Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(58)

Corinda’s facial muscles went slack as she slipped deeper inside her vision.

“He hides his face. He is so strong, so clever. He knows how to hide, but he is close, Dana,” she murmured. “So close. He … sees you. No, he has seen you. Spoken to you.”

“What?”

“And you … have seen him. Spoken … to him.”

“When?”

Corinda shook her head and winced as if some titanic battle raged inside her mind. “You know his name … I think. Yes. You know his name. He will kill again,” whispered Corinda. “Soon. He must. He wants to. He has already selected his next victim. Oh God! Oh God … no!”

“What is it?” cried Dana, jumping to her feet.

Corinda’s eyes snapped open. “It’s you, Dana. The killer is coming for you.”

Dana backed away, bumping into the small cabinet and banging it against the wall of the niche. “No. Who is he? Why’s he doing this? Why’s he after me?”

The look in Corinda’s eyes was strange, complex. There was fear there, and wonder, and doubt. She passed her hands in front of her face, as if that could forcibly disconnect her mind from the vision. Then she sagged back, shaking her head, spent and trembling.

“He … he’s strong,” she gasped. “Stronger than I thought.”

“What’s his name?” begged Dana. “You have to tell me.”

But Corinda kept shaking her head. “He would not let me that far in. All I know for certain is that he has those scars on his hand and he always has the knife with him.” She looked at Dana. “If he’s coming after you, then you have to find him first. You have to discover who among the people you know matches that description. You have to find him first.”





CHAPTER 51

Craiger, Maryland

7:19 P.M.

Dana left Beyond Beyond badly shaken.

She had been unable to get anything further out of Corinda, and besides, the psychic looked like she was on the verge of collapse. Sunlight was already gone, and only Angelo and one of the other staff members were around, but now wasn’t the time to discuss this sort of thing with either of them. The one pay phone at the store was being used, so she left and crossed to the phone booth outside the diner on the corner. As she closed the door, the dome light flicked on. She fished coins from her pocket and called home, trying to find Melissa.

It was Dad who answered. “Starbuck?” he said. “Where are you?”

No way she wanted to tell her father about anything that was going on. Dad was very much by-the-book and would have laughed at anything involving psychic phenomena. Laughed and maybe ordered her to come right home.

“I, um, have jujutsu tonight,” she said quickly, and then realized it wasn’t actually a lie. All of her classes—jujutsu and yoga—were listed on the wall calendar in the kitchen. Sometimes she went to the five thirty class and sometimes the seven thirty session.

“It’s smarter to go to the earlier class,” her father said.

“I know, but since we had a half day I decided to go to the library. I wanted to get ahead of the English essays I have to write.”

“Well, that’s okay, then.” It had been the right kind of argument to use on her dad.

“Is Melissa there?” asked Dana. “I wanted to, um, ask her about some homework.”

That was a lie, and Dad jumped right on it. “You want Melissa to help with homework?”

Dana had to think fast. “A poetry assignment in English.”

“Oh,” said Dad. Poetry, music, and art were the only subjects where Melissa stood on firmer ground than Dana. She was like Mom in that. Artsy rather than what Dad called “practical” in subjects like math, history, science, and gym.

“Your sister,” said Dad, “is at a friend’s house. Eileen Minder-something.”

“Minderjahn. Melissa is over at Eileen’s house?”

“So she says. And that’s where she’d better be.”

Despite everything, Dana had to smile. There was about one chance in ten trillion Melissa was at the Minderjahns to hang out with Eileen. The chances were a whole lot higher that Eileen wasn’t even home and that Dave was. Dana did not say as much to her father.

“Okay. I’ll call her over there.”

“If you do,” said Dad, “remind her that both of you are supposed to be home at nine thirty, and that does not mean nine thirty-one. Are we clear?”

“Aye, aye, Captain Ahab.”

There was a pause, then in a softer and gentler voice, Dad said, “You be careful out there.”

“Always,” she said.

It was the biggest lie she’d ever told her father.

“I love you, Starbuck,” he said, surprising her. Dad rarely said anything like that. Before she could reply, the line went dead.

She leaned against the glass wall of the phone booth, feeling oddly lost, as if she had somehow been abandoned by everyone. That wasn’t true, of course, but the feeling was so powerful and persistent that Dana tested the folding door to make sure it was all the way closed. Better to be locked in a glass booth than be out there, exposed, vulnerable.

That, too, was an irrational thought. She was a target in a fishbowl, and she realized that safety was incredibly subjective. It was what people made of it in the moment. That was not a comforting realization. She looked at the darkened street, at the passing cars and the occasional pedestrians, seeing no one she recognized. Not at first. Then she saw Angelo come out of the alley that ran alongside Beyond Beyond. He wore a dark long-sleeved hooded sweatshirt that made him blend almost completely in with the shadows behind him. He looked up and down the street, obviously looking for something or someone. Dana pulled the handle of the folding door, opening it inward until the edge of the metal door released the button that triggered the light. The booth went dark a split second before Angelo looked across the street. His gaze swept toward the phone booth, seemed to pause for a moment, and then moved on. Then he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt, jammed his hands into his pocket, and hurried across, slanting away from where Dana stood trembling.