Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (20 page)

Brody’s gaze shifted to her and his eyes narrowed, but he made no further comment.

“She feels very motherly toward you,” M.J. went on, feeling Rita’s energy surround
her, and M.J. also felt the intense and sudden urge to give Brody a fierce hug. She
needed Brody to acknowledge the link before getting more information from Rita.

But instead the glint of anger in Brody’s eyes intensified. “Is this a joke?”

Candice stepped up to M.J.’s side. “Brody’s mother was killed in an explosion two
weeks ago. Her name was Rita.”

M.J. let out a sigh of relief. Dead people almost always demanded to be recognized
before they got to their message, and she felt a sort of release of pressure in her
mind once Rita was identified. “I didn’t know, I swear,” she told Brody when he continued
to glare at her suspiciously. But then he appeared to take in their formal attire,
and something seemed to click for him.

“Wait…isn’t today the wedding?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Candice. “And Abby’s missing. We think she’s been abducted. Possibly by
the same person responsible for abducting Michelle Padilla. The woman who wore the
bomb into your mom’s shop.”

Brody’s face drained of color. “The lady that killed my mom?” he asked meekly.

“Yes,” Candice told him, and M.J. noticed for the first time that Candice’s hands
were shaking. She was scared to death for Abby, but trying very hard to remain calm
while they talked to Brody.

At that moment Rita began communicating with M.J. in earnest. “Brody,” she said, “I
think you may know something that can help us. Your mom says that something happened
at her shop that’s connected to all this. She’s talking about a fight that took place
where she worked. I think your mom and another person got into it—”

“My mom never hurt a fly,” he said defensively.

M.J. took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Listening to the dead required patience
and interpretation, because it wasn’t like they spoke to her in full sentences. It
was more like trying to hear someone talk to her through a wall—she’d be able to catch
about every third or fourth word. But there was another tool at her disposal; the
dead could impart feelings, emotions, and imagery to M.J., and she felt Rita do this
now. “Brody,” she said, “your mom needs you to listen carefully to me. She says she
told you about an argument that took place at a…a hair salon, I think that’s what
she’s showing me.”

“Rita owned a salon,” Candice interjected softly.

M.J. nodded. That was a piece of the puzzle she’d been trying to figure out. “Your
mom wasn’t the first owner of the shop, though, right?”

M.J. opened her eyes to see Brody sort of nod at her. She knew then that she was on
the right track. “Before your mom took over the shop, was it called something different?
Something with an…
M
?”

Brody gasped. “Yeah. My mom bought it from the lady who
taught her how to cut hair. Her name was Margo. The salon was originally called Margo’s.”

“Okay, how long ago did your mom buy the shop?”

Brody shrugged, and in the distance M.J. could hear the sound of sirens approaching.
“Almost two years ago.”

“Did your mom and Margo keep in touch after she bought the shop?” M.J. asked.

Brody shrugged again. “Yeah, I think so but not, like, every day.”

The sirens were getting closer, and M.J. could feel Dutch’s impatience and mounting
anxiety. Focusing intently on Brody, she said, “Honey, your mom is insisting that
there was a fight or an argument or
something
that occurred involving Margo. She thinks there’s a link between that and how she
died.”

But Brody was shaking his head. “My mom got along with everybody,” he insisted. “She
was really nice, I swear. And everybody liked her. She and Margo were tight, I swear.
My mom wasn’t in a fight with her.”

M.J. could now feel Rita’s frustration. The dead woman wasn’t wrong—there had been
some sort of argument involving Margo—the former owner—and Rita, and M.J. was certain
that she’d mentioned this to her son, but either he’d forgotten it or he wasn’t letting
on because he didn’t want them to think badly about Rita. “Brody,” M.J. tried again.
“This is a matter of life and death. If you don’t help us figure this out, Abby could
die. Please,
think
!”

But just then two police cars roared up the street, screeched to a halt, and out jumped
two officers, guns drawn. “Hands behind your heads!” one shouted. “Now!”

“N
ow, Edgar,” Dutch called impatiently up the stairs to me. “You’re gonna make us late.”

I groaned. Dutch hated to be late, especially to work, but I was struggling to get
it in gear the day after meeting with my sister for Cirque du Ceremony, because he
and I had been up late talking over the case with Brice and Candice. During the rest
of that discussion, I’d reaffirmed my belief that Michelle hadn’t committed suicide.
I believed she’d been forced to wear the bomb, and some sick fecker had blown her
and three other women up. I also felt strongly that the two girls forced to wear the
bombs—Taylor Greene and Michelle Padilla—had some sort of connection to each other,
but I couldn’t think how. They were different ages, had lived in different places,
went to different schools, and had never worked in the same places.

Still, in my gut I knew there was a connection between them; the other thing that
I knew in my gut was that whatever that connection was, it was the key to figuring
this case out and catching the mastermind behind the bombings. I felt deep in my bones
that I had to figure out the connection between the girls,
and soon, if I was going to prevent another explosion and more lives lost—and make
no mistake, I knew we were dealing with a psycho intent on murdering more people.

“Coming. I’m coming,” I called down to Dutch, angling to get my boots on. Just then
I heard the doorbell ring. It wasn’t even eight thirty, so I hurried to the top of
the stairs and saw that our landlord had come over.

“Hey, Bruce,” Dutch said in that way that suggested he was annoyed by our landlord’s
sudden appearance.

I could hardly blame him. I didn’t like Bruce either, but my reasons weren’t necessarily
super specific.

Bruce was a pretty forgettable-looking guy in his early thirties, with mousy brown
hair that always seemed to be in need of a cut, and about forty extra pounds on him.

He owned a bunch of rental properties around Austin and carried himself like he thought
he was a big deal.

I think my distaste for him was that he had this air of arrogance and entitlement
about him that just turned me off. Also, if you pressed me, I’d tell you that there
was an element to his energy that I simply didn’t trust. It wasn’t anything I could
put my finger on, but I’d always suspected Bruce was up to no good.

“I wanted to catch you two before you left for work,” he said to Dutch, not yet realizing
that I was spying on him from the top of the stairs. “I’ve got someone who wants to
move in on the first, so I’ll need you guys to move out on the thirtieth. That’ll
give me a day to clean the place and get it ready for the new tenants.”

I frowned. It was just like that oily SOB to want us out a day before our lease was
actually up. Dutch and I had planned all along to be out by the day of our wedding,
putting our stuff into storage right before the nuptials and coming back from our
honeymoon with only a week or two to live in a hotel until our house was ready.

I wanted Dutch to tell Bruce to chill out, that we had the house until the thirty-first,
but Dutch was looking at his watch and I knew he was calculating to the minute how
fast he’d need to drive to still make it to the office on time. “Fine, Bruce,” he
was saying.

“Will we get a day of rent back?” I asked, taking a step down toward them.

Both men snapped their heads up in my direction. “Huh?” Bruce asked. Sharp he is not.

“If you want us out on the thirtieth, then we’ll need a day of rent back, because,
officially, our month-to-month lease isn’t up until midnight on the thirty-first.”
I said all this while making my way carefully down the stairs.

When I got to the landing I saw that Bruce’s eyes had narrowed, and I knew he didn’t
like what I was telling him. His energy rippled with irritation and greed. “Yeah,
I guess,” he said. “But if you stay over a minute past the thirtieth, I’ll charge
you for the full month at the same rate that I’ve given to the new tenants, and it’s
a lot higher than I charged you. Rents are going up all over town, you know.”

I rolled my eyes, and I could see Dutch stiffen a little. Bruce got under both our
skins. “We’ll be out in time, Bruce,” Dutch told him in that tone that suggested the
discussion was at an end.

“Good,” Bruce said, and just continued to stand there.

I turned to Dutch and said, “You ready, sweetie? We’ve got to go right now or we’ll
be late.”

Bruce sort of backed up as we made a show of getting our stuff together, but I knew
he was trying to get a look at the house. He’d be the kind of landlord to nickel and
dime us about the deposit after we moved out too. Thank God I’d had the intuitive
sense to take detailed pictures of every room in the house before we’d moved in.

“I’ll have to charge you if you leave any stuff behind,” Bruce said as Dutch sort
of corralled him out the door. “The last tenants left some garbage in the garage and
I had to keep their whole deposit.”

“I’ll bet,” I told him. Dutch squeezed my hand as he helped me down the stairs to
the drive.

Bruce gave me one of those really forced smiles that actually says, “I think you’re
a bitch,” and I gave one in return that said something that would’ve cost me a quarter
to describe.

Once we were in our car and Bruce was safely off down the street, Dutch said, “If
I’d known he was such a douche bag when we were looking at rentals, I would’ve gone
with a different house.”

That got me to chuckle. “Well, at least we won’t have much longer to deal with him.
We’ll need to move up the schedule with the movers too.”

“I’ll handle it,” Dutch said, focusing on getting through our sub without getting
a ticket for speeding.

A bit later when we arrived at the office (only three minutes late), the mood was
somber—tense even. The agents walked around quietly and cast worried glances my way,
as if I might blurt out something like, “There’ll be another explosion today, guys.”

Just as I put my purse in the drawer of the small cubicle that was permanently assigned
to me, Brice poked his head out of his office and called me in. On my way past Dutch’s
glass-enclosed office I saw him looking at Harrison curiously, but Brice made no effort
to call Dutch in too.

Once I got inside, Brice shut the door and motioned for me to have a seat. “I was
up all night thinking about this case,” he said.

He didn’t really have to admit it—the dark circles under his eyes and the sag to his
shoulders let me know he’d gotten little to no sleep.

“What’s happened?” I asked, sensing that something in the ether had shifted since
the night before.

“Gaston has been called to Washington. A small terrorist group in Yemen is taking
credit for the bombings.”

“Bolshevik!”

Brice blinked at me. “Bolshevik?”

I held up an apologetic hand. “My substitute for bull poop.”

My boss shook his head. “We gotta get you another hobby, Cooper.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Anyway, I agree with you, and so does the director. We don’t believe this group is
sophisticated enough to have contacts here in the U.S. Still, Homeland is making a
power play to take this case away from us and they’re using the claim as the grounds
to do so.”

I sat forward. “How can they justify that?”

“The coroner identified Michelle Padilla through her dental records and also confirmed
that she was the bomber. The
shevik
hit the fan when HS discovered we’d searched both her residences without coordinating
with them.”

“But they did the same thing to us when they searched the Watson residence,” I protested.

Brice nodded. “I know, but that’s not how it’s being played out in Washington. In
D.C. there’s the suggestion that we’re trying to stonewall their efforts to cooperate
in the investigation and help identify the terrorist cell responsible.”

“Terrorist cell,” I scoffed. “This is one guy, abducting two women and forcing them
to wear a bomb for his own sick agenda. It has nothing to do with foreign terrorists.
And given the targets, I doubt highly this has anything to do with a grudge against
the government.”

Brice nodded. “We agree. And that’s exactly what Gaston’s going
to argue in Washington. But this is gonna come down to politics, Cooper, and it looks
like we’ll lose.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked.

Brice fiddled with his pen, rolling it over his fingers nimbly, looping it under his
palm, then back up to roll it across his hand again. “It means that by five o’clock
today we’ll have to hand over everything we have on this to HS. We’ll be officially
taken off any further investigation, and told to go back to resolving cold cases.”