An amateur medium races against the brink of her own sanity to track down a serial killer who is already in possession of his next victim.
And she only has 23 days to solve the case or else.
***
Devyn Brooks has only ever had one fear: don't becom...
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"Children of every age and of every race go missing—that is just an unfortunate part of our reality on this planet," Professor Zara L. Abdullah explains, pacing in front of her podium.
She hasn't spotted me yet and that's fine by me. If she sees me arriving late to her class again, there's no telling how she'll react. Last time she called me out in front of the entire lecture hall. In front of all seventy-eight of my peers.
I slip into a foldable seat in the auditorium. The chair squeaks, lending me several annoyed stares.
Teegan, sinking into the empty chair on my left, giggles. "Well, you almost got away with it, Devyn. Points for trying."
My eyes sheepishly find Professor Abdullah, who has paused her lecture to stare at me with great aghast. Her smooth brown face glows beneath her cream-colored hijab and maroon lipstick. "Late again, Ms. Brooks?"
I nod, humiliation burning my forehead. Everyone turns around to judge.
"You've done it now, kid," Mark chuckles from the nearest wall. "I know that look from my own mother. She's had it with you."
In my defense, I've never had a professor care this much about tardiness. But Professor Abdullah acts like tardiness is an act of the highest betrayal in education.
Sighing like she's given up, she returns to her lecture. "As I was saying, when children go missing, it's upsetting. A nightmare come true. Entirely unimaginable. But there is one thing I'd like you all to imagine, so bear with me."
Abdullah stops pacing, hooking us all.
"Imagine your fourteen-year-old sister suddenly disappears one day. Imagine you canvas the whole neighborhood, putting up flyers, calling friends and family to help out. Imagine you know your little sister is a good student, that taking off is not like her and you know in your heart that something is wrong. Something bad has happened."
It's dead quiet in the auditorium—not even a cough.
"Now I want you to imagine that despite your best judgment, despite the fact your little sister has been missing for several hours..." Professor Abdullah pauses, scanning her eyes across the room. At one point she locks eyes with me. "...that the local police do nothing about it."
I swallow. Imagining something like that makes my skin crawl. Actually, anything about the police department makes me uncomfortable. Especially after what happened to Ace. So yes, it's easy to imagine.
Professor Abdullah clicks to the next slide where hundreds of brown and dark skinned faces appear on the slideshow. All seemingly happy children with smiles as wide as crescent moons.
"Every child you see up here has gone missing in the past year. That's right. Just the year." She lets that sink in before adding, "For many, this is the last photo their parents ever took of them. For others, the last day they were seen."
