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Jesse’s dad stood in the doorway, watching us. It
was strange that he was home. He was usually working at his garage
from morning until night. He just stood there, staring, until I
waved and then he headed over to the car.

“Ah, jeez, now you’ve done it. He’ll talk your ear
off and you’ll never get home,” he said.

“I haven’t seen him in forever.”

“I know,” Jesse said, watching his dad lumber down
the front steps slowly. As always, he looked like he had just
stepped off a concert tour with ZZ Top, with his flowing hair and
long, gray beard that hung down his chest. But he looked older than
the last time I’d seen him.

“Things have been kind of rocky between us,” Jesse
said. “We fight all the time. About my car. He refuses to fix it!
He’s still angry and that makes me angry. That’s why I got the job.
I need money for a new car. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, I
wish he would just let it go and fix it for me.”

Jesse waved at his dad, but he ignored him and
walked over to my side of the Jeep. I unrolled the window. I hadn’t
seen him since he had stopped by with flowers when I got home from
the hospital.

“Hey, Abby. How are you?” he said, giving me a pat
on the shoulder.

“Fine, Mr. Stone,” I said. “It’s so good to see you.
How are you?”

It really was great to see him. He had gotten thin,
but he still radiated that familiar warmth that reminded me of
summer and I realized how much I had missed him. As he talked about
the weather and the snow, other memories flooded back, like the
time when Jesse and I helped him down at his garage and he taught
us about the different tools.

“Well, I came home for a little lunch and I saw you
out here and wanted to say hello. You know, I’ve been meaning to
get over to see how you’ve been doing and all, just been so darn
busy down at the shop.”

“Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“It’s sure good to see you up and around, Abby,” he
said. “You know, I call your sister every once in a while.” He
tugged at his beard. “To check on you, see how you’re doing. I hope
she passes along my hellos.”

I nodded, even though Kate hadn’t ever mentioned
that he had called. But given the crazy hours she worked, she
probably had forgotten. I looked over at Jesse, who was climbing
out of the car.

“Later, Craigers,” he said, heading up to the porch.
Wow. Things really had gotten bad between them.

“Well, it was good to see you, Mr. Stone.
Really.”

“Oh, yes, Abby. Please drop by again. Here or at the
shop. I’d love to talk when you have more time.”

“I will,” I said. “Bye.”

I looked over at Jesse, who was waiting for his dad
at the front steps. I hadn’t realized there had been so much
tension between them and wondered if maybe that was why he was
goofing off at school. Sure, I knew he was taking the Mt. Bachelor
bus up to his job and needed rides around town, but he was always
kind of joking about it.

I had been an idiot. I only had known Jesse like
most of my life, of course not having his car would be a huge
deal.

I texted him after I got home.

“Take the Jeep whenever,” I wrote. “Anytime.”

Jesse texted back a happy face. I grabbed my
backpack and started my homework.

CHAPTER 20

As I was trying to do algebra, Kate called and told
me that the authorities found the dead arsonist, not too far from
the woods and the fire.

“They say he suffocated, and they are thinking it’s
murder,” Kate said. “Also, I did drop some hints about him setting
the fire so they’ll check his clothes. He was a construction worker
it turns out. Actually, we found out that he was one of the workers
who built that house.”

“Weird. Did he set it for revenge or something?” I
asked.

“I don’t know. I have a call in now to the
contractor. I’ll know more later.”

“At least they think it’s murder,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Abby, be careful. Are all the
doors locked?”

I hadn’t thought too much about what Kate was
implying. The killer hadn’t seen me in the visions, so I felt safe.
But maybe I was wrong.

“Yeah, everything’s locked up,” I said.

“So he’s killed a homeless guy, a receptionist slash
bartender, and now a construction worker,” she said. “Do you see
any connection at all?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet anyway. Maybe the opportunity
just presented itself, like maybe he was just ready to kill and
they wandered into his path.”

“Yeah, except for Lana Chang. She was at home, in
the bathtub,” Kate said.

True. The other two would fit the random theory, but
not Lana.

“There must be a pattern, something we don’t see
yet,” she said. “At least I’m getting stories in the paper about
it, Not the ones I would like to write, that there’s a serial
killer in Bend. Boy, that would freak everybody out.”

“It would,” I said. “But that’s what happening.”

“It seems like the public has a right to know,” she
said. “I’m trying to talk Tony into letting me write that story, at
least question the possibility that the deaths are linked. But he
says not yet. He’s reluctant to get everybody upset with
circumstantial evidence. I wish I could tell him about your
visions.”

“Kate, no!”

“Relax, I wouldn’t do that, Abby! Come on now. You
know Tony. In a million years he would never believe it anyway, let
alone run a story based on it. I was just thinking out loud. But I
do wish I could get him to at least consider a story in that
direction. We really should be warning people.”

“Well, maybe the drug reports will help,” I
said.

“Yeah, that’s a point. Oh, and Abby, you were right
about the fire. It was ruled officially an arson.”

“Well, that’s good,” I said.

She paused for a moment.

“Any more?” she finally asked.

“Any more what?”

“Um, you know, memories. Any more come back today?”
she asked.

Kate had been nearly as thrilled as I was when I had
told her about the Dr. Krowe session and the Amanda memories that
had come back. Now, though, it seemed as like every time we spoke,
she was bugging me for more.

“No. Not yet. I’ll keep you posted though.”

I hung up and blew off the rest of the equations. I
was spending too much time on them and they were probably all wrong
anyway. I headed over to the TV and found Fringe and settled in to
watch.

CHAPTER 21

I sat at the end of the long cafeteria table eating
my brown-bagged lunch. The girls at the other end ignored me like
they always did. Jayde and Blaire said hello but rushed by to sit
with another group. And Danielle, who I had known since
kindergarten, made a beeline for the back as soon as she saw
me.

Jesse was making his way through the grub line, as
he called it. He always ate in the cafeteria because for some
freaky reason he thought the food was good. I had never once eaten
food from school. It made my stomach turn looking at it.

Amanda sat a few tables away and I was wondering if
he would sit with her or sit with me. Now that I had those memories
back, I really wanted to talk to her, even if I wasn’t sure what
I’d say. “Sorry I’ve been hitting on your boyfriend all year, but
do you think we can still be friends?” sounded pretty lame.

I was also thinking about Dr. Mortimer. Kate said
that we should tell him about my visions because we could trust him
and being that he was a doctor, he might know something about
near-death experiences. She had a point, but I wasn’t sure if it
was a good idea. He had never asked me about being dead, about what
I had seen on the other side. Dr. Mortimer was always just focused
on my physical recovery.

So I wasn’t sold on the plan to tell him everything,
but Kate was looking for help, trying to figure things out, so I
said okay. And it would be nice to get some insight from someone
else. The police investigations seemed to be going nowhere.

I took a bite from my sandwich. Jesse finally headed
over with his tray, walking right past Amanda. She glared at him
and then at me. I had been such an idiot for not figuring this out
sooner.

“This seat taken?” he said, smiling and looking at
the empty benches around me. I tried not to take it personally
anymore.

“Well, it’s open, but you better hurry. The crowd is
rushing over to get that seat.”

He put down his lunch and we looked at the girls at
the end of the table. They were talking loudly about some movie
they had seen. I was relieved when kids were loud. That way I knew
they weren’t talking about me.

I wanted to ask Jesse about Amanda, but lost my
nerve. I realized that I had never seen them together since I got
back to school. It must have been a nasty breakup and I had that
sinking feeling that I had been involved somehow.

“So you’re still planning on talking to Dr. Mortimer
tonight about those dreams?” Jesse asked.

“Yep,” I said. “That’s the plan.”

Lately Jesse had been more open about the visions.
He was interested and asked about them now. He said he was still
concerned that I was focusing too much on “those dreams,” but it
wasn’t like I could just ignore them. I had seen those people
killed.

“I read Kate’s articles in the newspaper,” he
said.

Kate had been writing a lot of the stories,
especially with the police thinking that the arsonist had been
murdered. They had no leads, but at the very least the killer knew
somebody was paying attention, that he couldn’t keep killing in
secret.

“That’s some weird stuff, Abby,” Jesse said. Loud
laughter echoed throughout the cafeteria again and I shuddered as
my stomach dropped.

“So you never see him? The guy who is killing people
in those dreams of yours?”

“No. He’s always in the shadows,” I said. “But I can
feel him. It’s a bad, dark feeling.”

He stuffed his face with a corn dog drenched in
ketchup.

“That’s super creepy,” he said. “Be careful.”

I finished my sandwich. Jesse stood up, picking up
Tater Tots and throwing them in his mouth as he walked away. He
never liked sitting for too long.

“Later, Craigers. Gonna shoot some J’s with the
guys. Let me know how it goes tonight.”

He headed to the double doors, never even looking at
Amanda.

CHAPTER 22

Since the last session with Dr. Krowe had gone so
well, I decided that I would approach him about the paranormal
world, in a subtle kind of way.

“Do you know anything about people who have
visions?”

He looked at me over his glasses. It was bright
outside and we were seated in the usual leather chairs.

“Can you elaborate?” he asked as he wrote.

“It’s for school. A project I’m working on. It’s a
paper on the paranormal. Visions, ESP, psychic phenomenon, things
like that. I’ve searched the Internet but there’s mostly junk. But
I came across a woman who could predict earthquakes. She had these
visions about them and then they happened. I was just wondering if
there is anything, you know, based on research or something.”

I had spent the previous night going from one stupid
web site to another. Psychics, palm readers, tarot card experts all
willing to help as long as I had a credit card to enter.

“What class is this for?” he asked.

“English. It’s a paper. We could pick any
topic.”

“And you chose paranormal activity. Hmmm…..” he
said, rubbing his chin and writing some more. “That makes
sense.”

“It’s a pretty popular subject these days,” I
said.

“Pretty interesting too, I imagine, after drowning
in the lake and dying,” he said, smiling.

I sat back in the chair as if he had slapped me. It
still hurt when people brought up my death and I wasn’t expecting
it, even if there was no malice behind his words. I had too many
experiences with freaks trying to “save” me over this past
year.

I took a breath.

“Sorry, Abby, I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s
only that if it were me, in your situation, I would be
investigating all that kind of stuff too. Probably would have done
it a lot sooner. You went through quite an amazing event. We don’t
talk about it much, but I hope we can. It really is
remarkable.”

He tapped his pen against his teeth, something he
did when he was thinking.

“Well, I only asked because it’s for a paper I’m
doing. For school, that’s all. I thought you would know something,”
I said. It came out angry. I couldn’t help it.

“Actually, there has been quite a lot of scholarly
research done in that field during the past decade or so. A lot of
academics take psychic phenomenon very seriously. And I’m not
talking about those silly TV shows or one eight hundred numbers.
I’m talking about studying real people having real paranormal
experiences.”

That made me feel a lot better. Maybe I wasn’t so
crazy after all. Maybe these things were common, like Kate had
said.

“Of course, a lot of people don’t believe in any of
it. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen,” he said.

“What about you, Dr. Krowe? Do you believe that a
person could have a vision or know that something is going to
happen or see something happening in a dream?” I asked.

He crossed his legs.

“That’s complicated. First I would have to determine
the psychological state of the person. I believe that a lot of the
people who experience paranormal activity have underlying
psychological conditions.”

My chest tightened. In other words, he was saying
that they were nut cases. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t started this
conversation. I should have kept my big mouth shut. Jesse was
right.

He looked at me with dark eyes.

“But if you are able to rule out any sort of
psychology problem, I actually do believe that some of those things
happen,” he said. “I mean, I think we’ve all been touched in some
degree by strange phenomenon that can’t be explained.”