MIND READER (4 page)

“We’re still dry here.” He nodded toward the monitor.

“Nothing?” Caron frowned. “The child was abducted. How could there be nothing in the data bank? Her parents—somebody—had to notice her missing.”

“There’s nothing here.” He raked his hair with a burn-scarred hand—another legacy of the James case.

“Maybe she wasn’t abducted.” Parker let his hand drop
to the armrest. “Maybe none of this is real. Maybe you’re—”

“I wish the images weren’t real. You have no idea how
often I’ve wished it.” Caron leveled him her best hostile look. How could any man so gorgeous be such a narrow-
minded thorn in the side? “But they are.”

Compassion flitted over his face. He clamped his jaw and
squelched it. “At the risk of sounding sarcastic, let me ask my trivial question again. Do you have any proof?”

She flushed heatedly again. For a second she’d thought he might come around, but he hadn’t. He was no different from the others. She lifted her chin. “Nothing you can touch, see, smell or feel, Mr. Simms. Only the images.”

Parker looked at Sandy. “And there’s no missing-person
report?”

Grim-faced, Sandy shook his head. An uneasy shiver rattled along Caron’s spine. Before now, there always had been a report. That there wasn’t one now had her feeling
grim, too. Grim and uncertain.

Parker stood up. “As far as I’m concerned, that covers
it.”

Caron tried hard to keep her temper in check. Not only was the man insulting and rude—he might as well have called her a liar straight out—his negative feelings were
unjustified. That infuriated her. “Look, Mr. Simms—”

“No, you look, Miss Chalmers,” he cut in, his voice cold and steady. “It’s a simple matter of logic. If your child were
missing, would you file a report?”

“Yes, I would, but—”

“Well, there you have it. Right from the psychic’s
mouth.” He leaned against a file cabinet and cast her an acid look that she would have thoroughly enjoyed knocking off his face. “No report, no abduction. And no case.” With an annoying little shrug, he straightened. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have real work to do.” Refusing them so much as a nod, he walked out of Sandy’s office.

Caron glared at his retreating back. “You’re wrong, Parker Simms. Dead wrong!”

He didn’t stop, or turn around.

“Parker has a point, Caron.” Sandy said on a sigh. “Are
you sure about this?”

After all their years together, Sandy doubted her. That hurt. “Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped. “Do you think I
want
to see this child dragged through hell? Do you think I’m looking forward to being dragged through hell with her?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that...” His face
tinged pink. “You and I both know you had a really close call with—with the James case.” A desperate edge crept
into his voice. “You nearly died, Caron.”

He looked down at his desk pad, his eyes unfocused.
“It’s been a year today.”

A year ago today, they’d found Sarah James. Dead. A
surge of bitter tears threatened. “I know.” How could she
not know? She’d never forget. Sarah’s killer being in prison
didn’t help at all.

“Could you be getting your wires crossed because of it?”

His question was valid. Caron
had
nearly died. During
the week-long investigation, she’d followed up on the leads she’d imaged, and her health had deteriorated quickly. The
more deeply engrossed in the case she’d become, the more acutely she’d suffered every atrocity that Sarah James had suffered at the hands of her captor. And Sarah James had
been tortured.

Following the grain in her padded chair with her fin
gers, Caron looked at Sandy, knowing her regret was shining in her eyes. “This isn’t confusion. I wish it was. I wish
the child wasn’t in danger. But she is, Sandy. I swear, she
is.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose above his half-moon glasses. A smudge on the lens caught in the light.

When it became clear he wasn’t going to respond, Car
on turned the subject. “Why did you bring in Parker Simms?”

Sandy looked away. “I told you. I think he can help.”

“Help?” She guffawed. “He’s the most hostile man I’ve
ever met.”

Indecision creased Sandy’s brow, and he stuffed his hand
in his pocket. “He’s got his reasons. I agree that these days Parker’s
in a black mood most of the time, and he’s really rough around the edges. But he’s the best at what he does.”

Sandy knew more than he was saying, and her expression must have told him that she knew it. He gave her an
uneasy smile. “Come on, you can handle Simms. Just
don’t take it personally. When the man dies, he’ll probably
ask God for his ID.”

“And God’ll give it to him,” she said with a hint of a grin. There was no sense in alienating Sandy. She’d get
Parker Simms’s measure...eventually.

“He probably will.” Sandy gave her shoulder a firm pat.
“Let’s look at those pictures, hmm? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Nodding, Caron went into the outer office and got busy.

Parker sat in the Porsche outside Sanders’s office and
stared up at the rain-speckled window. She was still in there,
filling Sanders’s head with bull.

His hand shook on the wheel. God, if he’d blown this…No, he hadn’t blown it. He’d been rough on her—not that
she didn’t deserve worse—but she had no idea who he was,
that he’d been tailing her, or that he’d gathered a year’s worth of proof that his ex-partner, Harlan, had been right.
Caron Chalmers was no more psychic than he was.

For prosecution purposes, it was circumstantial evi
dence, true. But it was strong enough to convince Parker. A year of teaching second-graders sixty miles away in
Midtown, and the lady couldn’t hack playing it straight. So
she’d come back and picked up where she’d left off with
Sanders.

Parker had figured that it would take an out-and-out
threat to get any information on her from Sanders. All he’d
managed for the past year was Sanders’s admission that he and Chalmers were friends. But things had taken an odd
turn.

This morning, Sanders had called and seemed almost relieved to spill his guts and tell Parker she was coming down to headquarters. And then Sanders had done something even odder. He’d asked him to
help
Chalmers.

That request had knocked Parker for a loop. Sanders was
genuinely worried about her; there was no doubt about
that. Parker had seen Sanders’s look in his own mother’s eyes too often not to recognize it. And that worry made Sanders Chalmers’s victim, too. Not the same kind of vic
tim Harlan had been, but still her victim.

Parker’s stomach lurched, and the lump in his chest
turned stone-cold. He grimaced, doubly resolved. Harlan was right. Caron Chalmers was a fraud. And, by God, Parker meant to stop her—before she caused anyone else’s death.

After an hour of staring at photos and coming up as
empty as the computer’s data bank, Caron stood up at the long table and stretched, then looked back over her shoulder. Through the half-open glass door, she saw that Sandy was alone, but talking quietly into the telephone.

From the intimate tone of his voice, she knew the call was
personal. Caron lifted a brow. It was hard to imagine Sandy
loving, or as a lover. What kind of woman would be at
tracted to him?

Sandy hung up. Caron tossed her foam coffee cup into
the overflowing trash can and tapped on his door. When he
looked up, she leaned her head against the doorframe.
“You guys should use paper cups or real mugs.”

He glanced up from an open file. “What?”

His eyes looked a little glazed. Must have been one hot
call. Parker Simms and his broad shoulders flashed through
her mind. She blinked the disturbing image away. “Foam doesn’t break down. You know, go green and save the planet.”

“Oh.
 
Right.” Sandy set the file down and, elbow bent, propped
his chin with his hand. “I’ll mention it.”

He wouldn’t. Typical Sandy. “There’s nothing in the
photos. I’m going to ride over to Gretna and see what hap
pens.”

“Be careful.”

Caron nodded. “I’ll give you a call.”

“You want company? I guess Simms skated out on us,
but I could tag along.”

Sandy was worried about her, but that wasn’t all of it. She couldn’t blame him. After Sarah’s case, how could he not be worried? Caron herself was worried—and tempted
to take him up on his offer.

Before she could give in to the fear, she replied. “No, but
thanks. I have to get my feet back.”

She hiked up her shoulder bag to hide her own misgiv
ings. How well
would
she cope this time? Okay, so she was
scared stiff. She had honest concerns about her abilities, and about the empathy pains that always accompanied the images. How much could she physically withstand? She
hadn’t been tested since the images had come back, either.
How accurate were her perceptions?

As much as she hated to admit it, hostile or not, Parker Simms
had
made a valid point. For the first time ever in a
case, she didn’t have a missing-persons report, or any other
hard evidence. But she did have the images. After what had
happened to Sarah, trusting them was as hard as trusting
outsiders. Yet the stakes were too high for her not to; more
than for herself, she was terrified of what was happening to
the little girl. Of what
could
happen to her—if she found
her too late.

She squeezed the strap on her purse until it bit into her palm, and pushed away from the door casing. The white paint was chipped and peeling away in splinters. So was
she...inside.

She didn’t want to, but she had to warn Sandy. Not that there was anything he could do about it without a report.
But maybe it was herself she had to warn—out loud—just
in case this little girl ended up like Sarah. “She’s sick,
Sandy. She could get sicker.”

“I understand.”

Their gazes linked and held. He did understand. They both did. And whether or not Parker Simms believed her, Caron knew the truth. The little girl
had
been abducted. She was in serious danger. And unless Caron interpreted
her images dead-center accurate, the girl could die.

Chapter 2

The pavement was nearly steaming. It was beyond hot; it was sultry and close and still overcast. Lousy weather for the Christmas shoppers. The shower earlier had the humidity hovering near the hundred-percent mark, which made breathing a major obstacle...especially for a child locked in a leaky shed with a damp, dirt-crusted floor and
 
a bag of insecticide.

Getting into her old Caprice, Caron saw another image. The girl at a park, with a second man. Standing behind her, he pushed her swing. He was tall and lanky, homely, but expensively dressed. And when the girl laughed, the man laughed. The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled, and love shone in
them. The warmth in the sound and the sight spread
through Caron like syrup over a snow cone, slowly soak
ing in.

The sharp contrast between the two men she’d seen sur
prised her. Then, suddenly, it made perfect sense. This man and the little girl’s abductor were adversaries. But in what?
How did the little girl connect them?

And why hadn’t Sandy found anything on her in the data
bank? It incorporated all the outlying areas and suburbs.

Having no answers, Caron cranked the engine and
glimpsed into her rearview mirror. A flashy black car was
about three lengths behind her. She twisted to look back.

“Simms,” she muttered. Her courage took a nosedive,
and her heart slammed against her ribs. It was him, all
right; she’d have recognized those shoulders anywhere.
He’d left Sandy’s office eons ago. Why was he just now leaving headquarters?

He couldn’t be following her. The man thought she was
a mental patient; he hadn’t believed anything she’d said. So
why was he there?

No sooner had she asked herself the question than Simms
peeled off, turning right at the corner. Maybe he’d been
working on another case?