. But I lost him. I couldn’t figure out what he would be doing there and then later I read your story about the body being found. I put it together, but I was hoping I was wrong.”

  He found my eyes in the rearview.

  “Abby, you don’t even think twice about what he said to you. It’s not true. None of it. He’s gone off the deep end. His genius has betrayed him and it’s led him down a very dark path. We performed CPR on you and that’s what saved you. You’re a miracle. God’s miracle.”

  I didn’t say anything. I wished I could believe him, but I just wasn’t sure. He drove a little faster through the quiet night.

  “So it had nothing to do with the serum that he injected into Abby?” Kate said. “You’re sure?”