New Revelations: Second Sight Book Two (9 page)

She now sat across
from
him at the kitchen table staring off in space.
Some
times she would mumble words Max
could barely make out.
He pushed around the cereal in his bowl and worked up the nerve to ask her to call his grandma. She explained the bad guys wouldn’t let him see her, but why could
n’t he talk to her on the phone? Maybe if he could just talk to his grandma for
a minute, Max
could tell her that she had to come get him. Everyone knew his grandma was one of the nicest people in the whole world. She would never let him stay here if she found out what the mean lady had done to him.

“Can I call Grandma today?” he asked in a small voice.

It took the woman a moment to snap out of her daze
and answer him
. “No.”

“But why?” He hea
r
d the whine in his voice, but none of her rules made any sense to him.

“I don’t have her phone number,”
she
barked and narrowed her
eyes at hi
m. This was usually a sign
she was going to lose her temper. Max imagined he could still feel the sting of her slap the last time when she got mad.

“Maybe you could call my house? I know my number by heart and she might b
e there taking care of my doggy,” he pleaded a
nd tried to keep from crying. The world had turned upside down for him overnight
. If this woman was supposed to take care of him, then why would
s
he keep him from talking to his grandma?

“I said NO!”
A primal scream came out and her movements became wild.
In a rage, she grabbed the cereal bowl
in front of him
and smashed it against the wall. The glass shattered and soggy cereal mixed with milk slithered down the wall. Max cowered under the table and began to sob. Why would his mommy and daddy leave him with this
nasty
lady?

***

Kate woke up in a tangle of sheets with sweat dripping off of h
er. Her heart was racing and she fumbled for the light switch
. She was tempted to call out for her mother or dial Jared’s number, but this wouldn’t bring Max home from his nightmare.
The woman who took him was unbalanced and she would probably end up
seriously injuring the boy if Max didn’t get away from her
soon.
With resolute steps, she fished the sub shop card out of her purse
along with her cell phone
. Not even bo
thering to look at the time, Kate
dialed the number.

“Hello.” After several rings, a
sleep
y
voice
finally answered
.

“It’s Kate…Kate Edwards, we met yesterday?” she prompted.

Her head began to pound the more she gained consciousness.
In hindsight, t
hose
saki
shots were a huge mistake and she desperately hoped the rolling nausea from the vision wouldn’t lead to a full scale vomit fest.
She sat on the side of her bed and held her head in her hands while waiting for Declan to reply
.

“Yes, Psychic Kate, I do remember and why
…”
he paused and she
heard some shuffling and possibly the sound of an
aggravated
female groan
,
“exactly are you calling me at four in the morning?”

“I need your help finding a little boy. He’s in trouble and
I can’t figure out where he is,
”
she explained in a rush.

No need to beat around the bush. If h
e wasn’t able to help her Kate would
have to move on and figure out on her own how to get Max home. The woman was deranged and could end up killing him.
Her twisted features appeared in Kate’s mind. She planned to do another sketch and send it to the police department working on Max’s case. Nonetheless, the woman could be anywhere with Max and there were probably thousands of women who looked similar to the abductor.

Declan’s dry tone interrupted her thoughts.
“
Guess what you found out online was pretty enlightening. I’m trying to rank as the number one searched psychic on the web.”

“Yes and
going on the web is
a much more normal way to research someone than following them around. Anyway, are you able to meet or what?”
Her fuse was short. A hangover and unsettling vision didn’t make for a happy Kate.

“Now? Well, I’m sort of indisposed
at the moment,” he sniggered
and female laughter rang clearer through the line
. Great
, the one psychic she meets is a conceited cretin
. Before she could give a retort, Declan continued, “How about you meet me
later
at Jersey Mike’s? I’ll treat you to lunch and we can talk?”

“Whatever, that’s f
ine. There’s one in town on
Bath Avenue
. I’ll see you
there
at
noon
.”
She fell back onto her bed and closed her eyes. By rubbing her temples, she hoped it would ease her headache.

“Sounds like a plan,” Declan agreed. After she didn’t reply, he continued,
“
Oh and Kate?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t forget to bring my free sub card.”

***

Declan gave her an arrogant grin as she walked over to the entrance Jersey Mike’s later that afternoon.
Leaning against the building, he perfected the look of casual cool. His hair was spiked in several different directions
and he wore a t-shirt of some band she was not hip enough to
have
ever hear
d
of. A couple of teenage girls laughed nervously as they walked by. They looked ready to swoon when he winked at them.
He held out his hand as she approached.

Kate
questioned
sardonically
, “What do you want
?
M
e to give you five?”

“Ha
-
ha, hand over the sub card, sweetheart and I’ll let you live,” he joked.

She slapped the card
in
to the palm of
his hand
.
“I’ll take an Ital
ian hoagie with no onions and roasted red peppers.”

When they entered the sub shop, it was quickly filling up with the lunch crowd. Kate explained to Declan that she would snag a table
while
he did the ordering. Agreeing, he headed towards the counter while she sat near the back of the restaurant.
It was hard to not fidget as she waited for him to
return with their sandwiches. A million questions were running through her head. It had never occurred to
her
that she would ever actually meet a legitimate psychic. His appearance in her life made her feel foolish for never considering the possibility of looking for others like her.
The only
major research she had done
was read a few books from well-known psychics. Their stories were so dissimilar from hers that she figured maybe her case was unique.

A few
minutes later Declan
took the seat across from her. As he arranged the sandwiches, she did a quick study of him. He w
as good looking, but
not classically handsome
. Between the scars and the multiple tattoos
, Kate speculated that many
people
would find
him intimidating
. Declan was n
ot what
she would picture as a psychic—
m
ore like
someone who would end up crushing skulls in a
MMA
match. However, when he met her
eyes, his smile was disarming—
a direct contradiction of his bad ass exterior.

Kate spoke first
,
“Thanks for meeting me. Sorry about the late night call, I had
a vision and it freaked me out.”

Before taking a bite of his sandwich he started, “So,
you’re working on a new case?”

She nodded
and launched into a detailed explanation
. “I’m not sure what you know about me or even if your gift works the same as mine.
My visions usually only happen at night when I’m dreaming. I never really know who I’ll end up seeing, but so
metimes if I concentrate
on a person before bed, the vision will be about them.
Occasionally
it will be a recent memory while other times it will be a vision from the person’s past.

“
Anyway,
a mother in
Washington
sent me a letter about her missing son last week. He was taken from a mall while out shopping with his grandmother. His name is Max and I already had two visions about him
. This psycho lady is keeping him in her house and feeding him all of this
B.S
. about how his parents were killed and she was asked to look
after
him.
She’s growing more and more abusive…” she trailed off.

Her throat constricted
and
Kate
took a shaky breath before carrying on with her story.
“
I gave the
police
department in Blaine
the woman’s description, but Max has no idea where he’s being kept.” She
paused and dug a photograph
out of her purse. Sliding it across the table she stated, “Here’s a recent picture. If there’s anything you can do to help…”

Declan
didn’t let her finish. “I could tell you your first mistake right off the bat.”

She sat back in her chair, startled at his tone. “Come again?”

He pointed to the picture of Max that sat between them. “You’re trying to get in the wrong person’s head. Now that you saw his abductor, you should be working on her. It’s not likely
she’s going to just blurt out her address to him.”

Her head bobbed up and down in agreement. “You do have a point, but it’s not like I can automatically read her thoughts even if I have a vision of her
. I was inside Max’s head, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes I’m just observing the scene, kind of like watching a movie.”

“That’s how it is for me too,” Declan assured her before asking,
“
But have you noticed any consistencies with your visions?”

“I never
see a memory
from someone who has died
. Otherwise everything else seems kin
d of random,” she said with a shrug.

Kate’s
sandwich remained untouched on her plate.
It was surreal to be sitting here with another psychic and having a seemingly normal conversati
on about the weirdness that
had
surrounded her life for the past t
wo years
.
It was comical to imagine what other diners would think about the two of them if they eavesdropped on their conversation.

Although she was pretty open with Jared, it was different talking to someone
who had the same experiences as
she did
. Their personalities may not exactly mesh, but the potential of a friendship with another psychic was growing more appealing by the second
.

Declan spoke
,
“I’m not sure what you read about me, but I’m
guessing you found out my
visions started four years ago after my accident?” He posed it as a
question and waited for a sign of agreement
.
After she nodded
, Declan stated,
“So, I’ve had more time to notice things about the visions. I’ve
come to realize
the type of vision I have depends on the person.”

“What do you mean?”

“Adults have these mental defenses in place that children don’t. So, I usually will see
into the head
of a child where I may just witness a memory that an adult has.”

Doing a quick inventory in her head, she
determined
for the most part it was true
for her too
.
When she had visions of Jared, her parents and Julie, they played more like a movie. She was able to see what happened to them at the moment in her vision, but never experienced their thoughts and feelings at the time. However,
during
a couple of cases in th
e past she had been in the head
of the adult involved.