Found (39 page)

“No, no—we don’t want you to leave.” Sophia
shook her head quickly. “I just…have a hard time letting someone be
in any kind of pain if I can stop it.”

“Just think of the pain that poor girl will
experience if we can’t get to her in time,” Nadiah said darkly. “My
fear is nothing compared to what she’s going to be going through if
I can’t stop her abduction.”

Sophia nodded reluctantly. “I suppose you’re
right. Well, if you’re really sure…”

“I am,” Nadiah said firmly, even though her
heart was drumming behind her ribs. “Truly, Sophia.”

“Okay then. Good night.” With one last
uncertain look, Sophia closed the bedroom door, leaving Nadiah in
the dark.

She sank back on the warm, comfortable bed
and stared up at the shadowy ceiling. She couldn’t explain where
her sense of certainty came from—she just knew this was the right
thing to do. Even if it meant suffering through horrible
nightmares, she needed to see what the Sight was trying to show
her. She had to give in to her gift, even if it meant giving
herself up to the terrors of the night.

Of course, it was going to be hard on Sophia
and Sylvan to hear her yelling in the next room. Nadiah promised
herself that she would move into a guest suite as soon as possible.
The idea of waking up in a strange place all alone in the dark
after a horrible dream was awful but wasn’t fair to ask them to put
up with her bloodcurdling screams.

She’d been sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep
but before she knew it, Nadiah’s eyelids drifted closed and her
breathing became soft and even.

Then she had the dream…

She was flying in the high, blue sky of Earth
but not in body—in spirit. She knew because she couldn’t see
herself when she looked down. Just lots of green trees and grass
and those strange man-made outcroppings the humans lived in called
“houses.” Nadiah still thought it must feel strange and exposed to
live on the surface of the planet instead of safely underground in
a grotto, but she was intrigued by their dwellings just the
same.

Soon she found herself hovering over an
especially large white house with a neatly trimmed lawn. There were
expensive looking cars in the driveway but it was the back yard
that drew Nadiah’s attention. There, two children were playing. Or
rather, a child and a young woman, she realized after looking more
closely.

The young woman had long auburn hair that was
blowing in the warm summer breeze. It sparkled like rubies in the
sun. She was pushing the little boy—who looked to be eight or
nine—high into the air on some kind of play set.

“Higher!” the boy cried, pumping his legs as
he soared toward the sky where Nadiah hovered, watching. “Swing me
higher, Jessie!” His eyes were bright green in the sunlight and his
hair was golden brown and tousled as though he’d been playing
hard.

“Any higher and you’ll flip over, kiddo,” she
said, laughing. “Mom’ll kill me if you break your neck.”

“Sing the song then. Sing and swing. Sing and
swing,” the boy chanted.

“All right.” Jessie took a deep breath and
began, singing to the rhythm of the swing.

“
Swing me up a little bit higher,

Obadiah, do.

Swing me up a little bit higher,

Say you love me too.

Swing me over the garden wall,

Tie me up so I’ll never fall.

Swing me up a little bit higher,

Obadiah, do!”

Nadiah was enchanted by the quality of the
girl’s voice. It was and rich and melodious—utterly enthralling. It
was no wonder the little boy liked hearing her sing.

He loved her voice and her long red
hair,
she thought, watching the two of them together.
She
smelled like fresh cut flowers. She meant everything to him but
she’s gone now. She’s been gone for years.
Somehow she knew
that the scene she was viewing wasn’t something that was happening
now, nor was it something that was yet to come. No, the vision that
was coming to her at this moment was of the past of more than
twenty Earth years ago.

At last the boy gave a wild yell and jumped
off the swing just as it reached its highest arc. Nadiah’s heart
leapt up into her throat—she was certain he would break his neck!
But he rolled on the neatly trimmed green grass and came up
laughing in the bright sunshine.

“You’re crazy! If Mom saw you do that it
would give her a heart attack.” But Jessie was laughing as she said
it. She slung an arm around her little brother’s skinny shoulders
and he looked up at her adoringly.

“Jessie, why can’t I come with you tonight? I
went to all your other birthday parties.”

“Yes, but this is a grownup party. I’m
eighteen now—you know that.”

“I don’t see what’s so great about being
eighteen,” he grumbled. “You’d just rather hang out with your
stupid friends than me. Especially that dumb Mark Hains.”

Jessie blushed, her creamy cheeks going pink.
“Don’t be a brat. Besides, Mark is nice—I like him. And…and I think
he likes me.”

“He likes you all right but he’s not a good
guy.” The boy’s mood suddenly turned dark. “Stay away from him,
Jessie. I get bad feelings when he looks at you. Really bad.”

“Don’t talk like that.” She frowned. “You
know it freaks people out when you talk about your ‘feelings’.”

“You’re the only one I talk to about them,”
the boy protested. “And besides, you know I’m right. I’m
always
right.”

“Not this time.” She ruffled his hair.
“C’mon, let’s get something cold to drink. It’s too hot out
here.”

“Okay.” The boy leaned against her side and
she gave him a squeeze as they walked toward the back door of the
big white house. “Just be careful. I love you, Jessie.”

“Love you too, kiddo.” She dropped a kiss on
the top of his head and they went into the house disappeared from
Nadiah’s line of sight. Suddenly a voice spoke in her ear.

“
Remember. Remember and tell him all you
have seen. Then he cannot help but believe.”

Then it was gone and Nadiah felt herself
drifting deeper, into the darkest reaches of sleep where there are
no dreams.

“Do we
really
have to do this again?”
Adam Rast ran a hand through his hair and glared at her. It had
been a week since their last encounter and Nadiah hadn’t been sure
he would meet her at the HKR building again, but she’d decided to
take a chance. To her surprise, he had actually shown up when she
called.

“Thank you for coming,” she said coolly,
straightening her
tharp
which had shaped itself into a close
approximation of an Earth skirt and blouse today. She wanted to
look calm and collected—professional.

“I only came to tell you one thing,” he
growled. “Stop bothering me, Nadiah, I have work to do.”

“Because another girl has disappeared,
right?” She arched an eyebrow at him and he glared at her.

“Yeah, good for you. Did you read that on the
NewsFeed this morning or did you have another
vision
about
the missing girl?”

“I
have
had a vision.” She gave him a
level look. “But not about the girl you’re looking for. Last night
in my dreams I saw a girl who’s been missing for the past twenty of
your Earth years.”

“What? Now you’re having visions about cold
cases?” Rast shook his head. “Seriously, I don’t have time for
this! Good bye, Nadiah. Have a nice life and don’t call me again.”
He turned away, striding over the grey carpet of the HKR building,
heading for the double glass doors.

“Her name was Jessie,” Nadiah said, raising
her voice to be heard over the murmuring of the Earth brides and
the Kindred warriors who had called them. “She had long, auburn
hair.”

Slowly, Rast turned to face her.
“What
did you say?”

“She smelled like fresh cut flowers,” Nadiah
continued. “And she had a beautiful singing voice.”

“What?” He strode over to her and grabbed her
by the arm. His face was white with fury. “How dare you? How
fucking
dare
you bring her into this?”

“She meant the world to you, didn’t she?”
Nadiah looked at him, realizing that he had been the boy in her
vision. “She pushed you on the swing and called you ‘kiddo’
and—”

“Stop right now. Just
stop.”
Rast
dragged her over to one of the dark grey couches and pushed her
down. Then he stood there, looming over her with a terrible
expression on his face. “I don’t know how you dug up my past and I
don’t care. But you stop talking about Jessie right now or—”

“She sang to you when she pushed you on the
swing,” Nadiah interrupted. What she was saying was obviously
upsetting him deeply and she would have liked to stop but somehow
she couldn’t. Her lips went on moving, forming words whether she
wanted to speak them or not. “A special song,” she said. “One only
the two of you knew.” Suddenly her throat was filled with the dead
girl’s voice and she sang.

“
Swing me up a little bit higher,

Obadiah, do.

Swing me up a little bit higher,

Say you love me too.

Swing me over the garden wall,

Tie me up so I’ll never fall.

Swing me up a little bit higher,

Obadiah, do!”

“My God!” Rast sank onto the couch beside
her, his face suddenly ashen. “How…what…?” He looked at her
wonderingly. “I haven’t heard that song in twenty years. And that
was her voice—her voice
exactly.
How did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Nadiah said honestly. “Just
as I don’t know why I see the things I see. I only know they’re
true.” She touched his arm lightly. “She was your sister, wasn’t
she? What happened to her?”

“She was murdered,” he said, his voice
grating harshly over the ugly word. “Abducted the night of her
eighteenth birthday party and murdered.”

“By Mark Hains?” Nadiah asked.

Rast’s head jerked up. “How did you—never
mind. Yes, I’m pretty sure he’s the one who did it. They could
never pin anything on him but he was seen leaving with her on the
night of the party.”

“You tried to warn her about him,” Nadiah
said, remembering her dream. “I saw it—you said you had a bad
feeling when he looked at her.”

“Yeah, me and my feelings.” He ran a hand
though his hair and let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Used to get
me into all kinds of trouble when I was a kid, until Jessie taught
me to keep ‘em to myself.”

Nadiah felt a burst of excitement. “So you
have a gift too—the gift of discernment. You can see into people,
read their true intentions.”

He looked up at her with a frown. “Something
like that. I prefer to think of it as trusting my instincts. I can
always tell when someone’s telling the truth or not.”

Nadiah frowned. “Then you
must
have
known earlier that I was being truthful about my visions. Why did
you keep putting me off?”

“Because…” He stood up and started pacing.
“You have to understand. We didn’t find Jessie’s body right away.
She was missing for years before it was found. My parents…they went
a little crazy. Jessie was always their favorite—I came along later
so I was just an afterthought. But Jessie, well, she was so perfect
and bright and beautiful you couldn’t help but love her.”

“What did they do?” Nadiah asked softly.
“Your parents?”

Rast sighed. “After the case went cold and
the police dropped out they hired private detectives—good ones too.
Expensive. But my parents both had extremely successful
careers—they could afford it.” He continued to pace, looking down
at his shoes. “When that didn’t work, they went farther out into
left field. My mom found a psychic who said she could
feel
Jessie’s energy. She told my mom Jessie was still alive, just
waiting to be found.” He shrugged angrily. “It gave her hope—until
we found the body, that was.”

“The woman was a fraud,” Nadiah said
flatly.

“So were all the others my parents hired.
They just wanted the money.” Rast sat beside her again, frowning.
“And believe me, they got plenty of it. But the worst part was
seeing how excited and hopeful my mom would get every time. She was
so
sure
Jessie was out there, just waiting for us to find
her.” He shook his head angrilly. “Fucking money grubbing liars,
every one of them.”

“That’s why you didn’t want to believe me, to
believe I was telling the truth,” Nadiah said. “Because of the
people who took advantage of your family during your time of
grief.”

“I’ve seen it happen to other people too,
when they’re kids go missing.” He gave Nadiah a piercing look.
“They’re frantic to find their child. They’d do anything, pay
anything
. So even though I could tell you were telling the
truth, I thought you were just crazy. I could tell you
believed
what you were saying but I didn’t think anyone
could actually see the things you were claiming to see. Not
really.”

“But you rely on your own gift,” Nadiah
pointed out. “You have to admit that’s out of the ordinary—outside
the realm of what’s possible.”

He looked grim. “I didn’t rely on it enough
to save Jessie. I
knew
that bastard Hains was trouble—I knew
what he wanted to do to her but she wouldn’t listen.” He shook his
head. “I should have kept her from leaving that night. Should have
hidden the keys to her car, locked her in her room,
something…”

“You were just a child.” Nadiah spoke gently,
wanting to comfort him. “You couldn’t help what happened.”

“I should have made someone listen to me. If
not Jessie, then my parents, or the police. I tried to tell them,
tried to convince them to listen, to look for her right away. But
they wouldn’t, you know?”

“Because they didn’t believe you?”

“That and because she was over
eighteen—legally an adult. When a minor goes missing you start the
case right away. With an adult, you always wait twenty-four hours
first.”