To be painfully honest, the real reason I was keeping my hands to myself was self-preservation because I feared my inherent predisposition for uncontrolled psychometry. Simply being in this room had already bombarded me with more than I was sure I could handle, the most recent sensation being a case in point. Actually touching something could put me into a spiral, sending me through an ethereal event from which I might not recover.
It’s not like it hadn’t happened before. Over the years I’d almost died more than once while channeling homicide victims. I wasn’t too keen on it then, and I definitely wasn’t interested in becoming one of Miranda’s fatalities by proxy now.
Squatting down, I brought myself to eye level with the bed. I don’t know what I thought I was going to see from that angle, but one never knows until he tries, so I did. I panned my gaze across the tableau and tried to visualize what had gone on here one short week ago. Having had what amounted to my own firsthand experience, I expected it would be relatively easy to do. What I didn’t expect, however, was the visualization coming upon me with a vengeance.
In front of me, there is a nude man tied to the bed, a standard clothesline rope criss-crossing beneath the metal frame and securing tightly to his wrists and ankles. An extra loop of the rope is visible around his neck. The reason for it becomes clear as I watch him struggling against the bonds. Each time he pulls against them, the noose tightens and he begins to choke. I can actually hear the distant echoes of him gagging, muffled though they are, as his mouth is covered with a wide swath of duct tape which is wound about his head and lower face.