New Revelations: Second Sight Book Two (21 page)

Jared had introduced himself and the saleswoman had now turned to her expectantly.
Grace had corn silk
blonde
hair that fell past her shoulders. Her eye color was hard to discern behind a pair of tortoise shell eyeglasses. Kate
smiled as she sent a sideways glance at Jared. Her boyfriend already looked bored as he glanced around at the room displays.
“Hi, I’m Kate…Jared’s fiancée.”

“Congratulations!” the woman exclaimed as her eyes moved down to Kate’s hand.

“We’re waiting to get a ring. I’m expecting and I’m sure I’ll swell up as big as a beached whale. Don’t want the ring getting stuck.”
The woman nodded politely and turned away to lead them through the store.

Jared
took her hand and whispered, “
Pregnant
and engaged? Is this one of those
future visions
you were telling me about
?”

“Well, I couldn’t just say girlfriend, she would never take my opinions seriously,” she whispered back and bumped her hip to his. “Besides, won’t it fun to pretend for a little while?
”

They walked around with Grace and she showed them some living room and kitchen sets. Kate
dismissed the friendly saleswoman with the request that they browse alone to talk over choices.
Jared looked at her and didn’t bother to suppress his yawn. “This is mind numbing. I tuned out once the two of you got started on
the benefits of marble and tile finishes for kitchen tables.”

“Well, I’m having fun,” Kate retorted. She had narrowed down the choices in her head and figured she would tell Jared to make the final call on what sets to purchase. Kate suggested,
“
Let’s go test out the mattresses
—
it’s my favorite part of going to a furniture store.”

“But I don’t need a bed,” he responded.

“Just come on.”

Kate pulled him eagerly through the store as Jared laughed at her enthusiasm. Once they arrived at the mattress section, she positioned his body in front of one of the memory foam beds. She instruct
ed him to face away from the mattress
and hold her hand. Kate explained,
“Now, on the count of three, we fall back onto the mattress. We’re judging the spring and
level of support. Medium firm is usually ideal.”

His eyebrows shot up and he gave her a disbelieving stare.
“This isn’t weird to do?”

“No, why would you buy a mattress without lying on it first? Peop
le do it all the time,” she enlightened Jared. Kate gave him a stern look. “Now on
the count of three, fall down with me
. O
ne, two, three
…
”

Jared
c
ollapsed on the bed next to her and shot her a grin. “This is ridiculously comfortable. It might be time to upgrade my bed.”

“Hmm…” she murmured as his face moved to her.

It took a lot to keep Kate from pointing out
she wouldn’t know
since she had never been in his
bed. Instead, she turned her head to study his perfect countenance.
Their faces were only inches apart and she felt a blush creep on her skin. It was hard to not be hyper
aware of his closeness and
the fact they were lying on a bed next to each other.

“What do you think are the chances we could kick everyone out of the store and be alone?”
Jared asked in a hypnotic tone
. He was close enough
that his warm breath tickled
her skin.

The naked lust on his face prompted the blush to deepen. The air felt charged and she knew what she was feeling at that moment was more than simple desire
for him.
Last night was a wake-up call. Losing Jared would be disastrous to her life. Although the people in her cases meant a lot to her, Kate vowed to never take her boyfriend for granted again.
It was on the tip of her tongue to confess her feelings when she heard someone clearing their throat. Grace looked down at them on the bed with a tolerant smile. “Are you considering a bed set as well?
”

Melanie looked down at the note.
Will you go to the dance with me? Circle Yes or No.

It was written in Billy Fraser’s loopy script. He had passed the note to her b
efore history class
.
He would barely look at her when his
hand brushed hers. Thinking back to the moment
, Melanie guessed that he might actually be
nervous about her response. This surprised her since she was certain Billy had thought Melanie wasn’t pretty enough to pay any mind to.

Melanie had to cover her mouth to hide a smile. Billy was one of the cutest boys in
Dewey
Middle School
.
He wore his black hair longer than most boys in seventh grade and always could be seen on his skateboard before or after school. She had been majorly crushing since school started and had confided to Allison during gym last week.
Her best friend had lasted until Friday and then the whole
school seemed to know about what Melanie had assumed was her unrequited
crush.

On Monday Melanie
had begged her mother to stay home. She didn’t want to face the
severe
embarrassment
of having the entire school knowing
who she liked. She was such a bad liar that ever
y time someone asked her about
Billy
, she turned scarlet and could barely stammer out an answer.
Her mother didn’t want to hear any of it and instead ushered her out of the house in the morning despite her protests.
Her mother assured Melanie that the seventh graders would soon move on to another target for their gossip.

Then, the most amazing thing happened. Billy had cast her shy glances all week. They weren’t the looks that translated into repulsion over her very presence. The looks said he was interested in her too. On Tuesday he had even given her a nod and hello in the hallway.

At first, she thought maybe it was a cruel joke on her. She wasn’t
the most popular girl in school and pimples had started to erupt on her face seemingly overnight. Yet, Billy Fraser wasn’t
like that. He was sweet and didn’t hang out with the boys who thought it was hilarious to ask you out as joke and laugh at you with all of their friends when you said ok.
Melanie could never like any of the imbeciles that populated the rest of her school.

Just as the bell rang, she took her pen and circled “yes” in the note. As she made her way down the hallway, her heart stopped in her
chest as Billy came down the hallway in the opposite direction. Gathering all of her nerve, she dropped the note on top of his pile of books. She couldn’t even make eye contact as she did and continued to hurry down the hallway. As she dared a glace behind he
r, she saw Billy turn
in her direction. She gave him a shy smile as he grinned at her. Thursday was going to be the best night of her life
.

***

“I experienced Melanie’s
thoughts.
I wasn’t insi
de her head for any of the other visions
.
What do you think that means?”

It had been almost a week since the fitness instructor was last seen. There had been no breaks in the case and new evidence had yet to surface. For the entire week, the psychics had attempted to garner some type of information from Melanie’s memories. Since it was Saturday, Kate had off from both school and work. She had dedicated the day to getting into Melanie’s head. Although Melanie’s memories were touching—they didn’t provide any clues to her whereabouts. After this latest vision
, she had phoned Declan immediately for his input. It seemed strange for her to suddenly get inside the girl’s head when their previous visions had been as outside observers.

“Honestly, I don’t know, but it may not be good
,
”
he replied solemnly.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the only time I got inside someone’s head is if the person was very young or they had something mentally wrong with them. What if something is happening to her that’s affecting her mental state?”
Declan questioned.

“You’re such a pessimist.”

“No, I’m a realist. The fact is we need to find her fast
. Every minute we have, we need to be trying to see into her head,” he advised.

“Believe me I have been. When I’m not at school or at work, I’m trying to connect with her. Jared has been super busy at work and I haven’t even s
een him this week,” she complained.
She chewed on a strand of chocolate hair as she waited for Declan’s reply
.

“Trying to have a normal life when you’re a psychic is nearly impossib
le. At least you could quit your job if this
works out. It will give you more time to devote to our cases.”

“Let’s not g
et
ahead of ourselves here,” she said dryly.
“
I just can’t quit my job and be a full-time psychic.”

“Why not?
” Declan demanded
.
“
I am. In case you haven’
t noticed, I’m not doing badly
on my own.”

“
Do you offer medical? Dental? A 401K plan?”

“Ha-ha,” he said dryly. “Let me know if you have another vision.”

“Ditto.”

As Kate
hung up the phone, she tried to rally for the dinner at the obscen
ely expensive restaurant that her dad had chosen.
Although she had turned twenty-two, her father seemed to still suffer from an acute case of weekend dad syndrome. Whenever she saw him, he spoiled her with lavish gifts to make up for his absence from her life.

She
was completely wiped from all the time she had been spending trying to get into Melanie’s head.
Trying to juggle her personal life and psychic life was proving to be taxing.
Memory after memory of Melanie’s past had come to her over the last few days, but nothing about her disappearance. It made her run all sorts of possibilities through her head. Was Melanie
un
aware of anything happening to her and that was why these memories were coming to her? Maybe she was in a coma and these were the thoughts filling her head as she remained unconscious
.

Kate
picked up
her
cell
phone again and sighed
when she didn’t see a message from Jared
.
He
was
already
ten minutes late to pick her up. They had to leave soon or the
y would be late
meeting her father at the restaurant. She tried his cell again, this time he picked up on the first ring. “Kate, I’m sorry, I was just dialing your number. Something came up at work, so I’m going to be a little late for dinner.”

“That’s crappy
,
” she replied.
“M
y father
’
s really looking forward to getting to know you,” she sighed.

Actually that wasn’t completely the truth. When she
mentioned
Jared was coming, her dad questioned why she was dating someone twice her age and who was partially responsible for her almost being killed last month. She had to keep reminding him that Jared was only seven years older and had not plotted her abduction with Cori’s
demented
kidnapper.

“I’ll get to the restaurant as soon as humanly possible, I promise. Don’t wait on me to order though. I wouldn’t want your father to end up not liking me because I’m holding up your dinner,” he quipped.

Her high pitch laugh rang false. “My father
not
like you? That’s preposterous.”

“
Gotta go, but I’ll see you soon,
”
Jared promised. Kate was learning to hate the
Franklin
detective bureau. They were forcing her to endure her father’s interrogation without Jared present for moral support.

Kate’s
father was already seated when she arrived
at the restaurant
. He was sipping what she guessed was Scotch and browsing over the menu. As much as she was dreading any le
ctures he had in store for her,
she couldn’t help but feel a surge of happiness over seeing him.
She hadn’t seen him since Labor Day weekend and they had a nice time together at the beach. Quickening her pace, she rushed to the table. “Dad!”

“There’s my little girl,
”
he said affectionately.

Robert Edwards
stood up and wrapped his strong arms around her body. She savored his presence and felt moisture cloud her vision. With everythi
ng going on, she was
feeling like an emotional train-wreck. It would be good to have a normal evening with her father and her boyfriend. They had been too far and few between lately. He gave a dramatic look around the restaurant. “Aren’t we missing someone?”