Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (7 page)

Crime scenes are always an assault on the senses, and this was one of the worst I’d
ever been to. My nose was filled with the acrid smell of charred plastic, wood, and
other unmentionable things, not to mention that everywhere I looked I could see the
destructive violence of the bomb, and my ears couldn’t drown out the sound of dozens
of first responders still covering the scene. I could only imagine what my sixth sense
would encounter when I clicked on my radar.

“You okay?” Candice whispered.

I realized I was breathing a little hard and maybe I was starting to feel a touch
cold and clammy too. “It’s the smell,” I said, bringing my arm up to cover my nose.

Candice wrapped her arm around my waist and guided me out of the shop to a spot in
the parking lot about ten feet from what had been the entrance. “Better?” she asked.

I swallowed hard. “A little.”

“You don’t have to do this,” she reminded me, which won her a sharp look from Brice,
who had followed us.

Truth be told, I very nearly backed out, but then that feeling of knowing with absolute
certainty that Dutch would then be left unprotected and vulnerable settled into the
pit of my stomach and it gave me the resolve I needed. “I’m fine,” I told her, squaring
my shoulders and turning again to the scene.

I stared at it with unfocused eyes for a long time, sorting through all the energy
swirling and tumbling around the area. It took me a while to sort it all out because
there was so much emotion clouding the ether. Pushing my radar away from current time,
I tried to find my way back to the time of the explosion, but I had to push past a
great deal of stuff to get there. There had been the urgent energy of the firefighters
who had worked to contain and put out the blaze, the anxiety of onlookers who’d witnessed
the explosion or the aftermath, and finally the small thread of energy that was most
unsettling, the vibrations of the five women who’d been caught in the explosion.

The second I felt them, I focused hard and followed the thread. And then I had the
energy of one woman in particular—and what’s more, I actually had a strong psychic
connection to her. She seemed to come out of the fog and chaos of the scene to step
right in front of me—and although I couldn’t see or hear her, I could certainly sense
her.

She felt heavy against my energy—and she felt full of panic. I knew in an instant
that I’d connected to the grounded spirit of one of the women killed in the explosion,
and for a minute I didn’t know what to do with her.

I realize that most people think that all psychics are the same, but we’re as diverse
as specialists in any given field. Under the “psychic” umbrella, there are mediums,
healers, energy workers, and folks like me—psychic forecasters who predict the future.
While I can sense a grounded spirit just as well as any medium, communicating clearly
with one really isn’t my forte. The ability to actually “hear” a spirit is called
“clairaudience.” As a psychic forecaster, my dominant sixth sense is clairvoyance,
which simply means that in my mind’s eye I “see” images that allow me to predict the
future. Alternatively, spirit mediums rely on clairaudience to “hear” spirits and
converse with them. They often have some clairvoyance as well, but it’s their clairaudience
that dominates. Unfortunately, with clairaudience, either you have it or you don’t,
and I’m more in the “don’t” category.

So I wasn’t very confident about attempting to communicate with the grounded soul
banging on my energy, but this woman was pretty insistent, and I felt such sadness
for her that I sucked it up and went for it.

Hi, my name is Abby,
I mentally told her.
I can try to help you, ma’am.
(Little-known fact: ghosts
can
hear our thoughts if we direct them at the spirit, so there’s no real need to speak
out loud to them should you ever encounter one.)

What I got back wasn’t so much a thread of conversation as it was a wave of emotion.
Relief mixed with panic, and confusion, and then that pleading sense to help her,
but there were no words exchanged. I was back to my own frustration for lack of clairaudient
skill.

But then I had an idea, one that I’d never tried before, and I hoped it’d work. I
shut my eyes and envisioned my FBI badge, and I even went so far as to put my hand
over it as it dangled from my neck.

That panicked pleading subsided, and I knew she was trying
to work out what I was saying. I then envisioned the inside of my office—specifically
the room where I conducted my readings. I mentally called up the image of the last
client I’d read for and then in my mind I drew a plus sign.
This,
I said in my thoughts while wiggling my badge,
plus this
—I again called up the image of my office—
is what I do.

With relief I felt her make the connection, and I knew she understood that I was telling
her I was an FBI psychic.

Encouraged, I told her to fill my mind with an image for what she did, and immediately
I saw a woman with black hair and heavy makeup standing in a pink and green beauty
salon, cutting another faceless person’s hair. The image was so strong that I swear
I smelled that flowery scent of shampoo and hair products right under my nostrils.

You’re a beautician!
I said mentally.

There was a sort of mental nod inside my head, but then that pleading to tell her
or show her what’d happened to her returned.

I bit my lip. “Abs?” I heard Candice whisper, and not wanting to interrupt the link
I had to the ghost in front of me, I replied to Candice by holding up one finger.
The next bit was going to be tricky, because I knew it would shock the dead beautician,
but there was no way to avoid it. I took her image of the inside of the salon and
on the floor I placed the image of a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse. That was it.
Anything else I felt would be too cruel and upsetting for her.

What she did next shocked
me
. She took the stick of dynamite, turned the beautician’s chair around to show me
a young girl in her early twenties with light brown hair, freckles, and big hazel
eyes. I didn’t quite know what was happening until the beautician slapped the dynamite
stick to the torso of the girl, and then, in the next instant, a ball of flame completely
obscured my inner vision. My breath caught and I took a step back and opened my eyes.

Brice and Candice were staring worriedly at me. “I saw her,” I said. “The bomber.
I know what she looks like.”

“You
saw
her?” Brice asked, and I could tell he was mentally trying to work that out. He was
neither intuitive nor very imaginative, and it’s always hardest for the analytical
types to get me and what I do.

“Yes.” I had a very clear impression of what the girl looked like. Her sweet face
was likely permanently ingrained in my memory.

“Where?” Brice asked. He was looking around like he thought I saw her in person.

“I saw her in my mind’s eye, Brice. But I could describe her down to a T if I had
to.”

Brice blinked several times. I knew he wanted to ask me how I could have possibly
seen the bomber in my mind’s eye, but he also knew that I was pretty adept at revealing
what seemed impossible to expose. “You’re sure you saw
her
, Cooper?” was all he asked.

“Positive.”

“Could you sit with an artist?” Candice asked, before turning to Brice and adding,
“If she can give you an image to offer the press, it might be faster than waiting
for DNA to come back.”

Brice’s gaze flickered to me. “Yeah, we can get an artist for you, but a name would
be faster. Any chance you could pull that out of your psychic hat?”

I shook my head. “You know I don’t get names.”

Brice shrugged. “Worth a shot.” He then turned away to make a call and get me the
artist.

Meanwhile Candice rubbed my shoulders. “You look cold.”

The day had become overcast and had the smell of rain in the air, and the temperature
had dropped significantly since that morning. A cold front was blowing through town.
“I’m okay,” I told her, barely suppressing a shudder.

Candice grinned. “How about we get outta here and go for coffee? Brice won’t be able
to get anyone to work up a sketch for at least a half hour.”

I almost said yes, but then I remembered that Dutch was still on the scene and I had
a ghost I couldn’t just leave without at least attempting to help. “Naw, I’m good,”
I told her, before scanning the area for my fiancé. I found him over by Gaston and
a guy I didn’t recognize in a blue Windbreaker. It looked like they were examining
several small pieces of charred metal. I wondered if they were pieces of the bomb.

“You sure, Sundance?” Candice said, pulling my attention back to her.

I bumped her with my shoulder. “I’m okay, Cassidy. There’s a grounded spirit here
that I’m going to try to help.” I pointed to the area right in front of me where the
beautician was standing.

“There’s a what where now?” Candice asked, her eyes widening.

“A ghost.”

Her jaw dropped. “Like…a real
live
ghost?”

“She’s not exactly alive, Candice, but yes, there is a real ghost standing right in
front of us.” Candice took two very big steps back from me. “Don’t tell me you’re
scared of ghosts?” I said.

“Okay. I won’t tell you. But I am, Abs. I mean, I think the psychic stuff you do is
really cool, but ghosts freak me out.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, this one won’t hurt you. She’s scared and really upset by
what’s happened to her.”

“Who is she?”

“One of the beauticians from inside the shop.”

“Which one?”

That was a good question. I remembered the names Brice had rattled off. Kelly Longfellow,
Grace Williams, and the owner,
Rita Watson. As I was recalling them, I felt a surge from the woman in front of me
as my mind hit on the name Rita Watson and I knew I had the beauty shop owner in front
of me. I closed my eyes and whispered, “Rita, do you understand you’ve been killed
today?”

I was hit with such a wave of sadness that my eyes immediately began to tear. For
a long moment I was terribly overcome with emotion, and I had to wipe my eyes several
times and take deep breaths before I was able to focus again.

“Abs?” Candice said, once again at my side. “Sweetie! What’s the matter?”

I tried to speak and tell her what was happening, but I couldn’t, so I just held up
one finger for her to wait a moment and reached out again to Rita.
I’m so sorry,
I told her.
I know it must be a shock, Rita, but you didn’t survive the blast, and you need to
leave this place and cross over to the other side. Do you know how to do that?

I waited with bated breath, hoping she would know how to cross, because if she didn’t,
I’d have to call my friend M.J.—a medium and good friend I knew in Boston—for assistance.

Rita took a while to answer me, and through the ether I could feel her struggle and
it tore me up inside. I had the distinct impression that she was leaving behind a
son, a young man not yet out of high school.
I’ll reach out to him,
I promised her.

I felt another twinge of emotion that was like a surge of gratitude. And then I knew
that Rita was still resistant to the idea of crossing over. I didn’t want her to lose
her courage, so I mentally said,
Rita, you’ll be so much better able to watch over your son from the other side. If
you stay in this realm, you’ll be stuck right here in front of this burned-out shop
and that’s not an existence your son would ever wish for you.

I think that did the trick because in the next few seconds I
could feel a sort of warmth come over me and then I had the impression that Rita’s
spirit was lifting and becoming lighter. A moment later she was gone, and I opened
my eyes to once again find Brice and Candice standing in front of me looking extremely
worried. There was also a third person there—Dutch.

“You okay?” he asked. His eyes conveyed that he was both: still pissed off, and just
as worried as Candice and Brice. Belatedly I realized I was crying.

I wiped at my cheeks. “I’m fine. How’re you?”

“Peachy.”

For the record, his tone suggested anything but.

“Swell,” I told him, in a tone that also suggested anything but.

An awkward silence followed and it was finally broken when Brice said, “The sketch
artist is on the way and should be here in about twenty minutes. Why don’t you ladies
head down the street and grab some coffee at Starbucks and I’ll send the artist over
when she gets here?”

I turned and spied the familiar green and white logo about a block and a half down.
It had nice big windows from which I could keep my eye on Dutch. “Okay,” I said, motioning
for Candice to follow me as I turned on my heel and walked away.

“Abs,” I heard Dutch say before I got very far.

I glanced over my shoulder but kept walking. “Yeah?”

“Wait up for me tonight. We need to chat.”

Oh, boy. The shih tzu I get myself into sometimes…