“The rifle is still in the cabin where we took him down,” Flynn said. “We didn’t mess with it.”
“Damn it, you kids should have waited for the authorities. You could have been killed,” Detective Allen said.
Tara frowned. “If we’d waited, Bethany would be dead. There wasn’t any time to wait. Did you call her parents? She keeps asking for her mother.”
Rutherford sighed. “We will . . . now that we know what to tell them.”
But it was Allen who asked the question Tara had been dreading.
“How in hell did you kids figure this out? How did you find her?”
Flynn looked at Tara, then shrugged. “I’m at a loss for words,” he said.
Tara sighed. “Would you believe a little bird told us?”
“No,” both men said in unison.
“I didn’t think so,” Tara muttered.
“See that bench over there? Boy, you wait for Detective Allen over there. Miss Luna, you wait for me in my cruiser. We’ll be needing your statements before you can leave,” Rutherford said.
Tara glanced toward the west and the swiftly setting sun. “I need to call Uncle Pat so he doesn’t worry about where I am.”
“Yeah, and I need to call Mom,” Flynn added. “I don’t want her getting a second-hand version of this.”
“Make it quick,” Rutherford said.
Tara and Flynn nodded, then looked at each other. Flynn just kept shaking his head.
“You’re something else, Moon girl. You saved Bethany’s life. You know that, don’t you?”
Tara shrugged. “You and Davis helped.” Then she glanced at the detective. “We’d better hurry,” she said. “I don’t think the police are too happy with us.”
“Yeah, but Bethany sure is.”
Tara grinned. “Yeah,” she said, then they quickly parted company to make their calls.
Flynn walked a short distance away as he dialed his mom’s number, while Tara quickly dialed her uncle’s cell phone. It rang four times before he picked up.
“Hello?”
“Uncle Pat, it’s me, Tara.”
“Hi honey. Are you on your way home?”
“No. That’s why I’m calling. I’m going to be a little bit late.”
“Why? Are you having car trouble?”
“No. Nothing like that, Uncle Pat. Here’s the thing . . . by accident, Flynn, Davis Breedlove, and I stumbled onto where that missing girl, Bethany Fanning was being held. Long story short, we sort of rescued her right before the guy was about to kill her.”
“Oh dear lord! Tara! Are you all right? Where are you? I’ll catch a cab.”
“We’re okay, Uncle Pat. Flynn and I figured the news would spread pretty fast, and we didn’t want you or his Mom to hear something second-hand. The police want to talk to us, so we can’t leave until they’ve taken our statements and stuff.”
“I want to know where you are. I’m coming out.”
“It’s out at Boomer Lake, Uncle Pat. I don’t know how to tell you where we are because after we figured out where she was, Flynn drove here. Wait and I’ll let him tell you. He’s talking to his mom, right now.”
“He’s talking to Mona? Then never mind. I’ll give her a call and we’ll both be out.”
“You have her phone number?” Tara asked in surprise.
“Never mind about that,” he said. “You two are the ones who have some explaining to do. Now what’s the address?”
Tara told him the lot number and the name of the road.
“But, Uncle Pat, there’s really no need to come out. As soon as the police are through talking to us, we’ll be coming home,” Tara said.
“I said, we’ll be out there,” he repeated.
Tara sighed. She had a feeling this wasn’t going to be good. To explain what had happened, she was going to have to bring up the psychic stuff to Uncle Pat again, and he wasn’t going to be happy.
“Okay,” she said. “See you.”
He disconnected.
She glanced at Flynn. He had just finished talking to his mom, too. Tara walked over.
“Was she upset?”
“In a word, yes,” he said.
“Are you in trouble?”
“It’s hard to say,” he said. “She kept crying. How about you?”
Tara rolled her eyes. “You’re not gonna like this, but Uncle Pat is calling your mom. He said they’re both coming out here.”
Flynn’s eyes widened. “Calling Mom? He knows her number?”
Tara sighed. “Looks like it.”
Flynn frowned. “What do you think about that?”
“I’m trying not to think about it,” Tara muttered, then pointed at Detective Rutherford. “Looks like he’s out of patience.”
“What are you gonna tell him?” Flynn asked.
“The truth.”
“I’m not sure what that is,” Flynn said. “I saw it, but I’m still not sure I know what I saw.”
“Over here,” Detective Rutherford called, pointing at Tara while Detective Allen took Flynn by the arm and led him aside.
Tara’s steps were dragging as she headed for the cop. How was she going to explain this?
I’ve got your back.
“Don’t, Millicent!” Tara whispered quickly. “I just have to tell them what happened. We’re not in trouble and no one’s mad at me. Don’t give them a reason to be . . . please.”
Tara didn’t get an answer, which made her nervous, but her life being as lunatic as it was, she could only hope Millicent managed to maintain.
“All right, Miss Luna. Have a seat.”
“I’m good,” Tara said, and leaned against his cruiser.
“Fine,” Rutherford said, then fixed her with a steady look. “Talk. How did you find out who had Bethany Fanning and where she was being held?”
Chapter Ten
Rutherford wasn’t happy with Tara, and she didn’t have to be a psychic ghost-talker to know it. She didn’t know if it was because three teenagers had found Bethany when the police and the state OSBI had not, or that he thought she was somehow involved in her being taken. Either way, it didn’t bode well for her. Still, she wasn’t worried. If the detective didn’t believe what Flynn and Tara told him, once Bethany calmed down, she’d be able to corroborate their statements.
“So, Miss Luna, we meet again,” Rutherford began.
Tara didn’t see a need to answer the obvious, and merely nodded.
Hang tough. Don’t let them crack you.
It’s break, Millicent . . . break. Don’t let them break you, and I’m not in trouble so don’t go causing me any. Please.
Whatever.
“I’m not sure where to begin,” Rutherford said. “So why don’t you tell me how you came to know where Bethany Fanning was.”
Tara sighed. Lord. Why did everything have to be so difficult? “I can tell you,” Tara said. “But you’re not going to like it.”
Rutherford frowned. “Try me.”
“Sometimes I just know stuff . . . okay? I get pictures in my head. I go from there.”
Rutherford’s jaw went slack. Tara could almost see the gears grinding in his brain, sifting through facts he knew to a premise he did not.
“What are you trying to say here?” he asked.
“I’m psychic.”
“Crap on a stick!” Rutherford muttered, then had the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry. That was entirely inappropriate, and I apologize.”
“It’s okay,” Tara said. “I’ve heard worse.”
“Come on, Miss Luna. You don’t expect me to believe this?”
Tara sighed again. How many times had she heard that phrase in her life?
“I don’t ex
pect it, but just once in a while it would be nice,” she muttered.
Rutherford was getting angry. She could tell by the vein that was beginning to bulge at the right side of his temple.
“I don’t have time to play games. Explain yourself,” he ordered.
Tara folded her hands in front of her, like a kid about to recite something they’d memorized for class, then looked him straight in the eye.
“Earlier this year, Bethany Fanning was dating Flynn O’Mara. She gave him a ring. After they broke up, he kept it. This morning I took Flynn home from a car wash we were having to raise money to donate toward the reward Bethany’s parents had put up. Later, I found the ring under the seat of my car, and when I picked it up . . . it was like . . . ” She frowned. “I’m not sure how to explain it. Sometimes holding something that a person is connected to is like a homing signal for me. It locks me into where they are . . . or what’s happening to them. Understand?”
“No.”
Tara shrugged, but kept on talking. “Anyway . . . to make a really long story short, it was finding that ring that started everything happening. Then it became a race to find her before Charlie killed her.”
“And you know this because . . . ”
“Because I saw it,” Tara said.
“Because you “saw” Bethany here? At this cabin? With Charlie Pratt? All from holding this ring?”
“Only partly. The rest came after we got Davis involved. He and Bethany are dating now, you see, so the connection to her was much stronger through him. That’s when I saw the face of the guy had Bethany.”
“You knew Charlie Pratt?”
“No sir. He graduated last year, I was told, and Uncle Pat and I didn’t move here until about a month ago.”
“So how did you—”
”Um . . . Flynn and I were at Davis’s house, and I was holding a framed picture that Bethany had given to Davis. So while I’m holding it, it’s like looking at a video . . . and in the video, Bethany calls the guy Charlie and then he turned around and I saw his face. I can’t explain why, but I knew he’d been in school with her. Flynn and I were at Davis’s house when this happened and we looked in Davis’s yearbook at all the guys named Charlie and I found him. Flynn knew where he lived, so we went to his house.”
“You went to the Pratt residence?”
“Yes sir. Didn’t you get a phone call from Mrs. Pratt, telling you about this?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Suddenly, Wayne Pratt’s face slid through Tara’s mind, coupled with a towel smeared with blood.
“ . . . You have to send a police car to the residence! Mr. Pratt . . . Wayne . . . was mad when we left. He beats his wife. He beat Charlie, too.”
“And you know this because you’re ‘seeing’ it?”
Tara frowned. “Sort of. I just saw Wayne’s face in my mind and a bloody towel. The rest is just common sense.”
Rutherford rolled his eyes and yelled at his partner. “Allen!”
Detective Allen looked up. “Yeah?”
“Bring that kid over here now!”
Flynn and the detective approached quickly. Flynn looked at Tara. She rolled her eyes.
Rutherford pointed at Flynn. “I want to know what his story is.”
Allen grimaced. “I’m not sure you do.”
“Let me guess . . . it has something to do with Miss Luna here being psychic.”
Detective Allen nodded. “Yeah, actually it does.”
“Well, that’s just freakin’ great,” he muttered.
Tara was angry, too. “You’d think we were the ones who committed the crime, instead of rescued the victim,” she said. “You don’t like my story. Go talk to Bethany. Talk to Davis. His Daddy is rich, which in your book must mean whatever comes out of his mouth is the truth.” She took a deep breath. “But in the meantime, I suggest you send someone out to check on Shirley Pratt.”
Flynn frowned. “Why, Tara?”
“Because Mrs. Pratt never called the police, that’s why.”
Flynn’s frown turned to worry. “Oh man . . . that can’t be good.” He turned to Detective Allen. “Please. You gotta believe what Tara says. When we left their house, Mrs. Pratt believed everything Tara had told her. She said Charlie had been crying at night and acting strange. Then when Tara asked her to check and see if their gun was in the house, she started to cry. When she found out it was gone, she freaked out. She promised to call the cops because she knew Charlie was in trouble and was going to be arrested, but she didn’t want him to commit murder. It was Charlie’s dad who was mad at us the whole time. He might have hurt Mrs. Pratt.”
Rutherford sighed, then turned to his partner. “Call it in. Have dispatch send a unit out to the residence. The kid here will give you the address . . . right?”
Flynn nodded.
Tara felt sick, and then Millicent made it worse.
It’s not good.
Tara gasped. “Are you serious?”
Everyone turned to look at her, but she was too locked into her conversation with Millicent to notice.
It’s not your fault.
Tara started to cry.
It’s not your fault.
Flynn grabbed Tara’s arm. “Moon girl . . . what’s happening? What’s wrong?”
“Millicent just told me . . . Mrs. Pratt is really hurt… hurt bad hurt. ”
Rutherford grabbed her by the arm. “Who’s Millicent? What the hell do you mean?”
Tears were streaming down Tara’s face. “She’s part of my lunatic life. She’s a ghost and she’s also one of my best friends.”
You know it, chirp.
Rutherford took a step back and began to look around in panic.
“You’re talking to ghosts? Here? Now?”
To prove the point, Millicent yanked the notebook out of Rutherford’s hand and flung it across the yard.
“Millicent. Stop it!” Tara said. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. They’ll know soon enough.”
Rutherford looked like he was going to faint, but Allen didn’t hesitate. He just headed for their car to use the radio.
“Come here, Moon girl,” Flynn said softly, and pulled Tara into his arms.
Tara buried her face against his shoulder and started to sob. She was crying for Bethany, who’d endured a week long nightmare, and she was crying because, in their efforts to find Bethany, they’d gotten Mrs. Pratt hurt, too.
“It’s okay, honey,” Flynn said softly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Mrs. Pratt is hurt because of me,” Tara sobbed.
“But, Bethany is alive because of you,” he countered. “And you didn’t hurt Mrs. Pratt. Her husband did. I know what that kind of life is like. I’ve seen it time and again. People who stay in those kinds of marriages are just a fight away from dying every day. You didn’t do it. You didn’t even start it. Charlie did, by kidnaping Bethany in the first place, okay?”
“Here kid,” Detective Allen said, as he walked up and handed Tara a handful of tissues. “Don’t cry, and your guy here is right.”
“Did you send someone to check on her?” Tara asked.
He nodded.
“Was she—”
He sighed, then nodded again. “Pretty bad. She’s on the way to the hospital.”
“Hey,” Flynn said, pointing toward the road. “Here comes my mom . . . and your Uncle Pat.”
Tara turned to look. Police were trying to keep them back.
“Let them pass!” Rutherford shouted.
Moments later, Mona O’Mara pulled up in the yard. Tara took one look at her Uncle Pat and then started toward him, the closer she got, the faster she moved, and the more she cried.
He caught her in mid-step, wrapped her in his arms
and just held her.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay. I’ve got you now.”
“Oh, Uncle Pat . . . she’s hurt. Badly.”
His heart nearly stopped. “Bethany Fanning?”
Flynn had his arm around his mother. “No, sir. Charlie Pratt’s mother. She helped us figure out where Charlie was holding Bethany, and her husband beat her because of it.”
“Dear Lord, I don’t understand how you two got mixed up in this,” Uncle Pat said, and then hugged Tara even tighter. “But that woman’s injury is not your fault.”
Flynn nodded in agreement. “You’re right. It’s not Tara’s fault. What she can do is a gift. And that gift saved Bethany’s life.”
Uncle Pat went still. “Gift? What do you mean?”
Flynn was stunned. He looked at Tara. “He knows . . . right?”
She shrugged. “Yes and no.”
“What is everyone talking about?” Mona asked.
Tara took a slow breath, and then looked her Uncle square in the eyes. “We’re talking about the fact that I’m psychic . . . that I can not only see, but talk to ghosts. That I’ve been able to do that my whole life and Uncle Pat doesn’t want to believe it.”
Flynn shook his head. “After what I witnessed today, I question nothing she says.”
“You aren’t serious?” Mona asked.
“As a heart attack, Mom. I didn’t believe her at first either, but to prove it to me, she found Grandma’s ring that you lost. I put it in a cup in the cupboard.”
Mona’s eyes lit up. “Mama’s ring? Are you serious? Where was it?”
“In a crack in the wall behind the kitchen faucet. And before you get all bent out of shape and say there are no such people who are psychics, keep in mind that Tara Luna is my girl and I don’t want to hear anybody dissin’ her.”
Tara held her breath, waiting for her Uncle Pat’s reaction to the facts that she was not only psychic, but a psychic who had a boyfriend. She could see confusion and frustration in his face, but there was also an acceptance she hadn’t expected.
He cupped his niece’s face, and then gently kissed her forehead.
“Like I always said . . . you’re just like your mother.”
Tara frowned. What did that have to do with—she gasped. “Uncle Pat! Are you saying my Mother could . . . that she saw . . . ”
Sharon Sala - [Lunatic Life 01] Page 14
