Page 66 of Peace Under Fire

He didn’t want to believe that. Really didn’t want to believe that. Why couldn’t this drawing just be the malicious sketch of someone who hated his guts, someone who was purging their anger by killing off the person—metaphysically—they considered responsible for hurting someone they loved? The sketch must have been done by one of Mandy’s sisters, and they all probably hated him because of how he’d treated her.

“Yes. It’s going to happen.” Mandy picked the sketchbook up. “This is Patti’s sketch pad. It’s where she records what she remembers from her visions.”

His mind flashed back to that damn video, to cars flying through the air and birds attacking.

His gut tightened. Patti. “She’s the one who can predict the future?”

“Yeah.” Mandy studied the picture intently and then flipped to the next page, and then the next. “She drew this a while ago,” she said as she continued flipping. “There are quite a few drawings after it.”

“I counted eight,” Gray said. “Do you recognize any of the other sketches?”

“What are her statistics?” Jacob asked as Mandy closed the book and reopened it at the first page.

“Statistics?” Mandy studied the first sketch.

It looked like a single engine plane that had crashed into a field of scrubby grass. Flames were spreading from beneath the body of the plane and into the field surrounding it.

“Yeah, statistics.” Jacob watched Mandy turn the page to the second drawing. “How often is she right?”

Just because she’d drawn him dead didn’t mean it was going to happen. Even assuming she had precognitive abilities like Mandy claimed, not all her visions would come true. The odds of the woman having one hundred percent accuracy were astronomical.

“As far as I’m aware,” Mandy looked up, her face somber beneath the green light of his NVGs, “she’s never had a vision not come true.”

Squish scowled. Of course she hadn’t. Well, fine. Foretold, forewarned. “What kind of timeframe are we looking at?”

“I don’t know.” Mandy turned to the next sketch, this one of a crumbling building where big chunks of concrete, bricks, and scaffolding were in mid-fall. “There’s no consistent length of time between her visions and the incidents happening. They’ve ranged from days to months.” She flipped another page.

“We know this doesn’t happen today. We have time to investigate. We’ll take the sketch pad with us and have Tex run searches based off the details in the drawings. If we can establish when some of these occurred, particularly the ones just before the drawing of you and Mandy, it might give us a rudimentary idea of when this event takes place,” Gray said.

Squish nodded in agreement. With Gray’s family history, it didn’t surprise him to find that the dude believed in Patti’s precognitive abilities instantly.

Mandy flipped the sketch book shut again and picked it up, cradling it against her chest. “The people who took my sisters would have taken this if they’d seen it. And they would have seen it on the table. JoAnn must have found it and left it here in the hopes I’d come home and find it.”

Squish digested that, then keyed the mic attached to his helmet. “Heads up. We have evidence JoAnn was recently on the premise.”

Crusher’s quiet response came instantly. “There were no footprints outside when we approached. Nor are there any at the rear exit. If she accessed the building, she came and went before the last snowfall. Regardless, the building is clear. No sign of the sister. Grumpy and Billy are sitting on the aft exit. You can escort Mandy through the rooms now. See if she sees anything we can use.”

Like a sketch book with foretold dangers? If so, then the reconnaissance had already yielded results. Hopefully that damn sketch would give him a heads up before he caught the bullet, or knife, or whatever had opened the spigot in his chest.

“Copy,” Squish said and turned to Mandy. “Let’s check out the rest of the place.”

Brick thumped his chest and held up a fist indicating he’d remain on guard duty at the front door. Squish nodded and led Mandy toward the kitchen, which was on the other side of the table, separated by a long, waist-high counter. He glanced at the double decker, stainless steel oven and imagined Mandy baking her cookies or cupcakes and setting them to cool on the endless counters while chatting with her sisters at the table. Next to the refrigerator, just before the kitchen, was a pair of double doors. He opened them to find a generous, fully stocked pantry.

Mandy was tense and hesitant as they turned around and headed for the interior door that Crusher had disappeared through. This had to be hell for her. Sure as fuck not the homecoming she’d probably been envisioning.

The interior door dumped them into a long corridor with open doors along each side. The hallway looked more industrial than homey, although they’d tried to soften it up with a nubby carpet and a collection of paintings, posters, and tapestries on the wall. It was hard to miss the dozens of muddy boot prints blotching the tweed carpet.

It felt oddly invasive, accompanying Mandy through the building, canvassing rooms that felt frozen in time.

The individual rooms off the hallway were obviously bedrooms and uniquely different. Each was emblazoned by its owner’s personality; modern, to sophisticated, to minimalistic, to country warmth, to artsy functionality, to vintage, and even retro. It was almost as if the sisters had deliberately tried to be as different from one another as possible. Mandy entered each room beside him and wandered around, surveying the items inside before walking out again.

She didn’t say a word as they walked from room to room, but he didn’t think it was because of Crusher’s talking ban. He suspected she was simply incapable of speaking, that the pain and grief had locked her voice up tight. With each room they entered, she got stiffer, until her muscles were so tense, she shuffled more than walked.

He recognized Mandy’s room as soon as they entered it. It was colorful chaos. Vibrant rugs on the floor, vivid Afghans on the bed and dumped across the recliner in the corner. Bright prints of flowers and rainbows and cute baby animals covering the walls. Everything was done in shades of purple and blue, with some pink thrown in now and then. The room was cheerful and innocent and full of optimism.

He wanted to stay and linger, to soak in her vibrant, optimistic personality through the decor she’d used, because he sure as hell wasn’t getting that vibe from her any longer. This room was clearly pre-Virginia Beach, pre-Squish, pre-her sisters’ kidnappings.

What would her room look like today if she did a reboot? Dark colors and angsty prints? Grief and pain? Colors of despair? His chest tightened in protest at the idea of her losing her sunny personality and optimistic outlook on life.

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