‘We were inside some dark church, I don’t know where. The priest was just kneeling in front of me, crying.’ She had a sip of her hot drink and Hunter noticed her shaky hands. ‘I showed him something . . . a piece of paper, I think.’
‘A piece of paper?’ Garcia queried.
She nodded.
‘Could it have been a picture or maybe a drawing?’ Hunter asked.
‘It could have. I can’t be sure.’
Traffic was heating up. A car stalled on East First Street and a barrage of horns came alive. She waited for them to die down.
‘I never got to see it. I just showed it to the priest.’
Hunter noted something down in his black notebook. ‘What did you see next?’
She hesitated for a second, as if what she was about to say made no sense. ‘A dog’s head. I showed the priest a dog’s head, and it terrified him.’
‘Where did the head come from?’ Garcia this time.
‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘I just had it with me.’ Another quick hesitation. ‘Together with the sword I used to . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
Hunter allowed a few silent moments to go by before asking her if she remembered which hand held the sword.
‘The right one,’ she said with conviction.
‘Can you remember anything specific about the hand? Skin color? Were there any rings on the fingers? A watch?’
She thought about it for a second. ‘Black gloves.’
The wind had picked up as more dark clouds gathered in the sky. It was getting colder, but the girl didn’t seem to notice it.
‘Anything else you remember from your vision?’
She nodded as she stared straight into Hunter’s eyes. ‘The number three. I drew it onto the priest’s chest after I killed him.’
This time it wasn’t the cold wind that made Garcia shiver.
Hunter held her gaze. Up to now, all the information Mollie had given them could’ve been obtained from the papers. The story that the killer had showed his victim a piece of paper could’ve been made up. They had no way of confirming it. But not the numbering. There was no way she could’ve known about the numbering.
‘When you came to see us.’ Hunter broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘Just before I left the room, you said something to me, do you remember?’
He got no response.
‘You said, “He knew about the fire. He knew what scared her.” Do you remember saying that?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you mean by that?’ Hunter pushed his empty coffee cup to one side and leaned forward.
‘At first I didn’t know. It was like I had no control. Those words simply shot out of my lips. But just a minute after you left I saw it. And this time it was even stronger than the previous one.’ Her voice wavered for a second.
‘What did you see?’
‘A woman tied to an armchair. She was as scared as the priest was, but she couldn’t scream.’
Garcia ran his hand over his mouth and chin as if stroking a goatee. ‘Was she gagged?’
‘No. Her lips had been—’ the girl shook her head, hardly believing her own words ‘—glued shut.’
‘Glued?’ Hunter asked surprised. ‘Like with crazy glue?’
She nodded. ‘Her face was also covered in something sticky, like some weird type of gel.’
‘Did you see this as a first person again?’ Garcia pressed.
‘Yes.’ She looked away as if it were her fault.
Hunter wanted to explore the picture story further. ‘Did you show the woman a picture, like you did with the priest?’
‘Yes, but again I didn’t see what it was.’
‘You said this vision was stronger than the previous one, stronger how?’ Garcia asked.
Mollie took a moment and Hunter understood her hesitation. She hadn’t had a vision in almost four years. Now they’d come back. And in the form of the most hideous murders Hunter had ever seen.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. ‘The visions I have are usually silent – images only, but not this one.’ She paused. ‘I said something to the woman.’
Hunter kept silent, allowing her to continue in her own time.
‘I said,
Hunter’s heart raced.
‘. . .
Sixty-Seven
The statement was so surprising that it took several seconds for it to register with both detectives.
‘Was it your voice?’ Hunter queried, still a little stunned by how much she knew. ‘When you said those words to the woman. Was it your voice or somebody else’s?’
‘My own,’ she whispered.
Garcia rubbed his face vigorously, lost for words.
‘Somehow I knew the woman in the chair was scared of fires,’ the girl continued. ‘That’s why I said those words to you.’
Hunter leaned back in his chair and thought about it for a moment.
‘These visions last only about thirty seconds, maybe a minute. I don’t know why I see them. I don’t know why they feel so real. I don’t know why I wasn’t a spectator like all the previous ones. I wish I did, but I don’t have all the answers.’ She paused and looked away from Hunter. ‘What I’m trying to tell you is: whoever this killer is, he knows about their fears.’
‘Is there anything else you remember about these visions, Mollie?’ Garcia asked and saw the girl’s eyes widen in shock. She looked uncertain for a split second before reaching for her bag.
Hunter reached for her hand. ‘Wait.’
Mollie looked at him, then jerked his hand away angrily and stood up.
‘Please listen to me.’ Hunter and Garcia shot to their feet at the same time.
‘This has all been a mistake.’
‘No, it hasn’t.’ Hunter’s tone was firm but unthreatening. ‘Just give me one minute to explain. Then, if you still wanna go, no one will stop you.’
She paused just long enough for Hunter not to allow her uncertainty to settle. ‘I didn’t know if you’d ever call again. You left before an officer had a chance to write down your details. You left us nothing, so I had to go with the only thing we had – your Pennsylvanian accent. We did a quick search. Your name came up as a missing person.’
She went rigid.
‘We didn’t tell your father.’
Earlier on, when she told them about her obsessively religious parents, she kept the story centered around her mother, rarely mentioning her father. When she did, her body tensed, her posture shifted and her movements were nervy. Hunter saw how scared she was of him.
‘And we won’t tell him,’ Hunter said positively.
