Riverwatch

Chapter Twenty-three: Puzzle Pieces

Not wanting to be alone, the two of them walked over to The Hemingway, an all-night coffee house and Internet caf? on the other side of campus.

The caf? consisted of one long room filled with odds and ends of furniture; tables and chairs, mismatched sofas and loveseats, even a few booths from a now defunct diner, really anything the students could get their hands on. A small stage stood to the left of the bar, and throughout the night the poets and writers who typically haunted the place would get up to read selections of their works, while others listened attentively or carried on conversations amongst themselves in muted tones. The walls were fashioned of unfinished wood, decorated here and there with posted notices of poetic readings and fliers from a variety of political and artistic groups.

They took a seat in the back, away from most of the other tables, so that they could talk freely without being overheard. Katelynn was the first to broach the subject.

"What’s going on, Jake?"

"Damned if I know," he answered gruffly, still disconcerted both by what had happened at the party and by Sam’s odd behavior immediately thereafter

"Come on, Jake. I’m serious."

"So am I, Katelynn. I don’t have a clue. It’s bad enough that I find a corpse every time I turn around. Adding Ouija boards and communication with the dead does not make me feel any better. Never mind Sam’s rushing off like that." Jake poured himself another beer from the pitcher on the table before him. While he wouldn’t admit it, he was scared. Getting drunk seemed a good solution and he fully intended to put his plan into motion without delay. "What the heck were you doing at the party anyway? I thought you were studying tonight."

"I was. Something happened."

She took her time, explaining the dreams that she’d been having and her "attack" at the library. She told him about the odd sensation of looking through another’s eyes and about her increasing belief that what she was seeing was not imaginary but real.

Jake had had enough weirdness for one night, however. "Come on, Katelynn. You can’t really believe that."

"Why not?"

"Because its crazy, that’s why," he retorted sharply, but upon seeing her expression he decided to take another tact. "Look," he said more gently, "just think about this rationally for a minute, okay? You’ve been under a lot of stress, everyone has. This killer is making everyone nervous."

"So it’s making me see things, is that what you’re saying?"

"Yes. I told you yesterday afternoon about the body we found at Stonemoor and that night you dreamt about Hudson Blake. It bears to reason that your subconscious would twist what you learned earlier into your dreams at night as you slept."

"But something happened to him, just as I saw it in my dream."

Jake shook his head. "Not really. Think about it. In your dream you say you saw Hudson Blake, yet we didn’t discover Blake’s body at the estate, we found his butler’s. And tonight you saw Gabriel, but as far as we know he is perfectly all right. We don’t know that anything has happened to Blake? he’s just disappeared. It’s just your subconscious taking the things you know and twisting them up with your fear and your nervousness over the fact that the police haven’t caught the killer yet."

Katelynn wasn’t convinced. "How do you explain tonight then?" she challenged him.

"What about tonight?"

"How do you explain the Ouija Board or what happened to Dana."

Exasperated, Jake replied, "It could have been any number of things. Sam could have been moving that pointer purposely. He could have been lying when he said he wasn’t, just to pull our legs. Or it could have been moving on its own, a result of a build up in static electricity between Sam and me. Hell, there are a thousand reasons it could have been moving around. And the least likely one is that we were really speaking to the dead. It was simply coincidence that Dana suffered an epileptic attack when she did. It was probably brought on by all of the excitement of the party."

"So what happened to Sam? Why did he rush off like that?"

"I don’t know. Maybe he just freaked out over Dana’s fit." Finding the pitcher empty, Jake half turned in his seat, searching for the waitress.

"Come on Jake. Doesn’t that all sound just a bit too pat to you?"

Without stopping his attempts to signal a waitress, Jake answered, "Nope. It certainly sounds far more reasonable than that garbage you’re spouting."

Katelynn had had enough. Whether it was her fear or her annoyance at how much Jake had drunk in such a short time, she was less tolerant than usual. Having Jake brush her off so cavalierly infuriated her. She slid out of the booth, grabbed Jake by the chin, and turned his head to face her. "Do you know what a shithead is, Jake?" she asked, and then continued without giving him time to answer. "I’ll tell you. A shithead is someone who can’t see the truth even when its right there in front of him. Thanks for your help. I guess I’ll figure it out on my own."

Jake could only stare. Just what the hell is wrong with everyone tonight? His beer-addled mind just couldn’t put two and two together.

Without another word, Katelynn turned and stormed across the room, disappearing out the door.

For a moment Jake considered following, but quickly decided against it. She probably wouldn’t talk to him and if she felt like being a bitch then it was best if he just left her alone. She’d cool down after awhile.

And then maybe she’d talk some sense. He went back to trying to signal a waitress and did his best to forget about what had been happening for the last several days.

It was more than he wanted to think about at the moment.