Moving stiffly to my chair, I eased my way into it, much like a heavily pregnant woman. When I looked up, I caught that Ms. Smith’s lips were pursed and what I could see of her brow was slightly furrowed. “Were you injured in an auto accident?” she asked.
“Yes,” I lied. It was easier to tell people that Dutch and I had been in a car wreck than to tell them that the CIA had recruited us for an undercover espionage mission that had nearly ended our lives. Plus, if I told them about the mission, I’d have to kill them. (Ha, ha, ha! Yep. Still funny!)
“Who was at fault?” my client asked, which I thought was a very odd question.
“Uh…” Her question threw me, and for a minute I didn’t know how to respond.
She held up her hand. “Sorry,” she said, taking her seat. “Occupational hazard. The minute I hear someone’s been in a car accident, I automatically ask who’s to blame.”
“You’re an attorney,” I said. That wasn’t my sixth sense talking; that was just a natural assumption.
“I am. But please, don’t begin telling me about my job or my future until I get a chance to tell you why I’m here.”
She seemed to get all nervous and twitchy again, and for the life of me I couldn’t understand the fear. So I simply motioned for her to tell me whatever she needed to before I switched on the old radar.
“I’m not here about myself,” she began. “I’m here about a friend.”
Ahhh…the old “my friend needs a reading” excuse. Yeah. I’d heard that one before. I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Okay,” I said easily. “No worries. I can use your energy as a jumping-off point to get to your friend. Just tell me his or her name, and I’ll take a look at—”
“No,” Ms. Smith said—a bit too quickly, I thought. “You see, it’s complicated.”
Isn’t it always?
“It’s not really about a friend,” she explained, staring at the ground as if she were laying out the pieces of whatever was troubling her. “It’s about a client.”
“Of mine?” I was getting lost and we’d only just started.
“No. A client who has recently retained my firm to represent them should the police get wind of certain details.”
“Details?” I asked, switching on my radar because this was starting to creep me out a little.
“I’ll be blunt,” she said, tugging on the leather fingers of her gloves. “This client has broken the law. Several laws. And if anyone knew that I’d come to you with this, I would face immediate disbarment for breaking my firm’s attorney-client privilege.”
I squinted at Ms. Smith while I sifted through the ether surrounding her and listened to what she was saying. There was a whole lotta stuff in the ether to sort through. Most of the energy was heavy, and charged with a grim outlook, as if this woman carried the weight of the world with her when she’d decided to come see me.
In her energy I detected secrecy, anxiety, deception, and something that made me really take note. Violence. The woman had this lurking cloud of dark energy that hovered menacingly just behind her. I didn’t think she was the source, but she knew who was, and she wasn’t at all confident that she could keep this particular wolf at bay. The realization made me cold with fear for her, and I couldn’t put these pieces together yet to form a more detailed picture, but whatever this woman was involved in, it was seriously dangerous.
“You’re here because you’re terrified,” I told her. “But you’re not afraid of disbarment; you’re afraid of your client.”
Her head jerked back a little in surprise. “You’re reading me,” she said—her tone accusing.
“A little,” I admitted. “Ms. Smith, whoever this client of yours is, he or she cannot be trusted. Your client is dangerous—to you directly and to others. In fact,” I added, following the intuitive thread, “I think this person has seriously harmed someone. I’m not even sure the victim survived.”
Ms. Smith licked her lips nervously. “Yes,” she said. “I know. You’re right. The victim didn’t survive. But no one knows that yet. The family doesn’t even realize it yet. They’re still hopeful she’ll come home. But she won’t. And I can’t tell you who, or where, and I certainly can’t tell you why, but I’ve heard a great deal about your abilities, Miss Cooper, and I was hoping you could figure out what happened to the girl and let the family know. Give them some peace. Some closure. And maybe, just maybe, you could point the police in the right direction. I’m the best defense attorney at my firm, and if I go to court with this, then of course I’ll give a vigorous defense, but I’m a skillful lawyer. Skillful enough to make it look like I’m trying to keep my client out of jail without really giving it my best effort, if you know what I mean?”
I shook my head. I didn’t really know what she meant, and she was apparently giving me far too much credit. “You’re going to have to fill me in a little more, Ms. Smith. I’m psychic, not a mind reader.”
“Watch the news,” she said ominously. “You’ll know it when you see it. I need you to take the case. I read up on you and discovered that you often consult with the FBI on some of their hardest cold cases. I’d recommend you to the family, of course, but I can’t be linked to this. It’s far too dangerous for me, and I’ve taken a huge risk in coming here. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can say.”
With that, Ms. Smith got up. “Wait!” I said, alarmed that she appeared to be leaving. She’d given me nothing, just a bunch of cryptic instructions and disjointed impressions.
“I can’t answer any more of your questions, Ms. Cooper, I’ve already said too much. You’ll have to think about everything I’ve told you and start from there, all right?”
I shook my head vigorously. “No,” I said. “You haven’t given me anything substantial, Ms. Smith! Even the cold cases I work on for the FBI at least have a body or the name of a missing person to work from.”
But it was no use. My client was already halfway out the door. Still, she did pause at the door to say over her shoulder, “I hope you’ll help, but I’ll understand if you can’t or won’t.”
I sat there with my mouth agape, struggling to find the words to keep her a little longer so that I could pull more from the ether around her, but I think she was onto me, because she turned away quickly and was gone.
Chapter Two
I sat there for a bit, blinking and wondering why I always attracted Trouble with a capital T. I’m a good person…fairly good person…mostly…sometimes…In the grand scheme of things, I’m a relatively good person, okay?
The point is, why was I always the one in the middle of every big hot mess that came along?
And if you’re wondering if there was any doubt in my mind as to whether Ms. Smith represented a big hot mess—allow me to clear that up right now: I knew with absolute certainty that Trouble had just come in through my door, sat down only long enough to hint at the big hot mess to come, and then left me with the impression that it was now my responsibility to clean it all up.
And that’s the trouble with Trouble. It’s always a pain in the asterisk.
“Candice!” I yelled.
“Yeah?” she called back.
I didn’t answer. I knew if I just waited long enough, she’d come to me, which, given my physical condition, better suited the situation (and my aching hips).
Sure enough, a few seconds later she appeared in my doorway. “You okay, Sundance?”
I motioned to the chair opposite me. “Have a seat.”
Once my partner had gotten comfortable, I filled her in on my mysterious client. Candice did her own blinking thing for a while before she said, “Huh.”
My brow furrowed. “That’s all you got? Just ‘huh’?”
“It’s pretty cryptic, Sundance.”
I sighed. “Yeah, but there’s enough there to chew on. I mean, we know that she’s an attorney at a firm that’s representing someone who’s committed some sort of crime that may or may not have resulted in the mortal wounding of a third party, and that sa
id attorney’s client is the dangerous sort.”
Candice shrugged. “Abs, three-quarters of the firms in Austin have clients like that. She didn’t happen to give you the name of this mortally wounded third party, did she?”
I shook my head. “No, but she did say to watch the news.”
Candice glanced at her watch. “The six o’clock news should be on in about half an hour. If we leave now, we can kill two birds with one stone.”
I got stiffly to my feet. “Which two birds is that again?”
Candice ticked them off on her fingers. “Happy hour and the broadcast.”
“Ah,” I said, limping toward the door. “I like how you put them in order of importance.”
We arrived at our favorite happy-hour bar, found a table near the TV, ordered up some nachos, and waited for the local news. Okay, so while we waited we may have downed something called a prickly pear margarita, but only because our brains needed to be properly lubricated for when the news came on and we searched the broadcast for clues about what the heck Ms. Smith was talking about.
Luck was with us; the subject of my mysterious client’s visit wasn’t hard to miss. It was the lead story, in fact. “The Austin Police Department needs your help locating the whereabouts of a young mother missing from her home on Austin’s east side,” said the news anchor.
I leaned forward and focused on the screen as the picture of a sweet-looking young woman, probably no older than thirty, flashed onto the screen. I bit my lip when I saw how flat and two-dimensional her image was. It’s a weird psychic quirk of mine to be able to tell from a photograph when someone’s dead, and this woman had indeed already crossed to the other side.
The coverage then shifted to a news reporter in the field. “Kendra Moreno disappeared from her home under suspicious circumstances two days ago, leaving her one-year-old son alone in his crib,” the reporter began. “Her husband, Tristan Moreno, told APD detectives that he arrived home at approximately five thirty p.m. on September twenty-eighth to find no sign of his wife, and her purse, wallet, and cell phone still inside the house, while her car was missing from the garage. Also according to APD there was no sign of forced entry into the home, and the last time Kendra Moreno was heard from was earlier that morning at approximately ten a.m., when she clicked the ‘like’ button on one of her Facebook friend’s status updates.
“Police believe the missing woman may not have left the home willingly, but no sign of a struggle was evident. Police and the woman’s family are reaching out to the community for assistance in helping to locate her. If you have any information on Kendra Moreno’s whereabouts, or if you may have seen anything suspicious near the family home last Wednesday, you’re asked to call the APD tip line.”
The number flashed on the screen, and then the reporter signed off from her location in East Austin.
Candice swiveled in her seat to face me. “Well?”
I leaned back in my own chair so that our waiter could set down a huge plate of nachos, but truth be told, I suddenly wasn’t so hungry. Once he’d left, I said, “She’s dead.”
Candice nodded like she had assumed as much. “Murdered?”
I sighed. “It seems like it, doesn’t it? I mean, if Kendra is who Smith was talking about, then yeah, she was probably murdered.”
“By the husband?” Candice asked next.
I shrugged. There’d been no photo or news footage of Kendra’s husband, so it was really hard to tell. “Not sure.”
Candice lifted a chip from the top of the stack and crunched on it thoughtfully. She then took a sip from the fresh margarita our waiter had just set in front of her. I watched and waited her out. For once I didn’t want it to be my call.
“What do you want to do?” she asked when it was obvious I wasn’t going to speak.
I threw the question back at her. “I’ll go along with whatever you want to do.”
Candice smiled knowingly. “Nice dodge, Sundance.”
I pulled up on a chip; it came with three cheesy friends. “After the year I’ve had, can you blame me?”
“You want to take a pass on this one?”
“Do you?”
“No. I want to take it on.”
I frowned. “Crap. I knew you’d say that.”
“I have no problem investigating solo, if you want to sit this one out, Abs,” she said kindly.
My frown deepened. “What if the family doesn’t have the money to hire you?”
“Then I’ll do it pro bono.” Oh, yeah. I forgot. She didn’t need the money anymore.
I still hadn’t answered Candice’s question, which I knew was a total dodge, but the truth was that I was tired of Trouble. I was tired of always being the one to get involved and then get hurt. I’d been beaten up but good over the years, and my broken pelvis wasn’t even the worst.
“Well?” Candice said, eyeing me again. “You in? Or do you want to sit this one out?”
I shook my head no. Vigorously. “Yeah, okay,” I said at the same time.
Candice laughed. “That’s what I love about you, Sundance. You’re a straight shooter. Never a mixed signal from you.”
I smirked. “I’m in. But I’m in under protest.”
“As long as you’re sure,” she mocked.
We ate and drank in silence for a little while, watching the weather—both of us relieved to see some rain in the forecast. It doesn’t rain much down here in central Texas, and since I’d grown up in Michigan—where it rains or snows with relative frequency—it always awakens an unsettling feeling in me to go several weeks without a drop of the wet stuff.
Finally I turned to Candice and asked, “Where do we start?”
“I’ll call my contact at APD and take her out for coffee.” Candice had recently made friends with a beat cop. I’d met the cop. She had a definite thing for Candice, which I knew my friend must have been aware of. Candice doesn’t play for the girls’ team, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t willing to flirt with someone of the same sex to get a little intel now and then.
“You think she’ll know much?” I asked. Kendra’s case didn’t strike me as beat-cop material.
Candice shrugged. “She might. But even if she doesn’t, she should be able to hook me up with one of the detectives on the case. It never hurts to nose around.”
Inwardly I disagreed; I was living proof that it definitely hurt to nose around, but I kept my thoughts to myself. “Then what?”
The corners of Candice’s mouth quirked. “Careful, Sundance, or I might think you’re anxious to sink your teeth into this one.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m only thinking of the family. They’ve gotta be crazy with worry, and it’s not fair to leave them hanging.”
“I agree. So let me nose around and see what I can discreetly bring up about the husband and Kendra’s family, and then we’ll go snoop a little, okay?”
I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
An hour and a half later Candice dropped me off at home. The prickly pears had hit me hard, and I was already unsteady enough on my feet. I invited her in for dinner, certain that my fiancé had cooked another of his fabulous meals, but she wanted to get home to her own man candy, so I didn’t push it, grateful that I had such an awesome friend. “I love you,” I told her as we said good-bye.
Candice grinned. “You love prickly pear margaritas too, Sundance.”
I bobbed my head up and down. “Yes. I love them too.”
“Say good night, Abby,” she said, waving at me to close the door of the car.
“G’night, Abby.” I chuckled as I pushed on the door. It closed on my cane. “Crap on a crap heap!” I groused, wobbling unsteadily while I yanked on the cane. It came free a little too easily and I lost my balance, falling back hard against Dutch’s car and setting off the alarm.
“Oopsy-doopsy,” I mumbled, still struggling to get my balance.
Dutch was at the front door before I’d managed to steady myself. His raised eyebrows and stern expression w
ere a little too judgmental for my taste. “Don’t take that tone with me,” I snapped, waving my cane at him.
He came down the steps, used his key fob to turn off the alarm, and leaned into the open door of Candice’s car. She, of course, was laughing hysterically. “What’s her poison?”
“Prickly pear margaritas,” said Candice.
“How many?” he asked.
“More than one less than six,” she told him. The traitor. I hated her!
“She still upset about the wedding present?” Dutch asked, reaching over to latch a hand onto my arm so I wouldn’t fall over.
“Yes,” Candice said, purposely withholding any information about my client and Kendra Moreno. Discreet of her. Sweet of her. I loved her.
“Okay, I’ve got it from here,” he said, closing her door firmly and waving good-bye.
I wobbled on my feet. Damn! What was in those prickly pears anyway? “You want to try the stairs?” Dutch asked me.
“No way, hoser,” I said with a giggle. For the record, stairs suck when you’ve fractured your pelvis.
“I figured.” Dutch sighed and reached out his arms. Lifting me easily, he proceeded to carry me up the steps.
“I luff you,” I told him.
His baritone laugh rose out of his chest. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “This morning when you called, I thought you were gonna kill me, but as long as we’re okay now…”
I leaned my head on his shoulder and sighed happily. “I luff prickly pears.”
The next morning came bright and early. Too bright. Way, way, way too early for someone with a prickly pear hangover. Muttering a disgruntled “Mmph!” I shoved myself out of bed and fell right onto the floor. Elegant, I am not.
“Edgar?” Dutch called from the first floor. Everyone in my life seems to want to give me a nickname. I’m “Sundance” to Candice (her way of suggesting that we’re the female equivalent to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), and I am “Edgar” to Dutch, who nicknamed me after the only other psychic he’d ever heard of, Edgar Cayce.
Lethal Outlook: A Psychic Eye Mystery Page 2
