Act V (4 page)

She extended her small hand with its
bitten nails to shake his larger, brown one. “My name is Glynnis
Nuckolls. The dispatcher told me you might know how to, um…direct
me.”

“
Please sit down, Ms.
Nuckolls.” He gesture toward the rolling computer seat across from
his desk. “What’s the problem?” He assumed it was a problem. It
always was. Nobody came to the police department to announce they
had won the lottery or they were having twins.

“
I don’t know how to explain
this, but I think…”

Brice chose that moment to return from
the coffee maker. He had two Styrofoam cups in his hands and a
macadamia nut cookie in his mouth along with another one resting on
top of one of the coffee cups. Addison watched his partner’s eyes
widen slightly, but Brice kept his cards close to his chest. If he
was checking out the girl’s legs, she’d never know.

“
Excuse me, Ms. Nuckolls,”
Addison interrupted, “this is my partner, Detective Gearhart. He’ll
most likely need to hear this, too. Brice, this is Glynnis
Nuckolls.”

She offered her hand as Detective
Gearhart quickly set down the coffee cups and swallowed the last of
his cookie while wiping his hands on his pant-legs.
“Detective.”

“
Ms. Nuckolls, please sit
back down. Would you like some coffee, or a cookie?” He tilted his
head toward what she assumed was a break room. “It’d only take a
minute.”

“
No thanks, I really should
be home already.” She hoped Carl hadn’t already peed in the floor
or gone to tearing up the couch cushions. Whenever she was away for
too long, something always got torn up. Glynnis eased back into the
chair as Detective Gearhart pulled up a third seat, this one like
the plastic chairs they use in classrooms, and sat down beside
her.

“
Go ahead, Ms. Nuckolls.”
Detective Paddix urged as he pulled out a note-pad. “What were you
about to say?”

She fiddled with the zipper of her
canvas purse, pulling back and forth a few times before continuing.
“I have reason to believe that someone is in danger, but I don’t
know what to do about it.”

Brice was having a tough time keeping
his eyes from wandering downward to her legs which seemed to go on
forever below the hem of her white shorts. He was a professional
and that was definitely not professional behavior, but he was a leg
man and some things were hard to avoid. He forcefully directed his
attention toward her face. “Do you have a name for this person, Ms.
Nuckolls”

“
Yes,” she began to wrap the
purse strap around her hand, over and over until she ran out of
strap and then began unwrapping. “His name is Claude Danning, and I
think somebody wants to hurt him.” She stared at the detectives who
were looking a little impatient by now, and decided to take the
plunge. “Really, I think someone is planning to kill
him.”

Brice took a swig of coffee, burning
his tongue, and pulling it away from his mouth with a jerk. Some of
it spilled on his neatly creased pants leg and he grabbed for a
napkin, uttering an unintelligible curse under his breath. “What
makes you think somebody wants to kill this man?”

She watched the detective with his
short-cropped, blonde hair, as he came close to burning the skin
off his tongue. She knew this question would come but she still
didn’t have a plausible explanation for her knowledge. She had run
so many ideas through her mind on the way to the station, to
explain how she knew that Claude Danning would be killed, but none
sounded real. She had no other options; she just told the truth and
waited for the fall-out.

“
I dreamed it.” The two men
glanced at each other with lifted brows, then back to her.
“Sometimes my dreams come true.”

Chapter 3

There were days when Addison wanted a
drink. There were days when he wanted the whole bottle. Today, he
could have emptied the shelf. He had been off the sauce without
fail for six years now, and not a day passed without that
arm-twisting urge to take a drink and slide into oblivion. But he
fought it and so far, he had won, thanks to Laney and the
kids…Brice too. Days like today made him doubtful though. He and
Brice had been on for twelve hours covering for three other
detectives out because of a summer stomach flu. He was already
exhausted when this beautiful, but completely crazy woman walked in
the door. “Miss Nuckolls, you mean to tell us that you’re psychic,
that you can predict things before they happen?” Detective Paddix
slapped the desk in front of him as if he’d discovered a cure for
Herpes. “Well, I’ll be horsewhipped. If that’s the case, maybe you
can help me out with a couple of lottery numbers. I’ve been playing
the same bunch of numbers every week for two years and I haven’t
hit jack.”

Brice leaned back in his seat and
peered at Glynnis over his coffee. “Please excuse my partner, Ms.
Nuckolls. He’s not what you’d call, um…open-minded when it comes to
this kind of thing.”

He was laughing at her and at his
partner’s games. “Are you?” She asked, her lips pressed tightly
together.

“
Am I what?”

“
Are you open-minded when it
comes to
this kind of
thing
?” She spat out the last four words
and leaned in toward both men, her hands flat on the desk. “Do you
have any idea how much nerve it took for me to even come here with
this?” Her voice started out low and got louder with each word, not
to mention shakier. “Do you have any idea how long I took today,
trying to convince myself that somebody in authority needs to know
and that they might just be interested in hearing that a murder is
going to take place? Do you think I enjoy knowing that someone is
going to die and I can’t do a thing about it except hope that you
assholes will listen?”

She stood slowly as if it
took quite an effort and turned toward the door, grabbing the edge
of the desk to balance herself as she did so. But Brice gripped her
wrist with only enough force to ensure that she stayed put. He let
out a long, exasperated, sigh. “Ms. Nuckolls, Glynnis, right? I’m
very sorry. We both are, right Addison?” He kicked his partner’s
chair and Addison grunted. It might have been a
yes
on some planet. “We’ve all had a
tough day. If you have something to tell us that could prevent a
murder, then we need to hear it.”

She looked at Detective Gearhart, and
saw more curiosity than doubt in his face. Maybe he would listen.
Glynnis sat down again and took in a couple of slow breaths. “I
didn’t mean to overreact. It’s a touchy subject with me.” She
turned to Paddix. “It’s a type of clairvoyance called precognition.
It’s been scientifically documented in multiple cases but it’s hard
to prove. Sometimes I dream things, and sometimes I just see what I
guess you’d call visions in my waking hours. Usually it’s the
dreams, and usually they don’t show me anything this
violent.”

Addison wasn’t ready to swallow this
particular piece of cow dung just yet, but for the sake of
argument, and because Brice seemed to think she was genuine, he
allowed her a little slack. Never let it be said that Clearview’s
finest turned a deaf ear to those in need. “How do you know it
wasn’t just a dream? Maybe you saw this guy’s face somewhere and
ate a bad meatball sub that night or something.”

“
Detective, I dreamed about
Mr. Danning’s murder twice before I ever met the man. Furthermore,
my clairvoyant dreams take on a different feel. I can tell what’s
just a dream and what isn’t.” She rubbed the sides of her head with
her fingers and breathed deeply with her eyes closed for a
moment.

Brice touched her shoulder. “Are you
okay? Are you having some kind of vision right now?”

“
Huh?” She looked up, her
fingers still pressed to her head. “What? No, just a headache.
Look, I usually dream any given dream three times before it
actually happens. There’s no certainty about that, but it works
that way most of the time. I don’t have any control over it. I
can’t
look
into the
future. It just happens.” Her voice cracked just a bit and Brice
handed her a tissue just in case.

“
Why don’t you tell us what
you saw?” Paddix tried to be at least a bit contrite. “Then we’ll
do whatever we can,”
which won’t be
much,
he thought, but he listened
anyway.

*****

“
I’m pretty sure they didn’t
believe a word of it, Carl.” Glynnis unclipped the leash, feeling a
bit better after a quick walk with her dog, who was always thrilled
to see her come home. It was his habit to sniff her breath, her
clothes, and her purse to discover just what she’d been up to all
day. “I wouldn’t believe me either if I didn’t know better.” She
sat down in the recliner and pulled Carl into her lap, absently
tracing the ridge of fur on the back of his neck that took on the
shape of a curvy number nine. “At least I did what I could. They
promised to check on him. The thing is, I didn’t even tell them the
rest of it. It just sounds too weird.” Carl spotted a flash of
brown fur in the tree branches outside the French doors of Glynn’s
home leading to the sun porch. He catapulted from her lap almost
flattening himself against the door while barking like he’d just
treed an elephant. He jumped three feet straight up and down trying
his best to get to the squirrel and leaving wet nose prints on the
glass. Glynnis sighed. “I just cleaned those doors, you
pest.”

Glynnis decided to leave the glass
cleaning for another day. She picked up the television remote and
flipped through more channels than ought to be allowed before she
decided that reruns and reality TV weren’t worth losing a few hours
of her life over. After hitting the power button and watching the
screen go black, she went into her room and grabbed the novel she’d
started last week. Glynnis went to the kitchen, poured herself a
glass of white wine and sat down with the book. It was a suspense
thriller, the kind of book she normally devoured…maybe not tonight.
She went to the basket of unread paperbacks she kept by the couch
and thumbed through two or three before she decided on a
light-hearted, feel-good, family overcoming tough times sort of
novel…not her usual fare, but she kept this kind of book on hand
for visitors that needed reading material. It was inoffensive,
simple and left you feeling good. Maybe it would take her mind off
Claude Danning and that sword. She’d made it through three pages
and half a glass of wine before she realized that she had no idea
what she’d just read.

Glynnis just couldn’t stop seeing that
red wine running down Danning’s starched, white shirt, mixing with
blood. It was the strangest, most violent, precognitive dream she’d
ever had. Maybe just this once it would turn out to be just a
dream. But Glynnis knew, even as she wished it, that it would
happen again.

She stared at the book in her hand.
This was just impossible. She slammed it onto the floor, causing
Carl to go into a barking fit and then she jumped about a foot when
the phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, she pressed the talk
button. “Hey, Mama. What’s up?”

“
Not a thing. Just calling
to check on you,” Two beats of silence passed. “Since you haven’t
called me in a few days.”

How did she do it? Waves of
guilt assaulted Glynnis followed by irritation for allowing it to
happen every single time. “Sorry Mama, I’ve just been busy with the
play and all…and you know, Sissy’s getting married so I had to go
to her shower yesterday.”
That, and I just
couldn’t call you because you always know when there’s something
wrong and you have this uncanny ability to read my mind over the
phone.

“
I know, sweetheart. I just
hadn’t heard from you, and your daddy and me were
worried.”

Daddy and
I
, she mentally corrected, but she had
enough respect for her mother to leave that be. “I’m just fine,
Mama. Are you coming to the play when it opens next
month?”

“
Are you gonna be in
it?”

“
I’m directing, Mama. You
know I don’t act.”

“
Oh, we’ll try our best to
come. You know your daddy has a hard time with those steps going
down to the park, but we’ll manage.”

“
You know there’s a handicap
access if you need it. The doctor gave you a tag for Daddy.” She
reminded her.

“
I just can’t convince your
daddy to use those handicap spaces. He sees it as
unmanly.”

Glynnis ground her teeth, bit her
tongue and changed the subject. “How’re Jeremy and Gina and the
kids?” Grandchildren were a sure bet to distract her mother from
other issues.

“
Oh, that little Amy is such
a doll. Now don’t forget her birthday’s coming up. Do you know what
she did today?”

It always worked. Mention the grandkids
and Mama was on the Grandma train for a good fifteen minutes or
more. She rattled on for a while and Glynnis, who usually found it
a bit overwhelming to hear Mama talk on and on about the grandkids,
took respite in the ordinariness of it all. It was mundane and
simple, and it felt comfortable to sit back and just let her
go.

“
Oh honey, I forgot to tell
you, Dorsey called and asked for your new phone number?”

Glynnis was startled out of her comfort
zone as if a glass of ice water had been thrown in her face. “You
didn’t give it to him, did you?”