Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye

by Victoria Laurie

  Thanks to his old-fashioned manners, I had been able to check out his height—the man definitely hadn't lied about being six two. He had broad shoulders that molded nicely under a cream-colored knit shirt and well-defined biceps that bulged slightly when he bent his elbow. His hair was light blond, and his complexion was subtly ruddy, like he'd spent his fair share of time in the sun. The most alluring thing about him, however, was his eyes. They were an electric midnight blue and peeked out at me with a stare that could have melted ice cream. He had a narrow nose and a prominent square jaw. He reminded me a lot of a young Ed Harris, who it just so happens, I have a huge crush on. He had an infectious, brilliantly white smile, full, suggestive lips, and he smelled fabulous. To hell with it—I picked up the menu and began fanning.

  "Whoo, it's a hot one this year, huh?" Oh God, did I actually say that?

  He smiled and politely played along with the temperature theory. "Yeah, I don't remember it being this hot last year, but I guess we were due. Can I get you a drink?"

  Yes! "That would be lovely. I hear they have wonderful margaritas here. And by the way, excellent choice for a restaurant. I love Mexican."

  Dutch and I made small talk for the next half hour and finally ordered when the waitress stopped by for the sixth time to see if we were ready. We'd both kept forgetting to look at the menu every time she walked away. I ordered the Santa Fe chicken and Dutch ordered the pepper steak, and we each added another margarita. After our waitress departed we nibbled gingerly on the complimentary chips and salsa and began in earnest the delicate task of getting to know each other.

  Dutch had charm that rivaled his good looks, and I wondered "why he'd had to join a dating service to find someone to go out with. I asked him as much, and he turned the question back on me.

  "Well, I've never been one for the bar scene, and in my profession I don't meet that many eligible men," I said.

  Abruptly Dutch grimaced and reached down to his belt buckle, pulling a small cell phone up from a clip fastened there and focusing his attention on the display. "I'm really sorry Abby, I don't mean to interrupt, but I have to answer this page. I'll be right back," he said, reaching across the table and squeezing my hand, which I thought would melt onto the table like candle wax. Then he let go, eased out of the booth, and turned to walk in the direction of the restrooms at the back of the restaurant, giving me a fabulous view of his ass. I wanted to stand up and applaud, but settled for dropping my jaw as I watched his small, firm buns bounce along. Suddenly both buns stopped and swiveled, and I realized he was looking back in my direction. Belatedly I looked up and snapped my mouth shut as he chuckled and pointed directly in front of him. I followed his finger and saw that the wall he was pointing to was one gigantic mirror—he'd watched me watching his ass!!!

  I felt a look of horror plaster itself onto my face and quickly lowered my gaze, absolutely humiliated. Several minutes went by and without looking up I felt his presence as he eased back into the seat. "Sorry it took me so long, I used the men's room while I was up. So, what do you think of the decor?" he asked in a serious tone.

  Mortified, I looked up and caught him winking with a playful smile. "Dutch, I really have to apologize for my behavior. I'm normally much more of a grown-up than that …" Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  "So does that mean I can't watch you walk to the ladies' room when you have to go?" He was toying with me, and my face turned a darker shade of red. I didn't care if it meant ruining a kidney—there was no way I was going to the ladies' room tonight.

  Just then the waitress walked by and I flagged her down to order yet another margarita, as my second one had magically disappeared while Dutch was in the men's room. Dutch smiled and asked for another as well, and a few minutes later the waitress brought the drinks and our food at the same time.

  Grateful for something to do other than twist my napkin into a knot, I attempted to cut my chicken, but for some reason I was having trouble holding the knife and fork. In fact, I realized with sudden alarm, I was having a hard time feeling my hands at all. It dawned on me in a moment of panic that the alcohol was hitting me a lot harder than I'd anticipated. I finally managed to cut off a piece of chicken and get it into my mouth—okay, so it fell on my plate a few times, but eventually it got there. We ate in silence for a few minutes, me looking down at my plate, Dutch looking at me with a playful grin. I realized that he was humoring me and that's when I decided I really didn't care anymore that I'd been caught taking a lookey-loo. The view was nice, and it was a free country.

  "So, Abigail," he said, breaking the silence, "you said that you haven't met any eligible men in your line of work. I know your profile said you were in counseling, but what specifically do you do?"

  Feeling suddenly full of bravado, or perhaps gratitude for the subject change, I said, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

  "Try me."

  "I'm an intuitive."

  "A what?" he said, looking confused.

  "Psychic."

  "Really?"

  Either he was very good at masking his true feelings or he actually was open to the idea because judging by the look on his three faces, he seemed genuinely interested. "Yup," I said, nodding to the middle Dutch. "I tell people their futures."

  "You make a living doing that?" he asked.

  Yup, and a good one.

  "So, what do you do? Look into a crystal ball or something?"

  I'm always amazed at the common man's theory on psychics. We're all a carnival act. A sideshow. A bamboozle. "No, I just tune in and go for it."

  "How?"

  "Well, I sit in front of someone, focus on their energy and ask to see stuff. The stuff comes to me and I just blurt it out."

  Putting his fork and knife down and looking directly at me, Dutch said, "Show me."

  Normally I don't give away my services. I'm not a circus act, and what I do has value. I've had plenty of people ask me for a free reading as a way of demonstrating my talent. It irks me when people assume that I need to prove my ability to them, but tonight my usual defenses seemed to have melted away with the ice in the second margarita. "Okay," I said, closing my eyes and setting down my silverware. "Tell me your full name and date of birth."

  "Roland Dutch Rivers, May eighth—do you need the year?"

  I cracked open an eye and said, "Roland?"

  "Yeah," he smirked. "My mother was kind of a free spirit."

  I shut my eye again and worked very hard not to give in to the guffaw tickling the back of my throat. Dutch told me his birth year and I quickly did the math, figuring him for thirty-three, then concentrated on his energy.

  The thing about alcohol, and why I don't indulge in it very often, is that it makes me particularly brave and uninhibited. Bad on a first date with a guy, but very, very good when opening up for a reading. I have absolutely no fear of being wrong when I've had a drink or two, so I say anything and everything that comes to mind; there's none of the filtering that I normally do.

  "Okay, first off, I'm picking up a badge all around you, so if you've been speeding lately you need to slow down because you're likely to get a ticket. Your guides keep showing me a cop's badge or something, so I think you need to ease off the gas pedal. Next, I'm picking up that you either just got or are about to get a promotion—congratulations by the way—at work, but that you work all the time, all day and night. They're saying you work too much.

  "Next I'm picking up a partnership with a woman— she has brown hair, and it feels like it's everywhere, so she may have messy hair or something. They're telling me that this partnership is good, but that you two struggle to understand each other. Like you're both right, but you come at it from different directions. You two need to learn how to communicate with each other better and accept what the other is saying.

  "I'm also picking up a connection to you and New York. And there's something about you and the military—like either you were in the military or maybe you have a family member, like a brother, who is. I'm p
icking up a cat, too, a big fat gray cat that thinks he owns you, and he's got this problem with peeing all over your house or something. They're making me feel like the reason he's doing this is because the house next door also has a male cat and your cat is just marking his territory. What you need to do is put kitty litter boxes all over the place and just let him pee in those for a while. Then gradually cut back on the number of pans. He'll be back to normal before you know it.

  "Now I'm picking up skiing, like snow skiing, and something out in Utah or out West. Like you go there to ski. Also I'm picking up a woman who comes back from your past. She's blond and pretty, and you just don't know what to do with her. But you're going to need to make a decision, and it's not what she's hoping for. You need to follow your gut with her, because I'm picking up that there's some sort of tension between you two, like unresolved business, and you'd prefer it if she would just go away, but unless you say those exact words to her she's not going to get the hint."

  Near our table a tray slipped and crashed to the floor, sending broken glass and plates everywhere. I started at the noise and snapped my eyes open and looked at Dutch, who was looking straight at me with a shocked expression on his face.

  "How did you do that?" he asked.

  "I told you, I'm an intuitive. It's what I do." My buzz was starting to wear off, and it suddenly dawned on me that I might have been a little too over the top for a first date. I looked down at the tabletop, embarrassed now.

  "Hey," I heard him say after a moment, "how about we get this stuff wrapped up and go for a walk? I think the fresh air will do us both good."

  I smiled back at him and nodded. Dutch flagged down the waitress, who delivered our check and gave us Styrofoam boxes for our leftovers. After we'd packed up our food, he laid down some cash and grabbed my arm, and out the door we went.

  We walked around town for a little while, idly talking about where we grew up. Dutch, as it happened, had grown up in New York, and his father, his brother and he had all served in the Marines. Lastly Dutch divulged that along with a house about three streets over he also owned a condo in Utah that he used several times a year to go skiing.

  "So tell me more about this stuff. Can you read my mind?" We had stopped at a little bistro on the second floor of an old brick building and found a table outside on the balcony that overlooked the street and pedestrians below. It was close to nine thirty and the sky was finally beginning to darken. My buzz was nearly completely gone now, and I had a glass of wine in front of me that I'd barely touched.

  "No, not really. I can't carry on a conversation with you by reading your every thought, but if I concentrate on what emotions or feelings you're having, I'm usually in the ballpark. Mostly what I do is just to focus on the events, opportunities and obstacles going on in your life and discuss the possible outcomes connected with them." I noticed that Dutch had nonchalantly edged his chair a little closer to me and was leaning hard in my direction. Slowly his hand swung over to my arm, and with one finger he began to stroke from the top of my shoulder down my arm to a little circle around my wrist, and then back up the arm. The sensation was fabulous, and I congratulated myself over and over again for wearing the black halter top. After crossing and uncrossing my legs a few times, I continued, "It's more like I just get an image that flashes in my head, and then I know things about that image. For instance, tonight I was watching the news and this woman says she's lost her little boy, Nathaniel, in the mall, but while I'm watching it I know she's lying."

  The finger paused almost imperceptibly midway up my arm, then continued as Dutch asked, "How do you know?"

  "That's what I mean. I'm not sure. I kept hearing, 'Liar, liar, pants on fire,' ring inside my head, and then when they showed Nathaniel I knew he was dead. And I think he's buried in some abandoned building somewhere near lilies, or near something with lilies painted on it. He's on the bottom floor, buried in rubble. And the mother did it, but she had the help of a relative, and that's who I think is in the video. I think that the image of the little boy isn't even Nathaniel; I think the whole thing is a setup to throw the police off and let the mother get away with murder."

  Dutch's finger had stopped at my wrist, and he was staring off into space somewhere around the arm of my chair. "Sorry," I said. "I don't mean to freak you out, but this is what my life is like. Sometimes stuff just comes to me."

  In a cautious tone he asked, "Have you considered going to the police with this information?"

  My eyes were resting on the finger, light as a feather resting on my pulse. I obviously had freaked him out with all the psychic stuff. "No, I haven't. I don't like cops. I mean, it's all well and good that they're out there defending us against anarchy and all, but most of the cops I've met are suspicious of everything and everyone. Every little thing needs to have a motive behind it. As a rule I find them cynical and too analytical, very one-plus-one-equals-two types. There's no way a cop would take me at my word. I mean, I could just see myself walking up to the police counter and saying, 'Hey, I have some information about a murder. I'm a psychic, so please take me seriously.' They'd laugh in my face as they locked me up in the looney bin." I paused, but when Dutch didn't say anything I decided to continue. At this point I figured I might as well put all my cards out on the table.

  "And what if I was right? What if the information I had did help them? You can bet that instead of taking my gift seriously they'd think I had something to do with the crime. No, I don't want any part of it. There's no way I can prove how I got my information, and cops are big on proof. They'd want some evidence as to how I knew such and such. Well, in my profession, proof is a hard thing to come by. I live in an intangible world. I don't know why I know things, I just do, and that doesn't translate well in the world of your average lawman. Know what I mean?"

  Dutch looked up and met my eyes, regarding me critically, and for a moment his face changed in a way that made me wish I had never told him what I did for a living. Cold, calculating eyes stared at me, and his expression was so blank it was scary. I pulled back just a bit, startled at the sudden change, and then it was gone. He blinked and the man I'd had dinner with returned.

  "So, Abby, what kind of music do you like?" he asked, noticeably changing the subject.

  An hour later Dutch walked me back to my car. He held my hand and stroked my fingers, and I hoped he was okay with what I'd revealed to him. I was feeling a little vulnerable, and he must have sensed it because it seemed like he was working hard to make me feel reassured. When we reached my car, he turned me toward him and lifted my chin. He lowered his face to mine, held my gaze for a moment and then kissed the bejesus out of me. I felt my toes curl, my stomach go mushy, my limbs go numb—my lips were in serious heaven. This man knew how to kiss! He stroked the side of my cheek with one hand and pulled my waist tight to him with his other. I was so absorbed in the kiss I think all I managed to do was clutch at his shirt in return. For several minutes we lingered there in the parking lot, smooching it up, until he finally pulled his lips away. He continued to hold me close, his forehead resting on mine, rocking me gently back and forth. Then with one last peck he let me go and stepped back. "You're going to be all right getting home?"

  "Absolutely. Besides, you're the one with the cop on his tail. You need to be careful, okay?"

  Dutch looked at me strangely for a moment, before bursting into a grin and shooting me a wink.

  "Can I call you?" he asked.

  "Absolutely," I replied, smiling like a little kid with a secret.

  "Good night," he whispered and leaned in to kiss me passionately again.

  "Mmmmm," I said, as we finally unlocked lips, then I got into my car and waved at him as I backed out of the space. I floated home and upstairs to bed, where I replayed his kisses over and over again.

  Chapter Three

  Anyone quick enough to label me eccentric for being psychic should spend just one day as a fly on my wall hearing perfectly "normal" people walk in, sit down, and lead me
down a rabbit hole.

  "All right, Penny, I'm picking up on a hospital," I said to a woman in her mid-forties who bore a striking resemblance to June Cleaver. Penny was tall and leggy, with mousy brown hair shaped in a perfectly bouncy bob, subtle makeup applied just so, and pearls circling her neck, with two more tucked demurely in her ears. She sat stiffly in her chair, her feet crossed at the ankles, hands folded adroitly in her lap. She was dressed in a lavender short-sleeved knit sweater with lacy collar, khakis, and, of course, completing the ensemble…penny loafers. I was pretty sure Penny thought it was hilarious to parade around in shoes that shared her name, but personally I'd mentally yawned when she first came in.

  My attention shifted with the hospital reference. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all, I thought morbidly; maybe she had come to me because she was sick and was looking for a ray of hope. But as I scanned the ether around her I couldn't find a thing wrong with her.

  I continued, feeling my way along. "It's weird," I said. "I feel like you spend a lot of time in a hospital, but you're not sick, and I'm picking up that you aren't a doctor or a nurse—do you spend a lot of time in a hospital for some reason?"

  She smiled encouragingly. "I work at Beaumont Hospital, in the billing department."

  "Ahhh," I said, hiding my disappointment and stifling another yawn. "That makes sense. Okay, now I'm getting that there is some kind of a feud, or a fight, or something, with another woman. She's got blond hair and light eyes, and I think she's considerably younger than you…" Maybe they'd had a fight in one of their Junior League meetings.

  "That's Brandy," she confirmed.

  For a second I wondered if she was talking about the drink, but then I mentally shook my head and got back to business. "Okay, well, they're saying that this Brandy woman is one big liar. I get the feeling you may have trusted her to tell you the truth about something you confronted her on, but she didn't. And this lie has to do with some sort of an argument involving another woman who's also got blond hair, but short—"