Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

“Flickers,” Cait interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“Those mental pictures. I call them Flickers.”

“Flickers,” Virginia responded, pronouncing the word slowly, trying it out, rolling it around on her tongue, savoring it like a coffee aficionado might savor a particularly flavorful sip of dark roast. “I like it. It fits. Anyway, as I was saying, you usually ignore these ‘Flickers,’ as most of the time they mean nothing. Occasionally, however, you will receive a Flicker of significance. When that happens, you will attempt to put the mental image to use to help someone, to do a good deed, the clairvoyant’s version of helping an old lady across the street.”

Cait nodded again, unconsciously this time, as she flashed back to the elderly woman at the grocery store who had dropped her checkbook on her kitchen floor. She looked up to see Virginia Ayers—her mother—watching her with a tiny smile on her face. The smile seemed out of place; the rest of her face looked as though she might break into tears again at any moment. “I’ve always been curious about my ability,” Cait said, “about whether it was a genetic thing or if I was just some weird freak of nature. But you’re right about one thing: for the most part, I don’t give the Flickers a whole lot of thought anymore.”

“Now that you know you are not alone, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that your twin brother possesses the same ability. He also receives these Flickers, as you call them.”

“How do you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that if you gave my brother and me up as newborns, how could you possibly know he has the ability as well? Have you been keeping track of him? Do you know where he is? Can I see him?”

Virginia shook her head firmly. “No, honey, it’s nothing like that. Your father and I did surrender both of you as infants. You were only hours old when you disappeared out of our lives forever. Or so I thought, until I heard from that private detective down in Tampa.”

“Then, how? How do you know?”

“Because that’s the way it works with twins in this bloodline. It’s the root of the whole problem. There is no doubt that your brother had—has—the same ability as you. It’s why we had no choice but to give you up in an illegal adoption, surrendering you to a group that promised to place the two of you as far apart geographically as possible. It was the only way we could think of to keep you safe, to give you any chance of having a normal life. Or a life, period.”

Cait shrugged, bewildered. “We had to be taken from our parents and placed hundreds, maybe thousands of miles apart simply because we both had the ability to receive Flickers? That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense because you don’t know the whole story.”

“Then tell me the whole story.”

Virginia stared at the surface of the small table and took a delicate sip of tea. Cait’s tea sat in front of her, forgotten. Finally the older woman shook her head, a tiny movement filled with resignation and defeat. “I suppose there’s no stopping you. As you said yourself, the genie is out of the bottle now, isn’t it?”

“If you’re asking whether I plan to forget about the fact that I have a twin brother and stop digging into this family’s supposedly mysterious past, if that’s what you’re asking, then no, there’s no stopping me.”

“I didn’t think so,” Virginia said, and placed her teacup onto the table with a clatter. Cait looked down and saw the woman’s hand shaking as if palsied. She tried to recall if it had been doing that earlier and could not. “Then I suppose there’s not much point beating around the bush.”

“None.”

“All right. We gave up our only children in an illegal adoption as the only means of protecting you from your twin brother. Had we not done so, you would be long dead by now. He would have murdered you years ago.”

Milo awoke from his nap feeling groggy, tossing and turning on his air mattress before finally abandoning the idea of sleep and rising bleary-eyed and exhausted. It had been a couple of hours since the disturbingly strong vision of…whatever the hell it had been…had knocked him on his ass like never before.

He sat up, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, and glanced toward the middle of the room where his terrified houseguest remained securely fastened to her chair. From this angle Milo couldn’t be sure, but the hooker appeared to be dozing. Her head tilted forward as if her chin was resting on her breastbone and she sat unmoving.

He rolled off the mattress and stood, and Rae Ann snapped awake at the sound of the old floorboards creaking underfoot. She shook her head once as if to clear the cobwebs and then looked around, obviously trying to locate her captor. Milo smiled. “I’m behind you,” he said playfully, “so you can’t see me.” She whimpered into her duct-tape gag and he stepped into her field of view.

The entire day’s schedule had been thrown off by the earlier unplanned interruption, that disturbingly strong vision of the three people sitting around a kitchen table. He stretched, trying to choose between eating breakfast—it was so late now, he supposed, that it could more appropriately be described as lunch—or getting on with the day’s entertainment.

Entertainment won out. Sure, he was hungry, but he could eat anytime. His chances to play with a fresh victim were distressingly infrequent. He gazed down at the schoolgirl hooker appraisingly and saw her staring back at him with eyes wide and fearful. In the harsh light of midday, after the first round of play last night and without an opportunity to shower or apply makeup, the girl didn’t look quite so youthful after all—certainly not an age to justify her ridiculous outfit. Streaks of mascara ran down her cheeks like tiny canals and traces of crow’s feet were beginning to radiate outward from her blue eyes.

Milo didn’t care. She was still relatively young and sexy and, best of all, she was his. His to use in the manner of his choosing for as long as he elected to do so, before tossing her corpse into a Dumpster when the pleasure he received from torturing her was no longer worth the effort of keeping her alive. He smiled and instantly the girl began thrashing about in her chair, her efforts pointless but enthusiastic, somehow apparently tipped off to his intentions solely by the look in his eyes.

He watched her struggle, aroused by her reaction, his predator eyes locked onto her body, determined not to miss a moment of the fun. Eventually she tired and slumped back, her slim form shaking either from exertion or fear. Milo wasn’t sure which and didn’t care. She had graduated from whimpering to moaning, the sounds still muffled by the thick silver duct tape layered over her mouth. He wished he could remove the gag to fully enjoy her terror, but unfortunately, even in this neighborhood, the screams she would immediately unleash would not go unnoticed.

It was a damned shame. Furthermore, it was completely unfair. Milo had found her and lured her here fair and square; he should be permitted the luxury of enjoying her in whatever manner he pleased. He sighed deeply. Someday he would get his own home way out in the country, a place with no pesky neighbors, a place where not only could he play with his victims without having to gag them, he could hook them up to a loudspeaker if he wanted to and still not have to worry. In the meantime, he would make do with what he had. No one ever said life would be easy.

Or fair.

Now, on to the business at hand. How did he want to play today? He fingered the pliers in his pocket and came to a quick decision. It wasn’t all that difficult. “What do you say we take a look at those fingers you injured last night? Maybe I can fix them up for you.”