Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (13 page)

“Not until you put it on,” I said sweetly.

“Guys,” Candice said from the door. “Come on!”

Dutch leveled a look at me before he put his head through the neck hole. “Let’s move,”
he growled.

I didn’t waste time standing there giving him a lecture.

I saved that for the car. “Why are you being so reckless?” I demanded once we were
all settled into Candice’s car. (She got to drive simply because she had the most
gas.)

“How am I being reckless?” he snapped. “I’m wearing the damn thing, aren’t I?” Dutch
swiveled in his seat to show me he was fastening the straps to his vest.

“Yeah, and if I hadn’t reminded you about it, you’d have walked right out without
it.”

He turned away from me and didn’t reply. He just filled the car with an intense, cold
silence.

I saw Candice look at me in her rearview mirror. Her brows were lifted in that “Yikes!”
kind of way.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m just trying to keep you safe, you know.”

“So you’ve told me.”

I swallowed hard. Man! He was really starting to hurt my feelings. Pulling open my
handbag, I dug through it to pull out the fat coin purse I kept. Opening it, I dumped
out a handful of quarters into my palm. “And what’s so damn wrong with wanting to
keep you safe?” I demanded, throwing a quarter right at him. “Shit, Dutch!” I flipped
another quarter at him. “You act like I’m being unreasonable when
all
I’ve asked you to do is wear your stupid”—insert lots of choice, colorful expletives
here and corresponding quarters—“vest!” With that, I turned the coin purse upside
down and dumped all the change I had left in his lap. “You think I’m doing it because
I like to torture you? No, you asshat! I’m doing it because I freaking love you, although
there are days when you make it
really
difficult!”

No one said a word after that for several minutes, but I did notice that Candice was
driving even faster than she normally did. Finally, Dutch calmly and methodically
gathered up all the coins and turned to me again. “You’re right,” he said with an
apologetic smile. Handing me the quarters, he added, “These are on me.”

I crossed my arms and glared at him.

“Peace?” he said, again trying to get me to take the money.

I sighed heavily and held out my hands. And with that, Dutch and I put our quarrel
to rest.

*   *   *

M
rs. Padilla worked in a rather nondescript office building right off MoPac Highway
in south Austin. We found her crying at her desk surrounded by coworkers who leveled
curious and cautious looks at us as we were shown into her office by the receptionist.
It appeared by the size and opulence of the space that Mrs. Padilla was pretty high
up in the organization—an accounting agency by the tag on the suite door.

As the coworkers cleared out to give us some privacy, I let my eyes take in some detail.

Mrs. Padilla was a heavyset woman, probably in her late fifties, with brassy blond
hair, small eyes, and a bit of a bulbous nose. I picked up her alcohol problem right
away—it was pretty loud in her ether—and I also took in the mountains of clutter all
over the office. There were stacks of paper, plastic bags filled with more paper,
binders, and volumes of tax codes strewn all about. I’m a very tidy person by nature,
and lots of clutter makes me feel squidgey. This office immediately set my nerves
on edge, but I had to put that aside and focus on poor Mrs. Padilla.

We introduced ourselves to her, but I don’t think she took in any of our names, and
she waved at us to sit, but every available seat had piles of paper on it. “Just put
it on the floor,” she told us when we looked flummoxed.

Dutch carefully cleared off a seat for me, then began to clear off a seat for Candice,
but she shook her head. Obviously trying to hide her own squeamishness at the mess,
she said, “I’ll stand, thank you.”

Mrs. Padilla blinked her eyes at Candice and then she looked around at the disarray
of her office, as if seeing its chaotic state for only the first time, and her lip
quivered. “I’m sorry,” she blubbered, leaking fresh tears. “Michelle has been trying
to get me to hire someone to help organize my office for years, but I’m always so
busy. It’s gotten away from me.”

“It’s just fine, ma’am,” Candice assured her. “You think this is bad, you should see
my junk drawer.”

Mrs. Padilla caught her breath before a half sob, half chuckle escaped her. And then
she seemed to realize she was laughing because she placed a hand over her mouth and
squeezed her eyes shut as the crying took full control of her again. Candice moved
to her side and rubbed her arm. “It’s okay, Mrs. Padilla,” she told her. “I know you’re
worried about your daughter.”

At last Mrs. Padilla stopped her sobbing and dabbed at her eyes. Looking up at Candice,
she said, “Michelle’s dead, isn’t she?”

Candice’s gaze drifted to Dutch. He cleared his throat. “Mrs. Padilla, we have no
evidence of that. But what I’d like to do is see a photograph of your daughter and
compare it to the sketch we’ve compiled.”

“This is about that bombing, isn’t it?” Mrs. Padilla said, her hand shaking as she
pulled her purse out from a bottom drawer. “You think Michelle may have been in that
salon, right?”

“We can’t be certain until we get some dental records and DNA, ma’am.”

Mrs. Padilla paused in the shuffling through her purse and again she squeezed her
eyes closed, a look of relief washing over her. “It can’t be her,” she whispered.
“She just had her hair done two weeks ago.”

When she opened her eyes again, she looked at us as if expecting us to agree with
her. None of us gave her any indication that we either agreed or disagreed. We had
to be very careful how we handled her and I knew it. Mrs. Padilla licked her lips
nervously and pulled out her cell phone, which was one of those big Droid phones,
not quite the size of a tablet, but with an oversized screen nonetheless. She tapped
at the device and scrolled through several images, at last coming to a photo she thought
we should look at. “This is Michelle.”

Even without leaning forward to look at the picture, I knew it was the girl I’d seen
in my mind’s eye. Dutch pulled out his copy of the sketch and reached for her phone,
casting me a very subtle glance as he did so. I dropped my gaze to let him know it
was the same girl, but he still did a side-by-side comparison anyway for Mrs. Padilla’s
sake.

“There’s a strong resemblance,” he said gently.

Mrs. Padilla balled her fists and put them to her eyes, sobbing near hysterics now.

Candice leaned over the poor woman and hugged her fiercely, and I thanked God she’d
come with us. At last Mrs. Padilla appeared to have cried herself out, and dabbing
once again at her eyes, she said, “Ask me what you need to.”

Dutch looked at his notes. “You said that you heard from your daughter three days
ago. I checked her last known address before we got here, and it’s the same one listed
to you, but from your response, I’m assuming she no longer lives with you?”

Mrs. Padilla shook her head. “Her best friend has a two-bedroom house near campus
and Michelle is staying there for the rest of the semester.”

“Where exactly?” Dutch asked.

She gave him the address and Dutch paused so that he could text it to Harrison before
asking his next question. I had a feeling Harrison would be working on getting a warrant
and send a team out to the girl’s house before we were done interviewing Mrs. Padilla.

“What’s Michelle studying in school?” Dutch asked.

“She’s been working on her PhD in psychology,” she said.

“Psychology?” Dutch repeated.

“Yes. Michelle has always been interested in how the human mind works. She’s just
begun the PhD program and wants to complete it in the next five years. Eventually
she wants to open up her own practice.”

Dutch tapped his pen on his notes. “When did you realize Michelle was missing?”

“This morning. Her roommate had called my phone yesterday looking for her, but I didn’t
get the message until after I arrived here around seven a.m.” She blushed slightly
and added, “It’s been a busy week.”

“Tell me about Michelle’s friends,” Dutch said next.

Mrs. Padilla dabbed at her eyes again. She was doing a great job of holding it together
long enough to get through this interview. “She doesn’t have many. A handful really.”

“Why only a handful?”

Michelle’s mother sighed. “My daughter isn’t a party girl, Agent Rivers,” she said.
“She’s always preferred her own company to most others. She likes to read, and write
poetry, and her studies have kept her very busy. She doesn’t have much time to socialize.”

“Does your daughter work?”

Mrs. Padilla shook her head. “I’ve been paying her rent, grocery bills, and tuition.
Michelle is such a good girl, and she works so hard, I didn’t want her to have the
added stress of a job while she was working to complete her PhD.”

“So these friends of hers,” Dutch said, flipping back a page in his notes, “what kind
of people are they?”

Mrs. Padilla’s brow furrowed. “Normal, twenty-something people,” she said.

“Do any of them make you nervous, Mrs. Padilla?” he asked next.

“No. Why would they?”

Dutch shrugged. “You know how young kids are these days. They’re occupying Wall Street
and demanding to have a say. I’m wondering if Michelle hung around with any rebellious
friends. Anyone who might’ve had a personal grudge against the establishment, or government
in general.”

Mrs. Padilla seemed taken aback. She blinked several times and stared at the photo
of her daughter on her phone, as if she couldn’t fathom Michelle being friends with
anyone like that. “No,” she said. “Michelle’s friends are all very much like her:
quiet, serious, and studious.”

“Does Michelle belong to any political or activist groups?” Dutch asked next.

Mrs. Padilla squinted at him. “Why do you want to know so much about my daughter and
her friends, Agent Rivers? Do you think someone she knows could’ve been responsible
for blowing up that shop?”

Dutch let a long pause stretch out before he answered her. “We don’t know for certain
who’s responsible, Mrs. Padilla. That’s why we need to ask these questions about your
daughter and her associates, to rule in or out any possibility.”

Mrs. Padilla’s shoulders stiffened. At last she was starting to read between the lines,
and she began to look at us each in turn with suspicious eyes. “Michelle is a good
girl,” she said firmly. “If she was in that shop yesterday, it was by accident.”

Dutch didn’t react to her statement. Instead he reached into his leather binder and
pulled out a photo. Leaning forward, he placed it on Mrs. Padilla’s desk. I could
see that it was a photo of another girl, about the same age as Michelle, and by the
flat, somewhat plastic-looking appearance of her smiling image, I knew that she was
also dead. “Have you ever seen this young lady before?” Dutch asked.

Michelle’s mother glared at Dutch. She now knew he was the enemy and she was starting
to lock up her willingness to cooperate. “Who is this?” she asked by way of answer.

“Her name was Taylor Greene,” Dutch said, giving no more explanation than that.

I sent my radar out into the ether, and I could see Michelle and Taylor running on
the same parallel lines to each other. It wasn’t a visual per se so much as it was
a gut feeling that both girls had shared the same fate, but had never known each other.

Mrs. Padilla shook her head. “I’ve never seen this girl in my
life.” Dutch glanced subtly at me. I gave a tiny nod—she was telling the truth. “Why?”
Mrs. Padilla suddenly asked, picking up the photo to study it more closely. “Was this
the girl that set off the bomb?”

Dutch’s phone began to vibrate, and distracted by it, he stood up and said, “Excuse
me a second.”

He walked out and left Candice and me to fill the awkward silence. “Will either of
you two please explain to me what the hell is going on?” Mrs. Padilla asked.

“We know very little at this stage,” I admitted.

“But you know something about my daughter or else you wouldn’t be here,” she countered.

I shook my head. “No, ma’am. We only know for certain that the photo of your daughter
resembles our sketch of a woman seen at the beauty shop at the time of the explosion.”

Mrs. Padilla shook the photo of Taylor Greene at me. “Gail—my neighbor—said she heard
on the news that there were five dead, one of whom was the bomber. Was this girl the
one responsible?”

I stared her right in the eye. “No, ma’am. That woman was responsible for another
bombing. Two weeks ago in College Station.”

Mrs. Padilla’s face drained of color. “Hold on,” she said. “You don’t think…My Michelle
would never…She wouldn’t have
anything
to do with something like this!”

“Mrs. Padilla,” Candice said gently. “We only know three things for certain at this
moment: The first is that your daughter hasn’t been heard from in three days; the
second is that she somewhat resembles our sketch; and the third is that a woman similar
to Michelle in age and appearance set off a bomb two weeks ago at another public place.
At this moment, we have no idea if your daughter is involved in any way, or even if
she was in
fact at the beauty shop when it exploded. But you might be able to help us rule your
daughter out by providing us with the name of Michelle’s dentist.”

The older woman swallowed hard. “You need her dental records.” It was more statement
than question.

Candice nodded somberly.

Mrs. Padilla set down Taylor Greene’s photo and picked up her cell phone again. “It’s
not Michelle,” she said, her voice quivering. “I don’t know what girl you have in
your morgue, but it’s not my daughter.”

“Let us prove it,” Candice said, placing a hand on Mrs. Padilla’s shoulder again.
“And then, if and when we do prove it’s not her, I promise that I won’t rest until
we find your daughter and bring her home.”