A Grave Prediction (Psychic Eye Mystery) (17 page)

“No
way
!” I said.

Unsure what to make of it all, I wound my way down from the hilltop and back onto a road I recognized. I wasted no more time after that getting the hell back to the hotel room.

I found Candice on the phone, curled up on her bed and twirling a strand of hair. No doubt the person on the other end was Brice. She only gets soft and gushy over him.

She held up a finger to let me know she’d be off in a minute, and I waved to her to take her time, ducking into the bathroom while she finished up her call.

After taking care of business, I came out and saw that she was still on the phone, and while I was anxious to tell her everything that’d happened since leaving the room, I also recognize
how important it is to stay connected with your hubby. So I grabbed the hotel’s complimentary notepad, and left her to some privacy and her call.

I would’ve sat down right outside in the hallway, but housekeeping was coming through with their big carts and I didn’t want to get in their way. Skipping the stairwell (my quads were on fire), I used the elevator to get to the lobby, and sat there for ten minutes jotting notes to myself about what I’d discovered. Then I drew a sketch of my dream with the vine and the bathtub. After I was finished, I had to admire my handiwork; the sketch had come out better than expected.

“Hey,” Candice said, and my head jerked up.

“Hi! I didn’t expect you to come down here. I would’ve come back up.”

“Don’t sweat it,” she said. “Housekeeping is cleaning the room and I needed a break.”

“Did you leave a tip?” I asked. I
always
tip the hotel maids. I mean, I can’t even imagine some of the disgusting things they clean up after on a daily basis.

“Yes,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Only assholes don’t tip housekeeping.”

I smiled and patted the chair next to me. “Come. Sit. I have much to tell.”

Candice sat down and cocked a curious eyebrow. “You have much to tell from a pedicure?” Then she glanced down at my toes. “I’m guessing you got sidetracked, because those toes do not look pampered.”

“They’re not,” I said, and quickly explained what’d happened from the time I’d missed my exit, got lost, and found another nail salon, which had fortuitously put me smack-dab next to the Clawsons.

Candice shook her head at the end of my tale like she couldn’t believe it. “How bizarre is it that you ended up next to the people represented in your dream? That’s seriously freaky. Even for you that’s seriously freaky.”

“I know, right? I swear, someone from my crew really wants me to solve this case and they put me in the right spot at the right time.” My “crew” is the word I use to describe the various spirit guides and deceased relatives who every so often give me a little intuitive guidance.

“Your crew?” Candice repeated. “Hell, why don’t you just ask them who robbed the bank, since they’re being so helpful?”

I smirked. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Candice crossed her arms. “How come every time we could really use some specific and direct help from them, you say, ‘It doesn’t work like that’?”

I shrugged. “Because it just doesn’t. I mean, I’d love to have all the answers, but life is meant to be a challenge. We’re meant to work at things and try to figure them out. If the answers all came easy, no way would we learn nearly as much as we need to.”

Candice didn’t look appeased by my answer. “Even when it comes to innocent lives being taken? Even then they’re not going to help us?”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “They
are
helping us, Candice. They planted the imagery in my dream last night, and put me right where I needed to be to find the next clue.”

“Which is?”

“Well,” I said, adjusting the sketch in my hands so she could see it better. “That’s what we have to figure out.”

Candice sighed and let her arms fall to her sides. “Okay, so what does this sketch mean?”

“What do you mean, what does it mean?” I said, thinking
it was obvious. “It means that I needed to be on the lookout for the Clawsons. They’ve got to have something to do with all this.”

Candice pursed her lips and pointed to where the severed section of the vine was dripping blood. She said, “That’s the part that I find really unnerving.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “For me too.”

“What if the vine is Ivy?” Candice said.

“Of course it’s Ivy,” I said. “That’s what got me to really pay attention when Mrs. Clawson said her daughter’s name, then dropped the nail polish and it splashed into my footbath.”

Candice expelled a small sigh. “Yeah, but what if it’s more than that, Abby? What if the vine bleeding into the water is about the nail polish
and
it also represents Ivy’s murder?”

I gasped. “Holy shit, you’re right! I didn’t even make that connection.”

Candice looked like she was surprised I’d agreed with her. “So you think that could actually be true? You think she could be one of the girls that gets murdered in the future?”

I thought back to the girl I’d seen at the salon and in the parking lot of the grocery store. She’d looked very typical for a teenager—bored with the conversations of the adults around her and very into texting with her friends. She’d been disconnected from the world around her, and I suddenly saw how easy a target she’d make. Even a year and a half from now, she’d probably be no less withdrawn from the world around her. It made me very afraid for her, and the shudder that crept along my shoulder blades seemed to confirm that she could be one of the girls targeted by the killer who would someday bury her near the excavation site. “Yes,” I said to Candice. “Yes, I think she’s destined to be one of the victims.”

Candice pointed to my sketch again. “So maybe your dream
wasn’t about the robberies at all. Maybe it’s about the future murders.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said, tapping the leaves on the vine. “It’s about both. They’re connected in some way. They have someone or something in common.”

“Okay . . . ,” Candice said, her brow furrowed in thought. “What could link Ivy’s murder to the robberies other than maybe the killer?”

I thought about the warm water of the bathtub in my dream again, and wondered if I’d actually been right about the first metaphor I’d come up with for it. “Mrs. Clawson,” I said with a snap of my fingers. “Ivy’s mother. She was talking to Mrs. Edwards and they seem to be friends, and we’re pretty convinced that Will Edwards is connected to the robberies in some way.”

“Are you sure he’s not the killer?” Candice asked. “I mean, he did slash our tire. At the very least the guy is armed with a knife.”

I reflected on that for a minute before I shook my head. “I just can’t see that big, sluggish man with a preference for an even bigger woman suddenly developing a liking for murdering young girls. And the knife is probably just what you said about it yesterday, that he uses it for protection because Flower works in one of the seediest neighborhoods we’ve ever been to. Which is saying something, since we both grew up near Detroit.”

Candice nodded. “True that,” she said. “So, Mrs. Clawson and Will Edwards are connected to the bank robberies?”

I nodded, then shook my head, then nodded again. “Yes? Maybe? I don’t know. Maybe we should review the video again and see if there’s any footage of her at the bank. I mean, it’s possible she could’ve been there at the time, posing as a customer, and helping out with the lookout, right?”

“There was no female customer in the bank at the time,” she
said. “Just a guy in what looked like construction attire, and another gentleman who was maybe in his late sixties or early seventies.”

I vaguely remembered seeing both those men on the footage. And then I had another thought. “Candice,” I said. “Was there any footage of the robbers from outside the bank?” I wondered if perhaps someone like Mrs. Clawson wasn’t standing guard outside to warn the others should the cops roll up, and also possibly to drive the getaway car.

“Yes,” she said. “But it only shows the entrance and sides of the building. You see the four guys entering and leaving, but where they go after filing straight out isn’t available. At least, not in any of the video links I’ve seen posted.” She paused a moment to tap her lip and added, “Maybe we should call Kelsey and see if she has access to that. Maybe there’s an angle that shows the parking lot of the bank that the Feds have managed to keep under wraps, away from the public.”

“I’ll send her a text,” I vowed. “Did you get anything more on Edwards?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I’m not sure yet.”

“What’s that mean?”

“About six years ago he began working for a company that produced video surveillance systems. The company was bought out by a larger conglomerate two years ago and he left shortly after the merger, probably because he didn’t like the new management. I haven’t been able to determine if the camera system sold to the bank came from either the original company or from the larger conglomerate, but there might be a lead there if it did—and if Edwards knew about, or had a hand in creating, the system.”

“If he did, that’d be a big connection, right?”

Candice smiled. “It would, but it’s difficult to tell if he worked on the camera system or not, and what role he had in creating
it. I’ll have to tread carefully when I dig for information, because companies that deal in security of any kind tend to be pretty tight-lipped about who worked on what and when. The fact that the camera system itself was hacked into won’t make anyone any more forthcoming either.”

My radar pinged and I just felt that looking further into Will Edwards’s connection to the origin of the camera system was going to be worthwhile, no matter what the hurdles. “Keep digging,” I told Candice. “There’s something there.”

Candice rubbed her eyes and yawned. “I’m on it,” she said before trying to stifle yet another yawn. I realized suddenly how tired she looked. I also knew that, like me, she’d gotten only a few hours’ sleep, but unlike me, she’d been staring at a computer screen for a couple of hours while I bounced around town tailing a mother and daughter. My energy was driven by adrenaline. Hers was driven by sheer willpower.

“Why don’t you take a nap?” I told her. “You look beat.”

She offered me a slanted smile. “I’m fine.”

I waved my hand in front of her. “Your aura says otherwise. You need a nap, Huckleberry.”

Candice’s lids drooped and she made an attempt to widen them and shrug off her fatigue. I cocked a skeptical eyebrow and that made her smile again. “Okay,” she relented. “Maybe just a quick one.”

We went back up to the room and while Candice lay down, I sent Kelsey a text and asked her to call me, then went back down to the lobby in search of a snack and to hopefully await her call.

My phone rang just as I was polishing off a banana. (I know, you’re reeling in shock right now that I didn’t go for the Snickers, right? It was a shock to me too.) “Hi, Kelsey,” I said when I picked up the line. “Thanks for calling me.”

“What’s going on?” she asked. “You have some info to pass on?”

“Maybe,” I said. “First, I need to ask if you guys have looked for any surveillance footage from other businesses in the area of the robbers leaving the bank.”

There was a pause, then, “We have, but so far we haven’t managed to recover anything useable. We did find footage of the robbers both coming and going from two of the robberies, from a surveillance camera located outside of a liquor store and another at a gas station, but the footage is grainy and it appears that all four robbers came on foot from different locations and also left headed in different directions. So far there’s no evidence of a getaway car or if they met up at a later location.”

“Wow, really?” I said. “You’d think that there’d be some kind of useable footage somewhere.”

“If there is, we haven’t found it,” Kelsey said. “I think the robbers planned which branches to hit very carefully. All five branches are well away from other businesses that could’ve recorded the thieves. It’s really been a frustrating investigation for Perez and Robinson.”

“Poor boys,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

Kelsey laughed. “Okay, so what’s this information you have to share with me?”

“Well,” I said, thinking about how to best phrase my request. “Candice is pretty exhausted right now, so I need someone to look into the background of a woman named Cindy Clawson who lives at the following address—”

“Whoa,” Kelsey interrupted. “Abby, I can’t just go digging into somebody’s background without probable cause. What evidence do you have to suspect this woman?”

I blinked. I had nothing but my gut and the dream from the night before. “I don’t. But trust me, she’s involved. Can’t you just sort of do a little snooping without crossing any lines?”

She laughed softly. “It’s not that simple. I’d need to get Rivera to sign off on an administrative subpoena to look into any of her digital records, and there’s no way he’s going to grant me that without knowing why I’m looking into her background. The second I tell him it’s for the robbery cases, he’ll have me in his office for a dressing-down like you wouldn’t believe.”

“So don’t tell him it’s for the robbery cases,” I said, crossing my fingers.

“It’d have to be attached to something, Abby,” she said. “Something that was assigned to
me
.”

The way she emphasized that last word let me know she was trying to point me in the right direction. Lucky her, I’m not that slow on the uptake. “Oh, wait, Kelsey! My bad. You thought I was talking about the
robbery
cases? No way! I switched subjects and didn’t tell you. My bad. I need you to look into Cindy Clawson for the
Grecco
case. I think she may have purchased some wine from him . . . or some artwork . . . or something. You feel me?”

“I do,” she said right away. “And since you’re a trusted source on that case, I feel compelled to follow up on your hunch. Okay, I’ll get the sign-off from Rivera, but you should know that this could come back to bite me in the ass if it goes south, so we’ll both tread carefully here with Mrs. Clawson, okay?”

“Deal,” I said, happy as a clam that I’d successfully enlisted her help. To be sure I was covering all the bases, I added, “And you might want to look into her husband, Mr. Clawson, too, just to make sure she didn’t try to hide anything under his name.”